I’m reading a history of the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor. He threw out a definition of “liberal” that seemed to work as well as any:

Liberals assume that men will be good if their environment and education are good, that improving men’s circumstances will improve their behavior.

This was the belief of the Enlightenment philosophers and Platonists before them. It is a belief rejected by Augustine and the conservative church fathers. He believed that men may know what is right, but something prevents them acting rightly

Crazy how long we’ve been arguing about these issues.

Uglier and uglier. A class action has been filed against Tim Durham’s Fair Finance in Summit County, Ohio, according to Greg Andrews at the IBJ.

They allege a sort of bait and switch (or is it smash and grab?) with Fair Finance. Basically, this long time company offered a fairly sound investment, selling securities based on customer-finance contracts. Fair had been in business since 1934. Durham and his partner, Jim Cochran, bought the company in 2002 and since then, according to the allegations of the suit, have been diverting funds for their own purposes.

The suit alleges that Durham and co-owner Jim Cochran have used Fair like a personal bank since buying it in 2002, pulling tens of millions of dollars out in the form of related-party loans. Fair, which was founded in 1934 and historically made money by purchasing customer-finance contracts, obscured the fundamental change in its business in the offering circulars, the suit alleges. Fair Finance used “a tangled web of financial transactions to conceal the withdrawal of the funds … for their own enrichment.,” according to the suit.

“Upon buying the company, the two out-of-state owners promoted the same values and business models to deceive investors into investing tens of millions of dollars of their hard-earned life savings in the company even though the new owners had no intention of continuing to operate the business as the Fair family had for so many years.”

Bob Garfield at Advertising Age has some commentary on the Tiger Woods coverage that highlights why the news industry is dying.

The point is, human interest and solid reporting do not necessarily add up to real news. For that we depend not on the tabloids or the internet or, God help us, cable. We depend on real newspapers, whose editors and reporters have the experience and judgment to separate the wheat from the chaff, to lead with the Afghan troop escalation, not Escalade acceleration. This week, the layoffs again numbered in the hundreds.

One or two reporters for a tabloid and legions of bloggers can provide the Tiger coverage for almost nothing. Knuckleheads like myself can provide political commentary for free. And, at the end of the day, it’s more or less sound and fury, signifying little or nothing. I’m repeating myself here, but where newspapers and journalists really add value is when they spend the time, talk to the people, review the documents and report what is actually happening on matters that have a direct impact on our lives. Tiger and the White House gate crashers might be fun to talk about, but they aren’t news.

The more the news industry hitches its wagon to these stories that are cheap to report, attention grabbing, and don’t gore any oxen, the more the industry is making itself irrelevant. With real reporting on real news, the profits are thinner and the work is harder, but the service is irreplaceable.

Garret Matthews, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article on a hearing about the coal gasification plant contemplated for Rockport that took place yesterday. Industry representatives gave rosy testimony: the endeavor will be economically successful, it will provide jobs, and there will be no environmental problems. Community leaders seem to be interested pretty much only in the 500 jobs the project is supposed to create.

The Citizens Action Coalition isn’t so sure. It says the only way the project is economically viable is if the ratepayers are locked in as collateral, an anti-capitalistic move. In other words, if gas from this project is more expensive than natural gas from other sources, ratepayers will still have to buy gas at the coal gasification rate.

John Blair of Valley Watch said coal gasification will never be viable.

“Not only will it be an economic disaster,” Blair said, “if the plant is built, the company wants zero risk. The taxpayers will have the liability for the CO2.”

The environmental concerns make me think a little of the NFL concussion issue that’s been in the news a little bit lately. Concussions have crippling, long term effects. But, in the short term, the impact is minimal. Meanwhile, the need is very great in the short term for players suffering concussions to take the field. So, the long term costs get shoved aside in pursuit of short term gain. Environmental impacts are frequently subtle and slow. So, communities go for the short term jobs and sacrifice their future.

John Blair, writing an opinion column in the Evansville Courier Press, adds an issue to the seemingly endless number about which I know too little to make an informed evaluation.

As I understand the allegations, the gas market has shifted. Where once making synthetic gas out of coal may have made some marginal economic sense, new developments in the natural gas market have made natural gas so much cheaper that manufacturing synthetic gas out of coal makes absolutely no economic sense and it emits more CO2 than natural gas. The Gasification lobby ran to the legislature and, per Mr. Blair:

Our pro-coal legislature readily agreed with a measure that puts the state in the business of buying all the syngas production and forces gas utilities to pass it along to Hoosier customers, who would then pay a premium for the privilege of using coal-derived gas instead of natural gas.

This would seem to merit further attention. Comments from those knowledgeable on the subject would certainly be welcome.

Thomas Langhorne of the Evansville Courier Press reports that Tom McKenna has entered the Indiana Secretary of State race. The position will be vacated as current Secretary Todd Rokita’s term expires. McKenna, former executive director of the Indiana Department of Commerce, will be seeking the Democratic nomination against Vop Osili, partner and founder of a prominent Indianapolis architectural firm. On the Republican side, so far Fishers Town Councilman Charlie White is the candidate. I don’t know if the Libertarians have fielded a candidate yet.

An added bit of trivia is that, should the election result in a 50/50 split in the House of Representatives, the Secretary of State race is the tie-breaker and determines which party controls the chamber. (That could get messy, I suppose, in the off chance the Libertarians catch fire in 2010).

Disgruntled citizens might suggest that *lots* of lawmakers are guilty of impersonating public servants; but, former representative Dennie Oxley plead guilty to the formal, legal crime of impersonating a public servant.

Specifically, he claimed to be a member of the General Assembly while the legislature was in session in order to prevent his arrest when he and a 21 year old female legal intern were found drunk at a gas station last July. In fact, he had resigned his seat in 2008 to run for Lieutenant Governor with Jill Long Thompson’s campaign. He was sentenced to three months probation in Crawford County.

Hoosierati has a brief review of a book with an interesting notion: “that the history of the world can be told using six signature beverages (beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola).” The book is entitled A History of the World in Six Glasses.

Per Hoosierati:

Beer contributed to an increase in farming and decrease in hunting.
Wine divided classes and cultures, particularly in Greece and Rome.
Spirits influenced slavery, the American Revolution, and contributed to the British Navy’s strength.
Tea improved and sustained life, and it was the “lubricant” for the industrial revolution.
Coffee (and coffeehouses) served as fuel for the enlightenment.
Coca-Cola, love it or hate it, is symbolic of America’s rise in dominance.

Maureen Groppe has an article in the Indianapolis Star indicating that the selective deficit disorder in Washington is bipartisan. (h/t BrianK for the SDD turn of phrase. Update, per BrianK, turn of phrase came from David Sirota.) When asked if they would support a tax to pay for the additional cost of war in Afghanistan, Senator Bayh, Senator Lugar, and Representative Pence all indicated they would not.

This indicates their concern about the deficit is selective. They raise the specter of debt only when the issue is something they would prefer not to pay for. Because these politicians oppose health care reform, frequently on the basis of cost, the question they should be made to answer is how the additional cost of war in Afghanistan benefits Americans more than would reform of our health care system. They have indicated through their selective deficit concerns, that paying for war in Afghanistan is a higher priority to them. They should have to identify how, specifically, this makes the lives of Americans better than would spending the same money on health care (or some other policy for which they cite lack of money).

In my mind, these politicians are in a different boat than those whose concerns about the deficit are across the board. The latter group can pretty much just say, about whatever the policy, “we don’t have the money; we’re not going to do it.” In any case, I don’t think you can call yourself a “fiscal conservative” or a “deficit hawk” just because the money you borrow is spent on wars abroad rather than on domestic projects.

In a move that can’t help but make you start thinking of possible conspiracies, the Feds filed a motion to dismiss the asset forfeiture lawsuit against Timothy Durham.

The federal government on Monday morning filed papers to dismiss a high-profile civil lawsuit that sought to seize Tim Durham’s assets, including his 30,000-square-foot Geist mansion and his 2008 Bugatti sports car.

Tim Morrison, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said his office had filed the case Nov. 24 to ensure Durham’s assets would not disappear. “Having [received] appropriate assurance they are not being dissipated, that litigation stopped,” said Morrison, who declined to say who provided that assurance.

It obviously *looks* bad – lawsuit against well-connected defendant suddenly dropped – but, this was just a forfeiture case, and there is no telling what might be coming along in terms of a criminal case. I simply don’t know enough about forfeiture actions in this context to evaluate this development.