Some people in Indy are wringing their hands over what to do about three dozen or so of the "homeless" who have built themselves a ramshackle village under a railroad bridge in downtown Indianapolis. "Issue of bridge people defies easy solution," the headline says, and one person attending a "summit" about the problem said "you can't just kick them out" but they should at least "be required to clean up after themselves." Most solutions, the group concluded, are complex.
A strange election season just got a whole lot stranger:
The Washington Post reports: Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh will not seek re-election this year, a decision that hands Republicans a prime pickup opportunity in the middle of the country.
"After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned," Bayh will say.
I dunno, seems like a pretty good week to me:
Last week of the Indiana General Assembly was summed up by the House minority leader Thursday in a way that was painfully obvious to anyone spending time at the Statehouse.
"We didn't take a single vote on any issue this week," Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, reminded his colleagues on the House floor.
"If you have to do something, you might as well get good at it" department:
Michiana has something to brag about, it's home to the best grocery bagger in the country.
Martin's employee and 19-year old Kyle Perry of Osceola beat out thousands of competitors to be named the best.
[. . .]
A tale of two sentences. Is this one too lenient?
INDIANAPOLIS — A judge gave a 53-year prison sentence to a man convicted of shooting a pregnant teller during a bank robbery and causing the deaths of her unborn twins.
The April 2008 shooting led to a change in state law increasing the prison term for anyone who murders or attempts to murder a pregnant woman and causes the loss of her unborn child.
For some state and local Republicans, there is frustration caused by the perception that the Washington GOP establishment
Last week I did a post on the "mixed bag" of President Obama's commitment to outer space as reflected in his proposed buget and suggested a wait-and-see attitude, given that a lot of the initial reaction from my fellow space enthusiasts was positive. Now, here's columnist Charles Krauthammer with the other side:
Downtown is really struggling. The recession isns't helping. How can we make the central city more appealing to investors, convince them that it's a good place to offer a product or service people want and make a profit in the process?
Say, here's an idea. Let's tell those investors we don't even want them downtown unless they live up to our Downtown Design Standards. Be pretty or else you can just take your filthy old investment money to the suburbs:
The surest way to keep Asian carp from gaining a foothold in the Great Lakes is to cut the link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River Basin, the navigational locks at Chicago. That would protect the $ 7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry from the carp invasion. But it would not please the barge operators who move millions of tons of commodities on the Chicago-area waterways each year. So the Obama administration has come up with a $78.5 million plan that nobody likes:
Dan Coats is getting pounded by Democrats for not being a "real Hoosier" because he votes and pays taxes in Virginia and has to move back to Indiana to run against Evan Bayh, leasing a house in Indianapolis. "Evan Bayh has an Indiana driver's license; Dan Coats has a Virginia driver's license," says Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker, as if that settles everything.
Barack Obama has his "Read my lips" moment:
President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.
Bobby Knight is giving the commencement address at Trine University, and a lot of sportswriters are having a lot of !$%^#&* fun with the idea. Here's, for example, via NPR, is the "10 Greatest Bobby Knight Soundbites."
City Councilman Mitch Harper is inviting local government officials to get together to apply to be one of the communities in Google's planned ultra-fast and open fiber network. From Google's Web site:
United Way Executive Director Jerry Peterson is leaving Fort Wayne to pursue his education.
We've gone and wasted all that time, effort and money on complicated approaches like border fences and stepped-up law enforcement and employer sanctions and moral arguments, and it turns out all we had to do to solve the problem of illegal immigration was wreck the economy a littler:
The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States dropped by 1 million people in two years, according to new estimates by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Buncha wusses in Washington. Least little bit of snow that wouldn't even faze a Hoosier, and they get all end-of-the world panicky, trying to outdo each other in naming the storms. Snowmageddon. Snowzilla. Snowpocalypse. Snowgasm.
It's official. Dan Coats is in the race against Evan Bayh:
"I'm going to put my heart and soul into this, because I don't think Hoosiers are supporting what's going on in Washington," Coats told the Indiana radio station WOWO. "I think they need an alternative and that's why I'm here."
Hang in there, Colts! Even though you lost the Super Bowl, we still love you! We are proud of you, and we can't wait to . . . Oh, never mind:
The end of the Indianapolis Colts' season came down to 11 people.
Those mean old taxpayers just don't understand that we need their money to do good things for them. But if that's what they want, sniffle, sniffle, well, all right, guess we won't fight it. Boy are they gonna miss us when we're gone:
State legislators didn't waste much time this year before deciding to put Indiana's property tax caps on the November ballot.
