Politics and other nightmares

The Financial Times examines President Obama's first proposed budget and makes a shocking discovery:

Indiana has relaxed its alcohol laws in recent years to allow kids to join Mom and Dad for dinner in certain bars at certain times under certain circumstances, and that's fine. It's not going to be the end of the world if Junior sees the folks drinking in the company of other people who also drink instead of just while they're sitting in front of the TV set. But let's notPosted in: Hoosier lore, The law and the jungle, Politics and other nightmares

I've written here that my weekly reading of Newsweek is how I keep up with current liberal thought (though the magazine would deny that such is what it offers). But it is getting to be a greater and greater chore. First, they had the "We are all Socialists now" cover. Now they tell us that Radical Islam is a fact of life and we have to just get used to it, with a cover in Arabic:

Amen:

Conservatives created Barack Obama and his vision of the Europeanization of America, and so have themselves to blame for the current recessional, as the present as we have known it fades into the past.

[. . .]

So the Republicans betrayed their own principles and allowed the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 to run against deficits in order that they could enlarge deficits, convinced that the natural opposition was long ago discredited.

The Memphis Commercial-Appeal is getting a lot of heat from those with concealed-carry permits angry over a searchable database of Tennesseans with the permits:

Gun owners say the database is an invasion of privacy and makes permit holders easy targets for burglaries. They have flooded the newspaper with complaints — some 600 e-mails daily, threatened staff and posted personal information about newspaper employees, including Google maps to some homes.

Hey, Indianapolis is trying to steal our casino idea:

Here's an unlikely but plausible scenario that could unfold as the General Assembly's current session marches toward a frantic finish:

Legislative leaders look for a way to plug the deficit plaguing the city's Capital Improvement Board, which operates Lucas Oil Stadium, Conseco Fieldhouse and other venues.

Whether to give Washington, D.C., a real, voting member of Congress is the latest bone Democrats and Republicans are fighting over.

Dissatisfied with the status quo but unable to alter it with a constitutional amendment, Washingtonians finally exclaimed: Amendment? We don't need no stinkin' amendment!

First, Chief Justice John Roberts quoted Bob Dylan in a decision. Now, justice Samuel Alito quotes John Lennon:

Alito, 58, makes the point that public monuments can convey multiple messages, or messages that change over time. The Statue of Liberty, for example, came to New York as a symbol of friendship between France and the United States, Alito said, and only later became viewed as a beacon welcoming immigrants. 

That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more, Thursday entry:

The Indianapolis Star has compiled a nifty database of Indiana employee salaries, so we're now able to look up how much our favorite bureaucrat or lawmaker gets. It's no great surprise that the highest-paid public employee in this basketball-crazy state is Tom Crean, the IU coach. He gets a base salary of $600,000, but built-in contract extras guarantee him $2.36 million a year -- that makes it nearly $400,000 per victory this season so far! It's also not too startling that Gov.