Out on the new mile of the Ice Age Trail.

Near the Merrimac ferry across the Wisconsin River, just north of Lodi. A view:



A bench:



Another bench, with a nice footrest:

"How do you like to go up in a swing/Up in the air so blue?"

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

"The Swing," by Robert Louis Stevenson...



... from "A Child's Garden of Verses." I've known that poem by heart as long as I've known... anything.

Stevenson was born 160 years ago today, something I learned after noticing the Google-doodle, which is completely pirate- and not swing-oriented.

Bonus Stevenson material:

"[T]here was some confusion as to what book young Obama was writing."

"His publisher thought he was writing about race relations. His employer thought he was writing about voting rights law. But Obama seems to have never seriously considered either subject. Instead, he decided that his subject would be himself. The 32-year-old was writing a memoir."

Jonathan V. Last writes in  The Weekly Standard:

Obama came clean to the university first. He waited until his fellowship was halfway over—perhaps he was concerned that his employers might not like the bait-and-switch. He needn’t have worried. [Douglas Baird, the head of Chicago’s appointments committee] still hoped that Obama would eventually join the university’s faculty...

And it all worked out in the end. The book Obama eventually finished was Dreams from My Father. It didn’t do well initially, but nine years later, after his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention made him a star, it sold like gangbusters. Obama got rich. And famous. The book became the springboard for his career in national politics.

Only it didn’t quite work out for everybody. Obama left the University of Chicago... Simon & Schuster, which had taken a chance on an unproven young writer, got burned for a few thousand bucks. And Jane Dystel, who’d plucked him out of the pages of the New York Times and got him the deal to write the book that sped his political rise? As soon as Obama was ready to negotiate the contract for his second book—the big-money payday—he dumped her and replaced her with super-agent Robert Barnett.

"President Obama is coming home from his overseas trip pretty much empty-handed."

"After watching his party take a beating in the midterm elections, Obama wasn't able to secure even a symbolic victory on a trip that was expected to give him plenty of opportunities to claim a win.... Obama's inauspicious 10-day, four-nation trip included a failure to land an anticipated slam dunk free trade agreement with South Korea."

At the River View Café...

(Enlarge.)

... there's a subtle color.

ADDED: Video by Meade:

A blogger photography genre: Food I cooked that I delusionally believe looks delicious.

I know I have to give an example of what I'm talking about. So... here.

I'm shocked, shocked to learn that semi-clad models are writhing in the law library!

"... Brooklyn Law School officials rented Diesel its library expecting a tasteful photo shoot for a jeans ad -- but what they got was a steamy display of writhing young models in skimpy lingerie grinding against books and computers."

Wait. Why did they expect a tasteful photo shoot?

"It's gross. I work on those computers every day!" fumed a female student, referring to a shot showing two bra- and panty-clad women climbing over the machines toward an open-mouthed man....

The frisky photos, shot last spring, show off the hot bodies of male and female models as they prowl around the library's floors, tables and bookshelves -- while wearing tight-fitting panties bearing various seductive messages.

If the law school — I emphasize law school — did not impose restrictions when it took Diesel's money then it has nothing to complain about.

"We are as shocked and mortified as you must be by these photographs," interim dean Michael Gerber wrote in an e-mail yesterday to students, faculty and staff.

"When the school gave its permission to do the shoot, the school was assured that the photos would be in good taste. They are not."

"Assured" "good taste" — that's not specific enough to make me believe Diesel violated a contractual term. The school took Diesel's money and had to know that any advertising for clothing for young adults is likely to involve some display of sexuality. Especially if the scene is a library. That's what I'd expect.

What exactly was the school assured of? The models aren't naked. They've got on underwear. And what is even so gross and shocking about this? Man, Diesel is getting way more great publicity than its stupid underpants deserve. Where did this controversy really start? I'm inclined to suspect that the administration is only shocked* after the fact and only because some students have managed to create the impression that the school might be accused of contributing to a "hostile environment" form of sexual harassment.

As for the young woman who is grossed out that a model in panties writhed in the vicinity of a computer she uses... do you realize how many people type on those things with hands they didn't wash after they went to the bathroom?

----------------------------------------------

*Shocked!

"High-speed rail may be among the casualties of last week's midterm elections."

Says NPR and I rejoice.

The moves to oppose the Obama administration's efforts to get high-speed trains whisking through some parts of the country appear to be the first of many fights between Democrats and newly elected Republicans who campaigned on promises to rein in spending....

High-speed trains whisking...

... dreams of fast trains full of passengers zooming through the Midwest....

Whisking, zooming choo-choos are not our dream. Now leave us alone. We drive cars. Face reality.

How can they take away the mortgage interest deduction?

It's one of the deficit commission's proposals:

“The mortgage interest deduction is one of the pillars of our national housing policy,” said Michael D. Berman, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Limiting its use will have negative repercussions for consumers and home values up and down the housing chain.”...

But:

[O]nly those in the top third of wage earners even itemized their deductions, meaning that two-thirds of taxpayers weren’t eligible for the break.

“No one can make a serious intellectual argument in favor of the mortgage interest deduction,” [said Calvin Johnson, a tax professor at the University of Texas]. “Why should the government subsidize homeowners rather than renters? The only thing it’s good for is middle-class votes.”

Then why did "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blast[] the commission’s suggestions, saying it would force middle-class homeowners to subsidize tax breaks for the wealthy"? I guess there are a lot of "middle class" people in the top third of taxpayers.

It's a complex policy question, and since there are other, offsetting tax breaks, it's hard to see who will be hurt the most. But generally, isn't it fairer to have lower tax rates than a bunch of deductions? With deductions, they only help if they're more than the standard deduction and if you do the thing the government has decided to favor.

Wouldn't it be better if you made housing decisions — rent or buy, big or small — without the government adding weight to one side? But if you've already bought a house, and the government's encouragement factored into your decision, you might feel cheated if they take that deduction away. Of course, the government always had the power to take the deduction away, and there's always the argument that you should have factored that in when you made your decision.

But that argument is going to piss people off unless they can remain calm long enough to see that a lowering of the tax rates more than offsets the bottom-line value of their deduction. But is that true? Does anyone know?

Who should be TIME's Person of the Year?

Here's a list. They are taking votes. Inanely, Lady Gaga is in first place by a lot. I'm going to say Nancy Pelosi.

The Supreme Court leaves Don't Ask Don't Tell in place — with Kagan not participating.

The 9th Circuit stay on the order ending DADT will keep the policy in effect pending appeal. There were no dissenting opinions, and, most interestingly Justice Kagan did not participate:

While it was not a surprise that Justice Kagan had opted not to take part in the order, that was nevertheless a significant development.  It raised the prospect that, when the constitutional challenge reached the Supreme Court, the Justices might split 4-4 on it; that is always a risk when only eight Justices are taking part and the issue is a deeply controversial one.  Should the Ninth Circuit Court upheld [sic] the policy, that result would simply be affirmed; without an opinion, if the Justices were actually to divide 4-4 in reaction to it....

If it should turn out that Congress does not repeal the policy, despite the requests by President Obama and some of the Pentagon’s top civilian and uniformed officers, the constitutional challenge in the Log Cabin Republicans’ case would be the only potential way to end the policy, at least for several more years.

"Can you imagine what little Zoes would have to endure on the playground, and even worse..."

"... when they get a little bit older and someone comes up to them in a bar and says, ‘Can I see your airbags?' or ‘Can I shine your bumper?'"

A French lawyer tries to get a court to prevent Renault from naming a new car model "Zoe." He loses, but the very idea of bringing such a suit makes you stop and wonder about France:

France is known for taking first names seriously, even going so far as to block parents from giving children ridiculous names if officials deem it detrimental to their future.

(Via Above the Law.)

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."

"The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."

A report of another one of those "happiness" studies. If unhappiness correlates with a wandering mind, is it because a wandering mind makes you unhappy or because it's when you're unhappy with what you're doing that you think about doing something else?

"Actually, I find it useful to contemplate my white privileges..."

"... and any other privileges into which I was born, like being a citizen of the richest country on earth, and did not obtain for myself," says Roy Edroso.

In fact, when I was growing up, it was customary for adults to remind children of such luck as they had inherited, like the food we had and "people starving in other countries" didn't. This was meant as a spur to gratitude and humility, and to not being such a whining little shit.

He's reacting to a program that in which government officials are prodding adult citizens to think about how privileged they are. The analogy to a parent-child relationship comes so easily to the left-wing mind.

And what kind of families — back in the olden days — encouraged their kids to think about how lucky they were to be white? Only racist parents would have said anything like that. Kindly parents back then had a simple message for their kids on the subject of race: There is only one race, the human race. It wasn't hard for them to figure out that that was the right thing to say, and it wasn't at all hard for kids to understand it.

Argument by nostalgia is highly manipulable.

Talking Points Memo turns 10.

"The post was about Ted Olson making his debut as the chief Bush lawyer in the emerging Florida Recount battle."

Yes, it's also the 10-year anniversary of the big Florida recount. I wish I'd been blogging then! It would have been so much fun to write about that every step of the way. I'd have liked to show you in real time that I really wanted my guy, Al Gore, to win, and I also accepted nearly everything the Supreme Court did in the complicated litigation over the recount. But there are so many missed blogging opportunities in the past. I'd have loved to have blogged the Clinton scandals too. And the Clarence Thomas hearings. The Bork hearings.

Here's that first TPM post:

As if things couldn't get any weirder, did you notice the name of the lawyer who made the Republicans' unsuccessful arguments before that federal judge today? That would be Ted Olson, a man Washingtonians often refer to as a 'Washington super-lawyer.' Who is Ted Olson? Well, that would be the same one knee-deep in the Arkansas Project, which in league with the American Spectator spent a ton of money digging dirt on Bill Clinton in Arkansas....

Well, now, isn't that weird? I just blogged this morning about that Think Progress blogger who confronted Justice Alito and he was going on about the Arkansas Project:

Last night, the American Spectator — a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton — held its annual gala fundraising event....

That first TPM post wove Justice Scalia into its conspiracy-ish riff:

Of course, Olson... is also the Olson from Morrison v. Olson, the supreme court case which upheld the constitutinality of the Independent Counsel statute. Olson was against it. Come to think of it, we Dems now think he and Scalia were right. So maybe chalk one up in his favor.

So that's how TPM first talked about law. Yikes. Spelled "constitutionality" wrong too.

I'm going to start reading the lefty blogs more and writing about them, I think. I'm interested in the way they string ideas together, and I think they need some more push back.

Do you want me to write more about lefty blogs?
	No. Don't give them traffic.
	No. I don't care what they say.
	Yes. They need monitoring and criticism.
	Yes. Broaden your view and see what happens.
	Eh. Not sure. Depends on how sharp and funny you make it.
pollcode.com free polls

Are Cindy and John McCain in a serious marital breakdown over Don't Ask Don't Tell?

John Aravosis says:

John McCain is leading the filibuster against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" "repeal" legislation in the Senate (it's not an actual repeal, but we'll leave that for another time). Today, Cindy McCain joined a number of celebrities in a video about gay youth suicide and bullying. Mrs. McCain's part of the video condemned DADT and then accused our government of sending bullies a message that what they do is okay.

The woman basically accused her husband of sharing the blame for gay kids killing themselves.

I'm astonished. And impressed as hell.

Husband-wife teams work like that sometimes. It's not really evidence of a marital breakdown or even necessarily a real conflict at all. Try this exercise: Begin with the assumption that they are a partnership. Now, explain their behavior. Do you see how it makes sense? I sure do.

Robert Downey Jr. is Mr. Peanut.

Great! I've always loved Robert Downey Jr. and Mr. Peanut:



But why is the nutcracker named "Richard"?

Background on Mr. Peanut:"Mr. Peanut was created in 1916 after Planters Peanuts held a contest to create a logo and a 14-year-old boy drew a nut with human features." I'd really like to see the original drawing. According to Wikipedia, the boy (Antonio Gentile) just drew a some sort of man-peanut — and "an artist later added spats, a top hat, a monocle, and a cane." So... did the boy's drawing have the gloves? The unfailingly optimistic smile?

"Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito Dismisses His Profligate Right-Wing Fundraising As ‘Not Important.'"

Think Progress blogger Lee Fang confronts Justice Alito. Later, recording video, he yells at him and is threatened with arrest.

"We liked it that the name carried no image of masculinity, that it would free him from all preconceptions and let people see him as unique."

A comment that (supposedly) exemplifies a trend.

Bush says "damn right" he approved of the waterboarding of 3 detainees and he'd do it again — and the American people approve.

Overwhelmingly. Mostly silently. To the distress of the small sliver of the population that includes Dahlia Lithwick.