Hoosier lore

These are challenging times for the aspiring humorist. This is from a blog post I did last month, purely in an attempt to be funny:

The shameless exploitation of prurient interests continues in the Indiana Heartland:

FARMLAND -- The seven members of the now famous Farmland Bridge Club who last year bared it all to support saving the Randolph County Courthouse have lured a supporting cast -- of mostly men -- in front of the camera for an encore calendar.

It's not just evil Republicans such as Mitch Daniels who like the outsourcing option:

Indiana University officials are considering whether to hire a private company to take care of about 600 school vehicles used on the Bloomington campus.

That could be the first step toward also outsourcing other university operations as suggested by some members of the school's Board of Trustees.

Whatever you do, don't make that legislator mad:

Ordinary citizens will have to check their guns at the Statehouse's entrances when metal detectors are installed in the building next year.

Lawmakers, however, will be allowed to take their guns with them inside.

Sure hope that prayer debate doesn't heat up again. Hate to see a shootout at the Speaker's podium.

More trouble with Indiana voting machines:

A voting machine company is working to fix a software glitch on 5,000 machines in Indiana that prevents voters from casting a straight-party ballot.

Officials with the Indiana Election Commission were upset that MicroVote General Corp. did not tell them sooner about the software problem. The general election is Nov. 7.

Later this week, Ball State is going to release the results of a behaviorial study it did on what "really takes place during an average person's prime time TV hours." Apparently, this won't mean much to the average viewer, but it will tell advertisers some things they want to know, like do people actually watch commercials.

Gov. Daniels knows a good idea when he sees one:

Gov. Mitch Daniels today said the state should consider creating local tax adjustment boards that would be in charge of controlling property tax rates in Indiana's 92 counties.

Speaking before the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, the governor said such boards would help simplify the state's complicated property tax system and give citizens a clearer picture of how their money is being spent.

Every smoking ban in the country (at least so far) has allowed for smoking in people's homes. But what about when somebody's home is also a place of business?

Delaware County's ban on smoking in most work places and public buildings has put local nursing homes in a no-win situation.

If a nursing home complies with the local ordinance, it will violate a federal regulation, and if it complies with the federal regulation, it will violate the local ordinance.

There's at least one area in which Indiana need not envy surrounding states:

Ohio Learn and Earn, the group promoting the slot machines, boasts impressive numbers. A maximum of 31,500 slot machines in nine locations would produce $2.8 billion in annual revenue, with more than $850 million of that dumped into a scholarship fund for Ohio students, the backers say.

We've all known for a long time that houses here are among the cheapest in the country, so this isn't exactly new:

What's the big difference between Indianapolis and Columbus?

Try $30,000.

That's how much lower the median price of a house in central Indiana is compared with one in central Ohio.