Really good story by Jason Stein this weekend regarding all the gas price pandering at the state level (by both parties). Nice to have someone look skeptically at the information they’re fed – I think he used to be a business reporter, so he probably gets how market forces work. From the article:

But economists are panning most of these short-term solutions, saying there’s not much a state like Wisconsin can do about gas prices besides promote long-term solutions such as alternative fuels. What’s more, they said, taking steps to artificially lower fuel prices may actually send consumers the wrong message – that they can keep blithely guzzling gasoline without cutting back.

Exactly. (Disclaimer: I am biased pro-Stein, as he spent an hour interviewing me for this story.)

And in that vein, I dug up this column from UW-Superior Professor of Environmental and Cultural History Nicolaas Mink, in which he illustrates the long term benefits of higher gas prices. He says:

I hope gas prices climb higher.

While the $3-per-gallon threshold certainly makes many rethink (and perhaps even question) their suburban automotive escapades, gasoline selling at $4, $5 or $6 a gallon, as it does in Europe, would radically alter American habits, culture and society for the better.

This line of thinking was what I was trying to illustrate with this post. The Democratic Party as a political operation may be trying to squeeze some good publicity out of the gas price issue, but I believe honest liberal thinkers would support anything that causes cutbacks in consumption and more conservation. Even a good conservative thinker like Charles Krauthammer advocated for increasing gas taxes to keep the price artifically high. On this issue, I think the Democratic party apparatus is out of step with its base.

I know I’m waaaaaay late to the party on this, but I just watched March of the Penguins and I have now officially caught penguin fever (my man-crush on Morgan Freeman notwithstanding). If the purpose of the movie is to show much more evolved and mature penguins are than humans, it did its job for me.

The pro-life message of the movie, whether the filmmakers intended it or not, is unmistakable. In a society where female humans form entire associations to fight for their right terminate their unborn children, female penguins brave cold, starvation, and predators to make sure their eggs hatch. Some are so distraught about losing their unborn chicks, they try to steal them from other penguins (which has all the makings of a Lifetime movie starring Tracey Gold). Needless to say, there won’t be a National Association of Women Penguins.

Additionally, the male penguins take an incredibly active role in protecting the eggs from the elements. Virtually as soon as the eggs are hatched, the males take over the role of squatting on the eggs to protect them from the brutal cold, and stay on them for months while the females return to the ocean to feed. Contrast this to humans, where many fathers are out the door as soon as they can break free, if they’re ever tracked down at all. Needless to say, you will never see a penguin on the Maury Povich show getting a paternity test – they take care of their bidness.

I’m obviously not the first person to point this out – the Catholic organizations were all over this from the get-go. And the New York Times thinks the film is a conservative conspiracy. Although I can honestly say I would now rather have an emperor penguin living in my house than any New York Times correspondent.

So when it comes time for President Bush or his successor to pick a new Supreme Court justice, I’m hoping it is a penguin. Honestly, if the Republican presidential primary came down to John McCain versus an emperor penguin, I’d have a hard time choosing.

I can see it now:

When I first read Susan Lampert Smith’s column today, I rolled my eyes, as I do most of the time when I read “The Queen of Sensitivity.” In it, she advocates for a “day without gays,” in which gay people don’t show up for work, to mimic the “day without Latinos” rallies of a couple weeks ago. This is supposed to show how valuable gay people are to our every day lives, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But it dawned on me that this could actually be a fantastic idea, if only for the comedy and excitement it would present. You’d have legitimately sick guys from all over the state push, pull, and drag themselves into work to avoid being absent. There would be 100% attendance in offices statewide. You’d have men that get into car accidents on the way to work that would crawl out of their flaming cars, and drag their bloody stump of a leg all the way into the office to avoid missing work that day.

I can see a guy calling his elderly mother’s doctor:

“Yeah, Doc – I know she’s wheezing quite a bit, and she’s already gotten her last rites. But I really need you to prop her up for an extra day. If she says she’s heading towards the light, just feed her another Brandy Old Fashioned – she’ll be fine. I cannot miss work today!”

Some poor guy will take a little extra time getting into work to get his office donuts, and for a half hour his coworkers will be shaking their heads and saying things like “I knew the wife and four kids was just a show.”

Productivity would be off the charts. The economy would boom. The Dow would hit 20,000. The only business to really take a hit would be golf courses (they’d be empty). Of course, all those sick guys at work would probably cause some kind of viral epidemic that could wipe out the planet, but at least everyone would know they’re swingin’ for the right team.

On a more serious note, I think this might actually cause some tension in the gay community. I’m sure that there are some more strident gays and lesbians who resent other gays who choose to remain in the closet. You’d have a ton of closeted gays who would refuse to take part, which could cause a rift between them and the openly gay community. Not to mention all the effeminate straight people who will have co-workers come up to them and say, “Um…weren’t you supposed to be off today?” Awkward.

Finally, I was intrigued by the stereotypes Lampert-Smith uses in her column. Needless to say, if any right-wingers were to say gay people are hairdressers, wedding planners, caterers, and waiters, it would send the sensitivity police into a code red mobilization. But I guess as long as you advocate for their pet cause, stereotypes are acceptable. I just hope at some point she makes a list of aggrieved groups it is acceptable to paint with a broad brush and those that are not eligible.

My suggestion: “A Day Without Jim Doyle.” Suggested date: November 8th, 2006.

I have an apology to make. I’m gaining weight. You see, I have a reverse eating disorder – I actually think I’m a lot thinner than I am. For all I know, I could be one of those headless torsos they show on the news when they report that 75% of Americans are going to die of obesity within a year and I just don’t realize it.

I’m trying to do something about it, though. I’m busting my ass, dieting for over three hours a day. I figure a little exercise and a decent diet will keep my arteries from going on strike at some point.

But why would I actually want to lose weight? It’s not like I’ll look any better – that would take a magician, not a dietician. Everyone gets uglier after age 25, anyway. There are no exceptions to this rule. Think about it – who do you know that got better looking after 25? Nobody. (I win!) You can still be 30 and good looking, but there’s no way you are as good looking as you were when you were 24. Send me your pictures and I will scientifically verify this for you. There are some people that lose weight after age 25, but then everyone just remembers them as the “guy that used to be fat,” which doesn’t score you enough points to be worth the effort.

I could try wearing more flattering clothes, but I have no fashion sense at all. I know that when you’re fat, you’re supposed to layer clothing to draw the eye away from your “trouble areas,” but for that to work for me, I’d have to layer myself in an 8′x10′ oriental rug. I have also considered lighting bottle rockets and throwing them at people that approach me as a diversion, but I figure there may be small legal problems with that strategy. I figure I can just hire a really fat guy to walk next to me wherever I go. I’m often tempted to buy expensive clothes, but figure I won’t look good in them anyway, so I stick with my current well-worn shirts that only occasionally have both arms still attached.

It’s not like I’m out of shape. I hate lifting weights – they’re way too heavy. But I can actually run quite a bit. My only problem is actually doing it. My eating habits are terrible. It’s not like I even really need to diet – all I have to do is eat like a normal human being and not like a Tyrannosaurus after a Grateful Dead concert. I actually consider myself eating healthy when I go for the single whopper with cheese and mayo, rather than the double whopper.

Plus, I never really have any incentive to eat healthy. On days that I exercise (usually coincides with a lunar eclipse), I figure I can eat poorly. On days that I don’t exercise, I figure I’m not going to lose any weight that day anyway, and I eat crap. All roads lead to me smothering something in bacon or sour cream. I feel like anything I eat at home is automatically healthy, so I down a half a bag of pizza rolls and call it a win. If I actually eat a banana, I patiently wait at my door for someone to come and award me the Nobel Prize for health.

I actually have a pretty elaborate process for weighing myself. You should always get on the scale as soon as you wake up (you weigh less in the morning), while you’re naked (clothes are heavy), and before you shower (water adds about a pound). While this will make you happy to weigh less, it is problematic when you are trying out a new scale at Sears.

In medieval times, being portly was actually a sign of wealth. Unfortunately, that’s not currently the case, as I would be Bill Gates. I could buy the Brewers with one of my extra chins. This is in stark contrast to my younger days, when I could eat a hippopotamus and not gain a pound. Of course, this was news to the hippo, as he wasn’t dead yet.

I realized it had gotten bad when I was watching an NBA game and the announcer said one of the players had gotten the flu and lost ten pounds in two days. I’m ashamed to admit, that I actually got jealous. I mean, I’m surprised this dieting fad hasn’t caught on – who wouldn’t trade two days of sickness in for three months of dieting and working out? I immediately went down to State Street Brats bar and began licking the toilet.

There are studies that actually show that men put on “sympathy” weight when their wives are pregnant (when a woman gets pregnant, it is essentially a fetal declaration of war on her body. Pinochet was more forgiving). If this is actually the case, I am the Mother Teresa of sympathetic husbands. In fact, I blame my weight gain on the sympathy I have shown for victims of the Hindenburg, for the extinction of the Spotted Owl, and Katie Holmes. In fact, when my wife gave birth, I’m surprised the doctor didn’t point to me and say “you’re next.”

This is the summer, though, that I’m going to get healthy. It will be nice to be able to walk around and not have to hold my breath and try to suck my gut in. One of these days, a caravan of cheerleader buses will drive by me, and I’ll collapse, dead from lack of oxygen to the brain.

When I play with my daughter, I don’t want to keel over like Don Corleone in the orange garden. I figure the least I can do for her is make sure she has a dad around. Or at least stay alive long enough for her to pay my hospital bills when I do finally have my grabber.

So by now, you’ve all heard the story of Johnny Lechner, the “lovable loser,” who has spent twelve years at the UW-Whitewater. He’s been featured in both the state and national media, and was only marginally entertaining then.

Well, there he was this morning, on the front page of the state’s two largest newspapers (the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal), as he was announcing that he would be staying for a 13th year of college. Translation: he’s going to milk this thing for all it’s worth. Not to be outdone, the MJS is offering an online chat with Lechner.

We get it; he’s got a publicist and feels the need to “announce” things to keep his name in the news, since he is unqualified for anything other than being a media hound. If his goal is to keep embarrassing himself and the UW-Whitewater, he has been a resounding success.

It is shameful that the supposedly serious media in this state would continue its complicity in this charade. I hope they’re happy that they continue to be manipulated in the “Get Johnny Lechner Laid” sweepstakes.

I imagine his little stunt is less popular to the kids who legitimately want to go to college and succeed, and they probably resent his taking up a spot for someone who actually does want to go to college. Then again, if you can’t get into UW-Whitewater, you may want to consider the possibility that college may not be for you.

I’m too lazy to re-type my entire discussion with a buddy of mine about this week’s “24,” so I’ll just cut and paste what we had to say. There are spoilers in here, in case you haven’t watched it yet. My friend demanded to go by the name of Evil Grossmouth, the bad guy in this Wisconsin Dental Association comic book.

Dennis York: You’re right – 24 was outrageous.

DY: There wasn’t a single scene without a hole you could drive a truck though.

Evil Grossmouth: Was there not a 100% chance that the worm Miles was going to rat them out to the President? Anyone with a GED or a certificate from a welding college could have figured that out.

EG: That was where I lost it. And I love how Bierko’s henchman is driving the van taking him from CTU, and they give us no explanation how they set that up.

DY: So Jack risks the lives of 50 plane passengers to secure the recording, gets back to CTU, then promptly hands it over to Chloe to go see Audrey for 15 minutes.

DY: PLAY THE F—ING TAPE!

EG: Or better yet — MAKE A COPY OF IT. He gives it to her, doesn’t tell her to copy it, but tells her to “clean it up” And he tells her to work alone and let nobody near her and then you see her siting there working in a goddamned conference room?

DY: When he was on the plane, he was on the phone with CTU – why wouldn’t he play the tape for them over the phone? Then, if they got shot down, which he knows the president was trying to do, the evidence would survive.

EG: Also, to prevent the country from having to deal with the agony of a sitting president being charged with murder and treason, Logan decides to blow his own brains out? Yeah, that would have really prevented a scandal.

DY: And Mike Novek was already on the phone with the woman from CTU a couple times that day. All it would take would be for one of them to call each other during the plane incident, and everything would be cleared up.

DY: He would never think to call Jack? Or CTU?

DY: When he knows something is going on?

EG: The more I think about it, the more angry I get. Thanks a lot.

DY: Actually, the Bierko scene was one of the least outrageous to me. I was just thinking “Jesus, how many moles can there possibly be?”

EG: And none of the eight guards with him noticed him nod at the driver and the drive nod back? Nobody would have caught that?

DY: But when Jack left the recording to be with Audrey, who he had already been told was okay, I almost had an aneurysm.

DY: Or when Karen, Chloe, and Bill Buchanan are in the conference room and Karen decides she has to tell Miles what’s going on. Everything is going totally fine, and telling him would do absolutely no good, but could jeopardize the operation.

EG: Of course. He wouldn’t need to prepare anything to brief the AG about the president being a traitor and a murderer. Karen telling Miles was really the last straw for me. I almost turned the TV off there. I only kept it on because I was hoping against hope that she was luring him into the hallway so she could tell him she knew he was working with Logan and then stab him in the throat.

DY: I actually considered just not watching anymore after 21 hours.

EG: I thought about it too, but I can’t do that. It’s the same reason I’m sticking with Alias despite its awfulness — I’ve already invested enough time in the thing, I ought to see how it ends.

EG: I just hope they finally set 24 somewhere other than LA next season. Seriously, after the last five years, why would any president, government official or person ever go to LA?

DY: And, gee, what was the chance that Logan was going to get a call from someone right as he was about to kill himself? And I’m sure calls that come in to the retreat from a cell phone go right to him at 4 AM.

EG: That’s usually how it works. “Yes, I’d like to speak to the President. May I tell him who’s calling? My name is Miles. One moment please, sir.”

DY: “Please hold all calls except any unexpected calls I might get from people named Miles.”

Not exactly Pulitzer material, but I had to complain.

Lodi, Wisconsin (AP) – The much anticipated race for Wisconsin Klan Grand Dragon between Orville Hornblower and Herbert “Stumpy” Williams has turned into a contentious race, with each candidate accusing the other of not being sufficiently culturally ignorant.

In a race littered with charges, counter-charges, and broken English, Hornblower has vowed to take a hard line stance, while Stumpy has pitched himself as practicing a more family friendly brand of racial and religious hatred.

Williams introduced his four part”compassionate racism” platform to appeal to middle of the road Klansmen. “Under my plan, we would give people at least 60 seconds’ notice before we torch their house,” said Williams, who also vowed that biracial residents would only be harassed every other week.

Williams emphasized personal responsibility and a good work ethic. “I once lost a job down at the grain mill to a colored fella,” said Williams. “I didn’t get mad, though. It just made me work that much harder to burn his house down,” he said.

Williams believes he can find an audience by bringing racism home to the average American. “You know how when you’re at the grocery store and you really want a bag of Ruffles potato chips, and there’s only one bag left, and somebody grabs it right out from under your nose, even though you saw it first? It’s just like that, except the potato chips are taken by the blacks, Jews, and Catholics,” said Williams.

Meanwhile, Hornblower has called Williams a RINO (Racist in Name Only), and promised voters that he will reward them with truly vitriolic hatred of people of different religions and skin colors. “Racism really is a growth industry,” said Hornblower. “There are Armenians, Greeks, Brazilians… groups out there that we really have never thought about hating before. Hatred really can be a limitless endeavor under the right guidance,” said Hornblower. He also said he has evidence that Williams’ great aunt once got a footrub from an Eskimo.

Both candidates agreed, however, that images of black men and white women together should not be condemned. “Naw, that’s too hard core for me,” said Hornblower. “Anybody that’s uncomfortable with a public image depicting interracial affection is a little too extreme for the Klan,” said Williams.

Record turnout for the election is expected, but only if Hornblower gets his cocker spaniel to vote. Last year, the vote was tied 1-1, but Williams was disqualified, as he failed to spell his name correctly on the ballot. “I got a third grade education, and I ain’t afraid to show it off,” said Hornblower.

Madeline is a 58 year old single woman who lives on Milwaukee’s East Side. She’s a UWM psychology professor who gladly pays extra for a good cup of fair trade coffee. She volunteers at a local homeless shelter, helping people get back on their feet. Her Joan Baez records still speak to her. She didn’t think John Kerry reflected her views very well, but held her nose and voted for him anyway. Divorced for 20 years, she feeds her strong sense of self through her work and by continuing to raise her adult children.

Madeline walks to work, and takes the bus on the days it rains. She’s dismayed at how many people drive to work and school and strongly supports government investment in public transportation. She has contacted Mayor Barrett in support of light rail service. She supports increased gas prices because she knows that the higher gas prices go, the more people will be forced to find alternative modes of transportation. She knows that if gas rises to $4.00 per gallon, people who now drive to work alone will begin to be more creative with how they get around. They will begin to carpool or take the bus.

Also, she recognizes the benefit to the environment that high gas prices offer. The fewer miles people drive, the less gas tax will be collected, which means less road building. The fewer people drive, the cleaner the air will be, and the ozone layer won’t be damaged at the rate it is now. She sees protecting the environment as a moral choice, and supports anything that gets us closer to a cleaner earth, since current conservation efforts have been ineffective.

Madeline is concerned about lower income individuals having to pay more for gas, but believes the government can set up a program to direct help to the people that need it. Instead of sending money for a war she disagrees with, she thinks we can at least help out the poor with gas prices or pay for their public transportation.

Doug is a married 35 year old father of three who works at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. He joined the United Auto Workers union fresh out of tech school when he was 22, and has been working at the plant ever since. He has been an active UAW member because he believes the union gives him the job security he needs, and he desperately needs to keep his job to feed his family. He knows the union has fought for better health benefits, hours, and working conditions. He values all of these accomplishments, as he likes nothing more than spending time with his family, and there’s no way he could pay for his son’s braces without the benefits.

Doug knows that the plant in Janesville dodged a bullet last year when GM announced it was laying off 30,000 workers, but none in Janesville. He worries that the Janesville plant is so reliant on SUV’s, which use more gas than other GM vehicles. Doug knows that when gas prices rise sharply, people will be much more likely to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or hold off on buying a car altogether. When this is the case, GM’s profits will fall off even further, leading to even more substantial layoffs than the ones announced last year. He fears that he could be among those that lose their jobs.

Doug has also talked to union members in other trades that worry about the ripple effect that high gas prices have on their business. When gas prices go up, it costs more money to transport goods, and when the prices of those goods go up, fewer people will buy them. When profits from things like plumbing pipes, electrical wiring, and groceries go down, employers will either look to scale back benefits or move right to layoffs. Doug doesn’t want this to happen to him or any other union family that depends on their jobs.

———————————————————————–

While these are two hypothetical people, they are two very real points of view. While Republicans at the state and national level try to come up with a solution to high gas prices (they have to, they are in charge), Democrats have been relatively silent on the issue, other than to reflexively criticize whatever Republicans come up with.

Democrats have gone into PR overdrive with the gas price issue, offering “anti-gouging” legislation and criticizing oil companies’ “record” profits. A day hasn’t gone by over the last two weeks without a new Democrat plan or a politician threatening to send people to a ridiculous website to sign a petition to threaten oil companies into lowering prices (they could exert meaningful pressure by conserving their gas use, but apparently choose not to).

However, when you put politics aside, isn’t there a wing of the Democratic Party that actually doesn’t mind high gas prices? Don’t high gas prices promote conservation and smarter transportation options? On the other hand, don’t high gas prices line the pockets of big oil companies and sheiks with which we are at war?

Last week, the State Senate took up a bill (SB215) to repeal the state law that requires the price of gas to be increased by 9%, as it keeps small gas stations in business. There aren’t many things that can be done at the state level to keep gas prices down, but this is the biggest one. That 9% markup costs the average consumer between 25 and 30 cents per gallon when gas is at its current levels. Yet when a vote on the bill was taken, every Democrat except one voted to kill the bill. Despite all of their huffing and puffing about “gouging” and the effect of high gas prices on working families, Democrats completely whiffed on offering real relief.

So when you see Democrats decry high gas prices, you should wonder if it really is in their best interest to do so. Every “anti-gouging” press release is really an “anti-conservation” press release. It appears that the Democrats’ official position is that using as much gas as you want is a fundamental human right. The more you want gas, the less you should have to pay for it, environment be damned.

Are you Doug, or are you Madeline?

The wife and I went to the movies last night and saw the trailer for the new Jack Black movie “Nacho Libre.” I rarely like trailers, but I laughed so hard at this one, I can’t wait to see it. It will either be classic or an epic failure, since I have such high hopes.

You can watch the trailer here.

It’s about time the Journal Sentinel recognized the contributions of the true heroes of society. It is people like Rotation Slim that are out promoting real economic development (as well as contributing to the windfall profits of the syphilis ointment industry).

Slim was fond of whores; he had an affinity for them.

And who isn’t?

I love that they refer to him as a “retired pimp.” Is he collecting Pimp Social Security? Is there a retirement plan for that? When he needs his prescription drugs, does he go in, flash his pinky ring and cane the pharmacist?

So it all came to this. 11 votes, out of 33 State Senators. In the end, the TPA had about as much chance as a Boy Scout in Neverland Ranch.

Last night, the State Senate voted down two versions of the much discussed Taxpayer Protection Amendment to the constitution. The first version capped only state spending, which would have shifted the tax burden to the most hated tax in the state, the property tax. This version failed 12-20.

The second version was truly indicitave of what a disaster this process has become. They actually just threw up their hands and took a vote on the original piece of garbage that had been introduced in February, before people began pointing out its substantial unintended consequences and holes the size of Uranus. This was the version that disequalized school districts, that forbid the Miller Park district from paying off their bonds early, that included sewerage districts, that let the locals raise their property taxes to make up for lost state aid, and on and on and on. The senators that voted for this version couldn’t seriously have been voting for the details – they were simply making a statement that they supported TPA in some form. This version went down 11-21.

So ends a TPA process that has been a complete disaster from the beginning. If there were a bill that leadership on which was serious about building consensus, State Rep. Jeff Wood and State Senator Glenn Grothman would probably be the last two people you would call on to foster good legislative relations. Instead, they pitched an amendment in February riddled with problems, then began to publicly negotiate via press release. All the while, legislators were hesitant to say anything publicly or even come to the negotiating table, for fear they would be “outed” as a “RINO.” So in the end, the Legislature ended up with six or seven versions that never stood a chance, while the conservatives in the party were led along by the nose, being told that progress was being made. It took two years for the Legislature to completely shoot itself in the foot.

The only way that this process would have worked would have been to find consensus on a bill that had leadership’s buy-in. The amendment that was introduced should have been the one that passed. Instead, there was no serious attempt by leadership to work with legislators on anything that stood a chance.

So ends a shameful legislative session where the State Senate actually voted down bills in the last days of session that would have allowed the freedom to smoke in bars, eliminated government mandated gas gouging, and killed the one bill that mattered to conservatives (TPA). In the past, no bills ever came to the floor and failed. This session, it happened almost every day. Senate Republicans now head into the election with virtually no reason to vote for them and no consistent message.

The conservative voters in the GOP will be perplexed and distraught that the vote ended up the way it did. They support TPA in concept, and can’t understand why something can’t be passed to limit state and local revenue. Truth is, state government just has too many moving parts. It’s just not that easy to throw a wrench into an engine with a thousand moving parts and expect it to run. It would take analyzing the whole engine part by part, which would be so complex and detailed it couldn’t possibly be done in the constitution. But now it is time for all those legislators that kept telling us that keeping taxes low is their responsibility to step up to the plate. It is now the obligation of the taxpayers to hold these people accountable, to make sure that they weren’t just paying the voters lip service.

Somewhere last night, Mary Panzer opened a bottle of wine, sat back, and smiled. She held strong and refused to put her members through a torturous vote on a TABOR when she knew it couldn’t pass. While it killed her in her district, State Senate Republicans picked up a seat. We’ll see if they’re so lucky this time.

Anybody else think it was cool that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel made a point of mentioning that the Packers’ first round draft pick, A.J. Hawk, was a pro-war Republican?

I, for one, favor Republican linebackers. I would much rather have a linebacker that will knock a running back’s teeth out than one that will hold hands, sit down with him at the 35 yard line and talk about his childhood.

H/T In Effect

So does it make me a dork that I now snap my cell phone shut with a little extra vigor so I can be like Jack Bauer? It’s awesome – I want my friends to call me just so I can can hang up on them.

Never mind, I think I answered my own question.

Madison – The Exxon Tiger today ripped Governor Jim Doyle’s campaign, accusing him of gouging campaign contributors seeking state contracts. “Doyle makes obscene profits on the backs of average taxpayers, who have to pay for more expensive state contracts when a big donor writes a check,” said the Tiger.

According to Wisconsin Elections Board records, Doyle raised a total of $1.2 million from contributors between July 1 and December 31st of 2005, while spending only $421,000 to raise that money. Doyle’s $800,000 profit amounts to a 200% profit over those six months. For calendar year 2005, the profit is even more stunning. Records show that Doyle raised $2.6 million, while spending $654,000 to raise those funds for a total profit of 300% in 2005.

Doyle has recently been critical of oil companies’ quarterly profits of between eight and ten percent, holding press conferences even suggesting legislation to cap oil company profits, which he as Governor cannot even do. Doyle is apparently keenly aware of exactly how much money oil companies should make and spend on alternative fuel sources, oil exploration, infrastructure, and transportation.

The Tiger pointed to the Doyle Adminstration’s recent legal troubles as evidence of their overcharging for the privilege of providing state services. “Clearly, the Adelman Travel group was gouged – Doyle could have actually given them the state travel contract for free,” he said, pointing out that’s how government is generally supposed to work. “It took almost a million dollars for the Tribes to get a sweetheart deal that was so ridiculous, the state Supreme Court threw it out,” said the Tiger. “It would be nice to have a Governor that pays more attention to the taxpayers than he does his own windfall profits,” said the Tiger.

The Tiger also noted that the Wisconsin Retirement Fund invests heavily in – you guessed it – big oil companies. “Even if Doyle could do something about oil company profits, he would be damaging his core constituency – government employees,” said the Tiger. “If he is really that offended by oil companies, he could pull the state’s investments and cut retirement benefits to over 70,000 state employees,” he said.

“When the government takes 31 cents per gallon from you with the gas tax, it’s called ‘economic development,’ and when an oil company profits a lot less per gallon for providing the service to you, it’s called ‘gouging,” said the Tiger. The Tiger also called on the state to cease subsidizing Doyle’s campaign operations with taxpayer funded campaign trips.

The Tiger was reached while on vacation in Wisconsin Dells with his partner, Tony.

I admit, I use Wikipedia as much as anyone. It’s a quick way to get a Cliff’s Notes version of virtually any topic you want. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve linked to it on numerous occasions.

The downside, of course, is that in order for the site to house that much information, it has to be supplied by individuals that may or may not have a vested interest in the given topic. Anyone can go in and alter a Wikipedia entry, which opens up the possibility for malfeasance.

As a test, I decided to go check out the Wikipedia entries for a couple of local politicians. I first started with Mark Green, and almost fell out of my chair laughing at this entry:

Green, the son of Jeremy and Elizabeth Green, was raised in South Africa. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1983. After college, he joined the military but dropped out after five days of service.

Green served for six years in the Wisconsin State Assembly before being elected to the House in 1998. He was selected by Rep. Tom DeLay to serve as part of his political operation as an Assistant Majority Whip, a position he still holds.

Green and his wife, Susan, live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They have three children. Besides serving in Congress, Green also derives income through his ownership of several units of low income housing.

So according to Wikipedia, Mark Green is a draft-dodging slumlord joined at the hip to Tom DeLay. His entry, which some people actually might take seriously, has obviously been “massaged” by some dem operatives to become a hit piece against him.

Contrast that to Jim Doyle’s entry: (my emphasis in italics)

James Edward Doyle (born November 23, 1945) is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party. He took office in January 2003 as the 44th and current Governor of Wisconsin. He defeated incumbent Governor Scott McCallum by a margin of 45% to 41%, a plurality reduced by the relative success of a third party candidate, Ed Thompson, the Libertarian candidate.

There you go – your built-in excuse for why Doyle only got 45% – it was Ed Thompson’s fault!

Doyle attended Stanford University for three years, then returned home to Madison to finish his senior year at UW-Madison. After graduating from college and inspired by John F. Kennedy’s call to public service, Doyle worked as a teacher in Africa as part of the Peace Corps.

Blaaaaahhhhhhh…… (the sound of me barfing)

In 1972, Doyle earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Harvard University. Doyle then moved to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Chinle, Arizona, where he worked as an attorney in a federal legal services office.

It is on the reservation where Doyle formed a strong friendship with Chief Soft Money, who vowed to bankroll his campaigns henceforth.

Doyle was elected Wisconsin Attorney General in 1990, and reelected in 1994 and 1998. Between 1997-1998, he served as the president of the National
Association of Attorneys General. During his twelve years as Attorney General, Doyle was considered tough on crime, but not unsympathetic to its causes. He also gained recognition through several successful lawsuits against tobacco companies in
the state.

Governor McCallum inherited a state with a $2.8 billion budget deficit. In 2003, McCallum signed a budget-repair bill that traded most of a long-term return from the state’s $1.6 billion tobacco settlement for a one-time lump sum that fixed the deficit for a year but didn’t provide the necessary long-term solutions. He then spent all of the money in an attempt to balance the budget in under one year.

While McCallum didn’t cause the state’s deficit, he was accused of not creating long-term solutions for the state and poor decision making. Doyle seized McCallum’s faults and brought them to the surface in his 2002 campaign, accusing him of fiscal mismanagement.

With Doyle’s election, alongside Barbara Lawton, his Lieutenant Governor, nearly all of Wisconsin’s statewide offices are now held by Democrats. Both of the state’s U.S. Senators, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the State Attorney General and the Secretary of State are all Democrats. This was a blow to the state Republican party, which has long controlled the assembly and won the state senate the very night Doyle was elected governor.

As Governor, Doyle has made investing in public schools, support for regional economic development, transportation reform, and funding of scientific pursuits such as stem cell research his major programs. However, with a GOP-controlled state legislature, Doyle has had difficulties turning many of his plans into actions. Doyle has vetoed over 100 bills.

So there you have it – a ridiculous lit piece served up for the Doyle campaign via Wikipedia. After reading that, I demand a recount in last year’s Papal election – Jim Doyle is obviously infallible. It’s pretty clear Doyle’s campaign team took a while to write it, so it’s worth the read. Doyle cares for minorities, he sees both sides of the crime issue, the budget deficit is all the Republicans’ fault, etc.

I would just hope that someone at the GOP or Green campaign is paying attention and corrects a lot of this nonsense. In the end, it won’t make a bit of difference, but I demand to be entertained by the creative editing I expect to see over the next few months.

And if you needed any more evidence about how little credibility Wikipedia has, check out this entry for The Iron Sheik, and scroll all the way down to the bottom. No, a little further down. There you go – there it is.

UPDATE: It seems in the few hours since I posted this, someone removed my Iron Sheik post from the links on his Wikipedia site (it was there for a couple months). It was there, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

DOUBLE SECRET UPDATE: The same person who identified themselves as “Miss Piggy” in my comments section was the same person who removed my Iron Sheik post from the Wikipedia page (the IP addresses match). They believed it was a “political smear.” This, ironically, after they essentially called me a crybaby. Looks like it is back now, though – honestly, I don’t care if it is there or not.

Also looks like there is some action at the Doyle and Green pages. To keep up to date, check the “History” links for both Doyle and Green to see what people are adding and subtracting.