I am going

I paid 57% of face and didn't even know I was getting a deal until the tickets arrived.

Rose Colored Glasses

I decided tonight that I am going with my wife and son to see the Badgers press the Ducks at the Rose Bowl. Tickets are available from the low-$100's, it's just a short drive from PHX, and I lost my job so I don't have to work on the 3rd. Opportunities like this don't happen every day.

Wind power constipates the Midwest grid

Another unintended consequence of wind power, the Midwest electric grid cannot transmit all the wind generated power when the wind blows hard. Reported by Energy Central:

The transmission team plans for peak hours, or when maximum demand will occur on the system. Incorporating assumptions about what the generation and load will be during peak hours in a transmission planner’s model runs into problems when, for example, 4,000 MW of wind power to which the resource planning team had given a capacity rating of 600 MW generates at full capacity.

“When I plan a transmission system that’s capable of 600 MW firm, what do I do with the other 3,400 MW if it shows up?” Bradish said. “It’s happening now and is causing issues on our transmission grid.”

This is making planning that used to be relatively routine more complex, said Chuck Liebold, PJM’s manager of interregional planning.

“PJM is now recommending transmission upgrades due to light load criteria, which looks at a 50% peak load and is heavily influenced by renewables integration,” Liebold said.

The solution, spend more money, much more money than the cost of the windmills, to upgrade the transmission grid.

How far will they go?

The great attorney had come to Los Angeles from Chicago to defend James and John McNamara, brothers and unionists accused of conspiring to bomb the Los Angeles Times, the city’s anti-union newspaper, killing 20 printers and newsmen. But jury selection had not gone well, and Darrow feared the brothers would hang.

Is this outside of the arsenal of Wisconsin's Walker-haters? We can only pray that it is.

Union über alles.

Found it here: Smithsonian Mag

Funniest thing you'll see all day

Waaaah!



Crybabies.

Ped State

So Jerry Sandusky was a great defensive coordinator and the heir apparent to Joe Pa as PSU's head coach. But he took an early retirement instead 12 years ago. At age 55, with Joe at age 72 or so.

Sandusky must have suddenly got tired of football.

Something smells about those circumstances.

What did Paterno know and when did he know it?

Discount Doublecheck

Its nice to see Aaron Rodgers is finally getting the love that goes with being a Super Bowl MVP quarterback. I even like the way State Farm mainstreamed The Belt.



But those assholes from Illinois just couldn't stop there. They had to stereotype Packers fans as dipship cheesehead wearing maniacs. Why not just use the N-word, it would be just as offensive to some of us.

I am the 99%

I am 53 years old.

My job was relocated too far to commute during Clinton’s last year. Since then I have lived a gypsy’s existence, working and living hundreds of miles from my home as I support my family.

When I had cancer I found that my private health insurance policy protected the insurer, not the insured. Despite working as many hours as I could while on chemotherapy, I could not continue to pay my bills and mortgage without tapping my savings. By the time I had fully paid for my cancer treatment, the funds that were set aside for my children's college educations were exhausted.

To help my children though school, I borrowed against the equity in my home for a total that came close to six figures.

My real estate investments have crashed in value since I made them and because of this seemingly endless recession, I cannot raise the rents I charge my tenants.

My retirement portfolio is as reliable as the Texas Rangers bullpen and I have little faith that Washington will make the Social Security payments they have promised to me. I hope to retire before I turn 70, that's a little less than 20 years later than the teachers my age who've retired from Wisconsin schools and who’s pensions I am paying.

Because of the crashed housing bubble, new lending requirements have made it nearly impossible to qualify for a mortgage. To buy my second home. I eventually had to borrow from my 401(k) for the down payment. I now work 50 hour weeks in a job that is 1,500 miles from home in order to pay for my lifestyle, make the mortgage payments on my two houses, and to help support my three adult children as they get started.

I am sorry to admit that I am not one of the 1%. I don't have the talent or drive or risk tolerance that it takes to get there. I am the 99%.

I am also one the 53% who pay income taxes.

I’m not complaining. I am living the American dream.

Break-in at Dad29's place?

Certainly a logical conclusion upon hearing that 14,000 rounds of ammunition is missing.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Officials at Fort Bragg say an investigation is under way into the disappearance of nearly 14,000 rounds of ammunition at the Army base.

Staff Sgt. Joshua Ford, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, says the ammunition went missing from the 1st Brigade Combat Team at Fort Bragg.

The Fayetteville Observer reports (http://bit.ly/rcSmoA ) that Ford believed the ammunition was taken overnight on Tuesday. The 1st Brigade team was placed on lockdown for a few hours Wednesday night while officials conducted a search.

The missing ammunition can be used in an M-4 or M-16 assault rifle.

Ford says the 82nd Airborne Division and military police are taking the matter seriously and that "any amount of ammunition that goes missing" has "got to be accounted for."

Or could someone we know be BUYING MORE AMMO?

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/09/10/20110910north-carolina-fort-bragg-missing-ammo-ON.html#ixzz1XbD7RhjW

2011 Maricopa County Property Tax Bill

$962.32 for my 3100 square foot home.

Oh yeah, but what about income taxes? Lower in AZ, too.

Vehicle license and registration? Lower.

Sales taxes? They nail us with that. Thank God for Amazon.

Oh no...

A metaphor for the 2011 Brewers' season?

Feeling at home in PHX

I heard this one first on the radio.

Students who attend Moya Elementary School should be happy that school is still out for the summer.

Phoenix police reported three men had destroyed 30 of the school's air-conditioning units to steal the copper coils. The price tag for fixing or replacing the units is $360,000, said Phoenix Police Sgt. Tommy Thompson.

A security guard at the K-5th grade school, 406 N. 41st Ave, stumbled across the burglars at the scene of the crime about 1:45 a.m. Sunday and called police, who responded with an air and K-9 unit. The suspects, fleeing on foot, managed to get away, police said.

AZ Republic

Followed two stories later with this.

A brush fire near Interstate 17 and Central Avenue threatened several warehouses in the area Saturday night in Phoenix, authorities said.

Firefighters responded to the fire burning across 200 square feet about 9:15 p.m., said Scott Walker, a spokesman for the Phoenix Fire Department.

The fire spread into scrub and brush in the dry Salt River, and firefighters worked to keep the fire from reaching structures in the area.

AZ Republic

Jim Doyle and Ron Johnson could not be reached for comment.

They're everywhere

Why is it always Palo Verde?

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says his deputies arrested an illegal immigrant working inside the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Station, the nation's largest nuclear plant.

According to Arpaio, 32-year-old Cruz Loya Alvares was denied entrance at the facility's security checkpoint on Monday, when he was the driver of a work truck belonging to a private contractor doing work at Palo Verde. Security guards noticed the man's Mexican driver's license was expired. On Tuesday, Alvares was admitted to the plant as a passenger in a work truck, using an Arizona ID card. However, at a secondary checkpoint, Arpaio says further examination by authorities determined that the Arizona ID was falsified.

The sheriff says he doesn't know how long Alvares had been working inside Palo Verde, and whether Monday was the first time he had attempted to get in.

"To some extent," Arpaio says, "security at this nuclear power plant worked. But still, an illegal immigrant was permitted to gain access. This raises the question: how safe is Palo Verde really if an illegal alien can gain access to this nation's largest nuclear power facility?"

The sheriff says the incident brings into question the effectiveness of the security at other government facilities.

Arpaio says his deputies have been made aware of other incidents of illegal immigrants working in buildings containing various federal, state, and local government workplaces.

From KFYI.

UPDATE: The inevitable link from Drudge.

Grand Canyon Plank

Damn beavers!

What's wrong with this picture?

No, not the faked final digit. The number shown is out of sequence for the document it appears on.

Holy crap!

Warning, don't splash any water on Kloppenburg.

I told you so

From JSOnline:

A controversial bill limiting collective bargaining for public workers has been officially published despite a temporary restraining order barring its publication.

The legislation was published Friday with a footnote that notes the restraining order, but says the law "requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to publish every act within 10 working days after its date of enactment."

The publication of the law means that it will take effect Saturday.

Is reading the Wisconsin Constitution and statutes really too hard for the dim bulb Dane County District Attorney? If he listened to Headless, he'd have known that the Secretary of State wasn't the only state agency that can publish a law.

Guess these numbers

What is the significance of these numbers?

5.8%

6.2%

Excuse my ignorance ...

The Wisconsin Constitution says that a law is not a law until it has been published.

Enactment of laws. SECTION 17. [As amended April 1977]
(1) The style of all laws of the state shall be “The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows:”.
(2) No law shall be enacted except by bill. No law shall be in force until published.
(3) The legislature shall provide by law for the speedy publication of all laws. [1975 J.R. 13, 1977 J.R. 7, vote April 1977

Also see Chapter 985 of the statutes.

Any such publication from any of the state agencies shall be deemed official.

Where does it say that only Doug LaFollette can publish the law?

It may also be a good time for the Tea Party Drum & Whistle Corps to begin practicing in front of LaFollette's door.

Why won't public union members drive UAW cars?

I did a bit of online followup to my previous post, googling "are Volvos union built?" It wasn't my imagination, teachers and public union members do not drive UAW cars.

Here's an exceptionally FLAGRANT ACT OF JOURNALISM from JC Reindl of the Toledo Blade.

Though they lost their fight in Columbus last week against Senate Bill 5, many members and supporters of Ohio's public-sector labor unions returned home with one consolation: an invigorated sense of camaraderie with their private-sector union brethren.

"I've witnessed in the last few weeks an expression of solidarity and common cause with each other," said Francine Lawrence, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers.

Now the question is whether this newfound fellowship will carry over to buying habits. Past experience suggests that some public union members are fine with reaping workplace benefits achieved through the historic victories of their private-sector counterparts but are indifferent about supporting these labor allies with their checkbooks.

Thus proving the point of my previous post.

The Blade recently toured the employee parking lots of numerous area schools and some unionized city of Toledo employees, noting which vehicles were assembled by union labor and which were not.

Union-made vehicles came out on top at five of the seven toured sites — Old Orchard Elementary School, Perrysburg Junior High, Jefferson Junior High,Byrnedale Junior High, and the city of Toledo lot along Orange Street between Erie Street and Spielbusch Avenue, where many police officers and other unionized employees park.

In the other two parking sites — Harvard Elementary School and McCord Junior High School — union autos were outnumbered. A full 60 percent of the cars in the elementary school's lot were nonunion.

That isn't good enough. Solidarity demands 100% union purchases - boycott Walmart, ya know.

And again proving that rationalization is the second strongest human drive.

"I'll consider it, but it just depends on how convenient it is," said Toyota Camry driver Denise Chandler, a Toledo Public Schools special education teacher at Samuel M. Jones at Gunckel Park Middle School. "If it's affordable, I will consider union."

Marjorie Harris, a TPS substitute teacher and a member of the teachers' union, drives a nonunion-made Nissan Altima that she said she received as a gift.

"I just shop what I like," she said. "I don't really go union or nonunion, but I know that I should."

I'll put money on the portion of vehicles driven by public employees in Madison exceeded the Toledo proportion of non-UAW vehicles. A big factor being that UAW doesn't build Prii (the plural of Prius).

Meade - Get going on this one.

Travel on the Hypocrite Highway

I drove to Madison in our Dodge minivan (purchased under my late father-in-law's UAW pricing agreement) to pick up some furniture today. Traffic was heavy on 94 and there were several school buses holding up traffic. It wasn't an event at the Kohl Center as I first thought. Just another union protest.

After a while I realized I was in one of the very few UAW built vehicles on I-94, probably less than 10% of the cars. This especially hit me when a Volvo passed me with a Solidarity poster in the window.

I guess the reasoning goes that when spending one's publicly paid salary, union built vehicles are not of good enough quality and value to purchase. But when spending a portion of MY salary, the union gets to demand that it must go to poor quality and low value union employees.

Sorry, but you can't pick and choose Solidarity. Trade in that Toyota for a Ford, Chrysler, or GM vehicle.

Their presence was causing a disturbance ...

“You know you’re not well liked when you are asked to leave a local tavern because people boo-ing[sic] at you causes an upset, but this is exactly what happened to Wisconsin State Governor Scott Walker on Friday the 18th of February.

The Merchant in Madison, WI confirms that on Friday night, Patrick Sweeney (one of the owners) politely asked Scott Walker to leave the establishment when other customers began boo-ing[sic] him. A bartender at The Merchant said that, “his presence was causing a disturbance to the other customers and management asked him to leave.”

The rest of the story at Badger Blogger.

Separated at birth?

Governor Badger.



Honey Badger.



WEAC probably thinks they were.

NFL Tag Team Champions