links for 2010-04-07
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So they held a "fake" prom for the lesbians, and had a "real" prom across town, organized by the homophobic parents, teachers and school officials. Check out some pictures of the douchbags.
Mayor Greg Ballard’s Many Tax Increases
Now that campaign season is rolling around our Mayor Ballard — whose original campaign charge was all about repealing property taxes in Indiana — is hauling out one of his favorite talking points: claiming he held the line on new taxes. Ballard was whipped into office on the froth of the anti-tax rabble after Governor Mitch Daniel’s repeated property tax bungles statewide.
In reality? Not at all true on the “holding the line” claim. The Indianapolis Times puts together the facts, with the help of an observant letter-writer (Melissa De Groff) to the Indianapolis Star:
The statement in the editorial “Recycling beats trash talking,” March 27, that Mayor Greg Ballard has held the line on tax increases simply doesn’t hold water. Ballard was elected on widespread anti-tax sentiment, vowing to repeal the bipartisan-supported income tax hike enacted to fund 200 additional police officers, and promising no new taxes during his administration.
It looked good in the paper. But more than two years into Ballard’s term, Indianapolis residents are still waiting. Instead of a full repeal of the income tax, Ballard delivered a fraction of his promise. Instead of no new taxes, Ballard has solicited 30 tax increases: one sewer rate hike, two water rate hikes and 27 user-fee hikes (“Indianapolis wants to boost user fees,” Dec. 23, 2009). And instead of “holding the line” on city spending, each of Ballard’s budgets have increased the property tax burden on residents.
World-class cities need to push forward continuously, like Eli Lilly and EnerDel do in the corporate world. That’s why additional recycling opportunities merit additional exploration. But “holding the line” won’t cut it, especially when Ballard hasn’t earned the praise.
links for 2010-04-06
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Joanne McNeil takes to task the folks in new media for their (mis)use of the term "curate" and "curator" when they really are talking about content selection, content aggregation and context analysis.
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One line of javascript that lets you empower CSS selectors.
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The real-life singing nun was gay (yay!) and killed herself and her partner (not yay at all!) in a suicide pact over their financial ruin. Grim ending for Sister Smile.
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A new book exploring the great gender disparity in science and technology, and the causes, including limited access, lack of resources and exclusion from social networks.
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She ripped up a picture of the pope in 1992 specifically to protest childhood abuse by the church – 18 years later, people understand what she was saying, thankfully.
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This is awesome – the ACLU has been fighting the attempt to "patent" two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The patents would limit women's ability to get genetic screening for those diseases and drive the price of screening up. Good on the ACLU for fighting this fight!
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Helvetica was not invented by the Nazis. It's more complicated than that – just go read the post. 🙂
links for 2010-04-05
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I deliberately try not to fill my calendar. I choose not to say Yes to everything. For to do so would make me too busy, and I think, less effective at what my goals are. I always want to have some margin of my time in reserve, time I’m free to spend in any way I choose, including doing almost nothing at all. I’m free to take detours. I’m open to serendipity. Some of the best thinkers throughout history had some of their best thoughts while going for walks, playing cards with friends, little things things that generally would not be considered the hallmarks of busy people.
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The Floating Market, inspired by Neil Gaiman from his best-selling book Neverwhere.
links for 2010-04-04
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You actually can put stuff below the fold. People will scroll.
links for 2010-04-03
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J. Henry Fair photographs industrial blights from above – aerial views of some of the most dangerous industrial problems. Recent photos of coal ash depositories are beautiful and alarming
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One or the other of these articles at Indiana's expense would be fine. Two of them, though, just makes you an asshole, Onion.
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The non-profit organization Equal Visibility Everywhere (EVE), launched this month, is determined to solve this problem by achieving gender parity in the country’s symbols and icons. EVE will launch projects in all 50 states to increase the number of monuments, memorials and statues depicting women, as well as streets and buildings named after women. The group’s mission is to “[highlight] women’s history and achievements, eliminat[e] gender bias in our nation’s symbolism and cultural representations, and provid[e] empowering role models for girls and women.”
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On Johnny Weir, and percieved homosexuality.
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Wwhen you look below the surface of figure skating, a coded gendering of the sport emerges. Figure skating has both athletic and artistic components, and traditionally these have been apportioned to men and women, respectively. Men are expected to be able to land enormous jumps. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to grab one of their feet and pull it up behind their heads, sometimes while spinning fast enough to set off a nose-bleed, as Mirai Nagasu did in Vancouver. Women’s programs also emphasize a great deal of emotion when they skate, while men are expected to display their athletic strength and power.
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Chivalry is dead because it treats women as lesser than men. Try politeness and good manners instead of "chivalry." Thanks!
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unconstitutional.
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The design world is changing. BIG TIME. Apple's iPad will be rewiring all of our brains.
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Interesting quote: "As I note in How We Decide, this data directly contradicts the rational models of microeconomics. Consumers aren't always driven by careful considerations of price and expected utility. We don't look at the electric grill or box of chocolates and perform an explicit cost-benefit analysis. Instead, we outsource much of this calculation to our emotional brain, and rely on relative amounts of pleasure versus pain to tell us what to purchase." — the thing is, this is definitely not true of Stephanie. It's why we have trouble shopping together, because she is ALWAYS doing the cost/benefit analysis, and trying to negotiate with my lizard brain that says WANT!!!
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cute boys. Cute cats. Together at last.
High School Sings Away Westboro Baptist Church
This make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.
Comments Elsewhere
Jonah Lehrer, the author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist (which I have) and the new book How We Decide (on my wishlist) has an interesting article on the Frontal Cortex science blog regarding Costco and how it affects our decision-making regarding pricing.
To which I contributed this in the comments:
You should study my wife – she is immune to the Costo effect & calculates everything, even there. I swear she has a terminator-like data screen across her vision that just adds up whether something is a good deal or not and rejects stuff out of hand, because she’s so quick and so good at the money.
It make shopping trips painful, though. I bring stuff with my lizard brain to the cart and say “I can has?” and she scans it and says “no, honey, this isn’t a good deal. Put it back.” and I schlep off to put it back and come back with some other shiny thing I found to repeat the process. Six hours later, she finally gets to check out with the 3 things she actually came in for.
links for 2010-04-02
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I love, Roger Ebert. The last paragraph is the best. 🙂
links for 2010-04-01
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Miss Peyton has conducted extensive research into the origins of beer for a new book, and discovered to her surprise that a woman's touch was found on beer throughout the ages. Nearly 7,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and Sumeria, so important were their skills that they were the only ones allowed to brew the drink or run any taverns. And in almost all ancient societies beer was also then considered to be a gift from a goddess, never a male God.
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Big burly guys like to knit, too. They also find it to be zen.