Photo dump

Here's what I woke up to this morning (at 7:10 AM):





Also, this weekend I bought a CD (Chuck Berry, greatest hits) - and it turns out that I happened to have done my shopping on "Record Store Day". I got a bunch of sampler CDs, live EPs, and singles... So far, the best new-to-me band from these CD's is the Panthers,



These last photos, I just took, 5 minutes ago. It's finally sunny and warm, and people are out working or relaxing at Memorial Union.

Everyday heroes, misadventures

Usually when the local news runs a feel-good story it's the kind of fluff that makes people turn off the tv and get the news from the internet instead.

This however is a genuinely meaningful do-gooder story.

Also interesting, this video from the New Yorker, shows the security camera footage of a guy trapped in an elevator over a weekend.

Farmer's Market + Protestacular

Madison's farmer's market is one of its greatest attractions. Wisconsin is a farming state with tons of farmland within biking distance of Madison. I think there's even a farm within city limits.

During the winter the market moves indoors, but one of the benefits of this is that they offer a fantastic breakfast during those winter months. During the summer the market is much larger, and is held outdoors - and there's no breakfast. Last week was the last indoor market of the season and this week the first outdoor market. Here's photos.

This first one is from last week's indoor market. I tried to get the menu in the shot, but it's kind of hard to see the farmer's stands. You can sort of make out a refrigerator that a cattle farmer had, and a stand which I believe holds pesto and other sauces.

Here's one from today

Not every booth at the market is for farmers. There's also bakers, cheese makers, florists... and of course there's political booths and - not infrequently - protesters. This week there were two competing pro-Tibetan independence, and pro-Chinese government rallies.

On the way home I noticed a hilarious poster for a movie that, as it turns out, is about some Tibetans. It's called Blindsight and is about blind kids who climb some mountain - but the tagline; "They lost their sight, not their vision," is ridiculous. Someone in the marketing department just couldn't resist those awful eyesight puns. It doesn't even sound like a real movie... it sounds like something from a fake-news story in The Onion, or a movie that might come from Tantamount Pictures.

I shall duck behind the couch.



Slate has a (probably NSFW) hilarious court transcript in which the court reporter himself is quoted cussing out a defendant who had attacked the prosecutor, and who was then tackled by the court reporter. This guy's dedication to his work is such that, some time later, he transcribed his own vulgar outburst for the official record. This guy reminds me of Wayne Jarvis, the lawyer who's a total pro, from Arrested Development - whose professionalism leads to ridiculous behaviour.

Rude Awakenings

This morning construction started at 7:30 with some jackhammering right outside of my window.

On the other hand, the construction has cut down on the number of drunk, loud frat-boys that go through this alley at bar-closing time.

Here's the view from the front door to my building this morning:


And here's the view from state street. Those 4 windows on the 2nd floor are my apartment's;

UW student murdered

Yesterday a UW student was found murdered in her home. It's the second unsolved murder by stabbing of the year. Police have hinted that the murderer(s) might have chosen their victim at random. There's also another downtown murder from last year that remains unsolved. Police haven't released many details about that case.

It's kind of scary. I used to live exactly 1 block away from where yesterday's murder occurred. That part of town is largely student housing (though some new condo's have gone up recently) - i.e. the homes are old, and poorly kept. Security features are almost non-existent.

For the time being, the police have increased their presence in the downtown-campus area. That's nice, but I'll feel a whole lot safer when they catch this guy.

This does not bode well

This is what the street in front of my apartment building looks like right now:



I'm not sure what they're doing, but it sure seems like it's going to be an inconvenience to me.

Also, google maps now has street view for Madison, but for some reason, my block of State Street is not included.

This is the closest you can get to a view of my apartment, on google maps;


View Larger Map

It's like rain on your wedding day

My last spring break ever comes to an end today. I spent most of it with some good old fashioned bronchitis.

Primary Fatigue

A month ago Wisconsin had it's primary, and in the run up to that vote I had the chance to see both Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton speak. Unfortunately John McCain didn't come to Madison.

I was going to write about those two Dem rallies, but frankly I've gotten pretty tired of the whole primaries thing. After hearing the two candidates speak, I had to take a break from political news. In any case, it should all be over soon. Today Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, 4th most popular presidential candidate, hispanic, and former (Bill) Clinton cabinet member, endorsed Obama. This should send a pretty strong signal to the Clinton camp that it's time to call it quits.

As for the two rallies I witnessed; I'll start with the Obama rally. Obama is a rock star, the crowds were huge, at the end of the day I think 20, 000 people showed up for the rally, though the arena only had room for 17, 000 of us. I was there a few hours early and got pretty decent seats. The crowd was young - many of the campaign volunteers looked like freshmen. There were quite a few families. Appropriately enough, Obama came out to U2's "City Of Blinding Lights". The crowd loved every minute of his speech - people in my section of the arena were on their feet the entire time. Even so, I found the speech to be mostly empty phrases, and vacuously true statements (much like U2's last few albums - zing!). Some unnamed "they" apparently are trying to "tell us" that some poorly defined thing cannot be done and you better believe that we're going to show them that we are smart enough and good enough, and enough doggone people think like us that we're all, collectively going to win the White House and change the world. For my tastes it was too much good feelings, and rainbows and My-Little-Ponies, and not enough actual policy ideas. I never really paid too much attention to Canadian leadership fights, but I certainly hope that we have demanded more detailed plans from our leaders before sending them into an election. At any rate, my bah-humbug was in the minority.

In the month since then Obama has gotten (finally) some criticism in the media for what McCain calls his "empty platitudes." But this doesn't look like it will be enough to lose him the nomination, and once that is secured he can put together a platform calibrated to the general election.

I should also mention that campaign coverage in the media has been both pro-Obama and anti-Hillary to an almost overwhelming degree. The closest Canadian comparison I can think of is the shameful smearing of Stockwell Day over his private, religious beliefs concerning evolution. Slate magazine has an ongoing series called "The Obama Messiah Watch" which keeps track of some of the most egregious cases of the media's pro-Obama fawning.

I don't mean to suggest that Obama has bad ideas, only that the people voting for him by and large don't know and don't care about his policy positions. Which, in my estimation, is bad for democracy - regardless of how great he might be.

Interestingly most of the leading state and city's male, Democratic politicians endorsed Obama including our mayor, and our governor. Most of the leading female politicians support Clinton including our congresswoman, and our lieutenant governor.

OK, on to Hillary: Her rally was delayed due to a rough day of weather that alternated between freezing rain, and snow. Even though the rally was held right downtown, and I live right downtown, and the most direct route from my apartment to the rally was along Madison's main street, it was still a very slippery walk. Apparently there's some sort of illness going around that prevents the city from clearing the sidewalks of snow and ice. The rally itself was much smaller than Obama, with a crowd of about 3000. The crowd was older and whiter, and more feminine. But it wasn't a Lilith Fair type of crowd, it was decidedly older - there were more young women at the Obama rally. (I don't actually know what a Lilith Fair crowd looks like, but I'm going to guess that it's mostly 20-30 year olds.)

Some of Clinton's rhetoric had been getting on my nerves such as her promise to get American troops out of Iraq "within 60 days of my becoming president of the United States of America." It always struck me that this was a promise that came across as being an overly-calculated attempt to cut into Obama's anti-war support. It also seems like she's probably promising more than she will be able to deliver; I very much doubt that any of the candidates would actually pull out of Iraq so suddenly, regardless of what their campaign might have promised. During the rally she modified her promise to say that it might not be doable, but that 60 days is what she will direct her military planners to aim for. During the rest of the rally she outlined a slew of policy ideas, some of which were pretty good (I think some would even be able to get bipartisan support), some of which I booed (in my mind). She attacked Bush much harder than I had previously seen from any (serious) candidate, calling him "probably the worst president" in American history. By contrast Obama's biggest attacks were reserved for John McCain (or second biggest if you include his attacks on the unnamed "they" that are trying to keep us down).

Anyway. I'm getting bored with the constant coverage... and this is only the primaries. There's still 8 months of campaigning left before the actual election.

As boring as the coverage is it's worth remembering that each of these candidates would bring about major changes in the American political landscape. A female or black president would be historic and would change the way people think about politics and gender/race. Even though women won suffrage much later than black men (at least, constitutionally... in practice the opposite was true in many parts of the country), I think the American people feel much more guilty about their historical mistreatment of blacks, than their mistreatment of women. An Obama win would, I think, have the effect of assuaging a lot of built-up white guilt and minority disenchantment. For a country obsessed with race, healing those wounds might well do more good, in the long run, than any policies that the next President might implement.

A McCain win could the political landscape in a different way; if he can get elected despite having low support amongst the social conservative wing of the Republican Party, we might see a major shift of power within a party that is struggling to update its image.

Winter Storm

Madison is getting a pretty good snowfall right now. Right now they're saying 14-18 inches. All local elementary and high schools were closed today, and earlier this afternoon the university also called off the rest of the day's classes. Even the Madison bus service is calling it quits about 4-5 hours early (usually there's some buses running until about midnight, but today they stop at 7PM). On my way back from the gym traffic on Johnson St. was moving so slow that about 8 cars were able to cross the intersection during the green light. Two cars on side streets were getting a push from passers-by.

Madison doesn't even have the worst of it. According to the newspapers:

Conditions have gotten so dicey in Green County that even snow plows are pulling off the road.

Here's some photos from the State Street area.

This is the parking lot behind my apartment.


Just a few weeks ago these abandoned bikes were snow-free.


State Street Brats' outdoor seating.


More bikes... but these ones aren't abandoned. Their owners probably brought them out last week when it was warm enough that most of the snow melted.


A losing battle.


Update: Weather related accidents led to a major backup of interstate traffic, resulting in a traffic jam that extended into the next county. Thousands of cars were stuck on the highway overnight.

The Whittling Down

Since my last post Richardson (Dem), Thompson (GOP), and now Giuliani (GOP) and Edwards (Dem) have dropped out.

That leaves two very close races, each of which is unusual in its own way.

On the Democrat side you have a very tight race. There was the potential for additional the drama due to the way in which votes are counted, but then Edwards dropped out. In the American system each party nominates their candidates at a convention some months before the presidential election. Each state has some number of delegates (more or less proportional to population) plus there are a few at-large delegates. In the months leading up to the convention different states choose their delegates in various different ways (I'll just call this "the primaries", although, technically speaking, some of them are "caucuses"). What's interesting about the Democratic Party's primaries is that the delegates from each state are not awarded in a winer-takes-all manner (as is the case for the GOP). Instead all the candidates receiving more than a certain percentage of the vote will pick up some delegates. Edwards, despite having no chance whatsoever of winning the nomination outright, or even of winning in any state, was still getting more than the cutoff. As a result he might have been able to pick up enough delegates to prevent Obama and Clinton themselves from picking up more than 50% of the delegates.

If, somehow, nobody were to win more than 50% of the delegates then we would see something that should be familiar to many Canadians: wheeling and dealing to try to get delegates to switch sides and to get weaker candidates to throw their support behind stronger candidates. It's unlikely, but technically possible to for something to occur similar to when Stéphane Dion leapfrogged ahead of Ignatieff and Rae to become the Liberal Party's leader. What would have been more likely, is for Edwards to trade his delegates for a position in any future administration (and let's face it, it looks like the Democrats are going to win the White House this year regardless of who's running).

Edwards could still trade his support to try to get the VP-nomination (for the second time). But also, Edwards is a malpractice-lawsuit lawyer by profession, and his whole campaign is built around a populist America-first, anti-business/pro-workers message so he would probably be happy to have one of the Cabinet positions that is relevant to his agenda; perhaps Attorney-General, Secretary of Labor, or Secretary of Commerce (or a combined Secretary of Commerce and Labor position).

...

Enough about the Dems, the really interesting fight is taking place on the Republican side.

Early in the primaries, when Giuliani had a lead in the national polls, some important conservative voices openly toyed with the idea of backing a third party candidate. Rudy's out now, but many of those same voters are going to be unhappy with the remaining candidates. Some conservatives are still unhappy with McCain over his support for an immigration-reform bill (paradoxically this bill was also strongly supported by Bush - and his base of support is those same social conservatives). On the other hand Romney's recent conversion from relatively liberal positions to a party-line message is of dubious authenticity. The term "flip-flopper" was overused in 2004, but if Romney is the GOP candidate you will hear that phrase even more frequently. The recent, suspiciously convenient, changes in his views on abortion, and gay-rights, and illegal-immigration will be replayed time and time again on news programs and in attack ads.

The other remaining candidate, Mike Huckabee, has no chance of winning. However, while I previously dismissed him as a not-serious candidate, he has actually done fairly well in the debates and on the stump. His biggest weakness is in-and-of-itself a fatal one: he is clumsy when discussing foreign policy. While it might be true that candidate George Bush (in 2000) also had foreign policy that was low on nuance, this is more of a liability now with the country involved in 1, 2, or 3 wars (is the War on Terror it's own war? Are Iraq and Afghanistan just 2 fronts in the same war?). On other topics, such as the Economy, Huckabee has come up with some quite impressive rhetoric, check out this ad:


Furthermore, I've found out a little bit more about him, and he actually has some views that might appeal to moderate voters (as well as his Evangelical base) if he were to get the GOP nomination. For example there's this from Slate:

Fiscally, and in his attitude toward social funding and even criminal justice, Huckabee has a record any DLC Democrat would be proud of ...In his book From Hope to Higher Ground, Huckabee includes a whole chapter called "STOP the revenge-based criminal justice system." He writes about how racial inequities are built into the system, and he approvingly quotes one prison official who told him, "We lock up a lot of people that we are mad at rather than just the ones we are really afraid of," and another who "astutely observed we don't have a crime problem, we have a drug and alcohol problem."

Unfortunately for Huckabee, not even Walker Texas Ranger can keep him from losing the race.

Between McCain and Romney the race is still too close to call. Regardless of who wins, the current back and forth over which one of them is really a liberal in disguise is only going to hurt. There's already a rather low level of enthusiasm about the GOP candidates, and if this translates to low voter turn-out amongst social-conservatives it will further help Obama/Clinton.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the GOP primaries are winner-takes-all, and the Evangelical vote is strongest in the South. Huckabee could try to stay in the race in order to win some of those states, and then aim to play kingmaker at the GOP convention. Huckabee as VP would go a long way towards soothing those social conservatives that are despondent about their choices.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, their ideal candidate does not exist. If he did he would resemble some sort of Frankenstein candidate with McCain's foreign policy, and war experience, Romney's business experience, and with Huckabee's religious street-cred. More realistically, the ideal candidate might have looked like a younger and more energetic Fred Thompson.

My guide to the US primaries for Canadians

I'm not stupid enough to blog about my political views, but I am fascinated by this election, and as a Canadian I feel like I can share some impartial observations.

On the Dem side it's a close, hard-fought race between Clinton and Obama. On the GOP side there is much greater volatility... it will probably be "close" in the sense that voters & donors will probably rally around 2 candidates, but which 2 is still up in the air.

Huckabee
A month ago I would have said that Huckabee is not a serious candidate. Now it looks like he's gaining supporters but I read that as a sign that Republicans are unhappy with their other choices, rather than any enthusiasm for his rather thin political agenda. He's an SNL skit waiting to happen (of course, SNL being what it is, it wouldn't be a funny skit). He's filling a policy gap in the GOP field (i.e. he's an actual conservative, and always has been). But in terms of being prepared for the presidency, he's too flaky, and will probably get crushed in the election by whoever the Dems run. Need proof? Take a look at his response to the Bhutto assassination.

Obama
He's got great presence. And he's got an electorate, especially on the Dem side, that's been very unhappy with the last 8 years (or, maybe 6 of the last 8), and are eager to lash out at anything and anyone that had anything to do with, or anything positive to say about the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, tax cuts, or any of a number of controversial (and in some cases, possibly illegal) events. On the other hand he ran for the Senate against a complete kook after the original GOP candidate dropped out due to a sex scandal. Clintonites are trying to use this as proof that he's untested/inexperienced.

It'll be interesting to see how the race thing plays out. On the one hand he rarely mentions his race, and that probably contributes to the image of him as a uniter (especially when you compare him with past Black candidates like, say, Sharpton). That's got to play well with traditional, white Dems in the states that are most highly contested. On the other hand, this same thing might not play well with Black voters. Bill Clinton had good relations with African Americans, and Hillary could win those votes unless Obama gives them a reason to vote for him beyond his feel-good "we need a change" speeches, which tend to play better with yuppies and college Democrats.

Also, his race is probably preventing the press from being harsher in their criticism of him. (It's like that Onion article about Will Smith being "the black man the whole office can agree on.") This would be ok for the Dems as long as the press agrees to continue in this way until after November. But if they turn up the criticism once he's gotten the nomination, he could face a tough fight against someone like McCain or Romney.

Overall his strengths are particularly well suited for the current political climate: he's flashy and optimistic at a time when many Americans are feeling that their country has gone off-course. His weaknesses are his inexperience; to some extent the importance of this factor is going to depend on how much fear-of-terrorism affects voters decisions. Given the war fatigue that's swept the country, this might not be such a big deal.

Clinton
I'm not sure that I have anything to say that everyone doesn't already know. One thing that stands out is that the press has been especially nasty in their coverage, and I can't help but feel that this is because she's a woman.

Also, for my Canadian buddies, sometimes conservatives will derisively refer to "Hillarycare" - a supposedly socialist health care proposal that she advanced in the 90's. In fact it falls far short of Canada's health care system in terms of comprehensiveness, and public financing.

McCain
Many Republican's distrust this "maverick", but if dissatisfied with the other options they might rally around him. He's been outspoken in his support for the Iraq war and the "troop surge," and since the surge has been getting some positive reviews, this might help him.

Romney
I have no idea what to make of this guy. Does his Mormonism turn off conservative voters? Living in Madison, WI - supposedly one of the most "liberal" cities in the States, it's pretty hard to get a good read on how religious voters will react to a Mormon - with a history of "liberal" policies as Governor of Massachusetts. Add in to the mix the fact that business interests have rallied around him and you might have the perfect situation for a working-class Evangelical candidate like Huckabee. Or maybe not, I have no idea what's going on with the whole Romney thing.

Now that he's lost the first 2 major contests, it might be that his backers will look for a new candidate to support - one who's might can actually seal the deal. Perhaps McCain?

Guiliani
Maybe one of the most well known candidates for Canadians. His campaign seems to have imploded. Liberals deride his "9-11 Tourette's" (which, I'm pretty sure, is not a very PC thing to say), but the strange thing is how little support he's getting from Republican voters despite having lined up a host of high profile endorsements. After having sunk a ton of money into Iowa and New Hampshire, Guiliani tried to save face by "pulling out" and focusing on later primaries. It's hard to see how this can be painted as anything less than hugely embarrassing.

I'm not sure if GOPers dislike his somewhat liberal social positions (he supports gay rights, and abortion rights), or if they just don't like his "personality". He's got a kind of weird presence, for example check out his Xmas ad:

I'm pretty sure that this didn't win him any votes.

Compare this with Huckabee's ad with a little wink-wink message for Evangelical voters:

Did you notice the floating cross? It's just a bookshelf (it's all about plausible deniability). Also: this is ripe for parody. This is ripe!

Thompson
The only other "true" conservative in the race. If he were younger and showed more energy in campaigning, I'm pretty sure he would have been a leading candidate. It's probably a waste of your time and mine to think about him. He no longer has a chance at winning, and will probably not be involved in politics after dropping out. A footnote.

Edwards
He's pretty much done now that he's lost both Iowa and New Hampshire. His support comes largely from the Lou Dobbs wing of the Democratic party (i.e. the xenophobes and anti-free-traders).

Richardson
This guy dropped out, but he was basically only in the race to keep his name in the news - in hopes of winning the VP nomination.


Well, those are all of the important candidates. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. It's very different from Canadian political circus.

Canada Rules

Steven Harper met the Dalai Lama at his official office, and certain countries are unhappy about it. But Harper turned that criticism away with this deft bit of analysis:

"I met the Dalai Lama in my office but I meet everyone in my office. I don't know why I would sneak off to a hotel room just to meet the Dalai Lama. You know, he's not a call girl," Harper told OMNI television.

He quickly added: "As I say, he's a respected international spiritual leader."

Some Good Advice

From the Globe and Mail:

Avoid sharing a crack pipe, university warns

Lou Dobbs Democrats

I'm not really into the idea of talking politics in a public forum, but this caught my eye:

“If you can build a school in South Africa, build one in South Carolina,” Linda Dogan, a member of the City Council in Spartanburg, said on the conference call, which was organized by the Edwards campaign.

which might remind you of this piece of work

And, my friends, the job will be done when we stop opening firehouses in Baghdad while closing them down here in the United States of America.

courtesy of Edward's former running mate John Kerry...
See also this, and Steven Landsburg's entry here.
Kucinich isn't any better.
Since when did the filthy scourge of racism take such a strong hold of the Democratic Party? Behind every argument to pull out of Iraq yesterday, lies the implicit belief that Iraqi lives are less valuable than the lives of American soldiers. It's a racist sentiment that I feel more than a little uncomfortable with.

An Assault on the Constitution.

This bastardization of the legislative process is finally on its way out in Wisconsin. As things stand currently, the governor of Wisconsin can (and does) sign into law a bill which is markedly different from the one passed by the legislature. How? By crossing out words, numbers and punctuation to create new sentences with completely different meanings from what was intended originally. Up until 1990 Wisconsin's governor would sometimes cross out individual letters. Even now s/he can cross out individual numbers.

Check out this example from a Milwaukee newspaper. (The pdf is hosted on a republican senator's webpage - though despite her protestations, Governors of both parties have been guilty of abusing the line-item veto. Currently a Democrat holds the Governorship.)

Here's another example.

Incidentally, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld this ridiculous veto usage.

Cryptic Fortune-Cookie Fortune

Sell your idea- they are totally acceptable

On an unrelated note, the new single from ex-Moloko singer Roisin Murphy is amazing:

I just watched an interesting shouting match on CTV's The Verdict. A racist, a Muslim-Women activist, and a eloquent and thoughtful Québécoise journalist. Mostly it was loud/boring but an interesting point was raised with regard to voter ID cards & the Muslim practice of wearing some sort of veil. Mr racist felt it was ridiculous that Muslim women could vote while wearing a veil - saying that it could lead voter fraud. Mlle reasonable journalist interjected that the reason Muslim women can vote while veiled is not due to some special accommodation, but only due to the absence of a law requiring ID cards to be presented at the polls. Apparently many other Canadians for one reason or another do not have ID cards (license, passport etc), and enacting such a law would require some sort of plan to deal with issuing photo IDs.

It reminds me a bit of Bruce Schneier's Movie-Plot Threat Contest that has fun at the expense of misplaced fears and useless security measures. What's the point in wasting millions of dollars to combat a theoretical problem? In practice very few women wear veils. Even if this problem does exist it's too statistically insignificant to affect the outcome of our elections, and thus probably a waste of resources.

A similar discussion over voter fraud by illegal immigrants is taking place in the US - though the percentage of illegal immigrants in America is, I imagine, larger than the percentage of hijab-wearers in Canada.

Neti Pots

My girlfriend likes to watch Oprah, and occasionally Oprah has a doctor on her show talking about different health stuff. Those are probably the best episodes (the debt diet ones are good too). Earlier this year they featured a Neti Pot, which is a device for rinsing your sinuses. Supposedly it's benefits include prevention of common colds, and alleviating cold symptoms like post nasal drainage, and coughs caused by post nasal drainage. I had a cold earlier this month that lasted about 2 weeks (so maybe this thing doesn't prevent colds), and I took that as an opportunity to try out the cold-improving features of neti pots.

Sometimes when I have a cold, it's hard to get to sleep because of all the coughing, so I decided to use the neti pot every night right before bed. It worked pretty well (although the stupid cold still lasted 2 weeks). Most importantly it was kind of cool in a little-boy kind of way: i.e. it's gross, but the grossness is half the fun.

I also figure this is probably a healthy thing for my family members in Mexico to do in order to combat the effects of that nasty air-pollution.

There are a whole bunch of video's on YouTube featuring instructions. This one right here is pretty good.

The Funniest Guy Ever

Norm riffs on Carrot Top.