June 2011
64 posts
It's More Likely You Will Survive A Plane Crash Or... →
This wreaks of Elko.
“When you exclude just Facebook from the rest of the Web, consumption in terms of...”
– The Shrinking of the Non-Social Web (via aakruse)
I’d like to see a breakdown of the time spent gaming on the non-Facebook web. My guess is that a shift in gaming to within Facebook is a big factor here.
The International Center for Technology Assessment tried to add up all the “hidden” costs of a gallon of gas –costs that are picked up by taxpayers rather than consumers –and figure out what a gallon of gas really costs. They came up with a figure of between $5-$15 per gallon.
...
Politicians never actually cut spending, so every time corporate America lobbies for another tax break, they’re effectively raising taxes on the rest of us.
—
http://www.alternet.org/story/150509/how_big_business_gets_a_free_ride_by_lobbying_to_raise_your_taxes?page=entire
Via InstaFetch
“Police found a bar and sound system set up in the basement.
They seized crack...”
– 27th Ave S at Lake St
Car costs were a key factor in pushing homeowners into foreclosure according to a 2010 NRDC study. The study, which tracked 40,000 mortgages in Chicago, Jacksonville and San Francisco, found that the probability of foreclosure rose alongside the number vehicles owned per household in a neighborhood, even after controlling for income and mortgage characteristics such as debt-to-income ratio, credit...
In the past 18 months, small business finally gave up on the yellow pages. Which is something we’ve been waiting on for a long time. Small businesses have had too many customers come in and talk about their Yelp review and they’ve realized they have to be present. You had a reluctant buyer of Internet services until about 18 months ago and now you almost have an anxiety-ridden,...
There is more than one way for a school to get...
He has no problem with schools being held accountable for their performance, but he worries that the reform movement’s infatuation with competition will undermine the broader goal of improving public education —that by grading schools against their peers you are encouraging them to hoard their successful innovations rather than to share them.
...
Tale of Two Cities Job Creation
On the other side, we have job growth coming in at the bottom of the pyramid, mostly minimum wage and temporary positions. Take last month’s job creation, for example. Out of the 260,000 jobs created in April, a whopping 60,000 jobs came from one company: McDonald’s. There is nothing wrong with flipping burgers for a living, but it will not pull us out of a recession.
...
Commute Time and Health Effects
It is commuting, not the total length of the workday, that matters, he found. Take a worker with a negligible commute and a 12-hour workday and a worker with an hourlong commute and a 10-hour workday. The former will have healthier habits than the latter, even though total time spent on the relatively stressful, unpleasant tasks is equal.
...
45 minute commuters are 40% more likely to divorce
Commuting is a migraine-inducing life-suck—a mundane task about as pleasurable as assembling flat-pack furniture or getting your license renewed, and you have to do it every day. If you are commuting, you are not spending quality time with your loved ones. You are not exercising, doing challenging work, having sex, petting your dog, or playing with your kids (or your Wii). You are not doing any of...
Unfortunately, most Target jobs are low-paid retail positions and don’t return much to the community in either buying power or income taxes.
Target has sought, and received, hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from states and local communities around the U.S.
—
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/target
Via InstaFetch
Using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, they found that the number of journalists has fallen drastically while public relations people have multiplied at an even faster rate. In 1980, there were about 45 PR workers per one hundred thousand population compared with 36 journalists. In 2008, there were 90 PR people per one hundred thousand compared to 25 journalists.* That’s a ratio of...
“However, I am extremely disappointed to learn you endorse the socialist fiction...”
– MN State Senator David Hann (R - Eden Prairie) calls Archbishop John Nienstedt a socialist.
“If the USA were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s, we...”
– Tell me one statistic - about anything - that will blow me away : AskReddit (via nickdouglas)
“I went to check it out, and I still do not understand the purpose for the event,...”
– I found the Open Streets Minneapolis hater.
Project 515 →
freshmn:
They re-launched their website today!
This is the product of The Nerdery’s Overnight Website Challenge. Congratulations to Project 515 and the Fullcourt Wordpress team.
(My picture might be on the front page.)
Mpls. Rental Market as Bad as the Rest of the Twin... →
Demands for rentals are up. Home prices have come down and money is really cheap these days. As Realtors like to say, now is a good time to buy. Only, this time the stats seem to support it. It costs around $500/mo per $100,000 borrowed these days for a mortgage. And the interest is deductible. Compare that to Twin Cities rents.
Regarding the proposed Lake Calhoun name change...
thomaslowrysghost:
I don’t give a shit. This is almost as annoying as the Martin Luther King dog park debate.
Apparently, the local angle on Calhoun’s claim to fame was the establishment of Fort Snelling. He stuck it to black slaves AND Native Americans.
The Criminalization of Poverty →
mylowercase:
Florida’s governor recently signed a bill that will require welfare recipients to submit to drug tests.
In case, like me, you missed it, Republicans in Minnesota filed a similar bill in February:
Eligibility; drug screening. (a) To be eligible for MFIP, [The Minnesota Family Investment Program is the state’s welfare reform program for low-income families with children.] an...
