If David Leon Woods is executed on schedule Friday morning, five of his victim's children will be there to watch, since Indiana has joined the majority of death-penalty states in having "right to view" legislation:
Gene Placencia hopes to find closure by watching the man who fatally stabbed his father 23 years ago die by lethal injection early Friday.
In today's "anything goes" atmosphere, newspapers are suddenly getting fussy about protecting people's privacy?
Last evening, I happened to see a Matt Kelty TV ad and a Nelson Peters one about an hour apart, and something struck me about them. Maybe someone with some political campaign savvy can tell me how accurate my impression was. TV political ads can be used to highlight the candidates' good points, but they can also be used to misdirect us a little, and it seemed to me this was going on in the ads.
Some new fodder for the state's economic-development campaign: Ya'll come to Indiana! We can be had cheap, 'n we don tawk funny:
Why is Indiana becoming a center for call centers? With IBM's announcement, Indiana has unveiled five new call centers in the past six months.
[. . .]
"We have a very well educated population and our cost of living is low and therefore our wages are lower than the average of the country," Will said.
In 18 states, municipalities have taken to augmenting their budgets by charging a fee when police or fire departments respond to an accident. This amounts to double billing, since we already pay for those services through our taxes (yeah, OK, I know the same thing happens with public transportation and a few other things). If you were worrying that the same thing might happen here, you can stop:
Former Fort Wayne Mayor and current Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke, speaking at the Rotary Club yesterday:
Political action is also needed. Helmke has criticized Republican officials and said he will do the same with the Democratic-led Congress if it chooses to ignore the country's gun problem.
Go ahead, blame this one on my light bulbs:
Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.
Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.
Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
Democrats never did much believe in individual liberty. Now that the Republican mainstream is just as much enchanted with the power of government, there isn't much to choose from:
Well, here's a thoughtful approach to preventing another Virginia Tech. Let's just criminalize free expression:
One violent, profanity-laced English essay later and Allen Lee's future with the Marine Corps appears to be over.
Today is being celebrated as national Tax Freedom Day -- the day on which all national, state and local tax obligations would be paid off if all of every paycheck were dedicated to that. Actually, though, that's just the national average -- TFD varies from state to state based on specific tax burdenss. Since our taxes are a little lower than those in most states, Tax Freedom Day here was acually on April 23. Congratulations -- you've been working just for yourself for a whole week.
I failed in stamp management again, as I do every time the price goes up. I have about two weeks to use up the remaining 40-some stamps on a 100-stamp roll, then it's off to the Post Office to buy 2-cent stamps. I could buy several rolls of Forever Stamps and avoid this in the future, but I rarely use stamps these days except for bills, so that doesn't seem like a good investment.
Leave it to a libertarian to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of the matter. While everyone else is fussing about church and state issues in the matter of Indiana's "In God We Trust" license plates, Rex Bell of Hagerstown asks:
The great student-newspaper crisis at Woodlan, which was a case of both sides overreacting, then getting caught up in the fury unleashed by special-interest groups using it as a cause, is over. Students who work for publications at East Allen County Schools will forever be unable to share their wisdom about sex, drugs and other great social issues without adult review. Some people will regard this as a great civil rights tragedy.
I have a question about government "encouragement" of the private sector -- the type we've seen plenty of lately and will see still more of shortly. It is my suspicion that changing where people spend their money does not make them spend more money. They aren't going to spend more than they were to fix up their houses because the big-box home-supply store is eight blocks away instead of three miles away. They aren't likely to go to more ballgames than they would have because the stadium is in one place instead of another.
Here is the video of the Republican mayoral candidates, at least four of them -- Duke Brown, Matt Kelty, Teresa Licari and Nelson Peters. Ivan Hood didn't come down for an endorsement interview. A few notes:
1. To keep the clip to a manageable length, I dropped the last question on "What is the best thing about Fort Wayne?" I trust you will still be able judge the candidates without seeing their answers to that.
My video of Republican at-large candidates threatened to be too big, so I split it up -- Part 1 has the six candidates -- John Crawford, Marty Bender, Bob Morris, Liz Brown, Adam Mildred and Kurt Gutman -- answering the first two questions, and Part 2 covers the other three questions.
Maybe there should be a clinic or a rehab program for the easily shocked:
INDIANAPOLIS — Property tax bills for homeowners could jump by an average of nearly 24 percent statewide this year, according to a new estimate showing far bigger increases than had been previously predicted.
“This is shocking stuff,” Rep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, said Tuesday. “This is the worst property tax news I've seen in 30-some years here.”
Being immersed in video editing this week and therefore only half paying attention to the national news, I would expect to miss a few things. But have we really made such astounding leaps in space travel in the last few days?
Nevertheless, the discovery in the Gliese 581 system, where a Neptune-size planet was discovered two years ago and another planet of eight Earth masses is now suspected, catapults that system to the top of the list for future generations of space missions.
This is the race for which we had most of our no-shows -- only three of the seven candidates came for endorsement interviews. Don't Democrats like us? I think the three who came are probably the cream of the crop. Incumbent John Shoaff bucked his party and the administration on Harrison Square. Denise Porter-Ross is a neighborhood advocate and involved in Fort Wayne's All-America City bid. Tom Essex is a lawyer who took over the Wayne Township Trustee's office in troubled times.
