One of the Lafayette area’s biggest festivals is going on this weekend: The Feast of the Hunter’s Moon. It is a celebration of the annual gathering that used to take place between the French and Native Americans at Fort Ouiatenon, about 4 miles southwest of West Lafayette on the Wabash River. The festival began in the late 60s as a class project of a high school history teacher. Since then, it’s grown to an event so big that it has to be scheduled around Purdue’s home football games — the local roads and hotels can’t accommodate both. Today is day two of the the event’s 40th annual occurrence.

The Lafayette Journal and Courier has some coverage and pictures from yesterday. The feast features period re-enactors and food and the like in an effort to take you back to the 18th century and give you an idea of the history of the place.

This poster showing how your federal tax dollars get spent put government spending in perspective.

And, no, I’m not talking about the practice of passing bad legislation and hurrying out of town. In this case, it looks like Rep. Mike Murphy — or someone driving his car with legislator’s plates — struck a parked car outside of Ike & Joney’s in downtown Indianapolis before taking off without reporting the collision or leaving insurance information. I’m not a criminal lawyer (and we probably can’t prove Murphy was the driver beyond a reasonable doubt, let alone intoxicated, in any case), but which has the harsher penalties? Knowingly and intentionally leaving the scene of the accident after he was aware of hitting another vehicle; or being intoxicated enough so as to be oblivious to the fact of a collision?

Kagro X over at Daily Kos paints a chilling picture. He suggests (with links and evidence and stuff) that Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio refused to play ball with the NSA when it wanted to snoop on Americans without warrants and tap into the telecommunications systems to do so. Consequently, the government denies Qwest government contracts and at the same time sics the SEC on Nacchio related to the company’s bad luck (related to the failure to obtain the government contracts.)

Al Gore along with the UN climate change panelwon the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly the country would have been better with Gore in the White House following the 2000 election, but I think that for him personally, he did a lot better for himself as a private citizen. I have similar thoughts with the flurry of “Will he run for President, now???” articles. Sure, I think he’d do a good job as President, but why would he want to? He’s wealthy, well-liked, and respected now. Even more, he seems to be enjoying what he does.

(H/t to Paul O’Malley for flagging this one). The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the Greensburg Honda plant entitled Honda and UAW Clash Over New Factory Jobs. The article discusses the Honda plant’s restriction of applicants to those who live within the 20 counties near Greensburg. The UAW says that the restriction is designed to exclude most of the state’s thousands of laid-off unionized workers. Honda says it’s merely designed to make sure workers live close to the plant and can get to work on time.

According to the WSJ article:

Of the 33 auto, engine and transmission plants in the U.S. that are wholly owned by foreign companies, none have been organized by the UAW, despite repeated attempts. Mainly, foreign auto makers have located plants in Southern states where the UAW has little presence and where right-to-work laws limit union power. When they have ventured into Northern states such as Indiana and Ohio, they have mostly chosen rural locations far from any unionized plants and UAW halls. The moves now are helping the foreign-owned plants begin to lower wage scales.

It used to be that the presence of UAW jobs kept the foreign automakers’ salaries and benefits up, even if the foreign shops weren’t unionized. But now, apparently, with the UAW in decline, foreign manufacturers are decreasing what they offer to workers.

Again, I go to a more generalized question — productivity is way up over the past 30 years. Wages are stagnant. Where is the money going?

The title pretty much says it all — Civil Liberties versus National Security (Ben Franklin, I believe, recommended the former), but for a little light reading you might enjoy the American Civil Liberties Union petition for certiorari (pdf) against the National Security Agency.

Questions presented:

1. Whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that plaintiffs who have been injured because of government surveillance are precluded from challenging the lawfulness of that surveillance if the government refuses to disclose whether plaintiffs communications have been intercepted.

2. Whether the President possess the authority under Article II of the Constitution to engage in intelligence surveillance within the United States that Congress has expressly prohibited.

A project to reroute US 231 to go west of West Lafayette is on hold because the State doesn’t have enough money for the project. The State budgeted $75 million. The cost is now estimated at $98 million. Locals will have to come up with the $23 million for the project to go forward.

The original Major Moves plan was for the project to begin in 2007 and be completed by 2009. Now it won’t get started until at least 2009 and finish in 2011.

The delay in building the road is largely a result of the state’s underestimating how much it will cost to have utilities near the Purdue Airport moved out of the way of the proposed bypass, she said.

The project is also expensive because the state plans to have the road go under Airport Road and the nearby K.B.&S. railroad. To do that, the highway will have to be sunk between 30 and 35 feet below the ground at those two points, Calder said.

Fahey said one way to reduce the cost would be to alter the designs. That could be done by abandoning the plan to build the road below ground, but there is little inclination to make that change, she said.

“You don’t want to build a four-lane highway with at-grade crossings with railroads,” Fahey said.

I guess the Toll Road is out of our hands for the next 73 years. I suppose it would make a certain amount of sense to drag these projects out that long.

I’m working on a new view of government program analysis:

Anything that costs less than $2 or $3 billion per week but is more useful to the average U.S. citizen than the War in Iraq is automatically o.k. What do you think?