No Runny Eggs

New home - http://norunnyeggs.com (new domain)

2006-02-04T23:43:00.000-06:00

Revisions/extensions (4:45 pm 12/13/2006) - No Runny Eggs has its own domain name. I have entirely too much patience :-)

Further revisions/extensions (1:24 pm 3/30/2007) - I've moved the FeedBurner feed to the new domain and attempted to quash the BlogSpot feed. If you're still here at the BlogSpot address, come on over.

Due to numerous problems with Blogger/BlogSpot/Google over the course of this weekend, I have moved my active blogging over to my own server and switched to WordPress. You will find No Runny Eggs at http://norunnyeggs.com

This place will stay around for a while, but the comments will be turned off.

Still frigid, and BlogSpot is unreliable but the Super Bowl calls

2006-02-04T17:08:00.000-06:00

I see not nearly enough people decided to help me out with the line, so it's time to shat or get off the pot (side note, I'm finally having some solid ones). I see we've got some spread between the traditional books and the on-line books, with the traditional books sticking an extra half-point on those wanting the Steelers. You've got two evenly-matched teams in almost every respect. The difference is going to come down to special teams; Antwaan Randle El is a superior punt returner, so Pittsburgh will have a shorter field to work with. I'm looking at a final score of 24-20 Pittsburgh, so right now, I'm actually taking Seattle plus the 4 1/2 that the traditional books (as well as one of the on-line books) have (while avoiding the action where the line is 4 like the plague), and going heavy on the under 47 (though two of my ten book sources are under that, one at 46 1/2, one at 46).

My blogfather's back. YEAH!!!!!

2006-02-02T14:02:00.000-06:00

Spotted Horse lives!!!! Time to update the 'roll.

More non-existent blogging

2006-02-02T13:55:00.000-06:00

Still suffering through what I picked up over the weekend. That's just left me too weak to comment much on the last 2 days' worth of news. Hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things momentarily; there's a few items that bear commenting on.

Which version of "Adding to the roll" is this?

2006-01-31T17:56:00.000-06:00

I lost count, but Deb Jordahl certainly deserves to have Above the Belt added, especially after whacking Brian Blanchard and the Assembly Democratic Caucus.

Stepford 'Rats strike yet again

2006-01-31T15:19:00.000-06:00

This time, Terry Van Akkeren ('Rat-Sheboygan) and John Steinbrink ('Rat-Kenosha) drank the Craps Kool Aid to uphold Jim "Craps" Doyle's (WEAC/ADM-For Sale) veto of concealed carry. Never mind that these two Assemblymen voted twice for the very bill that Craps vetoed. Never mind that the state Supreme Court has all-but-ordered the Legislature to come up with a systematic way to implement concealed carry or face an outright voiding of the current concealed-carry ban in a future case (of course, this was before Patrick Crooks became a lieberal). Never mind that, come November when they lose their re-election bids because of their betrayal, Craps likely won't be in a position to offer them state jobs. Never mind that, in a moment of clarity, Snarlin' Marlin Schneider voted to override the veto.

Mission accomplished

2006-01-31T10:21:00.000-06:00

Justice Alito has been confirmed 58-42. Dems putting principle above politics - Byrd, Conrad, Johnson, and Nebraska's Nelson. RINO who just wrote himself out of the party - Leaping Linc Chafee Dish.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Alito cloture invoked 72-25

2006-01-30T16:32:00.000-06:00

I'll have the link to the roll once it's available. While Russ Feingold blindly listened to the Kerry/NY Times siren call, Herb Kohl somehow didn't hear it and voted for cloture.

Revisions/extensions (5:10 pm 1/30) - The roll call is now up. Dems voting conscience over party and moonbats - Akaka, Baucus, Bingaman, Byrd, Cantwell, Carper, Conrad, Dorgan, Inouye, Kohl, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, both Nelsons, Pryor, Rockefeller, and Salazar. The thinking half of the country thanks you.

And for these 25 moonbats - Bayh, Biden, Boxer, Clinton, Dayton, Dodd, Durbin, Feingold, Feinstein, Jeffords, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Menendez, Mikulski, Murray, Obama, Reed, Reid, Sarbanes, Schumer, Stabenow and Wyden - we have something else to say to you - SUCK ON IT!

Doyle to Adelman Travel - too bad you got caught, but thanks for the dough

2006-01-30T15:08:00.000-06:00

That's the sum of the Journal Sentinel story that details the cancellation of the Adelman contract. Of course, if you only read the first six paragraphs, you would think that Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC-Potawatomi/For Sale) was a pious person. However, let's start with paragraph #7 -

But (Jim) Doyle’s campaign will not refund $10,000 campaign gifts each from Adelman Travel founder Craig Adelman and Adelman Travel board member Mitch Fromstein - the maximum gifts allowed by law to candidates for governor. Until giving Doyle’s campaign $10,000, Adelman had never given more than $1,000 to a candidate for governor.

(Dan) Leistikow (communications director for the governor) said the donations were legal, publicly disclosed as required by state law. He said that indictment of Thompson, a $77,341-a-year civil servant, did not question or suggest anything improper with the donations by Adelman and Fromstein to the governor’s campaign.

“I looked at the charges from the U.S. attorney very closely, and there was nothing to suggest Craig Adelman or Mitchell Fromstein did anything wrong,” Doyle said.

Well, then, why did Craps feel compelled to yank the contract? Why did Adelman suddenly feel compelled to increase his contribution level an order of magnitude? Can we get the "unconstitutional-games-forever-for-a-song" Indian compacts voided if we can get a prosecutor to link all the casino money to them?

Revisions/extensions (6:25 am 1/31) - either somebody at the MJS is reading this (yeah, right), or they had a slight change of heart in being Craps' shill. The "will not refund" paragraph is now the second.

If Jenna were a lieberal, this would be a felony

2006-01-29T18:14:00.000-06:00

Some "oh-so-tolerant" lieberal decided that, for the "crime" of being conservative, Jenna deserved having her car vandalized and conservative stickers pulled off her car, house, and backpack. I won't hold my breath for the Madison police to pursue these thugs or Brian Blanchard to charge the thugs if they're caught, much less with hate-crime felonies, like 4 UW students charged with ripping a poster from a dorm wall and making nusiances of themselves.

Light blogging

2006-01-29T17:33:00.000-06:00

You don't want what I picked up. I have chills and diarreah, and I am completely drained.

Breaking - tire-slashing jury was at 9-3 convict when McCan't pulled the plug

2006-01-27T16:27:00.000-06:00

Mark Belling ~~will have~~ had the details in the 4-o'clock hour. For those who can't pick up the WISN-AM signal, they stream on the Net, and I hope that Patrick got the warning message to turn on the recorder in time (I do have a horrid, static-filled copy of Mark reading the letter, but no way to get it on the computer).

Here is the text of the letter by one of the jurors sent to McCan't and copied to Belling:

Dear E. Michael McCann,

My name is (BLANK). I was one of the 12 jurors on the tire-slashing case. After just turning 18 this past summer, I was very honored to be summoned for jury duty on such a high-profile case. I feel that serving on a jury is one of my fundamental rights as a U.S. citizen. The experience has left me totally disgusted with our justice system in Milwaukee. I endured a lot of personal sacrifice to serve on this jury as the spring semester of college started in the middle of the case, so now I'm behind in my classes.

I was shocked that after only 7 1/2 hours of deliberation, the case was taken out of our hands by you and plea-bargained away. When we began deliberation, it was 7-5 favoring not guilty; but by the time we handed the judge the note stating that we were hung, the vote was 9-3 favoring guilty to being party to a crime.

What ever happened to sequestering a jury? I feel you never gave us the chance to deliberate properly. I feel the plea bargain you gave these individuals is a total travesty of justice, and I hope you have trouble sleeping at night thinking what crimes these individuals will do next.

McCan't can't let the hot cocoa go cold at the DA's office fast enough.

Joe Wineke attempts to emulate all 3 "no evil" monkeys

2006-01-27T15:00:00.000-06:00

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin put out this press release (courtesy The Wheelen Report). It's so bad that the Journal Sentinel's DayWatch has this quote from Dane County DA Brian Blanchard (D-Madison, who knows a thing or two about partisan prosecutorial witchhunts) - "I am very disappointed in the unwarranted personal attack on U.S. Attorney Biskupic, who is an experienced prosecutor with a reputation for integrity."

Ah heck, let's pile on Joe Whinerke (or is it Loserke) anyway.

Led by a prosecutor with GOP ties, Republicans are doing their best to smear Governor Doyle, a man of utmost integrity and honesty who does not tolerate any ethical lapses in his Administration.

That explains why Georgia Thompson is still on the job. I guess the millions of dollars from the Indian tribes had NOTHING to do with the unconstitutional "forever" giveaway compacts they got from Craps or the follow-on unconstitutional "almost-forever" giveaway compacts they got; I guess the millions from the trial lawyers had nothing to do with the veto of tort reform bills; and I guess that the millions from WEAC had nothing to do with the attempts to kill school choice.

“From everything we have seen, there is not one single shred of evidence that any of the assertions in the indictment of Georgia Thompson are true.

Note the phrase "one single shred". It's technically accurate because there's a lot more than "one single shred" of evidence to back up the indictment.

I could go on, but the likes of Brian Fraley and Kevin are already on the case.

Starting spots for sale in NASCAR - GASP!

2006-01-27T14:14:00.000-06:00

Ray Dunlap over at Speed bemoans the 2-year trend of new teams buying little more than the number of a team guaranteed to start the first few races of the new season. For those not familiar with the situation, last year, NASCAR radically changed how the field is set for its races, going from mainly the fastest cars (in Nextel Cup, it was the fastest 38 in qualifying, plus 4 "general" provisionals using arcane and nearly-incomprehensible rules I won't go into (if you're interested, Jayski has the 2004 provisional rules) and a "champ's" provisional that almost always went unused and turned into a 5th provisional), to mainly the cars that run modestly-well week in and week out (in Cup, the top 35 in owners' points plus the 7 fastest "field-fillers" in the first 42 spots, plus either the most-recent champ or the 8th-fastest "field-filler"). The other two national series, Busch and Craftsman Truck, have similar rules (top 30 among the every-week teams, next-fastest 12 plus the most-recent champ/13th-fastest "field-filler" in Busch, top 30 among the every-week teams, next-fastest 5 plus the most-recent champ/6th-fastest "field-filler" in CTS).

So far, so good. The trick, however, is what happens at the beginning of the season. You just don't have enough points (or any points before the Daytona 500) to do this properly, so NASCAR uses the previous season's owners' points for the first 5 races (4 races in CTS). While the old provisional system also penalized new teams (they didn't get provisionals until after the 4th race they attempted), it didn't put them in so deep a hole that almost nobody dug themselves out because slow-qualifying teams only got so many provisionals to use. That nearly-insurmoutable hole was the effect of the new rules. Taking a look at the Cup standings, there was only one team (the Gibbs Racing #11) that was outside the top 35 at the end of 2004 that wound up in the top 35 at the end of 2005, and only one team that was outside the top 35 after the 5th race and the switchover to the 2005 owners' points (the Wood Brothers #21; the #11 was in the top 35 after the 5th race) that raced their way back into the top 35 by the end of the year.

So, what's a new team to do? The smart ones buy a team that went out of business the previous year. The really-smart ones (like the aforementioned #11 when it slipped back under the top 35 mid-season and the Hall-of-Fame Racing #96 this year) go and hire a past champ for a few races (in both cases, Terry Labonte, 1996 Winston Cup champ). Dunlap outlines and bemoans several examples, from the more-or-less benign (like Ray Evernham actually buying a bunch of assets along with the 12th-place 2005 CTS finish from the folded James Smith Ultra #2 team), to the completely outrageous (Mighty Motorsports buying nothing more than the 8th-place 2004 CTS finish from the defunct BANG Racing and stinking up the joint), to the item that really set him off, Michael Waltrip Racing becoming Doug Bawel's partner in the newly-formed Michael Waltrip-Jasper team (running the #55 "Dodge" provided by Bill Davis this year, and Toyotas starting next year) after Roger Penske pulled the plug on the Penske-Jasper #77 Cup team. I won't defend the Mighty Motorsports deal, but I'll defend the other 3 (including the MWR-FitzBradshaw Busch deal).

In the Evernham/Ultra deal, Evernham did buy a heap of assets from Smith to go along with the points. Further, Evernham has demonstrated a measure of success in the other two national series, and the driver he's putting in the ride (Erin Crocker) has already shown some promise in the Busch Series.

Michael Waltrip's Busch deal was more of him providing a driver (himself) and a sponsor (Aaron's) to an existing team that would otherwise had been shuttered (the FitzBradshaw #40). In fact, MWR's Busch operations moved into the FitzBradshaw building. Even though MWR had a big problem with qualifying in the latter part of 2005, I can't knock a team that actually moves into the "old" team's shop and uses their equipment.

The Cup deal is a special case. Waltrip was originally signed to run a second car for Bill Davis Racing, only that second car (#23) was nowhere near 35th place. Meanwhile, Roger Penske folded the 34th-place #77 Penske-Jasper team he jointly owned with Doug Bawel since 2004 (before then, the team was Bawel's and known as Jasper Racing). I guess Bawel didn't take things lying down, and entered into a 3-way deal with Waltrip and Davis. The team is a joint venture between Waltrip (which already had a part-time Cup operation) and Bawel (who will handle business management and relations with NASCAR), with Bill Davis providing the "Dodges" this year and Toyotas starting next year (no factory support from Dodge because Davis was instrumental in bringing Toyota into CTS; that one's in the courts).

To be fair to Dunlap's point, I'll toss out another outrageous example from the 2005 CTS season he didn't bring up; the Bobby Hamilton Racing deal. Bobby Hamilton Sr. was the CTS champ in 2004 driving the #4 BHR truck (which also finished 1st in the owners' points). Hamilton wanted to expand the operation to 3 full-time teams, but only 2 of them would have been eligible for the guaranteed spot. He put himself in the #04 team (which had 1 start in 2004), knowing that he would start every race no matter what because, as defending CTS champ, he would always be first in line for the champion's provisional. Then, he put a rotating series of drivers in his old #4 ride (guaranteed to start the first 4 races because it finished in the top 30 in owners' points and attempted every race in 2004). That worked out pretty well, even though he had to take the champ's provisional once (officially, 2 times, but one of those was in a race with only 36 entries); his new truck finished 7th and his old truck finished 24th in the 2005 owners' points.

One last thought; because of the major abuse of the past-champ's provisional in the Busch Series by 1993 champ Steve Grissom (who used the provisional 16 times, sending a faster car home more than half the time according to Dunlap), and because of a large number of ex-Busch-champ "Buschwhackers" (Cup drivers who use a companion Busch series race for additional seat time on the track; a side result of the abortive "impound" setup and likely to continue with rigidly-scheduled testing), BGNRacing.com has a hot rumor that the past champ's provisional in the Busch Series will only be available once every 8 races.

Potential replacements for Doyle in the 2006 election

2006-01-26T16:05:00.000-06:00

Mark Belling pointed out that there is a slim possibility that Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) will either be convicted of a felony before November 7 (and thus ineligible to appear on the ballot) or be so tainted from Wisconsin's own Travelgate and daughter scandals that the DPW dumps him. He mentioned Ron Kind and Tom Barrett as possible replacements. Kind has the benefit of being a complete blank slate and having a nice-sounding name, while Barrett came closest to beating Doyle in the 2002 'Rat primary.

Of course, neither of them are Madistan 'Rats, and that's the group controlling the DPW. If that eventuality happens, they'll likely advance Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton (another blank slate, and conveniently a Madistan 'Rat).

Unfortunately, the wheels of justice won't act that fast (indeed, the Milwaukee aldermen convicted by Steve Biskupic hung onto their seats after conviction until the US Marshalls physically hauled them off to prison), and Doyle's ego won't allow him to accept the inevitability of his defeat. Well, maybe, it's not so unfortunate; I have this sinking feeling that Lawton would be even worse.

Ketchup Boy answers the NY Slimes siren call

2006-01-26T15:55:00.000-06:00

CNN is reporting that Sen. John F. Kerry* has answered the siren call of an Alito filibuster from the New York Times idiotorial board. The funny thing is, Mr. Theresa Heinz-Kerry** did so from Switzerland.

Hey, Ketchup Boy. Don't sing it, bring it. We'll just nuke your ass back to the pre-filibuster days.

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts 'Rat who seems to have forgotten he LOST the 2004 Presidential election.

** Aren't you glad this gin-soaked woman isn't First Lady?

Revisions/extensions - I forgot to mention the specific siren call from the Slimes.

Here we grow again

2006-01-24T22:15:00.000-06:00

Please welcome Rick's Shark and Shepherd to the blogroll. Yeah, Rick's an attorney and an adjunct professor over at Marquette, but don't hold that against him. He's the 1% of both groups defiled by the other 99%.

Blogger/BlogSpot will be down tomorrow evening

2006-01-24T21:20:00.000-06:00

From the Blogger status page -

We'll be taking Blogger down on Wednesday the 25th at 4pm PST to fix a bit of a switch that's gone wonky on us. The outage should last about 15 minutes. Blogger.com and Blog*Spot blogs will be inaccessible during this time.

This repair will fix the problem that caused the brief outage last Friday night. We're also using this down time as an opportunity to tune our databases for more efficient spam catching and deletion.

So, don't be surprised when your favorite BlogSpot blog is out of commission for a while right around the end of Mark Belling's show. Hopefully it will be just the 15 minutes they predict (any bets on that? :-)

More ethanol madness

2006-01-24T20:58:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Patrick)

WISN-AM afternoon host Mark Belling decided that, because nobody else had asked the Republican candidates for governor how they would vote on AB15, the bad-gas bill, he would. Before revealing exactly how Mark Green and Scott Walker answered the question, he ran a little quiz with 10 callers. He told the callers that one candidate opposed AB15 because he opposes mandates and the other candidate opposes AB15 in its current form but would support it if an amendment calling for a study that would determine whether Wisconsin would be subject to stricter environmental laws because of the mandate were included, then asked the callers who said what. All 10 callers correctly identified Scott Walker with the first position and Mark Green with the second.

Patrick has a good start to the English Translation to Green's position, but it does need to be added to - Mark Green would vote to force everyone in Wisconsin to use an inferior fuel that will decrease the MPG, increase pollution and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in added fuel cost...and waste millions of tax dollars to come up with a bogus study to 'justify' the mandate (never mind that there are studies out there that say just the opposite).

Picture next to the word "hypocrite" in the dictionary

2006-01-24T19:01:00.000-06:00

(Picture courtesy JSOnline.com)

Where to begin? Outgoing Milwaukee County DA E. Michael "McCan't" McCann blasted the Legislature for its cash-for-action system yesterday, a month after blasting Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC-Potawatomi-For Sale) for the same thing. Of course, this is the same McCan't that endorsed cutting a deal in the Milwaukee 5 trial after the first hint of trouble, cut a deal in his prosecution of former State Senate Democratic leader Chuck Chvala that dropped ALL the pay-to-play charges, plea-bargained almost all the election fraud charges against the African-American Coalition for Empowerment (which committed fraud on behalf of Milwaukee County Chair Lee Holloway), and is taking every last penny of the discredited pension enhancements with him when he lets the hot cocoa go cold in retirement at the end of the year (the only elected official to so so).

Doyle in Iraq

2006-01-24T18:42:00.000-06:00

At the invitation of the Departments of Defense and State, Jim Doyle joined a few other governors in a trip to Iraq to visit National Guard units from their states. Unlike some of my blogging brethern, I will not criticize Doyle for doing this; rather, I cautiously congratulate him. He is, after all, the commander-in-chief of the Wisconsin National Guard and Wisconsin Air National Guard. Quoting Doyle, "It’s an honor to have the opportunity to visit with our troops and see the work they are doing firsthand. I want them to know how incredibly proud we are of them in Wisconsin, and we look forward to welcoming them home as soon as possible."

First charges from Wisconsin's Travelgate

2006-01-24T18:15:00.000-06:00

Georgia Thompson, a Department of Administration official, has been charged with 2 federal felonies in connection with a contract awarded to Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) contributor Adelman Travel: causing misapplication of funds, and participating in a scheme to defraud the state of Wisconsin of the right to honest services. As part of the indictment (starts on page 3 of the link to WisPolitics.com; H/T - Fred), there's an interesting section titled "Misuse of Position":

13. During the time period described herein, Thompson misused her position by using "political considerations" to:
(a) intentionally inflate her scores for Adelman during the oral presentation portion of the Partner contract selection;
(b) state to other evaluators that she had intentionally inflated her scores for another travel agency during the oral presentation portion of the Athletics contract and to do so in order to use that score as a negotiating tool in favor of Adelman in dealings with other members of the committee on the Partner contract;
(c) prevent the otherwise unanimous determination of the other committee members that the Partner contract be awarded to a recipient other than Adelman; and
(d) suggest committee members change the scores evaluating the Partner contract.

Also, the following are listed as part of the second charge (the deprivation of honest services):

3. Thompson intended her actions to cause political advantage for her supervisors.
4. The actions of Thompson also helped and were intended to help her job security.

I don't think that Doyle's out of the woods. He's the only person above Thompson that could have a "political advantage" from her actions; and her belief that the actions were necessary for job security shows just how corrupt his entire administration is.

One side note from Mark Belling; this case is headed to the Western District of Wisconsin because Adelman Travel president and CEO Craig Adelman is the brother of Eastern District of Wisconsin Judge Lynn Adelman.

Homer nod - I erred in asserting the point when Georgia Thompson joined the Department of Administration. My apologies.

Revisions/extensions (6:32 pm 1/24) - reaction (as opposed to simple notation) from others in the Cheddarsphere: Fred (previously linked above), Patrick, and Kevin so far (guess everybody else got caught at dinner :-)
Part 2 (6:37 pm 1/24) - Add Elliot to the react list.
Continuing the reacts (6:45 pm 1/24), the Capo di tutti capi wonders, among other things, how Xoff's going to spin this. My money's on the 'Rat playbook (delay, deny, and obfuscate).
Revenge of the reacts (8:32 pm 1/24) - the RPW, Mark Green and Scott Walker all take candy-jarring whacks at the Adelgate pinata (H/Ts - Charlie, Kevin and Patrick). Also, Ragnar diagnoses the Craps Cancer. Meanwhile, Doylie (nice name for them, Charlie) hack Xoff still is silent; guess his fax machine ran out of paper :-).
And the reacts keep rolling in (9:20 pm 1/24) - Owen weighs in on the indictment.
I lost track on which revision/extension this one is (10:06 pm 1/24) - Xoff finally got his fax, and I forgot the "attack" chapters in the 'Rat playbook. Meanwhile, the consigliere checks in with the media react (or lack thereof), and points out that people only flip up (paging Xoff, there isn't a lot of "up" between Thompson and Craps)

Conference championship recap

2006-01-23T06:16:00.000-06:00

If you took my advice, your kneecaps would still be healthy. 2-0 against the line, 1-1 against the over/under, and you'd be able to afford that high-def bigscreen for the Big Game over on ABC in less than 2 weeks. Let's review:

Pittsburgh 34 (+3/over 41) @ Denver 17 - "Denver doesn't have a pass defense" - Ben Roethlisberger went 21 for 29, 275 yards and 2 TDs. "Jake Plummer isn't a winner" - Plummer's line - 18/30, 223 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs, 2 lost fumbles.

Carolina 14 @ Seattle 34 (-3.5/under 44) - The Seattle defense did their job in stopping Steve Smith (5 catches, 33 yards, long of 12, and a lost fumble), and Goings was gone early, but Smith found a way to score anyway on special teams (with some help from a non-call for a block to the back) to screw the under.

We got one last blowout for the team of Al Michaels and John Madden before they split up and ABC gets out of the football business. Super Bowl XL, with the Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the Seattle Seahawks. Believe it or not, the smart money's on the first 6-seed to ever make it to the Super Bowl, with the Steelers anywhere between 3.5 and 4-point favorites. My advice; let the line settle, then snap up Blitzburgh.

Which company is "more evil"?

2006-01-23T06:07:00.000-06:00

Wal-Mart, which is pilloried for the "crime" of making its employees pay for health insurance, or Journal Communications, parent company of Journal Sentinel Inc., publishers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which sanctimoniously pointed out that less than half of Wal-Mart employees have health insurance through Wal-Mart in the most-widely-circulated edition while ignoring that JSI (and sister company Journal Broadcast Group, and likely the rest of Journal Communications) doesn't even offer health insurance to a large number of its employees and independent contractors.

Conference championship Sunday

2006-01-22T07:58:00.000-06:00

If you were stupid enough to put action on college basketball before March Madness, listen up. Here's your chance to redeem the weekend. Let the Egg Roll work his magic on your Man, and get your money back with interest. Oh, sure, you'll have to hit the pawn shop to come up with enough cash to make the plays work, but you're going to be trading up Monday anyway. Hear me now, believe me at 9:50 or whenever they finally get the NFC championship game done because if you had listened to me last week, you would have crushed your man to the tune of 5-2-1. Here we go!!!

Pittsburgh (+3/over 41) @ Denver - I know what you're saying. It probably sounds something like this; "You said it's the altitude, not the attitude. Pittsburgh stinks it up against Denver in the championship. Heck; Pittsburgh under Cowler can't win the big one." Folks, that's what makes this play so good. They're essentially the same team, except in two crucial areas; Denver doesn't have a pass defense, and Jake Plummer isn't a winner. Take the Steelers, take the points, and for some extra sauce, take the short over.

Carolina @ Seattle (-3.5/under 44) - I know Steve Smith is all-but-unstoppable. But, has he played on a field where it's rained the last 3 weeks? No. It's going to be a muddy track, and we're talking 3rd-string running back for the Panthers. Toss in the Holmgren Secret Sauce, and sleep through this game, knowing that the Seahags will have won their last game of the year. Take the Hags, lay the short lumber, and bet on General Mud being the 12th defender.

Grand jury looking into donations to Craps

2006-01-22T07:45:00.000-06:00

As noted below, a federal grand jury is now looking into whether donations to the Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) got Adelman Travel a $750,000 contract. There are a couple of noteworthy things here:

This grand jury is being run by Milwaukee US Attorney Steve "Hang-Em" Biskupic.
The US Attorney's office is also looking at donations made by the former joint owners of the Kewaunee nuclear power plant around the time of its sale.

Both issues read like they're straight from the Craps' pay-to-play playbook used by groups such as Indian tribes seeking to expand gaming, and teachers' unions seeking mo' money, mo' money, mo' money - make massive donations to the campaign, and get a deal worth a lot more back from the governor.

I wonder what happens if Doyle's convicted of a felony stemming from this between the primaries in September and the general election in November. Remember, we're not talking about E. Michael McCan't, or even the Western Wisconsin US Attorney's office, which seems to have been MIA (bad news for JB Van Hollen; he was that attorney until a few months ago when he decided to run for Wisconsin attorney general). The state constitution prohibits felons from either holding office or seeking office. Of course, Craps doesn't give a rat's ass about the constitution; just take a look at the games being offered by the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and other tribes (say, are the Ho-Chunk making their payments yet?).

Free-form Sunday

2006-01-22T07:14:00.000-06:00

Sorry about the lack of blogging the last 2 days. I was pretty much out of it. There were a heap of things blog-worthy, so let's start reviewing:

The Milwaukee County DA's office decided to cut deals with 4 of the defendants, with the 5th one being acquitted. Why am I not surpried that the end result would be essentially nothing happening?

Let's reverse the parties. First, the case would have been taken away from E. Michael McCan't and company by Keg Goldschlager because neither the DPW nor the Journtinel would have stood for the standard operating procedure out of the DA's office on election fraud cases. Next, this would have been pursued all the way back to DC, with everybody under the sun charged on the fast track. A change of venue to (conveniently) Dane County would have been sought and granted. Convictions would have been won all around, and the news Friday would not have been that Operation Elephant Takeover resulted in next to no consequences, but that the state Supreme Court denied the last appeals.
Xoff continued to get his head handed to him. After being challenged by Brian Fraley, myself, and others to name the statute Charlie Sykes supposedly violated, he couldn't come up with any. James Wigderson challenged Xoff to apologize for making false accusations, but in true lieberal fashion, Xoff refused, instead demanding an apology from Charlie for comparing Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) to George Wallace and Orval Faubus. At least those two had the chutzpah to physically stand in the schoolhouse door. Craps is too chicken to do that, prefering to veto stuff on the way out of the office on Friday afternoons.
While we're on Craps and school choice, Peter explodes the Xoff/Craps claims that they really care about school choice. Peter does a great job of explaining why the first party I list next to Craps' name is the teachers' union. They own him lock, stock, and barrel.
I'll go into this more in a bit, but I'll continue the theme by noting that a federal grand jury put together by Milwaukee US Attorney Steve Biskupic is now looking into whether campaign contributions from Adelman Travel to Craps played a role in a travel contract going to the company.
If two days ago was Friday, and there was a good bill before the governor, it was time for another Friday afternoon veto. This week's victim was concealed carry (again). We'll see if enough Stepford 'Rats switch their votes to once again uphold a Craps veto.
Either Osama bin Laden's still (barely) alive, or someone spliced together another tape (say, when was the last time anybody actually saw him?). James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com, noticed that the tape's talking points dovetailed quite nicely with the DNC talking points.

Pretty soon, that blogroll will need a whacking - NOT

2006-01-19T17:31:00.000-06:00

But, I do have two more to throw on the griddle -

- Ask Me Later, where Casper and Cantankerous maintain the Kane Watch
- Disgruntled Car Salesman, who has a great disclaimer at the top of the blog.

Xoff flys off the deep end on school choice

2006-01-19T17:12:00.000-06:00

Jim Doyle's favorite hack, Bill Christofferson (Xoff in the Cheddarsphere), seems to think that an issue "ad" on school choice produced by Charlie Sykes and run solely on his own WTMJ show, is illegal. He conveniently doesn't assert the state statute that this purportedly violates, so I can't speak to whether he is off-base vis-a-vis state statute. However, I did come up with the state Constitution section (Article I, Section 3, annotated) that deals with speech - "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right, and no laws shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press."

One of the annotations (which are contradictory on the issue of "electioneering") does state, "It may be appropriate to consider context in determining whether a communication “expressly advocates” the election, defeat, recall, or retention of a clearly identified candidate or a particular vote at a referendum, within the meaning of s. 11.01 (16) (a) 1. Elections Board v. Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, 227 Wis. 2d 650, 597 N.W.2d 721 (1999), 98−0596." However; not only is there a "MAY" in that exemption from this provision crafted out by Wisconsin's Supreme Court; and not only is there no express advocacy regarding the election, defeat, recall, or retention of Doyle contained in the item; but there is no noted exemption from this provision for legislative items. Therefore, even if Xoff is right about this being an "unpaid commercial", it would seem to fall under the Constitutional protection of free speech.

However, he is wrong on this being an "ad". It is true that it sounds a lot like an ad, and it is true that Sykes at one point said that he was seeking sponsorship for wider airplay of the item (at which point, it would become an ad), but its current on-air play, as far as I can determine (I don't listen 3.5 hours/day) is limited to Charlie's own show outside the normal commercial rotation. Also, every time this item has aired and I managed to hear its airing, Sykes introduced the item as his.

As for restricting advocacy, I'm sure the Legislature and the governor would love to not hear from their constituents. That way, bad ideas like AB15 (the bad-gas bill) would sail through, while good ideas like the repeal of the automatic gas-tax increase would have died on the vine. Sorry, Xoff; sorry, Doyle; and sorry, Legislature, but this is a participatory Republic.

Revisions/extensions (2:37 pm 1/19/2006) - Charlie, Patrick, Peter, taxh8r and Dad29 all have reactions to Xoff's attempted hit. Who is going to ask Xoff, "Was this trip really necessary?"
Revisions/extensions part deux (4:00 pm 1/19/2006) - Xoff isn't safe even on his own blog. A couple of non-bloggers take him to task back on his original post.
Even more revisions/extensions (4:15 pm 1/19/2006) - Brian weighs in. He points out that frivolous campaign charges is straight from the Xoff playbook and invites Xoff to "go for it."
"Please, continue. Oh, you were finished. Well, allow the Revisions and Extensions to retort" (5:12 pm 1/19/2006) - Add Casper to the list of bloggers turning this day into one of Xoff's worse days, and add Ask Me Later to the NRE blogroll. Also, Xoff tries to resurrect the "Fairness" Doctrine. Only one small problem; it's been gone for 20 years.

Sorry about the multiple posts

2006-01-19T15:56:00.000-06:00

Blogger/BlogSpot was having a bit of a problem briefly. Blogger was telling me there was an error in logging into the FTP server, but still sending my posts through. It seems to be fixed now.

Stepford 'Rats uphold another Craps veto

2006-01-19T15:42:00.000-06:00

This time, it's the Assembly 'Rats upholding Craps' veto of AB 766, which sought to reimpose limits on pain-and-suffering damages tossed out by the Craps'-packed State Supreme Court. The original bill passed the Assembly 64-30, with 4 paired votes and 1 non-vote. Adding the paired votes would have pushed the totals to 66-32, enough to override Craps for the first time.

However, when push came to shove, the override attempt failed 63-36. Switching their votes to put party and trial lawyers above principle were 'Rats Chuck Benedict, Jason Fields, and Sheldon Wasserman; while 'Rat John Steinbrink showed up this time to collect his check from the trial lawyers.

Will the last business to leave Wisconsin please tell We Energies and the other utilities to turn off the electricity; the 'Rats and the trial lawyers weren't using the lights they powered.

Carnival of the Badger, 23rd edition is up

2006-01-19T13:21:00.000-06:00

Elliot celebrates his birthday with the birthday party version of the Carnival.

This revision/extension is a test only. I'm having some problems publishing.

Confirmed Senate "No" votes on AB15 - January edition

2006-01-19T13:08:00.000-06:00

(Continuing the list from the December version)

So far, we have ~~exactly one~~ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 of the 17 votes we need to kill this awful excuse of a bill -

-Ted Kanavas (H/T -David - in the comments part of the link back to Badger Blogger)

- Neal Kedzie (H/T - James Wigderson)

- Mary Lazich (from both the comments in the December version of this by an anonymous source and James)

- Cathy Stepp, a former co-sponsor (thanks, Peter, also back in the December version) - see, we can turn Senators back from the Dark Side.

- Tom Reynolds (H/T - LB2 - in the comments part in the link back to Badger Blogger)

- Joe Leibham (H/T - Kevin)

- Glenn Grothman (H/T - TomInWestBend - in the comments on the post from the Wigderson Library & Pub)

- Jeff Plale, my state Senator and the first Democrat to swear off the ethanol (see below)

We've almost crossed the halfway threshhold, but the ADM lobby already did (they're up to 10 of the 18 they need). If you haven't worked over your state Senator, do so. If you have and they haven't gotten the message, lather, rinse and repeat. If they have sworn off the ethanol, take the time to thank them.

Homer nod (10:26 pm 1/18/2006) - corrected the math
Homer nod part 2 (1:08 pm 1/19/2006) - durn typos

Plale showing more signs of returning to his old form

2006-01-19T11:51:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Dad29)

And I didn't even get a chance to bend his ear on this one. He voted for the current version of the Personal Protection Act (SB403). In response, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, who wants to limit possession of what they term "lethal weapons" to pregnant women, doctors, cops, and criminals, in blatant violation of the state Constitution, took out this ad on JSOnline.com. I do have to thank them for pointing out that Plale voted for SB403. However, I'll be using the phone number they provided to do the exact opposite of what this group wants to have happen; namely, thanking Plale for his vote and encouraging him to repeat it on the override attempt.

Sen. Plale is NOT drinking the ethanol

2006-01-18T21:58:00.000-06:00

I just received a letter from my state Senator, Jeff Plale in response to my voiced opposition to AB15, the ethanol-gas-mandate bill (no word on AB69 though, even though every correspondence that has my address has also dealt with that issue). The text is as follows:

Steve (last name redacted)
(address redacted)
Oak Creek, WI 53154

January 12, 2006

Dear Steve,

I received your message voicing opposition to the proposed ethanol mandate in Wisconsin. I value your input and appreciate you taking the time to express your concerns.

With the rising cost of gasoline, alternative energy sources are being sought out in an attempt to decrease our demand for oil. One proposal has been to use gasoline comprised partially of ethanol. Some of my colleagues believe that the government should step in and require the use of this blended gas in Wisconsin.

One concern with the use of ethanol is its' level of efficiency. Like many of my constituents, I don't believe that it is logical to use blended gas if it necessitates filling up more frequently. I realize there are those who believe that blended gas provides some relief to the problem at hand. For this reason, it should be made available. However, I don't feel the government should step in and mandate its use.

Ethanol has been hailed as a means to lower air pollution. Recent information from the Sierra Club as well as the DNR suggest that ethanol in fact has negative effects on the environment.

Ethanol is not a sufficient answer to our need for cheaper fuel. As your legislator, I will remain dedicated to providing you with a superior solution.

Should you have further concerns regarding this or any other isssue don't hesitate to contact my office toll free at 800.361.5487 or locally at 744.1444. I look forward to hearing from you again in the future.

Sincerely,

/s/Jeff Plale
STATE SENATOR

I can't ask for anything more on this issue.

MJS to SCOTUS - Please remove "...the freedom of speech, or..." from the 1st Amendment

2006-01-18T07:25:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Owen)

When the McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act was passed and signed, who seriously doubted that LeftStream Media outlets like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would encourage the Supreme Court to forget not only that freedom of speech is in the Bill of Rights, but that it comes before freedom of the press? Guess it's time for a fisking, while I still can.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday on a case having Wisconsin ties and national import. The outcome will decide the strength of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The court mustn't weaken the one limited tool Congress has come up with recently to regulate campaign spending and to help ensure clean elections.

That's funny; I seem to remember from my high-school civics class (I was probably one of the last to have a properly-taught one in the public-school system) that if there is a conflict between a law and the Constitution, the Constitution wins every time, regardless of whether the law "makes sense". Further, as evidenced by the 2004 elections, McShame-Slimeroad did NOTHING to make the election cleaner.

That means the court should rule in favor of the Federal Election Commission and against Wisconsin Right to Life, a non-profit organization, which is arguing that it was lobbying, not electioneering, when it ran broadcast ads in 2004 that mentioned the name of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat and one of the law's namesakes, who was running for re-election....

What part of "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..." doesn't the idiotorial board understand? Is it "no", or "abridging"? Let's define both (from Dictionary.com). The second definition of the adjective version (the first is of "no" is, "Not at all; not by any degree." The second definition of "abridge" is, "To cut short; curtail."

Now, let's rewrite that particular section of the First Amendment so that its plain-English meaning is clear - "Congress shall...not by any degree curtail the freedom of speech...."

...Other organizations that engage in politics - even groups that back a woman's right to choose an abortion - are siding with Wisconsin Right to Life on this issue.

A blatant attack on rights sure makes strange bedfellows.

Were the ads merely a lobbying tool, then they could run during the blackout periods prescribed by McCain-Feingold. An organization is barred from using funds from its general treasury to air commercials naming candidates during the 30 days before a primary election and the 60 days before a general election.

The Wisconsin group's commercials, which ran until Aug. 15, 2004, criticized the filibuster in the Senate of President Bush's appeals court nominees and urged viewers to call Feingold and Sen. Herb Kohl, also a Wisconsin Democrat, and urge them to oppose the filibuster. The group argues that the ads were trying to affect voting in the Senate, not at the ballot box.

Let's see; the ads addressed an issue up for a vote in the Senate, and mentioned both Senators. If Congress were even more dysfunctional than they are (and they may well be that dysfunctional), if they wanted to avoid public attention to controversial issues, they would simply wait until this "blackout" period to deal with them.

In reality, as the government notes, there's no clear line between the two activities during election time. In fact, an announced goal of Right to Life in 2004 was Feingold's defeat. Yet the ads were unrelated to that goal? Not hardly.

That is not germaine. They also had a vested interest in the outcome of the current vote, which was taken prior to the election. Further, Feingold did not have a primary opponent, so even if somehow I missed the "except during a campaign" exemption in the text of the Bill of Rights (or succeeding Amendments), the "blackout" would seem to not apply in this case.

McCain-Feingold sought, among other purposes, to plug a hole that allowed organizations to evade campaign law by running ads that pretended to deal with issues, not candidates. Instead of outright urging viewers to vote against an elected official, they would urge viewers to call that official and express how they felt on a particular issue. The viewers got the point. Were the court to rule in favor of Right to Life, these sham issue ads would make a comeback.

McCain-Feingold does permit third-party ads during the blackout period but by political action committees. Right to Life does have a PAC, but it lacked the funds to run the commercials in question, the organization argues.

You mean like last-second hit pieces on President Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 campaigns (the latter based on a bald-faced lie that likely would have gone uncorrected with the next "logical" step in McShame-Slimeroad, the regulation of blogs)? You mean like editorial endorsements in virtually every election? Those items are specifically protected under McShame-Slimeroad without newspapers and their kind having to register as PACs.

Yes, McCain-Feingold does restrict speech, but there is a balancing act required here. A democracy demands clean and transparent electioneering.

So the idiotorial board admits that the law is un-Constitutional. Let me rewrite those last two sentences a bit and see if the folks at 4th and State would still approve:

This federal bill does restrict the press, but there is a balancing act required here. A democracy demands clean and honest reporting.

I'll bet they would be up in arms.

State of the State; quick react

2006-01-18T06:27:00.000-06:00

Unlike Kevin and Jessica (part 1/2/3/4/5/6/7), I was smart enough not to watch Jim "Craps" Doyle give his (last) State of the State address. I would have thrown up after hearing the opening remarks. Oh, what the heck, let's take a look at them (from JSOnline) -

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker Pro-Tempore, Members of the Legislature, Lieutenant Governor Lawton, Constitutional Officers, Supreme Court Justices, Members of the Cabinet, Tribal Leaders, and fellow citizens of Wisconsin.

STOP THE TAPE! Notice who gets the last mention; us poor schmuks who pay the bills and don't necessarily donate to the Craps War Chest. Roll the tape.

Three years ago, I stood in this building and put my hand on the Bible. I took an oath to lead this state during a time of challenge:

-Our deficit was out of control.
-Our economy was out of steam.
=Too many of our citizens were out of work.
=And for many people, government seemed out of touch.

While we still have a long way to go, just think how far we’ve come.

We cut spending and solved the worst fiscal crisis in our history … without raising taxes.

STOP THE TAPE! What exactly do you call a $2 billion structural deficit (twice the one that Craps inherited)? What about all the fees that went way, way up? And the methods used to "solve" things temporarily weren't exactly smart (fund transfers up the wazoo, dropping 8% of K-12 school financing for the first 2 years, resulting in massive school-property-tax increases, un-constitutional expansions of Indian gaming with some tribes subsequently withholding payment). All this while other states, such as California, which faced even worse financial crises than Wisconsin, are now flush with cash. Roll the tape.

We invested in education while passing a property tax freeze.

STOP THE TAPE! Explain why property tax levies went up an average of 4% this year, after restoring the recent-historic 2/3rds state funding for education (which, BTW, Craps cut in his first budget). Roll the tape.

We protected SeniorCare for more than 90,000 seniors…
And together, we created more than 140,000 new jobs.

STOP THE TAPE! The job creation was no real thanks to anybody in Madison. While there were very limited business reforms, the federal tax cuts had more to do with the creation of jobs than anything else. Further, thanks to a Doyle-packed Wisconsin Supreme Court, the business litigation climate has recently changed way for the worse. Okay, I've had enough; I'm feeling nauseous.

I would be remiss if I didn't comment on the coverage from the Old Media. For those few of you that get the print edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the headline on their coverage of the State of the State address is "Doyle touts 'affordability agenda'". That's funny; I didn't see anything about government cutting back in the future. I didn't see any serious proposal from Doyle about making government more affordable.

Just in case you came here first (dunno why), there's a lot more reaction here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (if that seems a bit biased against Craps - tough; I'm a conservative, and unlike the presstitutes, I don't hide that I am highly-opinionated).

It's beginning to look a lot like anti-TABOR

2006-01-16T22:26:00.000-06:00

Damn. If Jessica is right (and the smart money says she is), it looks like my worst fears are about to be realized, and we're going to have anti-TABOR packaged as "TABOR".

Oh well; time for another message or few dozen. It's not too late to file to run for 2006, even though the RPW is now actively in the business of promoting its own non-conservatives in primary situations (H/T - Owen).

The ever-expanding blogroll

2006-01-15T20:33:00.000-06:00

I finally got around to adding Elliot and From Where I Sit. One of these years, I'll sort the blogroll (yeah, right; procrastination is my last name, or is it York?)

Divisional Playoffs - post-mortem

2006-01-15T20:03:00.000-06:00

I guess I shouldn't exactly use "post-mortem", because I actually made some money. Oh well, let's review the 2-1-1 against the line/3-1 against the over/under weekend anyway:

Washington 10 @ Seattle 20 (-10-TIE/over 40.5-LOSS) - The Vegas boys had the line perfect, they and I didn't count on all that rain.
New England 13 @ Denver 27 (-3/under 44) - It's the altitude, stupid.
Pittsburgh 21 (+10/under 47.5) @ Indianapolis 18 - Thanks to the 10-letter word for "choke" (Vanderjagt) - And all of CBS's cheering, and the refs couldn't be worse, couldn't stop the Steelers from continuing the Manning curse.
Carolina 29 @ Chicago 21 (-3/over 30) - At least the weather was good for those of you on the wrong side of the toll booths. Duh Bears cost me a lossless weekend against the spread.

My pre-season Super Bowl winner, Pittsburgh, is still alive. The other 3 teams I had in the conference championships, however, are out (buh-bye New England, and the Eaglets and Dirty Birds didn't even make the playoffs).

The Crapital crackdown on blogs

2006-01-15T19:39:00.000-06:00

Jessica has the lowdown. One of the blogs targeted, Playground Politics, has decided to not quite take this lying down and has a poll on what the #1 priority of Legislative Republicans should be this spring. As I type, with a total of 6 votes registered, "TABOR" (my choice) has a slim lead over "Inquisition against bloggers", with "Economic Development" on the board and "DNR Reform" and "Other" not drawing any interest.

TABOR is coming (or is it anti-TABOR?)

2006-01-15T19:29:00.000-06:00

Owen and Jessica both report that an agreement on TABOR is going to happen soon. Jessica quotes Rep. Jeff Stone that the competing versions in the Senate and Assembly should match inside of 2 weeks, while Owen states that unnamed sources say Sen. Glenn Grothman's version is "very good". All I hope is that it doesn't look like the anti-TABOR that is Assembly Joint Resolution 71.

The Next Great War?

2006-01-15T17:31:00.000-06:00

Jib posts his bleak feelings on the near future with regard to Iran, and points us to a piece by Niall Ferguson in The Sunday Telegraph on how "The Great War of 2007" could get started by a nuclear Iran. There are basically 4 ways this can go, with 3 of them resulting in a nuclear-armed Iran attacking both Israel and the US (remember, Iran doesn't call Israel or Jews "The Great Satan", it calls the US that) with its nuclear weapons, and the 4th resulting in a massive guerilla/terrorist war:

Everybody can stick their heads in the sand and hope that MAD works as well as it did against the Soviets and the ChiComs. The Islamist mindset of a complete lack of regard for life if it means either a worldwide Islamic caliphate or the end of the world ensures that the words behind the acronym will happen no later than the moment that the Iranians decide they have enough nuclear weapons to make their half of MAD a reality (and probably far sooner than them getting a couple thousand warheads).

We can stick with diplomacy. Not only can't the mullahs that run Iran be reasoned with because they feel that it's their destiny to turn the entire planet into an Islamic caliphate, and not only are certain countries like Russia and Red China actively helping Iran with their intermediate goals of wiping Israel off the face of the Earth and neutering the US (under the enemy-of-my-enemy principal), but two of the 3 EU countries we're partnering with (France and Germany) don't seem to really mind a nuclear-armed Iran as long as its target list continues to not include Paris and Berlin. This will have the same result as option #1.

We can let the Israelis try to replicate their Orsik success. They just don't have the assets to pull it off, and there's a degree of probability that the Iranian response vis-a-vis Israel, namely the destruction of Israel as a non-Islamist state, will have UN-backing (sans the US). Further, because the Iranians and other Islamists will (correctly) assume that Israel couldn't try this without US aquiescence, they'll step up their terror war against us, almost certainly with whatever nuclear armament they do have.

The US can (essentially unilaterally) take out the weapons program and remove the mullahs as a consequence (something the Israelis are singularily unable to do). Unlike the Israelis, we do have the assets to make this a probability, but we'd run the same risks of escalating the Islamist terror war against us (whether it's strictly al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed groups or the larger Islamist world) and inviting Russia/Red China (the only entities that could extend a conventional war much beyond a couple months) in on the Iranians' side.

That having been said, we can't wait for the Iranians to gather nukes. The mullahs don't care whether it's George Bush, John Kerry, John McCain or Russ Feingold in the Oval Office; they want us dead. Al-Qaeda showed them it's possible, and they're working feverishly on the means to make 9/11 look like your typical murder. If you're looking for the UN to save us, you've got another thing coming. Two of the permanent members of the UN Security Council are actively backing Iran's plans, a third (and its partner in the EU) are quietly cheering on the Iranians from the sidelines, and the majority of the UN couldn't care as long as their delegations got enough warning to evacuate New York City.

The Lieberal Bill of Rights

2006-01-14T17:58:00.000-06:00

Peter has the Bill of Rights (Liberal Version) (original by Joe Mariani at American Daily). I finally found the "Constitutional justification" behind the McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act.

That must be the version of the Constitution that Robert "Sheets" Byrd (KKK-West Virginia) carries around in his pocket.

NFL Divisional Playoffs

2006-01-14T15:17:00.000-06:00

Well, after a 3-1 week against the spread (and 1-3 against the over/under), we're at the divisinoal round, where the 4 teams with an official week (plus at least another week of effective rest) get into the flow. The window's almost closed on game #1, so let's get this party started.

Washington @ Seattle (-10/over 40.5) - The Seahags are just too much for the Redskins.
New England @ Denver (-3/under 44) - Tom Brady finally loses a playoff game.
Pittsburgh (+10/under 47.5) @ Indianapolis - How do you spell choke? I-N-D-Y
Carolina @ Chicago (-3/over 30) - The weather is just too good to expect a 15-14 game.

Spice Boys strike (out) again

2006-01-12T20:54:00.000-06:00

On their psuedo-blog, Spiceblog, the Spice Boys mocked the limited early interest in a Mark Belling bobblehead eBay auction at 3:34 pm (the price was at $10.00 after opening at $0.99). Never mind that it still had 6 days to go on the auction, and that most eBay auctions generally don't draw serious bidding until the end.

Paul Noonan, the owner of said bobblehead, noticed this latest attack on an Enemy Of the Sentinel Journal at 4:58 pm (auction still at $10.00). Mark Belling picked it up near the end of his show, around 6 pm. As of this posting, it's at $71.00 (R/E - make that $96.00 as of 9:11 pm). I wonder who gets more results; the Spice Boys, or the #1-rated Mark Belling.

Patrick, Fred, and James all have more on the backfiring of the latest Spice Bomb.

Revisions/extensions - To their credit, the Spice Boys noticed that the bobblehead didn't stay at $10.

Did the Spice Boys really want to go there?

2006-01-11T15:39:00.000-06:00

In between making ad hominem attacks on the right side of the Cheddarsphere and various Republican politicians (including borrowing a line from "Grand Theft Auto: LIberty City Stories" to take a shot at Scott Walker as the second item in today's column), they renewed their war on Mark Belling today. They take him for task for confusing the squeaky-clean and NRE-approved Hunger Task Force for the scandal-ridden America's Second Harvest in a column. Never mind that both he and the papers he writes columns for issued corrections at the earliest opportunity (namely, weekly).

Well, let's take a gander through the rather-massive Corrections list over at the Journal Sentinel:

1/11/2006 (that would be the same day that the Spice Boys rip Belling for getting something wrong) had 3 corrections -
- Because of an editing error, an article Tuesday about a call for plans to reduce response times for emergency medical calls incorrectly stated the timing of a call to rescue Joshua D. Reif, 17, of the Town of Genesee, who died when a vehicle fell on him Dec. 6 while he was working with a tow truck. The emergency crew removed the car about 10 minutes after the accident; it was not dispatched 10 minutes after the accident was reported.
- An article Tuesday about a Mequon man being charged with reckless homicide incorrectly identified Diana Bartley, an acquaintance of the suspect, Stephen L. Trattner. Bartley is a former foreign language program director for the Mequon-Thiensville Recreation Department, not an administrator with the Mequon-Thiensville School District’s foreign language program.
- An article in the Business section Sunday about FDIC insurance misstated the first name of a financial planner. His name is Bruce Heling, not Rick Heling.

And some doozies from the recent past:
- 1/8/2006 - An article Friday about former secretaries of state meeting with President Bush misstated that George Shultz was secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter. Shultz held the post under President Ronald Reagan.
- 1/5/2006 - A listing of candidates Wednesday omitted the name of Glenn W. Fieber, the incumbent in a contested race for the Supervisor No. 1 seat on the Vernon Town Board. He will run against Joseph Reilly in the April 4 election.
  
  The listing also incorrectly indicated how many seats will be filled on the Hartland-Lakeside School District School Board. Three candidates are competing for two seats, not three seats.
- 12/31/2005 - The New England Patriots defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21, in the Super Bowl last season. A list in Friday's Sports section showed the Carolina Panthers as 32-29 losers
- 12/20/2005 - An article Saturday about the Times Cinema, 5906 W. Vliet St., misstated the theater owner. Millennium Entertainment LLC owns the theater, not Eric Levin. Levin operates the theater.
- 12/8/2005 - An item Wednesday in the Regional Briefing about the race in Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District incorrectly stated that candidate Jamie Wall had lost to U.S. Rep. Mark Green in 2004. Wall was not a candidate in that election.
- 12/7/2005 - An article Monday in the Pulse section about biologists who fly in an ultralight plane to lead migrating whooping cranes incorrectly stated the name of the organization with which the biologists are affiliated. They are with Operation Migration, not the International Crane Foundation.
- 12/1/2005 - An article Tuesday about the closing of Neighborhood Housing Services, which for 26 years has fixed houses in Milwaukee and assisted first-time homebuyers, misstated the name of an agency that will take over many services. Housing Resources Inc., not Housing Services of Milwaukee, will take over many of the services.
- 11/24/2005 - An article Tuesday about businesses and individuals receiving letters stating that their names would appear on a state Web site about tax scofflaws misstated the number who since have paid back taxes. Two companies and more than 20 individuals have made payments, not two individuals and more than 20 companies. Also, the top 100 tax scofflaws include 33 companies and 67 individuals, not 67 companies and 33 individuals.

Now what was that about splinters, planks and eyes?

Revisions/extensions - Jessica asks whether the Spice Boys plan on writing scathing columns about these and other Journtinel corrections. She also highlights a few more of the multitude.

Some better questions for Judge Alito

2006-01-10T22:03:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Mark Reardon)

CNN's Jeff Greenfield, in a rare moment of clarity, comes up with a few questions that sound better than anything coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee for Judge Alito. Mark takes his stab at the loony-bin second set, so I'll go for the first set. I'm not a lawyer, but let's play along anyway:

Everyone seems to agree it's wrong for judges to "legislate from the bench." Give us two or three examples from the court's past where, in your view, the court legislated from the bench. - Greenfield may not like my answers to this question, but Roe v Wade sure as heck comes to mind. Going back into history, the Dred Scott decision was another.

Name two or three justices from the past whom you do not admire. Why not? - Roger Brooke Tanney because he thought that he and his fellow Supremes alone could decide whether certain free blacks were in fact citizens. Earl Warren for starting the modern strain of judicial activism, and Warren Burger for continuing it.

The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration of certain rights [in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights] should not be held to disparage other rights... ." What does this mean? - The rights listed in the Constitution, whether they are found in the body, the Bill of Rights, or succeeding Amendments, are not the end-all, be-all. That having been said, not everything is a right. Further, the Tenth Amendment seems to rule out any federal role in the determination of those "other" rights except through further amendments.

Justice Scalia says that the court was wrong 80 years ago, when it began to apply the Bill of Rights to the states. Do you agree? - That depends on which Amendment is being applied. Nothing in the First Amendment should be applied to the states; it was one of only 2 (the Tenth being the other) that specifically spoke of limiting only federal power. The other 8, on the other hand, which includes the Second, would and should also apply to the states and local governments.

-If a punishment -- say, branding or flogging -- was widely accepted at the time the Bill of Rights was written, could it be considered "cruel and unusual" today? - That determination is best left to the legislative process.

Do the Bucks need a new arena?

2006-01-10T15:29:00.000-06:00

(H/T for the McNally piece - Peter)

Joel McNally, in what appears to be a moment of relative clarity, makes the case against replacing the Bradley Center. Unbelievably, I agree with the gist of it. There are, however, some moonbatty items in the piece that need to be shot down...

I remember foolishly believing when the Bradley Center opened that since the Bucks wouldn't have to pay any rent to play in their luxurious, new sports palace, ticket prices would be dirt cheap.

Ordinary Milwaukeeans and their children would be able to buy the best seats in the house. Democracy would reign in the stands instead of the strict caste system that existed in other cities where movie stars and corporate attorneys sat courtside and working-class families watched with binoculars from the rafters.

That golden age never arrived. It turns out free rent isn't nearly enough tribute to pay to professional sports franchises owned by millionaires these days. They want cold, hard cash.

The BC was never Lambeau Field, and the Bucks will never be the Packers. They don't have a 60,000+-name waiting list to let keep growing by undervaluing the seats. Further, there's a much higher percentage of a particular team's revenue that's dependent on the team in the NBA than in the NFL.

As for the binoculars comment, I once had season tickets up in the rafters. I never needed binoculars, though I freely admit that the seats on the lower level are FAR better. Those hoping for the Arena's coziness were bound to be disappointed; there's no way to make an 18,000-seat arena as cozy as an 11,000-seat one.

Finally, it's not just the owners that want cold hard cash. The average NBA salary is somewhere north of $4 million.

Other than that, it's a pretty good piece. The money shots, as they usually do, come at the end. I espeically like this one:

Payne says newer arenas are destinations that create revenue on non-game days with restaurants and shops. But nothing is stopping the Bradley Center from adding such attractions now, except an embarrassing dearth of customers in existing downtown restaurants and shops on non-game days.

To which I add a general perception on the Friday's Front Row at Miller Park. It doesn't seem to be terribly busy on those times I drive past Miller Park when the Brewers aren't in town.

Tuesday's quick smashes

2006-01-10T15:00:00.000-06:00

I've got a thing or two I want to comment more-fully on, but I can't let these items pass unnoticed.

The heart of the Alito hearings began today. Judge Alito is running circles around the Senate Judiciary Committee.

From the JS's DayWatch - In the tire-slashing trial, no sooner was the jury seated than the defense pulled out the race card, seeking a new jury. That was denied, and we're working through opening statements.

Some of you folks out in Waukesha County have an election today. Scott Newcomer, who once again got legal confirmation that he is in fact eligible to vote in and run for the 33rd Assembly District, would like to get that magical 75% of the vote, so if you're going to vote for him, do so before 8 pm when the polls close.

Trolls beware - and yet another blogroll addition

2006-01-09T23:27:00.000-06:00

Nick (The World According to Nick host/creator of the Carnival of the Badger) brings the not-so-good news that anonymous annoying Web messages are now punishable by 2 years in Club Fed. Stupid, stupid, stupid, even though I haven't had to break out the boomstick on any trolls.

That reminds me; how in the heck did I forget to put Nick on the blogroll? I can't even claim RSS reader failure. Sorry about that, Nick.

Revisions/extensions - Nick points us back to the Volokh Conspiracy and Football Fans for Truth, which make a rather convincing case, pending legal challenges, that this rewrite of existing telephone anti-harrassment law was targeting only VOIP. Of course, I seem to recall a greasy assurance that the McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act would be found un-Constitutional by the courts, only to find out that a majority on SCOTUS saw a previously-undiscovered exemption to the First Amendment for mentioning office-holders' and -seekers' names around election time without being a member of the LeftStream Media.

Polling now active - Should Jessica bring back the Mini-Poll?

2006-01-09T22:02:00.000-06:00

Or at least semi-active. I don't know how much I'll use this, but I decided to "test-drive" Pollhost.com's free poll hosting to see if Jessica could/should use that as a replacement for the ad-plagued Bravenet she had been using. It seems to be working, the ads are limited to the results page, and I even don't accept cookies from the site.

Refund anticipation loans - another take

2006-01-09T19:39:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm dried off from testing out the Sykes Cement Shoes (yes, they do sink a blogger), it's back to business. Channel 12 gives us a story on a state warning about tax refund anticipation loans. I do agree with the state that these are very bad ideas, and for the reason why they state - it's borrowing your own money at an exhorbitant interest rate. However, there's a point they don't bring up. In order to get that massive "refund", you were borrowing your own money to the state and the feds at no interest rate. What are you doing giving the state so much tax money through the course of the year that you have a massive "refund" coming? That's money that you could have invested over the course of the year, and instead of having less purchasing power from it by taking it as a late lump sum, you could have either spent it as it came in and had more stuff for your money, or done the really-smart thing, invested it and actually made some money.

Do note that I'm not saying take withholding down to zero (though I would prefer that, with everybody writing a quarterly check like those that earn most of their income from sources where withholding doesn't happen, just to see how much money is going out the door to government - it's FAR more than the property taxes, almost 47.5 times more as of 2004, and that's just the state income tax), because that would, without the estimated quarterly tax payments, get you in a heap of trouble. I do recommend asking your tax advisor a different question than the usual maximize-refund one; "How do I maximize my take-home pay without getting whacked with penalities?"

That's the last time I do a "sticky" the easy way

2006-01-09T18:49:00.000-06:00

The dearly-departed "Revisiting history - Part 3" got me in serious trouble with the Blogfather. It seems that because I post-dated it to the end of this month, Charlie's feed reader got all discombobulated and that resulted in a short trip off the Bender Park boat launch.

Things got worse when I first rubbed it back out; it didn't want to die. Sure, Blogger said it wasn't there, but the home page disagreed. I finally re-created a current-dated version and sent it to Jones Island.

Never fear; the gist of it lives on, and it has a more-permanent home, at least until we defeat AB15, the bad-gas bill. Speaking of which, I have yet to hear back from Plale. Looks like I'll be busy tomorrow (I might even do a road trip for some citizen lobbying if he continues to ignore me, but I won't take the Voces de la Frontera route and trek into South Milwaukee).

Erratic is my middle name

2006-01-09T17:10:00.000-06:00

I guess I can't complain too much about getting whacked off the Blogfather's blogroll. At least Aaron won't be borrowing Tony Montana's little friend.

Revisions/extensions; I'm drying off from the late Polar Bear dunk. No harm, no foul.

Couldn't take apart Kane better myself

2006-01-09T06:46:00.000-06:00

If I really cared about what Eugene Kane says, I would have done what Fred did and done a ReWrite™ of Kane's bit in the Jountinel's full frontal assault on this end of the Cheddarsphere.

Housekeeping

2006-01-08T17:47:00.000-06:00

I noticed that I started missing comments over here at NRE. After doing some testing, it seems that RoadRunner isn't accepting the notification e-mails from Blogger anymore. Anyhow, I went and set up a(nother) throwaway e-mail on a mostly-dormant domain I have, tied it back into my main e-mail client, and am good to go again.

Tips for preventing sun-related injuries

2006-01-08T15:26:00.000-06:00

Considering we haven't had sun for the last 15 days (BTW, that set a record for doom and gloom here in the land of cheese and beer), you might be confused by that bright yellow ball in the sky. Here are some helpful hints to prevent a host of sun-related injuries:

Don't look directly into the sun.
Use sunglasses that block ultraviolet light.
If outside for extended periods of time (it's too warm to ice fish, there's no snow so you can't snowmobile or ski, and it's too cold to do anything else), wear sunscreen on your face.

Revisions/extensions - Hope you didn't blink; the clouds are back, and a wintry mix is headed in. Oh well; the NWS says it will be mostly sunny Tuesday and partly cloudy Wednesday, while TWC puts Wednesday as mostly cloudy. Oh, and the cold returns after next weekend and another round of wintry mix.

It's playoff time - get your picks here

2006-01-07T14:39:00.000-06:00

I'll eventually figure out how I did in the regular season, but we have 11 games that matter left. The first 4 are this weekend, and they include 2 of the last 3 games to ever air on ABC.

Washington (+2.5/over 36.5) @ Tampa Bay - There just is no substitute for 'sperience.
Jacksonville @ New England (-7.5/over 37.5) - The Pats are peaking at just the right time.
Carolina @ NY Giants (-2.5/under 43.5) - The dead Jimmys (Hoffa and "Masterlock" Duggans) agree; take the G-men.
Pittsburgh (-3/under 46.5) @ Cincinnati - The BenGALS are one and done.

The unwieldy blogroll just got a bit more unwieldy

2006-01-06T16:04:00.000-06:00

Now that Brian Fraley officially launched Fraley's Dailytakes, and I got around to remembering, it's time to graft another blog onto the blogroll.

Turn out the lights, the money is gone

2006-01-05T23:33:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Charlie and Aaron, who really belongs on Charlie's blogroll)

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance reports that between 1995 and 2000, despite gaining 4,400 households (their numbers; I come up with a 240,000-person gain using Census Bureau numbers), Wisconsin lost $4.72 billion in household net worth and lost $454.8 million in income. No, that is not per-capita or per-household, that's the total amount; and no, that was not during either Bush Presidency, that was during what lefties love to call "The Best Damn Economy Ever" in the Clinton Presidency.

During the same time (numbers again courtesy the Census Bureau), the total state and local tax burden in Wisconsin went up $3,545,704,000 (or if you prefer, $3.55 billion), from $9,029,488,000 in 1995 to $12,575,192,000 in 2000. Let's review: population went up a bit; total net worth went way, way down; total income went way down; and taxes still went way, way up. Of particular note, personal income taxes went up $2,030,363,000 when personal income went down $454,800,000. And we still have gubmint types demanding we spend more and more and more and more money on gubmint?

Revisions/extensions - Dad29 points out that those state taxes went up while Tommy Thompson had an iron grip on the governor's mansion. 'Tis why we have a bipartisan Party of Gubmint in Wisconsin

Beware the Anti-Tabor

2006-01-05T22:50:00.000-06:00

Revisions/extensions - I forgot to mention that this particular version of the Anti-Tabor comes from Terry Musser, a Pubbie member of the Party of Gubmint.

(Major H/T - Dennis York)

Dennis really does do it all, from discussing MMSD's favorite rainy-season product to the serious. This time, he heads to the serious (at least until the end) and takes on Assembly Joint Resolution 71, which can fairly be described (and is) as the anti-TABOR. It starts out flawed by exempting sewerage districts and the like from the limits on property tax/fee levies (previous year plus inflation in Milwaukee/Racine plus new construction) and the referendum requrirement to bust and reset the limits. Yep, that's right, MMSD still gets to jack up the property taxes as much as they want so they can keep dumping the brown hostages into the lake.

Then it goes into the horrid by mandating the state spend AT LEAST the amount it did on local aid the previous year plus inflation plus new construction. So much for getting a handle on 60% of state spending (and before long, it will be 70%, then 80%).

There is a one more kicker to the taxpayers' hindquarters (or will it be the family jewels?); a very-poorly written (from a taxpayer's perspective, at least) "emergency" exemption to the limits that takes merely a 2/3rds vote by the governing body to invoke - ...any expenditure of a local governmental unit that the governing body of the local governmental unit did not anticipate and in an amount that is greater than 10 percent of the amount of the local governmental unit’s fiscal year budget. Allow me to translate; if 2/3rds of your common council/school board/county board/et al can create a mid-year financial "crisis", up go the taxes, and more importantly, the ceiling for the following year's taxes and the floor for the following year's state spending on local government.

WMF vulnerability - fixed by Microsoft early

2006-01-05T15:04:00.000-06:00

The WMF vulnerability (documented by Dad29 here and here) has been patched for Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP1/SP2/x64 and Windows 2003 (all versions). If you have any of those systems, run Windows/Microsoft Update immediately, then you may reregister the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer by typing regsvr32 %windir%\system32\shimgvw.dll

For those of you with Win98/ME, you're SOL. Microsoft says that it's not a "critical" security breach for you. And if you have NT x.x/2000 SP3 or earlier/95/3.x (the vulnerability of the last 2 are by heresay only at this point), you're REALLY SOL; Microsoft wants your money for the newer OSes.

Turds, turds everywhere

2006-01-04T23:53:00.000-06:00

Dennis York started it, the Spice Boys picked it up, and Jib continued it, so I may as well jump on the turd picture bandwagon before the rest of my fellow bartenders do.

Warning - the following image should not be viewed by those under 13 unless accompanied by an adult, those with weak stomachs, Packer fans still distraught over 4-12, or those with no sense of humor.

Image courtesy Packers.com

Don't say I didn't warn you.

West Virginia miners story - a few questions

2006-01-04T09:39:00.000-06:00

The initial news that there were 12 survivors proved to be woefully and tragically wrong, with only 1 survivor rescued and 11 bodies recovered. Before the questions, the events of last night/this morning as they unfolded (at least the best I can reconstruct them because I was asleep; a HUGE hat-tip to Free Republic) -

Just short of midnight EST - someone overheard a communication between the search party and the command post, apparently misunderstands either "all found" or "all found, at least one alive" (exact wording unknown) to mean "all found alive", word spreads to families gathered at a church from what appears to be an unofficial source, they start celebrating.
11:59 pm EST - AP reports that the families were saying that the 12 miners were found alive, notes that neither the company that owns the mine nor the governor's office was confirming this.
Midnight EST - Everybody starts reporting that they were alive, not bothering to note that it was unconfirmed at that point.
Roughly 12:20 am EST - word gets to the command post that there were not 12 survivors (what is unknown is the exact wording used).
12:40 am EST - Reuters carries a dispatch saying all 12 are alive, no disclaimer that this was still unconfirmed by any official. This story says that the word was spread to the families by a man who burst into the church saying, "It's a miracle, it's a miracle."
1:12 am EST - AP carries an updated dispatch (no longer in the AP archives) quoting Governor Joe Manchin as saying, "They told us they have 12 alive." The "they" is left unidentified, and the story notes that the company still was not confirming this. Side note; this appears to be the dispatch which Editor and Publisher uses to blast the AP in their larger blast of the media as a whole.
1:15 am EST - The first (and as it turns out, only) ambulance leaves the mine site with a survivor.
2:09 am EST - CNN reports that survivor was in critical condition.
2:45 am EST - The company's CEO told the families in the church that there was only one survivor. Media goes into full self-righteous indignation mode, ignoring that they had run with the story for better than an hour with absolutely, positively zero confirmation.

Well, I have a few questions:

Where did "all found alive" first come about?
Who was the one that burst into the church with the false good news?
Why did the press run with this story for better than an hour without any confirmation, with many outlets not disclosing that there was not any confirmation? Do note that I give the AP itself a pass - their stories up through the wrong confirmation from the governor sourced this to the families and noted that it was unconfirmed, and their story quoting the governor also noted that the company had not confirmed the news.
Who told the governor that all 12 were alive with enough authority that he believed it?
When were the 11 that died declared dead?

Mike Sherman gone and to be forgotten

2006-01-03T10:49:00.000-06:00

Everybody and his brother has already commented on the firing of Mike Sherman by Ted E. Thompson (genius). Allow me to add my two cents' worth of stats:

2-4 - playoff record under Sherman (0-2 on the road)
2-4 - home opener record under Sherman
12-12 - home record since the 2002 season (capped by the first home playoff loss in team history) Homer nod - that 12-12 is the regular-season record since 2002; make it 13-13 including the playoffs.

Sherman's firing was a year late. Hopefully, Bob Harlan comes to his senses quickly and fires Wile E. Thompson (suuuuper genius) before the draft so we're not also left a dollar short.

As for Brett Favre, it's been a great ride. We'll miss those bullet passes off the back foot 40 yards downrange, the fire with which he played, and the playground improvs - unfortunately with Aaron Rodgers, it looks like we won't lose the bonehead passes that turn into picks. There had to be a reason why 23 teams between the Niners and the Packers, some of whom really needed a quarterback, passed on him in the draft when he was talked about in the same breath as #1 pick Alex Smith (oops, another bust).

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

May 2006 be good to you.

Revisiting history - part 2

2005-12-31T23:59:00.000-06:00

This restatement of "Those who don't remember history", or its January version, will be at the top of the blog until AB15, the bad-ethanol-gas bill, is defeated (except for a temporary move one spot down during Christmas). Please look for the regular posts below.

How appropriate it is that the penultimate reaction to the first episode happened 232 years ago December 16th. A politically-connected industry finds itself with a massive amount of product that it can't sell. It goes to the government to get a monopoly in a new market to get rid of it and goes on to claim that it will actually cost less to do it that way. I am not talking about the East India Tea Company back in the 1770s (which led to the Boston Tea Party and ultimately the creation of the United States of America), but ethanol in 2005. That's right, the Assembly forgot its history and crammed AB15, the bill mandating the more-expensive, less-efficient, more-polluting, GM-engine-killing statewide E10 gasoline mandate through the day the day before the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

There is at least one more chance to stop this, and likely just that one more chance. This bill still has to go through the Senate (my list of semi-confirmed "no" votes here). If it makes it through, Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) has already promised ADM that he would sign it. Those Senate staffers you called regarding the repeal of the automatic gas-tax increase are still there in Madison. Call them today! If you don't have the number (for shame; you should still have it from the efforts to repeal the automatic gas-tax increase), go here to find your Senator and his or her phone number. I'll be back tomorrow (12/16) with the response I get from my Senator, Jeff Plale (Madison phone # - (608) 266-7505).

Revisions/extensions part 1 - At least I planned on being back here today (12/16) with that info. I got Sen. Plale's messaging service at 10:39 am 12/16, on which I urged him to oppose AB15 and invited him to give me a call back.

Revisions/extensions part 2 (8 am 12/17) - Still no sign from Plale (apparently, he's going East Side on me again); and I got tired of re-bumping this to the top, hence the forwarding of the date to the last possible minute of the month.

Homer nod - I need a new calendar :-)

Reggie Bush sweepstakes - Week 17 (Sat. view)

2005-12-31T22:52:00.000-06:00

Last week, I gave you what must happen for the Packers to get the #1 pick outright. Well, Brook Bollinger disappointed again, and we've started the NFL weekend out right (the bookies might not agree if you followed my advice :-) So, I bring you the update after the Saturday games -

The Pack must lose to the Seahawks at home.
The Texans must beat the oh-so-close-to-2-in-a-row Niners in San Francisco.
The Saints must not lose in Tampa.
All of the following must happen to avoid a coin flip with the Texans (one tie can happen; anything more than one thing not happening gives the higher pick to the Texans):
- The Jets choke to Buffalo at home.
- Arizona does the expected and loses in Indianapolis.
- Detroit lays an egg in Pittsburgh.
- St. Louis ends Dallas' playoff dreams. (Sorry James; we need this, and the odds say this will be a meaningless game anyway)
All of the following must happen to avoid a coin flip with the Jets assuming they lose (again, one tie can happen and anything more than one thing not happening gives the higher pick to the Jets) because the Raiders proved they're the dumbest team ever (it fit with the dumbest announcing crew ever):
- The OldBrowns go back to Cleveland and win.
- The Bengals get cooked by the Ch(i)efs.
- The Titans fall before Jacksonville.

Will the last business to leave Wisconsin please turn off the lights

2005-12-31T17:41:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Owen)

They don't need power at the Wisconsin Supreme Court building. They ruled yesterday 4-3 that a teen with cerebal palsy allegedly caused by a lack of oxygen during birth and his family may continue with a lawsuit that was first filed when he was 11.

The usual gang of 4, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, Ann Walsh Bradley (the author), Patrick "Turncoat" Crooks (still no announced opponent for him, and he's up for re-election in 2006) and "Loophole" Louis Butler (Steve Austin reminds us to "thank" the Pubbies for him over at B&S), said, "The Legislature has not provided a statute of limitations for claims against health care providers alleging injury to a developmentally disabled child. This determination is the only determination the court is able to reach without either rewriting the statutes or working an absurd and illogical result."

David Prosser, the author of the dissent (joined by Jon Wilcox and Pat Roggensack), said, "The majority authorizes suit in this case more than 11 ½ years after the child's alleged injury and boasts in doing so that it has avoided rewriting the statute. This is not judicial restraint."

Owen has more.

NFL Week 17

2005-12-31T11:12:00.000-06:00

As Dandy Don said about Monday Night Football, "Turn out the lights, the party's over." This is the last week for the regular season, but I'll be around for the playoffs, where the money can really change hands. I'll eventually recall how badly I've done the last few weeks, but for now, I'll just go through the last 16 games of the regular season that will result in the Packers drafting 3rd.

Denver (+10.5) @ San Diego - I know Mike Shanahan's resting his starters in this completely-meaningless game, but 10 1/2 points is too much to give. Now if this were the 5 1/2 that it started off at,....
NY Giants (-8) @ Oakland - The Raiders can't even play spoilers right.
Cincinnati @ Kansas City (-7.5) - In the end, they're the BenGALS.
Miami @ New England (-5.5) - Forecast for Foxboro - snow. That'll cool off the Dullfins.
Buffalo (-1.5) @ NY Jets - Come on, say it with me!
Carolina (-3.5) @ Atlanta - Atlanta doesn't spoil too well.
Detroit @ Pittsburgh (-13.5) - My pre-season pick for Super Bowl XL champs have their destiny in their hands. Fortunately, even I can hold that destiny against Dick Jauron.
Baltimore (-3) @ Cleveland - The OldBrowns defense isn't what it used to be, but they still eat rookie QBs for lunch.
New Orleans @ Tampa Bay (-13.5) - The Bucs control their own destiny, and except for Houston, so do the Saints. In short, lay the very heavy lumber.
Seattle (+4.5) @ Green Bay - Seattle's 3rd string could beat this team. In fact, they probably will as Mike Holmgren pulls his 2nd string in the 4th.
Arizona @ Indianapolis (-6.5) - Arizona's no Seattle, Denny Green's no Holmgren, and this one is at home sweet dome.
Houston @ San Francisco (+1) - How in the hell are the Texans favored? They HAVE to lose this game (or hope against hope that New Orleans, the Jets and Green Bay win earlier in the afternoon) to win the Reggie Bush Sweepstakes.
Tennessee @ Jacksonville (-3.5) - I know not who's starting at QB for the Jags, but I know who's not going to win.
Chicago @ Minnesota (-4) - Expect one last heavy dose of Kyle "Jack" Orton. Bet accordingly.
Washington (-7.5) @ Philadelphia - If you made this prop bet that it would be the Redskins playing for a playoff spot instead of the Eagles at the beginning of the season, show me your stub.
St Louis (+12.5) @ Dallas - By the time they kick this one off, the game will be meaningless to everyone except gambling degenerates (so I'll be watching closely).

Ten Worst Americans of all time

2005-12-30T09:10:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Ramjac7)

Alexandra von Maltzan of All Things Beautiful has issued a challenge to the blogosphere to come up with the 10 worst Americans of all time. Hmmm, so many choices, so little time. So, here's my Bottom 10:

10. Bill Clinton - If he were dead, he would be far, far closer to the bottom (he just might redeem himself - yeah, right). Multiple chances to get Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, the Black Hawk Down fiasco, scandal after scandal after scandal, sending missile-launching and -targeting technology to the Red Chinese; in sum, a failed Presidency.

9. John Wilkes Booth - Thanks to him, we'll never know if the Lincoln Plan for reconstituting the South into the Union would have worked. Instead, we were left with Andrew Johnson's jack-booted methods, which we're still suffering from.

8. Aaron Burr - Easily the worst Vice President in the history of the US. Killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel while VP, resigned in disgrace, and tried to set up a competing empire.

7. Joe Kennedy - Staunch isolationist, Hitler sympathizer, and he gave us John, Robert and Ted Kennedy.

6. Andrew Johnson - Instituted said jack-booted Reconstruction, and so corrupt he became the first President impeached (he survived by a single vote in the Senate).

5. John Walker Jr. - He gets the nod over Aldrich Ames because had the Cold War gone hot, his handover of our communications codes would have cost FAR more lives than Aldrich's sale of operatives to the Soviets.

4. Jeffrey Dahmer - No "Worst" list is complete without at least one mass-murderer, and perhaps because Dahmer did his work in Milwaukee, he's the NRE's representative.

3. Nathan Bedford Forrest - Founded the Ku Klux Klan after being a Confederate general. Robert "Sheets" Byrd (D-West Virginia) thanks you.

2. Earl Warren - Before the infamous Warren Court, he was the driving force behind the Japanese internment camps.

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Father of the welfare state, enough of an egomaniac to serve more than 3 terms and force a term limit on the Presidency (when no other office of federal government, even the Vice Presidency, is term-limited), enabled J. Edgar Hoover, extended the Great Depression into WWII, good friend of Iosef Stalin (in fact, his shadow involvement in WWII only was apparent after the Soviet Union got invaded), approving said Japanese internment camps. Not even the successful conclusion to WWII can save him from the bottom of the list.

Wisconsin's Christmas present to those with colds

2005-12-26T21:24:00.000-06:00

Running into a guy from church looking for relief from a head cold at a local Walgreen's while shopping for batteries (not a 24-hour one with a 24-hour pharmacy department, though I live virtually next to one of those) got me to thinking of the utter stupidity of requiring a pharmacist to get you cold medicine. What if you got a cold late Christmas Eve and didn't have easy access to one of those 24-hour-pharmacy Walgreen's? You would have been suffering for close to 2 days just so that various politicians from the bipartisan Party of Gubmint can feel good about themselves.

"Thank" you, Party of Gubmint (feel free to substitute another word for "thank").

The Reggie Bush Sweepstakes - Week 16

2005-12-26T11:51:00.000-06:00

For those of you dreaming about the #1 overall pick for the Pack and Reggie Bush in the Green and Gold (assuming that "Genius" Thompson doesn't frag it up and take Tony Mandarich Jr.), here is what must happen for the Packers (3-12) to get the #1 pick outright from fellow contenders Houston Texans (2-13), New Orleans Saints (3-12) and New York Jets (3-11; playing tonight) (I don't know how tiebreakers beyond the initial Strength of Schedule apply to teams from different conferences), assuming that the Jets lose to the Patriots tonight (the Jets are 7-point home dogs) -

The Pack must lose to the Seahawks at home.
The Texans must beat the oh-so-close-to-2-in-a-row Niners in San Francisco (the Niners' SoS is too strong).
The Saints must not lose in Tampa (the Saints will finish with a worse SoS than the Pack).
All of the following must happen (one tie can happen; two ties or one thing completely opposite will trigger further tiebreakers with the Texans):
- The Jets choke to Buffalo at home.
- Arizona does the expected and lose in Indianapolis
- St. Louis ends Dallas' playoff dreams (sorry James; we need this).
- Detroit lays an egg in Pittsburgh.
Assuming that the Jets lose both of their remaining games, 3 of these 4 things must happen (a tie counts as a half-not-happening, and we can have 3 of those):
- The OldBrowns go back to Cleveland and win.
- The Bengals get cooked by the C(h)iefs.
- The Titans fall before Jacksonville.
- The Giants take the night off in Oakland.

In short, root for the Seahags, Whiners, Aints, J-E-T-S SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! tonight but not next weekend, Bills, Colts, Lambs, Steelers, OldBrowns, Chefs, Jags and Raiders, and then demand a real GM before the draft. Simple as mud.

Have a Blessed Christmas

2005-12-24T21:06:00.000-06:00

Luke's account of Jesus Christ's birth, from Luke 2:1-12 (NIV), will be at the top of this blog through the end of Christmas Day.

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Week 16

2005-12-24T10:29:00.000-06:00

Let's just forget that last weekend happened. For those of you confused by all the Saturday games, the NFL is only having 2 games on Christmas Day.

Tennessee @ Miami (-5.5) - It's a record-setting year in the NFL, and Jeff Fisher will have his worst record with the franchise for Christmas.
Atlanta @ Tampa Bay (-3) - I fully agree with ESK - Vick is vastly overrated.
San Francisco (+9) @ St. Louis - Can anyone tell me why the Lambs are favored by 9?
San Diego (pick'em) @ Kansas City - The Chefs are D-O-N-E. Look for Vermiel to break down.
Pittsburgh (-7) @ Cleveland - Mmmm, rookie QB. Tastes like chicken. Go UNDER the 33.
NY Giants (+3) @ Washington - The luck has just run out on the Redskins (again).
Jacksonville (-6) @ Houston - Ignore the history; Houston does not want to draft 2nd.
Detroit vs New Orleans (-3) @ San Antonio - Game of the Weak; ALWAYS bet against Harrington.
Dallas @ Carolina (-5) - I hope we got all the sharp objects out of James' house after last week's debacle.
Buffalo (-13.5) @ Cincinnati - Too many points.
Philadelphia (+1) @ Arizona - There are only 3 teams the Cards could beat in their final game at Sun Devil Stadium; unfortunately, the Eaglets aren't one of them.
Oakland @ Denver (-13) - Lay the Rocky Mountain Lumber.
Indianapolis (+9.5) @ Seattle - Hot tip; go way, way OVER the 44.
Chicago (-7) @ Green Bay - I hope you opened your presents early; the Packed-it-ins have given us lumps of coal. I just hope that the Bears don't give Favre an injury.
Minnesota @ Baltimore (-3) - C^BS is very grateful that they don't have a Christmas Day game to broadcast considering that there are 2 weak games.
New England (-5.5) @ NY Jets - No wonder why ABC wanted out of MNF; these late-season games have been turkeys. This last one (there is no MNF game next week) will be no different.

ABP issued for GBfan - update, GBfan's retired

2005-12-24T08:16:00.000-06:00

Both of his personal blogs, Spotted Horse and McDonalds' of the World (using another pseudonym) have disappeared from Blogspot. Spotted Horse is a wild ride, conservative, with a Russian bent, and he just declared a Christmas truce with the Waukesha County Board (why do I get the feeling they didn't honor it?); and you can't miss the golden arches of McDonalds' of the World. If seen, please contact this post.

Update - per an e-mail from GBfan, he's retired from blogging. Sad to see him go and so suddenly.

Ad of the year

2005-12-23T16:59:00.000-06:00

(H/T - The Blogfather)

Go, watch, then thank a soldier.

Bend over again, Milwaukee

2005-12-23T13:09:00.000-06:00

Jeff Wagner just relayed a story from the Small Business Times that East Side Plale and Jeff Stone plan on introducing a bill to transfer control of Gen. Mitchell International Airport from Milwaukee County to a new regional authority (presumably completely unelected) for the purpose of finding new revenue for the airport. Haven't we learned from the sagas of MMSD, MATC, the Miller Park Board and the Wisconsin Center District Board (just to name the non-elected taxing authorities I live under) that this is a VERY bad idea from the view of taxpayers?

Confirmed Senate "No" votes on AB15

2005-12-22T13:14:00.000-06:00

This has been superceded by the January version.

Sat PM update #2 - still no word from Plale's office, but James Wigderson has a handy chart up on who is and isn't drinking the corn syrup, and he ~~isn't~~ wasn't buying Cathy Stepp's conversion.

So far, we have ~~exactly one~~ 2 3 4 5 6 7 of the 17 we need to kill this awful excuse of a bill (but still no word from Plale as of 1 pm 12/22) -

-Ted Kanavas (H/T -David - in the comments part of the link back to Badger Blogger)

- Neal Kedzie (H/T - James Wigderson)

- Mary Lazich (from both the comments by an anonymous source and James)

- Cathy Stepp, a former co-sponsor (thanks, Peter) - see, we can turn Senators back from the Dark Side.

- Tom Reynolds (H/T - LB2 - in the comments part in the link back to Badger Blogger)

- Joe Leibham (H/T - Kevin)

- Glenn Grothman (H/T - TomInWestBend - in the comments on the post from the Wigderson Library & Pub)

I'm still working on Jeff Plale (as of the Saturday AM update, still no word from Plale; it looks like he's going East Side again), and GBfan's working on Scott Fitzgerald. This will be updated as I get more info (a little bleg is in order; if your State Senator will be opposing AB15, let me know in the comments).

Tues early PM update - STILL no word from East Side Plale, but I added Tom Reynolds as a no.

Wed. early AM update - Joe Liebham is a "Solid No" according to Kevin. Time to send that certified letter to East Side Plale; still no response from his office (no, I won't go up to his house with waffles and flip-flops like Chris Kliesmet did during the daytime, or bang on his windows after dark like Voces de la Frontera did to Sen. Stepp).

Exhibit Y in opposing light rail

2005-12-22T08:22:00.000-06:00

Amid the NYC transit strike (BTW, real "great" move to squeeze even more of what you don't deserve, transit unions), OpinionJournal brings us the saga of light rail in Seattle. Except for the earthquakes and a brighter populace), this could easily be Milwaukee.

For those that still consider Ted Thompson to be a "genius"...

2005-12-21T16:48:00.000-06:00

...take a look at the NFC Pro Bowl roster. Number of Packers on it - 0. Number of players let go by Mr. Genius on it - 2.

Bob Harlan, clean house.

Un-scientific polls of the day

2005-12-21T09:20:00.000-06:00

And they both involve Wisconsin's own Russ el-Slimeroad (Al-Qaeda). First up, Jessica asks whether el-Slimeroad has a realistic shot at the 2008 'Rat nomination (1 yes, a heap of no choices). Next, Dad29 asks which El Foldo was more embarrassing; the Packed-it-ins Monday Night Foldo or el-Slimeroad's on national security.

Something you won't see in the LeftStream Media - Feingold's campaign finances

2005-12-20T21:34:00.000-06:00

Once again, bloggers do what the LeftStream Media won't. This time, it's Jessica that takes a look at Russ Feingold's (there is a reason why I am not using my slang name of el-Slimeroad, even though he richly deserves it) campaign finances the last few years. The highlights:

- Feingold spent a state-record $11.2 million ($1.5 million in out-of-state funds) to get re-election (Tim Michels, the RPW-abandoned opponent, spent $5.5 million with $0.3 million from outside Wisconsin). BTW, that was the 10th-most-expensive Senate race in the country.

- Amount raised by Feingold between 1992 (when he first ran and won his Senate seat) and 2002 (when the McCain-Feingold ~~Campaign Finance Reform~~ Lieberal Protection Act passed): $7 million. Amount raised since 2002: $11 million.

I'll throw a couple of mostly-remembered tidbits from the 1998 campaign against Mark Neumann (the RPW-abandoned candidate that year). First, there was a coordinated special-interest sliming of Neumann shortly after the primaries that Feingold piously denied having any part of (in fact, he claimed he was taking the "high road", hence my calling him Slimeroad), with at least one Milwaukee TV station (IIRC, it was WISN) airing those commercials for several days after Feingold asked they be pulled. One little problem; those ads would have run afoul of McCain-Feingold had it been law at that point, and Feingold was pushing for his Lieberal Protection Act back then.

Second, there was this little matter of late reporting of some last-minute out-of-state cash so el-Slimeroad didn't have to worry about breaking his pledge to limit out-of-state cash. Never mind that the influx ended up only putting him at the cusp of breaking that pledge; because the Clintonistas ran the US Attorneys offices (it would have been a federal case if pursued), he only had to worry about the bad press from the appearance of breaking that pledge.

Voces de la Frontera's defense shredded

2005-12-20T13:55:00.000-06:00

The Racine Journal Times instantly put up the pap that the pro-invasion group Voces de la Frontera spewed forth in defense of their invasion of the Stepp homestead (golly; you think they might have an agenda?). Peter shreds said pap much better than I could.

One thing I need to add to the commentary on this particularily-putrid tripe - "Her position on this bill is a slap in the face to the Latino community. This bill also forces everyone else to assume the risks associated with unlicensed drivers on the roads." - Voces de la Frontera's position on this bill is a slap in the face, a thumb in the eye, and a raised middle finger to every legal Wisconsin resident. Why couldn't they use their Mexican licenses; oh that's right, that would expose the invaders as such.

Fred once again does more work than the entire staffs of 2 "major" newspapers

2005-12-20T13:42:00.000-06:00

This RDW post exposes the lies of Voces de la Frontera's and the Racine Domincans' claims that Sen. Cathy Stepp and her staff had not met with them in discussions regarding AB69. To wit, there were no less than 3 meetings between Stepp's staff and those opposed to AB69, including 2 at which VdlF was represented and 1 where the RDs were represented, and a 5-hour public hearing which Stepp was at on AB69 the day before VdlF decided to take after the invaders they advocate for and, well, invaded Stepp's property.

Journal Sentinel wakes up from their slumber

2005-12-20T01:43:00.000-06:00

On page B3 of this morning's edition (at least if they didn't spike it at the last minute - it's in Metro South, which includes Racine, butthey did spike it from the Waukesha edition per Ramjac7; no confirmed word on whether it is in the state, Oz/Wash or Metro North editions), they finally got around to covering the Cathy Stepp/Voces de la Frontera story. Got some good news on the bill; AB69 made it out of the Senate's Committee on Natural Resources and Transportation on a 4-1 vote. Stepp, Neal Kedzie, Dan Kapanke and Robert Wirch voted for it (thus making it a bipartisan vote), while Roger Breske believes you should need a passport to board a plane or enter a federal building because he believes that illegal invaders should continue to get Wisconsin driver's licenses.

Oh, and Christine Neumann-Ortiz, you showed your true colors by rounding up your troops and invading Sen. Stepp's property after dark. Some people might have dialed up 12-GAUGE instead of 911 on your sorry ass.

And the unwieldy blogroll keeps growing

2005-12-20T01:39:00.000-06:00

Please welcome Inside the Beaver's Dam to the not-so-short-anymore-order blogroll.

Update on the Cathy Stepp story

2005-12-19T13:22:00.000-06:00

For those that missed her interview with Jeff Wagner, a group of at least 10 activists, some with faces concealed, parked their vehicles on the road outside her rural house, walked up the 500 or so feet to her house, and banged on her windows in a blatant attempt to intimidate her to vote against AB69. Fortunately, her husband was home to confront the group, which left the property once they were informed that the police were called. Fred of RealDebateWisconsin appeared after her, and did a bang-up job. Odds are that Patrick will have the audio up shortly (of course, I went 5-10 in the NFL this weekend against the line, so take that for what it's worth).

On the presstitute front, the Journal Sentinel finally mentioned this story on their DayWatch at 11:29 am (after Jeff was hyping the interview all morning), and the Journal Times finally got around to contacting Sen. Stepp today. Want to take bets on whether this makes the print version of the Milwaukee paint-catcher tomorrow, and if so, what editions it makes it in (you have your choice of state, Waukesha, Ozaukee/Washington, Metro North and Metro South, which includes Racine - and I get the Metro South)?

The 2008 Presidential horse race

2005-12-19T12:06:00.000-06:00

OpinionJournal's Political Diary (sadly, they still don't archive the daily e-mails, even for subscribers) reports on the latest National Journal "insider" polls (100 Pubbie insiders for the R nomination, 100 'Rat insiders for the D nomination). For those that think that John McCain (RINO-4th Estate) is the front-runner; guess again. He's second to George Allen (R-Virginia) once again (he also trailed in April). The big news on the Pubbie side is the fall of Bill Frist (RINO-Tennessee); he fell from 3rd to 5th. Guess caving again and again and again isn't what the party faithful want.

Over on the 'Rat side, no surprise that Hillary is the runaway front-runner, but there's some items of note as well. "Moderates" (relatively-speaking; they only play moderates in campaigns) tend to dominate the second-tier, led by Virginia governor Mark Warner, with only John "Two Americas" Edwards in that tier. Bringing up the rear guard like good Frenchies are Kerry, Gore, and Clark. No mention of Wisconsin's own Russ el-Slimeroad.

The incident at Stepp's home to have an airing

2005-12-19T11:44:00.000-06:00

Jeff Wagner will have State Sen. Cathy Stepp on right after the 1 pm news today to talk about what Voces de la Frontera did at her home Friday night. For those that can't get WTMJ-AM (620 on the dial) on their radio, they do webcast.

Doyle to sign end to the auto-increasing gas tax, hell freezes over

2005-12-19T10:49:00.000-06:00

(H/T - Kevin)

Quite possibly the only true statement in the Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) press release touting his signing of the end to the indexing of the gas tax is the first one (and then I won't believe it until the ink is dry on his signature) - "Governor Jim Doyle today announced that he intends to sign legislation repealing Wisconsin's automatic gas tax indexing."

Once again, bloggers do the job the presstitutes won't - UPDATE!

2005-12-19T08:42:00.000-06:00

After breaking the story that the pro-illegal-immigrant group Voces de la Frontera stormed the property of Sen. Cathy Stepp because she supports a piece of legislation they oppose, and that Sen. Stepp will be pursuing charges (that would be AB69, which would bring Wisconsin into compliance with federal law that drivers' licenses be issued only to people in the country legally), Fred goes on to dig into this group. He found that this group was investigated for illegally registering non-citizens to vote last year, and that Marquette University has rather close ties to this group.

One would think that either the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or Racine Journal Times would find the time to report this considering that the incident happened Friday night, and that Sen. Stepp announced she would be pursuing charges by early Saturday afternoon, but apparently this doesn't fit either paper's agenda. Indeed, the Milwaukee paper doesn't even have a clue that AB69 is going through the Senate.

Suppose that the Minutemen came up to Milwaukee and did this to Pedro Colon, an opponent of this bill, because he opposses it. Who here doesn't think that this would be the banner headline in both yesterday's and today's papers, or that this wouldnb't be national?

Revisions/extensions parts 1 and 2 - It's Monday morning, and those chainsaws you hear are coming from sleeping reporters and editors both 4th and State in Milwaukee and wherever the Journal Times has its offices. Still nothing from them. Meanwhile, Jessica and Fred point out that Voces de la Frontera is a 501(c)(3) organization, and dig out their 2004 Form 990 (their federal "Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax"), where they claim to not have made any effort to influence politics at any level (part 2 is to correct attribution; I really need to have my full dose of caffeine before blogging).

Paging Mr. Biskupic. Paging US Attorney Steve Biskupic. Here is your federal hook.

Something old, something new; both new to the blogroll

2005-12-18T19:37:00.000-06:00

First up, Rammin' & Jammin', a Red State guy paying Blue State taxes. How I didn't catch him before is beyond me.

Next, TAXH8R, a newcomer to the blogosphere spotted by my blogfather, GBfan. He's very promising, especially with his license plate and hatred of Dan Vrakas' performance thus far as Waukesha County exec.

Sadly, the guy behind Reality Check went back to commenting, so he got booted from the blogroll.

While you're calling your state senators to oppose AB15...

2005-12-17T18:01:00.000-06:00

Fred asks you to call them to support AB69, the bill that will limit the issuance of Wisconsin drivers' licenses to those that are in Wisconsin legally and ensure that you won't need a passport to fly out of an airport, even if it's only from, say, Madison to Milwaukee.

When and if Sen. Jeff Plale gets back to me on the bad-gas bill, I'll ask him about this one as well.

I was remiss before in saying that by supporting this, you'll help to stick thumbs in the eyes of the likes of the Marquette University-sponsored Voces de la Frontera, who stormed the private property of Senator Cathy Stepp last night. Now why do I get the feeling that the Journtinels (Milwaukee and Racine) will continue to ignore this?

An early start to Week 15

2005-12-17T09:44:00.000-06:00

That's right; with college ball now in Bowl Season (F'em Bucky!), we have Saturday NFL games through the end of the season and into the first 2 weeks of the playoffs. So, without further adieu, let's get you started off right at the pay window.

New England (-4.5) @ Tampa Bay - I may not know which way the Pats are going, but I do know that the Bucs are falling, falling, falling.
Kansas City (+3) @ NY Giants - You can't be considered a contender without a kicker.
Denver @ Buffalo (+8.5) - Just too much lumber to lay down.
San Francisco @ Jacksonville (-15.5) - Throw some salt in the splinter wounds on your Man; offer him San Francisco and 37.5 (the over/under).
San Diego @ Indianapolis (-7.5) - Stats of the week (courtesy Yahoo) - The Colts have scored in 31 consecutive quarters and haven't trailed in the last 438 minutes, 16 seconds, dating to the third quarter of a 45-28 win over St. Louis on Oct. 17.
NY Jets @ Miami (-9) - Surely the bookies can't be serious about only forcing me to lay the short 9 in this one.
Carolina (-9) vs New Orleans @ Baton Rouge - Have the Aints even covered in Tiger Stadium?
Seattle (-7) @ Tennessee - The Walrus wants home field in the worst way; fortunately, Tennessee qualifies as one of the worst. Take the under 45 because Tennessee will continue to not score.
Pittsburgh (-3) @ Minnesota - Duh Viqueens caught their break of the week when only 4 players (2 on injured reserve) netted a total of 12 misdemeanor charges from the Love Boat.
Arizona (-2) @ Houston - Why encourage the Texans to make money from their quest for Reggie Bush? Oh well, profit from it.
Philadelphia @ St Louis (-3.5) - This may set the record for most starters on injured reserve in the modern era (since "injured reserve" meant "out for the season").
Cleveland (+3) @ Oakland - The coin said Raiders, but I invoked executive priviledge on this one.
Cincinnati @ Detroit (+8) - Again, too many points to give.
Dallas (+3) @ Washington - If the Tuna chokes this one, put James on suicide watch.
Atlanta @ Chicago (-3) - If the Pack can beat up the Falcons in Atlanta, surely the Bears can maul them in the cold of December. Expect the chants for Grossman to start early.
Green Bay (+3.5) @ Baltimore - Over/under on the teary-eyed Al Michaels/John Madden goodbyes to Favre - 6.5 (go over), over/under on the game - 33 (go under).

Kettle calls pot black

2005-12-15T20:37:00.000-06:00

Here I thought Charlie was on vacation until 2006, and he goes and picks up on an interesting part of E. Michael McCann's (D-Corruption) comments at Chuck Chvala's (D-Convict) sentencing. Guess the Potawatomi part of my ID for Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) struck the outgoing McCan't the same way it struck me.

Any bets on what kind of sentence Brian Blanchard (D-Madistan) will push for if he's able to convict his ham sandwiches? Brian Burke plea-bargained down to 6 months of Huber Law, and Chvala talked the judge into giving him 9 months of Huber Law instead of the 6 months of Huber Law recommended by the prosecution.

A bit of housekeeping to Charlie; how about having the techies set up a RSS feed? It would make it so much easier to keep up with Sykes Writes.

What the Assembly giveth, the Assembly taketh away

2005-12-15T20:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, the state Assembly was good enough to vote to stop the automatic increase in the gas tax (~~expect Craps to veto it at 4:53 pm 12/23 because it would cut into his personal slush fund and the Senate to uphold the veto~~ Craps said he would sign it, but as of the AM 12/21, he hasn't). Today, they passed a bill, AB15 (amended) mandating a 10%-ethanol blend in regular gas (they were "kind" enough to take out the mid-grade) starting in October 2006 (the vast majority of the gas sold in Wisconsin) 54-38 (H/T for the vote total - Kevin). Jim "Craps" Doyle (WEAC/ADM-Potawatomi) will sign it if it passes the Senate, so give your State Senators hell again. Their staffers should know who you are by now.

Now, for the meaning behind the title (warning, fancy math ahead). That tainted E10 gasoline gets about 5% worse mileage than straight E0 gasoline (specifically in my side-by-side case, 6.25%). That means you're burning about 5.3% more gasoline, and paying taxes on that additional 5.3%. IF Craps does sign the end to the automatic gas-tax increase, that would cap the gas tax at roughly 30.5 cents per gallon after its final automatic increase (estimated at about 1 cent/gallon) in 2006.

Let's assume you drive 12,000 miles a year with your average car that burns regular gas and get 20 miles per gallon on straight E0 gas (to use round numbers). You'd be burning 600 gallons and kicking in $183 in gas taxes. A penny increase in the gas tax, slightly more than what it has averaged (again, I'll run with it to use round numbers) would mean a $6 increase in your contribution, bumping it up to $189.

Now, drive that same 12,000 miles on E10 gas. You'd only get 19 miles per gallon, and burn about 632 gallons of ethanol-laced gas. At that 30.5 cents/gallon gas tax, you'd kick in $192.76. That's $9.76 more than you would otherwise, and $3.76 more than if the Assembly had done nothing, allowed the gas tax to go up automatically, and didn't require you to burn ethanol-laced gas.

Even taken out to the second year, the cumulative effect is a net tax increase. With a gas-tax freeze and an E10 requirement, you'd still pay $192.76 that year in gas taxes and $385.52 over the two years; with an automatically-increasing gas tax and no E10 requirement, in that second year, you'd pay $195 that year and $384 over the two years, and with a gas-tax freeze and no E10 requirement, you'd still pay $183 that second year and $366 over the two years. Let me restate; the sum total is a tax increase.

It just gets worse if Craps does what I expect and decides he likes his slush fund too much. You'd kick in $199 in gas taxes in the first year, $205 in the second, and $404 over the two years. If you think that extra $38 will go toward roads, I have a bridge or two to sell you.

Once again, the call to phones is in effect. Ask your state senators to kill AB15.

Revisions/extensions - I forgot about the $0.03 (soon to be $0.02) per gallon "tank inspection" fee. With E10, that takes another $0.64 out of your pocket per year. Also did some minor corrections.

Revisions/extensions part 2 - For those who missed the roll-call, Patrick has the Hall of Shame up

Revisions/extensions part 3 - since this has been submitted into this week's Carnival of the Badger, I redacted my prediction of a Craps veto. Of course, I trust his word about half as far as I can throw him, so that prediction is not yet entirely invalid.

Will Craps sign or veto the end of the automatic gas-tax increase?

2005-12-14T16:10:00.000-06:00

Now that it has passed the Assembly 74-23 (by a veto-proof margin) after squeaking through the Senate 20-13 (NOT a veto-proof margin), it's time to guess when/if Jim "Craps" Doyle will veto it. Patrick and Brian Fraley (filling in for Owen over at Boots and Sabers) seem to think he'll actually sign it, while Fred and Kevin think he'll veto it (Fred goes so far as to call for a Friday veto, just in time for Christmas) and Peter has no idea.

As for me, I'll even come up with the specific time that he'll veto this; 4:53 pm Friday, December 23. The official reason will be the one pointed to by Fred and Kevin, that it would make the highways "less-safe" (as if the $1 billion that Craps looted from the fund didn't have that kind of impact). In reality, it will be because it shuts off the automatic growth of Craps' favorite slush fund. The end to the indexing will cost a LOT less than Craps' raids.

Homer nods - fixed a typo (D'OH!!!!) - or two (D'OH!!!!!!) - and them typos keep on piling up (D'OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)