What is it with dog poop and Norwalk? Today, as I was investigating the latest developments in the garbage proposal, conversation turned to one of my more favorite issues, flooding and the progress of the storm water drainage projects. For those of you who think DEP approvals fall from trees, the status of the Lockwood/Buckingham pipe replacement project should give you pause. You see, before issuing a permit to replace the storm water draingage pipe, the DEP measures for thigns like e-coli. And it turns out that the existing pipe has high levesl of e-coli, so no permit.

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Over at Washington Monthly, a great blog btw, for the national poltics/ LA / California somewhat lefty-centrist slant, a post about people making sh*t up. Ah, yes, perhaps the blogsphere is on the same page as I am today. Here’s what prompted the post:

Michael Bloomberg did a remarkable thing last Friday; he went to Florida and told Jewish voters that people frequently make sh*t up. His statement was blindingly obvious, yet truly remarkable; given the history of the past twenty years, it’s amazing how rarely voters are given similar warnings. People will lie to you, Bloomberg said.

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Presumably people who are interested in public policy should know how our local government works. But sadly George Carlin is right when he said it takes about 8 seconds to determine if someone is stupid. Today’s Hour:

According to Lauricella, the trash-hauling issue has spawned a group called Neighbors For Open Government. A petition is circulating asking the “Common Council to table the two City Carting items on their Tuesday, June 24, agenda and hold a second public hearing next week in order to continue the fact-finding process,” Lauricella said.

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Hartford legislators cut the funding for the Early Reading Success program, based on the lack of success in the program everywhere else but Norwalk. Yet the BOE has funded it. From The Hour:

The Early Reading Success program will continue for Norwalk students next school year through
some carry-over funding from different sources, said School Superintendent Salvatore J. Corda.

Legislators decided not to make a budget adjustment for the money when they met on May 7, citing the lack of growth for students in the program and the struggling economy as reasons to stop the funding. Norwalk lost $1 million in funding. However, the Central Office has restored much of the funding for the salaries of all 12 literary specialists and restoring six school positions.

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Ever wonder where you federal tax dollars are really spent? Updated for 2009.

The 2009 version is worlds apart from the 2006 version which may still linger in your neurons. There is so much more in the six square feet of paper this time. Over 500 line items of federal budget awesomeness. Increased accuracy and aesthetics as well. I am really trying to educate the populace on their investment in the government. Especially since the actual numbers differ so much from the rhetoric. Renewable energy spending cut 27% next year! This is important information, and responsible citizens need to know it. It’s my experiment in DIY government over-site.

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Carlin always told it like he saw it. Most people would agree. And some people are stupid.

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And for the rest of the slow news weekend updates an open thread for anything on your minds. Today’s musical guest is The Kills, Passion Is Accurate.

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Colin McEnroe’s column in the Courant today digs into the recent legislative action on gas prices, by way of a Hartford ode on traffic, dream of a roundabout, knock at the CT DOT and identifying Hartford legislators and their staffs as “stupidheads.” Highlights:

Modern roundabouts — the traffic intersection of choice in many other parts of the world — are statistically safer than signal intersections and they keep traffic moving more smoothly. For those reasons, they have been opposed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which believes that people are safest when they have just been in a traffic accident and when their cars cannot move at all.

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The LA Times chronicles the impact of a falling dollar ’round the world. It’s a good story and you can read into the effects that a continued weak dollar will have on the US economy fairly easy. When our manufacturers in China and India see no profit based on the exchange rate, something will change. Either the dollar will stop being the currency of contracts, something the entertainment industry has already figured out, or that price of manufactured goods will raise erratically. Uncertainty of course is something the industrial world doesn’t like. There’s been many articles writing about the threat of the petro dollar soon becoming the petro euro. Should this happen, all those treasury notes held by foreign companies instantly devalue. If you think credit is tight now ….

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Lee Whitnum has forced an August 12th primary in the the 4th congressional district race. The Democratic party flunkies had endorsed Jim Himes as the candidate to challenge Congressman Chris Shays at the Democratic 4th CD nominating convention. This was after months of Himes dutifully making the rounds of DTCs and other flunkie gathering events. Whitnum too had been making the rounds, just seemingly without traction. So it comes as a surprise that she achieved the 2% threshold of signatures of Democratic registered voters to trigger a primary.

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