citigover

Citizen Government. It is time.
A need for new technology is not the bottleneck at this point, leadership is the sine qua non of smarter cities. We need public and private leaders willing to take chances. They must be able to explain effectively why taking a portfolio approach to new investments in infrastructure - including information-based infrastructure to improve the ability of cities to serve their residents - makes sense. Only with an educated population will we realize the full potential of smarter cities.

SIG411 (via smartercities) (via infoneernet)

wurdup

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“This is the message that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine .

This is the actual answering machine message for the school.

via ajamison:davereedhilker: greenockmorton [h/t craig for the audio]

Ha! Worth listening to!

A consumer who overdraws an account by $20, repays the bank in two weeks and pays a $27 fee would be charged the equivalent of a 3,520 percent annual interest rate, according to a study released last year by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Alexis Leondis, Overdraft Debit Fees Treat Customers to $300 Fast-Food Charge (via soupsoup)

Bandits don’t wait by the roadside these days, they sit behind desks.

marshmellows:


squashed:

Jeff Miller and JGH had an interesting discussion on the merits of buying locally. Jeff writes,

I’ve never understood the Local movement.  The people in your neighborhood are not intrinsically better than the people in another neighborhood, or another city, or another state, or another country.

The ensuing discussion conflates two issues. The first is the advantages and disadvantages of global capitalism and global free trade. I’ll leave that aside for now.
The second issue is why we would want our money to remain local. I have four reasons.

Self-interest. If people in your area keep their business local, your area is likely to do better than it otherwise would. Some of this is at the expense of another area that might have profitted from non-local business. This isn’t a particularly moral reason—but it’s a reason.
Distributional justice. A rising tide lifts all boats—but a rising tide is a crappy metaphor for our economy. I live in Michigan. If you are living at the federal poverty line, you are too rich to qualify for some state programs. Our unemployment is pushing Great Depression levels. If we can get any money to the state, we want it to stay here. If your community is particularly impoverished, buy locally.
Strong local economies can weather a downturn. If the national economy tanks for reasons out of local control, it doesn’t have as direct an impact on on a more self-sufficient economy.
Locally owned businesses are more invested in the local community. My local hardware store can’t decide it isn’t sufficiently profitable for investors and close itself down to focus on other branches. There are no national grocery stores in Detroit. They have left. Local stores might go out of business—but they’ll stick around as long as they can. Similarly, the local business owners are much more likely to know their employees personally and weigh the human as well as economic costs of layoffs.
Purchasing locally may, in some cases, mean that your money goes more directly to people who need it. Buying from Whole Foods means that a certain amount of money goes to the CEO of Whole Foods who, frankly, doesn’t really need it. While the people that own my local food store are not hurting, I suspect whatever revenue my business brings in will be more relevant to them.
Buying locally supports community institutions. Anybody whose worked on issues of urban poverty know how important the one guy who owns a garage or a grocery store can be to a community. Having some local rolemodels and community leaders is incredibly important.

marshmellows:

squashed:

Jeff Miller and JGH had an interesting discussion on the merits of buying locally. Jeff writes,

I’ve never understood the Local movement.  The people in your neighborhood are not intrinsically better than the people in another neighborhood, or another city, or another state, or another country.

The ensuing discussion conflates two issues. The first is the advantages and disadvantages of global capitalism and global free trade. I’ll leave that aside for now.

The second issue is why we would want our money to remain local. I have four reasons.

  1. Self-interest. If people in your area keep their business local, your area is likely to do better than it otherwise would. Some of this is at the expense of another area that might have profitted from non-local business. This isn’t a particularly moral reason—but it’s a reason.
  2. Distributional justice. A rising tide lifts all boats—but a rising tide is a crappy metaphor for our economy. I live in Michigan. If you are living at the federal poverty line, you are too rich to qualify for some state programs. Our unemployment is pushing Great Depression levels. If we can get any money to the state, we want it to stay here. If your community is particularly impoverished, buy locally.
  3. Strong local economies can weather a downturn. If the national economy tanks for reasons out of local control, it doesn’t have as direct an impact on on a more self-sufficient economy.
  4. Locally owned businesses are more invested in the local community. My local hardware store can’t decide it isn’t sufficiently profitable for investors and close itself down to focus on other branches. There are no national grocery stores in Detroit. They have left. Local stores might go out of business—but they’ll stick around as long as they can. Similarly, the local business owners are much more likely to know their employees personally and weigh the human as well as economic costs of layoffs.
  5. Purchasing locally may, in some cases, mean that your money goes more directly to people who need it. Buying from Whole Foods means that a certain amount of money goes to the CEO of Whole Foods who, frankly, doesn’t really need it. While the people that own my local food store are not hurting, I suspect whatever revenue my business brings in will be more relevant to them.
  6. Buying locally supports community institutions. Anybody whose worked on issues of urban poverty know how important the one guy who owns a garage or a grocery store can be to a community. Having some local rolemodels and community leaders is incredibly important.
via davereed:weburbanist.com
Property cost $40,000.

via davereed:weburbanist.com
Property cost $40,000.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.

- Thomas Paine

via crazyfishor

(via davereed)
According to the latest data, the number of vacant U.S. homes touched 18.7-million in the second quarter. That is a daunting figure, of course, but it is more fun to put it in context. Assuming four people per household, the U.S. currently has enough surplus housing to put the entire population of the U.K., with room left over for Israel. Vacant U.S. Homes Stats: The U.S. Has Room for U.K. (via roomthily)
Socrates said that manual laborers make bad friends and bad citizens because they have no time to fulfill the responsibilities of friendship and citizenship. He was right. Because of work, no matter what we do we keep looking at our watches. The only thing “free” about so-called free time is that it doesn’t cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work.

From the very long winded article: The Abolition of Work. It was a job to read it, but this bit did give me jolt because it’s pretty much dead on. Now what can we do about it? (via guy)

This is why freemarket capitalism works. And when the government overtaxes us, we become slave laborers to them and the top 10% who don’t feel the tax burden. Thus the American Revolution. However, if the fed and the state give us just enough BS, we will fall for it, and not see that the tax burden is what is stripping us of American life.