No Runny Eggs

Every time I think I can get out, the Scramble pulls me back in…

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

I’ve been busy meeting people well beyond my pay grade/getting the pulse of conservatism/drinking my way through DC the last couple days (sometimes more than one thing at once), so I owe you something. A Scramble through the best of the last couple days in the overbloated (and soon to be growing again) feed reader seemed appropriate.

• Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker explains the folly of borrow-and-tax-and-spend.

  I should explain a bit more about Milwaukee County. The finances had been a mess for years, but there was a tipping point. At the end of 2000, the county board (most of whom are, sadly, still there) passed a mind-blowing expansion of the pension system that gave unbelievable backdrops and pension increases to, mostly, themselves and the senior members of the kleptocracy. This massive unfunded and essentially-irrevocable liability sat unnoticed for a year until Bruce Murphy, then working for Milwaukee magazine, exploded it. That lead to a tea party based mostly in the southern part of Milwaukee County (that’s where I live), that ultimately saw then-county executive Tom Ament and 6 of the 25 supervisors either recalled outright or resign in the face of recalls.

  Walker became county executive in the wake of that, and has been proposing zero-tax-increase budgets since, even as the unionized employees and those that couldn’t be shamed into giving up the enhancements to the pension fund took their money and ran. While he hasn’t always been successful in getting those zero-tax-increase budgets past the board, the rate of tax increases in Milwaukee County has been radically reduced.

• Speaking of the Milwaukee County Board, Patrick Dorwin caught their spokesflack firing flack at the media watchdogs trying to get answers on a couple of board members who used county funds to attend the ObamiNation coronation. While one of them has paid the county back, the other hasn’t.
• Jib discovered the secret of beating back Jim “Craps” Doyle’s (WEAC/HoChunk-For Sale) Necro-Budget – focus on just a couple items. It sounds unsatisfying because that means most of the living dead will be shambling out of the Capitol, but like a military under seige, we can’t be strong everywhere.
• Kate swiped a Barack Urkel Photoshop. Yes, that is who 53% of the country elected President.
• Crunchie proves double standards are not twice as good as standards.
• Second dose of Patrick – he exposes yet another liberal candidate using state resources for campaign work, state superintendent candidate Tony Evers (WEAC-MEA). Odds that the only “Republican” allowed to take a statewide/Congressional seat from the ‘Rats in 2006, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, will even attempt to pursue this – zero. No, that is not a typo – while the incumbent Peg “Keg Goldschlager” Lautenschlager, who was cooperating in a joint state-federal probe (since shut down) of Doyle and got ousted in the primary for it (and a drunk driving conviction in a state car), Van Hollen was busy turning a blind eye to Doyle’s corruption as US Attorney for Western Wisconsin (which includes Madison).
• Owen finds the GPS priorities of Wisconsin all screwed up. We can’t track sex offenders, but we can track birds.
• Caledonia Unplugged exposes another “taxes for thee but not for me” Goron. That Goron probably would support the Uncle Fred vision for the KRM.
• Dad29 is shocked, SHOCKED that WEAC doesn’t think 12 years of education indoctrination is enough. What’s next, mandatory K-4?
• SteveF wonders how long it will be before nationalization crosses the Rio Grande from Venezuela, where it’s being enforced by the army.
• Moron Pundit found a local weatherman stupid enough to wear a green tie on a green screen testing out visual stealth.
• Demian Brady puts the budget into a timeline. If graphed, it would look like a logarithmic curve.
• JammieWearingFool proves once again that failure to pay taxes is a requirement for consideration as an aid to President Obama.
• Josh Schroeder asks whether the Dow going below 7,000 will just be a number or be a significant psychological barrier breached. Let me put my answer in musical form…

  [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO_QntXc-c4[/youtube]

• Kevin Binversie proves the Wisconsin Covenant is an empty promise. Bonus item – if a private company tried that, it would find itself in court.
• Liz Mair calls out the big speners. Note to self; make sure to add her to the bloated roll when and if you get home.
• Brian proves that the Looney Left is far more dangerous, at least from a physical perspective, than the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
• Just A Grunt outlines all the ways the Obama administration is trying to force a rapid return to $4/gallon gas, including talking about prohibiting some Candian oil. Of course, there isn’t any talk about banning very-heavy and very-expensive-to-refine (and if memory serves, very enviromentally-unfriendly) Venezuelan oil; after all, there’s fellow Communists-by-another-name to prop up.
• Little Miss Sunshine didn’t want to give Doyle any ideas for new “green” taxes, but the envirowhackos in Maine are.
• Mike is asking who said the following:
  

  e could almost wonder whether the Government do not reconcile themselves to the economic misfortunes of our country, to which their mismanagement has so notably contributed, because these misfortunes give the pretext of establishing even more controls and an even larger bureaucracy. They make mistakes which make things worse. As things get worse they claim more power to set them right. Thus they move ever nearer to the scheme of the All-powerful State, in which the individual is a helpless serf or pawn.

• Christian Schneider welcomes us to the Federal Department of Wisconsin. He who has the gold makes the rules, and the federal funding of Wisconsin’s budget will, if the Necro-Budget is adopted as-is, increase from 25% to 30%. That is despite $3.5 billion in new taxes.
• The Underground Conservative documents the latest battle in the war against American bathrooms – mandatory sit-downs for every male trip to the bathroom.
• Adam documents how the CTU All-Stars helped Big Bad Bill Buchanan’s aunt survive the DTV conversion.
• Jim Geraghty declares that a stopped clock is right; meanwhile, Obama admits the critics of the UN Racism Conference were right and won’t be sending a representative to the latest Death To Israel conference. There’s an expiration date I’m glad to see.
• Thus ends your positive Obama news of the day. Time to balance it out – Kevin Jackson outlines Obama’s war on achievement.
• In case you were like me and skipped the ObamiNation SOTU speech, Mary Eileen has a handy decoder guide.
• Tracy Coenen sticks a fork in General Motors. See the second song of the day for my reaction.
• Pam summarizes the federal Necro-Budget (©Kevin Binersie)
• Jon Ham found one benefit of corn-a-hole fuel – it violates Sharia law.
• Kyle Maichle launches a new award, and the first wein…er, winn…er, weiners (I was right the first time) are Mark Pocan and One Wisconsin Now for their drive for #1 in taxes for Wisconsin.

I hope that I can get out of DC today. I don’t feel like sleeping at the airport.