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 November, 2007

November 28, 2007

Roll bloat – less shambling, more rambling edition

by @ 14:34. Filed under The Blog.

One sure way to get on the right sidebar is to promise a lot of rambling. That is exactly what sinistar of doubleplusundead does. Oh, and he whacked the Minnesota GOP vice-chair (see below).

Stupid Pubbie tricks

by @ 14:27. Filed under Politics - National.

While we wait for ultimate in stupidity (Frosty the Snowman to make a return engagement on CNN), here’s a couple more items for the “Stupid Party” pile:

– (H/T – the ripped-off Slublog) Sinistar, the guy behind doubleplusundead, found out that Minnesota GOP vice-chair Michael Barrett has been ripping off the material of various “lesser-known” bloggers (as if AoS HQ, the 2007 Weblog Awards Best Conservative Blog, is “lesser known”) and passing it off as his own. Barrett refused to do the right thing, which would be apologize and start attributing stuff he borrows. Instead, he took the cowards’ way out and after mumbling out a semi-apology, “hung it up” (I give him 3 months before he’s back to stealing, only from a new blog).

– (H/T – Dad29) It seems the Virginia GOP is insisting on participants in its Presidential primary February 12 sign “loyalty oaths” to support the official nominee (especially if it’s the hand-picked one of the “R”NC, Rudi Giuliani). The Roanoke Times rips them, mostly deservedly-so. Suggestion for the Virginia GOP; if you can’t stand a semi-open primary, do caucuses.

There goes most of my meager readership tonight

by @ 13:18. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Michelle and Bryan will be live-vlogging the YouTube debate. Somehow I doubt they’ll accept Stephen Green’s martini challenge, but since I can neither speak well nor look good in front of the camera, I may as well. Of course, I’ll have to modify things a bit; I’ll be doing Sam Adams.

Beware the S-, D-, A- and F-bombs tonight.

Lazy Breakfast pre-debate prep

by @ 8:22. Filed under Politics - National.

I’m still in a funk. Thankfully, MKH and William Smith did the prep for me. It’s good to have a feed reader.

Just as a reminder, whether I am still in a funk or just drunk, I’ll be live-blogging this thing:

November 27, 2007

I’ve got (almost) nothing

by @ 20:01. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Nothing is really catching my interest tonight, and Bucky’s first real test of the basketball season is due up presently, so I’ll just send you along in the general direction of those that actually have something. (Editor’s note; since I don’t have much of anything new or exciting to offer, I attempted to disable pingbacks to the blogs I’m mentioning here.):

– Casper’s back with some wicked takes on the “coexist kerfuffle” (original parody from the irreplaceable Tom McMahon)

– Mary Katharine Ham sat down with a couple of CNN types and talked the Pubbie YouTube debate.

Patrick Ruffini and Jim Geraghty have duelling takes on the Ron Paul effect. If I get more time, I’ll expound on why I’m far more in Geraghty’s camp on this one, but I will say that there is a reason why Libertarians aren’t in office even if a significant portion of the populace agrees with the smaller-government portion of their platform (and no, jumping on the Toofer and Dhimmitude train isn’t going to help them either, even though it’s made them more popular with the presstitutes).

– From the Theives in Gubmint Department – State Edition: massive pay raises for state employees, with a only-in-gubmint defense from Russ Decker. Hey Russ, I don’t recall too many in the private sector getting 3.1% annual raises, and the last time I checked, 6.3% for yourself is a lot bigger than the 5% you’re giving the non-union employees.

Fred Thompson borrows the Paul Ryan tax plan. Again, what’s with the option of keeping the bloated tax code so complex it takes a dolly to cart around?

– Caledonia Unplugged has the latest on the traffic-killing roundabout at the intersection of Hwys 38 and K down in Racine County. Like any bad gubmint project, it’s overdue and ineffectual. I’ll wager it’s also over budget.

– The Artist Formerly Known As Dennis York, a former legislative aide, brings forth a stack of stupid constituent letters.

– As long as I’m raiding Atomic Trousers, Dr. Emil Shuffhausen’s Rulez of the Road is a must-read.

– If you’re a closet Hitler fan, like a certain Philadelphia baseball writer, take these lessons to heart. First, don’t admit it in an e-mail. Second, and most-important, don’t under any circumstances let Ace find out. Fans of Bugs Bunny ought to be able to guess that putz calls himself a genius, and we all know what happens when self-proclaimed geniuses run into morons that can barely pass the entrance exam to kindergarten.

– Speaking of baseball, I put a lot of trust in those that value Sabermetrics, like fellow barkeep ESK. I’m going to enjoy all of the homers that Cordero’s going to give up for the Redlegs. That’s $48 million well-spent (at least from a Brewers’ fan’s perspective) by a division rival.

– I previously noted that Ted “Swimmer” Kennedy is going to write an autobiography in the mold of OJ Simpson. Uncle Fred’s running a contest to name that book.

Revisions/extensions (3:33 pm 11/28/2007) – Jo ever-so-gently reminded me of a call from the Fond du Lac Reporter for kissing experiences and perferences. Talk about stupid presstitute tricks.

What do The Swimmer and The Slasher have in common?

by @ 9:14. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – Weasel Zippers)

With Ted Kennedy getting $8 million from the Hatchette Book Group for his memoirs, both he and OJ Simpson are profiting quite handsomely from having women die on them.

November 26, 2007

“Metal up” tribute

by @ 20:23. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Quiet Riot singer Kevin DuBrow is dead at 52. I can’t find an actual video of the quintessential “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)”, so this will have to do.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBNCRzsLGs[/youtube]

Bang your head!
Metal health will drive you mad!

The temperature cycle is already going down

by @ 20:09. Filed under Global "Warming".

I’m too wiped to find a better source than a column in the online version of the Telegraph by Christopher Booker, but there’s a couple of items you probably haven’t heard from the Gorebal Warming crowd (who are still crowing over the state visit Algore Goracle had at the White House today):

– Earth’s temperatures as measured by satellites have been falling since 1998, dropping to 1983 levels this year.
– Speaking of 1998, recalculated surface temperatures from the 1930s now indicate that 1998 was not the warmest on record, but 1934. Also, the 1930s boast 4 of the 10 warmest years of the past century.

When will the Nobel Committee realize it fucked up and demand the Peace Prize back from Goracle and company? Oh, that’s right, it never did from Yasser Arafat, who was a warmonger up until the time he died.

Goracle hacked

by @ 19:54. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – JammieWearingFool)

A blog set up by Algore Goracle to promote The Convenient L…er, An Inconvenient Truth has been hacked by hawkers of online “pharmaceuticals”. As someone who has to routinely clean that kind of trash out of the spam traps, I feel for the web monkeys who now have to reseize control of their blog. However, I just can’t stop chuckling that a domain registered to the self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet got PWN3D.

I hope they weren’t running the setup I’ve got.

Trent Cave-A-Lott’s final cave

by @ 8:19. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Sean Hackbarth’s birdie told him last night, and everybody else is catching up this morning. The word on the street is Lott is leaving before the end of this year to take advantage of the fact that new prohibitions on the ability of departing Senators to lobby their former colleagues for 2 years after departure don’t take effect until 2008.

Maybe he’ll get the band back together (as JammieWearingFool suggests), or take up baking lessons (after all, Slublog points out he’s asked us to eat cake).

Revisions/extensions (3:46 pm 11/26/2007) – Got a few of them here:
– First things first, that prohibition mentioned above is also in current law; it just is for one year instead of the two it is going to be soon.
– I wonder just how gold-plated Sean’s source is. The Washington Times says that this came from the White House. (H/T – JWF)
– The Washington Post says that the special election will be with all the other ones in 2008 (they earlier speculated that the 90-day rule would have to kick in if Lott left this year), and that the leading candidate for the appointment is Rep. Roger Wicker. MKH touched on the larger money issue already today, so let me continue. The WaPo notes Wicker has $569,000 in the bank, which makes it seem that the reason Lott acolyte Pickering won’t get the nod is the money. Odd thing is, Pickering has $761,000. The only good news is the prohibitive favorite on the Dem end, former AG Mike Moore, will be starting from scratch.

November 25, 2007

Best YouTube debate question that won’t be used

by @ 19:33. Filed under Immigration, Politics - National.

Bryan and Michelle teamed up to fire off a killer yes/no question to the Republican candidates in Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzTAzEFSpUg[/youtube]

For those of you that don’t feel like mashing your way to either Hot Air or clicking the video, the question, to all the candidates and intended to be a yes/no question, is, “If you’re elected President, will you support and sign into law Congressman Tom Tancredo’s legislation that bans federal funding for cities and local governments that support or enact illegal alien sancutary policies?”

Since it is extremely unlikely to make the cut because it’s too good a question, I fired off the likely candidates’ responses in the comments section at HA:

Rudi – No, er, yes, er, no. Did I tell you how great New York City was under me?
Mitt – Whatever my position was 2 weeks ago, I reverse it.
Johnnie – Oh, hell no.
The Reverend – Don’t swear, Johnnie-boy. Just do what I would; veto with extreme prejudice.
Fred! – Ummm, yep.
Tanc – That will be Executive Order #1.
Dunc – That will be Executive Order #2, right after I shut off all trade with Red China.
Paul-Nut – But, but, but that’s un-constitutional!

I will once again be live-blogging with CoverItLive’s software. They should have at least one of my requests ready to go by Wednesday (the edit function for the moron running the liveblog). No word yet on whether I will be consuming as much alcohol as I did during the last Dhimm debate.

Revisions/extensions (9:31 pm 11/25/2007) – Don’t know about CNN/YouTube, but I’m not giving Toofers the time of day, especially those that already take full advantage of other opportunities to get their word out. Just as a reminder, the First Amendment is properly applied only to Congress, and the last I checked, I’m not Congress nor any other government employee at any level. Do note the Comments/Trackbacks/Pingbacks section of my General Policies.

Roll bloat – open registration edition

by @ 13:45. Filed under The Blog.

Since I’m now registered at Little Green Footballs, I guess I best add them to the roll.

Housekeeping item – stats edition

by @ 7:56. Filed under The Blog.

StatCounter, which runs the stats for me, is currently running a beta test of a more-robust counter. Among the new features is I get to see what, if anything, you click on to get out of here. Right now, I’m running that as an invisible counter because they’re recommending I keep the original code active.

So far, it seems to be working right.

November 24, 2007

Video prep for the NFC Championship Preview

by @ 16:38. Filed under Sports.

Inspired by Uncle Fred’s find of Lett’s early showboating in Super Bowl XXVII, I decided to try to find footage of the end of the 1993 Turkey Day game between the Cowpokes and the Deadfins. While I didn’t find anything that’s embeddable, enjoy this little offering from the NFL.

Oh, and Wiggy, the score of that game was Miami 16, Dallas 14.

It’s all our fault!

by @ 16:20. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Or so say a couple of cosmologists not content to simply blame Gorebal Warming on mankind, but the inevitable collapse of the universe on us as well.

The claim rests on a house of theory cards, starting with the Big Bang theory, continuing through the subsequent theory that the “Bang” was incomplete and left “dark energy”, zipping ahead to 1998 and the application of the quantum Zeno effect, which states that repeated, quick observations of a microscopic object can cause it to stop changing, to the discovery of dark energy, and ending up with postulation that by “resetting the clock” on dark energy, we’ve made it more likely that it, as an unstable system, will fail.

Nice try. The universe, as we know it, will end when God says so, and not a moment earlier or after.

November 22, 2007

NFL Week 12

by @ 9:01. Filed under Miscellaneous.

If at first you don’t succeed at smashing .500 for the year, try, try again…

Green Bay (-4) @ Detroit – History versus numbers; take the numbers.
NY Jets @ Dallas (-14.5) – NBC will regret losing next week’s NFC Championship Preview to the NFL Network.
Indianapolis (-13) @ Atlanta – As bad as Indy’s been, the Dirty Birds are that much worse.
Minnesota (+7) @ NY Giants – Let the usual G-men second-half slide commence!
Denver (+1.5) @ Chicago – You may like, want and get the short one-and-a-half, but you’re not gonna need them. In what should be a theme, take the over-41.
Tennessee (-1.5) @ Cincinnati – Things haven’t yet hit rock-bottom.
Buffalo @ Jacksonville (-8.5) – Losman’s playing? Don’t figure on the Bills scoring a lot.
Oakland @ Kansas City (-6) – The Chiefs are on a kaiser roll.
Houston @ Cleveland (-3.5) – Just take a look at where this game is.
Seattle (-3) @ St. Louis – The Lambs winning ways stop here.
New Orleans @ Carolina (+3) – ST will finally be happy. I gua-roun-tee it.
Washington @ Tampa Bay (-3) – The Bucs D is back.
San Francisco @ Arizona (-10.5) – It’s a good thing bionics isn’t yet illegal in the NFL; otherwise, Warner would still be bagging groceries.
Baltimore (+10) @ San Diego – Remember, it’s NOOOOOOOO!rv Turner’s “offense” that’s giving the long 10.
Philadelphia @ New England (-23) – The good news is there are only 3 more opportunities for Olbermann to snag the Pats. The bad is that means they have 2 more national appearances already guaranteed. Take the over-50.5, and take the Pats to bust that by themselves.
Miami @ Pittsburgh (-16.5) – The only question is, will Ricky come out to get stoned by the Steel Curtain?

And something I’m not thankful for

by @ 8:40. Filed under Sports.

An fugly week in the NFL:

Carolina 17 @ Green Bay 31 (-10) – Rollin’ past the trap game.
Oakland 29 (+5) @ Minnesota 22 – Unfortunately, the vet back was well-rested.
NY Giants 16 (-3) @ Detroit 10 – Add one more “Down goes Kitna!”
Chicago 23 @ Seattle 30 (-6) – Grossman’s Stinky Fingers survive another week.
San Diego 17 @ Jacksonville 24 (-3) – The Bolts are just not giving LT enough touches.
Kansas City 10 @ Indianapolis 13 (-15) – Is it just me, or do the Dolts suck too?
Cleveland 33 @ Baltimore (+3-TIE) – Unfortunately for me, it was Kyle Boller instead of Smith.
Tampa Bay 31 (-3) @ Atlanta 7 – Make that long gone.
Arizona 35 @ Cincinnati 27 (-3.5) – Why do I insist on betting on the BunGALs?
Miami 7 @ Philadelphia 17 (-10-TIE) – Once again, the backup to Mr. Overrated saves the day.
New Orleans 10 (pick’em) @ Houston 23 – Welcome back, Mr. Schaub.
Pittsburgh 16 (-10) @ NY Jets 19 – The good news; 6 kickoffs for Pittsburgh. The bad; 2 start-of-quarter ones, and 3 after field goals.
Washington 23 @ Dallas 28 (-11.5-LOSS) – The only ones to show up were Romo and Owens.
St. Louis 13 @ San Francisco 9 (+3) – At least I told you to take the under.
New England 56 (-16.5) @ Buffalo 10 – It’s just getting ridiculous.
Tennessee 20 (+2) @ Denver 34 – Where does Shanahan find these backs?

6-8-2 on the week keeps that .500 barrier unshattered at 73-76-11, while the vig continues to catch up to the over/under portion of the program (13-8-1).

Things I’m thankful for

by @ 8:16. Filed under Miscellaneous.

– God, for sending his Son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life I can’t, die the death I deserve, and rise again so I may be justified in His sight.
– The blesings that He provides.
– My family (dunno how the grilling’s going to work with the cold wind though).
– The US military, for standing up and defending the greatest country in human history.
– The few politicians willing to say, “No more spending” and “No more taxes”.
– The many more, if still too few, people willing to tell those politicians, “No more.”
– My health.
– High-speed internet (unlike Jim, I don’t quite go all the way back to 300 baud; I got in at 1200, though some boards were still stuck at 300).
– The Packers for proving me wrong.
– The Brewers for one heck of a ride this year (look out in 2008, NL).
– Blogging friends, both those I’ve met and those I haven’t yet.
– Labatt Maximum Ice (7.1% alcohol in a lager has that swing).
– Walleye.
– Too many other things to list.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

November 21, 2007

Oh, the weather outside is almost frightful

by @ 19:20. Filed under Weather.

Hopefully, your driving during the first snowfall of the season will be delightful. The snow isn’t sticking yet in south suburban Milwaukee, but it’s coming down, and the wet roads are about to start freezing up (my car’s thermometer had 34 degrees). Slow down and allow yourself extra time and distance, or you might end up like the idiot that ran into Pete the other night.

Sorry about that interruption

by @ 8:53. Filed under The Blog.

My host had some unexpected problems with server maintenance. Things are back to golden now.

Question-and-answer time

by @ 8:52. Filed under Politics - National.

Disgruntled Truck Driver has two sets of questions up, one for Dems and lefties, and one for Pubbies and righties. Since I’m of the right half of things, I’ll take the latter:

1. Do you approve of EVERYTHING President Bush has done while in office? (Be specific) Nope. Spending went out of control; instead of fixing Medicare, we got a massive increase; and the utter failure to secure our southern border against either a country wishing to refight the Mexican-American War or a bunch of Islamokazis is inexcusable.

2. Do you believe that EVERYTHING that Republicans did while they controlled the House and Senate was good? Oh, hell no. Again, that spending and expansion of the welfare state didn’t happen just because Bush wanted it.

3. What is more important to you? How much a politician “cares” or what a politician “does”? It’s all about the results.

4. How motivated are you to see a Republican be elected on a scale of 1-10? It honestly depends on whether that Pubbie is not or is a member of the bipartisan Party-In-Government. If said Pubbie is a PIG, I’m not exactly interested.

5. Will you vote Republican because you believe the candidate will be what’s best for the country or because Hillary scares the living crap out of you? How does, “Both, boss,” sound? Keeping Hiliary out of the Oval Office is what’s best for the country.

6. Does the idea of a Democrat as Commander in Chief make you feel more or less safe? Far less safe.

November 20, 2007

The ever-growing gubmint monster – counties edition

by @ 20:37. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin, Taxes.

(H/T – Owen)

The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance looked at county government taxation and spending between 2000 and 2005. The very quick Cliff’s Notes summary:

– Wisconsin’s 72 counties spent a total of $6.70 billion between operations ($4.42 billion), debt service ($250 million) and golf courses/hospitals/civic centers/nursing homes ($2.03 billion) in 2005. If memory serves, Milwaukee County was responsible for just under $1.2 billion of that.

– The operations portion represented a 4.3% annual increase from 2000, and a 3.3% per capita annual increase (funny; I don’t recall getting a 3.3% annual increase in pay).

– Over that time frame, state aid went up 2.04% an an annual basis, while county taxes went up 5.73% on an annual basis and revenues from fees, fines and permits went up 9.58% on an annual basis.

– Overall, health and human services spending took up 46.1% of county expenditures, easily outpacing public safety (19.9%), general government (13.9%) and highways (9.5%).

– Exactly one of the 72 counties reduced taxes on a per-capita basis; La Fayette (0.28% decrease annual rate). The lowest per-capita increase was in Dane, which raised taxes 2.1% per year).

– Five counties had per-capita public charges (i.e. fees) more than double in those 6 years; Jefferson (152.6%), Milwaukee (146.6% – ‘thank’ you very much, Thug Holloway), Dodge (137.0%), Washburn (119.2%) and Door (101.3%).

SCOTUS will rule on D.C. gun ban

by @ 15:41. Filed under Guns, Law and order, Politics - National.

The news has been flying around the Net all day, so I’m a bit late to this party. The SCOTUS Blog has the best legal summary I’ve seen:

– The Supreme Court has accepted Washington, DC’s appeal in the case District of Columbia v. Heller. Specifcally, they worded the granted issue this way: "Whether the following provisions "” D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 "” violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?"

– They did not act on a cross-petition of five District residents seeking to join the case. SCOTUS Blog cautions that this is not necessarily a rejection of that cross-petition.

– Left unmentioned by the Court are a whole host of issues that may or may not be decided in this case, including whether the Second Amendment would apply to state and local governments (D.C. is a federal enclave, and that was the reasoning in the D.C. Circuit’s voiding of those three gun laws).

Jim Geraghty wonders whether this would affect the 2008 election. Given the likely timeframe of a March hearing (strongly suggested by SCOTUS Blog) and a June ruling, I would have to say that any ruling would not affect the primaries, specifically the Republican primary, at all, as I expect things to be settled before Wisconsin’s scheduled turn in the “limelight” February 19.

The fact that the Supreme Court has taken the case, however, does have the potential to influence the Republican primaries. Rudy Giuliani, who would be gravely conflicted should the Supreme Court hold the Second Amendment trumps local gun bans, will face a very difficult choice between his lifelong desire to grab guns and his late public professions of support of Constitutionalist Justices. While the side he decides to come down on probably would not cement the nomination if he chooses wisely, it would likely have the effect of ending his chances should he choose poorly.

Similarily, the ruling has the potential to have a major influence on the general election. It will energize both sides of the gun-laws debate, especially whichever side loses. There is a caveat; if Giuliani is the Republican nominee and the Supreme Court sides with the District, that additional energy on the pro-gun side will likely gravitate to a third-party candidate.

Pencil-wielding teen 1, would-be kidnappers 0

by @ 12:54. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – MKH)

Reason number one to keep that No. 2 sharp:

TUCKER, Ga. — Quick thinking by a DeKalb County teenager may have saved her life, police said Monday.

Two men tried to kidnap the girl near Tucker Middle School Monday night, police said.

The 14-year-old was on her way home from dance practice when a black van pulled up, and the men tried to grab her, Police said, adding that the girl got away when she stabbed one of the men in the arm with a pencil. The girl was not seriously hurt, police said.

No word on whether it was a wood or mechanical pencil. Each has its advantages in self-defense. Wood pencils can be made extremely sharp, and the wood can leave one heck of a splinter, but they get dull. Mechanical pencils are always sharp, and some of them have metal tips that aid in penetration, but the lead tends to break off if extended too far, and most mechanicals don’t penetrate as deeply as woods.

It also pays to pay attention to one’s surroundings; the story also notes she recognized the van the perps were driving lurking around the middle school a few days prior.

November 19, 2007

Light blogging

by @ 13:08. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I’m not feeling too great (twisted my ankle on Friday, beginnings of a cold trying to make itself evident), and the leaves in the gutters and the lawn are calling (the weather is the “best” that it’s going to be all week).

I’ve had some problems with bots and botish behavior on the blog all weekend. Sorry about any inconvenience caused by that and my heavy-handed attempts to take care of that.

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