Prevailing Winds

Honestly, it says something about City Council that they were caught off guard and sniped by the Mayor's Office at the last minute:

A proposed new development rule that had seemed well on its way into the city of Pittsburgh's code book was surprisingly derailed yesterday by a mayoral veto.

Some City Council members made a last-minute effort last night to override the veto, but the attempt fell one vote short of the six votes needed for an override...

Mr. Ravenstahl had said long before the vote that he did not "anticipate being a strong advocate against it." But at 3:54 p.m., his office sent over a veto message saying that the piece "has too many vague and ambiguous terms, needs additional input from the entire community, and, most importantly, has the potential to hurt Pittsburgh."

Because the veto came about eight hours before the end of the two-year council session, there was no way, under the city code, for the body to meet to vote to override. Special meetings can be called only with 24 hours notice.

Not having heard that the legislation had been signed as of yesterday when Jim Motznik resigned, I assumed that Luke was getting pressure from forces both inside and outside City government and was going to pull out the veto pen. Frankly, I was surprised that the Mayor sent over the veto message as early as 3:54 p.m. I can only assume that City Clerk Linda Johnson-Wasler was going home at 4, otherwise I would have expected the Mayor to wait until after Council was already (let's say) "filled with holiday cheer" at around 8 PM and completely unable to call any type of sensible meeting.

Although, I must say that the progress of this bill itself has been unusual all around: a major piece of legislation introduced after November elections with two lame-duck members, Council reluctantly giving it a public hearing, a domineering Council President railroading the bill through, infighting between council supporters of the bill, a reluctance by Council Members to hear possible side effects of the legislation, and a local union twisting thumb screws behind closed doors. Folks can call what the Mayor did "a blatant abuse of power," but something about how this bill came about does not sit easy in my stomach.

(That may be last night's mixture of pork, sauerkraut and champagne, however, which has been known to cause similar gastrointestinal... uh... issues.)

Now, personally, I don't think that this legislation is particularly well thought out to begin with and I don't believe that our elected officials have any clue as to what the bill will actually do to the City. Council is not known for thinking deeply about unintended consequences (or being intellectually curious at all for that matter), but I would recommend to them that they take this opportunity to have a real, in-depth analysis of what the consequences of this bill might be and then bring it back to the table. There may be ways that the City can effect the same desired outcomes which have not been considered by Council.

I mean, they don't want to be caught off guard again, right?

Internet Bloggers Announce Strike

San Jose, CA (AP) - Following last night's announcement that the Writers Guild of America will go on strike last night, the International Brotherhood of Internet Bloggers (iBIB) announced that it would also call for a major work stoppage amongst it's nearly one million members.

iBIB had been negotiating along side the Writer's Guild as marathon talks entered their eleventh hour in Los Angeles and New York. The Bloggers are demanding royalties for "all the really good plots, scripts, and ideas offered for free on the Internet" are concerned about the increased number of Chinese bloggers that provide content at one-eighth the price of a union blogger.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the blog DailyKos, and Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, founder of Slashdot, called on all iBIB members to immediately stop work.

In a speech released on YouTube last night, CmdrTaco ordered union members to refrain "from writing, producing, or uploading anything of substance or entertaining value on the web. It is only through the loss of our 'value added content' will management come to understand the services we provide."

Reporters questioned Malda if any of this "value added content" had previously been released on the Internet and, if so, where it might be found.

Markos added that until the strike was resolved, the union was holding back several items including a story involving Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), a new seven question meme, and a video of a monkey and an adorably kitten.

Message boards across the Internet were immediately shut down, as virtual picketers in the popular MMORPGs "Second Life" and "World of Warcraft" assembled inside every major server. Thousands of unspayed, unneutered, and uncaptioned LOLCats were abandoned by their owners.

The National Alliance of Network Administrators (NANA), who had been negotiating across the table from iBIB, called the move "precipitous and irresponsible," however, they are secretly concerned that a prolonged strike would lead to an increase in the reading of books, magazines, and newspapers or even "going outside and interacting with real people."

No word yet on whether the United Porn Writers, Directors, Composers, and Amalgamated Skeeves will join in a sympathy strike; UPWDCAS makes up for nearly 85% of Internet content.

Reopened negotiations may begin as early Tuesday.