Sorry I've been a bad blogger lately and haven't been posting much. But this amused me today. Don't ask how or why I found it.

Here's the campaign finance report for "FRIENDS, ENEMIES, WELLWISHERS, & MISFITS TO ELECT ART ARVIZU GOVERNOR OF AZ TEMPORARILY."

That may be my favorite campaign committee name of all time.

KL

So here's a dilemma.

Random, Drew and IE, among others, have picked up on this "weekly quiz" thing. This week's quiz is kinda interesting, so I decided to play along:

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality Those who like you are looking for something (someone!) special

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Normally, I'd just post that for you, and call it good. Tonight, however, that's not going to be quite good enough.

You see, as I logged in tonight, I noticed something. This is post #100.

This blog didn't exactly get off to a promising start. Check out post #1. I posted in my blog to say I had nothing to post in my blog. And complain about the clutter on my desk.

It's had some funny moments, most of which occured before I started in politics. I particularly like this one, the part about Santa Claus, even if the writing style is terrible.

I like this one, about Wisconsin, too.

Anyway, if you want to indulge my narcissism, go back, look at some old posts, pick out a favorite, and mention it in the comments.

Then imagine some streamers and balloons and stuff. After all, it's my 100th post.

KL

Ok, there's two things I want to weigh in on right now, before they pass me by any farther.

First and foremost, the comments on this Iowa Ennui post have taken on a life of their own, but I'd like to encourage my fellow bloggers not to get too caught up in it. Odds are it's crap. Midwest Mesopotamia appears to have taken the time to research it and comes down with a similar prognosis.

Besides that, the whole thing just sounds like a wrestling storyline. Although....now that you mention it...

WWE's "Millenium Man:" CHRIS Jericho.
TNA's "Big Acquisition:" CHRIStian Cage.
If this "New Gub Candidate" turns out to be CHRIS from Midwest Mesopotamia, I'm playing the conspiracy card.

Now, on to a serious point. State 29 went off on Iowa State sanctioned gambling in bars, gas stations etc yesterday. And he's absolutely right. Midwest Mesopotamia hit the nail on the head with it today. Make no mistake, if you wanna piss your money away, I'm all for it. In a sanctioned, safe place. Gas stations and bars don't fit that model.

If a politican or candidate wanted to make hay right now, they'd hammer this issue.

KL

Update: I wanted to hammer a little harder on why gambling all over the place is bad.

Flash back to May 25, 2004, which coincedentally was also my 21st birthday. In this case, however, it's notable because it was my only blog post during the disaster that was my week in Montana. Actually, that post is really depressing, so don't read it, I'll just give you the quote I want you to see:

If you live in Missoula and you don't have a gambling problem, welcome to the minority. There's a casino on every streetcorner here, and if you don't want to walk that far, there's one in the middle of every block too. It's goddamn scary. Chris Hale told me today that if you have a liquor license in Montana, you get a license to have a casino too.

As terrible as that was, what Iowa's doing could turn out worse. At least in Montana, where the gambling licenses come with liquor licenses, the state has attached two things it needs to heavily regulate: liquor and poor people who value gambling over food. But then you get interesting situations. I washed my clothes at a laundromat with a liquor license and slot machines.

Anyway, back to my point. In Montana, at least it was regulated somewhat. Here in Iowa, "slottery machines" have virtually no regulation at all. Certainly, a 40-year-old single mother of 3 kids who gambles away her paycheck and then has to beg for food is one problem. And that one happens a lot. Just as frequently, a husband will gamble away a paycheck, get angry, go home, face an argument, and become a domestic abuser. Those two problems can happen at any casino, though. Now, we've got a new one. A 13 year old can walk in, win $50 on a slottery machine, and become an addict for life, too.

I grew up in Wisconsin, where you have to be 21 to gamble, but lived half an hour away from the U.P. of Michigan, where you only have to be 18. So every time a friend turned 18, we took them up to Watersmeet, Michigan...yes, that Watersmeet, from the ESPN commercial. Go Nimrods.

My first trip to Watersmeet, I won about $5. At one point I was up $75, and slowly blew it. On the way out the door, a friend dropped his last dollar into a machine, saying it was "the last dollar he'd ever gamble."

He won $700.

He went back twice that week, and about that often for the rest of the summer. I haven't seen him since I left for college almost 5 years ago, but even counting that $700 win, he was down thousands of dollars (on an 18-year-old budget). I'd bet by now, on a college student's budget, he's down tens of thousands of dollars. One time, after losing his money particularly quickly, he was determined to make his money back, by drinking all the free soda he could handle. That night, we went to a pizza place and, being broke, he tried to get free food by betting the manager he could eat a large pizza by himself. Then, a few days later, he was back at the casino.

Most people can handle gambling. Some people enjoy it. But you can't deny the fact that sometimes it destroys lives. And while I'd never want to prevent people from pissing away their money how they see fit, I don't think the state should ever be sponsoring it.

KL

This State 29 post created an interesting conversation. Here's an ALL NEW ONE ACT PLAY! to commemorate it.

KL reads the story to LAURA.
KL: The story is whacked. But y'know what's more whacked?
LAURA: What?
KL: This dude's hands. Look at them!
LAURA: I can't believe we have Maharishis in Iowa.
KL: You know what Maharishis are?
LAURA rolls her eyes.
LAURA: I've been a liberal longer than you.
KL: No way.
LAURA: Ok, who here co-founded a "Free Tibet" club in high school?
KL: Wow...did that come with a free pocket protector? What did you do?
LAURA: We...umm...raised awareness and stuff.
KL: So you spent high school trying to free Tibet, and I spent high school playing video games. And we both accomplished the same thing.

That's all for now.

KL

So here's a random moment where political and personal collide:

If I learned one thing at the JJ Dinner, it's this. If you're not wearing a suit, there are large groups of people that will completely fail to take you seriously. So I bought my first suit today. That's quite the experience. Here's a quick guide to preparing for it:

Step 1: Find someone to go with you.

If you can't get your girlfriend, take your mom. If you can't get your mom, just take someone. You're about to be measured, weighed, touched uncomfortably and trotted around like a pet at a dog show. You'll want a familiar face.

Step 2: Be comfortable with who you are.

One of the reasons this was a bit uncomfortable is because I'm carrying around about 30 lbs more than I'd like. So when I started to hit "I've never worn pants this big before" territory, that was a little uneasy.

Step 3: Try real hard not to be stupid.

Here's a great example of something I don't recommend. On about suit #4, my accomplice finally liked a pair of pants. So I sat down to put on some shoes, etc. The following exchange occured (not that it matters, but it's important to the story, my salesperson was an attractive female.):

SALESPERSON: So what do you do for a living?
KL: I work in politics.
SALESPERSON: I see. Around your office, are you familiar with the expression XYZ?
KL looks down.
KL turns and zips.

That's another reason Step 2 is kinda important.

Step 4: Know your credit score, empty your bank accounts.

My final bill was $420. That includes the suit, a shirt, two ties, a belt and some socks. And I got off LIGHT. The first suit I tried on was $600 by itself.

So there you have it. If we held JJ again today, I'd be so ready.

KL

First, some quick reminders.

Clicking on the ads above helps support Fallon for Governor. If you're looking to help out in a bigger way, you can sign up here.

The IRV poll for governor is still up and running, if you haven't voted yet, click here to do so, and tell your friends.

Now, our feature presentation.

The Vision Iowa Board announced its intent to begin negotiations with 5 groups in Iowa today. (full story) Of course, the board, with no taxpayer/voter accountability, really has no reason not to give this money away. The projects reaping the pork this time:

Clear Lake (pop 8161) Arts Center: $330,000
Conrad (pop 1020) Public Library: $200,000
Orange City (pop 5582) Community Betterment Project: $127,000
Rock Valley (pop 2702) Campground: $534,000
Sioux Center (pop 6002) Public Library: $1.3 million

I'm fine with the Clear Lake one. But the other four occupy a combined $2.5 million dollars, or about $154 per resident of these four towns. Granted, I prefer this to using it to line the pockets of Wells Fargo et al, but still...our education system struggles, 329,000 Iowans have no health insurance, and we're investing in this?

KL

A few months ago, Drew Miller had an instant runoff voting poll to see who would win the nomination if it was held that way, which actually makes sense. And I'm not just saying that because Fallon won.

Here's how instant runoff voting works:

You rank the candidates, then set it in motion. If one candidate gets over 50% of the votes, we have a winner. If not, the bottom candidate is eliminated, and their votes go to the second choice of those voters. The process continues until someone gets 50% of the votes. So if you really don't like one candidate, you can effectively ensure they won't get your vote.

Anyway, here's the link to the new poll.

I'm hoping other blogs (Drew Miller, Chris Woods, John Deeth, IE, this means you, and others) will also pick it up, so we can get the largest, fairest sample possible.

Go vote!

I found this Tood Dorman piece through Iowa Ennui this morning, and figured it merited a response, so I posted one, both here and there:

The "no one gets 35%" problem isn't really as likely as you'd think.

First and foremost, anyone who wants to appear on the ballot has to have 4000 signatures on their nominating petition by February. Culver and Blouin can almost certainly manage that. Fallon's already got that.

On the "maybe" side, we've got Patty Judge, who said she's looking to get enough signatures at the precinct caucuses in January. If that works, more power to her, but past performance would tell us that only about 6-8,000 people are going to attend the 2,000 caucuses combined. The concept of 4,000 of them being Judge supporters is iffy at best, and if they're not, she's got about 2 weeks to scramble and get signatures.

Gregg Connell is also a maybe. He comes off with a little more political credibility than I originally gave him credit for, but he's still the mayor of a 5,000 person town in the middle of nowhere. 4,000 signatures is a tough goal for a guy who's been in the race almost 2 months and doesn't even have a website.

There's no way "Standing on the streetcorner" Sal or Mark Yackle even get 1000 signatures. Maybe Yackle can go back home and open Yackle's Bait and Tackle, or Yackle's Paint and Spackle.

If it's only 3 candidates, it would take an absolute perfect storm for no one to get 35%.

If it's 4 or 5, the possibility is there but still exceptionally unlikely. Connell and Judge take up 5-10% each (roughly 20-30,000 votes total), leaving Fallon, Blouin and Culver to fight for the remaining 170-180,000, needing to pull down 70,000 to win. And it'll be close, but not that close.

Anyway, thanks to Todd Dorman and IE for distracting me from ranting about the Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

KL

Ok, so before you start on anything I'm going to say, go enjoy this, from Bob Again.

Some thoughts on rankings, first and foremost. We say goodbye to two blogs this week. Deep Thoughts with Mr. Boothe is closing down. Iowa Ramblings has a great name and nearly a month of inactivity. Visit them both as you would visit a favorite bar one last time before it closes.

On a positive note, this week we welcome John Deeth. I honestly haven't read enough of his stuff to make any kind of informed comment yet.

On a side note, I'm starting to release how much I'm missing in the world of sports. This week a Brewer (Carlos Lee) won a Silver Slugger Award and the NBA season started, and I didn't even know til the next night! Normally, this is the kind of thing I'd be up all night over. I used to write for Baseball Think Factory and spend probably 5-10 hours a week in their forums, but before tonight, I hadn't been there since June. It's a good thing I don't have to worry about Snowbaseball.com anymore.

Now, on Saturday, my Badgers play for the lead in the Big Ten, but instead of watching it, I'll be attending the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

(rant begins)

I recognize that every local party everywhere has an event like this, but I loathe the Jefferson Jackson Dinner, and here's why:

It's unapologetically elitist. Make no mistake, if you're a Democrat, we want your attention. But we also want your money. If you've got $100, you can sit down at a table. If you've got $25, you can stand in the back and listen to speakers. The speakers include a guy who used to be a Senator, a respectable Senator, a Governor who's stopped doing his job so he can run for President, A Lt. Governor who appears to have no political future, a Congressman who's stopped doing his job entirely, too many Congressional candidates to name (but no one who's running to replace Steve King), not one, or two, or three, but six gubernatorial candidates (sorry, Gregg Connell doesn't have a website. Actually, if you Google Gregg Connell, I come up 4th.), and probably some Secretary of Ag candidates. If this sounds like a party to you, you just may want to seek some help.

But if you can't spare $100, you can't eat there. And if you can't spare $25, you can't even get in the door. I thought we were the non-big money party. What a goddamn joke.

KL

Attn. Gregg Connell:

You have a Google Problem.

If you haven't been watching it, the most interesting debate taking place at my blog actually has little or nothing to do with anything I said. It's going on here, in the comments section of a post I wrote almost 2 months ago.

Go check it out.

KL