CSpec

"South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire."

Well, yes. Obviously people should be free to buy whatever car they like. I'm just saying that the anemic sales of premium small cars shows that most Americans don't particularly like them. As is their right.

The county outsourced its fire protection to a neighboring town. This agreement means the neighboring town won't just put out fires for free--the county in question must have decided to implement a voluntary fire protection scheme. Since it sounds like the county is pretty rural, there is a small externality problem which is what leads to most places having universal fire protection. Now you can argue that the fire department should have been nicer and more compassionate, or $75 is a small price to pay to save someone's house. But operating under the system that has been the norm in the county for 20 years (voluntary fire protection), this is the result. If someone doesn't have AAA, do you tow their car for free anyway? Insurance is insurance. If people knew the fire department would put out fires regardless of paying the charge, why would anyone pay?

I don't really get why people are outraged about this. He chose to not pay the fee. What did he think the consequence was going to be?

How many expensive Euro compacts have flopped in the States? Size in and of itself is definitely a big selling point for Americans.

That's right. People are willing to pay more in gas to get the added size, comfort, utility, and better driving position of SUVs. It's classic government boondoggle to try and force preferences on people in this way.

Americans Want Econoboxes? SUVs Back Over 50 Percent of Vehicle Sales National Review For the first time in more than two years, SUV sales account for more than half of the U.S. auto market. This will come as no surprise to readers of this blog, as we have charted the growing rebound of light truck sales as the U.S. economy has (albeit slowly) rebounded and gas prices remain under $3 a gallon. The trend comes even as Washington issued a new edict that vehicles average an absurd 62 mpg by 2025. The current absurd standard — 35 mpg by 2015 — has forced manufacturers to invest billions in new small-car development. Today, manufacturers are in defiance of their own customers — their marketing departments churning out small-car ads touting their new green products. This puts automakers in a tough spot: Continue to make cars for the government, or listen to their customers. For now, manufacturers are sticking with the government, telling the Detroit News that “with a slew of new cars coming out, such as the Chevrolet Cruze, the Ford Fiesta and a new Ford Focus early next year, car sales are likely to outpace truck sales in the coming months.” Maybe. But it would contradict this year’s clear market trend in precisely the opposite direction. Despite a record 29 models on the market (nearly double the number three years ago) — and loud predictions that hybrids are in demand — hybrid vehicle market share continued to decline in September from its high in the $4-a-gallon-gas spring of 2008. August hybrid sales came in at just 2.3 percent — down from 2.8 percent a year ago and 3.2 percent in April, 2008. The huge increase in green offerings looks less like a way to meet market demand and more like a way for manufacturers to get credits towards federal mpg fleet mandates. The Toyota Prius — the king of the green niche — continues to account for over 50 percent of hybrid sales.

Bottom of the lake

If there is reason to think that gas consumption is inherently bad, then CAFE is an incredibly stupid solution. Is there any evidence that it reduces gas consumed?

Acela is fine, but as SAmadei mentioned it's very expensive. I only take it when someone else is paying. When I'm footing the bill I take Bolt Bus for $10.

Because the faster passenger trains would screw up the slower freight trains. And just because the government throws more money at Amtrak to increase service doesn't mean it's efficient or profitable. The real rail companies are successful because there is demand for their services and they respond to market forces.

I don't think so--the freight companies are vociferously fighting higher speed passenger service on their rails. However freight rail has been a profitable and very efficient industry since deregulation in 1980. Too bad the same can't be said for Amtrak.

Sweet, I like the Android functionality.

I wonder how long before everyone has GPS-enabled phones and street signs become completely unnecessary...

This guy is starting to annoy me. He should really just move to China and join the Communist Party.

New Yorkers outraged as bureaucrats order city to change lettering on every single street sign NY Daily News The city will change the lettering on every single street sign - at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million - because the feds don't like the font. Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday. By 2018, MADISON AVE. will become Madison Ave. and will be printed in a font called Clearview, the city Department of Transportation says. The Federal Highway Administration says the switch will improve safety because drivers identify the words more quickly when they're displayed that way - and can sooner return their eyes to the road. Still, several city residents were OUTRAGED. "That's ridiculous," said James Sullivan, 34, a bike messenger from Queens. "They might as well just burn the damn money." Construction worker Joseph Cain, 49, of Manhattan, reacted with sarcasm, saying, "I see my tax dollars are hard at work." The city has about 250,000 signs, and it costs about $110 to replace one, the DOT says. Officials said the new signs will have improved reflectivity and clarity for nighttime drivers. The changes are among many in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices that regularly changes to improve road safety, highway administration spokesman Doug Hecox said. The mixed upper- and lowercase rule was adopted in 2003, but municipalities were given until 2018 to comply completely, Hecox said. "If it's such a pressing safety issue, why won't it be done until 2018? I may not even be driving by then," said Paul Kelly, 66, a retired Manhattan resident. The additional cost to the city, if any, will be "marginal" because it receives a steady stream of state funding for routine sign repairs and replacement, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said. The life of a typical sign is about a decade, so most of the city's signs would be replaced in the next few years anyway, Solomonow said. The city has begun switching some signs in the Bronx and Manhattan and will have 11,000 done by the end of the fiscal year, the agency said. Signs have also appeared this way for several years in the 34th St. business improvement district, which used its own money to make the change. "We went to upper and lower case because it's more attractive and more readable," said Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership.

Great news. Here's a funny question: why is it that so many people want prostitution to be illegal (though I'm sure they are fully aware it goes on all the time), yet few people want porn to be illegal?

Oh right, free speech is ruining our society. The Internet is a fantastic stick in the eye to people with attitudes like this.

This wasn't a cab. All the cabs here have ridiculous paint schemes and can only pick up fares in their hackney-licensed area (VA, DC, MD, etc). They can drop you off in the other zones, but they can't pick up a new fare once they get there (save for the airport taxi stand).

So I was walking back to my car from a sports bar last night after watching the Patriots lay an egg, and a car pulled over in front of me with something truly bizarre: two sets of license plates. It was a Crown Victoria, but as far as I could tell it wasn't a cop. It was sporting perfectly regular Virginia and DC license plates (ie, not official plates or anything) mounted right next to each other on the front bumper, and on the back one plate was in the regular holder and the other was on the bumper. Is this guy just a thief? Under what circumstances would this be allowed?

This won't happen until US agricultural policy is substantially reformed (which is to say, never). The only reason we have HFCS to begin with is because of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs.

Cuba to cut 500,000 gov't workers, reform salaries AP Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state workers by early next year and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs — the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro's push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island. Castro suggested during a nationally televised address on Easter Sunday that as many as 1 million Cuban workers — about one in five — may be redundant. But the government had not previously laid out specific plans to slash its work force, and the speed and scope of the coming cutbacks were astounding. Cuba's official work force is 5.1 million — meaning nearly 10 percent of all employees could soon be out of a government job. Workers caught off guard by the announcement said they worried whether the tiny private sector could support so many new jobs, a sentiment echoed by some analysts. "For me the problem is the salaries, that's the root of it," said Alberto Fuentes, a 47-year-old government worker. "If they fire all of these people, how can they all become self-employed?" The layoffs will start immediately and continue through April 2011, according to a statement from the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation, which is affiliated with the Communist Party and the only labor union allowed by the government. Eventually the state will only employ people in "indispensable" areas such as farming, construction, industry, law enforcement and education. To soften the blow, the statement — which appeared in state newspapers and was read on television and radio — said the government would increase private-sector job opportunities, including allowing more Cubans to become self-employed. They also will be able to form cooperatives run by employees rather than government administrators, and increasingly lease state land, businesses and infrastructure. The announcement was short on details of how such a major shift could be achieved, but its intent appeared to deal a body-blow to the decades-old social safety net upon which the island's egalitarian society is built. Castro has long complained that Cubans expect too much from the government, which pays average monthly salaries of just $20 but also provides free education and health care and heavily subsidizes housing, transportation and basic food. Because unemployment is anathema in a communist society, state businesses have been forced to carry many people who do almost nothing. "Our state cannot and should not continue supporting businesses, production entities and services with inflated payrolls, and losses that hurt our economy are ultimately counterproductive, creating bad habits and distorting worker conduct," the union said. Even before the announcement, interviews with scores of workers across several government sectors showed that layoffs were already under way — with many complaining the state was not doing enough to find them new jobs. Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said a series of small changes — such as allowing the unrestricted sale of cell phones, privatizing some state-run barbershops, licensing more private taxis and distributing fallow land to private farmers — have moved Cuba toward economic reform since July 2006, when serious intestinal illness nearly killed Fidel Castro and forced him to cede power to Raul. While none of those were blockbusters, Birns said, Monday's revelation has the potential to be one. "Cuba is rapidly becoming like any other country," he said. "It is not going back. These are big changes." Some Cubans also said they supported the changes, hoping that even a small dose of private enterprise would go a long way in a country where state mismanagement has led to frequent shortages of everything from potatoes to toothpaste. "There are many things that are deficient now including services, which, of course, the private sector will improve on," said Moraima Santos, a 65-year-old employee in the Office of the City of Havana Historian. "I completely support the government giving private employment licenses. That's going to benefit a lot of people." Others were skeptical. Arch Ritter, an expert on the Cuban economy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, said the cutbacks rely too heavily on a work force unaccustomed to going into business for itself. "To imagine that the private sector is going to absorb so many people is a bit of a stretch," he said. "It's going to be a major problem for the country." Building on his April remarks, Castro warned in August that layoffs would be coming and said Cuba would expand private enterprise on a small scale, increasing the number of jobs where Cubans could go into business for themselves. Monday's announcement also said Cuba will overhaul its labor structure and salary systems to emphasize productivity so that workers are "paid according to results." Castro has said repeatedly he is seeking to reform the pay system to hold workers accountable for production, but change has been slow in coming. Currently the state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years — but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs because wages are so low. The labor overhaul comes less than a week after Fidel Castro caused a stir around the globe when he was quoted by visiting American magazine writer Jeffrey Goldberg as saying Cuba's communist economy no longer works. Castro later said that while he was not misquoted, his words were misinterpreted — and that he meant to say capitalist reforms could never work in Cuba. Goldberg said Monday he was surprised by Fidel Castro's claim, since he has made similar statements before. He said economic reforms such as the one announced Monday prove the Cuban government realizes the need for change. "Not only has he said things like this before, but the on-the-ground reality is that it is a truism that the Cuban model is not working, and that is why they are starting this large-scale experiment with privatization," Goldberg told reporters.

Vanity Fair Thousands upon thousands of government employees take to the streets to protest the bill. Here is Greece’s version of the Tea Party: tax collectors on the take, public-school teachers who don’t really teach, well-paid employees of bankrupt state railroads whose trains never run on time, state hospital workers bribed to buy overpriced supplies. Here they are, and here we are: a nation of people looking for anyone to blame but themselves. The Greek public-sector employees assemble themselves into units that resemble army platoons. In the middle of each unit are two or three rows of young men wielding truncheons disguised as flagpoles. Ski masks and gas masks dangle from their belts so that they can still fight after the inevitable tear gas. “The deputy prime minister has told us that they are looking to have at least one death,” a prominent former Greek minister had told me. “They want some blood.” Two months earlier, on May 5, during the first of these protest marches, the mob offered a glimpse of what it was capable of. Seeing people working at a branch of the Marfin Bank, young men hurled Molotov cocktails inside and tossed gasoline on top of the flames, barring the exit. Most of the Marfin Bank’s employees escaped from the roof, but the fire killed three workers, including a young woman four months pregnant. As they died, Greeks in the streets screamed at them that it served them right, for having the audacity to work. The events took place in full view of the Greek police, and yet the police made no arrests.

Unfortunately, I strongly disagree with that sentiment.

I think DC's loss gets lost in the shuffle quite often. People in my office said they could see the smoke rising from the Potomac from our building. On the other hand, imagine how this country would have responded if the planes that ended up in the Pentagon and Pennsylvania had succeeded in their mission of destroying the White House and Capitol Building.