NYT Front Page on the Pawlenty Vice Presidency:

Outside his home state, Mr. Pawlenty is among the least-known of the prospects Senator John McCain is said to be considering as a vice-presidential partner. But those who have followed his political rise here say Mr. Pawlenty’s personal story — his direct, everyman appeal to ordinary people — is among his most powerful attributes.

Long before the polls began suggesting that Republicans could face trouble in November, Mr. Pawlenty, now in his second term, was urging his party to become “the party of Sam’s Club,” not just the country club.

“We need everybody — to grow the party and to move forward,” Mr. Pawlenty explained in a recent interview. “One of the most powerful reasons people go to Sam’s Club or Target or Costco is they want value, and Republicans are well suited to be the party that says, ‘We’re going to have a limited but also effective government.’ ”

Mr. Pawlenty can talk about such things from experience. He now lives in the well-off suburb of Eagan, but holds blue-collar credentials. He grew up in South St. Paul, then a working-class town where life revolved around the stockyards, where his father drove a truck, where he played hockey, where his mother died of cancer when he was still a teenager, and where he went on to become the first in his family to graduate from college.

A damn good goalie…

If anything, Mr. Pawlenty’s critics say, he is too prepared for this moment; they say he has been so conscious of the possibility of higher office that he has been overly careful as governor. This year, he vetoed 34 bills passed by a Democratic-dominated Legislature, more than any other Minnesota governor had vetoed in a year since at least World War II, leading his most fervent critics to describe him as more of a goalie fending off pucks than a leader rushing the net.

You call that a mullet?

Some critics even note changes in his haircut — once a mullet-style, now a cropped conservative look less common at a Minnesota hockey rink — as evidence of his political calculations.

Mrs. Pawlenty dismissed claims that her husband’s ambitions had driven policy choices. “That’s not who he is,” she said.

Nor, for that matter, she added, has Mr. McCain’s vice-presidential search driven her husband’s hairstyle. The governor has cut and grown out his hair at various times over the years, she said.

Sour Grapes?

“He’s done popular stuff, easy stuff, symbolic stuff,” said Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman who lost the governor’s race to Mr. Pawlenty in 2002 as the Independence Party candidate and who says he supports Mr. McCain for president. “I can’t think of a single issue in which he has been leading public opinion. What you find here is an unremarkable record.”

Classic Pawlenty

Asked at a press luncheon in Washington what the most important quality of a running mate would be, Mr. Pawlenty responded, “Discretion,” and walked away from the microphone.

NEW YORK (AP) — Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt say their four previous children are adjusting just fine to the arrival of a twin brother and sister last month, with cupcakes and “Dora the Explorer” to help ease the transition.

Jolie and Pitt speak about their growing family, their charity work and their work-life balance in a question-and-answer in a special edition of People magazine that hit the newsstands Monday. A 19-page, $14 million-photo spread anchors the piece and gives a first look at the new babies interacting with the whole family.

The photos show Jolie and Pitt — each cradling a twin — sitting on a white bed with Zahara, 3, between them; Pax, 4, by Jolie’s side; and Shiloh, 2, lying on top of 7-year-old Maddox, who is plopped down by Pitt. There are close-ups of the twins, Knox and Vivienne, with their eyes closed, and photos of the older siblings gently holding the babies.

“It is chaos, but we are managing it and having a wonderful time,” Jolie, 33, says in the interview, though Pitt jumps in: “(It’s) still a cuckoo’s nest.”

(I thought this time I would I would hijack a post before anyone else did)

Might I suggest: How To Start Your Very Own Blog In Fifty-One Easy Steps!

(As Mitch says) That is all.

Buh-Buh-Buh-Backfire

…for Brett

Clinton Leaves Convention Nomination Open

Observers have all but ruled her out as a potential running mate to Senator Barack Obama, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is not going away.

I got a little change in my pocket going jingle lingle ling
want to call you on the telephone baby I give you a ring
but each time we talk I get the same old thing
always no huggin no kissin until I get a wedding ring
my honey my baby don’t put my love upon no shelf
she said don’t give no lines and keep your hands to yourself

In a video clip making the rounds today, which, according to ABC News is from a fund-raiser in California on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton fielded a question about whether her name would be “placed in nomination” at the convention.

Cruel baby baby baby why you want to treat me this way
you know I’m still your lover boy I still feel the same way
that’s when she told me a story ’bout free milk and a cow
and she said no huggin no kissin until I get a wedding vow
my honey my baby don’t put my love upon no shelf
she said don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself

“Well, I’m asked this question every day. And it is a question that I think is a very obvious one to ask. I mean, what will happen at the convention in respect to you know, my putting my name in nomination, the roll-call vote, you know, the usual kind of process that occurs at conventions,” she responded, emphasizing the word “usual.”

you see I wanted her real bad and I was about to give in
that’s when she started talkin’ true love started talkin’ about sin
I said honey I’ll live with you for the rest of my life
she said no huggin no kissin until you make me your wife
my honey my baby don’t put my love on no shelf
she don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself.

We’re trying to work that out with the Obama campaign and with the D.N.C. I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views were respected. And I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified, because I know from just what I’m hearing that there’s just this incredible pent-up desire. And I think that people want to feel like, O.K., it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Senator Obama. That is what most people believe is the best way to go. No decisions have been made.

she said don’t hand me no lines and keep your hands to yourself

An analysis of the purchase of Anheuser-Busch, producer of America’s most iconic brew, by the Belgian firm InBev reveals there was more to the deal than a handsome payday for shareholders.

According to the Tax Foundation, Belgium’s corporate tax rate is 33%, but the effective tax rate can be half the nominal rate thanks to adjustments for something the OECD calls a “notional allowance for corporate equity.” Bottom line: InBev was paying around 20% of its profits in corporate taxes, compared to Anheuser-Busch’s rate of 38.4%. 

Things have gotten pretty bad when U.S. companies relocate to Europe to cut their tax payments. But a research analysis by Morgan Stanley finds the combined company’s corporate tax bill will be lower than in the U.S. and that the tax differential indeed figured into the economics of the sale.

So while John McCain may have benefited from his wife’s ownership of Anheuser stock (estimated at between 40,000 and 80,000 shares), the country will continue to see its competitive edge wither away without a corporate tax rate cut. Mr. McCain to his credit wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 25%, close to the global average. Senator Obama is more interested in raising tax rates than cutting them.

Does the Anheuser-Busch deal represent a precedent? Maybe not. Milller Brewing, long a Milwaukee fixture, is majority owned by SABMiller, the “S.A.B.” being South African Breweries.

Is there more of this to come? With Obama in the White House? Yes and definitely yes.

Wall Street dealmakers tell us to expect more sales of U.S. companies to European rivals thanks to the combination of America’s higher corporate taxes and the weak dollar. They’re right. New data from the OECD for 2008 indicate that the international average for corporate tax rates fell by another percentage point last year, meaning the U.S. is pricing itself out of the market as a corporate headquarters.

Is e-mail ruining your life? Delete … now

According to a report to be published in October by the New York-based research company Basex, unnecessary interruptions such as spam, other unnecessary e-mail and instant-messages take up 28 percent of the average knowledge worker’s day.

So if I spend another 28 percent of my day in the bathroom and another 40 percent blogging…wow! That’s like 106% of my day spent…(I’ll resist finishing that sentence).

Behind the e-mail backlash is a growing perception that — despite its convenience and everything positive it has brought to work and social situations — it is a monster that’s threatening to ruin our lives.

“It chases you,” said Natalie Firstenberg, a Los Angeles therapist who said the subject of e-mail is a frequent subject with her clients. “There are no business hours.”

Methinks her clients needed therapy before they got a smart phone (a misnomer if ever there was one). My friend Smithers has a more colorful moniker for these devices.

As legions of “knowledge workers” vacation this summer, the question of whether to take along the BlackBerry is more complicated than ever. Do, and the vacation might not be such a vacation after all. Don’t, and you’re likely to return to an in-box that takes hours to clear or, worse, the dreaded “your mailbox has exceeded its limits” message.

We covered this here and here. 

The Matrix can be our friend. Or our enemy. It’s only as smart or as menacing as we allow it to be.

Well…unless your boss hands you a crackberry on the company account and says “Don’t leave home without it.”

Then you’re pretty much screwed.

And some people (or their parents) are just plain stoopid unfortunate.

The nation’s youngsters will soon be headed back to school and making new friends in new classes, as well as catching up with old buddies – activities that these days typically spark a flurry of text-messaging, especially among teens and young adults. But the nation’s emergency physicians say they are seeing a dangerous trend that can go hand-in-hand with texting: a rise in injuries and deaths related to sending text messages at inappropriate times, such as while walking, driving, biking or rollerblading.

“In March, [we] were driving and saw a  woman in her twenties step off the curb and get struck square by a pickup truck,” said Dr. Matthew Lewin, MD, PhD, an emergency physician at University of California San Francisco Hospital in San Francisco. “She was unconscious and it appeared she’d suffered a massive brain injury. You could tell she saw the truck at the last moment because her cell phone was dropped right where she was struck just off the curb, and she was thrown about 20 or 30 feet.. It was horrifying. The truck stopped. The driver was devastated. I was amazed to hear she survived all the way to trauma center but died [in] the ER.”

So unless your boss superglues a Blackberry to your wrist, it behooves the wireless warrior to keep your wits about you and condition your fellow thumbinistas. Yesterday on a bike ride I received two phone calls from a client who didn’t leave a message then proceeded to text me:

“JR call me back ASAP. I have to talk to you.”

So I stopped what I was doing, which was biking (Yes, I pulled over), thinking maybe he had had a death in the family or something (I do insurance planning too) and called him only to find out he wanted me to confirm some rumor about one of my colleagues.

Sigh.

I told him that since he had texted me I thought his call was urgent and if it’s okay with him, could we please carry on this conversation later (or not at all).

I used to tell my clients that I return all phone calls within twenty four hours but if you email me “it’s like you sent me a letter – give me a couple days.”

That doesn’t really work any more. In fact, many of my clients see email as more urgent than a phone call, probably because they really don’t use the phone any more. The upside of this is that I in turn can get a lot more done and can communicate a lot more efficiently using email.

Expectations do have to be managed and in a service business such as mine, that must be done in a cordial but firm manner.

It cuts both ways. There’s no such thing as “email tag”, which is a good thing.

So for now, as long as I am able (though I rarely do) to disconnect, I am Master of My Domain on The Matrix; not the other way around.

I have had more than my share of speeding tickets over the years. I drive a fair amount, like fast cars, and sometimes lose track of my speed or get caught having a little extra fun.

For me, the occasional speeding ticket is a cost of doing business.

As a taxpayer however, It has always raised my ire to observe speed traps on state or federal freeways staffed by local municipal squads. I have a great respect for our police officers. I consider them to be just as brave and in service to our country as anyone in the armed forces. However, I wonder if the officers themselves are thinking

“Is this what I signed up for? Traffic duty?”

Yesterday I spied a Golden Valley squad on 394 before he spied me with his laser gun.

He was “shooting” at cars in very heavy traffic, all of which were well above the posted speed limit. This caused an annoying and probably dangerous scenario where drivers, having spotted him, were jamming on the brakes before the poor sap just behind them knew what was happening.

One has to wonder what is more dangerous? The extra seven miles per hour or the tax collector police officer with the laser gun. 

Two days ago I observed two Minnetonka cops preying on Westbound traffic on the Crosstown, Highway 62 near 494 where the speed limit drops from 55 to 45. One with the laser gun. One primed to pounce.

In the case of Minnetonka, I happen to know that at any given time there are four squads on duty in the city because I have voiced my opinion on the topic with the police chief more than once, having also seen the same thing on 494, an interstate freeway.

In essence, half of our police force was preying on motorists on a state highway that happens to pass through the city. In the mean time, in almost five years living in my neighborhood, where motorists regularly travel at ten to fifteen over the limit on a street where children are regularly seen biking, I have seen a squad patrolling only once.

Within the last ten years or so, a convenience store and a Dairy Queen have been robbed at gun point in the city of Minnetonka. In the case of the convenience store, an employee was shot and died.

That is not to say that either could have been prevented (unless a squad happened to be within view). Rather, it makes the point that speeding isn’t the only crime in these parts.

Shouldn’t our squad cars be conspicuously cruising our neighborhoods and business districts? Isn’t that the highest and best use of a scarce resource? Are speeders from a different community on a state or federal highway that happens to pass through the community a chief concern for the respective police department?

or…

Is it actually a local tax on out of town speeders in response to diminished state and federal funds coming to local police forces?

I’ve heard Governor Pawlenty talk live twice while he’s been governor and have been tremendously impressed by his unflappable posture and his ability to successfully steer a talk away from politics when the subject of the talk was clearly not politics.

He is one of the most comfortable, adept leaders we have had around here in years and certainly the GOP and McCain have taken notice for some time now.

Yesterday in Ames Iowa the Governor spoke out in a way that may portend a near future role in the McCain campaign as it was uncharacteristic of Tim Pawlenty.

“He’s put so many contingencies around it that I wonder, in fact I question, whether he would do it at all,” Pawlenty said after he helped open Republican campaign office in Ames. “It may be a way for him to gain favor during the election, and tube it later because all the contingencies weren’t met.”

Pawlenty further criticized Obama, saying there is not one issue of national prominence where he has led the country. He said a vote for Obama “is the political equivalent of bungee jumping.”

A clear shot at Obama, Pawlenty’s comments are uncharacteristically direct, and encouraging as it relates to the Governor’s political future.

His cool and unflappable reputation gives his criticism of Obama a certain gravitas and McCain is going to need all the help he can get. 

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have shifted their positions on drilling for oil. McCain acknowledges that while an increase in supply may be years away, the psychological effect will create downward pressure on the market and he is right.

Obama, feeling the heat from his groupies, is now changing his position as well, but clearly out of political necessity.

“I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term…”

But it’s not enough for a Democrat to allow for drilling of our own oil in our own territory. Obama must assuage his guilt by promising Americans a gift. A a gift at the expense of the oil companies, those evil doers!

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain’s call for more offshore drilling.

It’s called pandering and Obama is showing he is fast becoming an accomplished liberal politician having mastered the technique.

“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. “It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills.

(unless your name is Al Gore)

Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt.”

Or you could buy four hours with Brett Favre.

Thanks for the financial planning advice perfesser. Maybe the mother land should follow that advice and pay down it’s own debt and stop promising it’s citizens a free ride.

Obama isn’t addressing the real issues here – not going far enough. I am outraged that many Americans have suffered greatly at the hands of supply and demand and oppressive refining regulations evil oil companies and have canceled many a family vacation. I say we increase the windfall profit tax to say $10,000 and enable each and every American family to visit Disneyland.

Or you could use the money to grow wings and fly to Never Never Land, or to organize a community protest, or buy a 1999 Volvo Wagon with 75,000 miles and a Kerry/Edwards sticker on the rear bumper, or invest it by placing it in a jar and burying it in your back yard.

President Bush’s economic stimulus was a bad idea that had little effect on our economy. Rebates (Money for Nuthin’) just dig us a bigger hole. Robin Hood and his groupies are too economically obtuse to realize this.

As everyone knows by now, the Packers have offered Brett Favre $20,000,000 to stay home (I put the zeros there for emphasis instead of the customary $20M or $20 Million to illustrate how unbelievably absurd the NFL has become).

It serves further to illustrate how asinine it is to allow franchise owners to hold major market communities hostage by threatening to move clubs to more agreeable venues. If the Vikings threaten to leave the Twin Cities because we won’t give Zygi $200,000,000 I say fine. There is no way you can justify the expenditure of public money for the construction of a sports facility any more, which is probably why the Vikings stadium issue hasn’t floated to the top of the news pile of late.

I say screw them and the Sex Boat they rode in on.

I get the fact that Green Bay doesn’t want Brett Favre to end up with a division rival but his arrival on the roster is by no means a guarantee of a division title let alone a Super Bowl.

I have a hunch that Brett retired for a reason.

History shows that mature, overpaid primadona athletes are as likely to implode in these scenarios than propel their teams to national championships. Ladies and Gentlemen, Herschel Walker.

As such, how can it possibly be worth $20,000,000 to keep Brett on ice? You can buy a lot of grass seed for twenty million. Crap, you can buy the team a new airplane for that.

Oh, and furthermore, in alignment with the boss around here, …who the hell cares.

Jodi Cantor writes a fairly balanced piece on Obama’s pre-politics career as an instructor. As you read this, remember the old adage, people don’t change…very much.

Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart

He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his precise views.

Before he outraised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured.

In the genus of John Kerry, the Clintons and the Kennedy’s, Barack Obama no doubt seeks the Presidency not as a means to an end; rather the end itself.

But Mr. Obama’s years at the law school are also another chapter…in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was well liked at the law school, yet he was always slightly apart from it, leaving some colleagues feeling a little cheated that he did not fully engage.

The Chicago faculty is more rightward-leaning than that of other top law schools, but if teaching alongside some of the most formidable conservative minds in the country had any impact on Mr. Obama, no one can quite point to it.

“I don’t think anything that went on in these chambers affected him,” said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”

Michelle, on the other hand may have actually changed quite a bit!

his wife, Michelle, a black woman, loved “The Brady Bunch” so much that she could identify every episode by its opening shots.

Groupies!

As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative. Some students started referring to themselves as his groupies.

Liberals flocked to his classes, seeking refuge. After all, the professor was a progressive politician who backed child care subsidies and laws against racial profiling, and in a 1996 interview with the school newspaper sounded skeptical of President Bill Clinton’s efforts to reach across the aisle.

In a calculated fashion, Obama will do or say or refrain from doing or saying anything to attain the post and there is ample evidence of this in his tenure as an instructor and in the observations of those who were colleagues but were never quite able to “know” him or pin him down on his philosophy. 

But the liberal students did not necessarily find reassurance. “For people who thought they were getting a doctrinal, rah-rah experience, it wasn’t that kind of class,” said D. Daniel Sokol, a former student who now teaches law at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

For one thing, Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: While students appreciated Mr. Obama’s evenhandedness, colleagues sometimes wanted him to take a stand. Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically, as Ms. Guinier’s writings had hurt her. “He figured out, you lay low,”

Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.”

As for his fundraising abilities, Obama has come a long way.

“Maybe we charged an audacious $20?” said Jesse Ruiz, now a corporate lawyer in Chicago. Mr. Obama was sheepish asking for even that, Mr. Ruiz recalls. With no staff, Mr. Obama would come by the day after a fund-raiser to stuff the proceeds into a backpack.

Now, watching the news, it is dawning on Mr. Obama’s former students that he was mining material for his political future even as he taught them.

Few question Obama’s intelligence; more his motives, sincerity and true political makeup. The glimpses he has allowed coupled with his voting record reveal a candidate leaning farther left than even his supporters let alone most voters realize.
 

I have been accusing Obama of economic illiteracy for some time now as our nation’s impending financial crisis should by far be our chief concern for the future of our nation and voters would be well advised to consider this before conferring their will in November.

Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession

…despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements. From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback.

A setback hardly sounds ominous in the big scheme but I wonder if the average American has a grasp of how close our economy could be to the abyss right now. It’s one thing to hear consumers lamenting the fare the media serves up as market and economic intelligence. It is quite another to hear accomplished, accredited investors and the well informed talk of collapse.

I have always heard the former and have dismissed it as the flotsam that it is and have advised my clients to do the very same. Hearing the latter of late has me concerned.

There is a fair amount of optimism in the marketplace as well but that may be recalled if Obama ascends to the White House. His personal economic illiteracy is not so much the issue, as we all know the President can’t forge economic policy without the boys and girls on the hill.

Some cite Bill Clinton’s move to the economic policy center following his Hillary health-care and 1994 Congressional election debacles as a possible Obama model. But candidate Obama starts much further left on spending, taxes, trade and regulation than candidate Clinton. A move as large as Mr. Clinton’s toward the center would still leave Mr. Obama on the economic left.

Also, by 1995 the country had a Republican Congress to limit President Clinton’s big government agenda, whereas most political pundits predict strengthened Democratic majorities in both Houses in 2009.

Essentially, Obama will presumably make every effort to drain what’s left of our economy (“Hey, cool! What does this button do?”) and there will be no one to stop him.

History teaches us that high taxes and protectionism are not conducive to a thriving economy, the extreme case being the higher taxes and tariffs that deepened the Great Depression. While such a policy mix would be a real change, as philosophers remind us, change is not always progress.

Consider this: January is not that far away. How much do you expect our economy to recover between now and then? We’ve had a credit and housing meltdown, the lava flow of which has not yet stopped its seething march into the lower regions of our economy. This coupled with record high energy prices and reduced consumer spending have culminated in a near perfect storm. There is just one thing missing to set into action a collapse of our dollar and our economy.

A major disruption in oil production or a terrorist attack would do.

Obama in the White House may suffice as well.

I like to keep an open mind to other cultures, viewpoints and philosophies and recently listened to Pema Chödrön’s 3-CD set “Getting Unstuck” during my recent road trip to Milwaukee. It was recommended by a favorite client of mine.

Pema Chödrön (formerly known as Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) is an ordained Buddhist nun in the Tibetan vajrayana tradition, and a teacher in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. The goal of her work is the ability to apply Buddhist teachings in everyday life.

I hate to boil the whole of Buddhism down to one principle, but my experience is limited to this CD set and the gist of the application of Buddhist teachings in everyday life is quite similar to a quote I cited in my last post at Roosh Five:

It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad, but rather regret over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

That is to say, my takeaway was learning to be “present” as Pema Chödrön puts it, and I thought the audio CD and another recent experience was relevant to the discussion in my previous “Matrix” post.

Now, watch as I turn this whole concept into a justification for the rental of a motorhead boy toy.

Friday, two colleagues and I rented Harleys (mine was actually a 1300cc Yamaha V-Star if you must know) and rode from downtown Minneapolis, headed East, and toured both sides of the Minnesota/Wisconsin border, Wisconsin side down to Pepin and back up the Minnesota side. Our tour terminated in Stillwater where we joined the festivities of Lumberjack Days, already in progress.

We put on a few hundred miles, stopping for whatever reason we saw fit; a beer, a view, or a funnel cloud (we think) over lake Pepin in Lake City.

The essence of riding a motorcycle is the freedom you feel. The disconnection. It’s not just the warm wind buffeting your face, the soundtrack of the big-cans and pipes, the copious torque available at the flick of a wrist or the 360-degree unimpeded view. It’s the fact that done right, a bike ride is on no one’s schedule but your own. One caveat: in the interest of self-preservation, your constant attention to the now is required. Hence, motorcycling requires you to be “present”; or else.

We had no radios, no CB’s, and our Swiss Army Personal Digital Assistants, with their chirps, buzzes and warbles fell on deaf ears buried in the depths of our saddle bags.

I observed one of my colleagues light a cigarette at a red light and smoke it behind the windscreen at highway speeds, but I have never once seen anyone talking on a cell phone or reading a newspaper or texting on a motorcycle. It’s against the laws of nature, I’m sure of it.

As such, we would go as much as a couple hours at a time without connection to the modern world, the fact that we were riding fuel-injected hogs with trip computers and electronic ignition, notwithstanding. Completely incommunicado.

In fact, we rarely even spoke to each other. It was us, the road, the sun and the aural interplay of the throaty rumble and crack of our pipes as we rode in staggered formation through the winding two-lane highways along the river and it’s bluffs that make Western Wisconsin and Southeastern Minnesota some of the most popular and scenic territory for bikers.

Calls went unanswered. Text messages failed to generate urgency. Emails stacked themselves neatly. Severe weather warnings went unheard. The stock market did what it does; just without us on this day.

And it was good.

Slate

This could be a post on the second amendment, or on property rights. The comments section will dictate that.

I just had to put it up because…

…because I thought it was so damn funny.

Man shoots his lawn mower, police say

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) — A 56-year-old Milwaukee man is accused of shooting his lawn mower because it wouldn’t start.

Keith Walendowski has been charged with felony possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle and misdemeanor disorderly conduct while armed.

According to the criminal complaint, Walendowski says he was angry because his Lawn Boy wouldn’t start Wednesday morning.

Not exactly an endorsment for Lawn Boy.

Right off the bat, I can empathize. Lawn mowers don’t have a complicated life. They start, they run, they cut. In that order. A lawn mower unable to perform any of these three elements would foster hatred in the heart of any property owner.

 He told police: “I can do that, it’s my lawn mower and my yard so I can shoot it if I want.”

Okay, fearless readers, who wants to handle that one?

A woman who lives at Walendowski’s house reported the incident. She says he was intoxicated.

No, really?

Walendowski could face up to an $11,000 fine and six years and three months in prison if convicted.

Wow. That would have paid for years of lawnmower tune-ups and oil changes. Heck, that would have paid for years of lawn mowers.

A call to Walendowski’s home went unanswered Friday.

Seriously, what could possibly come of that conversation? Again, the comments section might offer some insight here as well. Anyone up to the task?

There was no information available on the condition of the lawn mower.

There was no mention of Brett Favre in the article either.

It looks like you are getting screwed, even without Obama in office and even if you borrowed responsibly while everyone around you went all in.

It would appear the White House, reportedly run by a Republican Administration, has better things to do than protect taxpayers from covering losses taken by people that either (1) Should have known better (2) were realizing the downside risk in their investment which in no way should have been a surprise or (3) were out to screw people out of their homes, their money, or both.

Housing Bill Hammers Taxpayers

Combine a housing meltdown with election-year politics and the results were not going to be pretty. Add a crisis in confidence in Washington’s favorite quasipublic companies and what we’re getting is a rout for taxpayers, especially those who kept their heads during the housing mania.

The House yesterday passed a housing bailout by 272-152. The White House has thrown its reservations overboard and is begging to sign this boondoggle, despite the less-than-veto-proof majority. A few brave souls in the Senate are threatening a filibuster, which is where the last hope lies for stripping the most egregious and expensive provisions from this monster.

Even conservative estimates by the Congressional Budget Office say the cost for this bailout will run to $41.7 billion, with $16.8 billion offset by higher taxes. No one has any idea of the real cost.

On the floor of the House yesterday, Democrats argued that this bill was the least Congress could do “for the people,” given the way the government had “helped” Bear Stearns. The cost borne by Bear Stearns was having its shareholders all but wiped out and half its employees pink-slipped. Countrywide was likewise sold at a fire sale price. Not so these two government-chartered giants.

Citing the Bear Stearns “bailout” as a precedent, a Democrat has only to open his or her mouth to reveal a view to profound economic illiteracy. Forcing one financial institution to buy out another and at a price just North of zero thereby locking in losses for investors and employees alike (many of which just before being asked to gather their personal effects) is hardly a bailout.

The Fan/Fred Bailout Is a Scandal

This should have been a perfect opportunity for Republicans, struggling to regain some standing with the American people, to rise united and demand real accountability and reform.

Just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted last week, President Bush withdrew his previous veto threats against the overall legislative package on Wednesday, having gotten virtually nothing in return.

So what will congressional Republicans do? Ironically, a veto-sustaining majority of House Republicans — led by House Minority Leader John Boehner, Financial Services ranking minority member Spencer Bachus, and Republican Study Committee Chairman Hensarling — voted against the bill on the very same day that the Bush administration caved. “I’m deeply disappointed the White House will sign this bill in its current form,” said Mr. Boehner in a statement. “We must take responsible steps to ensure our financial and housing markets are sound, but the Democrats’ bill represents a multibillion dollar bailout for scam artists and speculative lenders at the expense of American taxpayers.”

Multiple polls show that majorities oppose a federal mortgage bailout by a two-to-one margin.

The President could apparently veto this measure with success but won’t. Washington DC will soon become the largest financial sinkhole in the history of civilization and voting Republican is unfortunately no guarantee of relief.

Slate

Barack Obama is proposing $4 Billion in aid to the automotive industry, aid that John McCain is opposed to, and for good reason.

Obama pledges $4b in aid for Detroit automakers

After nearly eight years of getting little or no attention from the White House, it seems as though Detroit’s automakers will be a major focus the 2008 Election. With the economy looking worse by the day, lawmakers in Washington have been kicking around the idea of a second economic stimulus package to get people shopping again, and Mowtown’s lawmakers want in on the money.

Years ago, the Japanese suffered an extended recession because they did this very thing, only on a larger scale. Bankruptcy was considered a national dishonor. Good money was sent after bad; public money at that.

Over the long haul, our economy is much more resilient because we (at least those of us that understand economics and the free enterprise system) understand that failed management teams or business models should not be put on life support. The talent and capital should be free to seek its best and highest use – and without delay. That is why our recessions are typically limited in length and in fact many times our economy comes roaring back afterward.

No one celebrates the Enrons or the WorldComs of the world but we are strengthened by the lesson and can at least take comfort in the fact that the suffering and devastation ended as soon as possible.

Putting our automotive industry on life support will only delay the inevitable. Ford, GM and Chrysler need to reinvent themselves or get out of the way. Don’t think that large trucks and SUV’s sitting on dealership lots is their only competitive disadvantage. They suffer far more from a legacy of arrogance and overpriced labor and benefits force fed by unions acting in their own interest, and not that of their members or the domestic automotive industry.

Presumed Republican nominee John McCain opposes the idea of federally backed loans, but he does support tax breaks to those that purchase fuel efficient vehicles and a $300M in prize money for electric battery powered vehicles

Obama’s proposal is either politically-motivated, ignorant or most likely both. Obama, having no other tools at his avail, thinks the answer is government welfare. McCain understands that the best way to stimulate our economy is to incent innovation and new solutions.

As the economy is almost surely to become the electorate’s chief concern, McCain would be well served to exploit this opportunity to explain to Mr. Obama how and why capitalism works.

The other day I was thinking about the ever-increasing forms of information and mental stimulation we are subjected to in the course of a day in America.

I wonder if the modern human species has lost its ability to truly relax and do nothing; and in doing so, can the species achieve a state of mental pause?

I would submit that in order to relax, by definition, we have to shut out all external inputs and information sources:

Television
Text Messaging
The Web
Chat
Satelite Radio
Email
Amber Alerts
Cell Phone
iPod

As unlikely as it is for someone to choose to do so, it is of course physically possible but that really isn’t the question is it? Can we stop thinking about what we are missing if we are not connected? If so, how long does it take the brain to adjust?

Has anyone gone on a vacation recently and actually disconnected completely? Did it work? Was it worth it?

Can we ever break free of The Matrix?

The march of our domestic economic policies deeper and deeper into socialistic territory is often justified by liberals who will site Europe’s success; they having scouted ahead for us.

You will hear such things as hight tax brackets and universal healthcare are working for them – they’re doing just fine.

So why is it that there are signs Europe is calling a retreat and marching back our way?

Europe Has an Economics Lesson for Obama

Over the last decade, much of Europe has very quietly embraced market-based reforms that either draw inspiration from American successes or — on issues like retirement security — are even more market-oriented than many U.S. Republicans support.

The cutting of corporate income- tax rates is an excellent example of European market-friendly bipartisanship. Germany’s right-left coalition of Christian and Social Democrats implemented a large rate cut earlier this year, reducing the top marginal corporate rate to about 30% from 39%. Spain’s Socialist and Britain’s Labor governments have followed suit, reducing their countries’ top corporate rates.

These traditionally left-of-center parties understand that in a globalized economy, wealth and investment are mobile, flowing to those countries that provide hospitable investment climates. As part of a European Union where center-right governments in Greece, Denmark, Ireland and Eastern Europe have dramatically reduced corporate tax rates, they understand that they cannot help workers if they drive away the capital that employs and pays them.

Read that last sentence. Now read it again. Thank Ronald Regan for that one.

Mr. Obama’s main solution to the looming Social Security bankruptcy is to raise taxes on the well-off. To date, he has eschewed other solutions such as raising the retirement age or creating private Social Security accounts. But European center-left parties have no such reservations.

Take Sweden, for example. In the 1990s, a series of center-right and Social Democratic governments reached agreement on wide ranging pension reforms that include a private account option not too different than the one proposed by President George W. Bush.

Yah, but they’ll never give credit to Bush for the idea.

This new European consensus is founded, like all political calculations, partly on conviction and partly on necessity. European center-left politicians have slowly come to respect the power of markets. Much like the so-called “Rubin Democrats,” they recognize that the energy and innovation of market actors can better produce wealth than more traditional social democratic economic theory.

Necessity. Hey, soon we will have that in common!

Again, Sweden is an excellent example of this. Since 1932, Social Democrats have governed the country mostly without significant coalition partners, with the exception of the years when Sweden’s economy stalled and they had to cede power — 1976-82, 1991-94 and again in 2006 when the current center-right government took over. Even in egalitarian Sweden, voters will turn to the right if jobs are scarce and incomes stagnant.

Does this bode well for November? Does it hurt bad enough yet America?

The political pundits are buzzing today about Hillary Clinton’s new look: She changed her hair part from left to right. What might this mean? If you go by the CEO hair-part theory I wrote about in Fortune three months ago, her new right part could signal that she is ceding her claim to leadership and is moving into a role supporting Barack Obama.

Applying Fortune’s hair-part theory to Hillary’s new look 

Or it might just mean she got up on the wrong side of the bed?

Hey, I think she looks thinner too! What does that mean?

Honda’s version of Toyota’s Prius (Obama Bumper Sticker also Standard?)

Our new stadium deal stinks? Nick, we knew that already and as much as I loathe linking to your tripe, you may have a point (albeit a bit late) here.

Our ill-gotten stadium will be a flop without a roof once the novelty wears off, and now it appears the weather may be the least of the Twin’s environmental bogies.

With ‘facility’ next door – so much for new ballpark smell

Don’t say “garbage burner.”

“It’s not a garbage burner,” says Glenn Schmidt, chief engineer at the plant, which burns 1,000 tons of, um, “waste” daily. “It’s Energy From Waste.”

“Facility,” adds maintenance supervisor Jeff Johnson: “Energy From Waste Facility.'”

I met them after I hiked around the stadium Wednesday to check out a tip that “the facility” was giving off the kind of smell you encounter when someone “dies” while using your facilities.

In other words, it wasn’t good. And it really wouldn’t be good if a national TV audience saw us holding our noses.

It was 85 degrees and windy — a typical summer day — as I perambulated the area. It didn’t smell good to me, but I have a big smeller, so maybe I was pulling in a scent cloud from a turkey plant near Willmar. I asked people I met along the way how it smelled to them. Some were catching a big whiff. Others, just a sniff.

“It stinks like mildewing filth,” said Jennifer Dixon, 36, who was waiting on 7th Street with her husband, Mike, and their children to catch a No. 22 bus. “I don’t think people at a ballgame are gonna like it.”

Slate