So, Bush got Alito and Bernake today? A pretty good day if you ask me.

Greenspan was good, but not great. Sandra Day O'Conner was good, but not great.

Bush made his mark today.

Today's Roundup

Greenspan and company will probably raise rates again today at about 2:15. This marks level that experts suggest is "neutral" where rates are not encouraging or discouraging the market. Maybe just maybe the new chair, to be confirmed today along with Alito, will allow rates to float with market conditions and as Steven Forbes has suggested, will use money supply as the inflation fighter.

Milton Friedman was asked if he would like to see another genius at the Fed. His response, she reported, was, "Of course, we'd like to have another one." Then he reconsidered, "Though wouldn't it be better if we learned that we could do without one?" From Forbes

Maybe the new chair will allow the markets to balance themselves?

Publius Pundit wonders aloud if there is some form of racism in our world view of Palestine and the Middle East? Could it be that we think that they are incapable of democracy, that they aren't smart enough to be given the chance to vote? Or, worse, that they think that?

So, Judge Alito joins the Supreme Court with today's confirmation. And the court turns just a bit more to the right. The Democrats looked pretty foolish attacking the man, but what happens with the next nomination? Won't it just get worse? Who's next to retire or die, Stevens.

Lastly, there are sparks of overthrow and revolution in many parts of the oppressive world. One important place for overthrow would be Cuba. Great post with links to eye-witness reports from Cuba on Publius.

Eliminate Property Taxes in Indiana? I guess one bill running quickly through the Indiana House would eliminate all property taxes by 2009. Now, no one has suggested a way to replace the $7 billion that would be lost .... Terrific idea though, annouce the loss of revenues and then let the House members work to craft a balanced set of consumption taxes to replace the money.
Indiana Real Estate Blog

Wondering about 2008 Presidential Election ... Keep an eye on Election 2008 poll numbers posted weekly. Right now both John McCain and Condi have Hillary beaten

Frankly, I love the Valpo Schools and teachers, but the teachers union is a waste of time and energy and they really work against most great ideas in education today. Read the WSJ editorial on the way the teachers unions are using their control of government officials to keep innovation out of schools.

Once in a while I stumble across a post that challenges me with this thought: "I don't even know enough about the subject matter to respond, but I want to know more"

In their highest expressions, cultures do not clash; if correctly understood, differences between cultures are a source of harmony. The Silk Road is also a path to wisdom - and it is open to all.

Post in Asia Times by really smart guy professor type who suggests that as China grows and Russia fades the world will be dramatically changed, maybe for the better, but surely a lot different.

Have you noticed the reduction in news regarding Iraq. I think it's partly because we're beginning to make progress. Security is being turned over gradually to the Iraqi's and frankly we will be reducing troop levels month by month.

We're winning, it's just a grind.

Gateway Pundit has a terrific roundup on Iraq and troop reductions and updates from the field.

Home Building is still supporting the economy

The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales of new single-family homes clocked in at 1.28 million units last year, representing a 6.6 percent increase over last year’s 1.20 million units, the previous all-time high

MSNBC.com article on government announcement

Finally a choice for Commish

Jeff Good has been whispered and now officially the Republicans tell the media that his filing for county commissioner to unseat Bob Harper is eminent.

Times Story

Post Story

Two community leaders, not political, agree to lead effort to get new police station approved

Terrific quotes in the Times

W coming to Indiana

President Bush will be in Mishawaka in February!

"President Bush is planning to visit Mishawaka next month to speak at a campaign fundraising luncheon for Republican Rep. Chris Chocola.
"The fundraiser is scheduled for Feb. 23 at Bethel College, South Bend television stations WSBT and WNDU reported Wednesday. Spokesmen for Chocola's congressional office and campaign office both declined comment, referring questions to the White House.

Wow, his numbers must be up again.

Toll Road Debate is refreshing

It is refreshing to see the Democrats offer an alternative to the Governor's proposal rather than just taking the old slash and burn approach. But when you compare the $3.8 billion in hand the Governor's plan promises versus the $1.6 billion in new credit card charges the Democrats' plan promises, it's hard to walk away from the Governor's plan

Advance Indiana Post on the Dems counter-proposal for the toll road yesterday

Bulletin Board Blues

For those of you who haven't had the chance surf on over to the Times Porter County Bulletin Board. Lots of fun and frivolity at the expense of local politicians. But down underneath all the attacks is a lot of good information on new ideas.

Best thing to do is register under a screen name, and then throw some comments in the soup mix

State Senator Update

Our brand new state senator has a lot to say these days. Let's see, yesterday she voted against a bill that will ban selling pornography within 500 feet of a school. Why? Did the Commissh tell here that some of his client live inside that boundary? Did the Commish tell her that first ammendment rights extend to selling trash next to schools?

OK, here's another one. When shown a $3.8 billion lease offer by the Governor, and with a short session needing to move ahead quickly so we don't spend even more money on government, she says the following: "If this is a good deal today, it'll be a good deal tomorrow," said Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes. Gang, she isn't fit to be doing Harper's bidding for him. Time to bring her home, we may want the fortune teller back!

By the way, the governor will get his way, as he has for an entire year, because he's right on the money. Time to let him lead and frankly stop saying foolish things.

Housing in Porter County

With a County Commisioner announcing we don't want "them people" moving here so let's raise the cost of homeownership and new home construction to elite levels, we get a report from our counties largest homeless shelter: More than 1,000 people are homeless, an increase from estimates in prior years!

Times story

Kudos to the commissh! Your working your fool best to keep "them people" out!!!

Hail Canada

Finally, the liberals get thrown out of Canada ... Conservative and pro-Israel and pro-American leaders are back in power. Oh they'll get beat up like Bush, but Canada has rejoined the good side. Cautious move to the right is the way it's reported up in the hinterland.

Building in Kenya falls BBC coverage from 30 minutes ago.

Reuters article from 28 minutes ago

CNN article

Wanna see some early polling results on the 2008 election? Try Rice v. Hillary, Condi wins by a whisker.

Gateway Blog suggests that the easiest way to get elected in American today is to run a black republican. Hands down winners.

Wow, this writer suggests that God gave us the Jews as an early warning indicator of evil. Anyone showing anti-semitism is automatically evil. Big words in a post modern world.

Local hero Jim Murphy, current treasurer of the county, has filed to take out our auditor. Does she dare to run? Or just bad mouth the responsiblity required of her by her party?

Enviro-wacks drop their suit against the Vale Park extension. Finally. Let's build the first road the city of Valparaiso has built in 45 years.

Sorry Mr. Wichlinski, but I ambled into a pretty good article about the assessors fromt the Indiana Real Estate Blog. At least resond.

Keep track of the Young family in Kenya. Great pix

What next in the Middle East?

So one school of thought is that Prime Minister Sharon will die of this brain hemorage ... and that soon thereafter the nation will usher in Bebe Netenyahu as Prime Minister. He will not be as easy for the United States to control, and may begin threatening missile strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

What does the US do then? What happens if Israel does strike Iran?

There are other reports that the US may strike Iran, this blogger does a good job of tracking, but frankly a popular uprising inside of Iran would be better for everyone.

Another school of thought, the more prophetic types, has Isreal electing a new prime minister while Sharon fights to regain his health. But, amazingly he does, and he becomes a fully triangulated "former" peace leader like Gorbachev. What role would he play then?

County Elections

Are you getting confused already about the number of names being kicked around for races in 2006 in Porter County?

Here's what I've heard:
The Big Election is the one for county commissioner. We currently have a Democratic controlled county with two commissioners on the Dem side and one on the Rep. side. The key Dem, the one standing for re-election this year, is the guy that is most hated by the business community. He has basically suggested that Porter County has grown enough, time to put all that growth to a stop! The Republicans have not put forward a name yet, and that has me really worried, they need to make an announcement fast.

Recently the race for county auditor became a big deal. It seems the current rep. office holder isnt any good at running the office. The republicans are actually encouraging a primary battle to knock her off!

Sherriff is kind of hard to make into a political race. The current office holder can't run again. His deputy David Lains is the hands-down favorite to take the job, probably for 8 years and two terms. The Republicans have two nice people running but they probably don't have the horses at this point.

The county council, which primarily controls the purse, is also dem controlled. The races this year are district races. So there is one in the south part of the county, which will probably stay dem with Mike Buko. There is one in center, which is a rep seat and will have a primary battle on the rep side ... Probably stays republican with a new councilperson in Karen Conover. There is one in Portage, this is Democratic land and stays Dem. Lastly, there is one in the Chesterton area currently held by the dems ... this one could flip to the republicans. A one seat swing to the republicans would flip control of the council.

State Representative Ralph Ayres is bullet-proof for re-election. State Senator Tallian is headed into a show-down, but the republicans have yet to say with whom. This race only matters because the senate is majority republican, and therefore a democrat seat holder is kinda a waste for Porter County.

So, watch for announcements in the next month on the republican side! Looks like some kind of fun.

Times Article on Auditor Race

Some good reads

Lionel and Stacy Young and kids are in Kenya for four months. Read up on their travel journal:
http://theafricantraveljournal.blogspot.com/

Calvary Church in Valparaiso Indiana, total rebuild of their website, throw them some ideas:

http://www.calvaryweb.net/index.html

The Minor Prophet Site, with blog-bible studies on numerous topics

http://www.theminorprophet.com/blog.asp

Southside Bible Church, complete with audio downloads for your ipod

http://southsidebiblechurch.livechurch.us/

Wondering if you're a liberal?

By William Stenberg published in the Post-Tribune, Mr. Stenberg is a social studies teacher at East Chicago Central High School

Since the inception of talk radio, some ambiguity has arisen over the term "liberal." Many who once wore the moniker on their sleeves have been forced to defend it by seeking refuge behind a dictionary, citing it's meaning as "generous, tolerant and open-minded."

While casual observers of political issues and events may concur with that definition, those who stay up to speed know in the political lexicon the term means something entirely different.

Ergo, for the benefit of those who are scratching their heads as to why the word has taken on such a perjorative meaning, I would like to offer a guide to those who are unsure if they are liberals.

You may be a liberal if ...

• You criticized the first President Bush for not forcing Saddam from power, then criticized the current President Bush for forcing Saddam from power.
• You insist Bush lied when he claimed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, while the Clintons, Kerrys et al., were victimized by bad intelligence when they made the same allegations.
• You think the American military presence in Iraq has goaded kind and gentle terrorists into becoming vicious.
• You think George Bush is a bigger terrorist than Saddam or Osama bin Laden.
• You claim to support our troops while equating them with Hitler, Stalin, and-or Pol Pot.
• You find a moral equivalence between our troops putting naked Iraqi prisoners on dog leashes, with terrorists severing heads of American hostages
• You want photos of our troops putting naked Iraqi prisoners on dog leashes to be shown as often as possible, but are four-square against airing video showing terrorists severing the heads of American hostages. Ditto for the footage of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center.
• You couldnt get enough of the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, but denounced the video of "Football" Williams beating Reginald Denny as divisive.
• You are more offended by a Nativity scene than by the Maplethorpe art exhibit depicting Christ as a sodomizer.
• You denounced Trent Lott for his remarks praising Strom Thurmond, but dismissed similiar remarks made by Chris Dodd praising KKK Grand Wizard Robert Byrd (assuming you knew about them)
• You claim state's rights is coded language for racism, then assert state's rights when the federal government seeks to overturn state ballot initiatives legalizing medicinal marijuana use.
• You denounce Ronald Reagan for his southern strategy off launching his 1980 presidential campaign from Meridian, MS but overlook Bill Clinton's southern strategy of publicly trashing Sistah Souljah.
• You sing the praises of public education while sending your children to a private or parochial school.
• You acknowledge the theory of evolution as being incendiary and inflammatory toward African-Americans, yet insist it be taught in public schools
• You denounce the rich (a generalized term with no dollar amount attached) and oppose tax cuts, while sheltering as much of your income from taxation as the law permits.
• You think a CEO making an annual salary of $5 million is exorbitant, but an actor making a salary of $20 million per picture is not.
• You agree with those who shout down speakers with whom they disagree, while patting yourself on the back for being "tolerant" of divergent views.
• Your tolerance of divergent views extends only to those whose views are to the left of yours.
• You cite the pope as a beacon of morality when he denounces war and capital punishment, but sicmiss him as an out-of-touch relic when he expresses equal condemnation toward abortion and homosexuality.
• You purport to support gay marriage, yet denounce any ballot initiative seeking to legalize as divisive.
• And finally, you most assuredly may be a liberal if your lifestyle is inconsistent with the way you vote.

Thanks Mr. Stenberg, must be a fun class!!!

Early optimism on PM Sharon's possible recovery is turning sour. Looks like he's just not reacting to "wake-up" calls like doctors hope. Now what happens?

I guess the good news for media was Mrs. Alito's breakdown, they finally had something to cover for the evening. Looks like a couple dems will vote no in the committee and maybe a dozen in the full Senate. Alito will be Supreme Court Justice by April.

Maryland has overstepped their bounds and I believe that this state statute should be overturned by the supreme court. This is an attack on WalMart. Just because they are successful and have more than 10,000 employees, they have to pay health insurance. Hogwash! That's discrimination. If I were them I would separate into 100 company names and break the system.

Russian officials kinda act like they would like Iran to stop working with nuclear materials. Do they really care? Is this just pomp and circumstance? I think Russia sold most or all the parts and technology to the Iranians. Iran will get nukes. Maybe the US should cut a deal to allow them nukes in return for "open" markets and "open" elections and broader co-operation.

New Orleans is going to be an interesting laboratory on rebuilding and renovating. The city is already saying they're going to "take" some properties. The people are already saying "no way"
Could get really fun, and some creative opportunities to really improve and city that was frankly a pit orginally.

The controversy surrounding Mitch Daniels suggesting that township government be changed or eliminated has some in a frenzy.

In Indiana townships have a level of government, in some cases these township administrators are very adept, ala Bob Wichlinksi. But sadly most are not good administrators or worse they are petty minded political hacks who always wanted to be something!

I would agree that if the state can save $100 million on eliminating this layer of government, do it. But, while doing it I would suggest allowing counties the option of a single county elected manager/administrator instead of the county commisioners. The county manager/mayor type role would be hotly contested, should be paid quite well and would make counties function more like our country with an exec branch and strong admin. branch.

Assessors generally don't want to be eliminated, of course. If we were truly market based, using the last "sale" as a guide, we wouldn't need 25% of them, frankly a computer can work out a formula.

The Times makes it sound like Daniels is being mean!

So here's the scoop on the "bond signature" battle. For $43 a year Valparaiso will be able to build a new police station. The police need a new station and the current location is really better used by the bank that exists on all the property surrounding it.

A bond battle is happening because Indiaan law allows 100 citizens to challenge any new bond by the city with their signatures. If they are shown to have 100 valid signatures, property owners in the city, then they force a referendum.

The auditor, a totally useless office that needs to be totally sacked, counted the signatures and declared that the drive would start in March and last 30 days.

So, come March 1st, it will be sales time. I miss sales time, this will be fun. I'm hoping for 4,000 signatures in favor on the bond!

Read the Times article

An Old Mistake Why are they trying to punish the oil companies?JERRY TAYLOR & PETER VAN DOREN The post-Katrina gasoline-price increase seems to have unleashed madness in some GOP quarters. In a remarkable press conference in late October, House Energy Committee chairman Joe Barton and speaker Dennis Hastert demanded that the oil industry use its 2005 profits to build new refineries and pipelines — and they threatened the imposition of a windfall-profit tax if the oil industry refused. In the Senate, majority leader Bill Frist launched a public inquisition of the oil sector and is actively encouraging discussions on a windfall-profit tax; he is also recommending a new federal law against gasoline price gouging, and asking the industry to give “voluntary” assistance to the poor. And according to the American Petroleum Industry, the Bush administration is quietly testing the waters on a similar windfall-profit tax, whose profits would be used to expand federal energy assistance to low-income households. Gasoline prices have dropped more than 75 cents per gallon since their post-Katrina peak, but on the heels of the oil industry’s multi-billion-dollar quarterly profit reports it’s not surprising that many politicians have suddenly resorted to histrionics. What is surprising, however, is the number of conservatives who have happily cast their lot with the anti-oil contingent. Are Republicans’ memories so short that they fail to remember the last time heavy-handed policies were enacted, or are Republicans simply trying to pin the blame on someone — anyone — for the sky-high gasoline prices? Either way, the GOP is playing a dangerous political and economic game. If the public is encouraged to think of “Big Oil” as a public enemy, it’s unlikely that voters will hire Republicans to play sheriff. But more important, the policies Republicans are flirting with threaten to do serious, permanent damage to the oil industry. It’s instructive to dwell on what happened the last time Congress tried to protect consumers from “Big Oil.” The third phase of President Nixon’s price-control regime, instituted in 1973, prevented large oil companies from passing on to consumers the rising cost of crude imports. So oil companies reduced imports, and cut gasoline sales to independent gas stations in order to keep their own branded outlets supplied. The lines and shortages that form our collective memory of the oil crisis were the result of the Nixon price controls — not the largely symbolic Arab oil embargo. During the following years, Congress instituted a number of measures to remedy the situation, but they all had one thing in common: They distorted the market and created perverse incentives for oil companies, incentives that made America more reliant on foreign imports and increased the global price of crude. All of the economic postmortems undertaken of the 1970s price-control regimes paint the same ugly picture. Economist Joe Kalt calculates that domestic oil production was between 0.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day lower than it would have been without price controls. R. T. Smith, another economist, says that the lost production and higher demand that resulted from the price controls increased world crude-oil prices by 13.5 percent, which of course resulted in higher oil prices for American consumers.
Dennis Hastert
Roman Genn
As part of a political compromise that allowed the price controls to expire, Congress passed the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. The title, however, was a misnomer: The law did not tax oil profits, but instead taxed each barrel of oil when the price per barrel went above a set government level. Like the price controls before it, the law discouraged the development of new supplies by increasing costs for oil companies. According to analysts at the Congressional Research Service, this tax reduced domestic oil production by 3–6 percent and increased imports by 8–16 percent before it was repealed in 1988. Now, as then, a windfall-profit tax would not actually tax profits; it would merely increase oil taxes, which would inevitably harm consumers. Are oil profits so offensive that we must go down this road again? One might think so given the recent uproar, but oil profits are not all that remarkable. According to data collected by Goldman Sachs, the median return on invested capital in the oil and natural-gas sector from 1970 to 2003 was less than the median return on capital invested in the stock market over the same period. In the second quarter of this year, net profits were 9 percent of sales for oil and gas companies in the S&P 500 and 8 percent for the S&P 500 as a whole. Profits, then, would have to be very fat for a very long time before the industry could claim to have returned even average profit margins from 1970 to the present. Calls for the industry to voluntarily reduce prices are also based on a false understanding of the market. “Big Oil” does not dictate fuel prices. Contracts between oil companies and refineries — and between refineries and retail outlets — typically tie the purchase price to local oil commodities markets. Hence, fuel prices are established by thousands of market actors buying and selling oil on numerous, decentralized markets; prices aren’t set by corporate CEOs in smoke-filled boardrooms. High prices are unfortunate for consumers, but they accurately reflect market realities. Congress can no more repeal the law of supply and demand than physicists can repeal the law of gravity. If you restrict the profits you can make from something, you’ll get less of it. If you restrict prices, you’ll get less conservation. High prices do more to encourage both production and conservation than anything Congress could dream up. The Republican call for more refining investment is even less explicable. First, returns on investment in refining have been less than the median returns in the rest of the economy since 1985. Forcing investment in a historically low-returning sector would seem to be the antithesis of good public policy. Second, it is absurd for politicians to tell private companies what they should or should not do with their private capital. In a free society, businessmen make that choice for themselves. Consider also how quickly the oil industry responded to disruptions after Hurricane Katrina. The storm took more than 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity offline and knocked out many of the pipelines needed to deliver Gulf Coast gasoline to the rest of the nation. By mid-October, 1 million barrels a day of U.S. crude production remained shut down (5.2 percent of U.S. consumption, 19 percent of U.S. production, and only 1.4 percent of world production). Simultaneously, 1.6 million barrels per day of refinery capacity remained offline (7.8 percent of U.S. consumption, 1 percent of world consumption). An economic analysis of those numbers predicts that a reduction in supply of that magnitude would result in a gas-price increase of 33 percent, or 84 cents per gallon. We saw exactly that as prices went from their August average of $2.50 to nearly $3.30 per gallon, but prices have since fallen back to below August levels. The market has responded: Imports are up 38 percent, and gasoline demand has dropped — all in less than two months. Motorists might think it nice if the oil industry had the reserve capacity to insure against major disasters, but business is not in the job of doing the public favors — unless the public pays for them. A company with excess capacity will have to pass that fixed cost along to consumers, and there will almost assuredly be another company, with less excess capacity, that can undercut the price. Refineries typically cost $2–6 billion to build, and managers cannot allow them to sit idle for long without triggering a (justified) stockholder rebellion. Politicians have no business calling for such excesses. Consumers are much better off paying relatively low prices most of the time and high prices when supplies are tight, than paying higher-than-normal prices most of the time in return for slightly lower peak prices. Investors will put money into the refining sector if and when they discover that profits can be gained by doing so. If profits can’t be made, it tells us that there is no shortage of capacity. In other words, if there’s a problem, the capitalists in our midst will solve it — without Dennis Hastert’s help. It takes a lot of political courage to tell an outraged public that the invisible hand of the free market works better than windfall-profit taxes, price controls, or federal interference with corporate investment decisions. It’s worth remembering that during the most explosive oil-price increases in history, and with the prospect of a tough reelection fight on the horizon, Jimmy Carter used his executive powers to remove the price controls he had inherited. And President Carter was eventually beaten by a candidate — Ronald Reagan — who promised to go even further to liberate the industry from government interference. Today’s Republicans in Washington could learn a thing or two. Messrs. Taylor and Van Doren are senior fellows at the Cato Institute. Mr. Van Doren is the editor of Regulation magazine.

Jake Wagner has created the highest end community in the history of Valparaiso, this alone should give him the right to some space. Valparaiso can't get him utilities to his own house, so they can't annex forcibly. That's the law.

How dare Chris Ehrman or others act surprised, this annexation has been brewing for two years. By the way there will be a lot more in the coming years. It's time for Valparaiso to grow up.

Read article relating attacks on Jake and the Welters at Plan Commission meeting.

``Lavrov once again drew attention to the inappropriateness of such openly politicized, biased commentaries in the United States,'' the ministry said

Look at that quote carefully, a Russian calls Secretary Rice and tells her that "openly" biased commentary is inappropriate! We are the United States, that's what we do, that's what we've taught the world to do. It's high time that Russia find out that open commentary is a real democracy.

So, what's this gas pipeline thing all about? It looks like the Ukraine was getting a pretty discounted deal due to the fact that they house the pipeline ... Russia raised the prices. They have every right to work out a contract deal. Now if the governments weren't involved and the markets were truly "open" this wouldn't be just another bought of competition.

Solution: Both countries should sell off their energy assets.

The Post Office should be sold

It's time to get this thing out of our hair.

If Mitch were in charge, we'd sell it now while it's worth something

Break the monopoly, this is ridiculous

USA Today

Whats the world look like today?

So an Irish liberal leader has to resign because he has a drinking problem?

Can Sharon return from a "mortal head wound"? If so does he become the peace leader of all times?

I see it's Bush's fault that the miners died in West Virginia. I have to wonder, can coal be mined without people in the hole? Probably. So, why are they there? Unions, probably.

Good for the Virginia Tech Hoakies, if we allow these players to be rude and foolish, what exactly is sports? Now, I still say colleges should be allowed to pay collegiate athletes, what part of communism says "amateur athletes owe us four years of poverty"

Iraq update in Publius Pundit is terrific. You bet there were voter problems and fraud. I live only 20 miles from East Chicago, talk about fraud. It's going to happen. But, they can vote, begin enforcing the law, and more Iraqi's will start seeing the advantages of following the law and not cheating to get power.

And I guess the Russian Ukrainian connection is a bit shady with regards to the natural gas problems. Some former and current political leaders are investors in the deal.

I was wondering about some "tech" options for our homes this year. Here's report that shows what people said were their interests in home tech.

Gateway Pundit says that the ex-vice president of Syria, now living in Europe under protection, is calling for a popular overthrow of the Syrian government.

Scraps of Moscow took some terrific pictures of new years celebrations, this post is an amalgamation of issues religious and cultural.

Now locally, time for Porter County Auditor Vuko to resign. After serving faithfully for many years, the job is too complex now.

The pie-ladies are fighting a new police station. In four weeks they succeeded in getting 50 signatures but think they might be able to get 150 by Monday. I really hope this goes to a full petition drive. Let's get 4,000 signatures from property owners in Valparaiso to show Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Essany and Mr. Harper that Mayor Costas is doing just fine.

Question, who will run against Tallian for State Senate. She was trained by Bob Harper and that means she will be against new jobs in Porter County. Simple, we need a new senator.

Oh good, the county is protecting us from bad contractors by charging $25 dollars to license. That'll keep out all the bad guys.

Try being Tom Peters' wife, and he tells the world you're stubborn by suggesting that you are just like President Grant, never turn back. Sounds like a good book too.

Lark News reports that ipods have been blessed in church. Yeah

In 1927, the very first transAtlantic telephone call was made from new york to london.

Will Mitch take a swipe at township government? Real estate blogs are hoping so, property tax relief aint ever happening in the current system.

I get a little fired up when I read that people in the Horn of Africa, I'll be there in 28 days, are dying from starvation. I get really ticked when i think that we pay our farmers cash so they won't grow food, so food can remain expensive, so it's even more expensive to fix the starvation problem. I'd be embarrased to be that farmer.

Any chance you see the same coincendence that I do? UN leader "kills self" in Haiti? I can see him quitting. I can see him taking bribes like most UN leaders. But kill himself. Why? He had to have been killed by forces aligned against the election. This election is an important first step to Haiti finally getting some form of peace.

Want a blog to check often for Iraq updates that haven't been bleached by the media, try this one.

And my wrap-up: Afganistan is reaching stability and I think in 2006 we will kill Bin Laden in Pakistan. Iraq is not stable, and we will gently reduce troop levels but we will be in Iraq for many years to come. We will escalate words with Iran, but not drop bombs. Sharon will die in Israel and Bush will have to restrain Netanyahu from attacking Syria or Iran. Lebanon will see greater openess. Syria will have an organized opposition. But, on the negative front, Saudi Arabia will too, and they will be Islamacists.

The economy will be hot, maybe too hot.
Housing will cool though, especially high-end and luxury.
Jobs are all imortant to every election. Those politicians that can get jobs will get elected.

Solutions to expensive medical will be in vogue. I back market based and open competition.

6,000 baby boomers every day will turn 60 and they didnt have enough kids to pay for their social security.

Taxes will remain stable at the federal level, but go up at local levels, pushing cost of living even higher.

In the name of peace or security, we have lost some rights. I believe the courts will tilt that balance back in 2006.

Can you believe the turn of event in West Virginia over the last couple days?

Reuters does a good job of matching photos and the storyline

Explosion followed by a delay in getting into the mine
Then a drill from 300 feet above to test the air
The air is bad
Then a rescue team finally goes in
Then that team announces they found one dead body but it looks like the other 12 men walked away from the equipment
Then misfortune, a rumor starts that all 12 are alive!
3 hours later, only one is alive and everyone wants to know who started that first rumor.

Read up on instapundit, the most read blog on the web, what's being discussed tonite?

I love this, the United Nations wants to interview the President of Syria about the assasination last year in Lebanon. Of course he won't do it. But neither would W.

On December 16th, 2004, Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel, the governor of central-western Cojedes state, ordered takeover of "all urban, rural or potentially agricultural, public or private, lands that are presumably idle or part of a large estate, or in tenancy conflict or with distribution problems." The Socialization of Venezuala begins. It ocurrs to me that our own Mr. Harper here in Porter County Indiana would love these guys, open space is nothing compared to just plain taking everyone's property who you don't like.

Good "history of missions" that leads us to the current situation worldwide, on the Bishops Blog

Had a personal run-in with Delta Airlines, I wrote an article on my Synergy Thoughts Blog, and ended up asking the question every company better ask. Are we as bad as Delta? We might be

I could only dream that John Kerry would run again for President. This article says he's building a ground swell of 3 million supporters. I've been all over the country and kind find a person that foolish. But I hope that all show up for the primary.

Daily Liberal: You need to read the opposition or you won't really be able to understand them. This one supports the women's movement that says that a stay-at-home mom is a moron, prone to getting taken advantage. I would agree that there are horrible men in the world. I would also agree that there are amazing moms who don't need jobs to feel like they amount to something.

Porter Hospital hired a new CFO, paid over $200,000 in taxpayer dollars, to help put the pieces back together. Couldn't we just sell the thing and save all our money?

Looks like Phil Weiland still can't find any real news, so he's pushing Essany for UN Ambassador again.

That's all tonite, more tomorrow