Madison (AP) – Local elderly hippie Alastair \”Cornbread\” Birchwood today denounced youth activist culture, saying today\’s kids pale in comparison to the counter-culturalists of his youth. \”Today\’s anti-war demonstrators think they can wear a pair of birks and smoke a little dry mexi-weed and be real \’activists,\’\” said Cornbread. \”We were bombing buildings and throwing rocks at cops – kids today think they can change the world by writing \’Bush Sucks\’ in chalk on the Library Mall sidewalk,\” he said.

\”Our kids are dying overseas, and today\’s supposed \’activists\’ are working at the Gap, hoping to save up enough money for a Dave Matthews show,\” Cornbread complained. They don\’t show the true, vitriolic hatred of America that our Constitution protects, and I am saying that completely without a hint of irony,\” he said. \”Anti-War activism is a tough job – even harder than being the guy who types the closed-captions for \’Flavor of Love,\’\” Cornbread added.

\”The Bushitler military industrial complex has led us into an unjust war that…

…wait, what was I saying?\” Birchwood remarked.

\”We were proof that a small group of people could make real global change,\” said Birchwood. Indeed, studies have shown that global patchouli levels increased by 38% between 1967 and 1973. \”I remember the Summer of Love – and nothing says \’LOVE\’ more than doing a near-lethal amount of drugs and having sex with multiple people that you\’ll never remember or ever see again,\” he said.

\”We were proof that you can do a lot of drugs, have a lot of meaningless sex, rebel against authority and still be successful,\” said Birchwood, sitting alone on a mattress on the floor in his empty apartment. He denies that his impotence may be the result of a lifetime of drug use, instead insisting that it is most likely Dick Cheney\’s fault.

Today, Cornbread sticks it to the man by placing orange flags at unmarked City of Madison intersections and by refusing to buy any product produced by \”big deodorant.\” He enjoys hiking and swimming at Devil\’s Lake State Park, while thinking about different ways that America is a totalitarian state.

This morning, my daughter got excited when I told her I was going to take her to vote. Then again, she gets excited about pretty much anything with flashing lights.

But then she asked me what voting was, and it dawned on me that it\’s really hard to explain. I stumbled around and said something like \”it\’s where we go pick the people that we want to be able to tell us what to do.\” But then I realized, I\’m the one that tells her what to do. (And my wife is the one who tells me what to do, so we have our own little family government set up.) So given the chance, she would probably vote us out of office in favor of someone she favored more.

So there\’s an 80% chance that when I come home from work today, I will have been replaced by Cap\’n Crunch.

So get out and vote today – for Crunch \’06.

I\’m still numb from the ass-kicking the Packers received this afternoon. Even though it was pretty easy to see it coming, it\’s still hard to take.

In order to make sense of it all, I arose from my fetal position and decided to investigate how things really got this bad. I started looking at drafts from the past 3 years, to see what exactly the Packers have been doing to build their team. As you can see, not much. Here are the drafts from 2003-2005, with the players currently on the active roster in green. I left out the 2006 Draft, since the jury\’s still out on a lot of those guys – they haven\’t proven that they can\’t play – yet.

2003 Draft

Round/Name/School

1 Nick Barnett Oregon State
2 None
3 Kenny Peterson Ohio State
4 None
5 James Lee Oregon State
5 Hunter Hillenmeyer Vanderbilt
6 Brennan Curtin Notre Dame
7 Chris Johnson Louisville
7 Deandrew Rubin South Florida
7 Carl Ford Toledo
7 Steve Josue Carson Newman

2004 Draft

Round/Name/School

1 Ahmad Carroll Arkansas
2 None
3 Joey Thomas Montana State
3 Donnell Washington Clemson
3 B.J. Sander Ohio State
4 None
5 None
6 Corey Williams Arkansas State
7 Scott Wells Tennessee*

2005

Round Name School

1 Aaron Rodgers California
2 Nick Collins Bethune Cookman
3 None
4 Marviel Underwood San Diego State**
4 Brady Poppinga BYU
5 Junius Coston North Carolina A&T
5 Michael Hawkins Oklahoma
6 Mike Montgomery Texas A&M
6 Craig Bragg UCLA
7 Kurt Campell Albany
7 Will Whitticker Michigan State

* – Drafted by the Packers, released, and acquired via free agency
** – On Injured Reserve

That\’s 8 out of 25 players acquired via the draft that are on the active roster after three years. Of those 8, three are first-rounders: Nick Barnett, who is a quality linebacker; Aaron Rodgers, who has yet to play any meaningful downs; and Ahmad Carroll, who has proven that he has about as much business on a football field as I do performing open heart surgery. Of the remaining five, Nick Collins looks like he has potential, but the rest would have trouble making the roster of an arena league team. Keep in mind also, that in 2004, the Packers were in the bottom three teams in total defense – yet they spent their first round pick on a backup quarterback and a second round pick on a wide receiver (Terrence Murphy).

So while the Packers were cruising along during the Sherman era, buttressed by All-Pros like Brett Favre, Ahman Green, Donald Driver, Bubba Franks, and William Henderson, the infrastructure was crumbling underneath them. Now that all their talent is aging, and they let Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle go, they have replaced much of that talent with low round draft picks and waiver wire trash. If you can\’t build a solid core of players through the draft, you essentially become an expansion team, starting from scratch. And it appears that\’s where the Packers are now.

What\’s also disturbing about the list above is how many picks they\’re missing – due to trades or otherwise. Every round they\’re missing a pick is a round that they could have had someone helping them right now. And I haven\’t even mentioned trading up to draft a punter (Sander) who was unable to handle the small detail of actually kicking the ball. If the Packers truly were looking for their \”quarterback of the future,\” they could have drafted a guy like Matt Schaub the year before, who was taken after Sander. Schaub, who backs up Michael Vick in Atlanta, has played exceptionally well when forced into duty, and will be a starter for some team soon.

Add this all to the fact that you just hired a head coach with no head coaching experience, who was the offensive coordinator for a 4-12 team that finished 31st in the NFL in total offense last year. Oh, and by the way, the 49ers scored 27 points today in their first game without Mike McCarthy.

Maybe this is all just me trying to rationalize the inevitable 3-13 season. It certainly doesn\’t make me feel any better. I\’ve never taken drugs, but if anyone wants to suggest some, I\’m taking recommendations. And I also want to announce that I have a Packer jersey for sale – it\’s in good condition, except for being thrown to the ground and stomped on repeatedly.

I\’m not sure what MySpace is or what it does, but it seems like all the cool people are setting up their own pages. So I set one up (it\’s pretty bare bones right now) – you can go see it at:

http://www.myspace.com/dennisyork

I currently have zero friends, which is mildly dispiriting. But I figure if you\’re one of my eight readers, it would be a good chance to meet up with other regulars. So start a profile and add me as a \”friend.\” Unlike your real friends, I won\’t ask you to help me move or anything.

Keep checking back for more pictures of me, Katie and Suri.

…By the time construction on East Washington Avenue is complete, cars will be obsolete. We\’ll all be flying around, Jetsons-style.

Madison (AP) Attorney General candidate Paul Bucher today ripped Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for the recent explosion in people digging up corpses to have sex with them. “Peg Lautenschlager has fostered a culture of crime where it’s perfectly normal to do the ‘bone dance’ with dead people, and that has to stop,” said Bucher. When he is Attorney General, “the only ‘stiff’ thing these punks are going to see is a jail sentence,” said Bucher.

Bucher’s attacks on Lautenschlager escalated this week with the introduction of a new radio ad criticizing the Attorney General for her drunk driving arrest two years ago. Some believe the ad is a little curious, since Bucher isn’t currently running against Lautenschlager – he’s running against Republican J.B. Van Hollen for the right to get to the general election. In addition to ads criticizing Lautenschlager, Bucher’s campaign will be unveiling equally relevant ads ripping Kathleen Falk, Kenny Loggins, the Berenstain Bears, Sinbad, Ralph Macchio, left handed people, Gil Gerard, and the guy that played “Boner” on Growing Pains.

At his press conference, Bucher also announced the formation of the new group “Corpses for Bucher,” to be headed up by former governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus, who has been dead for 12 years. In response, Van Hollen formed “People Who are Going to Die Soon for Van Hollen.” Later in the day, Kathleen Falk formed “Citizens With Really Bad Whooping Cough for Falk.”

Dreyfus’ group promised Bucher a sizeable cash contribution as soon as they could get their hands on all the money grandma left to her twelve cats in the will. \”Over my f-ing dead cat body,\” said family spokesman \”Professor Mittens.\”

Lautenschlager immediately defended the three Cassville youths that attempted to have sex with a female corpse last week. \”They simply just got the personal ads mixed up with the obituaries and zaniness ensued,\” said Lautenschlager, who believes that once happened on Three\’s Company. Lautenschlager recently announced that she would be digging up the corpse of Jeffrey Dahmer so she could personally try him for some old parking tickets he never paid.

Bucher clarified that his more aggressive enforcement will not apply to men having sex with sleeping women, which would require imprisoning half of Wisconsin\’s married men.

Just when you thought all the Packer news was bad these days:

I played my first game of Madden 2007 on my PS2, and the Packers beat the Bears 17-13 (despite five interceptions thrown by Brett Favre). I even created profiles for Jon Ryan and Dave Rayner, and cut Najeh Davenport and Rod Gardner, so it is as realistic as possible.

I can\’t possibly see this as anything but a positive harbinger for the Pack. Look for a good season ahead.

So which shows that Democratic State Senate candidate John Lehman has the bigger stones – showing up at the groundbreaking of a veterans\’ nursing home that he voted against, or taking credit for a veterans\’ home after spending three months in federal prison for draft dodging? You may remember the Vietnam War – it\’s the same war that put many of those vets in that home.

So why is it that people need some kind of mascot to explain intangible phenomena? We blame certain happenings on \”Father Time,\” or \”Mother Nature,\” as if there\’s some old lady sitting around, saying \”yeah, I think Wisconsin\’s overdue for a tornado. Let\’s mix it up.\”

Since so few people seem to grasp the idea of the marketplace, I thought it might be helpful to American citizens to provide them with a mascot to talk to. We\’ll call him \”Monty the Marketplace,\” and we\’ll give him credit when things we want to buy cost less, and blame him when things we really want cost more. Because, as we all know, it\’s some guy that determines the price of everything, not necessarily how much people are actually willing to pay for it.

So thank you, Monty, for gas being 30 cents cheaper this week – without any government intervention.

And damn you, Monty, for being slow to make 50 inch plasma TVs more affordable. As a result, I will be denied my constitutional right to watch the Packers suck in high definition this year.

My nomination for the official \”Monty Marketplace\” mascot:

A friend of mine told me his wife was playing in a \”moms\” soccer league, meaning you had to be a mother to play. She is proposing that each participant be forced to submit to a uterus screening, because she thinks some teams are sneaking in childless ringers.

The funny thing is, for the purposes of the league, you are considered a \”mother\” if you are currently pregnant. Isn\’t that just waiting for a court challenge? Shouldn\’t the league rule be that you only become a \”mother\” at the time of viability? If you\’re considered a mother while you\’re pregnant, doesn\’t that imply that you have a child? If you have a freezer full of frozen embryos in your basement, does that count? And where is NARAL to ruin these women\’s fun?

Women\’s rec league soccer – ground zero for the abortion battle in the new milennium. Who knew?

I know what you\’re thinking – \”It\’s been a while since I\’ve been camping, so I haven\’t been able to eat any s\’mores lately.\” Well, my friend, problem solved – just have a little cookout at home, as I did tonight. Check it out:

Oh, yeah. And check out the Better Homes and Gardens quality photography. I\’ll probably find raccoons in my kitchen tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I\’m trying to work on a pretty involved post, but right now it really sucks. It\’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.

I\’m tired and beleagured, so rather than do a full post about the Packer game tonight, I\’ll post a partial transcript of a chat I had during the game with a friend of mine, Lorenzo Lamas.

York: Good God
Lamas: The only thing that could be worse is if Favre\’s DNA matches Jon Benet Ramsey…

York: Ahmad Carroll defending…
York: Palmer could be playing in a wheelchair, as long as he keeps throwing to Carroll\’s guy.
Lamas: At least Carroll didn\’t kick him in the groin.
York: Carroll is never close enough to anyone to kick them in the groin. He\’d need 20 foot legs.

York: If they wouldn\’t have beaten the Seahawks 2nd team in the last game of the year, they\’d have Reggie Bush right now.
York: Suzy Kolber makes me want to stab my eyes.

York: Enough love for Carson Palmer. He\’s not playing Hezbollah, for God\’s sake.

York: Is there a video of a human birth or something on that I would be more comfortable watching?

Lamas: Favre\’s looking for a loophole in his \”I\’m coming back\” statement.
Lamas: \”Uh… I meant coming back to pick up my stuff.\”

York: Theismann: Mike McCarthy has to be \”concerned a little bit.\”
York: Much like David Koresh might be a little concerned about what that burning smell might be.

York: Samkon with the catch!
Lamas: Gado has worse hands than a high school sophomore at his first prom.
York: Where he’s from, the only thing you can catch is malaria.
Lamas: chuckle

York: I see the season starts on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. I\’m sure that will be done tastefully.
Lamas: \”It\’ll bring the house down\”
York: “ARE YOU READY FOR AL-QAEDA!”

York: Theismann: “Favre and Rodgers are totally different quarterbacks.” As in: Favre is the only three time MVP in league history, and Rodgers has a mustache.

Lamas: Rodgers had to be the only QB who has ever been cut from Packer fantasy camp.

York: Tirico just pointed out that Cory (who is black) and Aaron Rodgers (who is white) are unrelated. Actually, I think that’s wrong – I think they’re married.
York: They saw the constitutional amendment coming and eloped.
Lamas: Aaron Rodgers left the Packers today, citing the team\’s lack of domestic partner benefits. Esera Tuaolo was unavailable for comment.

Washington, D.C. – The FBI announced today that through its warrantless wiretapping program, it has uncovered an explosive peach cobbler recipe. \”It\’s the most delicious thing I\’ve ever tasted,\” said Special Agent Demond McDuffie, his mouth stuffed full of cobbler. \”And to think, if we had to get a warrant, this vital piece of information would have remained an underground terrorist secret,\” said McDuffie.

The secret cobbler recipe was said to have come from a phone call originating from terrorist Mahmoud Al-Alim of Conway, South Carolina to his mother in Afghanistan. \”The first part of the call, he was kind of mumbling something unintelligible about poisoning the water supply of Atlanta, or some crazy nonsense,\” said Agent McDuffie. \”But his use of ginger in his cobbler recipe is the work of a madman – a mad genius,\” said McDuffie.

Upon learning of the recipe theft, Al-Alim immediately contacted the ACLU, who filed a lawsuit on his behalf. \”This delicious recipe has been passed through centuries of Al-Alims, and the federal government has no business stealing it,\” said ACLU spokesman Jarvis VanLandingham. In response to the lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a warrant must be granted before the government can listen in on any conversations regarding fruit-filled pastries. If a court is not available, the government must get permission from the \’80s band Warrant.

The FBI released some of the transcripts of Al-Alim\’s overseas conversations, including this one to his superiors from last month:

Al-Alim: \”Hey, is Abdul Qadeer there?\”

Qadeer: \”That\’s me.\”

Al-Alim: \”Sorry, you sounded like someone else.\”

Qadeer: \”I\’ve actually had a little cold lately, can\’t shake it. Little phlegmy.\”

Al-Alim: \”Anyway, I\’ve been meaning to talk to you about my job title.\”

Qadeer: \”Tell me, brother, what\’s the problem?\”

Al-Alim: \”I was thinking we could spice my official job title up a little. I think \”suicide bomber\” is a little passe\’.\”

Qadeer: \”You are doing the work of Allah, my friend – I think the job title fits.\”

Al-Alim: \”I think it could be jazzed up a little. You could call me the \’crafty bomber\’ or the \’shifty bomber.\’ I think that adds a little pizzazz. \”

Qadeer: \”Call yourself whatever you want, as long as you\’re willing to strap a bomb to your chest and walk into a bus station.\”

Al-Alim: \”Yeah, that\’s kind of the thing – I\’m not real big on the whole \’suicide\’ thing. I mean, everyone is doing the whole lame \’blow myself up\’ routine – I think it\’s kind of played out. I mean, the feds are totally looking for suicide bombers. They aren\’t looking for bombers not willing to give their life to their cause. It will completely throw them off the scent.\”

Qadeer: \”You\’re not going back on your pledge to give your life for the cause, are you?\”

Al-Alim: \”Of course not – It\’s just that I won tickets to see Celine Dion in Vegas next month through a radio contest.\”

Qadeer: \”Here\’s what I\’ll do – you stay a suicide bomber, but I\’ll up your dental insurance benefit.\”

Al-Alim: \”Okay, sounds good.\”

Qadeer: \”I have to go – I have a coupon for Qdoba that runs out today. Although I never know whether to go to Qdoba or Chipotle – they\’re kind of the same thing. Praise be Allah.\”

Al-Alim: \”Praise be Allah…(click)\”

Al-Alim: ….hey, wait a minute!

Everyone knows that women\’s magazines market themselves to a certain woman who doesn\’t exist – a woman who lives in the big city, wears a new designer outfit every day, and drinks martinis for lunch. However, this article in Jane Magazine shows how out of touch they really are.

Let me set the scene for you:

A 29 year-old not-horrible looking \”virgin\” wants to have sex before her 30th birthday. So she starts a blog and gets a magazine to run stories about it. Riiiiight.

So this alleged virgin apparently needs \”help\” from a national magazine to reach her goal of having sex before she turns 30. Is there anyone alive that believes this? The reality is, if she really wanted to, this chick could walk into the Argus Bar at 5:00 PM and join the Non-Virgin Club before the ice melted in her drink. If it got to be 11:59 on the night before her 30th birthday and she was still a virgin, the crowd of hairy-palmed men outside her apartment would look like Woodstock.

But apparently, she is living in some fabricated world where every woman writes a relationship column about finding men. When basically, all you really need to find a man is a pulse, two eyes, a full set of teeth, and about 4 minutes. I mean, who does this woman think she is, me? If given the choice of having sex with me or being thrown off the top of the Sears Tower, most women would go buy a helmet and a life insurance policy.

Fortunately, I found the only woman on Earth that can tolerate me and married her. In all honesty, though, I had a national magazine help me find her, too. I got her out of a mail order ad in the back of Soldier of Fortune.

(I just earned myself a couple nights\’ worth of sleeping on the couch with that joke – hope you enjoyed it)

The topic du jour for all the good government groups these days is the famed Candidate Survey from the \”nonpartisan\” League of Women Voters, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and Common Cause.

Keep in mind, that none of these groups are actually \”nonpartisan.\” Two of them have actually lobbied against the gay marriage constitutional amendment. Just check out the League of Women Voters\’ website, which includes \”nonpartisan\” positions supporting universal health care, supporting gun control, opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge, and on and on. It\’s essentially just the Moveon.org talking points charading as nonpartisanship. By the way, how often do you see the print media refer to Wisconsin Right to Life as \”nonpartisan?\” (technically, they are).

The League of Women Voters actually includes their support for abortion in the \”Representative Democracy\” portion of their website. This shows they have a sense of humor, since the unlimited right to abortion was mandated by the Supreme Court, the least representative branch of government conceivable.

Apparently willing to support anything with the words \”reform\” on it, the League has waded into the complicated area of campaign finance reform. This is the focus of the biased Wisconsin candidate survey they distributed, which more than half of state candidates rightfully ignored. The survey is full of ridiculously slanted questions such as: \”Do you support and would you vote for bipartisan, comprehensive campaign finance reform that would reduce special interest influence…\”

What\’s a candidate supposed to say? \”No, I want to increase special interest influence?\” Actually the question relates to voluntary spending limits, which would actually increase special interest influence by pushing campaign spending out into the shady independent groups like the one Xoff runs. How\’s McCain-Feingold working out? Good thing there\’s no special interest influence in Washington anymore. No candidate in their right mind would actually turn this garbage in.

Despite the obvious flaws in the survey and the cheerleading done for it by the statewide media, there was one question in particular that piqued my interest. Question #4 on the survey reads:

4. YES OR NO: Do you support and would you vote for legislative measures making electoral competitiveness a legal or constitutional standard that must be applied by the Legislature and the courts in establishing state legislative and congressional district boundaries?

Clearly, they are dissatisfied with the current makeup of the State Legislature and think there\’s a better way to draw legislative districts. They think that the districts are rigged by the incumbent lawmakers that redraw them every decade. They think that somehow, the state Constitution should be rewritten to make \”electoral competitiveness\” the standard when drawing new districts.

So making all the districts in the state competitive sounds like a good idea, right? Then, more races will be contested, and democracy will flourish, correct? There\’s only one problem with this theory: The Voting Rights Act.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right to vote for all citizens. The Act was a response to Southern separatists, who responded to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by making it more difficult for blacks to vote.

For the past 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to mold the meaning of the Civil Rights Act. One of the problems encountered by the courts has been that of \”vote dilution,\” used by segregationists to lessen the influence of black voters. These segregationist lawmakers would gerrymander districts to make sure only a sliver of black voters were present in each district, which guaranteed no minorities could be elected to office, and would \”dilute\” the efficacy of minority votes.

To address this nefarious tactic, the courts have ruled that wherever possible, minority representation must be present. The goal in redistricting has to be keeping minority voters together as a community. To that end, where there are majority-minority populations, there must be an opportunity to elect a minority to office. Of course, minorities, especially African-Americans, disproportionately vote for Democrats. Thus, in heavily black areas of Milwaukee, you find a lot of black Democrats that hold office. Here\’s a map of downtown Milwaukee Assembly districts:

Of the inner city Milwaukee districts, look at the solid block that are represented by African Americans or other minorities: the 16th (Leon Young), 18th (Tamara Grigsby), 10th (Polly Williams), 17th (Barbara Toles), 8th (Pedro Colon), and 11th (Jason Fields). Additionally, these districts are represented by African-Americans Spencer Coggs and Lena Taylor in the State Senate. Of course, all of these minority representatives are Democrats, and represent heavily Democratic districts.

Now try to imagine drawing a map where each of these districts are \”electorally competitive.\” Think of how you could take these 90% Democratic districts and gerrymander them so they are each 50% Republican. You would essentially have about ten to fifteen districts made up primarily of the suburbs that pick off just a little sliver of inner city Milwaukee. The effect of this type of gerrymandering? Vote dilution.

Trying to make these districs \”electorally competitive\” would fracture the African-American community into little sections, where it would be increasingly more difficult to elect black representatives. I\’m not willing to say that any of the current African-American representatives couldn\’t be elected in majority white districts, but Wisconsin has yet to elect a minority in any district without a strong minority presence (Bob Turner from Racine, for instance). So the end result of the League of Women Voters\’ plan to equalize districts would actually be to end minority representation in the state.

Not only would this be unlawful (as determined by the courts) it wouldn\’t pass the test of public decency. Of course, what the League really wants to do is make heavily Republican districts more competitive. But in order to do that, you have to move the Republicans somewhere, and they would have to go into districts that cause problems with equal rights case law. Since Republicans continue to pick up seats in both state houses, they figure something must be wrong with the process of drawing districts – it\’s obviously rigged.

This is just another example of interest groups not thinking through the implications of their policy positions. Who ever thought the League of Women Voters would advocate undermining the Voting Rights Act?

Side note: Boo, York! Write the funny stuff!

——————————————————————————-

Supplemental Info:

Here\’s a good article by Jason Stein of the Wisconsin State Journal discussing the dwindling relevance of the League of Women Voters and their newfound political advocacy.

Watch Neil Heinen\’s head explode when he finds out how few candidates actually fill out the survey. Calm down, Neil – more people will read this post than will read the LWV survey results.

Phil Brinkman of the Wisconsin State Journal can\’t believe that Mark Green didn\’t fill out his survey. I can\’t believe this article wasn\’t on the editorial page, where it belonged.