Did you hear the news? Frankfort apparently is on track to pass a spending bill that would shore up $300 million against the state’s $1.4 billion shortfall. This is ineffectual and cute, much in the same way that a child who dresses up as a superhero is cute and ineffectual at superhero-things — it’s all well and fine until they touch the stove or take that fledgling leap from the roof. Pro tip: If Jim Wayne isn’t supporting your “revenue” bill, then maybe your “revenue” bill isn’t the revenue bill this state really needs. All jesting aside, releasing prisoners whom don’t really need to be in prison is a good cost-saving start.

Carneal’s Appeal?: U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell says there’s enough evidence to make the case that Michael Carneal — who shot and killed three fellow classmates at Heath County high School in 1997 — was mentally incompetent when he originally pled guilty. “The record in this case contains evidence that could suggest that Carneal was not competent to enter a guilty plea, and that his incompetence also prevented him from timely filing his state court petition, and in turn, his habeas petition,” says Russell. The C-J has the story.

Best. Ponzi Scheme. Ever: An additional 27 individuals have been indicted in Louisville’s Great Redneck Swindling of 2010, bringing the grand conspiratorial total to 109. Although investigators expect the amount these bastards have stolen to rise “once all the dust has settled,” we would not be surprised if the scheme involved every single man, woman and child in Jefferson County who called one of those “send us your gold” commercials that run nonstop on late-night FOX NEWS. (Not that I watch that sort of thing…)

The Aftermath: Since Sen. Jim Bunning yielded his “principled” blockage of unemployment benefits for the nation’s most needy, everything is right as rain again, eh? Well, unless you’re one of the 4,300 Kentuckians whom will have to refile for unemployment in order to get the benefits you were already entitled to, therefore causing you to go out of your way and stretch a thin budget more thinly  because of the absent-minded junior senator, then no: Rain is something you’d be pretty far from at the moment, actually.

Broken Sidewalk For Mayor: What does it say about a city when it’s biggest and boldest urban ideas aren’t coming from its elected/bureaucratic officials, but from a blogger who doesn’t even live here? The always spectacular Klayko imagines a Bardstown Road where density actually exists, and the approximation of true urban life along Louisville’s best-known corridor becomes a reality.