In a comment on a post yesterday, Tim Zank pointed to a new Rasmussen poll showing Evan Bayh doing poorly in matchups against announced Republican candidates, and even losing by three points against Mike Pence, whom Republicans are urging to run. That's an astonishing indication of how quickly the Brown effect is moving through political circles, and many news outlets have picked up on the poll today. Political analyst Michale Barone has a lengthy column on Bayh's problem:
Sometimes I get lost in the dictionary, forgetting the word I am looking up and just browsing and stopping here and there at interesting words. But it's been a while since I went through it looking for the dirty parts:
The Menifee Union School District is forming a committee to review whether dictionaries containing the definitions for sexual terms should be permanently banned from the district's classrooms, a district official said Friday.
President Obama is like one of those alcoholics who claim they've kicked the habit because they now drink only beer:
Plucky State Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, usually introduces a statewide smoking ban just to watch it die in the Senate. This year, he pulled his own bill rather than see it killed by fellow Democrats in the House:
As written, the bill would ban smoking in all public places except casinos, an exception Brown said he made to avoid becoming a target of gaming lobbyists. However, the bill was amended three times Monday, with Brown offering the first.
It might be getting even tougher for Evan Bayh than some of us thought it was getting:
Indiana's Evan Bayh is rapidly rising to the top of the GOP target list in this fall's midterms. Today, the National Republican Senatorial Committee will meet with House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence to convince him to run against Mr. Bayh.
[. . .]
All's well that ends well:
For there was a time on Sunday when it appeared as if the Colts might become victims of their own creation. It was, after all, Indianapolis who rested its starters halfway through a game against the Jets two weeks before the end of the regular season when the Colts had already clinched home-field advantage in the playoffs.
[. . .]
Oh, yeah, and Probert B. Parker, too.
Does that convey typographically that I was annoyed by the coverage of their deaths? Well, I was peeved, anyway. In fact, I had a near Mother Teresa moment. She and Princess Diana, recall, died within days of each other in 1997, and the coverage seemed stunningly lopsided. Oh, dear God, Di has been taken from us! How can any of us cope with our grief? She can never be replaced! The world mourns! Oh, yeah, and some nun expired. Worked with the poor or something.
Once might be considered a lark or a whim. Twice, the guy is serious about it:
A repeat police impersonator was convicted Wednesday night in his latest case, stemming from an incident in December 2008.
James Merket was found guilty of impersonating a police officer, a Class D felony.
Ouch -- nice jab:
I have a feeling the Colts are going to play their starters against the Jets Sunday.
The oddsmakers are making the Jets 8-point underdogs.
I was going to start this off with, "Ah, life is good." But that's a bit of an overraction in the world of politics, so i'll just say, "Well. Pretty good week." First, a single election in Massachusetts changed the whole political landscape in Washington. Health care reform is dead, and cap-and-trade is on life support.
Gov. Daniels spent much of his State of the State address bragging about the relative solvency of Indiana government, and that annoyed The Journal Gazette:
NPR travels to Anderson to find out whether Hoosiers, who went Democratic for the first time in decades and helped put Barack Obama in the White House, have any buyer's remorse:
George W. Bush won this county in both 2000 and 2004. But in 2008, like the state as a whole, it flipped and went Democratic, driven by economic worries and by the intense enthusiasm of Obama supporters.
Mike Pence has been getting pressure to take on Evan Bayh in the Senate race this year, and he's likely to get even more when he meets with the National Republican Senatorial Committee this afternoon. When he visited us earlier this month, he was pretty negative about the idea.
So it turns out that even gambling, prostitution and other vice businesses aren't recession-proof. But you'd think the dying business would be immune to economic vicissitudes. When you gotta go, you gotta, go, right? But a LaPorte factory that made casket parts has closed, putting about 50 people out of work:
Isn't this about the scariest photo you've ever seen?
The scary part is not that they're pretending to like each other and are ready to explode. The scary part is how comfortable they look together.
I've always been impressed by people who have talent in more than one area. And I have so much respect for people who can create music. So I'm especially awed by those who succeed in one field but probably could have done well in music, too. Politicians like Bill Clinton and his saxophone and Condi Rice and her piano. Comedian Jack Benny and his violin. NBA great Oscar Robinson with his flute.
Bloomfield resident Damon D. Jackson had a baaad night:
According to the probable cause affidavit, the woman said they had been into an argument, she poured a drink on him and he hit her, then kicked or hit her in the back, then choked her, then grabbed the phone and hung it up when she tried to call 911, then smashed the phone to prevent her from calling again. She made the second call from a cell phone.
OK, folks, back to the center
In a victory few thought possible just a month ago, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley Tuesday in the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy -- a win that could grind President Obama's agenda to a halt and portend huge losses for Democrats in the November midterms.
The times, they are a changin:
Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.
I've know families that underwent severe stress, even to the point of breaking up, when one spouse became more religious than the other, especially if a "take no prisoners" fundamentalism was being embraced. This sounds a little like that:
