True T Map ~ @SaraMorrison on Boston's BS...

@SaraMorrison true-maps the Boston MBTA...

Snow Pros ~ Competent Removal vs Shitshow

Watching the local yokels here in Boston keep pushing snow around from street to sidewalk (and then back again) and dealing with it in what is surely the most incompetent possible fashion, inspires our visit to places that actually know what they're doing. First, Montreal... (But don't Get Plowed by the Canuck Mob while you're at it!-)

Next, Helsinki... Norway... Netherlands... Italy... Japan... Finally, stop your excuses, here's Hokkaido, Japan...

Six Californias ~ Draper on Rebooting Politics

VC Tim Draper proposes Six Californias in VB interview, saying it's...

"The right way to hold politicians more accountable and to make the state more governable. The deadline to gather 807,615 signatures and put it on the November ballot if July 18. He said that the state is a lot like a monopoly, with high costs, low satisfaction, and little choice for those who deal with it. He came up with the proposal after trying to fix California’s educational system for years. “I marveled at the number of choices we have in the private sector because of entrepreneurs,” he said. “Then I realized we only have one choice of government if we want to live in this kind of weather.”

Remember Pearl ~ Surprise, Failure, & Lessons

Imperial Japan's infamous attack on US forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 72 years ago today killed thousands and expanded WWII greatly. But it was such a surprise and so devastating largely because of unconcerned, inattentive, and incompetent intelligence, military, and government authorities, much like 9/11 sixty years later. Let that be the ultimate lesson:  visionary leadership, eternal vigilance, and creative ability are all three together paramount for civilization to survive the forces of malice and perfidy and indeed thrive towards human greatness, overcoming the evil irrationalities of colonial imperialism, religious fanaticism, and political collectivism.

Secret Science? ~ WSJ OpEd on EPA Perfidy...

US Rep Lamar Smith, Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology reveals in an WSJ OpEd The EPA's Game of Secret Science the unsavory and appalling fact that the bloatocracy refuses to reveal its research...

"As the Environmental Protection Agency moves forward with some of the most costly regulations in history, there needs to be greater transparency about the claimed benefits from these actions. Unfortunately, President Obama and the EPA have been unwilling to reveal to the American people the data they use to justify their multibillion-dollar regulatory agenda. [...] the agency is moving forward with strict new limits on ozone that by its own estimates will cost taxpayers $90 billion per year, which would make the regulation the most costly in history. [...] the EPA has obstructed the committee's request at every step. To date, the committee has sent six letters to the EPA and other top administration officials seeking the data's release. [...] Simple transparency is not the only reason this information should be released. The costs of these rules will be borne by American families. They deserve to know what they are paying for. [...] The federal government has no business justifying regulations with secret information. This principle has been supported by two of the president's own science and technology advisers [...] The EPA should reveal the research it uses and let the American people decide whether the agency's costly regulations are justified."

More evidence of complete and total corruption permeating government. Fire them all, I say.

For the Love of Physics ~ MIT's Walter Lewin!

You can never get too much of MIT's Walter Lewin! Alas, MIT has decided to persecute Professor Emeritus Lewin for his stupid personal outreach to some students which they claim is "harassment" or worse. MIT -- meaning the ankle-biters currently leading the Institute -- has decided via an extra-judicial process to not only banish Walter from his historical tenure-rights, but eliminate most of his videos. I consider this appalling and egregious overreach and anti-freedom, but I'm not one of the assholes in charge either, and they crap on me too for my outspokenness and willingness to call them on their infinite bullshit...

Boston Bombs ~ Can Defense & Security Work?

Today more terrorist atrocities. Again wondering if US$Trillions spent on "defense" and "homeland security" and "central intelligence" are well-spent. Here's Boston bombing raw... Map of crimes... Locational infographic... Killer, bomb, victim pictured together...

The Gatekeepers ~ Zionist Übermenschen Speak

Those responsible for securing the Zionist lebensraum dream speak... Plus, fascinating interview with filmmaker Dror Moreh... And DN has interview/review...

True US Debt ~ $87T = 550% GDP = $8T/Yr Tax

Bipartisan commissioners on entitlement and tax reform, Chris Cox and Bill Archer, shock us with facts in their WSJ OpEd piece Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt...

"For years, the government has gotten by without having to produce the kind of financial statements that are required of most significant for-profit and nonprofit enterprises [...] it does not include the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security and other outsized and very real obligations. [...] We most often hear about the alarming $15.96 trillion national debt (more than 100% of GDP), and the 2012 budget deficit of $1.1 trillion (6.97% of GDP). As dangerous as those numbers are, they do not begin to tell the story of the federal government's true liabilities. The actual liabilities of the federal government -- including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits -- already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. [...] When the accrued expenses of the government's entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. [But] if the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of these American taxpayers, plus all of the corporate taxable income in the year before the recession, it wouldn't be nearly enough [...] to fund the growth of U.S. liabilities."

This means political malfeasance and governmental incompetence of titanic proportions. We need a new generation of leaders in DC to steer the ship of state, which means electing more reality-minded and ethical people like MIT alumnus Representative Tom Massie!

Social Insecurity ~ Planet's Biggest Ponzi Scheme

Instead of investing mandatory "Social Security" tax money in some kind of income producing and productive investment, the US is in the middle of the biggest Ponzi scheme on the planet (exacerbated by the fact that everyone's forced to participate, so strictly speaking it's not a Ponzi, but let's not quibble). It's not much of a laughing matter and yet sometimes you just have to laugh at the grotesque incompetence of politicians as skewered in these killer cartoons spotted by International Liberty's Dan Mitchell...

Bicycle Infrastructure ~ Comparing NL & UK...

Mark Wagenbuur at BicycleDutch compares UK bicycling infrastructure to that in the Netherlands. Very eye-opening. He's too polite to say it directly, but the bottom-line is that the British urban planners and traffic engineers are grotesquely incompetent -- roughly as horrible as their American equivalents. Witness Mark's videos...

Sully vs Shitty ~ Stark Contrasts in Competence...

The stupid showboating, incredible incompetence, and absence of ethics in Costa Concordia disaster master, Captain Francesco "Shitty" Schettino, contrast dramatically with the actions and character of US Airways emergency landing pilot, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger...

"On January 15, 2009, the aircraft flying this route, an Airbus A320-214, was successfully ditched in the Hudson River adjacent to midtown Manhattan six minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport after being disabled by striking a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out. The incident became known as the Miracle On The Hudson. The bird strike, which occurred just northeast of the George Washington Bridge about three minutes into the flight, resulted in an immediate and complete loss of thrust from both engines. When the crew of the aircraft determined that they would be unable to reliably reach any airfield, they turned southbound and glided over the Hudson, finally ditching the airliner near the USS Intrepid museum about three minutes after losing power. All 155 occupants safely evacuated the airliner."

This is because the Captain and crew executed flawlessly...

"Shortly after taking off, Sullenberger reported to air traffic control that the plane had hit a large flock of birds, disabling both engines. Several passengers saw the left engine on fire. Sullenberger discussed with air traffic control the possibilities of either returning to LaGuardia airport or attempting to land at the Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. However, Sullenberger quickly decided that neither was feasible, and determined that ditching in the Hudson River was the only option for everyone's survival. Sullenberger told the passengers to "brace for impact", then piloted the plane to a smooth ditching in the river at about 3:31 P.M. All passengers and crew members survived. He later said, "It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I. We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking -- the silence." Sullenberger walked the unflooded part of the passenger cabin twice to make sure everyone had evacuated before retrieving the plane's maintenance logbook and being the last to evacuate the aircraft."

Contrast this with Costa's Shitty incompetence, lack leadership, and immorality. Then see here visualization of the US Airways emergency situation plus real-life air traffic control signals... And post-analysis with Captain Sully himself on 60 Minutes...

Nightvision Evac ~ Costa Via Coastie Chopper

Check out Italian Coast Guard nightvision video footage of Costa Concordia evacuation. Frightening as hell from a distance, it must have been terrifying to be caught in it... And here's more damning evidence from the Italian Coast Guard, a recording of CG Commander Gregorio Maria De Falco incredulous and outraged that Captain Francesco Schettino has not only abandoned ship while there are still pax on board but equivocating and effectively refusing to reboard to advise in the rescue. Grotesque. And in case you're curious, here's what this Captain's criminally idiotic showboating has destroyed... Here's GPS-map visualization of the path to destruction... And here's the latest Italian fashion, quoting De Falco telling the Chicken of the Sea to get the fuck back on board...

Killed by Incompetence ~ Latest MIT Death...

Very sad to hear MIT alumnus Phyo Kyaw was slaughtered Tuesday 12/27/2011 by a criminally careless truck driver while riding his bicycle at Mass Ave and Vassar. While this death is quite tragic -- and ought to be a capital case against the truck driver and a bankrupting civil case against the liable owner -- it's also a direct consequence of gross incompetence and complete safety neglect on the part of urban planners, traffic engineers, lawless drivers, absent or uncaring police, AWOL lawmakers, and for those rare court cases, spineless judges. Specifically, we have in Cambridge and Massachusetts today...

• Unsafe and totally inadequate bicycle lanes;
• Hazardous & poorly designed intersections;
  
• Unenforced speeding, red light, & cross-walk rules;
• Minimalist punishment of traffic & safety violations;
• Total absence of driver safety culture;
• Rampant road-rage & driving-while-distracted;
• Missing traffic intersection video recording & tracking;
• Inadequately strict driver-fault liability rules;
• Too few indictments, scarce convictions, & liberal sentences;
  
• And more.

In a just world, those directly and indirectly responsible would all be held criminally culpable for this death -- and for the many other related and entirely avoidable safety incidents between motor vehicles and the bicyclists and pedestrians they threaten daily. Let's look at the evidence: the photos show the murder victim's bike is crushed under the wheels of the JP Noonan-owned truck which is completely on the wrong side of the road. That driver should get the electric chair and yet the latest press reports indicate he's not even being charged. Even worse, an MIT campus policeman told me yesterday -- with a completely straight face, mind you -- that the word is "the bicyclist just ran into the truck" and that's why he died. So this vicious murder by means of criminally negligent and reckless driving is actually either an unfortunate "accident" or it's really the victim's own fault. Are you F#CKing kidding me?! This is completely appalling.

MV Reefed ~ NZ Maritime Disaster Unfolding...

gCaptain spotlights the MV Rena grounding, quoting the WSJ...

"...the worst environmental maritime disaster in New Zealand. [...] the containers on board, including the ones holding dangerous goods, are all intact on the vessel and [Maritime NZ] is monitoring the dangerous-goods containers. The vessel is carrying four containers of ferrosilicon, a solid matter that can give off hydrogen and cause a fire risk if it comes into contact with water."

Yikes! The BBC's Enviro Correspondent Richard Black writes...

"The authorities are asking questions of the Rena's captain as to how he came to crash into a well-known reef. In time, they may raise familiar questions over the flags of convenience system that effectively allows international shipping to operate without a host government having to take responsibility."

Makes me wonder: We have bigcos Schlumberger and Halliburton for oil exploration & energy development services, but who's the equivalently important & effective champion provider of emergency response & environmental remediation services? Here's the MV Rena owner apologizing...

Occupiers ~ Reason.tv Groks the "Movement"...

Reason.tv interviews the Occupiers, attempts to grok the "Movement"

MIT Energy Experiments ~ Campus as Living Lab!

Interesting and yet somewhat dismaying example of using MIT's campus as a testbed -- a Living Lab -- for experimental interventions and explorations. Rarely do you have a clear-cut controlled trial of comparables in energy efficiency, but the MIT East Campus parallel, equivalently symmetric dorm buildings were one such case. By fixing one set of "steam traps" while keeping the ill-maintained old group, we could see the performance advantages measured in steam consumption for a given temperature... This is trumpeted as a success-story, but, alas, the decisions which lead to decades of MIT deferred maintenance -- and consequent operational cost-waste -- have not been punished or recovered.

Startup Cemetery ~ Parochial Kendall Honorium

The Entrepreneur Walk of Fame in Kendall Square, Cambridge has just been unveiled -- and I'm pretty disappointed. Unfortunately, it really ought to be called the Kendall Startup Cemetery since honorees are remembered via carved memorial tombstones spread incoherently throughout the Marriott plaza.

What's worse, the selection committee picked a rather parochial and narrowly unrepresentative lineup of initial entrepreneurs: seven old white US men. Really? If nothing else this is a strategic and PR blunder of the first order. With over half of the selectees already dead maybe hence the granite tombstones instead of a 21st century modern medium? And with fully six from the electro/IT sector alone and just one from biotech/lifesci, you might reasonably ask what about energy, finance, transportation, entertainment, food, and the other dominant super-sectors which most people care about?

Plus, while both Hewlett and Packard were separately saluted as co-founders of HP, only Gates and Jobs and Edison and Swanson were listed as "Founder" of their ventures. But venturing is a team sport -- i.e. what about Allen and Wozniak and Thomson and Boyer and the other actual co-founders on the startups? These unacknowledged co-creators are mostly the people who actually first built things. So what kind of mediocre message are we conveying when only the promoter-frontman is acknowledged as seemingly the solo entrepreneur?

Beyond this, the selectees are not even our local Hub heroes since all but one are west-coasters, which makes it look like we have to borrow glory. Yes, entrepreneurs are everywhere -- but then why are none of these honorees internationals from beyond US? -- i.e. where 95% of humanity lives on Planet Earth and where over a quarter of MIT students come from? Where are the Indian, the Chinese, and the Middle Easterner or African, each representing roughly 1/5 of global population? Only three are MIT alums, so maybe that's a subtle stab for diversity. But how about alums like BOSE of speakers fame, ADLittle founder of management consulting, IMPei the architect, Kalmus of Technicolor, Dorrance of Campbell Soup, Nickerson who co-founded Gillette, Olsen of Digital Equipment, Baddour of AMGEN, or Noyce of Intel -- all higher impact entrepreneurs in their day or exemplars from different sectors. And, finally, where are any of our women entrepreneurs? None? Zero?! Please.

When I originally proposed the basic idea of a Hall of Heroes at MIT many years ago, at least I suggested a thoughtfully diverse pool. There are plenty of compelling candidates to pick from, including inventors, creators, and entrepreneurs worldwide! Until those in charge of this memorial hurry up and fix things, this attempted honorium is really ill-considered and embarrassingly old-school. We here should be able to salute a properly complete cross-section of our authentically real creatives.

War on Cycling ~ Toronto Mayor vs "Pinko" Bikers

Thanks to Calestous Juma for spotting Anna Soper's piece in the Guardian's Bike Blog noting that Toronto's removal of bike lanes marks opening salvo in 'war on cycling'...

"Relations between cyclists, pedestrians and drivers have grown fraught, and indeed deadly, in recent years. In January 2010, 14 pedestrians and one cyclist were killed in separate incidents. Regrettably, the new mayor and his administration have done little to diminish tensions [Since election, Mayor] Ford has done his best to halt the "war on cars" and keep bike-riding "pinkos" on our toes. Last month, the city council approved the removal of bike lanes on a major thoroughfare in downtown Toronto."

How's that for progress, eh?

Broom Army ~ Taking Out the Terrorist Trash...

The "feral rats" continue to infest London and other UK cities, but everyday citizens disgusted by wanton criminality and mob terrorism -- and these riotous scum (yes, scum) are indeed morally and behaviorally terrorists -- are fighting back as the Broom Army. If you recognize the scum, say the word to the papers or authorities.