I always thought "a good blend" was, oh, a Johnnie Walker or Seagram's Seven Crown in which the cheap fillers don't overwhelm the malted grain. But, no, it refers to the mix of the fix for Indianapolis' beleagured sports stadiums:
Indiana's alcohol tax would be doubled and hospitality taxes would be raised again under a Statehouse plan designed to bail out the financially struggling group that runs the professional sports stadiums in Indianapolis.
The headline on the story is "Getting older but working longer." No kidding:
For many years, the average retirement age for men had fallen through much of the 20th century.
“By the mid-1980s, it had dropped down to 62 or 63 and stayed there for 20 years or so.”
Never having to be sorry for saying you are sorry:
The United States may have apologized in 1993 for the "illegal overthrow" of Hawaii's native monarch a century earlier, but that congressional expression of regret did not give native Hawaiians a legal claim to state lands, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The 9-0 decision leaves it to the state of Hawaii to decide how to manage the 1.2 million acres in dispute.
Those of us who admit to having any kind of libertarian instinct run the risk of getting called hypocritcal or dishonest or philosophically incoherent any time we express the mildest approval for any kind of government action (see previous post on high-speed rail, for example). So I feel bad about criticizing Neal Boortz, syndicated radio talk-show host and self-described libertarian, but he went off the deep end a little about seat belts.
They do know how to have fun in Ohio:
Newark police say that Konink saw a neighbor riding a motorized bar stool shortly before the man wrecked while trying to make a U-turn.
Police say that Kile Wygle, 28, had one too many before wheeling his homemade oddity around the neighborhood on March 4.
Those sinners in Indianapolis are on their way to being saved after saying their Earth Hour prayer at the global-warming altar:
The lights at the shop and some other locations in the city went out at 8:30 p.m. and stayed out for an hour. Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, the same observance was planned for the same local times around the globe.
At the shop, candles lit the room, and the lights-out participants expressed dedication.
Good thing I'm not one of those New World Order conspiracy nuts; this would be downright worrisome:
Once hailed as a beacon of rebirth in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Freedom Tower has been stripped of its patriotic name -- which has been swapped out for the more marketable "One World Trade Center," Port Authority officials conceded yesterday.
When something has grown beyond what it was meant to be, when it seems to exist only to serve itself instead of the people it was created for and by, maybe it's time to think about letting it go or at least redefining it. That's the conclusion reached by people on Chicago's South Side, who are ending the St. Patrick's Day Parade they began in 1979:
