ALWAYS ON
Tax-Free Bonds
How do tax-exempt municipal bonds become classrooms, laboratories, hospitals, stadiums, district energy systems, and libraries? Today--ahead of the August primary elections in the United States (when bond referenda appear on ballots -- we explore fiscal runaway with particular interest in the instruments that finance construction of the real assets. We recap what we have been doing for 30-odd years placing downward pressure on life-cycle cost.
Chestnut Praline Latte
"Call me basic, but as a Starbuck’s gold card holder and mega fan, I was pretty excited when I heard that the coffee chain was releasing its first new holiday drink in five years" -- Sarah Self-Walbrick.
Quadrivium: Autumn
Educational settlements should be magical places. The stack informing the beauty of these "cities-within-cities" changes 100 to 1000 times per day globally. We monitor the action continuously to formulate response to public consultations. Topics appear on our CALENDAR and explored every day at 15:00 UTC.
Bulletin Board
Curated list of open consultations and calls for information from state, federal and global agencies.
An Expanded Study of School Bond Elections in Michigan
An investigation into school construction bonds; long before minors without legal immigrant status overwhelmed public schools. Democrats try to place school bond referenda on federal election ballots in several municipalities; enabling non-US citizens to vote for the US President on a single ballot. When Republicans try to separate school bond referenda from the federal Presidential ballot, they meet resistance from several Secretaries of State.
Gallery: School Bond Referenda
"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Current Issues & Recent Research
We are tooling up for the NFPA 2029 National Electrical Code Technical Committee Meetings in September and the IEEE Industrial Applications Society Meetings in October.
“Pumpkin Spice is as Popular as Ever”
ABSTRACT Timestamp October 1, 2024: A team of faculty and students from the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University today released a new study examining 2024 conversations, trends and sentiment on social media about pumpkin spice. With Starbuck releasing its popular Pumpkin Spice Latte one week earlier than last year, consumers took to social media to discuss the polarizing flavor.
Data Center Bust, Boom, Bust, Boom….
Where is Standards Michigan LLC in this conversation? We have followed development of the stack that governs these "installations" since 1993; nudging technical committees -- NFPA, IEEE, ASHRAE, BICSI, Uptime Institute, TIOA, UL among others. The frontier improvises daily. Today we review relevant, open public consultations even though we know, at present pace, there are no stable standards and probably shouldn't be.