Breaking down Sen. Evan Bayh's farewell email

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.

My State Senate District - S31

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

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

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.

1. 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.
   
   
2. Also, you don't get bonus points for wearing green.
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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

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

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.

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]

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.

The Walking Dead to be on TV? Awesome

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

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

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"

1. John Stossel : Crazy, libertarian, mustachioed
2. Margaret Thatcher : Crazy, British, deadfrustratingly alive
3. Sarah Palin : Batshit crazy, can see Russia from her house, brain dead
4. 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

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

Colts 2010 Playoff Run Propaganda

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!

Final post on the "NO GODS" license plate

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

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

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

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.

Credit Default Swaps vs Poor People Getting Houses : FIGHT!

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

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!

Analyzing Another Potential Bailout

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.