According to the JS:

State Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi said the cracks were discovered during a scheduled inspection on Monday and further investigation revealed that the 40-foot concrete support was designed improperly and is inadequate to support the weight that rests on it, including steel girders and the roadway.

Busalacchi says contractor HNTB is accepting responsibility for the mega-mistake, according to the JS.

Now that we know that the $800 million project is screwed up, we need answers to a few questions:

• Who at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is accepting responsibility? Anyone?
• Why did it take until now to discover that the concrete support was “designed improperly?”
• What, exactly, is improper about the design?
• How did WisDOT review project designs before construction?
• Why did WisDOT wait three days after the crack was discovered to alert the public of a potential problem?
• Would WisDOT and HNTB have been better off hiring more project and design inspectors instead of spending almost $700,000 on a web site?
• Would WisDOT have been better off hiring more project and design inspectors instead of spending $1.5 million on an office renovation for Milwaukee Transportation Partners, the design team led by HNTB and CH2M Hill?

What would happen if 20 metropolitan areas shifted 50% of their highway funds to transit? They would generate 1,123,674 new transit jobs over a five-year period — for a net gain of 180,150 jobs over five years — without a single dollar of new spending.

There’s a concept — putting dollars where they would both create jobs and would add real transportation value. Don’t know about that 50%, though — we have a lot of bridges and roads to fix (although WisDOT would rather expand highways than maintain them).

From the Electronic Privacy Information Center:

The recently announced Facebook service Places makes user location data routinely available to others, including Facebook business partners, regardless of whether users wish to disclose their location. There is no single opt-out to avoid location tracking. The default settings of this new tool allow user data to be disclosed in a number of ways that are not immediately clear to users. Facebook has put a complicated set of new privacy settings in place to deal with the “Places” tool. Additionally, Facebook allows anyone to create a location on the system, which means anyone could add the location of a person’s home or business to the website without the person’s knowledge.

By default, Facebook has enabled Places for all users. If a user chooses to “check in” from a mobile device, that user’s location is published to that user’s news feed. If the option “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in” is selected, the user’s location also appears on the public page of the location, available to everyone. This setting is enabled by default for those who have previously set some of their other information available to everyone.

If a user checks in, that user can “tag” a number of friends as also being at the same location. The default behavior for users tagged by their friends is very confusing. Those users who have taken no action with respect to this setting will receive an email and a prompt with the options to “allow” or “not now.” Those who choose “allow” are automatically set to allow all future check-ins by friends. Those who choose “not now” are still tagged as being at the location, just not “checked in.” Users are also tagged immediately when the check-in takes place, although the tags may be removed once users become aware of them. A user who has ever used Places to check in is automatically set to allow check-ins by friends.

By default, check-in information is also available to the third-party developers of applications that a user has authorized, as well as to the third-party developers of applications that a user’s friends have authorized.

Additionally, At the Coca-Cola Village Amusement Park in Israel, visitors were recently issued bracelets with RFID chips that linked to their Facebook accounts. RFID readers scattered throughout the park updated the users’ Facebook pages when the bracelets were scanned and on-site photographers posted photos that were automatically tagged with the users’ identities.

For users who do not want location information revealed to others, EPIC recommends that Facebook users: (1) disable “Friends can check me in to Places,” (2) customize “Places I Check In,” (3) disable “People Here
Now,” and (4) uncheck “Places I check in to” from the list of settings accessible to applications through your friends.

EPIC, joined by many consumer and privacy organizations, has two complaints pending at the Federal Trade Commission concerning Facebook’s unfair and deceptive trade practices, which are frequently associated with new product announcements.

I followed EPIC’s recommendations. I don’t need to hide where I go, but it’s really not the business of marketers or the world.

We are at a truly historic moment in our nation’s history. After more than seven years, our combat mission in Iraq will end tomorrow.

As both a candidate and President, I promised to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. Now, we are taking an important step forward in delivering on that promise. Since I took office, we’ve brought nearly 100,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq, millions of pieces of equipment have been removed, and hundreds of bases have been closed or transferred to Iraqi Security Forces.

Our combat mission in Iraq is ending, but our commitment to an Iraq that is sovereign, stable and self-reliant continues. As our mission in Iraq changes, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq to advise and assist the Iraqi Security Forces as they assume full responsibility for the security of their country on September 1. We will forge a strong partnership with an Iraq that still faces enduring challenges.

I am glad for the lives of soldiers still serving that the combat mission is over, but what a terrible, terrible terrible waste of lives and resources it was. What the hell did it accomplish?

And what happens to the Iraqi people now? Are we going to better for our friends there than we did for the Hmong people after the Vietnam War?

(First, full disclosure: the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board, which fights for reliable and affordable electricity and telephone service on behalf of Wisconsin customers, is suing to block the ill-considered WP&L program, and I am on the CUB Board. This post, though, was not vetted or approved by CUB and I’m not representing the organization here.)

The utility argued that it wanted to offer lower rates to companies that, among other things, would leave the WP&L service territory if they didn’t get them. WP&L at first proposed that any industry seeking a break in its electricity bill be required to submit an affidavit stating that the lower rate would play a significant role in the firm’s decision to stay in Wisconsin.

The utility contended that, golly gee, companies wouldn’t lie about a thing like that just to lower costs and increase profits!

Yah, right, WP&L, what planet have you guys been living on?

The commission rejected WP&L’s  proposal, then made a very puzzling decision —  it said that it will decide which firms are in so much trouble they should get lower electric rates.  The commission, in approving the WP&L giveaway, said it can “investigate the customer’s financial status and the customer’s opportunities to move operations out of Wisconsin.”

Well. The commission and its staff may be made up solely of really great guys and gals, but that does not make them experts in reviewing firms’ balance sheets or in deciding which firms are most likely to leave. Here is the PSC’s organizational chart — with no little box for corporate financial expertise. We’ve all learned to our   bitter economic regret in recent years that even experts can be fooled by companies with something to hide — why on Earth would the PSC think itself qualified to root out the truth?

The lower rates also would be available only to firms that received at least $500,000 in government assistance during the previous two years, the commission ruled. The money would have to come one of roughly 30 programs (ranging from the state’s Best Employees’ Skills Training program to location in a tax incremental financing district)  specified in WP&L filings, or it could come from some other program approved by the commission.

Why would receiving government assistance qualify a company for lower electric rates? That might be a puzzler for most people (isn’t one handout enough?), but the commission opined in its final decision that receiving assistance will verify either that a specific project that increases demand for electricity “will be a lasting economic improvement” or that the $500,000 requirement will offer “an equivalent independent verification of the customer’s economic stability.”

The PSC does not however, offer a scintilla of evidence that being in a TIF District or getting a loan from a government revolving fund provides “independent verification” of anything more than a firm’s knowing how to take advantage of government programs. Besides, if a company gets half a million in government funding, but still needs help from the electric company, isn’t that a sign of economic weakness, rather than stability?

A big question, of course, is who would pay for the lower utility rates that corporate customers get.  The danger is that utility largess for corporations will eventually mean higher utility bills for other customers, including residential customers who are suffering greatly in the current downturn. Governments, including school districts and municipalities already slashing jobs while trying to maintain services and reasonable property tax rates, likely would face higher utility bills as well. Think about it — if this program is fully implemented, your average Joe and Jane WP&L Customer will pay at least twice for it — once through higher payments for the electricity they use at home, and once through higher property taxes they pay for local governments’ electricity use.

And yet, this still is not all that is wrong with the program or the PSC’s reasoning. More to come.

It just is.

The shocking truth: not everyone should own a house.

Robert Samuelson, in the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, we let a sensible goal become a foolish fetish. Not everyone can become a homeowner. Some are too young and footloose; some are too old and dependent; some are too poor or irresponsible. Some don’t want a home. Even with these gaps, homeownership is virtually universal among the middle-aged middle class: almost three-quarters of Americans ages 45 to 54 and four-fifths ages 55 to 64.

Government subsidizes homeownership in two ways: through tax and spending policies and through credit markets. Tax breaks for homeowners (mainly the deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, plus preferential treatment of capital gains on homes) exceeded $120 billion in 2009, reports the Congressional Budget Office. These benefits go heavily to higher-income borrowers, who are encouraged to buy bigger and more expensive homes that generate larger tax savings. This is both unfair and unnecessary. By contrast, government subsidies for lower-income renters are skimpier, totaling about 25 percent of the support for homeowners.

Let’s hear it for Mr. Samuelson. I never did understand why people with far lower incomes than mine were expected to subsidize my mortgage (you bet I claimed the interest deduction) or why I am expected to subsidize someone’s McMansion.

Overall, idea that owner occupancy is always a good thing just doesn’t make sense.  Anyone who has ever walked into a crap house poorly maintained by owner-occupants who clearly have no idea about what they are doing can tell you that home ownership can be a very, very bad idea.

Laura Schlessinger, the blunt-spoken, sometimes controversial radio talk-show host whose racially charged comments drew widespread condemnation last week, said Tuesday that she will end her radio career at the end of the year.

The announcement by the host of the “Dr. Laura” program was a stunning denouement after a week in which Schlessinger was widely criticized for describing an African American caller to her program as “hypersensitive” for taking offense at a neighbor’s racial taunting. To illustrate her claim of a racial double standard, she said that black comedians often use the N-word on TV without criticism, but the word is forbidden for white people. She used the racial epithet, unexpurgated, 11 times in five minutes, despite her caller’s protests.