(They were supposed to be in Chicago this year, but America hates public art.)
Mississippi Jails Are Losing Inmates, And Local Officials Are 'Devastated' By The Loss Of Revenue
See? The War on Drugs is a job creator!Reforms at the state and local levels have shrunk the prison population. "Federal laws took some part in that -- allowing prisoners to serve only a certain percentage of their term," he said. "Also, they've reduced prison sentences for certain drug-related offenses."
As the wave of mass incarceration begins to recede, the Mississippi controversy has local and state officials talking openly about how harmful locking up fewer people up will be for the economy, confirming the suspicions of those who have argued that mass incarceration is not merely a strategy directed at crime prevention. "Under the administrations of Reagan and Clinton, incarceration, a social tool used for punishment, also became a major job creator," Antonio Moore, a producer of the documentary "Crack in the System," wrote recently. [...]
The prisoners have value beyond the per diem, county officials add, when they can be put to work. State prisoners do garbage pickup, lawn maintenance and other manual labor that taxpayers would otherwise have to pay for. Convict labor has made it easier for local governments to absorb never-ending cuts in state funding, as tea party legislators and governors slash budgets in the name of conservative government. [...]
"You either gotta hire a bunch of employees or keep that inmate."
Tags: big brother, doomed
DNA Lounge: Wherein there are some photos, and we still have no parklet.
It is now four weeks since we were forced to destroy our parklet, and two weeks since construction was supposed to have begun, and guess what? Our sidewalk is still completely intact and unaltered.
The last reply we got from them was this hilarity, a week ago:
There have been two unexpected events that have come up at 11th and Harrison. One is a the identification of additional underground utilities when PG&E came out and the other is a permitting issue. Public Works engineering is quickly redesigning around the utility and we are working on the permitting issue.
So this means they scheduled their PG&E inspection for the day construction was to begin, or later, because if they had done that inspection earlier, they would have pushed the start date back and our parklet wouldn't be gone yet.
It also means that DPW doesn't have accurate maps of the gas lines, which is kind of amazing and also kind of scary.
Also, "permitting issue"? Are you kidding me? You are the ones who issue the permits!! Circular firing squad in full effect.
But one thing has happened: the bus shelter down at the corner has been removed. But wait, you say, I thought the bus shelter was going to stay where it is? Yeah, me too. So now I'm worried that they've changed their minds are are going to want to dump it in front of our door, like in their initial design. We can't get an answer to that question either. Any time we reply to the dozen-recipient thread about this project, we get nothing but vacation auto-replies from half of them.
Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh.
The Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge was a lot of fun, and the robots were awesome, but it was pretty under-attended. I hope those of you who came enjoyed it, because we lost over $3,000 putting that show on. Hooray.
Some photos, and this month's mixtape:
Bootie: Madonna vs. Gaga
Raiju
Bootie: America Fuck Yeah!
Hubba Hubba: Summer Camp
Bike lanes: the parking we give Uber for free.
50 cars took turns blocking the bike lane on the west side of Valencia between 16th and 17th at the peak hour Tuesday night.During yesterday evening's rush hour, safe streets advocates [...] started collecting hard data about how often the bike lanes on Valencia Street are blocked by motorists. Take a wild guess what they found: the bike lanes are a de facto loading-and-drop-off zone for cars. [...]
Things picked up -- and got more dangerous -- as the evening progressed. During the last hour, from 6-7 p.m. (Orland calls this the "death trap" hour) 205 bikes had to swerve into traffic on that same stretch of Valencia, thanks to 53 cars that blocked the bike lane -- remember, that's just one block of Valencia, and just one side of the street.
Although not officially counted, the volunteers reported most of the cars had Uber or Lyft symbols on them. It should be noted that Streetsblog observed several police cars passing by, and two cops passing by on foot, but (no surprise) no citations were issued. That said, some drivers of the illegally parked cars seemed wary of the attention -- one BMW driver drove off, but not before gesturing unkindly at Maureen Persico, a Bernal Heights resident and one of the counters. [...]
The West side of Valencia between 16th and 17th saw some of the most flagrant disregard for safe operation of motor vehicles between 6 and 7pm. During the 6pm hour, on the West side of Valencia between 16th and 17th, motorists double parked at least once every two minutes. Furthermore, according to the data we collected, over 61 percent of traffic in the 6 to 7pm hour is comprised of cyclists. 205 cyclists were forced to merge into the vehicle travel lane during this hour, compromising their safety and forcing them to squeeze into a narrow travel lane alongside faster moving vehicular traffic. On multiple occasions, we observed cyclists taking evasive action and being forced to quickly maneuver out of the bike lane to avoid collisions with motorists who pulled over or pulled out abruptly, without signaling. This compelling data paints a clear picture of the threat to public safety posed by cars double parking in bicycle lanes. I hope that city officials and SFPD will carefully study this data and take action to ramp up enforcement -- and prevent inevitable tragedy on this high injury corridor -- before it is too late.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Drone Wipeout
This commercial is -- how you say -- bullshit, because the HUD was all added in post, and the realtime video the pilot sees is barely 420p. But it sure is pretty bullshit...
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Tags: dnalounge, eyes, firstperson, photography, religion, sf
Location: 37° 46' 16.19" N, 122° 24' 44.17" W
