For the Rio Olympics "epically poor ticket sales."

One reason is: Zika.

And then there's the raw sewage:

“2016 Olympians Will Be Competing In Poop Water, And The IOC Doesn't Care,” blared Deadspin in August. “Brazil Can’t Clean Up its Shit in Time for the Olympics,” observed Gawker.... Officials are still scrambling to implement emergency measures that will clean up the water venues ahead of the Games. If they make progress, the Olympic athletes may be spared stomach cramps and infections....

Man in shorts... Alex Trebek...

For all 10 of the April Fool's jokes in yesterday's "Jeopardy!," go here. #8 amused me the most:

The treadmill.

The picture comes from the Wikipedia article on treadmills, which I was reading because my son John had done a Facebook post linking to a Forbes article that displayed like this...



... and I thought it was a sad sign of the times that the idea of "relaxing and rejuvenating activities" was illustrated by a person running on a treadmill. A treadmill was once a very clear symbol of drudgery.

I was looking for a video clip from the movie about Oscar Wilde that showed him on the prison treadmill — this kind of treadmill....



... and I didn't find it, but searching for Oscar Wilde + treadmill got me to this:

"If they wanted to, the delegates could deploy a 'nuclear option' on Trump and vote to unbind themselves on the first ballot..."

"... a strategy Ted Kennedy unsuccessfully pursued against Jimmy Carter in 1980," observes Nate Silver.

Although I’d place fairly long odds against this thermonuclear tactic, there’s also the possibility of piecemeal skirmishes for delegates. In South Carolina, for instance, delegates might unbind themselves on the pretext that Trump withdrew his pledge to support the Republican nominee. Remember those chaotic Nevada caucuses that Trump won? They could be the subject of a credentials challenge. There could also be disputes over the disposition of delegates from Marco Rubio and other candidates who have dropped out of the race. A final possibility is “faithless delegates,” where individual delegates simply decline to vote for Trump despite being bound to do so by party rules. It’s not clear whether this is allowed under Republican rules, but it’s also not clear what the enforcement mechanism would be.

By convention time, we'll know what the margin is. If Trump has the majority, 1,237, or a bit more, there is still a game to be played. If he has only 1,237, the majority is lost if just one of those delegates flips, for any of a range of technical or political reasons. Trump has to keep wrangling his delegates, and how will he do that among these "mostly dyed-in-the-wool Republican regulars and insiders"?

Trump has a lot of pride in his knowledge of how things work in the real world — how China is "killing us" in these trade deals, etc. etc. — other politicians are naive and he's the one man who can bring expertise in handling wily people who are trying to take advantage. But the real world of this delegate game has brought him up short. It must really hurt his pride, privately, and it hurts his image publicly.

Remember how, in his meeting with the RNC about the wrangling of the delegates, "Mr. Trump turned to his aides and suggested that they had not been doing what they needed to do." That's a nightmare for him. He suddenly sees the dimension of the game he's been so proud of playing so well, and he's ill-equipped to enlarge the operation into something that can work in the coming phase. I'm picturing him losing heart, losing steam. He got so inflated about the polls and how much he'd been winning. And now he sees he's only winning in Part 1, and he didn't even understand Part 2. He doesn't have a team that could play Part 2.

Trump is going to have to rely entirely on a direct appeal to the people. He'll argue that it's outrageous and undemocratic to deny him the nomination. But the decision will be made at a convention where there's a vote — that's democracy too — of a set of delegates. And a majority of them are going to be opposed to him — even if a majority are pledged to him.

What's really Trump's problem with Megyn Kelly?

"Trump's habit of trying to flatter his way into the good graces of female journalists is well-documented.... Kelly is an unattainable female quarry who bruised his ego...."

Says WaPo's Callum Borchers.

Did Sarah Palin feel a "lack of energy" in the Wisconsin GOP crowd? She "felt a lot of seriousness."

Did she think the crowd responded well to her? "Well, I think so — I didn't get booed, I dunno."

"Trump famously suggested that we target the families of terrorists. Suppose we target them for shame instead of violence."

"[I]magine a fully-briefed President Trump talking about the losers in that terrorist’s family, by name. That’s world news. It would get back to them. Imagine Trump talking about how many cousins have inbred in that family. Imagine Trump humiliating the terrorist’s family in ways that only Trump can. Ordinary insults would have no impact. But the weapons-grade humiliation that Trump wields can definitely leave a mark. It might take some testing to find the most humiliating approach, but some form of persuasion would have a permanent impact on the family’s reputation, even coming from an enemy like Trump. He’s that good. (Or that evil, depending on your point of view.)"

Says Scott Adams, expatiating on the wonders of humiliation. He asks us to use our imagination, and for some reason, in this post, he doesn't talk about visualizing how the game progresses, the counter-moves and further responses. He stops at the point where you might find it amusing. Are you amused? Are you enthused?

AND: If families deserve shame for the actions of a member, how does that play out for all the mothers whose sons enter a life of crime? How mean to them do we want to be?

"When I see a woman rip a 40-yarder off the goalpost, then I’ll agree they deserve more pay."

"When I see a woman control the ball, dazzle à la Maradona or Messi, then I’ll agree they deserve more pay. But they can’t and they don’t. The women’s game is good but so far beneath the men’s game, men’s skills... there’s no reason they should be paid the same..... And interesting that the other women’s sport screaming for more money, and getting it, is tennis — good as Serena is, she wouldn’t win a game off the 500th ranked male. Probably not a point on his serve."

A comment by one "Abie Normal" of San Marino, California on a NYT article about equal pay for female soccer players.

On that commenter's name...



On that "wouldn’t win a game off the 500th ranked male"....

The drama of "considering" whether the federal government has the power to deprive North Carolina of billions in grant money.

It's a very scary drama:

The Obama administration is considering whether North Carolina’s new law on gay and transgender rights makes the state ineligible for billions of dollars in federal aid for schools, highways and housing, officials said Friday.

Perhaps North Carolina feels threatened. Pushing federal policy — or the Obama administrations idea of policy that's never put in the clear text of any statute — by threatening to cut off billions is undemocratic and underhanded.

Cutting off any federal money — or even simply threatening to do so — would put major new pressure on North Carolina to repeal the law, which eliminated local protections for gay and transgender people and restricted which bathrooms transgender people can use. A loss of federal money could send the state into a budget crisis and jeopardize services that are central to daily life....

Federal agencies have used the threat of lost money to pressure a handful of municipal governments in California and Illinois to change their policies and allow transgender students to use the restrooms of the gender they identify with....

Dan Forest, the Republican lieutenant governor and the president of the State Senate... is correct that federal anti-discrimination laws do not explicitly mention gay and transgender people: the Obama administration has repeatedly called on Congress to pass a law banning discrimination against them in employment decisions....

The Obama administration would not need to go to court to withhold grant money....

But it would be taken to court, and under existing precedent, it would lose. The conditions the states accept when they take grants need to have been clearly stated by the federal government. The states are entitled to know what they are binding themselves to as they take the money. The requirement that a choice-of-gender principle must apply to the sex-segregation of bathrooms isn't something that was understood when North Carolina accepted the grants that the Obama administration is considering taking away.

Let me just quote a little something from the Roberts opinion (joined by Breyer and Kagan) in the Obamacare case:

[O]ur cases have recognized limits on Congress’s power under the Spending Clause to secure state compliance with federal objectives. “We have repeatedly characterized . . . Spending Clause legislation as ‘much in the nature of a contract.’ ”.... The legitimacy of Congress’s exercise of the spending power “thus rests on whether the State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of the ‘contract.’ ”

(The position taken by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito cuts even more strongly in favor of the states.)

The subject here is the power of conditional spending. The question whether there's an equal protection right to use government bathrooms based on your gender identification is a different matter.

Wisconsin, April 2nd... snow.

It will be in the 60s tomorrow, but for now... some brightness, brighter now, actually, as the sun is out.

UPDATE: We've been alternating between storms and sunshine. I've lost count of how many times it's shifted from one to the other. Completely sunny then dark and snow-stormy. I learned the word "clipper."

"Liberty is the idea that our minds and bodies belong to ourselves.... Liberty cannot be extinguished... through laws; it can only be unjustly punished."

The Libertarian Debate was on TV last night, as I'm noticing this morning, reading my son John's live-blogging of it, which begins:

9:03 — Gary Johnson uses his opening statement to talk about his "wonderful family," including his grandchildren and his fiance, with whom he shares "a passion for health and wellness." "It's great to be in love, and I'm in love!" He talks about starting a successful "handyman business," then selling it in 1999 — "nobody lost their job." He also points out that he got elected governor in a state that's 2 to 1 Democratic, New Mexico. And he's adventurous: "I climbed the tallest mountain in each of the seven continents!"

9:05 — John McAfee's opening statement strikes a different tone — philosophical, not personal: "Libertarianism is grounded in the concept of liberty. What is liberty? Liberty is the idea that our minds and bodies belong to ourselves. . . . Liberty cannot be extinguished . . . through laws; it can only be unjustly punished."

9:06 — Austin Petersen sketches his biography to highlight how he's learned the value of liberty. He grew up on a horse farm near a town called Liberty, Missouri. He learned about "economic liberty" as a kid, when his parents sent him to sell chrysanthemums. He learned about "personal liberty" from "the Golden Rule." "I may be the youngest candidate in this race, but I'm the oldest in libertarian years!"

Funny that 2 of them were so personal and one was so abstract. It's the excessive abstraction that scares me about libertarians, so maybe I should be wary of McAfee, even though I loved his quote and immediately chose it for the post title.

Anyway, the whole live-blog is well worth reading. Ah,  yes, here's some more about McAfee, perhaps explanatory of why he, unlike Johnson and Peterson, declined to make his opening statement a Song of Myself:

9:38 — McAfee is asked about his shady alleged activities in Belize and Guatemala. "You're still technically a fugitive!" He was also arrested for driving on Xanax. McAfee says . . . well, he's never been charged with murder! (That's reassuring.) He admits his DUI was "the stupidest thing I've ever done."

I like this Peterson-Johnson engagement with the iconic issue of our day, forced cake decoration:

9:42 — Petersen challenges Johnson on his support for requiring bakeries to make cakes for same-sex weddings. "Should a Jewish baker be forced to bake a Nazi wedding cake?" Johnson says: "Yes!" Petersen accuses Johnson of not understanding the free market. Petersen frames his argument as pro-gay: "Let the bigots out themselves!"

That's 2 damned different forms of libertarian. The libertarian position should be Petersen's, don't you think? Petersen is only 35, by the way. Asked about it, he said, "I'm 35, so I'm constitutionally eligible.... Don't hate me because I'm young and pretty!"

"LSD could make you smarter, happier and healthier. Should we all try it?"

A serious article in The Washington Post. Excerpt:

Here’s why scientists think it works: When someone takes a psychedelic, there is a decrease in blood flow and electrical activity in the brain’s “default mode network,” a group of brain structures found in the frontal and pre-frontal cortex. The default mode network is primarily responsible for our ego or sense of self; it “lights up” when we daydream or self-reflect.

When we trip, our default mode network slows down. With the ego out of commission, the boundaries between self and world, subject and object dissolve. These processes may be related to something called the “primary mystical experience,” a phenomena highly correlated with therapeutic outcomes. As Matthew Johnson, a principal investigator in Johns Hopkins’s psilocybin studies, explains, these experiences include a “transcendence of time and space,” a sense of unity and sacredness and a deeply felt positive mood.

Note the quick jump from "mystical experience" to "therapeutic outcomes." Disrespect for religion is an undercurrent to this discussion, which assumes the legal use would entail the assistance of medical professionals. The article quotes drug-policy expert Mark Kleiman, who "emphasizes the importance of containing the experience, both during the trip, for the purposes of safety, and afterward, 'so it’s not merely a one-off mystical experience, but actually something you could build a life around.'"

You can't build your life around a religious experience?

"The video does not support evidence of a sexual assault. It does support that a punch was delivered by the 15-year-old..."

"... and it certainly supports that the (pepper spray) was sprayed into the face of the 15-year-old."

Said Janesville Police Chief David Moore about the incident at the Trump rally last Tuesday.

[Moore described the man who got punched in the face] as using “very animated hand gestures” during the verbal altercation and emphasized the closeness of people of the crowd. “These are pretty close quarters,” he said. “These are emotional times and the brushing up or pushing against someone is probably occurring all over in that crowd.”

Moore said [the man] did not wish to pursue assault charges against the girl, but police have referred the girl to juvenile authorities on a tentative disorderly conduct charge....

"Legally though, there's a big bar that you have to get over to prosecute anybody for these crimes, much less somebody who is running for president."

"... I do understand that when somebody is running for president, there is a higher bar you have to get over because we can’t have a system in which we are constantly charging people who are running for president of crimes. ... Politically, there are severe questions about her judgment that voters really have to look into. Legally... there is a higher bar you have to get over before you prosecute somebody who is running for president. That's just a fact."

Said National Journal reporter Ron Fournier, quoted by Glenn Reynolds in "Hillary's delusional media courtiers/Clinton acolytes can't seem to grasp that Beltway-insider status doesn't exempt from prosecution."

In Donald Trump's ancestral Scottish homeland...

"Delegates are generally supposed to represent voters.... But delegates may not personally support the candidate that voters picked...."

"The outcome of the convention could come down to whom the delegates personally favor.... Delegates Selected By Candidates May Be Less Likely to Switch Sides... Delegates Chosen By Party Members Could Flip Their Support... Some Delegates Can Only Be Released by Winning Candidates... Some States Don’t Bind Their Delegates to Primary Results at All... Party Leaders Who Are Automatic Delegates Could Favor Anyone... It’s also possible that the rules will change...."

A primer — with cute illustrations — at the NYT — about something that should not have been under the radar. I've been thinking about it for a while, but it seems like something not everyone — e.g., Trump — has been thinking about enough.