OK, I give up. I'm on the global-warming bandwagon, too:
In North America's most renowned wine-growing region, Napa Valley in California, current conditions are near-perfect.
"You have the climate, you have ideal soils and a history of winemaking that goes back to the turn of last century. It's a combination of those things that makes Napa Valley unique," says Jeff Virnig, winemaker at Robert Sinskey Vineyards.
The natural inclination is to bash Clinton and Edwards for showing themselves to be elitists despite all their talk of inclusion, but they raise an interesting point:
Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton consider themselves among the top presidential candidates.
They were caught by Fox News microphones discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some lower rivals after a forum in Detroit Thursday.
Of all the arguments I've heard for leaving Iraq, this, from Rep. Mark Souder in a FWOb interview, has to be among the strangest:
A lot of political commentary is silly, but I think a new benchmark has been set:
The property tax mess affects everybody and has polticians of all persuasions scrambling for solutions. But Dan Carpenter, the Indianapolis Star's predictably liberal columnist, finds it a useful club with which to bash business, the governor and other evil Republicans and, especially, all those rich creeps who don't deserve their palatial homes anyway:
Indiana is going to let BP start dumping "significantly more" ammonia and sludge into Lake Michigan at its Whiting refinery. There is a good news/bad news aspect to the story:
The refinery will still meet federal water pollution guidelines. But federal and state officials acknowledge this marks the first time in years that a company has been allowed to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan.
Oklahoma is stealing our Miami Indians! So the Oklahoma Miami can have a tribal presence here! To claim tribal lands! And open casinos! And then . . .
By the time Miami of Indiana has its legitimacy restored, some like Dunnagan, of Peru, fear there will be no more service areas left to claim.
The Potawatomi, soon to open the Four Winds Casino and Resort in Michigan, has 10 service areas in Indiana.
If you have a couple of peaceniks trooping through town as part of a nationwide walking protest, do you, A: Wish them well and ease them out of town, perhaps to laugh at them later over beers or, B) Start hassling them and throw one in jail, garnering sympathy for them and making your police force look like bullying thugs? They know which one to pick in West Terre Haute:
So, we're feeling sorry for ourselves that Kroger bought out Scott's, and there will be fewer stores, less choice. And, by the way, isn't it terrible that all the Mom-and-Pop grocery stores have been driven out of business and we have to put up with buying our food at the giants like Meijer and Wal-Mart? On the other hand, this could be Detroit:
If a study confirms an unfortunate stereotype, is that an indication the researchers might have let their preconceptions affect how they saw the evidence?
Men might throw their weight around at the office, but at home, women are the bosses.
Let the mayor's race begin:
“I believe that the long-term solution lies not in further tinkering with property tax schemes, but with a fundamental move away from property taxes as the dominant source of revenue for local government,” Kelty said.
Issuing his first campaign promise, Kelty said his first annual budget would reflect zero growth in city spending.
A syndicated columnist calls it quits, with a little whining thrown in:
Wow. This is even farther away than smokers have to be:
ONTARIO - An outdoor living space for the city's homeless population opened last week in an isolated, untraveled area of vacant lots more than 500 feet from any other structure.
It was set up by the city at minimal cost to address the growing encampment of homeless people near the city's Amtrak station at Euclid Avenue and Holt Boulevard, said Bob Heitzman, the city's assistant city manager.
This should not be a big surprise:
WASHINGTON - Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar's voting record so far this year shows him breaking with his party more than most senators and, if the Republican keeps it up, more than in any of his 30 years in the Senate.
Turns out all those people who've been saying the world is getting smaller were right:
New measurements reveal that Earth is smaller than was previously thought—though not by much.
If you're a planning a trip around the world, you may be pleased to hear that you have about 0.1 inch (2.5 millimeters) fewer to travel.
Go ahead, jack up those gas prices.
We had cliques in high school. There were the jock clique and the student newspaper clique and the band clique and the nerd clique. Like that. One thing they all had in common was that they didn't kill people. On the other hand:
Federal and local law enforcement agencies have joined together to form a special unit to suppress gang violence in the city, the Fort Wayne Police Department announced Tuesday.
Better sit down for this one:
War and politics are largely ignored by American teenagers, according to a Harvard University study released on Tuesday, which found that 60 percent of them pay little attention to daily news.
Never mind the substance, let's just spruce up the image:
The Pittsburgh Public Schools will drop "public" from its name and adopt a new, standardized way of referring to its schools as part of a campaign to brighten and strengthen the district's image.
For example, Schenley High School will be called Pittsburgh Schenley.
Superintendent Mark Roosevelt's staff unveiled the policy at a school board Education Committee meeting last night.
If you have both gigantic and enormous available to describe really big things, why would you need to create "ginormous" out of the two of them? But enough people have used it that Merriam-Webster has included it on the list of 100 new words in this year's edition. Also making the cut were Bollywood, sudoko, speed dating, IED, crunk, DVR and telenovela. Not everyone is impressed:
