I know I’m probably going overboard with my Malcolm Gladwell reading suggestions, but I really enjoyed his take on an aspect of the Duke Lacrosse “scandal” that I hadn’t really considered. It would be nice if any news outlet actually delved into these interesting details, but it really is too much to ask, apparently.

Anyway, Gladwell cites studies that show how challenging the use of eyewitness testimony can be. Surprisingly, eyewitness testimony becomes less reliable when it crosses racial lines:

But the Duke case is an example of another, even more problematic aspect of eyewitness identifications, and that is that we aren’t particular good at making them across races. There is a huge amount of psychological research in their area, pioneered by Roy Malpass at the University of Texas at El Paso. A few years ago, John Brigham and Christian Meissner did a big meta-analysis of all of the cross-racial identification studies and concluded that given the task of picking someone out of a lineup, the average person is something like 1.4 times more likely to correctly identify an own-race face than a different-race face, and 1.6 times more likely to incorrectly identify a different race face. These are not trivial error rates. Clearly we need to treat cross-racial identifications with a special level of caution.

Read the rest. And while you’re there, read his insightful post on Barry Bonds, and how statistical analysis alone can help us figure out who’s cheating in the future.

Nice job by Michael Horne at MilwaukeeWorld of picking up the police report on the recent traffic stop of State Senator Tim Carpenter:

They had observed the vehicle driving on the shoulder for half mile or so andthought it struck the median wall. I observed the vehicle SE CTH F LL. The driver of the vehicle leaned to the right and totally disappear from sight on two occasions. During these times he deviated and came near to striking vehicles around him. The callers were trying to box him in, but he got around them. I activated lts and siren. Vehicle stopped RS at Golf Rd. WI DL going to Chicago for art exhibit that closes at 5 and needed his I-Pass and was looking for it and his cell fell and he had to look for that and there were other items on the passenger side he was trying to organize.

“He was doing everything but driving the car.”

Now we know why Democrats oppose having to show your driver’s license to vote. By the end of the year, none of them will have one.

I might support the TPA if they can amend it to ban anyone else from sending me the “Woman Drivers” e-mail with the picture of the car with the gas nozzle sticking out of the side. Enough already, we get it.

Washington (AP) – The U.S. Senate took a dramatic turn today as a lunchtime Taco Bell run in Senator Russ Feingold’s car was poisoned by a toxic anal cloud. It is still unclear who released the rancid fart, with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) riding shotgun and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in the back seat.

“Whoever is responsible for that atrocity should be held accountable,” said Feingold, as he took a bite of his steak Grilled Stuft Burrito. Feingold immediately had his staff look into whether a large intestine has been ever been censured. It only appears that Senator Jacob Welsh Miller’s beard was censured in 1802 for accepting numerous bribes.

Unnamed sources close to the situation have reported that Obama is most likely the responsible party. However, no senator was willing to finger the freshman senator from Illinois as the culprit. “If we blamed him, he’d just play the race card,” said Lautenberg. “What he needs to do is play the ‘race to the bathroom’ card, because it smells like a woodchuck died in his colon,” added Lautenberg.

“It was totally Obama,” said Landrieu, who immediately phoned in a report of Centox Nerve Gas to the Department of Homeland Security. When told that Centox gas only existed on the popular television show “24,” Landrieu immediately suspected Obama. “I saw him giggling back in the corner while he pulled his shirt over his nose,” she said.

It appears that Obama was invoking a little-known legislative maneuver known as “hot boxing,” in which a legislator rolls all the windows of the car up before flatulence occurs. This tactic, also known as the “Dutch oven,” apparently was first employed by Senator Henry Clay in 1830, which earned him the nickname “Old Rotten Ass.”

Republicans immediately pounced on the revelation, with Sam Brownback (R-KS) relating an unfortunate recent encounter with Obama. “We were working late one night, and he tried to give me a cup of ‘F’”, said Brownback, referring to a little-known tactic where the perpetrator “cups” a fart in their hand and delivers it directly to the face of the victim. Brownback claims he got his revenge the next day when he rubbed Crisco on Obama’s office doorknob, followed by passing a bill declaring Illinois “Kansas’ bitch.”

Hearings are set to begin on the controversy in May.

I read with amusement Xoff’s post deriding the “65% Solution,” a proposed bill that would require school districts to spend 65% of their funds on in-class activities. According to First Class Education, a national group pushing for similar legislation around the U.S., only 60% of public school funds are spent in the classroom in Wisconsin. Enacting the legislation would move about $250 million more into the classroom without raising taxes, according to the bill’s authors.

Democrats apparently think this is a terrible idea. Never mind that the bill could lead to better pay and benefits for school teachers. But I absolutely cannot wait for the public debate where Democrats try to convince taxpayers that 65 cents of every dollar they spend on schools is way too much to spend in the classroom. I am craving a Jim Doyle press release in which he tells voters that Wisconsin needs to keep spending 40% of its total school budgets on things that have nothing to do with educating kids.

More importantly, WEAC, the state’s largest teacher’s union, has registered its opposition to the bill (SB668). Now why would an organization that is supposed to improve the pay and benefits for teachers oppose a bill that would improve the pay and benefits for teachers?

Clearly, WEAC has made a determination that it is better to beg for more money rather than slice up the current pie differently. As long as they have been in existence, they simply have equated more total school funding with student achievement (although despite revenue caps on school districts being in place over a decade, Wisconsin is still tops in the nation in ACT scores). In this regard, WEAC actually has some solidarity with the School Boards Association and School Administrators Association, with whom they are often at odds.

However, this alliance has one downside – it spectacularly demonstrates that WEAC really doesn’t have the interests of its members at heart. All that nonsense about representing teachers is a complete fraud. WEAC is all about getting Democrats elected, and when a Republican-proposed bill comes along that will help their membership, they feign contempt for it, when their own members will be the ultimate losers. Passing the 65% solution now would be a big talking point for Republicans heading into the election, which WEAC couldn’t stomach, despite the benefits to its membership.

Remember when Republicans were pushing for teachers to have the option of entering the state health insurance pool? This budget provision would have had the effect of providing identical health insurance to teachers at a much lower cost to school districts, which could have pumped that money right back into higher teacher salaries or hiring more teachers (as current law requires they do). You may recall that 78% of school districts in the state are insured by WEA Trust, the private insurance arm of WEAC, on a no-competitive bidding basis.

Statistics show that health insurance premiums for contracts negotiated by the state’s Department of Employee Trust Funds rose at a significantly lower level than those premiums offered by WEA Trust (10.5% to 15%). In 2002, WEA Trust raised insurance premiums on its own members by 20.1% from 2001, while other state employers only saw a 12.4% increase. 2003 was even worse, with WEA Trust raising rates 30.4% on their members, while other state employee premiums increased by only 10%.

So why would WEAC be raising insurance rates on their own members? They simply wanted to force a crisis on the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) and really put the screws to school districts to lobby for its repeal. Since school districts that offer a QEO to their teachers by law cannot change their health insurance, WEA Trust has a monopoly on these districts and can raise rates on them as much as they want without fear of losing their business.

Of course, WEAC lobbied heavily against opening school district health insurance up to competitive bidding, and they got what they wanted in a Jim Doyle budget veto. So school districts will continue to pay more than they have to for health insurance to protect the union, thereby leaving less money for teacher salaries (incidentally, this pits older teachers that rely heavily on the health benefits against younger, healthier, teachers who would prefer the higher pay. Of course, it is usually the older teachers that are union activists).

Anyone who thinks WEAC is anything more than a partisan campaign machine is kidding themselves. When it comes down to partisanship versus helping their own members, they’ll throw teachers under the bus. Keep that in mind as they continue to oppose spending more money in the classroom.

People valiantly trying to improve relations among the races should really be peeved at this guy. In this one rap video, he has personally set race relations back 20 years.

There is so much wrong with this, I can’t even begin to describe it.

What would I ever do if I had friends that actually did any work?

Welcome to the world of cyberspace, where things might not always be what they seem. At least I hope that’s the case with a comment that I received on this post from last Friday.

The post, entitled “MPS Boys Score #1 in Nation on Female Anatomy Tests,” was an attempt to poke fun at the ridiculous new program in Milwaukee Public Schools that will provide free wireless internet to students and teachers in their homes. The picture accompanying the post featured two African-American boys doing what young boys of any color would do with free internet – looking at salacious websites.

It appears that “Art Hackett” had a problem with the post. In his comment, he wrote:

Warning: Severe rant ahead.

In my home state of Texas a dummied up photo like this would be the product of someone else who remained anonymous. Except they would hide under a pointy white hood instead of a sock puppet. The goal in that case would have been to get these two boys lynched. I presume your target is a school board member, the head of the state teacher’s union, or maybe some education professor. Lord knows the Milwaukee Public Schools have problems. But people of all political stripes have been trying to fix those problems with some success. But I’ve been looking at this photo for three days now and I just couldn’t stomach it any longer.

Art Hackett 04.23.06 – 6:05 pm #

Art Hackett, as none of you know, is a “reporter” who has worked for Wisconsin Public Television for 24 years, according to his bio. Now this being the internet, I have no idea whether it was actually Art Hackett who posted that comment or not. It’s perfectly possible that it’s someone with a grudge against Hackett trying to provoke me into going nuclear on him. I don’t really know, but I’m actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t post something so offensively stupid.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say Art Hackett really is that detached from reality. Let’s say that he thinks coming after me for a completely inoffensive, race-neutral joke post is more important than actually taking on the difficult issues that are killing MPS, like fatherless homes and gang violence.

First of all, someone needs to tell Hackett that MPS is 60% African-American, 20% Hispanic, and only about 16% caucasian. If he ever drove his little Prius to Milwaukee, he might know that. The truly strange thing would have been if I tried to represent typical MPS boys by using a picture of white kids, which apparently would have been just okay with him. How dare I ascribe the same characteristics to black kids that are inherent in every white kid? (I used to be a white kid; I know.)

Secondly, the post itself makes no mention of race, and ridicules the policy, not the students. When an idiotic policy to spend a half a million dollars in MPS to give students free internet, it doesn’t hurt white kids. It hurts minority kids, who, given the abysmal graduation rate in MPS, seem to need all the classroom resources they can get. But I guess the fact that I was advocating for a change to help African-American kids get a better hands-on education seems to Hackett that I was advocating their “lynching.”

Hackett, of course, is one of these lefties who is all for an honest debate on race until an honest debate actually occurs, in which case you’re a KKK member if you’re not on his side. He’s the type of guy who advocates for a color blind society, but sees race in everything. It makes him sleep better on his little publicly-funded pillow when he thinks he has the answers to racial inequity, when centuries of our best thinkers haven’t been able to come up with workable solutions. Isn’t it funny that you can be fired for being a racist, but get to keep your cozy public job when you go around falsely accusing people of being racists?

So I apologize if Hackett can’t “stomach” pictures of black people. Surely, he sent an angry e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel just today when they chose to run a picture of a 9-year old African-American student in an article about school choice.

That is, of course, if it is Art Hackett. I guess we’ll soon find out.

In the interest of helping Hackett overcome his fear of pictures of black people, I have decided to perform a public service and post a sample photo of one of my favorites.

UPDATE: It appears that Xoff has bought into this nonsense, too. Let’s just give all the lefties their sensitivity award and be done with it.

I also appreciate Dan Knauss’ spirited opposition to interracial relationships, as he is aware of “the history of fear and violence among white people incensed by any remotely sexual interest a black male might have in a white female.” I should probably call my African-American brother in law and tell him that he and my sister shouldn’t go out in public together because it might feed into a stereotype of dominant black sexuality. Maybe I should tell my biracial nephew that he’s the product of a relationship that offends sensitive liberals and feeds the hatred of bigots.

Of course, my choice of picture was completely arbitrary. Had I chosen a black woman, I would be accused of portraying black women in a negative light. Of course, he didn’t think my post about Russ Feingold boning Geena Davis was all that objectionable when he linked to it a couple of months ago (an it was, by any standard, more objectionable.)

Driving by the the west end of the UW-Madison Campus yesterday, I noticed a couple new businesses had moved into the space formerly inhabited by Luther’s Blues. Looks like there’s a Subway and a copy shop there now.

That particular location has always been cursed – there’s no parking, and it’s in a really awkward spot right in between two of Madison’s busiest city streets. It’s a game of Frogger just to get there. Way back in the day, there was a McDonald’s there that had to close down. Seriously, how often do you see a McDonald’s close? That’s how bad the location is.

So I don’t know if the owners of these two new businesses are aware of what they’re getting into, but they have a huge mountain to climb. They could be from out of town and think it’s a prime location without knowing how businesses turn over there every couple of months.

This is like Christmas dinner at your extended family’s house. There’s always the one new guy that shows up with your old, crazy, alcoholic, chain-smoking aunt. It’s no coincidence that she brings a different guy every holiday. You want to pull the guy to the side and tell him to get out now, but in some respects, he has to learn his own lesson. Plus, he might be the one guy that can finally stick with her. And if he is, we should send him to negotiate a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, because the man clearly has something special.

So I hope those new businesses are finally the ones that make an honest woman of that building, but I’m not holding my breath.

Completely wasted this weekend. Mostly dicking around with my guitar.

I am a terrible guitar player. Every now and then I pick it up, record about 10 little bits and pieces (never a whole song), then put it down for a few weeks. All of these pieces of songs will remain on my hard drive until I die, at which time they will be uncovered and embarrass me from the grave.

If you wish to torture your senses, feel free to listen here and here. Couple of mess-ups, but I generally think of these things, record them 5 minutes later, then never listen to them again. Song title suggestions are welcome.

I also watched “Dog Day Afternoon” on Friday night, since these are the important details about my life that you absolutely must know. Seemed topical, since Pacino’s character invokes the Attica prison riots (where police and corrections officers killed 40 inmates) to turn the crowd against the police on the scene. Seems to mirror the anti-cop sentiment in Milwaukee these days with the Jude beating verdict.

Milwaukee (AP) – Thanks to a new program that provides free wireless internet service in the homes of all Milwaukee Public School students, MPS boys have become instant experts in female anatomy, tests show. “The new program has provided previously disadvantaged boys the opportunity to develop their minds, their research skills, and the muscles in their right wrists,” said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos.

“At first, I thought I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, but now I know I can make a good living as a gynecologist,” said Herman Johnson, 11. Johnson’s mother has said that Herman now spends all of his time locked in his room, rather than partaking in his favorite hobby of throwing bricks at his brother.

Aaron Jenkins, 16, said his guidance counselor told him he was on track to earn his GED and get a good job in manufacturing before the new free internet program was instituted. “Now, it looks like I’ll have enough credits to earn my ‘Booty Inspector’ degree from an offshore school in just a couple weeks,” said Jenkins.

“The free wireless internet program is perfect for everyone, especially the poor who don’t even have computers,” said MPS director of technology James Davis. “Studies have shown that just having the internet hooked up to your house makes you much smarter than either reading books or having two parents,” said Davis. “It makes total sense to set up wireless internet for people who don’t even have enough money to pay for a phone line, and saying that doesn’t make me look like a complete idiot at all,” said Davis.

In an independent test, MPS boys were able to describe the female anatomy in great detail after just one week of having the valuable educational tool in their homes. However, only one in twelve boys were aware females had any body parts above the “shoulders” or below the “knees.” 96% of the boys thought women were born with high heels and cigarette burns, while another 80% of the boys believed they were going blind.

The test results come as good news to a school district besieged by one of the nation’s lowest graduation rates. “This is a half a million dollars well spent, given our tight budget,” said Andrekopoulos. “We tried the whole ‘teachers and books’ thing for a while, but it was hard because a lot of the students couldn’t read or write,” he said. “What’s the point in giving a kid a book if he can’t read it?” he added.

The only boy to score poorly on the test, of course, is your son, who has bookmarked Cher’s Wikipedia entry on your computer.

What a difference an election makes.

In 2003, legislative Republicans passed what they termed a “property tax freeze,” in an effort to keep slumping state revenue from being passed on to local taxpayers. As legislators were required to cut state spending (much of it that is allocated to local governments and school districts), they placed caps on local governments to make sure that the lost local revenue wasn’t made up for with property taxes.

Throughout the budget process, Doyle derided talk of a property tax freeze as a “gimmick,” and “bumper sticker politics.” When the bill came to his desk, he promptly vetoed all of the property tax caps, allowing local taxes to go up an average of 9%.

The following are some Doyle quotes relating to the 2003 freeze:

“The so-called ‘freeze’ was nothing more than a political gimmick — it was an arbitrary cap that did nothing to attack the root causes and help control costs,” Doyle said. “Instead of Madison telling local government what is best for them, I want to work as partners to solve the problem together.” – Capital Times, October 8, 2003

“But I believe there are enough people in the Legislature who, when confronted with the choice of whether they’re really going to attack public education in Wisconsin, are going to stand up for our kids.” – Capital Times, July 30, 2003

In a move that sets the stage for a major confrontation with the Republican controlled Legislature, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle today vetoed a plan to impose a three-year property tax freeze on local governments.Doyle called the proposal an “unfair and irresponsible mandate.” – Capital Times, July 24, 2003

After weeks of dismissing it as a “gimmick” and “bumper-sticker politics,” Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle is expected to veto a Republican plan to limit property tax increases when he signs the state budget today. – Wisconsin State Journal, July 24, 2003

“I think that’s just a political gimmick,” Doyle said of the freeze plan. – Wisconsin State Journal, June 4, 2004

The limits to state government spending, which Doyle derided as a “gimmick…” – The Daily Reporter, June 5, 2003

Fast forward to 2005. The state budget is once again being put together with limited funds and once again the Legislature is concerned about shifting the tax burden to property taxes. With an election looming in front of him, Doyle suddenly softens his rhetoric on the concept of a “freeze.” When the budget hits his desk, he utilizes a historically creative veto that guts the Republican plan, yet still maintains some levy limits on local governments. In a veto that looks like a game of “Scrabble,” Doyle cobbles together a sentence that gives his administration the ability to spend $400 million that the Legislature never intended on schools, and hails his signing of a “freeze.”

From 2005:

“This is one of the most significant property tax relief plans in the history of the state. With this freeze, we kept the faith with Wisconsin families,” Doyle said in a statement today. – The Capital Times, December 12, 2005

“The result of the freeze that I will sign will be that the average property tax on the average home will not go up at all next year, and will actually go down $5″ in December 2006, said Doyle, trying to defuse one of the most controversial issues looming in his re-election bid next year. – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 24, 2005.

So why was Doyle so hostile to the concept of a “freeze” in 2003, but so amenable to the idea in 2005? There are several possibilities, none of them mutually exclusive.

First, he wanted to co-opt the term “freeze” from the Republicans. He will now go into the 2006 elections bragging that he was the first governor ever to sign property tax limits, and that he did so without gutting those programs. The GOP can try to hit him for his 2003 veto, but he always has the 2005 freeze rhetoric in his back pocket.

In fact, in July of 2005, Doyle admitted as much:

“They’ve got a real problem here, because what I did was froze property taxes at the tightest limits in the history of the state and, unlike them, funded education so that our schools aren’t taking a tremendous beating,” Doyle said. In describing his plan, Doyle has made a point of noting some people’s property taxes will go up while others’ will go down. Yet he rejected suggestions that, by calling it a freeze, he was creating unrealistic expectations in the minds of property taxpayers.

The second reason he endorsed the freeze concept in 2005 was that the plan really wasn’t a “freeze” at all. In fact, Doyle’s veto essentially used one time funding as a giveaway to school districts, causing a significant structural deficit in the next biennium (although legislative Republicans aren’t exactly innocent on this count either). Doyle put school funding on a credit card to get himself through this election. But the bill comes due in 2007, and only higher taxes are going to bail him out.

In fact, when Doyle announced his vetoes, they were actually hailed by WEAC, the state’s largest teachers’ union. If there’s an endorsement any meaninful tax relief plan should not get, it is from WEAC. WEAC is to meaningful tax relief what Barry Bonds is to integrity.

This about-face isn’t unprecedented with Doyle. As a candidate for Governor, he said he believed the Governor shouldn’t have broad veto authority. When he actually became Governor, he magically changed his position. In his first term, he vetoed a bill that prevented people from suing restaurants for making them fat. Just last week, he signed the identical bill after being accused of being too cozy with trial attorneys.

It’s clear that Jim Doyle the Governor thinks very differently than Jim Doyle the candidate for Governor. Which one you get depends on what time of year it is.

In March, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a little-known bill (Assembly Bill 287) that would require two engineers to be present in the cab of a locomotive when it is moving. My guess is that trains have become more technologically advanced, so it is easier for one engineer to handle the duties, and train companies are streamlining their staffing accordingly.

Now this may look like a bill just to protect unionized train engineer jobs, but are you ever wrong. Apparently the engineers are shopping this pamphlet shows that with one engineer passengers are more susceptible to – TERRORISM.

From the Teamsters’ pamphlet:

In the wake of 9/11 and more recent bombing attacks in Madrid and London, the nation’s elected officials and law enforcement agencies are only beginning to understand the vulnerability of the nation’s rail network to terrorism…

Despite warnings from the FBI that the rail network is a likely target of al Qaeda, workers’ responses reveal a network where security efforts have largely been left to the discretion of rail corporations, whose primary interests appear to be guarding profit margins – not people.

So, for those keeping score:

2 unionized conductors: Terrorist-free

1 unionized conductor: Probable death.

Of course, unless both of those conductors are Jack Bauer, it doesn’t make any difference how many there are. I’d be surprised if they teach anti-terrorist Kung Fu at train conductor school. But thank the State Assembly for keeping the cost of riding the rail high when they mandate that you subsidize more rail employees with your ticket.

A story appeared today that is so ridiculous, it’s hard to believe anyone actually read it before giving it the green light. In this Tom Sheehan article, Governor Doyle’s Secretary of Tourism actually makes the argument that the tourism industry will suffer in Wisconsin if we pass the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. In fact, all the article accomplishes is that it demonstrates a need to drug test Doyle’s cabinet secretaries.

From the article:

While tourism officials don’t often jump into thorny political battles, the proposed taxpayer protection amendment and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage could crimp tourism, Holperin said…

The industry is in the early stages of assessing possible fallout from a gay marriage ban, said Deb Archer, chairwoman of the governor’s council and president and CEO of the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The amendment could send the message that Wisconsin is not a welcoming state, Archer said. She said Arizona faced boycotts after eliminating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday from the list of official state holidays a few years ago.

The gay marriage amendment could be troublesome for Wisconsin attractions hoping to appeal to people of many different backgrounds, especially from the Chicago area, Holperin said.“We’re dealing in symbolism as much as anything here. … In the larger sense, it says something about how welcoming our state is,” Holperin said.

The best thing for the tourism industry might be if Wisconsin voters buck the national trend and defeat the gay marriage ban, Holperin said.

Was Holperin being held hostage by the Gay Mafia when he made those comments? Being held in the basement of The Cardinal Bar, being forced to live only on water and tiramisu?

So tour groups and conventions are going to shun Wisconsin because we want to pass a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage which… is… already… illegal in Wisconsin? Are they instead going to take a stand and schedule their big conventions in the other 48 states where gay marriage is also illegal (isn’t it legal in Vermont?) I anxiously look forward to the NRA moving their 2006 convention out of Milwaukee because their membership demands more Pet Shop Boys memorabilia.

This is why the comparison to Arizona refusing to pass Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is so objectionable. At the time, Arizona was the last state to refuse to honor the civil rights giant, so boycotts from people of all races was justifiable. In this case, if you protest Wisconsin, where are you going to go? To such forward thinking places as Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, or every other state that doesn’t recognize gay marriage?

And I’m sorry, as much as the gay groups like to try to tie their case for civil rights to the plight of blacks, there isn’t any comparison in any way. African Americans are still struggling to overcome years of institutionalized slavery, yet gays and lesbians think they are entitled to ride the same “grievance train” because of where their genitals occasionally end up. I am anxious to visit the crime-ridden gay ghettos where people break into their own neighbors’ apartments to steal their divine Baked Alaska recipies.

Of course, this is all conjecture by gay marriage supporters. No statistics are offered, no evidence, nothing. They couldn’t even manufacture a gay couple from Illinois to say that they won’t come to Wisconsin because of the ban. Every state that has enacted some kind of gay marriage ban is doing just fine, tourism-wise. I doubt if Sheehan even considered asking for any kind of hard evidence, lest it ruin his ridiculous story.

In Sheehan’s next story, we’ll learn how a partial birth abortion ban will hurt tourism, as it will keep women in the process of delivering a child from visiting Wisconsin to have their half-born infant killed. Generally, these types of women spend a lot of money at local Subways and gift shops.

A couple of interesting e-mails today:

Wondering why no one was blogging on this stuff. Great story about bad political campaign contributions.

-Ken

Actually, Ken, that is exactly why campaigns release bad news on Friday afternoons – because nobody reads the Saturday papers and they hope stories like this slip by. Good to see my readers aren’t fooled by such cynical ploys.

Did Jim Doyle know he got a large campaign contribution from International Profit Associates? Probably not. When you’re pulling in a million bucks per reporting period, it’s impossible to know everything about every contributor, and if anyone knew anything, it would be the campaign staff and not Doyle himself. Trust me, as much as I would love to nail this to Doyle, I made this argument in a post defending Republicans, so I have to stick with it.

However, the return of this contribution brings up a good point. Doyle’s campaign gets a call from a reporter and that’s enough to return this money, but they continue to let the Adelman contribution fester like an open wound in their account (If they have returned it and I missed it, I’m sure someone will let me know). I know they are maintaining that there is nothing improper about the Adelman contribution, but federal investigators seem to disagree. For every day that money sits in his account, it’s like an in-kind contribution to Mark Green. In fact, if they ever tried to return the money, Green should beat up the mailman and steal the check.

With Lautenschlager, it’s a completely different story. She actually sent her office after these sleazebags on behalf of Wisconsin citizens. If anybody in the state should have known that these individuals were of questionable character, it should have been her. She’s probably making the right move to be defiant in returning the money, but why on earth would anyone on her campaign think accepting this contribution was a good idea? Especially when no criminal charges were ever brought? Doesn’t it kind of seem like a “thanks for not being tough on us” gift? Is she going to accept an in-kind contribution of a pack of smokes from Chai Vang?

As for Falk, we’ll see if Lautenschlager’s diversionary counter-charge sticks. My gut tells me the most you’re going to find on her is that a family of woochucks in Stoughton sent her a check in return for not cutting down the family tree or something.

E-mail #2:

The glass free Mifflin St Block Party Ordinance raises questions, at least to me. Admittedly, I’m old.

Does this mean that at Mifflin Street pot can only be smoked in joint form or from metal or wood pipes, not from glass pipes?

Don’t forget tip your waitress. Try the veal.

While this attempt to get his joke in a post was succesful, I actually do object to this ordinance. I’m not sure what line we crossed when local governments think it’s just fine to regulate the manner in which I legally consume a legal product, but I’m fairly certain we’re near the end of the world. Until I’m outraged by something else the City of Madison does, and I then declare the end of the world once again.

Just wait until they mandate open toed shoes for all city residents, and the earth does actually explode. Then I will be proven right. Of course, I will have been incinerated at the time, but clearly vindicated.

Great post by the guys over at GOP3.com detailing Terri McCormick’s spiral into irrelevance. McCormick is showing that she really doesn’t want to be in Congress, and there’s no reason to even mention her as a viable candidate against John Gard.

I really don’t have anything to add, since the post is so good. Check it out here.