Y'know why we need to pay people to teach our kids? Cause some people shouldn't be allowed to do it.

Wow...

Let me step into someone else's shoes for a moment...

Ok, so blasting the Register is a game other people usually play and I try to ignore, but this one is just too good:

Take a look at this article, titled "Postal workers want powdery substance tested."

The first paragraph:

"A powdery substance found at the Valley Junction post office in West Des Moines will be tested to alleviate fears of a handful of employees who think the dust is floating asbestos, a cancer-causing substance, said a U.S. Postal Service safety official."

That paragraph is a terrible lead. If you're going to be that dramatically one-sided, you might as well just say:

"Whiny bitches in Valley Junction think they're being exposed to asbestos, but they're not. They're just whiny, and bitches."

Then, as the story goes along, it turns out that...

a) The back room flooring is flaking apart and is made of asbestos.
b) The floors are safe if kept sealed, which stopped happening months ago.
c) The post office won't say why it stopped.

But unless you read the whole story, you'd never know that the first paragraph's "handful of employees" who need their "fears alleviated" are probably right.

KL

A mid-week quiz, some procrastination, and an anniversary :

Hat tip to Thoughts from the Oasis Amidst the Corn, who also debuts at #10 in the rankings on your right.


You taste like baked alaska. Your sweetness is
only matched by your smooth and creamy texture.
You are sure to set fire to anyone's taste
buds.


How do you taste?
brought to you by Quizilla

As an aside, ranking 13 blogs is starting to strain my urge to procrastinate...after a day at work, I look at that list and think "I'll re-shuffle it some other time."

Finally, just to add a third point to a strangely politics free post, I think I may be going soft. I made reservations today for Laura and I for our two-year anniversary. We're going here, and staying in The Dollroom.

Comments about how tasty/romantic I am just may raise your blog ranking.

KL

State 29 responds, then I do too

State 29 took the time to respond to this post, which also drew an unsigned, anonymous response with the same concerns. I found that intriguing. I couldn't reply directly to State's post (they don't allow comments), so I sent them this e-mail:

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my concerns. Seeing as you don't allow comments on your blog, I hope you'll understand that I'm sending you this e-mail and then posting the content in my blog.

Admittedly, in my post, I didn't explain why your views are wrong, and I don't need to, cause that's not my point. If it was purely a matter of truth vs fiction or your opinion vs mine I wouldn't care, because differences of opinion are part of what makes the blogosphere interesting. I think the paragraph you must've missed is this one:

"State 29's rabid hyperpartisanship, on the other hand, is just focused on disallowing those of us in the blogosphere from having informed discussion without being called a Jew-hater, race pimp, or in this case, all in one post, socialist assholes, economic morons and a bitter, angry, and unhinged Bush-hater who plays the class envy card because he's too much of a loser to get a job that pays more than $30,000 a year."

Admittedly, hyperpartisanship may have been the wrong word. But the point I made in the rest of that paragraph is what I think you missed. I don't care who you disagree with, but when you bash them personally instead of refuting their ideas, it's just an angry weak argument.

Take, for example, your post about Sharpton from today.

"Via Instapundit and via Ed Cone (nice job citing here) we discover that Al Sharpton, the race-baiter (slam 1), Jew-hater (slam 2), liar (slam 3), hoaxer (slam 4), and former candidate for the Democratic nomination for President (fact, with an implied slam) has been doing TV commercials for LoanMax.

LoanMax, run by the perfectly-named Rod Aycox (slam 5) (who also runs LoanSmart), owns the entire car-title loan industry in Iowa. This is the same car-title loan industry that charges up to 360% APR, something that Republicans Willard Jenkins of Waterloo and Christopher Rants of Hell find perfectly OK. (another fact with a slam buried in it)"

I hate car title loans and will continue to work against them. That's not the point. The point is that when you can't finish two paragraphs without 5 outright slams and two more implied ones, it's not informed political debate anymore. It's just a whole bunch of ranty crap.

Anyway, there's my concern. Thanks again for responding to it, the link is always good for hits.

KL

I'm finally using titles, and State 29 has jumped the shark.

There's a fine line between being snarky and just being a straight-out asshole, and State 29 is across it. Let's take a look at some recent quotes:

Kwanzaa is a "holiday" for black criminals, Marxists, racists, and liars.

Surely we'll see the results of the 2005 poll in the next week or so, but we have a question or two for the far-lefties who claim to "support the troops" but then endlessly complain about how !!!!BUSH LIED!!!! about the war.

We still think the ultimate point of this exercise, besides selling books and making political hay, is to find a reason for far-lefty Democrats to go forward with impeachment charges (or at least the appearance of an impeachable charge) against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld, and every other slightly Republican sympathizer on the planet.

Meanwhile, some people are too obsessed with impeaching Bush over something - anything. Their rabid hyperpartisanship extends all the way to disallowing our country to defend itself from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

State 29's rabid hyperpartisanship, on the other hand, is just focused on disallowing those of us in the blogosphere from having informed discussion without being called a Jew-hater, race pimp, or in this case, all in one post, socialist assholes, economic morons and a bitter, angry, and unhinged Bush-hater who plays the class envy card because he's too much of a loser to get a job that pays more than $30,000 a year.

State 29 still hasn't responded to my last effort to get their attention, and probably won't. But I'm starting to be embarassed by the fact that their tripe appears next to a Fallon digital yard sign.

KL

It feels like about every third post lately is an apology for how I haven't posted in a while, and this one is no exception. This week I've been neglecting my blogger duties because I'm spending the holidays in frozen hell. Monday I visited my high school, saw some teachers, handed out some business cards (really, this is the first time I've ever returned home with some actual direction in my life), did some laundry and had a friend cancel on me for dinner. Tuesday I didn't leave the house until 10 at night, to go have a ... make that several ... drinks with an ex, and today I spent the whole day in my room playing March Madness. The more things change, the more Minocqua stays EXACTLY THE SAME.

But that's not why you're here. At least, I don't think that's why you're here. Come to think of it, why are you here?

Tonight, as I take part in my first internet in five days, I feel somewhat compelled to throw my thoughts out there on a few things that floated around the blogosphere during my absence:

First, the fun stuff. I went into this one thinking I could only hope to be half as sexy/funny as the red hot and hilarious Kris from Side Notes and Detours:

As it turns out, I'm hot too:



I'm not quite as funny:



Next, State 29 loves to bash people who go to college and generate debt for careers which won't generate much money. This week Chris from Political Forecast stepped into the line of fire on that one. Then State 29 backed off and congratulated Chris on having a goal in mind.

State 29 and Drew Miller have also gone toe to toe this week on supply-side economics as they apply to student basketball tickets at Iowa. I love economics at times, and this is an excellent real-world application of theories, but as I've said before, when it comes to people whining about sports policies at the U of I, I don't give a flying fuck.

Here's my point, though. State 29 has taken after two liberals this week, Chris and Drew, and I'm wondering if I'm next. So I'm going to give him ammunition, through his debate with Chris.

I started at Drake in 2001 as an open-journalism major. I figured I'd work in either radio or newspaper (with a starting salary under $20k, either way). By State's standards, I'd fall under the heading of "stupid," as I was spending more annually on college than I would make annually afterwards.

In college, I changed majors twice, from open to newspaper to radio, all within my first year and a half. My senior year I looked into changing my major, both to philosophy and economics, because I felt like my career in journalism was already over. I decided not to do that, and just get done and see what happened. I graduated in 2005 with a degree in Radio/TV production and an area of concentration in philosophy...probably the textbook definition of a useless degree.

After graduation, I decided to start volunteering in politics while I was looking for work. Four weeks later I was on salary and I've been in politics ever since.

State, if you read this, and I hope you will, lay off these people. Not everyone needs money to be happy, not everyone who gets a worthless degree ends up with a worthless career, and furthermore, someone as snarky as you probably isn't qualified to evaluate happiness.

Lastly, this one isn't directly Iowa related, but in this poll, Virginia governor Mark Warner and my candidate for president, Brian Schweitzer, rank far higher in approval rating than Vilsack. It may have something to do with this picture.

KL

There's an interesting debate getting started on the ethics of ghostwriting, and I wanted to weigh in on it. As it turns out, the ethical question centers around Ryan Doll's Ames City Council campaign and Drew Miller.

It all started with this post on Drew's blog, where Drew provided a list of letters he had ghost-written for others to the Ames Trib and ISU Daily. He initially posted them with the name of the "sender" attached.

First and foremost, I'm not sure why anyone would ever do that (the posting, not the ghostwriting). I know Drew a little bit, and he doesn't seem like someone who needs the public pat on the back, but this SCREAMS "I wrote this stuff and didn't get credit, give me credit."

In the comments section, one of the "senders" of these letters called Drew out for posting his letter and publicly exposing the fact that it was ghostwritten, which feels like the right thing to do. Debate ensued in the comments, and I was going to let it pass, until...

This post at Drew's blog, which links to this article in the Ames Trib. If you're not going to go read the article, just read this quote from Drew:

"If there are words on the campaign that are not coming out of Ryan's mouth, usually I had something to do with it."

This is a related issue, ghostwriting for a candidate. I'd assume most people know that candidates don't write everything they say, don't proofread every brochure, and don't make every media decision. But when you step out from behind your candidate and say something that starts with "I'm the brains behind...", that's an ego problem and a body blow to your candidate. I won't say I've never ghostwritten a letter or given a candidate something to read, but I can honestly say I'll never come out in the press or this blog and tell you what material was taken from me. It's called being a team player.

KL

A quick meta blog, because it's been way too long since I updated the blogroll on your right. There's getting to be too many to go one by one, so I'll walk you through the changes:

John Deeth's content improves steadily day by day. If the blogosphere has a rising star right now, he's it on the left, and MM is on the right.

This is probably going to sound biased, but if you want to hear things from the Blouin or Culver point of view, check out Drew Miller and Chris Woods, respectively. Within the next few days they'll probably tell you to come to me for the Fallon side of things, but my ad makes that somewhat obvious.

Iowa Political Watch is a new find, thanks to MM for pointing it out. They have a very intriguing style which almost seems out of place in the blog world...the depth of their content is unusual. Normally, when I read a blog it's because I've got a few minutes to spare at work, IPW isn't something I can read that way.

I'd been reading Iowa Geek on and off and on level for a while. Good stuff, a fair mix of personal and politics.

Side Notes and Detours is often entertaining. I apolgize for incorrectly comparing it to Random Mentality, which is now defunct.

I don't know what to call this blog anymore, so I guess I'll stick with Bob Again. She's got great insight on issues at times, but this is the third prolonged absence/strange return and rebuild in a few months. I don't know what's going on and won't speculate.

Remember Iowa Ramblings? New addition DemIowa is kind of on that pace. Tremendous content, inconsitent delivery.

That's all for tonight...after this week, I'm going back to my couch, turning off my cell phone, and closing out the world for a while.

KL

Tuesday is supposed to be quiz day, but my Tuesday was busy. So around here, it's Wednesday.

Thanks to Side Notes and Detours and Iowa Ennui for reminding me.

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How Scary Are You?

Yeah, I'd say that's pretty fair.

KL

State 29 did a great job on this review of this editorial from the QC Times, almost certainly the best I've ever read on the subject of campaign finance disclosure. Read both of those.

Here's a case in point of the problem. Over the last week, we've been trying to find out specifics on the campaign contributions of Bill Knapp. Here's the website for the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. Once you get into the actual reports, here's the challenge.

Good luck finding Bill Knapp in part one of this three month Vilsack report from 2002, which is non-sortable, non alphabetical, and 601 pages long.

Part 2 is 395 pages long.

59 more pages from Culver's Sec. of State Campaign. These have an extra element of difficulty: they're handwritten.

38 handwritten pages for State Auditor David Vaudt.

Wondering who was behind Gronstal as he pondered a run for gov? Here's 54 pages to sift through. From 3 months in 2004.

Want to know who bought their way into the mind of State Senator Jack Kibbie? 34 handwritten pages for you.

My State Rep, Jo Oldson, was one of the many who sold out and endorsed the pro-life, pro-big business campaign for governor. Curious about who's bankrolling her? I was. And I bet I'm the first one to scroll through this unreadable crap.

This is a tremendous problem. A member of my campaign spoke to a reporter this week, who had spent almost a full day looking into the donation activities of one person. In one year. In Illinois, that would be a 5 minute task. In Illinois, and many other places, the public has an actual chance to figure this shit out.

Ed told me once that at a Democratic caucus meeting, another State rep asked the room what MidAmerican Energy wanted him to do, because he couldn't afford to lose their support. In an ideal world, we could pass a clean elections law and keep slimy corporate donors from getting into the minds of our politicians at all. But at the very least, the state absolutely must give us a system where, if we're trying to make ourselves vomit, we can go see who's buying off our politicians.

KL