Terri McCormick's Poll Numbers

Berry Laker is angry, and you wouldn't like him when he is angry. If you're on the Terri McCormick campaign team, that is (that's his red):

I will now cross off Terry McCormick off my list of candidates for the upcoming primary election. I will also call it like I see it on McCormick's campaign. I am conservative first, republican second and will not vote for a RINO! We do not need another Steve Kagen like Terry McCormick in the 8th district in Wisconsin.

The cause of this anger was a news story in Door County Style.com that reported poll results from the WI-8 race showing McCormick with a lead. The problem is that the news story was a barely reworked version of a McCormick campaign press release. Leading Laker to ask this:

Does Stephen Kastner work for Terry McCormick? Is he a paid campaign worker? Does he have his own agenda? What gives? [Kastner is the editor and publisher of Door County Style]

I had seen the McCormick press release before I saw the Door County Style piece on Monday. As soon as I did, I realized where the story originated. I seriously thought about contacting Kastner myself, but I couldn't think of a tactful way to ask if barely reworked press releases counted as journalism at his publication. Instead, I did a little digging on the poll itself.

The press release noted that the poll was conducted by Dane & Associates and I recognized that name from McCormick's FEC filings. The campaign had reported at least two payments to Dane totalling about $3500 for fundraising.

I contacted the McCormick campaign and they confirmed that the Dane & Associates from the poll and the fundraising activities were the same firm, stating:

The poll was originally conducted as an internal poll to determine where Terri was in the race, and wasn’t conducted for the promotions purposes. The campaign wanted a true picture of her chances of winning. We got it, and we know that Terri can win this race.

Campaigns conduct polls all the time, I don't think we should read too much in to the fact that a McCormick sponsored poll shows her in the lead. Terri McCormick is a serious candidate who has been around the district for some time, she has a dedicated following and a substantial amount of name recognition.

I do think it would have been good to explain that this was an internal poll in the press release. It would be even better if we had access to the full results including the questions, which I don't think are available anywhere.

Finally, I can't help but wonder about the timing of the release of the poll numbers. Yes, they may give a "true picture of her chances of winning," but it's also true that fundraising numbers for the candidates were recently released. Given McCormick's anemic finances, perhaps the release of these poll numbers is intended as a show of strength, strength that's not reflected in her bank account balance.

Charlie Crist: Bad Republican or Just Bad?

Now that Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist is poised to run for the Senate as an independent, the left is bound to start using this as an example of what a small tent the GOP has become.

Before you nod your head in agreement, it's worth recalling that Reihan Salam thinks Crist may be the worst governor in the United States:

Charlie Crist is an extraordinarily gifted politician, known for his unpretentious and warm demeanor. He might also be America's worst governor. Given that there is a great deal of competition for this dubious honor, that's saying rather a lot....

Incredibly, Crist demanded that Florida use one-time funds to pay for 12% of the state budget. When Republicans in the state legislature took the difficult step of passing a budget that included unpopular spending cuts, Crist turned around and vetoed hundreds of millions in cuts, despite the continuing deterioration of state revenues. It could be that Crist believes that the federal government will simply pass a stimulus plan every year, one that will grow ever larger without consequence to Florida taxpayers. This, of course, can't possibly be true. As a result, Crist has committed Florida to a fiscal nightmare, one that will lead to draconian tax hikes and spending cuts long after he makes a break for the U.S. Senate or finds some other comfortable sinecure thanks to the good graces of his many wealthy friends.

After the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, I'm willing to shrink the GOP tent in order to exclude bad governance any day.

Financial Reform Needs Will Rogers Exception

One of the ideas being discussed as part of financial reform legislation is additional regulation of derivatives. Those are the financial instruments that are based on some other underlying asset. Trouble is, some firms that are not exactly Wall Street names also use derivatives.

The New York Times reports that "Mars, the maker of M&M’s and Snickers, wants to make sure it can continue dabbling in the derivatives market to protect the price of sugar and chocolate for its candies." Many companies use various types of derivatives to help manage the costs of doing business, like locking in prices ahead of time for a commodity that is used in production. This benefits companies and ultimately consumers. Interfering with this beneficial use of derivatives could have negative consequences.

I'm willing to accept at face value the reassurances from prominent members of Congress that they don't intend to have the current reform bill affect firms that use derivatives in this way. Unfortunately, as we have seen time and again, what lawmakers intend and the consequences of the laws they craft can be two entirely different things.

I can't find it again, but I once came across a quote that, if I recall correctly, was from Will Rogers. He said that commodities futures contracts are contracts between a seller doesn't actually own the thing he's selling and a buyer that never intends to take delivery.

Perhaps it's not possible, but it seems to me that financial reform ought to address the instruments Rogers was describing, but continue to let Mars use derivatives to hedge against a spike in sugar prices. How sweet would that be?

Steve Kagen Says You'll Love Health Reform in 2014

During a meeting regarding health care, Congressman Steve Kagen heard from some small business owners that aren't happy with the new law. Kagen offered this response as reported by Fox 11:

"There's a great deal of confusion it'll take time to understand what's in the new health care law," said Kagen. "And when small business takes a look at it they're going to like what they're going to see."...

"That's why it doesn't really kick in until 2014 it gives everyone an opportunity to see what's in it for them," explained Kagen.[E.A.]

What's that joke about a gaffe in Washington being when a politician tells you the truth by accident?

Unable to provide any kind of coherent case for the recently enacted legislation, is Kagen actually admitting that the law was designed to simply hand out goodies to voters. Voters who would then presumably be even more reliant on the federal government, and the Democrats more particularly, to maintain their standard of living?

An alternative to such blatant pandering would be for the congressman to explain the law and its costs and benefits in a persuasive manner. The fact that he didn't leads me to conclude that either the law is so complex that such an explanation is impossible, there really isn't much to the law beyond handouts designed to increase reliance on the government, or that Kagen simply isn't up to the task. Note that these are not mutually exclusive and may all three be at work in this instance.

What is clear is that with continued statements like these, by the time we understand what's in it for us in 2014, Steve Kagen will have been out of office for nearly four years.

Equal Time

Late last week Matthew Yglesias took pains to point out that while Congress considers financial reform legislation, Republicans are holding fundraisers with those most direct affected by the reform:

While Barack Obama was in New York yesterday talking about his agenda to reform Wall Street, Senate Republicans, including Richard Burr, John Cornyn, and George Lemieux held a fundraiser with Wall Street’s lobbyists in DC.

Curiously, no mention of Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's own fundraiser with Wall Street, which his office recently defended. This is from Senatus:

Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “office is defending the majority leader’s decision to hold a fundraiser with Wall Street executives just as Democrats worked to craft a bill regulating the financial industry,” The Hill reports.

The simple fact of the matter is that both of the major parties engage in these kinds of activities. Pretending that they don't may be a good way to score a quick political point, but it's disingenuous and doesn't add anything substantive to the debate.

Fox Valley Initiative Expands to Green Bay

From the FVI:

N.E.W. Liberty Alliance, a new chapter of the FVI headquartered in the Green Bay area, will hold its “kick-off” meeting this coming Monday, 4/26 at 6:30 p.m. The event will be held at Montagues Wine Bar Cafe’, 100 South Broadway, De Pere. FVI members from that area are urged to attend and help form the direction that group will take. The Alliance has been formed to compliment and add to our existing program of information and events, and to involve more people from that area in our efforts.

For further information contact Debra at patriotgrl@gmail.com or Evonne at 371-1797.

The FVI is the group that has organized the Appleton Tea Party rallies, but don't come to this or any of their other events expecting to find the atmosphere of the Tea Parties you see portrayed in the national media.

What you will find is a group of very ordinary people who are extraordinarily concerned about the size and scope of government. An issue that everyone should be concerned about. You can check out the FVI mission statement here.

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Latest polling in WI governor's race.

Extremists can predict the future. (h/t Mrs. RWC)

Joni Mitchell says Bob Dylan is a fraud.

Democrats & Republicans need to be nudged in different ways.

How many metaphors for the Goldman Sachs case? (this reminds just how bad cable news is)

Steve Kagen, leader of the PAC

In my latest post on the WI-8 fundraising numbers, a commenter noted that perhaps we should discount the fundraising of Republican candidates Reid Ribble, Marc Trager, and Roger* Roth because they have taken money from PAC's.

As I responded to the comment, the PAC money of these three combined doesn't even begin to compare to Kagen's reliance on PAC money. The total of all PAC contributions in this race is about $570,000, of which Kagen has received about $540,000, absolutely dwarfing the PAC money of the Republicans.


Given this state of affairs, Kagen's ability to self-finance a campaign will probably never be a factor and I really don't see anything wrong with the modest amount of PAC contributions that some on the Republican side have accepted.

*4/22 12:14 I mistakenly identified candidate Roger Roth as Ryan, his brother. This has now been fixed. As someone with two brothers who also have names that start with J, I ought to be on the lookout for those types of mix-ups.

The Cost of Cap & Trade

The Congressional Budget Office recently updated it's cost estimates for households due to the Cap and Trade legislation that passed the House:

Measured in terms of 2010 income, the average loss per household would be $90 in 2012, $550 in 2030, and $930 in 2050; it would average about $460 per year over the 2012–2050 period.

So we have an idea of what the costs are. I suspect that to some this amount sounds like a lot of money while to others I'm sure this sounds trifling. Regardless, I think that if we are going to have a discussion about whether or not pursuing cap and trade is "worth it" we ought to know what the costs are.

It's also important to keep in mind that the $460 figure is an average. In some states, like those with cold climates and energy infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels (yes, we're looking at you Wisconsin) the cost per household could be substantially higher.

Not from The Onion

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips....

The plan -- just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined -- would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing "difficult social, financial or personal" circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.

"The commission is literally considering paying people to go on holiday," Mats Persson, of pro-reform think-tank Open Europe, told Britain's News of the World.

The source is here. The actual Onion is here.

Profiting from Regulation

Here's Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution discussing why simply breaking up the banks may not prevent a future crisis and how they may not actually be the centers of power they are made out to be in the popular imagination:

it's our government deciding to assemble a cooperative ruling coalition - which includes banks -- at the heart of its fiscal core. It's our government deciding who belongs to this coalition and who does not, mostly for reasons of political expediency and also a perception - correct or not -- of what is best for the welfare of American voters....

Ask yourself the simple question: who has both the guns and the money, including the ability to print new money at zero cost? It's Washington, not the private banks.

It's easy, and probably wrong, to simply dismiss such a notion as too conspiratorial. As luck would have it, on the same day I read Cowen's post, my google reader also included blogger Matthew Yglesias discussing the modest profit margin of Wal Mart.

Yglesias compared the profits of Wal Mart to other industries, produced a chart of the comparison and came to this conclusion:

Wal-Mart’s total profits are enormous because the company is so large. But mass-market retail is not a high-margin line of business ...

At any rate, looking at this chart I think it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Wal-Mart is the last thing we should be worried about. The worrying trend is the domination of the corporate landscape by super-profitable firms in the heavily regulated energy, banking, and telecom sectors.

Maybe Cowen's on to something here.

If you want to understand the Goldman Sachs case

You should go read this concise and insightful post by economist Brad DeLong. Here's my short version:

Goldman got a request to create a security made up of specific mortgages, just so the requester could bet against those mortgages. He thought they would be worth a lot less in the future.

Goldman made such a security and then sold it to other investors. By buying this security, these investors were betting that the mortgages would not fail and they were on the other side of the bet from the original requester. It appears these investors did not understand this was the case.

The potential problem for Goldman is in how they sold this security they made to the investors.

The investors appear to have believed that they were writing insurance on a general pool of mortgages. They weren't. In fact, they were betting on a pool of mortgages that were hand-picked by that original requester for their failure potential.

It remains to be seen if the investors got the idea that they were writing insurance just because they wanted to believe that and didn't do a good job of understanding what they were buying (probably not a problem for Goldman), or did Goldman give them the impression that they were writing insurance on a general pool of mortgages when they weren't (most likely a problem for Goldman).

WI-8 Fundraising Numbers

Through 3/31/10 Steve Kagen has a commanding lead in total receipts:



No doubt much of this is due to the power of incumbency,but the large number of candidates on the Republican side must also be a factor. This may or may not prove to be a problem in the long term.

In the cash on hand category, Kagen again leads by a wide margin:



On the Republican side Ribble, Roth, and Trager are all in similar positions.

There were no numbers reported for Williams, Stern, or Thomas, so they don't appear.

The biggest disappointment, has to be the numbers for Terri McCormick. In the first three months of this year, she spent about $18,000 and raised only about $9,000. Money in politics isn't everything, but it's not nothing either. At some point, I have to believe this becomes an unsustainable state of affairs for a candidate.

Marc Trager Becomes a Young Gun

Via the Wis Politics DC Wrap:

Wisconsin now has four GOP candidates on the National Republican Congressional Committee's watch list for its "Young Guns" program

Green Bay physician Marc Trager has joined the program's "On the Radar" list -- the first of three steps in the Young Guns program -- after pacing the 8th CD GOP field in fundraising for the first quarter of 2010. Fellow 8th CD candidate Reid Ribble, a Kaukauna roofing contractor, made the "On the Radar" list last year; Ribble and Trager are headlining a crowded field of Republican candidates looking to challenge U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton.

Here's a link to the NRCC page with the list of the Young Guns.

For links to the websites of all the WI-8 candidates, click the WI-8 2010 tab at the top of this page.

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A lesson in using coupons for people who hate using coupons. (h/t Mrs. RWC)

Are the French shutting us out of Cannes over "freedom fries"?

"The frequency of major earthquakes has remained fairly constant throughout recorded history."

Solar eruption.

I always like this song. Michael Stipe is made up like John Randle. One is considered an artist and the other an athlete.

Steve Kagen takes on Roger Roth

Republican candidate Roger Roth may not be winning the fundraising battle, but he seems to have gotten the attention of Congressman Steve Kagen. This is from Kagen 4 Congress:

State Rep. Roger Roth is one of several Republicans who want to run against Congressman Steve Kagen, D-Appleton.

Kagen can only hope that he is lucky enough to get Roth as his challenger this fall. Like the Republican Kagen beat in 2006 and again in 2008, former Assembly Speaker John Gard, Roth is an out-of-touch ideologue who is more concerned about scoring partisan points than representing the people of northeast Wisconsin.

The line about being "lucky enough to get Roth" as challenger seems little more than bluster. Roth, or any other Republican, certainly wouldn't be a shoe-in, but to think that they wouldn't give Kagen and the Democarts everythying they could handle is simply idiotic.

I hate to break it to the Kagen campaign, but there are many people in N.E.W. that still think highly of John Gard, perhaps even more so in light of Kagen's track record of doing whatever Nancy Pelosi tells him to do. To try and use an association with Gard as a negative is a complete misreading of the current political climate.

The Wages of Nonsense

It's a sad state of affairs when liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias has to point out that some of what's printed in the Wall Street Journal doesn't comport with the realities of economics:

Financial advisor Mike Donahue whines in the WSJ: “I have more than most only because I’ve worked harder than most and because I am a saver.”

I find it literally shocking that people say things like this. And I always go back to the case of the Salvadoran guys who moved all my furniture into my current apartment. I certainly make more money than those guys. But whether or not I work longer hours than they do (which is definitely possible, I work pretty long hours), you’d have to be clinically insane to think that writing my blog entails working harder than they do. In the real world, the reason I earn more than Salvadoran movers is the same as the reason I work less hard—I have more valuable skills

To be fair, the original article was subscriber only, so I couldn't read the whole thing. But the notion that you earn more because you "worked harder" sounds more like aggrieved utopian nonsense than the principled free-market outlook that is associated with the WSJ.

Don't take my word for it, or Yglesias's for that matter. Here's Hayek from The Road to Serfdom:

In any system which for the distribution of men between the different trades and occupations relies on their own choice it is necessary that the remuneration in these trades should correspond to their usefulness to the other members of society, even if this should stand in no relation to subjective merits.

Marc Trager Raises $100,000

Dr. Marc Trager, Republican candidate for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district is reporting his first quarter fundraising. I just got the press release in the in-box (couldn't find the link yet):

Dr. Marc Trager Raises More than $100,000 in the First Quarter; Has More than $127,000 Cash on Hand

(GREEN BAY, WI) Eighth District Congressional Candidate, Green Bay Physician, and former U.S. Air Force Major Dr. Marc Trager reported raising $100,585 for the quarter ending March 31, 2010 with $127,101 cash on hand. Dr. Trager has raised more than $150,000 since announcing his candidacy last November.

I believe today was the filing deadline, but the numbers aren't up at fec.gov yet, so the overall picture will have to wait for now.

Money isn't everything in this race, but this seems like a big deal.

Leno on GM's prospects

Jay Leno has a piece at Popular Mechanics.com reassuring us that the American automobile industry is "poised for a comeback."

I’ve driven the new Chevy Volt. It’s different from the Prius in that it’s a fully electric car with an electric generator powered by a 1.4-liter gas engine....

It’s fun to see engineers running car companies again, rather than accountants. GM has real engineers in place now...

GM doesn't need engineers, it needs cardiologists, and nurses, and pharmacists. According to this GM retiree healthcare presentation, GM spent 4.6 billion on healthcare in 2007 and every second of every day GM pays for a medical procedure.

Just yesterday, the news was that GM was doubling the size of the lab where they develop the batteries for the Volt that Leno is so high on. Total amount spent to double the lab - $8 million. That's million with an "M".

The fact of the matter is that the business model that GM used to build cars, and an American middle class, for many years during the twentieth century has run its course and is now extinct. Cheerleading from a well-intentioned, but seemingly ill-informed native son won't change that. Neither will a government bailout that perpetuates the current way of doing business at the cost of necessary reforms.

Standing athwart the baggage carousel yelling enough!

I'm beginning to wonder if Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has even a tenuous grasp on reality. Via Senatus:

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “said he would introduce legislation that would prevent airlines from charging a fee for carry-on bags,” Reuters reports.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he would press the Treasury Department to issue an administrative rule that would define carry-on bags as a "reasonable necessity" to prevent airlines from imposing such charges, calling them a "slap in the face to travelers."

Schumer said if the Treasury Department cannot close what he dubbed a loophole in the law, he will introduce legislation that would mandate carry-on bags as reasonably necessary for air travel.

If there was ever a phenomenon that cried out, "I am not a market failure requiring government intervention," the practice of charging for carry-on bags was it.

Despite what Southwest airlines keeps telling you, bags do not fly free; they never have. If you think that in the good ol' days prior to baggage fees you were somehow sneaking one past the airlines by having them transport your luggage for free, you're kidding yourself. The cost of transporting the bag was part of the cost of your ticket. Any airline that couldn't figure out how to make sure of that, wouldn't be in business very long.

It seems to me baggage fees do two things: 1)They make travelers aware of the cost of transporting a bag. A cost that was always there, but hard for the average traveler to identify. 2) They make travelers who impose higher costs by traveling with more bags, actually pay those higher costs.

While this second feature is bad for people who like to travel with a lot of luggage, it's good for people that do not. In fact, prior to this, people who traveled lightly were subsidizing the ticket price of those who packed a lot of clothes. Has our entitlement mentality ballooned to such a size as to now include reduced cost airfare for the more sartorially inclined traveling public?

The negotiation between airlines and passengers over costs, including the costs of transporting luggage is absolutely no place for the government to inject itself. I simply can't think of any compelling rationale for a government intervention over a carry-on bag fee.

Eliminating the cost of transporting luggage from one destination to another would require a repeal of the laws of physics. Outlawing the practice of charging baggage fees may make the fees disappear, but you can count on the fact that travelers will continue to pay them in the form of higher ticket prices. To pretend otherwise is either an outright lie or a denial of reality so troubling that it may disqualify one from holding public office.

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sdrawkcab rettel, sdrawkcab knil

When it comes to financial institutions, maybe size does matter.

David Brooks - Optimist.

Amazing scuba diving pictures.

Best song of the '90s.................

The company we keep.

Some governments can be trusted to run mixed-economy social democracies: those of Western Europe, of the British Dominions, of the islands and peninsulas off the coast of East Asia, and of California, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, and New England come to mind.

That's economist and blogger Brad DeLong.

Steve Kagen Happy with Response to Secret Town Halls

Try 2 Focus had the scoop yesterday:

Apparently Congressman Kagen is planning on moving around the district in stealth mode during the current break.

First heard about this through a Facebook contact.

The Post-Cresent has a report from a Kagen event:

APPLETON — The new federal health care law has changed the tenor of the conversation and debate happening at U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen’s town hall meetings.

So thinks the Appleton Democrat, who on Wednesday came to the Thompson Community Center for the first of six forums in his northeastern Wisconsin district to outline to senior citizens the major provisions of the legislation.

His appearance with a group of 30 coincided with Gov. Jim Doyle’s announcement of the creation of a new office to help Wisconsin residents and businesses understand how the health care system’s overhaul will affect them.

“They’re having a different question now,” Kagen said in reference to the feedback he has been getting. “It’s not about what should be in (the bill), but what does the law do for me?”

First, if an event is not widely publicized, is it any wonder that Kagen was treated to an unusually supportive crowd. While I am certainly for raising the level of civility over that which was in evidence last summer, there's no evidence that now that health reform is law people are more supportive of it.

Second, the questions that people are asking most likely stem from the massive confusion surrounding the bill, though you get no sense of that from Kagen's remarks.

Roger Roth, one of the Republican candidates running to replace Kagen, just shared an article from McClatchy on his facebook page which included this:

WASHINGTON — Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.

Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors' offices, human resources departments and business groups.

"They're saying, 'Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?' " said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com.

I'd say those are different questions alright. In this case the contrast between Roth and Kagen couldn't be more stark, and it's not in Kagen's favor.

50 point bonus for F-R-E-E-D-O-M-S

By now you may have heard of the outrage sparked by news reports that the board game Scrabble was going to change the rules and allow the use of proper nouns. It rose to a level high enough that Stefan Fatsis took to the digitized pages of Slate to restore order, clarifying that it was a Scrabble spin-off that will allow the use of proper nouns, and not the game that Americans have grown to love. Fatsis was sure to point out that the foreign Scrabble will not even be available in North America. That's a relief. Our porous borders screen out offending board games even while they let terrorists and drug-traffickers through.

Apparently, a wide swath of America finds the notion of proper noun usage in Scrabble absolutely scandalous. To which I can only reply: balderdash!

I think that in a nation that calls itself free if a person purchases a board game they ought to be able to use it in any manner they see fit, provided it doesn't infringe on the freedom of others. If consenting adults in the privacy of their own home want to allow proper nouns in their Scrabble games, they should be able to. Acronyms? Sure. Abbreviations? Go for it. An entire game consisting only of Inuit words for snow? Knock yourself out. I realize this board game libertarianism puts me well to the right of that rotund monopolist Rich Uncle Pennybags, but so what. I fully expect Ron Paul to rally to the cause any day now.

The reaction to this potential change was chilling and bordered on sinister. The only thing missing was a Senator from Wisconsin asking people if they currently use or have ever used a proper noun during a game of Scrabble.

Is this really what we have come to? We free ourselves from the oppression of inherited monarchy, and it works so well we just keep going. We destroy civic and religious bonds that have sustained us for generations and what are we left with? The petty tyrannies low-level rule-setters. Given the response to the idea of this change, I wouldn't be surprised to find that more American Catholics observe Hasbro's prohibition on proper nouns than the Church's ban on contraception. I can think of no surer sign that we are a doomed nation.

Moses thought he knew a little something about law-giving, with his stone tablets and his "thou shalt nots". What did he know? If you want to make a rule that people will follow, it's apparently better to print it in English, French, and Spanish, in tiny script, on low-quality paper, title it "How To Play", fold it over three or four times and include it in a board game. Because then everyone will have to follow it without question.

Those who think the use of proper nouns in Scrabble is an abomination are little more than tyrants. And tyranny must be opposed, in whatever form it might take. Can a standoff between a peaceful non-conformist group who plays Chutes and Ladders in reverse order and jack-booted government agents, black helicopters and all, be far off? If so friends, I know on which side I will stand. They can take my Scrabble letter tray when they pry it from my cold dead hands!

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Super special H/T to Mrs. RWC for the all the links.

World's best complaint letter. (Click it. You won't be sorry.)

Speed trap listings by state.

The declining public celebration of Easter.

"By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority." An interesting stat in an otherwise tedious Frank Rich column.

Start your garden here.

It's been really busy at work. I know, I know........

Political(ly Incorrect) Economy

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution points to an NBER paper that looks at the question of whether having daughters makes people more likely to hold conservative political views.

He takes time to highlight this passage, which he's not necessarily convinced of but says it requires "stones" to publish:

The conservative emphasis on family, traditional values and gender roles, and prolife anti-abortion sentiments all stress investment in children – for both men and women. Conservative policies mirror the genetic interests of women, writ large. They attempt to promote paternal investment in offspring. Further, they stress investment in conceived offspring – “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” In short, Conservative policies support the genetic fitness of women by capitalizing on each pregnancy, reducing male promiscuity, and increasing paternal investment in children. Such policies may impinge on the freedom of parents’ immediate offspring, but they increase the expected number of grandchildren via daughters.

I do think we are in for a serious reconsideration of just what constitutes a policy that is in the interest of women. I suspect this will happen sooner rather than later and that people on both sides of the divide will have some of their deeply held beliefs challenged and in some cases upturned.

A Shorter Matthew Yglesias

While fretting over state efforts to undermine Obama's health reform Yglesias offers this bit of wisdom:

My impression is that the quality of governance offered by state governments in the United States is generally low, and that mainly you should try to avoid handing over the administration of anything to state government unless there’s truly no other reasonable option.

Now this is a sentiment I can really get behind, but it really is much better if you just take out the word "state". Here is the edited and much improved, if I do say so myself, version:

My impression is that the quality of governance offered by...governments in the United States is generally low, and that mainly you should try to avoid handing over the administration of anything to...government unless there’s truly no other reasonable option.

It baffles me that anyone could hold such a low view of the state governments while simultaneously believing that the federal government is capable of substantially better performance. But hey, there's a lot of things I don't understand.

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What in the heck is going on with the Girl Scouts?

"The EPA responded by saying that most Energy Star products are not frauds." That's reassuring.

Build a better password.

Torture testing Peeps.

The kind of sausage-making everyone can enjoy.

One example of the fascinating architecture of Green Bay.

NPR's map of "The Economy Where You Live"