please don't let me be misunderstood

typically, watching indiana week in review—a show in which two political hacks and three business-friendly journalists get all wonky about the week's news—isn't my idea of fun. but this week, i may need to tune in:

Topics to be discussed on Indiana Week in Review today:

Evan Bayh's voting record. Is there a shift to the right this year?

Cap and Trade opponents rally in Indianapolis

Baron Hill's Tele-town hall plans

André Carson's lack of town hall plans

Dress Code protest at Richmond High School

Mitch Daniels' misunderstood remarks about motorcycle helmet use

emphasis mine. note the framing here: poor misunderstood mitch! all he did was claim that helmets aren't that important for motorcycle safety! never mind that his remarks were plainly, demonstrably false—he's just misunderstood! and this is the frame being advanced not by IWR's resident republican hack, but by the show's host and moderator, jim shella!

to refresh your memory, since i haven't seen this discussed much outside of this blog or a brief mention by doghouse riley—here are the remarks in question:

Asked, though, if those fatalities might be lessened with a mandatory helmet law, Daniels said that "honestly, the data says that's not the key -- that really the key is practicing motorcycle safety and people on four wheels being a little more attentive. That's what will make the difference, just as seat belts have made a difference."

of course, the data says precisely the opposite. numerous studies have shown that:

• motorcycle helmets save lives and help prevent serious injury
• mandatory helmet laws encourage more people to wear helmets, thus
• mandatory helmet laws save lives

in fact, studies have shown that wearing a helmet is the #1 most important factor in surviving motorcycle crashes. anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, plain and simple.

in my previous post on the subject, i wondered why the indy star let mitch get away with such blatant falsehoods. why didn't someone at the star spend five minutes on the NHTSA site, like i did, finding the actual data? after all, when someone tells me something i know is provably false, my reaction is to prove it false, not to simply repeat the false assertion without challenging it. they didn't even bother getting a quote from a motorcycle helmet proponent to counter mitch's claims, which is what usually passes for "balance" these days.

but shella is taking things one step further. if the governor says something that, on its face, seems to be false, shella assumes that the governor must have been misunderstood! because gosh and golly, it's not like a politician would ever lie about something like that.

there are so many ways shella could've phrase that line. here are some examples, any one of which would have been more accurate:

• Mitch Daniels' recent remarks about motorcycle helmet use
• Mitch Daniels' controversial remarks about motorcycle helmet use
• Mitch Daniels' misunderstanding about motorcycle helmet use
• Mitch Daniels' misinformed remarks about motorcycle helmet use
• Mitch Daniels' blatant lies about motorcycle helmet use
• Mitch Daniels' second-degree burns after his pants spontaneously combusted while lying about motorcycle helmet use

that shella instead chose "misunderstood" is telling: shella is more interested in covering for the governor than in getting to the truth about motorcycle helmet safety.

it should be interesting to see how they try to spin this one on IWR. i'm also curious to see whether anyone other than ann delaney (IWR's token democrat) bothers pointing out the truth. i'm not holding my breath on that one. ¶

motorcycle helmet safety: mitch vs the data

governor mitch daniels is quoted in today's behind closed doors column, and as is often the case, what he said turns out to be transparently false.

daniels, a motorcyclist himself, was asked about helmet safety:

Asked, though, if those fatalities might be lessened with a mandatory helmet law, Daniels said that "honestly, the data says that's not the key -- that really the key is practicing motorcycle safety and people on four wheels being a little more attentive. That's what will make the difference, just as seat belts have made a difference."

you'd think the comparison to seat belts—a safety device designed to protect riders in event of crash, and one which is required by indiana law—would work in favor of motorcycle helmets, but let's ignore the logic and look directly at the data.

for example, here's the abstract (pdf) of an NHTSA study titled Motorcycle Helmet Effectiveness Revisited:

This report looks at the measurement of how effective motorcycle helmets are in preventing fatalities in motorcycle crashes. Based on a comparison of crashes involving motorcycles with two occupants, at least one of whom was killed, the method uses data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) to estimate helmet effectiveness. Technological changes over the past 15 years have led to improvements in helmet design and materials. Recalculating the effectiveness of helmets in preventing fatalities, using more recent data, shows that helmets have indeed improved in this respect. The effectiveness of helmets has increased from 29 percent in 1982 through 1987 to 37 percent over the years 1993 through 2002. The significance of this improvement is that over the same period, helmets have saved the lives of 7,808 riders. The potential number of lives saved over the period is even higher, at 11,915. Unfortunately, the declining rate of helmet use among motorcyclists has contributed to rising numbers of rider fatalities despite the improved life saving qualities of helmets.

here's more from a 2008 NHTSA fact sheet (pdf):

• Head injury is a leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes.
  An unhelmeted motorcyclist is 40 percent more likely to suffer a fatal head injury and 15 percent more likely to suffer a nonfatal injury than a helmeted motorcyclist when involved in a crash.
• NHTSA estimates that motorcycle helmets reduce the likelihood of a crash fatality by 37 percent.
• A Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES) study found that motorcycle helmets are 67 percent effective in preventing brain injuries and that unhelmeted motorcyclists involved in crashes were three times more likely to suffer brain injuries than those wearing helmets.
• A study conducted at the University of Southern California, which analyzed 3,600 traffic crash reports covering motorcycle crashes, concluded that wearing helmets was the single most important factor in surviving motorcycle crashes.

in other words, the data plainly shows that motorcyclists who are wearing a helmet are much more likely to survive a crash, and much less likely to be seriously injured. other studies show that people are more likely to wear helmets in states with mandatory helmet laws. more people wearing helmets means fewer fatalities and injuries.

so why is mitch daniels lying about the data? and why did the indy star not call him out on it? this information wasn't exactly difficult to find (though i admit the NHTSA site is slow as hell today). this isn't just some political lie, like when mitch says he didn't raise taxes even though he actually did. this is a life-or-death issue, and mitch's lies could convince impressionable hoosiers to endanger themselves by not wearing a helmet. so why does the star let him get away with it? ¶

the freedom to ask for money

council-member kent smith to the indy star, re: the latest anti-panhandling bill:

"In no way are we looking to stop people from freedom of speech," Smith said. "We need to restrict that ability of people walking up to ask for money in an intersection."

apparently kent smith doesn't think asking for money is a form of speech.

if you're wondering, the bill was tabled and sent back so the public safety committee could work on that whole blatant unconstitutionality thing. here's hoping it won't come back, but i imagine it will.

also at tonight's meeting, the republican majority—who were swept into power in an anti-tax frenzy in 2007—swallowed their pride and obediently voted for a tax increase to fund the CIB. the democrats on the council were more than happy to sit back on this one and let the republicans, many of whom had signed no-tax-increase pledges, hang themselves on their own hypocrisy. one republican, christine scales, voted against. one democrat, jackie nytes, crossed over to ensure that the bill passed. &ara;

intense, emotional and often irrational

in his column today, tully gets in a dig at gary welsh:

[I]t also was an example of the intense, emotional and often irrational reaction to all things Obama.

One local blogger, for instance, could fill a book (though not a very good one) with his many entries railing on the goofy presidential birth certificate issue. And my voice mail fills with messages you wouldn't want your mother to hear each time I dare write Obama's name.

let's see... "intense, emotional and often irrational". yeah, that description fits gary pretty accurately. but something else that's well-known about gary is that he can't stand criticism. even mild criticism drives him up the wall and causes him to lash out, often with comic effect. so as you might imagine, being criticized in the star has gary fuming. he whines:

I have performed countless hours of legal research in my spare time and devoted many posts over the past year trying to inform the readers of this blog what the real issue is about so people can understand what Tully wants to reduce to "goofy presidential birth certificate." People approach me on the street and e-mail me constantly thanking me for better informing me on this issue so they understand what's its all about. They are angry at guys like Tully in the mainstream media who only mention it in the most derisive way without putting context to it or making any effort to explain the issue.

ah, so gary is simply a hard-working blogger, working to inform people that if you read the constitution while wearing logic-impairing goggles, you can come to absurd conclusions. all he's doing is explaining the controversy! but of course, this description doesn't really match what gary has actually written.

in his most recent birther post, posted on friday—yes, he still posts birther stuff multiple times a week—gary warned of "the real danger that the United States will cease to exist as a constitutional republic".

the birther post before that, two days earler, is riddled with supposed "evidence" that obama's COLB is a forgery, and lavishes praise on pamela geller, a prominent proponent of the born-in-kenya theory.

three days before that he was gleefully quoting at length from an NRO article that referred to obama as a "marxist" and suggested, among other things, that obama is indeed a muslim, that he was to blame for genocide in kenya, and that "the real reason Obama doesn't want the original birth certificate released" is that it would show that his name isn't actually barack obama. (this, despite simultaneously acknowledging that the information on the COLB "is identical to that in the state's records, the so-called vault copy". gary isn't worried about consistency here.)

two days before that he was complaining that his oh-so-reasonable constitutional argument was being lumped together with those crazy birthers who say obama was born in kenya. (hey gary, maybe the reason you get lumped in with those people is that you continue to promote them on your blog?) in that post, he also claimed that "the reason someone like Matt Tully doesn't have the stomach to stick his neck out on an issue like this" is because tully doesn't want to accused of racial bigotry—as gary is regularly—and not because tully thinks the "issue" is laughable.

all that in just the past two weeks! believe me, i could keep going—gary welsh is totally obsessed with his irrational loathing of our first black president. and he eagerly latches on to every negative story about obama he hears—even the ones he claims not to believe, like the idea that obama was born in kenya. (i'm sure you all remember when gary was flogging the story about obama having coked-up limousine sex with a white felon named larry sinclair. he doesn't talk about that so much anymore; the birther stuff gets him more page views.)

gary tries to present himself as a lonely truth-teller, one of the few brave souls willing to admit that the emperor has no clothes. in reality, he's more like a paparazzo, pointing his camera up the emperor's robes in hopes of snapping a photo of imperial undies. but unlike paparazzi, who harass and annoy for a paycheck, gary does it out of pure spite, because like rush limbaugh, he wants obama to fail. and he rationalizes it all by formulating conspiracy theories about why the objects of his hate deserve it: obama is a deceiver, a non-citizen, on the DL, corrupt, secretly smoking cigarettes despite having said he quit.

it's a shame, really, because gary's a fairly intelligent guy and capable of doing good work. but he's also vain, paranoid, and incapable of admitting mistakes, and that tarnishes what could be a really good blog. the result is a blog that's half-rational and half-crackpot—and therefore impossible to take seriously.

gary complains about ad-hominem attacks being used against him, but people wouldn't use them so much if he didn't make it so easy. after all, this is the guy who believed that julia carson practiced voodoo. it's damn hard to take someone like that seriously. ¶

marsh bugged by viral coupon

marsh on facebook, july 28:

At Marsh, we want our loyal fans, customers and employees to be rewarded. You have all done a fantastic job at sharing our posts and telling your friends. Simply take advantage of this $10 Marsh Coupon at your local Marsh or O'Malia's location on your order of $10 or more (excluding tax). This coupon is limited to once per fan between now and August 8, 2009. Some exclusions apply. See coupon for further details. Don't be afraid to SHARE.. Marsh would love to see more shoppers become fans!!

marsh on facebook, july 30:

Marsh wants to thank all of our fans, friends and shoppers for making our first facebook coupon offer a huge success!! We will continue to offer more coupons and deals "just for fans" moving forward. If you weren't able to take advantage of the offer this time, just "BECOME A FAN" and look for your updates. Marsh, More Ways to Save Than Ever Before!

marsh on facebook, july 31:

Dear Marsh Fans and guests.. We recently offered a coupon for our facebook fans of Marsh. Unfortunately this offer has been widely distributed in an unauthorized manner throughout our marketing area. Due to the vast numbers of inappropriately transmitted and replicated copies of this offer, we will no longer be able to accept these coupons in our stores. Our sincerest apology for any inconvenience this has caused.

marsh on facebook, august 3:

We at Marsh recently stuck our toe in the water to try this whole social media thing. Unfortunately we ended up stubbing it. Our recent $10 coupon offer on Facebook has instead left us red in the face and many of our loyal customers angry. Rightfully so. For that we are truly sorry. Needless to say, we're learning. Imperative to say, we're sorry. - The Marsh Facebook Team

now, marsh intended this coupon only for their facebook fans, and that's fair. in fact it's generous—become a fan, get a $10 coupon. the problem is five little words: "Don't be afraid to SHARE.."

the lesson here is that you shouldn't put something on the internet and ask people to share it if you don't in fact want them to share it. ¶

in defense of racist cops

shorter star ed board: let's not be too hard on bigoted cops. honestly, it's no big deal if a cop writes "jackie chan" instead of "john doe" on the arrest papers for a chinese refugee. these things happen, after all. ¶

i am unaware of these internet traditions you're speaking of

shorter paul k. ogden: blue indiana has a post ridiculing me. when they laugh at you, that means they're scared! ¶

this snowplow brought to you by morton iodized salt. morton: when it rains, it pours.

indystar.com:

Would you be mind if KFC put advertising on the streets in your neighborhood if the fast-food chain had fixed all the potholes there and the city didn't have to raise your taxes to do it? How about being forced to stare at ads on the back of street sweepers and snowplows if advertisers had paid for those services?

personally, i wouldn't be mind. but i bet some people would be mind quite a bit! ¶

why is tully so eager to fire teachers?

indy star columnist matt tully has yet another column up today about how awesome it would be if IPS could fire teachers at whim, without being hampered by pesky union rules. this is at least the third column he's written on this topic in the past month, so clearly this idea is something he's excited about. it's a shame that all these columns are based on faulty assumptions.

tully seems envision a war in our classrooms, with one side consisting of legions of inept, bumbling geriatrics who have somehow managed to hang onto their teaching jobs despite being completely incompetent, and the other side made up of wunderkinds whose unerring brilliance makes them immediately and automatically better teachers than those who have, you know, decades of teaching experience.

tully's first column with this frame in june was based on interviews with superintendent white, so it's no mystery where he got these ideas from. but in his later columns, he no longer has the excuse that he's just lazily repeating what white wanted him to. tully owns this argument now, and in order to advance it, he's using disingenuous arguments.

the disingenuousness starts right in the lead:

From the union hall to the superintendent's office, there is one point on which just about everyone agrees: Indianapolis Public Schools administrators have done an awful job of ridding the district of poor-performing teachers.

really? so if i went to the union hall and asked around, everyone would agree that IPS hasn't fired enough (or the right) teachers? seriously?

at this point, you'd be excused if you put the column down and turned away, your suspension of disbelief shattered. but the real killer comes a few paragraphs later:

Let's be clear: Nobody is rooting for any teacher to be fired. I've spent quite a bit of time in classrooms this year and repeatedly find myself thinking how much we ask of the people charged with educating children. Few people reading this -- and definitely not the person writing this -- face more day-to-day challenges than the average public school teacher.

That said, there are some bad ones. They need to go.

shorter tully: nobody is rooting for teachers to be fired, but when are we going hurry up and fire some damn teachers already?

what editor allowed these two paragraphs to appear side by side? their extreme proximity only highlights the flimsiness of the excuse. tully is transparently and full-throatedly advocating for teachers to be fired. this is his third column fantasizing about teacher firings; his hard-on for teachers getting fired practically leaps off the page.

sure, he doesn't have any particular teacher in mind—i imagine that makes the idea more appealing to him, the thought that nobody he knows would be laid off, just those people, those unnamed mystery teachers who are out there somewhere messing it up for everyone. as captain jack said, it's easier if you don't know their names. but these are real people we're talking about, and the policies tully is advocating would result in them losing their livelihoods. let's not have any pretense here—tully is rooting for teachers to be fired.

it's clear why superintendent white wants to change collective bargaining rules: experienced teachers are more expensive. he wants to fire some and bring in younger, cheaper replacements. that's the way it is in every business, and that's precisely why the seniority rules are there in the first place! the question is: why does tully keep falling for it? ¶

latest designs

i have two new designs up for voting on threadless. the first is actually my first collaboration, with fellow designer alex macduff, and is a must-see for ginsberg fans:

the other is my latest glitch illustration—probably my best glitch design yet:

also, since the folks on threadless don't know anything about databending or glitch art, i posted a process blog that explains how i created the illustration. it's probably nothing new for my regular readers, though. ¶

indiana's most famous birther?

while indiana's most outspoken birther is surely gary welsh—just yesterday he posted yet another rambling, delusional screed on the subject—abdul suggests that our state's most famous birther is in fact rep. dan burton.

from the washington independent:

"It's a good idea," said John Donnelly, a spokesman for Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who became one of the bill's co-sponsors this month. "If candidates provided that information to the Federal Election Commission you wouldn't have all this hullaballoo. You don't want to needlessly expose presidents to crazy conspiracy theories."

it's pretty hilarious to hear a spokesman for dan "head-shaped object" burton talking about "crazy conspiracy theories"—a topic that burton knows better than most.

of course, the statement is worded in such a way that it suggests burton isn't actually a birther. and it's possible that he's not, that he's simply sponsoring the bill because he knows the issue is popular with his base and he wants their support. (after all, he faces a contentious primary next year, and there's been a lot of chatter that this may finally be indiana's chance to get rid of him.) but honestly, does it really matter? effectively, it makes no difference whether burton actually believes this nonsense or whether he's only humoring the wackos in order to get votes. either way, the end result is the same.

i'd like to think that this could be the last straw for 5th-district voters—or at least part of that straw—and inspire them to finally vote him out of office. but if they weren't turned off by the whole shooting-a-watermelon-to-prove-the-clintons-are-murderers business or the loaded-gun-in-an-airport business, then i can't see this being much different. ¶

indystar.com: password required?

i got up this morning and checked my feeds, ready to read this morning's "behind closed doors" column, when i got a nasty surprise:


either somebody really screwed up, or somebody really screwed up. i'm now unable to view any news stories on the site without a username and password. even going to the front page of indystar.com brings up the login box, and as you can see, the website can't even pull its own headlines because of permission problems.

there are two possibilities here:

1. gannett has decided to charge for the website.
2. someone on the IT team made a massive error, rendering the entire site essentially unusable.

one can only hope that it's option 2, because i can't imagine many people wanting to pay to visit a news site where they can't even check the headlines for typos.

oh well. now we wait. hopefully the site will be fixed by end of day. if not, i guess i'll be getting my news elsewhere.

update: as of approximately 10:45 a.m., the problem appears to be fixed. the site was inaccessible for at least 2–3 hours.

2nd update: IndyStar.com access problems corrected

IndyStar.com is now fully restored after this morning’s two-hour outage caused by two brief power losses to some circuits feeding the servers, according to the company that maintains the Web site.

The wide-spread problem caused other Gannett Web sites, mainly in the eastern United States, to be inaccessible as well.¶

extremely mild weather alert

i use a firefox plug-in called forecastfox to keep up with the weather. the plug-in places little icons in my browser's status bar indicating current weather conditions as well as a customizable forecast (i have mine set to show me four days' worth of weather along with the RealFeel™). i jokingly refer to these icons as "the runes", so when my wife asks about the weather, i'll respond, "the runes say it's going to rain." or whatever the runes say. this is especially fun when the runes indicate that it's currently raining but it clearly isn't, and so on.

one feature of forecastfox is a little stop sign icon that typically indicates severe weather—thunderstorms, tornado alerts, flash floods, icy conditions, plague, brimstone hail, whatever. so i was surprised when i clicked the red icon today and got the following warning from the NWS, which i'll repost verbatim (meaning, with original ALL CAPS formatting intact):

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INDIANAPOLIS IN
427 AM EDT SAT JUL 18 2009
INZ021-028>031-035>049-051>057-060>065-067>072-181800-
CARROLL-WARREN-TIPPECANOE-CLINTON-HOWARD-FOUNTAIN-
MONTGOMERY-BOONE-TIPTON-HAMILTON-MADISON-DELAWARE-
RANDOLPH-VERMILLION-PARKE-PUTNAM-HENDRICKS-MARION-
HANCOCK-HENRY-VIGO-CLAY-OWEN-MORGAN-JOHNSON-SHELBY-
RUSH-SULLIVAN-GREENE-MONROE-BROWN-BARTHOLOMEW-
DECATUR-KNOX-DAVIESS-MARTIN-LAWRENCE-JACKSON-JENNINGS-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...LAFAYETTE...FRANKFORT...
KOKOMO...CRAWFORDSVILLE...ANDERSON...MUNCIE...
INDIANAPOLIS...TERRE HAUTE...SHELBYVILLE...BLOOMINGTON...
COLUMBUS...VINCENNES...BEDFORD...SEYMOUR
427 AM EDT SAT JUL 18 2009
...UNSEASONABLY COOL WEATHER THIS WEEKEND...

A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IN COMBINATION WITH HIGH PRESSURE ACROSS THE NORTHERN PLAINS STATES WAS PUSHING VERY COOL AIR ACROSS CENTRAL INDIANA. PLENTY OF CLOUD COVER IS ALSO EXPECTED WHICH WILL HELP TO PREVENT TEMPERATURES FROM RISING.

HIGH TEMPERATURES ON SATURDAY ACROSS CENTRAL INDIANA ARE EXPECTED TO BE IN THE UPPER 60S TO AROUND 70...OVER 15 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL.

THE COOL AIR AND CLOUDS WILL MOVE OFF TO THE EAST ON SUNDAY AND HIGH TEMPERATURES ARE EXPECTED TO RECOVER TO LOWER AND MIDDLE 70S.

THE NORMAL HIGH TEMPERATURE AT INDIANAPOLIS ON JULY 18 IS 86 DEGREES.

THE RECORD FOR COLDEST HIGH TEMPERATURE AT INDIANAPOLIS ON JULY 18 IS 75...SET BACK IN 1883 AND 1871.

be careful! it's much more temperate than usual out there. ¶

when speling isn't corect

dear star editorial staff: what's a cador?

perhaps one of the reasons the newpaper industry is dying is because they've fired so many staffers that they can't even catch typos in headlines anymore? ¶

how to disenfranchise voters in two easy steps

do you have too many undesirable types voting in your district? too many elderly, poor, or minorities? try this simple remedy!

1. pass one of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation.
2. change the BMV rules to make it much harder to get or renew an ID.

voilà! now you can disenfranchise voters and blame it on identity thieves!

surprisingly, the indy star has an editorial this morning about the new BMV rules, and it doesn't even mention the danger of disenfranchisement—it just makes vague references to unspecified "rights" that shouldn't be trampled. did potential disenfranchisement not even occur to the ed board, or did they simply decide not to mention it? ¶

friday cat bending

i still haven't quite solved the mystery of PNG databending. most of the time, the results are crap, but every once in a while you get an awesome effect i call PNG smearing. i don't know how to do it consistently, but if i put in a couple hours, i can get a few good ones:

¶

when is a quitter not a quitter?

when she goes on CNN and declares that she's not!

"I am not a quitter. I am a fighter," Palin told CNN on Monday while on a family fishing trip, on the heels of her Friday bombshell announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor.

but seriously... by definition, sarah palin is a quitter. when the going got tough, she chose to quit. she didn't choose to fight on, as a "fighter" would have—she quit. which makes her a quitter. QED.

if you had a taste for puns, you could even call her barraquitter, and her constant twittering as qwittering (individual postings would be qweets). if photoshopping were more your style, you could create an unmotivational poster bearing her face and declaring that "winners quit and quitters win!"

if the word quitter has any meaning, then it applies to the sarah palins of the world. any definition that makes sense includes her. her own definition, apparently, is something quite different. take this quote from her resignation speech:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out.

in her mind, the "quitter's way out" would be... not to quit. you have to wonder whether even she believes this nonsense. ¶

that shoe is uncomfortable on the other foot

shorter gary welsh: i'm disgusted by all these bloggers spreading false, mendacious rumors about sarah palin! they should be spreading false, mendacious rumors about barack obama, instead, like i do. ¶

easy questions

regarding the state budget, which was finally passed last night, the indy star ed board asks, "why did it take so long?"

of course, one of the easiest and most obvious answers to this question is because the governor was more concerned about defeating the democratic budget proposal than about actually getting a budget passed.

after all, let's not forget why we went to special session in the first place. senate republicans and house democrats had reached a compromise on a budget back in april. governor daniels had even led republicans to believe that he'd support that agreement, but at the last minute he moved the goalposts and announced he wouldn't support the plan without more cuts. the plan subsequently fell apart.

if the governor hadn't pulled the old switcheroo back then, the budget would've passed and there would've been no special session. of course, that would've been bad for mitch, because almost none of his proposals had passed. the special session gave him a second chance and getting some of his policies passed—and in the end, it worked. ¶

standing athwart history, screaming "democrats are the real racists!"

shorter paul k ogden: southern strategy? never heard of it. ¶