Daffodils.

I told you they were daffodils.

And the other yellow flowers, mimicking the sun in the lovely sunset...



... were forsythia.

One year ago today at the Wisconsin protests: "Are you a Walker plant?"

"I'm an Althouse plant." And I really don't get the symbolism of the string. Plus... lots of pizza boxes.

And Dan Riehl examines the threat against me and Meade:

... Shankman said he believes in what he called the “law of privilege.” As best as I could interpret it, it meant that if the majority of Madison residents were progressive and didn’t want an Ann Althouse in their midst, then they are somehow entitled to make it unpleasant enough for her to live there, so that she’ll leave.

People thought they could run us out of town!

Muskrat Sunset — the video.

This evening, on Lake Wingra, in case the stills weren't enough. It really was sublime! Sublime... with a muskrat.

Hey, Romney, are you in a war against women?

On Fox News Sunday today, Mitt Romney was asked why he'd started talking about energy, why he hadn't talked about energy in various relatively recent speeches. We laughed at the way he phrased his answer, because it seemed like he was looking for places to signal that he was not at war against women.

You know, I've been speaking about energy policy I think pretty consistently throughout all of my stump speech.... But the reality is that as I've gone across the country in the last several weeks in particular, I'm seeing more and more people, particularly women for instance, that say to me, you know, it's hard getting kids to school and to soccer practice when you don't know if you can afford to fill up the car. I spoke with a teacher in St. Louis who was out of work and she's staying on unemployment because she said in part, the cost of getting to and from work at a temporary teaching assignment was just so expensive, given gasoline. She couldn't afford to go back to work.

Women. Kids. Soccer. Teachers. He wants you women to know: He cares. 

Tonight's sunset, on Lake Wingra.

It was 80° here today in Madison. A record, I believe. We went out for a bike ride, and when we came back, we could see the difference in the growth of the garden. I have many flower pictures from the day, but what I wanted to post was the beautiful sunset, seen from the UW Arboretum, over one of my favorite lakes in the whole world, Lake Wingra.

"29 Wisconsin Judges Sign Walker Recall Petition."

"That’s 12 percent, and it’s not just abstract advocacy."

"Dane County Judge David Flanagan has been under fire for not disclosing his support of the recall before he issued a temporary restraining order against a Walker-backed voter ID law." It’s like these people don’t believe in civil society or something.

The left has often invoked the authority of law and the learned professions, but Wisconsin — from things like this to the phony doctors’ excuses for protesters — is suggesting that they’re just a bunch of partisan tools.

ADDED: Why would a judge sign a recall petition? You're just one name. It can't make that much difference. And then there you are, your reputation shot to hell. You're politicized. Biased. All those things you strive to deny when you assume the role of judge.

The linked AP article shows that "none of the state's 16 appeals court judges or seven Supreme Court justices signed the petition." That is a relief.

At the Where's-the-Beets Café...

... you can get to the root of things.

Only 28% of likely voters rate the Supreme Court "excellent" or "good."

This is the lowest Rasmussen has recorded (since it began tracking this question in 2006.)

Voters from all party affiliations give the Supreme Court similar ratings, but Democrats and unaffiliated voters give slightly higher negatives than Republicans do.

Overall, 33% believe that the Supreme Court is too politically liberal, while 28% say it is too conservative. Nearly as many (25%) say the ideological balance is about right. Another 14% are undecided. Most GOP voters (56%) think the court is too liberal. Most Democrats (54%) say it's too conservative. Unaffiliateds are more narrowly divided.

Ha ha. I find that breakdown funny. It makes me say the Supreme Court is actually doing just fine. Everybody wants it to skew more toward their politics? They don't deserve what they want.

A plurality of all voters (43%) believes the two justices nominated by President Obama are too liberal, showing little change over the past few months. Only seven percent (7%) regard Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kegan as too conservative, while 36% say their ideologies are about right. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of politically moderate voters and 65% of liberal voters believe the ideologies of both justices are about right, while most conservatives (75%) believe they are too liberal.

See what I mean?

Now, given that very moderate opinion about the Court generally, it's interesting to see that 69% of voters say that government lacks the constitutional power to require individuals to buy health insurance.

"An envelope full of feces was sent to the office of state Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee."

"The return label read, 'Milwaukee Trade Unions Want The Iron Mine.'"

Union nastiness turns on the Democrats who opposed the big iron mine (assuming the return label reflects to the source of the shit).

Here's some info on the mine. Here's a letter to the editor of a Manitowoc newspaper:

Why do the private-sector unions support the Democrats? Not one Senate Democrat will vote for good-paying, union-related mining jobs in Wisconsin.

"Son of a bitch! Why is this happening?"

Weather lady on live TV.

"Mitt Romney chomping on deep fried cheese curds?"

Hey! I was eating a cheese curd when I read that! I was looking for some news about the upcoming Wisconsin primary. People around here are kind of psyched that the candidates may actually be coming to our late-voting state to campaign. We matter! Sigh.

There aren't any really recent polls, just 2 from February. Both have Santorum up by 16 points. What's that about?

"Is Tommy [Thompson] nimble enough to pivot to the right and position himself as a staunch conservative?"

Asks Marquette polisci prof Charles Franklin.

Mordecai Lee, a UW-Milwaukee political science professor and former Democratic state lawmaker who served with the former governor, said Thompson believed in using government to achieve conservative goals.

"That is a marked departure from modern Republican dogma," he said. "Now, they want to kill the beast. They believe government is the problem. Compare old Tommy to Sen. Ron Johnson. They are as different as the North and South pole."

Old Tommy. He's 70. He's got opposition in the Republican primary, but he's leading in the polls. Whoever wins the Republican primary is, I think, very likely to win the Senate seat, because the the opponent is probably going to be Tammy Baldwin, who currently serves in the House, representing the district that is dominated by Madison. She's never had to appeal to the people of the entire state, and from what I've seen of her, she's not really that good at glad-handing folks. Which is to say, Republicans should pick the candidate they really want, because he is going to win. No reason to go for the one who seems most electable. That's what I think.

"Yeah. We have different worldviews on some of these things. I agree with you truth is really important."

Says Mike Daisey to Ira Glass, who responds: "I know but I feel like I have the normal worldview. The normal worldview is somebody stands on stage and says 'this happened to me,' I think it happened to them, unless it's clearly labeled as 'here's a work of fiction.'"

Some artists (and propagandists) will disagree, but I hope Glass is right.

ADDED: You can listen to the new "Retraction" episode of "This American Life" here (where there is also a link to the transcript PDF).

Ira Glass: You put us in this position of going out and vouching for the truth of what you were saying and all along, in all of these ways, you knew that these things weren’t true. Did you ever stop and think, okay these things aren’t true and you have us vouching for their truth?

Mike Daisey: I did, I did. I thought about that a lot.

Ira Glass: And just what did you think?

Mike Daisey: I felt really conflicted. I felt... trapped.

Fascinatingly, it turns out that Daisey had once done a story about that "Million Little Pieces" guy, James Frey, who got into so much trouble for palming off a fictionalized story as a memoir. A big part of the trouble was that Oprah Winfrey had promoted Frey's book. The section of the interview where Glass brings up Frey ends like this:

Ira Glass: I have such a weird mix of feelings about this, because I simultaneously feel terrible, for you, and also, I feel lied to. And also I stuck my neck out for you. You know I feel like, I feel like, like I vouched for you. With our audience. Based on your word.

I was your Oprah!

Mike Daisey: I’m sorry.

Alexandra Pelosi "is declining to understand the critique."

Says Ta-Nehisi Coates, attacking the filmmaker for a documentary that shows poor white people in Mississippi and poor black people NYC displaying divergent attitudes toward the government. The white people want the government out of their lives, and the black people accept government intrusion that comes in the form of welfare benefits. Coates assails Pelosi for thinking that by offending "both sides," she can get away with demeaning poor people:

That a person who would use journalism to render whole geographies as cartoons, would journey to friendlier environs and pull the same vapid trick should be expected....

Since when did shitting on poor and working people become worthy of self-congratulation? When did punching down become avant-garde?

That's how Coates frames it. Now watch the video:



ADDED: I love when Bill Maher says (at 8:48):

You and I are not racists. I just gave my imaginary child's college fund to Barack Obama, and your mother is Nancy Pelosi. So of all the people in the world — we are not out to fuck black people.

That's a very crude analysis of racism! They stroke themselves with this belief that because they support the Democratic Party, they are certified non-racists. Where's the self-criticism? Isn't it at least possible that their party's policies represent a low opinion of black people, that they are paternalistic, that they take advantage of a seemingly locked in voting bloc?

"We can, however, promise that as long as no humans become hysterical about their guaranteed eventual infection..."

"... and continue to do our bidding, we shall live in peace, as we have for so long. So do not panic."

One year ago [yesterday] at the Wisconsin protests: Althouse & Meade experience union thuggery.

There's a screed on the web:

We will hang up wanted posters of you everywhere you like to go. We will picket on public property as close to your house as we can every day. We will harrass the ever loving shit out of you all the time. Campus is OCCUPIED. State street is OCCUPIED. The Square is OCCUPIED. Vilas, Schenk's Corners, Atwood, Willy Street – Occupied, Occupied, Occupied, Occupied. 

Interesting. All that "Occupy" talk, antedating the earliest manifestations of Occupy Wall Street. What do you make of that?

Did you really think it was all about the Capitol? Fuck the Capitol, we are the CITY... We have the numbers and we don't back down from anyone. We all know each other. We all know each other. We know each other from Service Industry Night at the Orpheum, because we're regulars at the same coffee shops, restaurants and bars, we know each other from the co-ops, we know each other because we've had a million jobs each (and we all worked at CapTel at least once), because we live in every shitty townie house in ever-changing groups of 2 – 7 people, because we are young and horny and screw each other incessantly, because we're all on facebook, and because we aren't anti-social, life-denying, world-sterilizing pieces of human garbage like the two of you. WE WILL FUCK YOU UP. We will throw our baseballs in your lawn, you cranky old pieces of shit, and then we will come get them back. What are you gonna do? Shoot us? Get Wausau Tea Patriots to form an ad hoc militia on your front lawn? That would be fucking HILAROUS to us. You could get to know the assholes on your side in real fucking life instead of sponging off the civil society we provide for you every single day you draw breath."

More here:

"Ann Althouse and Meade advocate torture, attack against nonviolent protesters, police-state crackdowns on citizens exercising their constitutional rights, class privilege, race privilege, and basically the full spectrum of assaults against American democracy advocated by the radical, revolutionary wing of the republican party. They are unkind, unChristian and anti-American." 

ADDED: When I tried to post this last night, I kept getting the "conflicting errors" message, which I know a lot of people attempting to comment were also getting. I hope this means the problem is solved!

ALSO: The text at the link was partial, and it went to a page on the scribd website which now says the document was deleted. I've now updated my original post with the full text of the deleted document, which I had, fortunately, saved.  If you've never read the whole thing, try it. Here's the last paragraph: