How in the world do you "misplace" so much money?
Indiana's governor announced Tuesday that state officials have found $300 million that went untouched even as lawmakers made deep cuts to education and slashed vacant government jobs while it weathered the recession.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said the money was collected but never transferred to the state's general spending account, which lawmakers use to allocate funds to various programs and departments.
The distate that Barack Obama, the community organizer who spent a year "behind enemy lines" in the private sector, feels for the corporate world is obvious. It has also become clear that he has no concept of the dynamics of capitalism:
Everything old is new again:
As President Obama travels to John Brown's old stomping ground in Osawatomie, Kansas where Theodore Roosevelt made his New Nationalism speech in 1910, Newt Gingrich has announced that he is a Theodore Roosevelt Republican.
Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and there's a lot of buzz about a newly declassified memo from 1941 hinting of a coming attack. This is great fun for those who think everything is a conspiracy, so a small history lesson is in order:
An interesting and underreported phenomenon is the movement of some conservatives to the drug-legalization position. A recent convert is columnist Mona Charen, who cites Milton Friedman's opinion that the war on drugs keeps the price of drugs artificially inflated and amounts to a favor by the government to drug lords.
It's a fair question: Is Sen. Richard Lugar still a Hoosier?
Greg Wright, an Indianapolis resident and Certified Fraud Examiner, filed a formal election fraud complaint with the Indiana Secretary of State on Wednesday against Senator Richard Lugar and his wife, Charlene Lugar.
Four times in the last few years, scientists have announced finding planets orbiting other stars in the "sweet spot habitable zone" -- not too hot, not too cold -- where water and perhaps life are possible. Sooner rather than later, it is speculated, there will be discovered a "lukewarm planet with a size making it probably Earthlike." This brings up the usual cautionary notes:
Almost everybody in the Republican field has had a shot at the "not Romney" poll surge. The newest guessing game seems to be over who's next, Rick Santorum or Jon Huntsman. Dick Armey, former House majority leader and leading conservative activist, gives the nod to Santorum:
Those pushing for a right-to-work law in Indiana are making the high unemployment rate the centerpiece of their argument. But now there is a dispute about the rate iteself:
Indiana's unemployment rate crept up to 9 percent in October, up from 8.9 percent the month before. The national rate dropped from 9.1 percent to 9 percent over that same period. These are the numbers most folks are used to hearing when reading official tallies of the struggling economy.
I've been moderating blog comments here with a very light touch. But the interactions have gotten so rough that it's obvious a heavier hand is needed. So starting immediately, there will be new guidelines. (And they are on permanently display under the "Commenting guidelines" heading under "Pages.")
I reserve the right to delete comments or block certain commenters based on a failure to follow these guidelines:
1. Stay on topic.
2. Avoid personal attacks and ad hominem arguments.
3. Keep the foul language to a minimum.
We wouldn't know anything about that here, would we?
Considering all the talk of new technology that has passed through this site in recent years, this probably shouldn't have come as a big surprise, but I did not seen it coming:
Wow. This takes "the world as we know it will explode if we allow any change" reactionary fear-mongering to a whole new level. Muslim scholars at Saudi Arabia's highest religious council say they have a "scientific report" that it would be dangerous to let women drive:
The report warns that allowing women to drive would
Reading Kevin Leininger's column today on the possibility of a countywide smoking sort of took me back in time:
Smoking foes aren't overly interested in civics, of course. Tobacco Free Allen County, for example, claims it wants to protect workers and cites statistics purporting to show that 1,240 Hoosiers die from secondhand smoke every year and that fine-particle air pollution in Fort Wayne declined 94 percent after Council's ban took effect.
One more indication the coming short session of the General Assembly won't be as peaceful as some might hope:
Two Indiana Republicans want welfare recipients to pass drug tests before they can receive benefits.
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In a recent survey, Kentucky drivers were among the lousiest in the nation -- seventh worst -- and Ohio drivers were among the safest -- 10th best.
The worst states on the list, in order, were Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. Rhode Island has the safest drivers among the 50 states, according to the study.
Indiana ranked 20th best for driving.
Sen. Richard Lugar's campaign sent out a press release quoting "a respected budget analyst" on Indiana Week in Review (see YouTube video below) saying that opponent Richard Mourdock's "clueless budget plan" is "just too goofy for words." It also quotes this column by Jack Colwell of the South Bend Tribune:
The Journal Gazette turns in a standard-issue civics lesson editorial lamenting the record-low 26 percent turnout in this year's city election. The piece goes through the usual list of possisble turnout inhibitors (the negative mayoral campaign, apathy and cynicism, the too-complex main issue of municipal finance, civic burnout) before concluding that nothing can probably be done in the end and delivering the final lecture to recalcitrant voters:
Tracy Warner contemplates the Occupy movement and the conflict between First Amendment rights and setting a precedent of not enforcing the rules: "Still, at least in Fort Wayne, the Occupiers don't seem to be causing trouble or costing much money, so it seems their First Amendment rights should prevail." He then dips into the magic bag of historical analogy and comes up with the Boston Tea Party, wondering what would have happened if that event from almost 238 years ago had been denounced as the Occupi
