And overhanging all our difficulties is the simple, brute fact that our state's public finances are in ruin. We have outspent our income year after year.

The public is increasingly disgusted with a steady diet of defamation, and prepared to reward those who refrain from it.

It is a matter of simple fact that Icelanders have always been notoriously indolent.

There's a missing 'r' in the critical word 'pantry,' ... I feel it essential to confront this error head on and set the record straight. I have never, in all our years of marriage, come across my wife with cheddar cheese in her pantry without the 'r.'

We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we 'cling' to them, though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness, while cutting rather than raising taxes, by practicing an old tribal ritual - we spend less money than we take in.

When they call the slightest spending reductions 'painful', we will say 'If government spending prevents pain, why are we suffering so much of it?' And 'If you want to experience real pain, just stay on the track we are on.'