Just in case you think that anti-war critics are treated harshly today, sometimes being called un-patriotic and all, and that xenophobic sentiment sometimes seems to be evident in discussions of illegal aliens or Muslim Arabs. It was once much worse:
Silly prattle from economic morons:
A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released Wednesday.
Just a small tip for those of you who like to live on the edge: Don't celebrate being released from jail by getting drunk, then stealing somebody else's beer:
I love yard sales and garage sales and rummage sales and neighborhood mega-sales and even cheesy auctions of old household goods, but this may be too much bargain hunting even for me:
PENDLETON, Ind. -- A 50-mile-long yard sale is expected to draw crowds of bargain-hunters to a stretch of Indiana 38 this weekend.
The sale, in its third year, runs between the central Indiana cities of Noblesville and New Castle.
The ACLU, once again marching in step with the American mainstream:
When I was in high school, the student newspaper office had this machine that dispensed the tiny bottles of Coke that some of you might remember. Guzzling a few of those -- about three good gulps each -- got me through more than one day. Thank goodness the health police weren't around then:
Tens of millions of students will no longer be able to buy non-diet sodas in the nation's public schools under an agreement announced Wednesday between major beverage distributors and anti-obesity advocates.
I told you that if you put up with the boring political comments that we'd get back to the good stuff:
At the May 7, 2006, meeting of the Michigan Mutual UFO Network, Lisa Shiel will provide compelling evidence for a connection between two usually separate esoteric phenomena -- Bigfoot and UFOs. This presentation will be based on her new book "Backyard Bigfoot: The True Story of Stick Signs, UFOs, and the Sasquatch."
Well, OK, maybe this possible change in policy by the Catholic Church is "historic," but it doesn't seem that earth-shattering:
"We are conducting a very profound scientific, technical and moral study," said the head of the Vatican Council for Health Pastoral Care. The church is expected to give a guarded, provisional blessing to the use of condoms by married couples when one of them suffers from Aids, as a way of protecting the health of the other partner.
I seem to remember spending hours and hours fascinated by how Play-Doh could lift impressions of color comics . . . say, that might count as pre-Internet blogging. I don't think even the most creative types, with the happiest memories of the stuff, will go for this, though:
Maryland is cracking down on roadside memorials:
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - State officials are cracking down on some roadside memorials to people killed in accidents because the tributes are so large that they've become distracting to drivers.
Until recently, highway officials have only loosely enforced a law against unauthorized memorials on state-maintained shoulders and medians.
A few more boring political comments before we get back to the fun stuff like UFOs and deer hunts:
This is shocking:
Robert Adrian Porcisanu, 28, a Romanian citizen, and his Franklin, Ind., business, Stucco Design Inc., were named in a 12-count criminal indictment unsealed Monday in the District of North Dakota.
According to the indictment, Porcisanu and his company undercut the bids of competitors and won contracts to perform stucco-related work by using illegal workers to reduce labor costs.
No big surprises in yesterday's primary, but a couple of smaller ones. I thought the Marla Irving-Bill Brown commissioner contest would be the close one, but Brown took almost 63 percent of the vote. The Linda Bloom-Roy Buskirk race turned out to be one of the closest ones of the day -- Bloom won with 53.6 percent of the vote. The GiaQuinta-Paddock race was a little closer than I thought it would be -- GiaQuinta won 56-44 percent -- but Ken Fries won the GOP sheriff's race as handily as everyone thought he would, with 52.2 percent, more than his three opponents combined.
I think this is right:
Yesterday's immigration protests will be remembered as a turning point. The pro-amnesty, zero-enforcement coalition gambled that it could take to the streets and intimidate the majority of Americans into backtracking on their plans to toughen immigration law. It was a bold gamble for the open-borders bunch - and they lost.
Ah, it's so nice to see someone admit the error of his ways, thus taking the first step on the road to recovery:
The judge also ordered Green, 41, to attend anger-management classes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"That's crap," Green said in court of the AA meetings, according to his attorney.
The West Bloomfield resident argued that the incident had nothing to do with alcohol.
A Beverly Shores couple says there was a chilling effect on their free-speech rights because they were arrested after "they honked their car horn, took photographs and allowed their dog to bark while driving along a public roadway." They also say they did not "disturb a game animal," which is what the fuss is all about, as they were attempting to interfere with some deers' right to be killed by hunters.
Sorry for that cheap shot.
The alien hordes are coming to get us! No, no, not the ones from Mexico, the other alien hordes, the scary ones who abduct us and probe us and create memory gaps we have to explain to our spouses. All of this makes perfect sense to me. If you were from a superior race, advanced enough to build ships to travel millions of light years, wouldn't you spend your time driving a guy in Bloomington, Ind., crazy? Of course you would:
Maybe Indiana doesn't get its fair share back from the federal government, but we seem to be doing all right by God. There are only seven American saints recognized by the Catholic church, and a 19th century Indiana nun seems likely to become the eighth. And all it took was the healing of a Sister in 1908 that was not medically explainable and a Terre Haute guy not having to get eye surgery in 2001.
When you start more or less guaranteeing groups representation, as the Voting Rights Act does, beware of unintended consequences, as Abdul Hakim-Shabazz of Indiana Barrister warns about a Lawrence, Ind., case:
Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards took her time and in the end made the right decision to seek the death penalty against Simon Rios. The death penalty isn't automatic in Indiana just because you kill someone in cold blood -- there have to be aggravating circumstances, in this case the fact that Rios is alleged to have killed more than one person and killed children younger than 12.
