Operation Newlywed Game

The International Law Firm McNabb Associates maintains the Transnational Crimes Blog and today’s lead crime is Marriage Fraud. Operation Newlywed Game announces that they are offering 44 contestants the opportunity to visit some of Americas finest exclusive access controlled destinations.

11 Held in Alleged Marriage Scam: Authorities said the document ring, which charged Chinese and Vietnamese nationals up to $60,000 to marry American citizens to obtain green cards, was unusually sophisticated. The couples produced fake wedding photographs, joint tax returns and even love letters.

The arrests all take place in California, perhaps because Wisconsin still can’t make up its mind about what constitutes marriage in the first place. A joint Senate and Assembly hearing today discussed a proposed Wisconsin Marriage Amendment to define the meaning of the word. State Attorney General Candidate Kathleen Falk comes out against the attempt to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman because it could mess up union agreements. Legislative sessions to define the words kickback, bribe and payoff have not been scheduled, perhaps at the request of Governor Doyle.

Holy Floating Clay Balls Batman!

Is this litter? If you found this in the water would you call it trash? Wisconsin’s 4th District Court of Appeals has an opinion.

Floating Balls Ruled Garbage: On Wednesday, the state 4th District Court of Appeals, agreeing with a Sauk County judge, ruled that the 87 hollow ceramic balls Couch released into the Wisconsin River last year fit the legal definition of garbage.

Terry Couch claims he was only doing an Art Project but he forgot the number one strategy for staying out of trouble. Get GRANT MONEY up front and HAVE PRESS COVERAGE before doing something really goofy. There is no substitute for wealthy patrons when it comes to defining the difference between art and garbage. This decision should never be left to the courts.

If you find stuff like this or this or this or this floating in the water, please salvage it and drop me a comment. I can be discrete so there is no need to get the DNR involved.

Ira Sharenow's Smoking Ban Victory

Here in Madison, the CRG Network is assisting local citizens with a Mayoral recall effort subsequent to his implementation of a total smoking ban in all business operations. The GRG Network acquired 6,135 City Council emails about the smoking ban and found anti-smoking activist Ira Sharenow sent 3,536 of them.

Madison Smoking Ban Email Analysis: Table 2 shows that the top five e-mailer senders represented over 84% of all e-mails with one sender alone accounting for nearly 60% of the total. It should be noted that this lone sender is anti-tobacco lobbyist Ira Sharenow who reportedly now resides in the state of California.

The email data makes a strong case that the smoking ban is a victory for political activism rather than a reflection of public desire. This should not be that much of surprise because Mayor Cieslewicz and many of the City Council come directly from activist backgrounds. For them, politics is about winning policy victories, not about serving the true wishes of the citizens they nominally represent.

The smoking ban in Madison and other Wisconsin communities achieves a major goal of the anti-smoking movement. That goal is the expressed desire to make indoor smoking socially unacceptable. Stymied by the limits of persuasion, the anti-smoking movement is embracing prohibition whenever local government allows them the option. The history of the movement in this State is spelled out in detail in this report by the University of Wisconsin located on the City of Madison website.

Influence of the Tobacco Industry on Wisconsin Tobacco Control Policies

The broad story line turns in 1986 when the movement decides to change their approach, proclaiming that a group right to be free of second hand smoke is more important than an individual right to pursue happiness. As always, when collective rights are defined as an absolutely good value, it becomes possible to justify intolerance of dissenting individuals.

Hat Tip: Boots and Sabers

UW Student Group Appeals to the ACLU

A UW Madison student group calling themselves “Stop the War” is unhappy about UW Administration tactics towards their organization so they are requesting the ACLU to help them sue the school. I know that the following title should read “Complaint”, but I just link them as they are written.

Stop the War member files ACLU Complain: I am writing because the UW student group Stop the War, has been the subject of harassment and intimidation by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Administration and Police for much of the past year. This is not an isolated incident, but recently culminated with a threat to discipline one member of our group (Paul Pryse) who they claim is the “leadership”, most likely since his name appears as a signatory on the student-government paperwork for student group status.

The author, Bill Anderson, then recounts a series of outrages including a ticket for Disturbing the Peace in February and several subsequent episodes of UW Police escorting individuals, including some High School students, from UW property without reading them Miranda Rights. What is truly lovely is that outraged Mr. Bill isn’t even a student.

I was wondering if the ACLU would be able to help us with this, because I have attempted to contact a private lawyer, recommended by a member of the local Green Party, but he said he can’t help us, and that we should contact the ACLU. I cannot personally be a plaintiff in the case, because I am not currently enrolled in classes. However, there are many other individuals in our group who are, and I’m sure several of them would be more than willing to be a plaintiff in a court-injunction or lawsuit.

The UW Administration has threatened discipline to an actual UW Student member of the group and I can not help thinking that Saddam would have handled this situation differently.

Unintended Consequences Again

The environmental movement went wrong following their acceptance of the false premise that industrial use of carbon based mineral resources is dangerous to the biosphere. The problem of starting with a false premise is that good intentions tend to go horribly bad.

Forests Paying the Price for Biofuels: THE drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. … The rush to make energy from vegetable oils is being driven in part by European Union laws requiring conventional fuels to be blended with biofuels, and by subsidies equivalent to 20 pence a litre.

"The expansion of palm oil production is one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in south-east Asia. It is one of the most environmentally damaging commodities on the planet," says Simon Counsell, director of the UK-based Rainforest Foundation. "Once again it appears we are trying to solve our environmental problems by dumping them in developing countries, where they have devastating effects on local people."

The case for biofuels includes the argument that they should be carbon neutral, since carbon released by burning them is recycled into the next crop. It is always interesting to see true believers downplay the carbon cycle unless they need an aspect of it for agenda support. Photosynthesis, the sunlight fueled combination of carbon dioxide and water, is why there is abundant life on Earth.

Much of the push behind these environmentalist polices comes from political forces desiring increased government control over the economy. Hans Labohm writing at Tech Central Station makes the case that global warming has been adopted by the same people who believe there should be one world government.

Global Warming, Global Governance: This mindset is a fertile breeding ground for a quantum leap in international governance, shifting sovereignty from the national level to that of international organizations.

It sounds logical: one climate for the planet, in danger from industrial societies, needs one government to control those societies. That big false premise, however, forces me to disagree.

The Great Cholesterol Myth

On this day after Thanksgiving is it good to be assured you don’t really need to worry about everything you ate. Hat Tip to Sandi at Vista On Current Events for the link to this excellent dissection of another scientific false truth.

The Great Cholesterol Myth: If you eat too much cholesterol, or saturated fat, your blood cholesterol will rise to dangerous levels. Excess cholesterol will then seep through your artery walls causing thickenings (plaques), which will eventually block blood flow in vital arteries, resulting in heart attacks and strokes....

It ain’t true despite the multibillion dollar industry, uncritical mainstream media promotion and pop culture belief that eating the way our ancestors ate is unhealthy for us modern humans. The grant funded guru’s making their incomes telling the population to ignore what their grandmother’s knew about what to eat, are wrong.

In reality, cracks in the hypothesis appeared right from the very start. The first of these was the stark observation that cholesterol in the diet has no effect on cholesterol levels in the bloodstream: 'There's no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood. And we've known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn't matter at all unless you happen to be a chicken or a rabbit.' Ancel Keys PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota 1997.

The problem for theory is that true science is defined by reproducible results.

In fact, no clinical trial on reducing saturated fat intake has ever shown a reduction in heart disease. Some have shown the exact opposite: 'As multiple interventions against risk factors for coronary heart disease in middle aged men at only moderate risk seem to have failed to reduce both morbidity and mortality such interventions become increasingly difficult to justify. This runs counter to the recommendations of many national and international advisory bodies which must now take the recent findings from Finland into consideration. Not to do so may be ethically unacceptable.' Professor Michael Oliver, British Medical Journal 1991

Conventional knowledge is convincing, compelling, plausible and sometimes even elegant in explaining observations, but none of these aspects constitute proof of the solutions. Of course I may be wrong and the governments’ latest version of the Food Pyramid may be the correct authority on how and what to eat.

Thanksgiving 2005

Other people are writing much better thoughts about the meaning of this American holiday. I only want to point out that a Technorati search yields the following ratio: Love: 14,542,401 versus Hate: 4,071,055. We should all be thankful and hope the balance stays this way.

PS: No goat on the menu this year but the lamb was delicious.

Madison Teachers Cross the Line

A group of third grade teachers at a Madison, Wisconsin Elementary School get all excited about peace and plan to have their students start writing a series of letters. The very first sentence of the notice sent to parents reads: “The Frank Allis third grade will be writing letters to encourage an end to the war in Iraq.” Local talk radio host Vicki McKenna is informed of this educational exercise and to her credit gets the word out into the blogsphere and onto local news.

Detailed coverage of the Madison indoctrination of 3rd graders is at the following links. NBC 15 Coverage and NBC 15 Additional Coverage have links to their on air spots. Charlie Sykes makes sure the story is told in Wisconsin’s largest market. Local Blogs Madison Freedom Fighter and Althouse and Badger Blog Alliance make sure the internet community is aware of this unbelievably stupid action by Union Teachers.

This episode illustrates how liberals believe their slogans but don’t understand the meaning of their words. In the thought process of the teachers, war is the opposite of peace so peace is achieved by stopping war. Words mean something and the word peace has lots of meanings. The definition I personally prefer is: peace means the absence of danger. Liberals understand that war is horrible, but don’t seem to believe there are some dangers that can only be eliminated by confronting and defeating them.

Thanks to the quick response of the blogsphere the teachers were abruptly forced to cease this ill conceived political use of the young children placed in their trust. As part of the focus on the details, it turns out the teachers aren't all that good in the first place.

McBride's Media Matters: The teachers at Madison's Frank Allis Elementary School should hit the books. In their letter to parents informing them their third-graders would be writing letters encouraging an end to the war in Iraq, the teachers wrote:

Please send 10 postage stamps (or $3.60) and twelve envelops to school with your child so we can begin this important assignment. Thank you.

Um, stamps cost 37 cents each. 10 x $0.37 = $3.70, not $3.60. And it's envelopes, not envelops. Maybe the teachers should spend more time studying themselves and less time forcing students to adopt their opinions about the war.

The sad part is that probably half of Madison will not condemn this serious folly.

A Deal Is A Deal

This strikes me as a silly little case to make it all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court but over four years Rainbow Rental v Ameritech Yellow Pages (pdf) made a slow journey through the court system to today’s decision.

On August 8, 1999, Rainbow contracted with API for the listing of its business in the November 1, 1999, edition of the Oconomowoc and Waukesha Ameritech Pages Plus Yellow Pages telephone directories, in addition to the May 1, 2000, edition of the Watertown Ameritech Pages Plus Yellow Pages telephone directory. API subsequently omitted Rainbow's entire listing from each of the directories.

In brief, Rainbow Dude signs a standard business contract with Ameritech to advertise in the yellow pages and oops, Ameritech forgets to print the ads. The contract has a prominent stipulated damages clause that says (paraphrasing), Dude if we forget to run your ads you get your money back and future ad credit for the same amount. Dude ain’t happy with cash back and free advertising so he finds lawyers to sue the bastards. Today the Wisconsin Supreme Court says sorry Dude, a deal is deal and you signed it.

In sum, under the revamped telecommunications industry, the Rainbow-API contract is like any other contract entered into between two voluntary and knowledgeable business entities in a competitive field. … Therefore, we affirm the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of API.

In my simple mind I always thought this is how the courts should work. The court listens to both sides, reflects on the law and then tells one party that if you sign a contract you live with the deal. In its own small way this is a business friendly decision from our top judges which is increasing rare with this current court.

Rainbow Dude may have had better luck with the Wisconsin legal system by tripping over the phone book, injuring some cherished and deeply loved body part, then suing the doctors if they failed to completely predict and reverse the consequences of being mortal. Yeah, I know its hyperbole but this same court believes the will of the people expressed through their legislature is unconstitutionally limiting trial lawyer driven non-economic damages.

AMA Response to Wisconsin Decision: "Wisconsin's stable health care environment is endangered by today's state Supreme Court decision to weaken the state's medical liability reforms. The Wisconsin Supreme Court superceded the will of the people and removed caps on non-economic damages in medical liability actions. This action sends yet another message to Washington that we need federal liability reforms to protect all America's patients.

Dr. Hetsko wrote it and I believe him.

Its Not Easy Being Green and Gold

Oh it sucks to be a Packer fan this year. Since I am not in the mood to look for the silver lining at this moment, let me point out two other things that irritate me this evening.

Cieslewicz Approves Tax Increase: "Budgets are not just about numbers, they reflect our values and priorities as a city," said Cieslewicz. "The budget adopted by the council reflects the balanced and responsible proposal that I made earlier this fall. It funds basic city services while increasing the property tax levy substantially less than last year, and less than the 15-year average."

Mayor Dave may think “budgets are not just about numbers” but tax bills are. There is a fundamental difference between money raised by mutual consent and money raised by punishment enforced confiscation. Mayor Dave will smile every time he claims credit for a tax INCREASE less than in the past because in his mind a smaller theft is less a crime.

We Can Make Healthcare Affordable: As a nurse, I have seen how much money and resources are expended on paper shuffling and marketing rather than direct patient care. I saw that the business model for health care was not working. Managed care was not bringing down health care costs. In fact, the expansion of managed care and market-based competition has coincided with the upswing in administrative costs over the last 30 years.

A group of state legislators has made a commitment to making health care affordable here in Wisconsin. Thirty-seven Democrats and one Republican have introduced the Action Plan for Affordable Health Care. The Action Plan requires both parties to come together to develop a plan that brings down health care costs by 15 percent within two years of enactment. The plan must also ensure that 98 percent of Wisconsin residents have health coverage. A working group could use the groundwork laid in existing proposals or develop entirely new approaches.

State Senator Judy Robson (D-Beloit) is a registered nurse, a Senate Democratic Leader and an idiot. The rise in healthcare costs these past 30 years may have “coincided with the upswing in administrative costs” but this is not a cause and effect coincidence. The primary difference is what medical therapy could achieve in 1975 with what can be achieved today. Healthcare is more expensive because healthcare is increasingly better for an increasing number of problems. Government restrictions on the practice of healthcare, both direct and sanctioned, only fuel inflationary cost increases and government planning will not "policy" them away. The Democrats really need to get over their addiction to group discussions, action plans and consensus building and let market forces shake up healthcare status quo. This includes the nursing unions Senator Robson.

Good Catch Lubos

Occasionally I check out Lubos Motl who blogs about physics in terms I don’t even pretend to understand, but who also posts some common sense about the world. What captures my attention this time is the sincere contempt about a piece of fluff sneaking its way into a normally reputable peer reviewed physics journal.

The title of the article is: Climate of scepticism: US newspaper coverage of the science of climate change and it is arguably the first published peer-reviewed article in the world whose main point is to accuse dozens of particular scientists from scientific misconduct and corruption just because the result of their research does not agree with the author's silly ideological fantasies, without having the tiniest glimpse of evidence.

The 15 pages make it absolutely clear that Liisa Antilla has no idea about the subject she is writing about - the climate in this case - and her ability to have learned the English alphabet is demonstrably her greatest intellectual achievement.

Like any good blogger, Lubos googled the author Liisa Antilla and was unable to find any evidence she is a scientist, but she does show up as a Rachel Carson Donor in the 2004 Sierra Club Annual Report. (page 25) Yes, that Sierra Club with the announced political goal of creating Cool Cities: Solving Global Warming One City At A Time, which is an advocacy campaign to get Mayors to impose Kyoto Protocol emissions restrictions on their cities. In practice this means dissuading citizens from driving their cars.

It is refreshing to read serious researchers beginning to take offense about the way political movements are abusing the process of measured restraint about the meaning of results. This trend will only contribute to a devaluation of science in the public mind. The majority of the population lacks any adequate training on how to evaluate the validity of information labeled scientific by the press, the government and the educational system. If working scientists will not call to task the mass media uncritically distributing overstated, incomplete, false and fraudulent claims, then it will be to the detriment of our society.

Warming Water

So Lola and I build a fire last evening and turn off the furnace. This morning the house is a chilly 57 degrees in the kitchen. I take a shower to get some water vapor in the air and the house warms up. I don’t think this is cause and effect but any completely accurate description of the total energy within my house needs to account for the water.

The Climatic Effects of Water Vapor: (pdf) There are a number of popular misconceptions about the greenhouse effect, notably that it is a bad thing. On the contrary, the greenhouse effect is a significant factor in making the Earth habitable. Without it the average temperature on Earth would be lowered by about 30 K, which would make most of the planet’s surface decidedly chilly. Furthermore, it is the water vapour in the lower 10 km or so of the atmosphere, rather than man-made carbon-dioxide emissions, that contributes most to this warming effect.

The mainstream media simply publish anything they are given and they are exceptionally unqualified to critically analyze science writing. The biggest error of omission in almost every piece broadcast or written about climate science is the role of the primary greenhouse gas. Have you ever heard this explanation on CNN or read it in the NY Times?

Air is largely composed of the diatomic molecules nitrogen and oxygen. So why is the transport of light through our atmosphere dominated by trace amounts of triatomic molecules such as water, carbon dioxide and ozone? After all, these molecules are only present above our heads at a level of about one part in 100 000. The answer lies in the physics of the individual molecules involved. Molecules absorb radiation at characteristic wavelengths that excite one or more of their rotational, vibrational or electronic degrees of freedom.

But what is so special about water that makes its absorptions extend all the way from the far infrared to the near ultraviolet? The simplest answer to this is that water, unlike the other triatomic species, contains two atoms of hydrogen. The presence of hydrogen atoms has two important effects. When a water molecule rotates about its centre-of-mass – which is near the oxygen atom – it does so with small moments of inertia. This leads to a very wide-ranging rotational structure that causes absorption bands for all types of transitions to extend over large regions of the spectrum.

The spectroscopic data that are required to model longwave atmospheric absorptions are generally well characterized. When these data are put into atmospheric models, water turns out to be responsible for about 60% of the greenhouse effect, while the much reviled carbon-dioxide molecule accounts for just 26%. Ozone accounts for 8%, and methane and nitrous oxide – the atmospheric concentrations of which have been increased by human activity – contribute a further 8% to the greenhouse effect.

Molecules consisting of three atoms are the ones absorbing most of the energy because their electrical charge is not evenly distributed. In simple terms, the charge polarity of three atom combinations allow energy to be absorbed in multiple ways with multiple effects on the activity of the molecule. And no, reversing the polarity will not send you into hyperspace or disengage a tractor beam. Of the triatomic molecules, water is by far the most important factor in moderating radiant energy effects.

The behavior of the planet arises from the physics of the atoms and no computer model can accurately recreate real observational data and, therefore, can not accurately predict the future. It is wise to be skeptical about any global warming article that does not discuss the dominant role of water in the way the atmosphere handles energy input from the sun, and subsequent heat loss from the surface of the planet.

Another Bush War Starts

“Any necessary activities to protect human health and safety, including lethal control”. With these words the Bush Administration authorizes a new war against nature. The threat is real, the enemy is all around us and it is time to take up arms against geese.

US Government vs. Canadian Geese: “Resident Canada geese populations have increased dramatically over the past 15 years," said Service Director H. Dale Hall. "These high population levels have been shown to cause problems for natural and economic resources, and we believe increased local management with national oversight is the best approach to reduce conflicts and bring the population under control.

The rapid rise of resident Canada geese populations has been attributed to a number of factors. Key among these is that most resident Canada geese live in temperate climates with relatively stable breeding habitat conditions. They tolerate human and other disturbances, have a relative abundance of habitat such as mowed grass and waterways, and fly relatively short distances for winter compared with migratory Canada goose populations. The virtual absence of waterfowl hunting and natural predators in urban areas provides additional protection to those portions of the resident population.

Urban sprawl and computer models predicting horrific natural disasters have failed to stop the relentless growth of Canadian Geese populations. Mother Nature seems to be adapting rather than collapsing, and the same administration that wants destroy wildlife by drilling in ANWR is preparing to begin the killing of tiny baby birds. Yes, even the innocent ones.

Geese Have Environmental Consequences: (pdf) At some future point, it is possible that density-dependent regulation of the population would occur. That is, it is possible that geese would so deplete their food resources that a population decline would begin. However, the timing, likelihood, and scale of a population decline of this nature is unpredictable.

Administration officials admit that the natural course of nature could eventually resolve the problem. Many administration critics believe that periodic inspections are sufficient. Aerial and satellite intelligence, however, indicate that geese have anuses of mass defecation and preemptive measures are justified. Administration critics are expected to be outraged.

Socialists Appeal to Worried Auto Workers

Earlier this week Blogger Brian Christianson at Free Will raised the question: Could General Motors Go Broke? The financial failure of a large corporation would not be unprecedented but unlike Enron or Global Crossing, the problems at General Motors appear to be the result of making open ended financial commitments to employees.

True believing socialists, of course, have jumped all over this situation because it so clearly fits the 19th century template of the world from which their class conflict theory arose.

Political Issues Facing US Auto Workers: Representatives of the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party participated in a meeting of auto workers in Kokomo, Indiana on November 15. The meeting was called to oppose the drastic job- and wage-cutting demands of US auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corporation. It was attended by some two hundred workers, including Delphi, General Motors and other auto workers from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin.

General Motors, the world’s largest automaker, recently slashed billions of dollars in medical benefits for its active and retired workers, and is expected to announce a restructuring plan next month that will include the shutdown of several plants and the elimination of 25,000 jobs. Many industry analysts are predicting that GM will follow Delphi into bankruptcy court.

Jerry Isaacs, a Socialist Activist, makes the case to worried Auto Workers that neither their Unions nor the Democratic Party are worthy of worker support.

He explained that the UAW bureaucracy had long used anticommunism to drive out its opponents, including the socialist and left-wing pioneers who had built the UAW in the 1930s. He said the working class had to take the auto industry and the whole economy out of the hands of the capitalist class and put it under the democratic control of the working class. … “We have to break free of the straightjacket of these old, bureaucratized unions and break with the Democratic Party, which serves the interests of big business,” he said.

The aggregate interests that constitute the Democratic Party are up for grabs and there are a lot of potential voters ripe for capture by the right message.

Voices of Doom in the Cold

Dr. Sanity recently posted an intriguing analysis in which she makes the case that the mainstream media has achieved the functional equivalence of those “evil voices” mentally ill patients hear inside their heads.

Command Hallucinations: The American public is hearing voices. And like auditory hallucinations experienced by psychiatric patients, these voices whisper continual doom and gloom. … It is very rare for such voices to say anything at all positive. They have a specific goal--and that goal is the distortion of reality. … So why do patients believe them? … we rely on the media in the same way we rely on our own senses to provide us with the information necessary to make decisions and judgements in the real world. The MSM has become those evil voices inside our head.

The world has significantly changed and the information age is a true radical departure from the immediate past. The internet nineties unleashed a magnitude of facts, photos, opinions and theories that is simply too much for personal perception to individually analyze. The reality is that the American public has always depended upon private news to make sense of the larger world since before the Revolution, and it is probably correct to say that Benjamin Franklins’ printing press enabled the American experiment. The objectivity of mass media has always been false façade, only now the propaganda stream never stops.

Perception is reality. A plausible lie will be believed. A plausible lie repeated over and over becomes a false truth. Even Fox News has been sucked into running stories about dangerous global warming.

Deadly Effects of US Heat Waves Predicted Leading computer models show continued warming for at least several decades, even if greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, with only wild schemes proposed to put the brakes on.

The source of the deadly ‘predictions’ is a computer model programmed at a Harvard Environmentalist Center and based on the premise that human activity can significantly increase the total energy in the atmosphere beyond any historical and physical precedents. It is 20 degrees outside and getting colder, which makes this a good moment to remember the challenge for life on the surface of a rock in cold space is to retain heat. The ability to delay the inevitable loss of the sunshine warmth is one big reason life exists on Earth and not on the Moon.

Dave Magnum: Round Two

Snow! Summer is not over until there is snow on the ground, but as of this evening it is now winter. It is well established that Wisconsin can freeze over but the question is if hell will follow suit and elect a Republican to the 2nd Congressional District. Dave Magnum will challenge incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin for the second time after loosing to her 63% to 37% last election.

Redistricting gave the 2nd District to the Democrats and it will take circumstances that money can not purchase for a Republican to win. In an official Dave Magnum Interview the candidate plows through predictable and meaningless positions on the conventional topics. He paints Tammy Baldwin as ineffective and pandering to utopian interests even though this is exactly what her base wants. Tammy is a true liberal with a record of voting her beliefs and she is loved for this fact.

I wonder if this candidacy is conceived as part of a larger state wide attempt to claim pieces of a restructuring political alignment. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has committed to an internal power struggle with the Falk vs. Lautenschlager Attorney General Race. Governor Doyle has made it clear he sides with money from the Teachers Union and Tribal Gambling, and a left leaning State Supreme Court has handed down some radical anti-business decisions. There may be opportunities, even in Dane County, to pick up small business votes which could tip the total balance within Wisconsin.

There’s a piece of legislation called the Small Business Health Fairness Act that Tammy Baldwin voted against. And when I asked her why in front of the Madison Rotary Club, she said because we can’t trust business people to do right by their employees. Here I am in this room full of business people who are providing jobs and opportunities for their employees – their jaws, like mine, hit the floor – and I think Tammy realized immediately that this is the wrong audience to say that to. I mean, that’s the last attitude we should have as we try to work on economic development and the future of this 2nd Congressional District.

This is the age of information capture and anyone who does not use an opponents’ own words against them is a fool. Too soon to tell if this race is Don Quixote having fun while traveling the local countryside on a quest for beauty and truth, or if this truly is a Machiavellian gambit to convert 3,000 new Republican voters as part of the larger conflict.

Amateur Advice to Republicans

I too find the Dennis York Rule applies to Democrat Blogger Xoff at Wisopinion, which means that occasionally he produces a 100% correct thought. What catches my attention is not the self congratulatory analysis of Democrats maintaining elective offices they already control, but rather the understanding that Republicans will not help their cause by going negative on immigration. Keep in mind Xoff is a professionally trained political analyst.

The northern Virginia suburbs which have been the focus of much of the analysis have been reliably Republican in the past, but didn't deliver as expected for the GOP this time. One reason the immigration issue didn't work may be that there are a fair number of immigrants living in Virginia, including Latinos and Asians. Wisconsin has growing populations of Latino and Hmong voters who may be turned off to immigrant-bashing as well.

The take home point for the Republicans is that “immigrant-bashing” is the wrong way to approach the immigration issues facing the United States. As a non-professionally trained political analyst, I am confident in saying that American voters are really tried of all the negativity. I am constantly frustrated by the Republican Party because they are only focused on winning close elections through masterful micromanagement of known voters. I keep waiting for them to understand they are right about the issues facing the country and should be in all out positive blitz mode.

Citizenship is a national membership with Political Rights granted in addition to the Human Rights of individuals. When Xoff discusses the immigrant effect on the Virginia Governorship election, I don’t believe even he believes the result is due to non-citizens voting. There is no doubt that many Democrats desire to extend government social services to non-citizens, but I don’t believe any Democrat has yet called for granting foreign nationals the right to vote in American elections.

Just like the Republicans have screwed up election reform by calling for Voter ID (a negative) rather than Accurate Voting (a positive), they are showing every predisposition to prevent meaningful immigration reform by accentuating the negative. This is my amateur advice to the Republicans: We are all immigrants in this country. Even the Native Americans are immigrants from the Old World. We are not, however, all citizens. This discussion needs to focus on the positive benefits of citizenship. Citizenship needs to be something desirable and obtainable for all individuals seeking social and economic freedom under the physical and constitutional protection of a limited government.

Thanks #17 We Believe

Matt Kenseth has mechanical problems and his 32nd place finish in Phoenix today mathematically eliminates the #17 team for this season’s NASCAR Championship. So thanks for the year guys, especially the never say die late season charge that enabled Matt to even qualify for chase. Matt will be back at Roush Racing next year for another go at a second Championship.

NASCAR racing burns through money so when “hard liquor” sponsorship dollars were put on the table this year they were happily accepted, even though it raised concerns about a potential drinking and driving message. Earlier this year Wausau native Scott Wimmer was allowed to continue racing despite a January arrest and subsequent June conviction on a DWI charge. No such leniency for Defending Champion Kurt Busch.

Busch was suspended from NASCAR and released from all further duties by his employer Roush Racing after Arizona Police charged him with reckless driving and refusing a field sobriety test. According to the official Roush Statement the decision to release Kurt was made “after consultation with our primary sponsors” including Diageo, one the world’s largest marketers of alcoholic beverages. I suspect the conversation was a pretty simple choice: either the driver goes or our money goes.

Cheer Up Bunky

Bummed about Barry? To painful to watch the Packers? Is that’s what’s got you down, Bunky? Then check the Winter Art Festival with 100% Wisconsin Art, Sunday afternoon 10 AM to 4 PM at the Monona Terrace Convention Center. These are the same fine folks that sell their wares at Art Fair Off the Square every summer, only this time they are set up on the fine orange carpets of the building Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. Personally, I am still waiting for Houdini to send word back about Frank’s opinion of the concrete poured in his honor.

Canadian Tattoo Wisdom

In the early aftermath of Madison’s Smoking Ban I attempted a facetious post calling for our enlightened City leadership to follow their own logic and Ban Tattoo Parlors! If you can tag behavior to health then government intervention is justified. In other words, because medical care costs money, the government has the responsibility to actively suppress behavior that may potentially end up costing the government money. I find this an appalling concept but apparently many people don’t.

Leave it to the Canadians to actually find a way to link healthcare costs with tattoos, and furthermore conclude that the way to prevent future medical expenses to the State, is for the State to provide Subsidized Prison Tattoos. “Another first for Canada and quite possibly the world”.

The project aims to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis or HIV, when inmates give each other tattoos using such items as paper clips and pens. Rockwood is one of six correctional facilities across the country taking part in the $700,000 program.

Connie Johannson, assistant warden at the minimum-security prison, says 21 inmates have paid the $5 to get a tattoo in the program since September. While Johannson says the fee may sound cheap, it’s worth it when weighed against the enormous cost to society posed by infectious diseases.

This is why I suck at progressive thinking. I assumed that liberals would extend the public smoking ban logic to ban the public practice of permanent skin alteration, but instead the liberals want to provide taxpayer subsidies and franchise rights within the prisons. Now I’m waiting for Tammy Baldwin to propose this for the United States since there is international precedent. In the meantime the rest of us can study our Prison Tattoo Guide, just in case.