Silly boondoggle or law enforcement theatre? Does it matter?

InfoWars and the AP are reporting that East Orange, NJ cops are gonna put red colored spotlights on telephone poles in high crime areas to shine red colored light beams on suspicious persons or activity to let the potential culprits and the public know that the cops are watching them and/or on the way.

I guess the crooks and thugs in East Orange have never heard of shooting out lights or wearing masks to disguise their identity. The cost of this bullshit is to be borne by the federal treasury of course.  Given the human cesspool that inhabits East Orange demographics-wise perhaps that is the case. However they will no doubt quickly learn and adapt. After all even amoebas learn from simple stimulus-response cycles. What a laugh. Scary and funny at the same time.

Why do mayors love sports stadiums?

Other people's money sure spends easy

"The simplest explanation is fear: because team owners can choose new cities but cities can’t choose new teams—thanks to the leagues’ government-sanctioned monopolies over franchise placement—mayors feel they must offer owners anything they want." (Neil DeMause @ The Nation)

As luck would have it Ann Arbor's stadia are all state owned property but even so the UM athletic department squeezes everybody it can for money. That "jobs, jobs, jobs" stuff the political types fall for is just BS. So we get a few parking attendants, hot dog vendors and clean up positions. We also get litter, traffic congestion, and noise along with them too. But at least UM can't threaten to move to Livonia or  Toledo either so there's that.

Sign of the times: California’s multi-billion-dollar bullet-train boondoggle was predictable—and predicted.

This blurb I've linked to here is about the proposed high-speed rain line between LA and SF but it could really be about anywhere in the US where the concept is being floated. I have no idea what causes the fixation the elites have with high-speed trains. They're very expensive, high-maintenance, and take forever to build. There are much cheaper alternatives that just get swept aside too. Go figure?