Dan Stockman with the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette provides us with the quadrennial reminder that the President is not elected democratically.

Of course, we are really voting for electors who, in turn, are presumed to be dependable in voting for one candidate or another.

If you’re like most Americans, you probably think there was a presidential election on Nov. 4 and that Sen. Barack Obama was the winner.

In fact, the presidential election is Monday, and the results won’t be known until votes are counted Jan. 6.

Technically true, I suppose, but until a faithless elector affects the outcome of the election, not very important.

Joy Leiker, writing for the Muncie Star Press, does what seems to be an excellent piece of reporting on the Prosecutor/Drug Task Force/Asset Forfeiture brouhaha that has been embroiling Delaware County politics for the past year or so. I add the qualifier “seems to be” only because I’m not familiar enough with the local politics there to know if there are any gaps or problems.

It starts with discussing the drug task force asset forfeiture program but then goes on to describe the tangled web of personal relationships between the parties involved, including most prominently the prosecutor and the Muncie mayor.

I’ll go ahead and add, that philosophically, I have serious reservations about asset forfeiture laws passed in support of the War on (Some) Drugs. As to Indiana’s laws, specifically, I don’t have anything like comprehensive knowledge, but only know of the process in the country generally. So, don’t take this as a specific critique of the situation in our state. Generally, the potential for abuse is always there when you have law enforcement taking property from a citizen for the benefit of the law enforcement agency with potentially relaxed standards of proof as to whether the property was used in aid of a crime. There should be some fairly significant levels of process when government takes property from a citizen, and, probably more importantly, there should be some serious filters between those who make decisions about seizing property and those who make decisions about how that seized property is allocated. “I can take your stuff and it will make my life and the life of my co-workers better; and besides, you’re a drug dealing scumbag” is a pretty powerful incentive, I would think.

As a proud Hoosier with a tendency toward Lincoln hero-worship (I named my boy after him), I am very happy about the recent news that Lincoln items formerly displayed at the closed Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne will remain in Indiana.

A coalition led by the Indiana State Museum and the Allen County Public library were successful in convincing the Lincoln Financial Foundation to keep the $20 million collection in Indiana.

The collection will be split between the Allen County Public Library and the State Museum, with the library in general receiving the collection’s books, documents and manuscripts. The state museum will get the three-dimensional artifacts.

The Indiana coalition edged out, among others, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Ford’s Theatre and President Lincoln’s Cottage. Congratulations to everyone involved on their hard work.

The bad economic situation is rippling through our lives in a lot of different ways. Yet another one of those is the decline of the state’s investments from its sale of the toll road.

Since the inception of the Major Moves program, [sale of the toll road] investments from much of the $3.8 billion Toll Road lease have missed projections set in June 2006 by Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration, according to a review by The Indianapolis Star.

In fiscal 2007, the administration estimated the Major Moves construction fund would generate $202 million in income, but figures from the state treasurer’s annual report show the fund produced $127.4 million. In fiscal 2008, which ended June 30, that projection was $170.7 million, but the investments produced $106.7 million in income.

The combined shortfall over those two years: $138.6 million.

(The “Major Moves” moniker annoys me. It smells like propaganda every time I see it in print or hear it on the news. A panoply of the senses!)

The official word at the moment, however, is that no projects are expected to be delayed, at least between now and 2011.

An individual in the Battle Ground area has gone nuts with a pretty spectacular Christmas light show he has dubbed Christmas on Greenview Drive. (Map). He has the lights synchronized with music and has a little micro-broadcast going on so you can hear the music on your car stereo when you’re outside of the residence. Not sure how his neighbors feel about all of this, but the show is pretty cool. Harper told me she thought it looked like “the lights are laughing.”

Donations are accepted and passed along to local charities. A sample:

2008 Christmas on Greenview – Wizards in Winter from Chris Hoover on Vimeo.

The fine folks at Arni’s are really solid members of the Lafayette community. The latest example of this is a “percentage night” they are holding for the benefit of Legal Aid of Tippecanoe County. On December 16, 2008 from 5:00 to 8:00, Arni’s has indicated that it will donate a percentage of its profits at its Market Square store (map) for the evening to Legal Aid.

It is the mission of Legal Aid to provide legal services for people who cannot afford it themselves in civil, non-fee generating cases — for example, CHINS cases (children in need of services; could involve termination of parental rights). The theory is that our legal system only works if people believe, by and large, that they are getting a fair shake. That belief erodes when they do not have a lawyer and simply get steam-rolled by the system or perceive that is what is happening to them. Ultimately we all benefit from a stable legal system; and organizations such as legal aid contribute to that stability. So, I would encourage anyone in the area to come out to Arni’s at Market Square on the evening 12/16/08 (next Tuesday), enjoy some good food, and help out Legal Aid.

I’ll probably be re-posting this periodically throughout the next week.

Getting in the holiday spirit:

My annual Pearl Harbor post.

This is the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry.

The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its later defeat.

When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that it took us only 1,347 days from being sucker punched on 12/7/1941 to having defeated the combined might of the Axis powers by VJ Day – August 15, 1945; a span of 3 years, 8 months, and 8 days.

If I were an arms dealer, I would be scaring the hell out of potential customers with the tales of the coming Democrat peril. “The Dummycrats are comin’ for your guns! Buy now, buy now!”

Not sure if that’s what’s happening, but Betsy Reason, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article entitled “Hoosiers snapping up guns, ammo: Some Hoosiers, fearing Democratic restrictions, are rushing to buy firearms and ammunition.” But, if these folks have extra money sitting around and that’s how they want to use it, who am I to judge?