It's not just Phil Mickelson — plenty of high-income athletes want out of California taxes.

Mickelson was just the one who was PR-deaf enough to let us know how he feels.

Why do you think Tiger Woods lives in Florida?

In November, voters in California approved a ballot measure raising the top rate on income over $1 million to 13.3% (the increase applies retroactively to last year). ... Mr. Woods grossed $56.4 million in 2012. As a Floridian, he will keep about $7.5 million that he otherwise would have owed to the state of California. His net tax savings over his 16-year career come to about $100 million. Mr. Mickelson last year earned $60.7 million. Paying the 13.3% California rate, he will owe the state $8 million.

That takes Mickelson down to $52.7 million, putting him behind Woods, when he was ahead of him on the money list. Aggravating! (I know, I'm failing to take account of the way state taxes are a deduction on your federal income taxes and everything else that affects after-tax income.)

The benefit of living in a state without an income tax can be diminished by the "jock tax" that states impose on money earned by athletes when they're playing or training in the state. (Luckily for baseball players, spring training is in no-tax Florida or low-tax Arizona.) But in sports like tennis and golf where athletes can train anywhere in the world, a preponderance happen to migrate to states without an income tax.

These celebs — with their endorsements — need good PR, as the Mickelson slip proved. State tax proponents could get proactive and actively shame the sports stars who live in Florida without an adequate cover story. 

For instance, Serena and Venus Williams grew up in Compton, Calif., but moved with their father to Florida in the early 1990s.

"Zorbing has become so popular in Russia that it is one of the symbols of next year's Winter Olympics."

"Unfortunately, zorbing led to tragedy Thursday when a ball containing two men veered off course and sailed over a rock ledge in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia...."

"Do you think it makes me a bad American to confess that I have no desire to see the movie Lincoln?"

A comic strip at The Soxaholix, which — I'm amused to see — has a link to my blog in the 4th frame. Plus, it goes on to explain why one ought to prefer watching sports.

"What do a cake, a runner, a rainbow and a kalashnikov have in common."

"10 Contested African Images of 2012."

"In the name of equality, the French government has proposed doing away with homework in elementary and junior high school."

"French President Francois Hollande argues that homework penalizes children with difficult home situations, but even the people whom the proposal is supposed to help disagree."

ADDED: Emmanuel Davidenkoff, editor-in-chief of L'Etudiant, is one of the critics:

"Poor people want homework because they know that school is very important, and the only chance — the only possibility — they have to give their children a better life is if their children succeed at school.... Mostly, wealthy people don't want homework because when the kids are at home, they make sports or dance or music. They go to the museums, to the theater. So they have this access to culture, which is very important.... In poor families, they don't have that, so the only link they have with culture and school is homework."

What?! Everyone — rich or poor — can make sports or dance or music. You don't even need as much as a ball or a jump rope to have sports. You don't even need as much as a cheap radio or a harmonica to do music and dance. The best American music, dance, and sports have come from the poorest people. Leave the kids alone, let them go out and play, and the forces of nature should do more than wealthy parents taking them to lessons. The only link they have with culture and school is homework... that's so insulting!

Let the kids out to play as long as there is daylight. Isn't that better than holding them inside until they have their homework done? And we wonder why there's so much obesity! They're incarcerated during school hours, then worked through lessons when they get home. And we wonder why there's such a problem with hyperactivity. After dark, how bad is it not to have homework? Let them choose their own books and read if you think they should have more cultural enrichment. That has so much more potential that more lessons from school (which is already appropriating too much of their youthful souls).

By the way, Hollande's equality theory coincides with my own rejection of take-home exams in law school. Students have different life situations, and one can go home to a solo environment and work late into the night. The other has a husband or wife and a couple of children making reasonable/unreasonable demands and nowhere to find quiet and concentration. So my exam is an intense 3-hour session that's the same for everyone. And when it's over, it's over.

"Running too fast, too far and for too many years may speed one's progress toward the finish line of life."

Why the hurry?

"For some reason, the uplifting value of the New York City Marathon, however, is so off the charts in Bloomberg World..."

"... that nothing trumps diverting countless police and sanitation resources to marathon duty, even when parts of the metropolitan area lie in ruins and the city is mired in transportation hell."

AND: "They should make all of these runners bring food and water to people's houses who need it. They should bring all of these generators to buildings where old people live and give them power." 

UPDATE: Bloomberg caves to criticism, cancels the Marathon.

Democrats like cartoons, Republicans like reality shows.

According to TiVo-based research.

Over all, the Democratic list contained a lot of animated comedies — “The Cleveland Show,” “Family Guy,” “American Dad” — as well as lightly viewed but critically acclaimed sitcoms like “30 Rock” and “Community.”

The Republican list, beyond sports (Nascar was [in addition to golf, big), was populated with a host of reality shows — “The Biggest Loser,” “Survivor,” “American Idol” and “The Amazing Race."...

"The former Mr. Universe traces his detachment to his bodybuilding days, where he says emotions make athletes lose."

Arnold Schwarzenegger explains how and why he "became an expert in living in denial."

Who gets free school dinner in Madison, Wisconsin?

"Unlike the lunch program, eligibility for a free dinner is based on whether the school qualifies for the program based on school poverty rates, rather than the income level of an individual student. So any student participating in an eligible after-school program can eat the dinner meal for free."

Eligible schools for the dinner program must have at least 50 percent of students qualify as low-income. In Madison last year, 18 elementary schools, seven middle schools and East and La Follette High schools met that requirement.

To be eligible, students must take part in an academically focused after-school program, not an after-school sport. Memorial is looking into setting up a homework club for athletes between practice and the free meal so that they can participate in the free meal.

So, in this affluent city, we are nevertheless so poor, that the federal government is subsidizing free dinner at 18 elementary schools, 7 middle schools, and 2 of the 4 high schools. And it doesn't matter how much money your parents make, you get free dinner if you go to that school and do an after school activity... as long as your activity is not sports.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. What's with discriminating against the students who, after sitting at desks all day, choose a physically active after-school activity? Aren't they more in need of food? What's the connection between this policy and fighting obesity?

"This progressive city is way behind other cities in that regard," [Mayor Paul] Soglin said. "We should not look at this as a frill, or as an experiment, but something citywide."

This is not a frill. It's an imperative... within the progressive agenda... which seems to have to do with increasing dependency of government and inspiring the young to look to the authorities as their nurturing, nourishing mothers.

At the Crosswalk Café...

... quit straggling.

"It just doesn't make sense to be walking around on your day legs at one height and then you're six inches or so taller on your running prostheses."

"You don't want the sport turning into a circus where, you know, doubles walk in with barely any training under their belt and they are running able-bod (able-bodied) qualification times."

Is Oscar Pistorius a hypocrite?

Is Paul Ryan a "scumbag" for lying about his marathon time?

That's the sort of thing lawprof Tung Yin is seeing on Facebook. 

He's assuming it's a lie, because how can you misremember something like that? On the other hand, why would you lie about something that's not going to be believed and therefore is only going to make you look bad?

But these people who are excoriating Ryan for lying about sports... what did they say about Bill Clinton back in the old lying-about-sex days? Yin has 3 reasons why Clinton's lie was worse, and I think it obviously was.

So does that mean people who excused Bill Clinton need to shut up about Paul Ryan's marathon time? I have 3 answers:

1. You're never going to get people to stop characterizing the evidence to help or hurt whomever they are inclined to help or hurt. Like a semen stain on a blue dress, it has permeated the fabric of our politics.

2. Bill Clinton was cornered and compelled to speak. His lie was self-defense under attack, and he was trying to keep his presidency from collapsing because of something only tangentially related to the presidential enterprise. Paul Ryan volunteered information, boasting about something that wasn't true in an effort to win our favor. Very different motivations, and we should judge them with particularity and with a subtlety beyond crude epithets like "scumbag."

3. Paul Ryan is currently running for Vice President, and we need to examine him from all angles. He'd better be great, regardless of whether somebody else is less great. Bill Clinton's Lewinsky debacle occurred long ago (though it retains currency to the extent that his party, especially at a convention where it will preen about its service to females, employs him as a mouthpiece*).
________________________________________

* Yes, I did intend to put that image in your head.

The happiest students are at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

It's a HuffPo top 10 list, and we're #1.

Details here. Our highest-rated factor is sports culture, beating out political activity, which is second. Politics only second? That's a lot of sports! Go Badgers!

"Can you imagine protesters in penis costumes?"

Asks Meade after I send him this picture of protesters in vulva costumes (which commenter paul a'barge linked to after I linked to a picture of Todd Akin posing as a super-powered uterus).

I seem to remember some protesters in penis costumes, I said, Googling. I had in mind a mascot-like friendly penis, maybe offering condoms, but the first thing I found was this (NSFW). What on earth?! Here's some explanation. It happened in Kiev. A Ukrainian feminist group called FEMEN, protesting — of all things — having the Euro 2012 soccer championships in Ukraine.

The women of FEMEN, whose mantra is “Came, Stripped, Conquered,” dressed up in penis costumes and stood on a flower bed, strategically positioned between the legs of the soccer championship mascots Slavek and Slavko.

Yes, with Slavek and Slavko in a horizontal position, the ladies standing in their crotch area did manage to look like erect, uncircumcised penises.

Do you understand Euro-protest? So a lady dressed only in underpants and a — how shall I say? — headpiece is protesting... soccer? It's more like: if the soccer tournament is in Ukraine, it automatically implies sex tourism. Message received.

ADDED: I resume my search for penis-costumed protesters. I found "Scrotie The Nads," the mascot on the Rhode Island School of Design (#1 on a top 10 list of "Weirdest Mascots"). Here's a woman dressed — fully clad — as a penis, with a sign that says "United We State 2 Protect Women's Health"). I found a report — no photo — of a protester in a penis costume with a sign saying "George Bush is a dick" (those were the days!).  And if you ever need a penis costume, please buy it through my Amazon link.

"As a cultural ideal, women’s gymnastics is kind of weird."

Writes Robert Stacy McCain.

[I]’s not a sport for grown-ups. Pubescent girls can perform at levels that no mature woman can hope to match, and the petite physique type which is ideal for women’s gymnastics is ideal in no other sport....
Responsible adulthood, however, requires us to resist the mindless consumption of whatever TV is selling, and “Olympic fever” is a made-for-TV commodity whose value should be viewed skeptically.

If there is to be a competition to determine which nation has the most highly-skilled diminutive adolescent girls, it is my patriotic duty to hope that America wins the contest. But I reserve the right to observe that this is a freakishly weird thing to compete over.

I remember when this topic came up at the 1988 Olympics, and I opined about it in a letter to the NYT:

In ''Gymnastic Girls, Not Women'' (Topics, Aug. 1), you suggest there should be a separate competitive category for women in gymnastics, similar to the senior players' tour in golf. The notion that women past the 17-year-old mark resemble seniors should give us pause and make us examine some of the underlying problems in gymnastics, which reflect generally prevailing assumptions about women.

According to your characterization, the maturation process for a woman is from nimble, able girl to woman encumbered by a full-grown body. Yet for a man, to mature is to move from undeveloped boy, who ''would find it impossible to compete,'' to a man fully empowered with ''upper-body strength.''

It seems to me the sport is structured to favor girls and men, perhaps because our society favors ever-young women, particularly very slim ones, and well-muscled men, good-looking at any age. Are we not bombarded with images of these ideal types everywhere? We like to see tiny teen-age girls jumping all over the place like magical fairies. But we don't want to see any little boys doing the same. Please, keep them out of view until their bodies convey a message of masculine power. And we don't even want to think about a woman gymnast with strongly muscled shoulders and arms. Of course, this well-developed, powerful woman would not fit into the sport, not because she is encumbered by her body and needs a second-class category, but because the sport is designed to exclude her. She has no opportunity to perform on the equipment the well-developed men display their strength on, like parallel bars and rings.

And perhaps those men's bodies would ''encumber'' them on the balance beam and the uneven bars that young girls take to so well. If men's gymnastics covered that equipment, maybe we'd get to see the little boys perform.

The fear of on-line "rock star" law professors.

Kevin O'Keefe writes:

I was having dinner this spring with, among other folks, a couple law school professors who taught at a good state school in the Midwest. 

Wisconsin?!

I asked them if they had fears and trepidations like lawyers and business people do as to what they future may hold. One of the law prof’s said absolutely, online education....

What made him most afraid was his belief that we were going to see rockstar professors being paid handsomely for teaching huge online classes. If we can have rock star athletes like LeBron James making millions, he said why not professors making millions by attracting large enrollment.

LeBron James proves his worth by applying his skills against others, contributing to wins achieved through specific rules of a game, and drawing spectators who pay for the entertainment of the particular game they paid to see.

How can a lawprof demonstrate his value?

The Romneys — 30 of them, on summer vacation — do the Romney Olympics, family meetings, chores from the "chore wheel," and talent shows on the sage that "Papa" (Mitt) built.

WaPo reports from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire:

The Romney Olympics have long included a mini-triathlon of biking, swimming and running that pits Mitt and his five sons and their wives against one another. But after Mitt once nearly finished last, behind a daughter-in-law who had given birth to her second child a couple of months earlier, the ultra-competitive and self-described unathletic patriarch expanded the games to give himself a better shot.

Now they also compete to see who can hang onto a pole the longest, who can throw a football the farthest and who can hammer the most nails into a board in two minutes....

By day, the Romneys kayak and water ski — one sport at which Mitt excels — play tennis and basketball, stage a “home-run derby” and horse around on a slip-and-slide. Most of the grandchildren (there are now 18) put on a talent show on a stage that Papa, as they call Mitt, constructed in the backyard....

At night, the adults gather for family meetings, with each evening focused on a frank and full discussion of a different son’s career moves and parenting worries.

Each member of the family picks a daily chore from a “chore wheel,” so as to share cleaning tasks evenly....

That's so damned wholesome, I don't know what to say. I'm considering something politically cranky like: Imagine how the media would fall over themselves describing the perfection of Obama if his family had a vacation with even one third this much family-osity. Eh. Too predictable! Make your own jokes.

"Holley Mangold, 22 and a superheavyweight Olympic weight lifter, is 5-foot-8 and weighs 350 pounds."

Impressive.

Formidable fodder for "fat and fit" fantasies.

"I met a guy yesterday, 7 feet tall… I figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn’t in sport!"

Pssssssssssst. Romney! You've got to add the "s."