This is an issue that has gone unaddressed too long in our legal system:
Until now, the high court has avoided challenges to insanity defense laws, even as states around the country toughened their laws following John Hinckley's acquittal by reason of insanity in the 1981 shooting of President Reagan.
I always read stories about really old people -- like this one about Indiana's oldest citizen turning 113 -- to see if they've had any lifelong bad habits that I also have so I can feel better about myself and say to people, "See there, it's not so bad drinking a pot of coffee every day" or "eating coney dogs for breakfast" or etc., etc. This one didn't have anything like that except for a snide remark from her daughter-in-law that she's been a widow for the last 68 years, ha, ha, ha.
Trying a little marrying of old and new technology here. Here is a link to my first draft of the editorial that will be in Friday's paper about the city's attempts to take over Aqua Indiana and keep its legal fees secret. Depending on the comments left at this post, I might update the editorial before publication to reflect some of what you say.
I didn't think anybody could write more vehemently about eminent-domain abuses than Leo Morris or Mike Sylvester. But George Will, in his back-of-Newsweek piece, gives us a run for our money:
Around the world, middle-aged and elderly men tend to be more satisfied with their sex lives than women in the same age group, a survey released on Wednesday said.
Young men, too, don't you suppose?
What's the best movie ever made from a book? The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. convened a panel of experts and came up with 50, in no particular order.
Hey, aren't you glad you don't live out in California, where you could be killed any day by an earthquake? Don't be too glad -- you do live near another fault line.
I confessed in a comment I attached to my "Ah, spring" post that I have trouble taking pictures of flowers, always ending up too close or too far away. So my brother, Larry, e-mailed me a couple of photos of a flower he took just down the hill from his house outside Wimberly, Texas. Nobody likes a show-off.
I swear. The state spends $90,000 for research and testing, and what results after, naturally, a "brainstorming session," is a spiffy new slogan that's supposed to get tourists to flock here: Indiana: Restart Your Engines. And these people actually believe this:
Oh, for God's sake, McDonald's, just keep producing your unhealthy but tasty food and charging us a reasonable price, and we will keep patronizing your restaurants. If you're going to panic every time a vegetable-loving health freak like Eric Schlosser or Morgan Spurlock comes along, we'll just take our money and spend it on Hardee's wonderful Thickburgers (three sizes, you quarter-pounder wimps -- 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound and 2/3 pound).
OK, let met get this straight. This is the year 2006, correct? So even if we call it 2006 A.D. (Anno Domini, the year of our lord) or 2006 C.E. (Common Era), our calendar is still based on what it has always been based on. We still mark our time as being before or after the birth of Christ, however imperfect our understanding of when that exactly was, and all we are doing is trying to bolster the self-esteem of those who still can't handle living in a mostly Christian nation. Did I get that right?
Happy 100th birthday to Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana. It's hard to imagine any other city having to work so hard to get into a celebratory mood:
And the winner is: "March 23, 1913: Tornadoes and flooding between Terre Haute and Indianapolis; floods in Indianapolis area killed nearly 200." Nothing like the 100th anniversary of a major catastrope as an excuse for a morbid little list of the state's own disasters. I have to admit, though; I read the list all the way through.
The friend who steered me to this link believes in this stuff and made me promise not to make fun of it. So I'll just say that there are 15 entries about ghosts in Fort Wayne (it's alphabetical, so just scroll down), including these:
Now is the time to get out and enjoy the parks. I stopped off on the way home from work today and snapped some pictures at Foster Park. Here are a few of them.
Andrew Kaduk at the Just For The Record blog took this fun test and discovered the leader he was most like was Abe Lincoln, "a mild mannered assassination victim" who is good at mediating disputes "with the exception of the occasional bloody civil war." So I took it, too, and this was my result.
I know I said in a recent post that Sharon Stone might be sneaking in to fill that special place in my heart once committed to Jane Fonda, but here comes Jane to win me back again:
Jane Fonda says she would like to tour the country and speak out against U.S. involvement in Iraq, but her controversial history of Vietnam War protests leaves her with "too much baggage."
One of our readers, who has apparently had a bad experience or two with fireworks, called to ask if the city could override the state's recent legalization of them by enacting its own ban. My inclination was to say no -- under Indiana's policy of limited home rule, a local government can regulate things the state has not spoken on; but once the state has issued directives, the state's word is law. But I called the city attorney to make sure, and his office confirmed my understanding.
While I was getting snarky about Rocky Mountain High Environmentalism, I almost overlooked the "humanity is going to receive the plague it deserves" school of thought.
More states and even Congress are following Indiana's example of keeping Fred Phelps and his merry band of funeral crashers at bay.
