I got busy yesterday and forgot to bring up and link to an Associated Press story in the Saturday Journal Gazette that irritated the hell out of me. It was basically a soft-pedaling of the country's growing debt and an aplogy for all the people who have contributed to it.
Did officials overreact by threatening a high school student with prison over what was essentially a prank?
The prospect that a high school prankster might spend years in prison over a blow-up sex doll drew national attention this summer to Rushville.
For the "It's never enough" file:
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A state lawmaker is worried the money the state made from the leasing of the Indiana Toll Road could run out sooner than expected.
Huh. I wouldn't have thought a business like this could make it in staid old Fort Wayne, but the owner says he's getting a lot of repeat business:
Fort Wayne Dust Bunnies offers light housekeeping to its clients, but the cleaning is done in the nude.
[. . .]
The maids are only permitted to do light housekeeping duties: washing dishes, vacuuming, and dusting.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they use to say:
The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.
Happy birthday, and hang in there. Ray Bradbury turns 91. He's getting a nice present:
A seventh person has died as the result of the outdoor stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair. Families of two of the victims have already sued. If all seven sued, that means the state would be out only $4.9 million, because we're one of the states that has aggressively tried to limit the proliferation of lawsuits:
Hoosier yokels display their complete lack of sophistication:
Residents of a west-central Indiana community are urging city officials to start enforcing curfews in the downtown area after a spate of graffiti incidents that have marred buildings, vehicles and homes.
Crawfordsville officials say the graffiti had been confined to alleys between buildings but has now hit a downtown plaza and personal property.
Well, good luck with that war:
BLOOMINGTON, Ind.— Indiana is making progress in its war on the fast-growing kudzu vine that's smothered parts of the state beneath leafy tangles of greenery.
Wow, didn't see this one coming:
A new Indiana law that strips from ballots the names of candidates facing no election opponents has upset candidates, political parties and election officials who predict the blank spaces on ballots will confuse voters.
Boy, talk about your "good news-bad news" announcements:
Even Burger King is embracing the freshy-changey thing.
In the first of many steps to reinvent itself over the next year, the struggling fast-feeder Friday will announce that it's dethroning the creepy King character — and other wacky, teen-targeting stuff — and refocusing on a customer it had all but forgotten: Mom.
Bad news from the IRS for all you work-at-home types. Deducting your bathroom as a "home office" might not work:
If the economy doesn't improve, President Obama will be in re-election trouble, especially if he faces Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, two Republicans with executive experience who are stressing jobs as an issue. But some Republicans are still unhappy with the prospect of one of those two winning the nomination and are trying to persuade House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to run. That could be a mistake. Ryan is the one person most associated with the fight to reduce the size of federal government, and that could give Obama a chance to change the focus of the campaign:
Will the 2012 presidential election be a referendum on democracy?
Oooh. Chocolate. Lots of lovely, sinfully good chocolate:
Well, it has to be somebody, doesn't it?
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning will end this year as the National Football League's (NFL) highest-paid player, according to a Forbes report released Wednesday.
Manning, a four-times most valuable player in the NFL who agreed to a five-year $90-million contract with the Colts last month, is expected to earn $23 million in total compensation for 2011.
So long and good riddance to Keynesian economic theory?
While the rest of hyperconnected, interweb-powered planet Earth has now seen Keynesian economic intervention tested in real time and discredited beyond any intelligent doubt, the Times, I quickly learned, is a walled garden where the ideas of John Maynard Keynes remain not only viable but so evidently true as to require no factual support.
[. . .]
The food police are getting more and more tiresome, but once in a while they make a good point:
School districts across the country are revamping their menus to serve healthier fare, but most schools give students so little time to eat that they could be contributing unwittingly to the childhood obesity problem.
The green future is here:
For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the stomachs of cattle and poultry destined for kitchen tables.
I'm afraid I agree with this criticism:
Republican mayoral candidate Paula Hughes is trying to mislead voters by resurrecting concerns that Mayor Tom Henry wants to bring a casino to the city, according to Henry campaign officials.
The Henry “administration put forth a proposal for a casino to be located downtown,” Hughes told reporters Thursday, speaking of ideas on how to spend $75 million from the lease and sale of the old City Light utility to Indiana Michigan Power Co.
