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Business
This month, the nonpartisan watchdog Committee of Seventy testified that the city should wait six months before enforcing its new lobbying law, which requires that lobbyists register with the city and sometimes file expense reports starting July 1.
The group wholeheartedly supports the new law — and still wants lobbyists to follow it in meantime — but believes that several “ambiguities” must be cleared up before the city issues penalties for breaking it.
Two organizations have joined Seventy in this complaint: the Philadelphia Bar Association and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Both groups argued before the Ethics Board that the new rules are unclear, and the Chamber of Commerce argued that the city shouldn’t implement the lobbying law at all for the next six months.
In the spirit of full disclosure that such a law promotes, it may be worth noting: The Chamber of Commerce is among the Committee of Seventy’s biggest donors. According to the nonprofit’s tax filings, Seventy received $50,000 in contributions from that group between 2008 and 2009. Local law firms, including Pepper Hamilton LLP and Morgan and Lewis & Bockius, are are also among Seventy’s bigger donors.
Is the Committee of Seventy speaking on behalf of these groups?
Ellen Kaplan, Seventy’s vice president, strongly denies that the watchdog is speaking for its donors. She argues that the law’s recently-published ground rules have left many questions unanswered — like what lobbying is, exactly, and what it isn’t — and the city should clarify them before enforcing the law.
“Obviously, there are some members who contribute to this organization who want these answers,” she says. "But we don’t represent anybody’s views other than our own.”
The Ethics Board hasn't made any public announcements about whether it will delay enforcement of the law in response to these groups. But Ethics Board staff say that it could be considered at its next meeting, on July 20.
Meanwhile, an unrelated technical issue may put the lobbying law on hold: The Ethics Board has announced that the electronic system that lobbyists will be required to register on won't be ready by the original July 1 deadline, partly due to funding issues. They expect the system will be ready around July 18, though — but if it's not, the Ethics Board will not be able enforce the lobbying law.
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| Courtesy of Urban Outfitters |
| "Eat Less" tee on a skinny girl? Awkward. |
Check out this "Eat Less" tee sold by Philly-based company Urban Outfitters. Kinda has an anti-fat women/Mean Girls vibe to it, eh? And maybe, just maybe it would feel more anti-American-overconsumption (vs. anti-eating-anything-even-ice-cubes) if it wasn't on a very, very thin young woman?
Or maybe not. What are your thoughts, Clogees?
(h/t Huffington Post)
I don't think it's necessarily a bad message. As a nation, we do tend to overeat. And, in Philly, we've elevated gorging to an annual spectacle with Wing Bowl. Even 20-somethings here are "rockin' the flab". Having said that, I think "Exercise More" is a better message, though not quite as pithy.
The thing is, it's not about eating "less" but eating "better." Yeah, we have the Wing Bowl, and are the home of the cheesesteak, etc...but the message of "eat less" has gotten distorted in our society to encourage various eating disorders.
Have you ever shopped at Urban outfitters? Even normal sized people have a hard time fitting in there!
To their credit, *everybody* hates fat people.
hey jimbo, i probably get laid more than you!!!
If more bike lanes everywhere means more bicyclists will use them and get off the sidewalks, please do it. Even though that will still continue given how easy it is to get way with it and the current police attitude on enforcement. I would be against
Uh... no question, this sh*t is weird and disturbing. Hate fat people? I don't know. Love anorexia? YES.
OMG Kabletown is about all we can say right now to this terrible news:
A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.
The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nations largest cable provider, to slow down customers access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.
Check out the New York Times piece on the ruling for the rest of the scoop.
This is a fairly narrow decision regarding the FCC's inability to enforce "net neutrality." The problem here is Congress, not the courts. Clueless federal lawmakers are being lobbied heavily by old media, and there's very little public outcry beyond the usual cyber-activist groups. What's despicable is Comcast's ability to market "unlimited" broadband services and then secretly throttle down bittorrent users because they presume the service is used for illegal downloading.
Time-Warner is doing it, too. You'll see that your on-demand Netflix and Hulu will not work as good. Time Warner will tell you to go to speakeasy.net to check your speed, which will be really good; but then, they've opened up that channel. Why doesn't this compare at all to the cnet speed check?
[...] you pay for their movies then have you stream them online, even from legal sites like Hulu. Brings that whole net neutrality business into a whole different light, don’t [...]
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