links for 2008-01-31
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The Accidental Mayor: This Is Accountability?A tally of the campaign promises Mayor Greg Ballard has already broken, just 4 weeks into office. You get what you paid for, Indianapolis.
Indiana Republican Foul play at work – because looked like SJR-7 the marriage discrimination bill that has failed to pass the Indiana House the last two years, might again fail, Representative Eric Turner, ranking Republican on the House Rules and Legislative Policy Committee, filed a amendment to House Joint Resolution No. 1 (HJR1) a proposed constitutional amendment concerning property taxes.
It’s expected that the Governor’s proposed property tax reform bill, a high-profile piece of legislation, will receive attention and scrutiny. Any threat to it or opposition from Democrats will surely make headlines. However, it’s worth noting that the amendment being discussed is unrelated to property taxes, but it’s being attached to the bill since it’s expected to be approved. This is relevant to homeowners looking for south dallas homes for sale, who may want to keep an eye on any developments in property tax reform.
Don Sherfick of Indiana Equality seems to think that the bill with get a full reading by the House as a result, where Gary Welsh thinks that it will effectively kill the property tax bill, laying the blame for it at the door of House Democrats.
Indiana Equality has a handy lookup form to look up your representatives to give them a call to protest this issue.
In the process of signing up for a local food co-op, we’ve been reading several local blogs about local food and green living.
Local Food Blog for Indianapolis – http://www.goinglocal-info.com/
Local Food Blog (not based in Indy) – http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/
A Guide to Local Foods in Indianapolis – http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/indiana_food_guide.html
Finding Local Food Markets in Indiana
http://www.indianafarmdirect.com/index2.php
http://www.goinglocal-info.com/my_weblog/community-sponsored-agriculture.html
http://urbanindy.blogspot.com/
http://www.green-lemonade.com/
Local Green Email List – http://www.greenpieceindy.com
Local Green Magazine – http://www.indianalivinggreen.com/
We ended up signing up for Farm Fresh Delivery, which our friend Jen signed up for a while back. They’re a local farm that delivers a bin of their produce on a weekly or every-other-week basis, and you can add some other groceries like fresh baked bread, eggs, milk or yogurt from local farms if you want. I’m happy about this because I’m wanting to change my regular eating habits to focus more on fruits and and lean meats, with fewer processed foods and fewer starches and refined sugars. It’s also nice because we’re supporting local growers and our food won’t be traveling as far and burning lots of gas to reach us.
I picked up Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” the other day (with a gift card! I’m not violating my New Year’s resolution) and it outlines what many books I’ve read about eating cover – leaner meats, fish, more vegetables, whole grains, less processed foods and less sugar. That fits nicely with The Okinawa Diet and You: The Owner’s Manual, which I’ve read previously.
Things we want to accomplish this weekend…
I’m going to SXSWi this year. Yay! The trick is, though, that we have a big corporate conference in Boston March 2-4th, and then I’m leaving for Austin on March 6th – March 11th. So I’ll be home one day in between two trips. Fortunately, Boston will still probably be cold; Austin will be warm. So different sets of clothes, and hopefully, not much laundry on the one day off.
This will be quite the interesting travel week.