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 19th, 2010

Tuesday Hot Read – Nick Schweitzer’s “Government Sponsored Theft”

by @ 16:19. Filed under Politics - Milwaukee.

Nick Schweitzer dug into the forced sale of a pair of Milwaukee parcels formerly owned by Bee Bus Line to the city of Milwaukee for the benefit of neighboring Integrated Mail Industries (emphasis in the original):

Of course, the way the article is written, it seems so wonderful. After all… jobs will be created with this new land! But let’s look at what really happened here. IMI went to Bee and asked to buy the property for a price. Bee said it wanted moren (actually they just wanted at least what they paid for it), and IMI, instead of continuing to negotiate in good faith, went to the city and demand they use eminent domain to take the property at a lower price and resell it to them. This is nothing but government sponsored theft.

If property rights meant anything, then a property owner (Bee Bus Lines) ought to be allowed to ask whatever they wanted for that property. If their price is too high, than no sale will be made and they’ll be stuck. But just because IMI didn’t want to pay a price doesn’t mean that they ought be allowed to go the city to “force a sale”. That is like suggesting that if a woman declines a man at a bar, he ought to be able to go the police and have a cop hold her down while he rapes her… to force the completion of a “transaction” he demanded of her. Having a right to something means nothing if it does not include the right to refuse sale of that item, for whatever reason. This isn’t the God Father… you have the right to refuse an offer.

I’ll force you to go to Nick’s place to catch the bombshell of the poliical leanings and donation patterns of the owners of the AB Dada Group, ISI’s parent company. I’ll just say that Milwaukee’s reputation as a “clean government” took another hit.

The Tipping Point

by @ 15:32. Filed under Miscellaneous.

At the time of this writing it is not yet known whether Republican Scott Brown will pull out a major upset over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. But it is a virtual certainty that he will be close enough to send shock waves through President Obama’s administration, congressional leadership and all Democratic members of Congress who are not in safe seats. How can this be happening? The debate has centered around two possible explanations: the inept Democratic candidate and/or rejection of the Democratic agenda.

But one very important moment in this campaign is not being given enough weight. In a recent debate, moderator David Gergen asked Brown a question about blocking health care while sitting in “Teddy Kennedy’s seat.”  In what should be regarded as a classic debate moment, Brown responded, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.” That, in my view, was the tipping point in this campaign.  From that moment on Martha Coakley couldn’t do anything right, and Scott Brown gained momentum and a flood of cash.

Americans take their voting rights pretty seriously. Gergen’s implication was that it would really take balls to vote in such a way as to offend the late Teddy Kennedy. How dare he offend the senior aristocrat while the aristocracy still stands? That might sell in England, but not here.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree there are many factors that weigh into the outcome of this race, but don’t underestimate the damage done to Martha Coakley by Gergen, who at that moment demonstrated the degree to which Democrats believe they are entitled to hold power.

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, What? Wait a Minute!

by @ 13:29. Filed under Free Shoebox, Miscellaneous.

I’ve got to travel by commercial air again this week. I’ve got to be in Louisville tomorrow.

After fuming a couple more days over the “you’re nobody to us, go away” response I got from the TSA, I decided to see if I could get some help from my Congresscritter. I sat down and wrote a detailed, factual account of the travelous interruptus that I have contracted from the TSA. I even remembered an important point that I had previously forgotten.

Remember back after 9/11 when the TSA (or what ever they were called then) had some customer focus and was actually was looking for a way to make the lines quicker? Well, one of the things they trialed was a machine that did a retina and fingerprint match. Because I was traveling about 125K miles per year, I applied for the program. Part of the process for the program was that they had to do a background check on you along with capturing your retina and fingerprint. Guess what, I was accepted. So, at least at that time, I wasn’t a security risk!

I finished my letter, had the letter all printed, stuffed in an envelope, stamped and finished with a return address. And then, something odd happened.

I woke up this morning, less than 24 hours from the departure of my flight. While I was sure I knew what would happen, I went to the NWA web site and attempted to get my boarding pass. To my great surprise, I got a boarding pass. No muss no fuss! So now what? I guess there are now one of a few explanations:

1. NWA hasn’t gotten the TSA’s message.
2. NWA still has my security clearance on file from 8 years ago (I think that previous program was sponsored by the various airlines)
3. Only UAL thinks I’m a security risk
4. Just as magically as I became a security risk, the TSA has decided I’m no longer one.

I don’t know what to make of this. I hope that whatever works today will work again on Friday when I return home. If it does, my answer, short term, is easy; as much as I hate to admit it, I’ll fly NWA

Political catchup – mid-January edition

by @ 13:22. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Yes, it is cold outside, and the election is still over 10 months away, but we have some heat going on in Wisconsin:

  • Republican Mark Neumann put over $1 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign. That, along with a reported $974,000 cash on hand number, masks the fact that he did not reach $250,000 outside of his own pocket. Meanwhile, Democrat Tom Barrett reported raising $750,000 since he announced and along with $800,000 from his mayoral campaign, $1.5 million cash on hand, and Republican Scott Walker is expected to announce more than $900,000 raised in the second half of 2009 with around $2 million cash on hand.
  • Speaking of fundraising, Senate candidate Dave Westlake has decided to limit his fundraising efforts to sales of blaze-orange campaign shirts and no-pressure donations, prefering to meet everybody he can face-to-face. While it is admirable, it is impossible to meet more than a small portion of the electorate statewide.
  • Staying on the Senate race, Terrence Wall has officially jumped into the race after a couple months of touring the state.
  • Rebecca Kleefisch announced for lieutenant governor today, joining Dave Ross, Brett Davis, and Ben Collins in the GOP half of the race.
  • Despite the only roles of lieutenant governor being serving as a general-election running mate of the governor, being the first in line to fill a gubernatorial vacancy, and having the full authority of governor on any board the governor is entitled to sit that he chooses to fill with the lieutenant, Kleefisch, Ross and Collins have taken more stands on issues on their campaign websites than Barrett. Indeed, Barrett’s website only has donation and volunteer links on it.

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