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 June, 2008

June 9, 2008

The Morning Scramble – 6/9/2008

by @ 10:04. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

What I was doing all weekend…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_bOsDasw2s[/youtube]

As such, this is going to be a bit abbreviated, but I still consider myself extremely lucky. Only very minor seepage into the basement from a disconnected downspout (no damage), and the water on the streets in the subdivision only got to the top of the curb at the height of the storm. Elsewhere both in Oak Creek and the state, things got far, far wetter.

Oak Creek flooding continues

by @ 8:47. Filed under Weather.

I just got back from a two-hour tour of town after a weekend that saw 8.5 inches of rain at the MMSD plant at 5th Ave. and Puetz Rd and 7 inches at the bunker, and the following major roads are closed:

– E. Puetz Rd. between Maize Dr. and Pennsylvania Ave.
– S. Pennsylvania Ave. between Puetz Rd. and Oakwood Rd.
– E. Forest Hill Ave. between Shepard Ave. and Pennsylvania Ave.
– E. Ryan Rd. (the old Ryan, not the new Hwy. 100) between 15th Ave. and the dead-end west of Nicholson Ave.
– S. 15th Ave. between Ryan and State Hwy. 100
– S. Nicholson Rd. between Puetz Rd. and State Hwy 100, and again at County Line Rd going south into Caledonia.
– E. County Line Rd. between 10th Ave. and Nicholson Rd. (note; Caledonia still has a barricade eastbound at 10th Ave., closing eastbound between there and Chicago Rd.)
– E. Elm Rd. between 10th Ave. and Nicholson Rd.
– S. Howell Ave (State Highway 38) at Elm Rd. going south into Caledonia (presumably 7 1/2 Mile Rd.)
– S. 13th St. at the Milwaukee/Racine county line going south into Caledonia
– S. 27th St. (State Highway 241) south of Elm to I-94 (this includes the off-ramp from north/westbound I-94 to 27th St.)
– W. Drexel Ave. between 13th St. and 27th St.

In addition, E. Drexel Ave. at and just east of Clement Ave. and S. Shepard Ave. just north of Ryan Rd. had significant standing water as of 6:00 am to 6:30 am, but were still passable (unless one is driving a Corvette).

Mayor Dick Bolender conducted an interview with WTMJ-AM this morning, and WTMJ was kind enough to put up a podcast (even if they misspelled the mayor’s name). Even though he had 5 inches of water in his basement, he was out there helping to put up barricades.

On a personal note, I got extremely lucky with nothing more than a bit of seepage from a downspout that got disconnected in the height of the storm.

A New Class Of Human?

by @ 5:02. Filed under Miscellaneous.

On March 31st, at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania, Barack Obama made the following statement:

When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include "” which should include abstinence education and teaching the children "” teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include "” it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information."

Amongst other things, this statement shows that contrary to Barack’s earlier contention,

No one is pro-abortion and I do not sanction infanticide

That he made at Benedictine University in October, 2004, he is not only pro-abortion but also believes that abortion is an acceptable means of birth control.

I’ll admit that having a Senator with the most liberal Senate voting record, supporting abortion and its use as a contraception may not be big news. But even the most liberal Senator must have limits?

In August 2002, President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIP). The act confers the status of “human being” on any child who survives an abortion attempt. The implications of this is that it imposes a requirement on doctors to take necessary action to support the life of the child and not “perform an abortion” by simply “shelving” the child and allowing it to expire as a result of neglect.

Interestingly, the Born alive Infants Protection Act was was passed by unanimous voice consent of the US Senate. It was passed even though Barabara Boxer was unable to confirm or reconcile in her own mind that a baby; breathing, heart beating and separated from its mother was actually alive.

While his time in the Illinois Senate and particularly while he was Chairman of the Illinois Health & Human Services Committee, Barack Obama had an opportunity to pass a similar bill for Illinois. Obama had numerous reasons why he didn’t want to pass a BAIP bill for Illinois. Jill Stanek  does a fantastic job of deconstructing Barack’s objections to passing such a bill. As Jill points out in her article, all the objections that Obama had were removed by the wording of the Federal bill which the Illinois bill mirrored, except for one. When “Born Alive” was defined as having the child separated from the mother, Obama balked. He refused to amend the Illinois language to mirror the federal language because a: the bill would have surely passed and b: any definition of “life” in a bill that deals with an abortion issue is seen as being the start of a slippery slope that radical abortion rights advocates don’t want to go near.

Today I saw this article about a boy born in the UK, despite an attempt to abort him at eight weeks. While suffering from a kidney defect, the boy is expected to live a normal life.

So here’s what I’m trying to figure out…

There was an attempted and failed abortion attempt on this boys life.
In spite of the attempt, he survived to be born.
If he lived in Illinois, what would he be? Barack Obama doesn’t believe that he is a “human person” or even that classification as “member of the species homosapiens” is applicable. So what is he, alien?

Is the definition of new species the change that Obama is always talking about?

A $3 Billion Dollar Question

by @ 5:00. Filed under Health, Miscellaneous.

Today, The Independent runs a story with the headline:  

Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits

The article covers how, despite predictions by the World Health Organization and UN Aids, that AIDS would become a world wide epidemic within the heterosexual population, it hasn’t.   The one exception is in sub-Sahara Africa.

After admitting that AIDS cases have been exaggerated by organizations to induce higher funding levels, the article defends the funding saying that there is still much we don’t know about aids.   It uses the sub-Saharan Africa area as an example of where the spread of AIDS is not full understood, even though it is admitted that the area has…

more commercial sex workers, more ulcerative sexually transmitted diseases, a young population and concurrent sexual partnerships

Still being stumped, the article closes by laying out the most perplexing of all AIDS issues:

The impact of HIV is so heterogeneous. In the US , the rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region with the lowest rate. That is in one country. How do you explain such differences?

The US is contributing and granting money to figure out why the AIDS problem is worse in DC than in North Dakota? You’re kidding right? How ’bout if we give them a hand?

According to the CDC, amongst males, 72% of AIDS cases are related to male to male sexual contact, 12% to injection drug use and 16% to high risk heterosexual contact (that is sex with a person know to or likely to have HIV). Further, 66% of AIDS cases are from either Hispanic or African American ethnicity.

OK, let’s look at North Dakota and Washington DC:

  • According Gaydemographics.org, about 5% of DC’s population are same sex couples, .5% of ND’s couples are same sex. I think that’s 10X.
  • According to the US Census, African Americans were 55% and totaled approximately 325,000 people in Washington DC. They accounted for about 1% and 6,500 of the North Dakota Population. That looks like 55X.
  • According to the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration Treatment Data Statistics, for 2002, the most recent year statistics are available, North Dakota had 7 cases reported for heroin treatment. Washington DC had 2,218 reported. That looks like 317X.

Maybe it’s just me   but one of those key factors sure seems to explain the 100X difference all by itself.   I’ll bet smarter people than I could come up with multiple combinations of the above items for numerous other simple ways that WHO could have a reasonable answer for why Washington DC and North Dakota have a   discrepancy of HIV cases.

To be sure, HIV/AIDS is a horrible disease and there are certainly cases where innocent victims i.e. children, transplant patients have contracted HIV/AIDS with no involvement on their part.   However, 99%+ of the HIV/AIDS cases in the US are contracted as a result of an individual’s decisions.   For WHO or any other organization to take another $.01, that could be used on cure research, to waste on inane research such as ND versus DC, is not only a blatant wast of resources but should be a personal insult to anyone desiring a cure for this disease.

I wonder how much of the nearly $3B that the US spent on research in FY2006 I could claim for that 10 minutes of research?

Anyone Notice A Trend?

by @ 4:35. Filed under Politics - Minnesota.

On Saturday, Minnesota Democrats endorsed Al “It’s just satire” Franken to be their candidate for US Senate.   The MSM had the usual glowing reports making it sound like  Al is the perfect candidate and that the Dems are over flowing with love for their candidate:

ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP)– Al Franken won a resounding endorsement for the U.S. Senate on Saturday from Minnesota Democrats, quickly dispatching with concerns about jokes that offended some and promising a tough challenge to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

However, not unlike Barack Obama’s coronation last Tuesday, not all is as the MSM would like you to believe. From the Star and Sickle:

Mari Urness Pokornowski of Cokato, president of the DFL Feminist Caucus, resigned Saturday when she learned that her group had endorsed Franken. As a mother and former teacher, she said, she didn’t see how Franken’s writings represented rural Minnesota values.

The endorsement, she said, “was a choice made by the caucus, and once that decision is made, you have to make a choice where you stand, For me, my decision was to step down.”

And further from Politics in Minnesota:

There’s no doubt that Pokornowski has had a tough week as head of the caucus.

After U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after a bruising battle with U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, Koryne Horbal, 71, who founded the DFL Feminist Caucus, said she would not support Obama and wanted to organize a write-in campaign for Clinton.

Pokornowski was forced to issue a press release distancing her group from its founder’s actions. "It was as much of a surprise to us as it was to you," the press release said in part.

How many candidates can the Democrats run that lose the vote from Minnesota Women? So far, it’s 2 and counting

 

June 8, 2008

Flooding state of emergency in Oak Creek

by @ 10:51. Filed under Weather.

Via JSOnline’s DayWatch, the mayor has declared a state of emergency here in Oak Creek due to significant flooding. The roads that are currently closed are:

– W. Drexel Avenue from 13th St. to 27th St.
– E. Forest Hill Ave. from Shepard Ave. to Pennsylvania Ave.
– E. Oakwood Rd. from Pennsylvania to John Aaron Dr.
– S. 100th (W. Ryan Rd.) from Howell Ave. to 13th St.
– S. Nicholson Rd. from Puetz Rd. to 100th.
– S. Pennsylvania Ave. from Puertz Rd. to Oakwood Rd.
– S. Shepard Ave. from S. 100th to Centennial Dr.

I expect more closures to happen with the next rounds of storms; the ground is oversaturated. As the National Weather Service says, “Turn around, don’t drown”.

I love the smell of irony in the morning

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

(H/T – Jim Hoft)

A few days after the Democratic Party ignored the will of its voters and selected Barack Obama as its Presidential candidate, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) introduced a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College, which actually elects the President and Vice President, in favor of a nationwide popular vote.

My underlying thoughts on the elimination of the Electoral College remain unchanged from 2006, when an outfit called National Popular Vote made significant inroads on its unconstitutional scheme to have a sufficient number of states join in a compact to neuter the Electoral College. While it is still wrong as wrong can be, at least Sen. Nelson is doing it the way prescribed by the Constitution.

Roll bloat – stormy weather edition

by @ 10:22. Filed under The Blog.

There’s more thunder rumbling in the distance, but while I’m still dry and with power, I best add Gawfer.

June 7, 2008

Wicked weather part 2

by @ 16:58. Filed under Weather.

Tornado sirens going off again. This time, it’s aiming north of the bunker and at both my sisters’ places.

I’ve been updating the Twitter; that’s faster than updating this.

Getting thunder now, and it’s pretty dark.

Revisions/extensions (7:32 pm 6/7/2008) – Now it’s the flood. Got back from the rural property (burgers and brats by the older sister there), lots of streets flooded. Drexel and Rawson both under the tracks between 6th and 13th, 6th north of Marquette (which will come as a shock to those from the east trying to avoid the Rawson flood), flowing water on my street in the subdivision (and I’m at the high end), water to the top of the curb at the other end.

Dan Deibert has some wicked video from and a pic of a 2″ hailstone that fell in his neck of the woods (western Waukesha). Hope everybody’s making it through this.

Update: 9:56AM – link fixed – Shoebox

George Will For President!

by @ 10:52. Filed under Miscellaneous.

George Will is very funny….who knew?
It would have been very interesting to poll Colbert’s audience before and after the interview to see who agreed with George Will. I’ll bet it would have been less than 30% before and better than 70% after. We need to hire George Will to first teach McCain about conservative principles followed by teaching him to be able to deliver them in the way that George Will does.

Outstanding!

H/T Feddie

June 6, 2008

Eggs on the road – Week of 6/8/2008

by @ 17:47. Filed under The Blog.

If it’s summer, it’s road-trip season.

Monday, 6/9 – 5:30 pm, AFP Blogger training, Robbins Restaurant, 1810 Omro Rd, Oshkosh.

Tuesday 6/10 – 7 pm, Drinking Right, Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh, Milwaukee.

Wednesday 6/11 – 5:30 pm, AFP Blogger training, Lucy Burns Institute, 301 South Bedford, Suite 6, Madison.

I’ve got incoming UPDATE – incoming slid south

by @ 15:12. Filed under Weather.

And this one is a no-shitter…

TORNADO WARNING
WIC079-133-062045-
/O.NEW.KMKX.TO.W.0012.080606T2003Z-080606T2045Z/

BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI
303 PM CDT FRI JUN 6 2008

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR…
SOUTHERN MILWAUKEE COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN…
FAR SOUTHEASTERN WAUKESHA COUNTY IN SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN…

* UNTIL 345 PM CDT

* AT 300 PM CDT…LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTED A TORNADO 5 MILES
SOUTHEAST OF WATERFORD NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAY 20 AND
BRITTON ROAD IN RACINE COUNTY…MOVING NORTHEAST AT 54 MPH.

* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR…
FRANKLIN BY 315 PM CDT…
OAK CREEK AND SOUTH MILWAUKEE BY 320 PM CDT…
CUDAHY…MILWAUKEE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AND ST. FRANCIS BY 325 PM
CDT…

WHEN A TORNADO WARNING IS ISSUED…IT MEANS THAT STRONG ROTATION HAS
BEEN DETECTED IN THE STORM OR A TORNADO HAS BEEN SIGHTED. IF YOU ARE
IN THE PATH OF THIS DANGEROUS STORM…SEEK A STURDY SHELTER. IF YOU
EXPERIENCE SIGNIFICANT WIND DAMAGE…LARGE HAIL OR TORNADOES…PLEASE
RELAY THAT INFORMATION TO 911.

A TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 600 PM CDT FRIDAY EVENING FOR
SOUTHEASTERN WISCONSIN.

LAT…LON 4284 8781 4284 8830 4291 8821 4298 8806
4308 8785 4307 8784 4303 8787 4300 8786
4298 8782
TIME…MOT…LOC 2003Z 232DEG 47KT 4274 8812

$$

BORGHOFF

I’ve got a partial view of the southwest quadrant of the bunker, and I’ve got the laptop. This one’s going to be close!

R&E (3:14 pm 6/6/2008) – Was oddly calm, but now there’s a bit of a breeze again and it’s starting to rain. No real oddity though.

R&E part 2 (3:18 pm 6/6/2008) – Moved to the widest-view southwest window. Raining pretty good, and now the NWS says it’s passing south and now radar-indicated.

R&E part 3 (3:29 pm 6/6/2008) – If I weren’t listening to Ed Morrissey, I’d be chasing. There was a funnel cloud at Hwy K and I-94 15 minutes ago, which is sufficiently south of the bunker. It’s now raining pretty good, and there’s a bit of thunder. Nothing unusual in my little corner of the world though.

Last HamNation

by @ 12:47. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Hopefully it’s just the last Townhall version, but if it truly is the last, MKH is going out in style.

Hopefully the Washington Examiner lets her do a few.

Re: The $64,000 and $382,000 Obama/Rezko property questions

by @ 10:46. Filed under Politics - National.

Jim Geraghty kicked it off by asking why Barack Obama would “overpay” Rita Rezko (Tony’s wife, and yes, THAT Tony) $64,000 for a strip of land on a vacant property she owned next to his Chicago home. Headless Blogger jumped on it and asked why Rezko would “overpay” the previous owner of both parcels $384,000 for that piece of vacant land. I burned much of last night trying to do some digging through both the City of Chicago’s online GIS map and the Cook County Assessor’s office website to see what could be discerned from that.

First, I have to thank Headless for refreshing my memory on some of the specifics of the same-day purchases by Obama and Rezko:

  • There are actually 3 parcels involved; two listed by the Cook County Assessor’s office as 5046 S. Greenwood Ave. (the house Obama purchased and an outlot behind the house and garage containing a second, small house also presumably purchased by Obama), and one listed as 5050 S. Greenwood (the vacant lot purchased by Rezko). At that time, the “main” 5046 parcel was about 10,400 square feet and the 5050 parcel was about 9,600 square feet (side note; CBS2Chicago said that it was 7,500 feet; guess they didn’t check city records too closely).
  • The previous owner of all 3 parcels was looking to sell them all for $2.575 million. On the same day in June 2005, Obama purchased the two parcels at 5046 for $1.65 million ($300,000 less than the asking price), while Rezko bought the 5050 parcel for $625,000 (the full asking price).
  • In January 2006, Obama bought 1/6th of the 5050 parcel from Rezko (about 1,600 square feet) for $104,000 (precisely 1/6th of what Rezko paid for it) despite it being appraised at only $40,500.
  • That purchase not only increased the “main” 5046 parcel size to its current 12,047 square feet and reduced the 5050 parcel to 8,002 square feet, but it caused the combined 5046 southern property line to “jog” south (so much for the claim that he was trying to “balance” the property lines).

Now, the “why”s. Do bear in mind that this is complete speculation, but I suspect that Obama wanted the entire parcel, but didn’t yet have the ability to come up with $2.275 million (the total amount paid to the previous owner). He got his friend Tony Rezko to have his wife buy the vacant parcel with the understanding that he would pay her back as the additional money from his new job as US Senator came in by buying pieces of the parcel and attaching them to his property. That scheme fell apart after Tony was indicted on federal corrpution charges in October, 2006.

I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know whether that scheme violated federal law, Illinois law or Senate ethics rules in addition to smelling as bad as Jones Island after a 3-day rain. However, I do know that, had a Wisconsin politician participated in that scheme, he or she would have faced at a minimum a criminal investigation and likely prosecution.

Revisions/extensions (10:58 am 6/6/2008) – Some more info from a March 2008 article in the Chicago Tribune (H/T – Headless):

The house and the adjoining yard had been owned as a single property, but the owners were listing them separately and asking $1.95 million for the house and $625,000 for the landscaped side lot.

Obama disclosed Friday that someone else already had an option to buy the garden lot. But he said Rezko took over that option after Rezko learned Obama was bidding for the house. Obama said he knew next to nothing about those transactions and does not recall when he learned that Rezko was interested in buying the side lot- or even how Rezko learned it was for sale….

At some point before the property sales closed, Obama toured the home with Rezko for 15 to 30 minutes. Obama said he asked Rezko to assess the property because he was a real estate developer in the area. “He said, ‘I’d be willing to go inside and take a look,’ ” Obama recalled….

Rezko later sold the rest of the lot to one of his former attorneys, who now has it listed for more than $900,000. “It appears,” Obama said, “a sale is about to be consummated.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

High risk, is-there-a reward? – the conservatives edition

by @ 8:30. Filed under Politics - National.

I suppose, with both halves of the Presidential ticket now set, now is as good a time as any to outline the three choices conservatives have with regard to John McCain. I will say out front that I am still undecided on which course I will personally take because all three choices involve the highest of risks with at best a minimal chance of a reward, and I cannot yet see which course offers the better chance of reward.

First, we have to understand how we got where we are. The Republican National Committee and its leadership, from President Bush on down, has made its goal the supplanting of conservatives with moderates as its “base”. While the state parties didn’t quite follow the script as far as the Presidential nomination is concerned, they got the message to promote moderate-to-liberal candidates to the mutual exclusion of conservative ones loud and clear. The folly of that achieved goal is something that deserves its own post, but in case that post slips into the memory hole, I’ll state that there are far more conservatives that can be and are being turned off than there are moderates that can reasonably be expected to become part of the party.

Further, their apparent strategy continues to be “Dem Lite”, with but a couple of not-overwhelmingly-popular differences between the two flavors of what I term the bipartisan Party-In-Government in the forms of the War on Terror and socialism-lite versus socialism-heavy. Again, an expansion on those points is something left to its own thread.

So, what now? The first option is to say, “Screw McCain and the RNC this year; let the RNC come back to me.” That will undoubtedly, even with concentration on individual Congressional races, give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in Congress. I may not have a lot of memories of the Carter administration, but those that I do have are uniformly bad. Further, I do believe we tried that in 2006, and look at what it got us even with but one statewide/Congressional “R” pickup (Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen) and a whole host of “R” losses.

On the flip side, the RNC will, in all likelyhood, finally understand that they can’t win without conservatives. Of course, if McCain does beat Barack Obama under this scenario, we are truly a group without a home.

The second, related option is to say, “Screw McCain and the RNC; I’m doing a third party.” I strongly believe that it would kill the Republican Party, which in a vacuum would not necessarily be a bad thing. However, we aren’t in a vacuum, and the Democrats have spent the last 75 years preparing for the destruction of the Republican Party. I doubt they’ll make the same mistakes as they did after killing the Federalists in the 1810s and the Whigs in the 1850s and allow either one of the current fringe third-parties or a brand new party to take root.

Also, in the lag time between the mass exodus and the final twitches, I doubt we’ll get a lot of support from the conservatives that have really hitched their wagons to the GOP structure.

The third option is to say, “I’ll swallow the bitter pill and don my noseplugs for McCain so I can get a chance of a seat at the table.” That is generally how politics works. However, once again, we tried that in 1988, 2000, and 2004, and look at what it got us; a party that voted for the largest (in absolute dollars) expansion of welfare in the history of the country, a party that continues to push for amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens in the face of 80% opposition, a party that has adopted the Gorebal Warming line of Bravo Sierra in the face of collapsing scientific support, and a party that is increasingly hostile to conservatives, now going so far as to support center-left candidates to the mutual exclusion of conservative ones for open Congressional seats.

Moreover, McCain is not as accomodating toward conservatives as Bush. Even if we delivered for him, I doubt he’ll even give us the lip service Bush did.

The Morning Scramble – 6/6/2008

by @ 7:03. Filed under The Morning Scramble.

The band is American Hitmen, 5 Marines who served in Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury, and the song is “Born Again” performed on the National Heroes Tour…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF3FfYwyBbk[/youtube]

  • Ace catches NASA cooking the books (literally) to try to prop up Gorebal Warming.
  • Mondoreb has today’s Obamimation PhotoShops.
  • Moron Pundit does some Obama Demotivation.
  • It must be Obamination Friday; Ed Morrissey catches Barack Obama doing a backflip on Jerusalem. That new bus must have the highest ground clearance EVAH!; now he’s throwing whole countries under it.
  • Just one more Obamination; Sister Toldjah rips him a new one for ripping off the Comfort Inn logo.
  • Dupray celebrates the slaying of the Wicked Witch of the East, Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, Obama is no Dorothy.
  • Jim Hoft tells Clinton the same thing the New York Congressional delegation is going to tell her Saturday (or whenever she makes her concession speech) by not being there; DLTDHYOTWO. If you need an explanation, search Michelle Malkin’s site.
  • Double-dose of Moron Pundit; he continues his Ask a Moron: Zombie Invasion series. Do catch the previous installments.
  • Speaking of zombies, doubleplusundead has the zombie news wrapup.
  • Ed Driscoll offers some sage advice to commencement speakers – don’t rip off The Onion.
  • Josh Schroeder has a warning for those of you storing beer under CFLs; be prepared to clean up broken glass and cry over spilled beer.

Hint: It’s Not Skull and Crossbones

by @ 5:52. Filed under Politics - Minnesota.

Thursday, Al Gore endorsed Al Franken to be the Democrat candidate for the US Senate  from Minnesota.   The endorsement caused the local, and some of the national media, to be all a twitter.   From the local Star and Sickle:

DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken got a welcome boost on Wednesday with an endorsement from one of the more revered figures in the Democratic Party — former Vice President Al Gore.

Gore, who has become a crusading environmentalist since leaving elective office, sent an e-mail to DFL delegates on Wednesday afternoon that warmly praised Franken, calling him “exactly the breath of fresh air our government needs.”

I really don’t understand all the excitement.

If you’re not aware, Franken has been having some trouble with articles he’s written. The first was a 2000 article for Playboyin which amongst other things, Franken wrote about his son using the internet to write a report on bestiality. Another article, written in 1995has Franken making jokes about rape. Franken’s response to the article is that he did it as a satarist, it was a long time ago and Minnesota people know that that article is not who he is now. Like Barack Obama, Franken also tries to argue that the associations and activities of his personal life are not reflective of who he would be as a political leader. However, the article is so egregious and sexist, that even female Democrat leadership from Minnesota are asking him to remove himself from nomination.

Al Gore, if you remember, had his own problems with Playboy. In his 2000 campaign, one of Al’s California supporters had scheduled a fund raiser at the Playboy mansion. Al spent a great deal of time trying to reconcile his stated belief, that men and women were equal, with the fact that his fund raiser was being held at a place that clearly didn’t portray that perspective. While the venue was later moved, Al could never bring himself to return the contributions he had received from the various Playboy Executives. Like Franken and Obama, Al tried to tell us that the contributions didn’t reflect his views and were only a tiny fraction of the funds raised by the campaign.

So I really don’t understand the excitement of the endorsement. After all, they’re a part of the same secret society. As such, one would expect members of the society to stand and fully support one another.  

What society you ask?   No, I don’t mean the Secret Society of Al’s, I mean the secret society within the Democrat party that believes the objectification of women is a positive attribute.

Roll bloat – blog-moving edition

by @ 0:13. Filed under The Blog.

I thought I had Support Your Local Gunfighter on that bloated roll, but dumbshit me forgot to throw it on. It’s now fixed.

In any case, those of you who have his old Blogger address on your rolls and feed readers, please update it to http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.com/ and http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.com/feed respectively.

June 5, 2008

Duke Nukem Forever lives (maybe)

by @ 15:47. Filed under Miscellaneous.

(H/T – Rock, Paper Shotgun)

Jace Hall of Crackle has actually played a demo alpha version of the current iteration of Duke Nukem Forever (start at 4:10 of the video). DNF has been in production since 1997, and has won the Vaporware of the Year award from Wired Magazine every year it was eligible between 2000 and 2007 (it was given the “lifetime” award in 2003 and not eligible in 2004).

If 3D Realms isn’t jerking our chains again, stock up on the kick-ass because you’re probably all out of gum.

The Morning Scramble/Open Thread Thursday – 6/5/2008

It’s looking more like midnight out the windows of the bunker than morning, but let’s roll with it. Thanks to OdieO for suggesting today’s artist….

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG3Z_R9wJ-w[/youtube]

  • Tom McMahon spins the jukebox for the Disco Dems.
  • Gabriel Malor catches Barack Hussein Obama plagiarizing himself on the conviction of his friend and fundraiser Tony Rezko. There’s also a couple governors running scared.
  • Owen gives a raspberry to Wisconsin’s profiles in courage, Russ el-Slimeroad (Moonbat-Al Qaeda) and Nobody’s Senator Herb Kohl, for waiting until AFTER BHO clinched the nomination to endorse him.
  • Lawhawk delivers a history lesson to the last failed ‘Rat candidate.
  • Fred catches the Racine ‘Rats at it again. For the newer readers here, Fred’s the guy who got the former Racine County Democratic chair ousted.
  • Sean Hackbarth had a nice sit-down with my congresscritter, Paul Ryan, about John McCain’s chances. I can’t say that I agree with Ryan on conservatives coming home to roost with McCain. While we agree that 2008 is a potentially-“transformative election”, McCain is hardly the person that’s going to transform things in a conservative direction.
  • Little Miss Sunshine highlights a roadway pet peeve of mine – drivers who all-but-stop when they see a deputy on the side of the road running radar/lidar.
  • Luke breaks out Carnac to prove that most of the voters in northwest Wisconsin are getting it on taxes. I guess the aftermath of some of their number passing the largest school referendum in the history of the state (New Richmond’s $91 million one) shook them back to reality.
  • I apologize for missing this the first time around, but gopfolk has the Gorebal Warming When You Should Die game. I’m proud to say I’m way overstaying my “welcome”, though I note that the average Aussie wouldn’t make it to my age either.

I somehow made it through the storm without a loss of power, which is good because I’m doing this on the soon-to-be-replaced desktop, and I don’t have a UPS.

Neither Fish Nor Fowl

by @ 5:00. Filed under Politics - National.

Tuesday night was the unofficial beginning of the Mano  a Mano Presidential Campaign.   Speeches from John McCain and Barack Obama set a framework for what we can expect the respective campaigns to focus on.

Obama began his positioning by recognizing McCain as a maverick:

Because while John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past, such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign.

But went on to paint McCain as “George Bush Lite”:

It’s not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush ninety-five percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year.

McCain responded by quickly pointing to his maverick status:

You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country. But the American people didn’t get to know me yesterday, as they are just getting to know Senator Obama. They know I have a long record of bipartisan problem solving. They’ve seen me put our country before any President "” before any party "”

And there’s the problem.

McCain continues to run on a platform that is neither fish nor fowl. He wants to reign in spending but supported the housing bailout. McCain recognizes the impact that ethanol has had on our food prices but is blind to the cost increases that his cap and trade plan will cause. Unlike being bi-sexual where you have twice the chance for a date, being bi-political does not increase your chances, it decreases them.

Barack Obama tipped his hand in his speech when he approved of McCain being a maverick but derided him for not being maverick enough. Obama will use McCain’s bi-political record against him.    Obama cause Conservatives to sit out reminding them that McCain is the poster child for the problem within the Republican party where it has become acceptable to call yourself a Republican, and even argue that you are a Conservative, if you vote for Conservative issues 50.01% of the time. On the other hand, Obama will use McCain’s inability to be bipartisan on EVERY issue to ultimately separate him from the Hillary Democrats who are currently upset but will eventually rally to the party. After all, what better place for a group of people who feel like they’ve been victimized than back in the bosom of the Party of Victimization?

Obama doesn’t need to do much to affect the Conservatives. Simply putting McCain in a position of explaining why he isn’t President Bush will put the wedge in for them. For the Hillary Democrats the message is simple; the attached bumper sticker should sum up his argument to them:

 

Well Done, All Is Forgiven

by @ 5:00. Filed under Energy.

After nearly a year of battle, Union County, South Dakota has voted to change their zoning ordinance to allow for the building of an all new oil refinery.   If completed, it would be the first new refinery built in the US since 1976.

The zoning change was voted on by the citizens of Union County and won handily, 58% to 42%.   Those supporting the refinery pointed to the 4,500 construction jobs and 1,800 long term jobs that the refinery will provide.   However, before you get to excited, I need to tell you that not everyone is excited by the proposal of a refinery:

While conceding defeat, opponents vowed to keep fighting the controversial project on every imaginable front, pressing on with a lawsuit it filed against the county over the zoning procedures and opposing Hyperion as it applies for a bevy of state and federal permits.

If the people of Union County can rise up and vote common sense in over the objection of the greenies, why can’t we get it done at a state or federal level? Think people are fired up about this? Read the comments attached to this article. It’s clear that the opinion is running at least 9 to 1 in favor of the plant with those for being unusually intense about their opinions.

To the State who gave us the disaster known as Tom Daschle we say:

“Well Done. All is forgiven. Lead us to the promised land!”

 

 

What’s Wrong With Chris Matthews?

by @ 4:54. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

This is not the typical “Chris Matthews is nothing but a leftist hack,” complaint. I’m really wondering if there isn’t something mentally wrong with Chris Matthews!

In this video, Chris is talking with MN Senator Amy Klobuchar who is at the Barack Obama event in St. Paul Tuesday night. Chris opens up with a crack about the Republican convention coming to town and starting with a stop at the Larry Craig bathroom. OK, Craig made his bed (so to speak), he can lie in it. But next, Matthews makes a smart ass remark about the Republicans “celebrating the bridge collapse in St. Paul.”

What the hell?

13 people died as a result of that collapse. The FTSB’s preliminary report sites the cause as gusset plates that were under designed. They’ve further stated that they would not be caught as a part of regular maintenance.

Maybe Chris will be starting a one man comedy show entitled “Katrina, If you can’t swim, have I got a storm for you!”

June 4, 2008

Blogger training sessions – Oshkosh and Madison

by @ 15:50. Filed under Miscellaneous.

The Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity is hosting a pair of blogger training sessions next week:

You’re Invited to a Free Blogger Training School hosted by Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin Chapter.

Blogs have emerged as a powerful activism tool, and we need your help to combat the liberal agenda that threatens our very freedom and prosperity. Please join us to learn how you can use blogs to advocate for our shared belief in lower taxes and more limited government.

June 9th- Oshkosh School
5:30 pm Reception and Registration; 6:30 pm Seminar
Robbins Restaurant
1810 Omro Rd, Oshkosh, WI 54902
(920) 235-2840

June 11th- Madison School
5:30 pm Reception and Registration; 6:30 pm Seminar
The Lucy Burns Institute
301 South Bedford, Suite 6
Madison, WI 53703
(608) 255-0688

What you will do at the School:
-Learn about the Impact of Blogs
-Learn how to start your own Blog
-Learn how to be an effective Blogger
-Meet & Network with other like-minded Bloggers
-Enjoy free refreshments and sandwiches

RSVP today by emailing wirsvp&afphq.org or call 414-475-2975.

I’ll likely be at both, but don’t let that stop you from going :-)

Video of the day

by @ 15:29. Filed under Politics - National.

Since we’re still missing the emptying of the HamNation vault, I had to expand my horizons just a bit. See-Dubya cranked this little look at history repeating itself out….

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

No wonder why Michelle Malkin grabbed him to be a full-time co-blogger. If only the Pubbies had listened to Zombie Reagan,….

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