Quick notes

• Using stupid nicknames just makes the user look stupid. Anyone who calls her "Ka-Ching" Murray or him "Cadillac" Deval is demanding to be laughed at. Similarly, anyone who calls Tim Cahill not a Democrat just because of a difference of opinion is a risible, as well. Especially since our platform is now so meaningless that Cahill can say pretty much whatever he wants and still fit into our platform.
• I do enjoy watching people try to pretend that Deval Patrick's loss on the tax battle is some sort of victory. He managed to get from a blowout to a tie, which is very admirable. Let's not exaggerate, however. The biggest impact on the Commonwealth is the higher sales tax, which Deval is preparing to take ownership of.
• In any case, "tougher" ethics laws are very nice but beside the point. Unless you take the lawyers seriously, the issue with Wilkerson, Turner, et al isn't the ethics laws. These people knew the laws and felt they could break them with impunity. That is an issue as much about the people as the laws. Write whatever reforms you want, but the surest way to stop ethics violations is th elect ethical people. The almost-as-sure way is serious campaign finance reform, and I don't hear Deval saying anything about that.
  
• I may well be tired of Michael Jackson's music by the end of July.
• Hub Blog sadly lobbies to place Michael Jackson above Prince as a rock immortal. Hardly. Jackson sang, but sadly other people told him what to sing and how to sing it. Prince wrote, played the guitar, sang, orchestrated, produced, and in his spare time acted. They can match up well in terms of musical impact, but Prince is so, so much more talented. Jackson's dancing was largely derivative from James Brown, and Quincy Jones could make me sound like a genius on an album. Prince's music is thoroughly him, not his "team". No contest.
• Marry in Mass comes away with a positive reaction to Menino from an interview. Of course he did well -- loathe as self-defined progressives hate to admit it, Menino is a great mayor. He's no visionary (of course, we're pretending the Big Dig wasn't a massive vision) but an effective manager who has managed to personally meet a self-reported 57% of the people of Boston. I'll keep saying it: the only two prominent Bay State politicians who love their current jobs are Tom Menino and Ted Kennedy.
• In the musical 1776, the New York delegation relates how their state assembly sent them with no instructions because (paraphrasing) "it's a confused place where everybody shouts over each other and not very much gets done." At least on the Senate side, they've somehow managed to go downhill from there.