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February 23, 2005

Pittsburghers Take Note

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick has covered the opening arguments in Kelo v New London. The case, in a nutshell: the city of New London wishes to seize, via eminent domain, private property to sell to private developers to create a new upscale community. Problem is, the current properties are not blighted (the usual criteria for ED), and the city's argument centers around the increased tax revenue a new community could generate.

If you live in Pittsburgh, especially the city proper, pay attention to this. Mayor Tom Murphy is. Should the Supremes rule in favor of New London, expect Murphy to use his new-found power to hand over large chunks of the Fifth-Forbes corridor to private developers. This could be a dream-come-true for our lame-duck leader.

Also, new pics of the boy.

February 22, 2005

All Quiet

It has been quiet here, eh? I've been busy posted and commenting at the Dialogical Coffee House, and I've been reading some material that doesn't lend itself to rapid posting. I've also been trying to find a rhythm for writing other material (ie fiction and/or creative nonfiction) that may find its way here.

In other news....Dave and Casey got a puppy.

February 18, 2005

Home

Today I discovered that our community group has a website. Not exactly cutting edge design, but, hey, it could be worse. Being a bit of Pittsburgh history geek, I got a kick out of a few of the historical documents on the site, including an article in the 1905 Pittsburgh Leader about Morningside Valley. An excerpt (and a reason I like exactly where our house is):

This valley extends from the southeast to northwest, so it gets the sun nearly all day long. It's chief advantage lies in this fact, for from the moment the sun peeps above the horizon early in the morning his warm, golden glow bathes the beautiful lowlands, and drives away all the mists and vapor. This spells health, so it is not to be wondered at that Morningside valley is one of the healthiest spots in Greater Pittsburgh. Scarcely any other valley receives so much sunlight. The place indeed is well named.

Dooyeweerd

Our church's coffee group (I can't seem to settle on a name for our little tribe, since our reading material doesn't stick to a single genre or theme) met last night to chat about the first chapter of Herman Dooyeweerd's Roots of Western Culture. Dooyeweerd was one of the driving intellectual forces in Neocalvinism, and his work provides a solid philosophical foundation to Biblica Christianity. Several folks in the group (myself included) had never read Dooey, and one of our members had read quite a bit, so he suggested we examine this book as a good introduction to Dooey's thought without getting bogged down in the particulars. Most of the time was spent discussing the introduction, wherein Dooyeweerd lays out his plan for the book (tracing the religious roots of Western Culture through the Greeks, the Romans, the Catholic church, and the humanists) and his analytical methods. The rest of the time was spent examining the "Creation Fall Redemption" ground motive in more detail. We've decided to reread the piece for next month, due to both the absence of several people and the density of the work.

One side note -- Ian, our resident Dooey expert, pointed out that this book was originally written as a series of essays for a Dutch Reformed journal in the years following World War II, when the Netherlands was facing difficult decisions about its future. While the essays were important philosophically, there were also meant to be practical instructions for the reformed Dutch community as they faced an uncertain future. One of favorite passages underscores this:

In this apparently chaotic stage of transition the West's older and spiritually consolidated cultural powers, Roman Catholicism and the Reformation, have again joined the spiritual fray. This time they fight with modern weapons. Their aim is not just to defend the christian foundations of modern civilization but to reclaim leadership for a future which is still so unknown and bleak.

February 15, 2005

Habitat For Humanity

Via Crooked Timber:

It seems that owners of Habitat For Humanity-built homes in Virginia are being squeezed by rising property taxes. In a nutshell: the owners are faced with property tax bills that are greater than their mortgage payments. From the Post article:

In recent months, Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia has launched a campaign to persuade localities to provide tax relief for their homeowners. It is arguing that the Habitat homes shouldn’t be assessed at market rates because deed restrictions prevent their owners from selling the homes for profit or getting home equity loans until the 20-year mortgages are paid. If Habitat homeowners sell their homes before 20 years are up, they must sell them back to Habitat for the amount they cost — $80,000 to $120,000 in most cases, Cleveland said, which is the restricted value.

Crooked Timber-ite Belle Waring asks:

Perhaps someone can help me out here; why put this onerous restriction on the deed? I can sort of see that the nature of the charitable donation would be altered if it essentially became a cash gift rather than a house. And I suppose it makes some sense to restrict immediate sale. But 20 years? This seems to deprive the recipients of one of the main benefits of homeownership: capital appreciation. What would be wrong with letting this woman sell and buy another, cheaper house elsewhere in the area, rather than petitioning the local government for tax abatement? She and her family would be just as “housed.” On the other hand, she would seem to have a good case that her house is not actually worth the assessed price, since she can’t sell it for that amount. Thoughts?

I agree with her -- sort of. I do think the twenty year restriction is a bit too, well, restrictive. I understand what HH is trying to avoid -- someone getting a brand new house, then simply selling it and taking the cash to move to a small apartment -- but why not set the restriction at five or ten years? HH protects their initial investment and their program's integrity, and the owners aren't quite so hamstrung.

February 14, 2005

News About American Apparel

It seems while American Apparel is sweat-shop free, they still don't treat their employees so well.

February 13, 2005

Rally Sweden Recap

Petter Solberg has broken his string of bad luck on this event, and won his first Rally Sweden, kickstarting his championship campaign. In the end, it was easy for Solberg, with his closest rivals, Marcus Gronholm and Sebastien Loeb, retiring on the final leg. The win puts Solberg in a tie for third place in the championship, four points behind current (and surprise) leader Toni Gardemeister. Peugeot's Markko Martin salvaged the weekend thanks to Gronholm and Loeb, and took second, and Ford's Gardemeister continued his impressive season with third. Mitsubishi's Harri Rovanpera was the last of the "regular" factory drivers in the points, followed by Henning Solberg (who was nominated as a points driver for Ford) and Daniel Carlsson, driving a privateer 307.

Biggest surprises? Mitsubishi's pace. Gigi Galli was in a hunt for a podium place until a few mishaps at the end of leg two (and he later admitted when he was setting scratch times he wasn't driving flat out) and Rovanpera finished fourth, setting the scratch time on the final stage. This is the second double manufacturer's points haul for the Japanese marque in as many rallies, so the team's design to run a limited programme last season seems to have paid off. Also, Toni Gardemeister continues to impress. Though he would have finished only fifth had Loeb and Gronholm not retired, the Finn is showing speed and skill behind the wheel of the Focus. And the biggest disappointment (besides, of course, the retirements of Loeb and Gronholm)? Citroen's Francois Duval. Duval never found any pace this weekend, and an off damaged his car, dropping over two minutes in a single stage.

The championship heads to Mexico next for the year's first proper gravel rally. Given the speed shown by a variety of drivers so far this season, it should be a close fight.

February 11, 2005

More Bikes, and a Word on Sweden

Matt Chester has a nice little overview of his design philosophy. Most notable are some of the pics he unearthed of the early days of the TdF. The pic below is just plain awesome:

Fixed gears. Dirt road. Self-sufficient.

Also, the Rally Sweden started today. There was concern that there wouldn't be enough snow, turning the typically fast bobsled course-like stages into tyre-eating gravel, but heavy snowfall over the past two days have helped conditions. Currently, Petter Solberg leads (after SS6) Marcus Gronholm and Sebastien Loeb. The standings are tight at the moment, with only 12 seconds separating the three. The biggest surprise so far has been Gigi Galli, who is only 2 seconds behind Loeb. The gaps begin to grow after Galli, with Francois Duval and Markko Martin roughly 45 adrift of the leaders. More to come....

February 10, 2005

New Urbanism -- It's Everywhere

Reason has chimed in on the New Urbanist movement, and, predictably, Stephen Town and Randal O'Toole aren't impressed. The bulk of criticism focuses on the crime-friendly nature of New Urbanist developments, thanks to the copious open spaces, mixed-use areas, and alleys.

February 09, 2005

New Urbanism

Eli passed along information today about Prospect, Colorado's first New Urbanist community. Viewed under a microscope, it is a very cool looking place -- well-designed houses, a community business district with home-grown businesses, trees and parks. But, when viewed as a part of a whole, the project seems to seems to fail at one of its core purposes: reducing sprawl. Examine the map to see where exactly Prospect is, and you'll see that instead of renovating an existing community in the New Urbanist mold, the developers simply built their community somewhere undeveloped. Isn't this just sprawl with a pretty face and mom and pop businesses?

February 08, 2005

Google Maps (2)

As soon as I got into work, and spread the word about Google's new map service, my cohorts and I did what all good geeks do -- we started to hack it apart, trying to decipher what the brilliant minds at Google did to create such a cool app. Who would have thought even two years ago that Javascript/DHTML would be the future of cutting edge web apps?

Goodbye Mapquest

Google has just released the beta version of Google Maps. The initial interface is very simple, but will probably be confusing to some (for driving directions you smash both addresses in a single textbox separated by "to"). I got directions from the house to the office, and the results came back within seconds, and the directions were nearly the same as my bike route (which takes the bus lane across town, so I'd expect that wouldn't be part of their results). Anyway...very nice.

February 04, 2005

Simple Beauty

While I have become a bit of utilitarian when it comes to my small stable of bicycles, I've come to appreciate a few particular styles of bicycle design:

Momo Velo. A fantastic selection of styles and design philosophies. Their track bike/cafe racer is just awesome, as is the Milk Tea bike.

Vanilla Bicycles. I think I've mentioned these guys before. Wow. But I don't think I could actually own one and ride it -- the frames are just too pretty.

Matt Chester. Matt's titanium fixed-specific 29er/cyclocross frames don't fit the same design niche as Momo and Vanilla, but the utility value of his bikes is very high.

The Mother of Objectivism

Reason's Cathy Young explores the philosophy and person of Ayn Rand nearly twenty five years after her death. I must admit, I was enchanted when I read The Fountainhead, and that led, in part, to my brief affair with Libertarianism. But as Young points out, Rand had no time for compassion, and not everyone who fails in the free market does so of their own volition. Young does a nice job exploring the person of Rand, and how even she had problems living the life she espoused in her books.

February 02, 2005

Silence

Yes, it has been quiet around here, but not without good reason. First, the discussions over at the Dialogical Coffee House have been capturing my attention, and I've peppering some other sites with my comments. Second, the latest issue of the New Pantagruel is out, and there is plenty of good stuff to absorb there as well. I've also been half-heartedly trying to write "other" things lately in an attempt to recapture the creativity of my youth. Also, I've finally procured a winter beater fixie, and it's nearly ready to roll. Photos will forthcoming.