February 29, 2008 • 11:10 pm
The Associated Press reports
For Republicans, watching Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama fight for supremacy in fundraising is not just a spectator sport. It is a look into the future, and the GOP isn’t cheering.
Obama and Clinton together raked in as much as seven times as much cash in February as John McCain, the all-but-certain Republican nominee.
I guess all Bush’s rich Republican friends are feeling the pinch of perhaps not having their tax breaks made permanent.
The Republicans are still trying to motivate the base. Clinton and Obama are still in a tight race. McCain is the presumptive nominee. Let’s see how everything washes out in November.
Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama, campaign finances, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
February 27, 2008 • 9:32 pm
John Diaz, of the San Francisco Chronicle, had an piece in Sunday’s Crossroads asking why the polls have been so long.
As one who is skeptical of the value of polling, this, of course, held great interest for me. Some of his reasons mirror my own.
- Incorrect “weighting” of certain demographic groups. He notes one of John Zogby’s polls that was so off base in California was light on Latinos and heavy on younger voters.
- Absentee ballots. As much as 50% of California’s votes were cast absentee.
- Unprecedented turnout. “This year’s surge in participation, especially on the Democratic side, has made it extremely difficult to anticipate the allegiances and demographic makeup of those who cast votes.”
- The number of people who won’t talk to pollsters is going up.
- The influence of the 24/7 news cycle. He notes as an example the when Clinton had her tearful moment, “most pollsters had completed their work in the state.”
John Zogby said, “There is artwork involved here.”
More reason than ever to take polls with a grain of salt.
Filed under: Polls and polling , 2008 presidential election, opinion polls
Telemarketers top state complaint list
Surprised, right?
But here’s something that did surprise me.
Be aware of criminal telemarketers that block your caller ID and substitute what appears to be a local number.
Interesting.
Filed under: After hours , telemarketers
Kyle Duerstein had State Sen. Lena Taylor and current Milwaukee County executive Scott Walker debating on his show today. It was covered by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s All Politics blog.
Kyle also has a blog and writes for Front Page Milwaukee.
Topics discussed were taxes and budget, corrections, transit, pensions, school choice, their favorite county service.
It was at times contentious, at times cooperative debate with questions coming from listeners calling in, which sounded mostly conservative.
Audio is, as has been found with BlogTalkRadio, is inconsistent, with the callers being louder than the participants.
Filed under: 2008, Elections, Milwaukee, Wisconsin , candidates, debate, Lena Taylor, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee County Executive, Scott Walker
February 26, 2008 • 9:26 pm
From the Waukesha Freeman
Those who wish to be kind to the environment when they die might soon be able to opt for a “green” burial at Prairie Home Cemetery.
“A green burial is basically a way to go back to the idea of ashes to ashes and dust to dust. There is no embalming or vault and the person is buried in a pine or corrugated cardboard and wood box or a simple burial shroud,” said David Brenner, cemetery manager. “Green burials are starting to be more and more appealing to people.”
I thought there was some kind of regulatory reason we had vaults and embalming. You know like bodies decomposing and seeping into the ground water. I don’t know. Maybe someone else does.
Having lived in a third world country, I observed a few “green burials.” Being tropical, you had a short time to get the body in the ground. Wisconsin’s climate would probably ameliorate that along with freezers and all, so there would be still time to gather the relatives.
Of course, being “green” technology, these burials will be more expensive than regular ones.
Between this and burying pets, the cemetery should be in the black in no time.
Filed under: Waukesha, Wisconsin , cemetery, green burials, pet cemetery, Waukesha, Wisconsin
According to Purdue University professors,
Choosing a diet soft drink over a regular, sugar-packed beverage may not be the best way to fight obesity, according to new research from Purdue University. But the researchers said this doesn’t mean you should grab a regularly sweetened soft drink instead.
Professor Terry Davidson and associate professor Susan Swithers, both in the Department of Psychological Sciences, found that artificial sweeteners may disrupt the body’s natural ability to “count” calories based on foods’ sweetness. This finding may explain why increasing numbers of people in the United States lack the natural ability to regulate food intake and body weight. The researchers also found that thick liquids aren’t as satisfying – calorie for calorie – as are more solid foods.
Sigh.
Oh, wait, next week there may be a study contradicting this one.
Filed under: Food , artificial sweeteners, dieting, Food
Elmbrook now dealing with teaching gender roles
Having already updated crucial sex education lessons, the Elmbrook School District’s human growth and development committee is now dealing with another critical issue: gender roles.
The committee was established to revisit and rewrite the human growth and development curriculum for the Elmbrook School District. The group will need to present a proposal to the school board, who would need to approve it before the curriculum is implemented.
Last month the committee dealt with the appropriate grade level at which students should be taught about oral sex.
Things have definitely changed since I went to school.
Filed under: Education , Brookfield, Education, Elmbrook Schools, Wisconsin
The Week magazine asked this in the latest issue.
More than 90 percent of the world’s cultures engage in mouth-to-mouth kissing. But if you give it some thought, kissing seems a little silly. The mouth is the organ we use for eating, speaking, and burping, and it’s full of nasty germs and sharp teeth. So why would anyone want to put this icky aperture in contact with anyone else’s?
From the Lakeland (FL) Ledger we find,
“This is a seminal paper,” said Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist who studies love.
“Seminal paper.” She really said that.
You can tell a lot of information about a person by being in close proximity – from their breath, the taste of their saliva, things like that.
“If you are accepting a kiss you are putting yourself at risk of contracting an illness. And we suspect it raises levels of a hormone called oxytocin, which is related to interpersonal bonding,” Hughes said.
There you have it. The scientific analysis of romance. Makes you want to go kiss someone, doesn’t it?
As with many things the reasons men do it and the reasons women do it are different. From the Reading (PA) Eagle,
Men: Kissing is a mandatory stop on a fast track to sex. Women: It’s a significant event in beginning or maintaining a long-term romantic relationship.
Shocked? Yeah, I knew you would be.
Filed under: After hours , kissing, marriage, romance, Science
Noted this story yesterday when logging on to WordPress.
Mr. Gore asserted that the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa was expressly attributable to global warming; “Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.” That was in 2005 in his movie An Inconvenient Truth.
Deforestation seems to be causing Mount Kilimanjaro’s shrinking glacier. Researchers think deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the most likely culprit. Without the forests’ evapotranspiration of humidity into the air, previously moisture-laden winds blowing across those forests now blow drier. The summit, no longer replenished with water from those winds, started shrinking. Studies show the ice is evaporating through a process called sublimation. You can witness this effect at home, have you ever noticed that ice cubes left in your freezer tend to shrink with time?
There’s more at the link, including a reference to this story on global warming climate change and hurricanes.
There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.
Filed under: climate change , Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, climate change, global warming, Mount Kilimanjaro
