In my last vacation post from Texas on Friday, I lamented the left-right camps we let ourselves get pushed into during campaign season, an exercise in political extremism that is at odds with the way I think most of us live our lives, which is to assess each issue as it comes, making the best decision we can based on the available evidence.
I may not know the intricacies of high finance or the subtleties of government economic models or the ins and outs of bonds and taxation, but I surely know when I'm getting screwed:
My God. The most important thing to happen in Indiana in more than 30 years, and I missed it. When you went to bed Saturday night, you set your clock back an hour to finally participate in daylight-saving time (or else you got around to it sometime Sunday):
Before the clock change, sunrise Saturday in Indianapolis is projected at 8:09 a.m. and sunset at 6:47 p.m. Sunrise on Sunday will be 7:10 a.m., and sunset at 5:46 p.m.
VACATION DIARY, PART 1: IF HAMBURGERS WERE SOLD LIKE POLITICIANS
If this isn't just about the coolest possible scientific breakthrough in recent memory:
WASHINGTON - Scientists are boldly going where only fiction has gone before — to develop a Cloak of Invisibility. It isn't quite ready to hide a Romulan space ship from Capt. James T. Kirk or to disguise Harry Potter, but it is a significant start and could show the way to more sophisticated designs.
Indiana's gambling attention isn't all focused on fine-tuning bingo rules and collecting casino taxes:
Twelve people were arrested Friday when police broke up an illegal high-stakes poker game in an apartment in East Chicago, Ind. Large amounts of cash and 19 cases of beer were also seized.
Everyone has been focusing on the three Indiana Republican congressmen who might lose their races, but one of the Democrats is in trouble, too:
I've dismissed claims from the left that the United States still has ambitions as a colonial power. But maybe I need to rethink that:
If the county's proposed smoking ban, much tougher than the city's, is passed, will we need to hire a few extra people for the sheriff's department to be the tobacco police?
Gov. Daniels does not get a very good grade on the Cato Institute's "fiscal policy report card" measuring performance in cutting and spending taxes. From the news release:
An interesting take on the difference between the average American of 1967, when we hit the 200 million population mark, and the average American of today's 300-million landscape:
As the U.S. population crossed the 300 million mark sometime around 7:46 a.m. Tuesday (according to the U.S. Census Bureau), the typical family is doing a whole lot better than their grandparents were in 1967, the year the population first surpassed 200 million.
Have you seen WANE-TV's "political analysts" Marla Irving and Brian Stiers at work? (Go to the WANE site and find it under "featured videos").This is the same kind of "fair and balanced" commentary we've been seeing on network news and cable outlets. The moderator poses a question, and the Repbulican gives the Republican line, and the Democrat gives the Democrat line. There isn't an independent thought or truly objective observation to be heard. This isnt "political analysis." It's worthless crap.
This is priceless. 14-year-old Julia Wilson has a Web page expressing her anger at the president, which includes the words "Kill Bush" along with a photo-collage showing a cartoon dagger stabbing the president's hand. This, naturally, leads to a visit from the Secret Service. How does her father react? Not, as you might expect, with embarrassment at his daughter's over-the-top behavior. He finds the reaction to it over the top:
Congratulations, Hoosiers, you sneaked into the top half. The brain power of its citizens earns Indiana the rank of the 24th-smartest state. Vermont cheers, Arizona is not amused.
OK, many of us believe in downtown and would like to see it become more vibrant and vital. Creating a riverfront improvement district, with much cheaper and easier-to-get liquor licenses is one idea to help accomplish that. But that concerns some people, especially established restaurant owners who paid big bucks to get their licenses:
Anytime Americans are asked to self-identify themselves politically, far more are willing to call themselves conservative (usually in a 40-something percent range, in most of the accounts I've seen) than liberal (from 19 to 22 percent). As a result, far more conservative politicians are willing to call themselves conservative than liberal ones are willing to call themselves liberal. They keep trying new names.
