Obama tries to schedule a Joint Session of Congress to conflict with the Republican debate.

The Republican debate was scheduled first. (And it's an important one, at the Reagan Library, with Rick Perry's first appearance in a debate.) Obama swiftly relocating his personal speech bubble into the media space bubble currently occupied by his GOP challengers. But following the Emily Mills rule of political bocce ball, the GOP media bubble must honor the Obama bubble and bounce out of the way (because the second-arriving bubble has the power to oust the first bubble, especially when the incoming bubble come in from the left).

But the President can't just barge into Congress whenever he wants. (Ever heard of the notion of separate co-equal branches of government?) He's got to ask, and he's got to ask John Boehner, and Boehner says no. But not because of the debate. Oh, no no no. Because the House isn't reconvening until the following day and because it's a lot of work setting up the security for a presidential visit.

I just have 2 more questions:

1. If all the other networks aired the Obama speech, do you think fewer people would watch the debate (assuming MSNBC and CNBC would stick to their plan and show the debate) or do you think more people would watch? That is, if Obama preempted the regular shows people like, they might flip over to the debate. How many of the people who want to watch the debate would pick an Obama speech instead?

2. Should Obama be criticized just for doing a Joint Session of Congress, quite aside from the debate? This proposal isn't going to amount to anything, is it? It's political grandstanding. There's something dreadful about locking all the members of Congress in place where they're supposed to sit silently — God forbid anyone yells "you lie!" or whatever — or cheer and laud the President. Frankly, I don't think it's presidential, because — in America — we have 3 branches of government, and the President's forays into the Capitol should be rare, dignified rituals of a nonpartisan nature.

Honor my personal space bubble!

David Blaska notes a hilarious assertion by Isthmus blogger Emily Mills (who still owes me an apology). Mills, in an effort to spin the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident, says:

Yes, everyone agrees that Bradley was moving toward Prosser.... And if I were moving toward someone, asking them to leave a room, I would also expect them to move. You don't have to be "charging" someone to expect that. It's called a personal space bubble - most people reflexively honor it.

So... when you're standing there in your personal space bubble, and I decide to swiftly relocate my personal space bubble into the place currently occupied by your bubble, you need to move your bubble? I'm picturing something like bocce ball, but more bouncy. There's honor for you!

Fighting the revolution in Iran with squirt guns.

Innocent fun or serious political threat?

After heeding a call on Facebook, a group of nearly 800 young men and women were among those who showed up at the park....

They chased strangers around a giant water fountain, screaming and laughing as they splashed each other with water from toy guns, bottles and plastic bags.

"We had a blast. It was a rare chance for boys and girls to hang out in a public place and have fun," said Shaghayegh...

Facebook... flash mobs... is it just fun and games? Look at London. In Iran, perhaps the regime is threatened by something that is only fun and games. But now that the authorities have cracked down, it's become political... and politicizing to the young people — the under-30s — who make up 35% of the population.

Farzan, a 22-year-old university student who was one of the organizers of the Tehran water war, says police tracked him down through Facebook and raided his house in the middle of the night. He was arrested, held for three days and beaten up, he says.

Young Iranians say although the event started out as innocent fun, it has now turned political. They are vowing to challenge them with more events.

A nationwide water war is scheduled for Friday, after the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Didn't the American revolution begin with a snowball fight?

At the Blue Pond Café...

... ponder.

EcoKat backlash.

What's the matter with Kansas?  (Via Instapundit.)

Kansas State University recently introduced EcoKat, a special mascot to promote environmental causes -- and the fans are not thrilled. The Kansas City Star reported that, on Twitter, the #ecokat hashtag suggests considerable dislike, and that a #fakeecokat has also emerged on Twitter. Among recent tweets: "#EcoKat makes me want to leave my porch light on 24hours and drive two blocks to the gas station for a pack of gum," "EcoKat: The worst idea since the Power Towel" and from a University of Kansas fan "MY GOD. What is #kstate thinking? And you ask why you get made fun of ... #EcoKat. Please never change."

Oh, how bad can it be? Aaaah!

Sorry, I was totally distracted by the cat head. But that's Willie the Wildcat, which is apparently the school's regular sports mascot, their Bucky Badger, if you will. EcoKat is the lady: "played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role... outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials." They say her outfit is "sustainable." But it is not sustainable! Because people will not stand for it.... or wait. Is this a trick? So bad it's good? So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king? But the Burger King king is passé. He's ousted. Dethroned. Get with it Kansas! Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.

"Sarah Palin Appearance at Tea Party Rally in Iowa 'No Longer Confirmed.'"

That seems to suggest — am I reading too much into it? — that she had intended to declare her candidacy for President has changed her mind — or is in the process of changing her mind — due to the meteoric rise of Rick Perry.

“Some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me…hanging on a tree.”

So said Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana. A Hoosier!

"In his two weeks as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry has done something that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney could do..."

"... wake up the left."

Says Politico.

From my perspective here in Wisconsin, I had not noticed that the left was asleep. Indeed, I've noticed that it could use some sleep. A long, restful, sanity-restoring snooze. In a bed, not on a marble floor.

Don't call me Shirley/Buddy.

The file on the police investigation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident contains accounts of 2 incidents in which someone used a too-familiar name and the immediate consequence was an inappropriate touching. In putting these 2 accounts together here, I don't mean to vouch for their truth. I simply want to juxtapose them for the purpose of examining their similarity.

First is the "chokehold" incident itself, as described by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley (page 34):  Justice Bradley said when she approached Justice Prosser, she said to him, "Buddy, get out of my office." Justice Bradley explained that the sobriquet "Buddy" put her "in control" and Justice Prosser "in the diminutive." By "in the diminutive," Bradley meant something like making him seem small or putting him in the state "of being familiarly known, lovable, pitiable, or contemptible." There were accompanying gestures from Bradley, and, as we know by now, Prosser proceeded to put his hands around her neck.

In the second incident, from 2008 (page 64), Justice Gableman "remembers making a comment to the chief justice in a joking manner and used her first name, Shirley, during this comment towards her."

Justice Gableman said right after he said the chief justice's first name, Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief. Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time. Justice Gableman said he has not told anyone about that incident and has not talked about that incident with anyone, including Justice Bradley, after it happened.

In both instances, a name is used and it's Justice Bradley who regards the name as disrespectful. In both instances, the name immediately precedes a regrettable touching. In one instance, Justice Bradley is the person who says the name and receives the regrettable touching, and in the other, she hears the name and performs the regrettable touching.

In the first instance, the person who used the name did so with an intent to express disrespect, and the named person is the one who does the touching. In the second instance, the named person's reaction isn't even described. We don't know what the Chief Justice thought of Justice Gableman calling her "Shirley." (It's simply her first name, not a diminutive.) It is Justice Bradley who imposed the interpretation of disrespect and who inflicted retribution (in this story, as told by Gableman, whose veracity remains in issue).

So we have 2 stories depicting Justice Bradley as having a heightened sensitivity to the wounding effect of an over-familiar form of address. In one, she deliberately uses a hostile epithet to diminish and control someone who is already the target of her anger. In the other, someone becomes the target of her anger after he uses someone's real name in what seems to have been a reasonably friendly if awkward effort at conversation.

Analogizing the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident to... basketball.

This is email from a reader, which I am posting in full, without additional comment, except to say that it's a theory and I don't agree with every aspect of this theory, nor do I understand whether the statements made about the rules of basketball are entirely correct. This is a framework for discussion, presented in that spirit. (If you need more background on the incident, click the Wisconsin Supreme Court tag and scroll.)

A reader writes:

I admire your blog and, as a distinctly separate matter, some evident personal traits. You are willing to research, document and state clearly, the conclusions you draw from those findings. That, though important, is secondary to your tenacity. I have read every post on the Prosser-Bradley Affair known as the "Choke-Hold Incident" and until recently, every comment made to each. It is evident by the content of your posts that you have intentionally avoided a "post simply to post" redundancy, keeping it fresh by adding newly found material and incorporating new conclusions in their proper place, to include a summary and time-line when it became appropriate.

Still, even with such praise, I write with some objections because I believe that this issue is of major importance, not just for the city or your state but nationally, and this will only become obvious in time, when looking back on it. The principle reason that I have become reluctant to read every comment is not because of the sheer number of contributions, but their repetition and the rather narrow framework within which the issue has fallen, in the matter as it is addressed.

Perhaps I should tell you why I do not like or follow sports.

There were many new rules being crafted, and I won't detail them but will use basketball as an example. In one particular, very close championship game, I lost a bet with a friend. I lost because my friend was a coaching expert and had been called in to counsel a player on "How to get an opposing player to foul him." I later learned that this was a known "tactic," acknowledged and named as an "intentional foul" which was itself a violation having a penalty if caught doing it. It is, in and of itself, a foul because an intentional foul is recognized as an intent to break the rules (laws) that are the fabric of agreement for the game in an acknowledged attempt to gain illegal advantage and unearned gain.

What Bradley did, suddenly standing, the rushed approach, the confusing gestures, the close body proximity and even the unusual and unexpected language all read, almost word for word as those instructions for creating an intentional foul. Abruptly standing draws attention, the quick approach focuses that attention, the gestures are specifically intended to create the idea that one thing is going to happen while it will not, and the emphasized "BUDDY..!" cements the idea, the emotional response and, at its best, the target becomes both defensive and irate.

It is important to note that, while I learned this many years ago, like the steps of known "Con Jobs" each of these have now expanded in use and are so well known that they have individual names. From "The Fake" to "The Distraction" to "Trash Talking" each has predictable and reliable results. The gestures, in particular, practiced and done correctly, will produce the desired and unavoidable reaction; in fact even being told that a person will approach and "throw a punch" at your face I doubt that you could prevent a defensive reaction of some kind. Try it with a harmless ball of foam thrown at your face to verify.

I am not normally a conspiracy theorist but I propose that this is more, much more, than a spontaneous incident. This was not only planned but all indications are that it required coaching and possibly (repeated) rehearsal. Many of the remaining portions indicate the same, in support and intent, from the threat to "take it public" to the outraged emphasis on details of what and who was told and the perfect timing of each.

You have the correct handle on this: the origin of the leak to the newspaper columnist. You might suggest that all known parties volunteer to publicly waive any claims and support the disclosure by that columnist. No, I do not think that a biased columnist would do that, even under those circumstances, but as there are a limited number of first-hand possibilities that might force at least a "reassurance contact" from the responsible party. It would also leave the columnist at a loss for adequate, possibly awkward, explanation.

Good work, and keep at it. The matter of exposing those, in sports or in politics, willing to cheat the game for gain is important.

This issue applies to other sports as well, simply look at the newest rule changes, often being those to correct similar previous incidents. A switch to chess as player or observer, makes cheating much less a concern.

"you cannot ride bikes in NYC. too many fatalities every year even when you follow the rules"

Comment on a very sad story of the death of a 29-year-old woman.

Deceptive Daily News headline: "Muslims, police scuffle at Rye Playland over amusement park's head scarf ban."

Did Rye Playland have a head scarf ban?

One woman, Entisai Ali, began arguing with cops over the amusement park's head scarf, or hijab, rule, said Dena Meawad, 18, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The ban, which is not Muslim specific, was imposed about 3 years ago mostly to prevent hats from falling onto the tracks of roller coasters and other rides, park officials said.

What is the actual rule? No hats? The ban was "not Muslim specific," so what was it exactly? If you read far enough into the article, you finally get to this:

Peter Tartaglia, deputy commissioner of Westchester County Parks, said the Muslim American Society of New York was warned in advance of the rule barring head scarves on rides for safety reasons.

The rule barring head scarves? That paraphrase dissserves Tartaglia, but at least they finally give us a direct quote:

"Part of our rules and regulations, which we painstakingly told them over and over again, is that certain rides you cannot wear any sort of headgear," Tartaglia said. "It's a safety issue for us on rides, it could become a projectile."

You cannot wear any sort of headgear...

Many Muslims were given refunds as they left the park disappointed.

"In this heightened state of Islamaphobia, a woman wearing a hajib is an easy target these days," said Zead Ramadan, president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - New York. 

I'd say they were the opposite of an easy target. It was, in fact, very difficult to hold them to a rule that applies to everyone. They demanded a special exception, caused a scene when the didn't get it, extracted refunds, and brought some terrible press to the park and the police.

"But for the incandescent aficionados, fluorescent lights tend to be associated with morgues, prisons and tenement hallways."

Cultural historian Christopher Cook says they have a "'cold creepiness' and make you feel like you're being interrogated."

An apt feeling, conveying the message of government coercion. But they'll get used to it, even the sensitive ones.

From "At Home: A Short History of Private Life," by Bill Bryson (page 112):

We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle—a good candle—provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100-watt lightbulb. Open your refrigerator door and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the eighteenth century. The world at night for much of history was a very dark place indeed.

Occasionally we can see into the dimness, as it were, when we find descriptions of what was considered sumptuous, as when a guest at a Virginia plantation, Nomini Hall, marveled in his diary how “luminous and splendid” the dining room was during a banquet because seven candles were burning—four on the table and three elsewhere in the room. To him this was a blaze of light. At about the same time, across the ocean in England, a gifted amateur artist named John Harden left a charming set of drawings showing family life at his home, Brathay Hall in Westmorland. What is striking is how little illumination the family expected or required. A typical drawing shows four members sitting companionably at a table sewing or reading by the light of a single candle, and there is no sense of hardship or deprivation, and certainly no sign of the desperate postures of people trying to get a tiny bit of light to fall more productively on a page or piece of embroidery. A Rembrandt drawing, Student at a Table by Candlelight, is actually much closer to the reality. It shows a youth sitting at a table, all but lost in a depth of shadow and gloom that a single candle on the wall beside him cannot begin to penetrate. Yet he has a newspaper. The fact is that people put up with dim evenings because they knew no other kind.

The world at night for much of history was a very dark place indeed. And history extends into the future, where it may not be so dark, but it is cold and creepy.

At the Showerhead Café...

... rain your clear thoughts upon us.

"A green alternative to cremation... dissolving the body in heated alkaline water."

"Body tissue is dissolved and the liquid poured into the municipal water system. Mr Sullivan, a biochemist by training, says tests have proven the effluent is sterile and contains no DNA, and poses no environmental risk. The bones are then removed from the unit and processed in a 'cremulator,' the same machine that is used to crush bone fragments following cremation into ash. Metals including mercury and artificial joints and implants are safely recovered."

Or... try Promession:

Coffins are fed in one end [of a machine], and the body removed from the coffin within the unit and then treated with liquid nitrogen.

The body is then vibrated until the body fragments, after which the remains are dried and refined further, and then passed through filters to remove metals, including dental amalgam. The remains are then poured into a square biodegradable coffin, again automatically, for shallow burial.

And the whole thing is supposed to become soil fairly quickly.

Here's my question: Isn't old-fashioned burial greener? It's carbon sequestration, right?

"We would walk through the country with our guitars on our shoulders, stop at people’s houses, play a little music, walk on..."

"We could hitchhike, transfer from truck to truck, or, if we couldn’t catch one of them, we’d go to the train yard, ’cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then... Man, we played for a lot of peoples."

"I never imagined it would be this bad... I'm not a bad man. I'm really not."

"We had no intention of stealing TVs, anything that was of value to them, real value. I just seen a couple bottles of liquor there and figured they wouldn't miss it... I didn't know [the cameras] were rolling, so I was caught red handed... I never had no felonies, got a six-year-old daughter I'm taking care of by myself. I'd be pissed if someone came in my house and took some liquor, too... I apologize. I shouldn't have snatched the liquor. I didn't think it was gonna be this big of a deal, really. It's just bottles of liquor, but I'll help you rebuild your house Ms. Robinson. I really want to apologize."

Man — caught on camera looting a house wrecked by a Hurricane Irene tornado — now, on camera again, cries his regrets.

IN THE COMMENTS: pbAndjFellowRepublican said:

That Robinson house tried to seduce him.

"Break into my house in the middle of the night and it's nightie night."

Milwaukee State Journal readers react to a news story about a Waukesha County  prosecutor delaying making a decision whether to charge a man who shot a home intruder to death.

The incident... will likely prompt more debate about the status of Wisconsin's self-defense law and efforts to broaden it to include the so-called castle doctrine.

Judging from the debate in the comments, the people favor the pending bill, which "would extend a presumption of reasonableness to anyone using deadly force against people unlawfully in their residence, whether they were armed or threatening or not."

I favor the bill myself, because people who are considering breaking into a house shouldn't have a complicated set of risk/benefit factors to weigh. It should be really clear.

Greta Van Susteren asks if anyone is demanding that Justices Prosser and Bradley step down.

"Are any of the newspaper asking for them to step down? People have very serious disputes and their whole lives depend on decisions on the Supreme Court, and this isn't fair to the people. Are newspaper editors saying they got to go?"

The answer from her guest, Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

You are right this is sort of funny, but no joke. One thing that I've heard the time when this all came out Governor Walker talked about the possibility of having an appointed rather than elected court. And that didn't go anywhere. It didn't seem like that proposal -- seems like it would be dead on arrival in our legislature. But certainly there's been a number of people saying, look, this can't go on. Something has got to change.

Total failure to answer the question!

Should Prosser and/or Bradley resign?
	Yes. Both.
	Yes. Bradley.
	Yes. Prosser.
	Yes. Prosser, Bradley, and at least one more.
	Yes. They should all resign!
	No. Keep them all. Move on.
pollcode.com free polls

By the way, I'm hearing a rumor that Justice Crooks might resign. I don't know what that's about, but I was just reading about the 1995 election that originally brought Justice Bradley to the court. She defeated none other than Patrick Crooks in that election, and Crooks (who later won election, in 1996), was the conservative in the race, with the backing of Gov. Tommy Thompson and many Republicans. Bradley had the liberal backing, including the AFL-CIO. Both candidates portrayed themselves as "strict constructionists," and Bradley emphasized judicial independence and the importance of keeping the judiciary above politics. Crooks criticized her for her unwillingness to talk about how she would decide even cases that had been decided in the past. (Sorry for the absence of links there. I'm reading old newspaper articles, and they are not up on line.)

Crooks — who now votes in a bloc with Chief Justice Abrahamson and Justice Bradley, reaching liberal outcomes — called himself "the conservative for the court." When Bradley cited judicial ethics as her reason for refusing to address the issues, he said, after he lost: "I think it's unfortunate we didn't have a chance to show there was a clear, ideological difference between the two of us... It's important for the public to have a sense of candidates' judicial philosophy and how they go about making decisions." Bradley, by contrast, said she won because she refrained from labeling herself and Crooks did not. She said: "I think people ended up not wanting those kinds of conservative labels in a Supreme Court race... You have to be careful not to politicize the court."

A mere 3 years after joining the court, in 1999, Crooks considered resigning. He told the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the problem was the “way Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson is running the court.... abusing her position by micromanaging the court system, making unilateral decisions on administrative matters that should come to the full court, and jeopardizing the court’s neutrality by awarding grants to groups with lobbyists and social agendas."

Crooks, you may remember, was the only justice who was not present for the "chokehold" incident. He had gone home for the day. On another occasion — in 2008, when Justice Bradley allegedly hit Justice Gableman in the head for calling the Chief "Shirley" — Crooks was — allegedly — reading the horoscopes. Crooks was born May 16, 1938. That makes him a Taurus. It says here: "Can you take the day off? Now is the perfect time to do just that. If you’re locked in for some level of responsibility, you can still make the most of your freewheeling energy by creating a party atmosphere." So... no announcement today, probably.

ADDED: From the investigative file (and relevant to Crooks's attitude toward the recent incident):

Justice Crooks said early in his tenure as Supreme Court Justice, he recalls a meeting in which Justice Prosser had called him a "viper" in an aggressive manner. Justice Crooks believed it was sometime around the fall of 1999 when Chief Justice Abrahamson was running for re-election for supreme court. Justice Crooks said he was not supporting her re-election at the time, and Justice Prosser was. It was during a meeting with the other Justices that Justice Crooks stated he was not going to support the Chief Justice's re-election. Justice Prosser had stood up and aggressively called him a "viper" during that meeting because he was not supporting the Chief Justice.  Justice Crooks recalled Justice Prosser had walked out of the room, and slammed the door hard enough to cause the glass to vibrate.    Justice Crooks said he had never forgotten that incident, and believes since then things have been either just as aggressive from Justice Prosser, and in some cases they have escalated.

Romney having trouble raising money from Jewish donors who say they prefer "the Jewish candidate" — Michele Bachmann.

What's going on here? Republican fund raisers are exploiting Obama's weak support for Israel, but Mitt Romney is not doing so well with Jewish donors. If these donors aren't responding to Romney, and if they are indeed calling Bachmann "the Jewish candidate," are they really making a mistake, as the NY Post puts it, not realizing that she's Christian? I doubt it! Bachmann flaunts her Christianity, and her critics critique her for it. And a mere mistake could simply be corrected.

[S]ome in Romney's camp have been wondering whether Bachmann and her allies are pushing the "Jewish" rumor to help their own fund-raising, sources said.

Some! The dreaded some! Sources said. Maybe some in Romney's camp are pushing the Jewish rumor rumor to to help their own fund-raising!

The NY Post article goes on to say:

[Bachmann] has enjoyed strong popularity among Jewish voters and often talks about her stay on a kibbutz during the summer of 1974, when she was a teenager.

In a speech to the American Israel Political Action Committee last year, Bachmann recalled being guarded by soldiers while working on the kibbutz.

"While we were working, the soldiers were walking around looking for land mines," she said. "I really learned a lot in Israel."

She went on to say, "I am a Christian, but I consider my heritage Jewish, because it is the foundation, the roots of my faith as a Christian."

Bachmann also told an AIPAC gathering earlier this year that she and her family make sure each year to attend at least one Jewish-theme play or movie.

I think if any of these donors are calling Michele Bachmann "the Jewish candidate" they mean it in the figurative and satirical sense that Toni Morrison used when she called Bill Clinton the first black President.

People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.

There's a somewhat common phrase "honorary jew." It's noted in the Urban Dictionary. It turns up over 20,000 Google hits, and, on the first page, we see discussion of whether Sarah Palin and, elsewhere, Hillary Clinton should be counted as "honorary Jews." Here's a cute blog post about Sarah Palin, noting 10 reasons why Palin counts as a Jew. You get the idea. The big one is support for Israel.

What might have motivated the Romney people to get the idea out there that Michele Bachmann is really Jewish? It could be to generate unease among voters who have some anti-Semitism.Think of the rumor that Barack Obama is really Muslim. The Romney people should not want people to think they meant to ignite that kind of suspicion about Bachmann. Oddly, Romney himself has to deal with the antagonism toward his religion — the religion he actually follows. You'd think his campaign folk would be more sensitive. It's almost as if they're trying to generate a rumor that Bachmann's not Christian at all to deal with his problem with some people thinking Mormons aren't Christian enough (or at all).

But what was the point of saying that the prospective donors are mistaken about such a basic fact about Bachmann? If you're trying to warm people up to your candidate, you don't normally insult them!

UPDATE: I'm told this proves she's not Jewish:

"What could Chaz Bono and Nancy Grace possibly have in common?"

We shall see!

"Top stylists from New York to Hollywood told me their liberal clients are guiltily requesting the Bachmann Look."

Forget politics! They love her hair:

"A lot of clients have asked for Sarah Palin hair in the past four years, and now, it's Bachmann," says Andi Scarbrough of Byu-ty Hair Therapy in L.A. "Politicians are the new celebrities, because they're real. They didn't just spring up out of the red carpet."

However, she admits, "I have women who come in with photos with the face cut out sometimes."

"She has great coppery color that warms her up a little bit," said Angelo David at his E. 43rdSt. salon, who confirmed a spike in copycat requests for the candidate's look. "Not everybody wants to look like Kim Kardashian."

Bachmann's style "is safe, but not soccer mom. It's sexy," said Alma Qeraxhiu at her AlmaG Salon and Spa on E. 21st. St.

"I have found it a little bit amazing how many women have been coming in asking for her hair style, even though they don't agree with her politics."

Having the best hair is an important step. If  you're betting on who will win in politics, you'll come out ahead, I think, if you always pick the candidate with the best hair. Male or female. But with female candidates, the hair can be a distraction if it's not resolved into a predictably sensible yet pretty style.

(Remember when Carly Fiorina said Barbara Boxer's hair was "so yesterday"?)

At the Glittering Water Café...

... you can sparkle all night.

ADDED: Chip Ahoy adds a Rocky touch...

The special prosecutor said no criminal charges, but what will the Wisconsin Judicial Commission do about the "chokehold" incident?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examines the case:

The judicial commission is separately investigating the case for violations of the state's code of ethics for judges. That code says that a judge "shall avoid impropriety" and "shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."

Clearly, leaking the story — and leaking it in a deceptive form — was a decision to diminish public confidence in the court. (You might want to question whether the code should say that: What if the court doesn't deserve public confidence in its integrity and impartiality? Are the judges compelled to keep quiet about it?)

If the judicial commission found any wrongdoing, the case would go first to a three-judge panel and then to the Supreme Court to consider.... If the Supreme Court finds misconduct in a judicial ethics case, it can reprimand, censure, suspend or remove a judge.

So, wouldn't Prosser and Bradley recuse themselves? That would leave a 3-2 conservative majority on the court. If the commission found wrongdoing by both Bradley and Prosser, then that majority could attempt to display neutrality by voting to remove both justices. I'm partly serious, but mainly being amusing. You do see what is amusing about portraying that as neutral-looking. Governor Scott Walker would have the power to make 2 appointments. From a political perspective, losing Prosser would put conservatives in a better position. They'd have a new justice, without the baggage, and he/she would be smart, strong, and relatively young. And, of course, Bradley would be replaced by a smart, strong, relatively young justice too. Both new justices would naturally be principled conservatives with excellent credentials.

But they aren't going to be removed. I predict a reprimand or at most censure. Still, I must say, that if the tables were turned and the liberal justice had done what Prosser did and the conservative justice had done what Bradley did, there would be cries for removing the justice who did what Bradley did. Look at the investigative file. Picture the Wisconsin protesters picking through that in search of material to make the strongest case against the justice who did what Bradley did. And if the Democratic party controlled the legislature? The protesters would be screaming for impeachment.

But the conservatives are mostly giving Bradley a pass. As long as Prosser's going to be okay, let's just forget about it. That means it paid off to frame a completely unfair charge against Prosser and demonize him in the press, which is exactly what damaged public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Who did that? Who leaked the story to the politically partisan journalist, Bill Lueders? Surely, the judicial commission is going to tell us. It may not have been relevant to the question whether there should be a criminal prosecution — which would explain why the police investigative file doesn't tell us. But it's obviously central to the inquiry into judicial ethics.

"Americans view the computer industry the most positively and the federal government the least positively..."

"... when asked to rate 25 business and industry sectors. All five of the top-rated sectors this year are related to either computers or food."

Food and computers, baby! We love that stuff!

The federal government fares worst, but no other government entity was on the list. Anyway, this is interesting, showing the decline of appreciation for the federal government over the last 8 years:



There's a steady decline in the Bush years. Things perk up when Obama steps in, but plummet faster than under Bush.

"'Ugliness' is not a personal trait that many people choose to embrace..."

"... those whom we classify as protected might not be willing to admit that they are ugly. But with the chance of obtaining extra pay and promotions amounting to $230,000 in lost lifetime earnings, there’s a large enough incentive to do so."

For enough money, you'll call yourself ugly.

Now, I see a problem in this line of thinking: It's easier for men to say I'm ugly than for women. The men are going to rake in all the money. Look at me! I'm so ugly! Imagine presenting that to a jury! Or do you think women have an advantage because they can appear in court without makeup and hairstyling?

"Liberation theology is a power set of tools and approaches within any religion."

Liberation theology is a set of power tools!

"Think You're An Auditory Or Visual Learner?"

"Scientists Say It's Unlikely."

Do you know how to drive on a "bicycle boulevard"? Do you even know what a "sharrow" is?

Well, don't drive in Madison, Wisconsin until you learn. We were biking around town for about an hour last evening, and the problem out there is obvious. Some car driver gets outraged that a bicyclist is acting like he owns the whole lane and he won't move over when you blare your horn or yell at him. Car driver, learn the rules! Or there are going to be a lot of angry encounters and — I'm afraid — fights.

We bicyclists love the "bicycle boulevards," which entitle us to use the whole lane and require the motorist to stay in line and proceed at whatever speed the bicycle is establishing. But it's not so enjoyable when the motorist can't believe we have rights like this. But we do!

Drivers need to learn the rules, and the police need to do some enforcement, especially against the drivers who use their cars to intimidate the cyclists into yielding the space that has been provided to us for our safety. And bicyclists: Get out there and use those boulevards — claim the power of the sharrow! — so it become obvious that this is the way things work around here.

Glittering: "assault" or "wonderfully fabulous way to protest"?

Diane Anderson-Minshall, executive editor of The Advocate, the gay news magazine, says throwing metallic flecks in someone's face is a "wonderfully fabulous way to protest": "It's peaceful and it doesn’t hurt anybody. But it does get a really important point across in a fun way."

Newt Gingrich, who's been on the receiving end of this supposedly "fun" protest, says: "Glitter bombing is clearly an assault and should be treated as such... When someone reaches into a bag and throws something on you, how do you know if it is acid or something that stains permanently or something that can blind you? People have every right to their beliefs but no right to assault others.”

The NYT tries to get a legal opinion by asking First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams:

"I don’t think you’d get much disagreement that like so much else in the law, it’s all a matter of degree... Touching someone’s body can be criminal. But it’s awfully unlikely that there would be a prosecution if it’s just a bit of glitter. But in theory, the more that’s dropped, the more likely is prosecution."

That's a pragmatic assessment from the point of view of police and prosecutors, not an opinion about whether it is a crime. Did Abrams address the point of view of the recipient of the attack (as Gingrich did, above)? If someone rushes at you and makes gestures of attack, but it turns out to be only glitter, you still have the fear, and you (or your bodyguards) don't know what is about to happen. Then maybe it's funny to laugh at the person who felt the fear or overreacted. And there they are covered in glitter. Ha ha.

This is like the childhood game of taking a swat at someone, without hitting him, and then hooting "You flinched!" In that childhood game — is it still played? — if the person flinched, you then have the right to punch him in the arm. Hard. But imagine adults playing with each other that way. Or would life work better? Justice Bradley charges right up to Justice Prosser, gets in his face, with fists flying but not touching him, and he flinches/touches. Well, then Justice Bradley immediately has the right to punch Prosser — hard — in the arm. And that's the end of it. Instead... oh, lord!... the troubles we have in Wisconsin!

(And here's that thread from last month where we talked about pie-throwing and where, in the comments, there was some extensive discussion of glittering.)

What we still don't know about the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident: Who leaked the story to the press?

Here's something I wrote in early July, a week after the story first appeared in the media:

Judges are supposed to work out their human frailty problems outside of public view. Which is why the "chokehold" incident should never have been leaked to the press. That's why my writing on the subject has focused on who leaked and why. I would like to think that it was someone other than one of the Justices, someone who didn't understand the stakes for the prestige of the court. If it was, in fact, one of the Justices, what was the reason? Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?

And don't tell me: Because choking somebody is a serious crime! If it were that straightforward, the choker should have been arrested — or the charge should have come to light — shortly after the incident. Instead, a politically partisan journalist broke the story 12 days later. Someone made a decision to go public through him, and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice? Intolerable.

Now, the investigation has taken place and we have had the opportunity to read the entire file. It does not reveal who went to the media — to Bill Lueders of WisconsinWatch.org — with the story. It does reveal that the story originally published by Lueders was shamefully inadequate, because it said only that Justice Prosser "allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument." It had nothing about Bradley's initiating the physical encounter by "charging at" him and suddenly and deliberately getting right in his personal space, possibly with a fist in his face. Either Lueders left out Bradley's initial physical aggression, or he received the story in that inadequate form. So who talked to Lueders, and did that person tell him the story with crucial details omitted to cast Prosser in the worst possible light?

Another thing we know from the investigation file is that, 2 days after the incident, Justice Bradley gave a carefully prepared speech to the assembled justices in which she framed — in her own terms — a problem that needed to be solved. Portraying Prosser as the workplace bully, she stated: "If I cannot get any assurance from you, the court, that this problem is going to be addressed, then I will go to the outside and take other means." Since she did not get that assurance, the record gives support to the inference that it was Justice Bradley who went to the media. The investigators did not ask her if she made good on her threat and took "other means" by going public through Bill Lueders, perhaps because it did not relate to whether a crime was committed, but I think the public deserves to know.

On page 43 of the investigative file, Justice Prosser seems to imply that it was Justice Bradley who leaked the story (and leaked it in a damagingly incomplete form):

Justice Prosser said when there is a charge made by a woman that a man choked you, and you leak it out to the press allover the world, and that man is on the WI Supreme Court, "You are doing absolute maximum damage to a public figure that you can do". Justice Prosser said he did not feel Justice Bradley was telling the truth because if she were, then she would have to say how she charged at him.

It was not damaging solely to Prosser. It was damaging to the entire court and to the viability of the rule of law in Wisconsin. As I wrote, back in early July: "Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?" I'm still trying to understand how anyone who cared about the prestige and legitimacy of the Wisconsin Supreme Court would take this matter public.

But we do know, from the text of Justice Bradley's own speech, that she thought the threat of going public was something she could use for her own purposes to compel  the other justices to act as though the problem was Prosser and Prosser alone. Frame it my way, don't blame me at all, see me only as the victim, or I will take it upon myself to devastate this court's reputation. Even if Bradley was not the one who leaked to Lueders — in the all-Prosser's-fault form — that was, to put it mildly, injudicious and self-serving.

And I still have the question I had on July 3d:

Someone made a decision to go public through [the politically partisan journalist Bill Lueders], and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice?

I said it then, and I can't see any reason to change my opinion: Intolerable.

Lady Gaga's Andrew Dice Clay routine — "Joe Calderone."

She's one of the guys.

All the big pop stars want to be actors, don't they? But only 2 have succeeded, by my count. Most fail, following Elvis... not that following Elvis is such a bad thing.

"Oh my God, it's beautiful... Everyone here is so much nicer than in New York, too."

The new students are arriving in Madison. And the ones from New York, some of them, don't really get the Midwest yet. Here's a tip: If they're not nice, they won't let it show on the surface, like they do in New York. Don't make the New Yorker's mistake of thinking you're more sophisticated than the rubes in the Midwest. The truth is, you need a new kind of sophistication to detect when folks aren't nice.

But welcome to Madison, everybody. It really is beautiful... and a great place to study. Open your minds. Open your books. And step away from the politics.

Madison's long tradition of student activists included thousands rallying in the spring, during protests over the collective bargaining bill and the state budget. UW students will continue to be active, said Ben Manski of WisconsinWave.org.

"Students are still idealistic, and they should be," he said. "More of us should be. So, they provide inspiration for older folks to try to do things that we may have given up on."

Be wary of the grasp of the Manski! Consider majoring in science. Real science. Not the social kind. Develop your rational mind and learn some hard, useful stuff. Don't indulge what these politicos will flatter you to call idealism.

Man lives in a 78-square-foot space.

He's an architect in his 20s, living — roommate free! — in New York City.  Based on the street scene, he's right about here. He seems reasonably satisfied with it, as he describes minimalist impulses going back to childhood. There's room for a bed/sofa and a desk. My only outburst, watching that video, was "does he have WiFi?"

Picture a prison cell that size. Would it be too cruel? But inject the freedom to walk out the door at any time and have all of NYC. It's not cruel at all. When you're sleeping in your bed, the space around you doesn't really matter, and when you're sitting at that desk, it's not too different from a carrel in the library.

Hurricane Irene causes Gwyneth Paltrow to go to a book signing without wearing makeup.

Let's take full account of the effects of the monstrous storm!

At the Cloudscape Café...

... you can see, touch, and taste everything.

(If you enjoyed the music that happened to be playing on the car radio in that little clip and you don't already have it, please buy it: here.)

"Labor Day parade organizers confirm that no Republicans will be allowed to participate in this year's Labor Day Parade."

"[Marathon County Labor Council] president Randy Radtke says they choose not to invite elected officials who have 'openly attacked worker's rights' or did nothing when state public workers lost most of their right to collectively bargain."

From Congressman Sean Duffy's chief of staff: "Having walked in this parade in past years, Congressman Duffy was hoping that for a moment, we could set our differences aside and simply have some fun in a family-friendly event."

Fun? Family-friendly? Wisconsin?!

"Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is comatose, near death and likely to take secrets of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 to his grave."

Says who? 

CNN found al-Megrahi under the care of his family in his palatial Tripoli villa Sunday, surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip. The cancer-stricken former Libyan intelligence officer may be the last man alive who knows precisely who in the Libya government authorized the bombing, which killed 270 people.

"We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice," his son, Khaled Elmegarhi, told CNN.... There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don't have any phone line to call anybody."

Who is this "CNN"? They have a photo of a man lying in his own bed in a villa, not in a hospital, wearing an oxygen mask, and they have the statement of his son. That proves this man will never speak again? I don't believe it. We were told this guy was near death 2 years ago, when he was released from prison in Scotland. Libyans welcomed him home as a hero. Why would we accept these new assertions as true?

And "the National Transitional Council, the rebel movement that toppled Gadhafi, announced Sunday that it won't allow the dying al-Megrahi to be extradited."

"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," NTC Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said.

Will President Obama speak to this?

Wisconsin "Singalong" Protesters Confront Workers and Chant About Boycotting Their Employer.

Meade recorded this video at the 8/26/11 anti-Scott Walker singalong at the Wisconsin Capitol. Toward the end of what is their regular hour-long protest, workers from The Bruce Company, who were installing a new sprinkler system, began using their noisy equipment near the singalong.

A man jumps up and shouts "Boycott the Bruce Company," and a chant immediately breaks out with lots of people raising their fists and shouting "Boycott Bruce! Boycott Bruce!" — seemingly based solely on the assumption that the workers are deliberately disrupting their singalong. An older male protester directly confronts one of the workers. The police show up to observe and, seemingly, keep the peace. A young female protester wants to know what Meade is up to. What's his take on this? Her take is that the workers started working there for the purpose of drowning out the singers. Meade is heard saying "You don't think maybe you're being a little paranoid?"

If you care about workers — and that is the subject of the songs they sing and sing and sing — why are they harassing these guys? If they care about justice, why do they instantly — based on a paranoid impulse — chant for a boycott? If they care about jobs, why would they want to denounce and injure a local business?

"In trying to talk prosecutors out of weak cases, I have been told more than once, 'I wasn’t there, man, and neither were you. Let the 12 of them figure it out.'"

Writes Scott Turow (in an op-ed about Dominique Strauss-Kahn):

In practice, this means that even defendants who are probably innocent must endure the anguish of trial. I once represented a young man in a gang murder case who had been arrested and indicted along with eight other people, even though his name was never mentioned in the grand jury testimony. Although it seemed clear that the police had mistaken this young man for his brother, both the prosecutors and the judge told me to “put it on,” meaning go to trial; the client sat in court for several days, in jeopardy of a lengthy prison term, before the case against him was finally dismissed.

"I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want."

Said by the same person who said: "An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have."

"If Ann Althouse was assaulted, so was Justice Bradley. Or, if you prefer, if Justice Bradley wasn't assaulted, then neither was Ann Althouse."

Crazy-ass thread hijack over at Blaska's, by one Jeremy Schultz. Meade pushes back, as do other commenters. It's interesting to me, as a law professor, to witness this struggle with analogies. When people are pig-headedly committed, politically, their efforts to grapple with facts are comical... or irritating — depending on your emotional orientation. Me, I'm serene, even amidst the anti-Althousiana, especially when Meade is on task.

(Click on the relevant tags if you need more information on the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" allegation or the attack I recently experienced. Note that I didn't charge or rush up to the man who attacked me, nor did I evince anger or order him to do anything.)

18 seconds of raw class warfare.

Scary!



"It's coming! Get ready! All you fucking tea-party-baggers. It's coming. Get ready."

Meade visits the Wisconsin Capitol singalong — "Which side are you on?" — last Friday, August 26th.

R.A.A.N. = Red & Anarchist Action Network. I'll let you Google that yourself. It seems to be connected with a record label, and I can't help viewing this as mostly about promoting music. It's a tired old musical message at this point in punk history. But who knows? Maybe these people are coming to get us.

"Sure a baby has a swimming reflex but that doesn't mean watching them swim isn't absolutely terrifying."

Says a Metafilter participant, linking to several videos. I watched these videos and didn't find them terrifying at all. These are people teaching babies ISR — Infant Swim Self Rescue. The babies are learning how to save themselves from drowning. Immersed in pools, with supervision, they learn to roll over face up and stabilize themselves in a position where they can breathe. I was inspired by the success of the babies in learning a very specific and highly useful skill. Hooray for the babies!

As for the people on Metafilter (and in the comments at YouTube) who think it's terrible to scare babies and make them cry.... Well, all I can say is maybe they don't know any babies. You don't melt into a pool of sympathy when a baby cries. You deal with whatever the situation is, if you can figure it out. By the way, a drowned baby doesn't cry.

"I spent a lot of time thinking about contemporary Christianity, and obviously the rapture kept coming up."

"My first impulse was ... to laugh it off — it's sort of a funny idea, people just floating away. But I kept thinking: What if it did happen? ... I thought, I'm such a skeptic that even if it did happen, I would resist the implications of it, and I also thought that three years later, everyone would have forgotten about it. No matter what horrible thing happens in the world, the culture seems to move on."

Tom Perrotta, author of "Election" (which was made into a terrific movie) has written a novel about life after the rapture called "The Leftovers." Obviously, there's a big fiction genre on this subject, so what's interesting here is that a literary (as they say) novelist is applying his mind and methods to the Rapture.

Listen to the audio at the link. He's extremely insightful. I'm going to read the book. (Use my links please if you feel like buying it too.) Perhaps it irks you to think of a fancy "literary" writer — with access to NPR promotion — appropriating the material that "genre" writers have made their own. But if you listen to the interview, you'll see that he's not full of himself and not disrespectful toward those other writers. He seems genuinely interested in exploring the idea.

"I've spent the last 48 years chasing hurricanes to ride the swells."

Says our commenter Surfed:

Was a Florida hurricane correspondent for Surfline.com for a few years. I've been caught in a few. First the wind comes in blowing in one direction for several hours. Then the eye passes over and things go quiet. The sun comes out birds sing and people wander out of doors to asses[s] damage. Make sure your car is allright. Surfers bike/walk to the beach to check out the swells and wind. Then as the eye wall passes you run back in doors as the wind comes in from the opposite direction. Roofs blown free come back at you. Everything that was blown off is returned as the wind swings around. If you're actually hunkered down on the coast you do a lot of praying. There are no athiests in a hurricane. As it all subsides and if the damage isn't to great it's time to go surfing. If you're an older surfer like me you have to be more aware of your physical limitations. It's easy to die in big waves. A 55 year old high school teacher (like me) died in New Symrna Beach yesterday. If it's a Class I you'll generally be allright. Less so as you move up the scale. Class IV and above? Run like hell. At any rate the waves are calling so I'm out for my second session of the day...

In that light, Governor Christie says:



"Get the hell off the beach.... You've maximized your tan..."

"You've maximized your tan..." really applies independently of the hurricane. Come on, Jersey kids. Enough!

"Crime and the great recession: Jobs have fled, lawbreaking hasn’t risen..."

"... and criminologists are scratching their heads. I credit Internet porn and videogames. Is there anything they can’t do?"

"I will retreat if it gets any more dangerous than this."

"Be careful with that weird stuff.... That is a bizarre, wild substance that is about to bury you."

Reporter in the hurricane.

What's it like in the hurricane/tropical storm?

I'm looking at the Charging Bull Cam (on Wall Street in NYC) and seeing people in tourist mode strolling up to look at the big bull statue. The umbrellas are manageable and not turning inside out. The signs on the traffic lights are waving gently.

I got to that link from this set of links on my son John's blog. He's in lower Manhattan, and I thought he'd be off line because of power outages (and electricity conservation in anticipation of power outages), but there he is on IM. Hi, John!

He says: "barely even raining out."

ADDED: Actually, "electricity conservation in anticipation of power outages" doesn't make sense in the context of laptop computer and other rechargeable batteries. You can't get more charged than 100%, so if you keep it plugged in, there's nothing to do in anticipation of an outage.

At the Canna Café...

... you cannot say the wrong thing.

IN THE COMMENTS: Clyde said:

If it was in Leadville, it would have been the Canna Bistro...

He's talking about the 5th picture here.

The Capitol Pedaler.

A familiar sight around the Capitol Square here in Madison. You'll know it's Madison from the outburst at 0:40.

Capitol cloudscape.

"Power could be shut off in Lower Manhattan, hitting Wall Street, a precaution against storm surges as Hurricane Irene strikes..."

Reports the Wall Street Journal.

"The most important thing is to make sure their facilities aren't damaged, which would take a long time to repair. If saltwater gets into the underground cables and those cables are carrying electricity, there is a real chance of damage to those lines," [said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.] "There is a lot less chance of damage to the lines if those power cables are not carrying power."

"What a coincidence! CEO of Gibson Guitar a Republican Donor."

"And their Democratic-donating competitor, Martin, uses the same wood but wasn’t raided. Well, when you’ve got a President who jokes about tax audits as revenge for a personal slight, it’s hard not to be suspicious, isn’t it?"

Justice Bradley's speech to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices and the nuances of identifying the workplace bully.

Here's the original document, the typed-up speech that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley gave to the assembled Justices 2 days after the so-called "chokehold" incident. As we know from the memos in the police investigation file, page 19, Justice Bradley said "she had typed these notes and rehearsed them like a speech because she wanted to tell the other justices how she was feeling."

In the original document, Bradley identifies "a right to go to my workplace without fear of verbal abuse or physical abuse." This is the workplace bully problem, and it's important, but the question I have is: Who gets to identify the bully?

We know from the investigation file that Bradley suddenly rushed up to Justice Prosser and got in his face. The interviews vary a bit in their emphasis on the speed with which she entered his personal space, but everyone agrees that the physical movement began with Bradley, and Prosser's physical act was a reaction to what she did. Bradley also acted first in identifying the bully, the one who needs to be controlled by the rights that others have to a "workplace without fear." But what if Prosser had acted first and characterized Bradley as the aggressor for rushing at him (with, according to some of the interviews, fists raised)? Then Bradley would have found herself on the receiving end, as the violator of the right she deems important. A right like that, if we are not careful, would empower the most aggressive person in the workplace!

Who gets to frame the story of the workplace bully? A person who fears accusation as the aggressor might opt for a preemptive strike, and that could have been the case here. During the incident, Justice Roggensack pulled Bradley away from Prosser and said, more than once, "This is not like you." Bradley describes herself becoming very emotional. Perhaps she was shocked by her own behavior and self-defensively saw it as in her interest to portray Prosser as the aggressor. From the memo on the Bradley interview, page 34:

Justice Bradley said as she was approaching Justice Prosser on June 13, "I was in control, I knew exactly what I was doing." Justice Bradley said when she approached Justice Prosser, she said to him, "Buddy, get out of my office." Justice Bradley said she remembers specifically saying the word "buddy" to him as she was telling him to leave her office. Justice Bradley recalled this because as she was talking to her daughter about this incident after the fact, her daughter had mentioned how the only other time she heard her use the term "buddy" was three years ago when her daughter and her were in Bangkok, Thailand, in a taxicab. Justice Bradley said the taxicab driver was not taking them where they needed to go so she felt she needed to take control and she remembers saying, "Buddy, you take us back where you picked us up." Justice Bradley said that was the only other time she could remember using the term "buddy". Justice Bradley said, "Buddy puts me in control and them in the diminutive."    Justice Bradley again said she knew exactly what she was doing and saying to Justice Prosser on the evening of June 13, and added, "I intended to do it just the way I did it." Justice Bradley repeated several different times during our conversation with her that she was in control on June 13, 2011 and she knew exactly what she was doing the whole time.

Justice Bradley then said, "This aggressiveness they are trying to spin is not true."

Isn't it interesting that she denied her own aggressiveness right after describing herself as a woman in control and deliberately exercising domination? What if Justice Prosser had felt and acted in a similar way? He would have made a speech focusing on Bradley as the aggressor. He would have said, as Bradley said at the July 15th meeting:

I have a right... to enter my workplace without any fear of verbal abuse or physical abuse...

If I cannot get any assurance from you, the court, that this problem is going to be addressed, then I will go to the outside and take other means. 

Go to the outside and take other means?! Is that a victim seeking the shelter of the protections of the law, or is it the bully trying to instill fear? It's not too clear! But we know that Bradley, in the original incident, deliberately sought control. And in the the June 15th meeting, she also sought control. She had her prepared speech. It was studded with legalisms and warnings. She demanded submission, or else. You don't need to look past her own words to see that.

Is there a video camera that you don't turn off in exactly the same way you turn it on?

Meade and I have failed to record so many things that we thought we were catching because of this limitation. There's a button that you push to begin recording, but it's the same button you push to end a recording. If you lose track or if you fail to push it hard enough at some point, you may be turning it off when you think you are turning it on or turning it on when you think you are turning it off.

For example, yesterday, Meade went down to the Capitol Square to see what the singalong was like this week (the day after the special prosecutor announced that no one would be charged in the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident). He came home with a lot of video in the Flip camera, but he was especially interested in one clip.

An angry man, recognizing Meade, rushed up and demanded "What are you doing here?" He called Meade a "son of a bitch." He told Meade he didn't belong there and he should leave. Meade asked "Isn't this a public space? Doesn't it belong to all of us?" and the man answered "Yes, it belongs to us."  Another man, seeing Meade, yelled at him and called him "a fucking tea bagger." He also called out: "Death to Republicans!"

But — wouldn't you know? — that is the clip that didn't record!

Now, by paying enough attention to the LED screen on the back of the camera, you can ensure that you are really recording. But when you're shooting a lot of video and things are happening quickly — especially out of doors when it's hardest to see the screen and especially when you need to be looking out for attackers and camera snatchers — you can't check accurately every time.

There's a mysterious drop in malaria-carrying mosquitoes in some parts of Africa, and some say maybe it's because of climate change.

Oh, no! Global warming is bad bad bad! Maybe it's causing Hurricane Irene!

“Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming,” environmental activist Bill McKibben wrote Thursday night in The Daily Beast. He argued that this year’s hot Atlantic Ocean temperatures and active spree of hurricanes — coupled with droughts, floods and melting sea ice elsewhere on the globe — are “what climate change looks like in its early stages.”

But what if it's doing something fabulously good?

Patterns of rainfall in these years were more chaotic in these regions of Tanzania and often fell outside the rainy season. The scientists say this may have disturbed the natural cycle of mosquito development.

But the lead author of the study, Professor Dan Meyrowitsch from the University of Copenhagen, says that he is not convinced that it is just the changing climate.

"It could be partly due to this chaotic rainfall, but personally I don't think it can explain such a dramatic decline in mosquitoes, to the extent we can say that the malaria mosquitoes are almost eradicated in these communities."

Global warming — or, as they say, "climate change" (for maximum coverage of any possible condition) — is probably not the cause of the hurricane or the big mosquito drop-off, but those who like to wring their hands about the connection between global warming climate change and anything bad that happens must apply the same kind of reasoning to anything good that happens. Otherwise they won't be able to maintain the pretense that they're all about the science.

3 big Obama fund-raisers in the Hamptons are threatened by Hurricane Irene.

Will this beleaguered man's troubles never end? It's as if all of nature is aligned against him! Where is the mercy? Irene! Hit North Carolina, scatter the sands of the Jersey Shore, but for God's sake, leave the Hamptons alone!

The schoolgirls have "meltdowns" when mom packs the lunch in ziploc bags.

Because the girls "don't want to be shamed" at school.

Because enviromentalism is the religion taught in public schools, and it's the kind of religion done with shaming young people.

But also:

1. Some people wash and reuse ziploc bags. So don't presume you know that the ziploc-user is an enviro-sinner.

2. Kiddies, if you are old enough to understand environmentalism and to pressure your mother with it, you are old enough to pack your own lunch. And if you're so hot on being saintly, start helping your mother, not making her life any harder.

At the Blue Door Café...

... come on in, and don't be sad!

United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms.

The Fish and Wildlife Service agents come after the manufacturer of electric guitars.

And why you don't want to travel outside of the country with a vintage guitar... or maybe any wooden guitar.

I've finally waded through the "chokehold" investigation file.

Maybe you didn't notice all the summary and quotation I produced in the form of updates to the post titled "There never was a "chokehold" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court — so who put that word out there and why?" It was quite a task, so I'm going to reprint all that material here. I would also draw some conclusions or at least make some pithy observations, but it's late. I'm going to sleep on it and see how it strikes me when I read this in the morning. For now, click on "Read more," read more, and tell me what you think. I'll take that into account too.

UPDATE: I'm now looking at the investigative file, here.  I'll note the references to choking as I encounter them.

The first one is on page 3, from a report of the police interview with Justice Bradley's husband Mark Bradley. He said that on the evening after the incident, his wife — who had been "distraught" and "sobbing" — said "Dave put his hands around my neck to choke me." And: "Ann told him that that Justice Prosser grabbed her around the neck and Justice Roggensack separated them."

UPDATE 2: I'm reading the police report of the interview with Justice Annette Ziegler, and I see something that was also in the Mark Bradley interview: Immediately after the incident, Justice Bradley sat down at her desk and started typing. Ziegler said she thought that was inconsistent with having been choked and also noted that Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson didn't say anything that you'd expect her to say if she'd just seen Bradley choked. Ziegler also commented on the general work environment at the court: She called it "weird." She said that both Prosser and Bradley tend to speak in a "theatrical" style, and that Bradley is "up and down emotionally" while Prosser is "calm."

UPDATE 3: In the police report of the interview with Tina Noldolf, the Supreme Court Marshal, who had interviewed Justice Bradley the morning after the incident, Noldolf says that Bradley said that Prosser's "yelling" at the Chief Justice "caused Justice Bradley to stand up and walk swiftly towards Justice Prosser."  Bradley said she "got in his personal space" and ordered him out of her office, at which point he "grabbed her by the throat." Bradley said that Justice Roggensack "assisted in separating" the 2 Justices and told Bradley she wasn't "acting like yourself" and "You didn't have to rush at Dave." Noldolf also interviewed Abrahamson, who demonstrated Prosser's action with "both of her hands on my neck" and "thumbs in front of my neck and her fingers wrapped around the back of my neck so that her palms were in contact with my neck." Abrahamson "was clear that both of Justice Prosser's hands were around Justice Bradley's neck." Abrahamson indicated that Prosser was "more of the aggressor."

UPDATE 4: Now, let's look at the police report of the interview with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. According to this report, Bradley had been seated, reading Abrahamson's draft of the dissenting opinion, while Prosser and Abrahamson were arguing. Bradley says she said, "David we're no longer willing to put up with your yelling and abusive behavior," which caused Prosser to moderate his tone as he continued to pressure Abrahamson about getting the opinion out that evening. Bradley then says she noted that the chief justice had been working hard on the 18-page concurring opinion that they'd only received at 1:30 that day. There was some discussion about whether they'd been notified by email on Friday that there would be a concurring opinion, and Bradley went to her computer to look for the email (according to the police report). Prosser reportedly raised his voice again and said "Chief, I have lost confidence in your leadership."

Justice Bradley said she began to walk over toward where Justice Prosser was standing... As she got closer to him Justice Bradley told Justice Prosser, "Buddy don't raise your voice again. I'm no longer willing to put up with this." Justice Bradley described how she was now standing close to Justice Prosser and was "face to face to confront him." Justice Bradley stated that she was pointing with her left hand toward the door that was behind him and said, "You get out of my office." 

So, in her own version of the story, the physical aggression begins with Bradley. She said she wanted to convey that she "meant it." At this point "Justice Prosser grabbed her by the throat in what she described as a 'choke hold.'" She recalls yelling something like "Get  your hands off my neck." Justice Roggensack pulled her back and said, "Ann, this isn't like you,  you charged at him." To which Bradley responded: "I didn't touch him at all." [ADDED: I read that response as implicitly acknowledging that she did charge at him.][ADDED 2: In her second interview with the police, at page 34, Bradley says she addressed Prosser as "Buddy" because "Buddy puts me in control and them in the diminutive."]

Justice Bradley described herself as "feeling eerie" about the whole situation. 

Asked if she feared for her safety at the time, she said "not really." Immediately afterwards, she sat down and typed up what she called "an incident report." She said she soon called Justice Patrick Crooks (the one of the 7 Justices who was not present at the incident) and told him "Prosser just put me in a choke hold."

Interestingly, Abrahamson did not talk to Bradley after the alleged choking. She kept talking to Ziegler, according to Bradley's statement to the police, as Bradley typed up her report and talked to Crooks on the phone. Then, Abrahamson left for dinner, and Bradley subsequently went home and talked to her husband about what to do. Why wasn't Abrahamson involved in any of that? Was it that the incident was inconsequential?

UPDATE 5: 2 days after the incident, there was a conference with all 7 justices and Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs. Bradley, according to her police interview, had a typed-up speech to read to the justices.

Justice Bradley said at one point during the meeting, Justice Prosser was talking with Chief Tubbs about having his hands up on Justice Bradley's shoulders. Justice Bradley said she then corrected Justice Prosser by telling him, "No Dave, they were around my neck." Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser did not deny having his hands around her neck and she corrected him and said, "Your hands were around my neck in a choke hold." Justice Bradley said she repeated this quote several times throughout the meeting as if it was a "mantra."

So, clearly, Bradley herself was quite committed to the idea that there was a chokehold. Bradley said that Prosser characterized what she was doing as a "threat":

"Justice Bradley is threatening to go public if I don't go to counseling." Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser continued saying "Justice Bradley and the Chief Justice have been threatening me for years." 

Threatening him for years? The Bradley interview report goes on to accuse Prosser of "making verbal threats."

Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser would go, "Months without having outbursts, but then just goes off." She also said, "You never know what will set him off." Justice Bradley also feels as though Justice Prosser is paranoid and feels like it is getting worse. Justice Bradley feels as though Justice Prosser's anger is focused towards Chief Justice Abrahamson.

UPDATE 6: Next is the interview with Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson. Like Bradley, she said that what launched Bradley out of her chair was Prosser's statement to that he had lost confidence in Abrahamson. In Abrahamson's version, Bradley "walk[ed] toward Prosser.

The Chief Justice did not recall seeing Justice Bradley's hands raised as she walked by her. Chief Justice stated if there was some sort of gesture, it was non-threatening and it wasn't one that stood out to her. She recalled Justice Bradley might have been motioning towards the door, telling Justice Prosser he needed to "get out of the office."

Might have been motioning... did not recall...  These are careful statements.

The Chief Justice stated she did not see Justice Bradley's fist being raised at any time.

Did she see a fist at all? A non-raised fist?

The Chief Justice said at the point Justice Bradley stood up, it was apparent to her that Justice Prosser's anger seemed very focused and directed towards the herself and not towards Justice Bradley.

The Chief Justice said when Justice Bradley approached Justice Prosser, she observed Justice Prosser put both his hands up and put them on the neck area of Justice Bradley. From the Chief' Justice's vantage point, it did not appear as though Justice Prosser exerted any pressure. She stated "I got the impression there wasn't any pressure because 1 didn't see her eyes bulge or hear her gasp for a breath". The Chief Justice also said "1 did not see her turn color."

So it wasn't an all-out strangling! No one asserted that. But there's a big difference between that — which no one asserted — and the mere putting the hands up in defense — which is what other witnesses saw. "Put them on the neck area" is quite neutral, but it seems as though she's not asserting that Prosser did that out of hostility toward Bradley. It's rather consistent with the version of the story that has Prosser merely reacting in a self-defensive reflex.

The Chief Justice was not watching Justice Prosser's face at all. She did not recall Justice Prosser saying a word during their physical contact. 

That is, Abrahamson provides no evidence that Prosser had an aggressive intent. In her account, Prosser does not advance toward Bradley or do anything other than put his hands up. The hands are "on" — not around — the neck. There's no pressure. And there's no anger.

Abrahamson agrees with other witnesses who said that Roggensack pulled Bradley "away from Justice Prosser's grasp." (I note that the word "grasp" suggests more was going on than the hands-up/on language the police used above.) Abrahamson agrees that Roggensack said "it wasn't like Ann."

Abrahamson said that she thought Prosser should have backed away when Bradley came at him but  "instead he went right for the throat." There's no discussion of the relative height of the Justices. It has been noted that Bradley is taller than Prosser, and that a man has limited options in holding off a woman who is coming at him. But Abrahamson thinks Bradley had already stopped and that Prosser extended his arms forward. [ADDED: Reading farther into the file, I see that the often-repeated belief that Bradley is tall is false. Bradley is 5'3" and Prosser is 5'9".]

Although Abrahamson said Prosser had never made physical contact before, she said he had "outburst" and was "disruptive" at times. She used the term "temper tantrums" and said she "had talked to some of her colleagues and friends about his behavior in the past to try and get outside opinions on how to deal with Justice Prosser." [ADDED: Justice Bradley said "You never know what will set him off," and   Abrahamson said "you never know what's going to set him off." Interesting phrase! You could say that if you're always trying to set somebody off, and only rarely finding the button.]

UPDATE 7: Wisconsin Supreme Court Human Resources Officer Margaret Brady was interviewed because she spoke with Abrahamson the day after the incident and because she attended the June 15th meeting with all the justices (and Chief Tubbs). Brady said that after Bradley gave her prepared speech, repeatedly using the term "chokehold," "Justice Roggensack said that everybody was committed to having a harassment free work environment, and 'You, Ann, went berserk. He wasn't putting pressure on your neck.'"

Brady quotes Prosser:

[H]e was "about one yard from Justice Bradley's office when Ann rushed at me with her fist in my face." Justice Prosser said, "Yeah, I said that I lost faith in the Chief Justice." Justice Prosser said he had "an instantaneous reaction to what happened" and that he felt he had four options of how to deal with it.

Brady didn't write down the 4 options, and, presumably, the reason Prosser chose the one he did (and what, exactly, it was). She did record that he said "two members of the court have made the job unpleasant and 'a deliberate scheme of intended abuse.'" [ADDED: In Prosser's interview, he said he could have pushed her head, her neck, her shoulders, or done nothing. But these are just "intellectual options," not anything he considered in the moment.] Justice Ziegler, according to Brady, spoke more generally about how to improve relations on the court, and Bradley "interrupted" to refocus on the "chokehold."

Justice Roggensack said, "If you are requesting that Justice Prosser get counseling, you both need help."

Justice Bradley responded by saying, "Stop enabling him."

At that point, Brady said, "the tension in the room was as high as it was in the Capitol on March 9th during the protests."

Brady described Bradley, unlike all the other justices (who are reserve), is "very animated" and "effusive." According to Brady, "it was not uncommon for Justice Bradley to talk with her hands or make a fist when she is talking to someone.... Margaret said if you were to ask someone in her office to imitate Justice Bradley, it would be very uncommon if they did not put their fist in the air and talk." This observation cuts 2 ways. On the one hand, it makes it seem more likely that Bradley was waving fists about that day. On the other hand — and this is Brady's interpretation — fist-waving is, for Bradley, an "extension of her expression" and "a very nonthreatening gesture."

[ADDED: In Prosser's interview, he said "he believes the Chief Justice uses Margaret as 'a prop', and she invites her to meetings when she wants to try to intimidate employees, no matter who the employees are."]

UPDATE 8: I'm reading the about the second interview with Justice Bradley, and this is on page 34 it says: "Justice Bradley said for someone to say that she had raised a fist to somebody would be completely out of character for her." A big discrepancy with Brady's statement (just above)? Perhaps you could distinguish "nonthreatening" fist waving and raising a fist to somebody. This interview also contains Bradley's description of trying to "calm" Justice Prosser down by "mimicking him." He was once pounding on the table while talking and she began to pound on the table the same way. Now, is that a way to calm somebody down or a way to wind them up?

UPDATE 9: Finally, the report of the interview with Justice Prosser. Prosser had his lawyer with him and recorded the interview. There is a long description of the substance of the argument among the judges, which culminating in Prosser's statement: "Chief Justice, I have lost confidence in your ability to lead this court." What others have described as "yelling" he calls speaking "with a lot of control."

Justice Prosser said immediately after he made this comment to the Chief Justice that Justice Bradley "charged me." Justice Prosser also described it as, "she exploded out of that room." Justice Prosser said prior to charging him, he said he believes that she was approximately two feet from the threshold of the doorway, inside of her office. Justice Prosser said she had gone approximately five feet total to get from where she was to him. Justice Prosser said he did not believe he moved an inch, he knew he never moved towards her, but he does not recall if he moved back at all. Justice Prosser said he could not initially exit because of the credenza behind him.

Justice Prosser said as he was telling the Chief Justice that he has lost confidence in her leadership his forearms were parallel to the ground with his hands and fingers extended out. Justice Prosser said he talks with his hands generally. Justice Prosser said again that Justice Bradley had "charged at me, it's simple as that" and she came out of her office towards him. Justice Prosser said he has heard some stories that she walked towards him and he said, "No, she charged at me". When she got near him, he said her right fist was in his face. Justice Prosser said as he was approached by Justice Bradley he believes that his hands came up slightly as he leaned backward, "It's as simple as that". Justice Prosser then said, "Did my hands touch her neck, yes, I admit that. Did I try to touch her neck, no, absolutely not, it was a total reflex".

Prosser asserted that Bradley never ordered him to get out of her office. She was "screaming something, and when his hands came in contact with her neck, he does not remember her saying anything about choking her, he remembers her saying, 'Don't you ever put your hands on me.'"

By the way, contrary to what I've read elsewhere, it turns out Prosser is 5'9" and Bradley is 5'3".

Justice Prosser had no recollection of what he thought during this because it happened so fast. Justice Prosser said when his hands came in contact with Justice Bradley's neck, his thought was immediately, "Oh my god, I'm touching her neck." It was immediately after this that Justice Bradley said "don't you ever put your hands on me." Justice Prosser said he does not remember her saying anything about him choking her. Justice Prosser said he was stunned by what happened.... 

Justice Prosser said he believed his hands had open palms and were facing Justice Bradley. Justice Prosser described what he did as a "blocking move" because of how Justice Bradley was coming at him. Justice Prosser said, "I remember feeling her neck." Justice Prosser went on to say that he remembers the warmth on the side of Justice Bradley's neck in his hands as his hands were touching her neck. Justice Prosser said he never squeezed Justice Bradley's neck at any point, and said that his hands were definitely on Justice Bradley's neck versus her shoulders. Justice Prosser said it was a "total reaction to what was happening." We asked Justice Prosser if he recalled what fingers may have touched Justice Bradley's neck, and how they were touching Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said he could not recall the exact location of his fingers, and he could not recall how many fingers were touching Justice Bradley's neck either during this time. He said he could only recall the warmth in Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said several times during our contact that this whole incident lasted "a split second". This included the time from Justice Bradley "charging" at him, his reaction with his hands on her neck, to him removing his hands from her neck. Justice Prosser said he had no recollection of his thumbs on Justice Bradley's neck at any point. Justice Prosser could only recall his fingers touching the side of her neck, with one hand on either side of her neck. Justice Prosser said at no point did he squeeze or apply any pressure. 

Justice Prosser said, "What does any self respecting man do when suddenly that man finds that his hands, or part of his hands are on a woman's neck? Get them off the neck as soon as possible". Justice Prosser said this was a "reflexive move". He said he was not hitting her or anything else. Justice Prosser said he did not say anything to Justice Bradley during this time and he does not recall her saying anything to him at this time either. Justice Prosser said he only recalls Justice Bradley saying, "don't you ever put your hands on me", and then telling him to get out of her office. Justice Prosser said Justice Bradley either stepped back, or somebody had pulled her back, but he did not know who would have pulled her back. Justice Prosser said he believed he went limp after he took his hands away from Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said he did not believe Justice Bradley was angry or upset prior to the time that she "charged me," but when she was telling him "don't you ever put your hands on me" and "get out of my office" she was screaming at him.

Prosser said he simply reacted quickly, without thinking and without having time to feel afraid. He said Bradley looked very angry, and he knows she doesn't like him. He thought there might be to the suggestion, offered by the police, that Bradley felt "a protective instinct for the Chief Justice , and he volunteered that Abrahamson might have some sort of "control" over Bradley.

UPDATE 10: Now we come to the interview with Rachel Graham, the law clerk for Justice Bradley. She overheard the incident. She didn't see it, so her statement is mainly a corroboration of various quotations.

Next is Justice Patience Roggensack:

Justice Roggensack said when Justice Bradley approached Justice Prosser, Justice Prosser raised his hands and put his hands up near Justice Bradley's neck, but his hands were "never in a choke hold." Justice Roggensack said she recalled Justice Bradley saying something to the effect of "don't put your hands on me." Justice Roggensack again stated Justice Bradley had a fist up at this time. Justice Roggensack then said she wanted to make it clear that at no point did Justice Prosser have Justice Bradley in a chokehold, and Justice Prosser never applied pressure with his hands on Justice Bradley. Justice Roggensack said as soon as Justice Prosser's hands were placed on Justice Bradley, she got in between the two of them and she immediately told Justice Bradley that this was not like her.

Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley had always been a sort of protector for the Chief Justice because they go back a long way and they are friends. Justice Roggensack said if she had not got in between the two of them, she believes Justice Bradley would have "smacked him in the face with her fist." Justice Roggensack said everything happened really fast during this incident. Justice Roggensack said Justice Prosser should have walked away from the incident and Justice Bradley should not have come at him the way she did. Justice Roggensack said in her opinion, "they were both out of line and they were both very angry." Justice Roggensack again said Justice Bradley was "trying to get at him with her fists." Justice Roggensack said she did not recall what was said between Justices Bradley and Prosser as Justice Bradley was approaching him during the incident.

Roggensack said that what caused Bradley to "walk with rapidity" towards Prosser was his statement to Abrahamson that he's lost confidence in her leadership. Prosser had never been arguing with Bradley. Roggensack said that Prosser's hands made contact with Bradley's neck but he never "choked" her.

Roggensack faults both Bradley and Prosser, even though "she could not say if Justice Prosser's reaction was justified, and she could not say whether or not Justice Prosser had any choice but to place his hands on Justice Bradley." Apparently, the speed of Bradley's movement toward Prosser made it hard for her to judge Prosser's reaction.

At the meeting on June 15th, "Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley mentioned how Justice Prosser had her in a chokehold, and Justice Roggensack responded by saying he did not have her in a chokehold at any point. Justice Bradley responded to her by saying 'that's because you stopped him.' Justice Roggensack told Justice Bradley that she did not stop him from anything, and added, 'I stopped you from hitting him.' Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley did not react or respond to her making this statement."

Roggensack described Bradley as Abrahamson's protector:

Justice Roggensack believed Justice Bradley was the person that released the info to the press regarding the incident from February 2010 in which Justice Prosser had called the Chief Justice a bitch. Justice Roggensack said that was a closed meeting during which this was said. Justice Roggensack said she recalls during that meeting the Chief Justice was "needling" Justice Prosser at that time, and added that she felt the Chief Justice was "needling" Justice Prosser when they met with her on June 13, 2011 in Justice Bradley's office. Justice Roggensack said when Justice Prosser gets needled by the Chief Justice, and begins to react and respond to the Chief Justice; Justice Bradley steps in right away to protect the Chief Justice.

Oh, lord, that is such lowly office politics! It's not criminal, though. Roggensack thought both Bradley and Prosser could use some anger management lessons.

UPDATE 11: Justice Crooks wasn't present for the incident, so let's concentrate on his statements about the work environment generally.  He relates a story of Justice Prosser calling him a "viper" back in 1999. Interestingly, the problem at the time was that Prosser was supporting Shirley Abrahamson in her bid for reelection and Crooks was not.

Justice Crooks said he has noted Justice Prosser "loses his cool repeatedly." Justice Crooks has witnessed Justice Prosser get red and pound on tables with his fists, and get louder and louder in tone during meetings, conferences and sometimes even during public meetings. Justice Crooks said there are times that nothing happens that trigger Justice Prosser losing his cool. Justice Crooks said he estimated Justice Prosser "explodes and storms out of a room" approximately    three to four times a year.

Justice Crooks said on February 22, 2010, he and Justice Bradley met with John Voelker, Director of State Courts, and Margaret Brady, asking that something be done about Justice Prosser because they felt there was an escalation in violence. This meeting was a result of a February 10, 2010 closed meeting with the Justices, during which, Justice Prosser made the comment to the Chief Justice, "You are a terrible chief. If you do not wi thdraw you are going to be destroyed".    The Chief Justice had responded by saying, "Are you threatening me?" and Justice Prosser said, "Yes, ... you are a bitch" and added, "There will be a war against you and it will not be a ground war". Justice Crooks and Bradley had concerns for the Chief Justice after this, and therefore went to speak with Voelker and Brady.    Justice Crooks said both his law clerk and assistants had told him they felt they were working in "a hostile work environment."...

After the February 2010 incident, Justice Crooks said the chief justice had a friend, who is either a psychiatrist or psychologist; evaluate Justice Prosser's behavior.  Justice Crooks said the behavior was evaluated only by what the Chief Justice told the psychiatrist at the time. The psychiatrist had not talked to anybody about Justice Prosser's behavior, including Justice Prosser. Justice Crooks said the psychiatrist believed that it would be highly unlikely Justice Prosser's behavior would escalate to any sort of violence. Justice Crooks said that it was clear, based on the June 13, 2011 incident, that the psychiatrist was wrong.

Crooks goes on to talk about who he feels "he has to watch what he says to Justice Prosser at all times."  He thinks Prosser should get anger management therapy or something more and guessed that he might be "paranoid or something" (after Prosser said — supposedly — that he thought the Dane County judges  and police are corrupt).

UPDATE 12: Finally, there's Justice Michael Gableman:

Justice Gableman said after the chief justice told them that she might not be ready with her decision until the end of the month, Justice Prosser then, while hunched forward and hands together as if he was praying, said in a "meek and intently sincere" voice, "Chief I have lost total confidence in your leadership."    Justice Gableman said he was not shouting, there was no volume to his voice, there was no swearing, it was not said in a hostile way, and added that it was "a fairly unremarkable comment".

Justice Gableman said it was this comment that he believes prompted Justice Bradley to rush over to Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman said he had not seen Justice Bradley in her office from where he was standing, until she was "rushing towards Justice Prosser" out of her office. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley got within approximately one foot of Justice Prosser and had what he believed was her right fist in his face. Justice Gableman said he recalled Justice Bradley's blue glasses in her right fist at this time because he remembered thinking that her glasses were about to break. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley's fist was going towards and away from Justice Prosser's face in almost a punching motion. Justice Gableman said he wanted to make clear that Justice Bradley's fist was not going up and down, but rather in and out towards and away from Justice Prosser during this incident. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley's fist was in Justice Prosser's face and came within about an inch every time she would extend her fist while speaking to Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley was telling Justice Prosser, "You have no right to talk to the chief justice that way." Justice Gableman said Justice Prosser had "a look of shock and surprise" and described him as "looking up" at Justice Bradley. Justice Gableman believes Justice Bradley is a little bit taller than Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman then used the analogy of a photograph regarding President Johnson where he is talking to and leaning over a senator. 

Here's that photograph.

Justice Gableman said he recalled Justice Roggensack saying, "Ann this isn't the person you are. This isn't you." Justice Gableman believed Justice Roggensack was pulling on Justice Bradley's left arm at this time. Justice Gableman said Justice Prosser raised his hands and "pushed" Justice Bradley in "a defensive move". Justice Gableman said he believed Justice Prosser's hands were on the area where the shoulders meet the neck on Justice Bradley at this time. Justice Gableman said it was not a violent push, and after a brief pause he recalled Justice Bradley saying, "you choked me, you choked me." Justice Gableman said he immediately responded to Justice Bradley by saying "he didn't choke you, he pushed you to get your fist out of his face."

I didn't notice that anyone else corroborated that quote. Gableman also misjudged the relative heights of Bradley and Prosser, so I don't know what to make of this story he tells about an incident in 2008:

Justice Gableman said he had been on the court for approximately one month at the time, and while in a meeting with the other justices, Justice Crooks was reading the horoscopes.

Horoscopes!

Justice Gableman said he remembers making a comment to the chief justice in a joking manner and used her first name, Shirley, during this comment towards her.

The old line from "Airplane!"?

Justice Gableman said right after he said the chief justice's first name, Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief.

Hit him in the head!

That's enough for now. I've read the entire file and summarized or copied what seemed most useful here. I'll reread this tomorrow and pull out a few things and make some observations.