About that new gig...

Some of you may have already read this, but I've a bit of an announcement to make.  Chris and Bob over at portlandtransport.com, a blog I've participated in quite a bit over the years, have invited me to become a contributor there--and to become a director of the nonprofit which operates portlandtransport.com.  My inaugural post there is here; it pretty much makes the same announcement--and then briefly discusses the Oregonian's opposition to measure 26-119, a tax levy which would provide TriMet with $125 million to improve operations. 

So what does this mean for DHT?  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure yet.  When this blog started, it wasn't intended as a transit blog, but that's what it turned into.  I'll probably continue to write about transit topics here, especially when it gets overly speculative, political, or disconnected from the Portland, OR context.  As portlandtransport.com is a 501(c) nonprofit corporation, a few sorts of political commentary are out of bounds there--particularly where endorsement of candidates is concerned.  OTOH, I may resume more blogging on general political topics--some of which, such as the current state of the US economy and the direction of the political winds, cast a long shadow over technical issues such as transit.  (I can imagine a future in which the US invests greatly in transit in response to rising petroleum prices and temperatures; I can also imagine a future in which an austerity consensus takes hold, and little investment is done on anything.  And I can imagine a few other scenarios even less pleasant than that).

Most of the regular readers here are also readers of PT; but if you aren't, come on over!  There's a much livelier peanut gallery over there than here, but it's still a place where the comments are frequently as interesting as the content.  One longstanding disadvantage of the blog format is that as blogs get popular, the comments section tends to decline in quality; some of the best political blogs either employ a small army of moderators (538 at the NYT), have useless comment sections (i.e Yglesias or 538 prior to the NYT move) or have disabled them altogether (i.e. Sullivan). 

At any rate, portlandtransport is a great place to talk transit, and it's an extremely well-run site.  I just hope that I can uphold the high standards that it has exhibited over the years.

Wish me luck!

Blogcation

Just a quick note...and a bit of an apology.  It's been several weeks (nearly a month) since the last posting.  I've been on a bit of a blog-cation, I suppose--mainly due to simply being rather busy in Real Life.  My wife's starting up a new career, the kids are back in school, and my own job has been a bit busy of late.  (In this economy, it is quite nice to have one...)

I do want to reassure everyone that I'm fine, however, and intend to resume blogging (with real content :) shortly.  Just needed to decompress for a while.

A new blog is born

This blog has been in existence for almost a year and a half now (and actively maintained for over half a year)--so it's time to announce the latest addition to my blogging empire. :)

the unpolished apple is a new blog covering public education from the point of view of a public school parent.  Whereas this blog focuses on transit issues (with a few other political forays), the apple will focus on education.

The two topics have some similarities which are worth noting.  Both are functions commonly provided by the government in the US (and elsewhere in the developed world), the structure of which is a hot subject of debate in this country.  Both public transit and public schools are also ground zero for discussions of organized public-sector labor, a topic which is becoming hotter as the economy gets tighter. 

A few differences, though, at least for me.  I'm a transportation nerd, so this blog is a bit of a hobby.  I'm not an education nerd--I don't have a love of (or expertise in) education theory.  So the apple will quite a bit more, pardon the term, consumer-focused than this blog--which tries to examine transit from all perspectives.

Go check it out!

DHT now part of Streetsblog Network

Apologies for two "meta" posts in a row... but the Dead Horse Times is now part of the Streetsblog network.  If you aren't familiar with Streetsblog, I encourage you to click on the link, or on the new sidebar widget to your left and go check it out!

Service bulletin

The Blogger platform appears to be having a few attitude problems this morning.  Google indicates the issues are being worked on, but if your comments get bounced, that's probably why.

(And to top it off--gmail seems to have decided that comment notifications from Blogger are spam--if I haven't been responding to comments that ought to be responded to, that's why...)

A Major Milestone

Today, dear readers, after a year of existence, and nearly forty articles, the Dead Horse Times reached a major milestone.

Our first spammer.  (Woohoo!)

Hawking auto parts, of all things.

(Don't look; it's already been deleted).

This calls for celebration, and a nice tall glass of beer tonight.