At first, I thought the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s story on people addicted to suntanning was a little goofy. But then I saw the picture accompanying the article, and appreciated it in a whole new way.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s front page story will be a hard-hitting investigative report on the scourge of cheerleader car washes.

Last week, the University of Wisconsin Digital Library posted the content of all the state’s Blue Books, dating back to 1853.  As you may know, the Blue Book is the official Wisconsin Almanac of all things political, industrial, agricultural, and social.  Needless to say, they are a gold mine of information about our history.

Most noticably, Blue Books carry really interesting historical information about Wisconsin’s elected officials.  Naturally, photos are included.  Here are some photos from some notable and some not-so notable of Wisconsin’s past representatives:

In Wisconsin government, the early ’90s will best be known for school finance reform and horrific legislative hair – as evidenced by two neighboring Assembly representatives who went on to serve as Attorney General and Senate Majority leader, respectively:

Â

The 1944-50 period saw the introduction to the Legislature of two future heavyweights in Wisconsin politics, Warren Knowles and Gaylord Nelson:

That time period also saw the introduction of a future Wisconsin Governor and a mother of a future Wisconsin Governor, who also happened to be the wife of a gubernatorial candidate. Patrick Lucey and Ruth Bachhuber Doyle represented adjacent Assembly districts in 1950:

“The Freshman Assembly Class of 1956 would like to welcome Fred Risser, who surely is well on his way to bigger and better things in the near future.”

Other photos of note:

Clement Zablocki isn’t voting for your damn bill, and there’s nothing you can say about it, hippie.

In 1944, Senator Taylor Brown perfected the “Gumby” style of hairdo, which would be passed down to his namesake Bobby Brown in 1989:

Progressive Representative William Foley wasn’t afraid to represent how they rolled in Superior in 1944:

In 1944, the Legislature was primarily a club for white men, as they had not started electing those pesky women and minorities.  One notable exception was Margaret Varda from Iron County – it appears in this series of photos that her two neighboring Assemblymen are actually looking at her and expressing their disdain.  Almost a “who brought the woman to our poker game?” type of look:

All these photos and other tidbits can be found at the Blue Book archive list.  It’s worth your time.

I always promised some of my friends that if I ever went public with my blog, that I’d give them a little free advertising. So here goes:

For the best cup of coffee in Madison, head over to Indie Coffee on Regent Street and say hi to JJ and Barrett. Get yourself a waffle and a cup of coffee and mooch off their wireless internet.

In fact, they also have live shows by national acts there from time to time, and they’re usually free. There’s a Portland, Oregon band named Horse Feathers that I had in my Top 5 CDs of the year list last year, and they’re going to be at Indie this Thursday night at 8. I’m fired up for the show, and it’s free-ninety nine.

So come on down, enjoy some coffee and tunes, and know that you’re sticking it to Halliburton in the process.

Also, until now I’ve been afraid to say anything, but I noticed that you’ve been putting on a little weight. Fortunately for you, I have the perfect remedy – grab yourself a Piladio video from my former co-worker Valerie, who left our office on a mission to give you rock hard abs. It’s a mix of pilates and cardio, and it guarantees that you will never look like me (I have offered to be the “before” model in her next commercial).

For a preview, click here – and be prepared to drop a few pounds just by watching the video.

And finally, a buddy of mine told me about Lala.com, which is a service that allows you to trade CDs via mail with people across the country. If you have CDs piling up that you never listen to, you can trade them for CDs that you want for $1.75 per disc (75 cents of that is postage).

Basically, you go on line and list the CDs you want to get rid of. If someone has requested one of them, you ship it to them in the prepaid envelopes they give you and get credit for one CD. Then, when someone has a disc you want, they ship it to you. Pretty simple, and you can’t beat the price.

So there you go – the economy’s humming along, so you have the money to spend. What else are you going to spend it on – going to see a movie about having sex with horses?

(An irrefutable argument – I should have gone to law school.)

If you were questioning the value of the new Sundance Theater here in Madison, a new movie showing there should put those concerns to rest. According to the synopsis of the movie “Zoo,” it is “a look at the life of a Seattle man who died as a result of an unusual encounter with a horse.”

Ummm….that “unusual” encounter with a horse happens to be him having sex with the horse. I’ve had many “unusal” encounters with women, and sadly few of them ended with sex (they usually end with her calling the Dairy Queen manager to get me out of the store). I suppose sex with a horse isn’t unusual… if you happen to be another horse. However, there’s not much change of horses going to this movie, seeing as how they refuse to pay $4.50 for popcorn.

Oh yeah, and it’s got a guy banging a horse.

Final thought: Did he have to buy the horse dinner? Oats and an apple is pretty cheap. “Is that a carrot in your pocket?”

I was too busy drinking on Saturday night to express my feelings about the state of the Brewers’ season, so one of my good friends did so for me:

Mark the date and time. Saturday, June 9, 2007. 10:16 pm. The Milwaukee Brewers are mentally destroyed and their playoff hopes are dashed. Yeah, yeah, the Cubs lost too and we’re still five games up and we play in baseball’s worst division. Nope, its over. This is a mental nut-punch from Mike Tyson wearing brass knuckles. Wouldn’t be surprised if the franchise never wins another game.

I hope I have this email rubbed in my face three months from now as the Brewers are wrapping up a division title and Prince is clearing space on his mantle for an MVP trophy, but I’m terrified that tonight was one of those crucial games that will haunt this team; probably forever.

My buddy Mike, when commenting on Paris Hilton’s revelation to Barbara Walters that she’s suddenly become religious in prison:

“Paris Hilton finds God. Then gives him crabs.”

My wife took our daughter to Milwaukee for the day today, leaving me and Cole. Needless to say, there was a lot of this going on:

There’s also a rumor going around that he got to eat a pop tart for dinner. Let’s just keep that one between you and me.

I don’t even know if there’s really a joke here, but this video is instructive…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwgvfp3jlvc]

This kid seems to be the most depressed masturbator ever. It looks like he’s thinking about 9-11 while he’s strangling the ostrich. And couldn’t the mom spring for a magazine, as long as she’s that open minded about the whole deal?

Yet another reason for teenage boys to lock themselves in the bathroom with hand sanitizer:

Instant hand sanitizers have grown in popularity, but there may be reason to keep some of them away from your kids. In a 27 News Parenting Project Medical Alert, there have been recent cases where children have gotten sick from ingesting hand sanitizer. The problem is, many popular brands have very high levels of alcohol…some more than 60-percent which translates to 120 proof.

Is that why after I wash my son’s hands, he orders a pizza and starts calling all the one year old girls in the neighborhood?

I actually feel sorry for Lindsay Lohan now – it’s not that she goes out and gets bombed and crashes her car on purpose, it’s just that she has really dirty hands.

A friend of mine in the Legislature dug up this little historical tidbit:

In 1945, the Wisconsin Legislature actually had an official mascot – Trooper was a male German Shepherd seeing-eye dog who was made the official legislative mascot by 1945 Joint Resolution 80.  Trooper even got his own picture in the state’s “Blue Book,” which is the biennial almanac of state government.  Here it is:

In 2003, when I was working in the Legislature on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), a co-worker of mine and I decided that TABOR really needed a mascot to really give it the momentum it needed. We picked an alligator with sunglasses, which, of course, is the universal symbol of fiscal restraint. Sadly, the cartoon alligator wasn’t enough to convince the Legislature to pass the constitutional amendment.Â

Of course, this leads one to wonder what an appropriate mascot for the 2007 legislature should be. Feel free to comment with suggestions. Here’s my first crack at it:

The other day, a friend of mine sent me this video. I’ll give you a couple minutes to watch as much as you can.

Okay, all done?

Yes, that is the new Avril Lavigne video for her song “Girlfriend.” I found this all disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that my friend is an Avril Lavigne fan. (In fact, see my previous posts for proof that Canada is secretly taking over our country.)

First of all, from what I could tell by looking her up, Avril Lavigne is 23 years old. In this video, however, she looks like she could be 15. I feel like after watching it, I am now going to have to report my new address to the Department of Corrections every time I move.

But what’s really odd about it is how it reflects the new ethos among American teenage girls. This makes me seem really old, but I actually remember the days where boys were the ones that actually did the chasing and the girls were the ones who showed some sort of discretion in picking who to “date” (if that term still even exists).

Back in my high school years, it was the days of girls wearing big sweaters and stirrup pants. Modesty actually was still considered somewhat of a virtue. The drill was pretty well set: I asked girls out, and they said no. Girls as aggressors didn’t really happen. It was the natural balance of the universe. (I am, of course, blaming the fact that I could never get a date on cultural factors, rather than the fact that I was a zitty geek. In fact, I asked the same girl to the homecoming dance for four straight years – she said no the first three, then finally relented our senior year.)

This even leads to a broader point about “female empowerment,” even if it is at the high school level. Why does “feminism” usually mean “women being as boorish as men?” If we’re truly after equality between the sexes, why does that necessarily mean we need to accept women doing all the obnoxious stuff men do? Couldn’t we also attain some level of egalitarianism by expecting better behavior by men?

It just seems that if we’re looking to level the playing field, we should be expecting more of people, not less. I don’t know of anybody who would look at the problems of the world and decide that what we need is more people acting like frat guys.

And…. scene.

Clip 1:

It’s Business Time

H/T: DD

Clip 2:

Possibly the funniest fight scene ever recorded:

H/T: Sports Guy

For those of you that use newsreaders, I’ve changed my feed. You can now access it at:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/atomictrousers

Otherwise, just click on the feed icon on the right side of the page.

I’m not even sure what this all means, or why I’m doing it.

One thing struck me about the National Spelling Bee last night – there were three Canadian spellers in the finals. Who let all these immigrants into our spelling bee? Isn’t it the NATIONAL spelling bee? Are these kids from Canada willing to spell words that our American kinds aren’t?

According to the Washington Post:

The 80th annual bee began Wednesday with nearly 300 students traveling from across the country; some also came from Europe, Guam, Jamaica, American Samoa and New Zealand. Three finalists were from Canada.

First of all, kids from Canada on average are smarter merely because Paris Hilton doesn’t live in their country. That raises the Canadian national IQ by about 10 points per person. Secondly, Canada is secretly plotting to take over America’s most sacred institutions. You think it’s just coincidence that Steve Nash won two straight MVP awards? If we don’t fight them now, your kids will be speaking Canadian.

On the other hand, this influx of immigrant spellers could provide Scripps-Howard with a valuable marketing opportunity if they play their cards right. They could set it up like the old WWF, where the Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik come on and insult Americans before they do their spelling. Can you imagine the tension when the kid from Al-Qaeda stands up, spells “quixotic,” and wishes death to America before he settles back into his seat? It would be the greatest TV show ever.

And as long as we’re on the topic of spelling bees, and since everything is always about me, I thought I’d relay my spelling bee story. Back in 5th grade, I worked my tail off to excel in spelling bees. I won my class, school, city, and county spelling bees, and went to the state bee in Richmond, Virginia. (I punctuated my school bee victory by thrusting my arms in the air and falling to the floor, like I had just won the Tour de France.)

At the state bee, I worked my way into the top 10. If you made it into the top three, you got to go to the national bee (the one on TV last night.) I stood up to spell the word “proctor,” only the guy pronouncing the words had an accent, so I couldn’t totally understand. I even asked him to repeat it a couple times. So I spelled the word “poctor,” not hearing the “r” in his pronounciation. Then, I got dinged.

I was so mad, I took off the cardboard number around by neck, ripped it in half, and threw it on the stage. (If I really were smart, I would have lit it on fire.) I stormed off the stage and out of the auditorium. The next day, there was a picture of me in the Richmond newspaper in my happier times, before I was rudely forced out of the competition. No mention of my meltdown.

Needless to say, my parents were aghast. I think they covered their faces before slinking out of the auditorium. But I had missed my one chance to be a nerd on national television. I may have even been able to meet Jessica Alba – had she been born yet.

So I guess you could say I was the Bad Boy of Virginia Spelling Bees. Kind of like the Dennis Rodman of nerds. Had I gone on to the nationals, I likely would have gone on stage with a cigarette and a flask of Wild Turkey.

Imagine my surprise today when I showed up in a Shepherd Express article about the Stewardship program. Apparently, there aren’t many conservatives willing to go on record in questioning the program – so I’m the go-to guy to be “The Grinch that Stole Earth Day.”

Anyway, I thought the article was well written, and lays out the typical arguments for the program. Supporting the program is Bud Jordahl, who forgets more about land conservation on a daily basis than I will learn in my lifetime – and whose son I consider to be a friend (as long as he sets good screens for me in basketball).

Anyway, it eventually gets around to me, and says:

Many conservatives balk at the price tag for the program.

“Despite the current dire economic straits of state government, Doyle continues to rack up the state’s credit card debt in order to pacify his environmental supporters,” wrote Christian Schneider in a commentary for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Schneider also stated that, based on a study by the Legislative Audit Bureau, the DNR is paying more for the land than it’s really worth. And, what’s more, the concept of the program is flawed, Schneider argues, based on theoretical right-wing economic theory.

“According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 18% of Wisconsin’s total land is currently being held for public conservation by various levels of government – an irony completely missed by advocates of ‘affordable housing,’ who don’t realize that the more land the government takes off the market, the more expensive the land gets,” Schneider wrote.

Of course, my points are “theoretical right-wing economic theory.” The fact that if something becomes more scarce, it costs more is purely theoretical. The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and market forces – all unproven theories.

I’m also fond of Democrats’ constant evocation of former Republican Governor Warren Knowles as this great moderate, since he supported Gaylord Nelson’s land buying program. This is the same Governor Knowles that referred to the Wisconsin Young Democrats as “homocrats” when they pushed for the repeal of sodomy laws in 1966.