UPDATE: MTV is reporting that the Pirates vs Ninjas vs Chuck Norris debate is now moot. An even stronger force has entered the fray...Lawyers.
:...all members of the legislature are willing to act on "a complaint from aThere's more at Talk To Tony
constituent" when the issue is risk free and makes the representative(s) look
like the saviors of children and everything else decent and good in our land.Why
is it that "a complaint from a constituent" is not enough to hold hearings on
lobbyist control of the legislature? Why is it that "a complaint from a
constituent" is not enough to hold hearings on how the closed partisan caucuses
are an abuse of the open meetings law?
To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle and flute, no longer be mute,
I'll lend you my name and inspire you to boot!
And besides I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus and Bacchus's vine.
Does that sound familiar? It should. Click through the headline to see the rest of the verses and hear a truly annoying midi file version of To Anacreon In Heaven, a British drinking song from the 1780's that was popular in America during the War of 1812. Several writers composed patriotic lyrics for the song but the most famous of these is the version penned by Francis Scott Key.
On Friday President Bush said that the Anthem should be sung in English using the original words. So be it. There's the first verse. When you've got that down, go find the rest. Your President says you have four more verses to learn.
Young Woman: It's not that I don't like plays. I do. It's
just not doing it for me. I'm not getting into it.
Older Man: You understand what's going on, right? He's a con man and
he's not going to teach them to play.
YM: Yeah. I get that. It's just not my kind of thing.
Older Woman: I think it's so cute. They took it almost exactly
word-for-word from the movie.
Terrorism is a psychological strategy for gaining political/social ends by
deliberately creating a climate of fear among the civilian population.
Terrorists come in all stripes and shapes, and are both domestic and
foreign.
On November 22nd, 24th and again on December 24th of last year, someone placed
pipe bombs in a parking ramp in Madison.
• In 2004, Rajib Mitra was sentenced
to 8 years in prison after my office successfully prosecuted him for hacking
into and disrupting the Madison police radio system. Mitra disrupted the police
radio system up to 21 times between January and August 2003.
• On October 9,
2004, someone caused two power transmission towers in Oak Creek to fall by
loosening and/or removing several bolts from the base of the towers. This
knocked out power to 17,000 customers, including Mitchell International
Airport.
• Between 1984 and 2000 the US Navy’s Project ELF (Extremely Low
Frequency) - was shut down five times by activists who damaged the 28-mile-long
transmitter antennae by cutting down the poles that support it. I should note
here, that as District Attorney of Ashland County I handled prosecutions of
demonstrators accused of trespassing or damage to Navy equipment at the Clam
Lake ELF site.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert and some fellow House R's held a news conference at a Washington area BP station to show how worried they were about rising gas prices. They were driven to the photo op in hydrogen-fueled GM cars.
One Republican plan being floated would take taxpayer money to fund a $100 rebate to all who filed Federal Income Tax last year. Forgive me if I'm skeptical. Using our money to offer a rebate that will be inadequate to deal with the rising prices in a time of record profits and record donations to Republicans seems just a tad disingenuous.
Oh, you ask, "What's Hastert doing in the picture you posted?"
After the photo op and the sharing of concerns about alt fuels Hastert jumped back into his SUV to ride the two blocks back to his office.
And their Motto:
I tell you, we got two categories of pilots around here. We got your prime
pilots that get all the hot planes, and we got your pud-knockers who dream about
getting the hot planes. Now what are you two pud-knockers gonna have? Huh?
There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him wouldOh, by the way, the bartender in the background of that scene, the one in the bad hat. That was Chuck Yaeger.
die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they
would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and
fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived
behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it
the sound barrier.
Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo, was noncommittal Wednesday when asked
about whether he planned to schedule a vote on the bill. Gard, who is running
for Congress and is not seeking re-election to his Assembly seat, said he is
leaving it to his caucus to decide whether they want to amend the rules under
which they'd be required to live.
A Georgia man was hospitalized after jumping from the side of Alabama's DeSotoThat's the lead on a story that could have turned out much worse. Although the man was hospitalized after leaping into ten feet of water he is reported in stable condition with a back injury.
Falls and plunging 150 feet before hitting the water.
"Indeed, while rebuilding Iraq's decrepit oil industry could cost the U.S.
billions of dollars, that will be more than made up by lower oil prices over the
long term," the Fortune article predicted. "For starters, $20 a barrel oil would
probably bring prices at the pump down to $1.35 per gallon, well below the
current cost of $1.71."
The prognosticators figured it might take three years or so for the lower prices
to develop, but develop they would.
Given the trend of predictions going into Iraq this shouldn't be a surprise. It should, however, give us pause when we hear the administration talking boldly about Iran.
UPDATE: Paul Soglin shares the President's reaction to record high crude oil prices. Surprisingly, Bush doesn't know that we are facing record high crude oil prices. The folks in Midland knew he was the worst oilman ever. Now the rest of us are finding out why.
"I can't get into detail of what, but I'll just say the amount of open sourceNow there may be a disconnect that the agency that is paying to put phony stories in foreign newspapers is getting their information from foreign newspapers. The real intelligence goldmine comes from another source according to Open Source Center Director Douglas Naquin;
reporting that goes into the president's daily brief has gone up rather
significantly," Eliot A. Jardines, assistant deputy director of national
intelligence for open source said.
"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting aThe CIA is paying people to read blogs and then believing what they read because, you know, if it's on the Internet it has to be true. Then they pass it on to our President in his daily briefing reports. GW doesn't believe what he reads in the papers so he ignores it, then gets his news from blog digests. Think about how often Spivak and Bice get it right and then be very afraid.
lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social
perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere
else." (emphasis mine)
...now our customer base literally ranges from the president to local police
departments," Mr. Naquin said. The Fairfax County police use OSC products, as do
police departments in San Diego, New York and Baltimore. The center also
provides support to the U.S. military.
So the CIA now has a "customer base." Do you suppose they are trying to become a profit center rather than a cost center? What else are they selling and to whom? If they're using high powered computers to "sift" the Internet, which dolphins are they catching with the tuna?
"I can't get into detail of what, but I'll just say the amount of open
source reporting that goes into the president's daily brief has gone up rather
significantly," Mr. Jardines said
On average, Americans work 205 more hours per year than Italians, 270 more than
the French, 371 more than Germans, and an incredible 473 more than
Norwegians-whose economy, by the way, is booming. Indeed, since 1970 gross
domestic product per capita has risen faster in Europe, where the number of
working hours has fallen, than in the United States, where the work day, the
work week, and the size of our coffee cups have steadily increased.
I'm Hub McCann. I've fought in two World Wars and countless smaller ones on
three continents. I led thousands of men into battle with everything from horses
and swords to artillery and tanks. I've seen the headwaters of the Nile, and
tribes of natives no white man had ever seen before. I've won and lost a dozen
fortunes, killed many men and loved only one woman with a passion a flea like
you could never begin to understand. That's who I am. Now, go home, boy!
I take back a third of the bad things I said about the Overture Center. The restyling and restoration of the Capitol theater (not seen at left BTW) is magnificent. It nearly makes up for the shortcomings of the big hall in the building.
Last night the Battlefield Band was magnificent. The sound started muddy but improved as the night went on. Just a few observations from the show.
After 30 years it has to be tough to get up for every performance. When it sounds as if you have, you've done well by the audience.
Putting a mic on the bagpipes is gratuitous. I'm certain we can hear you.
The more pipes you have, the better it gets.
I'm a lucky man to have music in my life.
Consider how the Social Security privatization debate pits the young against the
old, how tax cuts pit the rich against the poor, how the immigration debate pits
underpaid native-born Americans against cheap laborers. Listen to the right-wing
rhetoric about the "war on Christians" and think about how feeding the paranoia
of the fundamentalists sets that faction up against nearly everyone else, even
tolerant Christians. Anti-intellectualism, railing against affirmative action
policies, labeling pacifists as "traitors" ... these are all divide-and-conquer
tactics, used and abused throughout human history.
It's come down to this: Living our lives around a presumption of shared humanityShe sees that presumption of a shared humanity as our best trait, something upon which we can build. Please, go check out the full piece.
has become a rebellious and provocative act to this government, by definition
almost a felonious conspiracy. Attendance at a Quaker meeting hall can get you
wiretapped without a warrant. Calling scholars overseas can get you data mined.
Bloggy goodness from Fort Bend County, Texas. I stumbled across Juanita's and can't take my attention away from it. She says it's not a blog but it's fully of linky happiness just the same.
My favorite is the e-mail from Delay's campaign calling for volunteers to wreck Nick Lampson's press conference calling for a special election to replace the Bugman. The Delay thugs show up and assault a 70 year old woman in the procecss.
And still, there are those who hold Delay in some kind of esteem. I wonder how they have deluded themselves.
Remember to vote (Today) Tuesday April 4 in Wisconsin's spring (non-partisan)
general election.
Polls are open in most places at 7 AM and stay open
everywhere until 8 PM. (People in line at 8 PM are allowed to vote.)If you aren't sure where to vote, consult the blue (government) pages
of your phone book and call your city, village, or town clerk.
In Madison, you can find out where to vote and also get candidate info
at the city clerk's website:
http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/clerk/election.htmlMadison and 2 dozen other Wisconsin municipalities will also have an
advisory referendum question on the ballot asking whether US troops
should be withdrawn from Iraq now.
Rock County Clerk Kay O'Connell said if Steinlein is elected, he would have to
resign from the position and the common council would appoint a new alderman.
2005 Wisconsin Statutes 11.30(2)(c) Every such communication which
is directly paid for or reimbursed by an individual, including a candidate
without a personal campaign committee who is serving as his or her own
treasurer, or for which an individual assumes responsibility, whether by the
acceptance of a contribution or by the making of a disbursement, shall be
identified by the words "Paid for by" followed by the name of the candidate or
other individual making the payment or reimbursement or assuming responsibility
for the communication. No abbreviation may be used in identifying the name
of a committee or group under this paragraph.
The Democrats are going to have a field day beating up on Gard about his
connection in the Scott Jensen/Steve Foti caucus scandal.GardÂ’s ability to win is questionable. Legislative leaders have an abysmal
record in getting elected. How many have moved up to higher office,
statewide or nationally?Polls have shown Gard to be very unpopular. In a poll conducted through the
Wisconsin Conservative Digest in 2005, Gard only received 2 to 3 percent support
in his bid for Governor. The poll was taken of the leading GOP people across the
state — 5,000 total, with an impressive 45 percent return. Gard obviously saw
the same numbers and he dropped out of the race.
And who is Graber to do this? His record is abysmal. According
to my count he is 0-12 in key statewide races where a Republican win was needed.
We donÂ’t even have candidates in many important races. Where is our candidate
against Herb Kohl for U.S. Senate? GraberÂ’s gang has never fielded a strong
challenge to any of the Democrat congressman and blew the last governor's
race.
What has caused this dilemma? Is Graber, head of a lobbying firm in debt to
Gard for help he has received for his clients? Do the others really believe that
Gard is the best candidate, or is it just cronyism for the Milwaukee/Madison
people to control the 8th district vote?
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the
ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you
lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while. - Ebby Calvin LaLoosh
I am satisfied the present Chinese labor invasion (it is not in any proper sense immigration—women and children do not come) is pernicious and should be discouraged. Our experience in dealing with the weaker races—the negroes and Indians, for example—is not encouraging. We shall oppress the Chinamen, and their presence will make hoodlums and vagabonds of their oppressors. I therefore would consider with favor suitable measures to discourage the Chinese from coming to our shores. But I suspect that this bill is inconsistent with our treaty obligations.... If it violates the National faith, I must decline to sign it. -Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor
