Commentary Update for May 24, 2002: Simmons on what government can do, COWS on Census, Pentagon Used Nerve Gas

Friends:

Jim Mather and I were scheduled to interview Winnebago County District Attorney Joe Paulus yesterday, but at around noon Jim got a call from the DA's office saying that he could not make it. Draw your own conclusions.

Dr. Jim Simmons, UW Oshkosh Political Science professor and a frequent Commentary guest, stepped in as a last minute replacement. We talk about the Paulus situation, corruption at the state level, redistricting, and a variety of other issues. We also spend some time talking about the book Jim co-authored recently with Ben Page called What Government Can Do. Check out what Amazon has to say about it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226644812/qid=1022270819/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-3771175-0137740

The Simmons program will begin airing tonight (Friday) and continue on through next week.

Some website stuff: The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) has provided some "low road and high road" analysis of state census data that goes beyond the sterile reports on that data we've been fed by the major Fox Valley Media. Here's a taste of COWS: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/cowsoncensus.htm

As we head into Memorial Day, the New York Times today features a sad and shocking revelation: the Pentagon now admits to spraying American sailors with nerve gas and other biological agents during the Cold War period 1964-1968:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/24/politics/24NERV.html . The story says that it is "uncertain" at this point whether any of the sailors "had given their permission to become human guinea pigs in medical experiments with the deadly substances."

Have a great weekend everyone.

-Tony