Fancy houses are one of my weaknesses. The Parade of Homes has always been one of my favorite events, and I liked the short-lived Street of Dreams even more because the houses were even bigger. If I had a lot of money, I'd probably spend too much of it on a really luxurious home with every amenity imaginable. But this is too much even for me:
None of the people who've been waiting for President Bush to say he's sorry for Iraq will be satisfied with this, but it's probably as close to an apology as he'll ever get:
Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.
Don't you wish you were important enough so that you had to trademark your very name to keep it from being exploited?
Larry Bird has filed a lawsuit alleging a couple who bought his former home in southern Indiana are improperly using his name to promote a bed-and-breakfast.
Be suspicious of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on gun rights. Why? Paul Helmke isn't upset with them:
Want to proclaim your belief in the Obama campaign to the world? Get the Barack Obama tattoo! It was done by Ryan Hadley at Studio 13 Creative Skin Design in Fort Wayne and e-mailed to a few of us in the press. It's a nice-looking tat, but I dunno. What if he loses?
Who needs to study the issues when we can learn all we need to know from the candidates' handwriting?
"Obama is very much his writing -- fluid, graceful. McCain's is angular and intense; he's a pit bull. And look at the perfectionism in Hillary's -- straight up, precise. She is persistent and is not going to give up until she absolutely has to," said Imberman, a court-certified graphologist based in New York.
Not sure how I feel about this:
Congressional Democrats are pushing what could become the most dramatic expansion of college aid for military veterans since World War II, with a bill they hope will buoy them this election season and become an albatross for Republicans.
Well, this won't be controversial:
To Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, the present is a good time to be young only if you don't mind a tendency toward empty-headedness. In "The Dumbest Generation," he argues that cultural and technological forces, far from opening up an exciting new world of learning and thinking, have conspired to create a level of public ignorance so high as to threaten our democracy.
Any bets? My guess is no, but it's a close call:
Woodrow Wilson did it. So did Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.
All three Democrats bucked the trend and won the hearts and minds of the majority of Hoosiers voting in presidential elections.
I've never been able to work up much outrage over human cloning, so this sure doesn't bother me much:
News that scientists have for the first time genetically altered a human embryo is drawing fire from some watchdog groups that say it's a step toward creating "designer babies."
But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway.
Any of you know what "effete" really means? I searched Google News for a hint that anybody writing about politics today has a clue:
I usually avoid commenting of "family values hypocrites," because the left does such a good job of bashing them, and there are plenty of hypocrites out there of all political persuasions. But this guy is just beyond the pale:
Vito Fossella built a career as a staunch "family values" pol, polishing his image in his predominantly Catholic district with a string of anti-gay votes.
I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep a lot better knowing that somebody is paying attention to White House wedding trends:
As I hauled my creaky bones out of bed this morning, I decided there needed to be a new word for people like me, and here it it is: "Crippie," meaning crippled-up old hippie. The folks at the Urban Dictionary have a different definition, but what do they know? Come to think of it, there could be some connection there . . .
Apparently, sitting in the car while black is just as much a crime as driving while black:
NEW YORK (AP) — A white police officer was disciplined for acting "in a discourteous manner" when he confronted a black motorist who turned out to be one of the highest-ranking commanders in the New York City Police Department, an agency spokesman said Saturday.
Oops. Made a liar out of myself. I wrote this last January:
I have never recycled anything and never will, however that concept is defined. "Use it up and move on" is my motto. Bring on the landfills. Trying to endlessly reuse the same resources is the mark of a desperate people with no options, such as those that might be trapped on a desert island.
If Hoosier voters were so smart in "seeing through" Hillary Clinton's federal gas-tax holiday, why didn't they similarly turn on Jill Long Thompson and her similar cap on the state sales tax on gas?
Hoosier voters showed in last week's primary that they're smarter than the pundits thought.
[. . .]
It's over now. And Indiana, in the national spotlight in presidential politics for the first time in four decades, cast the telling votes in the final, decisive contest.
Barack Obama now is the almost certain Democratic nominee for president. Hillary Clinton cannot catch him without something as unexpected and startling as discovery that Obama is a secret Rush Limbaugh agent.
