FRINGE posted:

Unless aliens are going to come down and reform LA with magic future nanobots ... that really is likely to be a disastrous mess.


Basically this. Road rage shootings will rise. I guess thats good? More water for the survivors? :furyroad:

Sydin posted:

I still find it incredible that despite living a five minute walk from a lightrail station that drops me off across the goddamn street from my office is still slower than slogging all the way up SJ to Milpitas through rush hour. gently caress at grade public transit forever. If you're ever going to hear me say nice things about SF, it's that Bart & MTA are appreciably fast, at least in my experience.

etalian posted:

It was originally intended as commuter rail type system to the Caltrain hence the really long waits outside the city.

I like this fantasy map of the BART:

etalian posted:

Leperflesh posted:

To be honest I don't see how California could possibly cut its use of vehicle fuel by 50% in 15 years. Not only would Californians have to give up almost all their non-Prius cars they own right now, vehicle manufacturers would have to start selling cars with 50% better mileage today. Or I guess the idea is that we'd replace 50% of the cars on the road each day with mass transit? Again I don't see that being remotely feasible in a 15 year timeframe.

computer parts posted:

I believe there's already a federal law that requires the ability to register to vote at the DMV, it's just not mandatory. This still doesn't solve the issue of people needing to go out and do something in order to register to vote.

H.P. Hovercraft posted:

I really want to empathize with these pathletes, but they really seem to be fanatics about it to the exclusion of literally every other mode of transportation.

Telsa Cola posted:

Also because we were the first UC.

Also in my experience people around campus who are California natives are pissed at administration because everyone has that one person they know who applied and (in their opinion) was qualified but didn't get in and now this news dropped.

quote:

Then we see Chancellor’s service to the board of John Wiley and Sons from 2011-2014. John Wiley and Sons, known to cartelize the market with marked up sale prices for its textbooks, is also the vendor that the UC buys into the most for its textbooks. Wiley and Sons comprises 6.3% of the entire UC Davis market share for textbook publishers. In winter quarter 2016, 49 courses used textbooks from Wiley and Sons, and 3,497 students in total enrolled in courses using these textbooks. Over the span of her three years of service at Wiley and Sons, Katehi received $421,215 for her patronage. This amount includes return on stocks from the publisher.

A price-fixing scheme based on textbook purchases went directly to Katehi’s pocket; this blatant abuse of monopoly is one in which we define as rent-seeking, entirely dependent on the students feeding into her windfall. The mathematics cannot be twisted; if we are to reclassify Katehi’s role as a private executive, this would be considered profit, but as a public employee, this is nakedly disguised looting and fraud from thousands of students.

Her crime never ended there, either. In the campus-wide email Katehi sent out on March 17, she mentions the following:

“I will establish a $200,000 scholarship fund for California undergraduate students at UC Davis from my Wiley stock proceeds.” Never mind that she still profits from half of those proceeds, keeping them pocketed into her salary. Perhaps, most egregious, however, is the use of a private monopoly to compensate her highway robbery. Serving on the board in the first place is a clear conflict of interest by siding with private interests at the expense of students, but the Chancellor takes it further with a bribe with textbook sale funds, committing a total erasure of history and soothing her own private interests with a false revisionist narrative of charity.

To pour salt on the wounds, she audaciously proposes that, “my work on the board had no impact on UC textbook purchases.” Speaking strictly from looking at the market economics, being a part of the top 50% of the market share is a strong position for publishers to mark up prices; which is exactly the case of Wiley and Sons, rendering the Chancellor a quiet participant in legitimizing the price-fixing of the private sector. All at once, the twin crimes of bribery and deception are at play, all for the sake of marketing.

Mokelumne Trekka posted:

are there any good, relatively recent articles that detail how hosed up the UC system is? I'm fascinated by how it works, how it changed over the years, dirt on the administration, etc.

Litany Unheard posted:

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi is on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Hopefully she gets poo poo-canned.

Keyser S0ze posted:

someone has to protect the flat roof tar mopping/TPO membrane industry!

fits my needs posted:

Lol. It's easy to be a "true liberal" when you're a six figure techie living in SF that walks to work or whatever. Sorry you don't think that BART isn't a critical piece of public infrastructure that should run regardless of if a BART janitor wants to make more money and get even better benefits than most commuters. A "little more time" makes it sound like they weren't loving over thousands of people by adding multiple hours to their commute times.

Also great idea making everything proprietary so we have to pay more for track and cars to upgrade this piece of poo poo system BART board! I guess we are too special to use the same train cars as everyone else .

FRINGE posted:

Anyone sane.

What kind of fucktard wants a private for-profit company managing automated fines?

incoherent posted:

Literally the only thing needed to be said on the topic.

Anyway, those who live in the better part of the state (LA County) make sure to vote yes on measure M to ensure we have a even better metro system when we get the olympics again (Because none of the northern part of the state could ever handle 3 olympics let alone one you poo poo NIMBY fygm'ers).

More rail
More connections to other counties
Better freeways (but mostly better public transit)


It's already in arizona.

semper wifi posted:

didnt some dude stab like 20 people to death in japan just this year

ComradeCosmobot posted:

KQED's Forum is talking about Mountain View's Measure V (rent control) this morning, and the apartment association spokesman is insufferably political. "Wah wah! You're changing the rules on property owners and that's UNFAIR!" "People who earn $150k and above will benefit from this more than poors! Won't somebody think of the poors?" (which conveniently forgets that this is exactly the reason Social Security still exists today) "What you should be doing is building more housing, not attacking existing housing owners! *proceeds to vote against new housing since it would hurt their income*"

Zachack posted:

Forum is total dogshit and I die inside every time I have to drive to Sacramento because I'm usually driving after morning rush hour which means news is ending (is there something bad about California Report) and Forum is beginning. I would rather listen to right wing AM radio in some weird reverberating southeast Asian language that sounds like a numbers station merged with a cult broadcast than have to listen to total loving dimwits obliterate what little faith I have in the electorate.

Driving home usually entails hearing the outro theme to Newshour and then being punished with the money show whatever it's called. Then because I'm crossing multiple mountain barriers/regions I lose all track of whatever animal-named station is playing classic rock (which now seems on the cusp of including Kid Rock and Korn as old enough to be classic) and I turn off the radio and drive in mute silence.

Ron Jeremy posted:

Michael Krasny has gotten a lot crankier in the time I've been listening to him (16 years). He's pretty much the living embodiment of the hot tub Marin liberal. There have been some really good shows though. I particularly liked his interview with Studs Terkel.

...but they love to poo poo on my A's, so they can go gently caress themselves.

I can only take so much of Democracy Now! I'm pretty much in line with their politics, but if I ever hear her mention oh bee tee dubs, I was in East Timor again, I will shoot myself. And her pronunciation drives me up the wall, mILLions....

The better show on KFPA is Letters and Politics, but even they have tried to turn it into a call-in show like forum, except their callers are even nuttier and less worth listening to.

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

lol at the fremont library, i've tutored chinese kids whose parents pushed carts at 99 ranch, vietnamese kids whose breadwinner is a laundromat owner, and sikh kids whose parents drive taxis, but sure i'll get in touch with em and tell them they're gentrifiers because a few aggrieved white bay area goons wagging their fingers at those people moving in said so

FCKGW posted:

the day i find out that Huell Howser had a sick poo fetish is the day i leave this godforsaken republic

Proud Christian Mom posted:

The Berkeley protests will push away those GOP moderates we've been courting!

FCKGW posted:

They're also the ones who constantly bitch about California so I imagine they would just gently caress off to Texas or whatever.

quote:

Funny that two weeks ago a friend warned me not to go near that dam when it rains. She said she has personally seen cracks in the dam itself (over twenty years ago) and they have been covering it up.

quote:

Meanwhile..residents are waiting for someone to tell them to evacuate..lol..dummies evacuate while you are ahead..dont trust these cats

DWR posted:

Despite rumors, Oroville Dam spillway has not collapsed. Additional damage to the spillway has occurred due to the increased flows, but is still being used.

quote:

Repair our Dams no train bullet

quote:

Every where is flooding i know what the echo system needs more water!

quote:

DWR are liars.they have no clue

quote:

drat they are stupid for opening it back up gonna be all bad here soon watch an see

quote:

DWR says there is no threat to the dam or public. They are the LAST people I would ever trust. If I lived in Oroville, Yuba City, Marysville, or anywhere along the Feather River I would stay the weekend elsewhere.