The homepage link:
http://mnprogressiveproject.com/
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Sibel Edmonds, "The Needed Ingredients For A Real Alternative Information Gateway."
This link. Read it. Check out some of her links.
Chemical weapons in Syria.
This link. Here. Angry Arab had those links, also this and this. John McCain is at a loss for what to say, since Syria has one more syllable than Iran. So, let him say "Thank God," and he then can exit, stage right. Sibel Edmonds, who, like me was not there to know for certain what may have happened, when. Does any reader have a link to supply to possible Colin Powell speeches about chemical weapons trailers in Syria?
___________UPDATE____________
MN Progressive Project, here.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Woo woo. A Coalition of the Willing. Hat tip to J.O'C.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Hostage taking? By them Rooskies? Ms. Power flexing her muscles?
Get real. How many times has the US blocked resolutions on Israel? In the days of neocon Bolton, before, and afterwards. But that is a horse of a different color?
Again, get real.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Syria has become a hot petition-the-pres topic, here.
As usual there, on a topic with high consensus in a direction the Obama administration does not like or want to consider, somebody seeds the site with multiple petition versions, thereby diluting the appearance of a decisively strong consensus.
___________UPDATE____________
MN Progressive Project, here.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Woo woo. A Coalition of the Willing. Hat tip to J.O'C.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Hostage taking? By them Rooskies? Ms. Power flexing her muscles?
Get real. How many times has the US blocked resolutions on Israel? In the days of neocon Bolton, before, and afterwards. But that is a horse of a different color?
Again, get real.
__________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Syria has become a hot petition-the-pres topic, here.
As usual there, on a topic with high consensus in a direction the Obama administration does not like or want to consider, somebody seeds the site with multiple petition versions, thereby diluting the appearance of a decisively strong consensus.
Will there be an apartment glut in Minnesota's metro region?
Strib reporting, this excerpt:
The sentence for which I would have appreciated a numerical data breakdown was, "The Uptown and North Loop neighborhoods in Minneapolis have been the epicenters of apartment construction in the city." That is not Ramsey Town Center, but "in the city" begs the question of numbers in that "epicenter" vs outlying "market rate" rentals, with that "market rate" terminology being favored by Flaherty & Collins.
Presumably "market rate" means "as high as the market will bear for our stuff, where we've built it."
Hopefully Flaherty's Town Center thing rents out to low vacancy at high prices, so that the adventure repays risk money the prior council voted for as a subsidy for Flaherty's firm's activities in Town Center.
The free parking stalls given Flaherty, and that risk capital have become sunk investment, so that the hope is that City of Ramsey recoups the risk capital part of things. Free parking, it's been built from public funds, and given away, and is gone into private hands, those of Flaherty, and of Collins. Any rationalization that it was not Ramsey property tax revenues spent in giving Flaherty free parking would ignore that public money comes from taxing, at one government level or another. It is not grown on trees. It is extracted. Hence, a responsibility attaches to spending it wisely. What's wise for Flaherty might not be wise for Ben Dover.
____________UPDATE___________
Beyond consideration of a possible apartment glut, the notion of a rental property glut can also include single family homes bought by speculators, with the intention of big buck profits from renting the homes to people not favoring living in shared-wall situations. See, e.g., this Strib link.
If Developers are Crabgrass, mega-landlords are Roundup-resistant weeds.
At least that is a truth to some people, although opinions can differ.
Apartments dominate construction in Twin Cities in August
Article by: JIM BUCHTA , Updated: August 30, 2013
Demand for luxury rental apartments is rising, even as houses also are being built.
During August, metro area homebuilders were issued 494 permits to build 1,114 units, according to data compiled by the Keystone Report for the Builders Association of the Twin Cities. That’s a 28 percent increase in permits, and a 24 percent increase in units, over the same month last year.
Multifamily housing, mostly luxury rental apartments, represented more than half of all new units planned for the coming months, [...] Apartment developers are busier than they’ve been in years. Year-to-date multifamily construction is ahead of last year by 17 percent, with permits issued to build 2,761 units.
“We’re leasing on-schedule,” said Susan Picotte, director of real estate for Greystar, an Atlanta-based housing developer that just opened its first new project in the Uptown neighborhood of south Minneapolis.
She said demand is still strong even though thousands of new units already have hit the market, and that has enabled Greystar to increase rents anywhere from 4.9 to 10 percent. Greystar owns and manages seven properties in Minnesota, including the new Elan Uptown, which is being opened in two phases.
“I can look out off the rooftop and see three other projects under construction within a stone’s throw; it’s become a highly competitive market,” Picotte said.
The Uptown and North Loop neighborhoods in Minneapolis have been the epicenters of apartment construction in the city. [...] Across the seven-county metro, the average vacancy rate dipped to 2.3 percent at the end of June, causing the average metro rent price to increase 3 percent to $979, according to a recent second-quarter survey by Marquette Advisors. That was the largest quarterly decline in vacancy rates in two years, and the ninth consecutive quarter of vacancy rates below 3 percent.
A key indicator of future construction also released Friday suggested strong demand for at least the next few months. The Architecture Billings Index for July increased more than a full point, indicating that design activity is on the rise across the country. Chief economist Kermit Baker of the American Institute of Architects said the Billings Index helps forecast what will get built over the next nine to 12 months.
The sentence for which I would have appreciated a numerical data breakdown was, "The Uptown and North Loop neighborhoods in Minneapolis have been the epicenters of apartment construction in the city." That is not Ramsey Town Center, but "in the city" begs the question of numbers in that "epicenter" vs outlying "market rate" rentals, with that "market rate" terminology being favored by Flaherty & Collins.
Presumably "market rate" means "as high as the market will bear for our stuff, where we've built it."
Hopefully Flaherty's Town Center thing rents out to low vacancy at high prices, so that the adventure repays risk money the prior council voted for as a subsidy for Flaherty's firm's activities in Town Center.
The free parking stalls given Flaherty, and that risk capital have become sunk investment, so that the hope is that City of Ramsey recoups the risk capital part of things. Free parking, it's been built from public funds, and given away, and is gone into private hands, those of Flaherty, and of Collins. Any rationalization that it was not Ramsey property tax revenues spent in giving Flaherty free parking would ignore that public money comes from taxing, at one government level or another. It is not grown on trees. It is extracted. Hence, a responsibility attaches to spending it wisely. What's wise for Flaherty might not be wise for Ben Dover.
____________UPDATE___________
Beyond consideration of a possible apartment glut, the notion of a rental property glut can also include single family homes bought by speculators, with the intention of big buck profits from renting the homes to people not favoring living in shared-wall situations. See, e.g., this Strib link.
If Developers are Crabgrass, mega-landlords are Roundup-resistant weeds.
At least that is a truth to some people, although opinions can differ.
Silk purses and sows ears.
Watchdog, second item, here. A quote:
It is dog-easy. Blame the teachers. Blame "the liberals." Perhaps the wrong people, dumber ones, are reproducing in greater numbers. Michele and Marcus Bachmann had five children, and are religious fundamentalists vs. being attuned to evolution and global warming worry. But one example does not prove much. Perhaps it is that dumber people move to the Anoka Hennepin district. Perhaps it is time to throw out the TV, and take back the iPhones. Perhaps Korean and Bavarian young people do their text messaging in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
Perhaps it is time to realize that parents have a great impact upon value systems of their children and if the parents are disrespectful of intelligent well-educated neighbors then expecting the children to value education and to work at it is - what - whimsical?
Perhaps the Watchdog is making too much "to do" about a situation where winnowing at higher levels than K-12 is the reality. Perhaps the Watchdog knows all this, but just has dog-stupid bias against unions and liberals. The world is full of possibilities.
But the genetics of things, children inheriting their parents' genetic character, and not their teachers', needs to be a part of proper analysis and behavior, in the training of one's watchdog.
Teaching the dog what to watch for and to bark about (such as ending sentence fragments with prepositions). If you start with a watchdog that can only see from its right eye, having only a right oriented world view, perhaps it's a doomed beast. One doomed to be drawn to the inflaming of passions via stale rhetoric, more than by logic.
ANOKA-HENNEPIN TEST RESULTS
Speaking of test results, Another batch of standardized test results have come in for school districts, including Anoka-Hennepin.
The big news is that grade 3 through 8 reading scores for this year are based on a new, more vigorous test based on the Common Core, a new national curriculum.
Education officials have dismissed the major drop off [sic] in test scores as simply the result of basing scores on a harder test.
[...] It's not hard to leap over low bar[sic]. Unfortunately, global economic competition doesn't award a "tallest midget" ribbon. You educate your citizens to compete or you fail. It's that harsh, no matter how hard the liberals protest life's unfairness, all the way from the classroom to the athletic field to the boardroom.
There is no two class system in the global arena, no class "A" system to drop to if "AA" is too hard.
[... omitted data; begin pedantic panic mode]
Every single grade level in the district saw a double-digit drop in proficiency. So why hasn't the mainstream media asked why the previous test was so easy? Why was the bar set so low?
Every percentage point drop represents students previously labeled "proficient" in reading who are now below the proficiency line.
[...] The dumbing down of America has certainly touched every school district in Anoka County.
We're also relieved to discuss something other than homosexual issues in the district.
There's much to do [sic] to make these schools truly competitive in a global economy.
The first thing would be to get rid of a teachers' union that protects the incompetent and resists attempts to make teachers more accountable for the results they deliver.
[...] It's great to see improvement vis-a-vis other Minnesota districts, but that's still a tallest midget analysis.
[...] It's one thing to beat the scores out of Brown County. It's another to beat the scores out of Bavaria.
We can't be satisfied doing well against intra-state districts. We need to strive for excellence as measured against international competition, where we are still woefully weak.
By international standards, American kids are middle of the pack in reading and science while they are below average in math.
When Polish kids are smoking U.S. kids on reading scores, it's hard to brag.
It is dog-easy. Blame the teachers. Blame "the liberals." Perhaps the wrong people, dumber ones, are reproducing in greater numbers. Michele and Marcus Bachmann had five children, and are religious fundamentalists vs. being attuned to evolution and global warming worry. But one example does not prove much. Perhaps it is that dumber people move to the Anoka Hennepin district. Perhaps it is time to throw out the TV, and take back the iPhones. Perhaps Korean and Bavarian young people do their text messaging in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
Perhaps it is time to realize that parents have a great impact upon value systems of their children and if the parents are disrespectful of intelligent well-educated neighbors then expecting the children to value education and to work at it is - what - whimsical?
Perhaps the Watchdog is making too much "to do" about a situation where winnowing at higher levels than K-12 is the reality. Perhaps the Watchdog knows all this, but just has dog-stupid bias against unions and liberals. The world is full of possibilities.
But the genetics of things, children inheriting their parents' genetic character, and not their teachers', needs to be a part of proper analysis and behavior, in the training of one's watchdog.
Teaching the dog what to watch for and to bark about (such as ending sentence fragments with prepositions). If you start with a watchdog that can only see from its right eye, having only a right oriented world view, perhaps it's a doomed beast. One doomed to be drawn to the inflaming of passions via stale rhetoric, more than by logic.
Anoka County - Strib posts about Running Acres, and surprisingly, the Watchdog goes on point.
Why do you suppose that is? This link. This screen capture.
Link to the Watchdog site, to follow its link over to the Strib report. Read the Strib item, and then post a comment of what YOU believe put the pup on point.
Link to the Watchdog site, to follow its link over to the Strib report. Read the Strib item, and then post a comment of what YOU believe put the pup on point.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
You lack a boat? Then buy a boat. "The minimum bid will be $2 million for the Sahara, which is offered 'as-is, where-is, without warranty of any kind.' "
This link. With a helicopter landing pad, it's well fitted. So is it more boat than you can crew?
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