Perhaps we ought to thank the Indiana stadium authority for being so aggressive in trying to steal the property of a business that's been in operation since 1938 -- and stealing is what such eminent domain amounts to. It seeks not to take private land for public use, such as a road or a school, but for a public good, which amounts to giving it to another private entity that the government thinks would be of more importance.

Monday's editorial page will be devoted to the "top 10 arguments of 2005" as selected by the editorial page staff -- basically, me and editorial writer Bob Caylor. In defining a good argument, we didn't consider only the ones in favor of a cause or effort we supported. A good argument just needs to be effective, based on one or more of several criteria. Was it especially eloquent for or against something in particular? Did it energize a political base or wake up the opposition? Did it advance our understanding of a complicated issue or shed new light on an old controversy?

Here's an example of what drives some people stark, raving nuts about the immigration situation in our country. Even in a state as conservative as Indiana, there is a movement to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. If you talk to local law-enforcement officials, they'll tell you the federal government won't even come for a single illegal -- if there isn't a busload, forget it. At a time when there is a legitimate fear of terrorists sneaking into the country, our borders are more porous than ever.

Sen. Tom Wyss has introduced seat-belt legislation, the primary result of which would be to remove the buckle-up exemption for pickup trucks. As Masson's Blog notes, "That distinction is awfully silly.

Students desperate to get into their colleges of choice naturally can't just be satisfied with sending in boring applications, so they trot out their circus acts. They are then shattered to learn that:

. . . college admission has more to do with finding a good fit rather than determining a student's worth.

Let's see, I'm really, really bored, and I have a choice of two magazines to read -- Sylvester Stallone's fitness publication or one devoted to shoe fetishism. Tough call.

Looks like the Blueberry Festival in Marshall County, after 39 years in business, is encountering some tough financial times:

But organizers say the city of Plymouth increased its bill for services such as equipment rental by more than $5,000 for this year's Labor Day festival.

"We want to stay involved with the city ... but they're kind of driving us away," festival president Randy Bowser said at this week's Board of Public Works and Safety meeting.

The Clinton impeachment, "in a gray area of history, too long ago to be a current event, too recent to be judged in perspective," has now hit school textbooks. The textbooks vary in how they treat the scandal, but all of them, even the college-level ones, are equally reluctant to get into the, um, details of what Clinton lied about:

Why did anybody expect No Child Left Behind to be any different from any other federal program in just throwing money at a problem and pretending that it will make a difference? NCLB, among other things, mandates tutoring for low-income, low-performing students. So the money gets tossed around, consulting firms make a mint, and nobody even knows if it's helping the kids: