When is a Tax Hike not a Tax Hike?

"Notice of Public Hearing on Tax Increase." That's what the City of Richardson called it, a tax increase, in a required public notice in the neighborsgo edition of The Dallas Morning News.

"Richardson’s proposed budget for 2013-14 maintains the tax rate while funding key maintenance projects and boosting staff salaries." That's what The Dallas Morning News itself said in its own story on Richardson's proposed budget.

Which is it? A tax increase or maintaining the current tax rate?

After the jump, how the State of Texas confuses residents in the name of clarity... and why.

Sticking to the Budget in Richardson

Last week, when I looked at the 2013-2014 budget for the City of Richardson, I pronounced it balanced. Revenues exceeded expenditures, without relying on that sneaky asterisk "plus reserved fund balance, and other funding sources." That made two years in a row where Richardson put forward a truly balanced budget. I pronounced that good.

But of course, a budget is only as good as one's ability to stick to it. So, today, let's take a look at how the City of Richardson is living up to its 2012-2013 budget that it adopted a year ago this month. The fiscal year isn't quite over, so we have look at estimates. Luckily for us, page 22 of the 2013-2014 budget presentation contains the estimates for 2012-2013. Putting that side by side with last year's budget, we get what we're looking for... after the jump.

The Invisible War (2012)

IMDB

The Invisible War (2012): Culture of rape in US military. Victims are blamed. Rapists are not prosecuted. Shameful. Shameful. Shameful. A+

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

IMDB

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012): FDR mothered by houseful of women. Intimate look at bigger than life man. Downton Abbey in a funhouse mirror. B-

S2L77: Khyber Pass

From 1977 03 17 Pakistan

On to Afghanistan. The road from India and Pakistan to Central Asia leads through the Khyber Pass, the fabled route of trade and conquest for thousands of years. The Silk Road came through here. So, too, did the Persian army under Darius the Great, the Greek army under Alexander the Great, and the Mongol army under Genghis Khan. In 2001, the US military launched an attack on the nearby mountain caves of Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden's base in that most recent war.

Even in 1977, before the recent decades of war broke out, the route through the Khyber Pass was barely safe. The territory was controlled by warlords as much as by the central governments of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Travelers were warned to start their journey early in the morning in order to be safely in Kabul by nightfall. And not to leave the road for any reason.

More photos after the jump.

Fufu and Juju

My nephew has just taken up a year-long assignment running a private, non-profit, fee-free secondary school in a village in Ghana. The coastal setting is Club Med spectacular. The living conditions... not so much.

Judging from the few emails he's managed to send, it sounds like he will have plenty of stories to tell. I hope he decides to write a book. After the jump, an excerpt, just a small part of a larger story, from one email. It's been lightly edited for clarity and anonymity (best let students themselves tell these stories to their parents).

OTBR: A View of Ballarat's Mt. Helen

Latitude: S 37° 38.394
Longitude: E 143° 48.414

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".