define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true); define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS', true); No Runny Eggs » steveegg

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 posts by steveegg.

July 30, 2009

Good-bye FeedDemon, hello RSS Bandit

by @ 21:15. Filed under The Blog.

I started using FeedDemon as my RSS reader shortly after I signed up for NewsGator to help Sister Toldjah troubleshoot some problems she had with NewsGator Online. For a long time, it worked rather well. Lately, FeedDemon, actually its underlying NewsGator Online interface, had not been updating nearly as often as it should. I stuck with it because that was still the best RSS reader I knew.

Now, however, a pair of items has caused me to dump FeedDemon entirely. First, NewsGator Online is disappearing. That means that FeedDemon will instead be synchronizing with Google Reader, and if I ever bothered to fire up the NewsGator Go on the “smart”phone, that would be no more.

That’s all well and good because Google Reader updates far more reliably than NewsGator has lately, except the second change as part of FeedDemon caused me to dump it entirely. There is now a rather large and obtrusive rotating ad as part of the new software, with no real plans to take it out (supposedly the creator of FeedDemon is considering removing it from a paid version, but with these economic times, I’d rather not pay).

Fortunately, there is an answer that will allow me to keep things synched between at least between the desktop and the laptop – RSS Bandit. It’s not quite as convenient as FeedDemon was, but it gets the job done. Bonus item that I missed when I finally abandoned SharpReader – it shows link relationships.

Yes, the internal browser uses the IE engine rather than the Firefox one, but that’s the breaks.

Open Thread Thursday – EAA edition

by @ 6:43. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

I’m headed up to EAA AirVenture with a few good friends, Asian Badger, Chad Hohner and Nick Schweitzer. If everything doesn’t get completely soaked, I should have some pics up either at the end of the day or (more likely) tomorrow.

Good thing it’s Thursday; that means it’s Open Thread Thursday where I try to get you to call the shots and pick up on what Shoebox and I have missed.

July 29, 2009

Wednesday Hot Read – Michelle Malkin’s “Bully boys: A brief history of White House thuggery”

by @ 14:32. Filed under Politics - National.

Michelle Malkin has a lengthy overview of the ways the ObamiNation has tried to shut up its critics. The open regarding the Congressional Budget Office illustrates what the Chicago Way really is:

Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.

Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the Today Show that he had met with CBO director Douglas Elmendorf – just as the number-crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims. Yes, question the timing. The CBO is supposed to be a neutral score-keeper – not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.

Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was “exaggerating costs and underestimating savings.” Message: Leave the number-fudging to the boss. Capiche?

With a tip of the cap to Dafydd ab Hugh, we can add one more item – the stripping of diplomatic visas from members of Honduras’ government (which Ed Morrissey notes was done at the urging of the dictator-wannabe Mel Zelaya), while at the same time considering diplomatic outreach to the Taliban. Dafydd also has the motto of the ObamiNation – “Keep your enemies close, and your mortal enemies actually in bed with you.”

July 28, 2009

Expiration date – nuclear edition

by @ 16:36. Filed under Energy, Politics - National.

(H/T – RadicalRon)

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that the Department of Energy rejected USEC’s $2 billion loan-guarantee application for The American Centrifuge project, a uranium gas-centrifuge enrichment facility, despite a campaign-era pledge from Barack Obama to support said guarantee. USEC CEO John K. Welch claims that the program met the original intent of the DOE loan-guarantee program; of course, that was before Obama actually became President.

I would have simply wrote it off to the Obama administration’s hatred of American nuclear power and the expiration of yet another campaign promise, but in the course of confirming that gas-centrifuge technology is how the Iranians are working at getting nuclear weapons, I discovered that not only is it considered the enrichment method of the future, with Russia, Japan, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands adopting it, there is a second gas-centrifuge project from Louisiana Energy Services, the National Enrichment Facility.

So, what are the differences between LES and USEC? I haven’t been able to determine whether LES also applied for loan guarantees, but there are two differences between the two companies. First, LES is a wholly-owned subsidiary of European URENCO, while USEC is a Maryland company. Second, there is a donation difference between the officers of LES and the officers of USEC. The USEC donation list is rather Republican-heavy, and features donations from Welch to John McCain. Meanwhile, the LES donation list is rather Democrat-heavy, and features a max-amount donation from PR head Brenda Brooks to Obama.

Revisions/extensions (11:10 pm 7/28/2009) – Fixed the link back to JammieWearingFool.

July 24, 2009

Franking censorship

by @ 13:24. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

(H/T – Jazz Shaw)

Propagandists the world over have learned that controlling the language of the debate is essential to controlling the outcome of the debate. Traditionally, members of Congress have been allowed to use whatever verbiage they choose in official communications with their consitutents. However, a pair of decisions from the Franking Commission, which oversees said communications, has sent a chilling effect into the debate:

  • First, they prevented Republican members from including the following chart produced by the Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee that shows the 31 new federal programs, agencies, commissions and mandates that are part of the House health care “reform” plan:


    (Click for the full-sized version)

  • Now, they told Rep. John Carter (R-TX) that the phrases “government-run health care” and “House Democrats” can no longer be used in official mailings or recordings for telephone town-halls, with the only allowable description of the plan being “public option health care plan” and the only allowable description of the House Democrats “House majority”.

Jazz points out that, while Republicans ran the House, he received official mailings from his Congressman that used the phrase, “The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq,” with no attempt by the Republicans to stop the use of that. I can imagine the outrage had the Republicans decided that the only allowable verbiage was the official “Operation Iraqi Freedom”.

What’s next? The Franking Commission, or another entity, telling candidates what they can and cannot say?

Red-on-red health care opposition

by @ 12:58. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

My friends at the American Issues Project are spotlighting the House Democrats who have come out against ObamaCare. So far, they’ve got:

  • Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), who realizes that tax increases on small businesses won’t help those small businesses to offer health care they can’t afford to offer now.
  • Rep. Mike Arcuri (D-NY), who wants more time to get his constituents involved.
  • Rep. John Boccieri (D-OH) who recognizes that his constituents don’t like a government-run plan, especially one that includes a tax increase.

They’ll continue to feature Democrats who see that light of ObamaCare as an onrushing train rather than the end of the tunnel.

Eau de Cadillac

by @ 11:30. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - National.

The editorial writers at Investor’s Business Daily slice and dice the first significant post-bankruptcy move by Government Motors – “Cadillac, the new fragrance for men”. That’s right – if you can’t afford a new car, at least you can smell like one (or more likely, just plain smell).

Seriously, there are two GMs – the one that saw a 22% drop in sales for the first 6 months in the US, and the one that saw serious growth nearly everywhere else on the globe. GM sales in China grew by 38%, and sales in several Latin American countries set records. I do discount the market-share growth in Europe, as GM has shed or is about to shed its two major European brands, Opel and Saab.

The money quote from IBD – “We hope GM can survive in the U.S. But we rather doubt it can with a management that thinks that perfume will cover up the stink of political meddling and the lingering bad odor of its ruinous retirement and health care costs.”

Those who loathe victory and country…

by @ 11:09. Filed under Politics - National.

Warner Todd Huston has a tour de force on Barack Obama’s assertation that “victory” isn’t his goal in Afghanistan:

It is telling that when Barack Obama pictures “victory” he doesn’t see in his head that famous photo of the U.S. Sailor kissing the pretty girl in Times Square on Victory Day. Instead, what is immediately conjured up in Obama’s mind is the bedraggled figure of a beaten Japanese Emperor groveling at the feet of U.S. military might.

Obama’s sympathy is with the Emperor that governed a nation that tried to viciously take over the entire Pacific Rim and enslave many millions of Asian peoples. Obama’s first thought when the word “victory” is broached is of our enemy, his sympathies with them, not us. In fact, he seemed to even find disdain for our own military hero that took that surrender.

But that isn’t even the worst of it. Once again we see another example of Obama’s ignorance of history, even American history. In fact, Emperor Hirohito didn’t even sign the document that finalized the surrender of Japan to General MacArthur. That duty was performed by Japan’s Foreign Minister, Shigemitsu, and one of its generals, Umezu.

In fact, we didn’t destroy Japan’s Emperor and allowed him to continue on in a ceremonial role to allow the Japanese to feel as if they hadn’t been entirely crushed and that some of their traditions might live on.

This is doubly-disturbing, because Michael Yon reports that the Japanese, who have been one of America’s closest allies since the end of World War II, have been doing some of the heaviest reconstructive lifting in Afghanistan.

If those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, what is in store for those who loathe it and country?

No more Bees

by @ 7:09. Filed under Sports.

DeWalt will not be back on the #17 Roush Fenway Ford driven by Matt Kenseth next year. That ends a 10-year relationship with Roush/Roush Fenway, and an 11-year relationship with Kenseth.

Roush Fenway needs to lose a team after this season to get down to the Hendrick-standard 4 teams. Kenseth does have a multi-year deal with Roush Fenway, along with Greg Biffle (whose sponsor, 3M, is not signed beyond 2009) and Carl Edwards (whose sponsor, Aflac, is signed through 2011). David Ragan and Jamie McMurray are currently signed only through 2009, though Ragan’s sponsor, UPS, does have a multi-year deal with Roush Fenway. Let the speculation begin.

Post-partisan starting to lose bipartisan support

by @ 6:00. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Sammy)

Fox News released their latest Opinion Dynamics poll, and there’s some rather interesting numbers buried within it:

  • Despite independents still giving President Obama a positive job approval rating (54% approve/36% disapprove, with the overall at 54% approve/38% disapprove) and a positive personal favorable rating (64% favorable/28% unfavorable), they don’t like the way he’s gone about health care reform (38% approve/41% disapprove) or the economy (46% approve/46% disapprove).
  • The Democrat-led Congress barely has a plurality of Democrats approving of their job performance (47% approve/42% disapprove), with 66% of independents and 76% of Republicans disapproving.
  • Independents don’t have a favorable view of either party, with the Democratic Party earning a 44% unfavorable (for a plurality) and the Republican Party earning a 55% unfavorable.
  • No group thinks Congress has a clear plan for fixing the economy, with 58% of Democrats, 80% of independents, and 86% of Republicans saying no.
  • Over 90% of each of the three groups believes that Congress should read the bills they consider, even if they’re thousands of pages long.
  • Vast majorities of each of the three groups (76% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 87% of Republicans) want Congress and the President to be in the same government-run health-insurance plan that may be passed as everybody else.

That tracks with a Rasmussen poll Shoebox found that found 69% of Republicans and 58% of independents believe Obama is governing in a partisan rather than a bipartisan manner. The odd thing is that 36% of Democrats agree.

Revisions/extensions (8:59 am 7/24/2009) – I should know better than to write late at night; had to correct a rather embarrassing typographical error in the last paragraph.

July 23, 2009

Standing up – okay for roller coasters, not good for airplanes

by @ 16:30. Filed under Business.

(H/T – Fausta)

The WSJ’s Real Time Economics blog has a real stinker of an idea from Ireland’s Ryanair – “vertical seating” on its fleet. Presumably, since there would be requirements for passenger restraint, the “seats” would look a lot like stand-up roller coaster “seats”, with a seat-like appendage at the bottom designed more to prevent submarining below the over-the-shoulder restraint system than actual sitting.

I can see a whole host of problems with this one:

  • Since the goal would be to increase capacity by 50-60 on Boeing 737-sized aircraft, the additional weight of both the “seats” and the passengers would be very detrimental to both the range and the luggage-carrying capacity of the aircraft.
  • Again given the increased capacity, there would not be room to store carry-on luggage under the seat. Combined with the necessity to get rid of overhead bins for height clearance, there would not be such a thing as carry-on luggage.
  • Speaking of height, the very-short (mostly children), the very-tall, the very-heavy and the very-buxom would likely be excluded from air travel.
  • The seat-like appendage will get a wee bit uncomfortable for the male population rather quickly, for obvious reasons.
  • A somewhat-similar problem would exist for the skirt-wearing population, especially if there needs to be a strap connecting the seat-like appendage to the over-the-shoulder restraint.

Their fellow countrymen (or at least some “brilliant” Madison Avenue ad agency) already conceptualized this in between hangovers…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybz0265w6R4[/youtube]

Hot Read Thursday – Emperor Misha I’s “Taking the Fisk to King Hussein”

by @ 7:22. Filed under Politics - National.

Emperor Misha I had way too much fun fisking Obama’s press conf…er, pre-packaged propaganda piece. Let’s see if I can offer up a tasty, yet safe-for-work treat for you (editor’s note; since this theme doesn’t do double-blockquotes all that well, I put the second blockquote in regular quotes):

“where we’ve watched our graduation rates lag behind too much of the world,”

So you’re going to endorse school vouchers, disband the public school system and shut down the teachers’ unions? Great!

“and where we spend much more on health care than any other nation, but aren’t any healthier for it.”

…which explains why everybody is coming to America to get care when their socialist utopias can’t provide them with it. The sick foreigners want to get sicker, that’s it.

If you manage to get here before you go to work, if you get here after you get home from work, or if your boss doesn’t care about the artful use of the F-bomb on company computers, go read the entire thing. I guarantee you, it’s That. Fucking. Good.

Open Thread Thursday – 7/23/2009

by @ 6:13. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

Remember, some animals are always more equal than others, especially in Socialist societies…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzB-ThDegY[/youtube]

If it’s Thursday, it’s time for me to really slack off on my blogging, and instead depend on your generosity. Have at it.

July 22, 2009

Tom Petri thinks you drink and crap too much, and don’t stink enough

by @ 17:04. Filed under Envirowhackos, Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Van Helsing)

Tom Petri is an original co-sponsor to an abomination of an act called the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009, authored by Earl Blumenauer (D, or is that Moonbat-Oregon). According to the short summary provided by Blumenauer, the various local units of government can’t come up with $534 billion in “needed” drinking water/wastewater infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years without raising taxes incredibly on the locals. So, what’s Blumenauer’s and Petri’s solution? Raise $534 billion in federal taxes over 20 years (or $26.7 billion per year) on those same locals! The dirty details:

  • A 4-cent-a-bottle tax on water-based beverages because, as the summary says, they “rely on drinking water as their major input and result in both increased flows and increased waste in our waters.” Surprisingly, alcoholic beverages, the number one cause of public urination, are not included in this tax. Beverages made from concentrate also escape the tax man.
  • A 3% excise tax on toilet paper, soap, detergent, toothpaste, perfume, sunblock, shaving cream, hairspray, water softener, and cooking oil because they all end up in the water. That’s right, cooking oil is on the list despite every homeowner knowing that simply dumping the oil down the drain only clogs it. Guess Petri hates fish frys.

    Oh, and don’t think you can make your own soap and escape the tax man like “Big Alcohol” and “Big Juice”. They’ll tax you on the estimated retail value of your homemade soap.

  • A 0.5% excise tax on pharmaceutical products because people are too stupid to not throw their pills in the toilet and because Big Pharma is an easy target, but mostly because Big Pharma is an easy target.
  • A 0.15% tax on corporate profits over $4 million because they use water too and because it’s just soooo unfair that the Superfund tax sunsetted, but mostly because the Superfund tax sunsetted.

Is there nobody in east-central Wisconsin that will challenge Petri?

“You’re Going To Destroy My Presidency”

by @ 10:03. Filed under Health Care Reform, Obama worship, Politics - National.

(H/T – JammieWearingFool, from whom I shamelessly stole the headline)

An article in NationalJournal.com’s CongressDaily perfectly illustrates why Shoebox put up “Obama worship” as one of the categories:

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” (Sen. Chuck) Grassley (R-IA) said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

There’s several different ways to take this one. JWF wonders if waaaahmbulances are covered under ObamaCare. Given they’re the prefered mode of transportation for the perpetually-aggrieved, I’m sure there’s a full subsidy.

Regarding the inevitable “Two Minutes Hate” that is about to be ordered, I have to wonder who is going to be in bigger trouble for proving that it is all about Emperor Obama I – Grassley for letting that slip into the press, or the unnamed Dem Congressman who leaked it to Grassley.

As for the destruction of Obama’s Presidency, I wouldn’t be particularily bothered if health care was, as Sen. Jim DeMint said, his “Waterloo”, though the stall at the gates of Moscow is a more-accurate historical description. After all, while Waterloo was the end of Napoleon, his failure to take Moscow before General Winter and General Mud took hold was what made Waterloo possible.

Finally, we just learned which of the government-takeover plans Obama wants to happen – the Heavy plan in the House.

Toomey within 1 of Specter, NRSC hardest hit

by @ 7:35. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Jim Geraghty, who has to have earned a TRQ with this gem – “Heed my words, for dey are da chilling sounds of your Toom.”)

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on the latest Quinnipiac poll, which has Sen. Arlen Specter (RD) barely beating presumptive Republican challenger Pat Toomey, 46%-45% 45%-44%. Worse for Specter, and the Democrats, are some of the other results:

– Specter has lost the independents, both specifically against Toomey and against Candidate X.
– Specter’s approval ratings are 47% positive, 46% negative (the highest negatives ever and the lowest positives since Specter/Toomey Round One in 2004).

Now, who insisted on backing Specter right up until his betrayal, and who insisted on trying to find a moderate-to-liberal to try to replace said turncoat moderate-to-liberal?

Revisions/extensions (7:41 am 7/22/2009) – I need caffeine because I originally posted the wrong percentages.

R&E part 2 (8:24 am 7/22/2009) – The raw numbers are now available from Quinnipiac (H/T – Allahpundit/HotAir Headlines), and they’re not encouraging for the Penn Dems:

– Specter bumped up his lead over Joe Sestak in the Dem primary from 50%-21% at the end of May to 55%-23% now.
– Toomey also whups up on Sestak, beating him 39%-35% (the end-of-May poll had Sestak up 37%-35%).
– While Specter does beat Peg Luksik, who only draws 6% to Toomey’s 47% in the Republican primary, by a 47%-40% margin, a near-majority say that he does not deserve re-election (49% no, 40% yes).
– Speaking of Luksik, she would lose to Sestak head-to-head 39%-30%.

R&E part 3 (8:57 am 7/22/2009) – Via Moe Lane, it actually looks like the NRSC finally realized the inevitable and endorsed Toomey on July 14. As someone who wanted the NRSC to stay out when it was Toomey vs. Specter in the primary, and with a very minor challenge to Toomey shaping up, I’m not entirely happy that the NRSC is in at this point, even if they’re backing a good candidate.

R&E part 4 (9:27 am 7/22/2009) – More quotable Geraghty – “Toomsday is coming.”

July 21, 2009

Hey, GOP, Are You Taking Note?, Part II

by @ 13:00. Filed under Elections, Politics - National.

Shoebox ran with a Newsmax story saying that, in terms of percentage, voter turnout went down between the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections, the first time that has happened since 1996. I decided to try to do some analysis of the numbers the Census Bureau has been collecting since 1980, focusing on the past two elections. The numbers are, shall we say, “interesting”:

  • The number of adult citizens went up 9.1 million, from 197.0 million in 2004 to 206.1 million in 2008, a 4.5% increase.
  • The number of registered voters went up only 4.2 million from 142.1 million in 2004 (72.1% of citizens) to 146.3 million in 2008 (71.0% of citizens), a 3.0% increase. Of note, the number of registered voters as a percentage of citizens went down 2.1 percentage points.
  • The number of those who showed up to vote went up from 125.7 million in 2004 (63.8% of citizens, 88.5% of registered voters) to 131.1 million in 2008 (63.6% of citizens, 89.6% of registered voters). While that is a 0.18 percentage-point drop among citizens, that is also a 1.18 percentage-point increase among registered voters. It also is the highest registered-voter percentage since 1992.
  • In Minnesota in 2008, there were 132,000 more adults (+3.5%), 33,000 more adult citizens (+0.9%), 144,000 fewer registered voters (-4.8%), and 128,000 fewer people who showed up to vote (-4.4%).
  • In Wisconsin in 2008, there were 86,000 more adults (+2.1%), 125,000 more adult citizens (+3.2%), 130,000 fewer registered voters (-4.0%), and 123,000 fewer people who showed up to vote (-4.1%)
  • Four states (Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Georgia) had adult citizen population increases of at least 10%. Three of them (excepting Utah) also had double-digit percentage voter registration increases and double-digit percentage voter turnout increases.
  • Five states (Michigan, Maine, West Virginia, Connecticut and Louisiana) had adult citizen population decreases, with Mighican defying logic with a voter registration increase and Michgan, Connecticut and Louisana defying logic with turnout increases.
  • Five states (Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina) plus the District of Columbia had double-digit percentage voter registration increases, with corresponding double-digit percentage turnout increases.
  • Eighteen states (Pennsylvania, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, Vermont, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Utah) had absolute voter registration decreases, with Louisiana and Missouri having absolute turnout increases, and a couple other states having a significantly-lower turnout decrease than registration decrease.
  • No state had a double-digit registered-voter increase as a percentage of citizens, though Virginia came closest at 7.3% (or 5.08 percentage-point increase), and 12 other states/DC (Rhode Island, Georgia, Mississippi, Connecticut, North Carolina, Louisiana, DC, Michigan, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Hawaii) increased their registered-voter/citizen ratio.
  • Ten states/DC (Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia, Mississippi, DC, Arizona, South Carolina, Idaho and Colorado) had double-digit percentage absolute turnout increases, while 18 states (Ohio, Massachusetts, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Montana, Oklahoma, Vermont, Maine, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oregon, West Virginia and Utah) had absolute turnout decreases.
  • Mississippi (13.1%, 8.08 percentage points) and Georgia (13.0%, 7.40 percentage points) had the largest turnout increase as a percentage of citizens, and they were joined in the increase by North Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, DC, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, South Carolina, Nebraska, Indiana, California, Hawaii, Tennessee, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware and Michigan.
  • Eighteen states (Wisconsin, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Ohio, Michigan, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona and West Virginia) had turnout decreases as a percentage of registered voters.

There’s a lot more info than I can digest. I did, however, manage to get a state-by-state comparison put into an Excel spreadsheet, which also includes the total number of adults in each state, whether they are citizens, legal aliens, or illegal aliens.

July 20, 2009

Monday must-read – Ken Lamke’s “Walker vs. Neumann”

by @ 17:06. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

(H/T – Charlie Sykes)

In the current issue of WPRI’s Wisconsin Interest, Ken Lamke makes the case that a primary battle between Scott Walker and Mark Neumann would actually be good for the GOP’s chances of retaking the governor’s office in November 2010.

The prospect of a primary contest between Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former Congressman Mark Neumann for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010 greatly enhances the GOP’s chances of defeating Gov. Jim Doyle next year.

At least the historical record of the past 45 years of Wisconsin elections leads to that conclusion.

Each of the six times that incumbent governors or U.S. senators were defeated since 1962 occurred when the nominee of the out party emerged from a contested primary rather than having the nomination handed to him by running unopposed in the primary.

Lamke goes on to point out that the major advantages of having a contested primary is that the participants get near-monopoly media coverage, and that they get to hit the incumbent without the incumbent getting to hit back. While the latter isn’t quite true, the return fire is necessarily split between the primary participants.

Of course, winning a contested primary does not always translate to success in the general election.

Sometimes these party leaders are not so much interested in having their party nominee knock off the incumbent as they are in having the specific candidate they support win the nomination.

They really don’t care if their party wins in November—that is, that the primary candidate whom they haven’t backed goes on to beat the incumbent. In fact, they sometimes strongly oppose that outcome, although they won’t say so. Almost by definition, they are not really “party” leaders as much as they are supporters of a particular candidate.

The state GOP leadership, as well as the vast majority of the county party leaderships, changed significantly since 2006, to the point where the 2009 convention was “All Walker All The Time”. However, I’m already starting to see a similar dynamic. The old guard, while officially in the minority among the leadership, is still quite infuencial outstate, while a lot of Walker supporters are already firing “I’ll never support you” broadsides at Neumann.

PSA from the cartoonist

by @ 7:17. Filed under Miscellaneous.

In case you haven’t noticed the subtle messages in the Day By Day cartoons lately (or you’re visiting the mobile version of this place), Chris Muir is holding the 2009/2010 Support DBD Event. There’s 5 levels this time around instead of 4, and a Sam In Red figurine that’s a $67 option for the bottom 4:

– The Jan Level ($1-19) gets you pdfs of 3 ‘Gang of 4’ Posters and jpgs of 3 Propaganda Posters.
– The Zed Level ($20) gets you that plus pdfs of 7 ‘SmallMatters’ trial strip (c1998) and
pdfs of 2 ‘PaintedWomen’ Posters.
– The Sam Level ($40) gets you that plus a third ‘PaintedWomen’ Poster.
– The Damon Level ($125) gets you all that plus a Signed Original Toon Script & Toon (for the first 365 only with the toon on heavy stock suitable for framing), 8 Signed Prints of ‘PaintedWomen’ Posters printed on heavy stock, signed, and ready for framing, and 4 Magnet Full-Color Cards of all 4 Characters.
– The new Su excelencia Don Manuel Luciano de la Portago y Verrillo Level (starting at $150) gets you everything except the toon script/toon combo, but adds a Sam in Black figurine.

If only I could do triple figures, I would’ve moved up from the Sam Level I did last year. Instead, I stayed at the Sam Level. If I can kick in to keep the best daily comic strip out there around another year, you can too!

Roll change – guest-blogger edition

by @ 6:39. Filed under The Blog.

Phineas decided that, with the shrinking amount of money being left for the non-public-sector economy, he couldn’t pay TypePad anymore for his blogging. That means Public Secrets has a new home – http://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/.

July 17, 2009

The Friday Freefly is back

by @ 6:55. Filed under Politics - National.

There’s no Kev with the change of venue to DC, but Uncle Jimbo launches into a douchebag of an Army major, a linguini-armed CinC who is a baseball poseur, and various Socialist hits. For those of you with weak ears, you may not want to play the video because of more than a few vulgarities. The rest of you – enjoy!

[youtube width=”560″ height=”340″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lduW_u7qlcw[/youtube]

July 16, 2009

If Microsoft did this…

by @ 20:15. Filed under Business.

Yesterday, Apple broke the ability of Palm’s Pre smartphone to sync with iTunes. It would be as if Google had somehow figured out how to fully-implement MSHTML in Google Chrome, and then Microsoft shut that off in Chrome to protect the elements of MSHTML that are only available in Internet Explorer.

Of course, the Apple fanboys, the same ones that would be the loudest whiners (yes, even louder than the Google fanboys) if Microsoft did that, are happier than pigs in wet shit that their company is making the mistake it did with MacOS – namely, shutting out any and all third-party developers. I hope they’re happy with a 10% market share for iTunes/iPhone in 5 years.

July 15, 2009

Reagan-era whiz-kid says the tax war is lost

by @ 10:03. Filed under Politics - National, Taxes.

Peter Ferrara, who served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, had an intriguing piece that appeared in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. In it, he tries to make the case that the NewConservative™ position on taxes should be not that everybody should have a low tax bill, but that the bottom 60% of wage-earners should have an explicit 0% federal tax rate with an end to refundable tax credits. He argues that we’re already at the point where said bottom 60%, which earns 25% of the total income, paid less than 1% of total federal taxes in 2006 (the last year figures were available), and will likely have a net 0% federal tax liability come April, 2010. He further argues that the reason that Steve Lonegan lost the Republican gubernatorial primary in very-high-tax New Jersey was because he advocated a flat 3% income tax, which would have raised taxes slightly on the bottom half of wage-earners.

K Street, we have a disconnect. If it is true that Lonegan lost because of the tax issue, then that plan is doomed to failure. Ferrara notes that, in 2006, the bottom 40% of wage-earners received an aggregate net 3.6% of their income in refundable tax credits. If that gets taken away, there goes an aggretate 3.5% (no, not 3.6%) of their income.

What is worse is Ferrara’s leaps-of-faith regarding the 40% of those who will now be explicitly hitched to the bloat known as the federal government and its effect on the size of said bloat. He seems to think that, by explicitly taking the majority out of the tax burden entirely, a rational, low-tax policy can be put in place for the “rich”, with the phantom “middle-class tax cut” taken out of political play. What is more likely is that both halves of the bipartisan Party-In-Government will redouble (and in the case of the GOP, retriple) their efforts to buy Paul’s vote by robbing Peter to grow government since there would be far more Pauls than Peters.

The one part of his analysis that is correct is that the Peters would find ways to go Galt. Now, what was that saying about the great experiment in governance known as America ending when half the people realize that they can use the power of government to rob the other half blind?

July 14, 2009

Tuesday Hot Read – Mortimer Zuckerman’s “The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think”

by @ 14:36. Filed under Economy.

So, you think that 9.5% June unemployment is bad? In today’s Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report editor-in-chief Mortimer Zuckerman makes the case that we are in a second Great Depression:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion

He also includes 10 items that back that up, as well as what happened to the Porkulus.

July 13, 2009

Server issues

by @ 22:40. Filed under The Blog.

Sorry about that; something odd happened to the php server. I basically ended up nuking the entire php handling routine.

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