Hoosier lore

We may let ourselves go from time to time, but we sure do know how to clean up for a party:

Indiana political leaders are looking to fast-track sex-trafficking legislation before football fans flood Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

The General Assembly, having solved all the rest of the state's problems, can now turn to something really important:

Senate Bill No. 84, which has been introduced by Senator Jean Leising, would allow schools to "Participate in an interscholastic athletics association only if the association does not conduct boys' or girls' interscholastic basketball games in which the teams are divided into classes."

Purdue University did a driving-accident study, and all I can say is, "Look out, boys and girls, I'm coming your way, and I'm in a dangerous mood."

Sunshine Review is a group that, among other things, grades governments on transparency, comparing what's available on their websites to what should be provided. Here's the good, the bad and the ugly from its latest report:

Until this weekend, I had kept my vow -- announced here a few years ago -- to give up on following IU basketball. I decided to take a look at the Indiana-Kentucky game, though, because it's a long rivalry between two states that are both dear to my heart. Boy, did I pick a good game to come back for, or what? IU's buzzer-beater, 1-point victory over the nation's top-ranked team was as exciting as anythin I've  seen in the past couple of years.

But, hey, let's not get carried away:

There are a lot of qualities the governor should look for in a replacement for Chief Justice Randall Shepard on the Indiana Supreme Court. But The Journal Gazette seems to care only about one of them:

Commission members and the governor all need to realize that diversity on the court is crucial and that Indiana's status as one of just two states with no female justices is an embarrassment, with both practical and symbolic repercussions.

This is supposedly a business-friendly state, but we could do better. According to the Small Business Survival Index 2011, Indiana ranks 20th when it comes to policy environments for entrepreneurship. Next-door Ohio does better at 7th. Kentucky is 22nd, and Michigan comes in at 29. Illinois, predictably, is in the bottom 15 at No. 40. What does it take to make it to the top 15?

We'll have to wait and see if this is a wise decision or not:

Unlike Indiana's other major colleges, Ball State University isn't trying to buy up possible school Internet domains names using a new suffix meant for pornography sites.

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Regular readers will know of my ambivalence about the death penalty. There is much that is troubling about capital punishment, including the fact that it gives far more power to the state than any of us should be comfortable with. But some crimes are so depraved that nothing short of the ultimate punishment seems appropriate.

How in the world do you "misplace" so much money?

Indiana's governor announced Tuesday that state officials have found $300 million that went untouched even as lawmakers made deep cuts to education and slashed vacant government jobs while it weathered the recession.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said the money was collected but never transferred to the state's general spending account, which lawmakers use to allocate funds to various programs and departments.