Her down to Earth attitude and soulful vocals have Crystal Bowersox well on her way to striking gold at next month’s American Idol finale….and naturally here come the vulgars! The Sandusky Register, a local newspaper in Crystal’s hometown of Elliston, Ohio, claims that “celebrity gossip magazines” and various websites have been sneaking around town “digging for all the dirt they can find” on the crooner.
According to The Register, even a reporter from The National Enquirer has been snooping around and “looking for tips” about the private life of the single mother of one.
Without disclosing specific details, Republican governor candidate Bill Brady said today that his income tax returns will reflect that it has been a tough couple years in the home building business.
"They will show that my family business is struggling in an economy that has been a burden on all businesses in Illinois. It has not been good," said Brady, a state senator from Bloomington whose downstate construction business made him wealthy during the boom years of the 1990s.
Brady is releasing his tax returns after Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, his rival in November for the governor’s mansion, pressured him to do so. Quinn released his tax returns earlier this week.
Reporters will get a chance to look at Brady’s tax records for three hours Friday afternoon at his Springfield campaign office. That led to complaints from some reporters in Chicago who don’t want to drive to the capital.
"I am making available my tax returns. You can scrutinize them all you want," said Brady at a news conference at a Chicago hotel where a closed-door fundraiser is being held to benefit the Illinois Republican Party.
As reported before, the Android-powered Archos 7 Home Tablet isn’t the most powerful device in its category, however, it’s shaping up as a great value for what it can offer. I suppose Dell, HTC and Google are talking about the devices you want but Archos isn’t like them, oh no, they are allowing you to pre-order this tablet for the budget friendly price of $199.99 over at Amazon. I wouldn’t get upset over the reported spec of 13-plus-pounds, the last time I checked this guy was sitting pretty at under a pound. If you’re itching for some 720p HD playback in a sweet Android package, this guy is a fair steal. [Amazon via Pocketables.net]
We had a great time last night at a panel discussion on extrasolar planets, right here at my very own institution of Caltech, sponsored by our very own Discover magazine, and hosted by our very own Bad Astronomer. The panelists included Gibor Basri, John Johnson, Sara Seager, and Tori Hoehler. They did a great job at getting across the most important message: this is a field that has taken a tremendous leap forward in the past ten years, and is poised to make comparable strides in the years to come. A lot of the excitement right now centers on the Kepler satellite, which is on track to find hundreds of extrasolar planets. You can get an idea of recent progress from a graph of extrasolar planets discovered over the years.
From the perspective of the person on the street, planets are pretty cool — but life on other planets is what’s really cool. (Or would be, if we found it.) And frankly, it’s not even the prospect of life that gets people going; it’s the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Tori mentioned that he was slightly surprised, some years ago when there was a report (later discredited) that we had found evidence for life on meteorites from Antarctica, that people didn’t make a big deal out of it — it was exciting, but not Earth-shattering. I suspect that microbes, no matter where they’re from, aren’t going to shatter most people’s Earths; that will take some sort of greeting, friendly or otherwise.
Still, it’s amazing what has been done, and the prospects for doing more are pretty breathtaking. Here’s one idea that I find pretty clever: searching for the Red Edge. You know how plants appear to be really bright in infrared photographs? That’s because they reflect a lot of infrared light, but tend to absorb regular visible red light. In a spectrum, where we decompose the reflected light into different wavelengths, this phenomenon shows up as a sharp “edge” as you go from infrared (on the right here) to red light. The idea would be that something similar should happen even for very different kinds of life — so if you found a planet whose spectrum featured the red edge, that would be a promising place to hope for finding life.
I have no way of judging how feasible this technique really is — in particular, I’m always skeptical of claims that rely on alien forms of life resembling ours in any way. (The authors do emphasize that an extraterrestrial red edge might not be at the same wavelength as ours.) But I like it because it relies on an underlying truth of which I am quite fond — the fact that life relies on the increase of entropy. The specific wavelengths at which different kinds of life might reflect light can undoubtedly be very different from biosphere to biosphere; but what won’t change is the general idea that a planet full of life will re-radiate energy with a much higher entropy than what it absorbs. That’s the deep principle underlying the red edge; plants absorb visible light, and radiate at longer wavelengths with higher entropy. If we eventually find life on other planets, I’d personally be pleased if entropy were at the bottom of it all.
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked an effort by Democrats to start debate on legislation to tighten regulation of the nation’s financial system, and the two sides traded bitter accusations about who was standing in the way of a bipartisan agreement.
There is some political jujitsu going on right now, and the GOP stands to lose a lot more than the financial reform debate.
Also from the link:
The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, asked Republicans to agree to begin debating the measure, which would impose a sweeping regulatory framework on Wall Street and big financial institutions. But the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, objected, saying Democrats were pre-empting negotiations to reach a deal.
McConnell has a great point about negotiations, but his policy of all-out obstruction against all things Democrat in the legislature is working against him here. The Dems are very happy to force the GOP to block this move and substantially raise the floor of compromise. The longer the GOP opposes debate on the bill, the more the party appears to be in the pocket of Wall Street.
Fast forward to November and you’ll find a lot of ads hammering this point home to an electorate very, very sick of Wall Street and all things existing in the rarefied air of high finance. The economy is likely still going to be in the tank by the time election day rolls around and the GOP stands to gain, maybe gain a lot. The one thing it does not need is to be saddled with a tangible partnership with those evil-doers on Wall Street. And that is what has already started with today’s move.
Chris Dodd says the Senate is going to hold a vote on his bill Wednesday or Thursday. Republicans still say they can muster 41 votes in opposition. The ideal for Democrats would be to have the whole GOP vote to filibuster the bill, then have a huge debate, and then have one or more Republicans defect and pass the bill anyway. Then you get an accomplishment and a chance to expose the GOP as carrying water for Wall Street.
For years dieticians and nutritionists around the world have recommended the Mediterranean diet to individuals who are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes without having a full understanding of the mechanism responsible for its apparent health benefits.
However, a new study recently published in the journal BMC may have uncovered the genetic basis for the cardiovascular improvements linked to the diet, which includes high intake of vegetables, fish, legumes and monounsaturated fatty acids such as olive oil.
For the study, lead author Francisco Perez-Jimenez and his colleagues from the University of Cordoba, Spain, analyzed the effects that variations of the Mediterranean diet had on different groups of participants.
At the time of follow-up they found that the phenol compounds contained in extra-virgin olive oils had a dynamic effect on the genes of 20 participants suffering from metabolic syndrome, a common condition often associated with an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.
"These findings strengthen the relationship between inflammation, obesity and diet and provide evidence at the most basic level of healthy effects derived from virgin olive oil consumption in humans," said Perez-Jimenez. "It will be interesting to evaluate whether particular phenolic compounds carry these effects."
Oops. Google’s Adsense now allows advertisers to target specific devices and locations, but some companies are still adjusting to the new mobile format.
We currently use Adsense to help monetize our mobile site because a large portion of our traffic comes from Android devices and we wanted to test how the service performs. When creating a mobile ad unit, Google allows the publisher to specify which type of device the ad will target. Users can pick all phones or limit it to only “iPhone and other high-end devices (like Android)”.
Most of the carriers now advertise on our site because we fit their target markets. A keen reader spotted a Sprint ad on our site and clicked through to see what happened.
What have been your experiences with mobile ad units? Do you see advertisers taking advantage of the mobile web to its full extent? Are the ads relevant? Do you use AdBlock and could care less?
Phineas Cole comes from the Paul Stuart label. For their Spring 2010 collection, a colorful array of suits, dress shirts, ties, and more are available now for the season. Suits in double breasted styles, plaid patterns, stripes, and three piece ensembles are just some of the more dressed up options they have for the true dandy gent. Phineas can be found in New York – Madison Avenue at 45th Street and in Chicago at 107 East Oak Street.
After weve already seen Thunder the and the Smoke earlier today its now time to focus on an impressive Windows Phone 7 handset from Dell. The Lightning thats its name should arrive in the fourth quarter of the year although there are no actual pricing details and launch dates at this particular time.Its nice to see Dell step out of their Android comfort zone and come up with a device that will be able to take advantage of all the features of Microsofts latest mobile platform. An
As we announced a few months ago, we will be starting a new feature aimed at reviewing visualization tools. This ongoing feature will hopefully shed light on these tools and if they might fit into your workflow. In the meantime, please feel free to give your opinion on this new reviewing feature in the comments section below. Should we change any of the criteria? Are there any inaccuracies? What did we miss?
We are continuing the three-part series of online visualization tools. We started last week with a review of Swivel, and now we’re moving on to the heavy hitter, IBM backed tool, Many Eyes. Started in 2005 by dataviz pioneers Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, Many Eyes was the synthesis of their independent visualization efforts with the additional element of public participation and sharing.
We chose the evaluation criteria based on user comments from our previousposts. Additionally, Benjamin (who reviewed Swivel), Patrick, and I collaborated on refining the list and adding features we thought were compelling. We also included a list of supported charts at the end of the post.
Many Eyes was an early entrant into the online dataviz arena. Built and run by researchers at IBM’s Visual Communication Lab, this tool appears to be more of a public service than a commercial product. Patrick Keenan of The Movement completed this review.
CRITERIA
Cost
Free for use
Free Version available
Yes
Ease of Use
Easy
Embeddable (into a web page)
Image & Live Visualization
Shareable
Yes
Comments / Discussion
Yes
Private workgroup
No
Plugin Required
Java or Flash depending on type of visualization
Software Required
None
Export Formats
PNG
Data Storage
5MB per chart
Maturity (age of software)
5 years
Customer Service
There is an active community of visualizers and data nuts. Also, in the FAQ the team at Many Eyes seems very receptive to feedback and partnerships. Since this is not a commercial endeavour, there is no dedicated customer service channel.
Data Import Formats:
Oracle
No
SQL Server
No
Sybase
No
DB2
No
PostgreSQL
No
mySQL
No
Excel
Yes
Text
Yes
other
Anything that you can copy and paste. Many Eyes has a neat input box, essentially you paste into it and you are shown a preview. Its worked for HTML tables, Google docs, and Excel.
COMMENTS
Other features
Topic Centres. Much like a site of their own, these centres allow people to gather and talk about anything from a recent election to the financial crisis to climate change. Data sets can be collects as well as visualizations of those sets.
Live & Static Embeds. I’m sure that this feature came out of the lagging java reality. Instead of embedding a java applet into your blog, many eyes will generate a nice small PNG for your convenience.
Snapshot Commenting. As previously mentioned, Many Eyes generates PNGs, and not just a thumbnail. Their system actually allows individual snapshots of different states of the visualization. This means that if you narrow down to a specific week, add a filter, then highlight a specific point, all this will be included in your full size snapshot image. Bonus: If you comment on a visualization, it will add that state into the comments field. Forget dressing up for a personal photoshoot to develop your very best avatar shot, the data will speak for itself. Your comments are directly associated with the way you have manipulated the visualization.
Watch-lists. These are much like Ebay, but eternal. You can stay updated on your favourite visualization, or make sure you get the last word in on a debate about inflation adjustments.
Rating System for Data & Visualizations. Ratings go down as well as up. This is an all in one flagging / liking system. This means if you see some data which is inaccurate, or you just plan don’t like someone’s numbers, you can give them a thumbs down. Also, the best rated visualizations and sets are promoted for all to see. You can’t have a community without some social currency, and I’m sure there’s people out there counting their points.
Pros
Responsiveness: When loaded the Java applets provide quick zooming, highlighting, filtering, and comparison.
Community Spirit: The team is ready to adapt the platform to how the users are acting. They have adapted some sharing aspects, and its clearly on a Darwinian journey.
Cons
CPU drain: The site crashed my browser several times. The embeddable static PNG format likely arose from the fact Java applets are memory beasts.
Data vs Viz: Editing data is a separate screen from the visualization, and its tough to make the visualization fit without re-structuring the format.
No iPhone/iPad, No Chrome.
Review
Many Eyes is among the three sites up for review, and likely the older of the bunch. Though it has been around for longer, its most attractive characteristic is its unfinished state. At first glance the site looks like a mashup between a 90s style portal, and a blog with too many widgets, but don not look away just yet! From sharing, to discussions, to visualization types, Many Eyes excels at the one thing it was designed for: a community of observers interested in visual data anomalies. The features that, at times, seems cobbled together, are really a representation of how the Many Eyes team works. That is, see how people are using data to converse, then provide tools for them to do it better. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never liked Java and have always fought against the use of it on the web. I also use Chrome on a Mac, and recently an iPad, so this review has forced me back into Firefox and Safari on my MacBook. Even in a proper browser the Java applets are slow-loading and cpu-eating, though quick to react with a good processor. Clearly the site is not as customer centred as Swivel, there is no pricing plan, everything is free. This can be seen even in the login form. Though a password great than 6 characters is required, the notification is simply “you’ve missed some fields”. Now we have got the bad news out of the way, let’s see why this platform is a fan favourite. Keeping in mind the purpose of Many Eyes is to “allow the entire internet to upload data, visualize it, and talk about their discoveries with other people” we’ll look at the features which allow this type of dialogue.
Many Eyes has the one thing that keeps a product fresh: an active user base. Though the appearance is lacking, and its not as sexy as most full fledged data apps, its kind of quaint. I am sure many of the features above grew out of a community need, and it will be interesting to see what new features will be adopted. No Java and no Flash on the iPad/iPhone make me excited about the possibility of a true HTML solution for visualization. The Many Eyes FAQ states they are open to submission of new visualization types, and their general attitude alludes to the possibility their up for much more… As long as you are talking to the data.
For the Purists
Colour scales make sense.
Oriented around useful comparison.
Clear outlined purpose for each chart: See relationships among data points, Compare a set of values, Track rises and falls over time, See the parts of a whole, Analyze a text, See the world.
For the Aestheticians
Pretty horrid site palette, but the charting colours are much nicer.
All in all seems like an experiment in progress, but without a graphic designer at the helm.
Much of the functionality seems mashed together, but this would show that its a project in process, and it is born out of listening to a user base, so the features are likely requested.
Despite the site design, the charts are often displays Tufte would be proud of (or at least not rip to pieces).
Public visualizations at Many Eyes (click to enlarge).
SUPPORTED CHARTS:
line
chart
Yes
scatter plot
Yes
area chart
Yes
bubble graph
Yes
bar chart
Yes
block histogram
Yes
word tree
Yes
stacked bar chart
No
tag cloud
Yes
stacked area chart
Yes
phrase net
Yes
tornado chart
Yes
word cloud generator
Yes
pie chart
Yes
donut chart
No
network diagrams
Yes
polar graph
No
matrix chart
Yes
candlestick plots
No
bullet graph
No
world map
Yes
various map projections
No
treemap
Yes
map locations
Yes
mosaic plot
Yes
choropleth map
Yes
heat matrix
[Matrix Chart]
distorted map
No
dashboard widgets
No
other
No
Treemap and live data editing (click to enlarge).
Next week, we will review Tableau Public. Stay tuned and please let us know your interests and ideas in the comments below!
Patrick Keenan is a founding parter at The Movement as design studio focused on amplifying social value work. Visualization is key in understanding the complexities of social change, and something Patrick pursues with deep enthusiasm.
Kim Rees is a partner at Periscopic, a socially-conscious Information Visualization firm specializing in helping nonprofit organizations and like-minded companies convey important messages and elevate public awareness.
Barnacles might seem to be a traditional, almost quaint accoutrement of sea-going vessels, but they’re actually a serious problem. The buildup of marine organisms on a ship’s hull, known as biofouling, can reduce its speed by up to 10 percent. To compensate for the drag, the ship may have to use as much as 40 percent more fuel. Ships have to be lifted into drydock for the removal of barnacles, and sometimes toxic hull coatings are used to prevent them from colonizing. Hopefully, a new innovation may make both of those approaches unnecessary – it’s an autonomous hull-cleaning robot…
Continue Reading US Navy developing autonomous underwater hull-cleaning robot
As gorgeous and capable as the new Jaguar XK, XF and XJ might be, some people in the market for a luxury sedan or GT still have a dated notion of Jaguars as service nightmares. Talk to folks from the Big Three and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that fighting persistent jokes and decades-old impressions is, well, difficult. Those old impressions can linger in the mind of buyers well beyond their validity, crimping sales and blocking exposure to some very tasty products. One way to counteract that image problem is to design a better product, build it carefully and correctly, start gaining a reputation for reliability and wait for the hordes to push down your dealership doors. Another way to do it is to offer free maintenance to jump-start the process.
Jaguar North America is using the latter approach, launching a free scheduled maintenance program for all of its 2011 models. According to Automotive News, the new five-year/50,000 mile plan will be called Jaguar Platinum Coverage, and will provide free scheduled maintenance, along with 24/7 roadside assistance. Jaguar has tried a similar approach in the past, but this new plan even goes so far as to comp oil changes, filters, brake pads, brake discs, brake fluids, and wiper blade inserts. The old program was last applied to 2006 models while Ford was still calling the shots. Jag’s new owners, Tata Motors, are anxious to kick off the new XJ launch with a bang, hoping to show shoppers that this isn’t your wealthy uncle’s Jaguar. The program will be in effect when the XJ sedan goes on sale in May and will also apply to the 2011 XF sedan and XK coupe when they reach dealerships in June.
Executive Director, Indigenous People’s Green Jobs Coalition Minneapolis, Minn.
Valerie Martinez, a 31-year-old Mexican/Cree/Apache/Ojibwe woman,
spreads the benefits of the green economy to American-Indian
communities in Minnesota through the Indigenous People’s Green Jobs Coalition. She’s also working with urban-ag pioneer Will Allen to bring small-scale sustainable food production to Little Earth of United Tribes, an affordable-housing community for Native Americans in south Minneapolis.
Campaign for Liberty’s Kevin Brett reports on where income tax revenues go, proposals to do away with the 16th Amendment and the income tax, and the growing movement for lower taxes and less government.
You can tell a lot about a guy from the people he chooses as his friends — and his enemies.
The mayor counts as friends a circle that includes lobbyists, developers and big shots who are getting rich off of the public business and see opportunities to get even richer.
And there’ are people like Brian D’Arcy — the DWP union boss who thinks labor negotiations are a game of blackmail and gets spectacular union contracts and promises of thousands of more jobs from the mayor when everybody else is hurting and taking pay cuts or losing jobs.
Then, there are his enemies, enemies of his own making, people like the DWP managers he dismisses collectively as incompetent and recalcitrant without having the guts to offer specific names or do anything about them during his five years as mayor.
And City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has become Antonio’s Enemy No.1 because he poses the greatest danger as the only independent elected city official, the only one who isn’t owned by the same crowd of insider profiteers that hover around everyone else in City Hall.
The mayor’s way of dealing with Trutanich is to break his promises and gut his department by slashing his budget by more than a third this year and next.
Trutanich is no one to be messed with lightly. He fired off a letter to the mayor and put it up on his website accusing Antonio of political cynicism and “a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination” that puts “public safety and the protection of taxpayer dollars at substantial risk.”
“You have apparently lost faith in and given up on the innate ingenuity and work ethic of its residents and employees, who have suggested and implemented innovative cost-saving measures that can lead us through these challenging budgetary times. Moreover, your proposed Budget fails to recognize the core missions of the City and thereby continues to place public safety and the protection of taxpayer dollars at substantial risk.
“In short, your proposals will only exacerbate the budget crisis looming in the future and appear to be motivated by some agenda other than the continued success of all of the public safety offices in this City, including the City Attorney’s Office.”
Trutanich notes the mayor’s budget only cuts his own office’s spending by 2.6 percent 2.6% r, and “despite a so-called ‘hard hiring freeze’ for other City employees, your office continues to hire political staff.”
The impact on losing 100 more attorneys, Trutanich said, will be dramatic in terms of his ability to defend the city against $2 billion in pending liability claims and will force him to discontinue prosecuting discretionary cases involving “gang injunctions and related prosecutions; the Safer City Initiative; the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program; the Citywide Nuisance Abatement Program; the Housing and Problem Properties Program; environmental and consumer protection; code or “broken window” enforcement; domestic violence prosecutions; and many other non-priorable criminal offenses.”
For a political cynic like the mayor, the decision to go to war is a big mistake, a blunder that violates the first precept in Machiavelli’s bible of political manipulation: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
The disintegration of the mayor’s political strategy is happening so fast it is hard to keep up. But the signs of his desperation are clear enough.
He dismissed the likes of Eli Broad and RIchard Riordan from the day he took office as mayor and then suddenly, as budget crisis was crashing down on him, turned to them and surrendered his authority to their guy Austin Beutner, a fabulously rich corporate takeover financier with nothing better to do since he fell off a bike and nearly killed himself.
Three months later, Beutner has become the extra-legal de facto mayor, calling the shots in nearly a dozen key departments on everything from economic development to the sale of city assets to reduce the massive budget deficits.
This week he took on yet another major job for his dollar-a-year salary as interim general manager of the Department of Water and Power, a dual role that tramples on the city charter’s intent to provide checks and balances to ensure civilian oversight on policy and prevent corruption.
Interviewed by Warren Olney on KCRW’s Which Way LA? (link to podcast, Beutner comes up at 27:45 minute mark), the 9th DWP boss in 10 years showed he was a quick study in the fine art of saying little specific but implying a great deal, thus leaving all his options open: Get a green energy plan together, be transparent enough to sell it so he can get the rate hikes the mayor wants and reduce the political tensions enough to be able to hire a professional utility manager for the first time in years.
Even as he was chatting with Olney, the mayor was praising D’Arcy as “part of the solution” and waving his enemies list in front of editors and reporters at the LA Times, defaming without naming names the DWP management as “”wall to wall…at the highest levels…the biggest defenders of the status quo.”
“For four years, I’ve battled a bureaucracy that just won’t respond to the policy direction,” Villaraigosa said. “It’s been an absolute war. Getting through that Byzantine bureaucracy is very difficult . We’ve got to figure out a way to make that agency more transparent.
“They undermined [former General Manager Ronald] Deaton, they undermined [former General Manager David] Nahai. Even [outgoing General Manager S. David] Freeman. I’m talking about that upper-level management . You can’t fire them. They just go back to the Civil Service system” and they lose about $15,000 in salary as well as their city-provided cars, but they stay in the DWP. They out-wait you. They’ve out-waited everybody.”
The funny thing about that is Nick Patsaouras told him the same thing two years ago with the only difference being that the then DWP Commission President identified by name those who wanted to open up the books and were capable of doing a good job and those in the way.
Patsaouras got fired for his trouble and his solution, creation of a Rate Payer Advocate, was killed because transparency was the last thing the mayor wanted.
But it has reared its head and left the mayor and his allies scrambling to derail it by putting it under the control of the compliant Controller Wendy Greuel even as some members of the City Council are showing signs of getting uppity with an awakening public demanding better of them than they have seen in a long time.
Read Trutanich’s letter in full, a declaration of war between elect officials in LA that has no precedent in recent history:
CARMEN A. TRUTANICH City Attorney April 21,2010
Honorable Mayor Villaraigosa:
This letter is in response to your proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2010/11 issued on April 20, 2010. Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in your proposal, which displays a remarkable lack of leadership and imagination, and further demonstrates a fundamental failure of management on the part of the Mayor’s Office.
The proposed Budget is not a successful strategy to protect and promote the fiscal health and public safety of our City, and clearly fails to recognize and appreciate the basic skills necessary to efficiently manage its resources and employees. Rather than creatively and effectively managing this City, you have apparently lost faith in and given up on the innate ingenuity and work ethic of its residents and employees, who have suggested and implemented innovative cost-saving measures that can lead us through these challenging budgetary times. Moreover, your proposed Budget fails to recognize the core missions of the City and thereby continues to place public safety and the protection of taxpayer dollars at substantial risk. In short, your proposals will only exacerbate the budget crisis looming in the future and appear to be motivated by some agenda other than the continued success of all of the public safety offices in this City, including the City Attorney’s Office.
It is also obvious that your proposals cynically protect political positions at the expense of public safety and essential services. For example, I note with great dismay that the proposed Budget recommends only a 2.6% reduction for the Mayor’s Office. I also understand that, despite a so-called “hard hiring freeze” for other City employees, your office continues to hire political staff, which is not tasked to perform public safety functions. In comparison, the Office of the City Attorney, which is a designated public safety office under the City Charter, has been targeted for a reduction of 18% (or approximately $17 million), which is unprecedented for any City public safety agency and will result in the unnecessary layoff of over 100 prosecutors and support staff. Such a severe reduction to this Office constitutes an assault to public safety and a diminished capacity to protect the City’s treasury. Our City and its residents need and deserve reasoned and competent management In the effective delivery of essential services, not the wasteful protection of overtly and costly political positions proposed in your Budget.
In addition to being misleading, the proposed Budget disproportionately impacts this Office compared to other public safety offices. As you are aware, priorto the issuance of the proposed Budget, representatives of both your office and the CAO advised this Office that a 10% (or $9.3 million) reduction, which could be offset by any savings derived from anticipated furloughs, would be recommended for this Office. In addition to offsets or “credits” for any furlough savings, our Office was advised that any remaining deficit could be addressed and any layoffs avoided through cooperative or “incentivized” agreements with other departments, in which our budget would be credited by revenues collected or saved by this’ Office. Specifically, our Office provided your office with materials and inforrnation regarding several such cost-saving and revenue- generating projects, including the consolidation of the Workers’ Compensation Program and certain debt and tax collections activities within our Office, as well as the proposed Administrative Code Enforcement program. Obviously, I was surprised and shocked to see your recommendation for an 18% (or $17 million) reduction, with no credits for furloughs, for this Office. The credibility of your office has been sorely tested and damaged by this and other recent actions.
It is beyond dispute that, as required under the City Charter, the Office of the City Attorney provides and performs vital and essential and mandated public safety services and financial protection to the City and its citizens. As you know, there are three primary and core public safety agencies under the Charter: the Los Angeles Police Department; the Los Angeles Fire Department; and the City Attorney’s Office. Your proposed FY 2010/11 Budget recommends an 18% reduction in the funding for the Office of the City Attorney, which, when combined with the 16% reduction imposed during FY 2009/10, equates to a total reduction of more than 30% over two budget cycles. This is the largest reduction suffered by any public safety agency in the City and poses an unacceptable risk to public safety. On the other hand, your proposed Budget proposes a 2% reduction for LAFD and an increase of 1% for LAPD.
As a public safety agency, I believe this Office should be treated no differently than LAFD or LAPD, especially given the critical support and successful defense our Office provides to these departments each day. There is no rational basis to increase the LAPD by 1 %, while simultaneously reducing the number of prosecutors handling its cases by the proposed 18%. Without city prosecutors, persons arrested by LAPD will be released without being charged. As noted by the late Chief Daryl Gates in response to proposed budget cuts to the City Attorney’s Office in 1982, “[I]t makes no sense for the Police Department to apprehend (a criminal) and then find the prosecution cannot be completed.” (See copy of attached article in Los Angeles Times, 117/82). It should also be noted, that in 1982, then-Chief Gates publicly stated that he was prepared and committed to share resources with the City Attorney’s Office in order to accomplish the joint mission of the two departments, namely, to protect our residents from crime. To date, there has been no effort by your office or the LAPD to act in a similarly gracious partnership of true shared-sacrificed in our joint mission.
This Office has more discretion in deciding whether to file and prosecute criminal cases, as opposed to defending civil liability cases filed against the City by private parties. As such, in the event this Office suffers the proposed 18% reductions and layoffs, I will have no choice but to discontinue prosecuting those criminal matters in which I have some limited discretion. These matters include the following: gang injunctions and related prosecutions; the Safer City Initiative; the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program; the Citywide Nuisance Abatement Program; the Housing and Problem Properties Program; environmental and consumer protection; code or “broken window” enforcement; domestic violence prosecutions; and many other non-priorable criminal offenses.
Under the mandate of the City Charter, this Office also serves as the guardian of the City’s treasury. Although the Mayor proposes the budget and the Council approves it, this Office aggressively defends it everyday from liability and lawsuits that seek to deplete it through frivolous and unreasonable damage claims. Every reduction in the number of deputy city attorneys defending the City against frivolous lawsuits exposes the City to potentially more millions of dollars in damages and payouts to private lawyers looking for a payday from the City’s deep pockets.
Since I took office in July 2009, our attorneys have vigorously andsuccessfully protected the City by winning 32 out of 32 civil trials – and saving theCity over $100 million in potential damage awards. Obviously, had the City been held liable at trial, the jury or the court could have ordered damages and costs significantly higher than the last pre-trial settlement offer, which could have totaled in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Although this Office has been extraordinarily successful over the past nine months, the loss of any additional attorneys will greatly diminish our ability to further protect the City’s treasury from such liability damage claims.
Moreover, additional reductions to our budget will not limit the City’s liability. Rather, such reductions will expose the City’s treasury to even more or potentially higher liability payouts. This Office does not create liability – other departments within the City engage in activities that create tens of millions of dollars of potential liability each year. Currently, our Office is defending the City against nearly $2 billion in civil liability claims, which if lost, will be paid by the taxpayers. As the City’s lawyers, we are solely responsible under the Charter to defend the City against these and other potential liabilities created by other departments. Therefore, when you reduce the budget of this Office by 18%, I cannot magically reduce the number of civil liability cases currently pending against this City by a corresponding 18% or lower the City’s potential exposure by even one dollar. Even though you may want to layoff employees of this Office who tirelessly and professionally defend this City, you cannot wish away the thousands of pending lawsuits demanding potentially billions of dollars from the taxpayers of this City. Unlike sidewalks to be fixed or trees to be trimmed, you cannot pick and choose which civil lawsuits to ignore. Each and every one of these thousands of lawsuits must be answered and defended. Losing just one of these cases, due to a lack of experienced or a sufficient number of counsel, could cost the City millions of dollars in damages and wipe out any potential savings you mistakenly and shortsightedly believe can be accomplished through further reductions to this Office.
In fact, rather than suffer the additional and punitive proposed 18% reduction, this Office must be recognized and rewarded for its tremendous success in reducing costs and eliminating its deficit during FY 2009/10. When I assumed Office on July 1, 2009, there was a deficit of over $18 million. Since that date, our employees have successfully generated savings that have reduced the deficit, which is now targeted to be entirely eliminated by the end of FY 2009/10 on June 30. We have accomplished this success through a combination of ERIP, furloughs, reductions in costs for outside counsel, vendors and litigation expenses, as well as increased subrogation collections and environmental and consumer protection penalties – and just plain hard work.
Our employees have accomplished and endured all cost-saving measuresthey have been asked to implement and will deliver a balanced budget.Unfortunately, other City departments have apparently not been able to properlymanage and balance their own budgets. Despite our success and sacrifice,however; our employees are again being asked to bear the burden of those other departments that have not been properly managed and will suffer a disproportionate share of the reductions – all to the very grave risk to publicsafety and the City treasury. Moreover, such reductions will result in even more potential liability for the City due to lack of staff necessary to defend against lawsuits or prevent such lawsuits through adequate risk management and municipal counsel.
The Office of the City Attorney and its employees clearly recognize and understand the serious and unprecedented financial challenges facing the City. Our employees have worked hard and sacrificed much over the past year to reduce costs and accomplish increasingly more with fewer resources. In fact, as you well know, I personally advised you and your staff on multiple occasions that this Office and its employees were willing and prepared to take on more responsibility, including the City’s entire Workers’ Compensation and debt/tax collections programs, in order to assist the’ City in reducing costs and generating much-needed revenue. As I stated, there is no need to contract out such work to outside vendors and contractors when we have experienced and dedicated City employees who can more efficiently handle such matters.
Our success to date in bearing our share of the burden and reducing the City’s deficit is proven and easy to measure. We have successfully performed our duties, while at the same time dramatically cutting costs and reducing staff from the General Fund. For example, this Office will reach the targeted goal of less than 750 General Fund positions well before June 30, 2010, which significantly exceeds the $8.6 million in savings requested in the Mid-Year Financial Status report issued in January 2010.
Your recommended ·18% reduction to this Office and resulting 100 layoffs will reduce our staff to an untenable 650 General Fund positions. Such a reduction will constitute a budget loss of nearly 35% and more than 200 General Fund positions in just one year. The proposed 18% reduction and layoffs will severely impair the ability of this Office to provide the public safety and fiscal protection services mandated by my authority under the Charter.
I cannot emphasize enough that we are a public safety office – protecting both the safety and health of our citizens and our City treasury. Prosecuting crimes and defending the City treasury are core missions of this City, and our Office and its prosecutors, litigators, investigators and their support staff perform these essential services in a highly professional and cost effective manner.
Accordingly, I will firmly and publicly object to your proposed disproportionate reductions and resulting layoffs that will significantly impact essential and core City services provided by this Office. I will address my concerns to the Council, where I intend to demonstrate the serious flaws in your proposed Budget. I anticipate that the Council will provide much needed guidance and direction, and eventually allocate and approve appropriate funds to. fully support the essential services provided by this Office without the need for any layoffs of prosecutors, litigators, investigators or their support staff.
Ultimately, I will take whatever actions are necessary in order to ensure that the Office of the City Attorney is able to perform its mandated role under the Charter to protect the City’s residents and its treasury. The City deserves nothing less.
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GOP leaders today picked a former state party chairman and U.S. Senate candidate to be Illinois’ new representative on the Republican National Committee.
Rich Williamson, an attorney who lost the 1992 U.S. Senate contest to Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, was selected by the GOP state central committee from a field of candidates during a meeting at a Chicago hotel.
Williamson succeeds Pat Brady, who vacated the position when he became chairman of the Illinois Republican Party last year.
Also interested in the national post were conservative Carpentersville businessman Jack Roeser and former governor candidate Jim Oberweis. The selection was made before a Republican fundraiser in honor of the statewide ticket and featuring controversial RNC Chairman Michael Steele. It was supposed to be open to the media, but Brady decided to close it today.
Each week, our German correspondent slices and dices the latest rumblings, news, and quick-hit driving impressions from the other side of the pond. His byline may say Jens Meiners, but we simply call him . . . the Continental.
Lightness as Perception and Reality
Just before the Old World shut down under a cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash, there was an unusually high number of new-vehicle introductions in Europe last week.
Audi held what was probably the most anticipated press launch when it showcased its 450-hp RS5 (shown above) at the Ascari racetrack near Marbella, Spain. Conditions were perfect for our first drive of Audi’s sportiest offering south of the R8, and the roads surrounding the racetrack provided fantastic space for extra play—as back roads go, few countries in Europe beat Spain. Fully laden with electronic gizmos to sharpen its responses, the Audi feels far lighter than its 3900 or so pounds would suggest.
2011 Lotus Elise
The Lotus Elise follows a sharply different approach—it doesn’t need electronic crutches because it actually is light. The 2011 model was previewed in England on the sort of country roads that make grown men weep. We love the Elise, but were somewhat underwhelmed by the new, Toyota-supplied 1.6-liter four-cylinder entry-level engine. Lotus is vaunting the 134-hp car’s 37-mpg Euro-cycle rating, but the slightly restyled new Elise proves that going for fuel efficiency at all costs can kill the fun even in a quintessential sports car such as this. The extremely tall gearing for the six-speed manual renders the top two gears unusable. Step on the gas in top gear, and the response you get is about as enthusiastic as the earth crowd’s reaction to snow in Copenhagen. (We don’t get the reference either—Ed.) Our advice: Go for one of the more powerful engines and forget about saving the planet.
Mazda Sticks with the Rotary Engine, While Audi Adopts It
Instead of the planet, let’s save the rotary engine. The Mazda RX-8 will be taken off the European market at the end of 2010, as its current engine won’t pass Euro 5 emissions. But Mazda won’t abandon the unique engine type. Internally called 16X, the next-generation Mazda rotary will again be a two-rotor setup, but this time displacing 1.6 liters instead of the current 1.3. Even in normally aspirated form, the 16X engine will make around 300 hp, which will be plenty for the smaller, lighter sports car in which it will be found. Turbocharged versions are possible, as is a hydrogen-powered variation. The U.S. market will keep getting the RX-8 for the foreseeable future, but we love the fact that a lighter car in the spirit of the last-generation RX-7 will replace it.
Audi is looking at the rotary engine, too, fitting a Wankel powerplant to the A1 e-tron concept shown in Geneva in March. The one-disc rotary engine was co-developed with Austrian engineering house AVL. We experienced its operation, and it’s smooth and quiet and avoids the shuddering on restart of a piston engine. Who wants to be disturbed as they’re humming and singing and smiling while depleting their electric-vehicle’s batteries? Not us. It’s certainly nice, but our next question was whether we could see a powerful rotary-engined Audi without all the electric-motor wizardry. Not a chance, says Ingolstadt. Pity.
Other Debuts, Forbidden and Otherwise
2011 Volkswagen Polo GTI
VW showed the 180-hp Polo GTI in the metal at the Leipzig auto show, and BMW used the same occasion to officially launch the 5-series Touring (a.k.a. Sports Wagon). Both cars are interesting and very cool—the 5er wagon is better looking than the sedan in our book—but they won’t come to the U.S. unless thousands of American enthusiasts deluge VW and BMW with blank checks. Among the Leipzig debuts that you will be getting were two minor Audi freshenings. The 2011 TT and TTS get some mechanical and cosmetic tweaks, and the 2011 Q7 does without aesthetic alterations but receives new engines, including Audi’s supercharged 3.0-liter V-6 in two different strengths. Side note: That engine is the gas-burning half of the hybrid powertrain available in the new Porsche Cayenne. Says a Porsche engineer: “A supercharged engine is not a dream in terms of efficiency, but it’s what we had to work with.” Read: Our new VW overlords made us use it.
Dacia Duster
Other notables this week include the Dacia Duster, which just went on sale and is the first SUV offered by Renault’s Romanian entry-level brand. Starting at €11,900 ($15,800; that’s dirt, dirt cheap for Europe), it undercuts the competition by many thousands of euros. And, with its trendy shape, it shows that Romanians can bodge together a styling department, too.
We sampled the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, and found it to be a surprisingly good, solid, and sporty car, and if the brand has a shot in the US market, it is with this hatchback. (Fiat announced yesterday that we’d get the car, or a derivative, in 2014.) Its top engine is a 232-hp, 1.8-liter four. We haven’t seen anything out of Chrysler’s Auburn Hills, Michigan, headquarters in some time as good as the Giulietta. Here’s hoping the Fiat-Chrysler merger pays off in a big way.
Speaking of not seeing things, we haven’t seen any Fisker Karmas on the road, and now we’re hearing Fisker likely won’t be able to deliver regular-production cars before 2011. Only buyers of the sold-out Signature Edition will get behind the wheel of the hand-built Karma in 2010. Probably.
Volt Does Europe, and the Push for a New Opel GT
Chevrolet is planning to launch the Volt in Europe alongside the Opel Ampera, which is identical under the skin. The decision reeks of a move made simply to keep Chevrolet Europe happy. Turnabout is fair play, we say, so why not turn the Ampera into a Buick back in the States? Retro remains the rage, so let’s bring back badge-engineering! Continuing the retro theme, Opel’s powerful head of the worker’s council, Klaus Franz, is pushing for a retro-styled sports coupe in the spirit of the legendary late-1960s Opel GT or Manta. Opel also is testing higher-powered versions of the Insignia, some of which are approaching 400 hp. Lesser Insignias are being reworked for the U.S. as the Buick Regal, so send that one to America as a Regal Grand National!
Renault and Daimler are teaming up to jointly develop engines and transmissions. We see the logic behind exchanging small three- and four-cylinder units, but are less clear on putting Daimler engines into Infinitis. Nissan’s VQ V-6s can be a bit rough, but they’re still very good engines. Carlos Ghosn and Dieter Zetsche, who have lived through their share of failed mergers, are taking it easy this time: The three-percent swap of capital qualifies as a modest start, and that makes the most sense of all.
Autobahn Tested: Q5 and XF Diesels
Road cars we’ve sampled include the Audi Q5 3.0 TDI, which seems incongruous in its setup. The liveliness of the steering, suspension, and the dual-clutch transmission don’t match well with the relaxed character of the powerful turbo-diesel, which always needs a moment of contemplation before responding. We were highly impressed, on the other hand, by the Jaguar XF with a 271-hp, 3.0-liter turbo-diesel. Torquey and quick, it’s our favorite corporate jet right now. Well, until we’re sure the volcanic ash has cleared and we once again feel comfortable climbing aboard an actual corporate jet.
Just before the Old World shut down thanks to volcanic ashes and overzealous politicians, the industry has unusual number of vehicle launches and .
Anita Maltbia is spearheading the transformation of 150 square blocks of Kansas City, Mo., from blight to bright. The Green Impact Zone project,
which she directs, is resuscitating this economically depressed
African-American neighborhood by putting local residents to work
weatherizing the zone’s 2,500 homes and by developing a bus
rapid-transit system that will connect the zone to other parts of the
region. With $50 million in funding from
the federal economic-stimulus package, the initiative will also offer
community policing, job training, and health and wellness programs.
Maltbia, who has 30 years of experience in city government and
community activism, earned a coveted spot in the First Lady’s box at
this year’s State of the Union address.
Ahead of the 2010 Beijing Auto Show BMW has announced that the company’s first mass-produced electric car will be released in 2013. Having just completed a year’s worth of electric vehicle testing with the Mini E, the BMW group now feels it has collected enough data to go full steam ahead with battery-powered cars.
Although it is likely a bit of a bummer to Mini fans, as BMW has previously stated, the Mini E (shown above) is not slated for production. Instead, BMW will start a completely new sub-brand to sell EVs dubbed ‘Megacity.’ Reportedly, the first Megacity will be a 5-seater in the size class of a VW Golf and will have a rear-mounted motor as well as rear wheel drive.
For years dieticians and nutritionists around the world have recommended the Mediterranean diet to individuals who are at a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes without having a full understanding of the mechanism responsible for its apparent health benefits. 
