Read This Now - Keep It To The Limit

Greater Greater Washington has a nice rundown on the benefits of traffic cameras both generally and to the DC area specifically.  The bottom line is that traffic cameras reduce speeding and make the streets safer for everyone...

We need more traffic cameras, not fewer, and should place them in the real danger spots. DC is getting 9 new permanent cameras, but it's been over a year that MPD has been trying to bring in a more comprehensive system. There would be mobile cameras that they can deploy temporarily at high-danger spots, and cameras to catch box-blocking or failing to yield to pedestrians. 

I'm a fan of traffic cameras, yes it's annoying when you get a ticket in the mail but the driving is noticeably safer and less reckless where cameras have been installed and that's something I can support as a driver, pedestrian, and occasional biker.

Read the whole thing for links on how traffic cameras make us safer and GGW's thoughts on blocking the box cameras (talk about a good idea).

Fishy Brain Teaser

Coudal Partners says Einstein came up with this one and that he claimed only 2% of the world population would be able to solve it.  Who knows if that's true or not but these types of puzzles can be a lot of fun.

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

The question is-- who owns the fish?

Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer. 

Coudal Partners has some other hints and answers via links and a pdf (handy for printing out) available.

Sometimes It Is Easy Being Green

At least the new Center for Interactive Research on Sustainability at UBC makes it look pretty easy...



It's been pretty wild watching the limits of green and sustainable architecture rapidly expand.  Buildings that were cutting edge a few years ago when they opened are way behind now.  I do wonder if there is a way to design green buildings with future upgrades etc in mind...

Climate Progress has more details on the CIRS building and all the relevant links for more info.

Eat Your Veggies

Congress undeniably did a number on children's health and common sense when they passed the latest ag bill, in which they basically did the bidding of big ag and big food industries in just another sad reminder that our government serves those with the most cash to spread around these days.

Kermit and SNL got in on the raging meme that pizza is now a vegetable...



While the Really?! directed at congress is entirely justified, it is worth noting that they didn't actually declare pizza a vegetable.  Sarah Kliff gets into the nuance of the situation here.

Meanwhile Marian Burros shines some light on the dirty inner workings of how the deal went down on the incomparable Obama Foodorama

Flexibility

Flexibility is increasingly a buzz word in business and management arenas and in their overlap with environmental management where I encounter the meme quite a bit.

This is a different and more original form of flexibility...


Break ton Neck from Alex Yde on Vimeo.


I was impressed.

(via AF on fb)

Read This Now - Wall Street Is Doing Fine, How About You?

In the WaPo Zachary Goldfarb gives the quick and dirty synopsis of how the Federal Government helped the big banks and Wall Street regain their footing and enjoy a quick return of record profits and growth while main street and the majority of Americans have been left to wallow in the depths of the Great Recession.

“There’s a very popular conception out there that the bailout was done with a tremendous amount of firepower and focus on saving the largest Wall Street institutions but with very little regard for Main Street,” said Neil Barofsky, the former federal watchdog for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the $700 billion fund used to bail out banks. “That’s actually a very accurate description of what happened.” 

I think the bigger takeaway is actually how quickly we've returned to business as usual with the big banks and Wall Street getting right back to crazy profits and no interest in fixing the things that got us into this mess.

It's a quick and worthwhile read.

(via @DRGrist)

The Republican Field Redux

Herman Cain is looking even less put together and Rick Perry is looking, well to be honest he looks pretty hammered.  Take it away Jon...

Here's the rest of the highlight reel from that Perry speech...



Um, just wow.

(via ND)