Breaking and Branding Richardson

Source: City of Richardson.

Central Heights. Trailside. McKamy Spring. Rustic Circle. Civic District. Chinatown. Recognize these areas of Richardson? They're all supposedly neighborhoods in the planning study for the Main Street/Central Expressway redevelopment project that the City of Richardson has launched. The city's latest thinking on the subject is full of new names and pretty pictures.

After the jump, my thoughts.

The Curious Interview in Des Moines

On October 23, President Obama gave an interview to the Des Moines Register. The story goes that the president asked that the interview be off the record, the newspaper questioned why that should be, and the Obama campaign relented and released the transcript.

This background is but a footnote to the presidential election campaign, but the President said something in the interview that struck me at the time as curious. After the jump, the president on immigration reform.

S2L77: Malacca

From 1977 02 02 Malaysia

150 miles from Singapore up the Malaysian peninsula lies Malacca. It's about a three hour car ride on a two lane coastal highway through occasional villages. It's how I got my introduction to driving in Asia (as a passenger, not a driver myself). You don't wait for a break in oncoming traffic to pass slow moving vehicles (and when you're in a car, everything else is slow moving). You pass by pulling out into the passing lane, bluffing as much of the oncoming traffic off onto their own shoulder as you can, and just keep going until you're forced back into your lane by a better bluffer than you. Cheaper than a Six Flags ticket, more exciting than any thrill ride.

After the jump, a geographical history lesson.

Electing a Mayor

[Life] is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Source: William Shakespeare, Macbeth.

One election down. Next up: a mayoral election in May, 2013, because voters in Richardson chose overwhelmingly to amend the City Charter to have a direct election of the mayor. No surprise there. Now the handicapping of the May mayoral race begins. After the jump, my early, wild speculation, unsupported by any evidence, just because I'm addicted to the horses.

Did Sandy Tip Election to Obama?

Did Hurricane Sandy, the October surprise, tip the election to President Obama? Perhaps. The disaster did give the president the opportunity to display leadership, a trait that Mitt Romney claimed the president lacked. If Sandy gets the blame for Romney's loss, it is in part due to it exposing a dubious claim at the heart of the Romney campaign. Call it nature's way of fact-checking a politician.

In any case, Hurricane Sandy was just the last of a long string of reasons, most of them self-inflicted wounds, that contributed to Romney's loss. After the jump, the rundown.