How come I'm never around when stuff like this happens?
A 28-year-old woman has been cited for lewdness for exposing herself inside a store.
[. . .]
The woman told police she arrived in Cedar City with a circus but was left behind.
And, to think, my parents told me running away to join a circus would be a bad idea.
So, we have a list of the most controversial films of all time, which includes such titles as "Deep Throat," "Natural Born Killers," "A Clockwork Orange," "Basic Instinct" and "The Deer Hunter." And the No. 1, most controversial film of all time:
Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" ranks as the most controversial film of all time, according to Entertainment Weekly. The magazine ranks the 25 films that have most shocked, disgusted and divided moviegoers, in its June 16 issue, on newsstands Monday.
If you approve policies that don't require students to show up for class, they won't show up for class. Who'da thunk?
A cautionary not for those who predict the future, and those who always believe all the projections. We're not running out of phone numbers in Indiana nearly as quickly as once predicted:
Cell phones caused a big need for more numbers in the 1990s, and the Internet caused some families to add second lines for modems.
The Supreme Court is "fine-tuning" the death penalty again:
The Supreme Court rules that death-row inmates may challenge lethal injection as an unnecessarily cruel -- and thus unconstitutional -- punishment. The unanimous decision came on the same day the court expanded inmates' ability to challenge their convictions in federal court based on new DNA evidence.
The smoking-ban movement has certainly gained momentum in Indiana:
In the last 13 months, partial or comprehensive bans on smoking have been approved in Jeffersonville and 14 other Indiana communities.
Only government can do the right thing in the wrong place at the wrong time so well:
MOTORISTS were driven mad when they got stuck in a two-mile rush-hour jam — caused by council officials doing a traffic survey.
This sounds as maddening as getting a phone survey asking if phone surveys are annoying. I think I had one of those once.
I am no particular fan of NASA, but I do believe in government support of space exploration, and NASA is the only space exploration we've got right now. So I'm particularly upset -- though not terribly surprised -- that out-of-control congressional spending on earmarks might be threatening some of NASA's projects:
Two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court have more potential local ramifications than most:
In a pair of cases that could reignite disputes over race and public education, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide what role affirmative action should play in assigning students to competitive spots in elementary and secondary schools.
The justices this fall will hear two appeals from Kentucky and Washington state.
I guess I've never thought much about how egailtarian organized gambling is:
All that makes Northwest Indiana a favored destination for a broad range of casino players. Horseshoe, with its $10,000 maximum bets at blackjack and $100,000 maximums at baccarat, and Resorts with $50,000 at baccarat get their share of the very wealthy, including sports stars and Asian businessmen on Chicago trips who otherwise might be found at the tables in Las Vegas or Macau.
I was going to get one of these for each of my cats, but then I thought, no, they'd probably just be stolen by some illegal-immigrant felines and used for all kinds of mischief.
Congratulations, Hoosier motorcycle riders. You no longer have to stop at the state line if you want your brains bashed in:
With hundreds of motorcycle riders outside the Capitol, the Michigan state House today passed a controversial repeal of a mandate for riders to wear helmets.
The legislation passed by a 66-37 vote and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Nerds of the world, unite; we may slowly be taking over. ABC decided to put the finals of the Spelling Bee in prime time. It didn't exactly draw "American Idol" numbers, but 9 million people watched:
This can't possibly be controversial -- Louisiana legislators want to put the Ten Commandments into a state law, but they don't want to offend Jews or Protestant or Catholic Christians, so they're spending all this time trying to get the wording just right. Yes, legislators have actually taken it upon themselves to rewrite the Ten Commandments. I wonder if they might end up with something like this:
1. Only me, OK?
2. I mean it, not even a photo or a line drawing of somebody else.
I could go on and on about how this symptomizes the sad state of affairs we have come to, but it kind of speaks for itself:
SWAKOPMUND, Namibia (AP) -- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt denied Wednesday that wedding bells are in the air, saying they want to concentrate for now on their newborn daughter and Jolie's two adopted children.
Another piece of evidence that the vehicle crash ID mixup in Indiana had nothing to do with the elected-cornoner system -- a similar mixup in 2004 in Michigan, which has a medical-examiner system. And there, they're looking in the right direction for improvement, changing state law:
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby is right about the gay-marriage debate should be approached:
Pro, con, or undecided, Americans should be able to discuss something as serious as redefining marriage without resorting to slander and ad hominem attacks. There are sincere, compassionate, and thoughtful people on both sides of this issue. How can you tell who they are? They aren't the ones calling people bigots.
Susette Kelo, the namesake of the worst Supreme Court decision in recent memory, is one step cloer to being evicted from her property. And there is, of course, no remorse from the government thugs who are stealing the property:
New London Mayor Beth Sabilia says, "The City Council has authorized the Director of Law to begin the process to obtain the properties at Fort Trumbull."
With the announcement of a new newspaper owner coming to town, a post I did back in March still seems pertinent:
So whenever the new owner of The News-Sentinel and Fort Wayne Newspapers is known, we should understand that its directors and shareholders are going to worry about things like corporate redundancies and cost synergies. But we -- print journalists and newspaper readers alike -- need to focus on what matters to this particular place in this particular time.
So, I guess you people aren't reading your newspapers at work much these days. According to a new study from Ball State University, the Web is now the No. 1 source of news in the workplace, No. 2 in the home. And you thought all those people with their terminals glowing were doing work-related spreadsheets.
