I voted

There was a bit of a problem at my polling place: A couple of people ahead of me the machine stopped sucking in ballots (we use the connect-the-arrows paper ballots read by a machine like a Scantron®). So we just slipped our ballots into the slot at the bottom to be handcounted. Can a Diebold do that?

Anyway, results will be here when they start coming in. (As of 8:30, nothing so far. It's a little gratifying to see that no one has voted for the Republicans in the Senate primary. He he!)

Tomorrow is Primary Day

I'm sneaking some time on the old computer here to get my predictions and punditry down in pixels before election day rolls aound. There are, by all accounts, only three interesting races in Wisconsin's primaries this year, and I shall weigh in on all three, and a couple of other special ones.

One interesting primary is the Republican battle to be the guy who loses to America's Favorite Senator™, Russ Feingold. There are technically four candidates, but the least objectionable of the bunch, Robert "my brother thinks he's Elvis" Lorge, has basically no money and no support from the lunatic fringe of Republican primary voters. That leaves Russ "used car dealer" Darrow, Tim "I'm a veteran!" Michels, and Bob "statewide loser since 1994!" Welch. In my travels around the state last month, and in driving around Milwaukee and suburbs more recently, I can say that it will come down to Darrow or Michels. I suppose Welch could sneak in if Darrow and Michels split the bulk of the ballots, but Welch just doesn't seem to have any (visible) support. My prediction: Michels 35%, Darrow 33%, Welch 24%, and Lorge 8%.

The Mary "I'm conservative!" Panzer versus Glenn "you're not conservative enough" Grothman battle in the 20th Senate district has also been a good fight. Trouble is, Mary Panzer is going to walk away with it. I predict she gets at least 60% of the vote, if not more. I also want to send some love to Elysse Chay, who is a Dem hoping for enough write-in signatures to get her on the November ballot. If, for some reason, Grothman pulls it off, Elysse will be able to stake out some of the old Panzer terriory and may turn that seat D for the first time in like forever.

The 4th Congressional district primary here in Milwaukee is also tight. An open 4th CD seat is more rare than a Brewer's title, so three prominent local Dems are taking their best (and, in some cases, dirtiest) shots. Tim Carpenter is my guy in this race, but I am not confident enough to make a prediction one way or another. It will all be about turnout: A strong turnout from the South Side and GLBT community can push it to Tim; Attorney Matt Flynn and State Senator Gwen Moore will also be counting on turnout. I think Gwen will be helped by hard-fought primaries in her old Senate district and a couple of central-city Assembley districts, though, and Flynn has a fine field operation. I will predict no more than a mere 12 or 15-point spread between the three, but I can't say who'll come out on top.

The 5th CD race is also of interest to me, because Bryan Kennedy actually has a chance to beat Jim "PATRIOT ACT" Sensenbrenner. Libertarian-leaning Republicans are not happy with how F. Jim has "gone DC" and there will be a libertarian on the November ballot. Kennedy has out-raised any other former Dem opponent to F. Jim, and has landed moderate Republican support in addition to key labor union and other lefty endorsements. I'm predicting Kennedy by at least 10% over challenger Gary Kohlenberg.

As for me, I'm seeing the doctor tomorrow afternoon to go over the MRI of my back. I'm hopeful at least I can get treatment, even if my iBook is still away for repairs.

Is it just me . . .

Or is all this talk about TANG making anyone else thirsty?

My beloved iBook, by the way, is in the Apple infirmary for a display issue. They're telling me three weeks, but I'm holding out for something faster. Sigh. Mostly that just means posting will continue to be light for a little while.

Solidarity!

So Milwaukee has moved one step closer to requiring pre-payment at gas stations, to stop drive-offs and the many hours of precious police time they soak up. But wait! The business community is up in arms over this unwarranted intrusion into the rights of small business owners. And, of course, the conservative bloggers are fuming, too.

And how is the right half of Milwaukee's blogging community showing their sympathy and solidarity for these put-upon Milwaukee business owners? By refusing to buy gas from them, of course.

This is the kind of thing that makes my head explode.

Creeping Malaise

Well, not so much creeping malaise, really, as a sharp, stabbing pain in my back accompanied by the pressure of a particularly greuling opening of the school year, the weight of unfinished household projects delayed by my back, the recognition that the best candidate for the job has waged the worst campaign, and the realization that my 30s look a lot like my 20s, only with less hair.

Ergo, the dearth of new posts. I'm sorry to disappoint. Someday soon that switch will flip again and I'll have the passion and fire to rage, rage against the lying of the right, but for now, I'll mostly just be whining.

Go volunteer at the Iron Blog with the time you would have spent here. They need you more than I.

Lying Liars

This one's worth the day pass. Or you can read about George W. Fraud for free. Or read both.

And an update on my back: The doctor is now pretty well convinced it's a bulging disk or worse; he's got me doing a course of steroids (because, yeah, I need to gain more weight!) and if that doesn't work we'll try something more agressive. I don't know if he means Zell Miller agressive or Dick Cheney agressive, though.

Time

It's running out on the folkbum three matching challenge. We're up to $250 for Bryan Kennedy (before the matching), though we're still waiting for some contributions to the others.

Step up, people.

I'm on

Sarah and I got back into town late yesterday. I'm trying like mad to make up for the time I've lost getting ready for the start to the school year, so unless you want a lecture about Hamlet, I don't have a lot for you tonight. Just this:

The Chairman over at the Iron Blog is facing some tough times. Click the PayPal link at the top of the page over there and send the nice man some turkee.

I did finish reading Blogging America, and it's worth the $12, even if you're not in it. I will try to get a review up before next week.

Don't forget the matching I've offered through my ActBlue list!

Oh, and Scott went to the rally with John Edwards that I missed, less than a mile from my house.

I'm off

I'm heading to St. Paul on the Amtrak tomorrow (my back is not well enough for me to drive). So there.

Some Miscellaney

Depending on how much real work I do yet tonight, and how I feel, I may have another post tonight.

• I'm liking the Emerald Nuts commercials. I so seldom see commercials, because of the TiVo, but I'm watching a lot of Olympics live. So I see some. And the Emerald Nuts, I like.

• I don't like the prime time Olympic coverage. Watching the live stuff in the mornings is pretty cool, though, and you can really see how bad they butcher things for prime time.

• Bryan Kennedy is trying to raise $25,000 in web dollars by the 9/14 primary. If you donate to Bryan through my ActBlue link, I will match you fifty cents on the dollar up to $250 total through the end of August. So, guys, I'd like to see you get on that, because though $750 is only 3%, it's a start!

• The ActBlue deal counts for the other folkbum 3 candidates as well, so I will match your contributions to Russ Feingold and Tim Carpenter, too.

• Iron Blog is hot again this week--it's about guns. And they still need judges and challengers!

• Seen on Hotmail's home page today:

How to get Gwen Stefani's look!
What not to tell the boss!

I think not telling your boss that you want Gwen Stefani's look is step number one.

Endings

I've had my suspicions for a little while now, but it's been confirmed: The Wisconsinite has closed up shop. I have to say that I am very proud of having been even a small part of that effort (I had two op-eds published in its pages), as it was a fine paper; I always learned something new. I hope that many of the great people involved in the effort will land on their feet in other, equally stellar publications.

At some point, I'll go ahead and put the second of those two op-eds up here, since that issue never made it up on their website.

But posting will be light again for the rest of this week, as there has been illness in Sarah's family, and I'll likely be off to St. Paul for a few days.

Wanted: Judges

Not wasting enough time on blogs right now? Well . . .

Some of you know this, but I participate in a debate forum known as Iron Blog, based roughly on that camp Food TV show "Iron Chef." I'm Iron Blogger Democrat, and every three or four weeks or so, I get to beat the blogophrorical snot out of some Challenger on some hot topic chosen by the Chairman.

But I'm not up this week; instead I'm pitching IB because one of the key elements of the Iron Blog is that it has judges from around the blogosphere scoring the debates. Trouble is, even though it really only takes about an hour or two for any Battle you're judging, there aren't enough volunteers from either the right or the left to judge right now. If you think you might be able to help out judging once a month, please email the Chairman and volunteer.

Thanks much!

Aha!

One curiosity settled: Theresa Nielson Hayden explains why the colors are the way they are.

I’ve known people who think official color reassignments are a conspiracy theory. The short answer is that they are a conspiracy, but they aren’t theoretical. [. . .]

Who does this to us? An outfit, founded in 1962, called the Color Marketing Group. These are the people who wished avocado green and harvest gold kitchen appliances on America, and put the 1980s into those mauve-pink shades that looked so peculiarly horrible on so many of us.

Basically, the CMG is a trade organization, with 1,500 members drawn from a bunch of different industries. Twice a year they get together in Alexandria, VA, to come up with long-term and short-term color predictions. The long-term prediction is a set of sixteen colors that will be profitably marketable two years hence. That is, the 2003 palette was distributed to manufacturers in 2001. The short-term prediction is a palette of colors declared to be currently the thing.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody’s obliged to follow CMG’s lead; but a manufacturer who ignores them is likely to find that all his competitors’ products are in fashionably compatible colors, while his own clash.

What I want to know now: Where do they meet, and where can I get enough hand grenades?

Big Shoes

Via Ms. Frizzle, I found MyFootprint.org. My ecological footprint is an embarrassing 22 acres. They say that globally, there exists only four and a half biologocally productive acres on the planet per person; if everyone lived as I do, we'd need 4.9 earths.

On the other hand, the United States average is 24 acres, so I'm doing a little better. Less driving would help, and less reliance on supermarket food versus local suppliers. And apparently my single-family home is dragging me down, too.

What's yours?

And on a completely unrelated subject, doubles table tennis just doesn't seem Olympic to me. But this handball thing is interesting . . .

Maybe it's Olympic Fever

Or maybe it's the painkillers. But I just ain't posting like I should be.

And, given how the painkillers are making everything fuzzy, that's probably a good thing.

I got mine

My copies of Barbara O'Brien's Blogging America got here. I've read the first few dozen pages, and it seems very well done so far. I hope to have it finished and reviewed in the next week or so.

Don't you think you need one? (I get no royalties or kickbacks, by the way.)

Folk the vote

As you may or may not know (or can guess from my blogonym), I am an amateur singer-songwriter. But I do have plenty of friends and acquaintances in the "professional" world of folk music, and one of my favorite labels, Waterbug Records, has scrabbled together a great new collection for the accoustically-minded anti-Bush crowd: Election 2004 Anti-Theft Device, featuring 15 songs from some of my friends and favorites: Sons of the Never Wrong, Andrew Calhoun, Kate McDonnell, Dan Bern, and more.

There are MP3s to sample at the link (for a voluntary MoveOn donation), as well as ordering info. The CDs are just $5 each, so for the price of one regular CD you can get one for yourself and a few to pass around. They'll even negotiate bulk rates for you if you want more than 20.

Waterbug is an excellent, independent label, one of the few small folk-music labels that hasn't been eaten up by the Rounder group or other conglommerates. They're very good to their artists and deserve your support even if you don't want to buy this CD (and, I mean, for $5, how could you not?). Via Sarah.

And don't forget the folkbum 3!

Open Thread

Posting will be light if not non-existent until, oh, say, Tuesday. Discuss amongst yourselves. Suggested topics:
• The Revolutionary War was neither revolutionary nor a war
• The best ways to bring in the noise and/or the funk
• The rumored mafia ties to Folkbum's Rambles and Rants: true or not?
• To be or not to be?

And don't forget the folkbum 3. Grand total raised so far? ZERO. ZILCH. NADA. Come on, everybody, step up to the plate here . . .

It must have been my vote for Carl


You are Jimmy Carter. You are very smart and
decent, but your need to know everything causes
you to concentrate on the little things while
missing the big picture.


Which Recent President Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Via Mustang Bobby.

Help Me Get on TV!

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon standing around while they filmed a campaign commercial for Tim Carpenter, waiting for my call and trying very hard not to eat the donuts (I'm back on the diet) on the snack table.

And then, after about two hours, I got my four minutes in front of the camera. Yay!

The trouble now, of course, is scraping up the cash to put the thing on the air. Unlike some other candidates I could name, Tim is not flush with party-connection cash. So he needs your help, and, by extension, so do I. Tim needs $100,000 to put the commercial on the air here in the moderately expensive Milwaukee market. What can you do to help? Well, $100,000 would be great, but, sadly, that's illegal.

But if you believe in Tim, or, hell, if you just believe in your humble folkbum and want to see him on TV, head on over to ActBlue and donate to Tim through my list. Remember to add $.29 so they know it's from me. Well, I mean, it's from you. But it's through my list. To Tim. Wait, I'm confused. Just click and give.