Yesterday, I (half) jokingly said that maybe we ought to put deadbeat parents on billboards as a means of deterrence. Here's a jurisdiction with an online version of the same idea:
Nassau County took down its online "Wall of Shame" Tuesday, and from now on will post only the names and photos of those who are convicted of drunken driving, said County Executive Thomas Suozzi.
If I wrote this, you'd consider it just another rant from a libertarian-leaning crank. But it's the opening of a Washington Post editorial:
You know its' really bad when . . .
Wal-Mart Stores Inc's U.S. customers, increasingly worried about their own financial security, are waiting until they get their paychecks to buy even the most basic necessities, the retailer's U.S. division head said on Tuesday.
Anything here jump out at you?
INDIANAPOLIS -- The friends of two elderly men found dead in their southwest-side home on Monday said they believe the men were killed because they were gay.
Milton Lindgren, 70, and Eric Hendricks, 73, were found dead Monday morning in their home at 9160 Middlebury Way.
If not, you must be one of those whippersnappers still on the right side of 50. "Elderly" includes 70-year-olds?
Joe Biden, fearless prognosticator:
"Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. . . . I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help," Biden said, though he added that anyone who tests Obama will discover he has "a spine of steel."
Rule No. 1 in the criminal-justice arena should be that you don't get to plead guilty and still go on and on about how you were framed. Matt Kelty's most ardent supporters have always wanted his legal problems to be about a Democratic-moderate Republican-media conspiracy to "get" Kelty because he had the audacity to challenge orthodox views. I hope they all especially pay attention to this paragraph in Kevin Leininger's column:
If you like your Archway cookies, better get them fast — that is, if it's not too late.
A sign in the cookie aisle at the North Anthony Scott's Foods on Monday said, “Effective immediately, Archway and Mother's cookies has closed and stopped operations.”
[. . .]
It's the end of the world! I knew it was coming. But I'll be ready for it with my slop-in-a-waterproof-bucket emergency food supply -- 275 servings for $84.99! Yum!
Let's see if I have this straight. "Ethnic whites" who feel discriminated against -- not are discriminated against necessarily but feel so -- are much more likely to be obese than ethnic whites who do not feel discriminated against. This connection between perceived discrimination and obesity is not present among blacks, Hispanics or "other whites." This is because:
I love ya, Mitch, but this is one of the silliest responses to a serious problem I've ever seen:
INDIANAPOLIS | Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter joined Gov. Mitch Daniels Monday to announce plans to begin suspending the fishing and hunting licenses of child support deadbeats.
Jill Long Thompson's campaign sent out an e-mail -- I suspect I'm not the only one who got it -- promising that for a donation of $25, we could see this before anybody else did!
Democrat Jill Long Thompson will begin airing her first general election television ad in weeks on Tuesday in her campaign to oust Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Long Thompson says in the 30-second spot that Daniels "would have us believe Indiana is doing as well as can be expected," but she thinks the state could do much better.
Another pervert bites the dust:
A former swim coach who admitted using hidden cameras to videotape girls in their locker rooms was sentenced today to more than 33 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.
[. . .]
Hindson hid videocameras in the locker rooms at Kokomo High School and Memorial Gym and secretly taped team members while they undressed over a 10-year period, court records said.
Randy Balko grew up in a "particularly conservative" part of Indiana, but he's a senior editor for Reason magazine, so dismiss his observation as a libertarian rant if you want to. But he makes a lot of sense to me:
This isn't going to end well, is it?
A downturn in the housing and financial markets apparently has produced a downsizing in Harrison Square's behind-schedule condominium project.
A small group of students at Ball State University says students should have the right to carry concealed weapons on campus to protect themselves in case of an attack.
The headline on columnist Bob Kravitz's take on the Colt's game says it all: "A game so putrid even the unflappable coach got angry":
And notable because these kinds of games just don't happen to the Colts. This team has won 12 games or more five seasons in a row. Now they have three losses. And it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that there's something dramatically wrong with this group that can't or won't be fixed in due time.
One reason Barack Obama might be able to turn Indiana Democratic this year:
But if Obama wins the state, more than anything it will be due to the best voter-contact operation Indiana has ever seen. Even Murray Clark, the Indiana Republican chairman, says with grudging admiration in his voice, "Obama's done these things right. That's how he nearly beat Hillary in the primary."
Almost all political ads are misleading, so we tend to discount them over the long haul. But some are more irritating than others to those of a different political pesuasion, and this one is starting to bug the hell out of me. It's the one featuring Barney Smith, that "ordinary American" from Grant County who wowed the Democratic convention with his "Smith Barney" line.
There is a much stronger "throw all the bums out" rumble this year than in past congressional-election years. Even Mike Pence mentioned it when he interviewed with us a couple of weeks ago. Fort Wayne resident Rob Binford did a guest column expressing the anger out there pretty well:
A letter-to-the-editor writer in South Bend speaks for countless Hoosiers:
Every day in the news there is information about more cuts that have to be made in local government budgets. Then we hear what tax the mayor of South Bend thinks should be increased to accommodate the government spending habits. Usually, he convinces the Mishawaka Common Council and the St. Joseph County Council to agree and there they go, dipping into our pockets again.
