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 January 5th, 2010

Pinning them back up – the Confidential version

by @ 20:55. Filed under The Blog.

Pin-up model and crack shot Phelony Jones has reopened The Confidentials. Trust me; it is a good read.

Free Shoebox!

by @ 19:45. Filed under Miscellaneous.

In case you missed the travails of Shoebox’s attempts to travel the last couple days, he somehow got slapped onto one of TSA’s watch lists. Until they straighten things out, there will be a new counter on the site.

Hey hey, ho ho. Shoebox should be free to go.

$2.7 billion GAAP deficit is just the tip of the iceberg

by @ 17:38. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Some people have been all over the revelation from Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance president Todd Berry that Wisconsin ended the 2009 fiscal year with a $2,712 million general fund GAAP deficit, a brand-new record and an increase of $209 million over FY2008. A quick, untrained look at the actual report from the state controller is actually scarier:

  • The “unreserved fund balance” deficit in the general fund was $3,121 million, which was $269 million higher than it was in 2008. From page 28 of the report, “A deficit unreserved fund balance represents the excess of the liabilities of the General Fund over its assets and reserved fund balance accounts. Reservations of fund balances of governmental funds represent amounts that are not available for appropriation. Examples of fund balance reservations reported in the General Fund include reserves for encumbrances, inventories, prepaid items, and the Budget Stabilization Fund.”
  • The net asset situation is also not good (see page 22). While the total net assets for the state was $11,831 million, it represents a drop of $970 million (or 7.6%) from FY2008.
  • Continuing on that theme, the largest portion of the net assets, capital assets, was a net $17,142 million. You may have noticed that it is significantly higher than the net assets. Allow me to explain this.
  • Once the $17,142 million in capital and $3,600 million in “restricted” (by either the state Constitution or statute, and not available for day-to-day operations) assets are subtracted from the net assets, the “unrestricted” net assets, which the report notes would be available for day-to-day operations if it were a surplus, ran a deficit of $8,910 million, an increase of $817 million from last year. Again quoting the report, “Therefore, based on this measurement, no funds were available for discretionary purposes.”
  • Because for accounting purposes, long-term obligations are recognized at the time they are incurred, two items weigh heavily on that negative “unrestricted” net asset number – the $2,712 million general-fund deficit, and $16,328 million in long-term obligations. The latter number, which includes $975 million that is due by June 30, 2010, is a $17 million increase, due entirely to a $462 million (5%) increase in “governmental activity” long-term debt.

And then they came for Michael Yon

by @ 13:42. Filed under Law and order, Politics - National.

If Shoebox was wondering who the TSA would flag after him, he need not wonder any longer. Ed Morrissey reports that Homeland Security agents detained Michael Yon as he returned to the US from Afghanistan via Hong Kong because he refused to tell them how much money he makes. Quoting from Yon’s Facebook page:

Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not “arrested”, but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eventually came — they were professionals — and rescued me from the border bullies.

When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.

I would say that it’s un-fucking-believable, but given that the immigration/customs/security apparatus is interested in everything BUT stopping illegal aliens and terrorists, it’s entirely fucking believable.

Revisions/extensions (8:45 pm 1/5/2010) – There’s more from Michael Yon from Big Government, including the fact that it was TSA goons that accosted him.

Is it Just Me? Update

by @ 10:55. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I just tried getting my boarding pass for my flight back to MSP.

Guess what!?

I have to go see the gate agent again!

Help! 

Getting through airports is bad enough.  When you’re a consultant who travels for a living on the damn aluminum birds, this is more than a mere inconvenience.  Standing in line for extra HOURS for someone to look at my drivers license and call a disembodied voice somewhere in the ether, to get an “approval code” to issue me a boarding pass is absolute nonsense!

Write your Congressperson!  Have them tell the TSA to release Shoebox!

Hey, hey, ho, ho, Shoebox should be free to go!

Hey, hey, ho, ho, Shoebox should be free to go!

Hey, hey, ho, ho, Shoebox should be free to go!

Hey, hey, ho, ho, Shoebox should be free to go!

Transparency Anyone?

by @ 9:45. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Here is an excerpt from a speech given by Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama in September 2008.  “I’ll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business. As Justice Louis Brandeis once said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. As President, I will make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork-barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one is looking because when I am president, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. No more secrecy.”

Today C-SPAN has asked Congress to open the health care reform negotiations taking place “behind closed doors” to the media.  It will be interesting to see the Administration reaction to this.  You will notice President Obama’s comments do not just address actions of the Administration.  He specifically refers to “. . . meetings where laws are written. . .”

In my three decades of following politics I do not remember a time when there were more shenanigans pulled by members of Congress in order to push through legislation that is resoundingly unpopular with the “folks.”  I think the least the President and his congressional allies can do is allow us to watch them give us the proverbial finger.

NRE 2009 Awards – Person of the Year

by @ 5:00. Filed under NRE 2009 Awards.

Welcome to the 5th and final day of the NRE 2009 Awards. Today, we name our people of the year. As a review, here is the rest of the schedule:

– Jackass of the Year, 1/1
– Thank You for Existing, 1/2
– Dumbest Thing Said, 1/3
– News Story of the Year, yesterday

And the nominees are…

The Tea Party Protester (from RealDebate) – For the first time in their lives many people are getting off the couch, making their own signs and letting their voices be heard. They’ve been called every name in the book by the hate left and still they come. The country figured out that “Hope and Change” was code for a massive expansion of government debt and an even bigger grab of personal rights from a far left wing that thinks it can provide a better life for the individual citizen than the individual citizen can for themselves.

The men and women in the Armed Services (from Big G)

The Tea Party Movement (from Shoebox) – while this has taken various forms throughout the year, the notion of conscientious objectors from the right has never been seen before.  Without the people in these efforts we would likely have seen health care reform skate through Congress.  Without these people we may well have seen cap and trade enacted.  While clearly the people with the biggest surprise impact in 2009, the true proof will be seeing their impact on the 2010 races.

Sarah Palin (from Phineas) – Don Surber makes a great case, so I’ll let him do the talking. An excerpt:

Ordinary people did read her book and they were impressed. The people who shop at Wal-Mart bought 1 million copies of her autobiography in just 2 weeks. Thousands of them stood in line by the thousands in the freezing nights of November and December just to get her autograph. She is of them — a hockey mom who is naive, unsophisticated and learning just how rotted from within America’s political system has become. She beat corruption in Wasilla. She beat corruption in Alaska. And well, she finished 2009 with a higher approval rating than The Won.

The Honduran people (by steveegg) – When former Honduran President Mel Zelaya tried to set the stage to be El Jefe for Life, the army, Congress, and Supreme Court teamed up to enforce the very-strict Constitutional prohibitions against multi-term Presidents. When the entire world tried to descend upon Honduras to restore their favorite Marxist, the people rose up and said, “Hell no.” When Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Europeans said that they wouldn’t recognize the pending Presidential elections, they went ahead with them and held a rather-clean election.

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