Thanksgiving

Enjoy your holiday, everyone.

Barring any action in Durham so stupid that i have to snark about it over the weekend, i'll be back on Monday.

Continue reading Thanksgiving

Wrong

Looks like i was wrong about this census worker in Kentucky.

Still seems like an awful lot of work to go through. Occam's Razor, and all that.

Continue reading Wrong

Good transportation news

City press release:

To put more focus on transportation and transit issues facing Durham and the Triangle region, Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield has announced the creation of a new Department of Transportation for the City of Durham to be headed by long-time transportation manager, Mark Ahrendsen.

Mark's one of the good guys in city government. I'm looking forward to seeing some real movement on transportation issues now that it's a separate department.

Continue reading Good transportation news

The real miracle

The real miracle of the Belgian coma patient is that his government run death panel failed to do its job for 23 years.

Continue reading The real miracle

Happy birthday, Moose and Squirrel

Oh, man, how did i miss this?
>

Continue reading Happy birthday, Moose and Squirrel

You will never see this happen in American sports

Mets fans, take note:

Wigan's players have pledged to refund the ticket price for any of the club's fans who attended their side's 9-1 thrashing at the hands of Tottenham at White Hart Lane yesterday,

. . .

"The club have announced that the players of Wigan Athletic have decided to personally refund every Latics fan who bought a ticket from the DW Stadium ticket office for the match against Tottenham Hotspur," a statement read.

The club captain, Mario Melchiot, insisted that the team will be able to respond to the defeat, but said the fans "must not be taken for granted. We feel that as a group of players we badly let down our supporters yesterday, and this is a gesture we have to make and pay them back for their tremendous loyalty."

Continue reading You will never see this happen in American sports

Strategy

For the past 40 years or so, Republicans have opposed every Democratic initiative, hoping to pick off a few "moderate" or "conservative" Democrats to vote against their party. They reason, correctly, that Americans will figure that if the Democrats can't stand up to a bunch of wheezing old fart bed-wetters, how in the world will they stand up to our real enemies.

That Blanche Linclon, Ben Nelson, and Mary Landrieu haven't figured this out yet is one of life's enduring mysteries.

Continue reading Strategy

Commissioners followup

I've written and said this on a number of occasions. On its merits, i'm really agnostic about the proposed 751 Assemblage development. I'm not convinced that a high density urban core development belongs on the shores of Jordan Lake. Nor am i necessarily in favor of the lower density suburban sprawl development that the site is already zoned for.

That aside, though, it's pretty clear to me that the actions of the current Board of County Commissioners are unconscionable. Too bad it's three years before we can send some of these clowns packing.

In the meantime, the only resolution to the matter at hand is to move the issue of the validity of the protest petition files by opponents of the project to court. Either we live in a county where the rules are applied fairly to all citizens, or we don't. Certain members of the BoCC seem to feel that it's the latter.

If you want to show them that's not the case, the best way to do that now is to support a lawsuit against the Commissioners to get them to recognize the opinion of the Durham City/County Planning Department that a protest petition filed against the 751 Assemblage project was valid. Do this by sending a check (put 'Jordan Lake Protest Petition Suit' in the memo) made out to "Ragsdale Liggett Trust Account" and mailing it to Ragsdale Liggett, PLLC, Post Office Box 31507, Raleigh 27622

Want some more info on this? Send an email to mmr121570 AT yahoo DOT com with "Jordan Lake Lawsuit" in the subject line.

Continue reading Commissioners followup

Dog

Last Wednesday, i mentioned in an aside to another post, that i had spent a good bit of time with an apparently stray dog in my neighborhood waiting for Animal Control to come by and pick him up. Eventually i had to go to work, but what i heard is that Animal Control eventually showed up and cited the owner. Although, according to AC, he claimed that the dog was a stray, and he wasn't really the owner. Either way, there's a pretty healthy, intact male dog running around loose for the past 10 days or so on Rand Street, near the greenway between Markham and Green.

On Saturday, i was able to get him to follow me to my house, about a mile and a half away, long enough to take these photos.


The Animal Control Department has advised me that it would be a violation of current law if i were to keep the dog myself without adopting him through the county. OK, i can live with that. As it turns out, it's been 4 years since my last dog died, and i haven't had to check how secure my yard is since then. Sometime overnight, he found a weak spot in the fence, and left.

So, how long till the Animal Control Department catches him?

This picture was taken on the greenway Thursday afternoon. It's been two weeks or more since this dog was first reported as running loose on Rand and Pamlico. How many puppies will he sire before he's picked up?

Continue reading Dog

Closed session - UPDATED

The Durham County Board of Commissioners will meet in a Closed Session at
10:00 a.m., Thursday, November 19, 2009, in the Commissioners’ Conference Room (second floor of the Durham County Administrative Complex, 200 East Main Street) to consult with an attorney, to preserve the attorney-client privilege, and to discuss Southern Durham Development, Inc. v. Durham County; Filed in Durham County Superior Court (File No. 09 CVS 004125) pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 143-318.11(a)(3).

As one of my commenters suggested:

The subtext to Thursday's closed session of the BOCC goes something like this:

"The county is going to be sued by whichever party we rule against. One of the primary determinants of the cost of defending a lawsuit is the amount of money and time the plaintiff is willing/able to spend on the lawsuit. Southern Durham Development has already filed suit, and their client has millions of dollars in property development value riding on it. The Haw River Assembly and Southern Environmental Law Center haven't demonstrated that they can or will bring the same firepower to the courtroom. So, the best way to save the county a bunch of money is to deny the protest petition and hunker down."

Just so.

UPDATE: County Commissioners emerged from closed session about 45 minutes ago, and County Attorney Lowell Siler stated that the Board's action on October 12th, in which a 3-2 majority approved moving the critical watershed boundary around Jordan Lake, would be upheld, despite the Planning Department's opinion that a protest petition filed against the move was valid. The County Attorney's office will argue that one of the signatures on the petition, belonging to the president of a homeowners association, is not valid due to the lack of standing of that person to sign on behalf of the property owned in common by the HOA. He further stated that the matter could only be decided in Superior Court, inviting additional lawsuits against the county from private citizens and other groups that have been opposing the redrawing of the watershed boundary. Commissioner Becky Heron indicated that the board was not unanimous in supporting that position, although no vote was taken during the closed session.

I'll have a full report on this development tonight on Shooting the Bull, 7:30 pm, on WXDU, 88.7 FM.

Jim Wise at the N&O, Samiha Khanna at the Indy, and Matt Milliken at the Herald-Sun also have reports on today's developments.

Continue reading Closed session - UPDATED

France . . .

Had better not win the World Cup next year.

Just sayin'.

Continue reading France . . .

An open letter

To our County Commissioners.

Dear Durham Board of County Commissioners:

I know you've all got a lot on your plates this week, what with the Jordan Lake fiasco and probably having to justify not overturning an illegal vote and all that. Or maybe you feel you don't need to even talk about it with your constituents. That's OK. I don't want to talk to you about Jordan Lake anyway.

No, I want to talk to you about what i think is a pretty big hole in Durham County's animal ordinances. You see, if i go to the County animal shelter to adopt a dog, i have to be vetted personally, my home has to be approved as a place that's safe for a dog, and i have to agree to pay for spaying or neutering the dog. Those are all good things.

We don't want the county in the business of giving animals to people who are going to abuse them, or conduct experiments on them, or allow them to run all over town making litters of unwanted puppies that we're not going to be able to deal with in the future.

So why is it that, if i already own a dog that's running around loose in town, i can go to the county animal shelter and pick him up without having to be approved as a dog owner? Why am i allowed to recover that dog without demonstrating that i have a safe, secure location to keep the dog in? Why don't i have to get that dog spayed or neutered? I mean, the owner of an intact dog that's been picked up by the Animal Control department has already demonstrated that they're not concerned with the potential of unwanted litters. Wouldn't it make sense, both morally and financially, to require owners of dogs that have been picked up loose in town to have them spayed or neutered as a condition of their release?

Or do you believe that putting down 400 animals per month at our dog shelter is a good use of resources? Maybe it's that none of you live in places where animals are mistreated or allowed to wander streets on their own. Or maybe it's simply that you've got other things on your minds. I understand that. The Jordan Lake debacle has showcased so many flaws in our development process that trying to fix them must be nearly a 24/7 endeavor.

But if you get a few minutes, perhaps you could consider making this minor change in our animal ordinances. Thousands of puppies, as well as the technicians whose job it is to kill them, will thank you.

As will I.

UPDATE: City of Los Angeles spay/neuter law:

All dogs and cats must be spayed or neutered after the age of four months. Exemptions are provided for animals used in show and performance competitions, service animals, animals whose health would be endangered by the procedure, and animals with breeding permits.

Note that this applies to all dogs and cats, not just those being retrieved from the custody of the city or county. I assume that third rate legal challenges to this ordinance have been tried and failed.

Note also that i am not advocating for this position at all. I think it's much better that people become educated enough that they realize the benefits of spay/neuter on their own. Perhaps those who make their living breeding dogs can, instead of the discount they currently receive from the county of Durham for owning multiple unspayed/intact dogs, actually pay licensing and business fees that would support the kind of outreach programs necessary to implement near universal voluntary spay/neuter.

What i am suggesting is that, given that the county requires all animals adopted out of the shelter to be spayed/neutered, it similarly requires all animals released from impoundment to their owner to be spayed/neutered.

Continue reading An open letter

Yikes! Jordan Lake case gets ugly

Pass the popcorn:

If valid, the petition would have required a 4-1 "super majority" vote to approve the rezoning and amendment. However, the planning department ruled it invalid because the signatories represented less than the necessary 20 percent of affected acreage, and the changes passed 3-2.

After the vote, the SELC reviewed ownership records and claimed the planning department had been mistaken and that the changes failed to win approval.

In an email this morning to County Manager Mike Ruffin, Durham resident Steve Bocckino said Medlin's report "deemed valid" the petition.

"Now that the long-overdue verdict is widely known (and it is!), it is the appropriate time to formally announce the previous error," Bocckino said.

This comedy of errors would be funny if it didn't affect, you know, the entire future of development in Durham County.

How long will it be before Commissioner Bowser tries to fire Steve Medlin?

Continue reading Yikes! Jordan Lake case gets ugly

The Prisoner

Was better than i expected.

Hooray for sweeps months.

Continue reading The Prisoner

Deep thought

For a couple of months there, i actually believed that the crazy this country has been living under since we first elected Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968 might be coming to an end.

Good times, man. Good times.

Continue reading Deep thought

I miss Pogo

Continue reading I miss Pogo