Tuesday bits and pieces

• I've finally let Keith go from his guest-posting duties. Thanks again to him, grumbleberries, Ben Masel, and Steve Paske for their help over the last month, and while I was away on my Great Alaskan Adventure Vacation. I kind of liked having a spare person around, so if you're a regular reader wondering what it might be like to blog, send me an email, and we can talk.
  
  
• My only Emmy comment: Jamie Pressley was robbed.
  
  
• At what point do conservatives start to admit that the Bush administration has completely trashed civil rights? Two US citizens have been denied the right to return home, with no charges filed, no legitimate suspicions, and no court authorizing it.
  
  
• It really seems to me that if the anti-Doyle for Governor campaign has been almost entirely premised on the idea that he is too involved in decisions about spending tax money that should remain apolitical, then the pro-Green for Governor campiagn ought not advocate making the process explicitly political.
  
  
• Besides the mindset list, Beloit seems to be popping up all over the internet.
  
  
• John Gard: Liar. UPDATE: BIG liar.
  
  
• Did everyone catch the Journal Sentinel's love note to the Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent yesterday? Nothing like setting the guy up as the hero in an action/ spy movie to show how unbiased you are.
  
  
• And I should mention that the Superintendent nearly ruined a whole day of my Great Alaskan Adventure Vacation. There I was in Skagway checking my email at fifteen cents a minute (or something close to it) and what do I see? News of a contract settlement.
  
  That wasn't what upset me--it will be nice to work under an unexpired contract for the first time in five years. No, it was the last paragraph of the story:

  "This certainly was a lot different from last time," said Andrekopoulos, noting that the previous process took about two years. He called the recent round of talks "true negotiations," since they were focused more on the needs of the classroom.

  My head nearly exploded! Some of you may not have been around during the last round of "negotiations." But it was his administration and his negotiators who refused to discuss anything at all related to the "needs of the classroom" until the union caved in to his demands on health care. The union held firm, and his short-sighted single-mindedness drove a wedge between him and those he is supposed to be leading--and drove the contract talks to contentious arbitration.
  
  
• [This item moved to its own post, above.]
  
  
• The McIlheran Watch has been outsourced. It makes for a good column when you leave out the facts that would make it look bad, it seems.
  
  
• Anyone for a stem-cell snuff film? That might become the "Silent Scream" for the blastocyst-activists. Or a rallying cry for those who believe in the potential for cures lost when a test tube hits the garbage can.