Minus 10 Fahrenheit - not a good day for this stuff

From Planet Gore earlier today.

Acknowledging that temperatures in the past decade have not reached, let alone surpassed, their 60-year high reached in 1998 (which still lags behind 1934), “Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century,” from Reuters.

Pachauri goes on to say.

"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

He added that skeptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.

Shut up already, you a-hole. This winter's weather reminds me of walking to class in the 1970's, it is brutally cold. I am getting damn tired of these so-called scientists who are manipulating data and ignoring reality. Digging into the the Reuters link, I find another clown using common statistical manipulations.

Underscoring an underlying rise in temperatures, British forecaster Phil Jones said 2001-07, with an average of 0.44 Celsius above the 1961-90 world average of 14 degrees, was 0.21 degree warmer than the corresponding values for 1991-2000.

Mr. Jones is cherry picking data and using a very limited data set. To make a fair comparison, he needs to: 1) compare similar time periods, the 7-years from 2001 to 2007 to all other rolling 7-year periods; 2) look at the entire historic meteorological record, including the record high 1930's; and 3) provide the uncertainty associated with these world averages, there are too many measurement differences for there to not be huge margins of error with these values - you'll end up with a statistical tie.

The need of these global warming alarmists to use statistical tricks underscores the weakness of their arguments. They should stick with their emotional appeals, that is the strongest part of their position.

Business just became more dangerous for Milwaukee's armed robbers

Something is missing in the JSOnline articles about the shooting death of SAB Miller executive, Vic Milford. Check here, here, and here.

Did you get it? There is no description of the assailants. Nothing on height, weight, race or ethnicity. Nada.

The Journal-Sentinel's Special Editor in Charge of Ethnic News Cleansing must not work weekends. This is the one of the early NewsWatch reports from Saturday.

A 42-year-old man was shot and killed early today after being robbed outside of a bar, Milwaukee police said. According to Capt. Michael Young: The man and two or three women were walking from a bar to the man's car in the 200 block of W. Walker St. about 1:10 a.m. today. As they reached the car, they were approached by two men, one of whom was carrying a handgun. The victim handed over his wallet and was shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police would not reveal the victim's identity, where he was wounded or how many times he was shot. The suspects were described as Hispanic males, in their mid-20s to early 30s, both about 5-feet-4-inches to 5-feet-7-inches tall and 140 to 160 pounds.

I wonder if Tom Kerschner still has a job. At the very least, I know there will be a letter in his personnel file and an extended session in the Diversity Reeducation Gulag.

Now to my headline. There is a long-standing paradigm for armed robbery business transactions in the United States. If the victim hands over his money, wallet and other valuables without a fight or other resistance; the armed robber will not shoot him. This social contract serves both the victim's and the armed robber's interests. The victim escapes with his life for only the small cost of the valuables he carries. For the robber, this agreement helps speed the transaction and minimizes the risk of the victim resisting with deadly force.

The rules must be different where these perpetrators come from. Their rules go something like: the robber takes the money from the cooperative victim, then shoots him dead. If this becomes the norm in the U.S., suddenly we will have no reason to cooperate with the armed robber. Grab for the gun, stall for time, or run for your life, these are all logically preferable options to placidly handing over your cash and waiting to die.

And if, by chance, you have a loaded handgun on your person, blast the assailant before he knows it is coming.

Like in the Old West, a six-gun holstered on your hip provides for a fast draw. Be sure to prominently display that pistol to avoid concealed carry charges.

WWFBD? PIG Party Edition

From that moment in the seventies ... until my fight was finally successful, Wisconsin was a corrupted state, governed not by the people but by a group of private and corporate interests. They secured control of the old Republican party organization - the party with the splendid history - and while its orators outwardly dwelt upon the glories of the past and inspired the people with the fervor of patriotic loyalty, these corporation interests were bribing, bossing and thieving within. The machine organization of the Democratic party was as subservient to the railroads and other corporations as the Republican machine, and mastery of legislation was thus rendered complete through all these years.

Robert M. La Follette, 1911

Government corruption, a Wisconsin tradition.

Government corruption, The Wisconsin Idea?

I must have missed that show

Steve Jagler writes:

"There are no doubt countless times when Belling exposes himself as a loud-mouth buffoon, a bully, and this is just another one of those times. His venom spews forth, whether he's denigrating Hispanics, African-Americans, women or anyone who dares to disagree with him."

I'm guessing that Mark Belling will ignore that defamation. And that his attorney won't.

H/T: Mr. Sykes

WWFBD?

Art in a coffee cup

Click here for more images.

UPDATE:

And click here to see how it is done. Thanks to commenter chrisk.

Snowmobile or surfboard?

Some things just aren't right. There was a snowmobile in the parking lot at work this morning.

Later in the day, I found this link at the NEI Nuclear Notes blog.

The dialogue on the pros and cons of holding Hawaii’s first Constitutional Convention in 30 years has not yet mentioned one critical reason for having a convention: The need to repeal the prohibition on nuclear power in Hawaii that the 1978 Con-Con established. We need to do this before spiralling oil prices devastate Hawaii‘s economy.

The 1978 Convention added Article XI, Section 8 to the State Constitution: “No nuclear fission power plant shall be constructed or radioactive material disposed of in the State without the prior approval by a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature.”

Oh yeah!

I'll be looking for work at the Banzai Pipeline Nuclear Power Station if that amendment is repealed.

Political Commentary

Like it or not, it is time to smell the coffee.

Backyard brick pizza oven

Okay, it isn't brick, it is ceramic.

I am learning to use my Big Green Egg for wood fired baking. I'm not a fan of the hype and cliquishness that goes with the BGE, but it is very effective for baking. It heats up fast a holds a steady 500 degree temperature even in freezing weather.



Bad news for Pizzeria Piccola, my family now likes my wood fired pizza better.

Good point Mark, but your premise is absolutely wrong

On his Friday show, Belling blubbered on & on (and on & on, it starts 4-1/2 minutes into the file) about how the Body Worlds exhibit does not depict any dead unborn children to avoid confronting pro-abortionists with the humanity of a dead fetus.

My wife and daughter had been to the exhibit in Chicago and immediately pointed out Belling's ignorance, there are numerous fetuses in the exhibit, including one shown in it's deceased mother's womb. Today's MJS tells the same story about the Milwaukee exhibit.

But the sound of soft crying did sometimes drift from the exhibit's prenatal development section, which is curtained off from the rest of "Body Worlds." The section displays, among other exhibits, dead fetuses and a woman, eight months pregnant, with her belly cut away.

Jan Krueger of Mequon, who brought family members from as far away as Indiana with her to the show, stood in front of a case showing a fetus about the same age as a baby she had once lost, and she began to cry. But family hugs soon ended the tears and replaced them with a smile.

"I'm an old-time Catholic, and this is very emotional for me. But this is wonderful to see. Living beings are such a special thing," Krueger said.

I'll be listening carefully on Monday for Belling to correct himself. After all, he often claims that he is the only individual in the local or national media to publicly correct his mistakes.

UPDATE: Belling apparently came through with a correction, although the podcast missed the start of the segment. I give him credit for living up to his claim.

Ice Bowl Mojo, Deja Vu

Will another discarded N.Y. Giants running back make the difference in The Ice Bowl, Part Deux?

Forty years apart, Chuck Mercein and Ryan Grant were each late additions to the Packers roster. Each started their training camps with the Giants.

Prediction, the cold will be a bigger factor than most pundits predict. The game will be decided on a late score:

Packers 21
Giants 17

My favorite new blog

I learned of Wisconsinology from Tom McMahon's Sunday linkfest. Wisconsinology has a load of Cheesehead trivia and many tales of famous people with Wisconsin links.

I am hoping to read about you there.

I might join this protest

I just read this excerpt of the Liberal Fascism book at the Liberal Fascism blog.

Charles Van Hise, Roosevelt’s close adviser, was more emphatic. “He who thinks not of himself primarily, but of his race, and of its future, is the new patriot,” explained Van Hise, the founder of the American conservation movement and president of the University of Wisconsin during its glory days as the premier training ground for American progressives. Van Hise summarized the American Progressive attitude toward eugenics well when he explained: “We know enough about agriculture so that the agricultural production of the country could be doubled if the knowledge were applies; we know enough about disease so that if the knowledge were utilized, infectious and contagious diseases would be substantially destroyed in the United States within a score of years; we know enough about eugenics so that if the knowledge were applied, the defective classes would disappear within a generation.”

Leave it to Jonah Goldberg, a conservative author, to give Madison's present day progressives a reason to demand the renaming of this building. We'd all still be oblivious to the racism of Van Hise without Goldberg's research.

Another week of this

Thank you New York Giants.

Opposite angles, identical humiliation

Favre lies down on the job

From the awesome photo gallery featuring pictures from Benny Sieu, Tom Lynn, Rick Wood and Mark Hoffman at JSOnline.



Atari Bigby introduces himself to a national TV audience. From the Seattle P-I photo gallery.

Reliving my adolesence

In my teenage years, among my favorite features of MAD magazine were the song parodies. MAD would take a popular song and write topical new lyrics to go with it.

Unlike MAD, I'm starting with an obscure song from the cult band, They Might be Giants. I blogged a live version of James K. Polk earlier this week. The version below looks like someone's high school history project.



In the spirit of William Gaines and Alfred E. Neuman, I present my lyrics for Al A. Gore.

In 2008, the Democrats were split
The three nominees for the presidential candidate
Were Hillary Clinton, an Ex co-president and a pro-abortionist
John Edwards, a Socialist
Obama, a black man with no experience
From Nashville in a Gulfstream flying up
He was Al A. Gore, Eco-Savior of the Earth

Austere, severe, he held few people dear
His oratory bored most folks to tears
The factions soon agreed
He's just the man we need
To bring about victory
Fulfill our carbon-free destiny
And give back the land the Mexicans command
And when the votes were cast the winner was
Mister Al A. Gore, Eco-Savior of the Earth

In four short years he met his every goal
He ceded the whole southwest to Mexico
Made sure the smokestacks fell
And made the English health plan a U.S. priority
He nationalized our economy
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mister Al A. Gore, our 44th president
Green Hickory, Eco-Savior of the Earth

I am looking forward to hearing Weird Al's performance of my lyrics for this TMBG hit.

Amazing human trick

I can't get enough of this young man's performance.



He has a great voice, too.

H/T - Althouse.

That is not logical, Captain.

Earlier this week Jay Nordlinger dissected Mike Huckabee's attack on Mitt Romney on a grammatical, philosophical, and moral basis.

I know that a lot of people — anti-Romneyites — are fired up by that line of Huckabee’s: “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off.” Apparently, he was alluding to Romney. And I find Huckabee’s one of the most depressing lines I have heard in ages — depressing from every point of view.

First, grammatical: They say Bush can’t talk? I thought Huckabee was supposed to be silver-tongued.

Second, philosophical, or political, if you like: Huckabee expressed low populism, or “sheer demagoguery,” as Ronald Reagan used to say. Huckabee’s line could have come out of the mouth of John Edwards, or John Sweeney, or David Bonior. Is this what we want in the Republican party now? Why not have just one big Democratic party?

And third — oh, call it moral: It seems we’re now campaigning on the basis of what the other guy looks like. What do we say about how Huckabee looks? Frankly, I think I would have liked him better when he was fat — he might have been humbler.

Huckabee is even using the line in a political ad.



Nordlinger forgot to look at Huckabee's logic. Aside from my being unaware of any business Romney ran having to lay-off large numbers of employees, the argument that Huckabee makes compares two dissimilar things, a coworker at a job you kept and an employer for a job you lost. To work logically, his argument should be structured in one of these ways.

“People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them of the guy they work with, not the guy who signs their paycheck.”

or

“People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them of the guy they used to work with who got them fired, not the guy who laid them off.”

Neither of these statements is true, not even close. But each more closely reflects the reality of Huckabee and Romney, very, very closely.

In addition to being a dishonest demagogue, Huckabee must have flunked the logic section of the SAT.

Brokered convention

Tom McMahon posts today on the brokered Democratic convention of 1852, where Franklin Pierce was nominated on the 49th ballot. Contested conventions were common during the fight for abolition; in 1844 the Democrats were split. The three nominees for the presidential candidate were: Martin Van Buren, a former president and an abolitionist; James Buchanan, a moderate; Louis Cass, a general and expansionist. From Nashville came a dark horse riding up. He was James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump.

Austere, severe, he held few people dear; his oratory filled his foes with fear. The factions soon agreed he's just the man we need to bring about victory, fulfill our manifest destiny, and annex the land the Mexicans command. And when the votes were cast the winner was Mr. James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump.

In four short years he met his every goal. He seized the whole southwest from Mexico; made sure the tariffs fell; and made the English sell the Oregon territory. He built an independent treasury.

Having done all this he sought no second term, but precious few have mourned the passing of Mr. James K. Polk, our 11th president, young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump.

That might sound good set to music.

GPS revisited

I've had a chance to drive with my wife's Garmin c340 GPS and have to amend my previous comments.

The Good

• Estimated Arrival Time - This feature is surprisingly accurate, and is a great feature for calling ahead when meeting people or for making restaurant reservations.
• This unit provides actual speed in the map mode. A good way to check the calibration of your speedometer or for use on a boat.
• The Garmin does find some short cuts I didn't know about.

The Bad

• The Garmin is programmed with a preference for major highways. Interstate, US, and state highways are the preferred routes over local and county roads and highways, so it doesn't always pick the most efficient route.
• It is still a girlie device.
  

Speed Trap Pewaukee

Enhanced enforcement on Capitol Drive and Hwy 74 in Pewaukee today. I witnessed the City's Dodge Charger pull over 2 speeders this afternoon, and the sirens are still wailing tonight.

If you're coming out this way, watch your speed.

Winnie - Groundhog in Demand

No groundhog for Groundhog Day? Channel 12 didn't look hard enough.



Winnie, the resident groundhog at the Wildlife in Need Center, won't be at the Milwaukee County Zoo, but she is hosting her own Groundhog Day event at Friends of Nature in Menomonee Falls on February 2.

I understand that Daphne, WiN's muscovy duck, is available on February 2, if someone wants to start their own new tradition.

Donate to the Wildlife in Need Center here.

New Poll: Worst Case Scenario

If Iowa means anything, our choices on election day may be Obama (D), Huckabee (R), Paul (L), and Bloomberg (IND).

Hold your nose and vote.

UPDATE - 1/18/08:

Final Results

Huckabee	1 (14%)
Obama	4 (57%)
Bloomberg	0 (0%)
Paul	1 (14%)
Stay home	1 (14%)

Votes so far: 7
Poll closed

Not too early

I think we can award the 2007 Darwin to the jack at the SF Zoo who was killed by the tiger after antagonizing and shooting her with a slingshot. Ridding our gene pool of stupidity and cruelty in one slash of her claws. Well done.

Two downsides, Tatiana was killed and the other slingshot snipers survived.

More ethanol madness

Despite their widespread carping about global warming, Smithsonian is one of my favorite magazines. In the November 2007 issue, Richard Conniff took a critical look at biofuels. Conniff makes a damning case against ethanol production in the US, but it is the abuse of the earth in pursuit of "clean energy" outside of the US that is astounding.

Other countries are also rapidly surrendering habitat to biofuel. In Indonesia and Malaysia, companies are bulldozing millions of acres of rain forest to produce biodiesel from oil palm, an imported species. The United Nations recently predicted that 98 percent of Indonesia's forests will be destroyed within the next 15 years, partly to grow palm oil. Many of the new plantations will be on the island of Borneo, a mother lode of biological diversity.

Apart from the effect on wildlife, critics say Indonesia's forests are one of the worst places to grow biofuels, because they stand on the world's richest concentration of peat, another nonrenewable fuel. When peat dries out or is burned to make way for a plantation, it releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide. Indonesia, despite its undeveloped economy, already ranks as the world's third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, after China and the United States. When you add the peat effect into the equation, according to the conservation group Wetlands International, Indonesian palm oil biodiesel is up to eight times worse for the environment than gasoline.

Oh, and one final irony. The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that because of the way U.S. biofuel laws are written, foreign tankers loaded with Indonesian biodiesel can stop briefly at an American port, blend in a splash of regular petroleum diesel and qualify for a U.S. subsidy on every gallon. It's called "splash and dash," because the tankers generally push on to Europe to collect additional subsidies there. All in the name of greener fuels.

Wow, you cannot make this stuff up.

In order to "save the planet" from global warming, use of a fuel is promoted that results in clear cutting rain forests, wiping out rare plant and animal species, and release of more carbon to the atmosphere than conventional fuels. And this biofuel is subsidized by US taxpayers, but is never even used here.

Thank you Al Gore.

I finally get it

Any more "Iowa" and I'm gonna let out this scream.



Rudy has it right. We should all ignore these self-important hicks.

Why should the future of our republic be in the hands of these backwards rubes?

Resolutions I can keep

1. Avoid the candy dish outside my office door.
2. Abstain from alcohol consumption (except for weekends, vacations and holidays).
3. Workout regularly, including any day I can get from the office to the gym by 6:00.

John Edwards - The Anti-Capitalist Candidate

Rich Lowry's syndicated column provides some eye-opening details of John Edwards' presidential campaign focus against "money-grubbing corporations."

His campaign pitch is a well-polished mailed fist aimed at the gut of the establishment, defined by Edwards as heartless, money-grubbing corporations.

“This corporate greed is killing the middle class, killing American jobs and it is stealing your children’s future,” Edwards tells a rapt crowd of a couple hundred people in the lobby of a high school here.

The reason we don’t have universal health coverage, according to Edwards, is “very simple” — the drug companies and insurance companies oppose it. In fact, everything is “very simple” to him. In his down-home Manichaean vision, dark corporate forces are responsible for everything he doesn’t like.

This is a worldview that doesn’t allow for legitimate differences of opinion. On the one side is “the glorification of corporate greed,” and on the other are the people willing to fight it — everyone in between is either a tool or a coward. Battle lines drawn, Edwards’s vision bristles with evocations of power. The people will have to wield the “sovereign power” of the country against corporations that will only “give their power away when we take their power away from them.”

This is scary stuff. We actually have a major party candidate openly touting Socialism on a National scale as his answer for the United States (a topic that is addressed in Jonah's new book).

I cannot speak for everyone, but I am counting on those obscene corporate profits to pay for my retirement. Edwards' wish to wipe-out or otherwise confiscate these profits will also wipe-out the plans of any American relying on something other than government hand-outs for retirement.

John Edwards financial ignorance is without bound. The fact that he has found buyers for his rhetoric in Iowa says something about those rubes.

Le Carte de Mort - 2007 Edition

View Larger Map

Huckleberry Dumbell at the Spring City Chronicle took the time that I didn't and completed the 2007 Milwaukee Carte de Mort.

My words of wisdom: Don't Go There.

Cherry pickin' the record book

The Drudge link screams "2007 a Year of Weather Records in U.S."

WASHINGTON (AP) - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder.

January was the warmest first month on record worldwide—1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

[...]

Smashing records was common, especially in August. At U.S. weather stations, more than 8,000 new heat records were set or tied for specific August dates.

More remarkably that same month, more than 100 all-time temperature records were tied or broken—regardless of the date—either for the highest reading or the warmest low temperature at night. By comparison only 14 all-time low temperatures were set or tied all year long, as of early December, according to records kept by the National Climatic Data Center.

For example, on Aug. 10, the town of Portland, Tenn., reached 102 degrees, tying a record for the hottest it ever had been. On Aug. 16, it hit 103 and Portland had a new all-time record. But that record was broken again the next day when the mercury reached 105.

That is just freakin' scary. How warm was January 2007 in the U.S.? It was the warmest January on record since January 2006. Dang, it was even one of the three warmest January's in the last 10 years.

In reality, the weather of 2007 was unremarkable. Using the NOAA data for heating & cooling degree days as my basis (which is what matters to me), 2007 was not even the warmest winter, summer, or year in the last decade.

Degree Days: A measurement that reflects the effect of weather on your heating and cooling needs. Daily degree days are calculated by comparing the average daily temperature to 65°F.

I'm dealing with global warming or cooling by air conditioning and heating my house. I really don't care how the Third World'ers of the EU do it (Hint - Join the 20th Century, Pierre. Install an air conditioner).

Also missing from this alarmist rewriting of history was any mention of the admission that the previous list of hottest years had to be amended due to supposedly innocent errors by these researchers with vested interests. Sorry to blow your paradigm, but let's take another look at the 1930's.

Something I will not be wearing in 2008

Note to China, now might be a good time to invade Japan.

The cute cuddly white cat from Japan's Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday.

"We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion," he said.

The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations, according to Sanrio.

My Christmas score

It doesn't take much to make this boy happy. Chuck Mercein. Davy Robinson. Bill Curry. Its not just the stars that are featured on this 3 DVD set.

The Super Bowl I and II discs hold great memories for me. I forgot how much the Baltimore Colts were feared back then, and how the Cowboys were the Packers' bitch.

If you get the discs, check out the Leroy Neimen-ish prints that are used on the backdrop for The Vince Lombardi Show. I have the complete set of all eight (free with a fill-up at your nearby Mobil station). Bobby Hamann's mom made him toss them out when he cleaned his room and I still have them almost 40 years later.

Have a very nukey Christmas - commercial version

This one must be from someone in the industry.

Another Christmas greeting from Al

Have a very nukey Christmas - military version

Ken Hendricks - Create Jobs, Eliminate Waste, Preserve Value

I had never heard of Ken Hendricks before the announcement of his death on Friday.

"Two point six billion," says Hendricks, shaking his head. Then he chuckles. "It's not even real," continues the CEO, chairman, and sole owner of ABC Supply. "The money doesn't mean a damn thing."

Following up on a tip from Belling caller "Brian in New Berlin" I searched out the Inc.com article that accompanied the naming of Mr. Hendricks as Inc.'s 2006 Entrepreneur of the Year. What a contrast to this story.

Bonuses on Wall Street surge 14 percent

NEW YORK (AP) -- This might have been one of Wall Street's most dismal years in a decade, but that hasn't stopped bonus checks from rising an average of 14 percent.

Four of the biggest U.S. investment banks - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. - will pay out about $49.6 billion in compensation this year. Of that, bonuses are traditionally estimated to represent 60 percent, or almost $30 billion.

But that might not sit well with investors who held on to investment bank stocks this year - and watched them plunge by up to 45 percent. Investment houses have been slammed by the credit crisis, and top executives this past week said they've yet to see a bottom.

It is clear from the Inc.com article that Mr. Hendricks was from the old school of business, the one where people worked for the love of accomplishment, that being reward enough. He was certainly wealthy, but he was not about huge bonuses or selling out for that big payday. He created his wealth as a byproduct of creating jobs for the people he could see that needed them. He didn't pinch pennies to put in his pocket, but to keep his many businesses running to pay his employees.

In Hendricks's worldview there are two unalloyed blessings: family and a good day's work for a good day's pay. "My whole life is about trying to treat the working man fairly and give him a good opportunity," he had said the day before while driving me past the packed parking lot at one of his plants. "If you've got a job you have pride. You can dream. You can go home and talk about your kids going to college."

What a difference from those in the Wall Street bonus article. People who have never put anyone to work, but skim billions off the top of our economy.

This country needs more Ken Hendricks. What a huge loss to his family, his employees, and the Beloit area.

Read the article.

What were the founders thinking?

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Adding some context to the "cruel and unusual" clause of our Constitution.

All right, a little more of Alistair Horne on life in old France. Though you might want to save this one for after dinner. The subject here is François Ravaillac, who on May 14, 1610 assassinated Henri IV while the monarch was stuck in a traffic jam.

On 27 May, still protesting that he had acted as a free agent on a divinely inspired mission, Ravaillac was put to death. Before being drawn and quartered, the lot of the regicide, on the Place de Grève scaffold he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then torn by pincers. Then his arms and legs were attached to horses which pulled in opposite directions. One of the horses "foundered," so a zealous chevalier offered his mount; "the animal was full of vigour and pulled away a thigh." After an hour and a half of this horrendous cruelty, Ravaillac died, as the mob tried to prevent him receiving last rites. When he finally expired,

the entire populace, no matter what their rank, hurled themselves on the body with their swords, knives, sticks or anything else to hand and began beating, hacking and tearing at it. They snatched the limbs from the executioner, savagely chopping them up and dragging the pieces through the streets.

Children made a bonfire and flung remains of Ravaillac's body on it. According to one witness, Nicholas Pasquier, one woman actually ate some of the flesh. The executioner, supposed to have the body of the regicide reduced to ashes to complete the ritual demanded by the law, could find nothing but his shirt.

Phew! Still, at least he wasn't subjected to water-boarding.

Euro-envy - I don't get it.

H/T - Derb.

THE gift this year

I bought one for Mrs. Headless. But let me make one thing perfectly clear.

There are two types of people in this world:

A. People who use GPS navigation and/or stop for directions

B. Straight men*

*Unless he is visiting Pittsburgh.

What is this guy running for?

Oh, Commander in Chief. I'll buy that.

Favre is a lock for MVP #4

Do the math for the NFL's 4 top teams:

• Patriots 14-0-0, 7 Pro Bowl Starters, 4 on offense (1 = Tom Brady)
  
• Cowboys 12-2-0, 6 Pro Bowl Starters, 5 on offense (0 = Tony Romo)
  
• Patriots 12-2-0, 3 Pro Bowl Starters, 2 on offense (0 = Peyton Manning)
  
• Packers 12-2-0, 3 Pro Bowl Starters, 1 on offense (= Brett Favre)

Brett Favre carried his team with no 1st team Pro Bowl quality offensive help.

Sorry Brady, you had Moss to throw to and Light & Mankins protecting you. Same goes with Dallas and Indy, rich with offense talent.

On the other hand, with no decent protection, Favre was scrambling for his life and had no elite talent to throw to. He did it all by himself, defining the NFL's Most Valuable Player.

What is this guy running for?

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

I have never seen a more cynical political advertisement.

Cat blogging

The most popular place in our home right now is on, in, or under the Christmas Tree. Bandit runs the place and has the prime position staked out. There can be no ornaments on our purple tree*, besides the occasional cat.

My daughter brought two boys home from college. This one is called Invisi-butt for his ability to go into stealth mode on dark furniture. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be found.



Muddles is the other one. He is looking particularly cranky in this shot. He is usually the most personable of the nine (9!!!!) cats currently in our house.



*WARNING: Do not take my wife near Stein's when they have their after-Christmas sale (almost as bad as Marv's barn when there's a new batch of kittens). Anyway, since we can't decorate our tree, our tree must decorate itself.

Defining insanity ...

No. Not the guy smoking 45 pounds of pork & beef in this weather. The guy leaving this, for our Winter Wonderland.

Global Warming: BRING. IT. ON.

Unintended Consequence of Progressive Ideas, No. 64,349

Kevin Fischer links to this report from Madison's Channel 3 on the difficulties of that city's snowplow drivers in negotiating around the numerous traffic islands that have been installed as "traffic calming" measures.

Longtime snowplow operator Todd Endres has been working 16-hour shifts, but he said the job is only getting tougher.

It's already a tight squeeze getting a 12-ton truck with an 11-foot plow through streets made skinny by record snow. But throw a lot of piles of cement right in the middle of the road and Endres said it adds up to a snowplow driver's nightmare.

"The traffic calming devices or pedestrian safety islands or roundabouts or speed bumps -- I, along with just about everybody that plows, hate them," Endres said.

The devices are meant to slow down speeders, but they also slow down snowplows as they carefully find their way around or over the traffic islands.

"It's a rocky road. You got to go slow because you can break the suspension on the truck," Endres said.

The report doesn't do it justice, watch the video.

"First of all, when you [...] don't see them, and you hit them and it jars the whole truck," Endres said.

He said that missing a traffic island can bounce a driver through the roof of his truck. He called that "teeth shattering."But he added that even those traffic calming devices that are plainly marked pose a challenge.

At one roundabout Wednesday, Endres demonstrated how his plow could not go around it correctly -- it wouldn't fit. He had to stop and back up, clogging traffic. He ended up making an illegal left turn in front of the roundabout just to continue his route.

"Traffic calming" is the term coined by Madison's anti-auto fanatics (you know, the ones showing their love for Paul Soglin) for the concrete obstructions they have planted throughout the city. They even have an official policy in this manual. These anti-SUV barriers are actually rather attractive in the summer, but like lite-rail, their proponents have not factored in Wisconsin winters.

Chalk up another one to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I like that picture

What an old fart. He looks like some of the guys in my office, and probably hunts on the same land that they do.

Concrete Nirvana

I came across a link to this map in the comments at Boots & Sabers. At first I was curious about what could have been and how many of the trips that I typically take would be eased by these proposed and canceled freeways.

From Pewaukee east to UWM, south to Chicago, or north towards Manitowoc, I could hop on the freeway right outside my front door and save minutes and miles.

... right outside my front door ...

Upon closer examination, my observation was exactly correct. It appears that the proposed Bay Freeway was planned to run right through my front yard. That minor league ballpark doesn't look so bad after all.

Visit the Wisconsin Highways website for details and history of highways throughout the state. Fascinating stuff.

Cast your vote

ARM's are good

I just watched Charlie Sykes' Sunday morning show, which included the doughy hack from the Shepard Express vilifying adjustable rate mortgages and suggesting that they be eliminated. What a financial moron.

I had an ARM for the 2nd half 1990's and held it until the summer of 2005. During that time, I took advantage of declining interest rates, with my adjusted mortgage rate falling below 3% for some years. It was a beautiful thing.

When mortgage rates began to turn around, I locked a fixed rate mortgage at less than 5%, another beautiful thing.

Anyone financially ignorant enough to choose an ARM at a time of historically low fixed rate mortgages deserves what they got. They do not deserve to keep that home that they cannot afford.

Do I smell a class action?

Risk and reward go hand in hand.

That is the one lesson that anyone enrolled in Mr. O'Meara's Security Analysis class will never forget. If you desire a larger return on your investment, you must make a riskier investment. Likewise, if you desire a larger home than you can afford, you must take a riskier mortgage. But federal officials have taken action to rewrite this equation; reducing the risk for adjustable rate mortgage holders by reducing the reward to the lenders for those mortgage loans.

The Bush administration reached an agreement with the mortgage industry on Wednesday on a plan to freeze interest rates for up to five years for a portion of the two million homeowners who bought houses in the last few years with subprime loans.

The plan, hammered out after weeks of talks among Treasury Department officials, mortgage lenders and Wall Street firms, would allow distressed borrowers who are current on their payments to keep their low introductory rates and escape an increase of 30 percent or more in their monthly payments when the rates expire.

So reports the NY Times. Captain Morrison opines.

Thus endeth the free market. A free market doesn't just involve consumers, but also producers, who need to earn a competitive profit in order to stay viable and continue to produce. Lenders sell ARMs with an eye to long-term profits by offering very thin margins for themselves on the front end. If they cannot adjust the rates of these ARMs on schedule when the price of money rises, then they lose the profit on which they have planned.

What does that do to the market? The producers -- lenders, in this case -- have to either raise prices or restrict production. In this market, it means that credit tightens and people who may have been able to get home loans will get rejected instead. ARMs will almost certainly decrease, if not disappear altogether. Some may find that appealing -- but it will exclude many potential homebuyers from entering the market. That will increase the downward pressure on home valuations, already a major problem in this economy.

I might be wrong, but it was my understanding that Wall Street doesn't own these mortgages, they sell these mortgages. Sell them to investors like you and me.

I own a variety of mortgage securities by way of mutual funds, and I expect that my portfolio includes some of these subprime loans. I do not agree that the agreed-upon interest rates in these mortgage contracts should be ignored and forgiven for the next 5 years. The highly-paid professionals that I pay to manage these investments were the one's who made that decision.

By agreeing to freeze interest rates on my mortgage loan investments, my investment managers have violated their fiduciary duty to their investors. I will not be the only one to notice this. There are also legal experts on Wall Street who make a living on the misdeeds of investment managers.

Soglin's bumper sticker

UPDATE: No filling up at Bubba's

In October I praised Bubba's Place for their position against ethanol adulterated gasoline. That marketing tactic must have failed, because Bubba's does not have any fuel available to sell. Some of my Manitowoc homeys said it has been more than a month since Bubba has had gas. They also speculated on why, but there is nothing that I feel comfortable repeating.

The convenience store remains open.

My first blog hit from ...

(not Constantinople). I was looking for an excuse to post this.

Paul Soglin is right.

Yes, this Paul Soglin.

I don't mean politically. He is always wrong about that. I mean about bicyclists not belonging on the snow covered streets of Madison. I said so here, see Lesson No. 4.

And unlike the progressive Soglin; this mean and uncaring blogger does not advocate shooting bikers or smacking them with a shovel. I was concerned with their safety.

Find the Grammy nominee in this video

Talent, looks, mental stability. She has got it all.

What double standard?

As I was listening to a defender of the nutty blog-commenting teacher's union president on the Belling podcast, a question came to mind.

What would happen if James Buss had scribbled this?



Probably, nothing. To me it appears to be a crude taze me bro' sketch.

Now what would be the consequences of a high school student posting this on MySpace?

Kids like Eric Harris and Dylen Klebold members of the Young Republicans club at Columbine. They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberls rip them; they were heros and should be remembered that way.

Search warrant for the kid's home ... Lock down the school ... Search all the lockers ... Bus in the counselors ... Immediately arrest the kid ... Six figure bail ... I am probably understating it.

I also doubt the teacher's union would be trying to keep this kid in his school.

You can call me Popeye

Mrs. Headless will vouch that the chase through Paris was just like this. Heck, she'll tell you any trip to the grocery is like that with me behind the wheel.

Correction: Mrs. Headless contends that Mr. Hackman is a better driver than me.

How COEXIST nearly got my butt kicked

In retrospect, it was not a good idea to have left his pistol at home. Called to the scene of a traffic accident in the Paris suburbs last Sunday, Jean-François Illy, a regional police chief, came face to face with a mob of immigrant youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and shotguns.

What happened next has sickened the nation. As Illy tried to reassure the gang that there would be an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike had just collided with a police car, he heard a voice shouting: “Somebody must pay for this. Some pigs must die tonight!”

The 43-year-old commissaire realised it was time to leave, but that was not possible: they set his car ablaze. He stood as the mob closed in on him, parrying the first few baseball bat blows with his arms. An iron bar in the face knocked him down.

“I tried to roll myself into a ball on the ground,” said Illy from his hospital bed. He was breathing with difficulty because several of his ribs had been broken and one had punctured his lung.

His bruised and bloodied face signalled a worrying new level of barbarity in the mainly Muslim banlieues, where organised gangs of rioters used guns against police in a two-day rampage of looting and burning last week.

Villiers-le-Bel is home to rioting youths and closer to the Charles De Gaulle airport than anyone flying to Paris would ever want to believe.



In 1998, this cowboy made the mistake of stopping somewhere in or near Villiers-le-Bel to refuel my rental car. Things were uneventful until I tried to pay after fueling. The man behind the counter processed my Mastercard, then looked at the receipt and told me that my card was no good. Mohammad told me in darn good English that I should go up the street and get cash from the ATM to pay for my gas.

As I left the building it dawned on me that the wording on the receipt, although in French, said that the transaction was successful. I also didn't immediately see the ATM and felt uncomfortable going in the direction he sent me. So I decided I was not going to get cash to pay him.

As I returned to the gas station, I told Mrs. Headless to get in the Renault and put on her seatbelt. I went inside and pointed to the receipt, and told Mohammad that it clearly said that my card was accepted. Yet Mohammad denied it and pointed me again to the ATM.

I'd be damned if I was going to pay that terrorist twice for that fuel, so I jumped in the car and gunned it into traffic. I could see that fat son of a bitch in my mirror, he ran out to his car and started to chase me in traffic. I got caught at a couple lights, but so did he. I finally steered onto an expressway and peeled out. It felt like that scene in The French Connection. I soon lost him in traffic and got lost myself. It took a while but I eventually made my way to CDG.

At the time, I believed he was trying to double-charge me for the gas or that he refused to take my card because I am American. Today I know he wouldn't take it because I am a Christian infidel. COEXIST my ass, Mohammad was sending me to be robbed or beaten. Based on current events, I know that my decision to race away was the correct one.

Epilogue - My French must not be too good. The fuel charge never appeared on my credit card statement.

H/T - Dad29

Steyn again, I wish I'd written this

From The Corner:

With the number of homophobic attacks rising in the Dutch metropolis, Amsterdam officials are commissioning a study to determine why Moroccan men are targeting the city's gays.

Gee, whiz. That's a toughie.

As I say somewhere in my book: If you think Iraq's Kurds and Arabs, Sunni and Shia are incompatible, what do you call a jurisdiction split between post-Christian secular gay potheads and anti-whoring anti-sodomite anti-everything-you-dig Islamists? If Kurdistan’s an awkward fit in Iraq, how well will Pornostan fit in the Islamic Republic of Holland?

There's nothing for me to add.

Why stop there?

I love this idea. Nothing says "Milwaukee" like The Fonz.

Correction, nothing says "Milwaukee" like The Fonz, except for Laverne and Shirley.

Fonzie is a great start, but Milwaukee needs a variety of TV icons placed in bronze on it's streets and other prominent locations (in front of snobbish art galleries in the 3rd Ward, yes!). What a fun diversion for the six tourists that come to the city each year. And as a positive unintended consequence, we may help rid the city of dour, self important, no sense of humor residents, like these.

There were many great characters on Happy Days, I think the following also deserve their own statues.

• Richie Cunningham
• Howie & Marion Cunningham
• Potsie
• Ralph Malph
• Al and Arnold
  
• Lenny & Squiggy
  
• The Shark

Anyone else from Happy Days and L&S deserve a statue?

Today Happy Days, tomorrow That 70's Show.

Winter driving lessons

Lesson No. 1. All Season Radial Tire is a misnomer. It should be All Season (except when it snows) Radial Tire.

Lesson No. 2. When it snows, leave the Boxster in your garage. It was a sad sight today at the corner of Gorham & Pinckney Streets.

Lesson No. 3. It is time for SUV and Subaru owners to admit that they did not buy their vehicle for its ability to drive on snow covered roads. The one thing I could consistently predict on today's drive from Madison to Pewaukee, the vehicle holding up traffic in the left lane was going to be an SUV or an AWD Subaru. Otherwise, these vehicles were cowering in the right lane driving 5-10 mph less than prevailing traffic.

I think the caution of these drivers relates to these vehicles' high center of gravity and lousy tires (All Season Radials, of course). Front wheel drive sedans and 4WD pick-ups (with off-road tires) ruled I-94 today.

Admit it now, that SUV or Subaru was all about image. You bought the hype, but were wrong. Now buy a front wheel drive sedan or wagon, and get rid of those ridiculous fuel-wasting vehicles. You will feel safer driving on snow covered roads and have more money for other things after fueling.

Lesson No. 4. Riding a bicycle in the snow - ARE YOU NUTS? I know you're in Madison, and your bike emits no greenhouse gases, and your neighbors think this makes you especially environmentally conscious; but bloody hell - I nearly killed you with my car today. Take the city bus the next time it snows or threatens to snow.



Lesson No. 5. A set of Michelin X-Ice tires is money well spent. These snow tires turned my front wheel drive sedan from white-knuckles in snow; to sure handling and able to start & stop on any hill I encountered. I was fearless on the freeway today, but I kept it in control and did not risk a ride into the median ditch.

Hillary's 9/11

“It looked and sounded presidential,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “This was an instance of the White House experience of this campaign. They knew how to handle this.”

I don't think so, Tim.

To me it looks and sounds like micromanagement of local affairs by a wannabe Federal official. It shows that if she is elected, there will be no matter so small or trivial that The Rodham Administration will not try to run it.

The Captain provides insightful analysis of the Hillary's hostage spin.

Er, what? Sabato, who usually gives intelligent political analysis, must have inhaled a little deeply. Clinton was nowhere near New Hampshire during the entirety of the crisis. What was presidential about having the Rochester PD talk a hostage-taker out of a building? What "leadership" did Hillary show in Virginia during this crisis? She canceled a speech!

The AP's Glen Johnson is even worse. He breathlessly describes Hillary's efforts as "continu[ing] to call up and down the law enforcement food chain, from local to county to state to federal officials." The hostages were released within a couple of hours, and presumably their families had closer contacts with the PD, as they live closer to the offices than Virginia. "I knew I was bugging these people," Clinton told the AP, but she wanted to know minute-by-minute what was happening, so she could tell her staff and be prepared for whatever assistance she could lend. Which would be exactly .... what? If the PD wanted to have her call the ersatz bomber, they would know where to find her.

Hillary certainly didn't do anything wrong, but she didn't "take charge" as the AP implies, or look presidential, as Sabato declares. She certainly looks considerably less presidential today in trying to take credit for the professional work done by the Rochester PD yesterday. That looks a lot more like a politician than a President, and we already know her credentials for the former. This incident doesn't provide Hillary any credentials for the latter.

And where's the criticism of her chicken-shit canceling of a speech and closing of her campaign offices over what was quickly identified as an isolated event by a lone nutjob? Isn't that what President Bush was criticized for following that awful morning in 2001?

"Ooooh, I'm sooooo scared" Hillary should have said. I'm surprised she didn't scramble Air Force 3 and circle Nebraska for the duration of the event. God help us if she's in charge when Osama detonates that suitcase nuke. My esteem for Ray Nagin's crisis management skills would certainly rise in comparison.