2010-04-29

 

Vae Viator2
 


Well, as you see above, a graffitist has been at work. Please click, several clicks may be required as in click-click pause click :-) , on any photo for an enlargement (I hope so, anyway as the BlogSpot photo up-loader failed this week.  It is now [2010-04-30] "corrected".).  This time he “defaced” another poster telling us about how good it's going to be.  I see that he has picked up on su Topo's description of what the LACMTA insists on calling Rapid Bus service.  Further he must have experienced that feeling one gets when a bus speeds past showing the dreaded “Discharge Only” headsign; because he does a nice job in showing that.   
However, truth to tell, this Mole has never seen the “Discharge Only” headsign on a Rapid bus.  That is probably because they really don't have a schedule for the Rapids.  How would your Mole know that?  Easily –when he complained about the Santa Monica BL 704 not conforming to the “every 15 minute” posted schedule, they changed the posted schedule to “every 15~45 minutes” or something like that.  It is well understood that the 232 Line buses often use the “Discharge Only” method to put a bus back on schedule and as a side-effect ,really tick off those bypassed.  

After all, how much more clearly can one say: “We define our job, not as providing transportation for you, but keeping our buses on schedule”?  

“Discharge Only” headsign or not, the Rapid system is really another way of abandoning passengers.  Stopping only at main streets may or may not be the way to plan a route.  There are other locations which naturally generate traffic even though the intersecting streets are not considered “main”.


In these few paragraphs we have uncovered two of those actions: (1) running buses in “Discharge Only” mode and (2) routing buses in a manner which leaves passengers –and specially pass holders–with only bad options, i.e., long walks to a bus stop, waiting for an infrequent, perhaps non-existent local service or paying fares, over and above the cost of their pass, to other bus operators whose line(s) provides a coincident route. 

So, if we had our own organization, let’s say we called it the Transportation Riders Unidad, whose goal is to challenge LACMTA actions when it was felt that they were not in the best interests of ALL passengers.  Our TRU could have its' lawyers challenge the LACMTA for universal taxation, taxing everyone, yet using the funds to limit service to only a fraction (one stop in one mile which is approximately 12 blocks works out, very roughly to one twelfth of the potential passengers); unless the LACMTA can prove conclusively that the rapid service doesn't pass a significant portion of the potential riders. The proof MUST be obtained by running local buses for an adequate period of time over the route and carefully tallying, hopefully, electronically, all boardings.  That will establish baseline demand. LACMTA? ¿Entiende usted?




Immediately above, I have provided yet another example of the shoddy maintenance work performed by the LACMTA – really it's essential maintenance work that is ignored.  The glass shown at the Mariposa Station on the Green Line looks ready to fall and perform the work of a modern day guillotine on some unsuspecting platform standee.   After careful thought, la Taupe, has decided that this is artifact due to the “bus line culture” which permeates the organization.  After all, when it was the RTD, there was not much infrastructure maintenance required, said infrastructure, not including the vehicles themselves, being benches and flags at the bus stops.



Here, especially in the enlargement we can see that “rust never sleeps” although the LACMTA certainly does.  The contribution made by the birds is also clearly visible in the picture.  Doesn't anyone every wonder why the LACMTA is so quick to squander money on new projects while the older ones deteriorate and rust away.  Could it be because maintenance companies don't make significant contributions? –you know, where they are always needed.



Directly above I have shown one of the three tripping hazards which your Mole found at the “Redondo Beach Station” on the Green line.  It is a recessed light fixture which under circumstances, not to difficult to imagine, one could end up face down on the platform.


Ditto on the tripping in the case of this recessed “art work”



And this “art work” has weathered away exposing a bit of metal which su Topo has identified by the added “^”, located under the rectangle which is under the third, small, circle.



In what can only be described as a “vision failure” of one kind or another, the advertisment for paper day passes which can be bought “... on board any Metro bus ...”.




Molette and I shared a rare weekday lunch because she was in job related training for the day and I was fortunately in the same area.  We were able to visit the Cafe Rio (shown above) located on Rosecrans near Douglas ST in Manhattan Beach, just a short walk from the Rosecrans-Douglas Green Line Station.   We found it a fun place, with a boisterous (in a very positive sense), high-energy staff behind the counter and freshly made tortillas as large as any this Mole has seen.  Good food, especially considering that this is a chain, and prices that were OK too!  NO, NO, your mole paid for everything! (See “Your Mole’s Conflict of Interest Statement” below – he has none!)

Now, never let it be said that su Topo only finds fault with the LACMTA.  He believes that all organizations are entitled to his opinion.  Here are just two recent comments:



Above, we can see a post which supports a crosswalk request button.  It is just steps away from the Fry’s store on Rosecrans and Sepulveda in Manhattan Beach.  The post is wobbly and in the future may cause a failure in the crossing signal system.  In any event it seems to be installed in a manner unfit for its intended use.

I have reported NUMEROUS times, in this blog and via other channels, on a similar problem in El Segundo at the Sepulveda and Mariposa intersection (Please see: http://lametromole.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html ).  Nothing was ever done there –so, here we have a question: Will Manhattan Beach cause this signal to be repaired before El Segundo repairs theirs?  Or will we have to have an accident involving a pedestrian before anything is fixed?

Your Mole does his fair share of walking and crossing streets.  Some months back he was forced to jump back from the middle of the street when a FedEx truck roared across the crosswalk just feet away from a concerned Mole.  Being much less than happy about a FedEx driver who was more concerned about being on time rather then ensuring pedestrian safety, la Taupe contacted FedEx.  You remember FedEx, the company that give the impression that they know the location of your package at any time and by extension, the location of their trucks.  Of course the truck was too close and moving too fast for me to supply any identifying numbers and although I offered my own search technique: find the packages delivered in the given area shortly after the time of the incident.  Then work backwards and find the package that preceded the package first identified then locate the most logical route connecting the two deliveries.  

Given that the area was not crawling with FedEx trucks the methodology which I have described here is doable –but, they refused to do it.  


Here you can see a typical FedEx truck, not the one which tried to run me down.  Note the real small identifying numbers on the top upper right (not the truck's true identifying numbers, by the way) of the truck.  I suggested, at minimum, that they should make the numbers larger and center them on the upper portion of the back door.  All to no effect.

The Mole reads the papers and other things, so you don’t have to.

amNY reports(1)“Facing a massive budgetary hole, the [NYC] MTA
will slash 141 of its already-funded transit projects to save $40 million, agency documents released Thursday show.“  This would seem to be a paradigm that the LACMTA would do well to emulate. If you are with the LACMTA the preceding sentence means that you too, should cancel some of your projects that don't really have an ROI!

A somewhat weak article(2) seems less than it promises, to your Mole at least, about car-less living in, I believe, Boston.

A lengthy Rolling Stone piece(3) provides details about how Birmingham Alabama politicians, NYC bankers and others in attempting to do good by providing a state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant as a means of discharging cleaner liquids into the Cahaba river, did extremely well fnancially, for themselves.  The article is linked in the Bibliography below.  BUT, please be aware that the piece contains naughty words --it's Rolling Stone, ladies and gentlemen!

Our own fair city was referenced as having a similar problem.  In following-up I found this Wall Street Journal article(4) which touches on Los Angeles’ woes.  I wonder who our corrupt equivalents of those in Birmingham are?  Are there any related to LACMTA, I wonder?  Ms Greuel, what can you tell us??

A CNET posting(5) tells us?, you? More likely them(5) how to live nicely with one’s neighbours when they use electronic devices on public transportation.

French research(6), from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, explains why we humans can only multi-task to N, where N has a practical limit of two.  There are cases, in my experience, where some cannot successfully handle even one task –now what agency could I be thinking about?

I pickup and read yet another heavy weight, colourful, slick, expensive informational card(7).  This one is about riding with bulky items.  Nothing is said about the large trash bags full of recycables, like the ones carried by the middle-age woman who mumbles to herself in Japanese, who is often seen on the 117 Line.  Although there is LOTS of blank space and almost one fourth of each side, it is bilingüe, is taken up by a drawing of bulky stuff blocking a train/subway door one is still directed to meto.net “For information about bikes ....”.  The LACMTA cannot do ANYTHING in one try :-) .  Of course, they don't provide the complete link, so it's only a starting point for your search.  Kind of like if la Taupe would tell you to see the Internet at www.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things(8).
René Decartes (1596-1650), French Mathematician
Ear to the Rail
Transportation for America Campaign produces audio in the form of MP3s.  There site is  http://t4america.org/webinars/  and you can listen to “Transportation and the Economic Opportunity” at http://t4america.org/audio/webinars/economic_opportunity.mp3 .

Cosmology

SETI (Search [for] Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is back up, in Europe anyway.  This from this

 “In addition, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) will use LOFAR to search for low frequency radio signals from civilisations on planets orbiting nearby stars. The first phase of this SETI programme will study how contamination from terrestrial transmitters can be weeded out and show the sensitivity of LOFAR for SETI work. An extended programme of looking at the nearby stars is then planned. The first high-spectral resolution spectrum in the test programme has just been obtained and will be shown.”  This brings to mind the often heard saying “Absence of proof is not proof of absence”!

And brace yourself for more long term bad news, which is embedded in this quote: “Cars run out of petrol, stars run out of fuel and galaxies collapse into black holes”.  Yes, it appears that surviving the sun’s demise will just mean that whatever is left will end up in a yet larger black hole at our galactic center –sigh.  Read more at:
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100126104844.htm .

Then too, if we want to migrate to a new galactic home we need to exercise case in selecting it, as explained here http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/04/supermassive-black-holes-can-kil.html

The Mole Rides Again, so you don't have to take a Rosetta Stone Japanese course in order to understand the rants of the recycling woman on the 117 Line


2010-04-01 around 8:00am:  Driver 18748 holds a monosyllabic cell phone conversation aboard bus #6353.

I transfer to the Green Line and after a few stations a liquorish vendor joins our car.  I woman says “two” but takes three.  Another woman suggests that he give the “train driver” one for allowing him to sell on the train.  She turns out to be a “train driver”.  She then gives the vendor a quick rundown on Metro career path options.  “Start as a bus driver, be on time … no accidents.  Usually eight weeks of training –we had nine … learned signals and switches … then actual train operations.”

2010-04-03: I was researching other matters relating to the  Moscow subway prior to the bombings there.  In following up on the tragic bombings there I already had this map at hand.  If you count the lines across the top of the map, the seventh one is the red line.  The bombings took place on the Red Line, at Lubyanka (the eighth station from the top) and Park Kultury (the eleventh station). http://www.studyrussian.com/MGU/Graphics/Moscow_Metro_map.gif

2010-04-04 @ 06:00:  Cristina Bañuelos [the KXLU site doesn't have the enya in her name – so if this Mole is wrong in inserting it -lo siento] wakes me up at six.  She is the announcer for “Alma Del Barrio” on KXLU (88.9FM) this Easter morning.  She has a very nice voice too –in either Spanish or English.  She thanks us, we listeners, for listening so early in the morning.  She doesn't hear my "por nada".

On board a 117 Line bus.  A man us studying a well worn 8 ½” by 11” note pad.  The bottoms of the top pages have been worn away and are quite dirty.   There are columns of numbers, with smudgy finger trails running down them –it seems to be some kind of race track “system”. 

2010-04-06, LAXCBC @ 8:33:  Driver # 76044 opens a pack of cigarettes and tosses the resultant trash on the cement below his feet.

A 439 Line bus doesn’t even slow down, or even pull near the curb as it passes the bus stop.

2010-04-06 @ 9:10:   I board a 108 Line bus for Marina Del Rey at the CCTC.  It is bus #5154, driven by #16997 who quickly becomes engaged in what turns out to be a lengthy conversation with the woman occupying the rightmost front, longitudinal seat. 

Passenger: “When are you going?”  Driver: “Probably in May.”  Passenger: “My birthday id May fifth.”  Driver: “What’s with your cell (the passenger has been pressing keys)?”  Passenger” [It’s] just a guy who is always texting me.  Listen –I used to … .”

2010-04-06:  A woman passenger seated ahead of me on a CC Line 6 bus, pulls hair from a blue brush and drops it on the bus floor. Nice?

2010-04-07 A long wait and at last, two 111 Line buses arrive back-to-back.  14:10: On board a 111 Line bus, number 6448, the driver although slim enough for the standard one, wears no seat belt.

2010-04-10 @ 17:25: A 177 Line bus, #7612 exits the LAXCBC the “wrong way” via the east exit, the usual entry for buses.

I ride bus #6523 which has a bad internal scroll sign.

2010-04-11 LAXCBC @ 09:00: A man scrounges in a trash can for food.  A woman carries a book, "Tus Zonas Mágicas" on this cold and cloudy morning.

2010-04-14 @ 10:30:  A 232 Line First Transit driver, #76044, waiting to be relieved at the LAXCBC, stands near the front of his bus eating nuts and spitting the shells onto the sidewalk.  It is no wonder that drivers do not deploy trash bags –they don't understand their purpose!

It is 14:00 at the LAXCBC and a woman lies sleeping on a quilt, her head resting on a largish transparent plastic bag containing her possessions.  The soles of here bare feet are pointed south while here head is oriented northward.  She has several smaller bags containing her meager belongings arrange around her.

2010-04-14 @ 14:35:  I ride a 232 Line bus.  A man boards and takes a seat in the middle of the bus.  Then he begins talking (shouting) to/at the driver.  “I have a ministry in Fresno! … .”  Thanks for sharing!

2010-04-18:  Typical of bad behavior, an unpleasant smelling man   menaces two Spanish speaking men.   The menace's jeans, at the leg bottoms, hang in tatters above his shoes.

Aboard a Long Beach bound 232 Line bus @ 9:05:  The same bad smelling man causes the woman across the aisle to pull her coat collar up in front of her nose. The menace continues his rant -most of which is unintelligible— injecting something about “Boise Idaho”. 

2010-04-21 @ 16:30 aboard a 111 Line bus, number 6442 driven by 34998.  This driver continues his cell phone chat as we leave the LAXCBC “... didn't you go to college? ...”.  We must be ahead of schedule because at the stop just east of Aviation BL, he is scrolling through his messages OR looking for a contact number.

2010-04-22 @ 08:15: At the LAXCBC, two men are seated on a bench which is about 15 paces from the 117 Line stop.  The bus appears, which I find after checking was scheduled for an 8:22 departure, and seems to bypass the stop.  It is difficult to tell since the ADADO was not in operation –which is the case in the majority of buses— more wasted money.  

One of the guys who were waiting on the bench runs to the eastern “stop line” and the other runs to the “stop line” on the south side, the driver abandons them both.  Sometimes I wonder how the LACMTA defines what they do (I have addressed this before) –Do they exist to provide transportation to people OR to obey any “rules” that exist or that they make up.  The rule here seems to be that the men were not standing at the flag therefore, to the driver, there were no passengers waiting and no reason to stop and then when they ran after the bus, they were not at a designated bus stop.  I noted that the 439 does that too, bypassing the stop and stranding passengers, sometimes.  

The problem is that the drivers are not supervised, or at least not supervised closely enough.  With all the traffic through here, the LAXCBC should rate an “on site” supervisor. 

2010-04-23 @14:30:  I am trying to use the Metro.net Trip Planner which true to the appellation, “Trip Spoiler”, given by su Topo. It is acting “funny”, i.e., strangely.   I use the LAX as a nominal starting point and 125th Street/Prarie Avenue it allows me to continue, to select a more specific variation of LAX (LAX City BusCenter*-W96TH ST Los Angeles) as my origin.  It displays “No Location” as my destination and allows me to continue but stops with a Windows Message Block– “OOPS! Incomplete information.  Please complete your request and re-submit.”  I reply by clicking on “OK” and it returns to the “Trip Spoiler” with everything cleared.  All this frustration is compounded by long delays, five New Yourk minutes, at almost every Web page change.  I can only surmise that they have overloaded the system to the point where it is no longer functional by trying to make everything pretty.  

When you first see the Metro.net home page it has to ‘Trip Spoiler” origin and destination blocks which coalesces into a single one after about 8~16 seconds.  The LACMTA still fails or rates close to zero as system designers, but with the redesign (this Mole calls it “good money after bad”) their system now fails in a much prettier way.  More money wasted by trying to develop in-house what they should have bought from an agency like the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority), in the first place. 

It turns out that I was misinformed:  Prairie and 125th don’t intersect!  Now, I have learned that but the LACMTA system still doesn’t and perhaps it never will– and there is no validation of the user’s input which would allow the system to short cut such bad data.  It is a case of the LACMTA performing insufficient testing and relying too much upon the user to be correct in all his/her inputs, which is emblematic of a very junior IT staff.

2010-04-25 @ 10:00:  Four French couples from Lyon and Marseille have studied the maps at Mariposa Station and worked out their travel plan to Hollywood.  This is something a significant proportion of our population cannot do here, much less in France. Their only problem was the fare computation.  They bought single tickets, but really needed Day Passes.  What is needed are ticket machines which accept a destination and then sell a day pass when so indicated.

2010-04-26 @ 11:00:  My 40 Line bus, #6330, is headed down Hawthorne BL with driver #73307 at the wheel.  He seems a nice enough sort of guy but the toothpick protruding from his mouth detracts from his professionalism.  This bus is crowded!  There are two wheelchairs boarded during my relatively short ride.  One of the wheelchair bound passengers leaves his trash behind when he leaves.

2010-04-27, LAXCBC @ 7:11: Before boarding a 439 Line bus #7127 whose headsign reads “Aviation Station”, I verify the destination.  The driver replies “Union Station”, so I take a seat.   Your Mole’s thinking that the LACMTA, in spite of their boastful comment about “seamless integration of technology” actually under uses the capabilities of their on-board GPS system.

While I was waiting for the 439, I gave some thought to the non-existent supervision at this very busy bus center.  I believe that full-time supervision could improve the on-time performance of buses, improve driver deportment, improve safety by noting which drivers enter at high speed, perform a “rolling stop”, drive out through the entry and address a whole host of issues some of which could be communicated to management and would result in an overall improvement to the system.  A concept which I may as well write about in Greek ,for all the value that the LACMTA could extract from the above.  What … improve the system?  Why??

My luck doesn’t hold as the 439 bus breaks down with a failed transmission a few blocks out ot the CCTC.  There goes my schedule as we are forced to wait for the next 439 and I must listen to other passengers talk about religion.   We board the following 439 just about an hour after leaving the LAXCBC, an hour gone and we have traveled about 15 minutes!  This bus has the talkers and two of them, men, position themselves in two separate seats forward of me.  They are non-stop talkers, the heartbreak of Y chromosomal damage!  Seeking quiet, I move away from them, but no luck, soon the ladies scattered around the new area are on their cell phones.

My readers know that their Mole likes all kinds of music and often listens to “Cowboy Nick”, Saturday evenings at 21:00~22:30 on KXLU 88.9FM and/or at www.kxlu.com .  I don’t know if Nick would like this song by Linda Ronstadt but su Topo sure does!  Click the link just below to listen courtesy of GrooveShark.
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/I+Can+t+Help+It+If+I+m+Still+In+Love+With+You+2006+Digital+Remaster+/2whxPa

<Font headaches below caused by seemingly un-work-around-able Blogspot problems.>
Dedicated to the Dulcinea of my dreams
 
’"It is not for that," replied Sancho, "but because
I hate keeping things long, and I don't want them
to grow rotten with me from over-keeping."


"At any rate," said Don Quixote, "I have more confidence
in thy affection and good nature; and so I would have thee
know that this night there befell me one of the strangest
adventures that I could describe, and to relate it to thee
briefly thou must know that a little while ago the daughter
of the lord of this castle came to me, and that she is the
most elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in
the wide world. What I could tell thee of the charms of her
person! of her lively wit! Of other secret matters which,
to preserve the fealty I owe to my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,


I shall pass over unnoticed and in silence! I will only tell
thee that, either fate being envious of so great a boon placed
in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this is more
probable) this castle being, as I have already said, enchanted,
at the time when I was engaged in the sweetest and most amorous
discourse with her, there came, without my seeing or knowing
whence it came, a hand attached to some arm of some huge giant,
that planted such a cuff on my jaws that I have them all bathed
in blood, and then pummelled me in such a way that I am in a
worse plight than yesterday when the carriers, on account of
Rocinante's misbehaviour, inflicted on us the injury thou knowest
of; whence conjecture that there must be some enchanted Moor
guarding the treasure of this damsel's beauty, and that it is not
for me."’

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616), Don Quixote (1605), 
http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/cervantes/don-quixote/1/Chapter XVII

Fare Box Score Box and related Lists of Shame
I.D. Numbers of buses with Out of Order Fare Boxes:  ;
Note: No or few entries above do not necessarily mean all fare boxes are in operation. 
I.D.Numbers of Distracted Drivers: 34998(ii);
Codes: (i) Extended conversation(s) with passenger(s) or (ii) cell phone call(s).  Frequently, details can be found in the text above, (iii) Self-distracted.  This code will ALWAYS be explained in the posting.
I.D. Numbers of Buses Defaced by WhoIs stickers:  6331+UR; 6369+UR; 6345+UR; 6344+UR; 6370;
~UR or +UR = (+UR) whois sticker and the ugly residue left after passengers partly remove the sticker. (~UR) = Only the ugly residue left after passengers almost completely remove the sticker. +L = an old (legacy) sticker black letters on a plain white background –these are the original form of defacement.
* Another reason for displaying the operator's ID on the internal display and the headsign.

ID numbers of Buses whose Head and Tail signs disagree: ;
Format is Bus number followed by Headsign number/Tailsign number.

La Taupe's Abréviations
ADADO = Automatic Destination Announcement (on) Door Opening. This feature is installed on many buses and operates on extremely few.  Another “money down the toilet” LACMTA investment.  La Taupe that this is intended for the visually impaired because people who can see can read the “head signs”.

ASAS = Automatic Stop Announcement System the GPS (Global Positioning System) driven mechanism for generating audio for the upcoming stops. N.B. Because of the low power (read weak) processors used in the on-board stops may be too close to identify stops separately.  This is know as a granularity problem.  Then too, if the driver operates the bus at speed above the speed limit you will find the system “back announcing” stops which you have already passed.  I find that this will NOT keep some drivers from complaining “that you didn’t signal (ring) in time.  They don’t understand their relationship to the system and how, by driving faster than the GPS computer, they can bias it. 

BBB = Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

CC or CCMBL = Culver City (Municipal) Bus (Lines)

CCTC = Culver City Transportation Center this is the place formerly known as FHMTC = the Fox Hills Mall Transportation Center (Sepulveda &amp; Slauson)

FFE = Full Fare Equivalent (presently $1.25)

LAXCBC = the LAX City Bus Center.
TT = Torrance Transit.
T1 = the normal type of driver/staff.
T2 = is the non-stop talker type of driver/staff, on the phone or to passengers,
T3 = the uncommunicative type of driver/staff, sometimes surly.
WLATC = the West Los Angeles Transportation Center (Fairfax &amp; Apple)

Su Topo’s Disclaimer and apologia
Your Mole always attempts to write an easy-on-the-eyes page using text input.  Blogger.com however, has other ideas and will often not stay with a single font type or point size, produces extraneous spacing and etc.  I wish I had time to debug the HTML which they produce, it is NOT the straight text which I pasted into the form, but I don’t.  Therefore, I apologize on behalf of Blogger.com for the changes which they make, of which I do not approve.  Sometimes, what I see, thankfully you don’t, is 24 point type –it is giant and other times they swallow my text, although it still seems to be there.  In fairness to them, things seem better, although this is partly because I do understand which of their “features” do the most damage to me and consequently do not use them.  Communicating these problems to them, for me, is something like having teeth extracted without the benefit of anesthetic, actually it is less fun than that.  By their design, there is no simple e-mailing them with "Please look at my say, posting of 2009-06-28, it is weird!” I am hoping that one of their developers will some day read this, copy my code and improve their text to HTML engine.  Until then, lo siento.

Mole’s Copyright Statement
All photographs and original written materials are copyrighted © 2007~2009 by LAmetroMole.  ♪Clicking a photo will often* present you with an enlargement. *This feature is dependent upon the Internet browser which you use and possibly other factors.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains or provides links to copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, sustainable development, environmental, community and worker health, public disclosure, corporate accountability, and etc. We have often included relatively brief quotes from articles and etc., sometimes in addition to a simple link, because we have found that links frequently go "bad" or change over time. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without fee or payment of any kind to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes and to those who access the site via any and all other channels. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Music or other recorded material on this site, or referred to by this site are copyrighted by their respective artists and are made available here for evaluation purposes only. Please support the artists you like by buying their commercial CDs, MP3s and downloads.

Your Mole’s Conflict of Interest Statement
This  is to certify that I, the blogger who is known as the LAmetroMole, with respect to this blog, except as described below, am not now nor at any time during the past year have been, nor it my current intention to ever be:

1) A participant, directly or indirectly, in any arrangement, agreement, investment, or other activity with any vendor, supplier, or other party doing business with any of the entities about which I have written, which has resulted or could result in personal benefit to me.

2) A recipient, directly or indirectly, of any salary payments or loans or gifts of any kind or any free service or discounts or other fees from or on behalf of any person or organization engaged in any transaction with any of the entities about which I have written. 

Any exceptions to 1 or 2 above are stated below with a full description of the transactions and of the interest, whether direct or indirect, which I have (or have had during the past year) in the persons or organizations having transactions with any of the entities about which I have written.
There are no exceptions.

Date: 2009-06-24                 S/ LametroMole                  

Bibliography/References 
(1) Haddon, Heather. “ “ annycom. Weekend 9~11 Apr. 2010. Last Accessed 14 April 2010.

(2) Kriegman, Orion. “No Car, No Problem”. Yes Magazine (OnLine) http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/common-security-clubs/no-car-no-problem Last Accessed 14 April 2010.

(3) Taibbi, Matt. “Looting Main Street“ Rolling Stone (OnLine). 31 Mar. 2010 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32906678/looting_main_street/1 Last Accessed 15 April 2010.

(4) Rosenberg, Stan. “Los Angeles And Other Strapped Cities Challenge Swaps Deals”. Wall Street Journal. 9 Mar. 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100309-716078.html Last Accessed 15 April 2010.

(5) France, Jasmine. “Don't forget the 'public' in public transportation--Jasmine's Tech Dos &amp; Don'ts” www.Cnet.com 18 Mar. 2010. http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-20000723-49.html?part=rss&amp;tag=feed&amp;subj=Crave Last Accessed 15 April 2010.

(6) Rettner, Rachael. “Why We Can't Do 3 Things at Once”. LiveScience. 15 Apr. 2010. http://www.livescience.com/health/brain-multitasking-limit-100415.html Last Accessed 17 April 2010.

(7) Unknown. “If you are riding with bulky items...”. LACMTA – No Identification Number. No date.


(8) "Rene Descartes." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc. 2010. 15 April. 2010. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/rene_descartes.htmlLast Accessed 15 April 2010.

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# posted by LAMETROmole @ 12:17


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