Politics and other nightmares

I don't know whether this is more depressing because of what it says about retirement income or what it says about an important segment of the Indiana economy, but it IS depressing: "People over 55 today will spend their golden years in the equivalent of Elkhart, Indiana." That's froma piece from Gary North, who says people near retirement haven't quite yet grasped that their "golden years" aren't going to be quite what they imagined:

Some people are upset with the White House for throwing its weight around and making the Indiana Live Casino in Shelbyville pull its ad campaign showing a look-alike of President Barack Obama stumping for "change you can believe in." (Just read some of the reader comments attached to the story.) But the president is just exercising the same "right of publicity" we all have, which is the right to control or prevent the commercial exploitation of our own images. So far, Posted in: Hoosier lore, The law and the jungle, Politics and other nightmares

Indiana Senate Bill 11 would prohibit most public and private employers from adopting or enforcing rules barring firearms from company property. The Journal Gazette is, naturally, appalled:

Advocates for gun rights argue that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to keep weapons locked in their cars, but they ignore the tragic examples of employees who have taken the lives of co-workers when overcome by rage.

The Delphi school board, based on a parental complaint and after months of debate and appeals, voted 5-1 to NOT remove three books from the 11th-grade advanced English curriculum because of sex and language and yada, yada. The vote came after a public hearing attended by about 150 people, during which 44 of them spoke either for or against the books. And here's the amazing part: Everybody had their say and listened respectfully to other people having their say. Nobody called anybody names.

A dispatch from the shovel-ready front: On its list of possible projects for President Obama's stimulus bill, Gary (them again!) included plans for a 350-slip marina that would cost $19 million and result in the creation of 35 jobs. Some of the local money the project, which has been untapped for 16 years, is controlled by a group called the Lake Michigan Marina Development Commission, which the state stopped funding years ago. Opines the Gary Post-Tribune:

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, so a lower court's dismissal of it stands, and New York City's attempt to hold gun manufacturers liable for gun violence is over, and that might have an affect on Gary's efforts to do the same:

Can someone explain this mindset to me?

President Obama said Monday that he will ensure the government never "opens the door" for human cloning, before signing an order to lift restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. 

Some critics say the stem cell research can lead to human cloning, but Obama said his administration would develop "strict guidelines" to avoid such experimentation. 

Now go to the corner for your time out and don't move till we say so:

We've had an interesting debate on whether to nationalize health care going on in our guest columns the past few weeks. Today, Leonard Goldstein takes up the affirmative with what seems to me to be some very revealing remarks about his side of the political spectrum:

Philadelphians live in one of the most highly taxes cities in the nation, but even they have managed to escape a "fee" that Fort Wayne residents must pay:

Mayor Nutter yesterday trashed the controversial sanitation fee that his administration had been considering to help close a massive budget shortfall.

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