"I do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty."

Roseanne Barr is a comedian. It's irrelevant whether you find this funny or not. She's laboring in the field of comedy:

"I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded," Barr said with a straight face.

Comedy is hard. She's cranking up the hyperbole to higher and higher levels, maintaining the deadpan all the way. Do not revile her in her suffering.

ADDED:

If the government took 100% of your income above $100 million, at what point would you slack off?
	I'd go on and on, making money, even once the government began taking every dime.
	I'd work right up to the $100 million, and then, no more.
	I'd start slacking off at around $80 million and shutting down at $90 million.
	I'd arc toward about $40 or 50 million and then lose focus on the earnings game.
	If the game is rigged like that, it would affect my pursuit of wealth from Day 1.
pollcode.com free polls

"Police Arrest About 400 700 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge."

The NYT reports:

Things came to a head shortly after 4 p.m., as the 1,500 or so marchers reached the foot of the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the bridge, just east of City Hall....

Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway....

But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.

There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way....

Now, there's a controversy about arresting the people who were further back. To some of them, it seems, it looked like they were being given permission to march on the bridge roadway, and then the police captured the whole group with orange nets. Or so the protest folk say.

UPDATE: The number has been revised up to 700.

At the Big Game Café...

... you can see everything from here. And have some corn...

"We will burst open multicolored sparks... and rays prismatic.... and rays prismatic..."

The Big Game Day meets the Marijuana Harvest Festival... today, in Madison, Wisconsin. The crowd on State Street is consuming the legal mind-altering liquid, and over on Library Mall, they're pushing the illegal mind-altering substance, with merchandise and music.



ADDED: The band you see in the clip is Venice Gas House Trolley.

Late Saturday morning, at the Capitol.

There's the Farmers' Market, along with a few protesters, including the hunger striker:


(Enlarge.)

A 9/11 Truther:


(Enlarge.)

Inside, quiet visitors:


(Enlarge.)

At the Golden Café...

... enjoy an open thread!

Bill Clinton, seemingly preening about himself, takes a devious shot at Obama.

This article, "Bill Clinton wants more credit" is topping Drudge under the heading "I want more credit." But let's see what's really going on here. Midway in the piece, there's this quote:

"I’m telling you this to point out that we need a coherent narrative... The No. 1 rule of effective politics, especially if the people you’re running against have a simple narrative — that government is always the problem, there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there’s no such thing as a good program or a bad program cut, no such thing as a good regulation or a bad deregulation — if you’re going to fight that, your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people...."

So... he wants stories and anecdotes, not a countervailing simple message?

"We need to understand that one of the things that tends to tilt things toward the Republicans’ anti-government narrative is our country was born out of a suspicion of government... King George’s government was not accountable to us. That’s what the Boston tea party was about. When the tea party started out, at least they were against unaccountable behavior from top to bottom. Then it morphed into something different. If you want to go against that grain, you’ve got to tell people you understand it’s a privilege and a responsibility to spend their tax money, but there’s some things we have to do together. And that’s what the purpose of government is, to do the things that we have to do together that we can’t do on our own."

Of course he's right about the purpose of government. The real difference of opinion is about how gigantically huge that pile of "things" is. 

“If we can make that choice credible... then our candidates — starting with the president — and our principles will be fine."

Make it credible....  In other words, get people to believe that the Democrats have a better definition of the things that we can't do on our own that are therefore the purpose of government. That's all! Just do that. Basically: Okay, now, there's your big idea from me. You figure out the details.

If we start at the top the article, we see that he was mostly talking up his own story, his accomplishments, the details from his time, when it was his privilege and responsibility to spend other people's money.

Bill Clinton has explained the big idea — "it’s a privilege and a responsibility to spend [the people's] money, but there’s some things we have to do together" — and each leader in his time must work out the details. And Bill Clinton would like you to know/believe that he did a fabulous job with the details, and life was pretty good back then. If the same Democratic vision of a broad role for government is going badly now then it's the fault of the man who now has the privilege to spend the money, the responsibility to choose the details, and the task to "make that choice credible."

If only more protesters wore uniforms and marched in neat rows....

... like the 700 Continental and United pilots. They'd get more media coverage then the straggly, scraggly folks that predominate in the Occupy Wall Street protest.

A shorter, smaller, niftier protest seems bigger, then, because of the projection into the media. The larger, longer, freer protest will get attention, however, if the media is not on its side.

If that general rule is true, it suggests that protests ought to be well organized. There's a lot of debate at the link about the extent to which the Occupy Wall Street protesters deserve criticism for lack of organization.

I think a big, spontaneous, passionate protest can be effective, but not when it continues day after day. (My opinion is informed by observation of the Wisconsin protests over the many weeks and months.) At some point, people outside of the protests resent the disruption of the flow of ordinary life. If the continuing protest goes well and gathers steam, these outsiders to the protest worry about disorder and chaos.

If a continuing protest declines — and it will ultimately have to decline, unless the authorities break it up — then during the period of decline, the people left in the protest are, more and more, the extremists, the deranged, and the emotionally needy. Few onlookers identify with these people.

Memorial Union Terrace, the night before the big game.

Anticipating the big game.

The fans are fortifying themselves with brats and beer:



The merchants are purveying special T-shirts:



This one made us laugh a lot:



And in the background, under the reflection, there's "Shuck You." I heard a guy saying he didn't understand it: "Shuck you?" Dumb! But then I thought, actually, you have to know at least 3 things: 1. that the Nebraska team is called the "Cornhuskers," 2. that "shuck" is another word for "husk," and 3. that "fuck you" is a standard expression. Then you have to get the hang of the way human beings combine things for humorous effect. If you think about it, the dumbest things are really quite sophisticated.

NYT has a big article on the on the Wisconsin-Nebraska game, with copious info about the "Jump Around."

The origin, the history, the engineering. It's all here:

In 1998, during the first night homecoming game for Wisconsin, Kluender was looking for something to keep the crowd energized between the third and fourth quarters. He had a list of suggested songs provided by Ryan Sondrup, an intern in the marketing department and a former Badgers football player. Kluender chose “Jump Around” and looked away from the field to check his notes. When he turned back he said the leaping students looked “like popcorn popping.”

Much, much more at the link, such as why you don't have to worry that all that shaking won't collapse the stadium. (People feel like the deck is moving up to 10 inches, but it really only moves 0.4 inches, and it would have to move 12 inches to cause any damage, but movement like that would make everyone fall down, in which case they would not be jumping around.)

The Brooklyn police officer "pointed at my outfit and said, 'Don't you think your shorts are a little short?'"

"He also stopped two other women wearing dresses... pointed at their dresses and said they were showing a lot of skin."

He said that such clothing could make the suspect think he had "easy access".... She said the officer explained that "you're exactly the kind of girl this guy is targeting."...

Flashback to the Canadian cop who caught hell and sparked the Slutwalk movement. He said, you may remember: "I've been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised."

You'd think by now the cops would have figured out how to broach this touchy subject. Look at this response from the woman quoted at the first link: "I can't wear shorts? Besides the fact that I wasn't wearing anything that was inappropriate or provocative…. I don't think that should be part of the problem. At all." Of course, she's right, but the annals of crime are full of innocent victims. The cops would like to encourage people to defend against crime, but advice from an authority figure feels like a restriction of your freedom... which the police know and use to control people.

"Sexist Obama?"

A Bloggingheads clip makes the NYT.

The scholarly press book... "isn’t dead; it is undead."

Says Kathleen Fitzpatrick.

IN THE COMMENTS: Yashu says:

While Fitzpatrick makes some good points (e.g. about problems with the peer review process-- though I'm not sure I buy her solution), the main thrust of her argument makes me break out in hives. It's the Elizabeth Warren political vision, advocating the priority of "community" over "individual achievement." It's Warren's critique of the business world transposed to academia (where "professorial culture is infected by pride in individual achievements and prejudice against publishing models that would de-emphasize them"):

At the Chrysanthemum Café...

... it's still quite early.

"This is a clash of two historically hemp producing states... Both Nebraska and Wisconsin had thriving hemp industries."

When Football Saturday meets the Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival.