Lincolnite

UNL's research funding leveled off a bit this year, but still increased 3.2% to $105.7 million. That's a nice little chunk of change. Although UNL and NU leaders talk about how UNL's research funding benefits Lincoln and Nebraska, it would be nice to see some numbers rather than just general statements. Even a periodic report -- every three to five years, say -- would be great. Does such a report exist?

Week after week, I see articles in the Journal Star or hear stories on KLIN about the success of the latest prostitution sting by LPD in or near Near South. Today I woke up to the same old news: seven more men were arrested for soliciting prostitution in that neighborhood. Seriously guys, are you trying to get caught? LPD hasn't exactly been secretive about their anti-prostitution efforts in that part of the city. I wonder how many men LPD has caught in those stings. Dozens for sure.

I received a report that Lincolnite doesn't always load correctly. Sometimes it can take a few page refreshes to get things to show up properly. This specific report said it started around last Wednesday. Is anybody else having problems with pages not loading, or only getting partial page loads? If so, please let me know.

Pleasantly surprised to see that the online version of the Times' "above the fold" story this morning is on the development of wind power out in Ainsworth by NPPD.

In today's Don Walton column, he includes this sentence near the end:

Irony: Deregulation is a favorite theme of the business community, but deregulation of the airline industry could forever place limits on Lincoln’s potential for economic growth.

I'm missing his point. Could somebody tell me what he's trying to get at?

Have you ever seen a two year-old fall asleep on the toilet? Actually, hold that thought. I'm getting ahead of myself. Early this spring I (rather arbitrarily) decided that we would start potty training Robbie on or about his second birthday. Robbie has always seemed to be an intelligent boy who is capable of controlling himself when he really needs to. That seemed like enough to make potty training go relatively smoothly. Then again, what did I know? My last direct experience with potty training came 28 years ago. Well, Robbie's second birthday came and went in mid-May. He clearly wasn't ready to shed diapers just yet, despite a few early successes with #2. And so we waited. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Out of the blue I said to The Missus, "I think we should seriously consider starting up potty training in earnest." The Missus wasn't quite as gung ho about it as I was, but we began to investigate our options. First we had to check with Theresa, our daycare provider. By coincidence, one of the girls at daycare was also ready to begin using the toilet. Since kids tend to learn these things best in groups, we decided to start together the following Monday. That was a week ago. In the first couple days Robbie had one accident per day. That seemed about right. On Wednesday, it was two. Then on Thursday he became ill and we had to temporarily revert to diapers. Uh oh. On Thursday night I glumly informed grandma that "it might not happen right now". But since then he has been doing awesome. We had an accident-free weekend. And on Friday night Robbie began waking us up in the middle of the night rather than doing his business in his diaper. (We're keeping the overnight diaper ... for now.) Have you ever sat in the middle of the night with a semi-conscious toddler with a toddler who is trying to pee? Who knew it could be so cute. Last night he even fell asleep on the toilet, upping the cute factor considerably. It has been three days since Robbie woke up with a wet diaper. I'm nowhere near ready to declare victory over the diaper because, well, toddlers often take the two-steps-forward-one-step-back approach to learning and development, and because it takes a lot longer than a week to make sure these things stick. For now, I'm enjoying the thought of a diaper-free future. I just have one pressing question: how do you keep pants from falling off a diaperless kid who has no butt?

I just recently noticed an oddity in the City Council's proposed changes to the Mayor's budget:

Cut $300 for replacement of office chair in Public Works and Utilities, Fleet Services - $300.

I wonder whose chair that was supposed to be, and why the Council doesn't want him or her to sit in comfort.

The print edition of today's Lincoln Journal Star sports section is a perfect illustration of the frustrations some of you have expressed lately about the LJS's lack of content. Page 3 is 50% advertisements. Page 4 is 100% advertisements. Page 5 is 100% advertisements. With 2.5 pages of ads in a six-page section, you're looking at 40% ads, 60% content. Of that 60%, most of page 2 and page 6 are raw data (various sports results and baseball stats, respectively). And about 1/3 of page 1 is taken up by a large photo and headline that several of you have railed against. I'm still a subscriber and I don't plan to unsubscribe any time soon. But at 60/40, the ratio of content to ads is getting scarily close to the likes of Cosmo.

Since Senator Bill Avery proposed a sales tax holiday on back-to-school items in Nebraska, you may be interested in knowing how Iowa handles their holiday. Here are the rules, along with a list of sample taxable and exempt items. For example, corsets are exempt, as are fur coats, riding pants, and tuxedos. Meanwhile, scuba gear, martial arts attire, golf gloves, and checkbook covers are taxable. One of the rules strikes me as odd. That rule states: "Businesses cannot advertise that they will pay or otherwise absorb the sales tax on items that don’t qualify." Why not? If I run a business and I want to have a 10% off sale during the sales tax holiday, that's legal. But if I want to have a 5.5% off sale (or whatever the sales tax happens to be), that's illegal. Huh? Several states have sales tax holidays on various items at various times of the year. You may want to read up on what other states are doing.

I was very surprised this morning to see that crime in Lincoln has dropped significantly -- by 19% or 13% in the first half of the year, depending on how you choose to crunch the numbers. That's impressive for several reasons. One is that, as I have mentioned before and as Chief Casady likes to talk about, Lincoln isn't exactly crawling with cops. That's not to say we should have cops on every corner, just that an increased police presence is generally going to be expected to decrease certain types of crimes. Another reason is the economy. My gut instinct tells me that there should be an inverse relationship between "the economy" (a fuzzy concept to be sure), and rates of certain crimes, such as theft. Maybe Lincoln is bucking the trend, for some reason. Or perhaps my gut is dead wrong. Beyond all of that, I think some of the credit has to go to Lincolnites. Scoff if you will, but I think there is a kernel of truth to the notion that Lincoln is still a small town at heart. Enough Lincolnites are connected to other Lincolnites by social bonds -- even relatively weak bonds of acquaintanceship -- that the community fabric holds together pretty well. In that sort of an environment, crime can be expected to stay lower than it otherwise would be. Of course, there are plenty of factors straining those bonds so even if this is all true, we've got our work cut out for us to keep it together. Go at it, you amateur criminologists. What's up with the big drop in the crime rate?

Matt Olberding says today's the day that Marcus Theaters switches from Coke to Pepsi. Or, if you're like me, from Sprite to Sierra Mist or Mountain Dew. On this topic, are you among the "It's the end of the world! / This is the greatest news EVAR!" crowd, or the "Yaaaaaaawn" crowd?

Lincoln State Senator Bill Avery wants Nebraska to follow Iowa's lead and have an annual tax holiday during the back-to-school shopping season. It seems like an awfully Omaha-centric proposal. Who, besides folks in the Omaha metro, rushes to Iowa to shop every year? Consider folks driving from Lincoln. Let's say you spend $15 on gas getting to Council Bluffs and back. If you save 5% on taxes, you would need to spend $300 just to break even. And that's without factoring in the two hours of time you just lost. You don't value your time at $0/hour, do you? (Pst, if you do go to Council Bluffs, be sure to fill up your gas tank at the station just east of Ameristar. Cheapest I've found in the area.) Maybe the problem is much greater in Omaha. But is it great enough that we would recoup the costs of applying this program across the state? Where's an economist when you really need one? The LJS article includes this bit:

Avery says he’s “tired of seeing parking lots in Council Bluffs full of cars with Nebraska license plates” and that he can’t blame Nebraskans for crossing the river. he plans to introduce a bill for a sales tax holiday next legislative session.

Well now I'm curious. What is Bill Avery doing hanging out at Council Bluffs shopping malls?

It's time to do your civic duty, folks, and study up on the proposed City budget. You might start with the Mayor's proposal (summary [PDF]), and then move on to the Council's version (summary [PDF]). The City Council's budget session is Monday, August 11 at 2:30pm, so if you've got something to say, that's your time to do it.

The Journal Star announced yesterday it has laid off 16 employees. Times they are a changin' in the news industry, and this is just one symptom. The LJS still employs 424, so this isn't a huge reduction, though try telling that to the folks who got laid off. Interestingly, the very first commenter on the story suggests charging for online subscriptions. I'm sure the LJS is considering that. I'm not so sure that would be a good idea. Many media organizations much larger than the Journal Star have dropped or scaled-back their pay-for-content plans because they found that they weren't as profitable as anticipated.