As of this writing, I am excited to announce that my 4 year-old daughter has now picked more NCAA tournament games correctly than I have. In fact, in today’s afternoon action, she picked Davidson, Western Kentucky, and San Diego all to win. (She liked San Diego because they mention the San Diego zoo in her favorite movie, Madagascar. She also has them in the Final Four.) Her bracket is kind of hard to read, since she took the scoring marker I was using and drew flowers all over the sheet of paper.

Next year, I will be charging for her services. Oh, and did I mention I spent four years working for a major Division I men’s basketball team?

Yesterday’s article about the infamous lead paint case here in Wisconsin (Thomas v. Mallet) provoked me to actually read Justice Butler’s majority decision, which upheld an individual’s right to sue paint companies whether or not he could actually prove it was their product that caused his sickness.  The majority applied and expanded the “risk contribution theory” as previously applied in Collins v. Eli Lilly Co.  This theory essentially holds that companies can be held liable for damages even if the plaintiff can’t prove if it was their product that caused them damages – since the mere presence of their product increased the “risk” that something bad would happen.

In any event, at one point in his decision, Butler expresses concern that landlords can escape liability for lead paint poisoning if they present tenants with a “certificate of lead-free status.” (at 117.)  In proving how dangerous lead paint actually is, Butler cites another case that “equat(es) lead as a contaminant or pollutant ‘in the same way that a loaded pistol is a dangerous weapon, even when it is locked up in a gun case, and a mamba is a deadly poisonous snake, even when it is confined in a reptile house.’”

So there you have it – having lead paint on your walls is like having a “deadly poisonous snake” or a “dangerous weapon” in your house.  No doubt, Butler probably enjoyed all those gangster movies where the mob would attack other organized crime families by painting their headquarters with lead paint.

In fact, Butler is likely a fan of last year’s big hit, “Semi-Gloss on a Plane:”

In recent weeks, I have adopted a Grandpa Simpson-esque persona, complaining bitterly about what the local media chooses to cover. I’ve especially been critical of papers who rail against about mudslinging in campaigns, then choose to cover nothing but mudslinging in campaigns.

Yet today, like a ray of light, I caught this article in the Wisconsin State Journal:

A Ruling on Lead Paint Looms Over Wis. Justice’s Campaign

MADISON, Wis. (AP) No ruling in Justice Louis Butler’s tenure on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has generated more debate than one he wrote in 2005 on lead paint.

Butler ruled that a boy who ingested lead-based paint chips at two Milwaukee homes could sue several companies even though he could not prove which one made the product that left him with mental disabilities.

Companies were aware of the dangers of a lead pigment used in paint as far back as 1904 but continued marketing their products through the 1970s, he wrote for a 4-2 majority.

As a result, the entire industry can be sued for their role in polluting millions of U.S. homes with toxic paint. Otherwise, children like Steven Thomas, now 17, would have no way to seek remedies against the makers of the decades-old paint that gave them lifelong health problems, Butler reasoned.

The ruling, the first of its kind against the industry nationwide, set off a debate that continues to reverberate as Butler seeks a 10-year seat on the high court. He references the case on the campaign trail as he touts his record of holding big businesses accountable for wrongdoing.

(The link is to a Minneapolis TV station that ran the same article, but it did appear in the Local Section of the State Journal with a different title.)

Finally, we are starting to get reporting in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race that actually reflects what the judicial philosophies of the candidates might be, and how they might rule on future cases. So kudos to Ryan Foley at the Associated Press for putting this piece together. And for those who think I’m digging this article merely because it’s critical of Butler, I welcome any substantive criticism of Mike Gableman, as long as it pertains to his actual record.

Lo and behold, the State Journal also printed this article today:

Budget plans may dig bigger hole for future

The competing solutions to repair the state ‘s broken budget can be summed up in four words, an independent report has found: Spend now, pay later.

When the Legislature passed the two-year budget in October, fiscal analysts projected a gap between estimated revenues and expenses in the next budget of $896 million.

The faltering economy has since lowered projections of tax money the state will receive, forcing policymakers to revisit the current budget.

But two of the proposed fixes add to the problems down the road, according to the report by the Legislature ‘s nonpartisan budget office.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle ‘s plan increases the potential shortfall in the next budget by $520 million, to $1.42 billion, the report found. A plan by the Republican-controlled Assembly raises the deficit by $753 million, to $1.65 billion.

This article gets it exactly right – it exposes the fraud that both Governor Doyle and the Assembly are trying to perpetrate on the Wisconsin public with their respective budget bills.

So while the State Journal has deserved criticism in the past, it certainly merits praise when it gets it right. Here’s hoping they continue this winning streak.

Side note: Favorite Grandpa Simpson quote:

(Writing letter:) Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three.
P.S. I am not a crackpot.

Side Side note:

In discussing the lead paint issue, Butler draws the following comparison:

Butler said over-the-top attacks on the ruling by business interests have hurt Wisconsin’s economy while the ruling itself has not. He compares the case to 10 people putting poison in a water well. When someone gets sick after drinking the water, all of them say, ”Sure, our poison is in the well, you can’t prove mine hurt you.” But they all knowingly contributed to the risk to the public.

Actually, that’s a pretty dramatic misrepresentation of the opinion in Thomas v. Mallet, the lead paint case. Butler’s hypothetical presumes 10 people are all contributing poison to a well. Under the Court’s new “risk contribution” theory as described in Thomas, if only three of those people were pouring poison in the well, the other seven could be found liable whether or not they ever poured any poison in the well during the entire life of the well.

Says former Supreme Court justice Diane Sykes about Thomas:

As extended in Thomas, “risk contribution” theory relieves the plaintiff of the requirement of proving causation, allowing recovery against manufacturers not because of any specific factual link to the plaintiff’s injury but because each contributed to a general risk. The burden is placed on the manufacturer to prove that it did not produce or market lead paint during the relevant time period or in the relevant geographic marketplace. As a factual matter, this manufacturer burden of exculpation is nearly impossible to carry because the court made it clear that the relevant time period is not the time period of the plaintiff’s exposure but the entire time period that the houses with lead paint existed—a period spanning nearly eight decades.

Living in Wisconsin subjects all of our residents to the cultural push-and-pull our state thrusts upon us. On the one hand, we have time-tested rituals that we treat with reverence. Fish fries. Hay rides. Cows. Packer football. Many of these, although not all, are inextricably linked to the small-town, rural ethos found in the Dairy State.

On the other hand, while we all recognize these as sacred Wisconsin institutions, we aren’t necessarily rushing to export these images of Wisconsin to the rest of the nation. We have a strong sensitivity to how we’re portrayed nationally, and don’t particularly take kindly to being branded as exclusively rural. Heck – most of the popularity of the UW’s stem cell project is due to the fact that it proves to the rest of the nation that we don’t live in houses with hay floors.

Then Johnny Depp showed up.

When news hit that a big-time Hollywood movie would be filming in Wisconsin, residents took it as a sign that Wisconsin had finally hit the big time. Hollywood had finally given us the stamp of cultural approval for which we so longed. Finally, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the biggest in popular entertainment and get to shed our image as corn-fed yokels.

Predictably, when “Public Enemies” began shooting in Columbus this week, it immediately reinforced our image as corn-fed yokels. Local news breathlessly lead off their broadcasts with news that Johnny Depp had arrived to free us of all of our feelings of cultural inadequacy. A young woman standing near the movie set breathlessly confided to a Madison television reporter that “this is the most exciting thing I have ever done in my entire life.” The same TV station ran pictures of Depp taken by fans that appeared to be taken with the Hubble Telescope.

Not to be outdone, another channel interviewed a subtle young woman who indicated her desire to have the movie star plant a baby Depp in her womb upon visiting his trailer. (A “Depp charge,” if you will.) A third station combed the crowd looking for the woman who had been waiting out in the cold for Depp the longest. In reality (and unbeknownst to the reporter), the report actually exposed the fact that Columbus currently has an 85% unemployment rate.

Now don’t get me wrong – it certainly is exciting for the people of Columbus to have such a big event in their town. I can’t imagine things would have been any different in any small town in America.

But the media have a responsibility to put this all in context for people. It’s not as if Christ himself had descended upon South Central Wisconsin. (In fact, I believe he just retired from his job in Green Bay.) One of these days I fully expect to hear the local broadcast start out:

“Tonight, we’ll have details on a virgin birth reported in Columbus, Wisconsin. But first, JOHNNY DEPP was here!”

Whatever credibility this film project was supposed to be giving Wisconsin is quickly being sucked away by the solipsistic media reporting it’s drawing. Interesting that the truth about Wisconsin’s dual identities is being exposed most clearly by a fake movie.

As a side note, the economy is on fire and you will likely be thrown out of your house in a couple months. Maybe you can call Johnny Depp to bail you out.

First, a qualification – on the 1 to 10 outrage scale, this barely registers a “1.” But it is interesting, nonetheless.

Today on his radio show and on his blog, Charlie Sykes was critical of a pro-Mike Gableman for Supreme Court advertisement. (I happen to share his sentiment, incidentally.) In his words, he decided to “throw a flag” on his own team for the inappropriateness of the ad.

Miraculously, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who it appears goes out of its way to deny Sykes’ existence, thinks this is newsworthy. On their “All Politics” blog, a mention of Sykes’ position warranted its own posting. Funny that every time Sykes makes an outstanding point criticizing a Democrat, it disappears into the ether.

Now, I understand that there’s a certain “man bites dog” element to a right-wing radio talk show host being critical of his own preferred candidate. But it is ironic that Sykes suddenly becomes so newsworthy when he’s critical of a Republican.

It’s a long, time-tested rule that if you happened to be a Republican looking for the media to cover you, all you have to do is criticize other Republicans. This is largely how John McCain became the media darling he currently is. You don’t have to look too hard to find stories about anti-Iraq war Republicans, yet trying to find news articles about pro-war Democrats is like finding Eliot Spitzer in a monastery. People under 30 years old in Wisconsin only know who Bill Kraus and Lee Sherman Dreyfus are because of their infinite press appearances as “Republicans bashing Republicans.”

Perhaps no dissent among Democrats exists on any issue. Maybe every single one thinks Louis Butler’s equally baseless ads attacking Gableman are perfectly appropriate. But somehow, I’m not sure we’d be hearing as much from them if they did.

SIDE NOTE: The Journal Sentinel blog post was written by Stacy Forster, who is an outstanding reporter – and I am NOT alleging any kind of bias on her part. I just think it’s interesting how this whole “Republicans criticizing Republicans” phenomenon fits into the larger picture.

The NPR music crew made their way down to Austin, Texas last weekend for the South by Southwest music festival. While down there, they managed to maintain a blog, as well as archiving some live shows, including R.E.M., Vampire Weekend, Yo La Tengo, Jens Lekman, and Eau Claire native (and current darling of the indie music scene) Bon Iver (A.K.A. Justin Vernon).

Definitely worth checking out. You’re paying for it, might as well enjoy it.

This ESPN story detailing the lengths to which “die-hard” fans are willing to go to be buried with their favorite teams is a must-see.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGpbNqmADw&hl=en]

You’re telling me a plot in a Packer Cemetery wouldn’t be the hottest real estate in Green Bay?

I am going on record as being 100% for this:

Note the look of irritation by Herb Kohl as fans stage a paper bag protest during last Saturday’s Bucks-Celtics game. BrewHoop has the details:

On Friday we told you about a group of RealGMers’ plan to wear paper bags during the Celtics game, and as the above picture suggests, they not only made it out to see the Bucks’ 99-77 loss to the Celtics, but also managed to confront owner Herb Kohl near the end of the fourth quarter.

In sum, the bag revolutionaries totaled 39, certainly far fewer than what some previous fan demonstrations have mustered, but not surprising given it was organized over a closed message board. However, what they lacked in numbers they made up for in strategy (kudos to Dan for that). Shortly before tipoff and during halftime they paraded through the concourses to maximize exposure, led by Nowak’s brilliantly subversive “Where Amazing Happens” sign, and after the game they stationed themselves by the escalators. They were seated in a block of 30 in the upper deck, so not surprisingly the television cameras managed to avoid them, though the group did make it onto the jumbotron briefly during a prize giveaway, forcing an abrupt cut to a different camera.

Recent revelations about Barack Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright, have forced the political world to go back and re-calibrate the Obama-Meter to try to place his supporters in order of coherence. After a complicated mathematical formula was devised, the continuum now looks like this:

When I was a little kid, I was a huge Mad Magazine nerd. In fact, I still vividly remember handing over to my mom a pile of crumpled ones and fives, hard-earned from months of lawn-mowing and such, so she would write the check to Mad for my four-year subscription. I was 12 years old at the time. This $50 transaction was the biggest fund expenditure of my young life.

One of my favorite recurring bits in Mad was Frank Jacobs’ “Do-It-Yourself Newspaper Story.” These were skeletons of straight news stories containing several numbered-blank spaces. Corresponding with each blank was a list of increasingly-absurd adverb, adjective and noun options. With mixing and matching, these DIY mad-libs could make for hours of fun.

The DIY Newpaper Story format can be used in other ways too. Below, I have the outline of every speech ever given by a liberal Democrat. Don’t be surprised if you hear the Democrat Party’s eventual presidential nominee giving this exact speech at the convention later this summer:

“My fellow Americans, for too long now, (choose one)
Republicans
neo-cons
Norwegians
ferret-owners
_______________ have been trying to steal the

abortion rights
Social Security benefits
virginity
last beer in the ‘fridge
_________________of hard-working, honest

senior citizens
single moms
chimneysweeps
eskimos
___________.

Working families
Organic farmers
The Cast of “Growing Pains”
____________________ will never reach the our shared goal of

universal health care
a living wage
unlimited trips to the salad bar
kickass guitar solos
_______________________as long as

President Bush
Senator McCain
Emmanuel Lewis
Carrot Top
_____________ and his cronies are still in charge.

Haliburton
Wal-Mart
Old Country Buffet
Wally’s Auto Body
______________ is enjoying

record profits
tax breaks
delicious fudge
______________while

immigrants
the urban poor
middle class families
ninjas
________________ just struggle to make ends meet.

And the
wealthy land developers
SUV-drivers
1972 Miami Dolphins
____________________ are trying to ruin the environment too with their

McMansions
urban sprawl
dandruff
_____________.

There always seems to be money to give corporate welfare to
Big Oil
Big Drug Companies
Big Bird
Biggie Smalls
_______________,

but what about funding for
public schools
the fight against global warming
Billy Baldwin
________________________?

Its about time we start taxing
the wealthiest 1%
war profiteers
lemonade stands
______________so we have the money to finally eliminate

poverty
homelessness
athlete’s foot
fire ants
___________.

To win, we’ll need to struggle mightily against the awesome power of
the special interests
conservative talk radio
Total Rock 103.3 FM
the Hoover WindTunnel Vacuum
________________________,

but we’re going to take our message of
hope
change
less talk, more rock
_______________ directly to the people.

With your help, we can win. Thank you and goodnight!”

I hear he has some bold ideas to solve overcrowding problems at nursing homes, homeless shelters and public schools.

In my previous post dealing with how universal health care will make Wisconsin a magnet for the nation’s sick, I made a quick point that actually deserves more attention. As it turns out, people may not even need to move here to have Wisconsin taxpayers foot the bill for their health problems.

Under the “Healthy Wisconsin” bill, an individual is eligible for full benefits immediately if they are “gainfully employed” in the state. Once one person is “gainfully employed” (as defined by the Healthy Wisconsin plan’s board), “the person and the members of the person’s immediate family are eligible to participate in the plan.”

But wait – while there’s a catch. The bill requires an individual to live in the state for 12 months and have a “substantial presence” in Wisconsin (the time limit requirement would be legally questionable in court). However, once they’re “gainfully employed in this state,” those requirements disappear. So what is “gainfully employed” in Wisconsin? If someone lives in Arkansas but owns businesses in Wisconsin, are they gainfully employed in this state? Is an independent contractor who lives in Colorado but contracts with Wisconsin business gainfully employed in Wisconsin? Apparently, the board would have to decide.

What is clear, however, is that once a single individual in a family is eligible, everyone in that person’s immediate family is immediately eligible. And there are no residency requirements for family members. (I have verified this with legislative attorneys.)

As a result, a father of eight in Georgia could move to Wisconsin, get a job at a hot dog stand, and his wife and all of his children would immediately be eligible for taxpayer funded health care, paid for by Wisconsin residents. And the family wouldn’t have to move an inch. For any family in America facing expensive care for a child afflicted with autism or multiple sclerosis, their prayers would be answered just by having one immediate family member qualify in Wisconsin.

Anyone who thinks this isn’t incentive enough for people in South Carolina or Indiana to take advantage of this program are willfully deceiving themselves. As I previously mentioned, the health care crisis for people not already on Medicaid-based programs isn’t a Wisconsin problem – it’s a national problem. In fact, Wisconsin’s MA program, Badgercare, even has a residency requirement tougher than Healthy Wisconsin.

As a result, it makes sense that the other 49 states would beg Wisconsin to enact the program – it would alleviate them of all the health care costs they’re currently paying for their sickest individuals. Suddenly, Mississippi’s budget would look a lot better when we’re paying for their citizens’ health care.

Outstanding article in the Washington Post today about the Eliot Spitzer revelations yesterday. Specifically, it describes the whole routine of having your wife stand next to you while you announce to the world that you pretty much hate your wife. As author Dana Milbank puts it, “Silda Wall Spitzer looked like a victim of food poisoning as she stood by her man’s side.”

As a pre-emptive strike, I told my wife that at some point in my life, I’d probably do something monumentally stupid. So she better get her glazed over “standing by my idiot husband at a press conference” look ready. She replied that I should probably get my “being chased around the house with a meat cleaver” look ready.

The article points out that on the night before Valentine’s Day, Client 9 spent $4,300 and only used up two of his four allotted hours. All I know is, if I spend $4,300 on a prostitute and I get four hours, that hoochie better stick around and play Battleship with me for the remaining 3 hours and 58 minutes.

The article also mentions that Spitzer liked to do things that were considered “dangerous.” Like what? Like sitting too close to the TV? Trying to figure out the recipe for McDonald’s secret sauce?

All told, Spitzer is alleged to have spent up to $80,000 on prostitutes – an appalling sum. (Any prostitute service that costs that much better also provide sandwiches.) Appalling mostly because he’s the Governor of New York for Christ’s sake – he couldn’t get any free booty on the side? What is the point of being famous if not for the hot side action? He missed out on all the fun of going around and offering hot chicks “a position on his staff.” When you think about it, that whole “governing the state” thing really should have been a secondary goal in Spitzer’s life.

More lurid details are coming to light which probably aren’t worth mentioning. But if there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s this:

Spitzer spent his entire professional career trying to show everyone how much smarter he was than they were. And as a result, they’re all going to come down on him like a house of bricks. It is ALWAYS in your best interest to have people think you’re a lot dumber than you are, rather than vice versa. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

I was waiting to get my hair cut and reading an old Newsweek article about John McCain, when I came across this tidbit:

McCain does have a refreshing knack for reaching across the aisle. In 2004, he had a vodka drinking contest with Hillary Clinton on a Senate junket to Estonia.

WHAT?

Let’s back up here. Hillary Clinton and John McCain sat down and went shot for shot? And this was documented somehow? How is this not major news? Who sponsored this junket? Smirnoff?

And how did this drinking contest not lead to Hillary cuddling in McCain’s loving arms? (To the extent that McCain can actually bend his arms, anyway.) I’m literally speechless. Are they running for President of the U.S. or rush chair for the interfraternity council?

Incidentally, I am 100% for getting chicks drunk now being called “reaching across the aisle.” In that case, I’d be the most bipartisan individual on the planet. I’d be the Joe Lieberman of horny college dudes. I was certainly not afraid of trying different parties – especially if the keg was empty at one of them.

My car was in the shop today, so I had to ride the cheese downtown to pick it up. In my high school’s parlance, the bus was affectionately known as “the cheese,” due to its aesthetically pleasing color palette. Anyone past 10th grade seen riding the bus was immediately labeled a “cheese jockey,” which was akin to having an arm growing out of your nose.

Anyway, I found the ride to be reasonably enjoyable, although a little depressing. For some reason, nobody ever smiles on a bus. It’s like everyone is waiting to hear the news from the doctor after their sister was just in a car accident. It seems whatever positive events that are going on in someone’s life are immediately offset by the realization that they’re riding the f’ing bus.

There was one fat, mustachioed guy talking on his bluetooth earpiece at an ear-splitting level. I honestly don’t have whatever gene people possess that allows them to share their conversations with the rest of the public. If I get a cell phone call when a bunch of people are nearby, I fumble around and hang up quickly. I suppose if I got out of the house more, I’d “evolve” to the point that this didn’t bother me.

I noticed a sign that said in order to get the discounted senior citizen rate, you had to show a photo ID. Somewhere, there’s a crafty 78 year old guy running a black market fake ID ring out of his basement so 63 year olds can get the discounted rate. He likely accepts payment in cash or in primo bags of weed.

I spent most of the time trying to calculate how much money I would actually save by taking the bus downtown more often. Assuming a three hour trip down to, say, the UW campus, it would cost me three bucks to get there and back. If I drove there, I assumed it would take 2/3rds of a gallon of gas, so about 2 bucks worth. Plus, parking would be about 2 bucks. So I can save a dollar by taking the bus. Basically, I’m paying an extra dollar to avoid meeting someone on the cheese who’s in a particularly “stabby” mood that day.

(I realize that taking the bus is more eco-friendly, but I have virtually eliminated my carbon footprint by wearing the same underwear all the time. The way I see it, Mother Nature owes me eight bucks.)

Incidentally, I am fully aware that this post sounds exceedingly condescending – like I’m Jane Goodall descending on bus riders to study them in their natural habitat. It’s almost how the media report on Republicans – try to blend in, but don’t get too close to one, because you never know what they might do. But it seems like the bus is a really good deal, especially for students, the elderly, and environmentalists who aren’t bothered by the hundreds of empty buses running during the day.

Now, I just need someone to hook me up with the dude making IDs.

UPDATE: A friend reminds me of his favorite bus-related Craigslist listing ever…