1) Continuing on the Casino theme from last week, Casino Free Philadelphia is asking for signatures on their letter to Gov. Rendell and co. on the Casino re-siting process. Their first demand is:

The resiting process must be fair, transparent and inclusive. The process used by the PGCB was unfair, secret and exclusionary. Any effort to resite the casinos must be the opposite.

I agree, and I signed their letter. And, let's keep in mind what that statement means: there is no site that can be picked anytime soon, outside of possibly the airport.

Inga Saffron asked for a 'political solution' to this problem, then suggested that Rendell and Co. have new sites for the Casinos by the end of the month. Sorry, but that is a totally impossible timeline. and bad idea in general. She is right that Politics got us into this. But to revisit those sorts of politics will only result in a misplaced slots barn strangling a different neighborhood.

(And, on a side note, while Inga said community input should be important, she then said said that we should consider East Falls, "Vehement protests from nearby East Falls residents notwithstanding." So, get community input over the next week, magically pick one by the end of the month, then if the locals don't like it, screw em! That sounds very soothing.)

There can be no solution to re-siting Casinos in the next month, period.

2) Dan McQuade has another good column about the stupidity of the drug war, this time talking about yet another 'road to hell' type policy: 'Drug free school zones.' Obviously the intent of a bill like that is reasonable, but when those zones are so big that an entire City (or, at least 76 percent of it, in the case of Newark) is inside of them, they become useless, except to simply elevate almost all drug sentences without saying that is what we are doing, and exacerbating the stupidity of our war on drugs.

3) We have talked about this a million times, but, we are finally starting to put in upgrades to the website. Some things will be functionality stuff that no one will see but admins. But, here are some other ideas we have had:

• A news feed/'quick hits' section, where a number of people can post short links for stories they want people to be aware of, but, don't have enough for a full blog entry for.
• A Philadelphia progressive calendar, where groups and individuals can see what is going on in Philly (and subcribe to if you use google calendar)
• An activism center, where people can see what groups need help, both for volunteering, and for sending emails, etc.
• A job bank for Philly organizations to post job openings in the region.
• A mobile version for people on Blackberries.

Anything else?