You Forgot Again This Year Too, Didn't You?

Friday Happy Hour

Politics after my own heart:

Barack Obama had a drinks party at the White House on Wednesday night. He invited congressional leaders of both parties for cocktails at 7:30... The cocktail invitation could be a polite gesture—they hosted him Tuesday on the Hill, and he wants to return the favor; or it could be a stratagem—after being with them so much, Obama realizes that everyone could use a good drink. Or it could be a philosophical statement: Sobering times do not necessarily require everyone to be sober.

In vino veritas, and all that.

I respect everyone's deeply held political beliefs. Everyone should believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.

Report: City Road Maintenance Could Be Improved

An in depth report indicating that Pittsburgh can do a better job in road plowing, patching, paving was released today by the City's Friggin' Obvious Department.

"You see you have these street in the City, right? And they need fixed, right? So we should fix them," said Department Director Noah S. Sherlock. "And when it snows, we should plow those roads, unless it doesn't snow."

The Report found that years of deferred maintenance on bridges, roads, and other public right-of-ways meant that future costs of repairs were larger, and not smaller as was initially believed by elected officials. It is easier to fix a small problem now when it is small, then a large problem in the future when it is large.

This revelation came as a shock to the Mayor's Office, who released a statement saying that they were were unaware that "a lot" was more than "a little."

In a polling of City residents, when asked which road or street was most in need of repair, nearly 95% of respondents said "My Street." Director of Public Works Guy Costa was immediately dispatched to service My Street, which was later discovered to be My Way, and exist in the Municipality of Monroeville.

Data also indicates that residents complaints to the City's 3-1-1 line increased dramatically (over 1000%) from 2006 to 2007, although the relationship between this increase and the beginning of the 3-1-1 line still remains inconclusive.

Last year, the Ravenstahl Administration spent $100,000 in grant money to research the best way to lower the temperature of ice so that it would melt and not be a road hazard. After several attempts, researchers discovered that "salt" could be poured onto streets to actually lower the melting point of the ice. Streets that did not receive "salt" treatments were more likely to remain hazardous. The Department of Public works now "salts" more than 50% of the streets in the City.

Mr. Sherlock also revealed that potholes could be filled in by digging out a square of asphalt around the hole, cleaning out debris and water, filling it with patching material, compacting it, and sealing the edges. City officials have said they use first few parts of that method, but do not have the resources to fill the holes yet.

"By not filling in the holes, they are letting the potholes remain," he said.

This is the first report out of the Department of the Friggin' Obvious since its creation out of the City's Bureau of What Are You Stupid or Something? and the Commission of I Can't Believe I Pay You For This! The Department plans to release further studies on the appearance of water on roads during rainstorms and on where Pittsburgh goes when the lights are turned off.

A Weather Aside

You know, with a twelve year old mayor running the City, I would have expected him to call a preemptive snow day for Pittsburgh, so we could all stay at home, sled, roast marshmallows over the fire, and make snow angels.

I'm very disappointed.

A Guantanamo Aside

After hearing Rep. John Murtha's comments on moving Gitmo prisoners to the U.S., I get the sense that this is to be construed as a threat to terrorists.

I mean, have you ever been to Murtha's district? It's like a less refined version of Deliverance. When folk speak derisively of "Pennsyltucky," this is the place that they're talking about. After 24 hours in Greene County anyone would confess to anything: terrorism, kidnapping, canceling Arrested Development... anything.

Although, I suppose that this is all an empty threat considering the administration has outlawed torture...

Things I'm Not Quite Sure About pt. 2

I'm not quite sure about the proposal to sell or lease Pittsburgh's parking garages to a private firm in order to provide cash to fund the ongoing pension obligations.

So the primary reason to do this, of course, is to offset the huuuuuuge deficit we have in the pension fund, about $600 million or so right now, based on my hasty math. That amount is bad and it's eating into the City's ability to do other stuff or lower local taxes, depending on which side of the economic coin you favor.

Now, the problem is that the pension obligation isn't really going down (well, unless there's a culling of the the retiree population). A pension obligation will continue into the foreseeable future, so a one time sale will provide a one time influx of cash. This will balance the budget in the short term, but will not necessarily be a sustainable solution.

I suppose there's a long term solution if the City wisely invested this money in the stock market (*snicker*) or some sort of (*chuckle*) investment bank or (*guffaws*) municipal credit default swaps. (*wipes tears from eye*) But seriously folks, they might as well just invest in Hummel figurines.

Let's step back a second. Is this kind of sale even really legal? Isn't the Parking Authority a separate legal entity? Isn't its obligation to its own bond holders and not the City's? I can't really wrap my heads around what amounts to parents telling their kids to pay the parents' credit card bills. Maybe it's just me.

And finally, I'm not the kind of person that believes that the government should own everything, but what the parking tax debacle has taught us is that the private market understands that the price of parking in Downtown is sticky. When the tax went down, prices in private lots stayed up; only the Parking Authority (after political pressure, admittedly) reduced their rates. So, I can see some advantage to keeping some measure of control on these prices for the public good.

Again, I'm not quite sure of all this and I hope folks that understand this kind of stuff more than me will be able to work it out. (*snicker*)

Things I'm Not Quite Sure About pt. 1

So this was in the P-G and the Trib today.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl today led off an all-day seminar for city building inspectors, planners, engineers and redevelopment officials on the potential for, and problems with, solar energy here. The mayor said that by fall, city government plans to install its first solar facility -- a hot water heating system -- on a fire house, either in Observatory Hill or Westwood....

Meanwhile, a city task force aided by research firm Sandia National Laboratories will continue to look at ways of evaluating other city buildings for transitioning to solar power, and ways of removing bureaucratic, financial and technical barriers to putting solar systems on private buildings...

Now, on one hand you have a move by the City to try to reduce dependence on sources of power that cause greenhouse gases.

On the other hand, you could probably do something comparable by something as simple as making sure the firehouses close their doors when they leave or turning off lights when people leave conference rooms.

On another hand, you have an opportunity to encourage local solar manufacturing and electrical services.

On a further hand, you have a city without a whole lot of sunny days which will still need to draw additional power from other sources during the winter months.

On a fifth hand, you have an opportunity for a really sexy public relations coup for the mayor, who can look all "hip" and "green" and "jiggy"... if the kids still use those words anymore.

On a sixth hand, it would probably be easier to plant a whole lot of trees in the City.

On a seventh hand, buying, installing, owning and maintaining large solar arrays on public buildings is probably not cost effective, which would necessitate some sort of leasing arrangement with private power firm to use the space to return additional power to the grid, with some extra power being generated for the city.

On the eighth hand, well, if you've gotten this far, you're probably an octopus.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are probably a whole bunch of really good compelling reasons for installing solar equipment in and for the City, but there are costs (both up front and opportunity) that probably offset much of this. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving the City money and making the City more environmentally responsible, but it would probably be a whole easier to throw a whole load of insulation into 414 Grant Street, keeping all the hot air inside.

A Football Aside

Putting a bit of history into Superbowl XIII:

During WWII professional football faced player shortages, and the Steelers merged twice with other NFL franchises in order to field a team. In 1944, they merged with the Chicago Cardinals and were known as Card-Pitt -- or derisively, the "Carpets".

They went 0-10 that season.

Business Casual Friday

A silly time waster for those of you that are interested in (1) Politics, (2) Interior Decorating, and (3) Temporary Swedish Furniture That Can Almost Ruin Your Relationship with Your Significant Other and That Will Suddenly Collapse When You Try to Have Makeup Sex...

Um... not that we've ever done anything like that.

Embrace Change, by IKEA

Don't forget to check out the Resolüt Desk on page 59 of the catalog.

Obama "Already F*cking Sick" of "Hail to the Chief"

(Reuters) Washington D.C. - Only three days into the new administration, high level aides to President Barack Obama have revealed to the media that Mr. Obama is already "Fucking Sick" of Presidential anthem Hail to the Chief.

"It's not like he doesn't appreciate the sentiment," says Senior adviser David Axelrod, "It's just that every time he enters the room, he hears ruffles and flourishes and then that damned song. He leaves, comes back and they play it again.... He has at least four years of this."

The 1821 tune has been the official march of the President of the United States since 1954 and is played at every public appearance by the President. Most Presidents get used the song eventually, but Mr. Obama seems to have embraced an early antipathy towards it.

"I heard him mumbling lyrics in the Oval Office yesterday," said Deputy Chief of Staff Mona Sutphen. "Mostly it involved wanting pie and no ice cream."

Former President Bill Clinton tried to work in the words to the Beverly Hillbillies; George W. Bush on the other hand sang the lyrics to the 1963 Trashman hit "Surfin' Bird."

"The President is seriously asking the Marine Band to play something from P-Funk or Run DMC," said Ms. Sutphen, "although at this point, he'd be happy with some Earth, Wind, and Fire.