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 13th, 2011

CNN New Hampshire GOP Presidential debate drunkblog

by @ 17:06. Filed under 2012 Presidential Contest.

In a bit under 2 hours, CNN will have the second GOP Presidential debate. Partly because the 2008 cycle’s debates is how I managed to snag Shoebox as a co-blogger, and partly because I need the practice for tomorrow’s Drinking Right (as always, at Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee, starting at 7 pm) and RightOnline later in the week, I’ll fire up a drunkblog. As always, I’ll be using CoverItLive to handle the liveblogging duties, which means you won’t need to refresh this page to keep up. The standard drunkblog rules apply, which means I paraphrase a lot and salty language may will be used.

Legislative Fiscal Bureau – Budget projected to have a structural surplus

by @ 16:26. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – JSOnline’s All Politics blog)

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has run the numbers on the current version of the FY2012-2013 budget, as put together by the Joint Finance Committee, and they are projecting something that has not been achieved in at least the last 16 years – a projected structural surplus in the succeeding budget. Of course, this assumes that, outside of already-mandated changes in both state and federal law, the situation that exists in FY2013 carries over to FY2014 and FY2015.

As a convenience, I’ve reproduced and somewhat expanded the bottom-line table, comparing the structural deficit (termed “General Fund Amounts Necessary for a Balanced Budget” in Table 6:

Structural deficit (surplus) in the succeeding biennium (millions)
1st year 2nd year Total
FY2014-FY2015 (JFC FY2012-FY2013 budget) ($145) ($161) ($306)
FY2014-FY2015 (Governor FY2012-FY2013 budget) $4 $27 $31
FY2012-FY2013 (adopted FY2010-FY2011 budget) $1,232 $1,279 $2,511
FY2010-FY2011 (adopted FY2008-FY2009 budget) $800 $882 $1,682
FY2008-FY2009 (adopted FY2006-FY2007 budget) $653 $846 $1,499
FY2006-FY2007 (adopted FY2004-FY2005 budget) $701 $845 $1,546
FY2004-FY2005 (adopted FY2002-FY2003 budget) $1,340 $1,527 $2,867
FY2002-FY2003 (adopted FY2000-FY2001 budget) $693 $1,026 $1,719
FY2000-FY2001 (adopted FY1998-FY1999 budget) $589 $914 $1,503
FY1998-FY1999 (adopted FY1996-FY1997 budget) $624 $908 $1,532

New FBI surveillance rules half-good, half-troubling

by @ 12:48. Filed under Law and order.

Fox News reports the FBI plans on issuing new rules designed to allow it to expand its surveillance and catch “lone wolfs”.

The good part is that it will allow its agents to administer lie-detector tests to and search the trash of potential informants. Assuming the potential informant knows beforehand and accepts it, it is the functional equivalent of the FBI hiring the person.

The troubling part is that agents won’t need to so much as open up a low-level assessment to look up people on various databases. J. Edgar Hoover never had it so oppressive.

Revisions/extensions (1:32 pm 6/13/2011) – Over at Ace of Spades HQ, rdbrewer has a far better explanation of why the troubling part is troubling (hint; the Founding Fathers launched the American Revolution in part because of shit just like this), along with a wife-of-a-friend story of what a less-than-honest bureaucrat does with this kind of power.

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