It’s a political ad, so take it for what it’s worth, but I sort of enjoyed this John Edwards campaign commercial:

We all have different priorities when we cast a vote, but if your highest priority is the financial well-being of the middle class, I think Edwards is your best bet. On the other hand, if your priorities are increased spending in Iraq or tax cuts (particularly for the wealthy), you’ll probably want to go elsewhere.

Thinking about the very real possibility of a Hillary Clinton primary win and Presidency, it occurs to me that I am really bothered by the prospect of a Bush/Clinton Presidency for 24 – 28 consecutive years. That can’t be a healthy thing for the Republic.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article in the Louisville Courier Journal on the class action tax lawsuit filed by attorney John Price against the State. The State is basically arguing that taxpayers can’t go stampeding directly to the tax court – they have to exhaust administrative remedies first. In the context of this suit, I’m not sure if it means going through the Dept. of Local Government Finance or perhaps through the local Property Tax Board of Appeals and then the Board of Tax Review. In any case, Price on behalf of the citizens he represents says that going the administrative route would be a waste of time. A cynical lawyer might suggest that this often seems to be the point of requiring administrative exhaustion. But, I don’t know any cynical lawyers.

The lawsuit also challenges the authority of Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Department of Local Government Finance to extend a deadline for local governments to impose income taxes as a way to reduce property taxes next year.

A law passed by the General Assembly in the spring set the deadline as Aug. 1, but Daniels and the agency extended it to the end of the year.

Price said the constitution prohibits Daniels from arbitrarily changing a state law.

Attorneys for the state didn’t argue the merits of that issue yesterday. Instead, Andrew Swain, chief counsel for the Indiana Attorney General’s tax section, said none of the plaintiffs had the right to challenge the state action because the matter is between the state and the counties.

In the back of my mind, I thought maybe there was some kind of safety valve the legislature had given the DLGF that ended up allowing the Governor to extend the deadlines. Apparently not. The Governor is just winging it. I imagine county councilors around the state will be a little hesitant to pass an income tax based on deadlines extended by the Governor without clear authority. (I don’t think they’d be eager to pass a tax increase in the first place – this would just add to the natural reluctance to raise taxes.)

Apparently RiShawn Biddle, blogger and editorial writer for the Indy Star has been fired. I didn’t read the offending entry, but apparently he threw in a racial slur when talking about Marion/Indy City County Council President Monroe Gray. For what it’s worth, both men are black. Seems like a bit of a loss to me. I didn’t frequently agree with RiShawn’s columns, but he seemed like a nice enough guy.

Update Until such time as the Star deletes it, here is RiShawn’s offending column. (H/t stAllio!)

Lafayette native, Purdue graduate, and C-span founder, Brian Lamb will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It’s the nation’s highest civil honor and Lamb deserves it. Unfortunately, I find that the award is tainted in my mind since George Tenet was given the award after horribly screwing up the intelligence leading up to the Iraq War.

C-SPAN, which made its debut on March 19, 1979, delivers public affairs programming to most of the nation’s cable and satellite customers, to Internet users and to radio listeners. Its literary programs – Booknotes and Bookends – help build audiences for serious, nonfiction books.

Lamb’s interest in broadcasting dates as far back as the crystal radio set he built as a child to pick up local signals. During high school and college, he sought jobs at Lafayette radio and television stations, spinning records, selling ads, and eventually hosting his own television program called Dance Date.

Go Red Devils! The Associated Press has an article entitled 10 Indiana schools called ‘dropout factories’. Among them is my alma mater, Richmond High School. (We’re the only one outside of Indy and The Region to make the list — quite an honor).

It’s been 18 years since I graduated from there, so maybe it has gotten a lot worse. But, when I was there, I felt like I had the opportunity to get one of the best educations anywhere. It helped –a lot– that my parents had taught me to value my education, that school work came pretty easily to me, and that my friends and their families viewed education in much the same way. When I went to college, I met a lot of students who had come from some pretty nice private schools, and I never felt like my education was inferior to theirs. I can’t speak for the other schools on the list, and I suppose I can only speak for Richmond High School as it was many years ago, but at the time, good educational resources were available to the students.

On the other hand, it was a big school – I graduated in a class of about 400, and I think there were about 2,200 students spread over four years. I don’t doubt that it’s pretty easy for a student to get lost in the shuffle there. If you and your family aren’t that interested in education, I can certainly see where you could be allowed to disappear from RHS. I know several other commenters to this blog are graduates of Richmond High School, so maybe they’ll have a different perspective.

Anyway, the list:

–Arsenal Technical High School, Indianapolis: 22 percent promoted*, 44 percent graduation rate**.

–Manual High School, Indianapolis: 24 percent promoted, 48 percent graduation rate.

–Arlington High School, Indianapolis: 26 percent promoted, 52 percent graduation rate.

–Northwest High School, Indianapolis: 29 percent promoted, 54 percent graduation rate.

–Broad Ripple High School, Indianapolis: 34 percent promoted, 72 percent graduation rate.

–Richmond High School, Richmond: 53 percent promoted, 54 percent graduation rate.

–Roosevelt High School, Gary: 58 percent promoted, 42 percent graduation rate.

–Perry Meridian High School, Indianapolis: 59 percent promoted, 74 percent graduation rate.

–Wallace High School, Gary: 60 percent promoted, 47 percent graduation rate.

–East Chicago Central High School, East Chicago: 60 percent promoted, 62 percent graduation rate.

*Promotion rate: The percentage promoted shows how many students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. It covers regular and vocational high schools with three years of valid data and 100 or more students.

**Graduation rate: The graduation rate from the Indiana Department of Education includes factors such as transfers or retained students. Department officials say those numbers are a more accurate reflection of how many students stay in school.

“Uh, no honey, it wasn’t like that. See, me and the guys were protesting all of these nudie bars and adult bookstores. So, see, you should be thanking me for protecting The Children, not giving me a bunch of crap for being out all weekend.”

Harold Adams has an article in the Louisville Courier Journal about a group that is taking a bus tour of the area’s sexually-oriented businesses. I recall (vaguely) taking a similar bus trip during one of my buddy’s bachelor parties in Columbus, Ohio. Only we weren’t protesting. Unless “protesting” is a euphemism for “drinking from a keg between establishments.”

The Washington Post has an article suggesting that the Republicans don’t have the religious vote in their back pocket. And, in a sense, they never did. A certain segment of Christianity – louder than most and apt to wear their religion on their sleeves – are very much a pillar of GOP electoral success, but the rest of Christians and certainly those with other religions have been more variable in their choices at the ballot box.

But early data suggest that some of the religious vote is up for grabs next year. While exit polls showed that 82 percent of white evangelical Protestants who attend church weekly voted for President Bush in 2004, only 60 percent of the same group said they expected to vote GOP in 2008, according to a Pew Research Center survey released this year. Among weekly-attending white Catholics, the percentage dropped from 61 percent to 38 percent; among weekly-attending white mainline Protestants, from 57 percent to 36 percent.

Pollsters and political scientists say some religious voters who supported Bush now feel discouraged, either by the war in Iraq, or by the rich-poor gap, or because they feel he didn’t go far enough on the hot-button social issues they cared about, such as abortion and gay marriage. And new issues have risen in importance for religious voters that are not seen as GOP priorities, such as the environment.

I don’t think that second paragraph gets stressed in the media narrative nearly enough. There are any number of policy issues where the Republicans seem very much at odds with Biblical teachings, particularly with respect to war and wealth. My recollection is that Jesus spent a whole lot more time talking about money than he did about homosexuality or abortion.

In interviews with several religious voters, haziness is evident. They hold complex and sometimes contradictory views. They have litmus tests, but then make exceptions. They say that only God can judge another person’s soul, and then, in the next breath, explain how that’s just what they’re trying to do themselves.

Purdue has named a building after Neil Armstrong, complete with a statue of the first man on the moon.

I was reminded of a list of “back in my day’s“:

Back in the 1970s we didn’t have the space shuttle to get all excited about. We had to settle for men walking on the crummy moon.

An odd story from the Indianapolis Star entitled New Indy marathon nearing a collapse.

The marathon was originally scheduled for Sept. 8, but had to be postponed because of “city concerns over medical and security issues.” It was moved to November 3. Bad move. That’s the weekend of the New York Marathon. Now, runners are apparently receiving unsolicited refunds with no real explanation.