back home again in indiana

hello there! a week has passed since last i blogged—a week of much vacationing—so here's what you missed.

monday it rained all day, which as you might have guessed wasn't the sort of weather we'd gone to palm springs for. so while we went out to eat, we didn't get to do everything we'd hoped. in the morning, we went to breakfast at pinocchio's in the desert, where we sipped bottomless glasses of champagne (technically sparking wine, but for $3.95 it was good enough). virago dined on lobster benedict and i jumped at the rare chance to enjoy a monte cristo. (monte cristos seem to have vanished off most menus by the early '80s.)

from there, we went to the palm springs art museum, figuring it was something indoors we could do while we waited for the rain to stop. naturally, the meseum is closed mondays, so off we went back toward the motel. we promptly got lost and ended up at the target in cathedral city. this was fortunate because we needed to buy some stuff there anyway. then it was back to the motel, hoping the sun would eventually come out.

it never did; the rain didn't stop until the evening, as we were on our way to a sushi dinner at kiyosaku. dinner was delicious but expensive. afterward we went to a local indian casino and played video poker for awhile.

tuesday (virago's birthday) we drove down to the san diego area, but first stopped at cabazon to see the dinosaur statues, which were featured in pee wee's big adventure:

as you can see in the photo, at some point ownership of the dinos passed to a group of creationists, who have put up signs proclaiming that evolution is a myth. we also spent a few minutes inside the wheel inn next door, where we bought some souvenirs.

that night we stayed at the famous hotel del coronado—quite a change from the motel 6 in palm springs. for dinner, we went to red lobster. (yes, there are red lobsters in indy, but we had a $45 gift card that paid for most of our meal.)

the next morning, we got up bright and early to enjoy some of the hotel's facilities before we had to go. first we had the fantastic breakfast buffet at the sheerwater, which has wonderful pastries, lovely quiche, delicious omelettes to order, and much more (even brie). it was even better than the breakfast we had at one south in downtown indy the morning after our wedding (though the waffles weren't as good).

then we went down to the beach to see the ocean and take some photos:

virago's hat purchased at target in cathedral city.


stAllio!'s hat purchased at the wheel inn.

alas, it was time to check out. we drove into downtown san diego to meet virago's dad at balboa park and visit the museum of man, where the exhibits were a striking contrast to what we'd seen in cabazon the previous day. on our way back to our car, we managed to get completely lost and walk around in a circle for 45 minutes. then we stopped by to see a couple of virago's relatives on our way out of town, before getting stuck in rush-hour traffic on the interstate. you haven't really been to southern california if you haven't gotten caught in heavy freeway traffic.

thursday was our last full day in the palm springs area, so we drove over to palm desert to see the living desert, a nature preserve and park where you can get amazingly close to all sorts of desert animals. we took tons of pictures there:

this wasn't in an exhibit—this was a wild rabbit who just happened to hop up within a few feet of us near the butterfly preserve.


you can walk right into the aviary where some of these birds live.

the park closes at 5 (it closes even easier during summer hours, when nobody wants to be out in middle of the desert), so we drove back to town and had dinner at the blue coyote grill. i ordered the ceviche, not realizing exactly what it is or that it's served cold. the portion of scallops was massive, but it was more sour than i'd realized it would be and so the meal wasn't as satisfying as i'd hoped. i blame my own ignorance for the misunderstanding, though the menu wasn't exactly clear, either. virago had the mahi-mahi, which was tastier, and was served with bland vegetables and a delicious potato chimi.

much to our surprise, a mysterious street festival was being held on the strip a block from the restaurant. we never did figure out the name or purpose of the street fair, but we took advantage of it, taking in the sights and buying a few souvenirs. if we'd known in advance, we might have skipped the restaurant entirely and just eaten street food from the vendors. oh well.

we ate well that week. the best meals we had were the aformentioned breakfast at the sheerwater, and a fabulous dinner at pepper's thai sunday night. pepper's was simply wonderful. i had the sole fillet (shoo shee—fried and served in red curry sauce); the fish was delightfully tender in the middle and crisp on the outside, and the sauce was delicious. virago had pineapple curry with duck and loved it, declaring the meal to be the best thai food she'd ever had. i wish we'd had the opportunity to eat there again before we had to leave.

we also had our share of fast food, from places we don't have in indy like del taco, el pollo loco, hot dog on a stick, and in n out. and on a few occasions, we enjoyed wonderful donuts from an asian-owned place called swiss donut, not too far from the motel. those donuts were much better than we can get in our neighborhood here on indy's northwest side.

friday we flew back to indy. both of our planes were late getting in. saturday we slept.

you can see all of our photos from the vacation here, or just the shots from the living desert here. ¶

greetings from palm springs!

we arrived safely in palm springs last night. the rental car folks gave us a free upgrade to a nissan 350Z, a sporty little two-seater that's possibly the nicest car i've ever driven (of course, i haven't driven that many cars in my day.)

our current motel—a motel 6—isn't quite as nice as the car. other than having a swimming pool and a bunch of tv channels, the motel has few frills. in fact, when we arrived our room didn't even have a bar on the toilet paper dispenser. (thankfully, the maids gave us one today.) but it's cheap and has wifi, so i can't complain too much.

today, virago's dad drove up from san diego to meet us. the three of us went out to breakfast, then over to the nearby town of joshua tree (where, despite what the song says, the streets do have names) and drove through joshua tree national park. check out our vacation photos here. the set will presumably be updated as we take & upload more photos. ¶

beautiful palm springs

that's where virago & i are going for our belated honeymoon! we leave this afternoon and will be gone for a week.

we're taking the laptop so we should still be reachable online, but i won't be hunched in front of the computer all my waking hours as i typically am. it's possible that i'll pop in here at the blog (or just upload some vacation photos to flickr), but don't count on it. ¶

be careful who you give the keys to your blog

popular blog boingboing has had a lot of guest bloggers lately. there's nothing wrong with that: if you pick the right people it can spice up your blog and take it in new, exciting directions. (note: this is my personal blog and mine alone. no guest bloggers here.) but you don't want to just let anyone be your guest blogger, because if you pick poorly, it could damage your blog's reputation. that's a lesson the boingboingers seem to be learning.

it turns out their current guest blogger, charles platt, is a global warming denier. overnight, charles wrote four posts in a row of climate change "skepticism". this caused an ashamed cory doctorow to follow up with his own four posts full of actual scientific information about climate change.

the result is that if, like me, you just woke up and checked your feed reader (or boingboing itself), you were overloaded with posts about global warming and climate change. and because of the descending chronological nature of blogging, my initial reaction was "why in the hell is cory going on about climate change today?"... that is, until i scrolled down far enough to start seeing charles's posts.

maybe next time the boingboingers will be more selective. ¶

lunch fail

we tried to go out for lunch today to get in on that offer of free grand slams at denny's, but to no avail. we hoped that going at 11:30 would be early enough to get us in, but there was a line out the door even then. we weren't about to fight for a parking space only to stand around in the show, so we shuffled on.

of course, the roads were a disgrace. (messy roads during the morning rush hour are forgivable, but by lunchtime there's no excuse for the roads to be as sloppy as they are now.)

we ended up settling on lunch at the local chinese buffet. food there isn't particularly good at the best of times, but lunch was worse than usual—half of what i ate was cold, or at least not hot. the one bright point of the meal was a dish labeled clispy chicken. i tried to get a photo, only to discover that my cellphone camera is fubar. fortunately virago had her phone with her.

anyway, congrats to denny's on what seems to be a successful promotion—no doubt many thousands turned up today for free grand slams. hopefully, for denny's's sake, some of those people will turn into repeat customers. ¶

new shirt design: the arsonist

i have a new t-shirt design up for voting at threadless:

this is a new style for me; i guess you could call it a databent illustration. but it's not an illustration that i made and then glitched; rather, it's an illustration created using bent JPEGs for the textures—the colors are really vibrant.

i think it came out quite well, but the threadless voters are fickle, so i'm curious to see how it'll score. i suspect it'll do better than my past submissions, but we won't really know until voting ends. (if it does poorly, i'll probably adapt it into a framed piece for a gallery showing i have in the works.)

so please check it out, and if you like it, register with threadless and vote! you can see the design in detail on flickr here. ¶

FSSA fails in its duty to help people register to vote

from the indy star:

When low-income Hoosiers turn to state social-services offices for help, they're supposed to get something more than financial assistance. They're also supposed to be able to register to vote.

But two national voting-rights groups say Indiana is failing that federally required responsibility, and, as they have done elsewhere, are threatening to sue the state.
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Project Vote and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, say their November survey of nine Indiana Family and Social Services Administration offices in Lake and Marion counties found that none were providing voter registration forms to clients. Eight didn't even have the forms available, the groups said.

Nicole Kovite, a Project Vote official, said workers at the FSSA offices were unaware of the federal law that makes social-services offices -- along with Bureau of Motor Vehicle branches and some other public offices -- responsible for helping people register to vote.

a reasonable person would read this story and think, "hey, the FSSA should probably start obeying the law and help people register to vote!" so it should come as no surprise that gary welsh had a different reaction:

It's obvious what is going on here. These groups like ACORN operate as extensions of the Democratic Party. They are going to coordinate these efforts with the Obama administration to step up voter registration activities at welfare offices with the intent of adding more Democratic voters to the voting rolls. Democrats inherently are unable to separate the government's role in dispensing public benefits and partisan political activities. To them, the two go hand in hand.

sheesh! that guy became a caricature of himself months ago. if you've been wondering why i don't make fun of him as much as i used to, it's not because he's regained his sanity (far from it), but because half the time i don't even have the heart to read that drivel anymore. ¶

snowed in? grab a shovel

shorter DPW director david sherman: the city didn't botch its handling of this week's snow storm. on the contrary, our snow-plowing strategy is intentionally crappy. if you want your street plowed, plow it yourself!

no, seriously. check it out:

But the city's chief snow fighter, Department of Public Works Director David Sherman, calls it business as usual.

The city's snow strategy "is not designed to remove snow on all residential streets," Sherman said. "We've already done the streets we normally do."

With more than 4,100 miles of roads in the county, Sherman said, "we just don't have the capacity" to clear them all. And because massive snowfalls are rare in Indianapolis (to match this week's, you have to go back to 1996), it would not be practical "to build such capacity."

[...]

Sherman called on residents to take responsibility for their own streets and sidewalks.

"Get with your neighbors," he said. "Get some shovels and plows. There's a lot of people who just need to do it themselves."

let that be a lesson to you, indianapolis. get off your lazy ass and plow your own damn street. and if you don't like it, don't bother trying to take it to the mayor, because he's not even here:

Robert Vane, Mayor Greg Ballard's spokesman, said snowplow crews are working hard and making progress. Ballard could not be reached for comment because he was en route to Tampa, Fla., where he will go to meetings and attend the Super Bowl.

a man's gotta have priorities, after all. ¶

why those homeless donation boxes were doomed to fail

over the weekend, two more of those homeless donation boxes were broken into. this sad story is made all the more shameful because it was utterly predictable... and preventable.

the entire concept behind the city's homeless donation boxes is fundamentally flawed because of the way it dehumanizes the people it's supposed to help. give money to the homeless, the boxes say, but for god's sake don't look at them or speak to them. put a buck in this box and you won't have to deal with those dirty, smelly people. the mayor doesn't even want to look at them, and you shouldn't have to, either... but give them your money!

these mixed messages only serve to confuse people. the homeless aren't worth your time or attention—not only should you not have to deal with them, but you shouldn't deal with them! don't engage panhandlers as if they were actual human beings; just put some money in this box and those annoying poor folks will leave you alone!

it's no wonder that now these donation boxes are being broken into. the mayor is on record as believing that panhandlers are scam artists, addicts and drunks who live comfortable, cushy lifestyles without ever having to work because of saps who give them handouts. and from there, it's not much of a stretch to think that if panhandlers are all thieves and con men—and the official position of the city of indianapolis is that they are—then why do they need my donation? shit, i'm poor, too! i need that money more than those assholes do! where's my crowbar?

and this is why the program could never work. it treats the people that it's supposed to help like crap. the goal is ostensibly to help the homeless, but the basic assumptions behind the program are rooted in a lack of respect for the poor and homeless.

now the mayor is promoting a government consolidation plan that would give him control over poor relief. talk about a disaster in the making. ¶

daniels wants to eliminate funding for PBS, NPR

gov daniels continues to use the economic climate as an excuse to slash funding for programs that he and other republicans don't like. the latest example: his proposal to eliminate funding for public broadcasting.

The economic downturn has forced Public Broadcasting Service affiliate WFYI to lay off staffers and cut programs. Now, like public stations across Indiana, it may be forced to make further cutbacks under a proposal by Gov. Mitch Daniels to strip it of all of its state funding.

The state's support of WFYI (Channel 20), amounting to $517,000 this year, represents less than 5 percent of the station's annual operating budget. Despite that small share, every dollar the station gets from the state can help it bring in up to $8 in additional funding from foundations, corporations and individuals, its officials said.

Daniels' proposed budget, unveiled earlier this month, would cut spending in a number of areas, including $3.5 million from public broadcasting statewide.

Weak fundraising already has hurt public broadcasters across the nation, and many have had layoffs. State subsidies are threatened in many cases, according to Lloyd Wright, president and chief executive of WFYI. But, he said, he didn't know of any other state considering wiping out its support entirely.

given the state of the economy, it would be hard to argue with a proposal to cut funding for public broadcasting by, say, 10%. times are rough, after all, and some belt-tightening would make sense. but instead, daniels wants to eliminate that funding altogether, which suggests that his primary motivation to cut the funding isn't economic but ideological.

the ploy is reminiscent of mayor ballard's recent proposal to completely eliminate city arts funding—use a tight budget and harsh economy as an excuse to eradicate much-loved arts programs. like many of his bone-headed ideas, ballard had to backtrack from that proposal once word got out. here's hoping the same thing will happen to this terrible plan to strip state funding from local PBS and NPR stations. ¶

new state appointee is pre-scandalized

governor daniels made an appointment today that turns the traditional scandal timeline on its head. mark w everson has been appointed as the new head of the indiana department of administration.

everson has held a number of jobs: he served under daniels at the OMB, and he once was head of the IRS, but he's possibly best known for being head of the red cross—a job he lost in 2007 when he was fired for a sex scandal involving a subordinate. the red cross declined to name the subordinate involved, but the new york post and other outlets had no such qualms identifying her.

everson is the second person in the past year to be appointed to a local position after being involved in a recent sex scandal. randall tobias was appointed to head the indianapolis airport authority almost exactly a year ago. in 2007, tobias had resigned from a prominent federal position after it was revealed that he had solicited "massages" from a washington DC prostitute. ¶

media still repeating myths about clinton admin

i was reading this otherwise interesting wapo story about obama staffers adjusting from the ultra-modern campaign to the more primitive and restrictive white house environment, when i spotted this falsehood at the end:

But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.

of course, this never happened—it was a myth dreamed up by bushies to advance the notion that "the grown-ups were now in charge"... and we all know how that turned out.

apparently the washington post isn't alone in propagating this myth. mark crispin miller notes that nbc and abc also repeated the lie with no attempt to point out that it's false. ¶

donation box fail

i knew mayor ballard's homeless donation boxes were a dumb idea, but i didn't see this coming:

One of the boxes installed Downtown for people to donate to the homeless has been vandalized.

The broken box was reported to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department around 10:16 p.m. Wednesday, according to a printed police report. The box is on the south side of Monument Circle.

Police found pry marks on the box and discovered that the lock mechanism had been broken when the box was forced open. No money was found in the box.

In May of last year, several of the boxes were installed on Downtown corners in the first of a series of moves intended to discourage panhandling. The boxes were described as "tamper-proof" at the time.

many people had questions about whether the money donated at these boxes would ever reach actual homeless people, but i always just assumed the money would be mishandled by the city. looks like i overestimated the administration. ¶

oh frabjous day!

just a few hours ago, barack obama was inaugurated as the president of the united states.

it's still hard to believe this is really happening after the nightmare of the past eight years. truly this is a day for all of us (well, other than the crazies) to celebrate. ¶

movin' on up

shorter abdul hakim-shabazz: some people accuse me of turning my back on my fellow blacks once i became successful, but they have it all wrong. in fact, turning my back on my fellow blacks is how i became successful in the first place.

bonus abdul: it's hard to know what the most obnoxious thing about this post is. the smug attitude? the fact that he does his own call and response? ("truer words were never spoken," he pats himself on the back at the end.) the audacity of rerunning it every martin luther king day, as if to flip everyone the bird while be pretends to give them advice? no—those are all annoying, but worst has to be the complete lack of self-awareness:

Recently I had a conversation with a black friend of mine and she told me something I found was a bit disturbing. We were arguing over crime and how to deal with it when she told me, "Abdul, your attitude is typical of middle-class back folk." I asked her to tell me what that meant. She then went on to say as middle-class blacks tend to move up the socio-economic ladder, they forget their origins, and treat poor blacks the same way whites do. I have to say I was a bit taken back by all this, because I was being attacked for my status in life which I had no control over.

no, abdul. you weren't being attacked for your status in life. you were being attacked for your behavior. she wasn't complaining that you were middle class; she was complaining that you treat poor blacks the same way whites do (i.e., like shit). which is what makes the following sentence from later in the post particularly ironic:

I for one have no such guilt because there's a big difference between closing the door on people because of race, which has nothing to do with behavior, and having serious concerns about people who haven't learned how to honor the social contract, which does have a lot to do with behavior.

so abdul writes that people should be judged for their behavior rather than their race or class... but when people criticize him for his behavior, he gets defensive and pretends that they're talking about his race and class. funny how that works. ¶

forgive me, sire; i don't know what came over me

shorter matt tully: in my previous column, i briefly criticized my idol, governor mitch daniels... and then i felt so bad about it that i had to write another column praising him. i'm sorry, lord daniels! forgive my impudence! ¶

shorter state of the state

shorter mitch daniels: when i say that indiana is an "island of growth", i don't mean that indiana is doing well—i mean that every other state sucks balls. ¶

dear indy star: look up the meaning of "protect"

there's an unusual headline in today's star:

New proposal to ban gay marriage protects partner benefits

wow, really? the proposal bans gay marriage, but protects partner benefits? that's surprisingly progressive for an attempt to enshrine bigotry into the state constitution.

An effort to pass a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in Indiana is being renewed, this time with new wording that supporters hope will sway critics.

Its supporters said the new version would prohibit civil unions -- which are already not recognized in Indiana -- without affecting domestic partner benefits offered by some employers.

wait, what? but the headline said...

In the past, the amendment has been opposed by businesses and universities in Indiana that feared it would conflict with their policies granting benefits to the partners of gay employees. They also worried the amendment would make Indiana seem like an intolerant place, hurting economic development.

Turner and Cheatham said the new language is identical to the wording of amendments in Wisconsin and Kentucky, and has not hurt domestic partnerships, domestic violence laws or economic development in those states.

note to the editors at the star: protect does not mean "not hurt". if i point a gun at your face, and then lower it, i'm not "protecting" you... i'm simply no longer threatening you. an amendment that protected domestic partner benefits would be one that, you know, specifically states that employers may offer domestic partner benefits. this proposed amendment does nothing of the sort. ¶

new backgrounds for a new year

i meant to have new blog backgrounds up on new year's day, but due to threadless designing and an ongoing home reorganization project, it didn't come to pass. but new backgrounds are up now, and in addition, new post borders!

the new backgrounds are based on illustrations i did for threadless t-shirt designs (if you haven't voted for escape and stickers on the wall yet, i'd really appreciate it). the new post borders use halftones (a fancy shading technique i picked up recently) and are much snazzier than the old sloppy hand-drawn ones. ¶

ballard on the poor and homeless: "we don't want them around"

more on mayor ballard's latest plan to sweep the city's poor someplace where he won't have to look at them:

Though advocates for the homeless questioned the effectiveness of such measures, the Republican mayor plans to ask the Indiana General Assembly to expand state law to include a 20-foot radius around any spot where monetary transactions take place.

Those spots would include parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands and charity donation boxes designed to curb panhandling.

Current law already prohibits people from asking for money near ATM machines and outdoor dining locations.

yes, it's already against the law to panhandle near ATMs. in other words, this law is completely unnecessary. (tangent: the AP stylebook specifically says not to use the redundant "ATM machine", but in the indy star's defense, i think they've laid off all their editors.)

"Anywhere money is transacted, we don't want them around," Ballard said.

Administration officials said they knew of no other city that had pushed its anti-panhandling laws this far. Panhandlers who sit quietly with a sign would not be affected.

ballard apparently wants to set the record for the city most inhospitable toward panhandlers. he'd probably have them all put in camps if he could... anything to avoid being reminded that some people don't live in cozy houses across the street from a golf course like he does. ¶

stickers on the wall: yet another shirt design

my third t-shirt design for threadless is up for voting now! it's called stickers on the wall:

this will probably be my last threadless submission for the time being, as i have too many other art projects i've been neglecting. (if you've been waiting for part 2 of the databending primer, sorry—i might get around to finishing it this month.) i'll probably return to t-shirt design sooner or later (sooner if the designs up for voting now do well), but right now i need to prioritize. ¶

ballard's vision: a city where he doesn't have to look at poor people

mayor ballard's crusade against the poor and homeless continues:

Mayor Greg Ballard will ask state lawmakers to broaden limits on aggressive panhandling.

He plans to ask the General Assembly to expand current limits on asking for money near ATM machines and outdoor dining locations to include a 20-foot radius from any spot where money is transacted.

Those spots include parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands and charity donation boxes designed to curb panhandling.

i might be able to understand a moratorium next to ATMs, but parking meters? most of the streets downtown are lined with parking meters—so if this legislation passed, panhandling would effectively be illegal throughout much of downtown.

we already knew that the mayor would rather not have to look at homeless people. but don't we have more important things to worry about?

the economy is in shambles. the city budget is impossibly tight, and will only get tighter in the coming years. the city's murder rate—which candidate ballard spent so much time complaining about—went up in 2008. the city's police department—which he made a big deal about seizing control over—is once again mired in controversy. doesn't the city government have better things to do than obsess over how panhandlers make the mayor feel uncomfortable? ¶

more t-shirt news

1. there are only a few hours of voting left for my belt printed circuit board t-shirt design! if you haven't already voted for this design, please take a moment to sign up with threadless and do so:

2. i have another new design now beginning voting, titled escape. check it out and vote!

3. i'm now officially out of stock of black recycle your record collection shirts in size L. i still have XL, XXL, M, and girly M in black, and i still have all those sizes in purple (or lavender for girly). but some sizes i only have 2 or 3, so i recommend ordering now before i run out of those sizes as well. ¶

comic sans comics

this is a comic strip about comic sans... made entirely out of comic sans. even the panels are made out of lowercase L's. i was inspired to put this together by a threadless text-based design challenge, but i think it works better as just a comic strip than as a t-shirt. (i should have one or two text-based shirt designs up for voting somewhat soon.)

view large to see the detail.

new t-shirt design: belt printed circuit board

my latest obsession is the t-shirt site threadless.com. i'd seen the site before, but only recently learned how it works: users submit shirt designs, other users vote on them, and highly-voted designs are eligible to be printed and sold. if your design is printed, you get a nice chunk of change and maybe some prizes, too.

i have a design up for voting now called belt printed circuit board. the name says it all: it looks like a printed circuit board, and it's a belt print, meaning the pattern completely covers the shirt. check it out, and if you like it, please sign up and vote.

the scale goes from 0–5, with 5 being the highest. and if you'd buy one of these shirts if it got printed, be sure to click the "i'd buy it" button, since those count toward the total vote. ¶

dear blogger

dear blogger:

thank you for finally letting me post to my blog after four or five days. however, i still hate you.

hate,
stAllio!¶

black "recycle your record collection" shirts growing scarce

while they aren't selling as quickly as i'd like, orders continue to trickle in for "recycle your record collection" shirts:

i'm now running out of inventory of black shirts. i only have one large black shirt left! beyond that, i only have two black XL shirts left, and no more than five of any other size available in black. (purple shirts remain relatively unpopular, though i don't have a lot of mediums.)

so if you've always wanted a black "recycle your record collection" shirt but never bought one, or your old one is worn out and needs to be replaced, order now before it's too late! once they sell out, they will never be reprinted, and you'll have to convince someone to sell you theirs.

p.s. more t-shirt–related news coming soon. ¶

dear indy star ed board

dear indy star ed board:

as nice as it might be if the city put a new park in the old market square arena location... i have to wonder, where have you people been living the past year?

apparently the ed board has forgotten that our current mayor thinks parks are a "drain" on the city budget, and put into action a plan to sell off the city's parks. yes, the mayor was eventually embarrassed into postponing that plan, but the fact remains: the mayor thinks parks are a drain, not a benefit.

in other words, there is absolutely no chance that this administration will put a park in the MSA lot. the mayor might decide to build a chinatown there, but there surely won't be a park there while ballard is in office.

thanks anyway, indy star ed board, but you should try reading your own newspaper. if you did, you would've known all this months ago. of course, perhaps you're all distracted by how gannett is dismantling the paper. ¶

indy star zen: christmas edition

man, indystar.com really outdid itself for christmas eve, posting three christmas-related empty stories in a row. here's the best of the three:

merry christmas, happy holidays, and all that stuff. ¶

it pays to have friends in high places

shorter mitch daniels: because the economy is so bad, all public employees should voluntarily go without pay increases this year. that goes for everyone except my buddy mitch roob, who deserves a $20,000 promotion. ¶

indy star zen: holiday edition

indy star zen for the holidays!

was this a rhetorical question? ¶

indy star zen: marvin meter edition

indy star zen:

recently i've seen a number of seemingly empty stories on indystar.com where the headline is a link to something else. i haven't been posting those because, hey, at least there's a link to some content. but if you're looking at their feed and want to check out their marvin meter, you're out of luck. ¶

now the truth comes out

i found an interesting revelation buried in this indy star article:

Indiana stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars under the economic stimulus package Congress is expected to consider for states and could see its share go even higher if Gov. Mitch Daniels gets his way.

The money, state officials say, would help Indiana offset investment losses in its Major Moves road-building fund and could accelerate the timetable of big projects such as the extension of I-69 from Indianapolis to Evansville.

okay, so mitch is trying to get more money for indiana. nothing special there. the major moves fund doesn't have as much money as it should—that was entirely predictable, and anyway, we already knew that. let's read on (emphasis mine).

Although just how much any state might get is up in the air, Daniels and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., hope to persuade Congress to rethink its traditional approach to parceling out federal transportation dollars.

Those dollars typically have been distributed under a formula that has returned just 92 cents to Indiana for every $1 in federal gas taxes that Hoosiers send to Washington. Some states get more than they send.

Daniels and Bayh are urging Congress and President-elect Barack Obama to distribute the stimulus money based on a state's economic health.

wha-what? but i thought indiana was an island of growth! that's what the governor kept telling us all year. if we distribute transportation money based on the state's economic health, then surely indiana's share of the money would go way down, right? if not be reduced to zero, because things are so f'in' awesome here, right?

alas, no. as it turns out, we aren't doing so hot here in indiana. governor daniels has surely known this all along, but hey, he had an election to win. now that he's won, he can stop pretending. ¶

shorter mitch daniels

shorter mitch daniels: remember that stuff i said during the campaign about how indiana was an "island of growth" and "on an economic hot streak"? well, forget it. ¶

the public-safety mayor strikes again!

if you were concerned that last week's post defending the mayor's decision to buy camry hybrids was a harbinger of change, you needn't have worried. ballard and the gang are right back to making the same old bad decisions.

Police shifted four anti-crime cameras from rough neighborhoods to the Monon Trail in response to muggings there, despite promising the devices wouldn't be taken from higher-crime areas.

Just last week, a man was killed and two others were wounded in a barrage of gunfire near one of the intersections -- at 46th Street and Arlington Avenue -- where one of the cameras had been removed.

there were a few muggings on the monon this year, so i understand installing cameras there. but the administration promised back in october that it wouldn't remove cameras from higher-crime neighborhoods in order to move them to the trail.

how does the administration respond to complaints that it broke yet another promise? with linguistics:

"We have to make choices," [Public Safety Director Scott Newman] said. "This is not a high-crime neighborhood. It's a neighborhood with challenges."

oh, well in that case, carry on! the neighborhood will just have to work a bit harder to overcome its challenges—challenges like barrages of gunfire. no biggie.

another day, another broken promise from the ballard administration. the main difference this time is that this wasn't a campaign promise foolishly made by a candidate who didn't know any better—this promise was made just two months ago. ¶

RIP girl, 1996–2008

a few days ago, we learned that girl, virago's cat for 12 years (as well as mine for the past 2–3), had terminal cancer.

her health had been deteriorating gradually for a while—we'd taken her to the vet three or four times in the past several months for various things that we'd thought were unrelated, but in hindsight were probably all symptoms of the greater illness. she'd always been an intensely willful cat, one who despised going to the vet and was thus quite difficult to treat, so it was probably inevitable that we'd be unable to diagnose her cancer until it was advanced.

we brought her home for a couple days after her diagnosis, but by that point she couldn't walk more than a few paces and we had to give her pain medication every 8 hours, which she hated. the drugs kept her relatively comfortable, but it was clear she would never get better, only progressively worse, so last night we took her to the vet's office one last time to be put to sleep.

now there's a hole in our lives—i can hardly look around the apartment without seeing a spot where she used to she used to hang out. but the hardest part of the grieving process was probably this past weekend, when we knew what was coming but couldn't do anything to help her. now that she's gone it's kind of a relief, because i know she won't have to suffer anymore (nor will my wife).

girl lived a productive life for a cat, and was even memorialized in a few lolcats, one of which was featured on the wikipedia entry for lolcat for more than a year (until it was removed in june by someone who didn't understand wikipedia's copyright policies). she may be gone now, but she lives on in our hearts... and on flickr, where her photos will continue to bring joy to others.

goodbye, girl. you will be missed.

local chevy dealer to mayor: bail me out!

given the choice between buying a mediocre product, a small proportion of which was made locally, and spending a bit more to buy a superior product that was assembled a couple hundred miles away, i know what i'd choose: the quality product. some people disagree—and that's fine, except when they take on a tone of moral superiority about it.

yes, hold on to your hats, folks—i'm defending mayor greg ballard here.

ballard recently followed through on his campaign promise to replace some of the city's police cars with hybrids. he chose to buy camrys, but he's been getting flak from some (including some who should know better) for not buying chevy malibus instead.

the malibu hybrid was introduced in 2008. its gas mileage isn't much better than a standard gas-powered car. it's cheap. some of its parts are made in indy and nearby bedford. in contrast, the camry is more expensive, but gets much better gas mileage—so, when you factor in the gas savings over the next few years, the camry is actually a better investment. toyota is a japanese company, but the actual cars are made in our neighboring state to the south, kentucky.

seems like a simple decision to me: pick the better car with better mileage. but some are complaining quite vocally. the local chevy dealer whose bid lost out has been crying to the media about it—apparently he believed that he deserved to win the bid, just because his cars' sticker price was lower.

most offensive of all is the union rep who seemingly tries to blame the city for pending layoffs at his plant. i'm generally a union supporter, but dude, the city's order of 85 cars would not have been enough business to prevent layoffs at your plant. the economy is in the tank, and while japanese companies were planning for the future by designing hybrids, american companies kept pumping out SUVs. as a result, japanese hybrids are simply better. maybe that'll change in a few years as american hybrids catch up, but for now, them's the breaks, and nothing mayor ballard does will change that.

the concept of buying locally is that you can often get fresher, higher-quality products from local businesses rather than having stuff shipped in from afar (which is both expensive and bad for the environment). and if the camrys were being shipped in from japan, perhaps it would make sense in this case. but pretending that a chevy malibu is a "local product" simply because a few of its parts were made here (and then shipped out of state to be assembled) is a stretch. and even if it were truly local, the mayor is under no obligation to buy an inferior product simply because it's local. otherwise, the police might as well buy cheap, homemade guns and handcuffs, too. because, hell, they're locally made, right? ¶

indy star zen: flat broke edition

last one for today:


not just too broke for gifts... too broke for comments! ¶

indy star zen: obscenity edition

as if to prove my point, this turned up in my feed reader mere hours after i published my previous post.¶

indy star zen: gay marriage edition

if you use a feedreader and are subscribed to any of the indystar.com feeds (particularly the "top stories" feed), you've probably noticed an increasing number of stories like this popping up recently:


just a headline, with no story... yet posted on the site and to the feeds, for all to see. i call these indy star zen—kind of like haiku, but without the syllabic restrictions. who needs an actual story when the headline gives you a vague sense of what happened?

sometimes these zen "stories" are humorously poignant. other times they're depressing. and sometimes they're just frustratingly uninformative.

what's particularly odd in this case is that the article is online... right here at indy.com. and the links on the front page of indystar.com point to the correct place... just not the feed.

perhaps this kind of thing is inevitable considering the star is going through yet another round of layoffs. but it's happening so often now that it's moved from being funny to being simply pathetic.¶

fair and balanced no more!

shorter gary welsh: fox news used to be the only truly "fair and balanced" news outlet, but now even they are in the tank for obama. unlike them, i'm not going to stop posting paranoid delusions just because the election's over. ¶

it's time to play good idea, bad idea

good idea: scaling down your inauguration.

according to an associated press story (which i read courtesy of ibj, but which i won't link to because i'm still boycotting the AP), governor mitch daniels is going to have a seriously scaled-down inauguration this year. four years ago, he was inaugurated at the pepsi coliseum at the state fairgrounds. this year, he's just going to do it in front of his office.

why? because the economy is a mess. despite his campaign blather about indiana's "economic hot streak" and how indiana is an "island of growth", daniels knows the economy is in the tank and doesn't want to be seen as gauche or out of touch with the average hoosier's hardships. he's already been in office four years; he doesn't need another fancy inauguration party. score this as another PR success for governor daniels. i disagree with the man on most issues, but he's a savvy politician.

bad idea: taking your wife along on taxpayer-funded junkets.

Mayor Greg Ballard, his wife and several of his administration's economic advisers will travel at taxpayer expense to Japan and China for 10 days, starting this weekend, to drum up investment and trade opportunities for Indianapolis.

The Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee is paying for the trip, using $30,000 it received in an economic development grant from the city.

i'm not going to criticize ballard for going to asia—it's allegedly a business trip, so that's fine. the "chinatown" jokes are so obvious that they make themselves, so i don't need to make one. but when bart peterson went on junkets like this, he got private funding. and he sure didn't take his wife along at taxpayer expense in the middle of a recession.

greg ballard is the man who wanted to eliminate the city's arts budget, and try to get the community to put up private funding instead... but he can't even get private funding for his own junkets!

but that's not even the most embarrassing part:

Ballard said he chose to bring his wife, Winnie, a native of the Philippines, because she is Asian and because "the husband-wife dynamic is the normal way to do business there."

Some Democratic City-County Council members said they were upset they hadn't been notified the mayor was going away. At least one questioned whether bringing his wife and a security officer made sense during tough economic times.

winnie ballard has no place going on that trip. she doesn't have a job in the administration, and as jen points out, the idea that it's the asian way to take your wife to business meetings is laughable. if she wants to tag along on the trip, fine, but make her pay her own way. don't make the taxpayers foot the bill.

ballard was supposed to be the pro-taxpayer mayor. at least that was the story he tried to tell us. and he keeps telling us how fiscally conservative he is compared to those evil, incompetent democrats who used to be in charge. but when it comes down to it, he has no trouble finding $30 grand in the budget so he and his wife can do some sightseeing and eat some fancy dinners on the taxpayer's dime. ¶

bmv reverses license plate policy

good news! getting an "in god we trust" vanity license plate that reads MARS or BAAL just got a lot easier:

Indiana is ending a short-lived policy which had barred God from being used on personalized license plates.

this is great, if for no other reason than because the policy was an unconstitutional prior restraint.

Today, Stiver said the BMV is returning to the original policy, in which a committee of BMV employees decides whether to grant personalized license plates based solely on whether they are obscene or would violate community standards of decency. He called it a matter of using "common sense."

Letters will be sent to some 60 motorists who had requested plates with messages similar to Ferris's offering them the chance of obtaining them now.¶

RIP MC breed

mc breed has passed away. the name might not sound familiar to you, but hip hop fans will surely recognize this dope beat (which i sampled on mash smarter not harder):

dear dr pepper

dear dr pepper: if you're going to do a dumb promotional gimmick where you offer everyone in the country a free product if they go to your website on a certain day and sign up for a coupon, make sure your damn site can handle the traffic!

drpepper.com was essentially hosed all day yesterday. i first went to the site around noon but was never able to register for my free soda. this was a massive PR FAIL.

now dr pepper is saying they've extended their offer until 6pm today due to "consumer demand", which is a euphemism for "our website was broken all day." ¶

in which god do you trust?

if you're in the market for a new indiana license plate, why not try to get one of the following vanity plates? they might try to turn you down, citing their new policy regarding references to deities, but i've included excuses you can use to try to convince them otherwise.

excuse: "deity? no, i just love the planet mars!"
note: you can also try the greek name, ares, but they might assume you're talking about your zodiac sign.


excuse: "i'm a really laid-back, low-key kind of person."
note: a particularly ironic god to place your trust in.


excuse: "i work for le creuset. we make pots and pans."


excuse: "he's the hero of my favorite comic book."


excuse: "it's a computer program and/or software company."


excuse: "she's the cylon hybrid baby in battlestar galactica!"
note: for the ladies.


excuse: "i'm, like, super into the environment."


excuse: honestly, you won't need one, because people will just assume it's a reference to athletic shoes.


excuse: this is a tough one. if your bmv rep doesn't know their old testament, you might be able to tell them it's an acronym or something.


excuse: you're on your own with this one. good luck getting this accepted.¶

in god we trust, except when we don't

the indy star ed board chimes in regarding the "be gods" license plate fiasco:

The Bureau of Motor Vehicles rejected Ferris' application to reserve the plate this year under a new policy that bans any references to religion. While the agency, in the face of protests and litigation, backed off on her case and those of a few others who got in ahead of the change, the policy will stand.

That's a peculiar position for an agency that has issued about 2 million "In God We Trust" license plates to Hoosiers in recent years, a policy the state has successfully defended in court.

Despite that obvious inconsistency, Indiana officials now appear headed to court to defend their denial of individual expression of faith. The Alliance Defense Fund, a religious liberty advocacy organization representing Ferris, plans to continue with the lawsuit. The state should end the matter -- by dropping the policy.

this isn't exactly a new story—i've been writing about it since tuesday—but they make their editorial marginally relevant by adding in one new fact at the end: that the lawsuit against the bmv will continue, despite the agency's attempt to appease.

the policy deserves to be challenged, for it frankly makes no sense that the bmv will give you a license plate for free that says "in god we trust", but won't let you add your own god-themed message even if you pay them. so i'm pleasantly surprised that the lawsuit won't be dropped—but i won't be completely satisfied until either the IGWT plates go away or i'm allowed to get a NO GOD vanity plate (not that i'd actually get one; i just want the option), or an "in god we trust plate" where the number is NOT ME.

from there, the star's editorial makes a left turn to talk briefly about southport's charles lynch. for more background on that case, i give you doug masson:

First, we have a guy in Southport refusing to act in an orderly fashion at a City Council meeting as a way to protest the lack of prayer to open City Council meetings. By way of protest, he started praying out loud during a moment of silence; he was asked to be quiet; he started talking louder; he was asked to leave; he refused; he was escorted out; he grabbed a chair. He was arrested. Let's be clear, he was not arrested for praying. Had he prayed silently or been quiet when asked or left when asked, there would have been no arrest. It was his insistence on disrupting the meeting that led to his arrest.

lynch deliberately made an ass of himself in a decidedly unchristianlike manner, and was rightfully arrested for it. but don't expect the star ed board to chastise him for it: these are the same people who made no presidential endorsement this year because they just couldn't bring themselves to endorse a black democrat for president. here's what they had to say about lynch:

Lynch's behavior was clearly unacceptable -- according to a police report, he disrupted the meeting and then resisted an officer's efforts to remove him from the meeting room. But the fact that Southport officials have allowed this issue to fester for nearly a year and rise to such a level of contention indicates a failure of leadership on all sides.

yes, according to the star ed board, it's the fault of the southport city council that charles lynch decided to disrupt their meeting. after all, they're the ones who made him angry by eliminating ostentatious prayer from their meetings. and it was their failure of leadership that allowed the issue to fester by... well, i'm not sure what they were supposed to have done. (probably they shouldn't have gotten the rid of the prayer in the first place; nothing else would satisfy religion-on-my-sleeve types like lynch.) ¶

it's a miracle what bad press will do

from the indy star:

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles commissioner today backed off its denial of a woman's request for a personalized license plate reading "BE GODS."

The decision resulted from a lawsuit filed this week by Liz Ferris, who had that same plate on her car for eight or nine years but forgot to renew it on time for 2008. When she submitted a new personalized plate application, the BMV denied her request because of a recent policy change banning any references to religion or a deity on new personalized plates.

That policy took effect in November 2007, just after the renewal deadline passed for Ferris. Commissioner Ron Stiver said in a statement released today that the BMV would give Ferris a new plate bearing her old message — which she intended to mean "Be God's" or "belong to God."

"After reviewing Ms. Ferris' request," Stiver said, "it is clear that she attempted to reserve her PLP prior to November 6. As such, I have over-ruled the existing determination and directed that Ms. Ferris receive her initially requested PLP."

the story of this lawsuit (and the bmv's hypocrisy regarding this issue) spread rapidly through state media, so i'm not surprised that stiver leapt at the opportunity to change the story. but his statement shows he doesn't get it.

But Stiver's statement defended the policy, saying Ferris would get a pass under a grandfather rule that allows renewals of existing plates even if they run afoul of the policy change.

"Simply stated, if the BMV approves such pro-deity plates as 'GOD CAN,' the agency has no grounds to reject such plates as 'GOD CANT,' 'GODLESS,' or other more extreme anti-deity plates that have been requested and that most Hoosiers would find offensive," Stiver said.

never mind his assertion that "most hoosiers" would find such plates "offensive". the true irony here is that this is the exact argument that i and many others have been making about the "in god we trust" plates: allowing millions of hoosiers to place a pro-god message on their license plates (at no extra cost, even), while simultaneously forbidding any opposing messages, amounts to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. ¶

god on a plate

you may have heard that yesterday the indiana court of appeals ruled against the "in god we trust" license plate lawsuit. the court agreed with the state's argument that the plates are a "second standard" plate and thus don't require an additional fee like other specialty plates.

today, a sort-of-but-not-quite-related story:

A woman from eastern Indiana has sued the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles commissioner over the agency’s rejection of her request for a personalized license plate with the words "BE GODS."

Liz Ferris intends for the message to read "Be God's," a principle she borrowed from a contemporary Christian musician Rich Mullins and considers central to her life.
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Ferris, 36, said she had that license plate on her car for eight or nine years before missing the renewal deadline in October 2007. In March, she paid a $48 fee and applied for the plate anew with the hope of putting it back on her Honda CRV in 2009.

of course, the hilarious part is that the missing apostrophe in the plate totally changes the plate's message from one of submission to a sort of atheistic self-empowerment: BE GODS. become your own god. that's a message i could agree with!

anyway, despite what you may think from my opposition to the IGWT plates, i would be happy to let her get a vanity plate that says whatever she wants... as long as she pays a fee like everyone else has to. in that respect, i don't see that as being any different than slapping a fish magnet on her car.

apparently the bmv disagrees, which is ironic. the bmv will give you a plate for free with the word "god" on it, but won't let you pay them to put the same word on there. how does that make sense? ¶

selling yourself out for $12 a person

when i first starting hearing the hype about mayor ballard's new plan to reduce the county income tax, i was puzzled. sure, then-candidate ballard campaigned against 2007's COIT increase, but i've long maintained that now-mayor ballard knows the city needs that money way too much to undo it. so i was quite confused to hear about plans for a COIT decrease. was our mayor dumber than i'd given him credit for?

but then i heard the details of the plan and it all made sense:

Mayor Greg Ballard has introduced a proposal to lower the county income tax by three-hundredths of a percentage point, to 1.62 percent.

The adjustment would give a $6 million break to taxpayers. That works out to about $12 a year for the average $40,000-a-year wage-earner in Indianapolis.

that's right, the mayor wants to reduce the tax by three hundredths of a percent! the average taxpayer would see a whopping twelve dollars per year of savings.

to put it in perspective, reporter brendan o'shaunessey probably earned more money writing the story about the tax decrease in the star than he will get back. in fact, i would say that the copy editor who worked on the story probably earned more editing the piece than she'd get back from the tax plan—except this is the indy star we're talking about, and i'm not sure they even use copy editors anymore.

this tax decrease is literally not worth the paper it's written on. by that i mean that the cost of writing it, printing it, voting on it, etc will cost as much money as it will save!

what the hell is the point of a $12 tax decrease? it's like ballard was so dead-set on cutting this tax that he's determined to do it, no matter how paltry the reduction is. i'd rather the city kept my $12 and used it to make up for the budget cuts in arts, parks, or many other areas.

never mind that we're in the midst of a recession (if not a depression) and that city budgets are going to get progressively tighter over the next few years thanks to the property tax caps (which he begged for). ballard's going to have a hell of a time making budget cuts over the next few years to pay for everything (he's promised not to raise taxes); now he's making his job even harder by cutting taxes, even if by a miniscule amount. he's shooting himself in the foot, and for what? $12 a person!

i've heard of cheap political stunts, but $12 per taxpayer is about as cheap as you can get. ¶

higher-quality videos (hidden) on youtube

this is wild:

Back in march, it was discovered that when you view a video directly on Youtube, you could add a "&fmt=18" to the URL to enable a higher quality, higher resolution stream which is encoded with the H.264 codec.

To make this work in an embedded video, however, you need a slightly different hack. After pasting the embed code into a blog post, adjust the two video URLs (one in a param tag and one as the src parameter in the embed tag) by adding "&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" to the end.

check it out:

normal embed:


hi-def embed:

the bottom one definitely looks crisper to me. (the still frame is the same; you need to play the videos to see the difference.)

how long have these higher-res videos been hiding on youtube? why wouldn't youtube publicize their existence? ¶

more on voter turnout

despite what some obama haters might tell you, voter turnout increased by several million this year. current estimates are that about 129 million ballots were cast, compared to 122.3 million in 2004. that's an increase of 6.7%, which raises the turnout rate to 62% (slightly under the record from 1964 of 64%).

Each analyst cited North Carolina as the state with the largest increase over 2004 in turnout, by about 9 percentage points. A traditionally Republican state won by Obama after his campaign waged vigorous registration and get-out-the-vote operations, the state was one of many with large African-American populations that saw rising turnout this year. Other states included Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, all of which were won by McCain; and Virginia, Florida, and the District of Columbia, all carried by Obama.

In Indiana and Nevada, both reliably GOP states for decades, Obama won with major efforts over the airwaves and on the ground, and turnout increased by several percentage points in both states over 2004 figures, according to both analyses.

Turnout was also up nearly three percentage points from four years ago in Missouri, a Republican-friendly battleground state where Obama made inroads. As of yesterday, McCain's lead was 4,990 votes out of 2.9 million cast in the state, according to an unofficial tally on the secretary of state's website. If Obama overtakes McCain in the final official count in Missouri, it would raise to 10 the number of states carried by Obama that went for President Bush in 2004.

While turnout jumped in several normally Republican states won by Obama, it dipped slightly in Colorado, both studies found.

States that experienced a large drop-off in turnout included McCain's home state of Arizona, which he won; heavily Republican Utah; and Ohio, another GOP-leaning state that fell into the Obama column.¶

another story that clearly must be true

i used to think of the national enquirer as a joke, a journalistic punchline. in fact, when i was in grammar school (before i grew to accept that i can't draw) i even drew a few covers of a parody called the national enquiree (tagline: "enquireeing minds want to know!" hey, in sixth grade, i thought it was clever.)

then came the john edwards affair story. i tried to ignore it as just trash journalism. when it came out that edwards was indeed having an affair, i made sure to point out that the enquirer story was at best half right—the dates were all wrong, and the bullshit about a "love child" turned out to be false.

but gary and melyssa set me straight. "the Enquirer often gets it right," melyssa told me. gary welsh went even further, writing:

As I've said before, you can knock the National Enquirer and other tabloids all you want, but when it comes to political scandals, they're usually dead on.

and then later gary wrote:

When the tabloids take away time from the Hollywood celebrities to take on politicians, it's usually because the mainstream media is covering up for the politician.

indeed. i stand corrected: the enquirer (and other tabloids) are a virtual bastion of quality journalism, at least in the very narrow field of who/what politicians are having sex with.

a few weeks later, the enquirer published another story about an affair, this time involving sarah palin. gary mysteriously ignored that story, despite his high esteem for the enquirer as an institution. but i'm sure that was just an oversight, that he just got caught up in the heat of the election and forgot to post about it.

but now the enquirer has yet another tale of marital infidelity:

The ENQUIRER's exclusive bombshell expose as Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, is caught with another man!

Not only that but multiple witnesses have caught the pair lip locking on several other occasions.

"I couldn't believe I was watching Cindy McCain passionately kissing and hugging another man!"

That's the stunned reaction of an eyewitness who says he watched in shock - and snapped photos - as the former presidential candidate's wife romantically kissed a long-haired man who resembles "a washed-up '80s rock musician."

now, the old me would've laughed at this story and at its supposed photo evidence: a grainy snapshot of some woman with a blond ponytail smooching some shaggy-looking dude. but now i know better: the enquirer is usually dead on. john mccain is a cuckold—it's as good as proven.

i'm sure a post will show up at advance indiana any minute now blasting cindy for her infidelity. ¶

rokita's provisional ballot

here's an amusing anecdote from the star's behind closed doors column:

Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who oversees Indiana elections, got a new perspective on vote challenges this past week.

Rokita, of course, is an outspoken defender of one of the strictest photo ID laws in the nation. In the weeks leading up to the election, he also recommended filing charges related to bad voter registrations delivered by ACORN, the community activist group.
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Then, a funny thing happened to Rokita on the way to voting:

His own absentee ballot was challenged by precinct poll workers.

According to Marion County election officials, his messily inscribed signature upon checking in to vote -- he signed it "Todd Rokita" -- did not match his neat poll book signature of "Theodore Rokita."

So what did poll workers do?

Well, they placed his ballot in a pile of provisional ballots that do not get counted until the Election Board can review the challenges one at a time after Election Day. (The board decided Friday that Rokita's ballot will indeed count in the official final tally.)

Ed Treacy, the Marion County Democratic chairman, said he thought it was "hysterical" that Rokita's vote was challenged.

"This is a person who does everything he can to repress every vote he can," Treacy said. "Now maybe he'll be able to really appreciate the sanctity of the vote."

Jim Gavin, Rokita's spokesman, said Treacy's comment was "an unfortunate attack."

"It's uncalled-for so close to a historic, successful election that we expect to shatter previous turnout records," Gavin said.

that last quote is a bit awkward, and i'm unsure whether it's just sloppy editing or whether the words just stumbled out of gavin's mouth that clumsily. of course, the actual wording of the quote is unnecessary; all you really need to know is that treacy got in a zinger and gavin whined about it.

anyway, the lesson here is to always make sure your signature matches! pretty basic, really, but rokita probably never thought his provisional ballot policies would be enforced against someone like him. ¶

turning out for the tyrant

gary welsh tried to warn us that obama was a corrupt, coke-sniffing, noncitizen and terrorist pal, but we wouldn't listen. after obama won, gary went silent on the issue, looking for a fresh angle. now he's back on the case, telling us about "the great turnout myth of 2008":

In 2004, 122 million Americans voted in the presidential election. Estimates are that between 126.5 and 128.5 million Americans voted this year. Statistically, when looking at the total number of registered voters, there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the 2004 and 2008 election turnout. The study finds that fewer Republicans and more Democrats voted this year. Wasn't that what this election was all about? Faking out the Republicans as much as possible to convince them it's a waste of time to come out and vote, while encouraging Democrats at every step to vote in massive numbers? If you're a student of history, you will discover that the same tactics successfully employed by David Axelrod and the Obama campaign in this year's presidential election are the same tactics deployed by every significant, charismatic tyrant who rose to power pretending to be something he was not and fooling a majority of the populace into so believing. Remember this: things are not as they appear when it comes to anything respecting Barack Obama. Buyer beware.

you got that? this year's supposedly high turnout was a myth! turnout wasn't really higher than it was in 2004—republicans all stayed home, only to be replaced by democrats in roughly equal numbers. obama's supposed appeal is just an illusion!

or at least, that's his conclusion looking at "the total number of registered voters". i'm sure that drilling down into the numbers a bit prove his results to be true, huh? as an example, let's look at hamilton county, indiana:

Thousands of Hamilton County residents waited hours in line Tuesday to vote, some fuming with impatience.

According to final statistics, nearly 75 percent of the county's 175,538 registered voters cast a ballot, with more than 98,000 voting on Election Day. About 25,000 people -- approximately 20 percent of voters -- voted early.

In the 2004 election, 106,083 votes were cast in Hamilton County, with nearly 95,000 coming on Election Day.

98,000 + 25,000 = roughly 123,000—compared to 106,000 in 2004. that's an increase of 16%—in hamilton county, considered to be one of the most conservative counties in the state, if not the entire country. i'd say that's more than a dime's worth of difference, but your mileage may vary. ¶

indy parks no longer for sale?

remember mayor ballard's controversial plan to start selling off indy's parks? well, forget about it.

Noticeably absent from the plan is any indication that "pocket" parks would be eliminated. When it was disclosed over the summer that Mayor Greg Ballard was considering selling some of the small neighborhood parks, many residents expressed outrage.

"It was never seriously considered, and it is not in our plan," said Andre Denman, a planner for the department. "We need more park space not less."

never seriously considered, huh? that's funny, because back in august, it was reported that ballard had signed a sweetheart deal with venture real estate services to survey all our city parks and determine which would be the best ones to sell off. in that deal, venture agreed to do all the surveying and analysis for free (venture was going to make their money from the actual park sales).

so while i'm glad that our parks are now apparently off the table, the idea that selling them off was never seriously considered is a bit hard to swallow. to be sure, venture thought those parks would be sold, and is probably upset now that they're not going to see any money for the deal.

more likely, this was another horrible idea from mayor ballard, and just like some of his past ideas, he dropped it when he realized it was monumentally unpopular. ¶

is our long national nightmare finally over?

barack obama has been elected in a landslide. he might even win indiana. i've waited a long time for this moment.

i was convinced it would happen in 2004. bush was a disaster, and i thought enough people understood that to vote him out. but not quite. not too long afterward, it became obvious to all that republican policies had failed us, but then it was too late: we had to wait another four years to elect a democrat president. now our day has come.

today wasn't a perfect day. we should've won the indiana governor's race, for one thing. but it was a historic day, and the future looks brighter. ¶

voter intimidation in warren township

for the most part, the election seems to be going smoothly so far here in indiana (or at least in marion county)—with one notable exception. from the indy star:

The removal of two Republican election workers from a Warren Township polling site - for using improper methods to challenge voters' rights to cast a ballot - has prompted local Republican Party leaders to issue a statement of regret.

The two officials - an official challenger and a clerk - were removed by unanimous vote of the Marion County Election Board.

The officials were reportedly challenging voters with information obtained through party affiliation reports, which is not one of the accepted challenges such as a person's address, age or lack of ID.

i'm not entirely clear on what that last part means. they were challenging voters simply for being registered democrats? or based on some other arbitrary information that they got from these reports?

also, this might not have been an isolated problem:

Election officials also heard reports from the Children's Museum polling site that similar challenges were being made. But when they approached the person doing that, he left the area.¶

i voted

and this was the first year i can remember when i actually got an "i voted" sticker! huzzah! my polling place in pike was bustling, but at 10:40 we didn't really have to wait in line.

it's almost hard to believe election day is finally here. this has been one hell of a long election year. and by the end i was just ready for it to be over so we could move forward. but that didn't stop me from volunteering for the obama campaign on saturday. virago & i did data entry for about 5 hours. at first it was a bit boring, since we only had one laptop (mine) for the two of us, but before long someone showed us a faster way that really let us zip along. we left when we ran out of canvassing data to enter, feeling good and with some obama buttons, stickers, and rally signs for our efforts. i wanted to go back and work more, but unfortunately didn't have the time.

if you haven't voted already, please be sure to do so. ¶

happy halloween

okay, i haven't quite gotten back into the swing of blogging now that i'm not so busy with wedding preparations. you could say that i'm having trouble overcoming the inertia of not blogging.

but here are some things that are coming in november:

• exciting new backgrounds
• more regular blogging
• wedding photos on flickr
• finally, part 2 of my databending primer
• also finally, the 2008 election!

frankly, i've reached the point where i'm just ready for the election to happen, so it'll be over with and we can move forward. but that doesn't mean i'm getting complacent. tomorrow morning, virago & i will be doing some last-minute volunteering for the obama campaign, something we were unable to do earlier because we were too busy with wedding prep. hopefully they'll be able to find some non-canvassing work for us to do—i'm far too introverted to be any good at canvassing.

i'm not doing anything too special for halloween... i went to a costume party last week and wore the same costume as last year (though i'm slimmer now than in those photos). and i painted my fingernails black, because we had black nail polish, and if you can't paint your nails for halloween, then when can you? but that's pretty much it for our halloween plans. we don't even get trick-or-treaters in our apartment subdivision. maybe we'll watch something halloweeny on tv tonight.

p.s. if you're looking for some halloween music, my epic halloween collage "halloween monster mania" is still online for your listening pleasure. ¶

damned if you do

here is all you need to know about secretary of state todd rokita's latest partisan shenanigans involving ACORN:

"We will remind the public that both local and state election officials confirmed that ACORN must turn in all applications, including those we flagged as bogus, incomplete, or duplicative. The secretary, for his own purposes, appears to have changed his opinion on this question two weeks before the election," Ordower said.

so there is a state law mandating that all applications must be turned in, and another law stating that it's illegal to turn in faulty applications. ACORN asked for guidance, since they knew some of the applications were fake, and were instructed to turn them in anyway. then... wham! todd makes a big show of the fact that they've turned in fraudulent applications, a class D felony.

my question is this: can members of todd rokita's office be prosecuted for instructing ACORN to commit a felony? ¶