Cover It With Plastic And Spray Detroit : Improvamentation Gone Wild

[Daez]

If you try to run a city like a business you're going to destroy everything. Anyways it doesn't mean anything as the people there would still vote for Kilpatrick even after everything has been said and done.

If you try to run a city like a business, you are going to trim the fat and put the money where it is actually needed. Its a lot easier to enforce the law than to get into social welfare. You are also going to put in checks and balances that keeps someone like the mayor from having enough power to completely destroy the city through corruption, and those checks and balances are going to fire his arse when he attempts something like that. There is a reason that a major corporation has a CEO a CFO and a board of directors all checking the work of each other.

[Xeones]

If you try to run a city like a business, you are going to trim the fat and put the money where it is actually needed. Its a lot easier to enforce the law than to get into social welfare. You are also going to put in checks and balances that keeps someone like the mayor from having enough power to completely destroy the city through corruption, and those checks and balances are going to fire his arse when he attempts something like that. There is a reason that a major corporation has a CEO a CFO and a board of directors all checking the work of each other.

Like the Michigan governor did?

Killing the only growing industry the state had and cutting taxes on the rich and pushing the burden more heavily on retirees?

[Daez]

You have no clue on what you are talking about

It isn't because the heat is wasted. It is because using heat to generate light is an extremely inefficient way to produce light.

Not to mention, while a light bulb does not generate enough heat to heat a home (like you are implying... certainly not as much as an energy efficient furnace) it does generate enough heat to burn the hell out of anyone or anything that comes into contact with it. House fires and burnt children are not exactly a bonus!

[Orange Joe]

They have upgraded the light bulb. The new ones are much more energy efficient and still put out just as much light. Why would they not want that to be an industry standard?

You seems to be confused. I'm not against phasing out incandescent bulbs.

[Daez]

Like the Michigan governor did?

Killing the only growing industry the state had and cutting taxes on the rich and pushing the burden more heavily on retirees?

The thing that killed the only growing industry in the state was the unions over pricing their own labor. The rich have managed to earn their money... they should not be punished for that. When a corporation goes bust, the pension disappears. Its why you never hear of pensions in the private market anymore. Not to mention, maintaining a pension fund is much more expensive and much less efficient than other forms of retirement. The city workers do need to take some of the blame here for not finding alternative forms of retirement and demanding a pension in 2014.

[Xeones]

The thing that killed the only growing industry in the state was the unions over pricing their own labor. The rich have managed to earn their money... they should not be punished for that. When a corporation goes bust, the pension disappears. Its why you never hear of pensions in the private market anymore. Not to mention, maintaining a pension fund is much more expensive and much less efficient than other forms of retirement. The city workers do need to take some of the blame here for not finding alternative forms of retirement and demanding a pension in 2014.

I was talking about the movie industry... I'm guessing you don't know a whole lot about Michigan?

[Daez]

You seems to be confused. I'm not against phasing out incandescent bulbs.

I was adding to your reply to someone else... it was not directly aimed at you.

[Orange Joe]

I was adding to your reply to someone else... it was not directly aimed at you.

Ah, my bad then.

[Stormdash]

I don't really understand, but did they really just try to compare Detroit with fucking Rhodesia?

Places that were relatively prosperous and after political change turned themselves to shit? Seems legit. Yes, the colonial and race/demographics subtext for the Rhodesia to Zimbabwe move is all well and good, but the economic facts on the ground speak for themselves. Mugabe is about the worst thing that ever happened to that place, and Coleman Young might have been the worst thing that happened to Detroit.

[Deleted]

Places that were relatively prosperous and after political change turned themselves to shit? Seems legit. Yes, the colonial and race/demographics subtext for the Rhodesia to Zimbabwe move is all well and good, but the economic facts on the ground speak for themselves. Mugabe is about the worst thing that ever happened to that place, and Coleman Young might have been the worst thing that happened to Detroit.

I don't really think you can compare the shit Detroit is in to the shit RhoBabwe is in though. The "used to be prosperous and then turned to shit cause politics" applies to quite a lot of places, since generally politics are what turns things to shit, but it feels really dishonest to compare detroit and rhodesia like that. In the same way that it would be dishonest to compare the modern day difficulties with Ireland / NIreland to, say, Israel and Palestine. There are some difficulties with both, some of that stems from religion in both cases, so they're the same right? Well not really, because no one is fireing rockets at each other any more.

[breadisfunny]

why am i not surprised detroits schools have failed us once again.

[klogaroth]

So from reading the 2 articles I fail to see the connection.

It was never suggested that they ever boil washed the buses. They are periodically sprayed for bugs. With insecticide. Not lukewarm water.
So what the hell has people using low temperature washes in washing machines got to do with bugs on buses?

[mvaliz]

After all, hot water (like the kind that used to come out of boilers before energy conservation set all the dials back) kills them and their eggs easily at around 120 degrees.

Ummm... dafuq? This is the line where I stopped reading...

Did this guy seriously just complain about Energy Conservation and hot water setting "dials" (read: civilization) backwards?

[Deleted]

What is this I don't even...

Is this just a disjointed, nonsensical argument against energy regulation? I can only guess the writer is using 'improvamented' and the like as some kind of sarcastic slight on new developments. And God forbid someone might have to wait a bit for their energy saving bulb to warm up enough so they can read properly.

[Gheld]

I've caught the bed bugs before. Obviously this article is being posted to suggest that Detroit is dirty. But bed bugs are obligate hematophages. They don't eat carbohydrates, so they aren't attracted to food crumbs. They are strictly attracted to infrared frequencies that correspond to living animals with no fur and relatively thin skin (i.e. humans).

So you can have the cleanest, most sterile house on the planet, but if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, a pregnant female can transfer onto your clothing without you noticing, lay hundreds of eggs in your carpet, clothing, or underneath your base moulding (they can pass through nearly paper thin cracks effortlessly). The eggs are immune to pretty much any insecticide that is still legal in the developed world. They have evolved for the express purpose of drinking the blood of humans. They can move across your skin without the slightest sensation, and their saliva doubles as a mild anaesthetic so you don't notice yourself being bitten.

DDT was pretty much the only chemical harsh enough to deal with bed bugs via tenting. Which is why they were once eradicated in North America. Chemicals that are available now require targeted application in order to effectively remove bedbugs, as well as cooperation between exterminators and residents (because it's a very involved process to get rid of them, compared to bugs that can be tented to death. And the problem is in the case of low income rental properties the question of who is responsible for bed bug removal is often up in the air since it's not an immediate health danger.

You're most likely to get bed bugs from a place where international travellers gather and sleep. (i.e. a 4+ star hotel).

Changes in laundry methods also make bed bug outbreaks more likely. Before the advent of the washing machine boiling hot water was used for cleaning clothes and everything was ironed, and steam is capable of distributing enough heat quickly enough to kill bugs before they have a chance to scurry away, and will cook the eggs. And while you can drown the mature bugs, without that heat, the eggs will just survive. Freezing also kills the eggs, but they are very thick walled so they have to be frozen deeply. A shallowly frozen egg can reanimate and hatch a bedbug up to 2 years after an infestation (and a few can start a whole new infestation).

So "I'm clean, I don't have bugs, lol". Beware... be very aware. If ever there was anything the devil made, it was bed bugs.

EDIT: Also, it can take up to 6 days for a bed bug bite to physically manifest (as itchy red spots). At first you'll just brush them off as mosquito bites. But unlike mosquito bites as they manifest you'll notice a lot of them, in very large clusters. And they'll itch like no itch you've ever felt before.