Mike Pence has been mentioned in a few places as a contender to replace Tom DeLay as speaker of the House, including "This Week" on ABC yesterday morning. Here's a site asking for our input on the question; I already posted a comment including my vote for Pence. Republicans have lost their way as the voice of small-government conservatism.
You can tell a lot about people by looking at their pets, so it's no big surprise that a lot of fat Britons also have fat pets. You see someone with friendly, wanting-to-please dogs, there's a fair chance they will be that way, too. Cold, private people tend to have cats with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. You'll probaby know too much about me when I tell you my two cats each have a favorite spot on the couch.
You remember Kelo, the now-infamous Supreme Court decisison that made it clear the court was not going to halt the drift toward public-good taking of land as opposed to the public-use taking clearly spelled out in the Constitution (what do you think about that, Judge Alito?) Well, things aren't going too well for the hope of New London officials to kick out some private-property owners and replace them with ones who could provide more tax revenue.
As the hearings for Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court get under way, we might have to look somewhere other than in the questioning of the senators to find the careful analysis we need to see what kind of justice he might make. As the Roberts' hearings demostrated, the senators seem mostly interested in having their own star turns (sometimes they go on for 10 or 15 minutes before actually getting to a question) or acting as conduits for the interest groups of the extreme left and right.
When most people talk about consolidation or regional cooperation, they mean government. But, as Indianapolis Star John Ketzenberger points out, there is a business component, too.
While the leader of the Indiana House is trying to make Jesus a political operative, NBC-TV is turning him into a cartoon savior, looking like a '60s flower child and mouthing inanities ("Life is hard," "Everyone's different") to possibly the biggest collection of creeps and losers ever assembled. I know there's a lot of tough competition, but "The Book of Daniel" just might be the worst television show of all time.
Here's The Swamp, an interesting meld of blogging and big media. It's run by the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau:
I hope what seems to be true here really is true, that an outside group is running this Web site, and Indiana death-row inmate Michael Dean Overstreet isn't corresponding with a bunch of "pen pals." In all my years on editorial pages, I've had only a handful of hard-and-fast rules for letters to the editor. One of them is: Never, ever, run a letter from someone in prison -- never mind death row -- seeking someone to write to. More often than not, they're just looking for someone to scam.
Because of Indiana's late Primary and its nearly total Republican allegience, we never really get to have any fun in presidential elections. By the time we get a chance to weigh in, it's all over. So we have to get our jollies where we can. There's a site out there that, at least for a time, will let Hoosiers feel like they're an important part of presidential politics. Online ratings polls such as this are silly and meaningless. Still, it's interesting to see that Mike Pence comes in third.
Just when you think Pat Robertson has reached the bottom of his stupid-comments barrel, he fools you. Maybe God is annoyed with us all, and listening to Robertson is our punishment.
Judge Edward Cashman is undoubtedly right that "anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul." But a judge who no longer believes in punishment has no place on the bench.
Beware of this warning! A sign about the sign itself, a philosophical conundrum.
I was raised in a coal-mining culture. One uncle died in a mine cave-in, another had his back broken. My father had black lung. If you grow up with the mines as the center of your family's existence, you know that death is always there, waiting to snatch somebody from you before it's his time to go. Of all the things I've read about the West Virginia mine explosion, the saddest and most touching is the revelation that some of the miners left letters for their loved ones:
Fort Wayne Observed has been conducting various polls related to the media in 2005, and he's now running one for "blog of the year." If you'd like to vote, click here. Of course, you don't have to vote for me. Honest. I don't care. It's all right. I'll get by. Really.
I suppose this is one way to deal with the problem of the alcoholic homeless -- just keep them soused. It conjures up possible solutions for all kinds of problems, doesn't it? Leave it to the Canadians.
I distrust studies like this one. Put out by the education establishment, it shows that, surprise surprise, more Hoosiers than ever are "satisfied" with public education but think there is "room for improvement." What meaningless nonsense. I can name a hundred things I'm satisfied with but think can be improved. I'm especially suspicious of the findings that 59 percent say they would pay higher taxes to increase school funding.
A danger in being a strong advocate for something is that we can overlook obvious drawbacks that our passion blinds us to. The trick is to know which issues affect us that way so we can both doublecheck our reasoning and be open to flags raised by others. I can name numerous subjects I can be snared by: downtown revitalization, regional economic development, advocacy for the mentally ill, a limited federal government and on and on.
You can probably guess exactly where Lisa Koop stands on the immigration issue when you learn that she has had a "No Human Being Is Illegal" bumper sticker. She's an immigration lawyer at the Notre Dame Legal Aid Clinic and decries proposed U.S. House legislation that would make an "undocumented immigrant's" "very existence in our communities a crime." So? It already isn't a crime?
I swear, bottled water is the greatest scam in the history of marketing. Water comes out of every tap in America, there at a simple touch, yet people are willing to spend something like $8 a gallon to drink it out of plastic six-packs, more than three times the cost of the gasoline we get so apoplectic about.
In case you hadn't noticed, Fort Wayne is making an effort to be a leader in wireless Internet connections. Everybody from City Hall to the Allen County Public Library (all branches will have wi-fi) is getting involved. Now comes news that Indianapolis is taking a cautious, go-slow approach. Dumb, dumb, dumb. This not only will give the No. 2 city an area where it can outshine the No.
