No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for February, 2006

February 28, 2006

4-day weekend over; recap up

by @ 12:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Sorry again about the non-existant blogging. A few items from the weekend plus Friday and Monday I didn’t get to –

  • Embattled Milwaukee County Board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway has been exposed as a slumlord by the Journal Sentinel, complete with avoiding a court summons and having an arrest warrant for him. And THIS is the man that’s running the couny board? Let’s be thankful that we have Scott Walker as county exec, at least through the end of the year (when he heads to clean up the governor’s mansion).
  • Single-game tickets for the Milwaukee Brewers (Hurray Beer!) went on sale Saturday with a “Take Back Miller Park” theme, and they went like hotcakes. It seems that Attanasio forgot the first rule of homerism last year; don’t invite more visiting-team fans than home-team fans, but he learned from his mistake.
  • I missed the best revenge that Matt Kenseth could deliver from last week’s run-off by Tony “Stewie” Stewart and NA$¢AR’s non-punishment – he won the Auto Club 500 to head up to 3rd in the points. Meanwhile, Stewart done blew up his engine to finish 43rd. It just doesn’t get any better than that, and I guess I have to start paying attention again.
  • Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) sure seems to be quiet about promoting his “historic” school choice “deal” with Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-halfway out the door). All 4 ‘Rats on the Joint Finance Committee voted against it, but it’s going to the Legislature anyway thanks to 11 of 12 Pubbies voting for it.
  • The show trial of former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R-Brookfield) is going to the DPW’s plan. The same judge that refused to allow witnesses that would tend to help Jensen’s defense or allow Jensen to mount an “equal protection” defense – it seems that Brian Blanchard (D-Madistan) had even more goods on the Assembly ‘Rats but didn’t charge, for instance, former ‘Rat leader Shirley Krug (D-Milwaukee) – has limited the ability of Jensen’s attorneys to redirect witnesses. Expect Jensen to be a felon until this case is thrown out on appeal.
  • We picked up another “NO!” vote on the bad-gas mandate, AB15 – Bob Wirch, ‘Rat out of Kenosha, where they also have the RFG requirement, listened to his constituents.
  • The banner story in yesterday’s Journtinel, which had to have been written by Xoff, tries to tie both Walker and Mark Green to the show trial. They had to stretch a bit for Green and REALLY stretch for Walker. Never mind that Craps is for sale to the highest bidder.
  • Milwaukee wants to leap on the smoking-ban-in-restaurants-and-bars bandwagon. It’s up for Council action on Thursday, and would ban smoking just about everywhere indoors (except homes not used as day-care centers and tobacco stores; and recently-added designated hotel/motel smoking rooms provided the rooms don’t make up more than 20% of the total number of rooms, family-owned businesses that do not have any non-family employees provided smoking takes place outside of public view, the stages of theaters if smoking is part of a particular production and a notice is in the program, and buildings that have a purification system that demonstrably reduces the exposure to that of second-hand smoke outside), as well as outside within 15 feet of a public entrance. But don’t accuse the anti-smoking Commies of trying Prohibition Version II. They’ll glower at you even as they plot their next move toward an outright ban on smoking indoors or outdoors.

Don’t forget, the Carnival of the Badger is here tomorrow night. Head here for how to get your submission in.

February 23, 2006

XXVII Olyimpiad of the Carnival of the Badger is up

by @ 9:04. Filed under Carnival of the Badger.

Lisa of Territorial Pissings has the Carnivalympics up. The bar is set for my run at the Carnival next week.

Remember, there are 3 easy ways to get your entries in –

  • Send an email directly to badgercarnival – at – gmail – dot -com (you should know what to do with the anti-spam effort). Please be sure to include the direct link to your post, as well as the name of your blog, and a short summary of your post to help the carnival host.
  • Use the Blog Carnival Submission Form. You can also view a list of all previous editions of the Carnival of the Badger at the Blog Carnival Archive Page.
  • Use the Carnival Submit Form from Conservative Cat.

They’re due at 2000 hours CST (that’s 8 pm for those that don’t read 24-hour clocks too well) March 1. I hope to be very busy creating the 29th edition (somehow, Lisa lost an “I”; oops). I do have a couple ideas for a theme, but until I hit “Publish”, I reserve the right to change my mind on the theme to fit the (hopefully) numerous and varied entries Nick will be forwarding to me Wednesday night.

Free speech of a liberal suppressed by lieberals

by @ 7:51. Filed under Compassionate Lieberals.

(H/T – a FreeRepublic thread)

WorldNetDaily reports that Paul Trost, a 20-year-old self-described liberal student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Mass. who has protested against the Iraq front of the War on Terror, faces possible displinary action for shouting, “Remember Chappaquiddick!” during an on-campus speech by Sen. Ted “Swimmer” Kennedy.

Trost, who said he was upsety by an introduction of Kennedy given by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) in which Lynch noted how Kennedy overcame hardship on his way to success, shouted his famous words as he walked out of the room just as Kennedy began speaking. He was followed outside by a campus police officer and several state troopers, with the campus officer taking down his information and informing him that he would be hearing from school officials about disciplinary action.

Remember, kids; the moment you start to oppose the lieberal establishment, they will do everything in their power to silence you. It doesn’t matter that, before your unforgivable transgression, you were 110% in the lieberal camp.

February 21, 2006

I am done with NA$$¢AR

by @ 17:01. Filed under Miscellaneous.

The Cup penalties for the Daytona 500 came out in an “ironically-“titled story called NASCAR lays down the law on NA$$¢AR’s front page –

  • For illegally modifying the rear window during qualifying, #48 crew chief Chad Knaus continues to be suspended through the spring Atlanta race for a total of 4 races (less Daytona qualifying), is placed on probation through the end of the year, and loses $25,000. Neither driver Jimmie Johnson nor “owner” Jeff Gordon (who’s listed as the owner to get around an archaic rule preventing any individual from owning more than 2 teams) lose any points.
  • For having an illegally-modified carbuerator during qualifying, #96 crew chief Phillipe Lopez is fined $25,000, part-time driver Terry Labonte loses 25 drivers’ points, and owner William Saunder loses 25 owners’ points.
  • For intentionally punting Matt Kenseth at 190 mph, then admitting that the punt was intentional, Tony Stewart gets…wait for it…wait for it…ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO FUCKING PENALTY

I’ll take the differential between the #48 and #96 penalties first. Both cars failed post-qualifying inspection. Morever, Chad Knaus has a long and recent history of cheating. Here’s what NA$$¢AR head Brainless France was thinking; “We can’t piss off my buddy Rick Hendrick and the title sponsor of one of the tracks we go to not once, not twice, but three times by knocking poor little JJ out of the points lead; but we sure as hell can dump on an upstart team that backed away from a Hendrick partnership, especially if we can help big-bucks Valvoline climb back into the top 35 by the time we leave Bristol.”

Next, the non-penalty for the defending chump, Stewey. He ought to be hitting his knees tonight very thankful for 2 things; he’s NA$$¢AR’s designated Golden Heel, and he drives a car that’s sponsored by the Official Home Improvement Store of NA$$¢AR, The Home Depot. No parking, no fine, no points, not even a damn probation after admitting that he intentionally wrecked Matt Kenseth? As I said Sunday, bull-fucking-shit.

I’m somewhat surprised they didn’t further penalize Kenseth. After all, his Q ratings aren’t exactly in the Jr/Stewey/Flash range, he’s on the team that’s marked for death by Brainless France (Roush Racing), and his sponsor (DeWalt) isn’t either an official NA$$¢AR sponsor or a track sponsor. On the other hand, doing so would make it just a bit too obvious that NA$$¢AR is as rigged as the WWE and the NBA in the NBC days (side note; the motto at NBC “Sports” – If we can’t fix it, we don’t want it).

I guess the NA$$¢AR “law” is – Get yourself a driver with high Q and a sponsor that either also is an official sponsor of NA$$¢CAR or is the title sponsor of a track, and you are in like Flynn. Fail to do so, and if we catch even a whiff that you’re not doing things 150% by our ever-changing, written-in-pencil rulebook, woe be unto you on Tuesday.

See you at the local tracks.

I just might have to become a Jimmie Johnson fan in spite of Chad Knaus

by @ 8:50. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Journal Sentinel auto writer Dave Kallman has an interesting story on Johnson and his car chief, Ron Malec, in today’s fish wrap. Johnson and Malec lived in Pewaukee while JJ learned the stock-car ropes in ASA.

Cue Paul Shanklin’s “In a Yugo”

by @ 8:27. Filed under Miscellaneous.

JSOnline’s DayWatch has jumped on the Killer SUV craze. John Diedrich is reporting that an SUV (no driver mentioned) ran over and probably killed a man near 11th and Keefe around 1:30 (well, the man was either dead or extremely sleepy when the police showed up). There was also a report of shots fired, so I wonder if the SUV was armed as well.

Expect Rush Limbaugh to have a field day with this. Heck, I’m listening to the original version of “In a Yugo” as I type this.

From Milwaukee-ID10T – Memo to Big Gov’t Politicians

by @ 6:59. Filed under Politics.

Clint reads and translates the Declaration of Independence for the RINOs and Liberals. Go, read, and then add him to your blogroll and must-read list (for some reason, Blogger is fouling up his Atom feed, so I can’t add him to my news reader). I can’t do it nearly as well as he does.

Thug Holloway trying to eliminate the chance for a “for-cause” removal as well

by @ 6:03. Filed under Law and order, Politics, Thug Holloway.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that ethically-challenged Milwaukee County Board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway is going to try to cajole 6 fellow supervisors into voting to deny additional funding to the Milwaukee County Ethics Board for the prosecution of a 90-count civil ethics violations complaint against him (to allow the Ethics Board to spend additional money from the county contingency fund, the County Board must approve the request by a 2/3rds vote). The gist of the complaint is that Holloway used his position as a supervisor to vote to approve contracts with the defunct Opportunities Industrialization Center of Greater Milwaukee (OIC) while receiving $165,000 from OIC for a property he owned that never changed hands, with many counts alleging that Holloway failed to disclose ownership of that and other properties. If convicted, Holloway can be removed from not only his chair position, but from office entirely.

I don’t often praise John Weishan, best known before this year as being ousted County Board chair Karen Ordinans little brother, but he has the money quote – “Trying to starve them for dollars so he personally can get a better settlement is another example of him misusing his office.”

February 20, 2006

Thug Holloway wins and wins again

by @ 12:37. Filed under Law and order, Politics, Thug Holloway.

(H/Ts – Brian and JSOnline’s DayWatch)

Milwaukee County board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway, Milwaukee County corporation counsel William Domina, and the local chapter of the NAA(L)CP managed to intimidate 2 of the 10 supervisors seeking to replace Holloway as county board chair, Ryan McCue and Roger Quindel, into joining the Thug Nine to vote to “lay over” an attempted vote to elect a county board chair. Supposedly, the Board will take this up again if Peg Lautenschlager’s formal opinion on the matter matches her informal opinion that the board could proceed with the vote and potentially replace Holloway with a simple majority vote.

A message to those 2 cowards, as well as Richard Nykelwicz Jr, who once supported the idea of Thug Holloway stepping aside until the idea became serious: if Holloway is removed from his chairmanship, he will sue no matter how it is done. It won’t matter if the vote is 10-9, or 18-1 after a finding of cause. If you have learned nothing about Holloway, he will do anything and everything necessary to hang onto his power and unilaterally punish anyone who gets in his way. Just ask Orville Seymer and John Weishan.

In a blow against a strong Ethics Board, which has an open 90-item investigation against Thug Holloway, and against citizen involvement in watching government, Holloway cajoled 12 of his fellow board members into rejecting Don Uebelacker’s appointment to the Ethics Board. Uebelacker co-founded Citizens for Responsible Government, and had participated in a recall effort against Holloway (which likely would have forced his recusal in any vote on Holloway).

2 more for the roll

by @ 6:27. Filed under The Blog.

I REALLY like WordPress’ links management system, especially the “randomize” one. It makes unwieldy blogrolls so much more fun :-)

Seriously, please welcome Random10 and Clint of Milwaukee-ID10T to the roll.

February 19, 2006

The mayor of Tall ‘Afar, Iraq calls the 3rd ACR “avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism”

by @ 18:38. Filed under War on Terror.

(H/T – A FreeRepublic thread)

Greyhawk, who runs The Mudville Gazette has the text of a powerful letter from the mayor of Tall ‘Afar, Iraq to the men and women of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment:

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom. Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.

God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.

Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I haven’t the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families.

NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID AL-JIBOURI
Mayor of Tall "˜Afar, Ninewa, Iraq

Go, read both the letter and the follow-ups Greyhawk has. Then ask your local presstitutes why they didn’t cover this story. Oh, that’s right; it doesn’t fit their template of the US being the bad guys and Al-Qaeda in Iraq being “freedom fighters”.

Fuck you, Tony; fuck you, NA$$¢AR

by @ 15:47. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Tony Stewart intentionally wrecked Matt Kenseth, and all he got was a trip to the back of the longest line. Kenseth gave Stewart a piece of his mind, and he got a black flag as they threw the green flag to restart, then NA$$¢AR said he didn’t serve it, so they put him another lap down.

Bull-fucking-shit!

Revisions/extensions – Kenseth managed to get both of his laps back, but only got back to, at least unofficially at this point, 15th. We had a Green-White-Caution finish, and there were several different versions. The same version put Stewart 5th.

Further revisions/extensions – Near the end of the race, Kyle Busch pulled almost the same move on Stewart that Stewart pulled on Kenseth (only differences, no contact and no wreck). NASCAR gave Kyle a black flag to serve a pass-through penalty, but he stayed out an extra lap just like Kenseth. At the end of that extra lap, there was another caution. So, instead of serving either a pass-through penalty or not having that lap scored, Busch got the same “punishment” as Stewart – tail end of the longest line. Pure horseshit.

Oh, and just in case the tape wasn’t conclusive enough to determine that Stewart did his stunt intentionally to wreck Kenseth, he cleared that up in his post-race interview. He did do it intentionally to “finish it”. NA$$¢AR needs to park his ass for a couple races, defending champ and Heel Golden Boy status be damned.

Listen up, RINOs, RepublicRATs and the RPW (warning, strong language)

by @ 8:53. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, WTPA.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the language. I would have prefered not to type this at all, or at least not do it on a Sunday, but what has to be done has to get done.

Just in case you grabasstic pieces of puke didn’t get the gentle message from Owen and Peter and Patrick (added 9:36 am 2/19), the not-so-gentle messages from Поле Выстраивает Chris of the Glorious Guards Shock Army (that would be Russian for Field Marshall; added 10:05 am 2/19) and the tomato-chucking Dad29, who also chucks out that thanks to gubmint, the early-1970s standard of living supported by the average 1-earner income of $41,700 (constant 2005 dollars for all figures)/year ($1,600/month spending cash after taxes, mortgage, insurance and utilities) now takes 2 earners and more than $73,000/year (added 7:11 am 2/20), and the vote-with-our-feet threat from Clint (added 6:18 am 2/20) to not fuck with WTPA, let me put it on the line for you primitive screwheads. We of the base have been agitating for strong controls on taxes and spending for years because asshats like yourselves seem to think that our wallets are bottomless wells you can dip your greedy fingers into whenever the hell you feel like buying yourselves the next election. We ousted Mary “Panzy” Panzer because she wouldn’t even allow a vote on TABOR. We thought you buttheads would get the message that we were serious about this; it’s beginning to look like we were mistaken.

The best thing you can do is pass WTPA as-is or somehow find the backbone to actually strengthen it. If you do that, everything will be golden, kapish?

However, Owen’s spies are saying that you numbnuts are looking to water it down even further than letting the Miller Park and Lambeau Field boards off the hook. Let me explain what is going to happen to you suckies if WTPA is either watered down or dies altogether. We in the base are going to vote each and every one of you children of bitches out of office. If we have to remove you knuckleheads, it no longer matters to us whether we’re successful in removing you in the primary election or in the general election. While we would prefer to do it in the primaries so that the state government doesn’t officially fall into the hands of the DemocRATs, the fact that you are governing just like the ‘RATs means that your threats of, “The sky will fall if the ‘RATs get control!” ring hollow. The sky IS falling, and as you are the party allegedly in complete control of the Legislature, you are in a unique position to stop it. If you fail, we will lump you in with the ‘RATs you seem to want to be when you grow up and exterminate your terms accordingly and with extreme prejudice.

Know this: with or without you, we will make a strong WTPA happen. We would strongly prefer to see it happen in time for the 2008 Presidential election, but if it doesn’t, your W2 money is going to run out as we bring it to a referrendum, and you’ll be wishing you made it happen. Our patience ran out when you fucked us over on TABOR; our full and furious anger will be felt if you fuck us over on WTPA.

Choose wisely, and you’ll be in power after 2006. Choose poorly, and you will watch this maxim come true – “You fuck with us, we’ll fuck you up.”

I DID warn you again and again and again about the language, so if you have a problem with it, run home and cry to mama.

More asshattery out of UW

by @ 8:41. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Journal Sentinel has a semi-whine piece written by Megan Twohey that the UW system has become “too expensive” for the state’s poor. While the online edition has a couple links ot past stories about the recent abuses of the UW board of regents, the print version doesn’t make any kind of connection between the story and the pay raises being sought by said board of regents or between the story and the out-of-state tuition cut sought by said board of regents (yes, you heard me right; at a time when the state’s poor “can’t” afford UW, they want to cut tuition for the out-of-state crowd only). Further, neither version points out the “backup” jobs, or the outrageous salaries of underworked professors, or the Jim “Craps” Doyle plan to give in-state tuition to illegal invaders. Instead, Megan trots out the same tired lieberal lines of causes, then blindly bleats out Craps’ plan to have the taxpayers pay for college for every “B” student in the state as the “solution”.

Yet the RepublicRATs wonder why we want a strong WTPA, and the presstitutes wonder why they’re no longer taken seriously.

February 18, 2006

Justice Scalia coming to Milwaukee Thursday

by @ 20:00. Filed under Law and order.

(H/T – Kevin)

The AP is reporting (via WBAY.com) that Justice Antonin Scalia will be the keynote speaker at a Federalist Society conference on the legacy of the Rehnquist Court in Milwaukee on Thursday.

The full details and registration are over on the Federalist Society website (it’s the third item down). The conference, which will be at the Pfister Thursday between 9 am and 2 pm, is free (though those wishing to use the conference as part of their Continuing Legal Education are charged $20).

If the topic isn’t enough to draw interest (which it is), I highly recommend attending just to listen to Justice Scalia speak. I had the pleasure of listening to him when Marquette University invited him to town several years ago. I do plan on attending.

More sales taxes for Milwaukee County?

by @ 9:08. Filed under Politics, Taxes.

The Journal Sentinel is reporting that the tax-increasers on the County Board (Richard Nyklewicz, Lee Holloway, Michael Mayo and Marina Dimtrijevic) want to shove a 0.25% sales tax through to fund the parks, Milwaukee County Zoo, Milwaukee Public Museum, the UW Extension (why in the hell does Milwaukee County have an extension when we have UWM?), Historical Society, War Memorial Center, Villa Terrace/Charles Allis art museums, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, Visit Milwaukee, the library system, and the Milwaukee County Fund for the Arts. What’s worse, 2 other unnamed board members want a larger 0.5% sales tax for just the parks.

Never mind that we already have a maxed-out total sales tax of 5.6% (and a state-high 5.85% for food and beverages) – 5 percentage points to the state, 0.5 percentage points to the county, 0.1 percentage points to Miller Park, and 0.25 percentage points on food and beverages to the Wisconsin Center District. Never mind that we have outrageous property taxes that many of these same county board supervisors looted to enhance pension benefits. These asshats want more, more, more. I know damn well that they won’t return the property tax money that they saved by shifting the parks and cultural funding to a sales tax; they’ll spend it on something like a parking structure for themselves.

While the gang of 4 will seek to have a September referrendum on this (gee, why September and not November; could it be that there are less voters in September?), that would only be an advisory one because the Legislature would have to pass enabling legislation.

While County Executive Scott Walker opposes this idea, his grand proposal to shift the parks to an “independently elected parks district board” with separate property tax levy authority is little better. Fortunately, that proposal would also have to go through the Legislature.

We should stick with Walker’s scaled-back proposal to do more privatizing. If this new tax flies, I’ll be doing my medium-ticket shopping in Racine or Waukesha Counties, which don’t penalize me for shopping there (I already do my big-ticket shopping there).

Carnival reminder

by @ 8:06. Filed under Carnival of the Badger.

The Carnival of the Badger, started up by Nick back in the dog days of August 2005, will be making its 28th weekly appearance at Territorial Pissings.   Sometime before 2000 hours (8 pm) Wednesday, February 22, if you’re a part of the Cheddarsphere (for those that haven’t paid attention to either folkbum or Fred, that’s the part of the blogosphere occupied by Wisconsinites), find your best post of the week (or more, though I won’t guarantee that any particular host will include more than 1), and get it in.   You even have 3 different ways to do it (make sure you include your blog name, the direct link to your post, and a brief description):

 

The following week, Nick has somehow seen fit to send the Carnival my way.   Hopefully I won’t frag it up too bad.   He does have hosts through March 16th, but he’s always looking for more hosts.   If you are interested in hosting a future Carnival of the Badger, let him know over here (he also has an e-mail link off of that page if you prefer to keep things private).   Let him know your name, blog URL, the week(s) you want,  and an e-mail address where he can get the submissions to you.

Al Gore must be a MJS editor

by @ 7:42. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Who else would run a teaser called “Mouse boom – Warm weather has rodents thriving in  area” for this story  on the top of the front page on the coldest night of the year?   BTW, my cheap thermometer bottomed out at -8.5 degrees (temp measured right next to the house just above ground level), while the airport a few miles away bottomed out at -11.

February 17, 2006

Like sands through the hourglass, so go the days at the Courthouse

by @ 19:19. Filed under Politics, Thug Holloway.

(H/Ts – Brian Fraley and JSOnline’s Daywatch)

Peg Lautenschlager issued today a preliminary, informal opinion  that, despite Milwaukee County corporation counsel William Domina’s  informal opinion to the contrary,  the Milwaukee County board could proceed with a special session to elect a replacement for county board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway (side note;  he decided that discretion was the better part of valor and didn’t remove the 6 members of the Group of 10 that still had committee chairmanships/vice-chairmanships).   The full opinion from WisPolitics is here.   A  few notes:

  • She bases her opinion on the facts that because the vote would be to remove Holloway from his board  chairmanship rather than from the board itself and that the chair is elected by the board rather than appointed by anyone  or elected by the voters, neither statute that says that a “for cause” 2/3rds vote is required to remove certain officials applies.   Rather, she states that the statute that says that the board chair serves until the board elects a successor applies.
  • Her opinion is counter to a 1923 formal  Attorney General’s office opinion on this subject, but that 1923 opinion “…inexplicably ignored the plain language of the statue providing for the election of the chairperson as well as its own recognition that the chairperson is elected.”
  • Due to the conflict in opinions, she will undertake a formal review to either clarify or reverse the 1923 AG’s opinion.

I thought I would never say this, but Peg is right.

February 16, 2006

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

by @ 11:45. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Just came back from a trip to East Troy to get some good gas (more on why  in a while).   Headed down about 9:30, it was raining (I suspect freezing rain because the thermometer on the dash said 32 degrees), but I was about the only driver to take that into account, as everybody was blowing by at the speed limit, even with a car in the ditch just past Muskego.   Then, about 9:45-9:50, a bit east of Mukuwanago, it started thunder-sleeting.   People finally started to slow down.

On the way back, it was alternating between thunder-sleeting and thundersnowing.   Most of the people finally got the message, as traffic slowed to 40 mph and most people had their lights on.   Saw a car backwards on the other side of I-43.   Stopped off at Wild Birds Unlimited to stock up on some birdseed, and took the back roads back home.   More idiots without lights on, even as visibility was reduced to 2 blocks.   Finally rolled back home about 11:30, and things seem to have stopped, for now.

If you’re driving out there, stay safe, and turn on your lights.   If you don’t, don’t blame the guy behind you when he rear-ends you.

Carnival of the Badger – Caddyshack edition

by @ 6:55. Filed under Carnival of the Badger.

Peter at Texas Hold’Em Blogger has this week’s Carnival.   How did you know I like  “Caddyshack”?   Thanks for the vote of confidence.

 As for the bad-gas bill raising the price of “everything”, close, but not quite.   Fortunately, most delivery trucks use diesel, and the idiots in Madistan haven’t mandated bio-diesel like the moonbats on the other side of the Mississippi/St. Croix, at least not yet.   Of course, not many furnace installers/repairmen, pizza delivery guys, and the like use diesel vehicles, so those prices will go up.

February 14, 2006

Forget polls for the near future

by @ 17:49. Filed under The Blog.

I can’t get Democracy to play nice.

Sorry about the outage

by @ 16:38. Filed under The Blog.

I tried several different things to try to get Democracy, my polling plug-in, working properly.   It fouled up the entire blog for a few hours, but I THINK I have things under control now.

The Pentagon’s vision for “The Long War”

by @ 6:51. Filed under War on Terror.

Brendan Miniter brings up the other half of the War on Terror – countering the Islamokazi view that an Islamist caliphate spanning the entire Islamic world from Indonesia (side note to Brendan; Indonesia is the largest majority-Islamic country in the world) to Spain.   Despite efforts by the Department of Defense to publicize this half of the WOT, including a luncheon by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the National Press Club and the release of the Quadrennial Defense Review, this hasn’t been picked up by the press.

I wonder why.   Could it be that Americans aren’t dying on this front?   Or perhaps it’s  that we’re starting to be successful on this front, with the disaster relief in South Asia after the 2004 tsunami and the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, as well as a successful joint military venture with Djibouti (for those of you who went to public school in the last 15 years, Djibouti is a Muslim  country on the Horn of Africa, with Somalia to its south, Ethiopia to its west, and directly across the Red Sea from Yemen).   Perhaps it’s because  it is going to be a long war that will go on long after President Bush leaves office.   Maybe the presstitutes are like the moonbats and believe that the only groups capable of being eeeeeeevil are Republicans, conservatives (at least the Cold War definition of being strongly opposed to Communism),  and Christians.

February 13, 2006

Did anybody check the price of ethanol lately? – UPDATE

by @ 19:36. Filed under Corn-a-hole, Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Dad29)

It seems that Tom Reynolds did, and he found some interesting items:

  • On February 10, 2006, the average retail price of gasoline in Wisconsin was $2.375 per gallon.   On February 10, 2006, ethanol traded at $2.73 per gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade.
  • The Oil Price Information Service explains that increase in a February 2, 2006 article – “This latest round of price increases for domestic ethanol is tied predominantly to new demand for the Northeast as well as from huge metro RFG markets in Virginia and Texas. There clearly is more ethanol buying interest at the moment than there are sellers willing to commit barrels or term product for distribution in the pivotal second and third calendar quarters….   As February began, spot ethanol in the New York Harbor vicinity was pegged at nearly $2.70/gallon. Six-month term deals for April through September delivery were discussed at between $2.70 and $2.80/gallon”
  • The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration predicted “a very tight ethanol market” through the first half of 2006, and noted that a complete phase-out of MTBE in favor of ethanol on the East Coast would increase ethanol consumption 90,000 barrels per day (or more than double what the East Coast uses now).

Does anyone remember what other “clean-burning” product the “it’s cheaper” claims were made by its proponent, and what happened to the price of that product once a modest shift to that product was made?   I’ll give you a hint – its March 2006  futures  closed Friday on NYMEX at  $7.360 per million BTUs, roughly 22% higher than the March 2005 futures were at this point last year.

Revisions/extensions – The price differential is even worse than Sen. Reynolds says.   At the trading level, where we compare the proverbial apples to apples, unleaded gasoline futures (March 2006)  on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $1.4290 per gallon  while ethanol futures (March 2006)  closed at $2.730 per gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade.   Rounding to the nearest penny, ethanol is $1.30 per gallon more expensive than unleaded gasoline.

I know what you ethanol-sniffers will say next; what about the taxes slapped on gasoline?   They’re not reflected in the futures price.   True.   However, when ethanol is used as a fuel, it’s also slapped with those same taxes.   Morever, even in WisTAXsin, that’s “only” $0.513 per gallon.

Hell, let’s do some math.   There’s roughly an 12-cent/gallon profit margin for gasoline between the futures market and a Wisconsin terminal, then there’s the 51.3-cent/gallon taxes slapped on there, then a 3% markup mandated by the state at the terminal, and a 9.18% markup mandated by the state at the retail level.   With good, E0 gas, that brings the pump price up to about $2.30/gallon, which is where things stand. Now, let’s take E10 bad-gas.   9/10ths of that is made up of unleaded gas, so the price of that portion of the gas is $1.286/0.9 gallon (I’ll round to the nearest tenth).   Ethanol makes up the other tenth, so the price of that portion of the gas is $0.273/0.1 gallon.   Add the two together to get the net “futures” price – $1.559/gallon.   Add the 12-cent/gallon pre-terminal profit margin and the 51.3-cent/gallon taxes and you come up with a pre-state-mandated-profit price of $2.192/gallon.   Add the 3% state-mandated margin at the terminal, and it leaves there at $2.258/gallon.   Add the 9.18% state-mandated margin at the pump and you’re paying $2.465/gallon.

Last time I checked, $2.465 is $0.165 more than $2.30.   If AB15 were law today, and we ignored the fact that the increased consumption of ethanol forced by AB15 would further increase the market price of ethanol, unleaded gasoline would be 7.2% more expensive than it is now.   I’m not enough of an economist to forecast how much more expensive ethanol would be with AB15, but I do know that it would  make ethanol more expensive than it is now.

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