Those mean old taxpayers just don’t understand that we need their money to do good things for them. But if that’s what they want, sniffle, sniffle, well, all right, guess we won’t fight it. Boy are they gonna miss us when we’re gone:
State legislators didn’t waste much time this year before deciding to put Indiana’s property tax caps on the November ballot.
And groups opposed to the caps say they probably won’t waste much time — or money — trying to persuade Hoosiers to vote against amending the constitution to forever limit property owners’ tax burdens to 1 percent of the assessed value of a house, 2 percent for farms and rentals, and 3 percent for businesses.
Mishawaka Mayor Jeff Rea spoke to legislative committees nine times in recent years on behalf of the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns to tell legislators how the caps will hurt public safety and other government services.
[. . .]
I think there’s virtually nothing that is going to stop it from being in the constitution,” he said. “It’s a freight train that isn’t going to stop, so we’ll have to make the proper adjustments.”
[. . .]
The Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Indiana Farm Bureau oppose the caps because they stick businesses and farms with higher tax rates than what homeowners will face.
But neither organization plans to embark on a media campaign prior to Election Day, representatives said.
Boo hoo, boo hoo. So, OK, 60 or 70 percent of Hoosiers favor the tax caps. Taxpayers wanting to save money — big deal. But how are they going to be persuaded to change their minds if nobody is willing to make the case? This is an opportunity for us to have a statewide debate on what services Hoosiers really want and what they’re willing to pay for. If that’s the way all these anti-tax cap people are going to be now, let’s hear no more whining later about the hardships the caps might cause.
This Indiana University professor doesn’t think much of the democratic process:
“No matter how often President Obama pleads for it, bipartisanship has become a joke. So, while the two sides continue this ridiculous game, Rome — read: the planet — is burning.”
Reuveny said it’s imperative that President Obama bypass this unproductive haggling. “He must issue an Executive Order to the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately implement a system that will cut greenhouse emissions of the American economy by meeting the goals set by the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House in 2009,” he said. “He should also order the EPA to design an all-inclusive command and control system of greenhouse emission quotas and monitoring to be backed by severe and immediate penalties on units that would emit more than their allotted amount.
What would you call this, environmental martial law? Hell, as long as we want him to cripple the economy and end the free enterprise system as we know it by executive order, let’s just do away with Congress and all those pesky elections altogether and declare Obama king.
The hits just keep coming on my side of town. Hartley’s, then Lambro’s, now Casa D’Angelo’s. Pretty soon my only choices will be the Wendy’s at the end of the street and the Hall’s and the Chinese and Mexican places across the Bluffton Road Bridge. If the Hall’s goes down, this will be more than just a long recession.
The first thing theatergoers will notice about the revival of “A View of the Bridge,” Arthur Miller’s 1950s drama about a working-class Italian-American family in Red Hook, is that the characters are speaking a different language: Brooklynese. You got a problem with that!?
You can hear the mellifluous — some might say grating — dialect being celebrated on Broadway by Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber. But that may be the only place. Linguists say features of the classic accent are heard less and less in the city itself, especially among the younger generation. Mocked and stereotyped, the long o’s and w’s have fallen out of favor, unless you’re auditioning for a mob film.
A lot of other accents are disappearing, too. You don’t hear that many deep-South drawls or New England twangs anymore. They’re all being swamped by the flat, perfect tones of TV newscasterese. Too bad — we’re losing a lot of regional charm.
Indiana has about 6,000 public pedestrian and highway railroad grade crossings, which is more than all but four other states. Because of the high number of highway-rail conflict points, Indiana is consistently among the top states with the most railroad crossing crashes. During 2008, there were 139 highway-rail crashes in Indiana, resulting in 44 injuries and 19 fatalities.
The headline on the story is “Too many car-train incidents,” which is an odd thing to say when you think about it. It implies that a certain number of car-train incidents — don’t know what it is, maybe there should be a study – would be acceptable. Go over that number, though, and it’s - whoops! — too darn many car-train incidents.
The story quotes the Indiana Department of Transportation commissioner as saying that “all train collisions with vehicles or pedesterians and in some way preventable.” That’s not really all that helpful, so allow me to elaborate on “some way:” That train is not going to be in the prevention mode. It is big, it has a schedule, it can go no where else but on those tracks. Prevention is the job of the certain loser in any train-not train collision, i.e. the car, other vehicle or pedestrian. So, above all, don’t drink and drive or walk across train tracks.
I’ve figured out why the Colts lost the Super Bowl. It’s amazingly simple when you think about it, and it all goes back to this one play:
The Saints coach made all the right moves, most notably calling for an onside kick to start the second half, depriving the Colts of the ball when Indianapolis had a 10-6 lead and changing the tone of the game.
Until that play, it was anybody’s game, but the Colts still had the edge. The onside kick completely changed the momentum of the game.
And it was a stupid call. An onside kick in the middle of the game is such a risky move — if the Colts had gotten the ball, they would have had terrific field position and another touchdown, and the game would have been all but over. What possessed the Saints to take such a risk?
Well, they’ve been doing that all year, because they bought into the idea that they were more than a mere football team. They were the spirit of the Who Dat Nation, representing the downtrodden folks of New Orleans, who had to fight back not only from the devastating forces of nature but an inept and surely racist federal government that made their pain and suffering even worse.
I’ve liked The Who a long time, but I must respectfully disagree with this:
The Super Bowl finally found its soundtrack with The Who, whose halftime show provided music as big and loud as the game itself.
From guitarist Pete Townshend’s famous windmill strumming to Roger Daltrey’s pained vocals and harmonica blasts, there were no fumbles in the five-song set.
OK, no fumbles, but there weren’t any first downs, either. I think they sounded pretty awful, and listening to these wheezers going through the “teenage wasteland” refrain of “Baba O’Riley” was just surreal. I hate to speak ill of my age set, but maybe the Super Bowl should stick with younger entertainers, or at least more mature ones who don’t try to recapture what they did more than 40 years ago.
An interesting discussion of an NPR piece on “why time seems to go faster as we age.” I agree with this:
Put me down for the ‘proportional’ theory that was discussed. This seems to make the most intuitive sense.
When you are 10 years old, a year ins’t simply a year, it is also 10% of your entire life. In terms of your ability to retain memories, it is even significantly more than that. A year for a 50-year-old is only 2% of that person’s life.
But this commenter spoke some truth, too:
You know, when you own an old car, you’ve got every rattle and squeak cataloged in your mind. One day, you hear a new sound, and think, “Uh Oh”. Well, having an old(er) body is like that. You’ve got all your aches and pains cataloged, and one day there’s a new one, and you think, “Uh Oh”.
It’s often said that “time flies when you’re having fun.” Trust me, youngsters, that’s not the half of it. Time flies. Period.
The prospect of Dan Coats running against Evan Bayh is getting predictable hoots of derision from the lefty blogosphere. But there are some grumblings on the right, too, as in this post from redstate.com:
If the best the Republican Party of Indiana can do is retread old horses who put themselves out to the pasture to begin with, we’re screwed.
It was, after all, Dan Coats who left the Senate and Evan Bayh who won his seat. Had Coats stayed, this wouldn’t have happened.
The last image most conservatives have of Dan Coats is him standing next to Harriet Myers swearing she was one of us. Don’t get me wrong — he’s a good guy.
But if we are going to run people against Evan Bayh, how about we not run the guy who gave up his seat to Bayh in the first place?
Dan Coats, a good man and a good former Senator, is a recruiting failure by the GOP. I’d gladly support Coats as the nominee. But if the best we can do is pull old politicians out of the pasture, we’re in trouble.
I know I said yesterday I thought the “Washington player” charge would be the most likely one to stick against Coats, but, honestly, I thought that would come from Democrats. And “old horse out of the pasture” would be a little harsh even if it came from the opposition. If Republicans don’t get a fresh face out there against Bayh, is it a sign, as one of the commenters suggests, that the Indiana GOP doesn’t have a very deep bench? Or is it a sign that, despite the “Brown effect,” Republicans here still feel Bayh can’t be beaten?
Sometimes when I get mired in the relatively boring politics of northeast Indiana, I miss the gleeful graft and corruption practiced routinely in The Region. The latest case is from East Chicago, where Mayor George Pabey is accused of getting a little extra out of city employees:
The charges came after an investigation that lasted more than an year into work done on a house Pabey bought with his daughter in 2007, located at 8530 Locust Ave. in Gary’s Miller neighborhood. Federal officials claim Camacho told five East Chicago employees to work on Pabey’s home, including pour cement and paint the inside, up through August 2008. The employees allegedly used city property, too, including cell phones and a cement truck.
No fancy computer fraud, no elaborate schemes to hide massive sums of money, just good, old-fashioned “get city employees to fix up my house” petty larceny. And the best part:
Pabey came into office six years ago, promising to end the corruption that plagued former Mayor Robert Pastrick’s time in office. Multiple indictments were filed against Pastrick’s allies.
Can’t wait to see what the next reform candidate comes up with.
Not so fast there, Mr. fast-taliking, this-is-one-in-a-million-animal pet salesman. I want to know where that dog has been:
Indiana lawmakers set their sights on puppy mills, with a new bill that would let you see what you’re getting when you buy a pet. The Indiana House has approved the bill that would require retail pet stores to give the customer information about a pet’s background before selling a dog or cat.
That information includes posting the animal’s medical history, including congenital disorders, right on its cage. The store would also have to put the name of the breeder on the cage and, when requested, disclose the address and size of the breeding operation.
So this would be pet fax, basically. I can see the commercial.
“I can knock $50 off this cat.”
“Fine. Let me see the pet fax.”
“Oh, you don’t need that. I have a letter from the last owner.”
“The pet fax, please.”
I know this is meant to put the squeeze on puppy mills, but I can see it catching on just because it’s a good idea. When I got cats Dutch and Maggie from the shelter, the employees there told me Maggie had been in a house before but was taken in off the street. Dutch was turned in by a family that “had too many cats” and picked him to get rid of. That was useful information helped me understand some of my cats’ quirks.
Dutch, for example, has no idea what the outside is like, so he’s always trying to escape. But, being clueless, he doesn’t know what to do when he does get out, so he just sits on the porch till I pick him up and take him back inside. Maggie, on the other hand, knows exactly how mean it can be outside, so she likes it in the house, thank you very much. When Dutch tries to dart out the door, she usually just stands back and watches, with amusement, I like to think.
The statewide smoking ban won’t pass this year. It got through the House, but the leader of the Senate says we’re not ready for it yet:
But Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said Wednesday he expects the state will eventually adopt a ban.
“As you see more and more counties and cities passing smoking bans, the opportunity for a statewide ban increases and will gain momentum,” Long said.
[. . .]
“It’s a tough environment in a short session and a tough economy for doing it,” Long said. “I fault no one for voting for that. I just don’t think we’re ready to consider that in the Senate right now.”
1. “A tough economy” for doing it means, “Let’s not do anything that might hurt business in the middle of a recession.” Is that an admission that it’s OK to hurt business when times are good? 2. Maybe so. Conservative Republicans such as Long are usually the last ones standing fast on their “let business owners decide what to do with their private property” principles when smoking bans finally do pass. The fact that even he expects the state to eventually pass a ban is more than a a little significant.
Mayor, Henry delcares, this weekend, a Go Blue Weekend.
I’m probably fussier about commas than I should be. Sometimes they’re annoying, when they show up, where they don’t belong. But missing commas bug me, too. The TV show “Good Morning America” has bothered me for years. When you’re addressing someone, your remarks and the person or group the remarks are addressed to should be separated by a comma. Looking good, Victoria. Shape up, Larry. Good Morning, America.
Now I have “Go Blue,” the cheer fans are supposed to offer up to the Indianapolis Colts, to contend with. If, as I assume, this is supposed to be telling Blue (the Colts’ nickname, derived from team colors) to get out there and make us all proud (i.e, Go), then there is an obvious need for a comma: Go, Blue. “Go blue” is in the form of an imperative, instructing people to do something they might not necessarily want to do. If you tell me to “Go green,” you are advising me to live environmentally responsibly, to which I say, stuff it in your cabbage. I could probably hold my breath till I turn blue in the face, but I choose not to. If you want someone to go blue, drink a fifth of bourbon and stand outside in the cold for a few hours. I’ll let your next of kin know how the game comes out.
If you wanted to disprove the contention that “Self-help gurus are charlatans and hucksters,” you probably shouldn’t use James Arthur Ray. He preaches that success can come to those who will it, and he gets people to pay good money to do things like sit in sweat lodges to benefit from the techniques “he searched out in the mountains of Peru and the jungles of the Amazon” so they can “gain strength and confidence by mastering physical discomfort.”
But it’s still troubling that he’s been charged with manslaugher in connection with an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony that left three people dead. At least we shouldn’t sound so damn pleased about it, as this guy does:
On Wednesday, John Curtis, of Asheville, N.C., a critic of the $11.3-billion self-help industry and founder of the website Americans Against Self-Help Fraud, welcomed the news of Ray’s arrest and said he hoped it would prompt new scrutiny of an industry that he says preys on troubled people.
“I see it as the proverbial 9/11 for the self-help movement,” Curtis said. “I hope we’ll see a greater degree of accountability.”
This is “blame the bartender for the drunken driver” and “sue the gun manufacturers for firearms violence” territory, the current trend of blaming anybody and everybody for the bad things in life instead of holding people accountable for the judgment they exercise. In the trial, we will learn all the evidence to help us decide how culpable Ray is — what medical precautions he did or did not take, what steps he did or did not take when it was obvious people were in distress, and so on. But the people who went into the sweat lodge — even if they were delusional underachievers grasping at any straw to give their lives meaning — were sentient, adult human beings capable of assessing risks and acting accordingly.
The announcement that Dan Coats might take on Evan Bayh in U.S. Senate race is further evidence of the Scott Brown effect — voter dissatisfaction with the Obama agenda re-energizing the Republican Party — and it has conservatives in the state in a pretty good mood. As the Indianapolis Star notes, the mere announcement shifted the political landscape, with handicappers moving Bayh’s race from a safe bet to “one to wach,”
Democrats in Indiana and Washington clearly took Coats’ challenge seriously. They immediately fired off salvos against Coats’ inside-the-beltway Virginia address, his lobbying work for banks that have taken bailout dollars, and the fact that he has voted and paid taxes in Virginia, not Indiana.
I suspect the one that might stick is the “inside the beltway” criticism. Democrats can’t press too hard on the carpetbagger charge, or at least they should be careful not to, since Bayh got his own political start by moving back to Indiana to run for secretary of state. And “doesn’t know state issues” can be answered with, “So how do you like the way Bayh has voted, him knowing the issues and all? In favor of that health plan, are you?” But voters are pretty much sick and tired of Washington. The idea of replacing one experienced player with another, even one who agrees with them more often on the issues, might turn voters off enough to give Bayh another term. I think Mike Pence would have had a better chance. He’s an experienced insider, too, but in Congress. He didn’t leave that institution and end up being a lobbyist.
A lot of news outlets had the story of the New York woman busted for driving in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane with a well-dressed mannequin sitting beside her instead of the legally required live second passenger. But only the New York Post went the extra distance to come up with a clever headline: Driving for dummies.
I think the authorities should cut the woman some slack. Part of the justification for the HOV lanes is to cut down on pollution, and what can be more non-polluting than a dummy that doesn’t exhale that evil carbon dioxide?
The latest index of economic freedom shows America falling fast, being ranked for the first time as “mostly free.” We’ve fallen behind Canada, and it’s look out below.
Our accelerating descent into a command-and-control economy with government pulling the strings is taking its toll.
The Heritage Foundation’s 2010 index of leading economic indicators shows that the land of the free is only mostly free, falling to eighth in the world from sixth last year, now sandwiched between Canada and Denmark.
Land of the “mostly free”? Not exactly seeing the same thing at twilight’s last gleaming as we did at the dawn’s early light, are we?
Indianapolis - The NFL is changing the rules on where you can watch the Super Bowl this year.
In the past, the league threatened to sue churches and community centers that showed the game on big screens.
[. . .]
But the NFL is allowing churching to hold parties and show the game. Three years ago, several churches planned parties, printed brochures and had everything planned, until a letter from the NFL told them to stop.
Fall Creek Baptist Church was one of the Indianapolis-area churches that got a cease-and-desist order from the NFL three years ago. They are going to have a party this year, advertising on their billboard for “The Big Game Bash.”
Guess even the NFL can feel foolish over how far it goes to protect its precious trademarks, although it is still being an ass over that “Who dat?” stuff. (Wonder how many people would claim it if they knew its racist origins?) But why would anyone want to have a Super Bowl party in a church? Wouldn’t that sort of inhibit the rowdy crudeness inherent in such gatherings?
Oh, wait, I know. Those who want to pray for their team to win will be closer to the source.
Sometimes the cleverest remarks come from people who blurt out their frustrations at things not going their way. In an Indianapolis Star story on legislation still alive in the General Assembly at the halfway point of the session, a lawmaker who voted against a ban on texting while driving vents a little:
Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Indianapolis, was one of the three lawmakers to vote against the bill, calling it nothing more than a feel-good bill that would be difficult to enforce and was aimed at “outlawing stupidity.”
And a lawmaker who is for the proposed statewide ban on smoking is vexed that amendments kept getting added exempting everything from taverns and private clubs to small businesses not open to the public:
We’ve exacted this down to the point where I think it’s only illegal to smoke inside an oxygen tent in the intensive care unit of a hospital,” said Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington.
But those of us out here in Stupid Taxpayers land probably need explicit instructions from the nanny state, so maybe they ought to have a bill specifically spelling out that ban on oxygen-tent smoking. Otherwise we’re probably going to see hospitals blowing up all over the state.
I guess I understand where John McCain is coming from in his opposition to repealing the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy for gays in the military:
In response, the Arizona senator declared himself “disappointed” in the testimony. “At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” McCain said bluntly, before describing it as “imperfect but effective.”
Like McCain, I served in the military in the Vietnam era, and I probably would have freaked out knowing that there were gays serving alongside me. But that was a different time, before gays started demanding their place at the table. There were no “gay issues” — that just wasn’t something mainstream America was talking about. These are different times, and young people, including those in the military, have different attitudes. DADT is a policy that has outlived its usefulness. Countries with serious military forces charged with serious missions have already gotten beyond this — I give you Israel, which began allowing gays to openly serve about the same time we instituted DADT.
McCain says the policy is “imperfect but effective,” which I think considerably misstates the situation. What, exactly, is effective about DADT, except that it invites gays into the military with the understanding that they can be kicked out the minute they say they are gay? That’s not just imperfect; it’s insane. I speak with some authority. When the policy was instituted under President Clinton, we ran an editorial (which I wrote) saying something to the effect of, “What’s the big deal? We make too much of revealing our personal lives anyway, and the military is the one place where individuality is supposed to be submerged into the group’s mission.” (Our archiving technology doesn’t allow a link, but it was July 19, 1993, if you want to look it up.) In retrospect, that editorial was flawed, or at least misguided. Such a policy asks people who want to serve their country to deny who they are. Far better just to pick one path or the other and defend it — gays can serve, or they won’t be accepted.
The most legitimate argument by McCain and other critics is that this is a complicated task to ask of our armed services at this “moment of extreme hardship.” We’re in the middle of two wars and constantly worried about terrorism, and requiring our military members to help push along our social engineering ideals might be putting a little too much on their plates. But these aren’t ordinary wars — they might go on for the rest of our lifetimes; they shouldn’t be used to put off a process we think is right. And we are just talking about a start. It’s not like the president is going to push a button, and DADT will end tomorrow:
The defense chief said he was appointing a group to be led by Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Army Gen. Carter Ham to develop a plan for safely incorporating openly gay military personnel into the ranks of the nation’s armed forces.
The panel will deliver findings by the end of 2010.
Mr. Gates said the Pentagon would also conduct a 45-day review of its procedures for enforcing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions with an eye towards implementing them in what he described as a “fairer manner.”
So, basically, they’ll study the issue for a year and make recommendations. In the meantime, they’ll “slow down” implementing the policy so that fewer gays will be outed and kicked out. Among other things, the military will stop cashiering soldiers who are outed by third parties. Don’t ask, don’t tell and, especially, don’t snitch.
We’ve been here before with such gradual change. President Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces in 1948 (by executive order, bypassing Congress), but it was three years later, in the middle of the Korean War, when the military fully and formally came on board. Integration happened when our white forces suffered staggering losses and commanders started quietly accepting black replacements. Say, those fellas are willing to fight and bleed and die with us — maybe they ain’t so bad after all.
I want my armed forces staffed by people who love this country and take the mission of defending it seriously — true patriots. There is no draft, so I take it for granted that most of those who volunteer are willing to make great sacrifices to serve the country. Given what gays know they might face in the military, if they’re willing to serve and sacrifice anyway, how patriotic must they be, and how smart is it to refuse their offer?
Again, I think Israel offers a good example. That tiny nation is surrounded by hostile forces that want to end its existence — it can’t afford to fool around with political correctness or social experiments. Every citizen of Israel is in a sense a member of the military. If the “war on terror” goes the way some think it will, we will become more like Israel. Each of us will be a potential victim. Without any “front lines” in the war, any of us might be called on at some point to defend the country. If some want to go the extra step and actually put on the uniform, bless them.
Obviously, this argument isn’t over, and Congress will resist enough so that we ought to have a good debate on the issue. As a starter, here’s a conservative who argues that gays are making headway on the issue because opponents are inarticulate and on the defensive and gays know it. But then he doesn’t seem to offer any real argument himself except that allowing gays to openly serve will somehow infringe on the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion of “religious believers and cultural traditionalists.” I’d like to see that argument developed. To me, a policy can generally be defended if it advances someone else’s freedom without diminishing mine — that seems a pretty good rule of thumb of reciprocity in a constitutional democracy, in fact. I’m trying, but I can’t see how gays serving in the military harms me. (And check out the robust discussion in the comments.)
Some brave Hoosier volunteers are being sought to expand the boundaries of knowledge and bring a solution to some longtime sufferers:
The search is on for the “female Viagra,” and it’s happening right here in Indianapolis.
The Physicians Research Group is looking for 30 women with low libido to participate in a 24-week study of a pill designed to spark sexual desire.
[. . .]
. . . the group is looking for women 18 and older whose low libido can’t be explained by relationship problems, depression, medication or other medical conditions.
Even so, this medical condition — known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD — is more common than one might think. It’s the most commonly diagnosed female sexual dysfunction.
HSDD affects about 20 percent of women in the U.S., says HSDD Online (www.hsddonline.com).
This sounds like a tricky task. Viagra has a fairly easy job — help those who are willing but not able. Able but not willing, much tougher.
It gets so boring just foolishly throwing our hard-earned money away on Powerball and the Hoosier Lottery. Now, thank goodness, we will have another option:
Indiana lottery outlets began selling the Mega Millions tickets on Sunday, joining the Powerball game as big jackpot lotteries in which the state participates. The first Mega Millions drawing including Indiana tickets will Tuesday, with an estimated jackpot of $12 million.
Hoosier Lottery director Kathryn Densborn says the new game will provide more jackpot opportunities for Indiana players. What a nice person to be so concerned with our jackpot dearth! And they say there are no opportunties these days!
Because of budget difficulties, the Muncie Animal Shelter has announced it will no longer accept unwanted pets. But that might not be effective in the long run, because many of those unwanted and turned away pets might become the very stray animals that the shelter is required to pick up:
Pet owners must figure out what to do with their animals, shelter Supt. Linda Bir-Conn said.
“I think every animal was somebody’s pet at one point in time,” Bir-Conn said. “I think irresponsible pet owners is the reason we have strays and have to have animal shelters in the first place.”
We like to think government exists mostly to do the things collectively that we can’t do individually and provide a safety net for those in dire circumstances. But how much of government is devoted to cleaning up after people who can’t be trusted to do what they’re supposed to do? There’s a lot more “protect” than “serve” in the mission of police.
First he’ll quit, then he won’t, then he might again. Mark Souder is the Brett Favre of politics:
Congressman Mark Souder has filed to run for a 9th term in Congress.
Souder told us Monday this may be his final term but he wants to see a number of projects through including the VA Hospital.
“May be” his last term. Believe it when I see it.
Souder got elected in the 1994 “Contract With America” Republican takeover of the House, in large part because that group of candidates promised to do things differently in Washington. Souder pledged to limit himself to 12 years in Congress, but he reneged when the time came to step down. Instead of just apologizing and saying the pledge had been wrong or misguided, as some of his fellow backsliders did, he tried to justify it by saying this district had changed. Well, redistricting is an every-10-years fact of life; districts always change.
This history is important because it looks like Democrats are in the same kind of trouble they were in 1994, and Republicans are eager to capitalize on it just like they did then. But Democrats are in trouble because voters feel like an entrenched bunch of Washington players just isn’t listening to them. And Souder has become one of those insiders, by breaking his pledge to the voters.
Something for Republican voters to think about as they look at Souder and his three primary opponents. I really don’t feel like sending Tom Hayhurst or any other Democrat to Washington to help bolster President Obama’s statist agenda. But I also don’t look forward to voting for a Repbulican as the lesser of two evils.
Count me as one who looked forward to the iPad but felt disappointment at seeing the actual device, for some of the same reasons “Working Mom” Katie Granju mentions:
I won’t and really can’t consider buying one until it has these missing features. And that’s a bummer, because if it did have a webcam, a USB port and Flash capability, I would have been first in line at the Apple Store.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m looking for true convergence, that one device that can replace all the neat electronic stuff we have to carry around these days. This was so close. It would handle the music that the IPod carries, the movies I watch on my netbook, the books I carry around in my Kindle, the Internet I now access with my laptop or desktop. But I’d still need my cell phone, my still camera, my digital camera, my digital recorder . . . Besides, I’m becoming a fan of Skype, and I wouldn’t be able to videocall with this, either. And you can’t do two things at once, like read and listen to music or get on the Internet to look up some background about the book you’re reading.
