I know, I know – I’m supposed to be taking a break. But this one wrote itself.

Encouraging news for those suffering from Alzheimer’s today, and you’ll notice it has nothing to do with stem cells.

An experimental vaccine is showing promise against Alzheimer’s disease, reducing brain deposits that are blamed for the disorder. The deposits have been cut by between 15.5 percent and 38.5 percent in mice, with no major side effects, researchers said Monday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tests of the DNA-based vaccine are under way in monkeys, and if those are successful, testing in people could begin, perhaps within three years, said lead researcher Yoh Matsumoto of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience in Japan.

If all goes well, this type of treatment might be available for people in six or seven years, he said.

And the company that funded part of this scientific research? Novartis – which, by the way, is an evil pharmaceutical company. I know it may shock some of you that scientific research actually does take place outside the walls of the UW-Madison (the repository of all knowledge in the world), and good news like this is a blow to the Doyle Stem Cell Election Machine.

Interestingly, there’s really only one major impediment to this kind of groundbreaking research. That would be either capping the cost of pharmaceuticals, or allowing people to purchase drugs from Canada, which has price caps in place. The more people that take advantage of the price caps, the less money pharmaceutical companies will have to invest in potentially life-saving research. Want to make sure we never cure AIDS? Take away drug companies’ research and development budgets.

And, of course, it’s not completely altruistic – if Novartis can figure out a cure for Alzheimer’s, they stand to make a fortune. But wouldn’t it be best to have that cure in the first place? This is what makes our health care system the best in the world – profit motive forces companies to try new and creative research so they can ultimately benefit in the end. Take away the profit incentive, and the motive to cure diseases goes along with it.

Of course, you won’t hear any of this good news in Jim Doyle’s talking points, since it doesn’t fit the “Republicans want to kill granny” template. He’ll go on promising that stem cell research will cure everything from foot odor to decapitation, and ignoring the most promising research that might yield real results.

This is what happens when two panders collide. On the one hand, Doyle wants to promote cloning human embryos (which hasn’t been done successfully yet), as a cure for everything under the sun. Yet another of his policies actually damages the chance of real research taking place that already has measurable benefits.

And for all the lefties that think pharmaceutical companies are making too much profit, feel free to buy stock in those companies. If they’re really as profitable as you think, you’ll be able to afford that new Prius in no time.

Since I have reached the maximum number of posts the Bloggers Union allows before a mandatory break, I will be taking the next week or so off from posting. Actually, being on Jessica’s blogroll three times is just wearing me out.

In all honesty, as one loyal reader pointed out, I will be attempting to infiltrate the Doyle administration by posing as a gardener at the executive residence. I will be investigating a reported human cloning operation in the basement of the mansion – apparently, Doyle is trying to clone Craig Adelman 10 more times so he can raise another $100,000 for his campaign.

In my absence, feel free to keep hope alive by posting something interesting in the comments section of this post. You guys own this blog for a few days – don’t let me down.

Just some random musings for you suckers that came in to work on a June Friday:

I’m shocked that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. missile in Iraq. Wasn’t J.B. Van Hollen telling us he was living in a condo in Menomonee Falls?

What exactly does the phrase “prematurely balding” mean? At what age are you “supposed” to go bald? 30? 35? Can we have a ruling on this? Can a 35 year old guy say he’s going “prematurely gray?”

Have you ever been driving in your car, seen a fine lady far away, then said these words to yourself as you pull closer? “Please, God… don’t… be… thirteen… years… old… NO!!!! ICK!”

Good, neither have I. You passed the test. You have avoided a house call from John Mercure.

Last Sunday, Phil Brinkman wrote a story about the Georgia Thompson trial in which he quoted UW Law Professor Frank Tuerkheimer, who said, “The very fact that there’s a trial tells me that whatever pressure has been brought against her to name names hasn’t worked… I would infer that there are no names to name.” Of course, a quick check shows Tuerkheimer to be a Jim Doyle campaign donor. Nice unbiased source there backing his boy Doyle up.

If two anonymous bloggers have an argument, does it really exist at all?

On draft night, the Bucks are planning on unveiling new uniforms. They don’t even have to pay me for my great advice – a couple years ago, they wore some of the old Oscar Robertson era uniforms, and they couldn’t have looked better. I’m talking the old simple green and red bad boys. You can’t possibly go wrong with those. I’m telling you.

As much as I detest Barry Bonds, I agree any investigation into steroids should look at the whole picture. The first place would be to look at players who had statistically ridiculous seasons late in their careers: I nominate Greg Vaughn’s 50 home runs in 1998 with the Padres and Luis Gonzalez’ 57 home runs in 2001 with the Diamondbacks.

Dentists can actually tell whether you’re left or right handed based on what side of your mouth has more plaque. It’s true. In fact, I blame the fact that all my teeth have rotted out of my head on my lack of arms.

Would you perpetuate a cruel lie if it would help you win a political office? Would you give false hope to thousands of suffering families if it would help you raise cash for your campaign? If you answered “no,” you clearly aren’t Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle.

On Doyle’s campaign website, he has a special section devoted to stem cell research, where he says:

Science should never take a back seat to politics and we should never turn our back on the millions of families around the world affected by Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, spinal cord injuries and juvenile diabetes.

What Doyle doesn’t tell you is that stem cell research doesn’t have anything to do with Alzheimer’s. Good thing science isn’t taking a back seat to politics.

Following Ronald Reagan’s death in 2004, stem cell research emerged as a major issue, promising to solve diseases that affect our most vulnerable citizens. Lost in the excitement about what stem cells could do for us was a rational discussion about what stem cells can’t do. As it turns out, no amount of stem cell research would have helped Reagan. In June of 2004, the Washington Post reported:

But given the lack of any serious suggestion that stem cells themselves have practical potential to treat Alzheimer’s, the Reagan-inspired tidal wave of enthusiasm stands as an example of how easily a modest line of scientific inquiry can grow in the public mind to mythological proportions. It is a distortion that some admit is not being aggressively corrected by scientists.

“To start with, people need a fairy tale,” said Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “Maybe that’s unfair, but they need a story line that’s relatively simple to understand…”

In contrast to Parkinson’s, diabetes and spinal injuries, Alzheimer’s disease involves the loss of huge numbers and varieties of the brain’s 100 billion nerve cells — and countless connections, or synapses, among them. “The complex architecture of the brain, the fact that it’s a diffuse disease with neuronal loss in numerous places and with synaptic loss, all this is a problem” for any strategy involving cell replacement, said Huntington Potter, a brain researcher at the University of South Florida in Tampa and chief executive of the Johnnie B. Byrd Institute for Alzheimer’s Research.

Even Alzheimer’s advocates dismiss the applicability of stem cells in treatment:

“Stem cells, although they’re promising for other diseases, it’s not very likely practically that they’ll be used for Alzheimer’s disease, because the way stem cell replacement is practiced in clinical research is by surgically implanting stem cells into regions of the brain where there has been degeneration, and that’s fairly local in terms of Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s, but for the entire cerebral cortex you’re talking about making dozens of little holes in the skull,” says Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia (and member of the Alzheimer’s Association, a national nonprofit advocacy organization).

Sheldon L. Goldberg, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association, tells WebMD that few or none of the 800 or so grant applications for research funding received by the association this year have been for stem cell research.

In fact, physicians across the board don’t believe stem cells hold out any hope for Alzheimer’s patients, the way they do for Parkinson’s and other diseases. But don’t let that get in the way of medical expert Jim “Dr. Dollaz” Doyle, who needs to prey on the false hopes of Alzheimer’s patients and families in order to win re-election.

Just as sickening as Doyle’s malicious mistruths about the nature of stem cells is his naked politicization of such a complicated moral issue. Today, he issued a press release announcing he would be introduced at his party’s ultimate political event, the state Democratic convention, by a mother whose daughter has Type 1 Diabetes. Doyle actually announced today that he’s making stem cell research the centerpiece of his convention presentation. If Jim Doyle walked down Wisconsin Avenue handing out stem cells in exchange for homeless votes, it wouldn’t be as political as making the issue your convention theme.

This comes right on the heels of a report that the Doyle campaign is paying to advertise their support of stem cell research on internet search engines. People who go to Google searching for terms like “multiple sclerosis” or “stem cells” will find an advertisement from the Doyle campaign inviting them over to their website, where they can conveniently make a campaign contribution. In fact, the ad comes up if you search for “Alzheimer’s Disease,” which means his campaign included it as one of their key words.

So for those of you keeping score at home, “Science should never take a backseat to politics” is being pushed by the guy using key words like “stem cell” to RAISE MONEY FOR HIS CAMPAIGN.

Once at the site, you can learn all about how much money the state can make by encouraging stem cell research, and how evil Republicans are for trying to “criminalize” research. The moral detachment is stunning – it’s as if he’s trying to lure a Krispy Kreme franchise to Madison. Of course, it’s impossible that anybody has a legitimate opposition to cloning human embryos. If they do, it’s just “political.” He has yet to answer why the issue is such a big “political” winner for Republicans when 60% of Wisconsinites support the practice. Of course, one has to wonder how accurate a picture the public is getting when they rely on their governor for information.

The bill as passed by the Legislature, incidentally, didn’t prohibit stem cell research – it merely prohibited cloning human embryos for the purpose of killing them to harvest their stem cells. Existing embryos would still be available for research purposes. Someone might want to tell the Democrats that voted for the bill that they’re in the wrong party.

Does stem cell research have immense potential? Of course it does. The issue, however, is immensely complicated and has serious moral implications. It certainly doesn’t help when Wisconsin’s governor poisons the well with false information intended to boost his own election prospects. Any legitimate discussion of the issue recognizes the strengths of each side of the argument. Except, of course, when there’s campaign fundraising to do, in which case it is necessary to mislead and demonize.

Doyle’s lies about stem cells aren’t just run of the mill campaigning. They confuse the elderly and their families, and they coarsen the debate about a very serious moral issue. The politicization of the stem cell debate is truly beneath the contempt of any thinking individual. It appears that Doyle will keep up this despicable charade as long as human embryos don’t make campaign contributions.

Consensus opinion seems to be against the UW System for their proposal to raise in-state tuition while cutting nonresident tuition. While I understand the arguments that the UW System should serve Wisconsin students first, I actually (conditionally) think the plan might not be that bad of an idea. (I will explain in a subsequent post how anal warts actually make you a better Scrabble player.)

In 2005-06, in-state students pay $4,277 per year for tuition (at the non-Milwaukee/Madison schools). Out-of-staters pay $14,323 to go to the same schools, or more than three times as much as the in-staters. The UW has likely found that out of state tuition has reached a tipping point – when it reaches a certain level, out of state students stop coming, and take their nearly $15,000 with them (would you rack up $60,000 in debt to go to Platteville for four years?).

This hurts in-state students, as they are left to make up the difference through their tuition. It is actually in the in-state students’ best interest to have more out-of-state students in the system, since each out-of-stater pays for three in-staters to go to school.

The statistics from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau bear this out. According to the LFB, the non-Minnesota nonresidents make up 30.3% of the total students, yet pay in 60% of the total tuition at UW-Madison. For the entire UW system, non-Minnesota nonresidents makeup 19% of the undergrads, yet pay in 33.3% of the total tuition. So it’s clearly in everyone’s best interest to have more out-of-staters here to carry the tuition load.

My support of the plan is conditioned on two caveats (incidentally, my endorsement and $1.50 will get you a bus ride to Hilldale Mall). First, the new out-of-state students shouldn’t displace in-state students, as the UW has said they won’t. Secondly, the UW actually needs to take this new revenue from out-of-staters and use it to hold tuition down for in-state students, rather than just treating it as new revenue and going on as usual.

Nobody has made more fun of the UW than I, but I do think this could actually work if done correctly. It’s not as if the UW has built up the goodwill necessary for people to trust them on fiscal matters.

Of course, this timely post likely won’t be enough to sway the bloggers who have already ripped the plan. Stay tuned for more news from two weeks ago (I am actually 100% for the girl who ripped John McCain in her graduation speech, by the way).

I recently have started eating Froot Loops for breakfast. While I shovel them down, my daughter looks at them longingly, asking if she can have some. What’s ironic is that I have to explain to her that a cereal with a cartoon toucan on the box and that comes in neon colors is an “adult” cereal.

That also conjures up strange images of what “adult” cereal is – like, it comes wrapped in a paper bag and you have it sent to a P.O. box that your wife doesn’t know you have.

Also, the price that the readers have to pay for following this blog is that I get to brag incessantly about my daughter. The other day she drew a picture of Dwyane Wade for me that blows me away on many levels. First, that she’s starting to share some of my interests. Secondly, that she’s starting to draw actual things that she sees and understands. Thirdly, that you can be a complete dope and still be blessed with such a great child.

So without further ado, here’s the picture that your child was likely incapable of drawing:

El Paso, TX (AP) – With the second day of her federal trial for bid-rigging about to begin, former Wisconsin Department of Administration official Georgia Thompson was apprehended at the U.S/Mexico border. According to sources on the scene, Thompson recently read about how easy it was to escape U.S. law enforcement officials by fleeing across the southern border to Mexico.

Thompson’s plan was to fully immerse herself in the ways of Mexico, beginning by stealing the job of a well-paid American worker. Thompson believed assimilating her way into Latino culture wouldn’t be difficult, as she already had her last name in large letters on her car’s back windshield, and in 1983, she scored a #4 hit in Mexico as a member of Menudo.

Governor Jim Doyle, when reached for comment, said that Thompson was originally hired by the McCallum administration and didn’t have a political bone in her body. When it was pointed out that if she truly wasn’t political it means that she was told to rig the contract from someone higher up in the administration, Doyle mesmerized reporters by doing the detached thumb trick, then ran out of the room while the press tried to figure out how the hell he did it.

Earlier, Doyle dodged questions about whether he had hired an attorney to represent him in the proceedings. Doyle said that not only had he not hired an attorney, he didn’t know what an attorney was and even if he did, nobody had contributed enough to his campaign to earn the right to represent him.

Investigators first became suspicious when Adelman Travel was awarded the state travel contract, despite only providing travel via Golden Retriever. Thompson’s co-workers said she would always speak in code, saying things like “the buzzard flies without cigarettes,” “the walrus is eating the deodorant,” and “I don’t care how crappy Adelman is, they gave Doyle a lot of money, and he told me he’d kick my ass if they didn’t get the damn contract.”

Thompson was able to make the trip by receiving a “frequent liar” discount from Adelman Travel. It was believed that she was going to go by the name “Bernardo Neumann-Ortiz.” In her pocket was found a phone number for a “Gary Jorge,” believed to be living in a grass hut in Mazatlan.

Both fans of this site probably know that I tend to pack it in on Fridays and not post until the next week. But when I saw a quote from Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard in Wispolitics.com, I was moved to immediate action. Read this as if I was yelling it, or at least typing really loud.

Blanchard has filed a brief with the Dane County Circuit Court to have convicted former Speaker of the Assembly Scott Jensen held in custody pending appeal of his conviction of campaigning with state resources. The Wispolitics account includes this passage:

Blanchard also attempts to shoot down the claim that Jensen is entitled to the release because he was not convicted of a violent crime. He admits while the multiple counts of misconduct in public office don’t constitute personal violence, “(Jensen) did do violence to the trust necessary to a democratic system of government.” And Jensen’s attitude toward his offense makes him likely to recommit, Blanchard argues.

Recommit? He’s not in the Legislature anymore – where exactly is he going to recommit? As speaker of his daughter’s playgroup?

The more interesting portion of the filing deals with the idea of “violence.” Blanchard apparently isn’t embarrassed to make the case that Jensen did “violence” to democracy, and therefore serves as a threat to society.

Liberals like Blanchard constantly make the case that we shouldn’t have nonviolent criminals in jail. Yet somehow, we have a nonviolent criminal who is the former Republican Speaker of the Assembly, and he deserves to be behind bars? And to reconcile this obvious inconsistency, Blanchard makes an absolutely absurd attempt to define Jensen as “violent.”

And if this is an attempt to “send a message” to other legislators about the gravity of the crime, isn’t Blanchard now making a conservative argument? Isn’t this the point that right wingers have been making – that despite some offenders being “nonviolent,” that jail time can serve as a deterrent? Don’t drug dealers and check forgers “do violence to the trust” of our society?

So Scott Jensen is more of a threat to our public safety than a drug dealer? Am I going to have to lock my doors tonight because Scott Jensen might be outside my house threatening to print some campaign literature with state money?

One of Blanchard’s other arguments is that Jensen should be detained because it is unlikely he will win his appeal. Like Blanchard is going to go before the court and say “Judge, I did a really crappy job of prosecuting this case, and the evidence I presented was full of holes.” Of course he’s going to say Jensen is unlikely to win his appeal, because to do otherwise would be to impugn the veracity of his own prosecution. Is this even really a valid argument?

The only more ridiculous statement I remember a public official making this year was the crazy Madison alderwoman that supports banning chewing tobacco because it might get on someone’s infected foot. Of course, nobody will even question Blanchard’s rock solid reasoning on this, and the local paper will continue to hail him as a hero.

(Madison) – Local WKOW anchor Christa Dubill today announced that she would be accepting applications for a crazy person to become her personal stalker. Dubill expressed her irritation that nobody had yet come forward to serve as her stalker, despite her tenure as the station’s premier female news anchor.

“All of the groundbreaking female anchors throughout history have had some delusional individual on their tail,” said Dubill. “What’s wrong with me? I check my e-mail every day, and nothing. It’s all women wanting to talk about their babies and crap like that.”

“I work my tail off on the newscasts, and that hussy Elizabeth Hopkins gets all the good stalker mail,” Dubill complained. “It’s all ‘I want to touch your booty’ this, and ‘I want to test your melons’ that. Why doesn’t anyone want to touch my booty?” asked Dubill.

Hopkins admitted she has gotten plenty of stalker e-mail, but clarified that 72% of it is comprised offers to “love you down” by a “P. Barrows” at the University of Wisconsin.

Dubill noted that Channel 27 weatherman and stone-cold lover Bob Lindmeier has a bus full of adoring female fans waiting for him at the end of every broadcast. Lindmeier has said that he provides each member of his female fan club with the “4 minute guarantee.” His popularity has grown in recent years, since the weather forecast now takes up 28 minutes of a 30 minute news broadcast.

“What better story could there be than me hunting down my own stalker?” said Dubill. “I’m tired of sitting behind this desk reading all the dopey news that other people write for me,” she said. “This could be my big break,” she said.

A controversy arose recently when Channel 3 editoral director Neil Heinen was bragging about his stalker, and it was discovered that “chubbyluvn3000@hotmail.com” was actually Heinen sending e-mails to himself. The plot was uncovered when police failed to believe than anyone other than Heinen himself could understand his ridiculously disjointed, hot air editorials.

Potential stalker Oscar Kreutzer, 27, when reached in his parents’ basement for comment, said he’s been too busy making paper mache dolls of Becky Hiller to be sidetracked.

There can be no better example of media arrogance than Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal story on the state’s open records law. I have actually come to be a fan of Phil Brinkman’s stories, but this condescending piece perfectly illustrates the contempt with which print media view the political process.

First of all, the article begins with:

Several former lawmakers have been ordered to jail for using state employees to work on political campaigns. But across Wisconsin government, public employees are still openly engaging in campaign work on state time and with state resources.

It is now officially a standing rule at the State Journal that every writer must begin their articles with that sentence, whether it actually pertains to the story or not. I’m actually fully expecting to see an article that begins:

“Several former lawmakers have been ordered to jail for using state employees to work on political campaigns. But after giving up five runs in the bottom of the third, the Brewers pulled pitcher Jose de la Rosa from Thursday’s game against Pittsburgh.”

The rest of the article goes on to describe the open records process, which is used heavily by media outlets to obtain information that they use to write their articles about government and politics. Throughout the years, newspapers have been rabid defenders of the open records process, to make sure they have full access to the most amount of information. In fact, Brinkman recently devoted a whole article to describing how heroic his paper was for their open records prowess. He likely now has a better parking spot at work as a result.

But what the article “discovers” is that – gasp! – actual real people might be taking advantage of the open records process as well. And this might include political campaigns, who use the information to – now get this – actually debate topics.

This completely confuses the State Journal, as they think they have cornered the market on what open records can and can’t be used for. Do an open records request for a story, and it’s legitimate. Do an open records request to find out whether Jim Doyle is selling off state contracts, and suddenly it’s “digging up political dirt.”

This fits perfectly with the print media’s distaste for the political process in general. In fact, the State Journal doesn’t even conceal its full-blown cheerleading for any number of campaign finance reform measures that generally limit fundraising and issue advocacy (otherwise known as political speech). When citizens and candidates don’t have the resources to tell their side of the story, guess who gets to be the predominant voice in the political process? That’s right – the newspapers, just the way they want it.

The open records law is a tool that can be used by anyone, for whatever reason they want. The law allows average citizens to hold their elected officials accountable, even if it has to be through politics. And it is a law that will help prevent the next “caucus scandal,” which means the State Journal will have to win its coveted awards covering something else.

Given Dwyane Wade’s ascendance to the top of the basketball world, I thought I’d look back at his beginnings as a Marquette Warrior, just to see how far he’s come.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, November 2, 1999 (his first mention):

It was really quite simple. Dwayne Wade telephoned his longtime Illinois Warriors teammate from Amateur Athletic Union basketball, Odartey Blankson, and together they reached the same conclusion. Marquette University was the school for both of them. So together, they made a three-way call to Tom Crean late Monday night to give him the news.

As a result, the Golden Eagles received their final two oral commitments from Wade, a 6-foot-4 guard from Oak Lawn Richards High School in suburban Chicago, and Blankson, a 6-6 guard from Hillcrest High, also in suburban Chicago. Wade and Blankson round out an MU recruiting class for next season that includes 6-9 center Scott Merritt of Wauwatosa East and 6-7 forward Terry Sanders, a former Milwaukee Vincent player now at Hargrave Military Prep School in Virginia.

Both Blankson and Wade, who have played with or against each other since the eighth grade, said they were being pursued by Marquette’s Conference USA rival De Paul. But both opted for Marquette because they liked the persistence of first-year coach Crean, the chance to play at the Bradley Center and the opportunity to work out against the Milwaukee Bucks in the off-season during open gym. “I like the situation at Marquette,” Blankson said. “Crean is really energetic. I know he is going to get it done.”Blankson had been recruited by former MU coach Mike Deane and also by Notre Dame and Iowa State.

De Paul wanted Wade badly, and he liked the program and its players.”But I felt I could fit in at Marquette better,” Wade said. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Marquette is really trying to recruit good people.”

Wade averaged 20 points at Richards, which made it to the Class AA sectional finals. He set a school record with 87 steals last season.

Illinois prep basketball star Dwyane Wade has made an oral commitment to play at Marquette University next year. His name was spelled incorrectly in a story in the Sports section Tuesday.

MARQUETTE’S TROPHY CATCH; Golden Eagles lure Wade from De Paul’s grip
LORI NICKEL of the Journal Sentinel staff

Oak Lawn, Ill.– It’s good business to have Quentin Richardson serve as your leading scorer, rebounder and big buddy for recruits, especially when he’s the hero for so many Chicago-area hopefuls who are suddenly turned on by De Paul.

But even Richardson’s charm couldn’t reel in Oak Lawn Richards star Dwyane Wade. Wade wasn’t wooed by the promise of playing time by the Blue Demons. He wasn’t persuaded by his coach at Richards, Jack Fitzgerald, who is good friends with De Paul women’s coach Doug Bruno. He wasn’t even convinced by Richards assistant coach Gary Adams, once Richardson’s grammar school coach, to stay at home. “I went somewhere I felt the coaches wanted me and the teammates wanted me,” Wade
said.

So he signed the letter of intent to play at Marquette.”De Paul really didn’t jump on me as hard as Marquette did,” Wade said. “I talked to all the Marquette coaches almost every other day. De Paul kind of laid off me a little bit, then they came back. They were playing tag with me.”Of Marquette’s four-man recruiting class expected to arrive next fall, Wade was the sleeper given his advanced skills and impressive on-court attitude. He wasn’t in any recruiting expert’s top 100 class a year ago. But it’s obvious now what a find he was for Marquette coach Tom Crean.

Wade averages 27 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and five steals per game, partly because he is the star for Richards (21-4, 10-0 in the SICA North Conference). But he also hustles whether the Bulldogs are up by one point or 20. The Marquette coaching staff will fall in love with his backboard radar. He is always going after the boards and he has huge hands for scooping up rebounds, especially offensive ones.”I
know (those are) easy points. I watch Quentin Richardson do it all the time,” Wade said.

At 6 feet 4 inches, he can jump, so he can play on the blocks. He’s versatile enough to play the point when teams try to trap Richards’ small point guard. Yet Wade might be only a partial qualifier next year. If he doesn’t get the necessary standardized test scores, he will be limited to just practice next season.”I understand what the colleges are doing with this ACT stuff,” Fitzgerald said. “But if there’s any reason why standards should not be what they are, he’s the reason. He came from a very, very poor grammar school elementary district (in Crestwood, Ill.).”He’s worked hard to improve himself in every area, and yet he’s maybe not going to be able to play basketball next year. He could cut it in any curriculum, with the exception of maybe the Ivy League schools, you know what I am saying? You talk to any teacher on this staff and they love him. He comes to school every day, he’s working hard.”I feel bad
that he is in that situation. That he could possibly be labeled a Prop 48 every time he takes a free throw, I think it’s sad and I think it’s ridiculous, and I’m resentful of it.”

Wade took the ACT recently and will keep taking it. He is the only one in the Marquette recruiting class who presents a concern for qualifying. Scott Merritt of Wauwatosa East and Odartey Blankson of Hillcrest High in Country Club Hills, Ill., already have qualified, and Terry Sanders of Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., said he was very close.

Wade met future teammate Blankson at the Blue Island recreation center in Illinois, and they called Crean together back in the fall to tell him they were both signing on. Blankson’s Hillcrest High was one of the few to defeat Richards this year. Wade’s only limitation has been his knees, which have been painful because, he said, he is having growing pains. His jump shot needs work to become consistent, as well. Wade was 3 for 22 in one game this season, although he still came away with 15 points and 10 rebounds.”He’s kind of a streaky shooter,” Fitzgerald said. “He either hits it or he clangs it.”Every day last summer, Adams, a retired public schools teacher, picked up Wade and brought him to the hot gym for 500 to 600 shots a day. Wade scored 48 points in a morning semifinal game of the St. Xavier Christmas tournament. Then in the evening finals that same day, he scored 41.”I was hot,” Wade said with a laugh. “That was the day Marquette came to the game, too.”

Wade was named the player of the month by the Chicago Tribune for January and has led the Bulldogs to a top-15 ranking in both the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times. He is also getting Chicago player of the year consideration.

Yesterday, the Wisconsin State Journal announced in a front page, above the fold headline that recently convicted legislators may be able to collect the pensions that they had accrued during years of service. Today, in the most predictable editorial ever, the State Journal makes the shocking claim that they oppose these legislators being able to collect their pensions, something that was inherently clear given the story the day before.

Set aside, for a moment, the likely unconstitutionality of yanking these pensions away from the elected officials, regardless of how little they actually deserve them. Does the State Journal really want to set the precedent of pulling away benefits from workers who they believe don’t deserve them, but have rightfully earned them over years of service? If a State Journal editor signed up for a job with a retirement benefit agreement in place, then worked for 20 years before being caught soliciting minors on the internet, would they think it was fair to have to give back 20 years of benefits? I doubt it.

What is noticeable about this editorial, however, is how often a paper will do some “investigative” journalism that is supposed to get a reader to think a certain way about an issue, then immediately follow up that story with an editorial that perfectly echoes the sentiment of the preceding article. In fact, in some cases, you have to wonder whether the editorial was actually written first, and they needed the story to give their opinion some cover.

For example:

On March 21st of 2006, Steve Walters of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote an article informing readers that the legal bills of the convicted legislators would be paid for with tax money (something that had been known for about four years.) On March 22nd, an editorial appeared in the Journal Sentinel denouncing the practice of paying legal bills with tax money.

On April 13th of 2006, Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel wrote an article critical of legislators for exploiting a 30 year old law that allows them to toss their records when they leave office. On April 17th, the editorial board printed an editorial supporting the view that you were supposed to get from Marley’s article that something untoward was afoot. In fact, the Wisconsin State Journal even jumped in the fray, criticizing the law and the legislators. Perhaps their vitriol is merely embarrassment for being the official state newspaper and clearly not knowing this law existed for 30 years.

On December 26th of 2005, the Journal Sentinel printed a story about State Senators voting by what are known as “paper ballots.” Despite this being a virtually uncontested practice for 30 years, the article was clearly trying to get the reader to think this was some sinister plot to keep votes away from the public (despite the results of the voting being public record). Sure enough, on December 28th, the Journal Sentinel editorial board denounced this practice of “secret” voting.

Of course, editorial boards can feel free to editorialize about anything they want. But in these cases, and many, many, more, their editorials are clearly companion pieces to their supposedly neutral news articles. It lends the appearance that many times, they have made up their mind on certain practices or stories before the news is even written.

It’s not even as if some of the things for which they advocate are even bad ideas. But it’s pretty clear that they are advocating in their news articles, then using their editorials to drive their point home. Maybe their reporters appreciate getting backup from their editorial boards. Maybe they try to keep the story alive for a couple more days with an editorial. But this happens time after time after time, which leaves many readers wondering whether there truly is a bright line between the news and editorial departments. An editorial board shaping the content of the news department would certainly run counter to the mission of any legitimate newspaper.