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 September 19th, 2010

Recommended Reading (09/18/10)

by @ 23:00. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Here are, in my view, interesting, noteworthy columns and articles from the past week that I highly recommend:

9/11, a 2061 memorial

“On the 60th anniversary of 9/11 memorial service, president of the United States of America, Hussein Ali, delivered an uplifting speech at the Cordoba House mosque at ground zero in lower Manhattan. New York City mayor Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah as well as many other dignitaries and a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands filling the surrounding streets with their prayer rugs, also joined to commemorate the 60 year old tragedy.

Below is the text of President Ali speech:”

How Obama Thinks

“Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government’s control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama’s approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.”

Like, is Sarah Palin totally conceited?

“’Sometimes when she went out in public, people were unkind. Once, while shopping at Target, a man saw Palin and hollered, ‘Oh my God! It’s Tina Fey! I love Tina Fey!’ When other shoppers started laughing, the governor parked her cart, walked out of the store, and drove away.’ (That jackass was lucky Sarah didn’t have her moose rifle with her.)

A random encounter with a rude, abusive jerk in public is supposed to make her look bad? Liberals have really lost their minds about Palin. They’d laugh if someone hit her with a baseball bat.”

The evolution of the Tea Party movement

The Tea Party movement is broad-based with wide support. Over half of the electorate now say they favor the Tea Party movement, around 35 percent say they support the movement, 20 to 25 percent self-identify as members of the movement, and 2 to 7 percent say they are activists.

The data is particularly clear, and some polls have shown that the Tea Party movement is the most popular force in American politics … and is increasingly been recognized as such by a media that was, at the very least, late to the party”

Throwing the bums out is harder than it looks

“Before everyone succumbs to election season delirium, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that no matter how peeved the American population fancies itself, no matter how dramatic a change of partisan control in one or both houses might seem, one thing is certain: The vast majority of the current Congress can count on returning to Washington and business as usual.”

Lessons of the Koran’s non-burning

“While it’s fashionable in some precincts to smear America as a nation of Islamophobes whose bigotry plays into the hands of extremists, the reverse is closer to the truth.”

Money is not what schools need

“U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently claimed: ‘Districts around the country have literally been cutting for five, six, seven years in a row. And, many of them, you know, are through, you know, fat, through flesh and into bone … .’

Really? They cut spending five to seven consecutive years?

Give me a break!

Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, writes that out of 14,000 school districts in the United States, just seven have cut their budgets seven years in a row. How about five years in a row? Just 87. That’s a fraction of 1 percent in each case.”

American priorities out of sync

“Because our so-called news media is focused on telling us what they think we want to hear instead of what we need to hear, we are deluged with celebrity sludge stories. Americans know Lindsay Lohan spent time in jail, that Paris Hilton was recently busted for possessing cocaine, and that Mel Gibson left some angry messages on his former girlfriend’s phone. If these stories were food they would be junk food.”

State’s vehicle testing program emits no common sense

“Making people drive cars of any age to a special emissions testing center is a colossal waste of time and money.”

Post-primary poll-a-copia, gubernatorial edition

by @ 10:02. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

As surely as rain follows an early-morning rainbow here in Wisconsin, Rasmussen Reports has released its post-primary gubernatorial poll shortly after it released its Senate one, and Scott Walker now leads Tom Barrett 51%-43% with leaners included (for the first time in the cycle) and 50%-43% without leaners. That was a significant improvement over the 47%-44% lead Walker had at the end of August.

Normally, that would be attributed to a post-primary bounce for Walker, who actually had a semi-competitive primary against Mark Neumann (with Scott Paterick doing essentially nothing) while Barrett had only token opposition from Tim John. However, given the ease with which Walker won the primary and the history of 7-to-9-point leads Walker enjoyed throughout the year, Rasmussen Reports decided to restore the “Leans Republican” status the race had prior to the end of August. They did not do a similar move in the Wisconsin Senate race despite the first significant lead for Ron Johnson.

On the favorability front, both Walker and Barrett improved from late-August. Walker’s favorables are now 58% favorable (up 2 points)/36% unfavorable (unchanged)/Favorability Index (strong favorable less strong unfavorable) +12 (up 4 points). Barrett’s favorables are now 52% favorable (up 7 points)/43% unfavorable (down 4 points)/Favorability Index +2 (up 7 points, and the first positive since mid-July).

There is a statistic those warring over the results of the Delaware Senate primary should take note of – he holds 96% of Republicans in this poll back Walker, compared to a “high 80s” in late August. In fact, that is the major source of Walker’s gain; he holds a 24-point lead among independents (roughly equal to late-August and maybe a bit higher), and Barrett holds 86% of the Democrats (again, roughly equal to late-August and maybe a bit lower).

[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]