The Fancy Nancy cake

Next time you're hungry in LA

I heard an NPR piece the other day about Kogi, which is essentially a food truck that drives around the city serving Korean-Mexican food. Apparently, their signature dish is the Korean short ribs taco, which sounds awesome. They blog and tweet their locations in advance so you can find them, which I plan to do the next time I'm in LA.

Has anyone out there tried Kogi yet?

Kagan in HD3?

I'm hearing rumors that the CO House District 3 vacancy committee has selected my friend and fellow convention delegate Daniel Kagan. I hope this is true -- he'd be a great pick.

Update: County Dem party chair Cindy Lowery confirms it. Congratulations, Daniel.

Later update: I was following this little election not just because Kagan is a friend, but also because he quite publicly "backed the wrong horse" last year -- he was an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter. He was one of the delegates who successfully campaigned for the roll call vote on the convention floor last summer. I was curious (as was Kagan) whether there'd be any sort of payback among fellow Democrats, whether a Clinton backer would be automatically disqualified in a vote among party insiders. It looks like the answer is no.

Death smiles upon us all

I've been wondering about this (via Monkey Cage).

Because of a law that the Congress passed in 2001, the estate tax, which at is 45 percent this year with an exemption up to $3.5 million in assets, will be entirely repealed in 2010 before abruptly returning to its former rate of 55 percent rate in 2011.

They say that we tax the things we want to discourage and subsidize the things we want to encourage. Well, next year should be a real test. Financially speaking, next year is the best year to die in America. More properly stated, next year is the best year to have a wealthy relative die. You'll receive your inheritance tax-free. It will not be a good year to be on life support.

Print is dead

The University of Michigan Press (my publisher!) is going digital. In two years, they'll be primarily publishing their books in electronic format, viewable on Kindle or iPhone.

I really wonder what this means for academia. I'm guessing a lot of other major academic publishers will follow suit. Print books are terribly expensive to produce. I have a hard time imagining myself reading electronic books the same way I read print ones. But maybe it's easier for today's college students, or the kids who will be college students ten years from now. After all, you can use a Kindle or an iPhone on an exercise bike, or on a bus, or on the toilet... pretty much any place you'd read a print book. But it's a little tougher to writes notes in the margin.

Also, will a tenure review committee look upon a University of Michigan-approved PDF file the same way they look upon a printed text? In theory, it's the same gatekeeper, the same hurdle. But maybe it feels different.

And maybe it's not the same gatekeeper. University publishers limit the amount of stuff they publish in part to maintain the value of their press. Cambridge is a prominent publishing house precisely because they don't publish everything that comes across their desk. But if the costs of printing (derived from purchasing and binding cloth paper) drop dramatically, do they start publishing more? If so, how many books will junior scholars have to publish to get tenure?

The Slice Cake

I tried something a little weird for my wife's birthday cake. She's a big fan of the Slice, a "handheld cordless digital design cutter." Pretty cool machine. It looks like this:Anyway, here's the cake version:

Serious insider stuff in Denver

Anne McGihon, a Democratic state representative from Colorado's 3rd statehouse district (here in Denver), has decided to leave the state legislature and return to her law office. (She's termed out this year anyway, and her decision may have been prompted by her failed bid for speaker late last year.) In Colorado, a departure from the statehouse means... no, not a special election. No, not a gubernatorial appointment, either. It means a vacancy committee! The vacancy committee will consist of the Democratic precinct committee members plus the elected officials who reside in HD3. As the Wash Park Prophet writes,

The group of people who serve on the vacancy committee generally heavily overlaps with the people within the Democratic party who nominate candidates during the caucus process in Colorado for general elections.

It's actually a considerable amount of power for a pretty small group of people. It's a solid Dem district, too, meaning that their pick will likely hold this seat through the middle of the next decade.

At least nine candidates have put in their names for the seat, and the committee will meet this Thursday.