Day: March 29, 2025💾

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NPR

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Trump moves to end union rights for federal employees : NPR

President Trump has signed an executive order ending collective bargaining for wide swaths of federal employees, as part of his broader campaign to reshape the U.S. government's workforce. The largest federal employee union says the order affects over 1 million workers.

In a fact sheet, the White House says the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) gives him the authority to halt collective bargaining at agencies with national security missions.

This provision has traditionally applied to certain employees at agencies such as the CIA, the FBI or the National Security Agency.

But Trump's order, signed late Thursday, is more far-reaching, and includes employees whose jobs touch on national defense, border security, foreign relations, energy security, pandemic preparedness, the economy, public safety and cybersecurity.

Center Of The Adirondack Park

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The absolute center of the Adirondack Park (centroid) is 43.95039680083595, -74.283820885915 according to the shapefile put out by the Adirondack Park Agency of the Blue Line, which is on the northern shoulder of Fishing Brook Mountain, south of Winfall Mountain in the Town of Minerva (barely, just the corner that reaches up there).

https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.95039680083595,%20-74.283820885915

The point of inaccessibility (greatest distance from any part of the border) is about 3 miles south-west of that point at 43.88007470563294, -74.32116420377541, which is the about 1/3rd of the way up the south flank of Dun Brook Mountain in Town of Blue Mountain Lake.

https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.88007470563294,%20-74.32116420377541
Map: Empire State Topography

Social Engineering

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Some people don’t like the government designing programs that make the default option the right choice for most people. Because some people call that social engineering. The thing is that just because something is default, it doesn’t mean you have to choose it or that it’s necessarily right for you.

Social engineering really is not a bad thing, if the defaults are sensible and good policy.

An un-engineered policy, often defaults to the wrong option for most people. So your essentially pushing people to do the wrong thing, which is not good government policy. Many social engineering policies are widely accepted, and exist through out society, though they are often not explicitly called social engineering.

Map: Green Mountain National Forest North