The Cookieville Minimum-Security Orphanarium

Breaking down Sen. Evan Bayh's farewell email

2010-12-23T10:22:00.004-05:00

So a brief return to the blog to do a quick FJM treatment on Senator Evan Bayh's farewell and ~~fuck~~ thank you email I received today. He continues to find new ways to piss me off.

A Privilege To Serve

For almost all of my adult life, I have had the honor of representing Hoosiers in elected office.

I also would have accepted "representing Wellpoint" and "representing Washington columnists who easily get the vapors."

Next month, my time as a United States Senator will draw to a close. I am proud of what we accomplished together over the past 12 years.

This ought to be good. I hope the list includes a rundown of the number of times he served as the Democrat in "even some Democrats support [insert policy that the Heritage Foundation likes here]."

With your help, I’ve worked to preserve and create jobs in the automobile, RV and medical device industries – cut property taxes, make college more affordable for middle-class families and crack down on abusive credit card practices.

Cut property taxes? Just how does a sitting senator do anything to cut state property taxes? Also note the lack of:
Big bills with his name attached to it as a primary author that made any sort of meaningful impact on the lives of lower and middle class Americans.
Mention of his support for the change to bankruptcy laws that were a giveaway to the credit card companies on which he likes to say he helped crack down.

In the Senate, I’ve fought to keep our country safe with a national security strategy that is tough and smart, and to ensure our soldiers have the equipment they need in battle and the health care they deserve when they return home.

What part of his national security strategy that he's proud of includes "bombing the fuck out of brown people that had nothing to do with 9/11" and "keeping our soldiers entrenched in an endless war that only empowers the terrorist minority of Muslims in the middle east"? IMO, the best health care for soldiers would probably be not sending them into ill advised wars on trumped up "evidence" and Washington post columns full pant-wetting fear mongering.

Finally, I’ve tried to be a voice of reason for balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, voting against excessive spending by both parties because it is immoral to saddle our children and grandchildren with unsustainable debt.

Evan Bayh. The voice of reason. Look how reasonable he is. Even his hair is parted reasonably! And speaking of unsustainable debt, how'd that Bush Tax Cut vote work for that?

Last week, I delivered my final speech as a United States Senator. As I said on the floor of the Senate, Hoosiers are hardworking, patriotic, devout and full of common sense. We are Middle America and embrace middle-class values. The more of Indiana we can have here in Washington, the better Washington will be.

This paragraph is one "real Americans" away from a BINGO. Sadly, he won't get to go home with the Hickory Farms Sausage Platter and a gift certificate for a free appetizer at Applebees. Better luck next time, Evan!

To my fellow Hoosiers let me say that while my time in the Senate is drawing to a close, my devotion to our state will remain everlasting.

Indeed it will be everlasting in the name 'Senator Dan Coats', 'Representative Larry Bucshon' and potentially [Zeus help us all] 'Governor Mike Pence'.

Thank you for the privilege to serve. May God bless you.

Good riddance.

Sincerely,
Evan Bayh

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Overly-Optimistic Election Day Predctions

2010-11-02T07:11:00.003-04:00

What the hell....

US Senate - The Dems win everywhere they are leading and pick up two seats they are down in, probably Bennett in CO and Giannoulias in IL. This holds the GOP to +6 for a Senate margin of 53-47 D. Thus in theory things can pass without the Wanker Caucus of Joe Lieberman (I-His Giant Ego), Ben Nelson (D-Ethanol), and probably soon to be new member Joe Manchin (D-Coal).
US House - GOP gains held to +50 for a new House margin of 228-207 R. Hopefully there are at least 11 non-crazy Republicans who can help the Dems increase the debt ceiling and save the country from bankruptcy. Otherwise... Well, let's just say you might want to move your assets in Euros.
IN House Districts - What the hell, both Donnelly and Hill hang on due to better-than-expected turnout in South Bend and Bloomington. All other district go as polled.
IN Senate - Nothing is saving Ellsworth, congratulations Senator Coats (R-VA). (I'm still astonished over this one. How the hell did the Dems fail to make his carpetbagging an issue? Whatever...)
IN General Assembly - Nothing's saving this, GOP retakes the house. The Gay-Bashing Amendment will probably return next session, zombie-like.
IN Secretary of State - Charlie White.
Marion County Prosecutor - Terry Curry.
Marion County Sheriff - John Layton.

This is what passes for optimism this year.

My State Senate District - S31

2010-09-17T13:11:00.006-04:00

Feast your eyes on my horrifyingly gerrymandered Indiana State Senate District. Yes, that district represents such places as Geist resevoir mansions, a large state park, an army base, the far east of the county north of Cumberland, and the near east side of the old city limits of Indianapolis.

Can someone explain to me ONE thing that the Little Flower neighborhood has in common with Geist, and how State Senator Jim Merrit can even come close to adequately representing the interests of his constituents in my neighborhood? Do you think he's even campaigned in my neighborhood?

Update: Because someone couldn't quite believe how bad it is, I added a closeup of the southwestern most part of the district. Remember, this district stretches from GEIST RESERVOIR in the NE corner of the county, where the richest of the rich live.

Yes, that's Raymond street to the south and Willard Park/State Ave to the west

How to make Google Chrome spoof as the Android Browser

2010-05-03T15:46:00.002-04:00

Did you know you can make Google Chrome lie to websites that it is a completely different browser? You can even make the websites think it is the Android browser?

Most people may never want to do this, but my mom just bought herself a new laptop. Since she lives out in the sticks where broadband is only available at 5GB per month from Verizon over the cellular network, I needed to come up with a way to stretch her browsing a little further.

Many websites support mobile versions that will display their content in a more bandwidth friendly way if they detect you are on a mobile browser. This is great, but doesn't help my mom who is using a regular browser on a regular laptop, just a mobile network.

Thankfully, Google Chrome is awesome. You can use a command line switch to have Chrome report any user-agent string you like.

C:\[Google Chrome Install Path]\chrome.exe --user-agent="[your user agent string of choice]"

To spoof the Android browser, I just used:

>chrome.exe --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 0.5; en-us) AppleWebKit/522+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3"

Browse to espn.com to confirm... and I get the mobile version of the website. This won't help everything, but in many popular websites this should help with the bandwidth at least a bit. Just create a shortcut where the call to chrome includes your mobile user agent string and you've now essentially got Chrome and ChromeMobile.

An Open Letter To Central Indiana Flogging Molly Fans

2010-03-10T09:07:00.003-05:00

Went to the Flogging Molly show at the Murat on Monday night. They put on a great show, as always. But I need to have a talk with the younger Flogging Molly fans here in Central Indiana.

The band is not from Boston. I know! They are sorta Irish and all. But they are from Los Angeles. Your Boston Red Sox gear and your Cheers t-shirt don't really make sense.
Also, you don't get bonus points for wearing green.
A Boondock Saints tshirt? Kiss Me I'm Irish? Fight Me I'm Irish? Some shirt proclaiming that because you are Irish you are an alcoholic? This isn't a contest to see who can wear the most vaguely Irish references. I'm guessing most of you aren't even Irish at all.
I can't say this enough: Don't Be That Guy. Don't wear the shirt of the band you are going to see. Best distilled and taught to my generation in a scene from the movie PCU , just don't do it. This is very important. Don't Be That Guy. [I really tried to find a video clip of these scene from PCU but to no avail]

Does this all mean I'm reaching the point where I am too old to go to concerts? It was scary enough that there were kids there that were probably 2 or 3 when I when to my first Flogging Molly concert.

*sigh*

Kids these days need to get off my damn lawn.

Finally received my NO GODS license plate

2010-02-28T18:13:00.004-05:00

As promised, posting a picture or two of my new license plate. Thanks again to everyone who was so supportive during the brief but interesting fight to get this plate.

I look forward to the dirty looks and comments I am sure to receive. Just hopefully no vandalism.

Update: Thanks to Hemant Mehta for posting the update on this as well. I really think that this story reaching both Reddit and The Friendly Atheist helped push my situation to a successful resolution faster than it would have been without the power of The Internets.

Chili Recipe

2010-02-05T11:04:00.002-05:00

I posted this recipe on Facebook right after New Year's Eve, but want to put it here as well so it's not just behind the wall I've erected around my FB profile.

Here's the recipe for the chili I made on New Year's Eve.

it's mostly based on this recipe: http://www.meninaprons.net/2005/11/your_basic_chili_recipe.html
I doubled the recipe on that link, so everything here will be for a *double* batch. it makes ALOT of chili, so you might want to halve it to be reasonable. I basically reworded the recipe at that link to fit with what I did.

Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 lb ground chuck
- 1 lb ground lamb
- 1 Large white onion
- 1 Large red onion
- 2 Large red bell peppers
- 2 Jalapenos
- 2 Cherry peppers
- 6 Cloves of garlic
- 3 Cans Tomato Sauce
- 1 Can diced tomatoes (with the liquid)
- 2/3 Cup Flour
- 8 TBSP Chili Powder
- 1 Tsp. Ground cayenne pepper
- 4 Tsp. ground Cumin
- 1 Tsp. ground chili tepin (optional, very hot dried chili)
- 6 TBSP Vegetable Oil
- Salt, Pepper
- Water

Prep: Mince the garlic. Finely chop the onions, bell peppers, jalapenos and cherry peppers. Set aside. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, chili powder, cumin, 2 tsp of salt, and 2 tsp of pepper.

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion, garlic, and peppers. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the ground beef/lamb and brown. While the beef is browning add a few pinches of salt and cumin. Drain any excess fat.

Still cooking, add the flour mixture to the pot and stir to coat. Add the tomato sauce/diced tomatoes and about 7 cups of water. You can vary the amount of water to affect the consistency and thickness of the chili.

Add the cayenne pepper and chili tepin (be careful with the tepin, it's SPICY) and a few dashes of cumin. Stir well. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for about an hour or more. I simmered it in a large stock pot for close to 3 hours.

It's also great re-heated over baked potato with cheese and sour cream.

*A note on the chili tepin: I can't seem to find it in stores around here anymore, but Julie was able to order some online. It's totally optional, but a good smoky, VERY hot chili. If you don't have it or don't want to bother finding it, a little more cayenne or other dried chili would be fine. Be VERY careful handling this stuff though. The ground dried tepin sticks around for a long time and burns like hell if you get it in your eyes.

The IZOD IndyCar Series finds their man.

2010-02-03T10:17:00.003-05:00

Looks like the IndyCar series found themselves a new leader - Andy Bernard!

Andy Bernard, IZOD IndyCar Series CEO

Mr. Bernard shockingly comes from a completely different industry, formerly in sales for the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company's office in Scranton, PA. It is believed his many connections via his years at Cornell University will help get the series more attention in the lucrative east coast market. Mr. Bernard, who insisted reporters refer to him as "The Nard Dog", has said he is eager to learn about the sport he now heads although admits to never having watched a race as his favorite sports are competitive a capella singing, frisbee golf and Cornell football games

At press time, there has been no confirmation that fellow salesman Dwight Schrute has been named the head of the series' Rules Committee.

[Randy Bernard saddles up, takes reins of IZOD IndyCar Series | Pop Off Valve]

A 6 Hours Into It Review of Mass Effect 2 [Video Games]

2010-01-27T12:44:00.004-05:00

Going to let me nerd out even more than I did on the OMG The Walking Dead on TV?! post.

I've had an XBox 360 for a bit over 3 years now, and one of my favorite (if not THE favorite) games I've played on it was Mass Effect by Bioware. An incredibly rich story, it expertly blended RPG and action elements with a fantastic story and branching structure. Of course there were issues. Some side missions got pretty repetitive, what with the whole "Land on planet, drive around, kill a few things, take off again" structure. The inventory management system was one of the worst I've seen in a game. But those weren't problems that kept it from being one of my favorite games of all time.

Now the second chapter of the planned trilogy is out, and wow... Bioware has some stones. Apparently you can finish the second game in a trilogy with your main character DEAD. You'd have to play ME3 with a newly created character.

But the big things that stick out as ballsy changes are some of the changes that Bioware made to the gameplay mechanics. Risky, for a game that did so well in its first iteration. I'm going to use Paul Lukas of UniWatch's system for sports uniform change criticism of "Is it good, bad or stupid?"

Caveat: I'm only about 6 or 7 hours into the game, which will probably stretch 50, 60 or more hours. These are all first impressions.

Gone is the terrible inventory system. In fact, gone is the inventory at all. It's a good thing and a bad thing. No more giant inventory, juggling weapons, endless time figuring out what to sell and what to keep. Now, you just have the weapons you are equipped with. You can choose your weapon loadout at the beginning of a mission and you go. But gone with the inventory are the items you can add to a weapon, swap to different weapons, etc to enhance them.

Verdict: Good. That inventory system was terrible. But it allowed me to make ALOT of money for my character*. This is simpler and better.

*I'm lucky I imported a character from ME1 that was deemed 'rich', as it gave me a $100,000 start on cash.

The upgrade system. This is interesting. You have a scientist on your ship that can research upgrades, or you can purchase upgrades. These get applied to most of your weapons and armor (I think, I'm still pretty early in the game) of a given class. I have seen at least one upgrade that just effects Shepherd's [your character] health. So there's probably other upgrades that are more specific. But they're very general and not swappable among weapons and armor.

Unfortunately, you need resources to research and build your upgrades. And resources are a pain in the ass to find [more on that later]. The upgrades look great, and could have some neat effects but it looks like you're going to have to be much more careful and think about what you want and the team members you use most before you research/buy an upgrade.

Upgrade system verdict: Good, so far but the potential to become bad because of resources.

More on resources. Getting resources happens in one of two ways. You can find them while going through your missions [easy] and you can scan unexplored planets to get them [tedious, lame]. Scanning a system basically entails going into orbit around a planet marked 'Unexplored' and running a circular cursor over the planet while pressing your RT trigger and watching for signs of a resource you want. This is a slow and tedious process. Then, once you find it you have to launch a probe to mine the resource.

Problem is, probes cost money. And flying to planets within a system costs fuel (which costs money).

Verdict: Upgrades are going to be very important in this game to make your characters more effective against escalating difficulties of enemies. Forcing the player to go through the tedious process of scanning planets for resources that is just plain boring. But at leas you don't have to drive around annoying landscapes in that stupid truck from ME1 anymore? Stupid.

I'm lucky my imported character from ME1 was a top level guy that gave me a decent amount of resources to start with* (10k each), although I'm already finding upgrades I can't even begin to afford yet.

*See a pattern here? I sorta feel sorry for ME2 players that don't have a strong and complete ME1 player to import.

Fuel and probes are both essential to exploring uncharted planets and finding your resources. They cost money. Fuel is also needed to fly between planets within a system and fly between systems within an area. There goes being able to freely explore the rich universe ME1 and ME 2 have built. I'm playing this game to have fun, not to replicate stopping at the gas station before my commute to work.

Verdict: Bad. Also stupid.

Travelling between planets and systems has also obviously changed a bit, given the addition of fuel. No longer do you go to your map and say "I want to go here now." Now you have to 'fly' there, using fuel. If you want to move out of an area containing multiple systems to another, you have to fly (using fuel) to the local system that has the Mass Effect Relay, then fly to it, then use it to travel between systems. Why? What does this add to the game? Nothing. What does it take away? The freedom to travel easily and explore without worrying about your gas tank.

Verdict: Bad. Also stupid.

Weapon 'powers' are a pretty neat feature. At least for my character class, you can specialize in powers for your weapons themselves, so you can make your bullets cryo or fire bullets on the fly (and I'm sure others as I go one). I love this. Ont he fly you can hit enemies with different sorts of attacks from one gun. The only problem with this is for bigger enemies you have to switch multiple times in one fight to get through their layers of defenses. It gets a bit annoying since it takes time to switch powers. But overall, I like it.

Verdict: Good.

Terminal hacking and overrides have also changed. Gone are the button mashing 'minigame' that also depending on the skills of someone in your party. Enter are two different minigames for hacking and overriding that aren't dependent on any skills. The hacking minigame basically makes you match little colored bits that look like text to other ones that look the same in a scrolling interface with a timer. Hard to describe. It's pretty easy, but a little tedious. Overrides are done by matching 'circuits' on a circuit board, again timed. They are both relatively easy, but not any less tedious than the simple button mashing minigame.

Verdict: Stupid, but no harm done.

Your actions in the game also act more like streamlined missions than freeform exploration. Maybe BioWare doesn't WANT players to just explore and take it easy. Maybe they are trying to force players into a feeling that they need to get moving. That shit is going down and there's no time to waste. When you complete a mission, you get a mission report and then you are back on your ship. I kind of like it. One problem though - when you have multiple missions on a plaet/station, and you finish one it's stupid to have to re-dock/land just to do another mission. It should be smarter and just leave you there if you have more to do.

Verdict: Good. But if they really wanted to get the player to feel the urgency of the story, you shouldn't have to slowly scan planets for resources.

Of course, what made the original Mass Effect so good was the story. So far, it's amazingly good. The import of your ME1 character is seamless [although one friend of mien did have some trouble with it, not sure what] and you are instantly dumped into the action. I cant' say much more about the story because I don't want to give away any spoilers, but the part where you meet[character from ME1 name redacted] is really cool and for people who used [him/her] alot in ME1 it feels like you've met up with an old friend right when you need [him/her] the most. I look forward to more moments like that.

Reading the above, it sounds like I've got lots of bad things to say about it. Mostly, I think it's just nitpicking a game that I love. ME1 blew my mind. I hold any sequel to a high standard. There are some elements that seem pointless or against the feel of the game they tried to make. But it's still Mass Effect, with great voice acting, plot, character development and everything.

And I know it's a good game when I sorta wish I could just go home early from work and play more.

For a MUCH better review than this schmuck can do, see Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs review.

Update after playing for another 4 hours

Resources: If you play ME2, safe up all the iridium you can for the ship upgrade to your scanner. It makes scanning go a little quicker. Also, focus just on planets that are deemed 'Rich'. It's still stupid that I have to spend so much time just manually scanning an entire planet's surface, but those two things have really increased the amount of resources I was able to get. My verdict is still Stupid though, because it really slows down a game that I think they tried to make more tense and fast paced.
Upgrades: By increasing the the speed (even if just by a bit) resources I took in, I was able to afford alot more upgrades. Still Good. I think. For now.
A specific mission complaint: there's a mission I got pretty early to recover some supplies form a planet. I land, and apparently have to fight off three heavy mechs before they destroy 20 crates. I can't remember the name of the mission but it's a side 'N7' mission. Don't even try it until you've leveled up your squad quite a bit and can take out all their shields quickly. It's a BEAST. No way should a mission that difficult come so early.
Needing to gas up your ship for traveling between systems is still monumentally Stupid.

An Open Letter To Andre Carson

2010-01-22T09:46:00.003-05:00

After thinking about it for a few days, I recently sent this to Indiana's 7th District House Representative, Andre Carson:

I'm writing to you regarding recent news reports that progressive legislators in the House are considering not supporting the Senate Health Care Reform Bill (HCR). As a constituent who voted for you in 2008, I would urge you not to make this mistake.

Yes, the Senate HCR bill is greatly flawed. Yes, it doesn't go nearly far enough in fixing the disaster that is the US health care system. Yes, the reason why we are faced with the current dilemma is the fault of the Senate, not the House. But it is only the House that can save us. It is only the House that can see to it that the last several months were not wasted. It is only the House that can pass a bill, that while flawed, will still materially improve the lives of millions of Americans.

I find myself thinking of another flawed bill, a bill that at the time was rightly criticized for not going far enough. I'm thinking of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. And I'm thinking of how Lyndon Johnson argued that passing the 1957 CRA would break down the wall that had held civil rights legislation back for decades. Johnson said that passing the 1957 CRA would open the door for better legislation later. Johnson was of course proven right.

I urge you and your fellow House progressives to follow Johnson's example and not turn away from this chance to make history.

The Walking Dead to be on TV? Awesome

2010-01-21T10:13:00.003-05:00

First saw this retweeted from Robert Kirkman himself:

Variety is reporting AMC has ordered the pilot episode of THE WALKING DEAD... and they're right. Exciting times.

And now io9 has a post on it as well.

Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption has been given the go-ahead from AMC to adapt the astounding zombie comicThe Walking Dead for television. Time to get excited, and prepare your anti-zombie shelter.
The Walking Dead is based on the comic series written by Robert Kirkman. It was previously announced thatAMC was in talks to bring the undead back to life. It's now being reported in the trades that AMC has stopped talking, and is ready to bring Darabont's pilot adaptation to undead life. Plus he's going to sign on to direct.

So not only is a cable network doing it (so it can weather lower ratings better than on a broadcast network as well as be as bloody and gritty as it needs to be), but they are getting the director behind The Shawshank Redemption to adapt and direct? Wow.

Here's hoping it's even half as good as the graphic novels. A series is the perfect format for this story, much better than trying to cram it into a movie. Guess I need to pick up Trade Paperbacks #9 and #10 now.

The Walking Dead on Wikipedia.

Fiscal Responsibility

2010-01-20T17:05:00.006-05:00

Let's say you were shown the following graph:

And that I told you the dollar amount on the left is .. say... average tax rate per person for various countries. On the right the line goes to.. let's call it a "dollars the taxpayer sees back in services". Obviously an upward sloping line would be good, and a downward sloping line would be bad.

Now let's say that the thickness of the line represented the number of government services used by the average taxpayer, so a thick line would be good and a thin line bad. Make sense?

By any estimation, the United States in that graph is horrifyingly inefficient, and conservatives would be SCREAMING that the government needs to be trimmed, that taxes need to be cut and that LIBERALS ARE TO BLAME (of course).

But what would they say if the actual context of that graph was shown?

What the fa-hells? The United States pays 1.65 times more than the next highest country in public + private health care expenditures per capita, but has less than average life expectancy at birth. On top of that, we have very few doctor visits per year.

Wouldn't anyone who truly believes in fiscal responsibility say that our current system is horrifyingly broken, and that we should investigate alternate models that obviously can produce much better results?

What is fiscally responsible about opposing major healthcare reforms*? Beuller? Beuller? Anyone?

Graphs found on a post at the always excellent Sadly, No!.

Your definition of "Leading Conservatives" is questionable

2010-01-12T10:06:00.005-05:00

So reading in Google Reader, I still occasionally get ads sneaking through because Chrome's Adblock extension isn't very robust. Got one today on a political post that had me scratching my head a bit....

Let's take a look at the pictures of "leading conservatives"

John Stossel : Crazy, libertarian, mustachioed
Margaret Thatcher : Crazy, British, ~~dead~~frustratingly alive
Sarah Palin : Batshit crazy, can see Russia from her house, brain dead
Ronald Reagan : Senile, dead

If that's "leading conservatives", the complete ineptitude of the Democratic Party at the games of politics doesn't worry me so much.

Mayor Ballard looks for a solution to the snow

2010-01-07T11:03:00.002-05:00

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard asks the Quizno's Oven if it can melt the snow in Indy for him.

Colts 2010 Playoff Run Propaganda

2010-01-06T23:00:00.003-05:00

Back when I used to work on an attempt at a sports blog, I made some anti-Patriots, pro-Colts "propaganda" posters based mostly on WWII propaganda posters. (Someday I'll get those posted on here as well) With the playoffs starting this weekend I figured I'd take a break from all this "neglecting the blog" and do something non political.

Not my strongest work, but I like how I turned Freeney into a drawing of sorts. Based on this poster.

My best work of these two by far, and one of my best ever. Based on this.

I'll try to do some more after the wild card games this weekend, hopefully with an opponent I can get some good mileage out of.

Go Colts!

Now that's how you run a caucus...

2009-07-19T14:27:00.002-04:00

This story about Sam Rayburn, the powerful chairman House Interstate Commerce Committee and later Speaker during the FDR administration is too good not to share:

He would never ask a man to do anything against his own interests. "A Congressman's first duty is to get re-elected," he would say, and he would advise young Congressmen: "Always vote your district." If a Congressman said that a vote Rayburn was asking for would hurt him in his district, Rayburn would always accept that excuse. But Rayburn knew the districts. And if the excuse wasn't true, Rayburn's rage would rise. Once, for example, it erupted against a Congressman from a liberal district who took orders from the district's reactionary business interests only because he didn't want to offend them. The Congressman had often used the excuse of public opinion in his district, and, because Rayburn had never challenged him on it, and had stopped asking for his support, was under the misapprehension that that Rayburn believed that excuse. One evening, however, after the Congressman had voted against a bill Rayburn supported, he approached Rayburn, who was standing with a group of friends, and with a winning smile said he sure wished he could have voted with him, but that such a vote would have hurt him in his district. Rayburn did not reply for a long moment, while the deep red flush stated to creep up his head. Then, says one of the men who were standing with Rayburn, in a recollection confirmed by another, Rayburn said:

"Now, I never asked for your vote on this bill. I never said a word to you about this bill. I knew you wouldn't vote for this bill, and I never said a word to you about it. But you come across the room just now and told me you wish you could have voted with me."

"So I'm going to tell you something now. You could have voted with me. I've known that district since before you were born, and that vote wouldn't have hurt you one bit. Not one bit. You didn't vote with me because you didn't have the guts to."

The flush on the huge head was so dark now that it looked almost black. The men standing with Rayburn backed away. "So don't you come crawling across this room telling me you wish you could have voted for the bill. 'Cause it's a damn lie. It's a damn lie. And you're a damn liar. You didn't vote for the bill 'cause you didn't have the guts to. You've got no guts. So let me tell you something. The time is coming when the people are going to find out that all you represent is the Chamber of Commerce, and when they find that out, they're going to beat your ass."

A young state legislator who had considered challenging the Congressman for his seat had dropped the idea because he didn't have enough political clout. Not a week after his confrontation with Rayburn, the Congressman walked into the House Dining Room for lunch and saw the legislator sitting there - at Rayburn's table. When the legislator returned home, he had all the clout he needed, and the Congressman's political career was over. Rayburn drove him not only out of Congress, but out of Washington. He tried to stay on in the capital, looking for a government job or a lobbying job, but no job was open to him. And none would ever be - not as long as Sam Rayburn was alive.
"The Path To Power", Robert A. Caro, pp. 329-330

Final post on the "NO GODS" license plate

2009-07-14T10:56:00.002-04:00

As promised, just wanted to post the text of the letter I got from teh BMV now approving my "NO GODS" plate for those that are interested.

Dear Mr. B_______:
The Bureau of Motor Vehicles ("BMV") received your request for the personalized license plate NO GODS. The BMV initially denied your application and sent a letter to you informing you of that determination. Subsequently, the BMV did an additional review of all applications that were denied and determined that your application shoudl have been approved. As such, your request for NO GODS is approved for the 2010 registration year.

It's signed by the General Counsel of the BMV, so I'm certainly with the idea that this was more a "oh shit we might get sued" sort of thing. I hope that this helps the BMV implement it's policies regarding Personalized License Plates more fairly in the future, and maybe even helped others who had decided not to fight get the non-theist plates they requested.

So that's it. I'll be getting the plate early next year in February. I'll make sure to post a picture when I have it.

Oh, The Friendly Atheist posted a quick bit that I was approved as well. Thanks to Hemant for posting my story and helping to get the visibility for it that lead to the successful conclusion.

(Almost) Final Update on the "NO GODS" license plate

2009-07-13T09:27:00.003-04:00

There's been a resolution to the "NO GODS" license plate. I don't have the letter I got from the BMV on me so I'll do another post tonight with the text from the letter, but the short version is that they 'suddenly' decided to do a review of all rejected plates, and it turns out the rejection of my plate was all just a big mistake.

I talked with the ACLU-IN last Friday, and their legal director said he had a message from the BMV stating pretty much the same thing, that it was all a big mistake with handling their new PLP rules that now allow religion (obviously, since i have photographic proof of one that reads "BE GODS." He's not sure how the BMV knew the ACLU-IN was involved, but it worked either way. My guess is as the story got circulated, the BMV got wind of it. The general consensus on Twitter seems to be that "it was a mistake" is code for "shit, we don't want to get sued."

So my 2010 Indiana license plate will read "NO GODS." I'm happy with the resolution to this. Hopefully this means that the BMV will be more diligent about applying their rules to PLPs in the future and someone else won't have to go through this. It means I probably won't be going on CNN, as doing that now would just be kind of dickish. But that's fine too. If it was still an issue to be fought I'd definitely still fight it. Now.. now I'm just happy that the Indiana BMV decided to appy their rules fairly.

Thanks to everyone on Twitter, Reddit and The Friendly Atheist for their support, ideas and most importantly spreading the story. I don't think it would have ended so easily without the story making the rounds like it did.

I'll post the text of the final letter from the BMV tonight, and once I get my plate of course I'll be posting a picture, but that won't be until next February.

Thanks everyone!

Update on the "NO GODS" license plate

2009-07-02T14:31:00.006-04:00

Alright I promised a followup to my original post, but nothing has really happened with the BMV itself yet. The official written appeal for an administrative hearing is going out today. But there's plenty of other things to update related to this (some of which were updates to the original post, but not all of you may have seen those)

The original post made Reddit, where it got some really good discussion. The biggest finds via that thread were another Hoosier who had his "GODLESS" plate rejected and has already been in contact with the ACLU of Indiana, and an example of a personalized plate for a Christian that was accepted ("BE GODS"). I'm in email contact with him and am hoping that we can basically combine our appeals to the BMV in some way via the ACLU.

Some other good points were made there and when I was following that thread the first day it was a pretty lively and almost exclusively supportive discussion. Thanks to mileszs for posting it there.
I also submitted the story to The Friendly Atheist, where it appeared. That site is a great resource for atheists, agnostics and even people who just plain respect the separation of church and state. Many thanks to Hemant Mehta for posting my story there. Some great and (obviously) supportive comments there as well.
I did get contacted by the ACLU-IN today, and was told my complaint is on the appropriate desk and I should be hearing from them soon. Good to hear, and hopefully they can combine the issue of both my plate and the "GODLESS" plate. I'll post more when I hear more from them (and find out what I should and shouldn't be sharing on public forums I suppose, in case this does get legal)
The biggest news is that I was contacted by a producer for CNN. Still very early stages, and not even guaranteed that they will pick up the story, but it's a possibility. I was apprehensive at first, but also think that standing up and doing what I think is right is very important. So when I talked to my wife and asked her what she though and her first words were "Doing what you think is right is the most important thing.", well I knew two things. I knew I had married an awesome woman, and I knew I had to at least try for the possibility of media coverage. So we'll see.

Also some people I want to thank for their help so far.

First my wife. She is an atheist as well, and not shy about it either. She's been very supportive of my desire to do what I think is right and fight this and it's just one of the many reasons I love her.
My friend E___. Going to leave out her actual name, but a few years ago she went through a fight against an institution on some pretty strong discrimination grounds, which ended up blowing up into a pretty big media thing for a bit. Her advice on dealing with media and how to keep my jittery ass calm when talking to them has been great.
Fellow Orphanarium blogger CRS has made some great early points to me on where the argument really lies that make a ton of sense. The "In God We Trust" plates really are beside the point as "IGWT" has become a non-religious statement all over our government (as much as I dislike that) and the real issue is they have approved pro god PLPs, but that rejecting my pro-atheism plate is giving preferential treatment to one viewpoint over another (and has shown that having religion on a PLP is obviously not the problem).
All the people on Facebook and Twitter who have given encouraging comments, support and have spread the link around about the story. It's cool knowing I have friends and strangers in my little corner of the Internets who both have my back and see the importance of an issue like this.

SO finally, here I'll include the letter that is serving as my official appeal for an administrative hearing with the Indiana BMV.

Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles
Personalized License Plate Requests
100 North Senate Avenue, Rom 404
Indianapolis, IN 46204

To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Jason B_______, and I am writing to officially request an administrative hearing to appeal the rejection of my personalized license plate (PLP) "NO GODS" dated 06/22/2009 After reading the BMV website relevant to PLP standards, I conclude that this should not have been rejected.

The BMV will deny a personalized license plate request if an objective, reasonable person would find that the customer’s proposed expression on the personalized license plate application is determined to carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency, is misleading, or is otherwise prohibited.

I do not see how "NO GODS" is offensive to good taste and decency, unless the Indiana BMV considers atheists and non-believers to be offensive to good taste and decency themselves. I have seen at least one PLP with a message of "BE GODS". To allow the that but not a PLP making a different religious (or non-religious) statement would be giving preferential treatment to one viewpoint over another.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience to schedule an administrative hearing. I would prefer to be contacted by email or phone for the quickest scheduling. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to having this issue resolved soon.

Jason B_______
[contact information]

So the next step is waiting on the ACLU to get with me, wait on CNN to get back to me if they want to do the story, and obviously wait on the BMV to respond to my appeal. I'll keep you all updated. Be sure to check back here for updates. Not sure how frequent they will be. Lots of stuff still up in the air. But when I know enough for a substantial post, I'll let you know

Free Speech, Religion & License Plates

2009-06-30T10:23:00.007-04:00

Finally, a reason to post on this poor neglected blog!

About a year ago, I got it in my head to apply for a personalized license plate in the state of Indiana. The plate would read "NO GODS", my little response to the annoying and ever more present "In God We Trust" official Indiana license plates. I figured if it was okay for the state of Indiana to officially endorse religion (and specifically the Christian religion, no matter what they might say about "God" being ambiguous), then it would be okay for me to personally request my belief in no gods.

Having forgot about my application, I didn't even think about it until I received a letter from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles:

Dear Mr. B_______,

The personalized license plate ("PLP") referenced above has been denied as inappropriate due to form or content.
...

There's more, but it's basically telling me I can ask for a replacement PLP or request an appeal via an administrative hearing. Obviously, you know which option I am choosing. I decided to look up the relevant text related to allowable PLPs on the BMV website.

http://www.in.gov/bmv/3229.htm
Personalized license plates allow creativity; however, under Indiana Statue IC 9-18-15-4 (b) the BMV may refuse to issue a combination of letters or numerals, or both, that carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency.

The BMV will deny a personalized license plate request if an objective, reasonable person would find that the customer’s proposed expression on the personalized license plate application is determined to carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency, is misleading, or is otherwise prohibited. [emphasis added]

The question becomes, is the phrase "NO GODS" offensive to an "objective, reasonable person"? The only other portion of the guidelines above that could be a sticking point is "or is otherwise prohibited." If by that they include to mean a statement of religion, it is my opinion that a prohibition of religion on license plates went out the window when Indiana approved the "In God We Trust" license plate. If it is okay for citizens of Indiana to proclaim their religion via an Indiana license plate, not allowing me to proclaim my lack of religion seems to be a pretty obvious case of the state government favoring or promoting one religion or belief system over another (or over a lack thereof).

I've contacted both the Indiana ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation for their opinion and possible assistance. The FFRF responded quite quickly, saying they believe I have the BMV "in a pickle" but to wait for the ACLU-IN since the "In God We Trust" license plate issue was their baby back when that plate first came around. I'm hoping to hear from them soon before sending in my official appeal to the BMV for an administrative hearing. Either way, even if the ACLU doesn't take my case I plan on fighting this as much as possible.

If you have any suggestions, recommendations or help you can offer please let me know in the comments.

Update: Thanks to a friend of a friend of a friend for posting this to reddit. Check this blog for future updates, or just watch http://tcmso.blogspot.com/search/label/jdbvsbmv

Update II: Thanks to the reddit post, I've found another Indiana resident fighting the same fight, in his case for a "GODLESS" plate and who has already been in contact with the ACLU-IN and American Humanist Association. Hoping we can pool resources.

Also, thanks to Hemant Mehta for sharing the story via the consistently good read The Friendly Atheist.

Once I know more and have sent out my official appeal for an administrative hearing, I'll put up a new post.

Update III: I'll have to do a new post catching everything up sooner than I thought, but until then this: The reddit thread is really becoming a good source. First the other Hoosier fighting for a GODLESS plate and now a picture of a plate in the streets bearing the slogal "BE GODS." That will come in handy.

First as tragedy, second as farce

2009-05-18T08:24:00.004-04:00

"The media is simply giving a very loud minority far more attention than the quiet majority." -Matthew Degnan, University of Notre Dame, Class of 2009, May 15, 2009

"It is another voice, it is a quiet voice in the tumult of the shouting. It is the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators." -Richard Nixon, August 8, 1968

"And so tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support." -Richard Nixon, November 3, 1969

And lo, the modern right wing did look upon the New Left of the 1960s and said "that worked out great for them, didn't it! Let's try it!" Keep it up, conservatives. Keep it up indeed.

Free Parking

2009-05-06T13:01:00.003-04:00

Last month I had to visit the Federal Building downtown. On my way back to my car, I noticed an odd parking space. Take a look at the car parked between the two red cars. Notice anything missing?

I couldn't get a good picture with my mobile, so here's the Street View of the same space. The blue car above is parked between the trees in the center of the picture. Zoom in once for the best view.

View Larger Map

There is no meter for this space. It is not marked with any signage or curb paint to indicate that it is a no parking zone.

I doubt this space was designed as a space for large vehicles such as limousines or box trucks. I assume that the meters were installed from the cross street intersections inward, and this is just the gap left over from choosing to install the double meters.

So the question is, is this free parking? Anyone have any experience with this space? I believe you can see co-blogger CJ's old place in the photo above. Care to weigh in?

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to title this post.

Bailing Out The CIB

2009-03-27T16:51:00.006-04:00

Jen Wagner wants to know what Greg Ballard thinks of the CIB bailout options:

Food and beverage taxes: Bumping up Marion County's 2 percent food and beverage tax by 1 percentage point would bring in $18 million a year. This is one of the best options because it raises the most money. But opposition from taxpayer groups would be high. Odds: Still alive.

Hotel taxes: An increase of 1 percent in Marion County's 9 percent hotel/motel tax would drum up $4 million a year. The hotel industry is opposed to any increase, saying it would make it more difficult for Indianapolis to compete against other cities for convention business. Odds: On the table.

Raising admission taxes: Increasing Marion County's 6 percent admissions tax by 1 percentage point would bring in $1.5 million a year. Mayor Greg Ballard likes this idea, though the Indiana Pacers are especially loath to do this because it would make it harder for the team, already struggling with thin turnout, to draw crowds. Odds: Possible.

Concessions from the teams: The Indianapolis Colts now get a share of revenues generated during non-Colts events at Lucas Oil Stadium. Giving that up would mean $3.5 million for the Capital Improvement Board a year. The Pacers hope the CIB will assume $15 million a year in operating costs at Conseco Fieldhouse. As a compromise, the CIB might assume a portion of that amount. Odds: Uncertain.

Expanding taxing districts: Adding new hotels and other stadium-related businesses to a sales tax increment financing district in Downtown would generate $10 million a year. Odds: Possible.

Alcohol tax: Indiana's spirits, wine and beer taxes are on the low end, but lawmakers are more interested in solutions that affect Marion County alone, not the whole state. The taxes raise about $42 million a year, which is split between the state and local governments. Odds: Unlikely.

That's a good question, and certainly one I can't answer. But I can certainly offer an opinion as to how the bailing out should be done. The CIB deficit is at $43M, and they've already agreed to $6M in cuts, leaving $37M to make up.

First things first. I'm sorry, but the Colts and Pacers have to make concessions here. The public's sympathy for bailouts is small enough, and I see no good argument why the economic bad times should only be shouldered by the government. So let's take the $3.5M the Colts get from non-Colts events (which is ridiculous anyway, but that's another story). Now the Pacers actually want the CIB to take on additional costs, which strikes me as unrealistic on their part. We'll come back to that, but for now the $3.5M seems like a no-brainer. Deficit down to $33.5M.

Marion County Taxes: From a purely selfish standpoint, this is the one I'd like the least because I eat out, whereas I don't stay in hotels. But that's a lot of revenue to pass up, and eating out is a luxury, so lets do that and pick up another $18M for a deficit of $15.5M. But hey, let's do all the others too. The special tax district for $10M, the hotel tax for $4M, and the ticket tax for $1.5M. That comes to... $15.5M.

So if we adopt all the local tax increases and take none of the costs the Pacers are trying to push off on us (but also not ask them for concessions like with the more successful Colts) we can close the gap. Seems a bit overly burdensome to Marion County in my opinion. The final option of using state alcohol tax money is rejected almost out of hand because provincial representative in the rest of the state don't want to spend the money on Marion County. But wait! Marion County is this state's tax base. It's almost certain that the rural counties that would be most opposed to this plan are net tax recipients, taking money from Marion and the doughnut counties. The fact is the state's economic success is intertwined, and hurting Marion County hurts everyone. Now I do believe that Marion and the doughnut counties most certainly benefit more than the rest of the state on this issue, but not exclusively. So I think what I'd like to see is for the deficit to be paid out by some combination of concessions from the sports teams, local taxes applied to Marion and the surrounding counties, and some state funding. Food, beverage, and hotel taxes are probably the best source for the local tax revenue, and the burden on any one county is less when we're extracting revenue from all of them. I think the alcohol taxes are also probably a good source of the state contribution as well. As Wagner says, our alcohol taxes are already low, so there's room to increase them without creating a black market. Alcohol is also a luxury good with negative public health externalities, also making it a decent candidate for some additional taxation.

Now this plan is probably completely unfeasible politically. Instead I'm afraid what's going to happen here is that Marion County will get hammered. I hope I'm wrong.

Credit Default Swaps vs Poor People Getting Houses : FIGHT!

2009-03-26T10:59:00.005-04:00

A friend on the Facebooks recently got into a political internet slap fight (I always think of this XKCD) that ended up with a bit that essentially blamed the economic crisis on "Bill Clinton and his subprime mortgages". Never mind that a) what they are probably referring to is the government push to get more of those less well off able to buy houses b) that was actually done under Jimmy Carter, I believe and c) the whole "Democrats helped poor people get houses and that caused the crisis!" is very un-classy and a drop in the bucket compared to the Credit Default Swap Mess.

So I decided to but in a little on her comment about that thread.

Two great videos that help explain what credit default swaps are and how they nuked the economy.

CDSs are important because they were completely unregulated, meaning banks bought very heavily into them. Essentially many "too big to fail" financial institutions made a bet that the housing market would just keep going up forever. An unrealistic expectation. When housing prices finally started to fall, the whole house of cards came crashing down.

The Credit Default Swap market was worth $62 trillion recently (down from it's peak certainly given the way things have crashed). It was worth $900 billion in 2000 with Phil Gramm (R-SC) deregulated the CDS market.

The median home price in the united states in 2005 was $213,900. If you want to compare that to the size of the CDS market, that would mean the current CDS market would avearge out over 289,855,072 2005-median-value homes. According to the 2003 census bureau housing survey there were 105,842,000 households (which includes apartments)

Given there are some date differences in my data and some very rough math, still the CDS market outweighs even the value and number of homes in the united states. The government helping a few more poor people get houses is a drop in the bucket compared to the failure of CDSs and the "too big to fail" banks' involvement in that mess.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/03dtchrt/tab2-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_pricing
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/financial-crisis-primer-less-family-friendly-but-way-better/

There's possibly a math mistake in there, or an oversimplification. It was done in a rush on a Facebook comment thread. The main point stands though that "poor people getting houses they can't afford" is a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the Credit Default Swap mess. It was bad deregulation in 2000 and a failure to patch that hole for this long that led us to the mess we are in. And for that, yes, you can blame greedy corporations and our representatives in Congress that did nothing to undo the mistake of not regulating those CDSs.

Neglected Blog Is Neglected

2009-03-26T10:58:00.002-04:00

So this idea has failed, but I'm going to try to rescue it with a shot post with quick and dirty math about Credit Default Swaps that was fun to put together but potentially has some horrific math error I haven't seen that will render the entire post bad. So.. stay tuned!

"As Tall As Cliffs" - Margot & the Nuclear So and So's

2009-02-14T21:20:00.002-05:00

I'm sure all of the Readers are familiar with this band, but you might not be familiar with this series of videos from La Blogotheque. Basically, they take an artist or artists and have them walk around in a public place performing some songs. Andrew Bird's performance of "Weather Systems" is particularly good, in my opinion. But here's Margot doing one of the songs from their newest album.

Margot and the Nuclear So & So's - As Tall as cliffs - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Analyzing Another Potential Bailout

2009-01-27T11:24:00.002-05:00

First our banks failed, then our porn industry calls for a bailout as well. Now our auto industry teeters on the brink of collapse. But another big failure is on the horizon with consequences we cannot possibly imagine.

JDB: Quick! We need a bailout of the chicken wing industry!
http://deadspin.com/5139146/chicken-wing-shortage-threatens-to-destroy-super-bowl

CWK: Also, I demand a chicken wing industry bailout. The cascade effect as this spills over into our chili and potato skins industry is too much for the economy to bear.

JDB: Chicken Wings is an industry TOO BIG TO FAIL! Oh sure, BW3 can weather the initial storm, probably buy up the smaller failing players but if this is allowed to go on our entire sports bar industry could be taken down.

CWK: It's the small local firms like Scotty's Brewpub that will really feel the effects. Think of the small businessman!

CWK: And of course all the firms the sports bars buy supplies from. I don't think people realize how embedded into the economy the bar food industry is.

JDB: America's over-extension of the chicken wings will also hurt other solid areas within the Sports Bar Market. Sure, the potato skins sector is on solid footing but the weakness of chicken wings will drag it all down.
Not to mention the international effects. China, for one, will feel an impact of an American Chicken Wing Crash

CWK: Why this statistic I have here from the totally unbiased and not at all funded by the bar food industry Center for Bar Food Research (Located in Buffalo, NY) says that unless the "Big Three" sportsbar chains (BW3, Hooters, Damons) get a bailout it could cost the US economy eleventy billion dollars and 3 million jobs.

CWK: If you disagree, then clearly you hate bartenders and food service professionals and want their families to starve.

JDB: Of course, calls to let the Sports Bar Market crash and reorganize on its own into smaller regional or local chains less apt to bring down ancillary markets are roundly dismissed by the CBFR.

JDB: The best compromise I believe would be a nationalization of the Sports Bar Industry, with the government eating the bad Chicken Wing Assets while selling the still strong Potato Skin and Mozzarella Stick sectors. If/when chicken wings rebound, America will then be better off and able to profit from them

I don't think America has faced a crisis like this since the New York Bagel Crash of 1934.

The GOP Version Of The Bill Is Stuffed With Eagle Down

2009-01-27T09:29:00.004-05:00

So it looks like the Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration are already caving to the Big Scary Republicans.

House Democrats appear likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following an appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.

Dear Democrats Who Happen To Actually, You Know, Be In Power By A Decent Margin,
When negotiating from a position of power, you throw out a high number that you know you can't get and back down from there. You don't start off at your desired result and then let the opposition lowball you down.

I swear, it's like the Democrats are Amy from Futurama and the Republicans are the car salesman Victor (the 1:10 mark is where you can see the resemblance):

FuturamaWeeknights, 9p/8c

Amy's Car Shopping

99 Problems, but a Bush ain't one

2009-01-22T21:57:00.003-05:00

I'll try not to let this become a video blog, but this is too good not to share. Jay-Z at the Obama for America Staff Ball:

ANd one more bit of funny. The common joke was that Dick Cheney looked like Dr. Strangelove, but I like The Foggy Monocle's take of Cheney as The Big Lebowski alot.

Martin Luther King

2009-01-19T11:55:00.001-05:00

Matt Yglesias's post reminds me that today is a great day to post this clip:

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

2009-01-17T09:31:00.001-05:00

Bush countdown created by James Miller

TARP Round 2

2009-01-14T10:42:00.004-05:00

Should congress release the second half of the TARP funds? I'm torn.

On the one hand, it's no secret that the TARP has been horribly mismanaged. You've got banks taking money that admit they don't need it. You've got banks using the money to pick up other banks cheaply. Perhaps my personal favorite is the insurance company that bought a bank just so they could qualify for a bailout. My understanding is that all this money is supposed to be used to ease the "credit crunch"; to open up the credit markets allowing businesses and consumers to finance capital needs again. Of course, that's not happening either.

On the other hand, it's not like the bailout has done nothing. The stock market has stopped its free-fall and the much-feared utter catastrophe has been avoided. Jim Manzi more thoroughly lays out what the bailout has done for us, but he also ends with a warning about round 2:

Congress has the right to approve or deny any request that Treasury might make for the second tranche of the additional $350 billion. This should be treated as a separate request. We have the luxury of time, as compared to a few months ago, to vet this request with far greater rigor, and in light of what we have learned. Specifically, before authorizing this money, Congress should perform its oversight function, and demand to know: (1) what underlying risks, not to shareholders or employees, but of systemic financial collapse now exist or are latent that would justify this much money, and (2) how we will avoid the zombie bank problem, including potential application of lending requirements in return for capital, as has been done in the UK.

I supported the original bank bailout, and continue to believe that it was a painful, but correct, decision. However, supporting the next tranche will require a lot of convincing.

It seems to me that we're stuck in a battle between those oft-opposing two methods of decision-making, Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Precautionary Principle.

PP seems to speak clearly in favor the the second round of bailout money. Yes, no doubt much of the money will be used in inefficient and morally troubling ways. But the danger of a global economic collapse far too serious to worry about that. Staving off economic disaster is Job One, and some rich people game the system along the way, that's the price you pay.

CBA is more difficult. Are we getting a good bang-for-the-buck? What is the real risk of collapse, and are we spending too much to mitigate it because the odds are small? What are the real costs of the negative aspects of the bailout and do they outweigh the gains under some time horizons? I'm not going to dare claim I can figure that out; it will require the brains of actual economists and finance experts.

I wish I had some great conclusion to be drawn from all this, but I still don't. I don't know enough about the risks involved to even attempt to resolve this, but I thought I could lay out a little of what's gone through my head this week thinking about it. I'd love to hear others' thoughts in the comments or in followup posts.

I Am A Free Series!

2009-01-11T15:05:00.005-05:00

As a part of their promotional experience for the mini-series remake of the 60s TV classic The Prisoner, AMC has made the original series available online for your viewing pleasure. FYI.

Old Views of Indianapolis

2009-01-05T13:13:00.006-05:00

The MAKE Blog dug up a link to a very cool collection of penny postcards, sorted by state and county. Decided to check out the page for Marion County and take a look at what Indianapolis used to be.

It's a damn shame they tore down the old Marion County Courthouse when they built that boring 60's era design City/County Building.

Man, how cool would it be if the Pythian Building was still around? Actually found a little history of that building, and Mass Ave was removed there so One Indiana Square could be built.

The Circle is a very different place these days, with the monument now dwarfed by the ~~AFNBBank One~~ Chase Tower. The biggest loss on the circle is the gorgeous English Hotel and Opera House. Here's another great old postcard of the circle.

The Athenaeum has always looked cool and thankfully has survived the years. A little history from the National Park Service here.

Tomlinson Hall. Used to be a part of the City Market complex, it burnt down in 1958. You can see the current old City Market building in this postcard as well. Tomlinson Hall actually hosted two presidential nominating conventions of the Prohibition Party.

Yet another Mass Ave landmark, the Murat. The Wikipedia page has some history.

Butler University used to be in the Irvington area of Indianapolis (then its own town), but later moved to its current location. A couple postcards of the old campus reminds me alot of old small colleges and universities scattered around the state. Of course, their current campus houses the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse.

St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove is that city's (Beech Grove did notjoin Indy's UNIGOV in the 70's) largest structure, and will be closing in a few years in favor of St. Francis' monstrosity of a hospital near Greenwood. Here's how it looks now.

Anyone know when this postcard might be from? That's some pretty serious flooding.

New Airport vs REALLY Old Airport

What is apparently a view from across the White River in Broadripple of the now gone White City Amusement Park, which once housed a Carosel that is now at the Children's Museum. (about 1/3 of the way down this page has an abbreviated history of the amusement park)

One of my favorite spots in Indianapolis, the Garfield Park Sunken Gardens.

Great collection, with many more postcards on the site than just these. Any postcards you like from where you grew up? Leave some links in the comments.

Full Collection
Indiana Collection

How can Drinking Liberally: Indianapolis give back?

2009-01-02T15:51:00.005-05:00

So already I slack, but the holidays and a deadline at work barreling down on my like an out of control [popular culture reference] at a [something related that makes it funny] has left little time. But something that I'll certainly be sharing as the process goes on is how to make Drinking Liberally: Indy do a little more than just get together for beer every week (Thursdays, 7pm-whenever, Spencer's Stadium Tavern, 802 S. West Street ).

2008 was a good year for DL:Indy. Not only our very well attended Election Night Party but our event with the Planned Parenthood in Indy where we had the game Rock Band on the big screen and lots of new faces show up for what was essentially a visibility event for PPYL were very successful. I got to thinking that while I want to keep DL:Indy low key, casual and pretty much an opportunity for like minded people to hang out we could do more.

So the general idea is this: Once a quarter, Drinking Liberally: Indianapolis will co-host an event with/for a deserving non-profit to either raise money or just raise awareness and networking. First up I'm thinking is just a reprise of the Rock Band Night with PPYL, get our event legs under us again. But after that, Q2 comes calling with.... what?

This is where we start to get into undecided/no clue what we are doing territory. One idea has been to do a concert. Get a local band or two and a venue to donate proceeds for the night to [non-profit X], with DL:Indy serving as the "co-host" and bugging everyone we know to show up and be a part of it. Maybe do a raffle of donated items as well.

Luckily, 4 years of DL:Indy has built up a network of people that might just be able to help pull this off. Already have cwk here at The Orphanarium roped into it, and looking to get crs and rfd into it as well. Also have one or two other people in mind that might have ideas or know-how on this sort of thing.

The comments are open for ideas of non-profits that woudl be good to give a helping hand. Already on the list:

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful
A domestic violence shelter in Crawfordsville, Indiana where an old friend from the Howard Dean campaign days now works

Maybe by posting these ideas here, it will force me to actually follow up and do them.

Well... If I Have To

2008-12-31T16:02:00.010-05:00

I've been putting off writing a response to crs's challenge in this post for a week. Honestly, I didn't realize it required a response until I had seen jdb's followup. Since comprehending the meaning of challenge, and this specific one, I've been stuck trying to come up with just what I would list. I've been particularly lax in keeping abreast of new music this year. And somehow I manged to not download very many albums despite having a subscription to eMusic.

Here are the three albums I definitively feel belong in my Top 5 of 2008 list:

Elephant Shell, by Tokyo Police Club: Let's get the obvious out of the way first. This is just straight up good indie rock. No one else listed it so I will. There's not much I can say about this one. It just pushed all my indie rock buttons. The album has been in heavy rotation on my iPod since it came out.

Offend Maggie, by Deerhoof: If you haven't heard Deerhoof before, reading anything I could write about them is meaningless. I'm not even sure I how to describe them. "Whimsical noise-rock art-band" is about the best I can do. This year they added a fourth member on guitar, then wrote and released this album. It is fabulous. Also probably the band's most accessible release to date.

Volume One, by She & Him: The debut of actress Zooey Deschanel(for real) and indie "darling" M. Ward's project She & Him completely captured my heart. This album has been brewing since 2006, but didn't come out until March of this year. While gathering links for this post, I found out that Paste Magazine named this album their #1 of the year. Since I suck so hard at this I'll just quote them, "Produced with touches of girl-group splendor and arranged with a dreamy, old-fashioned vibe, She & Him’s debut couldn’t be more adorable." Yes.

Now to somehow get to five:

Hold On Now, Youngster by Los Campesinos!: Indie-happy-indie-twee-indie-pop. I haven't listened to the first LP from this Welsh septet enough to truly call it one of my top 5 albums from this year, but it's up there. I do think it deserves to be on any list of the best albums of 2008 though. Also, Los Campesinos! went and released a second album this year(We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed) that I haven't listened to yet. Maybe it is even better! So call this a conditional pick.

Young Team, by Mogwai: What you say!! Yep, Mogwai's first studio album. When cwk picked The Hawk is Howling for his top 5, I was surprised that I had missed Mogwai's latest offering. But after thinking about it, I remembered picking up a Mogwai album earlier in the year. Turns out I had- Young Team was remastered and re-released this summer with a second disc of rare tracks. For something that is supposed to be "post rock", there's some pretty hard "rocking" going on in this album.

OK then! That's 5 albums from 2008. I honestly thought I'd have to post an abbreviated list like jdb. If I hadn't figured out that last pick I had a backup, cheat pick. Maybe picking a re-issue is cheating, so I'll list it anyway.

Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of Funky Lagos: A compilation album that presents some of the best music coming out of western Africa in the 60s and 70s. It came out seven years ago, and it's made of music that is 30-40 years old, but I just discovered this year. Words are not enough to describe how good this set is. If you hear this and it doesn't bring a smile to your face, if not get you out of your seat and moving, then you are dead inside. Don't be intimidated by the price at Amazon, you can easily find this floating around if you look for it.

So there you have it. And it's just in under the wire. Maybe one of my New Year's resolutions should be to pay attention to new music?

[EDIT: Evidently this Blogger template italicizes block quotes. Fixed. -rfd]

Answering the call... Sorta.

2008-12-24T11:00:00.004-05:00

I've been a slacker on this, but after thinking about it a bit I can certainly come up with five great albums from this year. I'm sort of in the middle of getting ready to head up to my parents' house for Christmas, so this will be short on insightful commentary, but here we go. In no particular order:

At Mount Zoomer by Wolf Parade: I actually only recently picked this up. I loved their first album and had been anticipating this one for awhile. Not sure if I like it as much as the first since I've only listened to it a couple times, but I'd say it's an excellent follow-up.
Dear Science by TV On The Radio: Here's a band that just keeps getting better. I love everything they've done and this is no exception.
Modern Guilt by Beck: Barry would say I'm being "too obvious" here but I don't think I'm trying to sneak up on people. This is a great album, my favorite from Beck in awhile. I went through a period this year where I listened to it constantly, which makes it a great addition to the list.
The Stand Ins by Okkervil River: Ok, here's a band I just discovered this year even though they've been around for quite a while. This album has been in heavy rotation on my iPod ever since. It made me go out and pick up their album from last year, which I'm undecided on after one listen. But this one is wonderful.
The Hawk Is Howling by Mogwai: Here's the one I'm betting no one else here is going to have. Mogwai's brand of "post-rock" is not for everyone, but if you this more arthouse stuff, you'll love this album.

There we go. If I had time to write up some better commentary I would, but I'm leaving in two hours and I still have to pack. Wish me luck. I'm driving through Kokomo and my parents live near Michigan, so in the current economy bands of "Road Warrior" style post-(econo)pocalyptic gangs searching for goods to pillage just might be a legitimate concern....

5 Albums? Man I've been slacking

2008-12-23T11:14:00.008-05:00

Well, I'll be the first to openly admit to failing crs' "Top 5 Albums" challenge. My new music and album dabbling this year was woeful and wholly inadequate. In no particular order I can give you three that I really liked, but without much in the way of commentary.

Third by Portishead
An album I literally waited 10 years to hear, it became one of those albums that each time I listened to it it wormed its way into my brain and stuck there. Favorite tracks are "Machine Gun" and "Deep Water"

...And Now We Can Be Ourselves by Red Light Driver
A little local love. The first thing I thought when I heard Red Light Driver play a show a couple years ago was "Wow, someone gave The Cure some Prozac!". I loved it, but the new album (just released) shows them branching out. Hard to pick favorite tracks from this album as it's solid from 1 to 12 but if I had to pick three I'd say "The Long Face", "Scene Key" and "Pet Rockets"

Float by Flogging Molly
This was a bit of a departure for Flogging Molly. Float is a bit darker, less punk but just as strong as their earlier albums. Favorite tracks: "Requiem for a Dying Song", "Punch Drunk Grinning Soul" and "Between A Man And A Woman" which originally appeared on their first album, the live recording Alive Behind The Green Door.

Bonus Indy Indie Band To Watch in 2009: Heavy Hometown
They opened Red Light Driver's CD Release show for ...And Now We Can Be Ourselves and put on an excellent show. Very simple arrangements and songs but catchy and they put on a good live show.

A Challenge

2008-12-20T10:54:00.003-05:00

Now that I've popped my posting cherry, the writing will probably come a lot easier. Unless I get lazy, which is entirely likely give my past blogging trends. Anyway, I've decided to issue a challenge to my fellow contributors to the Orphanarium: a top 5 list of music from the year. Now, I know what you're thinking: "How could I possibly do that? FIVE? Come on!" And let me tell you...I understand. As I was originally thinking about this post, I couldn't conceive of making a list of fewer than 15 albums. I've narrowed it down to five (at least for this forum) based on a few criteria: albums that I don't think the rest of you would list, and albums that I just couldn't stop listening to. I'm not critic, and I am in no way asserting that the following albums are the best of 2008. They're just five albums I don't think the rest of the Orphanarium will list that I could listen to over and over again.

1. Saturdays = Youth, by M83 This album is great. GREAT. How can you go wrong with French electronica inspired by the work of John Hughes? The answer is "You can't." "Kim & Jessie" really does sound like the 80s, but not in that dear-god-I-want-to-kill-myself kind of way that I usually associate with music from that decade. "Coleurs," on the other hand, just makes me want to bob around in some sort of haze on the dance floor: partly because I'm White and pretty much incapable of anything else, and mostly because of the atmosphere.

2. Alopecia, by Why? One word I would use to describe this album: weird. Weird as in I'm not entirely sure how to categorize it. It has a vaguely hip hop feel, but then again it might be indie pop of some kind. Additionally, the lyrics are just off the wall. In "The Hollows," we hear Why? utilizing some sort of weird sprechgesang to tell us that "in Berlin [he] saw two men fuck in a dark corner of a basketball court, just the slight jingle of pocket change pulsing."

3. Made in the Dark, by Hot Chip This album is very dancey and, as I like to say, "blippy-bloopy." This album more than anything else really represents how much my musical tastes have shifted over the past 3 years or so. (I blame my friend Zac.) For a guy who used to listen to nothing but classical music, a band consisting almost entirely of guys on synthesizers (there is one guy who plays guitar) represents something of a major shift. As far as stand-out tracks go, I'd recommend "One Pure Thought" (which BTW has a great video), "Wrestlers," and "We're Looking for a Lot of Love" (if you're looking to slow it down a bit).

4. Heretic Pride, by the Mountain Goats I think this might be the album that is most likely to be found on someone else's list. But being first has its advantages, I suppose. I couldn't really tell you why, but I just love listening to this album. I will admit that I have no idea what the hell he's talking about sometimes, but when I do I find what he has to say very compelling. This is particularly important for me in the song "Heretic Pride," on account of I pretty much am a heretic. The joyful tone of the song contrasted with the horrific imagery of the lyrics is striking. Also, you have to love an album that includes a track about H.P. Lovecraft.

5. Hercules and Love Affair, by Hercules and Love Affair Holy crap this album makes me want to dance! It's like a slick, modern version of disco. With colalborations from that guy from Antony and the Johnsons. If you can remain seated through songs like "You Belong" and "Blind," then there's something wrong with you as a human being.

Whew. That's my list. And it was exhausting. I apologize if it seems fragmented or incoherent. I was constantly interrupted by customers. Stupid work...

Moral Dilemma

2008-12-17T10:28:00.003-05:00

Since cjk stole my thunder on the post he just made, I'll have to settle on something else equally interesting. And this situation is ultimately all about me, which is a good thing.

I recently bought a new laptop from Lenovo which I'm expecting to arrive by X-mas. After I bought it, the pending charge showed up on my bank account letting me know that while there was $X dollars there, about $600 of it was supposed to go away very soon. I checked the account this morning, and the $600 had magically reappeared in my "available balance."

So...what is the moral action in this case? Do I contact both Lenovo and my credit union to let them know something's up? Or do I just say, "Hey. They screwed up. And I get a free laptop out of it"? And if the first choice is the moral one, does that make the second choice immoral?

I have an idea of what I'm going to to, but I'm going to wait a week to see if the situation resolves itself. And I'll obviously pretend the money isn't there. But...what would you do?

Building the Middle Class

2008-12-17T08:55:00.004-05:00

Abdul is angry at unions:

A union spokeswoman says the starting wage for a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency in Indianapolis is $7.25 an hour, but that same wage in Chicago is $14.25 an hour.

Now let’s apply some common sense to this situation.

Using their math the Indianapolis housekeeper makes about $15,000 annually. Using a standard salary calculator, the Indy housekeeper should make $19,000 to be comparable with the Chicago housekeepers salary. But that’s not what’s happening, using the Union’s own math, the Chicago housekeeper makes about $27,000 a year. So not only is the Chicago housekeeper overpaid, the Unions want the Indy housekeeper to be overpaid too.

Really? I'm not sure what he used for his numbers, so I decided to run my own:

$7.25 x 40 hours/week x 52 weeks/year = $15,080/year
$14.25 x 40 hours/week x 52 weeks/year = $29,640/year

Using this site:
$15,080 in Indy is $17,852.65 in Chicago.
$29,640 in Chicago is $25,036.69 in Indy.

But who's underpaid or overpaid here is a value judgment. If I assume the Chicago rate as my baseline instead of the Indy rate as Abdul did, the Indy housekeeper is drastically underpaid to the tune of $10k/year.

Once upon a time, manufacturing jobs were the ticket to the middle class in America for those without college degrees. But we went through an efficiency revolution in manufacturing similar to the one we went through even longer ago in agriculture. We can now produce even more output with much fewer workers, thus those days are gone. Now, unionized service sector jobs that can't be outsourced are our best chance at creating a new path to the middle class for those without college degrees. I imagine Abdul doesn't like that solution because yes, it means he'll have to pay more for a hotel room. But it also means a whole new group of workers will be able to afford hotel rooms that couldn't before. Conservatives and libertarians think this will destroy growth and kill businesses. But it worked for Henry Ford. It worked during the 50s and 60s when we created the largest middle class in history and experienced our largest period of peacetime growth. I see little reason it can't work again.

Thanks to fellow TCMSO blogger crs for pointing this story out.

I Think [We're] Turning Japanese

2008-12-16T16:31:00.004-05:00

Welcome to ZIRP.

What worries me is what will interest rates do when (if?) we finally rescue the economy enough that this huge new money supply starts driving a big inflation problem. This will not be fun, and will probably just get worse before it gets better. I would also argue that we're never going to have an economy with the huge booms and consumption that we've seen the last 20 years. Hopefully that just means steady growth and shorter busts rather than something like no growth and spiraling problems into the future.

Wheeeeeee!!

Overheard

2008-12-15T14:18:00.003-05:00

Part 1 in an irregular series.

Overheard at a Subway:

We weren't going to get a truck, but with gas prices back down we probably will.

This moment in planning for the future brought to you by the Ford F-150: We may not need a bailout right now, but with your help we will.

I never wanted to be a sysadmin anyway. I wanted to be... a lumberjack!

2008-12-15T13:00:00.002-05:00

Ok, time for me to stop slacking and get up my inaugural post here at The Cookieville Minimum-Security Orphanarium (As much as I like the name, I'm quite sure I will never not acronym-ify that ever again).

I've been on-and-off blogging since before it was called blogging actually, my first site going up back in 1999. In my day we didn't have this fancy Blogger or Wordpress, we manually updated static HTML pages! And we liked it! (not really.) Alas, these horribly amaturish scribblings are lost to the void, victim of a failed hard drive and a nonexistant backup strategy (the old adage is true: There are two types of people: Those who've experienced a severe loss of data, and those who will) . That happened in roughly 2003, after I'd moved on to a local Typepad install. After that I had nothing for awhile, then started running Wordpress, briefly blogger, then back to Wordpress again, beginning in late 2005. These archives live on at my personal site.

Alas, I'm clearly not very disciplined at this hear blogging thing, hence the on-again-off-again format changing trip I've taken with the medium. I've always sort of figured I'd be better with a group blog. Now one person doesn't have to carry all the weight, so less chance of burnout. Also, with multiple posters the site can stay fresh while people, now freed from the tyranny of needing to stay current, have the time to put together something worthwhile. Looks like here's the place where I get to see how this works in practice.

I suppose since at the moment my only readership are those who know me, there's not much of a need for a bio. In case there actually is someone interested in a short one, you can see it at the aformentioned personal site. I suppose one might say I'm an IT guy who tempermentally probably should have been some sort of a liberal arts major, who sort of fell into this accidentally for various reasons I won't go into here, and wound up being lucky enough to have a bit of a knack for it. Don't get me wrong, I like the work, and I'm a tech nerd at heart, but if I had to live only in that world I'd go crazy. So hopefully this will serve as an outlet for the other stuff I think about, though tech issues will surely be a topic too.

I think that about sums it up. Thanks to jdb for putting this altogether, recruiting the posters, and gracing me with admin-level access. Onward.

And Now Taking the Stage...

2008-12-12T12:15:00.001-05:00

If you are trying to come up with a good name for a band or a blog(ahem) or whatever, you could do much worse than heading over to TvTropes.org.* Just by clicking random links, you'll be sure to find something that works. I found these in just a few minutes: Age Appropriate Angst, Apocalyptic Log, Non Sequitur Thud, Abandoned By The Cavalry, and Offstage Villainy. Not too bad. Better names than some bands I can think of. My favorite so far is Murder The Hypotenuse, which got me started with the idea.

*If you were not previously aware of it, TvTropes is a wiki identifying and exploring the tropes of every sort of fiction, not just television. It's a fun time waster with some redeeming educational value.

Indy City/County Council Email Update

2008-12-12T09:56:00.004-05:00

An update to this post where I email the Democrats on the Indy City/County Council. So far only one councilor has taken the time to respond to me. Ahhhh that's representation! Councilwoman Angela Mansfield deserves credit for responding though, although she only addressed the issue of the Assessor pay after their positions were eliminated.

Not sure I should put the exact email in there as I didn't say in my initial email I would be posting replies, but essentially the council's hands were tied a bit by the state law that said they couldn't pay them nothing, and that she was in favor of paying them at the much lower 1980 level for the two years they were forced to pay them (and was a sponsor of the proposal to do just that). Unfortunately, if they had not passed the $54,000 for two years proposal then the assessors woudl have gotten $60,000.

I'm still pissed that it came to that, but props to Councilwoman Mansfield for taking the time to reply, at least on that issue.

Update: After 7 days, still only the single response from Councilwoman Mansfield.

The Fourth Orphan

2008-12-12T09:14:00.004-05:00

That sounds like the name of a terrible movie or something, but it actually means we'll have a fourth regular irregular around these parts. rfd is yet another DL:Indy regular who does his normal blogging thing here.

Now that we've got a stable of irregular posters, hopefully our powers of lazy blogging will combine to form voltron. Or at least a semblance of regular content. There's not going to be much of a theme here. It's going to be whatever any of us decide to post about. Probably a heavy politics bent, but I'm sure we'll go through periods of heavy nerdiness and whatnot as well.

Update: Well damnit, I can't even spell a made up middle initial correctly.

Bailout

2008-12-10T13:59:00.002-05:00

We favor unreasonable subsidies to the Brain Slug Industry

A Third Irregular Regular!

2008-12-09T22:13:00.004-05:00

Please welcome the newest regular irregular to The Orphanarium, crs. He's another DL:Indy regular and does his regular thing over this way.

Already, we're growing.

2008-12-09T14:45:00.003-05:00

Already adding a co-blogger. cwk irregularly maintains his regular blog but will be joining the Orphanarium in an irregular status. He's a Drinking Liberally: Indy regular and fellow techie liberal nerd type.

We'll see if this whole group blog thing goes as well as CWAMB did.

I've Finally Had Enough With The Dems on the Indy CCC

2008-12-09T14:18:00.004-05:00

So I've finally gotten fed up with the wankers on the Indy City County Council. I had a short lived project to go to all of their meetings, but life intervened and they were fucking boring. Issues or not, sitting through an hour of special recognitions and bullshit bloviating is too much for this humble blogger with a life and a fiancee (and Fallout 3 to play).

But between cutting the COIT to give Indy residents a whole $12!!omg!!!eleven111! , wanking about the city buying ferrrrin cars from them jap-o-neese and now paying the assessors $54,000 to sit on their asses for two years I just can't take it anymore.

So I emailed all of the Democrats on the CCC (well, all but Jose Evans. Someone hook the dude up with some email! For real.) I tried to be nice, but man, their wanking and pandering has gotten out of hand. We'll see if I actually get coherent responses from anybody.

Here's the email. I'll follow up with any replies I get.

First I want to say that I am a life long Democrat. I'm sure you hear that alot, but I've never voted for a Republican and only not voted straight ticket once (a write in for another Democrat). So these critiques aren't coming from someone who normally disagrees with you on everything so that I can be conveniently ignored.

A couple issues have me so worked up, I've decided to email every Democratic CCC member that has an email address. 1) The (for lack of a better term) wanking about this car deal, 2) Cutting the COIT to give us a WHOLE $12!! and 3) Paying the Assessors WAY TOO MUCH to do nothing for two years.

1) I'll be honest, on this first one I don't know who exactly has been making this an issue and who has thankfully been silent on it. But this whole thing about Toyota vs Chevy and the little round of faux xenophobia and manufacturing nationalism gets us nowhere. The fact is the upkeep costs on the Toyotas are cheaper than the upkeep costs on the Chevys. The long run savings go to the Toyota. Boxing in our city to only be able to buy goods from a certain locale hamstrings us being able to watch our expenses. You want to cut taxes (see #2), you gotta pay for it somehow. But cutting taxes AND forcing the city to buy more expensive to maintain cars out of some sort of nationalistic ideal is a double whammy on the city budget. But I'm sure the Democratic members of the CCC aren't just on this issue as a political stunt, right? Yeah. Right. I know it's easy in an economic downturn for people to turn to xenophobia and nationalism. It's happened during every economic downturn, and will continue to happen. But that doesn't mean you have to play into that trap, even mildly.

2) I want to start this issue off by saying that *thankfully* Councilors Bateman, Mansfield, Gray, Oliver, Nytes and Sanders are exempt from this criticism. Thank you for acknowledging that it actually takes money to run a successful city. But to the others, Councilors Evans, Pryor, Minton-McNeil, both Maherns, Adams and Brown, really what were you thinking? Cutting the COIT will give the average Marion County resident $12. *TWELVE DOLLARS*. I'll try not to spend it all in one place. Meanwhile the city is having to cut back on services, our public transit infrastructure is terrifyingly bad and we can't even salt the roads. Is giving people $12 just so you can say you cut taxes during the next election really worth the deterioration of our city? Cities, especially world class cities (which Indy tries so hard to be) need money to be run. I know some voters don't like to hear that, but it's not like we can salt the roads and lock up criminals with free fairy dust and wishes.

3) And finally, the Assessor thing. No idea how the vote broke down. But I know a number of you supported this ortherwise it wouldn't have passed with only 2 dissenters. I understand that some Democrats didn't feel it was necessary to do away with the Assessors position at the township level. I happen to think it was necessary, but I understand you disagreeing with that. But that's no excuse to pay $54,000 and benefits to public servants whom the public essentially FIRED in November. If I am laid off from my job I don't continue to get paid. It sucks, but I don't get paid. Now I get that under state law you couldn't pay them *nothing*, but why not go with a cheaper option? Again, you cut revenue to the city with the COIT decision, but then you give money away like this. Just because you feel sorry for them doesn't mean you should give away your constituents' money to them. I've heard some thought "compassion" was needed for them. Compassion? How about compassion for your constituents who rely on you to use our money efficiently to provide us with essential services and a growing city? That is the concern of an elected representative, not compassion for civil servants who have lost their job by the will of the people.

Sadly, I am beyond expecting much in the way of principled stands from the Democrats on the CCC. Yet I keep voting for you.

We'll see.

Hello? Is This Thing On?

2008-12-09T14:05:00.005-05:00

The blogger's undisclosed location

Thinking about moving all of my blogging here. X-Tra Rant is down indefinitely due to a security breach and currently just redirects to twitter. This may grow into a group blog for some of the Drinking Liberally: Indianapolis regulars.

Stay tuned.