1 year

Happy Birthday wikifur!

greenreaper's post that recaps the last year can be read here.

Just how screwed up SEPTA is

Get a load of this:

http://www.dvarp.org/reform/case_for_reform.pdf

A study that was published a year and a half ago, describing how screwed up SEPTA is. A few examples:

• The Board of Directors knows dick about railroads. The General Manager is an accountant and the rest of the board is politicians and lawyers.


• Lack of accountability for SEPTA.


• Backroom deals in which SEPTA gives up its rail rights to companies such as CSX. This screws customers in the long term in return for short term gain.


• Short-sightedness with no long-term vision. See previous example.


• The worst ontime performance of a commuter railroad in the nation.


• Very high cost per mile. We're talking on the order of $.41 per passenger mile. Contrast with $0.25 to $0.30 for other railroads.

So yeah, there's a lot wrong with SEPTA. This group seems interested in working for change, though. They're the ones who put out the study I just quoted. I think I'll be dropping them a line.

Lawyers accuse Bush of violating the Consitution

From WiredNews:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice.

The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws.

The attachments, known as bill-signing statements, say Bush reserves a right to revise, interpret or disregard measures on national security and constitutional grounds.

The article goes on for a few paragraphs, then drops this bomb:

The task force said the statements suggest the president will decline to enforce some laws. Bush has had more than 800 signing statement challenges, compared with about 600 signing statements combined for all other presidents, the group said.

So, yeah... Bush has done this particular trick more than *all other presidents put together*. I think that's a pretty clear sign that something is seriously out of whack in the White House. I'll leave it to those who know the subject matter better than I to figure out what that something is.

"They called her Labia."

The troubling subject line came from http://girlondemand.blogspot.com/2006/07/opening-paragraphs-of-recent-pods-that.html, wherein the author collected the first line of POD (Print on Demand) books that they read, and immediately closed because they found the lines disturbing, misspelled, or both.

Beware of what you'll read at that link. I warned ya.

New LJ icon

Courtesy of animgifscraper.