On Sunday, about 20,000 protesters took part in a march in Moscow, protesting a new law supported by both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's parliament, which bans Americans from adopting Russian children.

Welcome to the Adirondacks Transit Authority.

How did L.A. wind up taking our transportation lunch money? New Yorkers were so busy bullying each other, we didn't even notice when they took it and beat us to the mass transit punch.

The Architect's Newspaper had an interesting story earlier this week pointing out how back in November, Los Angeles launched its own congestion pricing system to speed traffic on some of its jammed, anything-but-free freeways, and it has been enjoying impressive results. This was, of course, "made possible by political gridlock in the New York State Assembly over congestion pricing," as the paper points out. All the while, the MTA has been hemorrhaging cash, leading to reduced service (later restored through cuts elsewhere) and all those fare hikes.

After Albany failed to pass the congestion pricing measure, a portion of the hundreds of millions in federal funds that had been set aside to start our program were given over to L.A. Thanks to their new HOT lanes, twice as many drivers than than initially expected, about 1,300 a day, are using new express lanes, zipping along at 60 miles per hour, rather than their usual snails pace of 20 to 25 miles per hour. Those unwilling to pony up between $0.25 and $1.40 an hour still benefit, as better traffic sorting should improve speeds for everyone.

Oh, and the program is expected the raise about $18 million to $20 million a year, funds that would go toward mass transit.

That is nearly as much money as the city loses in economic output each year because of congestion in Manhattan, according to various studies. It is also twice as much money as Congress is giving us to shore up the subways from the damage Sandy wrought on the system, though even that is a fraction of the total costs to rebuild and fortify the mass transit network in the city and the region.

So where does the gridlock in Albany stand today?

About the only mention Governor Andrew Cuomo made of mass transit during his State of the State address was in relation to the damage from Sandy, and even then, it was limited. The Tappan Zee Bridge, still without a strong mass transit component, got about as much billing in the governor's speech as the subways and trains that stitch the region together.

Meanwhile, Joe Lhota has left the MTA to run for mayor. Before he raised fares, he and the rest of the agency's board kept talking, over and over again, about the need to find more sustainable funding for the MTA. The person they need to convince, more than any other, is Governor Cuomo. Joe Lhota, who seemed to have a good shot at that, has turned his back on the tough job. Yet another break in continuity at the agency can only act against whatever good will Mr. Lhota built up at the MTA. Whomever the governor picks to succeed him will have a tough road ahead.

Because if there is one thing Governor Cuomo likes, it is a good drive, as he made clear at the close of his state of the state speech.

"We have an extraordinary opportunity to not just rebuild, but to build back better," he said. "We can rebuild a better society than we've ever had. We can rebuild thousands of miles of roads, we can rebuild homes and get control of utility companies that have been out of control for too long."

No mention of the MTA, which the actual State of the State book mentions only once. More time was spent making an elaborate joke about rafting in the Adirondacks. Nor is it even clear that thousands of miles of roads were damaged by the storm, but that is clearly where this governor's focus remains. The MTA went unmentioned last year, too, and the year before that, and may well continue to be an until Andrew Cuomo pulls up to the White House in one of his muscle cars.

There was some hope after Sandy that, with the governor and Mr. Lhota standing at the mouth of a flooded Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, with harrowing pictures of a submerged South Ferry station, with lines for days to get on the bus and the ferry to get into the city, that the governor now owned the MTA and would have to do something to fix its finances. Those dreams began to sink this week.

But hey, at least New Yorkers are not alone on this. Yesterday, the Pulaski Skyway closed for two years as it undergoes reconstruction. The funds for that are coming from the ARC Tunnel that Sandy fellow traveler Chris Christie killed.

For a time, it was kind of cool that L.A., under the leadership of Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, had become a hot bed of mass transit investment, with new light rail lines, high speed rail up to San Francisco and now congestion pricing. It was the sort of novel story—mass transit in L.A.? Pshaw!—that sets writers and editors hearts aflutter.

But with each passing day and each passing mile, the story becomes less cute and more depressing. Suddenly we're the ones with the straphanger blues.

New single from Sally Shapiro, featuring (and co-written by) Drive soundtrack stars Electric Youth. Sally Shapiro’s Somewhere Else is out next month on Paper Bag Records:

Killer whales trapped below the ice have gathered around a single hole to breath. The Mayor of Inukjuak asks Canada government to send an ice breaker to rescue the orcas.

rerun (from Criggo, Jan. 9, 2009)

Oh God, the nerd boners: Fred Armisen will be co-hosting this week's "This American Life" in character as Fake Ira Glass. The episode's theme is doppelgängers, so in addition to being a dangerous vortex of NPR self-awareness and square glasses, it's also thematically appropriate. According to the "TAL" blog, Armisen developed the impression for Saturday Night Live, but Glass was deemed not famous enough for ridicule, which is probably fair. (As we look forward to this no doubt wonderful and deeply affectionate doppelgänger-ing, let us take a moment to revisit the greatest "TAL" send-up ever, Kasper Hauser's spoof episode from 2007.) Each week, we bring you stories on a theme. This week, gently making fun of Ira Glass, but from a place of sincere love and admiration.

Read more posts by Margaret Lyons

Filed Under: radio ,this american life ,ira glass ,fred armisen ,npr ,the most npr thing in the world

Follow @drewtoothpaste and @nataliedee on Twitter or join the Married To The Sea Facebook Page.

To (kind of) quote Jacobim Mugatu: "Joe Biden. So hot right now."

The Vice President, long one of the most maligned public figures operating in national politics, is on something of a roll of late.

Consider:

Read full article >>

Restaurant Week menus, which we enjoy as much as kidney stones or Jerry Jones, will now cost you $38, up from $35. Sorry, folks.:

pricehike:

Shout out to Gothamist for first reporting this Restaurant Week PRICE HIKE. Your lousy three-course meal for two will now run you $95 for two after tax and tip. Add booze into the mix and your meal will easily exceed $120. At that point, you might as well spend a few dollars more and order off the regular menu (instead of being “forced” into dessert). 

Our sister site The Bad Deal said it best: “The best way to experience Restaurant Week is not to participate in Restaurant Week.”

This appeared on PIzza Brain's tumblr—an excellent place to visit for some pizza novelty. Who can tell me where this photo was taken?

[Via: foxxegin.tumblr.com]

About the author: Meredith Smith is the Slice editor. You can follow her on Twitter: @mertsmith.

Nightmares. Just lots and lots of nightmares.

Source: Jerry Hadiprojo  /  via: reddit.com

After more than 26 years in business, the Londonderry Café in Stuyvesant Plaza in Guilderland has closed. The sign below is all the information I have now. The café opened in mid-1986.

When last we heard from Willow Smith, she was singing a motivational ballad about being herself and shredding on a tiny keyboard. Yeah, that's over. Willow is 12 now and, if her new song is any indication, deep into the hate-the-world, only-wanna-Tumble phase of modern adolescence. The bummer ballad in question is called "Sugar and Spice," though it is really about how Willow tried to be both of those things and could not. Instead, she is melancholy; she has regrets; she fears the monsters under her bed. If that is not enough sadness for you, then consider the URL for her Soundcloud and aforementioned Tumblr — “saulepleurant,” which means (more or less) weeping willow in French. Then there’s her user name — “arbre mort,” or dead tree. Not that we don’t support good old-fashioned teen drama and Internet oversharing in all its forms, but Willow! Chin up, kid! Not everything is as hopeless as French class. We promise.

Read more posts by Amanda Dobbins

Filed Under: feelings ,willow smith ,music

We’re in the second day of censorship protests outside the offices of Southern Weekly in Guangzhou. Today: leftists have come to bat for the government, young men give speeches, and Chinese media rally to Southern Weekly’s cause in the only way they can.

Let’s start there. As noticed by John Kennedy of South China Morning Post, major news outlets embedded hidden messages of support for their media brethren in the form of acrostics:

As you might expect, the only folks in China allowed to editorialize on these protests are the propagandists and Global Times, who employs Hu Xijin. In GT’s latest, there is a baffling mention of Chen Guangcheng:

A closer look will find that former employees of the Southern Weekly and activists, including Chen Guangcheng, who is residing in US now, are among those who avidly promote the issue online.

Followed by:

Their campaign, ostensibly aiming at specific officials, actually targets China’s entire media system.

For media professionals, it is clear that under the reality of China’s current state of affairs, the country is unlikely to have the “absolutely free media” that is dreamed of by those activists.

The development of media must be in accordance with China’s own situation. Media reform must be a part of China’s entire reform process. There cannot be a “special political zone” set for media. The Southern Weekly issue will not be concluded with a surprise ending.

(Meanwhile, China Daily Show: “‘Global Times’ op-ed writer wishes he was on strike, too.”)

Moving on, here’s Kennedy again with a video of an impassioned young man making a hell of a speech for reform, democracy, and freedom of expression. (It’s still on Youku.)

Finally, as expected, anti-anti-censorship protesters are beginning to make their presence felt as well:

Leftists protest against “traitorous” Southern Weekend. Scuffle with supporters. Very small numbers of both. twitter.com/jarmiles/statu…

— James Miles (@jarmiles) January 8, 2013

The rabble-rousers haven’t come to fisticuffs yet, but a scuffle was recorded by Wall Street Journal’s Paul Mozur, here, powered by Tout. You’ll see another short Tout in the accompanying WSJ article:

“Support the Communist Party, support Mao Zedong thought, support striking against the traitor media,” chanted a group of local government supporters, waving Chinese flags, as they approached the dozen or so Southern Weekly supporters who assembled Tuesday morning outside the newspaper’s headquarters.

…Supporters of the paper tore down a Chinese flag held up by pro-government demonstrators. One free speech advocate wore a Guy Fawkes mask, while others carried signs that called for protecting Southern Weekly. They waved 5 mao notes (equivalent to 50 cents in Chinese currency) at the government supporters, an allegation that they were paid to protest by local authorities. A shoving match between the sides quickly ensued.

UPDATE, 4:56 pm: Still waiting for official confirmation, but we have reason to believe Southern Weekly’s demise is imminent.

Proving again that if you’re out trying to get drunk in Sanlitun, you might as well just drink baijiu so at least your brain knows it’s being poisoned:

Beijing police detained five suspects and confiscated over 37,000 bottles of fake foreign alcohol which was sold to bars along the Sanlitun Bar Street, police told the Global Times Monday.

We all realize those 10-kuai shots are fake, but it’s useful to be reminded every now and then, isn’t it?

Police received tip-offs from residents last September, and then raided five gangs who produced and sold fake beer and foreign alcohol worth over 1 million yuan ($160,400) in Tongzhou and Chaoyang districts last December.

Fake, fake, fake. Orson Welles would be proud.

Bar street booze seized (Global Times)

CHECKMATE, WELLS

Some friends and I made this pick up line booklet as kids in the playground. Not sure if they ever survived the road test, but feel free to try them out this weekend. [ Ed. note: These suave suggestions are part of our keepsake show and tell .]

The pick-up lines are transcribed below, because let's face it, elementary school kids don't have the best handwriting. Or spelling abilities, as is obvious.

Title Page: "4+6 Pick Up Lines"

Because saying 10 isn't as badass.

Lines 1-4

1) are you a pokemon becuse I chose you
2) Did you fart because you blow me away
3) are you an egg because you lade on me
4) I forgot my number can I have yours

Lines 5-8

5) are you a test paper becuse I'm (?) my time looking at you
6) are you the mother duck becuse you quack me up
7) are you a fish because I chot you
8) Is your dad a terrerisd because your the bomb!

View Entire List ›

Clinton returned to the State Department on Monday, five days after being released from a New York hospital where she was treated for a blood clot.

Here, Secretary of State Clinton chairs her weekly meeting of the Assistant Secretaries of State at the State Department in Washington.

Image by State Department/Handout / Reuters

Clinton holds up a football helmet — a gift from her staff. Her clot was discovered after a fall and concussion.

Image by United States Department of State / AP

A middle-aged lifelong Williamsburg resident was arrested this week after police determined he had made over 400 phony complaint calls to 911 about the hipster hordes running amok in his neighborhood. According to the Post, Louis Segna, 51, has been charged with reckless endangerment, aggravated harassment and making false reports for making 403 prank calls to cops. “He’s crazy, not just a little crazy like people in Williamsburg, but he’s nuts,” a local shopkeeper told them. [ more › ]

Hundreds of moms gathered Saturday at Hollister stores, in support of a woman who was reportedly thrown out of a Houston Hollister for nursing.

Lynnhaven Mall, Virginia Beach

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Bill says he’s lived in the same building in Shenzhen, China for four years, “and the place still cracks me up, daily.” The latest from his building’s noticeboard:

related: Beware of falling hairballs

By Kathleen Moore
Gazette Reporter

The Schenectady Police Department has corrected a pattern of abusing residents and violating their civil rights, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

How the ‘princeling’ descendants of Mao’s ‘Eight Immortals’consolidated unimaginable power and wealth in the New China.

Shai Oster | Bloomberg | Jan 2013 [Full Story]

China’s newspapers are today mulling over what is being portrayed as a sea change on China’s roads, a new regulation that has caused some consternation: Running a yellow light (note yellow, not red) will now be severely punished with an automatic deduction of six points! Thus cartoons and graphic depictions of cars, traffic lights and other nondescript yellow things (see gallery below) all bellow out that running a yellow light (闯黄灯) is now no longer cool.

Yet when a journalist from Orient Today (东方今报) from Henan province yesterday went to observe the traffic in Zhengzhou (郑州), capital of Henan province, he found the usual black Audis and other cars jumping yellow lights, some drivers talking on their mobile phones while they did so, as if there were no new “most severe traffic law in history” in force in China.

Here’s a few other yellow traffic light-themed front pages from around China today:

贵州都市报

海峡都市报

济南日报

内蒙古晨报

西海都市报

郑州晚报

The revised “Motor Vehicle Driver’s License Application and Use Regulation” (机动车驾驶证申领和使用规定), otherwise labelled by the newspapers as the “most severe traffic law in history”, came into effect on 1 January 2013. The new regulation includes the provision that drivers running a yellow light will be deducted six points. Judging by the online feedback elicited by this new regulation, however, some have labelled it a near reign of terror on the road where “running a yellow light is almost as bad as being suspected of engaging in illegal erotic activities (如今“闯黄”比“涉黄”更紧张).

So to see for himself whether the new law was being obeyed, a journalist from Orient Today (东方今报) from Henan province went to observe the traffic at a busy intersection in Zhengzhou (郑州), capital city of Henan province. And lo and behold, a few hours later he reported that “there are still some drivers who are running the yellow light.” One of the highlights of his observations involved a black Audi. When said Audi approached the intersection at some speed, the light turned from green to yellow and the driver slammed on the brakes while the tyres screeched. But as the journalist observer was handy to point out, the Audi’s front wheels came to rest a few meters AHEAD of the stop line. Various other drivers, the journalist reported, still sped over the yellow light, some talking on their mobile phones as they did so. Later the journalist found out from the local traffic police that no-one in Zhengzhou had yet been prosecuted in any way for jumping a yellow light.

There was heated discussion of the new traffic regulations on Sina Weibo. A survey asking respondents what they thought of the six points deduction for running a yellow light found that over 70% of participants found it unreasonable.

Links and sources
Orient Today (东方今报): 新规实施3天 郑州暂未处罚闯黄灯

It's an odd match, to be sure: a country with some of the most restrictive internet laws in the world (not to mention its other laws), and a company that still claims "Don't be evil" as its motto, and has been burned by authoritarian governments before. But the AP is reporting that Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt will be traveling to North Korea soon -- possibly as early as this month -- accompanied by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. 

The news comes a day after a rare New Year's Day speech by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that called for a "revolution" in science and technology in the poverty-stricken Hermit Kingdom. But it also comes just a few weeks after the country received international condemnation for a sneakily-timed rocket launch.

Google didn't officially confirm the story to AP and Schmidt has yet to make a public statement on why he's visiting the isolated country, which does hardly any business at all with U.S. companies. Also, it's not yet clear who exactly Schmidt and Richardson will be meeting with once they arrive. However, Schmidt has been working with former State Department Adviser Jared Cohen on a book called "The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business," and has long been an advocate of the power of internet access to improve quality of life and openness.

Still, North Korea controls its internet with a far heavier hand than China, which Google has tangled with in the past.  Those who have computer access mostly log on to a system known as the Kwangmyong, essentially a country-wide intranet run by a lone, state-run ISP provider (the BBC story linked to above includes the amazing detail that any time Kim Jong Un is mentioned on this intranet, his name is displayed slightly larger than the text around it). Just a few dozen families have unfiltered access to the real thing.

Can the power of "connectivity for the individual" be harnessed in a country where the government still cracks down on cell phones that can dial the outside world? Here's hoping Schmidt speaks up soon so we can hear what exactly he has in mind.

Maybe you should just log off, close the laptop, and get some rest…

Source: media

Source: media

Source: media

Source: media

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