I've written several times, the most recent being Saturday, that we can't ignore the death penalty:
One thing I do know for sure is that we should pay attention to every execution, to all the details mundane and profound, from the last meal to the last words. The death penalty is carried out in our name. The executions are done because we (a large majority, according to polls) want them done. We can't just let them pass unnoticed.
President Obama might wish he had chosen his words more carefully:
President Obama, surrounded by Senate Democratic leaders, said today "we are on the precipice" of major health care changes, though "there are still some differences that have to be worked on."
This is interesting. Most people who follow gambling just accept it that casinos can and will ban those who "count cards" to increase their chances of winning at blackjack. But one gambler didn't, and so far he's winning in Indiana courts.
"Sillier and sillier all the time" department:
A push to spread the gospel about the 2010 Census this Christmas is stoking controversy with a campaign that links the government count to events surrounding the birth of Jesus.
I keep warning you and warning you, but no one pays attention. That new ball park is already a whole year old and aging fast. We'd better dump it and build a new one before the maintenance costs start eating us alive:
The city will likely spend nearly a third of this year's long-term maintenance revenue on improvements to Parkview Field less than a year after the downtown ballpark opened.
Indiana gets millions every year from the "master settlement" with tobacco companies reached in 1998 -- more than $600 million this year alone. In fact, it will have gotten billions over the 30-year course of the settlement. Yet it keeps cutting the paltry funding for tobacco cessation programs:
We've talked before here about our shrinking zone of privacy, or, rather, the diminishing number of places and circumstances where we have an "expectation of privacy." I keep hoping it will go the other way -- an expansion of privacy -- but it doesn't. Worse, we seem to keep lowering our own expectations. Cameras watching our every move once we leave the house? Hey, no big deal. Government wants an encryption device in every computer so it can peek in at will? Who cares? And younger generations seem not to know or care that everything they say or do in the digital world will be there forever.
(With apologies to the ghost of George Carlin for the headline)
Some Hoosier cities are citing budget difficulties for pulling the plug on streetlights:
Budget cuts and property tax caps are leaving many residents across Indiana in the dark.
The president thinks he's doing a pretty good job:
US President Barack Obama, in remarks aired late Sunday, awarded himself a B plus for his first 11 months in office, stressing in an interview with talk show queen Oprah Winfrey that there was still much to be done.
"A good solid B plus," Obama said during an hour-long, intimate soft-focus ABC network Christmas at the White House special, when Winfrey asked what grade he would give himself.
It's nice to know not everyone is suffering because of the lousy economy:
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
