2E/07/12 LOTS OF DOGS; AND MADISON, WISCONSIN, WHERE THE JUNK MAIL GOES TO SPAWN

ICE-CYCLE

WILLOW BRANCHES TURNING YELLOW

SMOOTH SAILING

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  18 degrees, wind W, very light .   The sky has some gray-pink snow clouds moving lazily east, but the barometer predicts fair weather.
        Here's the latest poop, if you will, on the  Apostle Islands Dog Sled Races: there were 74 entrants, which adds up to roughly 500 dogs.  As far as I know at this time there were no serious injuries to man or dog, and all had a fine time, including approximately 2,000 spectators.
        It looks more and more every day like an early spring.  The young branches of many willow trees are turning bright yellow or orange, and the Madeline Island Ferry is operating in open water today.  I am certain it will operate the rest of the winter, and that the ice road will never open.  If it does open, I won’t be going across it in the pickup.
        Yesterday I saw a lone bicycle rider on the ice race track off Mazlowski Park in Ashland.  I don’t know what that might signify.  I wonder if he had studded snow tires.
        Commentary: for some time now I have wondered how various political organizations, news commentators, etc. got my email address to send their missives to.  Seems that the State of Wisconsin has been selling email lists from the voter registration role, in bundles that can be analyzed for use by candidates for office, news media  and other political vendors.  All without notification or permission of the email address owner.
         It's like the junk mail goes to Madison to spawn.
        This blatant commercial activity is supposedly protected under the free speech clause of the First Amendment.  What about my right to privacy, and to my email account, which I pay for, as my private property?  I suspect this will eventually go to both state and U.S. supreme courts to be sorted out, but if anyone is going to profit from my email address being sold it ought to be me, and I certainly should be compensated for my in-box being flooded with unsolicited junk mail. 
        The State of Wisconsin, which sells voter registration lists that contain email addresses for $12,500 each,  and the nineteen other states that sell the private email addresses of their citizens are adding mightily to the general anti-government, anti-establishment tenor of the times, and they should be ashamed of their actions. I would like to see a few people fired over this intrusive, nefarious practice.