friend of the built environment

… I can attest to the truth of this statement:
“Few people realize that most of the US is big blank depopulated nothing and when they bash the ‘east coast elites’ they’re really talking about a hundred mile wide swath of the Atlantic coast from Washington to Boston where over a hundred million Americans live. As [...]

My roommate in San Francisco told me she will need to move out on 31 March. She is falling on tough times with her business and will not be able to work in San Francisco anymore, so she’s moving to Napa full time.
I’m very sad. First, there’s the fact that the past year has been [...]

Bank of America to buy Countrywide for $4 billion.
Every time I think I’ve moved all my finances away from BofA they swoop in like a pathalogical vampire. Aren’t they approaching their legal market share maximum? I guess this quote says it all:
“Federal law also bars banks from acquisitions that would increase its market share above [...]

I am 99% sure I have found a new place to live in SF. A nice big room in a 70s-era flat owned by a very nice old artfag. Will also be sharing with another gentleman I’ve yet to meet. It’s in the Sunset right off the N-Judah, only a couple blocks from both the [...]

No, actually, I’m not too enticed by an ultra-thin laptop. I’m always scared I’m gonna break my current laptop as it is. I hope Apple doesn’t switch all their portables to this profile over the next few years… It’s icky.

… In any case, I had my last iBook for over 6 years before I replaced [...]

I can’t vote next week, being a North Carolina resident, but I’m quite exposed to the severity of the presidential campaign whilst in California lately.

Isn’t it somewhat pathetic that this is the most exciting presidential election any of us are likely to see for most of our lives? And I’m sure I’m not the only [...]

Are we doing stupid things like this…

…Or this?

I left work tonight, heading for the subway for my commute home. I approached Market Street and suddenly noticed hundreds - nay, thousands - of people racing toward the Embarcadero.

I shuddered and my heart sank… Oh my gawd! I thought - what could it be? A bombing? Terrorists? Was there an earthquake and I didn’t [...]

About 6 years ago I wrote this piece about the parallels between Green Party policy goals today and the policies of national socialism early in the 20th century. I was mostly shooting from the hip, making an emotional tirade out of my innate fear of the society that Green power had the potential to produce.

I still have [...]

Because, no - there is no breakfast anywhere in Cole Valley.

Oh, and this is what “breakfast” is, in case you were wondering.

Three airlines dead in one week.

It’s definitely time for some industry rationalization. As a frequent flier, I am totally baffled why the cost of my tickets has not gone up by 30-40% since I started doing this transcontinental commute three years ago, whilst the cost of oil has gone up 100% in the same time.
Honestly, [...]

There was just something disturbingly adorable about the two winos at the back of the bus.

They were cuddling and nuzzling one another and whispering sweet nothings at each other - almost as if to say “We might have no furniture or teeth and we smell like pee, but at least we have each other…”

Yes, Ma Ha Ta - it’s the trendy new name for Manhattan. Oh, didn’t you know? Things just aren’t edgy or interesting when you call them by their name - you have to abbreviate the name into something meaningless and stupid-sounding.

No Da in Charlotte started it, of course. It stands for “Not Dangling”, I think [...]

Waiting for my plane this morning I picked up a snack at the airport. I think it tasted good, but I tossed it away after a few bites, when I realized that the manufacturer obviously had no idea what the hell was in it:

But by golly, at least the mystery treat was bagged in the [...]

There is lots of digital drool going around about all sorts of ‘problems’ with the iPhone. I just don’t get it.
Yaw, there are some things that the iPhone could theoretically do that it doesn’t. There’s also lots of stuff that most politicians could theoretically do and don’t. The key is recognizing when then things at [...]

Not a whole lot of Americans are taking it very seriously, but Russia and Georgia are at war, and it’s getting even less than the scantily-covered American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. A couple months ago the US was actively pursuing membership into the NATO alliance of Georgia. Under the terms of the [...]

It’s been seven years since I bought my first new Mac. Over that time, I’m been a pretty intense Apple fanboy. For the first few years I was repeatedly amazed at the things Apple hardware and software enabled me to do that I didn’t even realize I wanted to do.
My oh my how times change. [...]

Yep, Georgia’s quaking in it’s boots. This should solve the recruitment problems in the US army, I suppose, since so many rednecks are thoroughly convinced that the Russkies are marching on Atlanta.
As someone else noted, “Russophiles know they live in the matrix; Russophobes think they’re free and laugh at the poor Russians, not realizing that they’re laughing [...]

Anyone wanting a fairly straight-forward explanation of what’s going on in the Caucuses without having it filtered through the propaganda machines at either end of the current mainstream press should read this.

Quite often, sport boosters try to paint themselves as the epitome of civic pride: they love their team, they support their city. This is often the root argument when tempers flare over sport-facility-based redevelopment projects. “We love our Downtown and we want to make it livlier with our team”.
Would that it were true. The reality [...]

A good interview with former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, which provides another good perspective that the mainstream media is simply failing to broadcast. An especially astute observation about why Russia matters to the West:
“I see Russia as part of Europe, more than as part of any other constellation…  And we in Germany and Europe should [...]

Can someone remind me what it’s like not having to press the ‘pause’ button on my life for two weeks after every weekend I spend at home? I’ve forgotten.
Why is it that most of the nurses I see outside of Winston Salem’s two large institutional hospitals are either obese or smoking or both? Shouldn’t anyone [...]

“Who’s Your City” asks Richard Florida in his new book. Yes, it’s another Richard-Florida-bashing screed from your favorite uncreative classless git.
I’m probably more guilty of committing these sort of ‘city hunting’ atrocities - described by Florida as the most important thing a person will ever do. I’m aware, however, that this habit of mine is [...]

Courtesy of Amber, a nice, easy-to-read overview of the stinky stuff happening on Wall Street

I’ve either gone psycho or come to my senses. Decide for yourself; but I really, really like Cynthia McKinney. She is the first politician I’ve heard that actually seems to be the anti-populist. Neither does she seem an idealogue.
Sure, there are certain general aspects to any Green Party policies that seem excessively statist without visiting [...]

Ah… It’s nice that there’s someone putting money into this building - and a lot of it by the looks of the window treatments.
The Armoury was a place used by operative governments for the purpose of storing weapons that kill and maim people. But we, as free and enlightened sodomites, are taught to make use [...]

It’s not very surprising that so many Americans are such fans of the “Drill Now! Drill Everywhere” mentality to ’solving’ gas prices. Most people know nothing about market economics and this also explains why so many people continue to puff up over ‘price gouging’ and other conspiracy theories.
See, there’s these two countries called China and [...]

…Is the argument made very poetically by Jason L. Riley. My own views on the issue are largely identical, so this was an easy read.
But my favorite quote was the one that opened the book. A shiney nickel if you can guess who said it:
America is really many Americas. We call ourselves a nation of [...]

Hmmm… The Charlotte Observer should try a little harder to customize their php template. It’s obviously the same one 365Gay uses. The fact that even fairly large commercial sites are using out-of-the-box content management systems with little customizing is telling about how much they feel like investing in their web design…

But with reservations.
As others have said, the Democrats don’t exactly offer a solid set of cohesive policy positions that are materially different from the Republicans. Both parties are pretty much meaningless wafflers with nothing to show from eight years of leadership (the Republicans) or eight years of prior peace and prosperity (the Clinton Democrats).
I voted [...]

These ads are rich.
The only two arguments being made by the Yes on 8 people are 1) Half the California Supreme Court should not have been allowed to override half the California electorate (by declaring Prop 22 illegal, a ballot measure which received about the same margin of ‘yes’ vote as the May Supreme Court [...]

A few things I’ve learned in the past couple months of living in California (whilst not being a resident)…
First, I assume this is what foreign workers feel like when they go to work in a land in which they are not citizens, to some extent. I was able to vote in the Presidential election, but [...]

…Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr [...]

I likes me a nice bloodbath. Especially one that is so well-deserved. Even if it’s too late to save the country from the disaster caused by my parents’ generation, I’m glad that generation is moving out of power.
Of course, not all is peachy: California’s bigots carry the night, Winston-Salem retains its resident devil-lady.
Now the big [...]

He’s a fab guy, but he isn’t going to fix the horrible things we’ve done to our society and our species.
We have a lot of shit to do. Our nation’s balance sheet stands somewhere in the region of -$50 Trillion. With a ‘T’. That’s over $10 Trillion in federal debt, about $10 Trillion in state [...]

I find it amusing how straightforward even its major supporters are about calling the nationalization of global financial risk a ‘bail out’, with its implication that criminals are getting out of jail. It’s pretty fitting considering how much they’ve screwed up our country/world.
What is especially destructive about the shenanigans in Washington is that they are [...]

Exactly what makes a business ‘too big to fail’? The Treasury has tapped more than two trillion dollars in new public debt over the past few months to save failing businesses, businesses that will still have to take drastic measures to stay open, such as cutting thousands of jobs and fire-selling assets.
One has to wonder: [...]

I actually find this whole campaign quite touching and amusing - and I support it. Things like Prop 8 would not have been an issue in the first place if psycho bigots realized just how many of their coworkers, family members and associates were wicked sodomites.
If you are able to, regardless of your gender or [...]

I’m surprised this is not bigger news. One in five American households (20%!) fell behind on utility bills last year and one in 20 (5%!) had their service cut. Who knows how bad this year will be. This points out a much larger weakness in the American budget than I think most economists or government [...]

Interest? What interest?
Forget saving - be an American and borrow! borrow! borrow!
The Fed is comparing their experiment with quantitative easing to the (subjectively unsuccessful) actions of Japan for the past 20 years. But Japan had a positive trade balance and a positive savings rate when it began its zero-interest-rate journey. It managed to maintain social [...]