Dorothy Schneider has an article on North Central Health Services, Inc.’s efforts to acquire land so that it can be used consistently with the plans of the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation. NCHS is one of those organizations that provides vital support to the Lafayette area. It started as a holding corporation for Lafayette Home Hospital but sold that interest to the Sisters of St. Francis. The resulting money has been used by corporation to help the community, generally by assisting community organizations.

The WREC was formed as a non-profit organization by Purdue, Lafayette, West Lafayette, and Tippecanoe County. It was initially funded with a grant from the NCHS.

Since 2005, the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation has been making an effort to improve life along the Wabash River. Our efforts have included designation of a portion of River Road as a scenic by-way, floodplain mapping throught Tippecanoe County, and urban corridor master planning within Lafayette and West Lafayette. Our newest endeavor targets water quality improvement within the Wabash River.

Most recently, NCHS has acquired a five acre parcel near a larger parcel it had previously acquired along the Wabash River. The goal is “to create a more river-focused community, possibly adding pedestrian bridges, a riverfront promenade and expanded trails to the Lafayette and West Lafayette banks in the years to come.”

We’re lucky to have the Wabash River as a resource, funding from NCHS and other community minded people and organizations, politicians and community leaders with the foresight to take care of our resources, and citizens willing to put forth the effort on this project. The pedestrian foot bridge and the Wabash Heritage Trail already form the nucleus of something special for the area. One day, maybe we’ll have something instrumental to the increased prosperity and well-being of the community.

Gov. Daniels intends to go on TV to give an infomercial about his budget plan as he releases it. Well, it’s not being billed as an infomercial:

Gov. Mitch Daniels will reach out directly to Hoosiers on Monday to outline his budget proposal for the next two years during remarks that will be offered for live broadcast at 6 p.m.
. . .
The governor’s remarks will be transmitted by satellite for TV and radio broadcast. He will begin his remarks – estimated to last only five minutes – at 6:01 p.m.

The budget is a complicated document that probably couldn’t be meaningfully explained in an hour; let alone five minutes. The Governor’s five minutes of TV time probably can’t be regarded as anything more than a superficial sales pitch.

All things being equal, I’d prefer Troy McClure and Dr. Nick to Governor Daniels:

Troy: I’m here to tell you about “Spiffy!”, the twenty-first-century stain remover. Let’s meet the inventor, Dr. Nick Riviera.

Nick: Thank you, Troy! Hi, everybody!

All: Hi, Dr. Nick!

Nick: Troy, I brought with me the gravestone of author and troubled soul Edgar Allen Poe! [exhibits a grimy tombstone]

Troy: One of our best writers.

Nick: Yes, but unfortunately, a century of neglect has turn this tombstone into a depressing eyesore.

Troy: So what? I guess we’re going to have to throw it away.

Nick: Not so fast, Troy! With one application of Spiffy, you’ll think the body’s still warm! [applies some Spiffy, removes all the grime]

All: Ooooooh! Ahhhhhhhh! [The name “POE” twinkles]

Troy: Quoth the raven, “What a shine!”

Grand Jury subpoenas were sent to offices of Representative Pete Visclosky (IN-01).

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed records of Rep. Pete Visclosky in a criminal probe involving a Washington-area lobbying firm that specialized in providing congressional earmarks to defense contractors.

The lobbying firm is known as PMA Group, employs Viscklosky’s former chief of staff, and specialized in providing congressional earmarks to defense contractors. If Visclosky is tied to John Murtha in any serious way, I would expect that this could get dirty. I’ll be delicate and just say that Murtha has given at least the appearance of impropriety in the past.

For his part, Rep. Visclosky says, “I am confident that at the end of this process, no one will conclude that I have done anything wrong or harmed my constituents in any way.”

One conspiracy theory that flashed past my consciousness was that Chrysler dealers shut down in the Chrysler bankruptcy were disproportionately Republican – cue ominous music and blame the Obama administration.

Nate Silver crashes the party by doing some research, crunching some numbers, and finding that car dealers tend to contribute to Republicans over Democrats by a huge margin.

Overall, 88 percent of the contributions from car dealers went to Republican candidates and just 12 percent to Democratic candidates. By comparison, the list of dealers on Doug Ross’s list (which I haven’t vetted, but I assume is fine) gave 92 percent of their money to Republicans — not really a significant difference.

There’s no conspiracy here, folks — just some bad math.

(H/t Craig) You know that $3,100 per household cap & trade tax guys like Boehner and Pence keep going on about? It’s fabricated. The author of the study upon which it’s purportedly based explained that the numbers don’t say what they say they say. The real number, he estimates, is about $340 per household.

It’s almost as if they were bending the facts to fit the policy. That worked out pretty well with Iraq, so I guess it’s o.k. And, of course, the whole global warming thing is a myth. Like the estimate of the earth being 4 billion years old. And the heliocentric model of the solar system.

Three Indiana funds,  the Indiana State Teachers Retirement Fund, the Indiana State Pension Trust and the Indiana Major Moves Construction Fund, sought to delay the Chrysler bankruptcy, but their motion was denied by the bankruptcy judge.

At a hearing Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez in Manhattan denied a motion by a group of Indiana pension funds to hold off on the sale hearing while they have more time to review documents and other discovery in the matter.

. . .

The pension funds . . . are seeking to challenge the constitutionality of the sale because of the U.S. government’s heavy involvement in the deal.

The funds, which own about $42.5 million of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt, have claimed the deal was unconstitutional because the United Auto Workers union, an unsecured creditor, would see a better recovery. The secured creditors are expected to receive about 29% of their claims under the plan.

So, if my math is correct, these funds’ $42.5 million will turn into $12.3 million, a loss of about $30 million. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock “vows” an appeal. Chrysler calls Mourdocks actions “political grandstanding.” Indiana is the only investor among 46 of them who is challenging the repayment plan for bondholders. Major banks including Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase have accepted the plan.

Gratuitous picture of Harper playing in the sprinkler a couple of days ago:

Matt Tully has a column on the National GOP’s recent interest in Gov. Daniels. Why the attention? He won last year, which makes him a rarity. Mostly, Tully’s comments are fairly accurate, but I think he’s overly generous on the subject of Daniel’s history of changing things in Indiana’s government. Tully notes that Daniels’ “reforms” came in his first term. It probably would have been more accurate to note that his big ticket changes came in Daniels’ first two years. Years 3, 4, and 5 have not seen him pass (or, really even push very hard for) anything big.

So far, Daniels’ two big changes, as far as I can tell, are Daylight Saving Time and selling off Indiana’s toll road. Daylight Saving Time doesn’t translate to anything nationally. It’s an Indiana-specific issue which takes on greater importance because of our proximity to a time line, our longitude, and our relatively narrow width. And, his leadership was enough to barely, barely get the bill passed by convincing a freshman Republican to renege on a promise to his constituents and sacrifice his political career. And even that required him to duck, weave and obfuscate on the subject of time zones which led to a god-awful county-by-county debate on time zones.

The jury is still out on the lease of the toll road that will expire when my 3 year old daughter is an old lady. It brought in significant chunks of money which is still being used on road projects. I haven’t noticed any great improvement in Indiana’s transportation infrastructure yet, but road construction takes awhile, so fairness suggests we should give that part of the equation some time. The privatization has resulted in higher tolls on the toll road. But, I won’t knock him for that, particularly, either. He lacked the political will or power to raise the tolls while keeping it under Indiana’s control. But, so did everybody that came before him. Those tolls should have been raised long ago, and used to pay off the bonds on the highway, after which the toll road should have been converted to a non-toll highway. Using tolls on northern Indiana motorists to pay for projects in the rest of the state has proven reasonably popular in the rest of the state for obvious reasons. What is not so clear is how the quality of the Toll Road is going to be going forward. Macquarie-Cintra’s incentive is to keep costs down and profits up. Some of that might come in the form of desirable innovations. But, probably its incentive is to keep the road in shape that is just barely good enough to prevent motorists from taking local roads instead. And then there is the wild-card of Macquarie-Cintra’s financial shape; a hazard of entrusting public infrastructure to private investors.

While Gov. Daniels doesn’t have the outright crazy factor that seems to be present in the likes of Sarah Palin, he has less noted characteristics like an outright hostility to environmental protections. He has gutted the enforcement powers of the Department of Natural Resources. His recent editorial on cap and trade legislation was blistering. Attempts to internalize the environmental costs of doing business such that they are reflected in the price of doing business are anathema to him.

I don’t begrudge Gov. Daniels his moment in the sun, but if he does, in fact, have national aspirations, hopefully this blog can provide something of a catalog of his tenure.

The Journal & Courier is reporting that “The Dog Days of Summer” have ended for West Lafayette due to vandalism. Every-other year, I think it is, local artists in the Lafayette area organize what I think is a pretty cool project. They put up large fiberglass statues based on a designated animal. About four years ago, they did frogs. Two years ago, they did pigs. And this year it is dogs.

This adds a fantastic touch to the community. I know my kids go nuts for them. If we’re walking around downtown and there is a dog ahead, the kids light up. But, in West Lafayette:

On the first weekend after the 40 statues’ debuted, two of the life-size dog figures in West Lafayette were stolen; one was later recovered. Other statues that were in West Lafayette have cracks and chipped paint caused by vandals. And one college student was arrested attempting to steal one of the figures near the Purdue University campus, according to police.

So, instead of remaining outside for five months as intended, the 18 West Lafayette statues have been moved inside to the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. The 22 Lafayette statues remain distributed around the community. When we were at the fountain on the West Lafayette side of the foot bridge, I made a point to show my kids the pedestal where a dog statue had been, and told him that it was stolen or broken by a bad guy. He was scandalized. When I told him later that the bad guy had been arrested, he figured a 70 year jail sentence was appropriate. Can’t say I necessarily disagree.

In addition to being Memorial Day, today is also Towel Day. Fans of Douglas Adams created Towel Day to honor his memory.

Why a towel?
From the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel (…) is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.