Hoosier lore

I didn't even know there was such a thing as nationalhogfarmer.com, but here they weigh in with what seems like a commonsense obersvation missed by everyone else about the Lugar-Mourdock race:

Do sports make people stupid? Sometimes it sure seems so:

The final numbers are in, and show that city and county agencies combined took a $1.3 million loss when Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl.

Poor Barack Obama -- he wasn't able to be the first black president because Bill Clinton took that title. But, now, thanks to Newsweek magazine, he gets his own title: "The First Gay President":

I have always sensed that he intuitively understands gays and our predicament—because it so mirrors his own. And he knows how the love and sacrifice of marriage can heal, integrate, and rebuild a soul.

Socialism got a "dead cat bounce" with the recent elections in Europe:

The Social Welfare State is dying. Like the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, the cradle-to-grave social welfare experiment must eventually collapse. A system of taxing work and profits, while subsidizing leisure, sloth, and retirement, must eventually fail.

It may be true, as many conservatives like to point out, that government can't really create jobs. But it sure can kill them, in more ways than one. There is death by regulations, for example:

Since the 1950s, the number of U.S. workers needing an occupational license—effectively a government permission slip to work—has grown from one in 20 to nearly one in three, according to a 2010 study. . .

Most stories about single-class basketball focus on how much school officials oppose its return -- more classes means more winners, which creates happier students and parents. So the results of this poll might be surprising:

I must have outrage burnout, because here's a controversy I just can't seem to get worked up over:

A secular group has filed a federal lawsuit claiming Indiana's marriage law is unconstitutional because it doesn't allow people without religious or civic authority to perform marriages.

I blame Michelle Obama:

Struggling in bankruptcy court, Hostess Brands is warning more than 18,500 employees nationwide that their jobs are in jeopardy if the company can’t emerge from Chapter 11 reorganization or find a buyer.

The company’s warning affects at least 856 employees in Indiana, most of them workers in Hostess commercial bakeries, retail stores or distributing the company’s iconic breads and treats including Twinkies.

If it was fair to make Richard Lugar's residence in Virginia an issue, it's fair to ask the same questions about gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence, and that's just what Democratic opponent John Gregg is doing:

I've written before that Sen. Richard Lugar's votes in favor of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan are among the most important evidence that the senator has not really been a good soldier in the war of ideas. He continued to play by the old-school gentlemen's rules dictating that the president's picks are given deference. But the rules of the game have become tougher and much nastier. There is no indication the other side is going to go back to the old rules, so Lugar's insistence on honoring them amounts to unilateral disarmament.