Four Updates

1. Tim Michels is putting on a brave face, keeping a stiff upper lip, whistling past the graveyard, whatever you want to call it. "I'm glad the NRSC isn't coming in. I want to be able to control this campaign," Michels said during a conference call with reporters. "I've said all along I will not lose this race because of money." [condescendingly pats Michels on the head] Of course, Timmy.
   
   
2. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has asked the state elections board to step in on the Milwaukee city/ county ballot dispute. County Executive and Bush re-election co-chair Scott Walker is not providing the city with all of the ballots that Milwaukee mayor and Kerry campaign co-chair Tom Barrett asked for:
   
   "Doyle said in a statement he's not in a position to say what is the right number of ballots. But he said the Elections Board is charged under state law with making sure counties comply with requirements to have enough ballots on Election Day so no one is disenfranchised. Doyle said the board should review Walker's decision."
   
   I repeat: Walker must be stupid if he thinks that doing anything even remotely smelling of voter disenfranchisement in this caustic election cycle is a good idea.
   
   
3. A few days ago I speculated on the possible identities of people who might have sabotaged transmission towers belonging to American Transmission Company. My vote was with people upset with ATC over their plans to build a power line through acres of pristine wilderness Up Nort. The FBI has startling new revelations:

   Four men were reported taking photos and shooting video outside the headquarters of a transmission company at the same time 17,000 customers lost power in what police have called an act of sabotage.
   
   An employee of American Transmission Company and a security officer from We Energies electric company both reported seeing the men at the side of a highway near ATC's Pewaukee headquarters Saturday night, according to a police report. [. . .]
   
   According to the police report, a system operator who was headed to the scene of the outage around 6:30 p.m. saw four men standing a few feet off the highway taking still and video pictures of the ATC headquarters. He notified someone at the office, who called police.
   
   The man at the office said he went to a window and saw three of the men still there. About an hour later, a We Energies security officer called Pewaukee police to report he had seen four men in the same spot at 6:10 p.m. as he made his nightly rounds. The officer, William Cerar, said two of the men had small, hand-held video cameras and appeared to be filming. Cerar said he had seen the men laughing as they came out of the woods nearby when he approached.

   My theory still makes sense. If I'm right, I get big props, and I'm not talking about Gallagher.
   
   
4. The Sinclair protests are working in Madison:

   One local business has decided to pull its ads from WMSN/Channel 47 in the wake of the station's decision to air an anti-John Kerry documentary next week.
   
   The owners of the Paisan's and Porta Bella restaurants said that after receiving about a dozen complaints about the program, "we just decided that we didn't want to jeopardize losing any customers over this," said owner Jerry Meier. [. . .] Meier said his restaurants began receiving calls on Tuesday and the volume picked up on Wednesday.
   
   "I took most of the calls, and the people were very polite and well-behaved," said Meier. "But most of them said they were long-time customers and they weren't going to come in as long as we continued to advertise on Channel 47."

   I haven't heard about Milwaukee--but you know what to do.