Follow-up to Kroger in Royal Oak

Remember my promise from June?

I have a lot more to write about this issue, including coverage from Royal Oak Patch that follows up on the meetings and the provides more detail and my personal opinion of this (it's a very local issue for me, as the site in question is within walking distance of where my wife and I live--she has an opinion, too), but I have to run an errand and go to work. Stay tuned!

I never got around to doing that until now. I do have a good excuse, which was that I got distracted by Julie Bass and her fight with Oak Park over her vegetable garden, but it's still an excuse. In the spirit of better late than never, here are the highlights of what I missed during the past two months.

First, there was another hearing on July 12th, as WXYZ reported.




Debate over Kroger in Royal Oak

That didn't go so well. As the Royal Oak Daily Tribune reported, there will not be a Kroger on Main Street in Royal Oak.

Stuart Staniford on the value of education

I surfed over to Early Warning because one of his posts was featured in a Mother Jones article about energy constraints on the U.S. economy, but that's not what I inspired me to post this entry. Instead, Stuart posted Returns to Education, which included this graph of the average lifetime earnings of Americans based on their level of educational achievement.




I'm going to add it to my lecture on economics as an example of how society converts social capital, namely the skills, knowledge, and social connections from education, into economic capital, the students' earning power. The graph will join the latest version of this one from Calculated Risk, which displays the historical relationship between educational level and unemployment in the U.S.




Both graphs show the value of education in economic terms, whether in earning power or protection from unemployment. The one from Calculated Risk definitely grabs the students' attention.  I hope Stuart's does as well.

Stuart has many more very interesting graphs showing how the lifetime earnings estimates in the first graph were derived. If you like numbers and graphs and believe in the power of education, I highly recommend reading Returns to Education.

Meta: More meditations on sustainability

I've decided to replace the sustainability logo that I've been using for my posts...




...with this one.




Yes, it's busier,* but it has its advantages.

First, it clearly describes which activities and goals belong where. In particular, it very clearly places research and development, which I've been listing under environment, as being part of economy. I'll be doing that from now on, although I'll keep basic research into environmental issues under environment.**

Second, it can be posted to sites like Daily Kos, which only allows images from a short list of approved hosts. This image is already hosted on Flickr, one of the approved sites.*** In fact, I found this image so that I could use it when I crossposted Silly Sustainability Saturday for August 27, 2011 to Daily Kos for the tip jar.****

Third, it is a reminder that sustainability is about more than the environment. As I told the readers of the Daily Kos mirror of my post, "All of us here on Daily Kos are involved in the fight for sustainability, whether we know it or not--and that's not silly!"

Footnotes beneath the jump.

Hurricane Irene news linkspam 1

Here are the Hurricane Irene and related stories from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Hurricanes and earthquakes and floods, oh my! edition) on Daily Kos.

This week's featured articles come from Discovery News on YouTube, Our Amazing Planet via MSNBC, and the L.A. Times.

First, the weird news.

A hurricane, an earthquake -- it's been a wild week here on the East Coast. And it's happened twice before in history -- but never before in the same place.

Now, the good news.

Why Hurricane Irene not worst-case for NYC
By Brett Israel
OurAmazingPlanet
updated 8/27/2011 3:12:26 PM ET

Irene is predicted to be the latest in 2011's string of billion-dollar weather disasters. But for New York City, Irene is not shaping up to be the worst-case scenario it could be.

Forecasts show Irene hitting central Long Island, N.Y., sometime Sunday (Aug. 28), leaving New York City with the "clean side" of the hurricane and without the major storm surge. The city will mostly see "blustery rains and strong winds," said Eugene McCaul, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has forecast around 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain for New York City from Irene.

Interactive infographic showing location and windspeed of Irene at the link.

Finally, the bad news.

Hurricane Irene churns its way north; 8 dead
August 27, 2011

Hurricane Irene, a ferocious and slow-moving storm, smashed into North Carolina on Saturday morning, then slowly swirled its way up the Eastern Seaboard, flooding low-lying areas, knocking out power to as many as 1 million customers and forcing the densely populated regions of Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City to take unprecedented steps as they braced for impact.

At least eight people are known to have died as a result of the storm in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.

Irene is expected to continue its northward path through New England before weakening early Sunday morning. The youngest victim, an 11-year-old boy, was killed when a tree crashed through his apartment building in Newport News, Va.

More over the jump.

Silly Sustainability Saturday for August 27, 2011

It's common for Silly Sustainability Saturday to spawn follow-ups, such as Why do Tea Partiers hate high-speed rail?, a post inspired by a reaction to a story covered in Silly Sustainability Saturday: Carmageddon, Tea Partiers against manatees, and Butterbeer. In fact, that happened this week with Narb's comment to Silly Sustainability Saturday for August 20, 2011 inspiring For Narb: Paul Krugman and fake alien invasions. Tonight, inspiration comes full circle, as Dr. Krugman takes his turn in the spotlight for Silly Sustainability Saturday because of something he didn't say.

Well, this is interesting. I hear that the not-so-good people at National Review are attacking me over something I said on my Google+ page. Except, I don’t have a Google+ page.

Dave Weigel at Slate has the faux Krugman quote.

Yesterday, a Google+ account belonging to "Paul Krugman" posted this thought experiment about the earthquake.

People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.

The reactions were swift after Tim Carney -- who'd just joked that Krugman might think this -- spread the message around on Twitter.

Weigel has more reactions from conservatives who bit on the troll's hook. He also found the hoaxer.

The Google+ account was a hoax created by 2010 college grad Carlos Graterol, to make fun of the "many misguided beliefs that Paul Krugman holds, defends, and espouses on a daily basis."

Both Weigel and the snarky Dan Amira at N.Y. Magazine's Daily Intel Blog repeated Professor Krugman's reaction.

This is really cute, not. Apparently some people can’t find enough things to attack in what I actually say, so they’re busy creating fake quotes. And I have enough on my plate without trying to chase all this stuff down.

So if you see me quoted as saying something really stupid or outrageous, and it didn’t come from the Times or some other verifiable site, you should probably assume it was a fake.

Krugman became even more annoyed in his next post.

Actually, this thing ties in with what I just wrote about anti-Keynesian switcheroos: the hoaxer was trying to make my (correct) assertions in the past that even useless spending can be expansionary sound as if I revel in disaster. Those who can’t argue rationally, resort to fakery.

Also, the gullibility on display was impressive. All these right-wing hacks knew it must be a genuine quote, because they all knew that I’m a terrible person — based on past distortions!

And I’d be willing to bet that this fake quote will continue to pop up on right-wing blogs and talk radio for years to come.

Yes, Dr. Krugman, I'm sure it will. There is a reason why the opposition to the policies of the current incarnation of the Republican Party is called "the reality-based community," to which the Republican Party as a whole no longer belongs.

Earthquakes and hurricanes and floods, oh my!

These topics deserve a long thoughtful post. That isn't happening tonight. As I posted to my Facebook wall, "Screw that; I'm going to drink rum and play video games tonight." Instead, I'll leave you with these two songs by Florence and the Machine and hope that they can express in music what I don't have it in me tonight to say in words.





Hurricane Drunk





Dog Days are Over

Stay safe, all of you on the east coast. See you after the sun rises!

Who watches Cable News? (Teaser)

Yes, Prime Minister had a deservedly famous scene about Briitish newspapers.* Here it is.

PM Jim Hacker: "Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, The Times is read by people who actually do run the country, The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country, The Financial Times is read by people who own the country, The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is."
Sir Humphrey: "Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?"
Bernard Wooley: "Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits."
— Yes, Prime Minister

There are versions of this for American newspapers, including this one, which mocked the previous President (say what you will about President Obama, but at least he reads the papers).  There aren't good versions of it for cable news channels, at least, not yet. The closest I've found is this one at the TVTropes link, which manages to mix newpapers and cable.

President Bob: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads and watches what. CNN is watched by people who think they run the country, The New York Times is read by people who think they ought to run the country, The Washington Post is read by the people who actually do run the country, USA Today is read by the wives of the people who run the country, CNBC is watched by people who think they own the country, The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who actually do own the country, MSNBC is watched by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and Fox News is watched by people who think it is.
Smarmy Civil Servant Alice: Mr. President, what about people who read The National Enquirer?
President's Body Man Charlie: National Enquirer readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

A wild hare** has hopped into my brain to create a list that just has cable news channels, as I find that list inadequate, but I don't have the time to do it right now.*** Instead, I'll just drop a couple of the intermediate punch lines.

Bloomberg is owned by someone who thinks he should run the country. Current is owned by someone who should have been running the country for eight of the past ten years.

UPDATE: Bloomberg Television is owned by someone who thinks he should run the country. Current TV is watched by people who think its owner should have been running the country for eight of the past ten years.

More later.

Yes, I'm watching a lot of cable TV while I'm grading papers. Speaking of which, back to work!

*I really did link to TVTropes throughout. You have been warned.
**I spelled it properly. Fanfiction writers will understand.
***Double entendre--I really should be doing something else, namely grading, so I don't have the time, and if I took the time now, I wouldn't do it right. I'm just posting this to feed the plot bunny so that it will stop running around in my brain while I'm working.

ETA: I've posted my own version of this scene for American newspapers here.

Gawker on Michigan

Gawker has been running a series on the worst 50 states in America this week. Here is what they had to say about Michigan.

35. Michigan
The mitten-shaped land of miseries is a scenic and scenically troubled place to call home.

The Good: Boy oh boy is Michigan pretty. What with all them lakes they got up there and all that crazy snow and stuff. Did you ever watch this beautiful show? That covers the UP pretty well.

If you click on the link to the Sundance Channel, the theme to "Nimrod Nation" autoplays, which would be annoying if the tune weren't so pretty.

And say what you will about Detroit, but there's a kind of hard-boned, old-school urbanness to that city that is a rare commodity in 2011.

That didn't make Model D Media's Buzz section. To see why, keep reading.

The Bad: "Hard-boned, old-school urbanness" is a polite way of saying that Detroit is an absolute hellhole, the kind of place that you think about and wish that we could allocate some funds to just airlift everyone the fuck out of there. Flint and Grand Rapids aren't doing much better. Michigan can sometimes feel like a scary totem of what's to come for the rest of this fading super-nation, so it's kind of annoying to constantly have that reminder, ever teasing us.

Gawker is deliberately being a bunch of snarky clowns, but they could have ranked the state much lower higher. Honestly, I was expecting worse.

As for the passage in bold, I prefer to see a glass half full. To paraphrase:

Welcome to Detroit, Ground Zero of the post-industrial future. Great things are going to happen here, and they're going to happen here first. Whatever Detroit devises as the solutions for North America's problems will be exported to the rest of the continent. It's an exciting time to live here, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Lisa Hymas of Grist expounds on the A in I=P*A*T

I Am the Population Problem

Both local and broad scale environmental problems often are linked to population growth, which in turn tends to get blamed on other people: folks in Africa and Asia who have "more kids than they can feed," immigrants in our own country with their "excessively large families," even single mothers in the "inner city."

But actually the population problem is all about me: white, middle-class, American me.

Steer that blame right over here.

Population isn't just about counting heads, although by this October we will be counting 7 billion of them worldwide. The impact of humanity on the environment is not determined solely by how many of us are around, but by how much stuff we use and how much room we take up. And as a financially comfortable American, I use a lot of stuff and take up a lot of room. My carbon footprint is more than 200 times bigger than that of an average Ethiopian, more than 12 times bigger than an average Indian's, and twice as big as an average Brit's.

Well-meaning people have told me that I'm "just the sort of person who should have kids." Au contraire. I'm just the sort of person who should not have kids.

I teach my environmental science students the following equation to describe environmental impact: I=P*A*T, where I is impact, P is population, A is affluence, and T is technology. It's the A and inefficient T that is multiplying the impact of the effect of the relatively small P in the developed world, especially in North America. Read the rest of the article, as the excerpt above is just the start of Lisa Hymas's explanation complete with supporting details of how this happens. It also explains why her environmental views have shaped her decision to be child-free.

If people in the developed world, but especially in North America, want to maintain anywhere near the current levels of affluence, they'd better hope that more efficient technologies can reduce the T to less than one (there is some evidence this is possible) before the resources run out, or everyone will be TSOL. Unfortunately, technology inadequate to the task is one of the barriers to sustainability, along with change resistance--but that's another lesson.

Hat/tip to unusualmusic on Dreamwidth.

Meta: Social Media Status update

On August 1st, I made the following promise on Dreamwidth.

That concludes this irregular status update. Next one whenever I pass 500 on Twitter, 450 on Facebook, 150 on Daily Kos or LiveJournal, 50 on Dreamwidth, or 25 on any of the other services, whichever comes first. If it's Crazy Eddie's Motie News passing 25, I'll crosspost it there, too.

As you can tell both from the bolding and that you're either reading it on Crazy Eddie's Motie News or you're seeing the "crossposted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News" notice while reading it on Dreamwidth or LiveJournal, my Blogspot/Blogger followers hit 25. I'm actually a bit late, as the event happened late last week (thank you John Henry for being the 25th follower), but I had a good excuse--it's final exam time. Notice that my posting rate slowed down early this week, as I was grading. Final exams are now graded, so it's time to post the next update.

Twitter: 478
Facebook: 423 (was as high as 424)
Daily Kos: 140 (still down from 141)
Livejournal: 124
(down from 125, although the person who defriended me is now subscribed to me on Dreamwidth)
Huffington Post: 107 fans and 106 friends
(I've had this account for a while, but never got around to including it until now)
Dreamwidth: 41
Crazy Eddie's Motie News: 25
YouTube: 18 friends and 12 subscribers
(I could have more, but I'm not impressed by the people who try to friend me on YouTube)
Journalfen: 8 (no movement for months here)
Google+: 5 (New!)
Flickr: 1
Posterous: 1

Now I'm wondering if I should get a Tumblr account. The coolest kids seem to be on that service.

That concludes this irregular update. Next one whenever I pass 500 on Twitter, 450 on Facebook, 150 on Daily Kos or LiveJournal, 50 on Dreamwidth or Blogspot/Blogger, or 25 on any of the other services, whichever comes first.