Peter Liepmann

@datadrivenfp

Family doc, Twitter refugee, son of refugee. #COVIDisAIRBORNE We're in Germany 1933 Mors Omnibus Tyrannis The outrage is to distract us from Muskrats looting the US Treasury Ad Hominem attacks =mute

6.562 Folgt2.469 Follower4.869 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir datadrivenfp.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· 27d

He can, or call a special election, or require the hospital allow him.. HIPAA: (e) Standard: Disclosures for judicial and administrative proceedings — (1) Permitted disclosures. A covered entity may disclose protected health information in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding:

(e) Standard: Disclosures for judicial and administrative proceedings —

(1) Permitted disclosures. A covered entity may disclose protected health information in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding:

(i) In response to an order of a court or administrative tribunal, provided that the covered entity discloses only the protected health information expressly authorized by such order; or

(ii) In response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process, that is not accompanied by an order of a court or administrative tribunal, if:

(A) The covered entity receives satisfactory assurance, as described in paragraph (e)(1)(iii) of this section, from the party seeking the information that reasonable efforts have been made by such party to ensure that the individual who is the subject of the protected health information that has been requested has been given notice of the request; or

(B) The covered entity receives satisfactory assurance, as described in paragraph (e)(1)(iv) of this section, from the party seeking the information that reasonable efforts have been made by such party to secure a qualified protective order that meets the requirements of paragraph (e)(1)(v) of this section.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-C/part-164/subpart-E/section-164.512

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· 27d

www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics

"Hidden jobs" are hidden only from people who have their heads stuck in the want ads and Internet job postings. You will identify the jobs no one else knows about by actively and doggedly investigating the companies you want to work in — not by waiting for them to come to you.

Select, don’t settle.
Start by picking one target company. Does it seem odd to pick a company rather than job openings? It won’t when you realize that the best jobs aren’t hidden in the ads; they’re hidden in the companies you want to work for. Your challenge is to dig into those companies and ferret out the jobs... https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· 27d

I am not a lawyer. But I AM familiar w HIPAA. It allows release of minimal necessary medical information for many purposes. One of those purposes is "any judicial or administrative proceeding", (such as deciding whether Kentucky needs to hold an election for Senator.) @govandybeshear.bsky.social

17th Amendment
Highlighted:
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies
whole text:
Seventeenth Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 8

After ALL the infighting in the Maine Dem party, the bottom line is STILL VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!! You're not going to marry them. You just want ONE more Dem seat in the Senate.

A vote is not a valentine, you aren't confessing your love for the candidate.

It's a chess move for the world you want to live in.
*********

Buffy Summers: Does it ever get easy?
Rupert Giles: You mean life?
Buffy Summers: Yeah. Does it get easy?
Rupert Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy Summers: Lie to me.
Rupert Giles: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats. We always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies and... everybody lives happily ever after.
Buffy Summers: Liar.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 5

All the smoke blowiing up against the Coastal Range mountains:

Image showing poor air quality, as stated.
from https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Fa%2Fm%2Fi%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#8.12/34.023/-117.975

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 3

I hope the DNC reads the writing on the wall. "In Pew Research Center surveys over the past year, most people have told us they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States" "some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share" A lot 59% Some 21% (total 80%)!

On several issues, the views of Populist Right are closer to Democratic-aligned groups than to other Republican groups.

An overwhelming share of Populist Right (87%) say the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests; that is more than 40 percentage points higher than any other GOP-aligned group. And Populist Right is the only Republican-oriented group in which a majority (56%) favors raising tax rates on large businesses and corporations.

Democratic-oriented groups are largely united in their skepticism toward corporate power and the fairness of the U.S. economic system. Overwhelming shares in all Democratic-oriented groups say that tax rates on large businesses and corporations, as well as on household incomes over $400,000, should be raised. The Democratic coalition – especially Progressive Left and Establishment Liberals – also express very positive views of unions and broadly support for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/how-the-political-typology-groups-view-major-issues/

"The economic system in this country unfairly favors powerful interests" 71%
"The economic system in this country is generally fair to most Americans" 28%
"Government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest" 55%
Business corporations make too much profit 64%
How would you rate economic conditions in this country today? 50% Fair, 24% Poor
Should tax rates on large businesses and corporations be…
Raised a lot 37% Raised a little 29% (Total 66%)

"How much, if at all, does each of the following bother you about the federal tax system?
"The feeling that some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share" A lot 59% Some 21% (total 80%)!
"The complexity of the tax system" A lot 47% Some 35% (Total 82%)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-BjWhA-McZyEvjDp_kry9WPjK07GHrfw7werH4MeGGs/edit?gid=1552753583#gid=1552753583

In Pew Research Center surveys over the past year, most people have told us they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States and that they think the country’s best days are behind us.

Most Americans think the country’s best days are behind us
Among U.S. adults … All in all, they are __ with the way things are going in this country today (Jan 2026)
29% Satisfied 69% Dissatisfied

Thinking about the future of the U.S., they think the country’s best years are:
Ahead of us-40% Behind us 59%

In recent decades, Americans also have grown less trustful of each other and of institutions including the federal government, both major political parties, the mainstream media, and colleges and universities.

Compared with people in other countries, more Americans express gloomy views about how their democracy is working and doubts about whether fellow citizens have good morals.

And when asked to look ahead to 2050, upward of half of U.S. adults say they think the economy will be weaker, the U.S. will be less important in the world, the country will be more politically divided, and the American system of government will work worse than it does today.

https://www.pewresearch.org/2026/06/12/on-the-countrys-250th-anniversary-the-american-people-are-in-a-sour-mood/

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 3

Dissolving Social glue Trust is a key component of the social capital that “enables participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives” In survey data, trust is measured by so-called generalized trust—how much a person trusts unspecified people rather than friends or family.

From 2017-
During the past 40 years, generalized trust in the United States has declined markedly. Since the early 1970s, the share of those who respond that most people can be trusted has declined from about 50 percent to 33 percent (see chart). Changes in the composition of the US population, moreover, tend to mask the true extent of the decline. When controlling for changes in US demographics, the decline in generalized trust is even more pronounced, mainly because the population has become more educated, and more educated people tend to trust more. Trust in government shows a similar downward trend. These trends may threaten the effectiveness of public policy and reduce popular support for mainstream political parties.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2017/03/gould.htm

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 3

How Amsterdam won over cars-

Hundreds of cyclists at 'die-in', Amsterdam, 1972
https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-nl-roads/

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/20/the-origins-of-hollands-stop-murdering-children-street-safety-movement

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 3

You can see the entire crowd behind the shill at 1:08, all 6 of them.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jul 2

And working class Americans are dissatisfied because their personal experience is going downhill. They're DYING. The 91-99th%ile has done OK-and that's who the DNC represents. The top 1% got $79 TRILLION given to them by the 90%. No wonder ppl are mad.

In the early 1990s, the number of white adults without a college education who were dying from a drug overdose, alcoholism or suicide was fairly low--and the death rates for younger adults were lower than for older adults.

But over the past three decades, deaths of despair among whites without a college degree--especially those under age 50--have soared.

working-class life in the United States is more difficult than it is in any other high-income country. “European countries have faced the same kind of technological change we have, and they’re not seeing the people killing themselves with guns or drugs or alcohol,” Case says. “There is something unique about the way the U.S. is handling this.”
Inequality has risen more in the United States — and middle-class incomes have stagnated more severely — than in France, Germany, Japan or elsewhere. Large corporations have increased their market share, and labor unions have shriveled, leaving workers with little bargaining power. Outsourcing has become the norm, which means that executives often see low-wage workers not as colleagues but as expenses.

And the United States suffers from by far the world’s most expensive health-care system. It acts as a tax on workers and drains resources that could otherwise be spent on schools, day care, roads, public transit and more.
Deaths rates from suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse among whites surpassed the rates for blacks shortly after 2000, for example. But the black working class is hardly thriving -- and deaths of despair have surged among them in the last few years. Overall life expectancy remains significantly higher for whites than blacks. So, of course, do incomes and wealth.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/06/opinion/working-class-death-rate.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pVA.jTIW.Ne-Ivwj4jLNk&smid=url-share

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 24

Fascinating to read the exchanges here. Trump endorses Rep Senator's OPPONENT in primary, and TFFG can't figure out why he no longer has his vote! Also Senators talking about Trump as if this is all business as usual, not a rolling coup while Trump loots the Treasury.

We got Trump’s version of how the closed-door lunch with Senate Republicans went earlier (“really great”).

Burgess Everett, Semafor’s congressional bureau chief, reports:

The Senate GOP meeting with Trump is not going well. ‘A total cluster f#ck,’ one person said

Trump is mad about the war powers resolution passing yesterday and he and [Bill] Cassidy are going after each other

Cassidy was the only senator who clashed with Trump today, per Sen Cramer. No one argued with him about filibuster: there was seemingly nothing new to say

Trump not happy there were absences during yesterday’s war powers vote
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/jun/24/mamdani-new-york-primaries-midterms-democrats-republicans-trump-250-anniversary-politics-latest-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6a3c31228f0857cd8160873e#block-6a3c31228f0857cd8160873e

2h ago
21.34 CEST
Republican senator Bill Cassidy describes shouting match with Trump over Iran

The **Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who just lost re-election to a primary challenger backed by Donald Trump**, told reporter he argued with the president over the war with Iran when he visited the US Capitol today.

Speaking to reporters after the president’s lunch with the Senate GOP, Cassidy, who on Tuesday was one of four Republicans who helped pass a war powers resolution intended to prevent the president from resuming hostilities with Iran, said Trump asked: “Why would anybody vote for the War Powers Act?”

“Is that a rhetorical question, or would you like to really know?” Cassidy said he replied.
Below, angry man in suit w white hair=Republican senator Bill Cassidy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/jun/24/mamdani-new-york-primaries-midterms-democrats-republicans-trump-250-anniversary-politics-latest-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6a3c30928f089d702c09cf90#block-6a3c30928f089d702c09cf90

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 24

The fire is just about in the center of this air quality map.

AQ map showing minimal smoke (now) from the warehouse fire.

The red area in Compton is a different source.
https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Fa%2Fm%2Fi%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#9.44/33.9899/-118.0466

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 21

Two gems of 'change just one event' (Sliding Doors style) alternate history.

Classic 'hard' science fiction, in the tradition of 'change just one thing' alternate history. What if Chemist Clara Haber had left her abusive husband and kept him from stealing her genius?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13486371-cuttlefish

Another Classic 'hard' alternate history, in the tradition of 'change just one thing'. What if Sam Houston had slipped?

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 21

We pulled out the fan-filters too.

Single box fan/filter w data showing reduction in particulates and benefits of shroud to prevent recirculation.
1-2" MERV13 filters are effective
https://www.patientknowhow.com/safe.html

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 20

We're running box fan filters in the house like we did for the wildfires & Covid in our offices. Smelled the smoke this am.

https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi?opt=%2F1%2Fa%2Fm%2Fi%2Flp%2Fa10%2Fp604800%2FcC0#10.63/34.0887/-118.1957

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 20

True of psychopaths and fascists. The lies are to keep others off their case.

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 20

How do empires usually fail? Empires usually die from suicide related to their own successes. Elites in a reasonably stable and successful society come to believe that they don’t need the state, and so they basically termite the state, hollow it out...

Guida: How do empires usually fail?

Schwartz: Empires usually die from suicide related to their own successes. . Elites in a reasonably stable and successful society come to believe that they don’t need the state, and so they basically termite the state, hollow it out, in order to engage in status competition with other elites.

Guida: Do you agree with Walter Scheidel’s argument that, historically, leveling — i.e., reduction in inequality — almost always requires some form of cataclysm (war, revolution, state collapse or epidemic)?

Schwartz: Yes, the Scheidel argument is broadly correct. But I don’t think that we are doomed to have a cataclysm. There are plenty of very positive things occurring right now, including, most important, a huge shift in energy production away from fossil fuels toward renewables, as Ember and Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie have demonstrated.

Scheidel’s argument https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691271842/the-great-leveler?srsltid=AfmBOopJ-c2UGTT--T_nALTp13wcIHpHOcy8XAgCTGif3AlRQMs7pVJ4

reduction in inequality almost always requires some form of cataclysm
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4939891

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/opinion/american-empire-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rlA.lCla.lbdKsEphlBxR&smid=url-share

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 19

Medicare is not free. It's paid for by taxes and user fees. Are sidewalks socialism? City water? How about the Clean Air Act that's saved more lives (millions) than any other US law?

The Clean Air Act at 40:
A Clear Track Record of Success

The Clean Air Act is a genuine American success story and one of the most effective tools in U.S. history for protecting public health. It has sharply reduced pollution from automobiles, industrial smokestacks, utility plants, and major sources of toxic chemicals and particulate matter since its passage in 1970. The law has saved tens of thousands of lives each year by reducing harmful pollutants that cause or contribute to asthma, emphysema, heart disease, and other potentially lethal respiratory ailments.
Despite continued gloom-and-doom forecasts by polluters and their
corporate lobbyists, the Clean Air Act has consistently provided huge health, economic, and environmental benefits to our communities over the past four decades that far outweigh any small costs associated with controlling lifethreatening toxic pollution.
Millions of Lives Saved
The first 20 years of the Clean Air Act programs from 1970 to 1990 in prevened more than 205,000 premature deaths in the year 1990 alone.
The 1990 amendments have provided significant additional benefits—nearly 2 million lives have been cumulatively saved from 1990 to 2010, according to NRDC’s analysis of data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent report, “Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020.”
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/cleanairactsuccess.pdf
(cont in next alt text)

Millions of Hospital Admissions and Emergency
Room Visits Avoided
The 1970 to 1990 Clean Air Act programs prevented 209,000 hospital visits in 1990.
According to NRDC’s analysis of the EPA’s data, the 1990 Amendments prevented an additional 896,000 hospital admissions and 1,040,000 visits to the emergency room between 1990 and 2010.
Hundreds of Thousands of Cases of Pollution-Related Illnesses Avoided

In 1990 alone, 18 million child respiratory illnesses, 843,000 asthma attacks, and 672,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, in addition to 21,000 cases of heart disease, and 22.6 million lost work days were avoided as a result of the 1970 to 1990 Clean Air Act programs.
Based on NRDC’s analysis of the EPA’s data, between 1990 and 2010, the 1990 amendments to the Act provided additional benefits, including the prevention of roughly:
* 21.2 million asthma attacks;
* 1.7 million cases of acute bronchitis;
* 624,000 cases of chronic bronchitis;
* 38.5 million cases of upper and lower respiratory symptoms;
* 1.5 million heart attacks; and
* 148 million lost work days.

60 Percent Less Pollution in Our Air
Since 1970, the Act has significantly reduced air pollutants, including those that cause smog
and particulate pollution, by 60 percent.10
Trillions of Dollars Saved
Net direct monetized benefits of the Clean Air Act from 1970 to 1990 total an overwhelming
$21.7 trillion from lower mortality, fewer cases of chronic and acute illness, less frequent
trips to the hospital, and lost work days.11 The 1990 amendments are securing even more
benefits—$1.24 trillion in net direct monetized benefits in 2010 alone and $12 trillion in
monetized benefits from 1990 to 2020.12,13
…All While Providing Benefits that Far Outweigh Costs,
Growing Our Economy, and Adding American Jobs
Total benefits of the Clean Air Act between 1970 and 2010 exceeded total costs by as much as 40 to 1.
The Clean Air Act has achieved all these benefits over the last 40 years while GDP has increased 207%.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 15

Headlamp for helmet-attach w zip ties. The zoom feature means I can make it wide for max 'being seen' or narrow for max 'seeing road surface'. The blink is good for getting car attention as they shoot out of driveways or exit ramp at Target. This one came w decent 18650s but a 2mm pin charger.

The zoom feature means I can make it wide for max 'being seen' or narrow for max 'seeing road surface'. https://www.ebay.com/itm/188144274246 This one came w a 2mm pin charger.

I haven't tested these for waterproofness.
The blink is good for getting car attention as they shoot out of driveways or exit ramp at Target. https://www.ebay.com/itm/188144274246

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 15

Like a car low beam. But I haven't seen anything like that for sale here, unless the lights in the first pic are similar (they say they are) Round knockoffs and the rounded oblong lights have been very bright. I attach the headlamp to helmet w zip ties, ignore the head straps.

This looks like the ALDI front light with the horizontal cutoff like a car hi beam.
I took the photo from an ebay listing-which DOESN'T say /show whether it's USB-C or other. The rear lights in this set are ok but not great, IF they're the same as ones I got 3 years ago. eg https://www.ebay.com/itm/298316691787

rounded oblong lights have been very bright. NONE of these listings show/say USB-C or not!!
But def inexpensive. At these prices, not hardship to get multi sets.
I like the blink-blink-pause pattern.
No indication of USB-C or micro.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/406278276962

Round knockoff of $50 light have been very bright. I like the blink-blink-pause pattern.
No indication of USB-C or micro.
I sent the question to sellers, because, you're right, it's worth getting USB-C.
NOT having to figure out up/down is priceless.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/377203911641

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 14

I will NOT become a paid subscriber because of your abusive auto-renewal policy. I suspect if you gave subscribers the CHOICE to auto-renew, many would. You can't engage in the same abusive practices and claim you're 'for the good guys.' Abuse is abuse.

Is auto-renewal required for membership?
Yes, our membership is a subscription that renews automatically

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 11

Cars are great for the first 10 ppl in an area who use them, then rapidly become a "necessary" frustration, as their space inefficiency clogs streets and slows transportation for all. Helicopters are the new cars.

Street Space For 60 People: Car, Bus, Bicycle
Pic and quote below used on 'Best Ever Quotes About Cycling' quickrelease.tv/?p=486

+++++

From Energy and equity: Toward a History of Needs. Ivan Illich, New York: Pantheon, 1978:

"The bicycle uses little space. Eighteen bikes can be parked in the place of one car, thirty of them can move along in the space devoured by a single automobile. It takes three lanes of a given size to move 40,000 people across a bridge in one hour by using automated trains, four to move them on buses, twelve to move them in their cars, and only two lanes for them to pedal across on bicycles. Of all these vehicles, only the bicycle really allows people to go from door to door without walking. The cyclist can reach new destinations of his choice without his tool creating new locations from which he is barred.

"Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy, or time. They can spend fewer hours on each mile and still travel more miles in a year. They can get the benefit of technological breakthroughs without putting undue claims on the schedules, energy, or space of others. They become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows. Their new tool creates only those demands which it can also satisfy. Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored."

++++++

https://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/6440857817

Pic originally taken by the City of Münster press office, Germany

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 11

As I understand it, most farming subsidies go to big business too. The problem is BIGNESS. IMHO, best addressed with a progressive tax on GROSS income to reverse benefits of mergers, and promote competition and healthy markets.

Wages for the vast majority of workers have stagnated since the 1980s while productivity has
grown. We investigate two coexisting explanations based on rising market power: 1. Monopsony,
where dominant firms exploit the limited mobility of their own workers to pay lower wages; and
2. Monopoly, where dominant firms charge too high prices for what they sell, which lowers
production and the demand for labor, and hence equilibrium wages economy-wide. Using
establishment data from the US Census Bureau between 1997 and 2016, we find evidence of
both monopoly and monopsony, where the former is rising over this period and the latter is
stable. Both contribute to the decoupling of productivity and wage growth, with monopoly being
the primary determinant: in 2016 monopoly accounts for 75% of wage stagnation, monopsony
for 25%.

https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2022/CES-WP-22-45.pdf

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 11

MANY factors contribute to high home costs, but high demand and low supply is the MAIN reason. Of course, rich ppl buying up housing as investments raises prices, but that's an effect of WEALTH INEQUALITY and oligarchy in general. Oligarchy affects other markets much more, eg meat, energy, retail.

https://www.coreysdigs.com/real-estate/who-really-owns-the-u-s-housing-market-the-complete-roadmap/

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 10

Half of all children die makes low quality of life, in my opinion.

Before 1920, half of all children died before adulthood.

Until ~1920, people died young.
Mortality statistics often excluded children who died before age 1 because there were so many of them.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 10

Reaction to car deaths & COSTS was how the Netherlands became a walking/bicycle miracle: We can do this!

cyclists 'Die-in', Amsterdam. 1970s how the Netherlands got its biking culture. It involves a collaboration between the rich and communists, parents and anarchists, young and old, fighting against car-focused planning. Using phrases like “Stop de kindermoord” (Stop the child murder) and “De fiets is niets” (The bike is nothing), people rallied together: blocking roads for cars, leaving white painted bikes out to be used as communal property and even painting a red bike path in the middle of the night and sending an invoice to the government. In October 1971, a young girl died after getting hit by a car. Her father, Vic Langenhoff, was a prominent journalist at the time. In an article, he wrote about how there was no focus on protecting the safety and health of kids because there was no business interest in pushing to make the roads safer and better. “Is there no pressure group? Then let’s make one!”

In the end, money ended up being a big factor in the decisions that were made. Studies showed that creating the infrastructure needed for the cars would cost billions and when in 1973 the oil crisis hit the Netherlands, the government ended up implementing car-free Sundays to combat the fuel shortage. This showed the country that daily lives could go on without cars and that they might even be better that way.

For the whole story, you can listen to 99% Invisible on most podcast platforms, or read the article that goes along with the episode here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/de-fiets-is-niets/

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 8

Link in ALt Text to Decoder. Calgary, AB, Canada ✏️ Submitted April 5, 2025 Access the worksheet here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Calgary, AB, Canada

Map of cities that have used the decoder.
These are just a few of the communities that have used the Finance Decoder to spark conversations their cities have needed for years. This isn’t just a tool for finance pros—it’s for elected officials, city staff, and anyone who cares about building a place that can stand the test of time. Try the Finance Decoder for yourself, and discover what your city’s spreadsheets have been trying to say all along.

https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2025/5/21/this-tool-makes-municipal-finance-fun

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 8

The solution to funding mass transit in the Bay area is a license plate driven congestion tax, dedicated to mass and people-powered transit. Fewer cars, more bikes, more sidewalks, more trains/buses. Eliminate parking places, enact surcharges for oversize vehicles: look at Paris!

Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.

Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself. Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality for France’s capital region, said this week that levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) have decreased 55 percent since 2005, while nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 50 percent. It attributed this to “regulations and public policies,” including steps to limit traffic and ban the most polluting vehicles.
...The change shows how ambitious policymaking can directly improve health in large cities. Air pollution is often described by health experts as a silent killer. Both PM 2.5 and nitrogen dioxide have been linked to major health problems, including heart attacks, lung cancer, bronchitis and asthma.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/12/air-pollution-paris-health-cars/

(Left)
The Eiffel Tower and other parts of Paris are partly obscured by thick smog on Feb.12, 2015. (Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images)

But last month, Parisians voted in a referendum to turn an additional 500 streets over to pedestrians. A year earlier, Paris had moved to sharply increase parking fees for SUVs, forcing drivers to pay three times more than they would for smaller cars. The city has also turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone and banned most car traffic from the shopping boulevard of Rue de Rivoli.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said the French capital has developed “an urban policy based on well-being.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/12/air-pollution-paris-health-cars/

(Right)
The Eiffel Tower stands tall under clear skies on Nov. 1, 2023. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images)

Her proposals have faced pushback — from right-leaning politicians, a car owners’ association and suburban commuters, who say that targeting cars makes their lives more difficult.

But last month, Parisians voted in a referendum to turn an additional 500 streets over to pedestrians. A year earlier, Paris had moved to sharply increase parking fees for SUVs, forcing drivers to pay three times more than they would for smaller cars. The city has also turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone and banned most car traffic from the shopping boulevard of Rue de Rivoli.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said the French capital has developed “an urban policy based on well-being.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2025/04/12/air-pollution-paris-health-cars/

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 8

Whatever about AP, and it does wander into and get bogged down in the swamp, but makes a good point:

Americans, of course, have never exactly agreed on why this country was founded or what it stands for. Fierce arguments over those questions have long divided families and roiled politics, and even once produced a bloody civil war. But throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, a simplistic patriotic narrative prevailed. “Providence designed that on this continent should be seen an example of democratic government,” a textbook explained to young students in 1872,
**“which means government ‘of the people, for the people, by the people.’ ”

Americans defined their nation in this way, by their commitment to a common creed—of equality, rights, and opportunity—and to a corresponding set of democratic ideals that they were modeling for the world.**
In practice, they generally fell short of those principles, sometimes seeming to pursue their abnegation more than their fulfillment. But the white men who built their fledgling republic around an idea, instead of around a common ancestry, opened the possibility that any who subscribed to its creed could become a citizen. Over time, other Americans demanded that the nation live up to its ideals and recognize their equality. For more than two centuries, our creedal nationalism has been a source of strength, binding together Americans of diverse faiths and backgrounds.

Peter Liepmann@datadrivenfp· Jun 5

www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/u... "...the article claims that multiple women have had issues with his conduct, yet only points to the statements of one ex-girlfriend affiliated with conservative institutions." "the primary negative source referenced here is a former Heritage Foundation staffer"