A chaperone who is unclear on the concept:
The family of a Frankfort High School student plans to sue after the teen claims a chaperone kissed and groped him on the way home from a band trip.
The 16-year-old student said he was sitting next to Brandi Harper, 19, when she began making physical advances toward him, 6News' Joanna Massee reported.
What might have happened on the "Jeopardy!" set after Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter rallied bravely but failed to overcome Watson's big lead:
Trebek: Hello, Watson. Do you read me, Watson?
Watson: Affirmative, Alex. I read you.
Trebek: Unplug from your avatar, Watson. The game is over.
Watson: I'm afraid I can't do that, Alex.
Dispatch from the Affordable Care front:
NEW YORK (AP) — The act with the most songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart isn't the Beatles, Elvis or Michael Jackson. It's the cast of "Glee."
In just 18 months of appearing on the charts, the Fox TV series has set the record for the most songs on the Billboard chart in the chart's 52-year history.
From Politico, one possible problem for Mitch Daniels if he seeks the GOP presidential nomination:
A tough, Arizona-style anti-immigration bill in the Indiana state Legislature has put Gov. Mitch Daniels — who is mum on whether he backs it — on a collision course with tea party activists who see it as a big priority and could have national implications for the Indiana governor in a GOP presidential primary.
I have mixed feelings about the bill winding its way through the General Assembly that would allow home-school students to play on the local high school sports teams. Our columnist Reggie Hayes makes the case against the idea, though reluctantly:
I've always liked the idea of having a cute little summer cottage on a lake somewhere but never got around to doing anything about it. Perhaps I will be inspired by the modest retreat of Vladimir Putin:
One and one for the day -- here's an editorial I agree with, on the reasonableness of "buy local" programs when they are voluntary, and their danger when they are government-imposed:
I usually try not to be too pedantic about the "death of English" and stuff, because, like, you know, what language does is it evolves, so I'm like, you know, all about that. But today's good read asks what happened around 1985 or so when the linguistic virus called Vagueness infected our spoken language.
I don't know if the writer here is being deliberately dense, but the editorial sure seems to labor mightily to ignore a whole category of small-government arguments:
Oh, don't tease me like that:
The chances of a government shutdown are on the rise.
With less than three weeks to strike a deal before government funding for the year is scheduled to expire, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are moving in opposite directions.
That's known as hyperbole, so spare me the earnest explanations of why we need the federal g
For those still able to keep track without succumbing to the vapors:
President Obama projects that the gross federal debt will top $15 trillion this year, officially equalling the size of the entire U.S. economy, and will jump to nearly $21 trillion in five years' time.
Some of my fellow Hoosier veterans are mad as hell, etc., etc., over a legislative proposal that would end the guarantee of a full college scholarship for the children of Indiana's disabled veterans:
Since 1935, Indiana has guaranteed full payment of tuition and normal fees so that children of disabled or deceased veterans can attend college.
Mitch Daniels' speech at CPAC (transcript and video both), after which he gets praise for the "gravity of his message" and "lack of grandstanding":
He plates plenty of red meat about America's lurch towards socialism, but per Weigel, he stayed away from social issues and attacks on Obama to focus on fiscal catastrophe.
Ever since Newsweek called South Bend a dying city, the debate has been raging there. "We are not!" say civic leaders:
Economist Nelson Mark says population numbers are an unfair barometer of a city's economic success."
"Lets be clear. The Newsweek article didn't address the economic environment at all. They simply looked at populations numbers, which are a flawed indicator," Mark said.
Oh, God, please, no, say it isn't so:
Another European leader finally gets it:
You've seen people who drive around picking their noses. 'Cause they think they're invisible inside those cars, right? Now we have the whole new group of people (or maybe they're all nose-pickers who have moved up to better things) who think the Internet is like a private little gathering place where you can do anything and nobody will ever know.
I don't want to turn into the all-Mitch-all-the-time guy, but it certainly seems like he's almost in the presidential race. In an interview with POLITICO:
Daniels suggested three things could keep him from plunging in: his wife's concerns, the calculation that his party or the country aren't ready for his tough-love message or the emergence of another capable candidate.
[. . .]
I am both a huge "Jeopardy!" fan and a science fiction reader who has wondered a lot about artificial intelligence and the singularity. So it couldn't be anything but Must See TV for me on Feb. 14, 15 and 16, when the two best "Jeopardy!" champions of all time are taken on by IBM's supercomputer, Watson. What is involved in Watson being able to compete is remarkable:
