OK, buddy, wipe that grin off your face, and I mean right now:
Don't say cheese at your next driver's license photo.
The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is restricting glasses, hats, scarves, and even smiles in driver's license photographs.
BMV officials told The Times of Northwest Indiana that the new rules imposed last month are needed so that facial recognition software can spot fraudulent license applications.
Oh, come on -- criminal libel?
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A man accused of making unflattering online comments about his former lover and her attorney on Craigslist has been charged with two counts of criminal libel.
It must be nice to be planning on moving into a four-and-a-half-bath home with servants quarters and having The New York Times call it "downsizing":
Do stories such as this give you a little shiver of dread?
If you're like most people you carry your cell phone practically everywhere. However, many Nextel customers were disconnected this morning as technical difficulties disrupted service.
Issues with a local tower created hours of service problems. One Terre Haute Nextel provider received hundreds of complaint calls because of the high number of phones lacking service.
City leaders are set to unveil their plans for improving parking downtown.
Officials are under the gun to get plans in motion since they're anticipating traffic to increase downtown when Harrison Square and the new Parkview Field open next year.
A consulting group developed recommendations based on a study of current on-street and private parking situations in the downtown area.
Just a little something for perspective the next time you encounter one of those "Serial killer seemed like such a nice man, neighbors say" stories:
History has condemned him as the megalomaniac who brought death and misery to millions.
But for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a smile not a shudder.
I'm not one of those sexists who think women can never be guilty of abuse, even when the alleged victim is a hulking brute of a footbll player. But this story is still a little eye-popping:
Headline in The Indianapolis Star:
3 ideas hope to yield bounty for education
I'll be darned. Never knew ideas could feel hope.
Mike Pence endorses the only half-good idea to come out of Washington in a long time:
Burger King tries to be funny and edgy in its ads and almost always gets it wrong, looking mostly odd and dumb. Now it has even topped itself:
Burger King is under fire for a new advertising campaign featuring "burger virgins", impoverished villagers in remote parts of the world, taking part in Whopper versus Big Mac taste tests.
I don't have any more use for badly behaving pro athletes than anybody else, but Dave Kopel is right on this one:
New York Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress is facing a mandatory 3½ years in prison and the end of his football career. His crime? Not having a license, which New York City never would have issued him, for the exercise of his constitutional right to bear arams.
I haven't been able to bring myself to open my new Newsweek this week.
Despite the fact that we're witnessing the biggest federal power grab of modern times, some people think we're on the verge of a new Libertarian Era of freedom:
Leo's human relations primer. Today's topic -- sexism. What it isn't:
Gov. Ed Rendell made some blunt remarks that could be construed as insulting, if not sexist, about Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, chosen for Homeland Security chief by President-elect Barack Obama.
[. . .]
Rendell's words were picked up by an open microphone at the podium of the National Governors Conference, held yesterday morning at Independence Hall.
I'd don't know why it's so stress-relieving to whack a penguin, but it is -- very soothing. Careful, it's very addictive. (Click the yeti to get him ready, then click again when the penguin seems to be in the strike zone.) Play them all! (I especially like the golf version called Faliming Drive.)
Two more agitations we could do without. First up, atheists gone wild:
The Courier-Journal says atheists are suing Kentucky over a clause in state law that says "safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."
[. . .]
Some people thought Gov. Daniels was a genius for the toll road lease -- all that money for highway construction while other states have to deal with crumbling infrastructure. Well, how smart does he look now, huh?
I see the word thought police are out in force in Missouri:
Advocates for the disabled in Missouri want to strike the word "handicapped" from state laws about parking spaces.
[. . .]
The Indiana Debate Commission is giving itself a well-deserved pat on the back for the three gubernatorial debates it sponsored this year. For a first-time effort, it went remarkably smoothly, in large part because of the cooperation recieved from the candidates. I found this interesting:
A total of 2,868 people attended the hour-long debates around Indiana, while 2,826 visited the debates that were posted and archived online.
