Say what?

A little of this, a little of that:

-- This likely will come as something less than a surprise: Supreme Court Stealth Nominee Harriet Miers is just as anti-abortion as many of us suspected. According to documents given to the Senate Tuesday (reported in the Sun-Times)

WASHINGTON-- Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, according to material given to the Senate on Tuesday.

As a candidate for the Dallas city council, Miers also signaled support for the overall agenda of Texans United for Life-- agreeing she would support legislation restricting abortions if the Supreme Court ruled that states could ban abortions and would participate in "pro-life rallies and special events."

Raise your hand if this surprises you.

-- The News-Gazette editorialized Monday night against a smoking ban in Champaign. Raise your hand if this surprises you.

-- The Houston Astros found out last night what many others in the National League have known for some time: You DO NOT pitch to Albert Pujols with the game on the line. Raise your hand if this surprises you.

-- Although it was a sad thing for student journalists to go through, it's been rightly determined that no laws were broken in the SUI newspaper hoax. And, if any good could to be said to come of this, at least some aspiring journalists have learned very early in their careers to check everything and believe nothing until you've checked again. Valuable advice to carry forward in a career. (Except that some carrers probably came to an end before they started because if the incident. In the Sun-Times:

No laws were broken by a woman who duped Southern Illinois University's student newspaper with a tale about being the guardian of a motherless girl whose father was a soldier in Iraq, according to Jackson County's prosecutor.

-- In Monday's (perhaps October's) biggest non-story, The Champaign County Chamber of Commerce has come out against a smoking ban. Oh, really. they cite an on-line poll they took, supposedly of only CofC members (although I voted) that came out overwhelming against the proposed ban. Of course what they downplay the fact that they had to take two polls before the results matched their previously-agreed-upon stance. From the N-G:

Chamber Executive Director Laura Weis said the chamber took two polls of its membership on the smoking ban issue and got seemingly contradictory votes.
A poll of chamber members asking directly whether they support a city-imposed smoking ban for restaurants, bars and all commercial property received 66.5 percent support.
...
"When we analyzed that, it told us most of our members prefer a smoke-free environment but they want to be able to choose that as a business owner," Weis said.

Raise your hand if you're surprised with this.

And so it goes.