Failing Infrastructure by the Numbers

Failing Infrastructure by the Numbers: "Maintenance on highways, bridges, dams, and water treatment systems is a convenient place to cut corners when politicians need to appear tough on spending, since the results of routine upkeep are not flashy. But perpetual underfunding and deferred maintenance accelerates structural decay and contributes to disasters, as in the cases of the New Orleans levees or Minneapolis bridge. It’s time to make planes, trains, and automobiles safe again and restore the jewels of American ingenuity and engineering."

Take a look at this. The numbers are pretty upsetting. Please call your Member of Congress and tell them you want our infrastructure to be taken care of properly and stopp playing stupid plitical games when our country's roads and bridges are crumbling under our feet.

One week before the bridge collapsed in Minnesota, a bridge collapsed here in California. It was surreal hearing about the collapse in Minnesota just a few days after one collapsed here for the same reason: Neglect.

If you're not mad, you're not paying attention!

Capital, L.A. ban smoking in parks - sacbee.com

Capital, L.A. ban smoking in parks - sacbee.com: "Studies back the need to restrict smoking even outdoors, Martin said. In a Stanford University report released earlier this year, researchers Wayne Ott and Neil Klepeis found that -- within a few feet of a smoker -- exposure to secondhand smoke could be the same outdoors as indoors."

This is an interesting development.

Radical Islamists bash U.S. for their self-inflicted miseries | San Jose Mercury News - Victor Davis Hanson

San Jose Mercury News - Victor Davis Hanson: Radical Islamists bash U.S. for their self-inflicted miseries: "The time is over both for coffee-table talk in the West about a pie-in-the-sky 'reformation' needed in Islam, and the endless habit in the Middle East of blaming others for self-inflicted miseries."

Thanks God for the Human Secularists!

What consumers want from online news | Media & Entertainment - The McKinsey Quarterly

online news sources - What consumers want from online news - Media & Entertainment - Publishing - The McKinsey Quarterly: "[R]espondents expressed clear preferences for certain platforms. Television and the Internet, for instance, were much more likely to be described as useful (by 45 and 26 percent of the respondents, respectively) than were newspapers, radio, and magazines (18, 10, and 1 percent, respectively). When asked to explain which sources of news were most useful, respondents expressed a preference for those offering convenience, comprehensiveness, or timeliness rather than quality. Specifically, they were far more likely to consider a news source useful because it “is the easiest way to get news,” “covers the most topics,” or makes it “easy to get news whenever I want it” than because it has the most accurate content or the deepest analysis"

This analysis points to a very sad modern reality, and it looks to me like the biggest casualty will be the Magazine publishers. I frequently read The Atlantic and The Economist, which are fantastic sources of deep analysis and probative thought. What will these magazine's publishers (and more importantly, their advertisers) do after reading this article and others like it?

I really hope that magazines will be able to fight back with something innovative online. I think the Economist does a great job with its many, regular email newsletters which I find bring me to it's site on a regular basis. Unfortunately, a Web-only subscription to this site is just as expensive as subscribing to the print version (bummer!).

Investing in Our Children | AmericanProgress.org

Investing in Our Children: "The United Kingdom has also taken a hard look at its system of financial assistance for families with children. One finding was that its universal child benefit program did not provide enough financial support for families with young children. Accordingly, benefit rates were raised quite substantially for families with a child under the age of six. A similar problem existed in the means-tested welfare system. There, too, benefits were raised the most for families with the youngest children, with particularly large increases for families with infants.

As a result of the increased incentives to work alongside the tax and benefit changes, the lowest-income families—in particular those with young children—have seen the largest percentage increases in income. How are they using the money? Research shows that low-income families are spending the additional money on items for their children such as shoes, clothing, books, and toys, as well as on purchasing cars and telephones. At the same time, they are spending less money on alcohol and tobacco."

Why is helping those most in need is such a terrible thing to do. It seems like it's OK if a Church does the income redistribution, but if it's done by a government body, it's not OK. America is slipping down the toilet and I put the reason squarely at the feet of short-sighted conservatives who believe that America is better off in the state it was at the turn of the last century where the rich were super rich, and everyone else struggled.

Our government can do better. Americans must demand it.