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 April, 2008

April 17, 2008

Disney

by @ 7:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Mrs. Shoebox, the little Boxes and I made a trip to the Florida House of Mouse last week.   While going through the parks I realized that there are a lot of things at Disney that make for easy object lessons in life.   Here are a few of the things that I picked up during our trip.

  1. Economics:   If you’ve got a product that someone really wants, you can name the price.   If you have a product that someone really wants and you can restrict their ability to get it elsewhere, you can name a ridiculous price.   Ponchos that cost about the same as a large hefty bag…say $.07 each, when  sold outside of a “you will get very wet” raft ride, go for $7.50.  
  2. If you have a group of geese, they are a gaggle, cows are a herd, whales are a pod, a group of photographers gathered at the entrance to a park are called a nuisance.
  3. All a guy needs to know about relationships with females can be summed up by one line from Mary Poppins.   When asked to explain a particular commotion, Mary responded with “I never explain anything.”   That was the answer Mr. Banks received and it is THE answer as a male, that you should be satisfied with as well.
  4. A few years back, Disney instituted the Fastpass system.   With this system you can go to some of their more popular attractions, insert your entrance ticket and get a pass that will allow you to skip to the head of the line for that particular attraction at a  set time.     There are a number of rules around how the passes work so that you may be able to get 3 or so on any given day and then stand in the regular queues for the other attractions.   Here’s my object lesson:  in life you may get the occasional Fastpass.   It may come in the form of a scholarship, a particular job promotion, a great spouse  or some other plus.   Just like at Disney, life’s Fastpass will let you move ahead of your peers for a period of time.   However, also like Disney, you won’t get a Fastpass for every obstacle in your life.   Fastpasses should be looked at and used as a perk, novelty, gift.   Fastpasses are great and should be relished  but  we’re going to spend most of our lives standing in line with everyone else and that’s what life is mostly about.
  5. Recession:   Yes there are issues in the economy and I do believe that many people’s “wealth” has been taken down a few notches due to lowered housing equity and stock markets.   However, as I wandered through the Mouse’s kingdoms last week, you would never know that the word “recession” was contemplated by anyone.   The place was packed!   I can also tell you that it wasn’t just the “rich.”   If you want to see a cross section of America, spend sometime at the home of the Mouse.   Rich, poor, young, old, black, white, single, large families…you see it all at the Mouse and amazingly, we all enjoy the same things….maybe for different reasons but we enjoy the same things.   Which leads me to:
  6. Civility:   When visiting the Mouse, with rare exception, people are pleasant, helpful, polite and caring.   People who have never met and will never meet again will help get a stroller loaded on a bus (I’m not talking about the paid help), return a dropped item, give up a seat on the bus, make way for a small child to get a front row seat for a parade.   If we could somehow package the civility that occurs on the Mouse’s turf and spread it everywhere we’d have a much better chance of talking through challenging issues.

April 16, 2008

The “Brotherly Love” Dem debate – Live drunk blog

by @ 13:34. Filed under Politics - National.

How appropriate is it that this one’s going to come from the city that booed Santa Claus? If you’re in, near, or west of the Rockies, this may well be a spoiler thread. Stephen Green noted that his drunkblog will be late because his ABC affiliate is tape-delaying things. That’s right, it’s on free TV, but most of the stations in the West will be tape-delaying it to show it in prime time. The live version kicks off at 7 pm beer time, so I’ll start the drinking about 6:45.

I really thought about simply simulcasting Skye’s liveblog (she’s a friend of Mike from Mike’s America, so he’ll be co-producing), but I’m going to need copious amounts of alcohol to deal with this one, and that’s almost certainly going to be more genteel than my mood can stand. I’m sure the usual suspects will also be liveblogging, and I’ll try to put the links up in this space.

For the 2 people still in this thread, I’ll quickly review things because it’s been a while since I liveblogged a debate and longer since I drunkblogged one. Since it’s the ‘Rats, and it’s a drunkblog, I’ll probably be taking many gratuitous shots along with the non-gratuitous ones, I paraphrase a lot as I’m not the fastest typist on the planet, the questions will be in italics, the answers in plain text, and my comments in-line with either a question or an answer will be in parentheses.

– Ace
– Allahpundit/Ed Morrissey
– Michelle Malkin
– The Lizards
– The Freepers

The Morning (er, afternoon) Scramble – 4/16/2008

by @ 13:11. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

Sorry about making it the Afternoon Scramble. I’m simply wiped out, so I’m glad Shoebox is back…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8__EwAT8VM[/youtube]

– Todd Lohenry has some rather surprising numbers on the number of deaths in the military over the last 20 years, plus some sample numbers from 8 years prior. Care to guess which Presidency was deadlier for the military? As Captain Tenneal would say, “Well, you’re wrong (unless you’re a Vast Right Wing Co-Conspirator).”
– (Revision/extension – 2:26 pm 4/16/2008) There is a reason why those numbers were surprising; Fred did some fact-checking on those numbers, and they were too good to be true. Sorry about that.
– Tom McMahon has another pledge the Left would have a real problem with. Never mind they came up with that pledge back in FDR’s war (if those pinheads want to call the Global War On Terror “Bush’s war”, I’ll reserve the right to call WWII “FDR’s war”).
– You may now call Kathy Carpenter “Alderwoman”.
– Christian Schneider goes into a death spiral, following Dennis Pork (for those of you outside the Cheddarsphere, mash here for that story).
– Kevin Fischer discovered that border “fence” isn’t exactly effective at its stated goal. Of course, since nobody in DC with the exception of Reps. Hunter and Tancredo wanted it to actually stop illegal aliens, it’s not a surprise.
– Mary Katharine Ham has your Peanut Farmer quote of the week. Yes, I know Allahpundit had Jimmy Carter’s display of elitist snobism first, but it’s my Scramble, my rules (such as they are).
– Jimi says, “Fire up the DVR, NBC’s handing over the reins of the ‘Today’ show to the first lady.”
– James T. Harris notes yet another shot in the uncivil civil war on the left, especially among the civil rights generation. This time, it’s BET vs. Obama.
– John Hawkins delivers “Obama In Quotes”. Do be patient, his server’s just getting hammered because I’m hardly the first one on this.
– Jon Ham noticed a certain pin is back on Obama’s lapel. And here I thought Denver was the last refuge of the scoundrels.
– American Pundit has the irony of the day; John Murtha calling John McCain too old.
– Troy Fullerton wonders if Joe Lieberman will be the next Zell Miller. I don’t know whether that says more about the Dems or the Pubbies.
– Sean Hackbarth talked economics with one of the latest examples of the LeftStreamMedia’s black widow-like tendency to eat those they no longer have a propaganda use for, Carly Firoina. Those looking to fill a New Media position with somebody savvy, get a hold of Sean.
– Aaron issued an open invite to a certain candidate that happens to be running for President for the May Drinking Right (May 13, 7 pm CDT, Papa’s Social Club). Well, the motto is, “It’s not about being right, it’s about being drinking.”
– William Teach has a few tips for those bloggers either hacked or worried about getting hacked. Go, read.
– Kate has the corn-a-hole cartoon of the day.
– Ed Morrissey whacks the “ghettoized female blogger” meme.

There’s simply too much in the feed reader today, so if I want to get anything done, I better stop here.

I’m back

by @ 9:31. Filed under Politics - National.

I feel a little bit like I’m running in a remake of “Airplane”…boy,  I picked  the wrong  week to quit blogging….so much fun that I missed!

Just for a couple:

China called Nancy Pelosi the “least popular person in China,” for her comments about China’s handling of their Tibet “crisis.”   This maybe the only issue I’ve ever agreed with Nancy on but even so, it can’t be good for your ego to be the least popular person in at least 2 of the world’s major countries!

Barack Obama’s now well publicized comments talking about how non coast line people handle the stress of economic uncertainty "it’s not surprising they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them . . . as a way to explain their frustrations".  

Giving Barack, or his wife for that matter, opportunities to ad lib are the best way to ensure that he does not win the election in November.   Contrary to what he has in his carefully prepared and scripted speeches, when ad libbing, Barack shows his contempt for anyone who has any tie to traditional values.   His ad lib script continues to show his  conviction that if you believe in anything other than the government solving all your problems, you are just another flat earther.

April 15, 2008

The Morning Scramble – 4/15/2008

by @ 10:20. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

It’s Tax Day and Buy A Gun Day (H/T – Beth). Coincidence? I think not. Since I can’t afford a real fancy gun, I may as well enjoy the blues while I finish off my taxes and try to figure out how much money I have left with which to buy a gun:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yGB6d_3n58[/youtube]

– B.C. is displaying some serious gun pics. If only I could afford them,….
– Christian Schneider delivers your dose of Justice Scalia. That brings back good memories of his visit to Marquette many years ago.
– Grim has a couple of new ways to support the troops.
– Fred Keller remembered that this day 61 years ago, Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
– Mark Block delivers another history lesson, this one for the likes of Red Fred Kessler.
– Dad29 admonishes the bipartisan Party-In-Government in Madison to stop digging.
– Michelle and the Hot Air gang have a fresh episode of “Hot Air TV”, which is very timely. If only my dad were a Kennedy,….
– Staying with taxes, Clint answers the burning question of the Left – “Did the Bush tax cuts screw the poor and the working class?” (hint, it’s not a 3-letter answer, but it’s one that will blow the minds of the Left)
– William Teach has the WordPress 2.5 Media Center fix for those willing to tinker under the hood.
– Jim Geraghty notes John McCain wants a summerlong tax holiday. That doesn’t exactly jive with the official position of the executive branch of Wisconsin’s government, which is to raise it 40 cents.
– Katie Favazza dumps a horseshoe on Hillary Clinton’s almost-somewhat-not-quite-enough attempt to bamboozle pro-lifers.

I doubt I’ll be blogging much the rest of the day; I have some taxes to do.

April 14, 2008

Blogger Protection Act

by @ 9:19. Filed under Politics - National, The Blog.

I should’ve pounced on this when Fausta had it almost 2 weeks ago, but it took Jon Ham’s catch of North Carolina’s lone co-sponsor to get me jumping. Rep. Jeb Hensarling introduced The Blogger Protection Act, H.R. 5699, on April 3. The bill is designed to put into the United States Code the current Federal Election Commission regulations that give bloggers the same protection from campaign finance laws given the rest of the media and declares advocacy by uncompensated bloggers does not constitute a contribution to a candidate.

There are currently 36 (37 if one counts the non-voting Puerto Rican representative) co-sponsors to this legislation, all Republicans. Paul Ryan is the only Wisconsin Representative among them. Where are the other 7? Where are the Democrats? Heck, where’s the Republican leadership; I see only Roy Blunt and Eric Cantor from the leadership team on the co-sponsor page.

The Morning Scramble – 4/14/2008

by @ 8:28. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

I need something upbeat to get me back in the swing of things…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I993PGacn4M[/youtube]

– Plebian remakes a bunch of Charlton Heston classics.
– William Teach notes we’re one step closer to Solyent Green.
– Stephen Green rips those that initiate e-mail contact then don’t have the brains to automatically accept your reply.
– Emperor Misha I gives another reason to not vote for McCain (I do have to put a language warning on this one; follow at your own risk).
– Ace welcomes Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy as only he can (again, I do have to put a language warning on this one).
– Michelle Malkin has the obligatory lush Hill caption contest.
– I can’t do better than Mondoreb, who has the not-necessarily safe for work Photoshop of the weekend.
– John has the safe-for-work Photoshop of the weekend, the Clinton model sniper rifle (though the post itself may not necessarily be safe for work).
– Jim Geraghty asks whether Barack Obama reads his own trade rhetoric.
– Matt Lewis figured Obama was channeling Jesse The Body. It’s more like Karl Marx.
– Flip has the perfect film for the Obama campaign.
– Jim Lynch discovered the medical name of the ‘Rat campaign.
– Speaking of campaigns, RedState has a roundtable on whether to donate to the RNC and its subsidiaries, the RNCC and RNSC. I’ll be back on this in a bit, but the two-letter answer is “NO!”
– The Investor’s Business Daily editorial page whacks those that want to burn our food.
– Sean Hackbarth notes the typical liberal “cure” to the problem largely of their creation (see above) is worse than the problem.
– Jim Hoft notes the Goracle is cashing in on Gorebal Warming. Who knew it was a Ponzi scheme </sarcasm>?
– Owen has some fighting words for the ninnies in California that want to radically jack up the tax on beer.
– Jib has the appropriate answer to another tax-hiking scheme from the land of earthquakes and wildfires. It’s a call to arms.
– Ace notes the introduction of the aptly-named “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” bill. Anybody care to guess how much that took in in Arkansas when Mike Huckabee got that through their legislature? Lowball it, then halve it.
– Dad29 has reason #142 to not appoint judges.
– Tom McMahon answers the “Why are fire engines red?” question.
– JammieWearingFool asks, “Is the woman 2 heartbeats away from the Presidency actively assisting America’s enemies?” I believe you can guess my answer.
– Fausta mourns the decline of the Royal Navy from a pirate-fighting unit to a pirate-coddling one.
– Stan has the bad news from DC; dancing in the streets is illegal. Of course, that’s only bad if you can dance, and I can’t.
– Uncle Jimbo has your “Blowed Up Real Good” video fix.
– Mondoreb has the stupid ad campaign of the weekend. I wonder how many accidents that caused.

I got some blogging to do.

Music to kill zombies by

by @ 7:21. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Boy do I miss a lot when I take a weekend off, but the allergies were just slaying me. Since Elliot picked this up from Rustemeister’s Alehouse, who got it from SayUncle and Armed Canadian, and because doubleplusundead and See-Dubya didn’t pick it up yet, I may as well play along. Songs I kill zombies by:

– I warm up to “Gone Shootin'” by AC/DC because it just isn’t healthy to limit oneself to bladed weapons against a horde.
– When it’s time to get up close and personal, “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath provides the shotgun beat.
– If all that’s standing between certain doom and me is my minigun, it’s time to break out “Four Horsemen” by Metallica.

And if I don’t want lyrics, it’s Doom and Doom II songs by Robert Prince.

April 11, 2008

“Hope” or same old “compassionate” Left?

by @ 10:21. Filed under Compassionate Lieberals, Politics - National.

(Major H/T – Fred)

If memory serves, Mary Katharine Ham has been hammering the operators of Huffington Post and Daily Kos for “less-than-civil” comments left on their sites on her weekly appearances on “The O’Reilly Factor”. I wonder where this little gem from Ejike Ofoemezie of Canton, Georgia on a blog hosted on Barack Obama’s official campaign site would fall on that scale:

It is unbecoming of an old man who is a part of the problem America has today to tell us not to hope. What a deaf man? If McCain has given up on hope and life, the rest of America has not. He should pay a deserved visit to the undertaker. So, someone should please remind McCain there is a place called a zoo where the likes of him should take abode while the rest of America moves on.

Just in case the Obama campaign decides to scrub their servers, I did take the liberty of grabbing a screencap, complete with both an apparently-unused link to report objectionable content and a graphic stating that the blog is on a server paid for by Obama For America (click for a full-sized graphic)…

ofoemezies-obama-blog.jpg

Revisions/extensions (4:44 pm 4/11/2008) – Sorry about the lateness of the update; I was away from the keyboard all afternoon. I don’t know if it was Fred or Winged Hussar of Grizzly Groundswell (who had it first), or Charlie Sykes (who picked it up in the 11 o’clock hour), but we got results. Into the memory hole it went, but not before Winged Hussar and I both got screencaps. I’ll put my money on Charlie; it disappeared about an hour after he posted on it. Fred also notes a few other nuggets of material (enough for not one but two pages of archives) from Ejike are still there.

Also on top of it – Psycmeister’s Ice Palace.

The Morning Scramble – 4/11/2008

by @ 8:14. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

I guess I need some new tennis shoes…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOPQhj_Kjc8[/youtube]

– Attention, attention Morons! Ace will be on Fausta’s show at 10 am Central (11 am Eastern) today, if BlogTalkRadio doesn’t cough up another lung or Ace doesn’t confuse BTR with a hobo, that is.
– John Hawkins asked a bunch of bloggers, “Who do you want and don’t you want for VP?” Out of the list he gave them, I would take Michael Steele and definitely not take Christie Todd Whitman.
– Jim Hoft remembered the terrorist friends, both homegrown and Islamist, Barack Obama kept.
– Ed Morrissey adds up the bills Bill Clinton has been giving us the taxpayers despite his and his wife’s massive cash inflow. No wonder why they could give so much to their own “charity”.
– Allahpundit checked the Hiliary Lie Machine and proclaimed it running at 110%.
– Speaking of liars, Sister Toldjah has your liar of the week, and no, it’s not Clinton.
– Krakatoa finds a soon-to-be-ex-NYT reporter.
– Why? Because Bill Quick notes the latest example of groupthink there.
– Bruce notes all the ways ex-Alderman (and still thug) Michael McGee-Jackson Jr. will continue to soak cash from the city of Milwaukee.
– Conservative Belle notes, correctly, that criminals will pack and shoot no matter what the gun laws are.
– Somebody should’ve told that to Philly mayor Nutter; Wyatt Earp has the story on that.
– David St. Lawrence deprogrammed one of his Vista laptops to see how much faster it runs with XP.
– Pete Fanning has a PBS series you should watch starting April 27. Yes, he is serious, and don’t call him Shirley unless you want to be keelhauled.
– Jon Ham says, “Consensus? What consensus, Gore?”
– John McAdams notes the latest example of political correctness run amok on a formerly-religious college campus.
– Fred is shocked, SHOCKED that postage rates will be going up again after finding out USPS employees in Orlando had a $13,500 steak dinner on our dime.

Roll bloat – double-shot of local

by @ 7:23. Filed under The Blog.

I really should’ve done this long before now, but you know what they say about late and never…

– The Prozak Playground
– Wag the Dog

One can never have too many good blogs on the roll, I always say.

Six Word Memoir

by @ 6:57. Filed under Miscellaneous.

It seems Jim Lynch didn’t get the memo on tagging me with memes, but considering who else he tagged, I may as well play along.

The Rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

He lived and lives in Christ

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.

Check, and…

christ-lives-in-me.jpg

…check.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to the original post if possible so we can track it as travels across the blogosphere.

Check.

4. Tag at least five more blogs with links.

Again, normally memes die here, but why not?

– Kevin Fischer at This Just In
– Fred at Real Debate Wisconsin
– Katie Favazza at Elocutio
– Jon Ham at Right Angles
– Patrick at Badger Blogger

5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Comments outgoing.

April 10, 2008

Effective cropping of pics in WP 2.5

by @ 19:00. Filed under The Blog.

No, I don’t have WP 2.5 on here yet (a couple different reasons), but I decided to see if I could help out Stephen Green with some image usage issues he has with WP 2.5. His first issue, having a thumbnail going to a holding page instead of a full-sized pic, was pretty easy to solve. To avoid that, one should use the “File URL” as the link instead of “Page URL”.

The other item is a bit uglier; the cropping of a pic to the column width. I didn’t mention it here, but the “full-sized” option is anything but; while it does load the full-sized pic, it crops it to a maximum of 500 px by 500 px, and I don’t see a way to automatically change that (one could get rid of the height and width attributes in the HTML, but a lot of people use the visual editor).

Fortunately, there is a third option (besides the misnamed “full-sized” and thumbnail) to size a picture in WordPress, “medium”. With a bit of tweaking, one can change that from its default maximum 300 px by 300 px to fill the post column. With the caveat that this only works with pictures uploaded after you make the change, here’s how to make it happen:

– Find out how wide your post column is.
– Under Options > Miscellaneous, find the “Medium size” box in the “Image sizes” section.
– Put in that width for “Max width”, and at least 4/3rds that for “Max height”. Why 4/3rds? That allows vertical pictures to be the full width of the column. As an example, if the post column is 600 pixels wide, put “600” in for “Max width” and “800” for “Max height”.
– Hit “Save Changes”.
– Use “Medium” for the picture size. If the original picture is at least as wide as the column, it will be cropped to the width of the column.

FairTax?

by @ 11:38. Filed under Politics - National, Taxes.

In the wake of Buzz’s comments on The Tax Bomb post (TownHall version), I guess I should explain why I am philosophically-opposed to a national sales tax. It’s been a few years since I did this (I thought I put it here, but it must be my old age showing), and I’m still a bit under the weather (literally; it’s a rainy, ugly Thursday here in the land of cheese and beer), so I may jump around a bit.

First, let me be clear that the current tax code is fouled up beyond all repair. Its tentacles reach into every crevice of life, and at nearly 20% of Gross Domestic Product with promises of ever-increasing taxes, it simply takes too much money. My ideal tax code would be an absolute-flat tax where everybody that works pays the exact same amount. Of course, that would require the death of the welfare state and the reduction of the federal government to its absolute minimum core Constitutional principles, two items that even Republicans are loathe to consider.

That brings me to my first objection to the FairTax; it does not do anything to begin the process of actually reducing the amount of money going to government. Indeed, at 23% of the gross sales, or if you prefer to use the traditional sales-tax percentage, 30%, it is expressly designed to not reduce the amount of money going to government.

Next, the fact that it would tend to be paid in drabs and dribbles mostly-hidden from the view of the consumer is odious. Indeed, the fact that, other than the purchase of vehicles and homes, it would go by all-but-unnoticed makes a national sales tax more-likely to be increased in any given year than the individual income tax. That is borne out by the history of the sales tax here in Wisconsin. 25 years ago, it was 4%. Then came a “temporary” percentage-point increase to 5% that somehow became permanent. The counties whined that they needed more revenue streams, so they were given the authority to lump in a 0.5% sales tax, and most counties, including Milwaukee, promptly tapped in. Milwaukee wanted to replace its convention center, so in went a 0.25% sales tax on prepared food, 2% tax on hotel rooms and 3% tax on car rentals in Milwaukee County (to an unelected board). Then Bud Selig came knocking for cash to “help” build a new ballpark, and in went a 0.1% sales tax in the 5-county area surrounding Milwaukee. In short, a restaurant meal that was taxed at 4% when I was young is now taxed at 5.85%, a 46.25% increase that, once inflation is taken into account, is something north of 300%.

I also take umbrage with is the concept of a “prebate”. Ultimately, the supporters are going to have to make the hard decision of keeping the IRS to verify, either through income or amount of purchases, the amount of the “prebate” to give to a particular individual, accept that the “prebate” is yet another welfare program, or jettison the concept and thus lose whatever left-of-center support might otherwise be gained.

As for the dreams of eliminating the IRS and the “underground” economy, I don’t suppose many of the supporters of the FairTax have had to deal with the BATF. Moonshiners have, and the BATF makes the IRS look like altar boys. Speaking of moonshiners, 221 years of taxation and zealous enforcement didn’t exactly stop their underground economy.

One more thought on the underground economy. If you’ve ever underreported the amount you paid for a used car because you didn’t want to pay the entire amout of the state sales tax, raise your hand. Apparently enough of you did so that many states now base their used-car sales tax on the Kelly Blue Book value instead of the actual sales price. Keep in mind that the state sales tax is anywhere between a quarter and a sixth of what the FairTax would be.

The Morning Scramble/Open Thread Thursday – 4/10/2008

by @ 8:22. Filed under Open Thread Thursday, The Morning Scramble.

I probably should’ve declared an open thread yesterday since I was pretty much out of it all day. Oh well, it’s Thursday, so have at it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwA0LoOfa3M[/youtube]

– LCBrendan revisits the Battle of Trafalgar through the lens of 2008.
– SteveF notes I’m about to become a “protected class”. Guess it is time to go on that diet because I have a strict policy regarding “protected classes”.
– David Freddoso asks, “Worst economy evah?” Only in the world of the ‘Rat.
– Mondoreb does gas cartoons.
– James T. Harris says the O Effect should really be the ZerO Boomerang Effect.
– Jim Geraghty saw through the Obama doubletalk on campaign finances.
– Beware, DC; Slublog is coming to town. Yes, I really don’t have much left in the tank, and Shoebox is visiting the Mouse, so I’m counting on you to fill in the blanks.

April 9, 2008

The Morning Scramble – 4/9/2008

by @ 7:23. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

Because I can’t stand the weather…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGcgcOEvqE4[/youtube]

– Doubleplusundead scoffs at John McCain’s “outreach” to evangelicals.
– Matt Lewis is already planning for 2010. I have some bad news; if we don’t take care of business in 2008, there definitely won’t be a home for conservatives in the GOP in 2010.
– Charlie Sykes notes that, at a time of historically-high gas prices (and climbing), the official position of the Doyle administration is to jack up the federal gas tax by 40 cents per gallon. You can bet I’ll have more to say on that once I finish sobering up (I did the legwork last night before Drinking Right, which unlike SAB Miller and Absolut Vodka, is a good call).
– Marshall Manson says, “Just fix it.”
– Sister Toldjah has your Obama quote of the week.
– Jon Ham has the outrageous headline-that-cost-somebody-her-job headline of the week, which in this case helped cause an Obama staffer to lose her job.
– I know Drinking Right was yesterday, but it’s a triple-shot weekday on Obama; Anwyn notes the campaign very-actively practices affirmative action.
– Make it quad damage; Carol Platt Liebau questions the objectivity of one Martha Raddatz of ABC News, who magically found “80% support” for Obama among the troops in Iraq.
– Jim Hoft spotlights the next likely Hiliary lie. You don’t take just 7 years off of bowling and do as bad as she did on Ellen Degeneres’ show (I should know; I’ve taken 7 years off and my game, such as it is, didn’t slip that bad).
– Speaking of that, Paddy O’Furniture has a word picture puzzle. Since he’s too shy chicken (I should know the difference, I’m shy) to ask Katie to jump in, I guess this will have to count as the invitation.
– Bill Quick continues to hammer the Scandi-owned Absolut.
– Ace goes straight to the lightly-blocked crapper.
– Tom McMahon pulls out a classic quote from a liberal icon to skewer the Left.
– Ed Morrissey reports a highly-placed politician (leader of his party, actually) had his wholly-owned subsidiary that controlls that locale’s elections declare it “dangerous” to release the results of the biggest election of that locale. Doyle’s kicking himself that it was Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe that thought of this particular method of vote suppression first, and that he didn’t think of it before April 1.
– CDR Salamander says, “Good, bad, the Osprey is about to be the chopper with the gun.” He also notes there isn’t exactly a sense of history among those who feel salt spray (F-4 sans gun, meet F-35 B/C sans gun).
– Lance Burri has some Blogging Healthy tips from the Badger Blog Alliance. My work here is done.

April 8, 2008

County P-I-Gs don’t like ethics

by @ 16:48. Filed under Politics - Milwaukee County.

JSOnline’s DayWatch is reporting the county board supervisors are balking at an ethics package that would bring the county ethics enforcement more in line with enforcement elsewhere in the state. The excuses are pretty woeful, even for the Board, so let’s start fisking:

Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs-Jones said the plan fostered a presumption of guilt any time someone filed an ethics complaint against county officials.

Could it be that most times, county officials are guilty of ethics violations? Say, is it just me, or does anybody else note the irony of who is bitching here?

She and others questioned the idea of having the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit conduct the first reviews of complaints, something that District Attorney John Chisholm suggested as a way to avoid having two simultaneous probes – one by the Ethics Board and another by the DA.

After all, there’s more taxpayer money to be spent in a 2-step investigation.

Under the proposed revisions, all complaints would be kept confidential, with nothing made public unless there was a finding of wrongdoing. That follows the state ethics system and many other municipal ethics codes, supervisors were told. But it changes current county practice in which ethics complaints are immediately made public.

If the secrecy provision were enacted, ethics complaints would likely be publicized by the complainants or otherwise leaked, supervisors said.

Supervisor Lynne De Bruin said political opponents could use the code as a weapon against supervisors, disclosing the existence of an ethics complaint they or a supporter had filed.

Again, hiding something? Worried about not being able to immediately retaliate against those that note the odor?

They also objected to a new standard that would forbid county officials from accepting “anything of value” that could be construed to compromise their ability to act fairly on county business.

Hell, they can’t possibly survive on a generous full-time salary plus Rolls Royce benefits for part-time work </sarcasm>.

Rockefeller the dumbf*ck

by @ 16:01. Filed under Politics - National.

Revisions/extensions (5:19 pm 4/8/2008) – I apologize to the Fox News gang for the auto-pingback on an AoSHQ-worthy rant.

(H/T – among others, Ace, whom I’m using because this is not going to be profanity-free, and because Slublog fed Ace a classic Slu-Shop)

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller (D for dumbfuck DhimmiRAT) really stepped on his crank earlier today when he uttered the following horseshit:

"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”

Shall we play, “How Many Ways Is the Jackass Wrong?” For $50, when were laser-guided munitions introduced to the Southeast Asia area of operations? 1972, which was, give or take a few months, 5 years after McCain was shot down.

Let’s go for double-Jeopardy, where the scores can really change. Has any of the US Navy versions of the A-4 ever been provisioned to carry laser-guided weapons? BZZZZT!!! The only precision-guided weapons the early-Vietnam era of the Skyhawk carried were the AGM-12 Bullpup command-guided missile (for those in Rio Linda, the pilot had to hand-fly the missile over its 10-nm range) and the AGM-62 Walleye EO-guided bomb (entered service in 1967, range of 15 miles, and was a fire-and-forget weapon). Later A-4s did carry the AGM-65 Maverick EO-guided missile as well as the Walleye II, and, after the Navy retired the A-4 in 1975, some versions did gain the ability to use laser-guided munitions, but those came about after McCain was shot down.

As for not seeing them hit, McCain typically carried plain iron bombs at low level, which meant he saw them hit and what they hit. Indeed, that was the mission profile on the mission he was shot down.

Oh, and CDR Salamander corrects the idiotic claim the A-4 is a “fighter plane”; the “A” stands for “Attack”. Yes, the Marines and other countries later slapped a couple of Sidewinders on the A-4, and TOPGUN (and “Top Gun”) used them as the analog to MiGs in Dissimilar Air Combat Training, but the Navy didn’t slap the Sidewinders on them.

Yes, there is late news that Rockefeller did apologize for being abso-fucking-lutely wrong. I can’t speak for McCain, but the phrase, “too little, too late” comes to mind.

Roll bloat – What you don’t get in Hillary’s world

by @ 14:50. Filed under The Blog, War on Terror.

I have to thank the blogging-again Katie Favazza (who also fits into the post below this one) for finding IraqStatusReport.com. Having news from a bunch of groups interested in success in Iraq, like Long War Journal, Institute for the Study of War, and Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a refreshing change of pace from the invested-in-defeat LeftStreamMedia.

Italian pol gets beauty right

by @ 14:40. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – Kate, who is a bit too self-depreciating)

As a red-blooded male, all ll I have to say to this is, “Amen, and with brains to match.”:

Women on the political right are the best looking, conservative opposition leader and election frontrunner Silvio Berlusconi said on an Italian radio show.

“The women of the right are certainly the most beautiful,” Berlusconi said on Radio Anch’io public radio, quoted Wednesday by Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Let’s see; Mary Katharine Ham, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Phel, Amanda Carpenter, Sister Toldjah, Jenna,…. I could go on (and on and on and on), but you get the picture. Speaking of that, I don’t need the bots stopping in on a year-old post, so you get to do your own picture-mining.

The Tax Bomb

by @ 10:41. Filed under Politics - National, Taxes.

Sorry about that; I accidentally hit “Publish” way before I was ready.

(H/T – Flip)

While the old OpinionJournal may be dead, I do appreciate the fact that the entire The Wall Street Journal editorial page is free to all. In today’s edition, John Cogan and Glenn Hubbard peer into the future of the bite of the individual income tax.

First, let me steal what Flip rightfully called “The Ugliest Chart You’ll See All Day”, which estimates the percentage of Gross Domestic Product taken by the federal government over the last 2 years and next 5 years through the individual income tax structure…

ed-ah326a_hubba_20080407201615.gif

…and make some uglier observations. First, note that the divergence between the code as it existed at the end of 2007 and as it did at the end of 2000 actually begins this year. I don’t have the time to research just what parts of the Bush tax-rate cuts of 2001 and 2003 expired already, but some of them already have. Since one can’t expect a Congress controlled by Democrats to give so much as a 1-year extension to tax-rate cuts both of their candidates are committed to eliminating entirely, the divergence should actually begin at 2009. Further, one can’t simply move the “current tax code” line up to meet that; those same Dems as well as select Republicans (including their Presidential nominee) cannot be expected to restore those tax-rate cuts that are already expired, so even if the remainder of the tax-rate cuts were to survive, the individual income tax would likely take something north of 9.3 cents of every dollar produced by the economy, compared to 8 cents in 2006 and an estimated 8.6 cents in 2007.

Even the focus on the indivudal income tax, while historic in its rise under the time bomb the Democrats are intent on setting off, is misleading. While it is the largest single component of the federal government’s drag on the economy, it is far from the only one. The total federal drag on the economy, euphemistically called “federal revenues”, is 18.8% of GDP. While Cogan and Hubbard focused solely on the individual income tax increases in store from the Democrats when they said that either Barack Obama’s or Hillary Clinton’s plans would result in the feds taking 20% of the GDP, the amount that they would have the goverment take will be higher than that as “corporate” income taxes will also be jacked up at astronomical rates. I may not be an economist, but I’ll lay what’s in my wallet against what’s in their wallets in saying that the federal government’s total drag on the economy will be closer to 25% of GDP by 2012 than 20% of GDP.

That reminds me of something my Congressman, Paul Ryan (R) has been saying lately. By the time his children are his age (roughly 2040), if there is no increase beyond inflation in discretionary spending and no changes in the welfare programs (misnamed “mandatory spending”), the federal government would be taking 40% of GDP. For those that didn’t do the math, that’s double the tax burden just to keep the current level of government we have now, and that doubling is on top of historically-high taxes.

I honestly could go on all day with the rest of the opinion piece, but I do want you to read it.

Drinking Right Warning – 7 pm 4/8/2008

by @ 8:56. Filed under Miscellaneous.

BULLETIN – EBS ACTIVIATION REQUESTED
NO RUNNY EGGS OAK CREEK WI
855 AM CDT TUE APR 8 2008

NO RUNNY EGGS HAS ISSUED A

* DRINKING RIGHT WARNING FOR…
MILWAUKEE COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN
RACINE COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN
WASHINGTON COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN
WAUKESHA COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN

* IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM CDT UNTIL 11 PM CDT

* AT 744 AM CDT…REAL DEBATE WISCONSIN ISSUED A
DRINKING RIGHT ALERT FOR PAPA’S SOCIAL CLUB…7718 W BURLEIGH ST.
THERE WILL BE BLOGGERS AND BEER AT PAPA’S STARTING AT 7 PM CDT.

* BLOGGERS EXPECTED TO ATTEND INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO: ASIAN
BADGER, UNCLE FRED, NICK SCHWEITZER AND STEVEEGG. CLINT WILL BE
ARRIVING IN THE SECOND WAVE OF ARRIVALS.

PREPARATIONS SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION. THIS IS A SERIOUS
SITUATION, AND IF YOU’RE NOT THERE, YOU’RE NOWHERE.

$$

The Morning Scramble – 4/8/2008

by @ 8:43. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

I don’t believe it; Kansas took the long way to the top, which put the final coup de grace on my brackets as some that were behind me had Kansas as the national champs…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o[/youtube]

– Uncle Jimbo has the advance copy of Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony to Congress. May there be heartburn there for the retreat-and-defeat crowd.
– JihadGene channels the Obamas.
– Headless Blogger has a follow-up on yesterday’s corn-a-hole item. Before you click, guess how long it would take a typical American to eat the amount of corn burned up in a Suburban tankful of E-85 corn-a-hole gas, and double it.
– Keith asks, “What would we do without nuclear warfare experts?”
– James Wigderson thinks it’s Brookfield’s success that’s driving Waukesha’s push for a massive referendum. Considering that the school district is grossly incompetent, including not having a replacement superintendent in place, it’s more like Racine’s success driving that.

People get paid?????

by @ 7:02. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Blogging is stressful and can lead to death, at least so says this article.

I can’t say that I’m ready to die, 2 young sons etc. etc. but I’ve been at this blogging thing now for over two months, phew!

So, Shoebox, what are you going to do to keep your cardiologist at bay?

I’m going to DisneyWorld!

I’ll be out for the next week or so, don’t cry for me Argentina!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled host extraordinaire, Mr. Egg!

Obama and Patriotism

by @ 7:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Obama seeks to affirm his patriotism

That’s the headline from this article  by the AP, that talks about how Barack has been inserting more patriotic statements in his recent speeches.

The article quotes the following as his “patriotic” statements:

I love this country not because it’s perfect but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection,” he told an audience in North Dakota.

And in Montana: “It’s a country where … I’ve seen ordinary Americans find justice, where I’ve seen progress made for working families who need leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for them. That is the country I love.”

But are these really patriotic statements?

I’ll concede that these statements are factually accurate, but they don’t seem patriotic to me. They strike me as more of the “yeah but” kinds of statements that Barack uses when he tries to deal with an issue without making himself look like the leftist he is.

“…move it closer to perfection,” I wonder where on the perfection scale Barack thinks we are? By his statement I assume he thinks we’re at least at 1 but not at 100, but where between 1 and 100 are we? Factually, I would agree with Barack that we are not at 100 for the simple reason that much of the country still views abortion as a valid birth control method, but I digress….See, if Barack wanted this to be a patriotic statement he would have said something like,

“I love this country because it’s the best system in the world. While we may not be perfect, we have a process that allows us to make constant, peaceful strides to that end.”

You may say I’m playing with semantics and that’s true. However, wasn’t it Barack who kept talking about the importance of “just words?” Words and how you choose to use them say alot about the intent of the speaker.   Making a beginning declarative statement rather than starting by trying to establish equivalency, would have made this patriotic, putting it together as he did makes it “yeah but.”

“I’ve seen ordinary Americans find justice,”   Is Barack suggesting that it is unusual for “ordinary” Americans to find justice?   Is he suggesting that only the wealthy or well connected can be assured of justice in our country?   Again, start with a declarative statement,

“I love this country because we have the best justice system in the world, a system where regardless of your economic or social standing, you can expect justice to serve you.   And in those few instances where the system doesn’t work as it should, I’m proud that there are leaders who will step up and fight to correct injustice.”

Once last comment on “just words” and the Obama supporters who will tell me that I’m twisting his language.   These comments came not from off-the-cuff remarks.   These comments came from prepared speeches.   Off-the-cuff remarks like “I don’t want them to be punished by a baby,” show me the individual’s true heart on a topic as they haven’t had time to think through the words and craft them.   Statements may be mad in  factual error but when it comes to judgements,  they speak with their most prevalent thought on the topic.   However,  with  prepared remarks, words that are considered and crafted in a particular order, well, you don’t get the chance to say “but he really meant XXXXXX.”   See, if he had really meant “XXXXXX,” he would have  crafted “XXXXXX.”   Barack purposely chose not to use declarative, patriotic statements simply because he will not declare his patriotism.   How tough is it?  

Barack tried to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright’s hateful speech by saying he didn’t agree with it and then quickly added a “yeah but” by telling us that Wright had come out of a generation where this speech was acceptable and we needed to appreciate that.   Now Barack’s trying to tell us he’s patriotic, and it seems to me that he’s also trying to tell us that people are “patriotic” even if they don’t believe the US is the best country in the world.  

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