Andrew Reed is one of the biggest liars this state has ever produced.

He insists that Indiana's liability limit on the Daily Games is two million dollars per drawing, but is unable to point to where that limit is written or otherwise mandated. He's the Hoosier Lottery's "spin doctor," and is the sole survivor of Queen Esther's axe attack, due only to his remarkable ability to lie to the public and make them believe that what we're looking at isn't what it is, it's something else.

Esther Schneider is another gem. She actually made senior lottery personnel walk her dogs and pick up her dry cleaning, among other demeaning tasks. When they finally refused, she simply fired them. Several lawsuits have been filed against her in the past year for more serious offenses, and this is exposure that our state legislature cannot afford. Hence the decision to allow her to "step down," and selling the lottery to a private company will allow them to distance themselves from any wrongdoing once it does come out. 

I'm surprised Todd hasn't posted Mitch Daniels' spanking new plan to sell our corrupt lottery for one billion dollars. That hit the papers yesterday. As soon as a buyer begins to nibble, you can bet their document shredders will be working overtime.

As for the article, I wouldn't believe 480,000 tickets were produced unless I had counted them myself, and I have my doubts that the winning ticket was among those released in yesterday's promotion; that's just not how they do things. It's a safe bet that the "lucky" winner will be either a friend or relative of someone who works for the Hoosier Lottery. Given the degree of corruption to which they aspire, I just don't believe they're capable of running an honest game anymore.

People are nuts, at least 102 of them! 100 who assaulted lottery officials, the one who thought up this promotion and the one who approved it!

News tips can be forwarded to my PM.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.  What a dopey promotion!!!  Be sure to watch the video.

Did you see how the balloons are all clumped together?

Maybe people grabbed the balloons thinking they would fly to out-of-state locations.

Maybe NY should sell off its lottery also; it's corrupt, albeit in a different way.

I don't generally comment on an article unless it is interesting. But this event has been rated by me as the:

 NUMBER #1 MOST STUPID IDEA FOR 2006!

What were they thinking?

Personally, I figure that letting a bunch of ballons go just means that next week there will be a bunch of pieces of bright rubber hanging ina bunch of trees, and I think it should be treated like any other form of littering.

Littering implications aside, this was a perfectly good promotion. For the cost of 200 balloons, 190 Christmas cards, and 10 free tickets, they got thousands of dollars worth of publicity. As long as nobody was seriously injured they're even lucky the crowd got out of control, since that is getting them even more publicity. Living in New York I normally wouldn't know squat about games offered by the Indiana lottery, but now I've heard about this one.

Hmmm..... this give me an idea for a song!  200 Red Balloons...

"200 Red Balloons, floating in the December sky, everyone's an instant winner, everyone's a silly fool....."

I'll segway it into where the balloons are mistaken for incoming warheads and cause a "Red Alert" and the President scrambles bombers to Indiana to shoot down the balloons...