hoosier political report

a few months back, jennifer wagner, one of the state's most prominent and popular bloggers, quit blogging to go work for the jim schellinger campaign. we all know how that turned out: schellinger was defeated in the primary by jill long thompson.

now jen is back with a new blog, hoosier political report. the new site has been active for a couple weeks—thus other blogger announced its arrival long ago—so let's check in and see how things are going there.

hoosier political report essentially replaces the old taking down words blog, with a focus on statewide politics and the governor's race. as usual, jen's commentary and analysis are incisive and insightful. so fans of TDW will definitely find things to like here. but HPR has lots more than what TDW had, so let's look at the new features.

one feature is a daily news update, with a roundup of links to political stories from throughout the state. as someone who is too lazy to check all the major indiana papers—i often just check the indy star and move on—this is a great feature. you can also sign up to receive it as a daily email, which sounds awfully convenient.

another new feature of HPR is other bloggers: HPR is apparently a group blog, and in particular jen promises bipartisan commentary. i'm a bit skeptical there: it seems that the most popular and most successful blogs tend to have a common viewpoint, be it center-left, far-right, hipster, or what have you. i can't think of many quality blogs that successfully blend viewpoints from the right and left, the occasional guest post aside. then again, it could work, and the presence of the other side could help keep everyone more honest. i guess we'll see how that pans out.

a couple of the new posters have already joined up. chris faulkner is an admitted republican, but his two posts so far are pretty good, with nothing objectionable. likewise, i don't know scott downes's political affiliation (i suspect democrat), but his posts so far are perfectly fine.

on the other hand, i'm unimpressed, to put it lightly, by the introductory post by average white male obamican. the whole schtick for this persona is apparently that he can't decide between obama and mccain. seems like an obvious choice to me: a vote for mccain is a vote to continue the horrific policies of george bush (including... no, especially the occupation of iraq), and a vote for obama is a vote to stop the madness. i don't understand why i should care about the opinions of someone who claims he won't know who he's voting for "until I pull the lever", nor what value such musings are supposed to add to the conversation. (never mind the annoying pundit habit of imagining yourself and your beliefs to be "average" or "typical". you can't make yourself into everyman by editorial fiat, unless you legally change your name to "every man" as one of my friends did.)

those are just the bloggers who've posted already. looking at the category listing in the sidebar, i see one more name that troubles me: joshua claybourn. longtime readers may remember that my last attempt to engage claybourn didn't go so well. it all goes back to claybourn's involvement in a 2006 political scandal that came to be known as the "facebook scandal".

as you may recall, claybourn was a supporter of then-rep john hostettler, who was in a contentious race against brad ellsworth. a commenter at in the agora—a group blog shared by claybourn and a few others—noted that ellsworth's daughter, then a 19-year-old IU student, had photos on her facebook page that suggested she engaged in underage drinking. claybourn, on acquiring this dirt on ellsworth, promptly passed it on to the evansville courier & press, and then feighned surprise when the story turned up in the newspaper.

that's where i came in. i posted some uncomfortable questions in the comments at ITA, and not only were my comments deleted, but i was banned from commenting altogether. (eventually my commenting rights were reinstated, but the whole thing left enough of a bad taste in my mouth that i haven't much interest in reading or commenting at that site since.) i don't think he ever did give a satisfactory answer to my question. and on top of that, he repeatedly and substantially edited his post without a disclaimer noting that it had been edited, and at the time the site had a "no caching" policy that made tracking down the original content difficult. (though i believe i was eventually able to piece it together.)

now, in the end it all turned out okay: i got a link from atrios, claybourn won the coveted "wanker of the day" award, and ellsworth got elected despite such republican dirty tricks. but still... jen wagner herself wrote more than once about claybourn's role in the facebook scandal, so i'm a bit puzzled why she would want him on her new blog.

then again, that was two years ago, so i thought i should check in on ITA and see if josh has changed. what did i find? sexist attacks on hillary clinton. the repeated suggestion that there's no difference between gay marriage and incest or polygamy. a huffy post about those crazy artists these days, in which he fell for a hoax and then denied that it was a hoax after this was pointed out to him. and that's just since april. here's hoping his contributions to HPR will be minimal.

overall, i must recommend HPR, both for its daily link update and for quality analysis of indiana politics. but i'm concerned about the attempt at bipartisanship, if it means giving a larger platform to the likes of josh claybourn. time will tell how this strategy works. ¶

obama ftw

last night, barack obama won enough delegates to effectively wrap up the democratic nomination. now we go about healing the rifts of the primary.

clinton supporters are understandably upset. their candidate was treated like trash by the misogynist media, which has had it out for all things clinton since the '90s. despite all that, hillary ran a hard-fought campaign and almost pulled it off. like atrios, i'm inclined to believe that if hillary hadn't voted for the iraq war, she would've been a shoo-in. same goes for kerry: he probably could've won if not for that iraq authorization vote...

as for obama's chances in november, i'm pretty sure he has it on lock. but i understand why some clinton supporters are concerned. let's face it, after the atrocities of the bush administration, the democrats should be able to run ficus and get a landslide victory. so the fact that mccain is even polling in the double digits is hard for some to understand. but remember that all those polls were taken while the democratic primary was ongoing. while emotions are still high now, and some clinton supporters claim they won't or can't vote for obama, i'm confident that most of them will come around eventually. they just need time to heal.

wedding show advance tickets now available!

also, just added: Sir. Vixx!

advance tickets now available for $10 each! go to http://animalswithinanimals.com/wedding/ to get your tickets, or just paypal $10 per ticket to stallio@animalswithinanimals.com.

(don't forget to include your name and mailing address)¶

powerless

while in columbus i caught a bit of a local weather forecast; the local spin was that columbus was going to miss the impending storms, but i could see the storms would hit indiana.

little did i know that the coming storms would leave us without power. the power cut off shortly after 11 pm last night. i'm writing this from a nearby wifi network. no telling when power will be returned—it could be days or it could already be back on—so i'll be away from computer.

tickets to the wedding show were supposed to go on sale tomorrow (june 1). if i'm still without power, obviously that will have to be delayed.

update: power is finally back, after 37 hours without. also, the unexpected shutdown seems to have fried my tower (i'm writing this from the laptop), so now i have to work on getting that fixed. it's looking like i might have to reinstall windows.

at any rate, i should be ready to start selling advance tickets for the wedding show tomorrow (june 2).¶

exile on high street

yesterday, we drove to columbus, OH so virago could attend a work-related conference. we got back a couple hours ago.

i had forgotten how much i hate driving in ohio. it's funny because indiana and ohio are virtually indistinguishable in so many ways, yet driving there is far more frustrating, from the awkward 25mph freeway exits to the poor signage to the puzzled, clumsy drivers who meander through its poorly-thought-out roads. but this time we had an experience that took it to the next level.

we were tooling down I-70, on schedule to arrive more than an hour before the conference began. things were going smoothly until we got to dayton, and in between semis i caught a glimpse of an electronic sign. I-70 CLOSED it said. just as quickly, it disappeared from view.

"there's no way I-70 is closed," i said to virago, looking around for more signs. but i was mistaken. sure enough, I-70 was completely closed off, with no detour signs and no warning at all except that one electronic sign that i didn't have time to read. we were shunted off onto I-75N inside a flood of 18-wheelers.

traffic slowed to a crawl as we tried to determine how to get to columbus now that we were heading in the wrong direction. there were no signs to advise us, we who the ohio department of transportation had forced to drive on this road against our will. fortunately, being an old-school midwesterner, i knew that US-40 runs parallel to I-70, so getting onto US-40 would eventually get us back onto I-70. unfortunately, to get to US-40, we had to drive on surface roads in suburban dayton for about a mile. only then did we reach US-40: a stretch of highway fraught with sharp curves and abundant stoplights. it was easy enough to know which way to go: just follow the gridlock. all in all, this added ninety minutes to our commute, so instead of arriving early and getting some lunch before the conference, virago arrived to her workshop 15 minutes late, with an empty stomach.

there were other annoyances as well. the new debt card i had just activated the previous day, which i had been plannning to use for all my purchases while in town, turned out not to be activated after all. our hotel not only lacked an internet connection, but other basic conveniences like an alarm clock or a do-not-disturb sign. (i was forced to buy shampoo from the vending machine for $2 for a travel-size bottle; and when i inserted my $2, the little spiral spun around but my shampoo failed to fall. i tried to insert another $2 only to discover that the machine wouldn't let me put in two $1 bills; i had to go to the office and get change. and of course, though i spent $4, i only got one bottle of shampoo.) i tried to visit two record stores thursday night, but both were closed by the time i found them.

still, all that pales in comparison to the frustration of the state of ohio closing the interstate in the middle of the day, with only one electronic sign at the side of the road informing drivers of the detour. that was unprecedented in all my years of driving. i've seen a lot of road construction and been in a lot of traffic jams, but never have i witnessed such a poor judgment call made by a department of transportation. it figures that it happened in ohio.

the trip wasn't all bad. walking around the OSU campus was pleasant enough. we had a tasty late-night pizza from a local place called gumby's—it even used the gumby character for a mascot (i doubt premavision gave permission). today we had a delicious lunch at an ethiopian restaurant named blue nile. and i did eventually get to spend some time (if not as much as i wanted) browsing the vinyl at lost weekend records. plus, since the conference was work-related, we'll get reimbursed for mileage, so even with $4 gas, most if not all our expenses will be covered.

still, i can't help but think the whole trip would've gone better if we'd arrived on schedule, rather than being rudely forced off course into a 90-minute traffic jam.¶

indy steps in it

the indy star is reporting that, thanks to our sprawling geography and prodigious use of coal, indianapolis has the second-largest carbon footprint in the country, per capita!

we're number two!

what's more, all the rest of the top 5 are within a 2-3 hour drive from here: lexington, ky; cincinnati; toledo; louisville. this is one dirty, hard-drivin', coal-burnin' region. ¶

shorter ruth holladay

shorter ruth holladay: if hillary has a penis—and i think she does—then that makes her and bill both fags! ha ha, bill and hillary are fags! ain't i hilarious?¶

fact handling

if you were expecting the indy star to follow up on its lousy reporting about panhandlers with some fact-checking, then you haven't been reading the star for very long.

on the contrary, they double down: not only does today's follow-up repeat mayor ballard's lie that "most panhandlers are not homeless", but today's editorial takes it even further:

Many advocates working with people on the streets argue that most panhandlers aren't truly homeless. Instead, their "job'' is to stake out a street corner and shake a cup, collecting money from passers-by.

the editorial doesn't mention who these advocates are, or how this misinformation got to the ed board. did the homeless advocates speak directly to the ed board? did they talk to reporter brendan o'shaughnessy, and the ed board took the lie from his article? or did someone on mayor ballard's staff say, "you know, many advocates say that most panhandlers are just scan artists" and it was accepted uncritically?

as i pointed out yesterday, every study i've been able to turn up has found that most panhandlers are indeed homeless. if anyone has any real evidence that this isn't the case, rather than scurrilous lies and anti-panhandler slurs, i would love to see it.

as it stands, it appears that either the indy star was duped—in which case, don't hold your breath for a correction—or, even worse, our city's homeless advocates have been duped and are out there spreading malicious lies about the people they think they're trying to help. the former seems a lot more likely, but perhaps only because the latter is more unsettling.

naturally, we can't count on political columnist matt tully to set the story straight. instead, he delivers yet another column of butterfly kisses for his man-crush, mitch daniels. you could program a bot to write tully'c columns by this point. no, if this lie is ever going to be corrected in the pages of the star, the only place it might happen is in a dan carpenter column. ¶

brother, can you spare some facts?

i've written before about mayor ballard's anti-panhandling initiative, a plan inspired not by compassion for his fellow man but by revulsion toward them. the mayor doesn't want to help the homeless or panhandlers; he simply doesn't want to have to look at them. this attitude was nicely summarized in the comments by abdul, who wrote, "The panhandlers are a pain! Someone whould get a giant broom and sweep them all away!" in other words, panhandlers are inhuman filth, fit only for the trashheap.

today, the mayor announced the latest piece of his plan, downtown donation boxes for the homeless, so people can "give at the box" rather than give money directly to panhandlers. the idea is that if everyone gives at the box, panhandling will become ineffective and people will stop doing it. this might work, but i think the key question is whether the folks who really need the money will actually get it. if people stop panhandling because they no longer need the income, that's great. but if they still need the money but no longer have a legal way to get it, that only makes things worse.

but my reason for posting was this quote from the indy star article:

Ballard and homeless advocates said most panhandlers are not homeless. Instead, they are scam artists betraying people's trust and good intentions, he said.

wow, most panhandlers aren't homeless? that struck me as a bold claim. it would've been nice if the star had thought to fact-check this assertion, but since no fact-checking was done, i decided to take it upon myself. and what did i find?

in this study of winnipeg panhandlers, 60% were homeless. this study found that the typical pandhandler "is a homeless, white male who is likely disabled". this toronto study found that "the majority of panhandlers in Toronto are homeless and living in extreme poverty". a more recent toronto study found that "three in four beggars are homeless".

contrary to what mayor ballard claims, the majority of panhandlers are homeless. of the ones who aren't, the vast majority are still poor and struggling to get by. the myth of the huckster who panhandles all day then goes home to a middle-class house is just that: a myth, propagated by those who want to justify their disgust toward and dehumanization of the poor, specifically the homeless.

i understand why some "homeless advocates" might want to support a donation-box program like this one, and to curb panhandling. but if i were CHIP or one of the other unnamed homeless advocates who were in attendance, i would be grossly offended by the lies told in my name by the mayor, and then attributed to me in the newspaper. (i'm giving CHIP the benefit of the doubt and assuming they were not the source of this false information; if they were then shame on them for not knowing what they're talking about.)

there's supposed to be more coverage in the star tomorrow; we'll see if that includes fact-checking this time. ¶

indana someplace: indy gets the super bowl

the super bowl's coming to indy in 2012!

WRTV's norm cox writes:

The universal reaction to Indianapolis getting the Super Bowl has been one of pure ecstasy.

apparently cox hasn't been reading the right-wing blogs, where the reaction has ranged from insisting it's not that great to minimizing the contributions of former mayor bart peterson. but cox is an old tv newshound, and at least he's trying to be a good blogger, so perhaps he can be forgiven for, you know... not reading blogs.

the essence of norm's post is that only fatcats get to attend the super bowl in person, so who cares? to wit:

Yes, the Super Bowl will bring lots of money to the city. And the hotels, restaurants, and bars who will gather most of it in should be ecstatic. So should their employees who will enjoy a tip bonanza. But for you and me, I ask again, why exactly should we be celebrating?

what norm neglects to mention in his lament is that some of the major recipients of that money will be media and television companies, such as the one that employs him—though to be sure, more of that money will go to the local NBC affiliate than to WRTV 6. and, as a minor local celebrity who works for one of those media outlets, norm has far better chances of scoring tickets (and being invited to VIP parties) than those of us who aren't on television regularly.

but let's take his question at face value. why should the average hoosier, who won't get to attend the big game in person and doesn't sling drinks or fluff pillows downtown, care about indy getting the super bowl?

perhaps some people are pleased about the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue the game will bring, even if they won't see any of it personally. maybe others are psyched about the plans for a huge new facility at tech high school that will benefit tens of thousands of kids over the years.

or maybe we're just pleased that the hometown many of us grew up calling "indiana noplace" has come so far. sure, getting around downtown will be a pain for a couple weeks in january/february 2012. but some of us remember a time when there was no reason to go downtown, unless you worked at a tv station or a law firm—it was a ghost town, a cultural dead zone. now, downtown is one of the most vibrant, exciting neighborhoods in the metro area, and i'd want to live there if there were better supermarkets. (someday...)

when i was young, we used to joke that indianapolis was nothing but a racetrack in the middle of a cornfield—not because we felt that way, but to mock out of towners who had no conception that indianapolis was a real city. indianapolis had the size and population, but what it didn't have back then was a real cultural identity... it was just a nondescript, sleepy little burg in the bible belt. things have changed vastly since those days, and getting the super bowl is symbolic of that. so yay, go us.¶

obama-bayh 2008?

indiana senate bayh was an early supporter of hillary clinton; conventional was that he was angling for the VP nomination, and that the ascendancy of obama has doomed the chance of that. but now bayh's name is being bandied about as a possible running mate for obama precisely because he's a clinton surrogate. here's yesterday's washington post:

In addition to the fledgling attempts to merge the fundraising operations of Obama and Clinton, there is growing talk that the best -- and perhaps only -- way to truly mend the rift is for Obama to pick a top Clinton surrogate as his vice presidential nominee.

"There's gale-force pressure for Obama to choose a Clinton loyalist as a running mate to heal the party but avoid putting her and her formidable baggage on the ticket," said one Obama ally in Washington. "You hear the names [Ohio Gov. Ted] Strickland, [Indiana Sen. Evan] Bayh, and [retired general] Wes Clark almost constantly, and it's no secret that Jim Johnson and Tom Daschle are purveyors of that wisdom."

i understand the logic here, but don't see much benefit in obama choosing another midwesterner like bayh. obama is from illinois; he doesn't need a running mate from an adjacent state.

on another note, if bayh were to be elected VP, who would get to choose his successor? the governor—in other words, mitch daniels. (even if jill long-thompson wins the governorship, i believe daniels would still get to make the appointment, though i'm happy to be corrected on that.)

fun fact: we had a special election in the 7th this year. the last time we had a special election in indiana was 20 years ago. indiana senator dan quayle had just been elected VP, and governor orr appointed then-4th-CD representative dan coats to fill quayle's spot in the senate. a special election was held to fill coats's vacancy in the house. who won that special election? a woman named jill long, who later married some dude named thompson.

so, if bayh were to become the VP candidate, there would be some very interesting parallels between the elections of 1988 and 2008. then again, i really don't want mitch daniels picking our next senator. ¶

speed racer review

the new speed racer movie didn't do as well as expected on opening weekend. in today's movie market, movies that don't have a massive open don't stay in the theaters for long, so i knew if i wanted to see it on the big screen, i had to do it soon. virago was a good enough sport to tag along.

i wanted to follow designer john gaeta's recommendation to see it in a theater with digital projection, so we went to the new AMC at castleton, which is only the second all-digital theater in the metropolitan area (the other's in plainfield). the theater is nice, with stadium seating and all the other frills that come standard on multiplexes these days.

on to speed racer: the visuals were spectacular. you could pause the film at almost any frame and have something worthy of being your desktop wallpaper, if not an actual poster on your wall. that alone made it worth seeing in the theater: this movie will still look wonderful at home on HDTV, but not as fantastic as it looked on a full digital movie screen.

so, on the level of something beautiful to trip out to, speed racer excels. this is definitely one to get on blu-ray and play on mute during parties. but what if you haven't been tossing back brews or bong hits all night? is it a good movie?

in terms of plot, storytelling, character development, and the usual metrics for critiquing film, speed racer does okay but not great. the plot is predictable. (care to guess who wins the big race at the end?) many of the characters come off as one-dimensional and (surprise) cartoonish, and the dramatic scenes have a tendency to drag.

then, there's spritle and chim-chim, speed's little brother and the family's pet chimp. as i feared, there is too much spritle and chim-chim in the movie. i understand that they were important characters in the show and thus needed to be included, but their screen time could have been cut significantly. that said, there were a few very nice scenes with these two, like the scene early on when they're watching kung-fu cartoons and visualize themselves as part of the action.

the movie had lots of cute scenes like that, from the opening scene of young speed at school fantasizing about racing to the heart-shaped flashbulbs during the big kiss at the finish line as the movie ends. but in between all the cute scenes and the whiz-bang graphics, there was stuff that wasn't as good—it moved slowly, was poorly acted, or was just silly.

so overall, a bit of a mixed bag. much better than i feared, but not as good as it could've been with a stronger script. virago called it "pretty but dumb", which sums it up nicely. the original cartoon was much the same—awesome yet absurdly campy and contrived—and the movie is very faithful to that spirit.

the kids who were sitting behind us loved it, and if i were 10, it would be the coolest movie ever. as an adult, i still had a lot of fun, but would've preferred more character development and less spritle. A+ for special effects; B- for storytelling. ¶

california love

the california supreme court has struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage:

"There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state's general legislative policy and preference," said the 120-page ruling.

It said that the state law's language "limiting the designation of marriage to a 'union between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples."

With the ruling, California becomes the second state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed. Massachusetts adopted the practice in 2004, and couples don't need to be state residents to wed there.¶

what can brown do to you?

the new-and-improved BMV website offers more online services than ever before. it now provides every BMV service except the one you actually want:

But the one online service drivers say they want most -- license renewal -- is still not available over the Internet.

In fact, online license renewal is banned by Indiana law.

banned? that's odd. BMV commissioner rod stiver says he's working on getting the ban overturned. a previous attempt to do so failed. and why did it fail?

Bill sponsor Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, said House members were debating a contentious immigration proposal at the time, and some worried that illegal immigrants would see online license renewals as an easy way to get identification.

that's right: fear of brown people is why hoosiers can't renew their driver's licenses online. i fail to see how a tool for renewing identification for license-holders will allow people who don't have licenses to get them, but then i'm not pathologically afraid of immigrants, either.

i shouldn't be surprised, especially considering what's going on in missouri. in a not-quite-related story, missouri right-wingers are trying to pass a new voter ID law similar to indiana's but with an extra twist: voters would not only need to show ID but proof of citizenship. this is a double-whammy that merges paranoia regarding voter fraud and fear of brown people for devastating effect: the secretary of state has calculated that 240,000 missourians could be impacted by the law if it passes. (missouri already passed a strict voter ID law in 2006 that was struck down by the state supreme court, so now they're trying to change the state constitution in order to pass the new restrictions.) ¶

belated post-election post

tully has a column today that, were i to summarize in "shorter" form, i would condense thusly: "jill long thompson won and jim schellinger lost, therefore long thompson's campaign was great and schellinger's campaign was teh suck." but i don't want to do that, because frankly this is the first tully column that's even been worth reading in at least a month, as recently he's been phoning it in while chasing the national spotlight.

the column has some good insights into the schellinger campaign's missteps, and i recommend it for those who're interested in that topic. what bugged me about it was the implication (both in the column and elsewhere) that JLT campaign hadn't made the kind of missteps schellinger had—of course, tully already showed his colors last month in that regard. the fact is that both candidates ran lousy campaigns. both candidates wasted 2007. both struggled to be seen and to articulate a vision. and yes, the race was completely overshadowed by the presidential race, but only because both candidates failed to make themselves known months ago, back when everyone assumed indiana's primary would be meaningless as usual. (JLT had built-in name recognition from her past service in congress, which helped her greatly.)

in the end, i went with schellinger, as did most liberal bloggers. it's weird; i can't think of a single liberal blogger who was on record as a JLT supporter, aside from a couple pseudonymous commenters on blue indiana. schellinger wasn't just the candidate of choice for party insiders; he had the support of the blogs as well.

why is that? there are a few reasons—resentment about JLT's negative campaigning was a big one—but perhaps the most important was blogger outreach. the JLT campaign did none that i'm aware of. her online presence is weak overall and her campaign's attitude toward bloggers has ranged from indifference to hostility. in contrast, schellinger struggled with this for awhile, but eventually turned it all around when he hired jen wagner. by the end, his blogger outreach was excellent, but it wasn't enough to put him over the top.

so jill long thompson is now the nominee for governor. i'll be happy to vote for her come november, but she's really going to have to step up her game if she wants to beat mitch daniels. mitch's unpopularity makes him vulnerable, but he's still a strong campaigner sitting on a lot of money, and is going to be a lot more difficult to beat than schellinger was.

in election other news, how about that andré carson? it might have been a very different race if it had been between two or three candidates, but instead there were a nonillion of them all attacking each other, dividing the hater vote. pity the poor haters: they thought they had a shot this year.

and for president, hillary squeaked out ahead, but not by enough to really matter. it's been apparent for awhile that obama will be the nominee. in fact, that was apparent before indiana's primary, but the media politley pretended that indiana's primary was actually going to matter for the first time in 40 years. you never know... come 2048, maybe indiana will be the tie-breaker between robama and hillbot. ¶

nuns disenfranchised

the number of people disenfranchised by indiana's voter ID law is small, but these people do exist:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

"One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, 'I don't want to go do that,'" Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

these nuns live in convents where they are taken care of by their sister nuns. they have no use for government-issued identification, and acquiring valid ID is a major hassle for them. also:

One newly married woman said she was told she couldn't vote because her driver's license name didn't match the one on her voter registration record, said Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center Justice at New York University's law school, coordinator of the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hot line. Another woman said she was turned away from casting her first-ever ballot because she had only a college-issued ID card and an out-of-state driver's license, Perez said.¶

middletown

you know we're living in interesting times when the washington post writes a whole article about muncie, indiana and it ends up on atrios. it's a good piece about how hard muncie has been hit by the worsening economy, and a much better read than that awful new york times article on kokomo a couple weeks back.

i don't need to mention that today is the indiana primary, currently being marketed as the primary to end all primaries. i voted around 10:30 this morning (usually i don't vote until late afternoon after work) and already more ballots had been cast in my precinct than in the last couple elections. this one should be interesting. ¶

mashup accomplished!

in just two days of release, more people have downloaded my post-mashup EP mash smarter not harder than my previous release, wack cylinders. if you're not one of those people, you can be! download mash smarter not harder now, before all your friends get it first. this is probably my most accessible (and dance-friendly) work ever, and perfect for those who found previous stAllio! or AWIA releases too abrasive. you can even go all out and download mash smarter desktop wallpapers (more coming soon).

i'm in the process of converting this material into a more improvisation-friendly format for live shows, so that i can basically remix the stuff live rather than just press play like some plunderphonic acts... the live debut of the new style will be friday, may 23, in niles, michigan. and of course, i'll be playing this stuff and (hopefully) some new stuff at my wedding show in october... if you can wait that long.

i've also updated the stAllio! discography, both to include the latest releases and to match the new design (though entries for older releases still have the old look). the entry for wack cylinders even lists all known samples in the album. as for mash smarter not harder, i haven't released a sample list yet... i've been toying with having a trainspotter contest to see who can be first to name all the samples, but i don't know what i'd give away for a prize. ¶

who dares question the great and powerful doctor myers?

i hadn't intended to post today. i'd planned to leave my post about mash smarter not harder on top to draw more attention there. but i can't go with commenting on this.

david orentlicher unveiled the season's first negative ad in the 7th, attacking both andré carson (the incumbent) and woody myers (whom all the polls have in second place). not too surprising, since i'm pretty sure the orentlicher campaign was already doing push polling. what was surprising was what happened next.

the myers campaign hit back, insisting the ad was inaccurate. but here's where it gets crazy: they threatened to sue the orentlicher campaign if the ad wasn't pulled immediately.

naturally, the orentlicher campaign told him to shove it. so now woody's stuck: either he doesn't file suit and loses face, or he does and gets laughed out of court—because even if the ad is inaccurate, there's no way he'll be able to prove malicious intent, which is required to win a libel case.

and that's just the start of it. not only did woody threaten to sue david o, but he started threatening bloggers who'd written critically of him. he threatened suit against bil browning, and not even for anything bil had written, but for something written on bil's blog by tyrion (who had posted the same content at two other blogs that somehow escapted threat of legal action).

when bil asked what in particular the campaign objected to, the lawyers refused to tell him, which isn't just odd but obstinate. they also threatened to sue sheila suess kennedy, but at least in her case the campaign was nice enough to say what the problem was:

A few days ago, I posted testimony given by Dr. Woody Meyers in the late 1990s, which had been sent to me (and presumably others)anonymously. (I assume it was sent to me because I write for the Indianapolis Star.) I checked the source cited for the testimony, saw it was accurate, and posted it. Subsequently, a commenter from Dr. Meyers' campaign posted a response, to the effect that the testimony was indeed correct, but that it had been offered in response to a different amendment to ERISA than the later amendment familiarly known as the Patients' Bill of Rights.

i imagine the issue with tyrion's post and david o's ad is similar... though i'm only guessing because they refuse to say. i can see why the campaign would upset at this misattribution of his comments, but can't fathom how anyone thought this was worthy of litigation. you hit back, you post comments about how it's inaccurate, but why threaten to file a lawsuit you can't possibly win? orentlicher is a lawyer for crying out loud; you won't scare him that way. this is foolish, unproductive blundering. it only serves to draw more attention to the orentlicher attack ad, and it damages woody's appeal, because it makes him look like a spoiled, petulant child.

it was already clear that the myers campaign doesn't grok the internet. that was clear from the fact that they let their official blogger joh padgett run around making unprofessional comments at blue indiana and other blogs. but a congressional candidate threatening to sue bloggers for negative coverage? is that a first? it has to be, for indiana at least.

i wasn't planning to vote myers anyway, but if i had, this would make me seriously reconsider. ¶

stAllio! - mash smarter not harder out now!

mash smarter not harder isn't just an EP. it's an audio manifesto, a roadmap to a mashed-up future. the goal of this EP isn't just to generate downloads or make you shake your ass—though it promises to do both—but to spawn a new golden age of mashups.

with this EP, stAllio! introduces a brand-new style that takes the mashup aesthetic to the next level. samples shuffle in and out, then back in again before you even notice them. the music flips, skips, and hops between your favorite hits so effortlessly you could be forgiven for thinking it was all meant to be this way. this new style—whatever you call it: post-mashup, dance collage, new-school bootleg—mixes the energy and danceability of Girl Talk with the subversive wit of Negativland and Cassetteboy.

if you love mashups, if you used to love mashups but nowadays find them a bit boring, or if you're just interested in remixing, sampling, audio manipulation, and the like, you need to download mash smarter not harder immediately. get it now and get on the bandwagon while there's still room.

is this EP as good as we say it is? is it even possible for a record to live up to this much hype? the only way to find out is to download it right now! you've got nothing to lose, because the download is FREE!¶

good old caller ID...

so the caller who push-polled me last night didn't block his number from my caller ID, which is how i knew that the call came from miami. i went ahead and searched for the whole number, which led me to a company called sun surveys. this is definitely the company that called me; their contact number is the one that showed up on my caller ID.

i haven't had any luck so far tracking down this nebulous "AP research" company that called my parents (and others). the name is just too hard to filter: i'm getting lots of hits about the associated press and advanced placement exams, and not much of use. it might be a lot easier with a telephone number, but my parents don't have caller ID.

if you caught my previous update, my currest theory is that two different campaigns are doing push polling: carolene mays is behind the AP research calls and orentlicher is behind the sun surveys calls. (in other words, of the four frontrunners, the two that are behind are now doing push-polling.) i could be wrong, and they could all be coming from the same place, but i doubt it. ¶

push polling in the 7th

i got called for two telephone polls today on my cell phone.

the first call was a local number and the caller identified herself as being with the orentlicher campaign. she asked how likely i was to vote and whom i planned to vote for. when she heard that my answer wasn't david o, she asked if i was still listening to other candidates and suggested i check orentlicherforcongress.com.

about an hour later i got a call from the 305 area code (i later looked it up: miami). the caller had a foreign accent that i took to be latin (though perhaps i came up with this later when i saw it was miami) and identified himself as being with an opinion survey. first he asked whether i had a positive or negative opinion on various democratic figures (7th district front-runners mays, myers, carson, & orentlicher). then my choice for president and whether i was fully committed to that candidate or just leaning. then my choice for 7th district and level of commitment.

then he read me some messages (paraphrased):

• david orentlicher will stand up to special interests and won't take their money.
• andré carson takes special interest money.
• woody myers is self-financing his campaign.

there was no message about carolene mays, whom i'd already said i had a negative opinion of. he asked how likely these were to change my vote (they weren't), and just to be sure he again asked whom i'd vote for in the 7th, then finally asked my age and race, and reminded me this was just an "opinion survey".

the second call seemed like a textbook push poll. and perhaps i'm just cynical, but my first thought was that maybe my answers to the first call prompted the second.

then i went out for a bit, before i could blog about the calls, and when i got back i had an upset email from my mother claiming that she'd also received a push poll this evening. this pollster identified herself as being from "AP research for Indiana" and tried to pass on a negative message about woody myers failing to get health care passed in washington. this caller was also heavily accented, though they guessed her to be from somewhere like india.

the details are different enough that i can't be positive the two push polls were related. then again, the fact that they all came tonight is awfully suspicious. at any rate, at least one campaign is doing push-polling, and the obvious culprit would seem to be the orentlicher campaign.

update: apparently vox populi got a push poll from AP research back in march. at that time, AP research fed him negative messages about orentlicher and carson. it seems unlikely that there would be two AP researches or that the group would switch sides, which suggests that the carolene mays campaign is behind the AP research calls.

that doesn't explain why the call i received would feed me positive messages about david o. i can't see the mays campaign doing that. the logical conclusion would seem to be that both mays and orentlicher are now doing push polling. ¶

voter ID appeal rejected

the supreme court has rejected the ACLU's appeal of indiana's voter ID law. the court ruled 6-3 against the ACLU, but there was no true majority opinion—three justices loved the law, three thought it sucked, and the other three didn't feel the ACLU had presented enough evidence of actual disenfranchisement to justify overturning it.

the end result is that the law will remain in effect during this year's elections, but because there was no majority opinion, it's still vulnerable to appeal... provided the plaintiffs come up with better evidence next time.

for analysis see doug and scotusblog. ¶

oballer

¶

big sale on coke powder

so that's where people get it from...

but seriously, considering i took this photo at the same place as this one, i suspect this was the work of culture-jamming vandals rather than chance or an honest mistake.

the time for robots is now

virago's father & grandmother drove into town yesterday,* and grandma decided she wanted to check out that building with the dinosaurs bursting out of it, which she remembered from her last visit: the children's museum. mind you, there were no children among us, but i hadn't been there in more than 10 years and the rest of the group had never been before, so off we went.

we didn't make it further than the second floor, but there were some great exhibits, the coolest of which was definitely the robots + us exhibit. unfortunately, we didn't discover the exhibit until right before it was due to end: tomorrow is the last day. on the bright side, two new cool-looking exhibits open up: one called comic book heroes and another about animation.

* they drove in from springfield, IL and arrived an hour and a half late. why? because they didn't know that indiana is now on a different time zone than illinois in the summer. going to DST was supposed to permanently answer the question of "what time is it in indiana?" but only made it more difficult. then again, what do i know? i'm just a redneck.

i knew there had to be cake!

candidate tony zirkle attending a bday party for hitler is the gift that keeps on giving. it's all over the national blogs now; i just spotted a post on atrios, which led me to think progress, which led to the news-dispatch from michigan city... ah, the tangled interwebs:

At the event, Hitler's birthday was observed with a cake with a photo of Hitler and the words "Seig Heil."

to think that people doubted there would be cake. it can't be a birthday party without cake, and that goes for hitler as much as anyone else. i knew all along, but couldn't have hoped for a more adorable image than a sheet cake with a photo of hitler and the words "seig heil" lovingly applied in frosting. that is so precious! ¶

shorter matt tully

shorter matt tully: my hero mitch daniels got in trouble because of something some stupid blogger wrote (dumb bloggers), so i'm going to pretend what the blogger wrote was inaccurate, even though it wasn't. ¶

shorter new york times

shorter new york times: hoosiers are a bunch of hillbillies, rednecks, rubes, hicks, yokels, and hayseeds.

(via)

update: oops, i left off "ignorant, corn-fed, xenophobic, small-town luddites" and probably a couple other things. i guess that's why it's called "shorter".¶

a quick teaser

here's a taste of the cover art for mash smarter not harder. (it's either going to be this or one of these two color variations; probably whichever goes best with the rest of the artwork.)

there will be no advance singles or preview mp3s. to find out what it sounds like, you'll have to wait until the EP comes out and download it (for free) like everyone else. however, you shouldn't have to wait much longer: target date is may 1st.

zirkle: nazis less evil than porn

the south bend tribune follows up on the story of tony zirkle attending hitler's birthday party. thomas quotes the funniest part of the article, where zirkle tries to explain that the reason he hates jews is because they're to blame for the existence of pornography, not because he's racist or anything. so instead, i'll focus on the bottom of the article:

Riley, the Republican chairman, [...] said, "To see him standing in front of that flag and in front of that monster (Hitler) kindled deep emotions within me."

He said the Republican Party does not accept Zirkle as a member. He said he plans to take steps to make sure Zirkle is not admitted to Republican events or otherwise allowed to associate with the party.

"Nazism, socialism and fascism are polar opposites of what the Republican Party stands for," Riley said.

i don't know about that last sentence, but good for riley and the republicans for condemning zirkle in the strongest language possible.

The party has been consistent in condemning Zirkle's philosophy of racial intolerance, he added.

Zirkle worried that his message will be misunderstood and people will attack him. The point he was making, he said, is that pornography is evil

as are jews...

and is undermining society in many ways,

...again, like jews...

from health care to social relations to family life.

To punctuate his message, he shredded an original copy Monday of Penthouse magazine from September 1969.

i'm tickled by the image of him "punctuating his message" by shredding vintage porn. i'm having visions of him at a debate with a stack o' nudie mags, tossing another magazine on the shredder for emphasis whenever he makes a salient point. it could be a hell of a rhetorical device. sadly, they generally don't allow props at congressional debates. ¶

guess who went to hitler's birthday party?

you might not have known that yesterday, april 20, was hitler's birthday. but tony zirkle, republican candidate for indiana's 2nd district, knew. he even attended a birthday party for hitler yesterday, held by a neo-nazi group in chicago. hoosier access has the scoop, along with photos of zirkle at the gathering, standing betwixt two swastikas and in front of a portrait of the fuhrer. (my favorite part is the adorable "happy 119th birthday" banner on the table. i bet they had cake and punch, too.)

zirkle attracted attention last month for suggesting that segregation might be a good idea, and before that for shredding a vintage issue of playboy, advocating the return of the guillotine, and more. but while he's always been entertainingly out-there, the fact that he would openly speak to—and let himself be photographed with—neo-nazis takes his candidacy to an entirely new level. after this, i'll be surprised if the indiana GOP doesn't force him to drop out of the race. ¶

mindwar and message-force multipliers

yet another story from the "this ought to be shocking, but under the bush administration, it's not even surprising" file: remember all those "independent" military analysts that used to be all over the tv (back when the media was still regularly covering the war)? it turns out the pentagon had a lot of them in the tank. this is a long story, but here's a taste:

In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld’s private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself.

"Oh, you have no idea," Mr. Allard said, describing the effect. "You're back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV." It was, he said, "psyops on steroids" — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. "It's not like it's, 'We'll pay you $500 to get our story out,'" he said. "It's more subtle."

The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.

...

"I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south," General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

"You can't believe the progress," General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be "down to a few numbers" within months.

...

Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq's purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled asking the briefer whether the United States had "smoking gun" proof.

"'We don't have any hard evidence,'" Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. "We are looking at ourselves saying, 'What are we doing?'"

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling "very disappointed" after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being "manipulated" to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.¶

i hope you paid your gas bill on time...

because if not, you may be in trouble:

A computer server containing Social Security numbers and other personal information of 700,000 people was stolen last month from a Southside debt-collection bureau in what appears to be the largest computer security breach in Indiana history.

The information includes customer-billing records for about 100 Indiana businesses, including Citizens Gas & Coke, St. Vincent Health system and Methodist Medical Group.
Advertisement

The exposed data was limited to past-due billing information that had been turned over for debt collection to the Central Collection Bureau, the agency announced today. Other customers, whose accounts were in good standing, were not affected.

it's bad enough if your bill has been sent to collections, without having to worry about your identity being stolen. of course, the irony is that if your name is on that server, then you probably don't have much credit for any identity thieves to steal. ¶

speed racer

i'm a bit torn on this one.

everything i've seen suggests that the speed racer movie will be total eye candy—a real visual feast. and that's no surprise, considering it's the new film by the wachowski brothers, who gave us the matrix.

for example, see this io9 post about the stunning design work: there are some amazing screenshots. and the latest full-length trailer makes the movie look pretty exciting.

on the other hand, the original speed racer series was at times one of the cheesiest, campiest things ever shown on television. and the tv commercials for the movie make clear that it includes some of this cheese: the characters spritle and chim-chim feature prominently in some of the ads (fortunately, chim-chim doesn't appear at all in the latest trailer, so hopefully their role is small).

so what am i to do? i still haven't seen last year's transformers movie because i knew in advance that while the special effects would be mind-blowing, the movie itself would simply blow. after all, i've been burned before—i saw what dreams may come in the theatre.

so there's a possibility that speed racer will totally suck. furthermore, the design work and effects look so awesome that it might be worth seeing in the theatre even if it does. then again, it might not. in fact, if done properly, it could be great.

so i'm torn. i'm thinking i probably will see it in the theatres, though if it gets a lot of bad reviews that might dissuade me. but i don't know who i'll go see it with, since virago hasn't shown much interest. hell, if it comes to the theatre nearest me, maybe i'll go alone and walk there. it might be a movie about race car drivers, but there's no need to waste gas going to see it when we have near-record gas prices. ¶

as if i didn't have enough trouble sleeping...

wednesday night, an f-16 pilot flying over kokomo screwed up and caused a sonic boom. or at least, that's the official explanation for the loud explosive sound residents heard, along with the weird flashes of light that had dozens calling in reports of a UFO.

perhaps coincidentally, the next day i posted an image of a UFO.

then this morning, we were awakened by a loud noise:

A 5.2 magnitude earthquake that appeared to rival the strongest recorded in the region rocked people up to 450 miles away from the southern Illinois epicenter early today, surprising residents unaccustomed to such a powerful Midwest temblor.

The quake traveled the length of Indiana, but there were no reports of injuries or damage.

the quake hit at 5:37 a.m. indiana time. i've felt worse—maybe not a bigger earthquake, but one that was closer, so it shook me harder—but i don't think i've ever been awoken by seismic activity before. it wasn't a lot of fun—usually i don't get rudely awakened until at least 6:30.

update: i think i just felt a small aftershock, at 11:15 a.m.¶

bad taste springs eternal

spring 2008 is an exciting time for bad taste music exchange!

march saw the release of wack cylinders. then april 1 brought new, freely downloadable releases by baconhanger and unszene. and then yesterday was the official release of hexadecimate, the new cd by dr. butcher m.d. (which you can stream from the site).

that's four new releases in less than six weeks. could it be possible that we might still have more coming? yes! in fact, early may will bring another new free download from stAllio! this new stAllio! EP is the one you've been waiting for. you could say my entire musical career has been building up to this one. i'm not quite ready to say much more, but it's called mash smarter not harder.

image note: i actually created this graphic a couple weeks ago and left it sitting on my hard drive, but now that the title of the x-files movie has been announced, i figured i should post it. ¶

shorter ipopa

i normally like the ipopa blog, but jesus...

shorter ipopa: the problem with kids these days is we don't beat 'em enough.

bonus silliness:

Every generation gives the crotchety old man speech about 'these kids today,' but it's actually true now.

no, the main difference is that now you're the crotchety old man.

and super extra bonus points for making me feel ancient by using an EPMD lyric for the title of his crotchety old man post. just think... in 20 years, the condescending "kids these days" posts will be named after lyrics by lil wayne and flo rida. ¶

a miracle discovery

this onion video hit a bit close to home for me.¶

another day, another sloppy story

the indy star has a story up about campaign finances in the indiana governor's race. if you haven't been following the race, you'll be forgiven if your head explodes when you read paragraph three:

Daniels, who is unopposed, has raised more than three times the amount of his two challengers combined.

of course, daniels is unopposed in the primary, but two democrats and probably some others are vying to run against him in the fall.

hopefully, the story will be updated—along with PDFs of the latest campaign finance reports for wonks to geek out over—and this error might disappear when it is, but you can never really tell. ¶

star ed board: ballard's promise a "rookie error"

remember yesterday when i was craving some critical analysis of the mayor's state-of-the-city speech? well, it's not perfect, but here's the indy star ed board:

Mayor Greg Ballard this week, in raising the possibility of repealing last year's increase in the local option income tax, promised more than he likely can deliver in the foreseeable future.

Ballard, delivering the State of the City address on only his 100th day in office, did hedge the promise, making it contingent upon the General Assembly approving the Kernan-Shepard commission's recommendations for local government consolidation.

Ballard is certainly correct in supporting the commission's proposals, which include eliminating township governments and cutting by thousands the number of elected officials. The panel's recommendations offer taxpayers throughout the state their best hope for halting and even reversing rapid increases in local government spending.

But state legislators haven't rushed to embrace the bulk of the recommendations. If and when the proposals are approved, the reforms will take time to implement, and savings will take even longer to materialize.

in other words, mayor ballard went up there and promised to do something that he knows he won't be able to do for years, if ever. not bright. of course, he painted himself into a corner will all those impossible-to-achieve campaign promises. here's how the editorial concludes:

Floating the tax repeal promise, no matter how it was hedged, was, however, a rookie error. If the budget numbers someday make the tax cut possible, then, by all means, make the move. But even the mayor admits the city isn't there yet, and may not be anytime soon.

This was one applause line that could haunt the city, and the mayor, for years to come.

i was hoping for more—this only criticizes one statement, and pretty much ignores the rest of the speech (and the mayor's other mistakes)—but it's something. maybe the ed board wanted to make up for yesterday's misleading headline. ¶

you wouldn't like me when i'm angry

republican will statom has quite the temper:

Statom, a Republican appointee in the county's voter registration office, believed Wednesday's meeting of the county election board -- called by its president, Phil Nichols -- violated an Indiana law that requires 48 hours prior notice for most public meetings.

Statom, who was back working Thursday, said he found it "absolutely unconscionable" that the newspaper hadn't challenged the legality of the meeting instead of reporting, in a Wednesday front-page article, that Nichols had called an "emergency meeting" over his concerns that voter-registration applications might not be processed in a timely manner.

why, that's outrageous! that totally explains his reaction:

Witnesses said Wednesday's altercation occurred after the meeting, when Werner, interviewing a Barack Obama supporter in the hallway, responded to an insult from Statom by telling the registration worker to "shut up."

Authorities said Statom passed by the reporter, then turned and shoved Werner into a wall. In an ensuing struggle, both men fell to the floor, with Statom allegedly trying to choke the reporter. The Republican appointee also punched Barry Welsh, a Democratic congressional candidate trying to break up the fight, in the eye.

it's a natural reaction, when confronted with bad news, to want to attack the messenger. will statom did that literally. though you might wonder, if he was so pissed about the emergency meeting being called, why attack the reporter and give barry welsh a black eye? if he wanted to beat someone up, it would've made more sense to assault election board president phil nichols... you know, the guy who actually called the meeting.

and yes, as you might have noticed above, statom was back at work the next day. ¶

blogger v blogger

i have a confession: even after all the shit i've written about gary welsh, he's never sent me a personal email. i figure he doesn't think i'm worth responding to. i know i've pissed him off before, but even when complaining about me on his blog, he's avoided mentioning my name.

others aren't so lucky. gary has become notorious for sending over-the-top emails full of histrionics when he's angered, which happens frequently. (the man doesn't respond well to criticism, despite what he may say.) yesterday, he sent one to bil browning, even taking it to the next level by threatening to sue bil. bil's response is to tell him to fuck off:

You see Gary, everyone is tired of your irate screeds that you send out willy nilly. This isn't the first time I've had one of your inane notes land in my inbox. In fact, this isn't the tenth or twentieth time. I've come to expect them and usually just junk them for the trash they are. You've even e-mailed some of our other Bilerico contributors based on posts on their blogs.

Do you remember sending Mike Rogers of PageOneQ repeated e-mails screaming that he was stealing your content since his national news roundup didn't link to you but linked the Indianapolis Star stories instead? After all, you're the only blogger smart enough to find a story published both online and in a daily newspaper for the 12th largest city in the US! It got you banned from ever being linked on the popular LGBT aggregator blog for sending threatening and hateful e-mails to the site's owner.

How about e-mailing Pam Spaulding when she didn't write a post for Pam's House Blend about Aaron Hall's murder the way you thought it should be written? Perhaps that ego was also at work when you sent her suggestions on how to write her content better. Her traffic and influence far outweighs yours; maybe she could give you tips on how to make allies in the blogosphere. How was your success rate with this hateful rant?

You've sent e-mails to GayIndy.org's mailing list members - both privately and on the list. Your "friends" forward copies of your e-mails around as "OMG look how crazy he's gotten now!" jokes. Remember when you threatened to publish embarrassing tidbits from my youth if I didn't change my stance on whether or not Aaron Hall's murder was a hate crime? How about all of the times local officials refused to return your phone calls, the mainstream media has ignored you or the local activists have snubbed you?

You have a history now, Gary. You talk trash and then get offended if someone calls you on it or describes you in a manner you don't like. If you don't like how you're being treated by activists, media, politicians and blogs, perhaps the wise course of action would be to change your modus operandi.

i don't write about gary as much as i used to because it just got old; it got to the point where i felt bad for him, like i was picking on him just because he was so horrifically wrong on so many issues.

but those were simpler days. then mayor ballard took office, and gary's dreams of greg the supermayor were shattered by the depressing reality of ballard the bumbler. then came the special election. gary's behavior grew worse than ever, as he became deeply emotionally invested in jon elrod—and was devastated by elrod's inevitable loss. in the days that followed, his tone grew so dark and bitter that i honestly worried for his safety.

but he seems to have moved on, and is back to his old hijinks. only now, his new favorite target is barack obama—he'll post any attack on obama, no matter how absurd. which leaves him in the bizarre position of sometimes defending hillary clinton. i never thought i'd see that happen, as back in the day, there was nobody he hated more than the clintons. i guess you've got to have priorities.

update: as you might've guessed, gary has a particularly whiny post on his blog about the subject. naturally, he does not link to bil's post so that his readers can see what he's bitching about, nor does he bother to acknowledge that he threatened to sue bil, which seems like the whole point to me. ¶

ballard: a man of words

man, do i miss the accidental mayor blog. last night, mayor ballard gave his first state-of-the-city address, yet i'm having a hard time finding any quality analysis of the speech. the indystar article has a highly misleading headline—the mayor's suggestion that he would repeal the income tax increase was smothered under a mountain of ifs. this advance indiana post is a good start, but doesn't go far enough—it's only about the COIT increase. abdul's posts are little more than a blogospheric blowjob, as is typical whenever abdul writes about the new mayor. and jason at x-tra rant probably won't have anything on the speech, because he's already written his two blog posts this week.

so where's a guy have to go to get a good critical analysis of the mayor's speech? i suppose i could do it myself, but i was hoping to spend most of the day working on my next musical project.

anyway, while writing about mayor ballard, i feel obliged to mention this: here is an article in the star's business section about a firm called author solutions. author solutions is a self-publishing company, also called a vanity press. when a traditional publisher puts out your book, they pay you for the right to do so... and if you sell a bunch, they pay you more. with a vanity publisher, you pay them... and if you sell a bunch, you get your investment back, maybe even make a profit.

there are advantages to working this way: as an author, you can make decent money if you sell a modest number of books. so these publishers do put out some good stuff. but, because any tom, dick, or weirdo with a thousand bucks to burn can get his book published, they also put out a lot of crap—think song-poems.

with that in mind, read this quote from the star story on author solutions:

"There's not much of an appetite among mainstream publishers. They deal with known people and agents," Andy Tate said.

But "known" authors increasingly are shunning traditional deals in favor of self-publishing. Author Solutions has published books by Sen. Richard Lugar, Mayor Greg Ballard, comedian Rita Rudner and others.

that's right, the mayor's book, the ballard rules: small unit leadership, was published by author house, a subsidiary of author solutions. not that there's anything wrong with that—i'm sure he's made his money back and then some.

but here's the thing: greg ballard wasn't a "known" author when he published the book! on the contrary, back in 2005, nobody knew who the guy was. he didn't run for mayor, and thus become famous, until two full years later! portraying him as a "known" author who chose to "shun" traditional publishers isn't merely false, it's downright backward. the man ran a training program for middle managers; he was no rita rudner. ¶

tully needs to read tully

indy star political columnist matt tully gets a lot of heat for being lazy. this criticism isn't always fair—tully is capable of good journalism, as in his investigative pieces about the phoenix apartments last year—but there is some truth to it.

for example, take today's column. it's a hit piece against democratic gubernatorial candidate jim schellinger. there's nothing wrong with that, per se, but he makes some puzzling claims—one in particular left me staring at my monitor, mouth agape.

the gyst of his column is that schellinger isn't doing as well as hoped, and his primary competitor, jill long thompson, is doing better than expected. fair enough; it might even be true. but check out his first bit of evidence:

Moreover, after promising a positive campaign, Schellinger recently went negative. That smelled of desperation. On the other hand, Long Thompson's campaign, on a tighter budget, has been free of such drama.

nasty, nasty jim schellinger dared to go negative! not so for the long thompson campaign—no drama there! unfortunately, not only is this incorrect, but its falsity is demonstrated by a column tully himself wrote four months ago. here is that column in the google cache (it's been removed from indystar.com for being too old):

With the first two goals eliminated, state Democrats now hope to avoid a nasty primary battle. Events of this past week, however, suggest that, too, might not happen.

Behind the scenes, the two campaigns until recently had engaged in a few skirmishes. Nothing too serious. Just a little dig here and there, most of which went unnoticed. But this past week, the digs got deeper, and the fighting went public.

It all started when Thompson began tying Schellinger to higher property taxes, which, as you know, are about as popular these days as the New England Patriots in these parts. Her reasoning: Schellinger's architecture firm has made a bundle on property-tax-financed school construction projects.

emphasis mine. long thompson has been negative campaigning since december. and tully even complained about it in his column at the time! but today, tully whines because schellinger "recently" went negative, and claims jill long thompson's campaign has been "free of such drama".

i'm undecided between the two candidates—as with the presidential primary, i'll be happy to vote for either of them in the general election—but if you're going to pick one over the other, you should do so based on facts and not misinformation.

such shoddy work is lazy in the extreme. not only did tully apparently do no research for his column this week, but he doesn't remember that he wrote about the same topic—and said the opposite—just four months back.

tully would be well-served by reading his own column from time to time. he might be surprised by what he learns.

p.s. if you were hoping for an eventual return of political junkie, tully's blog, which has been "on vacation" since july, 2007, you can stop holding your breath. all the broken image links at the top of the page suggest the blog will never come back. blogging regularly is hard work, after all.¶

kids first now fifth, and other IGWT casualties

indiana bloggers have been complaining about those pesky "in god we trust" license plates since they came out last year. it's not just that they're a blatant, unconstitutional government endorsement of christianity. the biggest problem with the plates is that they were distributed at no extra charge. this means that not only does the state lose money on each IGWT plate it sells, since the IGWT plates are more expensive to produce, but that other specialty plates were unfairly impacted, effectively taking money away from local nonprofits.

a year later, the sales numbers are in, and the IBJ crunches the numbers. the indianapolis colts were big winners in 2007, seeing a 131% increase in plate sales thanks to their super bowl win. area nonprofits didn't fare so well. the following IBJ chart pretty much says it all:


thanks in large part to the 1.5 million IGWT plates sold last year, 47% fewer environment plates were sold. that means that the state environmental trust that benefits from those plates received 47% less money from license plate fees in 2007.

similarly, indiana kids first saw a 57% decrease in license plate revenue, the education trust got hit with a 56% decrease, and hoosier safety gets a 51% decrease. IU and purdue saw 38% and 27% decreases, respectively. only the mighty marketing machine at riley hospital escaped relatively unscathed, with only an 11% decrease.

while other factors were likely involved in these sales decreases, the #1 factor is undeniably the rollout of the IGWT plates. a million and a half people switched to those plates, and the result is millions of dollars less going to indiana nonprofits. all so that christians can drive around with a government endorsement of their religion tacked onto their cars, without even having to pay a few bucks extra for it. ¶

big announcement: you are invited

it's true: virago & i are going to get married on friday, october 17. we're not that interested in a big church wedding or all the traditional trappings. instead, that night, we're having a show at therapy nightclub in downtown indianapolis, and we've invited midwest breakcore legend doormouse to play.

this promises to be a very special night for us, so won't you help us celebrate? coming soon, i'll be selling $10 advance tickets online via paypal (or cash if you can track me down in person).

stay tuned to animalswithinanimals.com and badtaste4life.com for more details. ¶

stop the madness!

the indy star site has gotten a lot of flak in the past—from this blog in particular—for insufficient moderation of its comments. recently, the star adopted a new design that brings user comments right onto the same page as the news article.

many have wondered how the new setup would fare in warding off hate speech and the other filth that used to run rampant—the new system requires commenters to register, which some speculated would keep out some of the worst offenders. today, we get our first major test: another story about foot baths at the airport!

so how does it fare? well, things don't seem to be any better. not only are the comments still brimming with offensive muslim-hate, but i had no trouble finding this racial slur—it was the second comment on the story:


stop the madness, indeed! note the timestamp: 6 a.m. i'm writing this at 9:30 and the comment is still there. in fact, i clicked that report abuse link at least 20 minutes ago and the comment's still up. how long does it take to get hate speech deleted from indystar.com?

but my favorite part is that five people recommended the comment. five people saw the words "towel heads" and thought, yeah, i agree with that! click! ¶

new backgrounds!

i got some mixed reviews for the previous backgrounds, so i've replaced them with some newer ones. i'll probably change them every couple months.

click refresh to see them all!¶