Harris: Domestic Violence Isn't As Bad As Spending Money

James T. Harris make sure to point out this video of a Faux News* clip in which he shows the nation his lack of class (the key point is about halfway):



What Harris is saying is that domestic violence isn't as serious as people having to spend more money.

By the way, James T., domestic violence is a problem, as we had to point out to your bud, PaddyMac.

At least he's consistent with his attitude towards women.

*Televised talk radio

Does James T. Have Some Unresolved Issues?

The Milwaukee Drum is reporting that on Charlie Sykes' Sunday Incite show this past weekend, James T. "Hit him where it hits" Harris went on to use Elton John's goofy and inappropriate comment about Jesus being gay to make his own goofy and inappropriate inference that President Barack Obama was gay.

Harris then was on Sykes show today, and again, per the Milwaukee Drum, tried to defend his obnoxiousness. Sykes apparently didn't offer much in the way of a defense for his buddy either.

All of that reminded me of something else I saw. A few days ago, Team Walker, while writing about a campaign event that Walker was at, had this to say about Harris:

The best line of the night was from James T. Harris, the MC for the evening. He said he had told Scott Walker that he would be his Oprah as he ran for Governor. :)

Hmmm. Multiple comments regarding homosexuality, a habit of saying how good looking he thinks he is, and an urge to portray a woman.

Perhaps Harris would greatly benefit from some intensive psychotherapy with a psychologist trained in sexual identity issues.

Attempting To Re-Frame The Debate

In which Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce decides they don't want to be known for only saying, "No!" they are running this Facebook ad.

I wonder who they think they're fooling.

Guns Protecting Us From Adultery

Is there anything guns can't do? Now they can help prevent adultery:

A former Appleton firefighter accused of shooting his estranged wife to death claims he was trying to stop her from committing the felony crime of adultery.

Scott Schmidt's attorney plans to argue that Schmidt thought force was necessary to prevent Kelly Wing Schmidt from meeting another man at a hotel and committing the felony because prosecutors don't take adultery seriously, according to a notice of intent filed in Outagamie County Court.Schmidt, 39, will go to trial in March on charges including first-degree intentional homicide and attempted homicide.

[...]

Because adultery cases are rarely prosecuted, Schmidt had the unreasonable belief that he had no other viable options "except for suffering in silence as the victim of a felony as perpetrated against him in the form of adultery," according to the court documents, filed Feb. 12 by attorney Greg Petit.

I think we can expect that a certain couple of squawkers will be changing their stances regarding gun control laws pretty soon.

Someone Please Buy Sykes A Dictionary

From Illy-T:

Local medium-wave squawker Charlie Sykes proclaims Wisconsin Democrat David Obey's House of Representatives seat "endangered." In fact the Cook Political Report lists Obey's Seventh Congressional District in its "likely Democratic" column, which Cook's defines as "not considered competitive at this point but hav[ing] the potential to become engaged."

Not competitive = endangered, in the right-wing brain.

When Is A Terrorist Not A Terrorist?

According to PaddyMac, it apparently is when the terrorist is a white, anti-government nut who flies a plane into a building housing government workers.

In other words, in Paddy's world, terrorists come color-coded.

White guy flies plane into building = a disturbed individual.

Non-white guy does anything = terrorist.

Whatever Happened To Equal Air Time For Candidates?

The erudite James Rowen:

620 WTMJ AM talkers Sykes and Wagner jacked each other up at the programming noon hand-off over high-speed rail coming to Wisconsin.

To 'bolster' their case, Sykes read an email from Scott Walker, the GOP gubernatorial candidate who gets more free airtime in these parts than the Packers, that questioned who will pay for the train's operating costs.

Questions never asked when it comes to the operating costs of highways - -including repairs, patrolling, plowing - - and then the inevitable replacement or expansion.

I wonder if Walker ever claimed all of this free air time as an in-kind donation.

Emily Mills Vs. The Jive Turkey

A couple of days ago, I posted a video clip done by Rebecca "Jessica McBride v.2.0" Kleefisch, and wondered how in the world she thought this would help her run for Lt. Governor.

The ever-charming and amazing Emily Mills also noticed something wrong with the video. Ms. Mills then took it upon herself to correct the monologue:



Yup, that's better.

"You Probably Think This ORR Is About You"

For a man who has a lot to be humble about.

Finally, A Reason For Rush

Pest control:

The project, dubbed "Beetle Mania," concluded that acoustic stress may disrupt the tenacious insects' feeding and even cause the beetles to kill each other, according to a presentation recently at the National Meeting of the Entomological Society of America.

Richard Hofstetter, an entomology professor at Northern Arizona University who worked on the project, told Discovery News that "the most annoying sound" his colleague, Reagan McGuire, "could think of was Rush Limbaugh or rock music."

McGuire started to pump the sounds of Limbaugh into portions of infested tree trunks brought into their lab, but Hofstetter said McGuire "could not bear listening to Limbaugh, so he ended up playing Rush backwards, which still kept the voice and intonation the same, but the words were meaningless."

Now if we could only find a purpose in life for Sykes.

H/T Badger Blogger (Yes, that Badger Blogger)

Charlie Carp

While I was watching Charlie Sykes on his Sunday Incite program, when I wasn't being distracted by missing eyebrows, I did catch something that Sykes said that I remember his harping, or should I say carping, on.

Sykes has repeatedly been making the claim that Tom Barrett has not done anything regarding the pending invasion of the Asian Carp.

I don't know what planet Sykes has been living on, but Barrett's been calling for the locks to be shut down since the beginning of January.

The one that has been silent about the whole carp thing is Sykes' wunderkind, Scott Walker. Of course, that's probably because Team Walker is still trying to teach Scooter that when they are referring to the carp, they don't mean this one.

Did You Not See What I Didn't See?

I caught Charlie Sykes' Incite show this morning.

It was one of the few times I caught it in high def.

I don't know too much what was said though.

I was too distracted by something.

Did Sykes shave off his eyebrows? It looked rather creepy.

And She Wants To Be Lt. Governor?

Not exactly what I would call a high caliber candidate.

The Future Of Journalism Is Doomed!

The world has gone mad. Absolutely, stark raving, completely off its rocker, insane.

An alert reader sent this in:

from Jessica McBride's facebook page....

__________________

Jessica McBride is very happy today because the Chancellor officially approved her indefinite status! (the academic staff equivalent of tenure). This was the final step, and comes after a 7-0 positive vote from the review committee and a positive recommendation from the Dean. Thank you Chancellor Santiago and UWM!!!!! I am one of the ...fortunate people in that I love my job and love working with the students. Celebration time!!!!!

February 5 at 4:03pm

This was further confirmed in a tweet by James Wigderson.

I can't even imagine what would make the committee or Santiago think that this was a good idea.

Perhaps it was her catastrophically poor command of the English language.

Perhaps it was her not so high journalistic ethics standards.

But if I were a betting man, I would have to say that if you consider all the work she's been doing for WPRI lately, I would look for a very large monetary gift from the Bradley Foundation to UWM.

Woman's Last Stand

This morning, Charlie Sykes and his male listeners were trying to overcome their own insecurities by grunting and agreeing with the Dodge Charger commercial that aired during the Superbowl.

Interestingly, tonight, one of our favorite bloggers and entrepreneurs, Emily Mills, tweeted the counter response:




BTW, we already know that real men not only are willing to do the shopping, but are also secure enough in their masculinity to buy their wives feminine hygiene products.

I can't imagine Sykes or any of his listeners being able to do that without a lot of nervous giggles and deep discomfort.

Coverage, Provision, What's the Difference?

Patrick McIlheran gets pretty smug when Newfoundland Premier Dan Williams chose to come to the United States to have a surgical procedure done:

But Williams didn’t go get his surgery in Montreal or Toronto. He didn’t see the best heart surgeon in Canada, one of the world’s most advanced economies and chock-full of smart, talented people.

He went somewhere in the United States, the health care system of which is regularly derided in polite Canadian circles as the Wild West. Investors Business Daily notes that other Canadian politicians, including Belinda Stronach, a cabinet member in the Liberal Party government in 2007, did so as well.

And no, of course those politicians didn't mean their trips as a knock on Canadian health care. Neither did the full 1% of the country’s population was sent abroad for care in just the past year alone meant it as an insult.

But it isn’t coincidence that, when Canadians need specialized care, they can't find it in their so fair but mediocre system.

For someone who wants to portray himself as being erudite, PaddyMac can come off looking quite the simpleton.

For most people with a command of the language and even rudimentary understanding of the health care system is able to differentiate between health care coverage and a health care provider.

No one on the left or right denies that the United States has some of the best medical providers or equipment in the world. But all of the best doctors and all of the best medical wonders does little good to someone who does not have the independent wealth or the adequate coverage to pay for it.

I would hardly expect that the USA tax payers were footing the bill. It was indubitably the Canadian health care system that allowed the Premier to come to the US by being the ones that actually paid for it.

But even has obtuse as Paddy was in his arrogance, he wasn't the worst offender. Kevin Binversie not only was unable to tell the difference between one who practices medicine and people that pay for said treatment, but also cannot tell the difference between a Premier and a Governor.

It must be all those French Canadians fault. It's like they have a different word for everything!

How Mavericky!

This should have gone to a cage match - The Rouge Maverick vs The Viagra Kid:

Sarah Palin's campaign against the derogatory usage of the word "retard" collided with her campaign to maintain her popularity with conservatives today, with confusing results.

A Palin spokeswoman seemed to back away from earlier criticism of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. Yesterday, when asked for comment on Limbaugh's use of the "r" word in a recent broadcast, Palin spokeswoman told Greg Sargent of the Washington Post, "Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name-calling at the expense of others is disrespectful." Today, Stapleton claims the statement was meant generally and she was not specifically referring to Limbaugh. Still, she declined to say that Palin believes Limbaugh's statements were acceptable. Sargent reprinted the email he sent Stapleton in which he specifically asked about Limbaugh's statement.

Palin's non-rebuke rebuke of Limbaugh comes after she called on President Obama, earlier in the week, to fire his chief of staff after using the word. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rahm Emanuel called liberal activists who wanted to run ads against conservative Democrats "f------ retarded" in a closed-door meeting at the White House. On her Facebook page, Palin likened Emanuel's "slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities" to using the "N-word," something she deemed "unacceptable" and "heartbreaking." Emanuel later issued an apology to Special Olympics chairman and CEO Tim Shriver.

For what it's worth, both Emanuel and Limbaugh are wrong for using the word, especially when they used it in such a disgustingly derogatory manner.

Of course, the movement for removing the r-word from the common vernacular would be greatly assisted if the mental health professionals and all levels of government didn't use the term.

Call To Action - Make The Call Today!!

Fellow Supporters of Milwaukee County-

Things are really starting to move in regarding the much needed dedicated funding for our transit system and our parks system.

The state legislature is poised to consider two very important bills.

One is SB-511, which is the bill that would allow Milwaukee County to pass the half-cent sales tax for the transit system as the prelude to the RTA.

On January 19, Governor Doyle was joined by many of the area’s business leaders, each of whom pointed out that a sustainable, and even extended transit system would be good for not only their businesses, but for the entire regional economy. Without a doubt, the fact that our transit system, which has been cut by some 20% over the last few years, has contributed to the fact that the Milwaukee area lost nearly 50,000 jobs in the last year, as well as why we are lagging in our economic recovery.

No less important, even though it is receiving less attention, is AB-504, which would provide the vehicle for getting dedicated funding for our parks system. And as has been proven in New York City, parks are also vital for a thriving economy:

Such cuts could turn out to actually cost the city money. Fine parks contribute to the economy by increasing property values and, as a result, real estate tax receipts. A 2008 analysis found that the completion of the Greenwich Village section of the Hudson River Park raised real estate prices in the adjacent two blocks by 20 percent.

[...]

Parks also attract tourists and residents who come to events and activities or who just want to enjoy the surroundings, generating economic activity inside and near the park. Central Park attracts more than 25 million visitors a year, about one fifth of whom come from outside the city, according to “The Central Park Effect,” which was prepared by the economic analysis firm Appleseed for the Central Park Conservancy. The study determined that in 2007, spending by visitors and enterprises in the city’s most famous park directly and indirectly accounted for $395 million in economic activity. This activity, as well as increases in property values near the park, generated $656 million in revenues for the city in 2007.

“Measuring the Economic Value of a City Park System,” released in April by the Center for City Park Excellence at The Trust for Public Land, analyzed seven ways that city parks provide economic benefits: property values, tourism, direct use, health, community cohesion, clean water and clean air. Starting with conservative assumptions of park use and other variables, researchers calculated dollar values for each of these benefits in a different city.

Even though supporters of Milwaukee County like yourself, as well as the other like minded groups, such as the Park People and the Coalition for the Advancement of Transit, have made many calls and sent many emails in support of these two bills, I have learned that there are some legislators that state they have hardly heard a peep in support of these two vital bills. This is especially true for the leggies that represent the suburban areas.

Please take a few minutes now to call and/or email your state representative and state senator and call on them to support this bill. Everyone needs to do this, but especially those that live in the suburbs.

If you don’t know who your representative or senator is, you can find out by clicking on this link.

We thank you in advance for supporting our community by making these important calls.

Cross posted at Milwaukee County First and other places.

Still No Pulitzer

The Google never lies:

(click on image to embiggen)

No Pulitzer yet for Chuckles. I thought he'd at least get some credit for most hair spray or worst tied ties, but not even that. Tsk, tsk.

H/T Zach and, well, me.