Will they put in a fire pole?

We were in Minneapolis this past weeknend and walking thorough Edina and talking about the tear downs and the large homes people are building. My neice saw a large home under construction with a 3 car garage and she asked if they were building a new fire station.

Animal Rights and Global Warming

Interesting campaign by PETA and the Humane Society to send message that eating meat contributes to global warming. I think that the animal rights groups are jumping on the current trendy environmental issue to advance their goals. I think it that mainstream environmentalists and environmental groups should also encourage people to eat less meat but they are too chicken.

Hogs on Brownfield

Article about what is probably the coolest redevelopment of a brownfield site, the new Harley museum.

Is he serious? What does guilty mean?

Can someone please explain to me how Senator Craig can thinks he can say “I am not gay, I have never been gay” when he pleads guilty to soliciting sex in a men’s bathroom and an investigation by another source found 3 independent people to verify that he had sex with them. Does he really think people will believe him?

Extra:
Althouse had link to interesting exchange between Slate editors about what to say about this story. There are many perspectives and ways to look at this one. It is sort of funny that many would questions whether this is a serious crime that should be enforced but regardless he seems to clearly be a right wing hypocrite.

I am not that thrilled to see Gonzales gone

While I know that many on the left have been calling on his resignation and impeachment, this does not seem like a big deal. It some ways, focusing on Gonzales takes away some of the focus on Bush. I get the feeling there are many powerful people who are not the top administrators and not in the public eye (#2s, deputies, etc.) in the Bush administration that are really driving things at Justice, Defense, and in the White House.

I know it is different but in state government, my experience is that the real people driving change and policy shifts are not the secretary's and top administrators but the other 2nd tier executives. To me Gonzales seemed like a figurehead/ puppet who read from talking points written by others, he seemed kind-of clueless during his testimony in front of congress. Will anything change? no I don't think he was really individually responsible for any controversial things he was critisized for.

iraq spin

in listening to NPR yesterday they played two stories back to back which were related but I was not sure they meant to illicit the reaction I had.

The first one was talking about how the Bush admin is trying to shift public and congressional opinion on the surge and the success of the war. It was a good liberal piece that exposed the PR effort they are doing to shift the mood on the war and it described how a group of writers and analysts took an adminstration organized trip to Iraq to find out what was going on. That resulted in the piece by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack in the NYT which the admin was happy about.

Then the second one was Iraq Trip Sways Congressman Against Pullout here is a summary of the story:

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) returned last week from a second trip to Iraq. He voted against authorizing the invasion of Iraq in 2002, and in May, he voted in favor of Democratic legislation that would have required President Bush to bring U.S. troops home next year.

But after his recent visit, Baird has changed his mind. He now says he believes U.S. troops must stay in Iraq longer, and that a precipitous withdrawal could have catastrophic results for Iraq and the region.

I was glad to have heard the first piece because otherwise I would have been likely very swayed to think, oh, maybe we are making progress and maybe it would be bad to withdraw now. But the first piece made me sceptical and think that perhaps congressman Baird's trip was carefully orchestrated by the administration with the goal to change peoples minds. Is Congressman Baird (and NPR) a tool being used skillfully by the Bush puppetmasters to shift public opinion on the war or is he a thoughtful good guy with some important ideas to consider?

Have you ever had escolar?

Althouse has a link to an old article about escolar, a fish which is contorversial because when some people eat it, it acts as a laxitive. Odd topic but an intersting article. I have had it and don't recall if I had any stomach problems. It would seem if people are smart and know about this they can try it and see if they can eat it or not. When I had it I can remember for sure that the waiter did not tell me about this little side effect. It seems slimey for a resturant to serve it and tell the customers how yummy it is when many customers don't know what they are getting themselves into. The fish is actually banned in Japan because they think it is toxic. I wonder if there are other foods which some people have trouble with when they eat it.

our farm is flooded

We joined a CSA this year with Harmony Valley and have been very happy. Very sad news but they got hit hard by the flooding in Western WI. I did not realize that WI had so many organic farms. I was wondering if economically they are better off because of the CSA program than if they sold all food commercially/ farmers markets.

f

Surf's Up Fond du Lac

I heard a blurb on the radio that National Geographic listed Fond du Lac as a top waterfront town in their adventure magazine. Huh? They tried to have some place from each state but I can't think of a more odd choice. Fun, outdoors loving, tourist destination, active people, no.

EXTRA: see article

One of these things is not like the other:

Other recognized cities include Waimea, Hawaii; Newport, R.I; Rockland, Maine; Mystic, Conn.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Annapolis, Md.; Beaufort, S.C.; and Lewiston, Idaho.

Did they mention the fish virus and the PCBs in the sediment?

According to the article, National Geographic chose Fond du Lac due to the 215-square-mile Lake Winnebago. The magazine described the lake as "the Fond du Lac version of a day at the Hamptons."

Bikes are not Transportation

The head of the US Dept. of Transportation comments on NewsHour

Secretary Peters Says Bikes “Are Not Transportation”

Well, there's about probably some 10 percent to 20 percent of the current spending that is going to projects that really are not transportation, directly transportation-related. Some of that money is being spent on things, as I said earlier, like bike paths or trails.

Unbelievable.....if she went to Madison and saw all the bikes parked next to my building each day. There are probably 100 bikes there. If a city commits serious money to supporting infill development, building bike paths, etc. that can have serious consequences in terms of traffic reduction, air quality, etc.

The comments were part of a discussion about investments in infrastructure as a result of the MN bridge disaster. To me this is not really a political issue. Who is the party pushing for more infrastructure investment? In Wisconsin they dynamic I see is that the GOP is supportive of the road builders but more for building new highways in the small towns and burbs around the state and do not want to spend money fixing the old decaying infrastructure in Milwaukee, Madison, etc.

UPDATE: This article got me thinking about how many people in Madison travel by bike. Here is some info I found in the City's most recent bike plan. It doesn't sound like there are accurate stats but:

The 2000 U.S. Census Journey to Work data indicates that Madison has a 3.19% bicycling mode share for employees over the age of 16. The figure for the Isthmus alone is 7.1%. Census data is collected in April, and for a single week. In addition, only one mode of travel can be selected. Because the weather in April can be inclement, and because many transportation bicyclists may choose to also occasionally walk, drive, take transit, or carpool, popular wisdom is that the actual Journey to Work mode share for
bicycling in Madison may actually be higher than the reported Census data. The
Thunderhead Alliance, a national coalition of state and local bicycle and pedestrian
advocacy organizations working to help organizations to grow and become more effective, is currently undertaking a national benchmarking project supported by the
Centers for Disease Control, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, and Planet Bike to collect better data on bicycling, including bicycle trip mode share. In a 2004 draft of the project, they estimated Madison’s corrected bicycling mode share to be 11.3% for all trips

Althouse: Doyle?

Althouse: Doyle?

Althouse points to TimeSelect article speculating about possible VP choices for Hillary. The article mentions WI Gov Doyle and Richardson.

I really like Richardson and think he is the best Dem in the field. I think his experience (foreign policy, energy) would help Clinton seem stronger.

One thing I like about Doyle is that he really does not seem interested in positioning himself for higher office. I have never seen him say anything about foreign policy issues and rarely gets into DC politics and doesn't try to be a media hog. He is not known outside of WI to anyone and I think WI will go Dem in the Presidential election without him. It won't be him.

I personally think Obama and Edwards would be pretty good choices. I think that the VP choice is not very much focused on picking up a swing state (ie Lieberman, Cheney). Picking up the campaign supporters, mailing lists, etc. from another strong cadiadate seesm smart.

I's so cold in Alaska - Simpson's Movie Review

two thumbs up - grade A-
What a joy to sit and watch the Simpsons for 90 minutes. While it may sound funny to say for a cartoon but the special effects were very cool. Great animation for the big screen, neat scenes with every character on the screen at one time. Many laughs. In some ways after watching some South Park and Family Guy the Simpsons humor is at times tame.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Controversy over a new book about pro-Israel Lobby The book is about an important topic and there is no denying that the lobby of the US Zionist movement is powerful. They seem like real scholars, not some anti-Semitic wingnuts. It seems that many are so quick to claim that anything is anti-Semetic before even looking at the facts. It seems remarkable that the antidefination league has come out with a counter book even before this book is out. I would be interested in a fact by fact analysis of the points in the book. By the NYT publishing this article, they help fuel the "controversy". It seems that some feel that a book on this topic should not have been written and that this is a little inside secrete that the public should not know about. The Anti-Semetic folks already are paranoid about the strong pro-Israel lobby and this book may provide facts about the issue to all.

Sprawl TIF

This Isthmus article caught my eye because of the headline "A High Price for Groceries" So the Village of Deerfield wants to use TIF to create a sprawl subdivision. Supposedly it will include retail and condos too which I guess is better than it could be but it doesn't meet the TIF requirements in my view. Where is the Blight?

It seems odd that the Dane County Treasurer is going door to door to talk to people about this project. It doesn't matter if everyone in the Village thinks this is the best idea since sliced bread. If the County has significant concerns, they should vote to not approve.

Also, the grocery store thing seems very odd. Unless the development agreement specifically requires this developer to guarantee a grocery store, it is just wishful thinking on the part of the municipality to create this TIF for a grocery store. The economics of the grocery industry are tricky and many people have gone to great lengths to try to get their grocery store in their town/neighborhood and it is not easy. I don't like this and I don't think that the schools or county should approve this. I wonder if there is a legal basis to challenge this.

Federal Tax Breaks for People who Drive Downtown and Pay for Parking

NYT Article points out federal tax breaks for people who pay for parking downtown. I think I have used this program to pay for bus tickets, pre-tax. I am pretty sure my colleagues can use it to pay for parking here in Madison. If you do drive and pay to park, why would you not use it. It is similar to the health care and child care pretax accounts. I don't really understand why this tax break would ever have been created in the first place.

It seems that a tax break like this would be a good tool to encourage people everywhere to use alternative transportation, carpool, etc. In addition to the cost savings, it also encourages people to commit to a monthly parking pass as opposed to just parking some days and paying by the day. If you have a car and a monthly spot, there is little incentive to take any other way to work.

This article may encourage a change to this law in the future.

After thinking this over, there may be an anti sprawl benefit to this tax break as is in a city like Madison. If your goal is to encourage businesses to locate downtown, those businesses may be more likely to do so if they know that the cost for parking for their employees is somewhat less because of this tax break.

hmmmmmm

How to discourage bike transportation?

So the city of Madison does this great thing and builds the "missing link" bike path which was completed and opened last year. Yea! What do they do next year, start a large road construction project in the middle which basically closes the path. The official detour is so big it pretty much avoids the whole path. A bike detour is not like a car detour, if you have to travel several blocks, up hill, etc. that is no good. What is particularly annoying is that it is only crossing one street and there is not an easy way around it and they have taken large breaks from the construction; a week here another week there. Given the number of streets the path crosses, I would not be surprised if it is closed many more times over the next few years.

What is he worst day for it to rain in Madison?

August 15 - this is the day that 1000s of mostly young people move out of there apartments and into new ones. People have to put stuff out in front of their places while they wait to get in. It is raining on hippy christmas which will result in a even bigger mess and more waste going to the landfill which could have been reused by others. bummmer

(photo from Capitol Times)

Laughing Out Loud

so I have been checking out Le Show - Harry Shearer's radio show. I can see why it does not have John Stewart levels of popularity because of the dry wit and serious issues but each one has had some really funny skit or routine.

You want to laugh.....oh my god....the skit around halfway in this show August 12 is really good. Commercial for diapers for people who don't want to stop like the astronaut in the love triangle scandal.

How does your family eat dinner and get ready for bed?

How does your family eat dinner and get ready for bed?

While an article on how you make dinner for your family seems silly, it does occur to me that I never read anything on this type of topic and I don't talk to other parents about this type of thing. Maybe mom's more often talk about this with other moms but not me. All three of the families do not eat with the kids, the kids get fed first and then mom and dad eat later. Maybe they have to do that because they get home later than me. That is not what we do.
The family photo is funny and I like this line:

Having a wineglass in my hand in the evening helps. It's nice to be drinking out of a grown-up glass after being surrounded by sippy cups.

Tips from the article:
Never have enough time at the end of the day? Three women offer their tips

They include adding headsets to all phones to keep hands free

Be firm about children's bedtimes and ready-for-bed schedules

GOP YouTube Debate is Back on

Apparently the GOP YouTube Debate is Back on after they chickened out. Check out the funny snowman encouraging Mitt to join the fun.

There is an intersting dynamic here. Who ever picks the questions will want to pick good serious questions but many of the people who pose questions will be dems trying to make the GOP look bad overall. The modirators won't pick those questions but they will be highly visible and will rank high on YouTube. The most effective thing for dems to do would be to pose creative, setup type questions that expose some of the biggest flaws of the whole GOP. Then these will hopefully get some media play and make people question the real problems with the GOP.

3300

How many blogs are there from people in Madison, WI

A friend asked me if there was a way to search blogs by location and I figured out how. And this is just through Blogger/ Blogspot. Wow! You know how many bloggers there are who listed Star Wars as one of their favorite movies?

67,000! ha!

Kramer's Market Meltdown

Have you seen Jim Kramer's meltdown on TV? I know the guy is normally nuts but this seems over the top. His points, if you call them that, don't work for me. Even if you don't care about wall street, this is entertaining.

1. people are losing their homes - this is bad, but the Fed can't do anything about the fact that mortgages were given to people who should not have gotten them and then default. He doesn't care about these folks, the poor in america and their financial problems. If he did, he would focus his efforts on other issues impacting the working poor.

2. top execs from big investment firms have called Kramer to tell them how bad it is and something must be done, people (his friends may lose their jobs) - While I don't understand this completely, what they are freaking out about is the market is falling- that is part of wall street, it goes up and down, there are risks, people will lose money. Those involved with these credit based instruments and subprime mortgages may face big problems, heads will roll, but this is because they were banking on a risky investment. I would not want to buy a mortgage that was given based on someone who lied about their income.

The whole market is a house of cards built on some real questionable practices.

Gay Debate

I did not watch the debate last night, but I heard a few clips on the radio. I was wondering if the candidates tried to be supportive but were very careful to not say anything like "I am very supportive of gay people and issues" so they do not get recorded with any pro-gay sound bites that could be used by the GOP/ right wing media in the future.

get paid to find dirty photos online

Interesting NY Times Article about odd federal program to find offensive websites- they get federal money through earmark, DOJ doesn't enforce any of the reported violations.

While the typical liberal perspective is, dumb program, censorship, conservative idea, first amendment, etc. It does make me wonder who is policing the web at all. While I am not clear what is violations of the law and what is not, there are lot of extremely racist, anti-gay, anti-Semitic websites with very threatening language, hate speech against individuals, etc. Is there any government effort to do anything about such dark corners of the net?

She was second in line for 20 years

It seems nuts that Barbra Morgan had to wait 20 years to go into space. She even moved her whole family from Idaho to Houston because there was a chance she may become an astronaut. I hope she is enjoying the trip. It reminds me of the Curious George episode when George goes into space to deliver food to the hungry astronauts on the space station.

madison restaurants A to Z

Great idea - couple rates every restaurant in Madison, going alphabetically with photos! on a blog. There are many places I would not want to bother going to.

Historic Half Done House for $1.2 Million

home for sale

I know there has been some neighborhood controversy regarding this property. It can be yours for $1.2 million; a half complete, huge home in University Heights. 6 BR over 5000 sf! I guess it used to be a rental and then someone bought it, told people it was for their family, and proceeded to get approval for a huge garage (3 car apparently) + addition and the neighbors did not like it. I would like to know the whole story here. They have been working on the place for years. Will they finish the construction with their money before closing?

Mr. Burns on the Radio

I just discovered Le Show. Harry Shearer's radio show on KCRW. How have I missed this? Anyone have comments on this show? is it good?

A listen to the Aug. 5 show. I like. They are doing a pledge drive and said that Harry does not get paid to do the show and has been doing it for 25 years! They said he has complete creative control; he can do whatever he wants and other stations are scared to put his show on their stations. Is that true?

August 5 show has this great long off-air clip from Katie Corric covering the MN bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Wow! She seemed more worried about her hair and whether her station has gotten better coverage than the other stations.

Apples to Apples

Editorial about eating local from NYT
This editorial says that it is not always best to eat locally grown/ produced food. While it seems counter intuitive, some study from New Zealand indicated that some food can have less environmental impact even if it travel to your table than food produced locally.

Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed.

I am sceptical of a New Zealand study that found, food from New Zealand is better than local food but they do raise good points. Certain things seem obvious, tomatoes grown in a green house in Alaska may be worse environmentally than tomatoes grown in California shipped to Alaska but generally it seems that eating local is the best. At the market the other day they had local apples right next to apples from New Zealand. Which do you think is best.

Stephanie Miller does a good Roseanne Barr impression

her Sharon Osborn is not so good

Stephine Miller's Box

I was embarrased today when I was listening on line to Stephanie Miller and they were talking about the photo on her website of her "box" and I had to go look at the photo when a co-worker came by my cube. Even thought the photo is not dirty, I felt naughty. Click on it....you know you want to.....

$ in Silicon Valley

Top article on NY Times Website is about all the hard working millionaires in Silicon Valley. A couple of comments.

I can see why this is the #1 article, I guess many will have strong reactions
- why do these people get paid so much?
- why don't I make that kind of money?
- why are these idiots working so hard, why don't they just enjoy their wealth and relax
- glad I don't live there

The dollars here are enormous compared to the rest of America and I am glad the paper included statistics about where these people fell in the national income distribution. People with this kind of money need to be reminded that they make more than 98% of the people in this country and probably 99.9% of the other people on the planet.

The housing prices there are insane. It seems there has to be a point when a dot.com business would think it doesn't make economic sense to locate there. Could a successful high tech business make more money in Iowa City, Madison, Kansas City than in Silicon Valley? A programmer in Madison can have a fine life if they may $60,000 a year when they could not even get by in Silicon Valley.

I personally think working the hours described here is not a good way to live, especially if you have kids.

I don't think that the phemonomin described here is unique to Silicon Valley. In some ways, out side of NYC, LA and a few other very expensive place, this lifestyle seems even more nuts given that you can live comfortably with far less than what is decribed here.

How do you spend all that money, additional story here.

It does seem that as you make more it is easy to spend more, then people say, I could not reduce my hours/ salery because I could not keep up my lifestyle.

Richardson #4 in Iowa Poll

Media spin on polls a new poll in Iowa shows the top 3 dems in neck and neck. That headline makes the readers think that they must pick between the top 3 people. The main stream media could take a different approach and make readers think differently about other candidates. Another take -

"Top four candidates get double digit support in Iowa"

"Who has enough experience to be President? - Iowa voters say Hillery, Bill Richardson and Edwards - While he is unknown to many, Iowa voters think that Bill Richardson has more experience than Obama and virtually the same amount of experience as Edwards."

How Walkable is Your 'Hood

A cool new website, Walk Score, allows you to see how walkable your neighborhood is. Type in the address and you will get a score based on the proximity to shopping, parks, libraries, etc. I was impressed that it had almost every small neighborhood store and park in my neighborhood. Given that this was part of the reason I moved there, I am glad that I got a 62 out of one hundred.

Interesting, I did a score of my childhood home and got 60. Problems however are that a mini-mart came up as a grocery store and there was some library in a Synagogue on the library list. General problem I see would be the sprawl planning issue that you may be close to a commercial area but it may not be safe/ nice to walk there if it across a major arterial street.

Reader Comments on NY Times Front Page

I don't know if you can see this clearly or if it will be up there when you click on it but I thought that it was interesting that the NY Times used a comment submitted by a reader and put it right up there under a photo of the Minneapolis bridge tragedy. I think it interesting that even main stream media allows for comments on articles. Blurring the lines between blogs, letters to the editor, etc. Does the NY Times allow comments on all articles? do they monitor the comments? This makes a story so much different than in the old days. The paper publishes a story and then in a day, you will get hundreds of comments, many which present interesting facts, unique perspectives, etc. Check some of these out

One problem with this is that some comments could include rummors, false information, etc. which gets read by potentially 1000s of people, etc.

Richardson for Prez

I think Bill Richardson is the best-qualified candidate and has the best chance of beating the GOP candidate. Why does he not get more respect? I blame the media. They want to cover a 2-way or 3-way horse race of interesting candidates. They have selected Hillary, Obama and Edwards because of their interesting lives and unique stories and love to focus on them. They did not pick them because of their experience. The public puts those 3 in the top three because of the heavy media play. It is a spiral but results in the other candidates getting little serious media attention or attention from the public.

If Richardson has some magazine covers, appearances on TV, etc. he would get higher numbers in the pols. When he was on Meet the Press I read some negative press on his appearance. It was not deserved in my view. He did well and handled some tough issues. Watch for yourself. Maybe he is not as charismatic as the others but that is an overblown quality for this job. Obama and Edwards are high in charisma but they are not experienced enough to do the job and the GOP will play that up big time if they get the nomination. Yes, I know he has a few inconsistancies in his positions and he is not perfect but neither is any other candidate. Newsweek had a cover story on Obama and Race and mentioned Richardson. They chose to point out that Hispanic voters are not very supportive of him. You know why? Because just like the rest of America they see the headlines and magazine covers which are covering the American Idol election of the top 3.

I just do not think a person who's main experience is being in the US Senate is qualified to be President.

Silly Spoof on the Pharmaceutical Industry

Great Weird Al type spoof of the pharmaceutical industry by a group called Sudden Death. The song is called "Pillagers", very funny rap song with great stuff on the direct consumer marketing done by big pharm. It is a little dumb at first but gets better and has a nice Beastie Boys riff.

"Liquiplox isn't for everyone. People without health insurance or who otherwise may be unable to pay should not take Liquiplox. Do not stop taking any of your other medications without consulting your doctor as this may cause an unsafe drop in our profit margins."

Bottled H2O

NYT Editorial on the latest environmental sin - Bottled Water
I agree with most of what the article says but people will just keep buying and drinking. I heard on NPR that the famous Berkley Chez Panisse is not offering bottled water, only filtered water from the tap with carbonation if people want I think. My idea, water utilities should start bottling their filtered water and selling locally to groceries, restaurants, etc. I know the creation of the bottles and the waste makes this not the best environmental alternative but it would be much better environmentally than getting bottled water from across the country and would likely be much cheaper for the customers. People buy bottled water because it is convenient, tastes good, is cold, etc.

subliminal priming

NYT article about how our perceptions and behavior can be influenced by subliminal hints and cues all around

Similar studies are described in Blink (which I am reading slowly at the moment). The studies are fascinating but how this impacts our lives is not clear. It seems overwhelming when you stop and think about how so many things may be influencing how we feel and what we do that we are completely not aware of. I think we are so far from being able to apply this knowledge in any useful way. The beginning of the article describes a great experiment:

The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

I think that some may understand this psychology by experience and apply it. How you design a restaurant for example. From years of experience, the industry has learned how to make people happy, hungry, etc. Successful sales people know what to say and how to act to make people feel comfortable. But think of all the times you may be unintentionally impacting someones thinking. The tie you wear to a interview, the picture on a wall in your home, the deodorant you wear, etc. could all impact how people with you behave and feel.