I don't know if you've been watching the "Jeopardy!" teen tournament last week and this, but Hoosier Rachel Cooke, a senior at Fishers High School, won Monday night to qualify as one of the three finalists. (Here's a story that was published before her first appearance.) I've been watching the tournament, but I usually skip it. It's no big deal to miss a bunch of questions on the show's regular episodes.
No insights to offer here. I just found it interesting:
As the Iraq war approaches its fifth anniversary and 4,000th U.S. military fatality, about three dozen cities with populations above 100,000 have not lost a servicemember in the conflict, according to the Pentagon's list of the deceased's hometowns.
Arizona may actually do what a lot of gun-rights advocates have been urging:
A committee of the Arizona Legislature is weighing arguments made today over a proposal to let people with permits to carry concealed weapons bring guns to K-12 schools, community colleges and universities.
The Senate's Judiciary Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony about the proposal, but didn't take a vote.
The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both liberal, but Obama is more so -- he is the "No. 1 liberal" in the Senate, while she sometimes grasps the pragmatics of moderation. When it comes to markets, maybe that's not quite so:
Who was our best president? The top choice of Americans in a new Harris poll:
Far and away, Abraham Lincoln is ranked by Americans as the nation's greatest president, according to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive and released this week, just ahead of Presidents Day.
Politics can be a fun beat to cover sometimes:
GREENWOOD, Ind. -- State Sen. Brent Waltz has filed a complaint with Greenwood police accusing political opponent Michael Beeles of "possible stalking, voyeurism and trespass.''
I have written before that I have both libertarian and conservative instincts when it comes to gay marriage. My libertarian side says that if two consenting adults want to enter into a union, it's not government's business to decide who should or should not be able to. But my conservative half says that marriage has been defined one way in most places in most times and we should be careful messing around with it (unintended consequences and all that).
Well, make that one miss and one hit for McCain today. His "no new taxes" pledge is ill-advised, but I like his stand on farm subsidies. Campaigning in Wisconsin, both Clinton and Obama said they not only would continue a popula dairy-subsidy but could even seen expanding the payments. Not McCain:
One more go-around with the "Vagina Monologues":
Los Angeles — Grover Cleveland High School Principal Bob Marks has his limits.
On Thursday, it was the illustration of a vagina splashed across the front page of the student newspaper on Valentine's Day.
Today's question: If you plan for an emergency, is it really an emergency?
MISHAWAKA, Ind. - A free giveaway of emergency contraception doses at Planned Parenthood health centers in Indiana cities with large college populations has angered an anti-abortion group, whose leader calls it "irresponsible."
Why do so many people still trust the government to lift up the downtrodden when so many of its actions end up screwing the poorest among us?
NEW YORK (AP) -- TV's big switch from analog to digital broadcasts will be complete in just one year, on Feb. 17, 2009, and many consumers are puzzling over how the shift will affect them: Do they need a new converter box, a new TV, a better antenna?
He didn't say, "Read my lips," but John McCain still made the same mistake George H.W. Bush did:
Republican John McCain says there will be no new taxes during his administration if he is elected president.
"No new taxes," the likely GOP presidential nominee said during a taped interview broadcast Sunday.
An unexpected tourism opportunity for Indiana:
Firework displays from the largest Guy Fawkes Night spectacle to the smallest back-garden show are under threat from European legislation.
A directive already approved by MEPs and EU ministers will force Britain and other member nations to tear up their own safety standards and adopt new regulations by 2010.
Two differfent victims, same set of circumstances, different verdict because of who one of the victims is. Sounds a lot like the justification used for hate-crimes legislation, doesn't it?
COLUMBUS, Ohio - An unusual verdict in the case of a former police officer accused of killing his pregnant lover opens up possible grounds for appeal if he's sentenced to death, some legal experts say.
Reason links to a fascinating back-and-forth on "12 Angry Men," the wonderful movie set entirely in a jury room. Was the kid actually guilty, gotten off by Henry Fonda's self-rightously liberal architect character? Or was the movie deliberately unclear on whether the kid actually did it as a way to show the difference between "guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt"? I tend toward the latter. That movie, by the way, shows why Henry Fonda was probably the best American actor ever.
I know it's fun to argue about politics and economics and all that stuff, but let's not miss the significance of the big stuff:
Astronomers say they have found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.
Elect Hillary Clinton 44 or Barack Obama 44, and this is what you'll get, from the likes of Robert Reich, who labored for Bill Clinton 42:
The American dream is still attainable:
Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in Charleston, S.C.
Fort Wayne is home to the nation's largest population of Burmese refugees, about 4,000 strong, and having such a large ethnic group is obviously going to create some cultural oddities. This is a surprising one:
To some Americans, “Rambo” is just another shoot-'em-up flick. To the Burmese, it's an inspiration.
