Wisconsin unveils new visitor welcome

Wisconsin has unveiled a new logo for tourism. We've, ah, modified it to be a bit more accurate:

Rasmussen has the Limburger polling

And it stinks if you're a fan of Senator John McCain.

In Wisconsin, Obama 54% McCain 44%

Barack Obama has opened a double digit lead over John McCain in Wisconsin. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state-conducted the night before the second Presidential Debate-shows Obama attracting 54% of the vote while McCain earns 44%.

Electoral College: Obama 248 McCain 163

New state polling from Wisconsin has moved that state from "Leans Democratic" to "Likely Democratic" in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator. With this change, Obama leads in states with 248 Electoral College votes while McCain is ahead in states with 163 Electoral College votes. When "leaners" are included, it's Obama 300, McCain 174.

News from Pennsylvania isn't that great either. On the other hand, things are going great in Alaska.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Art Project

The Wisconsin Institute for Leadership says there's a time and a place for publicly-funded art, and it ain't over at the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

 

$40,000 for photos of an endangered species, the Wisconsin worker.  I hope it was pretty.

He forgot to mention the tax-sucking school system

The Recess Supervisor reminds us why the rest of Wisconsin thinks Milwaukee sucks.

I once knew a woman who was a real world-traveler. While up in the hills of Thailand someone asked her where she was from. When she told them, "Milwaukee," they immediately asked if she knew Jeffrey Dahmer.

Technorati Tags: Milwaukee, Dahmer, cannibalism, Wisconsin

Why Johnny in prison can't read

Bizarrely, the state Department of Corrections is not allowing a non-profit organization to send books to prisoners, citing security reasons. They're afraid contraband might be smuggled with the books.

The way the program works is that people donate the books, the prisoners request books, and the books are mailed to the prisoners. The group tried donating the books through the prison libraries but found that the books wouldn't make it to the prisoners.

Regardless of how you feel about crime and punishment, I think most of us would agree that a more literate prison population might just result in less of a prison population - and I don't mean because they're reading Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

What I really can't understand is how the Department of Corrections is concerned about contraband coming into the prisons via books that are mailed to prisoners. Isn't the mail checked? And if it isn't checked, why would anyone bother sending the contraband inside a book?

Unless the Department of Corrections has specific complaints - actual examples - of problems with the program, they should allow prisoners to receive used books in the mail.

Taxing the mathematically challenged

As the state lottery celebrates its 20th anniversary, it faces more than a challenge from State Senator Fred Risser:

When the Wisconsin Constitution was amended 21 years ago to allow the lottery, opponents added restrictions that ban Internet sales, which other states increasingly are allowing.

"I have an off-line product, and it's an online world," state Lottery Director Mike Edmonds said. "It's another example of laws not being able to keep up with technology."

To offer lottery games online, the state would have to return to voters to amend its constitution, a process that could take several years.

A national gaming expert, University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor William Thompson, said other state lotteries are turning to the Internet to maintain or boost sales.

"It is the next phase in lottery development," he said.

If the state lottery can't keep up because of online gaming, then it's time to get the government out of the lottery business, a business it had no reason to get into in the first place. Abolish the lotteries, challenge the tribal casinos, and get rid of the corrupting influence of gambling on our state's politics.

(Ht: Owen)

James Wigderson and his critics

As you may have gathered from the comments on this post, my views on the proper limits of the courts were not exactly unanimously supported. Dave Fabie, a former Wisconsinite now living in San Francisco, takes special umbrage at my blog post and column.

Okay… So apparently the biggest “fear” that was facing the state of Wisconsin prior to 2006 was the looming terror of being “forced” to accept two consenting adults of no direct family relation living together in a committed and legally binding relationship?

Wow.

Now granted, it has been a few years since I lived in Wisconsin, but I was born there, and I did grow up there. Strangely enough, I don’t recall people living in “fear” about that.

As to the claim that "activist judges" are rewriting our laws circumventing the democratic process, this is nonsense. Very easily packaged nonsense, sound byte-ready nonsense, but still nonsense.

If in 1860 you had put emancipation to a popular vote, it would have failed. If in 1960 you had but integration to a popular vote it would have failed. For that matter if in 1776, you had but independence to a popular vote it would have failed. The reason we have a judicial branch is balance of powers, remember that one from social studies?

Let me point out that I certainly did not indicate any priority list of fears, only that we have established that it was a fear with good reason that the courts could have compelled Wisconsin to recognize a definition of marriage it certainly did not prefer had it not passed an amendment to it's constitution.

Then my friend dismisses out of hand my concerns over activist judges by pointing to three particular instances of when government acted possibly contrary to the popular will. I would remind my friend that this precisely why we have a republican form of government, representational rather than direct democracy. After all it was representational government that acted on emancipation and independence rather than the courts.

If anything, instead of worrying about Wisconsin's worries, I suggest Dave concern himself with the balance of powers in his adopted state. Not only is it out of whack, but the surrender of republican government has been acquiesced in by those elected to defend it.

As for the rest, certainly irrelevent to the point I made, no?

Warning: watery martinis imminent

Summer is coming and we're heading into an ice shortage:

The Arctic will remain on thinning ice, and climate warming is expected to begin affecting the Antarctic also, scientists said Friday.

"The long-term prognosis is not very optimistic," atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University said at a briefing.

Last summer sea ice in the North shrank to a record low, a change many attribute to global warming.

But while solar radiation and amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are similar at the poles, to date the regions have responded differently, with little change in the South, explained oceanographer James Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

What researchers have concluded was happening, was that in the North, global warming and natural variability of climate were reinforcing one another, sending the Arctic into a new state with much less sea ice than in the past.

"And there is very little chance for the climate to return to the conditions of 20 years ago," he added.

Until, of course, nature finishes this cycle of warmer weather (it may be already) and it gets darn cold in June again.

Given the geological history of Wisconsin, I think when the ice shelf starts growing again is the time for me to get nervous. In the meantime, I think we should be grateful for the savings of fossil fuels as shipping takes advantage of the clearing Northwest passage. I'm also talking to my real estate guru about taking advantage of some beach front property on Hudson Bay. Stupid weak dollar.

(ht: Fred Dooley)

Happy Birthday Wisconsin

Happy Birthday Wisconsin!

Wisconsin Territory
Wisconsin Territory became an organized territory of the United States by an act of U.S. Congress passed on April 20, 1836 which went into effect on July 3, 1836. Belmont, Wisconsin was initially chosen as the capital of the territory, but this was changed in October 1836 to the current capital of Madison.

The Territory became the state of Wisconsin, the 30th U.S. state on May 29, 1848.

Territorial area
The Wisconsin Territory included all of present-day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and part of the Dakotas up to the Missouri River. Much of the Territory had originally been part of the Northwest Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1783. The portion in what is now Iowa and the Dakotas was originally part of the Louisiana Purchase and was split off from the Missouri Territory in 1821 and attached to the Michigan Territory in 1834.
The area encompassed by the Wisconsin Territory that was part of the Northwest Territory was included with the Indiana Territory, when that territory was formed in 1800, in preparation for admission of Ohio as a state. In 1809, it was included with the Illinois Territory, when that was split off from the Indiana Territory. In 1818, when Illinois was about to become a state, the area was joined to the Michigan Territory. Wisconsin Territory was split off from Michigan Territory in 1836 as the state of Michigan prepared for statehood. In 1838, Iowa Territory was formed, reducing Wisconsin Territory. Present state of Wisconsin encompassed most of Wisconsin Territory; the residual portion of Wisconsin Territory was officially dissolved and incorporated into Minnesota Territory in 1849.

History
President Andrew Jackson appointed Henry Dodge Governor and John S. Horner Secretary. The first legislative assembly of the new territory was convened by Governor Henry Dodge at Belmont, Wisconsin in the present Lafayette County on October 25, 1836.
However, there are irregularities in the timeline at the outset of the Territory. After Congress refused Michigan's petition for statehood, despite meeting the requirements specified in the Northwest Ordinance, the people of Michigan authorized its constitution in October, 1835 and began self-governance at that time. Yet, Michigan did not enter the Union until January 26, 1837, and Congress did not organize the Wisconsin Territory separately from Michigan until July 3, 1836.

Hoping to provide for some continuity in governance during that interim, the acting Governor of the Michigan Territory, Stevens T. Mason, issued a proclamation on August 25, 1835 that called for the election of a western legislative council, which became known as the Rump Council. This council was to meet in Green Bay, Wisconsin on January 1, 1836. However, because of the controversy between Michigan and Ohio over the Toledo Strip, known as the Toledo War, President Jackson had removed Mason from office on August 15, 1835 and replaced him with John S. Horner. Horner issued his own proclamation on November 9, 1835, calling for the council to meet on December 1, 1835 — giving delegates less than a month to learn of the change and travel to the meeting. This caused considerable annoyance among the delegates, who ignored it. Even Horner himself neglected to attend. The Council convened on January 1 as previously scheduled, but Horner, while reportedly intending to attend, was delayed by illness and in the Governor's absence the council could do little more than administrative and ceremonial duties. For its concession to the Toledo Strip, Michigan was given the Upper Peninsula.

I understand State Senator Fred Risser was quoted at the time saying, "At least I won't have to go all the way to Belmont."

Given the rising price of corn, maybe this was good investment

A corn flake was sold on Ebay for $1,350. After Ebay extracted their listing fee, gallery insertion fee, photo fee, and final value fee; and then Pay Pay charged their transfer fee, the seller received about 35 cents. Shipping the darn thing put the sellers in the hole.

Looking at the picture, the corn flake doesn't look like Illinois. It's not flat enough. It looks more like Greenland.

Of course we can do better than that in Wisconsin. We have a pothole shaped like our state. I bet it costs more than $1,350 to repair.

State of the State

The lovely Doreen from Waukesha just has one comment:

"I think I am going to vomit. How is he going to pay for this s--t?"


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