Ah, youth's eternal optimism, here on display in the Indiana Statesman, student newspaper at Indiana State University:
The topic of marijuana legalization has been a growing trend, especially now that 13 states have legalized it for medicinal purposes. Since Illinois is currently reconsidering a medicinal bill, the subject is coming closer to hitting home for many ISU students.
A little bit of fiscal sanity (and every little bit helps) from Indiana's two senators:
Dang. You would have thought this was for hot concert tickets or the newest electronic gaming device:
There's a lot of libertarian outrage out there today over the arrest of a Virginia man who was charged with indecent exposure for walking around naked in his own home. He says he was just making coffee at the time (early in the morning), but the complaining mother who was walking with her 7-year-old son says he stood naked in the doorway and then moved in front of an open window so they could still see him as they continued by the place.
I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that Bob Dylan has a Christmas album. I'm one of the world's biggest Dylan fans, but this still has to rank as one of the oddest musical decisions of all time.
Fort Wayne is trying to become more bike-friendly, doing things like putting bike lanes and bike racks downtown.
Wow. Suddenly, Mark Sanford looks like the classy South Carolina Republican:
Two Republican county officials in South Carolina have apologized after they disparaged Jews in a newspaper op-ed in support of a fiscally conservative U.S. senator.
The chairmen, Edwin Merwin Jr. and Jim Ulmer, wrote the newspaper in backing Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's opposition to congressional earmarks.
Guess it must be my turn to comment on Tax Foundation reports lately. Here's the third one in five days touching on Indiana. This one is pretty good news, ranking states by buisness tax climate by considering business property tax rates, the sales tax, individual taxes, corporate taxes and unemployment insurance taxes:
I wonder which century Evansville Mayor Johnathan Weinzapfel has been living in. Talks between the city and the state and federal governments over sewage discharge broke down, and on Monday Evansville got sued. There is the possibility of heavy fines, and the mayor is outraged:
Guess that old joke about watching a fight when a hockey game broke out isn't so funny after all:
Because they know so many fans love fighting, the International Hockey League owners changed the rules this summer to add an extra game roster spot and encourage more of it.
[. . .]
Anybody still think the state is going to hold the line on expansion of gambling? A legislative panel was told this week that if Kentucky and Ohio go ahead with casino proposals and if Michigan OKs an expansion of its gambling, Indiana could lose as much aqs $250 million a year:
Richard Heene's balloon is held for evidence in the Larimer County Sheriff's evidence area in Fort Collins, Colo., Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Will Powers)
Who says today's college students can't write a simple sentence?
Indiana University is one of the nation's top collegiate users of the social networking site Twitter.
[. . .]
IU ranks sixth for its number of university-affiliated Twitter accounts, fourth for number of Twitter followers and eighth for total ``tweets'' per day.
Apparently, the Obama administration is planning to announce new federal policy guidelines that call for ignoring medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws. Such a move would be a step in the right direction:
If Indiana is going to try to steal retail business from a surrounding state, it had better be Illinois. According to the Tax Foundation, Indiana's combined state and local sales tax rates of 7 percent ranks it 19th highest in the nation (Tennessee is No. 1 with 9.41 percent and five states tie for last with zero). That makes us higher than all adjacent states (Kentucky, 6 percent; Ohio, 6.83 percent; and Michigan, 6 percent) except Illinois at 8.4 percent (sixth highest in the nation).
I swear, isn't having a casino the greatest gig in the world? It's supposed to be gambling, which means some people win and some lose, but the hosue almost always wins, and if the house does start losing too much to someone, he's just kicked out:
Mike Pence seems to be creating a bit of a buzz these days:
In the unofficial race for president, just one Republican has been to both Iowa and South Carolina.
It's not former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
It's Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, whose travel schedule is raising eyebrows.
It's nice to work for a company that cares. They've started putting reminders in the restrooms (at least the men's rooms) reminding us to "Wash your hands!" There's even a helpful chart in one of them, similar to the one I now place here:
Does this sound open and friendly in a good-government sort of way?
“The saying goes,
