no lolcolts this week... those are just for game days. if you really want some, make 'em yourself, you lazy bastards! but here's some other stuff.

let's start with today's behind closed doors column in the indy star:

Both parties apparently ran into some transition friction in the final days before Bart Peterson surrendered the mayor's office to Greg Ballard.

Ballard this past week said Peterson wouldn't let his people enter the 25th-floor offices. But the level of animosity between the two camps went beyond that, though not quite reaching the legendary removal of W's from the keyboards in the White House at the end of President Bill Clinton's administration.

the removal of W keys from white house keyboards was indeed "legendary", if by "legendary" you mean that it never happened. two paragraphs in, and we already have a blatant falsehood. nice editing, guys.

and what evidence is there that outgoing peterson aides mashed the place up on their way out? why, there was a dirty supply room! plus, they shredded some stuff! (imagine that... after eight years, they had accumulated some crap they wanted to throw away. the horror! democrats are such dicks!)

but then the column gets a bit more interesting, as it moves on to explain troubles surrounding ike randolph, who apparently won't be getting a high-profile appointment in the ballard administration after all. as it turns out, nobody actually selected ike to be on ballard's transition team; he basically appointed himself. neither ballard nor ike's bosses at IFD were too pleased when they found out what'd happened. see advance indiana for more.

elsewhere, ruth holladay helps set the record straight regarding andré carson. unfortunately, ruth has a bad habit of falling for right-wing bs until her sources come in and straighten her out, and that's what happened here (see also: rishawn biddle and indyundercover, both stories she got wrong before she got right). a couple days ago, ruth posted about the garbage rumors that andré is a member of the nation of islam (farrakhan's people). of course, the rumors are false, and have already been addressed infinity+1 one times, but the julia-haters keep repeating them. but now (finally), ruth's follow-up post has a statement from erin rosenberg, a regular blog commenter who's also andré's campaign treasurer, which i guess makes infinity+2.

and oh... if you have ten thousand dollars, you too can get your picture taken with mayor ballard! power to the people!

i'm pretty much out of political news by now, so i'll just note that avant-garde composer henri chopin has passed away (not to be confused with frédéric chopin). i'd honestly not really heard of the guy, but there's a bunch of his music for free on the fantastic ubuweb site, and it sounds pretty good to my ears. ¶

Ruth Holladay just posted a good interview with André Carson himself about his faith ... ¶

Sadly, the infinity +1 of setting the record straight has repeatedly been met with infinity squared of new, more ridiculous claims complete with breathless demands of why Andre won't answer the "questions". Yawn. Anyway, I am a big fan of your blog, though I don't think I've ever commented here. A mention on stAllio!'s way- cool. Ya made me smile...thanks. ¶

I come from the old school: your faith does indeed define you. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled) said that "everyone has a religion, in that everyone has a world view."
Maybe I'm naive and/or a throwback, but there were (I think) legit questions being asked about Minister Farrakhan's role at the funeral, Andre's belief system, etc.
I now know that Abdul published his "My Dinner With Andre" but that wasn't terribly informative, altho anything is better than nothing.
At any rate, Andre Carson's world view is now out there for all to see. He's a good interview, and you won't read it in the Star. So sue me. (Joking). ¶

Ruth,

I certainly believe there are legitimate issues to be raised and your posts raised them well, but, per usual, many of the commenting crowd continued to state incorrect things which then get picked up by later commenters as legitimate issues that "needed" to be answered (i.e. the demand for the exact timing/circumstances of when Julia spoke to Farrakhan as "proof"- of what, I dunno. Equally true of the statements purporting to "know" that Julia didn't invite Farrakhan- which based on those making those claims relationship to Julia might cause a more "cynical" person to question whether the commenter knew what they were saying as fact. The accusation that Andre invited Farrakhan is much different from asking what his worldview/religious beliefs are). But, enough. Your interview was per usual thorough and contained answers to the legitimate issues people may have. ¶

Actually Ruth, the questions that you posed and the way you traced the development of Andre's belief system would make a really interesting series if you interviewed all the candidates. Just a thought.

E ¶

Hysterical Gary Welsh is accusing me now of making copious derogatory comments against other candidates in the 7th District race which I absolutely have NOT been doing. The flaws of some candidates are obvious and others have been doing the rightful criticizing. When things get hot in politics, Gary slips into his usual personal attack mode on all things and people Carson-related. The poor guy just can't help it! He's now in "moderated mode" and has banned me again... ¶

Gary's been on moderated mode for awhile, Wilson, and I'm definitely persona non grata. I posted something rather innocuous the other day after not reading is blog for about six months, and he deleted my comment.

Not sure which thing I did recently to piss him off. I wish I knew; I'd do it again. ¶

So somehow it doesn't occur to anyone at the Racist Star's Metro section that these sorts of charges ought to be substantiated by, I dunno, someone who's not anonymous or personally involved? A picture of said exploded closet would have been nice. If they didn't bother to take one maybe they could just reuse the one of a couple dozen boxes in a hallway that Ari Fleischer finally coughed up as evidence.

As I said elsewhere, I trust that this week the local news'll feature video of all the shredders being removed from the top floors, since they're of no legitimate use. ¶