Hopefully grumps, Xoff and the others will keep you entertained, while I'm gone. Now I gotta hitch up my pop-up castle to the Royal Chariot.
(It's surprising how it really drags the mileage down. And it's the small-sized one, to boot.)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Gone Camping
A New Category Label For Kevin?
Most writers bemaon the fact that they can't write their own headlines. Here's a blogger who can and does.
Kevin goes for a little Truth In Headlines.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
You Mean Lawrence Welk Is Not A Rock Star?
Giving Credit Where It's Due, I Guess
Take a look at this screenshot from the Wisconsin Club For Growth website. WCFG is one of those AstroTurf organizations that keeps the Country Springs Hotel in Pewaukee in business.
Take a good close look. I'll wait.
Up there in the top left you can see what these Very Serious People think of those that they've elected to represent them in the Lege. Pigs For Rent. That's the level of discourse they've chosen.
Why would any politician, well except for Tom Reynolds, take more than a moment or two to dismiss CFG for the group of petulant children it acts like? Is Scott Walker so starved for attention and affection that he has to give this bunch anything more than a quick brushoff? Let's take a look. Wisconsin Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity invite you to an old
fashioned taxpayer rally featuring The Honorable Newt Gingrich, Former
Speaker of the House of Representatives & Milwaukee County Executive Scott
Walker as Master of Ceremonies
By golly, he would sink that low. And he dragged the Newt along for ballast to hold him down in that lowly wallowing-pit of self pity. Politicians so desperate for attention that they'll belly up to a cash bar on the worn carpet of the Grand Ballroom of the CSH.
My goodness, the term "Statesman" won't be applied to these hacks anytime soon. Will it.
Do you suppose that Walker is eager to add "Pig For Rent" to his next campaign poster?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
What next? Jim Doyle for Rogaine?
I posted this on Uppity Wisconsin, but it occurs to me it might be a better fit with the Whallah crew, for obvious reasons. (You are perverse enough, perhaps, to appreciate it.) Please have at it:
So Brett Favre is a spokesman for Remington, to tell us that shooting is a lot of fun.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is a spokesman for Valvoline, telling us to be careful out there, or something.
Where does it end?
We've already seen Bob Dole pitching Viagra.
John McCain for Poligrip?
Alberta Darling for Botox?
Jim Sensenbrenner for FrequentFlyer.com?
Charlie Sykes for Suave Max Hold?
Roger Breske for Budweiser?
Hillary Clinton for Testarol?
Nominations welcome. The meaner the better, obviously.
On Playing The Race Card Poorly And Expelling A Posterior Breeze.
Frau Bucher doesn't write as much as she once did so it's always a gift when she does grace us with the thin gruel of her political analysis. Last week's column for GMToday is hardly a gem but we'll have to make do. The Democratic Party has been hoisted on its own identity politics petard. The party that defines people and issues by race (affirmative action etc.) is predictably hung up over race even in a contest involving a candidate whose entire campaign shtick is convincing us he’s transcended race.
She rambles about Senator Obama's campaign and how it should transcend race and maybe it does but somebody else's doesn't and these people aren't racist and those people...
It goes on. Oh Lord. It goes on.
I just want to make a comment about a mangled Shakespearean reference she makes at the very beginning of her saunter.
If they were consistent, Democrats would just give Barack Obama the nod as an affirmative action pick.
Jess makes a common mistake. (Well, she makes several, including the fact that GOP commenters and the pundit class seem far more focused on race than the run-of-the-mill Democratic voter. But, I digress.) In fact, the "petard" reference has been misused so often that one can hardly blame her for thinking that she got one right without putting much effort into fact-checking. If it wasn’t for its appearance in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “For ‘tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne petar” and its fossil survival in the rather more modern spelling to be hoist with one’s own petard, this term of warfare would have gone the way of the halberd, brattice and culverin.
A petard was a bell-shaped metal grenade typically filled with five or six pounds of gunpowder and set off by a fuse. Sappers dug a tunnel or covered trench up to a building and fixed the device to a door, barricade, drawbridge or the like to break it open. The bomb was held in place with a heavy beam called a madrier.
Unfortunately, the devices were unreliable and often went off unexpectedly. Hence the expression, where hoist meant to be lifted up, an understated description of the result of being blown up by your own bomb.
Now, Jess should know about having one's own weapon blowing up in one's face. Goodness know, it happens to her often enough. But what, you ask, does a petard sound like as it explodes at the end of a tunnel? The name of the device came from the Latin petar, to break wind, perhaps a sarcastic comment about the thin noise of a muffled explosion at the far end of an excavation.
So, one can say, Ms. Jessica is making a fart funny in her column this week. I wonder if she knows.
Best Wishes For Ted Kennedy And Family
Ted Kennedy has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. I have seen too many loved ones that suffered from cancer and feel sympathy not only for Senator Kennedy, but for his family as well.
Unfortunately, when things like this happen, there are some that cannot get past their hatred, and have to kick a person when their done. Jay Bullock at folkbum points out a couple of examples of people's vitriol. Here is another. To be fair though, it should be emphasized that both Patrick Dorwin and Dad29 did put up respectful posts, as did my friend Bill.
Talk radio again shows itself to be full of classless idiots, as evidenced by Michael Savage, which is proudly aired by WTMJ-620 AM.
Politics can be a dirty business, but there should be limits for everyone on how far they will go.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Now Why Could That Be?
Last weekend, Fischer put up a post that pointed out that Stevens Point was listed as one of the top ten cities in the entire country, according to Relocate America.
What he doesn't tell the reader is that Stevens Point is also a very liberal town. Gee, think there might be a correlation there?
A Post Done In Poor Taste
Fischer starts out with this post with a less than appealing title:
But did he really need to finish the post with this?
VOTE IN THE 2008 BEST IN FRANKLIN-AREA DINING SURVEY
Even Charlie's Proofreader Is Mailing It In
When the only thing that's original is the headline shouldn't it be easy to make sure that's right?
Maybe he should spend a little less time telling teachers about their mistakes.
Watchdog Whallah!
Over at Watchdog Milwaukee, Janice M. Eisen writes, in its entirety:
That was quite a bold stand Patrick McIlheran took in Sunday’s Journal Sentinel, disapproving of the Sheboygan mother who got drunk and shot her 8-year-old with a BB gun on a bet from her boyfriend. Seriously, who in the world is defending this woman? The Dirtbag Mothers of America?
It’s not as if McIlheran was making any political points (though I suppose it’s possible to read into his “Quick Hit” a general criticism of single mothers). He didn’t even blame the government!
Not that many people get to use the Journal Sentinel editorial page as their pulpit. Is it too much to ask that those who have that privilege actually have something to say?
Ouch! That had to leave a mark.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Whallah! Line Of The Day
The Whallah! line of the day is brought to you by Kay's Blue Racine:
Oooo, I can register voters statewide now! A little two hour class, a pledge and voila (hey, I'm no McBride) I'm a Special Registration Deputy! It actually is pretty cool.
Why Not Wally World?
Last week, I pointed out that McIlheran had a hard time understanding why people might not want a Wal-Mart invading their city or town. This is, of course, despite the fact that many towns and cities around the state and the country have fought off a Wal-Mart coming to their area, or that there is a plethora of sites listing why people might not want to tarnish their communities.
Locally, two bloggers raise the argument.
Greg Kowalski, at his site, Metro Milwaukee Development News, offers why Mayor McCue was correct in taking a strong stand, despite some blowhards threatening a recall. I can see it now. "We want to recall Mayor Ryan McCue because he has high expectations for our city, and we just can't have any of that!"
John Michlig, at Sprawled Out, presents the latest in a series of posts on why Wally World is a less than ideal corporate citizen. This time, he highlights how Wal-Mart actually is a burden to taxpayers, not just in Wisconsin, but in many states, due to their trying to get by on the cheap.
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