America’s infrastructure is crumbling. “More than one in four of America’s nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry.… A third of the country’s major roadways are in substandard condition — a significant factor in a third of the more than 43,000 traffic fatalities each year.… The number of dams that could fail has grown 134 percent since 1999 to 3,346.… Underground, aging and inadequate sewer systems spill an estimated 1.26 trillion gallons of untreated sewage every year.”

It’s not just rising costs or a lack of funds: “Infrastructure repairs simply aren’t as sexy as ribbon-cuttings. The public and politicians are more likely to support new construction, leaving existing structures wanting.”  ¶

1,000 Lies. The Center for Public Integrity has compiled a database of Iraq-related speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony by the Bush administration in the two years following September 11, 2001. They found at least 935 false statements about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq — reaching a crescendo before the invasion. Their analysis and data set are searchable online.
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Pencils2MediaMoguls. “For the last couple of months, television fans have been buying pencils to send to the media moguls — the heads of six major companies that dominate the [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers] — to demonstrate their support for the [striking] writers of their favorite TV series. On December 11, the first 500,000 pencils were delivered in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, another 200,000 will be delivered in New York.” Appropriately, the press conference will take place by the New York Stock Exchange.

(After the demo, the pencils are donated to the public school children.)  ¶

Design Police. Download and print out this handy sheet of stickers to mark-up your image environment for violations of good design sense. (Thanks Kim!)

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