It's a Great Time To Be a Hoosier Except Nobody Knows What a Hoosier Is and We Still Can't Decide What Time It Is Either

• Emperor Governor Mitch "I Am Standing Up" Daniels was bailed out by his old colleague Norm Minetta earlier this week when the Department of Transportation said it would consider a switch to Central Time for Indiana on a county-by-county basis, instead of holding hearings on the statewide switch Daniels had campaigned for. Indiana is one of two states in the nation which is not in a single time zone.

You may recall that the diminutive architect of the first three wildly effective Bush budgets ramrodded passage of a Daylight Savings Time bill in the last legislative session. The proposal turned out to be unexpectedly divisive, and Daniels' last-minute arm twisting of one freshman legislator from the Illinois border who had promised to vote against led to the first public tar-and-feathering in the last half century. There's some speculation (O wicked times!) that Minetta's decision was designed to rescue that part of Daniels' nose which hasn't already been bitten off when he stuck it somewhere it didn't belong. But now several supporters of the DST bill who voted in favor in anticipation Daniels would spearhead the switch to Central Time he'd promised have joined the ranks of the royally pissed off.

Daniels, who seems to be backing off that pledge, declined to be interviewed, but issued a statement expressing his appreciation that Mineta "has found a way to help this process move forward," thus proving once and for all that he is the same Mitch Daniels who worked in the Bush White House.

The best part of the story is that every local news report references the Association of Indiana Drive-In Theatre Owners, a political powerhouse if ever there was one.

• Speaking of local news, the hairdos were just dissolving into puddles of pure excitement this afternoon with the news that John Roberts is one of our own, just a boy who ran barefoot through the corn and shot hoops against the barn after the milkin' was done. Well, not really. Roberts' family moved to Long Beach, a tony little Lake Michigan resort community, when his steel-company executive father was transferred to the Region. His boarding school nestles in the woods nearby.

Okay, I'm enured to this Hoosier Connection crap--people in this state claim as their own anybody who's had his picture in the paper and was once rerouted to the Indianapolis airport, and Axl Rose could still have a career here if he wants one. And you're probably already as sick of this Supreme Court Nominee Grand Opening Sale-a-bration as I am. However, I would like to invoke the Fireworks Purchase written test. Anyone interviewed for an I Knew Him When segment should be required to first name four current Supreme Court justices. Though that would have led to five minutes of dead air last evening.

• About fifteen years ago Indianapolis dedicated a memorial to its namesake WWII cruiser. The Indianapolis, flagship of the Fifth Fleet and once host to FDR, was famously sunk in the closing days of the war without the Navy noticing for three days. I donated money to the construction, and I went to the 50th anniversary. If there were any dry eyes in the house mine weren't among them. So this weekend I open the paper and find an ad for the 60th reunion later this month. Among the festivities will be a presentation at the Westin Hotel by...Olie Fucking North. The men who survived three days of shark attacks in the Pacific and then saw their captain scapegoated by the brass will be honored by a convicted lying scumbag and a disgrace to the uniform.