More on the District's unrelenting war on my house. Don't these guys know we were featured in the NYT Style section? We could have important taste-makers crush them like bugs.
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The Battle Continues
05 May 2008 06:46 pm
Comments (43)
I lived in a house much like yours for a couple months. I moved out after the money for the electricity went up my roommates' noses, and they shut off the power.
From the link:
D.C. never provided us, as it was required to, with recycling cans. As a result, our bottles and cardboard have gone in what we thought were reasonable substitutes: paper grocery bags, for instance, or a milk crate that we found at the nearby charter school. Yet, week in and week out, the recycling people do not collect our recycling.
It's not hard to figure out the problem here.
Perhaps you should have inquired about obtaining recycling receptacles before the situation spiraled into its current state.
Wow, it's like a case study for stuffpeoplewhitelike.wordpress.com
I thought the District didn't pick up your garbage, now it turns out it's just recycling.
Exactly. I fully expect Outback Steakhouse and Applebee's to go out of business within the year, as well.
They are still picking up trash (practically daily) in my DC neighborhood (Dupont).
I wonder what's going on in your area.
Am I wrong, incidentally, in thinking that your adopting such a bellicose stance (complete with rhetoric invoking military confrontation) in a situation that could have been resolved through reaching out and cooperative dialogue undercuts the thesis of Heads in the Sand?
I thought the District didn't pick up your garbage, now it turns out it's just recycling.
It's just one more example of how privileged white males are the real victims in this country. I predict the details of this episode will merit an entire chapter in Matt's 2015 book about why he converted to Republicanism.
This raises another interesting question...
Over the years, I've read various (fairly plausible) claims by conservatives that "recycling" is basically just a hoax, namely that a reasonable estimate of the time/energy/money/effort expended as part of the recycling process indicates that it probably outweighs the actual social/environmental savings from recycling. Thus, it's more like the biofuels industry or a secular religion than anything with practical utility.
Does anybody have any strong impression about whether this is true or not?
Recycling: another liberal do-gooder debacle.
But it has reared its ugly head and bit some liberals on the behind, so it can't be all bad.
Does anybody have any strong impression about whether this is true or not?
Commercial junkyards?
Does anybody have any strong impression about whether this is true or not?
This topic has been hotly debated on this forum in the past. The general consensus seems to be that only recycling metal is actually profitable. Recycling glass and paper are break-even at best, but do have the benefit of reducing landfill (and I can say from personal experience that the building I live in generates about half of its refuse in the form of glass and paper.)
...namely that a reasonable estimate of the time/energy/money/effort expended as part of the recycling process indicates that it probably outweighs the actual social/environmental savings from recycling.
That's easily the stupidest thing I've read all day. And considering I spent the whole day home sick surfing blogs, that's really, really saying something.
I heard it was the crack pipes, Everclear bottles, and used condoms in FRONT of the house that led the neighbors to complain.
Now you know why we suburbanites like our back yards, fences, and pit bulls.
Wow, another extremely boring personal story here.
What's next, "i washed my clothes and can't find a sock."?
Great blog this is.
uggh
Recycling: another liberal do-gooder debacle.
Hilarious, coming from someone who recycles wingnut shit fifteen times a fucking day.
"That's easily the stupidest thing I've read all day. And considering I spent the whole day home sick surfing blogs, that's really, really saying something."
It's so not.
Ask any environmental engineer and you'll realize that the current tech in recycling is still a long, long, long ways away from a net positive effect on anything except your conscience.
I do it every day, but I also don't buy things with too much packaging, and I've tried to reduce my refuse as much as possible. Reducing is the first "R", and often gets way overlooked.
People think that buying every gadget known to man is ok just as long as you recycle the big box. But guess what? A lot of the waste you try to recycle just gets tossed into the landfills with all the rest of the garbage, as not everything *can* be recycled, no matter what bin you put it in.
If you want to really know about recycling, go visit a recycling center. There's one about two blocks from where I work, and going there and talking with the engineers and workers opened my eyes.
This is the kind of stuff that turns people into Republicans. Be careful.
This is the kind of stuff that turns people into Republicans. That, and getting your first property tax bill. Be careful.
A lot of the waste you try to recycle just gets tossed into the landfills with all the rest of the garbage
Like what? The glass and plastic bottles? The newspapers? The aluminum cans? They end up in the landfill sometimes? You're not being particularly convincing here.
Just throw everything in the trash. And support a cut in the gas tax.
Call the Mayor's Citywide Call Center at 202-727-1000 and request a blue recycling bin and a green trash can. You may also be able to get one at 2750 South Capitol Street, SE, but you'll want to double check with the folks at the call center beforehand.
1) I think we here in Philly have an edgier form of urban decay than the District of Columbia. Our aura of impending apocalypse is mixed with a distinctive pathos of almost-comical stupid-shit fuckups. The ancient Greek playwrights would have whistled in envy.
2) Front page in the Philly Inquirer today reports a local armed robbery that went south. Police sargent was following the 3 robbers when they stopped their van and one of them got out and shot the policeman with a SKS -- an semi-automatic rifle used in Russia circa WWII before adoption of the AK-47.
a) Now, The local police chief is raving about the evil black rifles that "shoot through cops cars" -- which hopefully will divert the voters attention away from the fact that SKSs can't shot through engine blocks. Which is why COMPETENT police chiefs ensure their officers are TRAINED to park their cars at a slant --in order to put the engine block between themselves and the suspects.
b) The SKS is a nice, Reliable weapon but only holds 10 rounds. However, the brainiac using it had modified it to hold a 30 round After-Market Magazine.
Which are pieces of shit (don't ask how I know this.) Of course, this product of the Philly school system didn't think to TRY OUT THE Modification to see it is reliable (It isn't).
c) So when the cops next surrounded the robber's vehicle, the SKS guy got out , tried to fire , and the rifle jammed. (Inquirer said it only fired 5 of the 30 rounds, which sounds about right.) So Philly's cops not only got to shoot the cop-killer du jour but got to do so while the silly shit was desperately pulling the trigger on a rifle that wouldn't fire. THAT story will certainly be causing howls of laughter in certain bars for the next month.
d) Some of you may be admiring the skill with which Philly's finest located the robbers after losing them when the sargent was shot.
However, the dear Inquirer let the cat out of the bag -- it seems that when banks hand over bags with a measly $38,000 they also include two GPS transponders as surprise gifts. (You listening , Richard? I'm giving you pearls here. )
I can imagine the police giggling as they watched the robbers van make evasive moves on the computer screen.
e) Even so, one of the robbers has escaped and is at large. The second robber escaped, but was captured later via a vehicle trace. At first he denied involvement but has since confessed.
(How the Philly police pulled THAT off is left as an exercise for the reader. Especially any readers in GITMO. )
2) The Inquirer likes to add little morality lectures to its crime stories as a sop to the Catholics. So it spent half a page discussing how the robber who confessed was a regular on the local boxing circuit and had a potential career --If He Had Only Stayed On The Right Path.
Such a point seems dubious, however, if one reads between the lines. The robber had been in a local boxing match about a month or so ago. However, he got his ass whipped and only received $4000 as payment. Plus the Inquirer reporter states that the boxer is 39 YEARS old -- but doesn't realize the significance of that fact.
Refundable Deposits!
Glass and plastic bottles should have a non-nominal surcharge placed on them that actually encourages recycling. Five cents a bottle is a joke that does nothing. A CPI-linked charge like 50 cents bottle would generate lots of returns.
Newspapers and junk mailers should be forced to collect a refund deposit on the 'externality' that they ignore, but which costs society in so many ways (logging forests which are critical to sequestering carbon, landfill costs and the transportation costs to collect the refuse and haul it away, etc.)
But nothing excuses DC bloggers complaining about the lack of recycling containers that it appears they did NOTHING to obtain. I'd fine your asses even more than $1500. And maybe burn your house down too if i were a neighbor. Even better, obtain a court order that you must move out of the city for a year. No wonder Spencer calls your 'house' a flophouse! It sounds like what is now called a 'squat' - evocative as that sounds to the pigsty you've been living in.
My liberal conscience is truly offended, and I renounce and denounce and reject any defense.
That same sort of thing happened to me once years ago when I was living in Arlington. The first time the stuff wasn't picked up, it was brought back from the curb rather than left there to rot on the street (silly me, I guess I had pride in where I lived and respected my neighbors). It went back out the second time the next trash pickup day. When it was left behind a second time, it was pulled back in, and a phone call was made immediately the next morning to complain/find out what was the matter.
I'm glad I don't live next to you because obviously you have no respect for the street where you live or for your neighbors. Shame on your pampered privileged the-world-owes-you asses.
"We could have important taste-makers crush them like bugs."
Surely if elite opinion could hurt the D.C. government it would have been destroyed long ago and the editorial staff of the Washington Post Metro section would run things as philosopher kings.
As you are a know vermin harborer, I don't think you should speak so rudely about bugs.
Why didn't you videotape the repackaging of recyclables in regular trash bags and put the video on youtube ? What kind of trend setters are you ?
Ones who know that youtube is, like, totally 2007, I guess.
Great blog this is.
Yeah, you should totally ask for your money back.
Dipshit.
As you are a know[n] vermin harborer...
Man. I'm not the world's biggest Spencer Ackerman fan, but that seems unduly harsh.
Your guy's faith in "the system" is touching. When its profitable to recycle glass, your hauler will recycle it... and when its not, into the landfill it goes.
Right now (per the trash hauler exec I chatted with over the weekend), there's no money in recycling plastic, so it gets tossed in with the rest of the trash.
Recycling is old school. What the industry is looking at now is plasma generators and biofuels.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage
By the way, for anyone who wants to throw Matt under the bus with code enforcement (or more generally, any neighbor who is clearly violating code), the phrase that pays is-- "I was just driving through my neighborhood and saw some little kids playing in a pile of [trash / bricks / broken glass, etc], Could you send a code officer to check out the following address..."
Nothing gets local government moving like the specter of little kids in danger.
You should write to your Congressperson about this!
Too bad you don't have one...
) The SKS is a nice, Reliable weapon but only holds 10 rounds. However, the brainiac using it had modified it to hold a 30 round After-Market Magazine.
The SKS family includes a great deal of weapons and unless I read very specifically it was modified my assumption would be that it was in the the more AK-style family that came stock with a banana clip.
Don: "However, the dear Inquirer let the cat out of the bag -- it seems that when banks hand over bags with a measly $38,000 they also include two GPS transponders as surprise gifts. (You listening , Richard? I'm giving you pearls here. )"
Don, how the hell do you think I got caught?
If I'd known about them, I could have eliminated them. I just didn't do enough research to realize banks were using them. When the cops came on the bus I was on (after following me for several blocks trying to figure out which pedestrian they were after) waving an electronic device around, THEN I knew what was up - a little late!
And actually they're lucky they caught me when they did - because my next purchase was going to the Chinese semi-auto version of the AK-47 (I don't think I was considering the SKS at the time) - or maybe it was the Ruger Mini-30, which uses the AK round, I can't remember - which, yes, I was going to trick out with (quality) thirty-round combat mags, folding stock (so it would hide under a raincoat), and Armson Occluded Eye Gunsights - and maybe a laser targeting sight.
Had they caught up to me then, you'd have had the Miami shootout in the middle of San Francisco...a bunch of dead cops...and me on the electric chair.
As my lawyer said, "It's good they caught you early."
Which means my scintillating wit would be lost to the readers of Matt's blog!
Geez Hack, you certainly do keep it real. I'm glad your lack of foresight canceled itself out. The world is a better place with you here to haunt Petey.
Speaking of the Miami shootout, apparently one of the FBI agents was very nearsighted and lost his glasses in the commotion. Because he couldn't see "down range", his four eyes cost him his life. Sounds like something that would happen to Nervous Purvis while he was hunting down the Dillinger Gang.
Because of the '86 Miami shootout, the rule came down from on high, if you couldn't drive without your glasses, you couldn't join the Bureau, no exceptions (like the military, the FBI is exempt from disability civil rights laws). Wasn't until Lasik became common that the myopic could join... after they had the operation.
Seriously, Matt, I recycled religiously when I got to 13th St last year, which is to say that my recycling was a weekly ritual in which my offerings to the city were accepted or (mostly) rejected based on no pattern I could understand. Each failure would send me back to the written texts (http://dpw.dc.gov/dpw/cwp/view,a,1202,q,518045.asp) in a rage. Later would come introspection, then finally hope for the next offering.
It's weird, they seem to take our recyclables in just about any vessel we put them in. And I live in Columbia Heights, where you would actually expect them to care even less.
Wow, that couldn't have been avoided or anything. A little personal responsibility for your property goes a long way. Go pick up the proper bins and the whole thing is over.
1) Re Richard's comment "Had they caught up to me then, you'd have had the Miami shootout in the middle of San Francisco...a bunch of dead cops...and me on the electric chair."
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Might end quicker today. I saw a news item that lots more urban cops are carrying assault rifles in their trunks nowdays. Don't know if it is to handle "Islamic terrorists" or if they saw that scene in the movie "Heat" where Val Kilmer and Robert DeNiro shoot up a bunch of police cars/blockades.
2) Re beowulf's comment "Speaking of the Miami shootout, apparently one of the FBI agents was very nearsighted and lost his glasses in the commotion. Because he couldn't see "down range", his four eyes cost him his life. "
I haven't checked deeply into the Miami shootout but my understanding is that the FBI had trouble putting the robbers down because the FBI was using a shitty 9mm hollow-point round that mushroomed too quickly -- so that it would only penetrate a few inches.
Which is God's way of telling you to get a 45 ACP.
It doesn't have to have a hollow point -- the solid hardball makes a hole big enough to stick your finger in and it plows all the way through the body.
Just how disturbed are Richard Steven Hack and Don Williams?
Have they no lives whatsoever?
It's a Goddamn post about recycling and garbage pickup in D.C.! Look, what they've made of it!
Sad.
Pathetic.
And, frankly, really creepy.
Man, do you two need to talk to someone competent. (Even the ludicrous Trevor isn't quite this pathological and needy!) Get help, guys! There are professionals you two could be talking to, pills you could be taking!
Alas, every blog post turns into a dumbassed house of ranting, spittle-flying commentary from the looney regulars! It's really starting to be annoying.
Please give it a break, losers. And, yes, while you're at it, make an appt. with a mental health professional!
Are you two even embarrassed? Christ knows you should be.
Re Richard Steven Hack
I'm not into bank robbing like Mr. Hack but depending on the local transit company to make your getaway doesn't seem like the optimum approach to the activity.
Re Teresa
Mr. Don Williams supports Senator Obama. With friends like that, the good senator doesn't need any enemies.
Tooting the NYC horn here, where we have clear and blue bags for recyclables and black bags for garbage. no need for pesky recycling bins
Re Teresa's comment "It's a Goddamn post about recycling and garbage pickup in D.C.! Look, what they've made of it!"
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Depend upon what type of garbage you're talking about recyling , Teresa.
Teresa's girlish scruples do illustrate the strange morality of US citizens.
50 Million voters reelect George W -- the Butcher of Baghdad -- in 2004. That rolls over Teresa like a cool summer breeze.
After Bill Clinton kills 600,000 Iraqi children with waterborne diseases, Hillary threatens to nuke the children of Tehran.
No Problem.
Looks like Hill will take Indiana, in fact.
But let Someone mention one or two dead bodies and
Teresa throws a hissy fit. In my opinion, that's what is sick.
Different strokes for different folks. This is one of the few blogs worth reading every day. In part, its because of sharp commenters that take Matt's posts off in such unexpected tangents. Its not a bunch of regulars who, dittohead-like, are just reading from the script.
Beyond that, Matt does have a lot of interesting things to say. I appreciate that he spends his available time posting new entries instead of moderating comments to weed out people who disagree with him and/or go off topic.
Oh and Teresa, if gun talk creeps you out, you've come to the wrong shop, sister.
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/the_punisher.php
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Heads in the Sand
don't you mean DC's War on US?
Posted by becker | May 5, 2008 6:55 PM