Dave Brubeck died this morning, one day short of his 92nd birthday (and on the way to an appointment with his cardiologist). Few things have given me more pleasure in life than the pieces of vinyl I own with Brubeck's music inscribed on them. Videos of Take Five are showing up all over the Internet today celebrating his tribute to 5/4 time.  To switch things up, here's the classic Brubeck Quartet playing Blue Rondo a la Turk - in 9/8 - mostly.

The S.S. Badger saga has been covered here in the past. Briefly, the 60-year-old car ferry that runs between Manitowoc and Ludington, Michigian has a storied history but also a dirty one. It runs on coal and it's dumped thousands of tons of toxic coal ash in Lake Michigan over the years.

“Over the years I have seen the devastation of company denials on families [and] witnessed the financial devastation on families that cannot get health insurance,” wrote a local insurance broker. “I urge you to continue your fight to get Wisconsin involved in these exchanges.”

The woman who wrote me echoed the words of many brokers who want to see a state-run rather than a federally-run health exchange in Wisconsin.

Governor Walker announced he would have the federal government create an exchange. This action set off a chorus of complaints among traditionally conservative leaning organizations.

The Governor’s justification was the state would be on the hook for the cost of an exchange. But the Affordable Care Act specifically requires the exchange be self-supporting. Therefore, state support would be contrary to the law. The bill I wrote to create a Wisconsin based exchange details how to accomplish a self-supporting exchange.

Such libel she perpetrates against a couple of hundred thousand innocent Wisconsin voters!

We're talking about State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, who, during a post-election interview on WISN-TV in Milwaukee, suggested that the GOP voter-fraud bogeymen gave President Obama his win in the Badger state. Darling said that had the GOP's silly Voter ID law (forestalled temporarily by court order in a pending case) been in place Nov. 6, it would have "absolutely" made a difference in the final tally:

After carefully reviewing the multiple comments from the various Republican candidates regarding education and immigration reform, it is clear that their intention is to close the opportunities for American citizens to move up by pressuring the middle class to become the working poor. These statements are also evident in the Wisconsin Republicans. Let's review three issues and see how they are interrelated.