Politics and other nightmares

By God, the money is just rolling in, isn't it? Indiana gets $4 million in federal stimulus funds to help clean up leaking underground gasoline storage tanks! Indiana is getting more than $9.5 million in stimulus money to help revitalize communities and create jobs!

So, I had an old movie on the Western Channel playing the other day while I was skimming the newspaper, and suddenly I heard Burl Ives singing "The Ninety and Nine." I think it was just an old song they had the rights to -- it didn't seem to have anything to do with the plot -- but it was pleasant to listen to. I went hunting online to see if there was a download of it, because I thought it would be an interesting version to learn on the guitar.

Richard Lugar has become the first Republican to jump ship on Sonia Sotomayor:

Indiana Sen. Richard K. Lugar this morning became the first Republican to pledge support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who appears to have largely diffused allegations of judicial bias during three days of intense questioning about whether she is fit to sit on the nation's highest court.

It is now possible to report with bipartisan good will that Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has joined former Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard in discovering the true secret of good municipal government:

Eliminating potholes is a bumpy road, but the city of Indianapolis has made a huge improvement.

Mayor Greg Ballard said once the city is aware of the problem it's fixing the faulty asphalt at breakneck speed.

Monday will be the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Of all the remarkable achievements of the 20th century, it's the one most worth celebrating.

Agreed that "a wise Latina woman . . ." was a stupid thing to say -- even Sonia Sotomayor thinks so by now -- did the senators have to go over and over it? It showed an unfortunate mindset of Sotomayor's to sink into group-identity politics, but getting her to recant it (or as close as a nominee will get to that) did nothing special for me.

Well, duh, yes:

Could the best climate models -- the ones used to predict global warming -- all be wrong?

Maybe so, says a new study published online today in the journal Nature Geoscience.  The report found that only about half of the warming that occurred during a natural climate change 55 million years ago can be explained by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What caused the remainder of the warming is a mystery.

The Indianapolis Star and Fort Wayne Journal Gazette each weigh in with skepticism over the BMV's plan to implement Real ID procedures designed to thwart indentify theft and deal with post-9/11 concerns about terrorism. Both mention the inconveniece for some and hardship for others of the one-time requirement to provide multiple forms of ID such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and utility bills. Then each takes a slightly different approach to the concerns of some that we are on our way to a de facto national ID card.

I was raised in Kentucky, where there were "wet" counties allowing alcohol and "dry" counties prohibiting it, so I know the intricacies of bootlegging. It was not illegal to purchase a small amount of alcohol in a wet county and take it to a dry county for personal consumption. But possession of a large amount in a dry county created a presumption by authorities that the alcohol was going to be illegally sold.

It appears the president and congressional Democrats want to pay for about half of $1 trillion-plus health plan by hitting the rich (a new surtax on those making $350,000 and above) and about half by hitting the poor (reduced spending on Medicare and Medicaid). How wickedly awesome! Those of us in the broad middle class will get all that great new health care for free!

So why am I worried? Oh,