From Reuters:
Honolulu and Santa Fe, New Mexico, are the U.S. cities with the best air quality, while Los Angeles and several others had the foulest, according to an American Lung Association report.
While the nation's most smoggy cities all improved their air quality over the last year, half the nation's residents still live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, added the report, released on Wednesday.
The "State of the Air 2011" report concluded that the U.S. Clean Air Act, the federal law aimed at limited pollution in U.S. Skies, is working...
The worst three for ozone pollution were Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Visalia, all in California. Bakersfield and fellow California city Fresno, along with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had the most short-term particle pollution, while Bakersfield, Los Angeles and Phoenix had the worst year-round particle pollution.
Honolulu has best air in U.S., Los Angeles and others the worst: report
Thu Apr 28, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/28/uk-us-air-idUSLNE73R02Z20110428
Showing posts with label Phoenix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phoenix. Show all posts
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Path to Recovery
http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/archive/2010/05/the-path-to-recovery/56393/
The Path to Recovery
May 7 2010
Richard Florida
Economic peaks and valleys are part of the life cycle of any society. They can be difficult, sometimes horribly painful, but just as trees shed their leaves in the fall to make room for the new growth of spring, economies reset themselves. Times of crisis reveal what is and isn't working. These are the times when obsolete and dysfunctional systems and practices collapse or fall by the wayside. They are the times when the seeds of innovation and invention, of creativity and entrepreneurship, burst into full flower, enabling recovery by remaking both the economy and society. Major periods of economic transformation, such as the Great Depression or the Long Depression of the 1870s before it, unfold over long stretches of time, like motion pictures rather than snapshots. Likewise, the path to recovery can be long and twisted--the better part of three decades in the case of those two previous crises. Seen in the greater context of history, economic crises inevitably give rise to critical periods in which an economy is remade in ways that allow it to recover and begin growing again. These are periods I call Great Resets.
We're still very early on in the current economic Reset, so it's difficult to fully grasp how it will ultimately play out. But we can all sense that our way of life is changing and our economic landscape is too. This emerging new way of life will be less oriented around cars, houses, and suburbs. We'll be spending relatively less on the things that defined the old way of life. We'll have to, if we expect to have money left over to sustain the new industries that will emerge in the Great Reset and usher in an age of renewed prosperity. Before we can nurture the new industries of the future, develop new forms of health care and biotechnologies, or even explore new forms of education or more experiential forms of entertainment and recreation, we first have to free up capital by producing the goods of the old industrial order more cheaply and efficiently.
We've reached the limits of what George W. Bush used to call the "ownership society." Owning your own home made sense when people could hope to hold a job for most or all of their lives. But in an economy that revolves around mobility and flexibility, a house that can't be sold becomes an economic trap, preventing people from moving freely to economic opportunity. Not only has that piece of the American Dream grown dark, but it's also clear that financial excess in the housing sector was one of the central causes of the economic crisis. Housing sucked up far too much of the nation's and the world's capital, and too many people--already overextended by the purchase of outsized houses--used those homes like virtual ATMs to finance carefree consumption. Every Great Reset has seen our system of housing change, and this one is no different. The rate of home ownership has been on the decline for some time now. Many of those who still choose to buy homes will choose smaller ones, while many more will opt for rental housing.
Our new way of life is likely to depend a whole lot less on the car. In October 2009, The New York Times reported, "The recession and a growing awareness of the environment are causing many people to reassess their automobile ownership. After more than a century in which an automobile represented the American dream, car enthusiasm may no longer be a part of Americans' DNA." Car culture no longer exerts the powerful pull it once did. More and more families are deciding to share cars, and young people are putting off buying them and using public transit, bikes, their feet or Zipcars (membership-based, easy-access short-term car rentals) instead. It's not just that oil and gas have become expensive, it's that traffic and gridlock have become a deadweight time cost on us and our economy.
One constant in the history of capitalism is the ever-more-intensive use of land, as mercantile towns replaced agricultural villages, major industrial cities replaced those towns, and massive complexes of suburbs, exurbs, and edge cites expanded the boundaries of those cities. The change we are living through is much more than a movement from suburbs to denser urban communities. What we are seeing is the rise of a new, bigger, and denser economic landscape than ever before--the rise of vast megaregions such as the corridors stretching from Boston to New York and Washington, D.C., around greater London, and from Shanghai to Beijing. These concentrations of population, which encompass several cities and their surrounding suburban rings, have grown swiftly in recent years.
The largest megaregion in North America is the great "Bos-Wash" corridor, initially identified by the geographer Jean Gottmann. Strecthing down the East Coast, it includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and is home to more than 50 million people while producing more than $2 trillion in economic activity. Its economic output is greater than that of either the United Kingdom or France and more than double that of India or Canada. The second biggest, which Gottman dubbed "Chi-Pitts," covers more than 100,000 square miles and is home to 46 million people, producing $1.6 trillion in economic output. Other megaregions in North America include:
•Char-lanta: Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham, 22 million people
•So-Cal: Around Los Angeles, 21 million people
•Tor-Mon-tawa: 22 million people
•Nor-Cal: Around San Francisco, 12.8 million people
•So-Flo: Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, 15 million people
•Dal-Austin: Dallas and Austin, 10 million people
•Hou-Orleans: Houston and New Orleans, 9.7 million people
•Cascadia: Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, 9 million people
•Pho-Tus: Phoenix and Tucson, 4.7 million people
•Den-Bo: Denver and Boulder, 3.7 million people
Around the world, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Mumbai are hubs of giant megaregions. Each of these is a financial and commercial center with tens of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars in output.
These megaregions, not nations, really power the global economy. Taken together, the world's 40 largest megaregions account for two-thirds of all global economic activity and 85 percent of the world's technological innovation while housing just 18 percent of its population. Megaregions are the strategic power centers of the economy, housing 85 percent of all corporate headquarters in the United States and Canada.
Though many analysts have predicted that the importance of cities--and that of location--would fade with globalization, the reality is that cities and megaregions have become more important economically than ever before. Even as globalization has spread factories, businesses, and laboratories to places such as India, China, Brazil, and beyond, these activities are being concentrated in the megaregions of those countries. Contrary to the notion that the world is flat, the most successful megaregions, in fact, are becoming economically stronger and spikier, not flatter.
Megaregions are to our time what suburbanization was to the postwar era. They provide the seeds of a new spatial fix. They expand and intensify our use of land and space the way that the industrial city did during the First Reset and suburbia did in the Second. As people pour into the world's great megaregions, inner cities and close-in suburbs are being reclaimed and rebuilt. Older suburbs, especially those on transit routes, are being reorganized and rebuilt into denser communities offering more condos and town houses as well as single-family homes. Suburban malls and office complexes are being retrofitted and turned into walkable areas with a mixture of housing, shops, and restaurants and in some cases even new parks. Subways and rail transit are being expanded as highways clog.
The location decisions made by new college grads have interested me for years. Their choices involve evaluating not just the company they'll work for but the labor market it's located in and what the surrounding area has to offer. Because they are both highly skilled and highly mobile--three to five times as likely to move than, say, a 45-year-old--the decisions they make about where to live are likely to leave a lasting imprint on our economic geography.
To get at the factors that attract and keep young Gen Y members, those born between the years 1979 and 1990, in certain places, my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I analyzed the results of a Gallup survey of some 28,000 Americans. Jobs are clearly important. Gen Y members ranked the availability of jobs second when asked what would keep them in their current location and fourth in terms of their overall satisfaction with their community. From this perspective, big cities make sense for them, as they offer more robust labor markets with more and better job opportunities in a wide number of fields. In an age in which corporate commitment has dwindled, job tenure has grown far shorter, and people switch jobs with much greater frequency, career success involves a great deal more than simply finding the right first job. In these highly mobile and economically tumultuous times, career success for young people depends on locating themselves in a thick labor market that offers diverse and abundant job opportunities. Picking an economically vibrant location is an important hedge against economic uncertainty and the risk of layoff.
But remember that jobs were not the highest-ranked factor. Across the board, the survey respondents said that the ability to meet people and make friends was of paramount importance. These young people intuitively understand what economic sociologists have documented: that vibrant social networks are key to landing jobs, moving forward in your career, and securing personal happiness. They not only desire a thick labor market but also seek what I have come to call a thick mating market, where they can meet new people, go out on dates, and eventually find a life partner. And whereas older Americans see high-quality schools and safe streets for their children as key, Gen Y understandably ranks the availability of outstanding colleges and universities higher. Many are likely to go back to graduate school and want to have good programs nearby. For all these reasons, big cities at the heart of megaregions top the list of their choices.
The auto-dependent transportation system has reached its limit in most major cities and megaregions. Commuting by car is among the least efficient of all our activities--not to mention among the least enjoyable, according to detailed research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues. Though one might think that the crisis would have reduced traffic (high unemployment means fewer workers traveling to and from work), the opposite has been true. Average commutes have lengthened, and congestion has gotten worse, if anything. The average commute rose in 2008 to 25.5 minutes, "erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or subway train," according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which collects the figures. And those are average figures. Commutes are far longer in the big West Coast cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco and the East Coast cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. In many of these cities, gridlock has become the norm, not just at rush hour but all day, every day.
Just about the only remedy for traffic congestion anyone ever suggests is building more roads and highways, which of course only makes the problem worse. New roads generate higher levels of "induced traffic," that is, new roads just invite drivers to drive more and lure people who take mass transit back to their cars. Eventually, we end up with more clogged roads rather than a long-term improvement in traffic flow
More and more people are choosing to take the subway, train, or bus or even walk or bike to work and go about their daily business--providing they live in an environment that allows for such choices. In Manhattan, 82 percent of workers get to work by public transit or bicycle or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County, and 16 times the rate for residents of metropolitan Atlanta. The New York City subway is a remarkably effective technology for moving masses of people around quickly and efficiently. Between 8 and 9 in the morning on a typical workday, more than 385,000 people use its subway system to commute into the central business district.
New York is not the only place where this kind of change in commuting and local traffic patterns is occurring. In Washington, D.C., 57 percent of commuters get to work by means other than driving a car--more than a third take public transit, 12 percent walk to work, and 2 percent ride their bikes; just four in ten drive to work alone. In Boston and San Francisco, roughly half of workers get to work without their cars--roughly a third of commuters take transit, and 10 to 15 percent walk to work. In Philadelphia, 41 percent commute without cars and 27 percent take transit.
These numbers may seem like a drop in the bucket. But 60 percent of Americans surveyed in 2005 said they want to live in walkable communities with shops, restaurants, movie theaters, schools, and churches nearby. We're already seeing the shift as increasing numbers of people move to walkable communities closer to where they work. That will clearly expand in coming decades.
For the time being, most Americans remain behind the wheel. Today, more than three-quarters of Americans drive to work alone. They have no other choice. There are, however, other things we can do to ease congestion and take more cars off the road. Employers can offer more flexible schedules and the ability to work from home or telecommute. But as we've already seen, in many cities traffic is not just a rush-hour problem. The only alternative left is to price the roads. We pay for everything else: we pay to take the subway, ride the bus, or take the train, we pay to drive through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels or over the George Washington Bridge. Why should the roads be essentially free? If we want to make traffic better, we have little choice other than to make people pay for the roads they drive on.
Richard Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. Adapted from THE GREAT RESET: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida. Copyright 2010 by Richard Florida. Reprinted by arrangement with Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
The Path to Recovery
May 7 2010
Richard Florida
Economic peaks and valleys are part of the life cycle of any society. They can be difficult, sometimes horribly painful, but just as trees shed their leaves in the fall to make room for the new growth of spring, economies reset themselves. Times of crisis reveal what is and isn't working. These are the times when obsolete and dysfunctional systems and practices collapse or fall by the wayside. They are the times when the seeds of innovation and invention, of creativity and entrepreneurship, burst into full flower, enabling recovery by remaking both the economy and society. Major periods of economic transformation, such as the Great Depression or the Long Depression of the 1870s before it, unfold over long stretches of time, like motion pictures rather than snapshots. Likewise, the path to recovery can be long and twisted--the better part of three decades in the case of those two previous crises. Seen in the greater context of history, economic crises inevitably give rise to critical periods in which an economy is remade in ways that allow it to recover and begin growing again. These are periods I call Great Resets.
We're still very early on in the current economic Reset, so it's difficult to fully grasp how it will ultimately play out. But we can all sense that our way of life is changing and our economic landscape is too. This emerging new way of life will be less oriented around cars, houses, and suburbs. We'll be spending relatively less on the things that defined the old way of life. We'll have to, if we expect to have money left over to sustain the new industries that will emerge in the Great Reset and usher in an age of renewed prosperity. Before we can nurture the new industries of the future, develop new forms of health care and biotechnologies, or even explore new forms of education or more experiential forms of entertainment and recreation, we first have to free up capital by producing the goods of the old industrial order more cheaply and efficiently.
We've reached the limits of what George W. Bush used to call the "ownership society." Owning your own home made sense when people could hope to hold a job for most or all of their lives. But in an economy that revolves around mobility and flexibility, a house that can't be sold becomes an economic trap, preventing people from moving freely to economic opportunity. Not only has that piece of the American Dream grown dark, but it's also clear that financial excess in the housing sector was one of the central causes of the economic crisis. Housing sucked up far too much of the nation's and the world's capital, and too many people--already overextended by the purchase of outsized houses--used those homes like virtual ATMs to finance carefree consumption. Every Great Reset has seen our system of housing change, and this one is no different. The rate of home ownership has been on the decline for some time now. Many of those who still choose to buy homes will choose smaller ones, while many more will opt for rental housing.
Our new way of life is likely to depend a whole lot less on the car. In October 2009, The New York Times reported, "The recession and a growing awareness of the environment are causing many people to reassess their automobile ownership. After more than a century in which an automobile represented the American dream, car enthusiasm may no longer be a part of Americans' DNA." Car culture no longer exerts the powerful pull it once did. More and more families are deciding to share cars, and young people are putting off buying them and using public transit, bikes, their feet or Zipcars (membership-based, easy-access short-term car rentals) instead. It's not just that oil and gas have become expensive, it's that traffic and gridlock have become a deadweight time cost on us and our economy.
One constant in the history of capitalism is the ever-more-intensive use of land, as mercantile towns replaced agricultural villages, major industrial cities replaced those towns, and massive complexes of suburbs, exurbs, and edge cites expanded the boundaries of those cities. The change we are living through is much more than a movement from suburbs to denser urban communities. What we are seeing is the rise of a new, bigger, and denser economic landscape than ever before--the rise of vast megaregions such as the corridors stretching from Boston to New York and Washington, D.C., around greater London, and from Shanghai to Beijing. These concentrations of population, which encompass several cities and their surrounding suburban rings, have grown swiftly in recent years.
The largest megaregion in North America is the great "Bos-Wash" corridor, initially identified by the geographer Jean Gottmann. Strecthing down the East Coast, it includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and is home to more than 50 million people while producing more than $2 trillion in economic activity. Its economic output is greater than that of either the United Kingdom or France and more than double that of India or Canada. The second biggest, which Gottman dubbed "Chi-Pitts," covers more than 100,000 square miles and is home to 46 million people, producing $1.6 trillion in economic output. Other megaregions in North America include:
•Char-lanta: Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham, 22 million people
•So-Cal: Around Los Angeles, 21 million people
•Tor-Mon-tawa: 22 million people
•Nor-Cal: Around San Francisco, 12.8 million people
•So-Flo: Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, 15 million people
•Dal-Austin: Dallas and Austin, 10 million people
•Hou-Orleans: Houston and New Orleans, 9.7 million people
•Cascadia: Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, 9 million people
•Pho-Tus: Phoenix and Tucson, 4.7 million people
•Den-Bo: Denver and Boulder, 3.7 million people
Around the world, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Mumbai are hubs of giant megaregions. Each of these is a financial and commercial center with tens of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars in output.
These megaregions, not nations, really power the global economy. Taken together, the world's 40 largest megaregions account for two-thirds of all global economic activity and 85 percent of the world's technological innovation while housing just 18 percent of its population. Megaregions are the strategic power centers of the economy, housing 85 percent of all corporate headquarters in the United States and Canada.
Though many analysts have predicted that the importance of cities--and that of location--would fade with globalization, the reality is that cities and megaregions have become more important economically than ever before. Even as globalization has spread factories, businesses, and laboratories to places such as India, China, Brazil, and beyond, these activities are being concentrated in the megaregions of those countries. Contrary to the notion that the world is flat, the most successful megaregions, in fact, are becoming economically stronger and spikier, not flatter.
Megaregions are to our time what suburbanization was to the postwar era. They provide the seeds of a new spatial fix. They expand and intensify our use of land and space the way that the industrial city did during the First Reset and suburbia did in the Second. As people pour into the world's great megaregions, inner cities and close-in suburbs are being reclaimed and rebuilt. Older suburbs, especially those on transit routes, are being reorganized and rebuilt into denser communities offering more condos and town houses as well as single-family homes. Suburban malls and office complexes are being retrofitted and turned into walkable areas with a mixture of housing, shops, and restaurants and in some cases even new parks. Subways and rail transit are being expanded as highways clog.
The location decisions made by new college grads have interested me for years. Their choices involve evaluating not just the company they'll work for but the labor market it's located in and what the surrounding area has to offer. Because they are both highly skilled and highly mobile--three to five times as likely to move than, say, a 45-year-old--the decisions they make about where to live are likely to leave a lasting imprint on our economic geography.
To get at the factors that attract and keep young Gen Y members, those born between the years 1979 and 1990, in certain places, my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I analyzed the results of a Gallup survey of some 28,000 Americans. Jobs are clearly important. Gen Y members ranked the availability of jobs second when asked what would keep them in their current location and fourth in terms of their overall satisfaction with their community. From this perspective, big cities make sense for them, as they offer more robust labor markets with more and better job opportunities in a wide number of fields. In an age in which corporate commitment has dwindled, job tenure has grown far shorter, and people switch jobs with much greater frequency, career success involves a great deal more than simply finding the right first job. In these highly mobile and economically tumultuous times, career success for young people depends on locating themselves in a thick labor market that offers diverse and abundant job opportunities. Picking an economically vibrant location is an important hedge against economic uncertainty and the risk of layoff.
But remember that jobs were not the highest-ranked factor. Across the board, the survey respondents said that the ability to meet people and make friends was of paramount importance. These young people intuitively understand what economic sociologists have documented: that vibrant social networks are key to landing jobs, moving forward in your career, and securing personal happiness. They not only desire a thick labor market but also seek what I have come to call a thick mating market, where they can meet new people, go out on dates, and eventually find a life partner. And whereas older Americans see high-quality schools and safe streets for their children as key, Gen Y understandably ranks the availability of outstanding colleges and universities higher. Many are likely to go back to graduate school and want to have good programs nearby. For all these reasons, big cities at the heart of megaregions top the list of their choices.
The auto-dependent transportation system has reached its limit in most major cities and megaregions. Commuting by car is among the least efficient of all our activities--not to mention among the least enjoyable, according to detailed research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues. Though one might think that the crisis would have reduced traffic (high unemployment means fewer workers traveling to and from work), the opposite has been true. Average commutes have lengthened, and congestion has gotten worse, if anything. The average commute rose in 2008 to 25.5 minutes, "erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or subway train," according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which collects the figures. And those are average figures. Commutes are far longer in the big West Coast cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco and the East Coast cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. In many of these cities, gridlock has become the norm, not just at rush hour but all day, every day.
Just about the only remedy for traffic congestion anyone ever suggests is building more roads and highways, which of course only makes the problem worse. New roads generate higher levels of "induced traffic," that is, new roads just invite drivers to drive more and lure people who take mass transit back to their cars. Eventually, we end up with more clogged roads rather than a long-term improvement in traffic flow
More and more people are choosing to take the subway, train, or bus or even walk or bike to work and go about their daily business--providing they live in an environment that allows for such choices. In Manhattan, 82 percent of workers get to work by public transit or bicycle or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County, and 16 times the rate for residents of metropolitan Atlanta. The New York City subway is a remarkably effective technology for moving masses of people around quickly and efficiently. Between 8 and 9 in the morning on a typical workday, more than 385,000 people use its subway system to commute into the central business district.
New York is not the only place where this kind of change in commuting and local traffic patterns is occurring. In Washington, D.C., 57 percent of commuters get to work by means other than driving a car--more than a third take public transit, 12 percent walk to work, and 2 percent ride their bikes; just four in ten drive to work alone. In Boston and San Francisco, roughly half of workers get to work without their cars--roughly a third of commuters take transit, and 10 to 15 percent walk to work. In Philadelphia, 41 percent commute without cars and 27 percent take transit.
These numbers may seem like a drop in the bucket. But 60 percent of Americans surveyed in 2005 said they want to live in walkable communities with shops, restaurants, movie theaters, schools, and churches nearby. We're already seeing the shift as increasing numbers of people move to walkable communities closer to where they work. That will clearly expand in coming decades.
For the time being, most Americans remain behind the wheel. Today, more than three-quarters of Americans drive to work alone. They have no other choice. There are, however, other things we can do to ease congestion and take more cars off the road. Employers can offer more flexible schedules and the ability to work from home or telecommute. But as we've already seen, in many cities traffic is not just a rush-hour problem. The only alternative left is to price the roads. We pay for everything else: we pay to take the subway, ride the bus, or take the train, we pay to drive through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels or over the George Washington Bridge. Why should the roads be essentially free? If we want to make traffic better, we have little choice other than to make people pay for the roads they drive on.
Richard Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. Adapted from THE GREAT RESET: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida. Copyright 2010 by Richard Florida. Reprinted by arrangement with Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Los Suns Also Rise: Phoenix Suns Win in More Ways Than One
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/los-suns-also-rise-phoeni_b_565872.html
Dave Zirin
Sports correspondent for the Nation Magazine
May 6, 2010
Los Suns Also Rise: Phoenix Suns Win in More Ways Than One
Anyone who believes that sports can't be an effective platform for social justice, needed only to watch last night's game between Los Suns of Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs. The unprecedented decision by the entire Suns organization - from owner Robert Sarver to star players Amare Stoudamire and Steve Nash - to wear uniforms blaring Los Suns and come out against Arizona's anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070, created a sports broadcast like no other in my lifetime. The game on TNT began with sideline reporter Marty Snider outside the arena covering a mushrooming 3,000 person civil rights march, led by Al Sharpton and Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon (both wearing Los Suns Jerseys.) Then the scene switched to the pre-game studio with host Ernie Johnson and former players Kenny "the Jet" Smith, Chris Webber, and Charles Barkley. The viewing audience then got an unexpected and bracing lesson in dissent.
Kenny Smith, like any good point guard, set up the others by saying, "I think it's great that the team understands, the management understands and now the people of Phoenix are all rallying together at the same time." Barkley, a long time Arizona resident and a man who once said that he was a Republican until "the Republicans lost their damn minds" chimed in saying, "The only people screwing it up are the politicians. The Governor - the interim governor I might add - J.D. Hayworth and John McCain. They're the ones screwing this thing up. I really take my hat off to Robert Sarver and the Suns for taking a stand. You know, living in Arizona for a long time, the Hispanic community, they're like the fabric of the cloth. They're part of our community and any time you try to do any type of racial profiling or racial discrimination....... President Obama you've got to do something because these lightweight politicians in Arizona have no idea what they are doing."
The typically blunt Barkley speaking in such terms is hardly surprising. But it was Chris Webber who upped the ante, interrupting a visibly uncomfortable Ernie Johnson with, "Public Enemy said it a long time ago. 'By the Time I Get to Arizona.' I'm not surprised. They didn't even want there to be a Martin Luther King day when John McCain was in [office.]. So if you follow history you know that this is part of Arizona politics."
It was a remarkable display and it was difficult to not think of the millions of television viewers around the country, in sports bars, restaurants, and house parties, being confronted with this kind of forthright, plainspoken language. But perhaps even more important than the support Los Suns received from protestors and broadcasters, was their play on the court. Phoenix trailed by nine at the end of the first quarter and Spurs star power forward Tim Duncan was scoring with ease. The crowd was dead and it wasn't difficult to envision what would be said in the SportsWorld if Phoenix lost: "The political hoopla was a distraction." "This is why sports and politics don't mix." "They should have been focused on the Spurs and not immigration." And grinning smugly would have been LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson who chided the Suns yesterday saying, "If I heard it right the American people are really for stronger immigration laws.... I don't think teams should get involved in the political stuff."
In other words, everyone who stands with SB 1070 would be feeling a little more joyful this morning. It would have been an echo of the time Muhammad Ali lost his first fight to Joe Frazier and all the columnists and fans who wanted to see the draft dodging Ali punished, chortled gleefully after he was knocked to the canvas. But just when we were all ready to stick a fork in the brick-laying Suns, something remarkable happened. The slick shooting, fast breaking team started to crash the boards, play ugly, and do all the dirty work that wins games. Doughy, undersized three point shooter Jared Dudley started aggressively snatching offensive rebounds like his soul had been possessed by Barkley himself, energizing the crowd and shocking his team back to life. The result was a 110-102 victory in which the run and gun Suns were held to just eight fast break points. Coach Alvin Gentry said afterward that he had never seen the team play so mentally tough.
Maybe this will be the start of a new trend where teams see the unifying benefits of going out on a political limb and taking a stand. Maybe players across the sports leagues who oppose SB 1070 will be inspired to come together in a common organization and demand Arizona cease the imposition of "Juan Crow" on the Latino population. Maybe the major sports unions, all of whom have voiced opposition to the bill, will release a joint statement saying that they will support any player or team who boycotts the state as long as SB 1070 is on the books. Maybe this is all utterly unrealistic. But it seems a hell of a lot more possible this morning than it did last night. Vivan Los Suns.
Dave Zirin
Sports correspondent for the Nation Magazine
May 6, 2010
Los Suns Also Rise: Phoenix Suns Win in More Ways Than One
Anyone who believes that sports can't be an effective platform for social justice, needed only to watch last night's game between Los Suns of Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs. The unprecedented decision by the entire Suns organization - from owner Robert Sarver to star players Amare Stoudamire and Steve Nash - to wear uniforms blaring Los Suns and come out against Arizona's anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070, created a sports broadcast like no other in my lifetime. The game on TNT began with sideline reporter Marty Snider outside the arena covering a mushrooming 3,000 person civil rights march, led by Al Sharpton and Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon (both wearing Los Suns Jerseys.) Then the scene switched to the pre-game studio with host Ernie Johnson and former players Kenny "the Jet" Smith, Chris Webber, and Charles Barkley. The viewing audience then got an unexpected and bracing lesson in dissent.
Kenny Smith, like any good point guard, set up the others by saying, "I think it's great that the team understands, the management understands and now the people of Phoenix are all rallying together at the same time." Barkley, a long time Arizona resident and a man who once said that he was a Republican until "the Republicans lost their damn minds" chimed in saying, "The only people screwing it up are the politicians. The Governor - the interim governor I might add - J.D. Hayworth and John McCain. They're the ones screwing this thing up. I really take my hat off to Robert Sarver and the Suns for taking a stand. You know, living in Arizona for a long time, the Hispanic community, they're like the fabric of the cloth. They're part of our community and any time you try to do any type of racial profiling or racial discrimination....... President Obama you've got to do something because these lightweight politicians in Arizona have no idea what they are doing."
The typically blunt Barkley speaking in such terms is hardly surprising. But it was Chris Webber who upped the ante, interrupting a visibly uncomfortable Ernie Johnson with, "Public Enemy said it a long time ago. 'By the Time I Get to Arizona.' I'm not surprised. They didn't even want there to be a Martin Luther King day when John McCain was in [office.]. So if you follow history you know that this is part of Arizona politics."
It was a remarkable display and it was difficult to not think of the millions of television viewers around the country, in sports bars, restaurants, and house parties, being confronted with this kind of forthright, plainspoken language. But perhaps even more important than the support Los Suns received from protestors and broadcasters, was their play on the court. Phoenix trailed by nine at the end of the first quarter and Spurs star power forward Tim Duncan was scoring with ease. The crowd was dead and it wasn't difficult to envision what would be said in the SportsWorld if Phoenix lost: "The political hoopla was a distraction." "This is why sports and politics don't mix." "They should have been focused on the Spurs and not immigration." And grinning smugly would have been LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson who chided the Suns yesterday saying, "If I heard it right the American people are really for stronger immigration laws.... I don't think teams should get involved in the political stuff."
In other words, everyone who stands with SB 1070 would be feeling a little more joyful this morning. It would have been an echo of the time Muhammad Ali lost his first fight to Joe Frazier and all the columnists and fans who wanted to see the draft dodging Ali punished, chortled gleefully after he was knocked to the canvas. But just when we were all ready to stick a fork in the brick-laying Suns, something remarkable happened. The slick shooting, fast breaking team started to crash the boards, play ugly, and do all the dirty work that wins games. Doughy, undersized three point shooter Jared Dudley started aggressively snatching offensive rebounds like his soul had been possessed by Barkley himself, energizing the crowd and shocking his team back to life. The result was a 110-102 victory in which the run and gun Suns were held to just eight fast break points. Coach Alvin Gentry said afterward that he had never seen the team play so mentally tough.
Maybe this will be the start of a new trend where teams see the unifying benefits of going out on a political limb and taking a stand. Maybe players across the sports leagues who oppose SB 1070 will be inspired to come together in a common organization and demand Arizona cease the imposition of "Juan Crow" on the Latino population. Maybe the major sports unions, all of whom have voiced opposition to the bill, will release a joint statement saying that they will support any player or team who boycotts the state as long as SB 1070 is on the books. Maybe this is all utterly unrealistic. But it seems a hell of a lot more possible this morning than it did last night. Vivan Los Suns.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A New Era: Here Come The Suns!
By Dave Zirin
A battle has been joined for the very soul of Arizona. On one side, there are the Minutemen, the craven state Republican lawmakers, Governor Jan Brewer, and the utterly unprincipled John McCain, all supporting SB 1070, a law that codifies racial profiling of immigrants in the state. On the other are the Sun Belt residents who protested on May 1st, the students who have engaged in walkouts, and the politicians and civic leaders calling for an economic boycott of their own state.
This battle has also been joined in the world of sports. On one side is Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Owned by state Republican moneyman Ken Kendrick, the team has drawn protestors to parks around the country. On the other side, we now have the Phoenix Suns. On Tuesday the news came forth that tomorrow on Cinco de Mayo, the team would be wearing jerseys that say simply Los Suns. Team owner Robert Sarver said, after talking to the team, that this will be an act of sartorial solidarity against the bill. Their opponent, the San Antonio Spurs have made clear that they support the gesture.
In a statement released by the team, Sarver said, "The frustration with the federal government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law. However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona's already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them."
He followed up the statement by saying to reporters, “I looked around our plane and looked at our players and the diversity in our organization. I thought we need to go on record that we honor our diversity in our team, in the NBA and we need to show support for that. As for the political part of that, that's my statement. There are times you need to stand up and be heard. I respect people's views on the other side but I just felt it was appropriate for me to stand up and make a statement."
After Sarver spoke out, the team chimed in against the passage and signing of SB 1070. Two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash, who in 2003 became the first athlete to go on record against the Iraq war said, "I think the law is very misguided. I think it is unfortunately to the detriment to our society and our civil liberties and I think it is very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. I think the law obviously can target opportunities for racial profiling. Things we don't want to see and don't need to see in 2010."
All-Star power forward Amare Stoudamire, who has no political reputation, also chimed in saying, "It's going to be great to wear Los Suns to let the Latin community know we're behind them 100%.”
After the story broke, I spoke on the phone with NBA Players Association Presdient Billy Hunter about the Suns audacious move.
“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “This makes it clear to me that it’s a new era. It’s a new time. Athletes can tend to be apolitical and isolated from the issues that impact the general public. But now here come the Suns. I would have expected nothing less from Steve Nash who has been out front on a number of issues over the years. I also want to recognize Amare. I know how strident Amare can be and I’m really impressed to see him channel his intensity. It shows a tremendous growth and maturity on his part. And I have to applaud Bob Sarver because he is really taking a risk by putting himself out there. I commend them. I just think it’s super.”
He said that the union would have their own statement out by the end of the week.
This kind of political intervention by a sports team is without precedent and now every athlete and every team has an opening to stand up and be heard. Because when it’s all said and done, this isn’t just a battle for the soul of Arizona. It’s a battle for the soul of the United States. Here come the Suns indeed.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
A battle has been joined for the very soul of Arizona. On one side, there are the Minutemen, the craven state Republican lawmakers, Governor Jan Brewer, and the utterly unprincipled John McCain, all supporting SB 1070, a law that codifies racial profiling of immigrants in the state. On the other are the Sun Belt residents who protested on May 1st, the students who have engaged in walkouts, and the politicians and civic leaders calling for an economic boycott of their own state.
This battle has also been joined in the world of sports. On one side is Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Owned by state Republican moneyman Ken Kendrick, the team has drawn protestors to parks around the country. On the other side, we now have the Phoenix Suns. On Tuesday the news came forth that tomorrow on Cinco de Mayo, the team would be wearing jerseys that say simply Los Suns. Team owner Robert Sarver said, after talking to the team, that this will be an act of sartorial solidarity against the bill. Their opponent, the San Antonio Spurs have made clear that they support the gesture.
In a statement released by the team, Sarver said, "The frustration with the federal government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law. However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona's already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them."
He followed up the statement by saying to reporters, “I looked around our plane and looked at our players and the diversity in our organization. I thought we need to go on record that we honor our diversity in our team, in the NBA and we need to show support for that. As for the political part of that, that's my statement. There are times you need to stand up and be heard. I respect people's views on the other side but I just felt it was appropriate for me to stand up and make a statement."
After Sarver spoke out, the team chimed in against the passage and signing of SB 1070. Two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash, who in 2003 became the first athlete to go on record against the Iraq war said, "I think the law is very misguided. I think it is unfortunately to the detriment to our society and our civil liberties and I think it is very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. I think the law obviously can target opportunities for racial profiling. Things we don't want to see and don't need to see in 2010."
All-Star power forward Amare Stoudamire, who has no political reputation, also chimed in saying, "It's going to be great to wear Los Suns to let the Latin community know we're behind them 100%.”
After the story broke, I spoke on the phone with NBA Players Association Presdient Billy Hunter about the Suns audacious move.
“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “This makes it clear to me that it’s a new era. It’s a new time. Athletes can tend to be apolitical and isolated from the issues that impact the general public. But now here come the Suns. I would have expected nothing less from Steve Nash who has been out front on a number of issues over the years. I also want to recognize Amare. I know how strident Amare can be and I’m really impressed to see him channel his intensity. It shows a tremendous growth and maturity on his part. And I have to applaud Bob Sarver because he is really taking a risk by putting himself out there. I commend them. I just think it’s super.”
He said that the union would have their own statement out by the end of the week.
This kind of political intervention by a sports team is without precedent and now every athlete and every team has an opening to stand up and be heard. Because when it’s all said and done, this isn’t just a battle for the soul of Arizona. It’s a battle for the soul of the United States. Here come the Suns indeed.
Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Judge Napolitano: Immigration law will ‘bankrupt the Republican Party’
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0424/judge-napolitano-immigration-law-bankrupt-republican-party/
Judge Napolitano: Immigration law will ‘bankrupt the Republican Party’
Andrew McLemore
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
After Fox News analysts spent most of Friday defending Arizona's bill to target illegal immigrants, Judge Andrew Napolitano offered a different take on the controversial measure, Crooks and Liars reported.
When asked about Gov. Jan Brewer, Napolitano said her signing of the bill into law will have disastrous consequences:
Napolitano: She's gonna bankrupt the Republican Party and the state of Arizona. Look at what happened to the Republicans in California with the proposition --
Cavuto: What happens?
Napolitano: Ah, Hispanics -- who have a natural home in the Republican Party because they are socially conservative -- will flee in droves. She's also gonna bankrupt her state, because no insurance company will provide coverage for this. And for all the lawsuits that will happen -- for all the people that are wrongfully stopped -- her budget will be paying for it. Her budget will be paying the legal bills of the lawyers who sue on behalf of those that were stopped.
This will be a disaster for Arizona -- to say nothing of the fact that it's so unconstitutional that I predict a federal judge will prevent Arizona from enforcing it as soon as they attempt to do so. That will probably be tomorrow.
The new law, which will take effect in late July or early August, was cheered by many, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose tough crackdowns have made him a hero in the anti-illegal immigration community. He said it gives him new authority to detain undocumented migrants who aren't accused of committing any other crimes.
"Now if we show they're illegal, we can actually arrest them and put them in our jails," Arpaio said.
Critics claim the bill will effectively encourage racial profiling. President Barack Obama branded it "misguided." Hispanic groups across the country tend to agree with Napolitano's assessment of the bill.
Immigrant advocates say the bill could worsen an already tenuous relationship between law enforcement and Hispanics in Arizona.
State Sen. Rebecca Rios, a Phoenix Democrat and fourth-generation Arizonan, said she's concerned about her 14-year-old son being harassed by police because of his brown skin, black hair and dark-brown eyes.
"I don't want my son or anyone else's son targeted simply because of their physical characteristics," Rios said. "There's no reason I should have to carry around any proof of citizenship, nor my son."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Judge Napolitano: Immigration law will ‘bankrupt the Republican Party’
Andrew McLemore
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
After Fox News analysts spent most of Friday defending Arizona's bill to target illegal immigrants, Judge Andrew Napolitano offered a different take on the controversial measure, Crooks and Liars reported.
When asked about Gov. Jan Brewer, Napolitano said her signing of the bill into law will have disastrous consequences:
Napolitano: She's gonna bankrupt the Republican Party and the state of Arizona. Look at what happened to the Republicans in California with the proposition --
Cavuto: What happens?
Napolitano: Ah, Hispanics -- who have a natural home in the Republican Party because they are socially conservative -- will flee in droves. She's also gonna bankrupt her state, because no insurance company will provide coverage for this. And for all the lawsuits that will happen -- for all the people that are wrongfully stopped -- her budget will be paying for it. Her budget will be paying the legal bills of the lawyers who sue on behalf of those that were stopped.
This will be a disaster for Arizona -- to say nothing of the fact that it's so unconstitutional that I predict a federal judge will prevent Arizona from enforcing it as soon as they attempt to do so. That will probably be tomorrow.
The new law, which will take effect in late July or early August, was cheered by many, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose tough crackdowns have made him a hero in the anti-illegal immigration community. He said it gives him new authority to detain undocumented migrants who aren't accused of committing any other crimes.
"Now if we show they're illegal, we can actually arrest them and put them in our jails," Arpaio said.
Critics claim the bill will effectively encourage racial profiling. President Barack Obama branded it "misguided." Hispanic groups across the country tend to agree with Napolitano's assessment of the bill.
Immigrant advocates say the bill could worsen an already tenuous relationship between law enforcement and Hispanics in Arizona.
State Sen. Rebecca Rios, a Phoenix Democrat and fourth-generation Arizonan, said she's concerned about her 14-year-old son being harassed by police because of his brown skin, black hair and dark-brown eyes.
"I don't want my son or anyone else's son targeted simply because of their physical characteristics," Rios said. "There's no reason I should have to carry around any proof of citizenship, nor my son."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Shaquille O’Neal Traded to Cleveland Cavaliers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/sports/basketball/26shaq.htmlShaquille O’Neal Traded to Cleveland Cavaliers
By HOWARD BECK
Published: June 25, 2009
For the third time in four years, Shaquille O’Neal is on the move, rumbling across the N.B.A. landscape, forcing adjustments, reassessments and revisions from coast to coast.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, in a bold stroke aimed at winning the championship, acquired O’Neal from the Phoenix Suns, in a multiplayer trade that will have ramifications across the league.
O’Neal, a 15-time All-Star, will join LeBron James, the league’s reigning most valuable player, to form one of the most powerful tandems in the league. The Cavaliers were already an elite team — winning an N.B.A.-best 66 games last season — but one that was missing any star power, or reliable scoring, beyond James.
That will no longer be a problem. Even at 37, O’Neal remains a fearsome threat in the low post. He averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds for the Suns last season, played in 75 games — his highest total in four years — and was named to the all-N.B.A. third team.
With O’Neal, Cleveland now has an answer to Orlando’s Dwight Howard, who bulldozed through the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals.
James’s championship dreams were crushed in Game 6 of that series, and he left the arena in a deep funk, without congratulating the Magic or speaking to the news media.
The depression that settled over Cleveland in late May has now cleared.
The Suns and Cavaliers had been discussing parameters of a deal since before the February trading deadline. At the time, it was deemed too great a risk by the Cavaliers, given their dominant season and their enviable chemistry. What appeared like a gamble then looks essential now.
Although the Suns initially held out for a better package, they settled for a deal that gives them financial relief, and little else. Phoenix will receive two marginal rotation players, the past-his-prime center Ben Wallace and the swingman Sasha Pavlovic, plus $500,000 and a future second-round pick.
If the Suns waive Pavlovic, whose contract is only partially guaranteed, they can save around $9 million in salary and luxury-tax payments. They could save millions more if Wallace decides to retire and accept a buyout, a possibility he has entertained.
Where that leaves the Suns is unclear. They have been dangling Amare Stoudemire, their other All-Star big man, in trade discussions all year. Their All-Star point guard, Steve Nash, is entering the last year of his contract and has been notably disconcerted by the team’s direction.
Once a perennial contender in the West, Phoenix has traded away three essential players — O’Neal, Boris Diaw and Raja Bell — since December. They traded Shawn Marion, once a core player, 16 months ago, in the deal for O’Neal.
If the Suns embark on a wholesale rebuilding effort, Stoudemire and Nash could be the next to go. Nash has openly entertained the idea of reuniting with Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni — with whom he had his best years in Phoenix — if not via trade then as a free agent in 2010.
The trade also has implications for Orlando and the Boston Celtics, the last two Eastern Conference champions, who will now be revisiting their defensive schemes to cope with O’Neal, the most dominant big man of his era, and James, perhaps the best all-around player in the league.
“It’s a great move for Cleveland,” said D’Antoni, who coached O’Neal for a half-season in Phoenix, “and I think that Shaq being closer to New York, playing four times against us, it’s not good for us.”
Although O’Neal is not the powerhouse he was earlier in the decade, when he led the Los Angeles Lakers to three straight titles, “he’s still one of the better players in the league,” D’Antoni said.
The trade could reverberate right into next summer. James is expected to become a free agent in July 2010. At least a dozen teams — including the Knicks — have been clearing salary-cap space to pursue James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, among others.
If O’Neal, who won titles with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Wade in Miami — can help James secure his first ring, it will make it harder for James to leave his home state. At a minimum, the Cavaliers’ owner, Dan Gilbert, and General Manager Danny Ferry have again demonstrated to James that they will go to great lengths to win a title and keep James happy.
The Cavaliers will be O’Neal’s fifth team in his 17-year career, and his fourth since 2004, when the Lakers traded him to Miami. He has been partners with some of the best perimeter players of the modern era, including Bryant, Wade and Penny Hardaway. Now O’Neal will wind down his career next to one of the most talented players in N.B.A. history.
In Cleveland, James is known as the Chosen One and the fans as “witnesses.” O’Neal will now be the most significant face in the crowd, The Big Witness.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2009/02/28/20090228arpaioupdate-ON.html
Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix
Feb. 28, 2009
The Arizona Republic
Omar Leon, 33, of Los Angeles and Cristina Medina, 22, of Tempe, march south on Central Avenue during a demonstration against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Thousands of opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration policies held their "March to Stop the Hate" in downtown Phoenix on Saturday..
As of 1:30 p.m., the speeches were still being made at the march's destination, the federal building. According to initial reports, the march was peaceful, with no major incidents as of early Saturday afternoon.
Crowd estimates from organizers and law enforcement were not immediately available, but at least one estimate put it at about 3,000.
Along the march route, between 100 and 200 Arpaio supporters gathered at the Wells Fargo Tower. Many carried "We Support Sheriff Joe" signs, among others.
The event was being led by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and El Puente Arizona, and feature Zach de la Rocha, former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine. De la Rocha arrived at about 10:30 a.m., just before the march began at Steele Indian School Park.
Organizers marched south on Central Avenue past the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. The route also passed Wells Fargo Tower - where Arpaio has his headquarters - and ended at the federal building on Washington Street.
Astrid Galvan and Jeffrey Javier contributed to this report.
Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix
Feb. 28, 2009
The Arizona Republic
Omar Leon, 33, of Los Angeles and Cristina Medina, 22, of Tempe, march south on Central Avenue during a demonstration against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Thousands of opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration policies held their "March to Stop the Hate" in downtown Phoenix on Saturday..
As of 1:30 p.m., the speeches were still being made at the march's destination, the federal building. According to initial reports, the march was peaceful, with no major incidents as of early Saturday afternoon.
Crowd estimates from organizers and law enforcement were not immediately available, but at least one estimate put it at about 3,000.
Along the march route, between 100 and 200 Arpaio supporters gathered at the Wells Fargo Tower. Many carried "We Support Sheriff Joe" signs, among others.
The event was being led by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network and El Puente Arizona, and feature Zach de la Rocha, former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine. De la Rocha arrived at about 10:30 a.m., just before the march began at Steele Indian School Park.
Organizers marched south on Central Avenue past the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. The route also passed Wells Fargo Tower - where Arpaio has his headquarters - and ended at the federal building on Washington Street.
Astrid Galvan and Jeffrey Javier contributed to this report.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tyler Durden Strikes Again...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifvj_WR6U4SqXfmya5NOa9-ZiHLQD9639UIG0
Station says porn clip interrupted Super Bowl
By MARK CARLSON
2-2-9
PHOENIX (AP) — A Tucson television station's broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday was interrupted for some viewers by about 10 seconds of pornographic material, the station said.
KVOA TV in Tucson released a statement saying that the only viewers who were able to see the material were those who receive the channel through Comcast cable.
The station said it will investigate the incident.
"When the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," KVOA president and general manager Gary Nielsen said in a statement.
The KVOA statement said the station was dismayed and disappointed that some Comcast customers and their families were subjected to the material.
"KVOA will continue to investigate what happened to our clean signal and make sure our viewers get answers," Nielsen said in the statement.
Comcast spokeswoman Tracy Baumgartner confirmed that the company's standard feed was interrupted during the Super Bowl, although she said its high definition feed was not.
Baumgartner said engineers were investigating Sunday night.
Tucson media outlets reported that they received calls from irate viewers about the pornographic material.
A spokesman for Cox Cable said the company had not been affected.
"We have received no evidence that any inappropriate material was broadcast on any of our channels during the Super Bowl," Mike Dunne said. "The alleged incident appears to be isolated to the Comcast territory. We will offer our support to all appropriate organizations to help them determine what happened."
Joel Hilander of Tucson told The Associated Press that he and his young children saw the clip.
"I couldn't believe it. And I couldn't believe that my children were watching it either," Hilander said.
He said the interruption came just after the Arizona Cardinals' Larry Fitzgerald scored on a long touchdown reception during the final minutes of the game.
Station says porn clip interrupted Super Bowl
By MARK CARLSON
2-2-9
PHOENIX (AP) — A Tucson television station's broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday was interrupted for some viewers by about 10 seconds of pornographic material, the station said.
KVOA TV in Tucson released a statement saying that the only viewers who were able to see the material were those who receive the channel through Comcast cable.
The station said it will investigate the incident.
"When the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," KVOA president and general manager Gary Nielsen said in a statement.
The KVOA statement said the station was dismayed and disappointed that some Comcast customers and their families were subjected to the material.
"KVOA will continue to investigate what happened to our clean signal and make sure our viewers get answers," Nielsen said in the statement.
Comcast spokeswoman Tracy Baumgartner confirmed that the company's standard feed was interrupted during the Super Bowl, although she said its high definition feed was not.
Baumgartner said engineers were investigating Sunday night.
Tucson media outlets reported that they received calls from irate viewers about the pornographic material.
A spokesman for Cox Cable said the company had not been affected.
"We have received no evidence that any inappropriate material was broadcast on any of our channels during the Super Bowl," Mike Dunne said. "The alleged incident appears to be isolated to the Comcast territory. We will offer our support to all appropriate organizations to help them determine what happened."
Joel Hilander of Tucson told The Associated Press that he and his young children saw the clip.
"I couldn't believe it. And I couldn't believe that my children were watching it either," Hilander said.
He said the interruption came just after the Arizona Cardinals' Larry Fitzgerald scored on a long touchdown reception during the final minutes of the game.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Home prices post record 18% drop
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/30/real_estate/October_Case_Shiller/?postversion=2008123010 Home prices post record 18% drop
The 20-city S&P Case-Shiller index has posted losses for a staggering 27 months in a row.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
December 30, 2008
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home prices posted another record decline in October, falling 18% compared with a year earlier, according to a closely watched report released Tuesday.
The 20-city S&P Case-Shiller index has posted losses for a staggering 27 months in a row. In October, 14 of the 20 cities set fresh price decline records.
"The bear market continues; home prices are back to their March 2004 levels," says David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's.
Sunbelt cities suffered the most, but most of the country is watching home values fall. Home prices in Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco all fell more than 30% on a year-over-year basis. Miami, Los Angeles and San Diego recorded year-over-year declines of 29%, 28% and 27%, respectively.
"As of October 2008, the 20-City Composite is down 23.4%," said Blitzer. "In October, we also saw three new markets enter the 'double-digit' club."
Atlanta, Seattle and Portland each reported annual rates of decline of about 10%.
"While not yet experiencing as severe a contraction as in the Sunbelt, it seems the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic South is not immune to the overall demise in the housing market," Blitzer added.
Deteriorating environment
Many of the factors affecting home prices turned strongly negative this fall, according to Blitzer.
"October was really the first month to feel the full brunt of the credit crunch," he said. "Up until the Lehman Brothers [bankruptcy filing on September 15], everyone felt relatively optimistic."
Plus, in many of the free-falling cities the majority of real estate sales consist of distressed properties such as foreclosed homes and short sales. These houses tend to sell at a steep discount to the rest of the market, and when they account for a large proportion of all sales, they can exaggerate the depth of price declines.
Of course, foreclosures continue to be a big problem as well. In October alone, nearly 85,000 people lost their homes to foreclosure, adding vacant inventory to an already overburdened market.
Home sellers should not expect prices to improve any time soon, according to Pat Newport, a real estate analyst for IHS Global Insight.
"I expect it's going to get quite a bit worse over the next couple of months," he said. "Existing home sales reports have really been bad."
Home sales fell 8.6% in November, much more than expected, to an annualized rate of 4.49 million units according to the National Association of Realtors.
And although interest rates are currently extremely low - the 30-year fixed-rate averaged 5.14% during the week of December 24, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) - that's doing more to help people refinancing existing mortgages than it is to help new home buyers.
"Buyers still have to have a 20% down payment," said Newport, "and, in this environment, it can be hard to meet that criteria."
The latest Case-Shiller numbers provide more ammunition to Washington policy makers who want to do more to fix the housing mess, according to Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with the Stanford Group, the policy research firm.
"These data just add to the tremendous pressure on the president-elect and the Democrats to stimulate housing," he said. "That means more lucrative tax incentives and broad foreclosure prevention. All of this will likely be in the stimulus plan that Congress adopts in January."
Nicholas Retsinas, Director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, agrees. "Housing problems are at the core of our economic problems," he said, "yet, of the government interventions made during 2008, few were focused on housing."
With a new administration and Congress in place next month, he expects to see a renewed interest in stabilizing the housing market.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Chilly stars under the stars
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=jy-nbaoutdoor101208
Chilly stars under the stars
By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports
10-12-8
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Always searching for new ways to grow the game, the NBA took the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets outside on Saturday night, a cute experiment that would have been more warmly received had anyone packed a blanket.
Give David Stern credit. He sold out a preseason basketball game aired in front of a national TV audience, and he didn’t have to cross the Atlantic to do it. More than 16,000 people packed the Indian Wells Tennis Center to see the Suns and Nuggets play under the stars, and most of the fans seemed to enjoy the experience, even if they came away colder for it.
“It felt like Edmonton, Alberta, out there,” said Suns point guard and Canadian transplant Steve Nash.
The NBA hadn’t played a game outdoors since 1972, and there’s probably a good reason why league officials waited 36 years to stage another: When it comes to the weather, even Stern has to answer to a higher power. Even in the desert.
Temperatures, which hit 105 degrees here three days earlier, dropped to the low 60s in the second half. The steady wind made it feel at least 10 degrees cooler. Several players used towels as makeshift hoods to stay warm on the bench. A few admitted to being too cold to sweat.
“Growing up we played outside in weather cold like this all the time,” Nash said, “but I would say that’s been about 16 years ago.”
Allen Iverson, perhaps, had the evening’s best seat, watching from the warmth of his home in Denver. Iverson skipped the trip because of what the team described as a sore knee and Carmelo Anthony sat out his second exhibition game with a sore finger. Suns forward Amare Stoudemire, still trying to work his way back into shape after being sidelined by an ankle injury and a torn iris, also didn’t play.
“I’m not going to spend too much time looking at the film tonight,” Suns coach Terry Porter said, pausing to blow on his hands.
The Nuggets won 77-72, but the low-scoring game had more to do with the 10 mph wind gusting through the stadium than the defensive improvements both teams have pledged to make this season. Grant Hill tossed up a 3-pointer from the top of the arc in the first quarter only to watch the breeze gently catch it. He shouldn’t have felt bad. Of the 27 3-pointers the teams combined to take, only three found the bottom of the net. Former Suns coach Mike D’Antoni couldn’t have taken that much mojo with him to New York, could he?
Said Nash: “When you shoot a ball and it starts slicing right … ”
Denver even bricked 20 of its 38 free throws, though not everyone on the court could use the unusual elements as an excuse. Shaquille O’Neal, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich will be happy to know, can miss free throws outside just as well as he does inside; in the game’s opening moments, he clanged a pair hard off the rim. One backboard, perhaps already worrying about its fate, mysteriously splintered on its own Friday afternoon before the Suns had even stepped foot into the stadium for their shootaround. Workers replaced the broken backboard, but NBA officials ordered two more reserves brought in as insurance.
Nuggets coach George Karl was disappointed to see the league had neglected to include one longtime playground staple: chain nets. Karl’s first impression when told Denver would be playing outdoors?
“I have to admit,” he said, “I had some thoughts of, ‘What?’ ”
The NBA shrugged off such skepticism by throwing its marketing muscle behind the event. One of the Suns owners sold the league on using Indian Wells as the ideal location for the game, and the team trucked in a special court emblazoned with “NBA Outdoors!” just in case anyone hadn’t noticed the roof missing overhead. TNT played along, bringing Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller and Marv Albert to broadcast the game, though their largest viewing audience (Phoenix) lost feed of the telecast for much of the first quarter.
As that opening quarter came to a close, Suns public-address announcer Cedric Ceballos shouted, “One quarter of history already intact!” When it comes to watershed moments in NBA history, Saturday night ranked slightly ahead of the introduction of the microfiber ball. None of the players openly complained, but none were clamoring to sign up to do it again, either.
And no one certainly sounded ready to play any game of merit outdoors, even if Barkley was already pitching the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field as an alternate site for this season’s All-Star Game in Phoenix. Much like the NBA’s annual preseason sojourns to Europe, the outdoor experiment should probably be limited to the exhibition level for the near future. At the least, Karl suggested, the league should consider moving up the start time a couple hours to take advantage of warmer weather.
“I thought the best part was seeing the moon,” Karl said. “You think you should be drinking a beer or drinking a bottle of wine and just relaxing.”
Shaq, too, claimed to welcome the unique experience. But would he be willing to do it again?
He nodded then smiled.
“In June.”
Johnny Ludden is the NBA editor for Yahoo! Sports.
Chilly stars under the stars
By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports
10-12-8
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Always searching for new ways to grow the game, the NBA took the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets outside on Saturday night, a cute experiment that would have been more warmly received had anyone packed a blanket.
Give David Stern credit. He sold out a preseason basketball game aired in front of a national TV audience, and he didn’t have to cross the Atlantic to do it. More than 16,000 people packed the Indian Wells Tennis Center to see the Suns and Nuggets play under the stars, and most of the fans seemed to enjoy the experience, even if they came away colder for it.
“It felt like Edmonton, Alberta, out there,” said Suns point guard and Canadian transplant Steve Nash.
The NBA hadn’t played a game outdoors since 1972, and there’s probably a good reason why league officials waited 36 years to stage another: When it comes to the weather, even Stern has to answer to a higher power. Even in the desert.
Temperatures, which hit 105 degrees here three days earlier, dropped to the low 60s in the second half. The steady wind made it feel at least 10 degrees cooler. Several players used towels as makeshift hoods to stay warm on the bench. A few admitted to being too cold to sweat.
“Growing up we played outside in weather cold like this all the time,” Nash said, “but I would say that’s been about 16 years ago.”
Allen Iverson, perhaps, had the evening’s best seat, watching from the warmth of his home in Denver. Iverson skipped the trip because of what the team described as a sore knee and Carmelo Anthony sat out his second exhibition game with a sore finger. Suns forward Amare Stoudemire, still trying to work his way back into shape after being sidelined by an ankle injury and a torn iris, also didn’t play.
“I’m not going to spend too much time looking at the film tonight,” Suns coach Terry Porter said, pausing to blow on his hands.
The Nuggets won 77-72, but the low-scoring game had more to do with the 10 mph wind gusting through the stadium than the defensive improvements both teams have pledged to make this season. Grant Hill tossed up a 3-pointer from the top of the arc in the first quarter only to watch the breeze gently catch it. He shouldn’t have felt bad. Of the 27 3-pointers the teams combined to take, only three found the bottom of the net. Former Suns coach Mike D’Antoni couldn’t have taken that much mojo with him to New York, could he?
Said Nash: “When you shoot a ball and it starts slicing right … ”
Denver even bricked 20 of its 38 free throws, though not everyone on the court could use the unusual elements as an excuse. Shaquille O’Neal, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich will be happy to know, can miss free throws outside just as well as he does inside; in the game’s opening moments, he clanged a pair hard off the rim. One backboard, perhaps already worrying about its fate, mysteriously splintered on its own Friday afternoon before the Suns had even stepped foot into the stadium for their shootaround. Workers replaced the broken backboard, but NBA officials ordered two more reserves brought in as insurance.
Nuggets coach George Karl was disappointed to see the league had neglected to include one longtime playground staple: chain nets. Karl’s first impression when told Denver would be playing outdoors?
“I have to admit,” he said, “I had some thoughts of, ‘What?’ ”
The NBA shrugged off such skepticism by throwing its marketing muscle behind the event. One of the Suns owners sold the league on using Indian Wells as the ideal location for the game, and the team trucked in a special court emblazoned with “NBA Outdoors!” just in case anyone hadn’t noticed the roof missing overhead. TNT played along, bringing Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller and Marv Albert to broadcast the game, though their largest viewing audience (Phoenix) lost feed of the telecast for much of the first quarter.
As that opening quarter came to a close, Suns public-address announcer Cedric Ceballos shouted, “One quarter of history already intact!” When it comes to watershed moments in NBA history, Saturday night ranked slightly ahead of the introduction of the microfiber ball. None of the players openly complained, but none were clamoring to sign up to do it again, either.
And no one certainly sounded ready to play any game of merit outdoors, even if Barkley was already pitching the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field as an alternate site for this season’s All-Star Game in Phoenix. Much like the NBA’s annual preseason sojourns to Europe, the outdoor experiment should probably be limited to the exhibition level for the near future. At the least, Karl suggested, the league should consider moving up the start time a couple hours to take advantage of warmer weather.
“I thought the best part was seeing the moon,” Karl said. “You think you should be drinking a beer or drinking a bottle of wine and just relaxing.”
Shaq, too, claimed to welcome the unique experience. But would he be willing to do it again?
He nodded then smiled.
“In June.”
Johnny Ludden is the NBA editor for Yahoo! Sports.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Home-price index continues free fall
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20080528-9999-1b28housing.html
Home-price index continues free fall
San Diego metro area's March total down 20.5%
By Roger Showley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 28, 2008
An important home-price indicator was down a record 14.1 percent in March compared with a year earlier in metro areas around the country and down 20.5 percent in San Diego, Standard & Poor's reported yesterday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for San Diego has dropped for 30 straight months on a month-by-month basis and 20 straight months year over year. “The steep downturn in residential real estate continues,” said David M. Blitzer, Standard & Poor's index committee chairman, in a statement. “There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data.”
Unlike measures of median prices, Case-Shiller looks at the change in prices, property by property, over time to try to estimate the change in values of similar properties in a particular market.
The San Diego index, set at 100 in January 2000, now stands at 185.44, down from the peak 250.34 in November 2005. That means that at the peak homes were worth 2½ times their 2000 value but have since fallen back 25.9 percent to today's level.
San Diego's index is nearly back to where it was in December 2003. The index for March declined 2.3 percent from February, compared with a drop of 3.6 percent from January to February.
DataQuick Information Systems, which uses a different methodology to track prices, has reported similar trends. The median price for all homes in January 2000 was $219,000, the peak was $517,500 in November 2005 and the April median was $400,000, or 22.7 percent below the peak.
Case-Shiller's numbers showed that Las Vegas had the biggest year-over-year decline of the 20 metro areas tracked, down 25.9 percent; followed by Miami, down 24.6 percent; Phoenix, down 23 percent; and Los Angeles, down 21.7 percent. San Diego ranked fifth. These areas fell the most largely because they rose the most in the early-2000s boom, Case-Shiller said.
James Hamilton, an economist at the University of California San Diego, called the Case-Shiller findings “pretty serious” but “not mysterious.”
“There is still a very big overhang of unsold homes on the market,” Hamilton said. “That's going to bring the house price down.”
The San Diego Association of Realtors most recently said that more than 18,300 homes were listed for sale earlier this month, an eight-month supply at current sales rates.
Hamilton said prices are likely to keep falling, but probably not to their 2000 levels.
Marney Cox, an economist at the San Diego Association of Governments, predicted the Case-Shiller index for San Diego will drop about 25 points to around 160 before bottoming out – roughly a 35 percent drop from peak to trough.
“That's not too bad,” since prices still would be 60 percent higher than in 2000, Cox said.
In a separate report from the U.S. Commerce Department, seasonally adjusted sales of new homes in April rose for the first time in six months but were still near their lowest level in 17 years. The increase was 3.3 percent to 526,000 sales, up from 509,000 in March, the weakest pace since April 1991.
The increase was largely propelled by a surge of 41.7 percent in the Northeast, followed by 8.3 percent in the West and 5.8 percent in the Midwest. The South was down 2.4 percent.
Figures are not released for states or cities, but DataQuick previously reported San Diego's new-home sales in April at 334, up 4.7 percent from March but down 52.7 percent from April 2007. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted or annualized.
Roger M. Showley: (619) 293-1286; roger.showley@uniontrib.com
Home-price index continues free fall
San Diego metro area's March total down 20.5%
By Roger Showley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 28, 2008
An important home-price indicator was down a record 14.1 percent in March compared with a year earlier in metro areas around the country and down 20.5 percent in San Diego, Standard & Poor's reported yesterday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for San Diego has dropped for 30 straight months on a month-by-month basis and 20 straight months year over year. “The steep downturn in residential real estate continues,” said David M. Blitzer, Standard & Poor's index committee chairman, in a statement. “There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data.”
Unlike measures of median prices, Case-Shiller looks at the change in prices, property by property, over time to try to estimate the change in values of similar properties in a particular market.
The San Diego index, set at 100 in January 2000, now stands at 185.44, down from the peak 250.34 in November 2005. That means that at the peak homes were worth 2½ times their 2000 value but have since fallen back 25.9 percent to today's level.
San Diego's index is nearly back to where it was in December 2003. The index for March declined 2.3 percent from February, compared with a drop of 3.6 percent from January to February.
DataQuick Information Systems, which uses a different methodology to track prices, has reported similar trends. The median price for all homes in January 2000 was $219,000, the peak was $517,500 in November 2005 and the April median was $400,000, or 22.7 percent below the peak.
Case-Shiller's numbers showed that Las Vegas had the biggest year-over-year decline of the 20 metro areas tracked, down 25.9 percent; followed by Miami, down 24.6 percent; Phoenix, down 23 percent; and Los Angeles, down 21.7 percent. San Diego ranked fifth. These areas fell the most largely because they rose the most in the early-2000s boom, Case-Shiller said.
James Hamilton, an economist at the University of California San Diego, called the Case-Shiller findings “pretty serious” but “not mysterious.”
“There is still a very big overhang of unsold homes on the market,” Hamilton said. “That's going to bring the house price down.”
The San Diego Association of Realtors most recently said that more than 18,300 homes were listed for sale earlier this month, an eight-month supply at current sales rates.
Hamilton said prices are likely to keep falling, but probably not to their 2000 levels.
Marney Cox, an economist at the San Diego Association of Governments, predicted the Case-Shiller index for San Diego will drop about 25 points to around 160 before bottoming out – roughly a 35 percent drop from peak to trough.
“That's not too bad,” since prices still would be 60 percent higher than in 2000, Cox said.
In a separate report from the U.S. Commerce Department, seasonally adjusted sales of new homes in April rose for the first time in six months but were still near their lowest level in 17 years. The increase was 3.3 percent to 526,000 sales, up from 509,000 in March, the weakest pace since April 1991.
The increase was largely propelled by a surge of 41.7 percent in the Northeast, followed by 8.3 percent in the West and 5.8 percent in the Midwest. The South was down 2.4 percent.
Figures are not released for states or cities, but DataQuick previously reported San Diego's new-home sales in April at 334, up 4.7 percent from March but down 52.7 percent from April 2007. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted or annualized.
Roger M. Showley: (619) 293-1286; roger.showley@uniontrib.com
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Lake Mead Will Be Dry By 2021?
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/this-is-what-wa.html
Fifty Percent Chance Lake Mead Will Be Dry By 2021, Models Show
By Alexis Madrigal
February 13, 2008
Categories: Sustainability
Last month, we reported about Scripps Oceanographic Institute researchers' work on the impact of climate change on the Western water crisis. Now, the same researchers are back in a smaller scientific journal to answer a simple question posed in the title of their paper: "When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?"
Based on models constructed from the analysis of historical records from the Federal Bureau of Land Reclamation, the researchers, Tim Barnett and David Pierce, say there is a ten percent chance the reservoir will be dry in 2014, and a 50 percent chance no water will be left by 2021.
Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam's blockage of the Colorado River. The river is fed by snow pack from Rockies, which has been decreasing. The dam, of course, was one of the prototypical megaengineering efforts of the 20th century and a symbol of how human ingenuity could conquer any obstacle, including supplying water to a city the size of Las Vegas in the middle of the desert.
But the sheer amount of water that natural and manmade climate changes and human usage is drawing out of the Colorado River system is staggering. The researchers estimate that 1 million acre-feet, or 326 trillion gallons, of water are being leached out of the system each year. They say that's enough to supply 8 million people.
Their conclusion is dire:
Today, we are at or beyond the sustainable limit of the Colorado system. The alternative to reasoned solutions to this coming water crisis is a major societal and economic disruption in the desert southwest; something that will affect each of us living in the region.
We've nudged what has been a naturally replenishing system into a downward spiral. While everyone hopes that there is a technological answer to generating fresh water--say, desalination, or wastewater recycling-- those things cost money and energy, and will almost certainly drive up the cost of water.
But take a step back and look at the system, it defies reason to build huge cities in a desert that's getting even dryer. I have no doubt that as the price of water and air conditioning rise in Vegas and Phoenix, the low upfront housing costs and hot sun will start to lose their appeal. I just hope that happens before we permanently break the Colorado River water system.
Fifty Percent Chance Lake Mead Will Be Dry By 2021, Models Show
By Alexis Madrigal
February 13, 2008
Categories: Sustainability
Last month, we reported about Scripps Oceanographic Institute researchers' work on the impact of climate change on the Western water crisis. Now, the same researchers are back in a smaller scientific journal to answer a simple question posed in the title of their paper: "When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?"
Based on models constructed from the analysis of historical records from the Federal Bureau of Land Reclamation, the researchers, Tim Barnett and David Pierce, say there is a ten percent chance the reservoir will be dry in 2014, and a 50 percent chance no water will be left by 2021.
Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam's blockage of the Colorado River. The river is fed by snow pack from Rockies, which has been decreasing. The dam, of course, was one of the prototypical megaengineering efforts of the 20th century and a symbol of how human ingenuity could conquer any obstacle, including supplying water to a city the size of Las Vegas in the middle of the desert.
But the sheer amount of water that natural and manmade climate changes and human usage is drawing out of the Colorado River system is staggering. The researchers estimate that 1 million acre-feet, or 326 trillion gallons, of water are being leached out of the system each year. They say that's enough to supply 8 million people.
Their conclusion is dire:
Today, we are at or beyond the sustainable limit of the Colorado system. The alternative to reasoned solutions to this coming water crisis is a major societal and economic disruption in the desert southwest; something that will affect each of us living in the region.
We've nudged what has been a naturally replenishing system into a downward spiral. While everyone hopes that there is a technological answer to generating fresh water--say, desalination, or wastewater recycling-- those things cost money and energy, and will almost certainly drive up the cost of water.
But take a step back and look at the system, it defies reason to build huge cities in a desert that's getting even dryer. I have no doubt that as the price of water and air conditioning rise in Vegas and Phoenix, the low upfront housing costs and hot sun will start to lose their appeal. I just hope that happens before we permanently break the Colorado River water system.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Chicago most caffeinated U.S. city
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071106/lf_nm_life/cities_caffeine_dc
Chicago most caffeinated U.S. city: survey
By Kristina Cooke
Tue Nov 6, 2007
The windy city is also the most wired, according to a survey that showed people in Chicago are the most caffeinated in the United States.
Chicagoans eat more chocolate and drink more cola than other U.S. urbanites, and are among the top consumers of energy drinks and coffee.
They are also likely to say caffeine is good for you, according to the poll conducted by Prince Market Research.
Tampa, Miami, Phoenix and Atlanta rounded out the top five most caffeinated cities, while residents of San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Detroit and Baltimore consumed the least caffeine.
"It's surprising perhaps that some places you may think have a lot of hustle and bustle like San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York, were the least caffeinated cities," said Todd Smith, a spokesman for HealthSaver, a healthcare discount service that commissioned the poll.
The survey looked at consumption of coffee, tea, chocolate, sodas, energy drinks and caffeine pills in 20 major cities in the United States by interviewing 2,000 people.
Seattle took the top spot in just caffeinated coffee consumption. Nearly 60 percent of residents in the city said coffee would be the most difficult caffeine product to give up.
The growing popularity of "high-end" coffees, energy drinks and green tea has added to more caffeine consumption around the world, according to HealthSaver.
Half of all the people questioned in the poll said they drank coffee every day, followed by 21 percent who drank caffeinated cola.
New Yorkers and San Franciscans were also among people most likely to say caffeine is bad for you. More than 70 percent of people questioned in the poll said they were not addicted to caffeine. The older the age group the more likely they were to say coffee would be the most difficult caffeinated product to give up.
Chicago most caffeinated U.S. city: survey
By Kristina Cooke
Tue Nov 6, 2007
The windy city is also the most wired, according to a survey that showed people in Chicago are the most caffeinated in the United States.
Chicagoans eat more chocolate and drink more cola than other U.S. urbanites, and are among the top consumers of energy drinks and coffee.
They are also likely to say caffeine is good for you, according to the poll conducted by Prince Market Research.
Tampa, Miami, Phoenix and Atlanta rounded out the top five most caffeinated cities, while residents of San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Detroit and Baltimore consumed the least caffeine.
"It's surprising perhaps that some places you may think have a lot of hustle and bustle like San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York, were the least caffeinated cities," said Todd Smith, a spokesman for HealthSaver, a healthcare discount service that commissioned the poll.
The survey looked at consumption of coffee, tea, chocolate, sodas, energy drinks and caffeine pills in 20 major cities in the United States by interviewing 2,000 people.
Seattle took the top spot in just caffeinated coffee consumption. Nearly 60 percent of residents in the city said coffee would be the most difficult caffeine product to give up.
The growing popularity of "high-end" coffees, energy drinks and green tea has added to more caffeine consumption around the world, according to HealthSaver.
Half of all the people questioned in the poll said they drank coffee every day, followed by 21 percent who drank caffeinated cola.
New Yorkers and San Franciscans were also among people most likely to say caffeine is bad for you. More than 70 percent of people questioned in the poll said they were not addicted to caffeine. The older the age group the more likely they were to say coffee would be the most difficult caffeinated product to give up.
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