If you haven't had enough of Sarah Palin, she's got a trip to Indiana scheduled, for a Right to Life dinner in Evansville on April 16 and a breakfast with a Down syndrome support group the following day. The travel will be paid for by SarahPAC, her political action committee, the formation of which has added to speculation about her plans to seek higher office. Not so, she says:
Palin said she created the PAC in order to pay for travel to events that could be considered political.
Have you heard about these two Purdue guys?
Each week, Brett Westcott, a student in the College of Engineering from Plainfield, Ill., and Cameron Brown, a student in the Krannert School of Management from Toledo, Ohio, shout out compliments to everyone who walks by from 12:30-2 p.m. Westcott and Brown, both sophomores, say they do it just for fun and enjoy the positive reaction they get from passersby.
From the Fort Wayne-Allen County Office of Homeland Security:
The State of Indiana has designated March 15th thru the 21st as Severe Weather Preparedness Week.
We needed a remindr
So, Citilink is getting $4 million from the $787 billion stimulus package for 14 new vehicles, including seven hybrids. That will be "greener," and there could be some fuel savings, which is fine. But the money can't be used to increase servive, which means no new hiring:
"We're looking at this as a one-time windfall. We've got to spend it or lose it,” (General Manager Ken) Housden said.
Well. not exactly, because:
One of the first things I learned as a new Big Brothers/Big Sisters board member is that Indiana law requires that anyone who suspects a case of child abuse or neglect must report it. And the person doing the reporting is immune from all civil and criminal liability if the report is made in good faith. (Here is the "duty to report" law, and here are the "failure to report" provisions.
Yeah, those damn, rotten 14-month-olds just don't show respect the way they did in our day, by God:
Police say an 18-year-old Indianapolis man severely beat his girlfriend's 14-month-old daughter because the girl failed to show respect.
[. . .]
Police Sgt. Paul Thompson says Chism is accused of beating the girl with a belt for more than an hour for being disrespectful and not eating her food.
Where I come from, this would have brought out the torch-and-pitchfork mob:
Pittsburgh City Council today gave its unanimous, initial approval to legislation banning mattresses, box springs, sofas and upholstered chairs from city porches, primarily to prevent the celebratory burning of such items, as has happened repeatedly in Oakland.
Paging Humbert Humbert:
A 20-year-old Wisconsin man infatuated with a 14-year-old Terre Haute girl allegedly admitted to police that he knew that his sexual contact with the eighth-grader was a crime.
Alex Edwards, 20, admitted he had sexual relations with the girl last August. He told reporters before his court hearing Tuesday he believed the relationship “was the same as like a 26-year-old and a 20-year-old.”
I know some people think the Indiana Supreme Court let Judges Scheibenberger and Felts off too easy, giving the former only a three-day suspension for his outburst in a courtroom and the latter a reprimand for his DUI. This seems like a better case for outrage, though:
A Marion County judge who faced removal from the bench after his office mishandled an order setting aside a man's rape conviction instead will serve a 60-day suspension without pay.
It's no big deal one way or the other if the unnamed lesbian high school student in Lebanon wins her suit against the school district and is allowed to wear a tuxedo to the prom. Schools have been given more leeway in recent years to regulate all sorts of student behavior, so it would be no great surprise if she lost. On the other hand, who cares what she wears? Are we going to make Secretary of State Hillary Clinton give up her pants suits and start wearing dresses to diplomatic functions?
As the recession deepens, Hoosiers can be grateful that there are so many venues for gambling, so that those down on their luck can turn their last few pennies into a fortune. Now, our down-and-outers might have yet another way to escape from poverty:
A bill currently being tossed around in the House could potentially clear the way for ultimate fighting events to be staged in Indiana.
With about three months left in the current school year, the number of Chicago Public School students slain has reached 26, matching the total for all of last school year.
Most of the killings have taken place on neighborhood streets and not during school hours.
Don't want to spoil your breakfast or anything, but:
It might make a larger omelette but a bigger egg isn't necessarily a better one — and it certainly doesn't make the hen that laid it very happy.
That is the view of the chairman of the British Free Range Producers' Association, who says that if you want to be kind to hens, you should eat medium, not large or very large, eggs.
“It can be painful to the hen to lay a larger egg,” Tom Vesey.
Please, please, please, please quit helping, OK?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that another stimulus package might be needed to help the ailing economy.
Pelosi, whose comments followed a meeting with several economists, said the measures already taken by the Obama administration are helping to restore confidence in the shaky financial markets.
But "we have to keep the door open and see how this goes," the California Democrat added.
The Rocky Mountain News in Denver is gone now, and now we have a list of the 10 major daily newspapers that are most likely to fold or shutter their print editions:
Yes, Mommy, I will, but if I'm a good boy and eat my vegetables, can I stay up an extra hour and watch the good shows on TV, huh, huh, huh, pleeease?
You know, we want to make sure our guests here and across the nation are eating nutritious items,” said Mrs. Obama, who served lunch to several homeless men and women and delivered eight cases of fresh fruit to the soup kitchen, all donated by White House employees.
I don't know whether this is more depressing because of what it says about retirement income or what it says about an important segment of the Indiana economy, but it IS depressing: "People over 55 today will spend their golden years in the equivalent of Elkhart, Indiana." That's froma piece from Gary North, who says people near retirement haven't quite yet grasped that their "golden years" aren't going to be quite what they imagined:
Bloomington has established a Web site at which citizens can report "minor crimes," such as vandalsm, lost property or thefts under $750 for which there are no suspects. It is being touted as progress made possible by technology:
The goal of the new system is to save police and victims time. BPD Records Division Supervisor Joan Manning said she estimates the BPD makes about 250 to 300 reports for minor crimes every month.
Some people are upset with the White House for throwing its weight around and making the Indiana Live Casino in Shelbyville pull its ad campaign showing a look-alike of President Barack Obama stumping for "change you can believe in." (Just read some of the reader comments attached to the story.) But the president is just exercising the same "right of publicity" we all have, which is the right to control or prevent the commercial exploitation of our own images. So far, Posted in: Hoosier lore, The law and the jungle, Politics and other nightmares
Indiana Senate Bill 11 would prohibit most public and private employers from adopting or enforcing rules barring firearms from company property. The Journal Gazette is, naturally, appalled:
Advocates for gun rights argue that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to keep weapons locked in their cars, but they ignore the tragic examples of employees who have taken the lives of co-workers when overcome by rage.
