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Indiana: First in basketball, fifth in corn, forty-fifth in everything else. Glad our reps are working hard to improve the general welfare of their constituents.

I truly appreciate that!

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/2025/02/19/lia-thomas-lawsuit-vs-ncaa-over-trans-athlete-rule-grace-estabrook/78898096007/?tbref=hp I hope this lawsuit succeeds.

As someone who has watched this team beat up on many of teams in the NIC the last few years, I didn't see the head coach in a lot of the timeout huddles. Not sure I have ever seen that before in HS. Is that normal procedure these days? Also, I don't remember seeing Gumm actively apart of operations this season compared to the past few. I saw NP live in action vs Marian and some SB opponents midway through the season and don't think he was calling plays. Just from my observations of a really good team in the area, thought that was a little unusual to see on the sidelines,.

Nah, you're a lifetime coach! I think my time has run out. I hope to see everyone in August, the Good Lord willin'!

Good catch.....I fixed it. Hammy and Rocket3118 were the same dude.

If you're interested, I highly recommend "A Fever in the Heartland" by Timothy Egan. One of the better books I've read in recent years.

As someone who grew up in the hard-core Religious Right subculture/church, there are a few reasons. 1. Prior to the 1960s, many public schools were very openly and explicitly Protestant. Daily Bible readings, prayers, they basically openly embraced religious belief and practice as long as it was "nondenominational" (e.g., "Protestant"). I remember an older family member complaining about "God being taken out of schools" and saying "well, we had a Jewish person in my class and when it was her turn to read the Bible, she always read from the Old Testament." The Catholic/parochial school system developed as a means of educating Catholic students because the public schools were so openly Protestant. 2. After court rulings banned prayers, Bible readings and open religious instruction in public schools, churches (especially conservative Baptist churches) began opening their own schools. The one my siblings went to opened in 1965. There was a Lutheran school system similar to the Catholic one (albeit on a much smaller scale), but it grew post-1965, too. Some were also created to avoid segregation, but moreso in the South than in Indiana (where, thanks to the Klan's control of the state in the 1920s, most small towns had few/no Black residents, and that's where many of the religious schools were). 3. Parents began desiring their tax dollars that were supporting those "Godless" public schools be able to be used to send their kids to said conservative Baptist schools (or pay for homeschooling, which has also become a big deal in conservative/evangelical culture), and thus the voucher concept was born. Legislators, in trying to funnel money to their preferred private schools, began to villify public schools, and the distaste has grown since. In Indiana, every single bill post-2009 has been to try to weaken traditional public schools and funnel as many kids as possible to charter/private/parochial schools. And when not enough kids are doing what the legislature told them to do, they double down even more.

Do you mean July 24th? Knox would be interested in attending.

The bill has a sound premise. The IHSAA spends too much time and resources playing detective on transfers....those resources would be much better spent doing other things. Just allowing a one-time freebie will free up hundreds if not thousands of man-hours. Here is a start....most people think that if there is a bonified change of address into a new district, full eligibility will be granted...that is NOT the case. At least just say...ok kid....your family moved, and that is a huge sacrifice....despite whether the sending school jack@zz admins think it was for athletic reasons or not.....these transfers should be green stamped.

Trump Is Flat-Out Lying About the 60 Minutes Interview With Harris https://reason.com/2025/02/06/trump-is-flat-out-lying-about-the-60-minutes-interview-with-harris/ The Face the Nation promo used the first sentence, while the interview as aired on 60 Minutes used the last sentence. In other words, the latter show's producers were telling the truth when they said they had used the "same question" and the "same answer" but "a different portion of the response." Harris did not come across as especially forthright, articulate, or intelligent in either version, although the one that 60 Minutes showed was a little more concise. This is what Trump thinks (or claims to think) amounted to "a giant Fake News Scam" and "the biggest Broadcasting SCANDAL in History." After Trump sued CBS, the network insisted that "the interview was not doctored" and noted that 60 Minutes "did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris's answer to the question at issue." After all, Trump was aware of this supposed "SCANDAL" only because CBS aired both parts of her response. The full transcript removes any doubt about who is telling the truth in this case and who is just making shit up. Trump's lawsuit claims that CBS "cross[ed] the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news." Even if that were true, it would not qualify as consumer fraud under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, as the lawsuit asserts, for reasons I explained in detail last week. Trump did not suffer any cognizable damages under that statute, let alone damages amounting to "at least" $10 billion, as he risibly claims. In fact, however, CBS did not engage in "deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news," which means it cannot possibly be guilty of broadcast news distortion, which requires "evidence showing that the broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners." When the FCC rejected that claim last month, Jessica Rosenworcel, its Biden-appointed chairwoman, rightly said "the FCC should not be the President's speech police" or "journalism's censor-in-chief." But her Trump-appointed replacement, Brendan Carr, whose avowed dedication to freedom of speech and freedom of the press is curiously selective, revived the complaint and has indicated that it will figure in the FCC's review of the deal between Paramount and Skydance. Carr's interest in reconsidering the frivolous complaint against CBS in this context is a chilling illustration of how executive power can be abused in service of the president's personal vendettas. It helps explain why Paramount is keen to appease Trump by settling his laughable lawsuit, which CBS accurately described as "completely without merit." The FCC complaint is equally groundless. As Nathan Simington, another Trump-appointed FCC commissioner, noted in October, "broadcast news distortion is an extraordinarily narrow complaint category." He added that "CBS could easily remove the predicate for any further discussion by releasing the transcript" of the Harris interview. Carr himself said something similar around the same time. "In my view," he told Glenn Beck, "the best way forward" would be to "release the transcript," which would mean "there's no reason to have this before the FCC." Now that CBS has released the transcript, it should be obvious to Carr that 60 Minutes did nothing close to intentional misrepresentation or deliberate distortion of the news. But in truth, there was "no reason to have this before the FCC" at all. Based on the constitutionally dubious distinction between broadcast journalism and journalism in every other medium, the commission is second-guessing editorial judgments that are indisputably protected by the First Amendment, even when they are sloppy, mistaken, irresponsible, or unethical—none of which is true in this case. The FCC is scrutinizing CBS at the behest of a vindictive president who reflexively alleges nonexistent torts, crimes, or regulatory violations based on news coverage he views as unfair to him. Trump's petty, wildly hyperbolic grievances do not deserve a respectful hearing from any rational person, let alone from a government agency with the power to punish news outlets for journalism that irks him. Trump is the world's biggest narcissist, bar none.

I just think his Midwest ties tie onto Indiana Nobody cares about sports in California. Too hip for it.

The bullcrap most Teacher's Unions tried to pull during Covid is enough for me to have zero faith in that institution ever again. Not that I ever supported it in the least. Public sector labor unions should be illegal in the first place.

Here's the issue with your take on accountability. The Statehouse refuses to hold voucher and charter schools accountable in any way. A charter school turns in false enrollment numbers, they get excused. State Board of Accounts calls into question the spending of a charter school, but the President of the company running it refuses to comply. The State recently tried to submit a bill that would set a max on administration salaries at 15% of the money the district gets from the State. What they found is less than a handful of districts would not be in compliance, so it was dropped. They also left out charter and private schools getting vouchers from that bill as they often do. Turned out that the charters in Allen county were all over 20% going to admins. One charter had 54% of the money they got going to admins. Keep in mind this is money that goes to the classroom and teacher salaries. No accountability there though. Voucher and charter schools can and do discriminate when admitting students. They get to choose who gets in and who stays. They get to set standards for students to remain in the school that they do not allow public schools to set. I saw a post with the recent outbreaks that a person posted please keep your kids home if they are sick, but 2 different replies said their own children who all get vouchers can only miss so many days in a year or they are asked to leave the school. Where's the accountability for that? When it comes to State testing, you know everyone loves to talk about how far behind kids are, BUT legislators allow charter and voucher schools to choose either growth or proficiency to be the key factor in school scores. Public schools are forced to use proficiency.....some accountability, huh? Just a few years ago, after courts had ordered that multiple charter school operators owed over $100 Million back to the State, the leaders in the Statehouse voted to excuse that debt. Accountability? Want public school accountability? Run for school board. What is taught in schools, even with the State Board of Education develops the standards for each subject, is still controlled locally. The budget for every district is completely open to the State and there is a multi step process to get anything approved in the budget. Also, ask your sped teachers what will happen when the DOE is eliminated. To think all that money comes back to the States is a pipe dream at best. But what about States like W. VA, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana who relay far more heavily on federal funding?