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EYE ON THE PIE: Hoosier excess contrary to our nature

People think of Indiana as a place of moderation. We’re not known for extremes. We are followers, not leaders. Certainly, we are not risk-takers. How then can we explain some inexplicable behaviors? Indiana’s secretary of state and others were in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Supreme Court recently to defend the nation’s most extreme voter ID law. No one was prepared to say we suffered from an avalanche of voter fraud. There was not even evidence of a snowflake of…

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City emerging as drug distribution hub: Medco Health Solutions deal latest boon to growing subsector in Indiana’s life sciences development efforts

Thanks to a series of major economic development wins, Indianapolis is enjoying a pharmaceutical distribution business hot streak. Life sciences industry leaders hope to keep the sizzle burning in 2008 and beyond. “It’s not something we’re hoping we can do someday. It’s something we’re already doing now,” said BioCrossroads CEO David Johnson. “We’re simply trying to expand the footprint of what we’re doing.” Pharmaceutical logistics has become a big business. According to the Arlington, Va.-based Healthcare Distribution Management Association, U.S….

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The Corydon Group LLC: Reputations help lobbyists build business Shared passion for government led golf buddies to partnership

When Chris Gibson and Mike Leppert headed for the golf course in the late 1990s, it was strictly business. Walking from tee to tee, the men talked about lobbying, the law and regulatory agencies. After 18 months of playing 18 holes, they decided to form The Corydon Group, a government relations firm founded in 2000 in Indianapolis. The firm monitors bills and amendments proposed in the Indiana General Assembly, prepares reports on key legislation, attends meetings and hearings, and lobbies…

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VIEWPOINT: Improving health: more than a January fad

As I waited in line at the cafeteria just into the new year, I watched the man in front of me. It would be easy to assume the salad and wrap station would provide patrons with a healthful lunch option. Yet I saw a generous portion of fried chicken in a spinach tortilla topped with a pile of cheese and several servings of salad dressing. The man might have started with good intentions, but in a matter of seconds a…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Daniels pushes tax fix, avoids cluttering agenda

The governor’s State of the State address on Jan. 15 served up no surprises. His priority, a conceptual consensus shared by virtually all lawmakers, continues to be long-lasting property tax reform framed in the context of an overall tax cut for owner-occupied residential property. Beyond that major task, Gov. Mitch Daniels offered nothing in the way of innovative programs for this year. That, of course, is not because he lacks vision or boldness, qualities for which he has been both…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Exploding mobile phone? Maybe you bought a fake

Has your cell phone exploded lately? A cell phone battery literally blows up, shattering the phone and spraying hot components like shrapnel. Detonating phones haven’t killed anyone that I could determine, but they’ve caused several trips to the hospital for lacerations, burns and broken eardrums. When it happens, manufacturers understandably scramble to find out why, and the answer today is often that the battery was actually a knockoff, a counterfeit that looks just like the real thing, but might be…

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NOTIONS: Will the change bandwagon ever roll our way?

On the presidential campaign trail these past few weeks, the dominant exit-polling insight seems to be that Americans are hungry for change. Voters have told interviewers they’re weary of the direction we’re headed, tired of the politics of the past and eager to forego the status quo. And so the presidential candidates, Republican and Democrat alike, have jumped on the change bandwagon, ridden it from Iowa to New Hampshire, and tried to explain why they’ve been, are, or could be…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Indiana being stamped with wrong image

Blessed be our friends at the U.S. Postal Service. They do a great job of collecting and distributing the mail. They face strong competition from private carriers and from the Internet, but they continue to serve the public well. Then, too, USPS always looks for new ways to honor America and Americans through the issuance of new stamps. If a particular series catches on, they can make a pretty penny by selling stamps that are never used. That’s why USPS…

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Community education keeping up with business: Lawrence Township, other districts making classes more convenient

Thirteen years ago, long before the current commotion over escalating property taxes in Marion County, a local public school superintendent became embroiled in a similar uproar. Residents of Lawrence Township in 1994 challenged former district leader Bernard McKenzie to rein in what they perceived as excessive spending of taxpayer funds. He responded by creating the Lawrence Township Community Education Program as a testament to the citizens and their support. Today, it has grown to serve about 6,000 people annually and…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Property-tax abolition isn’t off table after all

Lawmakers had their individual and collective eyes opened last summer by scores of organized and impromptu property tax rallies across Indiana. While many who carried a sign, marched in the streets, or wrote a letter to the editor about the situation simply thought their individual taxes were too high, a good number of them (and several of the organizers of such events) had a special goal: the elimination of property taxes. Even after the municipal elections woke up the few…

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Commentary: 2007 columns sparked debate

Each January, I like to reflect on a few of the prior year’s topics. I am always curious about the people I have written about over the course of the year. I hope you are, too. In the May 21 issue, I wrote about the plight of Amy Sorrell. Sorrell was an English and journalism teacher at Woodlan Junior-Senior High School in Allen County near Fort Wayne who also advised the school newspaper, The Tomahawk. The Jan. 19, 2007, issue…

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INVESTING: Bond insurers pummeled for straying into risky area

As Wall Street continues to record multibillion-dollar losses for its debt-market indiscretions, another industry that for years earned steady returns from the credit markets is sitting on the doorstep of implosion. For decades, bond insurers operated the relatively mundane business of insuring, and thereby guaranteeing, the timely payment of principal and interest on municipal bonds issued by various government and other entities. In recent years, the bond insurers strayed from their core business model and underwrote insurance on the new…

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Taxing lawyers, docs, Realtors

Your lawyer probably isnâ??t complaining. Neither would your doctor, Realtor or accountant.

In all the talk about reforming property taxes, hardly a word has been said about shifting some of the
property tax burden to services.

That means some of the most…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Change economy to raise incomes

My holiday gift was the latest quarterly data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Santa put them in my e-mail box and I played with them when not attending to ritual family matters. Yes, personalincome numbers for all the states right up to the third quarter of 2007. Oh, joy; oh, ecstasy-feeding my lascivious quantitative desires. And what did I find? Over the past year, the third quarter of 2006 to the same quarter of 2007, Indiana has ranked…

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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Agendas vary widely as tax-reform efforts heat up

How did it all seem so simple back in September? The reality of reform is sinking in for lawmakers and interest groups. Hoosiers who demanded serious property tax reform in November-and expected their wishes to be fulfilled-now see indications that the road to reform may be bumpier than foreseen. The property tax reform plan detailed in late October by Gov. Mitch Daniels was initially largely well-received by voters and lawmakers, but after it rattled around for a while and the…

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Commentary: Good luck to Mayor Ballard

Mayor Greg Ballard has less than a week under his belt of taking on a city that is both on a roll and full of challenges. It’s an exciting time to be mayor. An unknown commodity, Ballard has some big shoes to fill with little experience in government to help him out. (Note to self: That’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Indianapolis has been blessed with strong leadership for the last 40 years, beginning in 1968 with Republican Richard Lugar,…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Beware: e-mail is bastion of many security lapses

Tell the truth-you’ve “Googled” yourself, haven’t you? All of us have, or at least we should. It’s interesting for me to do it for myself, because I’ve been an Internet denizen since before the Web was woven, when all most of us did was exchange e-mails. What chills me sometimes is how far back the Google results for my name can go, clear into the mid-1990s in some cases. The ‘Net never forgets anything. If you have doubts about that,…

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INVESTING: Weak sectors could have broader effect on economy

We all know that the hip bone is connected to, well, you know how it goes. But a lot of people seem to be missing the point that the same principles controlling that biology are an active force in the markets and economy. All the brilliant economists out there are telling us what we already plainly know-finance and consumer-related sectors are weak. There isn’t enough talk about the next connection, though, or how a cancer spreads from one body part…

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