Tag: government

Infrastructure

The other day a bridge collapsed (no, not the one in the picture). Old news, right? The NTSB is investigating, and they’re going to find that maintenance that should have been done, repairs that should have been made, renovations that should have been budgeted for, weren’t. I can say that without fear of contradiction; only the details are yet to be determined.

It’s not the first bridge to collapse, just the first big one this year. There’s other things that fall down when they aren’t supposed to as well. For a long time, we’ve been putting off repairs on our bridges, roads, schools, and other infrastructure, and the bill is coming due. It’s been bad enough for long enough that even Trump ran on promises to put money into infrastructure. This appealed to many of the people the Clinton campaign urged to “be reasonable.”

The Biden Administration did manage to get an infrastructure bill passed, but it’s probably too little and spread out over too many things. We also need state and local governments to get out the checkbooks and say “we need to fix this stuff before somebody gets hurt.” Oh but that will raise taxes. This is one of those cases where an ounce of prevention really is better than a pound of cure.

Regrettably, state and local governments want to argue over whether masks are important and what books should get banned instead of making sure the road less travelled remains a road at all.

Every Government Office and Agency Actually Mentioned in the Constitution

So, this is meant to give some perspective. A lot of the government offices we count on and see as “normal” are created after the fact. A few that are perennial targets are Constitutionally mandated. You are welcome to double check against any copy, but I’m using the version up at the National Archives.

Article I.

Section 1: the Congress, including the House of Representatives and Senate.

Section 2: Representatives, “electors” (now known as voters), and taxes. Regular “enumeration” of citizens (the Census), and a Speaker of the House.

Section 3: Senators, the Vice President, and President Pro Tempore. The President, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Impeachment are also mentioned here, but more on them later.

Section 5: Congressional records. Of course the Founding Fathers never envisioned TV, but C-SPAN is an interesting way of supplementing those records.

Section 6: Ok, nothing new is created here. I just wanted to point out that you can’t arrest a member of Congress on his way to a session unless it’s for “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace.”

Section 7: Bills and laws.

Section 8: This is a really meaty section on what Congress can do. They create money, regulate commerce and immigration, declare war, make laws, etc. Agencies created here include the Post Office, roads (so mail can be delivered), courts under the Supreme Court, the Navy, and the “Militia.” It’s worth noting that by the time this was written, the Marines were already a well established thing.

Article II.

Section 1: The President and Electoral College are officially created here.

Section 2: The Commander in Chief is also the President.

Section 3: The State of the Union address.

Section 4: Impeachment. Huh, pretty short Article here.

Article III.

Section 1: The Supreme Court and “inferior” courts.

Section 2: “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls” are mentioned.

Section 3: Treason is a thing.

Article IV.

Section 2: Interstate extradition is a thing.

Section 3: How Baby States Are Made.

Articles V, VI, and VII

Constitutional Amendments are a thing. The National Debt — yes, really. Ratification.

Please note how few things really spring directly from the Constitution. No law enforcement agencies whatsoever: no FBI, Federal Marshals, or anything of the sort. Taxes but no tax agencies. Immigration but no immigration offices. Not a word about any sort of schools or colleges. While the Interstate Highway System or Department of Transportation isn’t mentioned, one can argue that they stem from the postal road system. No political parties.

I hope you have found this interesting reading.

Yo, Brian Williams “Raps”

 

In Closing: Ok, we got us a whole bunch of NSA stuff, including some items courtesy of Comrade Misfit; college graduation season is a nice time for life lessons, such as “it’s a bad idea to hide the fact that you’ve dropped out, and a worse idea to hide that fact by calling in a bomb threat to graduation”; the American worker is still screwed, more so if they are of color, and that’s partly because certain people in government thought it was more important to bail out the banks and businesses; I don’t even know what to make of this (EDIT!!); read the labels, people; oops, maybe appealing to science was a bad idea; I clearly don’t link Dave Johnson enough; the real reason for the War on Teachers?; introducing Naia; and Godzilla is growing.

The iPhone

So here’s my iPhone. It’s ok. It’s way too easy to take a screenshot, unless of course you want to take one.

As you can see, just by looking at the main screen, I can tell what time it is, how much signal I’ve got, battery life, unread emails, even how many items are on my grocery list. If I had missed calls, voicemails, or text messages, they would show up here as well.

Here’s my frustration: It’s always 73 and sunny according to my phone.

Don’t get me wrong, it sounds trivial, and I know this is sort of a tough computer science kind of problem to solve. How often should this update? Should it pull data when I un-sleep it, or should data be pushed to it? Should it use use my GPS features to find and use my current location, or should it use my default location?

Well, I thought it was a hard problem. Until I noticed my partner’s Android phone showed him exactly what the temperature and forecast were every time he unlocked it.

Maybe a new phone in my future. Maybe.

In Closing: hoodie magic; muscle confusion; Depak Desai takes the 5th; Strong government; and the importance of commas.

Clive Barker’s SHORTIESRAISER

Ok!  Let’s clear some browser tabs!

Yahoo!: Not so excited about Wall Street protesters.

Anybody Surprised?: OnStar selling your data. But have no fear, they won’t give it to the FBI for free. Unless they ask sweetly.

To think I’ve been paying money for this: How to make your own ricotta.

Explain it again: seriously, how does lower taxes for wealthy individuals cause these guys to create jobs?

It was still the damned scopes: Desai will stand trail.

From the Archive of Great Headlines: Anonymous US Officials push open government (HT).

Drew hits the nail on the head: How some people think it’s obviously meant to read.

More missing good old days that were only good for wealthy white Protestant folks: colleges becoming increasingly unaffordable, and scholarships becoming increasingly scarce.

Don’t travel with cash: Unless you can afford to lose it.

We’re Number One!: In a bad way. Nevada leads the nation in domestic violence killings. Remember SafeNest.

Silence: At what point do we get noisy?

About the Ladies: Middle Class White Guy and crimes vs. reported crimes.

Wish I were surprised: Fewer than one in 4 people can correctly identify all 3 branches of our Government.

And last…

Oh Hai!: I brought you something!