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.
May 1, 2007
Speaking of taxes…
Item #1 comes to us with a hat tip to The Blogfather – Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch isn’t ruling out backing the 2.5% oil profits tax even though he realizes that it will be an over-7-cents-per-gallon tax increase. After all, he has to keep Payne and Dolan happy, taxpayers be damned.
Item #2 is from Owen’s latest column (H/T so I can get the trackback from Boots and Sabers). It really hammers home the both the sham that is the concept of fund transfers and the insatable appetite of the units of government that are the beneficiaries (and in this case) the authors of that transfer. Can anyone tell me why the state needs $7 out of the $12 fee for the first copy of a birth certificate when it has no cost associated with either maintaining or reproducing that certificate (at least it doesn’t currently take anything out of the $3 for a second copy requested at the same time), much less its proposed take of over half of the proposed $20 fee for EVERY copy, specifically without the oinks and squeals that are the only truthful reason?
And don’t think the other end of the cradle-to-grave mentality that Jim “Craps” Doyle (WEAC/Potawatomi-For Sale) has isn’t covered. Copies of death certificates will be going up from $7 for the first copy and $3 for each additional copy to $20 for each and every copy. Today’s lesson; do not die in Wisconsin.
What’s Yours Is Mine part 3,212
Today’s Journal Sentinel drones on about Department of Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin’s whine that we taxpayers are “underpaying” Wisconsin taxes to the tune of $4 billion to $6 billion annually, or between 30% and 45% of the $13.3 billion that the politicos in the Capitol seem to think they’re entitled to. Before I get to items in the article itself, let’s take a look or two at those staggering numbers. There are roughly 3.5 million Wisconsinites between 18 and 65 according to the Census Bureau, so your state government is expecting roughly $3,800 from each and every working taxpayer. With the combination of the “progressive” personal income tax and the “regressive” sales tax, excise taxes, fees, and corporate income tax making that number pretty solid through the populace, is it really any wonder there is “tax-dodging”? Indeed, that combination, which enabled those that see huge government as the solution instead of the problem, is the very reason for that “shortfall”.
Now, on to the article….
State laws haven’t kept up with the ways taxpayers find to avoid taxes – including not paying sales taxes on Internet purchases, state Department of Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin said in his first in-depth interview since taking office about three months ago.
“We don’t have a mechanism in our government to annually update our tax statutes,” Ervin said. “If you don’t have that fundamental statutory authority to keep up with the market, you start falling further and further behind.”
Allow me to translate – Grab your wallets, folks. Gubmint wants to dream up new ways to tax you without any elected official having a say.
Ervin insisted that any moves to close the tax gap would not be a tax increase. He argued that more money flowing into the state from those who should be paying could lower current state income tax rates, now a maximum of 6.75% for individuals and 7.9% for corporations.
Bravo Sierra. More money flowing in is a working definition of a tax increase. Morever, history has taught us that if there is an additional dollar flowing into government, it will be spent by government; hence, rates will not go down.
Ervin was critical of the leaders of WMC for repeatedly saying that Wisconsin ranks among the high-taxed states nationally and that Doyle’s proposed budget would worsen its ranking because it includes $1.7 billion in tax and fee increases.
“We need to have WMC in here as a positive partner that’s willing to have a public debate about the economy in a very rational and mature way . . . ,” Ervin said.
Where to begin, oh where to begin? So much material, so little time. Since it is the High Holy day of Communists, I’ll start with the notion that Ervin has that it is the job of government to control the economy. WRONG! The Soviet bloc is no more because the governments that comprised it thought it could and should control the economy.
As for the “rational and mature” comment, that’s typical liberalism at work. According to Ervin and his fellow travellers, questioning the idea that $3,800 from every working-age taxpayer isn’t enough is verboten. Fiscal responsibility need not be brought up. The idea of government not being allowed to grow unchecked must be quashed at all costs.
HORSE MANURE! The root problem is that government is too big. It may manifest itself with a myriad of taxes designed to hide government’s true cost. It may manifest itself with fund transfers that have become the vast majority of state spending. It may manifest itself with the idea that government must provide health care, or tell restaurants whether they can allow smoking, or that we need two full-fledged Interstate highways between Milwaukee and Green Bay.
Today’s sign that Pelosi is delusional
(H/T – Curt)
The following comes from Congressional Quarterly (subscription required)
The much-anticipated presidential veto of the Iraq supplemental spending bill was to have taken place already, but a signature "” or lack thereof "” has been standing in the way. And it’s not President Bush’s signature "” it’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s.
The conference report on the bill [was] adopted by the House and cleared by the Senate last week, but Pelosi, D-Calif., wanted time to personally read it and sign it before sending it to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Either Plastic still thinks she’s President or she’s very lazy.
This blog will NOT shut down today
Instead, I am running a 1-day impromptu poll on how many Che Guevara shirts will make their appearances in Milwaukee’s May Day/Reconquista rally.
April 30, 2007
LAST CALL FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN’T UPDATED YOUR BLOGROLLS!!!
I hate to shout, but my search through Technorati for places that still actively link to the norunnyeggs.eggstor.com version doesn’t quite cover all the Blogspot blogs. I managed to catch a couple of you in a desperate search through your blogrolls (you know who you are; I left an e-mail for you), but I doubt I caught all of you. Sometime before May 15, I will be moving eggstor.com off of its current server, which will break the norunnyeggs.eggstor.com subdomain and the redirect I have set up to get you to norunnyeggs.com.
Now, get your rolls updated – https://norunnyeggs.com
Let’s go shooting
The BBA Spring Shoot is set for Saturday, May 19, at McMiller’s Sports Center. We will commence firing approximately 10:00 in the morning. Chris will bring some of his arsenal, from a .44 Magnum to several scoped rifles to an “eeeeeevil” assault rifle (you’ll find out that it isn’t exactly evil) to (if he remember it this time) a 12-gauge for some clay-pigeon practice. I will probably have something to bring to the party as well (guess it’s time to go shopping).
The Pelosi Surrender Tour marches on
The American Spectator reveals that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, acting more and more like she and her fellow harpies have already managed to remove both President Bush and Vice President Cheney every day, has told her staff to pack their bags for trips to another pair of self-declared enemies of America, Venezuela and Iran. The interesting item is that some of the ‘Rats are starting to have buyer’s remorse…
“She is getting bad advice from people back home in San Francisco,” says a leadership aide, who is working for one Pelosi’s colleagues. “She is not getting it from members of her leadership team. That’s all anyone here is willing to say.”
I smell cat-fight between Pelosi and Clinton. I’m popping the corn as I type.
There’s something familiar about that mask
There’s a “new” Masked Blogger in town, and while there’s something very familiar about the mask, I can’t quite place it </employer_protection>
File this under “The Islamokazis really want to kill ALL of us”
(H/T – Weasel Zippers via JammieWearingFool)
One of the claims by George Tenet in his kiss-and-tell book that isn’t getting a whole lot of media-web attention outside of MSNBC (I have no idea about any of the networks’ on-air efforts; sorry) is that Al Qaeda tried to assassinate then-Vice President Al Gore back in 1998 with the tacit assistance and approval of some in the government of Saudi Arabia. I’ll let MSNBC explain…
Tenet discloses that in 1998, Saudi officials foiled a plot by Abdel Rahim al-Nashiri to smuggle four Sagger anti-tank missiles from Yemen into Saudi Arabia a week or so before Gore was scheduled to visit the kingdom. But their reluctance to let the United States know what was going on created significant tension between the two nations.
Tenet writes that it was reasonable to have expected the Saudis to pass the information along as soon as possible, but they did not.
After low-level discussions failed to produce a sense of urgency among the Saudis, Tenet flew to Riyadh to meet with Prince Naif, the interior minister and the man in charge of the Saudi secret police.
The rest of the article is also an interesting (in the Chinese sense of the word) read. Of particular note is the 9-year-long attempt by Al Qaeda to acquire nuclear weapons and explode them on American soil. I guess this would be a good time to point out that it was Tenet’s personal assessment that, if absolutely nothing changed from January 2003 (that means, Hans Blix was continuing to run around Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and the joke of sanctions that were in place remained in place), Iraq would be a nuclear power anytime between now and 2009.
Uncle Jimbo fires for effect
CNN couldn’t get rid of Uncle Jimbo fast enough on this weekend’s “This Week At War”. Not only did he explode the left’s Jessica Lynch meme, with the surprise endorsement of CNN’s senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre (lefties take heart; UJ agrees that the Pentagon f’ed up on the Tillman issue), but he got in a parting shot on CNN’s collaboration with insurgent snipers.
Now, go watch (since I presume most of you were like me and didn’t catch it on CNN itself).
Texas Legislature – Bloggers are not “media”
(H/T – Paleo Conservative at Free Republic)
In an attempt to shield reporters from having to disclose their confidential sources, Texas Senator Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) very pointedly sought to exclude bloggers from this protection. The Houston Chronicle has the money quote – “It does not cover the garden-variety blogger sitting in their pajamas at home ranting and raving on the computer.” Houston, we have a problem, and it’s not just this politico’s derision for his constituents.
There is a back-door method to gain this protection, however. From the text of the bill (which is poised to pass the Texas Senate):
Sec. 22.021. DEFINITIONS. In this subchapter:
….
(2) “Journalist” means a person who for financial
gain, for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood, or for
subscription purposes gathers, compiles, prepares, collects,
photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, investigates,
processes, or publishes news or information that is disseminated by
a news medium or communication service provider and includes:
(A) a person who supervises or assists in
gathering, preparing, and disseminating the news or information;
(B) a person who is or has been a journalist,
scholar, or researcher employed by an institution of higher
education; or
(C) a person who is on a professional track to
earn a significant portion of the person’s livelihood by obtaining
or preparing information for dissemination by a news medium or an
agent, assistant, employee, or supervisor of that person.
(3) “News medium” means a newspaper, magazine or
periodical, book publisher, news agency, wire service, radio or
television station or network, cable, satellite, or other
transmission system or carrier or channel, or a channel or
programming service for a station, network, system, or carrier, or
an audio or audiovisual production company or Internet company or
provider, or the parent, subsidiary, division, or affiliate of that
entity, that disseminates news or information to the public by any
means, including:
(A) print;
(B) television;
(C) radio;
(D) photographic;
(E) mechanical;
(F) electronic; and
(G) other means, known or unknown, that are
accessible to the public.
Revisons/extensions (8:14 am 4/30/2007) – Get me more caffeine; I completely forgot to add the ironic title of this piece of rotted sausage – “The Free Flow of Information Act”.
April 29, 2007
Random thoughts on the Blog Summit II
I decided to trash my rather-extensive off-the-cuff Cliff’s Notes after the impromptu Just Drinking at Caffrey’s, so I’ll go with some random thoughts that will only moderately-irritate everybody:
- There is a definite difference in purpose between the conservative and liberal ends of the Cheddarsphere. Conservatives tend to view their purpose as simply venting their views, liberals see their purpose as to change the world by any means necessary.
- Sticking with the separate halves for one more moment, both see the majority of the presstitutes as shills for the other side. I have to attribute the liberals’ charges to the fact that the old-guard media is not exactly open to outsiders of any stripe.
- Charlie introduced the “Rule of Five”, saying that most political types tend to read just the 5 blogs that are the most interesting/polished/unique. Perfect answer from Nick; use a feed reader (and for those of you who have blogs, enable your RSS feed). A feed reader, whether it’s Google Reader, SharpReader (which I use), or something else, will search umpteen (somewhere north of 60 for me) blogs for new content and alert you to new content. Certain blogging solutions will even let me pull up comments on a particular thread without going to the site (and indeed, I access my comments RSS feed).
- The line of the day came from Dasha Kelly – “Politics is a painful exercise in idiocy.” Well, I must be a masochist idiot. Seriously, there’s far more to blogging than politics.
- Topic #1 – What effect did bloggers have on 2006/2008? The general consensus was that we had a bit of effect and that it’s growing, but we will likely never have THE effect. I’d have to agree with that.
- Topic #2 – So, what are we doing to the presstitutes? Judging by Tim Cuprisin‘s hairline, worrying them about how to keep rolling with the changes (file under learn-something-new-daily: Colonial-era papers had nothing but ads on Page 1) while earning enough from ads to keep themselves gainfully employed in bloviating.
- Quote of the day, part 2 – Dasha again – “I’m stunned there is another person out there who gives a da…rip about what I say.” Me too (and I wouldn’t have caught myself, which is reason #323 why I will never be invited onto one of these panels).
- Quote of the day, part 3 – Owen – “Jay, you ignorant slut.”
- It’s sad to see that Eugene Kane somehow always manages to go off the tracks.
- The legal climate is starting to improve for bloggers, but many Lawgivers-In-Black like to shut blogs down first and answer questions later.
- Topic #4 – Are “all voices” being heard? Predictable, engineered and much-hyped conclusion – no. Me – Bravo Foxtrot Sierra! If someone feels a voice is missing, it’s the fault of the ones who don’t blog. Before Eugene went off the tracks, he did note that blacks have a LOT to say.
- There was a lot of whining about “Big Eeeeeeevil Corporations” and how they’re going to take over the world. News flash; “they”‘ve already done so, and honestly, “they” always have run the world. Without those “Big Eeeeeevil Corporations”, you’d still be limited to finding the nearest tree stump and bloviating in the town square.
There’s many other takes out there. James Wigderson is trying to gather them all.
Roll bloat – liberal edition
I’m not going to agree with these people, oh, 99.9999% of the time, but in the end, we all drink very well, they’re good folk (as long as we stay out of politics), and we have some other things in common (besides, it helps to keep an eye on the opposition). So, please welcome:
It definitely was good to drink with you guys and many more at Caffrey’s. We have to do more Just Drinkings.
April 28, 2007
There were two bright spots today…
Finally meeting Chris Schneider, and the Simply Drinking (no Liberally, no Right, just drink and boo the draft like a bunch of drunk Jet fans) after the blog summit. I’m wiped out and pissed off at Wile E. Thompson (MUD spelled backwards for his actions in Rounds 1 and 2) and Marquette (for f’ing up the Wi-Fi).
I’ll have my react on the blog summit tomorrow.
April 27, 2007
Today in history
This is not a regular feature, but I have to cheer up the man formerly known as Dennis York somehow (thanks for doing the legwork, Aaron):
1773 British Parliament passes Tea Act, sets in motion the events that created the best country in the history of the world.
1805 U.S. Marines attack shores of Tripoli, begins whacking away at Islamofascism.
1861 President Abe Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus, Democrats blame Bush.
1937 U.S. Social Security system makes its 1st benefit payment, US given 100 years left to live.
1973 Chris Schneider is born, sock puppets flee in terror (just kidding).
Happy birthday, Chris.
Stupid iditorial of the month
(H/T – Captain’s Quarters via Dad29)
Revisions/extensions (1:19 pm/1:27 pm 4/27/2007) – Others on the case – Bryan (who actually beat me because I was busy with the katana)
Free Republic
It’s been a while since I felt the need to break out the katana to a lieberal’s words, but I think I’m still in practice. Today’s victim is one Dan Simpson, retired diplomat and member of the idiotorial boards of the Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the bloody carcass is his column from Wednesday’s Blade calling for the disarming of America. Let the fisking commence:
Las week’s tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America’s finest – intelligent young people with futures ahead of them – once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans.
No, it puts the phenomenon of one armed nut turned loose among a disarmed populace into focus once again.
The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was clear last week is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong hands.
That’s still less than 1 gun per person.
When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often comes down to this: “How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there.”
Maybe in your circle. In my circle, it comes down to this: “How can we allow citizens to better protect themselves?” Of course, since I’m in Wisconsin, and there is no such thing as legal carry, that might skew my circle a bit. Nonetheless, remember that the Virginia Tech campus was a “gun-free” zone, where only Cho and the out-of-position police had guns.
Because I have little or no power to influence the “if” part of the issue, I will stick with the “how.” And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I’m a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.
By jumping to the “how”, you just proved yourself to be a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take my guns from my cold, dead hands. Please, continue.
As a child I played cowboys and Indians with cap guns. I had a Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun. My father had in his bedside table drawer an old pistol which I examined surreptitiously from time to time. When assigned to the American embassy in Beirut during the war in Lebanon, I sometimes carried a .357 Magnum, which I could fire accurately. I also learned to handle and fire a variety of weapons while I was there, including Uzis and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
I don’t have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me. I suppose I would enjoy the fellowship of the experience with other friends who are hunters.
So you meet the other definition of liberal – wanting to deny others what you enjoyed. As for the whining about high-powered weapons versus Bambi and friends, the more powerful the weapon, the faster the animal dies, and the faster the animal dies, the less it suffers. Now, you wouldn’t want to REALLY piss off PETA by having hunters make these animals suffer (after all, that’s the job of PETA).
Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.
Allow me to introduce you to the Second Amendment – “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”. Since you’re not in Wisconsin, allow me to also introduce you to the Wisconsin Constitution, Article I, Section 25, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose.” Last time I checked, Constitutions trump laws and stupid lieberal wishes.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.
Dad29 has the perfect take – “‘Arsenal staff’ would be qualified pshrinks, eh?” Oh, and just how are the hunters going to remain proficient shots? Slinging a couple dozen rounds downrange just before the season starts just doesn’t cut it.
It would have to be the case that the term “hunting weapon” did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.
Again, one of the reasons the Second Amendment came about was so that the people could defend themselves against a tyrannical government as a last resort. It is no accident that the United States has the longest-lasting system of government in modern history; rather, it is because government has ultimately always remembered that it is accountable to the people in every manner possible, including revolution.
All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.
I was remiss in not mentioning the great fault of centralizing guns before. While it is easier to take a couple of weapons from a less-than-vigilant owner, if one wanted a heap of weapons, all they would have to do is bribe the local “caretaker”, or if they had the foresight to bury some of their weaponry, storm the holding areas. Further, I rather doubt that these weapons that are centralized will remain in good condition very long.
Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Without the ability to try out or observe the weapons, they’ll be out of business before you could hang the “going out of business” signs.
The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.
Bring shovels. LOTS of shovels.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for “carrying.”
Allow me to introduce you to the Fourth Amendment – “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The “gun lobby” would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.
And those areas will be crime havens.
America’s long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.
I can see the Border Patrol now – “Hey Pedro, you packing? No? Here’s some water and a Social Security card.”
There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.
Oh, and the fact that, other than Chai Vang, hunters just don’t do that now, either during hunting season or outside of hunting season.
That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.
Frankly, your idea sucks, is unconstitutional, and wouldn’t work even if it were constitutional.
Where I’ll be tomorrow
Saturday, April 28, 10 am-1 pm
Marquette University Law School
Third Floor, Sensenbrenner Hall
1103 W. Wisconsin Avenue
Milwaukee, Wis.
This list is culled from my feed reader, so I definitely don’t have any of the mol…er, left end of the Cheddarsphere. Scheduled to appear (besides the WisPolitics-gathered group):
- Elliot Stearns
- Uncle Fred
- Tom McMahon
- The surviving member of last year’s Blog Of The Year, Chris Schneider
- Pete Fanning
- Nick Schweitzer
- Dean (even though he’s on hiatus)
Guess Charlie was right when he said that there will be more bloggers there than at a Star Trek convention. Let me say that, if I didn’t get that laptop so I could watch my own movies on the way to and from Jamaica, I probably wouldn’t be there because I really am a quiet guy.
Thoughfully, Marquette University will be providing Wi-Fi and power outlets for those that pre-register. I know there was room as of Wednesday.
“Is Conservatism Out Of Gas?” – Week 1 summary
We’re through the first week of the 2-week special from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, and there sure seems to be a common theme. Time to summarize what they said while I (with no pressure, thankfully) try to figure out the answer:
– On Monday, Rep. Paul Ryan noted that conservativism and Republicanism have diverged wildly the last several years, with the result being the 2006 election debacle. He outlined several principles designed to combat the triple challenge of globalization, entitlement bankruptcy, and the Islamic threat.
– On Tuesday, Charlie Sykes took many words to say that while conservatism is temporarily out of gas, liberalism is permanently out of gas. He also came up with a reason why Rudy Giuliani is so popular – he’s perceived as conservative on economic and security issues, and that social conservatives have pretty much given up putting social conservatism on the front burner. As a side note, I do not buy Giuliani as conservative on anything other than most law-and-order/security issues (gun-grabbing a major exception); after all, he was very active in railing against Wall Street in his time in the US Attorney’s office of Southern Manhattan.
– On Wednesday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner railed against what passed for Pubbie leadership going into the 2006 elections and issued a call for conservatives to start speaking up.
– On Thursday, Owen Robinson, despite claiming he had a different take than the previous 3, sounded a lot like Ryan. He expounded on taxes and health care far more than Ryan, while also taking on education.
– Today (Friday), Mark Green took a stab as to why he lost his race for governor, and came up with fatigue over the Iraq front in the Global War on Terror, scandals in DC, and Republicanism in general. Considering the office Green ran for and the person he ran against, I would take door #3.
If I had to summarize their takes, it would be that it is Republicanism, not conservatism, that is out of gas. The only problem is, at least on a statewide and national level, there are but two parties, and time is definitely a-wasting in deciding whether to try to retake the Republican Party or do to the Pubbies what they did to the Whigs.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to Tom McMahon’s contrarian take (unfortunately, not part of the WPRI series). Take a close look a the bottom-right block.
Roll bloat – Friday edition
This one could get interesting. JSOnline mashed together 4 Milwaukee-area Legislators, 2 from each house, 2 from each party, and stuck them on the same blog called Backroom Blog. Representing the elephant are Sen. Neal Kedzie (11th Senate District-Elkhorn) and Rep. Leah Vukmir (14th Assembly District-Wauwatosa). Representing the donkey are Sen. Jeff Plale (7th Senate District-South Milwaukee) and Rep. Jason Fields (11th Assembly District-Milwaukee).
I’m keeping an eye on this one, especially since we’re already starting on the beanballs. You should too, unless you don’t like sausage-making.
One message to the JSOnline folks; please do a better job on the RSS feeds. The current set of feeds, when they’re working, do not link properly to internal links (likely because you guys are using relative rather than absolute addresses), don’t offer links to individual posts (which makes it nigh impossible to link back to you) and don’t have any real formatting. When they’re not working (which is way too often), the attempts at formatting and linking result in the code followed by the HTML for >, and the feeds fail to validate and parse.
Friday videos – 4/27/2007
I can’t remember if I trolled around for the Friday videos last week, but that’s last week. It’s now this week, so here we go (with HamNation added 1:01 pm 4/27/2007)…
– First up, a military-grade language warning is in order as BA Uncle Jimbo (mash the link for why the “BA” is there and some tidbits on the other ground-pounders and token civilian at BLACKFIVE) delivers this week’s Friday Freefly skewering the Defeatist Dems and Thursday Prefly whacking the witchhunt over Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch.
– Up next, Hot Air goes introspective as they count down the top 5 shows from Year 1 and show outtakes. Unlike Uncle Jimbo and Kev, they bleep out the bad words (to each their own).
– Still to come Last but definitely not least, HamNation does the family thing while channeling Dr. Seuss, delivering good news from General Fooz Petraeus to a grumpy old Dingy Harry. Mom Ham does a great voiceover.
One more holdout, and norunnyeggs.eggstor.com can be dumped
Revisions/extensions (8:58 am 4/27/2007) – And then there were none. All I have to do is remember to get the move done by May 15 and I don’t have to pay another $12 to Yahoo). I THINK I could have kept the subdomain up once I moved everything to Bluehost, but I didn’t feel like nesting subdomains in subfolders.
At the beginning of the day yesterday, there were 6 blogs that still had this place at norunnyeggs.eggstor.com (thank you, Technorati, for keeping track of links). A couple months ago, I moved off of that particular host because of a combination of a not-quite-complete support of WordPress and certain issues with using subdomains, and created a permanent redirect here (useful for those that were still clicking their way there). Indeed, one of the reasons why I am using FeedBurner for my RSS feeds is there is a plugin that forces a redirect of the feed; and I used that to force those still sitting on the norunnyeggs.eggstor.com feed to the feed from here.
Anyway, I figured it’s been long enough, and I really would like to move the parent eggstor.com domain over here (Bluehost does let me have 6 domains parked here) while I decide what I want to do with it. So, I bugged all 6 people (4 through e-mail, 2 through posts on their blogs), and I got 5 of them to update their rolls. Surprisingly, Charlie was one of those that finally got with the program.
Hopefully, some more-persistent bugging of the holdout will finally get that person to update their roll today.
April 26, 2007
‘Rat debate – a Toldjah take
We really need to thank Sister Toldjah for taking one for the team and liveblogging the ‘Rat debate on MSNBC. She has a far stronger stomach than I (that, and I forgot it was tonight).
Doesn’t look like they used my rather-pointed question, though a couple of the candidates did get asked what the biggest threat (other than the Pubbies, Christians and Conservatives, of course) was.
A question that will never be asked of the Democrats
(H/T – Michelle)
It seems MSNBC is taking web users’ input into what questions they should ask the DhimmiRAT candidates for President in South Carolina. I highly doubt they’ll take mine:
Just who do you consider an enemy of America, the radical Islamists that attacked Americans numerous times over the course of the last 24 years and have as their ultimate stated goal the destruction of America both as it currently stands and as you wish it to be, or Republicans? Please expand on your answer.
If the ‘Rats were truthful, they would answer the latter. If they had any shame, they would hang their heads as the realization of what the Islamokazis want hits them like, oh, a million or so tons of flaming concrete and steel.
And the roll just keeps on growing
See-dubya, who occassionally guest-blogs at HotAir when Allahpundit is off “investigating” things at places like the Pink Sapphire (favorite haunt of the Breck Girl, John Edwards), has a regular home, JunkYardBlog. Don’t mind the friendly red canine with the spike collar; he’s really harmless (once you feed him a few steaks and throw the blog on your blogrolls and feed readers, that is).
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