Left in Aboite has an excellent post on the In God We Trust license plates which Hoosiers are apparently subsidizing to the tune of $1.5 million and climbing from the Highway Fund

Quite a few bills passing the House today. They are:

SB 220 – Various transportation matters (among other things, makes Sections of S.R. 3, S.R. 9, and U.S. 20 heavy duty highways with a maximum weight of 90,000 lbs.)

SB 29 – TRF credit for military service.

SB 104 – Child care matters (primarily advisory committees for child care homes and regulations).

SB 134 – External defibrillators in health clubs. Requires health clubs have defibrillators and staff that knows how to use it while providing certain immunities for their use.

SB 155 – Alcohol blended fuel underground storage tanks.

SB 180 – Warranty repair and sales audit limitation. (Having to do with relations between vehicle manufacturers and dealers.)

SB 181 – Factory owned franchise limitation. Specifies that it is not an unfair labor practice for a manufacturer or distributor to establish or acquire for less than two years a franchisor owned outlet within the exclusive territory or market area of a franchisee.

SB 191 – Coroner issues. Having to do mostly with introductory and crime scene training (withholds coroner pay if they fail to complete the training.)

SB 261 – Condominium common areas and facilities – allowing sale of condo common areas if enough of the owners agree (95% or whatever is in the by-laws).

The Hoosier Beer Geek advises us that 3 Floyds is the king of the world. Three Floyds brewing company was named the Best Brewer in the World – 2007 by RateBeer.com. Their highest scoring brew was the Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. I haven’t had the pleasure, but I can’t recommend their Robert the Bruce Scottish Ale highly enough. Great stuff.

Ed Brayton has a post entitled Dispatches from the Culture Wars: My Take on Theocracy which was triggered by his thoughts on the Blogswarm Against Theocracy. Basically, he cautions against over-application of terms like Theocracy and Dominionism, and alienating accomodationists who can be worked with and reducing the terms effectiveness against actual theocrats. His post seems to much more articulately describe some of the concerns I had when I learned of Blogswarm Against Theocracy.

Here is one I missed. From the burning the village to save it department, we have the tale of the lottery privatization bill in the Senate. Niki Kelly had an article on the passage of the lottery plan in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled Changes aid passage of lottery plan. Generally, the bill seeks to privatize the Indiana lottery to a private vendor. Proceeds from the privatization are reportedly needed as part of the Governor’s effort to fight brain drain from the state of Indiana by giving scholarships to Hoosier students. Also, a big chunk of the money would go into a “life sciences fund.”

Life sciences refers to:

Research in bioscience, biotechnology, biomedicine, medical device technology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, bioenergetics, health care engineering, nanotechnology within the life sciences field, agri-sciences, and other related health disciplines and disciplines considered life sciences.

Thanks to an amendment introduced by Senator Drozda, no grants containing money from the fund may be used to conduct embryonic stem cell research. The restriction is not solely on human embryonic stem cell research, it is on all embryonic stem cell research. So, for example, Purdue would have to take great efforts to make sure to keep the money away from any research that might involve, say, mouse or fruit fly stem cells in some way.

I don’t think an anti-science stance is going to be any more helpful than taking an anti-gay position in making sure that our best and brightest minds stay in the state. At the very least, we’re sending a mixed message by proposing to sell off a valuable state asset in the name of fighting brain drain, then restricting some pretty basic research for reasons that are arbitrary at best.

Fortunately, the bill has been referred to the House Rules committee and, I believe, the deadline for committee action has passed.

[tags]privatization[/tags]

This one is every where, but it’s such an odd photograph that I wanted to post it:

Dick Cheney, a shadowy lurking figure with no fixed address. Kung Fu Monkey has some alternate captions.

A few days ago, Leo Morris over at Opening Arguments predicted that the blogosphere was going to beat the daylights out of Mike Pence over his remark that shopping in Baghdad was like a “normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” He was right. Even though I agree that Hoosiers can get a bit crotchety in the summer with their energies no longer diverted toward basketball, the farmer’s market in downtown Lafayette doesn’t suffer from all that many IEDs.

In any event, the most complete evisceration of Mike Pence over this asinine comment comes from Glenn Greenwald. Most effective is his use of Pence’s greatest hits, such as:

Don’t believe the media, the U.S. military has found WMDs in Iraq. – May 20, 2004.

Don’t believe the media, we are winning the war in Iraq. – December 8, 2005

Iraq is hardly a quagmire. – June 2, 2004

The U.S. will be disengaging from Iraq real soon now. – June 24, 2004.

Hey! Look at Basra, it’s really peaceful. The insurgents are desperate – February 27, 2004.

Mary Beth Schneider, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article entitled Health coverage bill is still kicking on the subject of SB 503 which is a bill designed to provide health insurance for the working poor. Mike Sylvester is not happy with this latest advance of big government.

The bill passed the House Public Health Committee 11 to 1. The reprinted bill and/or the House Committee report weren’t immediately available on the General Assembly’s website, so I don’t know how extensive the House’s changes were to the original Senate Bill. Ms. Schneider’s report says they were extensive “including expanding coverage to include mental health services, drug addiction and family planning services and adding a sliding premium scale so that poorer people pay less;” expanding coverage for pregnant women and children, allowing dependent children to stay on their parents’ health insurance to age 24, and adding a tax credit for employers that offer wellness programs.

The revised bill apparently leaves out one minor detail. How to pay for it. Gov. Daniels proposed cigarette tax increase died in the House earlier this session, but it still might be resurrected during the conference committee process. Senator Miller, who heads up the Senate Health committee, says Senate Republicans have concerns about some of the changes to the bill. In particular, she wants family services defined to ensure that they don’t include abortion.

As I mentioned, Mike Sylvester has concerns about more big government. His general proposition is basically unassailable. This looks like government assuming yet a greater role in our lives. I guess it depends on the details, but I’m not as certain that his specific concerns are as well founded. He suggests that, because the average family health care plan costs $11,000 per year and because under this bill a family with an income of $41,000 would only have to pay $1,230, the rest of us will be left to make up the difference. Furthermore, he argues, the infusion of government money into the health care market will force health prices higher and higher. Certainly if health care were anything like a rational market, his points would be well taken. But, the fact is the health care market isn’t rational. Consumers are often forced to make choices at what amounts to gunpoint — “your money or your life.” Pricing isn’t anything like transparent. Cross subsidies are legion. So, it’s not at all clear to me that the normal market rules apply.

I suspect his concern about the rest of us footing the bill is perfectly valid, but that the price tag won’t be nearly as stiff as that almost $10,000 differential would suggest. And I don’t suspect that the infusion of government cash in this instance will raise prices. I think that a lot of the folks who will be able to take advantage of these programs are the people receiving a lot of emergency room services currently but then not being able to pay for them.

[tags]SB503-2007, health care[/tags]

I love this paragraph from a post by Chris Douglas over at bilerico. He was describing a statement from Mark Gray, 90 year old attorney, founder of Keitlinger and Gray, and member of an old Indiana family who is, as Chris says, qualified as any to understand and express something deep in the sould of Hoosiers.

Having served on various national boards and commissions after World War II, Gray described to me his early caution to East Coast powerhouses who were assuming they could impose easily on Hoosier autonomy. He told them: “If the you want to work with Hoosiers, they’ll work with you. But if you try to tell ’em they HAVE to do something, their answer to you will be “The Hell We Do.”

Chris suggests that this sentiment is one of the reasons that SJR 7 failed yesterday at the hands of the House Rules committee but also after an outpouring of objections from editorial writers and business leaders alike. When the gay community insisted on changes to marriage the reaction was the same as when the social reactionaries insisted on campaigning against gays; Hoosiers dug in their heels.

It’s not always for the best, but Hoosiers are just plain ornery. To get them to do something, you have to convince them that a) it’s in their best interest; and b) they’re part of the decision making process.

Update Rather than putting up another blog post on SJR 7, I just wanted to flag a nice entry from Mike Kole on the subject. Mike comes at the issue from a libertarian (and Libertarian) perspective. He says:

I’m delighted with the result. It tears me up to think of a class of people being told that they are unwelcome in our state. That’s what SJR-7 would have done. One’s sexual orientation hurts nobody. It doesn’t pick your pocket. It doesn’t wound your body. It doesn’t change what you hold dear. Good riddance, SJR-7!

Government has no business regulating marriage. It would have been even nicer to hear any elected official say so, especially from a so-called “limited government conservative Republican”. This whole exercise proves that there aren’t any smaller government Republicans in Indiana.

Sponge Painting Madness

Originally uploaded by amasson.

Too busy to blog today, so you guys get more pictures of the kids. Harper is very, very happy with the sponge painting.