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Date Night
Each Wednesday evening The Missus and I have a “date night.” Typically we just go somewhere to eat and then go home and watch a movie, play a couple rounds of Scrabble, or take Daisy for a walk. Occasionally we get more adventurous, but the real point is that we don’t schedule anything that would conflict with date night. I bet we’ve only missed date night five times over the past couple years. Some of our best conversations have come on date night. Heck, I think we even made the big decision on date night.
The Missus and I have a habit of being a bit indecisive when it comes to choosing a place to eat on date night. So today I’m going to give you all a say. Where should The Missus and I eat tonight? Should we enjoy the fine service at Lazlo’s? (Downtown or South?) Is Olive Garden featuring a special we ought to try? How ‘bout a little lamb at The Parthenon? Maybe a cheese frenchee and chocolate shake at Don & Millie’s? Or crab cakes at Beacon Hills?
Fire away with your suggestions!
Osborne: No New Taxes
Gubernatorial candidate Tom Osborne has come out in favor of tax cuts as a way to boost Nebraska’s economy. In particular, he is no fan of a 7.2% increase in state spending this year.
A tax cut sounds great, but I will need to see more details before I can say that Osborne isn’t just blowing smoke. Among Osborne’s priority projects are outmigration, education in entrepreneurship, increased venture capital financing, economic development tax credits, development of bioscience, distance learning, tourism development, and hunting promotion, all of which will likely require increases in state spending to address. To what is Osborne willing to give the budget axe?
The short Journal Star article does not address two important facts about the state’s 7.2% spending increase. First, some state expenses can’t be touched. Medicare and Medicaid, for example, are (nearly) untouchable, and the expenses associated with each are climbing rapidly. Second, the 7.2% increase came after several very lean budget years. One could argue—I’m not making the argument, I’m just presenting it—that the increase was a one-time “catch-up” increase that does not reflect a trend in state spending habits. How would Osborne respond to that argument? What, specifically, would he have done to prevent such a large spending increase?
I look forward to learning more about all the candidates’ plans for Nebraska. But I hope we get some specifics as the campaign moves along.
Good News! No Refugees!
Lincoln has officially received a stand down order; we won’t be seeing any large influxes of Katrina refugees. That’s great news. Not for Lincoln, but for the refugees themselves. Can you imagine having to live and sleep in cramped, miserable conditions like those you see in the picture? And to think the refugees were supposed to be thankful for the privilege of sleeping in close quarters with 100 strangers.
The best thing that can happen to Katrina’s victims is that they be allowed to go home as soon as possible and rebuild their lives. Had they had to come to Nebraska to live for an indeterminate amount of time, their recovery—and indeed their suffering—would only have been drawn out even longer.
Huge
How would you like a 33” by 117” television screen?
Oh wait, did I say inches? I meant feet. As in one hundred feet wider than the current HuskerVision screens.
Salary Survey Shenanigans
I haven’t been following the salary survey debacle very closely, but fortunately LIBA is keeping Lincoln accountable. I’m not sure why LIBA is demanding that the City Council conduct an investigation, though. An independent investigation seems more appropriate.
The background, if you aren’t familiar with the situation, is this: The city’s personnel department conducted a study that was eventually used to justify substantial pay raises for 139 of Lincoln’s highest paid city workers. It turns out, however, that a personnel department staffer misrepresented some of the data used in the study. It has not been made clear if this “misrepresentation” was intentional. Nor has it been made clear how much that misrepresentation affected the outcome of the study. (A good newspaper already would have conducted its own investigation and uncovered that information. The Journal Star, however, is not an especially good newspaper.)
Oddly enough, I have a hard time being too cynical about all of this. (And this from a guy who has been really cynical of late!) Assuming the snafu really can be traced back to a single employee, there are two simple outcomes: if he intentionally misrepresented the data, he should be fired; if he misrepresented the data by virtue of incompetence, he should be fired.
I suppose there’s the third possibility that he made an honest-to-goodness mistake. In that case, his work should be carefully scrutinized and he should “pay” some sort of reparations, perhaps in the form of attending some sort of training. I hesitate to include this possibility because it can far too easily be used as a crutch to avoid firing an incompetent bureaucrat. But it would be unfair of me not to.
One can argue that there needs to be tighter o
versight over each city employee’s work, but that will only lead to more red tape, not greater competence. Certainly the checks and balances in place to prevent these sort of mistakes need to be reevaluated and modified, but an all-out overhaul would be unnecessary.
Again, my conclusions rely on the assumption that the goof in this situation was made by a single individual. If that assumption turns out to be false, I will rethink my position. For now, though, cynicism toward the entire personnel department—or the city government as a whole—is unwarranted. On this matter, anyway.
The Woodlands
Another humorously named subdivision has been proposed in Southeast Lincoln. The Woodlands will feature “about 1,000 homes and 450 apartments on about 360 acres on the south side of Yankee Hill Road between 70th and 84th streets.” (Question for the LJS: Are apartments not homes?) The subdivision will also feature 600,000 square feet of retail and office space, described by developer Rick Krueger as “mostly neighborhood uses,” by which he means no big box retailers. It would be nice to see a development actually integrate the retail and office space into the neighborhood, but I suspect that space will be relegated to the periphery, as is the norm in suburbia.
No Gouging in Nebraska
Attorney General Jon Bruning took a break from his child sex fetish to look into everybody’s favorite topic these days, gasoline price gouging. His conclusion? “I’ve looked at the numbers, I’ve looked at the details, and I don’t think anybody’s price gouging.” I think most rational folks could have told him that and saved him a few hours of his time, but whatever.
The Journal Star article does note that Bruning’s office is looking into one (out of 300) complaint of price gouging involving an Omaha gas station that charged around $5.00 per gallon of gasoline. (The LJS doesn’t say for how long it is accused of charging that price.) But why? A single station selling gasoline for a ridiculously high price may be involved in price gouging, but it is also engaged in business suicide, and it is not engaged in the more dastardly crime of price fixing. In a city the size of Omaha, does it really matter if one station—or even a dozen stations—charges $2.00 more per gallon than every other station in the city? In the Omaha area the ratio of stations charging understandable prices to those charging ridiculous prices was several hundred-to-one. Where’s the crime? Where’s the collusion? Where’s the manipulation of poor, defenseless consumers in a restricted marketplace?
We aren’t talking about the lone retailer in Benkelman, Nebraska. We’re talking about one moron in Omaha. Let him charge his $5.00 per gallon! If he actually got somebody to pay that amount, I say we give him the Savvy Businessman of the Year Award. Wasting government resources to investigate him for greediness in a competitive marketplace is stupid. If only somebody would investigate Bruning’s office.
Then there’s the que
stion of why gasoline prices drop so much more slowly than they rise:
City Councilman Dan Marvin has also entered the fray, asking Bruning why pump prices seem to rise commensurately with hikes in gasoline futures contracts, but don’t drop at an equal rate when the futures prices dip.
Bruning’s analysis showed that profit margins at most gasoline retailers in Nebraska were around $.04 to $.05 per gallon over the past month. At times, retailers even charged less than they paid for the gasoline. Both those facts answer Dan Marvin’s question: retailers get screwed when prices rise quickly, and they recoup their losses (or their lower-than-normal profits) as prices decrease.
If Bruning wants to waste his time, he ought to investigate fireworks retailers, not gasoline retailers. Having worked in the fireworks business I can say with absolute certainty that price fixing goes on each and every year. Then again, fireworks price fixing is abetted by government market controls, so Bruning probably has an interest in not getting involved in that particular fleecing of the consumer.
Where’s All the Fuss?
I’m a little perplexed that, despite all the media coverage, the University of Nebraska State Museum (aka Morrill Hall) isn’t taking more flack for its new “Explore Evolution” exhibit, especially considering the near-simultaneous surge in media coverage of Intelligent Design. When I first found out about the exhibit several months ago—a fellow bus rider works at the museum and he helped to put together the exhibit—I predicted the Journal Star would overflow with letters to the editor condemning the godless heathens in Morrill Hall. Instead I’ve heard nary a peep. Lincoln has its fair share of Bible strict interpretationists, as we’ve seen countless times on the Journal Star’s opinion page. Where have they been?
The What Was in Town?
The State Fair wrapped up this weekend. Lincoln puts up a huge fuss any time anybody dares mention the possibility of: 1) dismantling the Fair; or 2) moving the Fair out of Lincoln. And yet while the Fair is actually in town, Lincolnites ignore it. I can’t think of a single friend, family member, or acquaintance who went to the Fair this year. I take that back, I know of five guys who went: the members of No Better Cause. I wonder if they actually performed in front of anybody?
The State Fair is an anachronism, a money pit, a miserable shell of a past reality kept on life support by taxpayers who know the Fair for what it was, not for what it is. Lincolnites foolishly want to keep the Fair in town because it brings in a few tax dollars each year. Psh. You want tax dollars? Turn the Fair Grounds over to real estate developers. They’ll bring in tax dollars. Millions and millions and millions of tax dollars.
But no. We want our corn dogs and funnel cakes. ‘Tis a shame.
iiiiiiit’s Game Day!
49-10 sez this prognosticator.
To pass the time until kick-off, may I suggest watching some bear-related videos.
Have You Seen This Man?
The Lincoln police need your help. If you have seen Antonio Banks, call Crimestoppers at 475-3600 or the police department at 441-7204 with information. Banks is considered armed and dangerous.
Power Play
LES has decided to continue with its recommendation to run a high-voltage power line along the west edge of Nine Mile Prairie. The decision is somewhat surprising considering the intense disapproval of the plan by prairie supporters, whose main complaint is that the power line will ruin the view from the prairie.
LES is stuck in a no-win situation. They can keep the line next to the prairie and sacrifice PR points at a time when rates are increasing. Or they can cave in, move the line, and be forced to raise rates even faster due to the extra costs, thus sacrificing PR points.
I don’t find the prairie supporters’ complaint very compelling. I don’t think that “it will ruin the view” is a sufficient justification for awarding them de facto veto power over neighboring developments. It would be an unfortunate precedent. Today it’s a power line. Tomorrow it’s a house, or a gas station, or a Hy-Vee. The prairie’s primary purpose is as a biological reserve. A power line will not affect that role. An undisturbed view is a nice bonus, but it is a weak justification for applying this sort of an easement on neighboring property.
Spotted Gators
I haven’t been to a high school football game in years. Until last night, that is. I got to watch the North Star Gators play the Millard South Patriots from the press box at Seacrest Field. I acted as spotter for my cousin, who is North Star’s PA announcer. Watching most of a game through a pair of binoculars is a little odd, but I had a lot of fun. As a Southeast grad I probably shouldn’t be going to North Star games, but I may just have to go help spot a few more times this season.
Murder
A Lincolnite was shot and killed around 12:30a.m. this morning. Robert Herndon was murdered by two men who had come to his house, but it is not clear if Herndon knew the men. Herndon’s girlfriend witnessed the murder.
Often these situations involve gang activity or a drug deal gone wrong. So far no motive has been suggested.
A Star City Hooker
I just had my first encounter with a Lincoln prostitute.
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