Politics and other nightmares

So it's down to the final three. So say both the Weekly Standard and NBC News:

Smoking ban proposed, smoking ban approved -- it's starting to seem inevitable isn't it? On occasion, though, there's a vote that goes against the trend:

Beech Grove will keep its smoke-filled bars for as long as possible.

President Obama -- when he's right, he's right:

How do you respond to criticism that your administration hasn’t done enough to support black businesses?

Hey, is the presidential campaign getting classy or what?

You silly, uninformed average voters. You're probably buying into the propaganda that this is going to be a real squeaker of a presidential race, a too-close-to-call nail biter to the very end. Well, guess again:

In taxation as in anything else, there is no such thing as an objective standard of "fairness." Fair is what we think is fair at any given time -- as this Wall Street Journal piece says, it's not resolvable scientifically but only "by a show of hands." But to get there, we have to accept a basic set of facts, starting with these four:

With all due respect to Mr. Romney, I'm not sure this is a good idea:

Mitt Romney is calling for "something dramatic" to help the economy recover, but he's not saying exactly what.

Here's a different kind of age-discrimination suit:

A 3.2 grade point average is not what it used to be.

Are you kidding me?

Don’t buy the doom and gloom pronouncements from conservatives telling you, “this is the most important election in history.” A loss for Mitt Romney would not necessarily spell long lasting disaster for Republicans, nor would it be the death-knell to conservatism. In fact, it’s possible a 2012 loss could lay the groundwork for a stronger Republican party and conservative movement.

I know this is peanuts in the overall government waste, fraud and abuse scandal, but it's still galling: