By Arthur Delaney (Huffington Post) A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for lawmakers.

“There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill,” said Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville), sponsor of the original welfare drug testing bill.

via Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers.

 January 28, 2012  Posted by Jules Siegel at 4:16 am No Responses »
 

An edgy, irreverent book by Kayt Sukel that examines all the ways our neurons can wreak havoc with our hearts. By Kayt Sukel (CNN) As background research for my book, “Dirty Minds: How our brains influence love, sex and relationships,” I participated in a study at Rutgers University where scientists measured the activity in my [...]

 January 27, 2012  Posted by Jules Siegel at 8:38 am No Responses »
 

By Walter Brasch (Moronia) Tucked between the New Hampshire primary and Ground Hog Day, and directly competing against an NFL playoff game, is Saturday night’s annual Miss America pageant. Although the headquarters is still near Atlantic City, where it originated in 1921, the pageant—don’t call it a beauty contest—has been a part of the Las [...]

 January 14, 2012  Posted by Walter Brasch at 6:31 am No Responses »
 

(RT) Under the National Operations Center NOC’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms. Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning OPS can collect personal information from [...]

 January 12, 2012  Posted by Jules Siegel at 9:41 am No Responses »
 

By Walter Brasch (Moronia)–One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly. Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation [...]

 January 6, 2012  Posted by Walter Brasch at 5:05 am No Responses »
 

By Walter and Rosemary Brasch (Moronia) In January 2009, with a new president about to be inaugurated, we wrote a column about the stories we preferred not having to write, but knew we would. Three years later, we are still writing about those problems; three years from now, we’ll still be writing about them. We had [...]

 December 31, 2011  Posted by Walter Brasch at 7:27 am No Responses »
 

By Walter Brasch (Moronia)–I am a Jew. I don’t mind receiving Christmas cards or being wished a “Merry Christmas” from friends, clerks, or even in junk mail trying to sell me something no sane person should ever buy. My wife and I even send Christmas cards, with messages of peace and joy, to our friends [...]

 December 22, 2011  Posted by Walter Brasch at 10:17 am No Responses »
 

By Walter Brasch (Moronia)– If the first year gross anatomy class at the Penn State Hershey medical school needs spare body parts to study, they can visit the cloak room of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That’s where most of the legislators left their spines. The House voted 124–69, Dec. 13, to send an animal [...]

 December 17, 2011  Posted by Walter Brasch at 6:59 am No Responses »
 

By James Hibberd (EW) Hardware store giant Lowe’s has yanked ads from the ‘All-American Muslim’ series after the Florida Family Association encouraged members to email the program’s advertisers. “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and [...]

 December 11, 2011  Posted by Jules Siegel at 8:32 am No Responses »
 

By Walter Brasch (Moronia)–Although more than one million Pennsylvanians are members of labor unions, and the state has a long history of worker exploitation and union activism, neither of the two largest university systems has a labor representative on its governing board. The only labor representative on the Board of Governors of the State System [...]

 December 10, 2011  Posted by Walter Brasch at 8:28 am No Responses »