links for 2010-11-30
Wikipedia: Flag terminology Those who study flags are called "vexillologists." They use vexillological symbols to indicate any of a half dozen characteristics of national flags, which consists of a sort of an abbreviated tic-tac-toe board with a one or more dots in places of the Xs and Os. (tags: flag) BBC: US 'smart gun' unveiled The [...]
links for 2010-11-29
New York Times: The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook Bees in Brooklyn are making reddish honey. Their honeycombs are bright red. Some beekeepers solved the mystery. (tags: food newyork) Wikipedia: SS Eastland On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland steamer took on board 2,752 passengers while docked on the Chicago River. When [...]
The unstructured structure of the Code of Virginia.
The structure of § 1-401 of the Code of Virginia is broken down into five sections: A, B, C, D, and E. The structure of § 1-402 is broken down into nine sections: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Why two entirely different schemas? I have no idea. I’m starting to [...]
Gilmore’s Secretary of Finance has been convicted of defrauding the state.
To those of us who are familiar with Jim Gilmore’s budgeting practices as governor, it comes as no great surprise to learn that his secretary of finance has been sentenced to ten years in prison for defrauding the state of $4 million, as Rosalind Helderman reports in the Post. In 2001, serving on the Tobacco [...]
JLARC: McDonnell’s ABC privatization proposal is full of holes.
JLARC has published the results of their audit of Gov. McDonnell’s ABC privatization proposal. It’s harsh. Really harsh. If this plan had any chance of being revived, it seems to me that this must have killed it. Their overall conclusion is that McDonnell vastly overstated the amount of money that his plan would generate, through [...]
links for 2010-11-23
New York Times: Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter In the third quarter of 2010, American businesses had the most profitable quarter, ever, in the history of such things. What with our socialist president, communist congress, and crushing regulations, that's quite remarkable, isn't it? Perhaps socialism is working out for us. (tags: [...]
links for 2010-11-22
Voracious: A Vegan No More This (self-described) hard-core, self-righteous vegan blogger finally figured out why she always felt weak and exhausted, why she was depressed, why her hair was falling out: her veganism. So she started eating eggs, dairy, fish, and meat again. Now she feels great! She also figured out that just as many [...]
How will we keep an eye on redistricting?
I’m really worried about how redistricting is going to happen. It strikes me as enormously likely that House Republicans and Senate Democrats will go into their respective huddles, and emerge with new district lines that will be voted on immediately. I fully anticipate that the first time that we see these lines will be when [...]
links for 2010-11-18
Wikipedia: Manhattan Neighborhoods I'm forever learning about new neighborhoods in Manhattan, although often without any knowledge of where they are. Here's a handy map of all of them. (tags: map newyork manhattan) New York Times: As Vick Soars, Stigma of Conviction Fades Remember, kids: it's OK to torture and kill dogs, as long as you [...]
links for 2010-11-15
How jQuery Works I'll be spending some quality time with this handy tutorial in the days ahead. (tags: javascript) Toronto Star: God will save us from climate change Rep. John Shmikus (R-IL) says that we don't need to worry about climate change, because in Genesis 8:21-22, God explicitly promises never to harm man on a [...]
links for 2010-11-10
Columbia Journalism Review: Serious Fun With Numbers On those occasions when I consider a career in journalism, I fantasize about doing the sort of work that Daniel Gilbert did at the Bristol Herald Courier that blew open the mineral royalties story a year ago. I have the unusual ability to take enormous data sets, normalize [...]
Redistricting considerations.
After getting sucked into Dave’s Redistricting App for a couple of hours, I’m left wondering about all of the factors that ought to be taken into account when creating districts. In particular, congressional districts, due to their size, but I suppose I’m wondering all around, too. What I’ve come up with so far are: Human [...]
links for 2010-11-05
VPAP: Redistricting The Virginia Public Access Project is going to do their damnedest to track the redistricting process during this year's General Assembly session, which gets underway in January. So much of it bound to take place behind closed doors that it'll be tough for them to do, but when proposals are released, it's my [...]
links for 2010-11-04
KRTV: Grizzly versus Bison—The rest of the story Seen the photo of the grizzly bear chasing the bison down the road? Here's the story behind that. (tags: nature yellowstone photo) New York Times: Taft Causes Hotel Deluge—Tidal Wave from His Bathtub Floods Bankers in Dining Room A 1915 story about the notoriously obese President William [...]
Bachmann can’t name anything she’d cut from government.
This interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann demonstrates everything that’s wrong with Republicans’ current political rhetoric about reducing the size of government: The good news is that Republicans are talking about cutting spending, rather than just cutting taxes. The former is too often ignored. The bad news is that there really doesn’t seem to be any [...]
links for 2010-11-01
Wikipedia: Zheng He In the early 1400s, Chinese explorer Zheng He led a multi-year expedition of 300 ships all the way to east Africa, carrying nearly 28,000 men. His enormous ships dwarfed those that Christopher Columbus would sail westward later in the century. By the time Zheng's expeditions were completed, the Genoan explorer was not [...]
Hurt has filed a $1M lawsuit over a campaign ad.
In what strikes me as terrible, terrible timing, Robert Hurt has filed a lawsuit against the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, and two C’ville TV stations. He actually filed the suit two weeks ago, but nobody noticed, so it’s becoming public now, on the eve of the election. Here’s the advertisement that’s prompted [...]
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Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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