A few quick links.

Let's get the blogging week started with a few interesting pages to check out:

• Nate Silver's writeup of "So Just Who Did Vote For The Bailout?" - A lot of interesting stuff in this one, including a statistical analysis of factors contributing to voting patterns on the first bailout bill last year and a brief discussion of the implications of writing one's own definitions of terms like Progressive.
• The Daily Beast - "The Best of Blago" - He is not only crazy; he has the ability to take legitimate literary quotations and warp them to suit his purposes. Wonderful spin, Rod.
• Bit.ly - An alternative to the Tiny URL service, Bit.ly has all of the same features, but is also copying (in their entirety), cataloging, and organizing all sites that users create shortened URLs for. It will take a while or the benefits to pan out (beyond the link-shortening, that is), but it should be interesting to see what researchers can pull off with that amount of information.
• Red Bull Snowscrapers - On February 5 a bunch of professional snowboarders will be jumping off a 90' ramp built in East River Park. Carly and I drove past this last week and saw the main ramp being built. The ramp is pretty cool, with the main support being provided by stacked shipping containers (see photo below). I kind of want to figure out a way to see this from afar so I don't have to hang out with a bunch of snowboarders to see one person jump this. Check out this site for more pictures of the actual ramps.
  

• Update: I also meant to include the fact that Texas dealt a blow to creationism in a recent schoolboard ruling.
  

Thank you, 23/6

I was wondering last week about who the hell voted against impeachment last week.  Of course, I had all the information I really needed the whole time:

Number of times "Milton" appears in name: One
Number of Nobel Prizes won: Zero

It always warms my heart when one of my home-state representatives refers to the governor as a "freak show"

Blago impeached, duh


UPDATE: this photo, for obvious reasons.

Burris Appointment is Tainted

If you missed it, here's a Colbert Report report on the taint that Burris brings to the Senate (skip to 2:30).

Obama team probe of Obama team finds no Obama team impropriety

At the risk of seeming somewhat critical of Obama on something, I must say I pretty much liked this article.

Screw you, Drudge

I've got to say - the right wing media largely deserves credit for being nicer to Obama than I was expecting (except you, Sean.)

Well, add Matt Drudge to the list. Don't know how long it'll still look like this, but despite it being increasingly apparent that Obama had nothing to do with the Blagojevich scandal in any way, Drudge Report has a black-and-white (read: menacing) photo of Obama and Blagojevich (possibly whispering?) with the headline PRESIDENT-ELECT INTERVIEWED BY PROSECUTORS.

That's not helping this country, dude.

I Still Hate Sean Hannity

Yesterday on Radio Show (paraphrase):
And now we hear that Rahm Emanuel is on the tapes having 21 phone calls with Governor Blagojevich! And they won't tell us what's on the tapes. But we know Rahmbo is a bitter partisan Clinton-era official, and since they won't tell us what's on the tapes, it's seems pretty clear that he was willing to play with the governor's scheme.

Today on Radio Show (paraphrase):
And now we hear that there's hardly anything incriminating at all on the tapes, and that the usually-bitter Rahmbo was calm and straightforward! And this is just more Clinton-era politics, folks. First the scandal breaks and they make it seem as huge and incriminating as possible, and then when things aren't so bad, nobody pays attention. The Clintons did it to us before, and now their acolytes are at it again!

(almost without a pause to think)

And now there's one more question. We need to know what Obama knew and when he knew it. He has not gone on record about this whole thing and we the American people cannot stand for what he and liberal friends are trying to do to corrupt Washington.

*******************
All smartassery aside, I really don't know how you live with yourself, even if you take the angle that you're playing a character on the radio. This is obscene.

Blagojevich Update: Jesse Jackson, Jr.

As you've probably heard by now, Jackson is allegedly implicated in the tapes as being willing to pay for the Senate seat in question. If so, a potentially enormous political career has ended before it even begun.

Corruption in Government: What to Do?

Why did this all happen? In my opinion, the answer is simple.

As governor of a state like Illinois, I'm sure you frequently meet with some of the most powerful people in the country. And some of the richest. And you probably help a lot of those rich people become richer (not necessarily in corrupt ways). Yet the governor of Illinois makes a salary of $150,000, more or less. And what was he trying to get? In real terms, not very much: a position with a salary of $300,000 (and other stuff, sure, but really not that much - not a $120M no-bid contract anyway).

In one of my econ classes we studied Singapore or Hong Kong or somewhere like that, wherein government employees were given huge salary increases. The result? There was more competition for government jobs so better individuals ended up getting the positions. Also, since salaries were already high, the temptation for corruption was less because (1) it took more money to even be worth it and (2) the fear of losing one's job made it even less likely the person would want to engage in corrupt activites.

So my counter-intuitive solution is to pay these guys more. Because if one of the most powerful people in the state is only making $150,000, what else should we expect to happen?

Also, by the way, Blagojevich is under no legal pressure to resign his seat, and could even appoint a senate replacement today, should he desire.

Better version of our gameshow...

Well, I think this may be the death knell of Bush, Kennedy, or Other, our fantastic quiz show. Who (Allegedly) Said It? asks contestants to who said each phrase, Rod Blagojevich or Tony Soprano. Well done, Beast.

Corruption, Part II

Rod Blagojevich, governor of Illinoise, has been arrested this morning for getting financially friendly with potential Obama Senate replacements.

Democrat Pat Quinn is temporarily in charge of the gubernatorial responsibilities.