Somehow, a WSJ article trumpeting the fact that “Madison has spent more than $1 million on speed humps, [and] traffic islands” seems designed more to generate controversy than to inform the public about road construction.
A more illuminating explanation — “over the last decade Madison, responding to requests from residents and neighborhoods, has added traffic circles […]

It’s easy to overlook local retailers and small businesses in an age of outsourcing, mass consumerism, and a pennywise, pound-foolish emphasis on “always low prices”; so I want to give a shout-out to Woldenberg’s clothier in Hilldale Mall.
I stopped in for the first time over lunch today, looking to buy a pair of pants (Bills […]

If a good Samaritan returns a misplaced laptop to a police station so its owner can claim it, is it really necessary or appropriate for the police to snoop through all of the data in the hope of finding porn?
I’m sure that there’s no actual Fourth Amendment protection in these circumstances, but it does seem […]

Boulder, Colorado in our newspapers, stealing our nicknames.
When did “nice place to live” became synonymous with “X square miles surrounded by reality”? It’s almost as if there’s been a decades-long attempt by right-wing voices in the media to portray conservatism as some kind of heartland value, and to disparage American liberalism as elitist.

Like stockpiling nuclear weapons, constructing roadside billboards works best if you’re the only one doing it. Fortunately, today’s Capital Times brings good news for everyone who wants to live in a city that looks nice:
The effort to ease Madison’s 40-year ban on erecting new billboards has apparently run out of steam — although officials with […]

The street light near my house burned out the other day. It took the city less than 24 hours — at a time of the year when the engineering department is overextended and working like crazy because of the weather — to fix the problem. So kudos for building an easy-to-use online reporting system, and […]

The answer appears to be no.
As a reward for winning every single precinct in Dane County, and for winning big in all the neighboring counties as well, Barack Obama will win five delegates from the 2nd CD, while Clinton will win three.
Unfortunately, unless things change, his actual advantage at the convention will be only a […]

Barack Obama won Wisconsin 58% to 41%, but it’s more fun to look at the local results. He won Dane County 67% to 31%, and he won the city of Madison 71% to 28%.
There are 188 wards reporting in Dane County (*). Barack Obama won all 188 of them.
My own ward 99 is […]

Can twenty thousand Madison residents stand patiently outside in 8° weather for an hour and a half, in order to get into a packed-to-the-rafters Kohl Center, with people sitting in the aisles, and on the stairs, and in a huge overflow room? Yes we can.
After getting seated, can we wait patiently for another hour for […]

This may be the snowiest winter on record (and seriously, how the hell are we getting more snow than Syracuse?), but on the bright side, Opening Day is less than seven weeks away.

The decision to stop publishing a print version of the Capital Times, save for a free news and op-ed section every Wednesday and a free culture section every Thursday, seems to bode ill for the future of Madison’s news industry.
The Capital Times is a solid little newspaper, and I hope their online-only format allows them […]

In contrast to the aftermath of last week’s storms, the streets were in very good condition (*) this morning. The WSJ mentions that the city “doubled the amount of equipment on main roads to clear the heavy accumulations that continued into the afternoon”, which probably had a lot to do with the success. Well done, […]

The Democratic Party of Dane County is holding elections tonight.
The Critical Badger:
Russell Wallace dropped off over 40 new memberships ($10/piece) to the Dane County Democratic Party last night, just before the deadline to ensure he will have a healthy majority in the race against Wayne Bigelow. A typical PDesque way to ensure victory.
An email […]

I’ve said mean things about them in the past (and sometimes they’ve even deserved it), but the Wisconsin State Journal’s editorial board is right on the money in arguing that Dane County’s current transportation infrastructure is unsustainable, that an RTA is needed, and that the health of the entire region depends on the strength of […]

About a year ago, I asked what the purpose of the Democratic Party was. It was a post largely inspired by this post by Russell Wallace. He argued that:
The purpose of the Democratic party is to turn the views and values of its members into public policy.
That’s exactly right, and we could do a lot […]