One good thing about the Clinton-Obama slugfest is that it might knock Edwards out of the race fairly quickly:
Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina launched his second campaign for the White House from this flood-ravaged city Thursday with a call for the United States to reduce its troop presence in Iraq and a plea for citizen action to combat poverty, global warming and America's reliance on foreign oil.
Kevin Leininger had a good column last night about Paul "Mike" Burns, the former mayor and city councilman who made contrariness an art form. I love this quote:
As State Rep. and former City Councilman and Mayor Win Moses said, “Because he voted
I would like to thank the "key legislators" who are watching out for me and really seem to care about my well-being:
Concerned about new casinos that could be more like buildings than boats, several key legislators want to review whether state regulators are stretching what Indiana's gambling law allows.
One reason to be glad the holiday season is almost over:
Forcing store clerks to listen to the same holiday music over and over could be akin to torture and should change, a British noise pollution group said.
The UK Noise Association and labor unions are suggesting legal action on behalf of store employees who listen to endless looped recordings of holiday music, the Observer said Sunday.
I notice that people everywhere, including Fort Wayne, are sharing their stories of having met or in some other way been touched by President Ford. I am sorry to report that I don't have such a story.
Fred Phelps is either a delusional whack job who really believes that God is killing our soliders in Iraq because the U.S. too gay-friendly a country, or else he is a shameless publicity hustler. In either case, he has what he probably wanted:
Indiana lawmakers return in January -- one variation of headline in many newspapers and on many Web sites in the last couple of weeks.
"No man's life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session." -- attributed to Benjamin Franklin.
I've written enough about the need for us to move on from the time-zone issue, and every time I do, I get calls and mail from people who don't want to let it go. But let me say an unkind word or two about the rederendum, which we should be thankful Indiana uses only sparingly rather than promiscuously as California and some other states do:
Awwww, a brave doggie saves his people's lives:
We named him Hero and now is a hero," said fire victim Melissa Boyd.
Hero was coughing from smoke inhalation after saving Boyd and her 4-year-old son from a house fire on Christmas.
"The dog saved our lives because he jumped on my son and started licking him on the face to wake him up," Boyd said.
"He went in the fire," said Noah Boyd.
I read this Richard Cohen column in yesterday's Journal Gazette, and it really ticked me off, which, I suppose, is a better way than some to make sure one is awake enough to leave the house and get into the car:
No, you do not have a right to your opinion. Because:
1. A right for one person carries with it duties for other people. If I have a right to live, you have a duty to not kill me. If you have a right to your good reputation, I have the duty to not libel you.
This is even lamer than the "Iraq war has gone on longer than World War II" stories:
The latest deaths also brought the number of U.S. military members killed since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Barack Obama is saying nothing, but doing so eloquently, he is "humble in all the right places," and he is just exotic enough at a time when people are sick and tired of all the same old faces. So says columnist Froma Harrop, who compares the senator to a couple of Hoosiers:
How would you go before this judge one of these days?
The Indiana Supreme Court has reprimanded a judge for allowing a man to stay in prison more than a year longer than necessary.
The court said in a Dec. 19 reprimand that Madison Superior Court 3 Judge Thomas Newman Jr.'s “conduct reflects discredit on him and the Indiana judicial system.”
A Gary Post-Tribune columnist is suggesting 10 places in that city at which to have a good time on Sunday, New Year's Eve. There will undoubedtly be similar suggestions made in other cities, and you can get lots of tips on where to go in Fort Wayne. Here's my advice: 1. Get food, beverages and whatever other supplies you might need early, say on Thursday. 2) Go home on Friday after work, and get a good night's sleep. 3.) Go out on Saturday and get whatever you forgot on Thursday.
We're in the post-Christmas, pre-New Year's news black hole, so it's time to start looking back on 2006 and trying to figure it out.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, as surely as blah, blah, blah. It was in the New York Sun in 1897 and is probably the most famous editorial ever blah, blah, blah. My boss made me run that on the editorial page every year.
If you weren't watching TV on Wednesday, you missed some good cussin', on C-SPAN, of all places. That dull little cable network was carrying the hearing on the FCC's tough new decency standards, and the judges and attorneys involved actually used the F-word and the S-word, among other expletives. The FCC apparently didn't come off looking too good:
A cynical New Yorker finds a reason to rhapsodize about Indiana:
IF LIFE were fair, Ronell Wil son, the weasel, would wind up on the same juice-jab gurney as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
"Knowing full well that nobody would ever be executed in New York, I asked where Wilson could be executed and I was told, Terre Haute, Ind.," said Mike Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.
The long heralded downtown baseball-stadium plan is finally here, and it's a doozy. We should probably call it the stadium-plus plan, since it also includes a hotel, condos, shopping and a little bit of everything else.
