Dane County Register of Deeds Race

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I’m happy that we actually have a choice in tomorrow’s Dane County Register of Deeds race. This is unusual. I contacted both candidates recently and asked them for their views on Open Records and the Register of Deeds office.

I’ve been concerned over the years that some government agencies don’t follow (ignore?) the Open Records laws. Rather, they take the opportunity to charge taxpayers twice, once via taxes and a second time via various access fees for public information. There are no shortage of arguments over these questions.

Peter Ellestad responded via email (I’ve not heard from his opponent, Kristi Chlebowski). Peter’s response follows:

Sorry to take so long in responding — I’ve been driving around the county a great deal.  Regarding my philosophy about records:  I think priority should be given to maintaining and enhancing free access to all real estate records.  At present, anyone who comes in to the register of deeds office may search all of these records at no charge, and will receive help from staff to find what they are looking for.  I’ve been startled when I’ve been helping someone find something to be asked “Is there a charge for that?” and I think they’ve been surprised to hear “No, anyone can search these records for free.”  I think that free access is appropriate and is the responsibility of our office to provide. 

(more…)

Election Day Essay

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Michael Kinsley:

In politics the stakes are not small, except in the sense that the arguments exceed by far any differences in what the two established parties actually do when they have the opportunity to govern. Republicans, as Evelyn Waugh is said to have complained about the British Tories, don’t seem to turn back the clock by a single minute. But Democrats don’t seem to push it forward either.

Recent elections have seen the rise of self-styled militant moderates, following the flag of white-horse candidates starting with the businessman Ross Perot and continuing, so far, through Gen. Wesley K. Clark. Business and the military are two fertile breeders of excessive self-confidence, but the only essential qualification for a white-horse candidate is a total lack of experience in running for or holding elective office. And the only essential requirement for white-horse voters is to be, like Howard Beale in Paddy Chayefsky’s movie “Network,” “mad as hell” and “not going to take this anymore.” It is not essential to know why you are so mad, or what exactly you’re not going to take.

Kinsley is correct on governing practices.

Franklin’s Latest Poll Summaries: “Dem Wave Crested, Advantage Shrinks”

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UW’s Charles Franklin:

Across the board, in Senate, House and Governor’s races, the wave boosting the Democrats crested about 10 days ago. Since then the advantage Democrats have built throughout the year has been reduced by from 1.5 to 3.5 percentage points. While forces are still a net positive to the Democrats, these forces are weaker than they were during the week before Halloween. This implies that the most competitive races will now be harder for Democrats to win and easier for Republicans to hold. This implies that the anticipation of a major surge to Democrats now needs to be reconsidered. While race-by-race estimates still show an 18 seat Democratic gain, and 27 seats as tossups (see our scorecard at Pollster.com here), this reduction in national forces makes it less likely the Democrats sweep the large majority of the tossup seats and could result in total gains in the 20s rather than the 30s or even 40s that looked plausible 10 days ago.

Five Best Weather Books

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Christopher Burt:

1. The Elements Rage by Frank W. Lane (Chilton, 1965).



What interests most people about weather (as opposed to climate–“Climate lasts all the time and weather only a few days,” as Mark Twain put it) is its extremes and curious phenomena. Frank Lane clearly had that in mind in the early 1960s when he undertook writing “The Elements Rage.” Even if the science here is out of date, the drama of the stories never grows old. The book offers dozens of extraordinary black-and-white photographs and a fact-packed text, rich in anecdotes on matters well beyond meteorology–earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, volcanoes. As an inspiration toward appreciating how strange the natural world can be, the book set a standard that others, including myself, have attempted to emulate.

A Chat with JetBlue’s David Neelman

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Judith Dobrzynski:

With Washington often, umm, unable to focus–“It took 10 years to get an energy bill passed that has had little effect,” Mr. Neeleman interjects–he sought counsel on the capital’s ways. As a result, he got professional help on the bill’s language and learned about the legislative process. “The advice I got was to go get RAND and other thinkers to write about it–those are the guys that they listen to,” Mr. Neeleman says. He has spoken with RAND about doing an economic impact study, but has not commissioned one. And, as he put it, “I got a couple professors”–names of people he might enlist in the cause. Who?–I ask. “From the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution,” is his reply.

Mr. Neeleman has also visited the White House seeking support. “They’re looking at it,” he says, but were noncommittal. He believes “it should sail through Congress,” and would be happy to “testify for my country and for our industry.” This earnestness, along with his resolve, is obvious throughout the interview. As I’m leaving, Mr. Neeleman stops me to point out–no, to declaim–a framed quote on the wall outside his office. It’s from Teddy Roosevelt, and reads, in part: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who–at the worst–if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

The Prince

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Reviewed by David Ignatius:

When historians search for a paradigmatic figure who embodied America’s old, pre-9/11 relationship with the Arab world, an obvious candidate will be Saudi Arabia’s swaggering ambassador to Washington from 1983 to 2005, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He was the Gatsby of foreign affairs: entertaining Washington’s elite at his mansion overlooking the Potomac; exchanging secret favors with a string of presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush; lobbying for Saudi weapons purchases so effectively that he trounced even AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby group; operating as a deniable arm of the CIA in covert operations around the world.

A Closer Look at Plunging Circulation

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Via a friend; Rick Edmonds:

As was widely reported, the six-month circulation numbers for U.S. newspapers released earlier this week carried plenty of bad news: an industry-wide tumble year-to-year of 2.8% daily and 3.4% on Sunday. There were much deeper losses in big metro markets like Boston, Los Angeles and Miami.

As grim as those numbers are, a deeper look into the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reports and into some online data released by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), makes the overall economic picture even a little bleaker.

True to their word, most companies and individual papers continue to burn so-called “junk” circulation, such as the category called “other paid” as well as third-party or bulk sales, all of it of little value to advertisers. That would support the idea that the business is pruning numbers, but improving the quality of its circulation.

…

Take the six largest papers of Lee Enterprises (Lee owns half of Capitol Newspapers), the best circulation performer among public companies. Together they achieved a highly respectable daily loss of just 0.3%. However those same papers lost 25,000 circulation among those paying 50 percent or greater of the full price of the paper, a drop of 4.1%. At the same time, it added 13,500 in the 25 to 50 percent category, a 43.9% increase. That means the papers had significant losses among subscribers paying a higher percentage of the full price while adding readers who paid more steeply discounted rate

Rhetoric & Reality: Mapping Congress’ Voting Records on Technology

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Declan McCullough:

Ever since the mid-1990s, politicians have grown fond of peppering their speeches with buzzwords like broadband, innovation and technology.

John Kerry, Al Gore and George W. Bush have made fundraising pilgrimages to Silicon Valley to ritually pledge their support for a digital economy.

But do politicos’ voting records match their rhetoric? To rate who’s best and who’s worst on technology topics before the Nov. 7 election, CNET News.com has compiled a voter’s guide, grading how representatives in the U.S. Congress have voted over the last decade.

While many of the scored votes centered on Internet policy, others covered computer export restrictions, H-1B visas, free trade, research and development, electronic passports and class action lawsuits. We excluded the hot-button issue of Net neutrality, which has gone only to a recorded floor vote in the House of Representatives so far, because that legislation has generated sufficient division among high-tech companies and users to render it too difficult to pick a clear winner or loser.

The results were surprisingly mixed: In the Senate, Republicans easily bested Democrats by an average of 10 percent. In the House of Representatives, however, Democrats claimed a narrow but visible advantage on technology-related votes.

John Kerry finished second last in the Senate. Locally, Ron Kind, Mark Green and Tom Petri “scored” above 50%. Senate / House scoring methodology. For example, both Senators Feingold and Kohl voted for the National ID card and linking databases while Representative Baldwin voted against it.