Jon Stewart of The Daily Show takes on an ad from a Terre Haute TV weather team and finds it "----ing retarded."
“Today I found out the people who made the advertisement were somewhat displeased at me for showing it, which came as a complete surprise to me because I did not realize that that part of Indiana has the cable yet. So now that I know . . . "
Well, OK, guess those not buckling up are not all young men driving pickups in rural areas:
Indiana ranks second in the nation for fatal truck wrecks as a share of all deaths in road accidents.
Just what I'd be looking for at a government-surplus sale, a $250,000 fixer-upper helicopter that hasn't been flown in three years. Nice try, Mitch, but I think I'll wait for the desks and bookshelves.
The Christian Science Monitor likes public-private arrangements such as the Indiana Toll Road lease as a way to tackle the mounting infrastructure costs in this country, estimated at $1.6 trillion over the next five years. Its editorial makes the point that the public trust requires scrupulous government oversight of such deals, but:
In an era of globalization, when foreign companies invest in the US and vice versa, the foreign aspect should not alarm - especially since these are lease, not buy, deals.
Perhaps this "quit outsourcing American jobs and give us free trade and stop that giant sucking sound" business is a bit more complicated than some people imagine:
Most political observers seem to have concluded that longtime Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton lost in the primary mostly because he was an entrenched incument who thought he could get away with supporting outrageously generous perks for legislators. The possible effect of the highly organized effort of right-to-life forces for Garton's opponent, Greg Walker, is downplayed.
The gas-price mistake in Plainfield has been getting a lot of play all over the country:
A computer glitch in two pumps changed the price to two hundredths of a cent per gallon. A Shell corporate spokesperson told Eyewitness News customers bought 200 gallons at the low rate before a good samaritan reported the problem and the pumps were shut down.
Careful what you put in writing -- it will come back to haunt you. Greg Walker, mainly an anti-abortion candidate, didn't really make public flogging part of his successful campaign to unseat longtime Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton. But he did, once upon a time, speak favorably of it in a letter to the editor in the Columbus Republic. Now, it's all anybody wants to talk about:
Now that approval has been given for the Indianapolis Police Department and Marion County Sheriff's Department to merge, their policies have to be reconciled, such as the two departments' differing policies on pursuit. I think the Star editorial makes a decent case for tightening the policies, which police seem reluctant to do:
Let's hear it for Allen Superior Court Judge Nancy Boyer. She is one of the eight judges who have agreed to be a part of an 18-month Indiana Supreme Court pilot program to allow trials to be covered with one still camera, one video camera and up to three microphones. Indiana is a little behind the curve on this one; lots of trials in other states have already been opened up to the public by technology.
