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* Zero fare public transit
* The Nation's shifting stance on public transit.
* Rolling Stone on AIG. Long and alarmed. And Salon on new populism. "A 2003 Gallup poll found that 31 percent of Americans believed they would become "rich" someday, including more than 20 percent of people who made under $30,000 a year." "In 2005, the top 1 percent of Americans made almost 22 percent of the nation's reported income, and the top 10 percent made half of it." "In 2007, the average S&P 500 CEO made 344 times what an average worker made. The top 50 investment fund managers made 19,000 times more than the average worker."
* The missing millionaire tax bracket. Plus household debt.
* Sweden's strong support for research, and willingness to let Saab fail. Who's the socialist country?
* Charles Schumer switched to supporting gay marriage.
* ACLU sues DA over "child porn" charges.
* An Afghan TV station was raised for not censoring "uncovered" women.
* Israel using white phosphorous in Gaza.
* Scalia's homophobia
* Morocco's crackdown on feminists, gays, Shiites
* Malnutrition in India
* Racial gap continues
* Darwin, statistics, and experimental design
* Voting rational -- if you're an altruist. My first thought was that this means most voters are altruists or out for their local benefits. Bad news for libertarians.
* Interesting links on myths about medieval Europe and the Renaissance
* Exalted sesseljae: "puppies that swim through organs".
* The Nation's shifting stance on public transit.
* Rolling Stone on AIG. Long and alarmed. And Salon on new populism. "A 2003 Gallup poll found that 31 percent of Americans believed they would become "rich" someday, including more than 20 percent of people who made under $30,000 a year." "In 2005, the top 1 percent of Americans made almost 22 percent of the nation's reported income, and the top 10 percent made half of it." "In 2007, the average S&P 500 CEO made 344 times what an average worker made. The top 50 investment fund managers made 19,000 times more than the average worker."
* The missing millionaire tax bracket. Plus household debt.
* Sweden's strong support for research, and willingness to let Saab fail. Who's the socialist country?
* Charles Schumer switched to supporting gay marriage.
* ACLU sues DA over "child porn" charges.
* An Afghan TV station was raised for not censoring "uncovered" women.
* Israel using white phosphorous in Gaza.
* Scalia's homophobia
* Morocco's crackdown on feminists, gays, Shiites
* Malnutrition in India
* Racial gap continues
* Darwin, statistics, and experimental design
* Voting rational -- if you're an altruist. My first thought was that this means most voters are altruists or out for their local benefits. Bad news for libertarians.
* Interesting links on myths about medieval Europe and the Renaissance
* Exalted sesseljae: "puppies that swim through organs".
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 21:52 (UTC)From:I'm the author of that second link, and I appreciate your linking to the article! One thing I wanted to mention, though, was that there's a difference between public transit and mass transit. Public transit is basically just mass transit owned and controlled by the state – the distinction isn't terribly important now that all mass transit systems are publically-operated, but that wasn't always the case, and wasn't the case when the Nation was opining against the evils of subways almost a century ago. Mass transit back then was private, which would likely explain the "progressive" hatred of it.
The state then took over the private mass transit systems (turning them into public transportation) after it had regulated and legislated them out of existence. Mass transit has essentially been in steep decline ever since.
A minor point to many, but I think it's important to recognize that there was a day when transit was provisioned by the market rather than the state, and indeed in retrospect it was likely a much better idea.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-16 14:15 (UTC)From:Thanks for the comment, and interesting. As for unions, I've been told but not verified that every Boston T car has an agent on it, "for safety or emergencies", vs. the two (driver and door operatior) per trainset I'm used to in Chicago or BART.
OTOH... mass transit seems public in most places these days, even where it's nice and healthy. Well, buses may be private, but trains seem public or heavily regulated private operation, so I'd conclude that the problem in the US is government intervention for cars and suburbs, not intervention period, which may have been inevitable given the network nature of trains and the implicit subsidies granted cars everywhere (allowable pollution and loss of life.)