Upcoming Meeting On Long Term Control Plan for Gowanus CSOs

Our antiquated combined sewer system regularly puts the "anus" in Gowanus.  Come out and learn what the city's plans are to fix it, and contribute your own ideas.  Should be ab interesting follow-up to the September meeting on the siting of potential CSO retention tanks that CB6 hosted.

Public Meeting On the CSO Long Term Control Plan for the Gowanus Canal

Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Public School 32
317 Hoyt St, Brooklyn, NY 11231
6:00pm to 8:00pm

Doors open at 6:00pm
DEP will give a brief presentation at 6:30 followed by a question and answer session.

When there are heavy rains and the sewer system is at full capacity, a diluted mixture of rain water and sewage, also known as combined sewage, may overflow into local waterways as a combined sewer overflow (CSO). The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is developing a CSO Long Term Control Plan (LTCP) that will identify and evaluate alternatives to improve the water quality of the Gowanus Canal.  In addition to developing alternatives through the LTCP process, DEP is currently working with the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Superfund process to site and design CSO retention tanks.

Citibike Is Coming!

The yellow areas will get Citibike before we do.

By 2017 Citibike will have expanded into Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Gowanus, Red Hook . .  . in fact all of CB6, as well as northern Manhattan, more of Brooklyn and parts of Queens. I can't wait!

And former MTA head Jay Walder will be running the show - that was a shocker.

CHA Meeting: Move-NY Presentation for Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens TONIGHT

Move-NY will give a presentation at the Cobble Hill Association's meeting tonight, and CHA has graciously welcomed Carroll Gardeners to the session.  Move-NY is the new and improved incarnation of the Sam Schwartz equitable transportation plan, which would cut down on traffic, create a steady stream of funding for maintenance and improvement of our transportation networks, and more fairly distribute the toll burden throughout the city.  It's a damn good plan.

All that and free snacks?  You'd be a fool to miss out on this!

The Grand Bargain Clutches At Dems From Beyond The Grave

The "Grand Bargain" proposed to cut popular, useful programs like Social Security and Medicare was atrocious policy and even worse politics.  Everyone who advocated for this is guilty of political malpractice at best, and their advice should not be taken seriously by Democrats. 

A short history of the Grand Bargain and why it's still biting us in the ass #2014 #ads

"It was always bizarre that a Democratic president would believe that an epic economic downturn was a good time to worry about deficits and try to strike a bargain to cut the Party's signature domestic economic achievement --- an achievement  which had lifted massive numbers of people out of poverty. It was conceived as a "go to China" moment in which only a Democrat could cut Social Security without being demagogued by Democrats. Apparently it didn't occur to these visionaries that the Republicans were increasingly dependent on the elderly for votes and would be happy to demagogue the Democrats instead.  Certainly no one should have depended on their honesty and integrity. There have been few more misguided initiatives than the relentless pursuit of a Grand Bargain during the president's first term. And the Party continues to pay a price for that mistake. Fortunately for the Democrats no bargain was actually struck and a light is now shining on the inequities in the funding stream for the programs and a new approach is slowly being accepted as the new agenda: raise the cap on social security taxes and raise benefits. If the Party puts that in its platform and really gets behind it, it might even win back the support of the elderly. And then the GOP will have a real problem on its hands. "

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-short-history-of-grand-bargain-and.html

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Ron Fournier Has Become A Parody of Himself

This intro made me laugh out loud. 

Fournier-cation: Self-Service Edition

"Itinerant Rove-stenographer Ron Fournier, who once emitted a squid cloud of butt-hurt so opaque that Glenn Greenwald called him out for being a petulant crybaby, has written scads of tiresome columns earnestly urging Obama to be more leader-y. But his latest is the Platonic Ideal of a Fournier column, and the header captures the tone perfectly: "

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/10/24/fournier-cation-self-service-edition/

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Just In Time For The Weekend

Mmm, binge-watching. 

Unlimited free streaming of The Simpsons

This happened a few days ago, but I just got a chance to check it out: FXX launched Simpsons World , a site where you can stream every Simpsons episode ever aired. You just need a cable login, as with…

http://kottke.org/14/10/unlimited-free-streaming-of-the-simpsons

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Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

This is the most important article you'll read today. I'm impressed that Newsweek ran this long and well composed piece.  The excerpt below is not even the best part, which is the first half of the article detailing Schmidt and Cohen's visit to Assange in exile. Creepy. 

www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447

"Google is perceived as an essentially philanthropic enterprise—a magical engine presided over by otherworldly visionaries—for creating a utopian future. The company has at times appeared anxious to cultivate this image, pouring funding into "corporate responsibility" initiatives to produce "social change"—exemplified by Google Ideas.

But as Google Ideas shows, the company's "philanthropic" efforts, too, bring it uncomfortably close to the imperial side of U.S. influence. If Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi was running a program like Google Ideas, it would draw intense critical scrutiny. But somehow Google gets a free pass.

Whether it is being just a company or "more than just a company," Google's geopolitical aspirations are firmly enmeshed within the foreign-policy agenda of the world's largest superpower. As Google's search and Internet service monopoly grows, and as it enlarges its industrial surveillance cone to cover the majority of the world's population, rapidly dominating the mobile phone market and racing to extend Internet access in the global south, Google is steadily becoming the Internet for many people. Its influence on the choices and behavior of the totality of individual human beings translates to real power to influence the course of history.

If the future of the Internet is to be Google, that should be of serious concern to people all over the world—in Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the former Soviet Union and even in Europe—for whom the Internet embodies the promise of an alternative to U.S. cultural, economic, and strategic hegemony."

Download the official Twitter app here

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