No Runny Eggs

In response to the multi-pronged shootdown of the Harriet “Mushroom” Miers nomination, President Bush ignored the pressure from the left to nominate a more-“provable” like-for-like to left-of-like replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor and nominated Samuel Alito (who can fairly be called the Anti-Mushroom). Fight on!

GBfan, in his excellent rant about the behavior of the pro-Mushroom crowd, compares them rather unfavorably to Peter Jennings infamous “temper tantrum” rant in 1994 when the CONSERVATIVE Contract With America brought the Republicans both Houses of Congress.

Go, read.

Homer nod – link fixed

We’re closing in on the halfway point, and I’m at a money-making 56-44-2. Let’s see if I can continue (the line is the Sunday AM line from Yahoo) –

Minnesota @ Carolina (-7.5) – Stick a one in front of that 7.5.
Green Bay @ Cincinnati (-9) – What’s the over/under on the week Sherman gets fired?
Arizona (+9) @ Dallas – Somehow, the Cowboys’ defense always keeps it close.
Philadelphia @ Denver (-3.5) – I can’t bet against the altitude.
Chicago (+3) @ Detroit – Take the under 32.5 as Duh Bears take sole possession of first and wrap up the division.
Cleveland (+2) @ Houston – How is a winless team favored?
Jacksonville (-3.5) @ St Louis – No Martz = no points.
Buffalo @ New England (-9) – Tedy Bruschi will outscore Buffalo in his return.
Miami vs New Orleans (-2.5) @ Baton Rouge – It will be a happy almost-homecoming for the Saints, not-so-happy for Nick Saban.
Washington @ NY Giants (-2) – Too bad Tony Stewart can’t play quarterback.
Oakland (-1) @ Tennessee – The coin landed tails.
Kansas City (+6) @ San Diego – Just too many points to give.
Tampa Bay (-11) @ San Francisco – Tampa Bay -36 might be a fairer bet.
Baltimore @ Pittsburgh (-10) – Take Blitzburgh -33; the OldBrowns ain’t scoring.

Cross-posted over at The Wisconsin Sports Bar by request of the owner.

I’ve been hiding all week from my bookie :-). Let’s review the piss-poor performance:

Kansas City 30 (+1.5) @ Miami 20 – Short week, late hurricane, what’s the difference?
Pittsburgh 27 (+1) @ Cincinnati 13 – …and there’s gonna be trouble.
Detroit 13 @ Cleveland 10 (-3) – Huh? Duh Lions won? On the ROAD??? Break out the end-of-the-world survival kits.
Green Bay 20 (-1.5) @ Minnesota 23 – It’s sad when I can’t even hit the over.
Indianapolis 38 (-15) @ Houston 20 – At least I didn’t take Indy -45.
San Diego 17 (+3.5-WIN) @ Philadelphia 20 – At least I got the points ;-)
New Orleans 17 @ St Louis 28 (-3) – Where did I go wrong on the prop bets?
San Francisco 17 @ Washington 52 (-13) – The Deadskin defense didn’t have to outscore Duh Whiners.
Dallas 10 @ Seattle 13 (-3.5-LOSS) – Damn half-points.
Baltimore 6 (+1) @ Chicago 10 – …and this is an unpredictable year.
Tennessee 10 @ Arizona 20 (-3.5) – Or at least they’ll find it often enough.
Denver 23 @ NY Giants 24 (-2-LOSS) – Of course, Hoffa’s dead.
Buffalo 17 (+3) @ Oakland 38 – Wha happen? Someone set us up the bomb.
NY Jets 14 @ Atlanta 27 (-7) – Brooks Bollinger is NOT an NFL quarterback.

Well, maybe it wasn’t such a piss-poor performance. 8-6 puts me at 56-44-2 on the year.

I’m not usually as much on-fire as I am in the post that Dad29 linked to, but feel free to stop on back now and again anyway.

Pyre #1 – Wisconsin Governor Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC-Potawatomi) wants Congress to force oil companies to refund “excess” profits. You mean like the 9 cents/gallon “excess” profit mandated by Wisconsin’s minimum markup law when wholesale gasoline was trading at $2.60/gallon instead of $1.80/gallon? You mean like the mandated immediate price spike and delayed price fall at the pumps also mandated by Wisconsin’s minimum markup law every time the speculators move the price of gas on the spot market? You want relief at the pumps? How about getting rid of part of the gas tax since you can’t find enough road projects and empty buses to fund; oh that’s right, the teachers own you and are expecting the same kind of return on their investment that the Indians got.

Pyre #2 – ADM and the ethanol sycophants are airing commercials saying that we could save $0.10/gallon if only we required every station in Wisconsin to sell gasoline that contains 10% ethanol. That’s funny, when I travel out of this little corner of the state, where every station has to carry ethanol-laced Algore Memorial Gas, I notice ZERO price difference between stations that have straight E0 gas and bad E10 gas. I do notice, however, that my engine runs a bit better (and the engines in my lawn mower and snowblower run a LOT better) on the regular gas. I won’t even mention that ethanol creates a whole new set of pollutants, ruins the fuel injectors on GM vehicles, and that a vastly-different blend is required in winter to prevent fuel-line ice-up (oops, guess I just mentioned it).

Sticking with the ethanol, I’ll head back in 2000, when I had a 1995 Saturn SC2 and the Algore Bad Gas was so much more expensive than good gas available in places like East Troy. Using the Algore gas, I got 30 miles per gallon in city driving (or 300 miles on a 10-gallon fillup leaving a 2-gallon cushion), but when I took the trip out to East Troy (60 miles round-trip), I got 33 mpg combined city-highway on that same 10 gallons (or 330 miles).

Ah, you might say, 60 of those miles were highway driving, and thus that explains the difference. Au contraire. While it does explain some of it (I was getting about 37 mpg in strictly highway driving), let’s do the math. The trip out to East Troy took 1.62 gallons and 60 miles from the 10 gallon/330 miles. That meant I burned 8.38 gallons over 270 miles. I come up with over 32 miles per gallon on driving that would otherwise have burned a gallon of Algore Gas every 30 miles. That’s right, I burned 6.25% MORE gasoline when burning the ethanol-laced stuff.

Fred at RealDebateWisconsin relates his personal story on the sham of Craps Doyle’s tax “freeze”. It seems the Racine Unified Screwel Board (yes, the “typo” is intentional) is raising their portion of his property tax 8%. Allow me to remind you gentle readers what Craps said back in July (courtesy Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the racist Jentinel) – “The result of the freeze that I will sign will be that the average property tax on the average home will not go up at all next year, and will actually go down $5” in December 2006.

Revisions/extensions – removed link to the racist Jentinel

(HT: McBride’s Media Matters via Dad29)

It seems the National Republican Senatorial Committee is working on getting Tim Michaels to run against Nobody’s Senator, Herb Kohl (D-Bucks). Would that be the same NRSC that abandoned Wisconsin after Michaels upset the applecart by winning the Pubbie nomination? Why do I get the feeling that they, and the RPW (who bailed on Michaels, John Gillespie in 2000, and Mark Neumann in 1998), are happier having Nobody’s Senator around than actually picking up this seat?

Sean provides an eclectic take on the Cheddarsphere. I wonder if I should’ve put my various Mushroom posts in :-)

The Politburo Diktat‘s commisar asks, “Who’s Your Daddy?” I’m unable to limit myself to the one that he requests. My immediate BlogFather is GBfan of Spotted Horse, who pushed me into the posting side of the blogosphere after he invited me into The Wisconsin Sports Bar.

I do trace my roots a bit further than that. Going back a bit further in the “true” blogosphere, Owen at Boots and Sabers was instrumental in getting me to think about getting my own blog, and the Badger Blog Alliance get-together attended by Owen, Jib, Sean, Kevin, Mary Eileen and John McAdams got things rolling. There’s more blogs I’ve commented on before this little place opened up, just look over to the right (and I’m sure I’ve forgotten one or two; if so, please remind me because I’m forgetful :-)

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Free Republic, where I’ve been since January 2001. Over there, running into fine folks like the crow and LouD at the Bush rallies in 2000 got me in to the Robinsons’ playground.

HURRAY!!!

If anybody from the White House happens to be reading this, please pass along to President Bush that a conservative is expected this time around, as well as for any future vacancies.

Yes, I know, technical colleges, as unelected taxing bodies, are exempt from the Craps anti-freeze, but that didn’t stop the Jeanette Bell-led Milwaukee Area Technical College board (yes, the same Jeanette Bell that complained that the 2.75% property tax levy increase that she shoved down West Allis taxpayers’ throats wasn’t big enough and the same Jeanette Bell that that made possible a 4% property tax levy increase from MMSD) from raising the MATC levy 6.6%.

The Journtinel claims that it actually is a victory for taxpayers because it could have been $1.4 million worse and have been a 7.8% levy increase; by a 6-3 vote, the board lowered the tax rate to keep the total tax take at what they approved back in June. It seems that property values in the district went up greater than expected, and if they kept the rate at that June level, they would have taken in $127.9 million instead of the already-bloated $126.5 million they planned on taking in. Left squealing are various spend-and-spenders like the teachers’ union and the 3 idiots who can’t seem to live within the 6.6% levy increase means they had approved not 5 months ago. Despite the whine, I don’t exactly feel victorious; it could be the empty wallet.

Revisions/extensions – removed the link to the racist Jentinel

How much higher would electricity be? It’s already going up 8%, and that is with the Oak Creek plant being replaced with another coal plant.

Revisions/extensions – hope you saved the link to the racist Jentinel story; it’s out of here.

Brian has an interesting picture of a very nervous Brian Burke at his plea-deal hearing, and he has invited his readers to caption it. Go, have fun (it’s why I disabled comments here).

More evidence of Miers’ political and judicial views comes to us from the Washington Post, and it casts serious doubt on the mushroom-eating crowd’s last defense that Miers would at least be better on the Roe issue than O’Connor. It also reveals her as a liberal who at times sees the courts as the agent of social change.

Meanwhile, the Journal Sentinel racist Jentinel reports on a meeting that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) had with Miers yesterday where the question on the role she had on convincing President Bush to sign the patently un-Constitutional McShame-Slimeroad Liberal/DemonRAT Protection Act. I bet he was expecting an answer like this – “Yes, I did convince him to sign this, and no, I won’t recuse myself from Round 2 because I realize I’m the swing vote,” but instead…

“She said she couldn’t even tell me if she was involved,” Feingold said. “That is, to me, a fairly extreme blocking of our ability to examine her record in general.”

And this stealth Souter in a skirt is what we conservatives have to swallow? According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Feingold has no problem with her on a district court (bear in mind that he helped ramrod Lynn Adelman to the federal bench). Put me down in the “HELL no to Justice Miers!” camp.

Revisions/extensions – continuing expunging links to the racist Jentinel

I have to thank Fred of RealDebateWisconsin for bringing still unreal into the Cheddarsphere with Reality Check. It’s a shiny new blog, so go there and encourage him to get some more posts up.

Somehow, I missed Dean over at Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative welcoming me into the blogosphere. Welcome those of you who came here from there.

Using a loophole in the Miller Park lease that forces us suckers, er, taxpayers to pay for anything related to the stadium the Brewers ask for if at least 75% of the other stadiums has, the stadium district finance board approved by a 4-1 vote spending $3.25 million to put up ribbon video boards on the club-level facade and replace the left-field out-of-town scoreboard with a video board. This $3.25 million comes from the $5 million set aside in a reserve fund (funded 65% by taxpayers) to replace the scoreboard in 2008 (which, in itself, is an outrage; that scoreboard is less than 6 years old). The primary purpose of these ribbon video boards is for advertising, with the proceeds apparently going solely to the Brewers.

The 4 who want to stick it to us are the district board of directors chair Jay Williams (Doyle appointee), David Spano (Doyle appointee), Perfecto Rivera (Walker appointee who appeared to have defied Walker) and Karen Makoutz (Washington County rep). To his credit, finance board chair Doug Stansil (Racine County appointee) listened to Racine County Executive William McReynolds and voted against this. While the Doyle appointees have limits to their terms, the county appointees serve at the pleasure of the county leaders. Scott, it’s time to send Rivera packing.

Mark Belling has a cynical view of this tapping of the reserve fund; it is designed to drain the fund so that the 0.1% sales tax we are saddled with here down in southeast Wisconsin will never end. Can’t say I disagree with him.

Revisions/extensions – WISN-AM is now reporting that Walker is asking for a reopening of the lease agreement. That’s a great long-term solution, but what about Rivera?

The Capital Times story I linked to just below has another detail –

In addition the sides will recommend at a future sentencing date that Chvala be put on two years’ probation and the prosecutors will argue he be sent to jail for six months as a condition of that probation. Defense attorneys James Olson and Bruce Davey are free to argue for less, or no time in jail.

Yep, that’s right, the jail time isn’t agreed to.

Anyway, I somehow forgot to comment on the significance of all this in the earlier post. Chvala was hit with the laundry list after former State Sen. Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee) was hit with a laundry list indictment of his own, which derailed his 2002 bid for the soon-to-be-vacated Attorney General seat. With Burke’s plea-bargain deal, the pressure came off Milwaukee County DA E. Michael McCann’s office to push the Chvala prosecution, and he reverted to type, tossing out essentially the entire case, even though it was easily the strongest and furthest-reaching one from the entire Caucus scandal.

That one of the two guilty pleas was the use of state workers for campaigns on state time is no accident. That’s the sole basis of the remaining charges against various current and former Assembly Pubbies. That the corruption charges were tossed under the witch-hunt bus is disturbing, but to be expected from the office of McCan’t; he has a long history of minimizing corruption by ‘Rats.

Under a plea deal reached between former state Senator Chuck Chvala (D-Madison) and Assistant Milwaukee County DA David Feiss, Chvala pleaded guilty to 2 of an original 20 felony charges (one was dismissed back in February) – charges of having a state worker campaign on state time and funneling illegal amounts of cash into the election fund of a fellow Democrat in 2000. Dismissed fully were 11 other charges, including two extortion charges on cash-for-floor-votes, while 6 additional counts of campaign finance violations and having state workers campaign on state time were also dismissed but can be considered when sentencing happens.

Feiss recommended a Huber Law jail sentence of up to 6 months and a fine of no more than $5,500. Judge David Flanagan said that he was not bound to honor that, pointing out that those charges added up to a maximum of 5 years in prision and a $10,000 fine. However, he delayed sentencing until December to allow Chvala and his lawyers time to come up with a proposal for community service in lieu of jail, and extended an offer to let Chvala to withdraw the guilty pleas if he is sentenced to prison.

Extensions/revisions – here is was the original complaint against Chvala courtesy JSOnline.com, only the latest victim of my reaction to the racist Jentinel.

Further extensions/revisions – The racist Jentinel strikes again.

From the Journal Sentinel racist Jentinel…

The bad news – The State Senate is expected to pass a statewide smoking ban in restaurants that seat more than 50 (it would, however, supercede more-stringent local bands and allow smoking in those restaurants that have separate rooms with different ventilation systems, bars, small restaurants and bowling alleys). Unbelievably, the next headline will likely be, “Blind Doyle finds nut, vetoes smoking ban”.

The good news – The Assembly is taking up malpractice caps. Dunno how they’re going to get around the Doyle Supreme Court’s open invitation to tort lawyers though.

Revisions/extensions – (H/T – Boots and Sabers) The Senate has shelved the statewide large-restaurant smoking ban and did the first passage of an amendment to keep governors from creating new sentences in budgets by combining other parts of the budget.

Further revisions/extensions – changed the name of the source to the racist Jentinel, removed the link

Despite a pledge to voluntarily hold their tax levy increase to 2% (sewerage districts are exempt from the sublimating Dyole tax “freeze”), and despte the fact that only one member of the board supported the higher tax increase in August, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District – the crappy water people – passed a 4% tax levy increase 8-3 (it required a 2/3rds vote, and after it initially failed 7-4 and the board lawyer reminded everybody they needed 2/3rds, Jeanette Bell changed her vote). Owen and Kevin already have many of the thoughts I do, but I feel it necessary to add an inside-the-district perspective. As Charlie Sykes and Owen point out, “Who elected these people?” Let’s find out –

According to the MMSD site, these 11 tax-and-spenders are never up for election. 7 are appointed by the mayor of Milwaukee, and the other 4 are appointed by an outfit called the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County (comprised of the leaders of the other 18 municipalities in Milwaukee County – that’s right, you in the FLOW communities have no voice). So, let’s take a look at the Effluent Eleven, starting with the 8 who thought that jacking up the taxes was a good idea:

• Jeannette Bell – commission chair – mayor of West Allis, who flip-flopped (I’m surprised at the flip half; she sublimated the Craps freeze back in West Allis to the tune of 2.75% plus a fresh $30 recycling “fee”)
• Dennis M. Grzezinski – commission vice chair – runs his own law firm
• Preston Cole – City of Milwaukee Superintendent of Environmental Services
• Theresa Estmess – mayor of Wauwatosa (gee, what a surprise, she’s proposing a 4.0% levy increase back in Wauwatosa)
• Ashanti Hamilton – 1st district alderman in Milwaukee
• Candice Owley – president, Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5001
• Dale Richards – former mayor of Oak Creek (victim of the 2003 tax revolt)
• Wallace White – principal, W2Excel,LLC

The other 3 members of the Effluent Eleven, who can look forward to a replacement:

• Robert Brunner – River Hills village president
• Pedro Colon (D-Milwaukee) – state representative
• David Cullen (D-Milwukee) – state representative

However, don’t confuse these three for tax-freezers or responsible spenders, they simply wanted to borrow more.

Homer nod – had the wrong story linked, is now fixed.

Extensions/revisions – removed links to the racist Jentinel

Jim Stingl points out in this morning’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel racist Jentinel that the Hamilton/Bell playfield run by MPS has been identified as being run by an outfit called “Milwuakee Public Schools Recreation Division” for the last couple decades. Nobody bothered to check the spelling until this past Friday, when MPS officials finally promised to take down the sign.

On an interesting note, the Journtinel racist Jentinel has spelled the city that is in its title the MPS way no less than 66 times since the Journal killed the Sentinel. Guess the copy editors, especially in the death notices section, went to MPS.

Revisions/extensions – 4th and state idiots, no more traffic for you.

Because of unpredictable Hurricane Wilma, the NFL decided to move up the Chiefs-Dolphins game to Friday night at 6 pm (sorry, no live TV coverage outside the Miami/Kansas City home markets). That puts a bit of a crimp in my theorizing, which has netted me a 50-38-2 start to the season against the line. Oh well, once more into the breach with the Friday AM line from Yahoo, with the standard reminders that this is for entertainment purposes only and that if you do decide to gamble based on this, I’m not responsible for any taxes, losses or legal matters.

Kansas City (+1.5) @ Miami – I know it’s a short week, but I still can’t figure out why the Dolphins are favored.
Pittsburgh (+1) @ Cincinnati – Big Ben’s back.
Detroit @ Cleveland (-3) – And thus the string of NFC North losses on the road continues, until…
Green Bay (-1.5) @ Minnesota – …the Packers take the Toilet Bowl. Duh Viqueens figured out how to choke early and often. For extra money, go with the over 44.
Indianapolis (-15) @ Houston – I’m very tempted to take Indy -45 (the over/under).
San Diego (+3.5) @ Philadelphia – You may like/want/get the points, but you’re not gonna need them. LT is going to run wild on the Eaglets.
New Orleans @ St Louis (-3) – Take the over of 47.
San Francisco @ Washington (-13) – The Redskins defense will outscore San Francisco.
Dallas @ Seattle (-3.5) – Both teams have serious injuries, but Dallas has the worse end of the stick.
Baltimore (+1) @ Chicago – This isn’t an NFC North opponent.
Tennessee @ Arizona (-3.5) – The Cards will find the end zone early and often for a change.
Denver @ NY Giants (-2) – Jimmy Hoffa would approve of this pick.
Buffalo (+3) @ Oakland – Guess Randy Moss felt guilty for missing The Love Boat; he won’t be playing.
NY Jets @ Atlanta (-7) – Come on, say it with me – J-E-T-S SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!

There’s a curious headline in today’s Journal Sentinel racist Jentinel, Franklin tries to stifle taxes. While it’s true that the levy increase of 3.9% is less than the 5.4% increase allowed (due to explosive growth of that amount), and that thanks to a lack of reassessment, there would be a $22 tax cut on a “median” home of $182,200 (heh; try finding 10 $182,200 homes in the tax hell known as Franklin, I double-dare you), it’s partly smoke and mirrors. Despite becoming a full-blown tax hell in the last decade (between municipal and school taxes, Franklin boasts one of the highest tax burdens around), spending is up 4.2% because, among other things, Franklin raids its contingency fund to the tune of $740,000 (the second year in the row they raided that fund), and pulls a Doyle on $289,000 in landfill fees that were to go to debt service, transfering that amount to the general fund.

I had a sleepless night following Wilma as she prepares to crash into Cancun, but all sorts of alarm bells are going off in my sleep-deprived head. I strongly suspect that because that $289,000 in debt service will need to be replaced, taxes will go up even more than expected next year thanks to the “debt-service loophole”. Also, there’s that $1,480,000 hole in the rainy-day fund that will need to be replenished sooner or later.

Also in the story, St. Francis is proposing a 2.98% levy increase (it could have raised it by 4.6% thanks to the lakefront condo development), and West Allis mayor Jeanette Bell whines that the 2.75% increase she’s forced to live with isn’t enough.