A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The New York Times has a fun (though probably unavoidably simplistic) tool that lets you choose your budget priorities and try to balance the budget.

Tom Levenson points out that this tool highlights how much the budget balancing priorities of the Blue Dogs seem to prioritize wealth transfer from the middle class to the wealthy.

My approach shows that returning tax rates and military levels to Clinton-era levels goes a long way toward balancing the budget.

I grew up in Richmond, where I generally learned to like Cincinnati teams. But then a funny thing happened when I went a few miles across the border to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I met Cincinnati people. And, I fell in with a Cleveland crowd. Now, I actively root for Cincinnati to lose. Over the last 20 years, I have not often been disappointed.

Today’s Colts’ win over the Bengals was ugly, but gratifying nonetheless. The Colts are pretty much being held together by spit and baling wire at this point. So, the defense had to step up big and the Bengals had to gift wrap it for them. That’s pretty much what happened, with the Bengals committing 5 turnovers, including two picks run back for touchdowns. (The second of these was called back after a review, but I take issue with that – if there was “indisputable evidence” that Carson Palmer actually touched Tyjuan Hagler, let alone caused him to fall, the networks opted not to show that video.)

The Colts netted only 180 yards passing and 76 yards rushing. Manning has typically been throwing for 310 yards per game. But he doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of targets. Reggie Wayne is double teamed pretty consistently. Jacob Tamme has emerged as a solid option now that Dallas Clark is out, but he’s new and hurt himself. And Pierre Garcon is always a question mark in terms of whether he’s going to hold on to a ball.

At least we don’t have Terrell Owens who maybe talented, but looked like a no effort prima donna out there. He gave up on a pass he could have at least knocked down which resulted in the Hagler interception; then, as time was running out, he was jogging back to the line, costing his team the waning seconds of the game.

It’s going to be tough sledding the next couple of weeks if some players don’t get healthy pretty fast.

Today, I’ll go with the Internet. It’s really hard to remember how I did things before it came along. This is a tool that I was, perhaps, waiting for more eagerly than most. When I was 14, I got arrested for a crime the Internet has rendered obsolete. I was stealing phone calls from a local long distance company called Saverline. It worked like MCI or Sprint (like they did at the time, anyway). If you were a customer, you dialed their switchboard number, dialed your long distance number, and then (here is the crack security) dialed your *four* digit code. I (and a number of my fellow Commodore 64 users) would keep dialing until we got a working four digit code. I’d use the number to call long distance to connect to a Bulletin Board System in other cities. I really enjoyed the discussion boards on those systems, but we also used the systems to download games (“warez”). I was also the sort of kid who was likely to pore over encyclopedias and the like when I got my hands on them.

The instant access to so much information and social interaction really is incredible. My kids are going to have no concept of a world without an Internet. They’ll be slightly amazed when I tell them tales of Before; much as I did when mom would tell me that there was a period of time when her family did not have a television.

Matt Taibbi has a long and interesting piece on the mortgage foreclosure process. There is a lot of stuff packed in there, but one interesting take away from me was that the mortgage industry’s chronic problem with producing proper paperwork in foreclosure actions isn’t just a matter of being fast and sloppy. Rather, the sloppiness is sometimes a product of covering their asses on the back end of the transactions.

Apparently it was not uncommon for a bundled security product to promise underlying mortgages that the seller did not, strict speaking, own yet. Proper documentation of the underlying mortgage is evidence of wrongdoing in this respect and exposes the seller to liability.

Beyond that, it’s a nice encapsulation of some of the stuff I already knew. The incentives were not structured in a way that made too many people inclined to make sure that a home loan was a sound investment. The people providing information and analysis about the original loan got their money up front and were long gone by the time the loan went sour. Banks bundled up the loans into securities. Rating agencies sprinkled fairy dust over the heap and called it “AAA.” The piles were insured by organizations that couldn’t cover the bet. And all of it was sold off to unsuspecting pension funds and the like. Once the loan goes south, the incentives are all on the side of foreclosing on the property; and the legal system is not structured in a way that is very friendly to debtors or even people merely alleged to be debtors who don’t have resources to hire an attorney.

Today’s is a gimmee. Today, I am grateful for our veterans. I am also grateful for the wisdom of those who came before us in preferring not to create a separate warrior-class. The people who are willing to, if need be, sacrifice their lives for the country, are from the common population. That’s as it should be. Bad things happen when the military comes to be seen as distinct from and better than the rest of the population. That’s when military dictatorships of one form or another start cropping up.

As we honor the men and women of the military, let’s be thankful that they share our strengths and our failings; and recognize that, should the day come when we do not perceive them as ordinary people choosing (or, at times, compelled) to perform extraordinary tasks, our democracy will be at risk.

Today, I’ll go with running as something for which I’m grateful. Long ago, I had a few unsuccessful attempts to get started running; but it never took hold until I started copying my wife, Amy, her sister, Runner Susan, and my legal assistant at the time. They were all running and gave me some idea that: a) it could be done; and b) how it was done.

My two basic mistakes at first were running too fast and not hanging in there. Getting conditioned for your first mile or two is a lot harder than the rest of the miles. Getting tired after 1/2 mile is just a lot more disheartening than getting tired after, say, 5 miles. Another thing that helped me hang in there and finally get going with running was the very tangible benefit of getting out of a house with very young children. I think Harper was recently born and Cole was maybe 2.5 years. It’s easier to stick your spouse with the kids for an hour if you’re going running than if your plan is to simply sit on the couch.

I’ve never done a marathon, but I have run a few half-marathons. Aside from the health benefits, it’s one of those things that illustrates in a concrete way what you can do when you’re persistent. And, it’s a time to think; a time to listen to some music; and a time to see your neighborhood a lot closer than you would in a car. The races are a lot of fun too; they are parties of sorts, with a lot of camaraderie.