UWM Master Plan presentation: Buzzword compliance at its finest

While listening to the presentation from Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. about the latest iteration of UWM’s master plan, I was struck by their masterful use of language to thoughtfully evade any semblance of providing an effective answer to questions from the audience. It reminded me of an ideologically reversed version of my “communist revolutionary” shtick that had been given a giant dose of Valium and a lesson in the synergization of antipolemic conversation nodules. And so on.

Their presentation emphasized using the city’s grid design, city and county transit, and urban restoration. Having the university in the city was a big point as well. All of these would combine to sweep the future UWM students through social learning environments and re-envision the urban diorama to channel student enthusiasm for their environment…

It all sounded fine. But when it came time for the brief Q&A, an overwhelming theme was, Why are you going to buy the county grounds when there’s so much space and real need for development in the city?

Alas, their committee was not prepared to answer that.

Nor are they the ones making the final decisions on these matters. Who is that, exactly? Who’s driving the push to have an engineering grad school in Wauwatosa? Who would benefit from it? The city would not. Is there someone who would gain monetarily from it? We don’t know. We need to know.

Dane101 gets a nifty site redesign/upgrade

Madisonians, check it out!

Did Milwaukee County Sponsor AFP Tea Party Rally?

The recent non-grassroots Americans For Prosperity (AFP) “Tea Party” rally in Milwaukee had a number of boring speakers that are not worth mentioning. But this detail is: the Milwaukee County Parks logo appears alongside the AFP logo on a big banner that was made for the rally. See for yourself. It’s on the left side under the letters “AMER”:

(Irony alert: the County Parks, a relic of Milwaukee’s socialist past, are touted at a Tea Party!)

Photo by Brew City Brawler and used with permission.

Why is the County giving its blessing to an anti-government rally? Now, this is probably a matter of someone giving permission to AFP to use the Parks logo. But the question is, who? Was it the county executive, who used this to grandstand for his next failed primary bid? Was it parks director Sue Black? (Unlikely.) Did AFP think they could just use it? And if so, who allowed this? That logo must have been sent to them. And for that matter, did they make the banner? Or was it someone affiliated with the County? Did AFP pay for use of the park?

Queries on this topic have been sent to Walker, Black, and the AFP HQ. Timely updates to this will be found over on Milwaukee County First who broke the story tonight. (That was actually Brew City Brawler. Sorry about that!)

Update: Even if it was legal for them (and by the same arguement, Milwaukee County First) to use the Parks logo, the delicious irony of AFP embracing Milwaukee’s socialist legacy still remains.

Why I could never work at Microsoft

First, I’m not a computer programmer. Second is the groupthink. Buzzword-compliant groupthink.

(That’s also why I could never be a Republican.)

This is from The Register:

“As previously reported by TechFlash in December, Microsoft has posted
job listings for positions at its Musiwave subsidiary that involve
incorporating Musiwave technology into the Zune Marketplace.

” ‘The Zune organization is making a strategic change from a 3rd party
content provider to in-house,” reads one Musiwave job post. ‘We need
to rebuild, re-architect, and revitalize a content ingestion pipeline
[emphasis added] that powers the entire Zune business. And we have a very
short time to do it.’ “

Yuck.

Dork Power!

Sen. Feingold gets another opponent

It’s not just Dave Westlake that our good Senator Feingold will be facing in 2010: Multi-millionaire real estate developer Terrence “Terry” Wall has entered the race.

I remember Terry from my days in Madison. He and some other developer buddies tried to foil the Progressive Dane Party by registering the domain names progressivedane.com, .org, and .net. While there was some brief gnashing of teeth amongst the party members over this, I registered prodane.com and .org, and transferred them to the party’s ownership. And when Wall and co.’s more verbose domain names expired, PD bought them for their own use. They use those domains to this very day, but they all redirect to the concise prodane URL.

That said, here’s a glimpse of where Mr. Wall stands on things that matter, according to an email from the Feingold campaign. (Of course they’ve got an interest in having their man win, but the info still stands.)

Health Care:

“…our [health care] system is not broken,” and that “…health care for all is really rationed health care…” where (and here he plays into the thoroughly debunked ‘death panels’ claim) “..the government also becomes the final arbiter of who lives and who dies…”

Trade, and Wall Street:

“…I don’t think Wall Street should be regulated…” [He does suggest that the investment banks be differentiated from the regular banks, and not subject to federal bailouts. That actually sounds reasonable. But the pulled quote still stands. Link.]

“…we must continue to try to break down the barriers to free trade overseas and particularly in China.” [Link.]

I’m curious where they got these quotes from, but it seems consistent with what I knew of Mr. Wall. [Update: They're his own words. Link 1, Link 2.] He’s a millionaire who’s got no idea of how it feels to be someone who’s lost their benefits, or lost a job that went overseas. It is likely that he will use his money to run an aggressive (read: dirt) campaign against Sen. Feingold.  Russ has beat millionaires a time or two before, but that is no reason to rest assured that he will beat Mr. Wall.

Let’s help Russ win!

Proposed County budget comes out tomorrow

Things are about to get interesting.

61 Dem. senators isn’t filibuster-proof.

That’s all.

This must drive ‘em crazy

A Polish court has awarded $11,000 (7,400 euros) in damages to a woman likened to a child killer by a Catholic magazine for wanting an abortion.

BBC.

JSO: “Census says: more bikes on the road in Milwaukee”

Numbers confirm what I’ve seen with my eyes. And today, I was one of them!

Link.