Metro Worse than you thought Possible

Posted on December 10, 2015 by novahockey

Don’t ride Metro

Even those who didn’t see the questions beforehand considered the evaluations a breeze. “I’ll be honest with you—I studied harder for fast-food jobs and waiter jobs when I was in college than I did for their program,” says Kenneth Colvin, who was a US Army air-traffic controller before joining Scarbrough and Watkins’s training class. “Their testing program is a joke.”

Things got even stranger when the new hires started on-the-job training and found a workplace that, according to five recent ROCC trainees, was inhospitable to newcomers. The ROCC’s employees were mostly WMATA lifers who almost never left the Landover facility. (Even when the Silver Line opened, controllers watched a DVD about the extension instead of touring it.) Many veterans hardly spoke to the new hires, who felt as if they were being iced out. “They wanted us to fail,” Colvin says.

It’s hard to even recommend it for tourists anymore. I use it sparingly, but honestly, Uber is just so much more convenient. So i’m saying that i’d get in an loosely-regulated jitney driven by a stranger (UberX) before getting on a heaving regulated transit system is all you need to know. Of course, on Tuesday, my UberX driver had a Mercedes C-class Sedan.

Also: What an incredible smell you’ve discovered.

This wasn’t the only troubling thing the feds found in Metro’s plumbing. The FTA discovered that train drivers regularly relieved themselves on the tracks because supervisors, due to inadequate training, weren’t comfortable taking the wheel to give them bathroom breaks.

 

Filed under: government dissatisfaction, Travel | 16 Comments »

A Proposal to Shake Things Up

Posted on August 30, 2013 by markinaustin

It is time to revisit the Reapportionment Act of 1929.  That law set the number of Representatives at 435 but did not restate the 1911 provision that districts be contiguous, compact, and equally populated.  The Supreme Court eventually restored “equally populated” in the one-man one vote decisions which were key civil rights cases of the early 1960s, spearheaded by Alabama Attorney General Richmond Flowers.  We have never come back to “contiguous (and) compact.”

 
435 was set as the number because of the size of the chamber.  I suggest that limitation is a mere logistical issue that can be overcome in many ways that need not be addressed here.

 
Take the least populated state in each decennial census and give it one Rep.  Then give other states multiples rounded up so that 1.51 WY in 2010 equals 2.  Expand the House as necessary.

 
Done for 2010, the total membership of the HoR would now be 544.  CA would have 66.  TX would have 44.  NY would have 34.  FL would have 33.  Make the mandate “contiguous and compact, leaving entire municipalities and entire counties within a single district wherever possible.”

 
Shake things up a bit.  We might get Congress to actually support it because it makes for more Congressmen, each with somewhat more manageable districts for campaign purposes.  Of course, it would effectively end the gerrymander.

Filed under: California, Congress, government dissatisfaction, TEXAS | 7 Comments »

Friday’s Opening

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Michigoose

Slow day all around it seems.  After putting in a twelve-hour day yesterday (and then going back in at 10:30 to work for another three hours helping my boss attempt to clean up a disaster of a data dump that we’d been given before we finally gave up) I still haven’t been able to really get to sleep–plus I’ve got today off,  so what better things would I have to do than throw a random post together to spark some discussion?  Off to the races!

First up: Minnesota’s LGBT community apologized to state Senator Amy Koch for ruining her marriage.

“On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community’s successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage,” reads the letter from John Medeiros. “We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry.”

As a person who enjoys snark at the highest level, I love this, especially in light of the fact that Ms Koch really tried hard to get an amendment to the state’s constitution outlawing gay marriage on next year’s ballot.  I’m sure there’s a lovely metaphor in here about stones and sin and/or glass houses.

Second: while I dislike the use of the word “government” when the author/producer really means “Congress” (strawman alert), this is what many of you have been saying off and on for months–the “government” isn’t helping small business much.

The polarization and blame-shifting in Washington has fed that indecision by postponing some of the most pressing problems confronting consumers and businesses. And with the presidential election campaign well under way, small business owners see little prospect of anything changing in the nation’s capitol.
“We need fundamental structural reform of the tax code, less regulation, and a more bipartisan approach to big solutions for spending and the deficit,” said Bob Benham, the owner of Balliets, a high-end women’s clothing store in Oklahoma City. “That’s not going to happen in an election year.”

On the flip side, there are spots of brightness out there–jobs creation!

Tuttle is also coping with the perennial wild card faced by heavy energy consumers. Volatile energy prices have fueled a boom in sales of energy-saving equipment. Tuttle figures that by raising fuel efficiency just a small amount he saves $1,000 per year per truck.
“So we’re retrofitting a lot of our trailers with aerodynamics and upgrading our truck fleet to take advantage of some of the fuel economy savings that are built into new trucks,” he said.
Such business investment should help boost sales for car dealers in 2012. Hometown Auto’s Shaker is about break ground on a new $5.3 million Ford-Lincoln franchise in Watertown, Conn., that will bring dozens of construction jobs to the area over the next year. The new facility will double the dealer’s number of service bays, allowing Shaker to hire eight more skilled technicians.

And, finally, since it’s that time of year I thought we should know how much New Year’s resolutions will cost.  Although, really, who needs to pay $75 for three fricking t-shirts!!!  And volunteer for a non-profit board?  How about just volunteer?  Nonetheless, an interesting article to flip through (and mock in places).

What’s up in your parts of the world today?

Filed under: gay marriage, government dissatisfaction | Tagged: , , | 39 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (Wednesday Evening Open Mic)

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Kevin S. Willis

I am on record as predicting Obama wins in 2012, based on historical trends. That is, the last incumbent to lose the Whitehouse without a 3rd party or primary challenger (folks who died or decided not to run don’t count) was Herbert Hoover.

However, the general level of dissatisfaction with government seems to be at an all-time high.

I can’t imagine a time when it’s been more likely that the majority of voters are going to go to the polls with a “throw the bums out” mentality.

…

41% of North American mobile phone users plant to buy the iPhone5. However, I intend, after the release of the iPhone5, to buy an iPhone4. Does pretty much everything I want, and I’m expecting they will cut the price. I can’t wait, because my iPhoneG3 sucks. The WiFi radio is dead (and since I don’t have the data plan, there’s no internet me, which makes getting any new apps on it a pain), and the battery is getting increasingly weak. I think I’ll have to get the data plan when I upgrade, but at $15 a month, I’ll live with it. I haven’t had a cellular data plan for about two years, and I miss it.

…

If you played a lot of video games in the 80s and 90s, and you haven’t heard of the Angry Videogame Nerd, you need to. He does a lot of great old video game reviews, most of them negative (about games he hates) and laced with profanity.

However, this is a special announcement (a positive “special message, without pro
fanity) review about an obscure title called Ninja Baseball BatMan.

http://blip.tv/play/AYK%2BhkEC.html

http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYK+hkEC

Warning: there will be some more AVGN embeds from in the future. I love the profanity strewn show, the coverage of so many classic video games and consoles, and apparently he’s moved to a format (blip.tv) that I can actually see and embed. So . . . I will! The Moonwalker review is a classic.

…
Ever wondered if there were parochial schools for Scientologist (I can never type that word without thinking of Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage, and L. Ron Hoover and the First Church of Appliantology)? Well, wonder no more. There is one: Delphian! — KW

We’re so damn smart on this blog people should start paying us for what we write! Here’s a guy who’s paid to come to the same conclusion that we did last night about Melissa Harris-Perry’s piece:

It is far too early, of course, to know how race will affect Obama’s performance in the general election in November 2012. It may also be true that liberals do not give Obama
sufficient credit for his legislative accomplishments. But for the moment at least, I don’t think we [can] confidently attribute the differences between Obama’s and Clinton’s support among the general public to race.
He’s got charts and everything to back his point up. Score for ATiM!
— Michigoose

Couldn’t resist passing this on. . .

— Michi again

Filed under: Bits and Pieces, government dissatisfaction, racism | Tagged: , , | 41 Comments »