Guess the number game

650,000 +

Maxine Waters threatens to nationalize U.S. oil industries

President Chavez, Rep Waters...

Ya'll have a lot in common.

MRQ, yes I know it is Tuesday....

TRQ


May is behaving like April Dr. Blogstein.

it was a girly evening. Keith.

drinking some girly drinks Ally.

I am your brother... your best friend forever! Fishmonger.

Dennis Quaid just walked by me. Racer Rick.

No pants look on good on you. Kevin.

that better make fred's TRQ! Amy.

dressed up as a "Pip?" Kevin.

Note to self: type slow when posting to Twitter, if you don't, your letters run together & you look stupid. Patrick.

MRQ

“Will Barack Throw Mama From the Train?” Sean.

one night our liberal friend got a little unsober Aaron.

I can't do this again. Foot.

We all know that Obama would retaliate by sending cupcakes shaped like little mushroom clouds. Aaron

Daddy or No Daddy J Gravelle.

Boo frickity hoo Ryan.

How about 100% -- and we keep our nukes? Blue.

Beware of Big Sausage. Chris.

’That would make me an Obama fan Kate.

He has a short temper and a drinking problem. Brad

Those trees look pretty healthy Silent E.

take the time to remember. It ain't about you. Grumps.

I’m an engineer and a dork (but I repeat myself). Plebian.

"bobblefoot"? Mary.

Big girl furniture. Jones.

open eyes and low expectations. Owen.

aggressively pursuing angry loners and inebriated winos. Plebian.

My fudge is heaven. Amy.

IHT: Racist Wisconsin Hicks Elect Lying Neophyte

[Special report from Plebian, RDW International Correspondent; see my disclosure at the end]

I just happened to be on a flight to Italy today, so it gave me the opportunity to do something that I rarely do: read the New York Times. Okay, in this case it’s the International Herald Tribune, the international version of the NYT. I couldn’t tell you if this story exists on the NYT or not, and quite frankly, I won’t be going over there to look, either. If you’re curious, you search it out and tell us in the comments.

However, the great state of Wisconsin does get a shout-out in the IHT, in a story titled “US Voting for Judges Perplexes Other Nations.” Its case study is the recent election of Michael Gableman as an example of what’s wrong with the US system. Here’s how the story starts:

“Last month Wisconsin voters did something that is routine in the United States but virtually unknown in the rest of the world: They elected a judge.

The vote came after a bitter $5-million campaign in which a small-town trial judge with thin credentials ran a television advertisement falsely suggesting that the only black justice on the state Supreme Court had helped free a black rapist. The challenger unseated the justice with 51 percent of the vote, and will join the court in August.”

What a picturesque portrait the paint of your racist paradise, bitterly clinging to small-town judges who run slanderous advertisements that make the Willie Horton ads look like Teletubbies commercials!

The article has a lot of blah-blah after that about electing judges, most of it tut-tutting from international legal experts, presumably because international courts are renowned for their fairness and impartiality, as witnessed by recent show trials in Canada and the United Kingdom.

But they manage to work in one more dig at the soon-to-be Supreme Justice Gableman:

“The new justice on the Wisconsin supreme Court is Michael Gableman, who has been the only judge on the Burnett County Circuit Court in Siren, a job he got in 2002 when he was appointed to fill a vacancy by Governor Scott McCallum, a Republican.
The Governor, who received two $1,250 campaign contributions from Gableman, chose him over the two candidates proposed by his advisory council on judicial selection. Gableman, a graduate of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, went on to be elected to the circuit court position in 2003.

The much more rigorous French model, in which aspiring judges are subjected to a battery of tests and years at a special school, has its benefits, said Mitchel Lasser, a law professor at Cornell University in New York and the author of Judicial Deliberations: a Comparative Analysis of Judicial Transparency and Legitimacy.

“You have people who actually know what the hell they’re doing,” Lasser said. They’ve spent years in school taking practical and theoretical courses on how to be a
judge. These are professionals.”

Did you get that? If not, I’ll type in Variety-style headline speak so you can understand it better:

SLICK PRICK SEZ HICK PICK IS NEW TRICKY DICK

So there you have it, Wisconsin residents: you’ve elected an ill-prepared lying racist who bought off the governor and is barely qualified to judge a pie-eating contest in Petticoat Junction, which not incidentally was likely his last job.

Are you proud of yourselves?

(In the interest of disclosure: I am not a Wisconsin native, I didn’t vote for anybody in this race, I don’t know the first thing about this election, I never saw any of the ads or read any of the publicity, and I was not near the grassy knoll that fateful December day. I bring this to your attention because I know Fred supported this guy and I figured y’all might find it interesting. I have not embellished their quotations at all and copied them verbatim from the May 26 International Herald Tribune.)

(In the interest of further disclosure, you can read more of my rambling at Daily Dollop)

MRQ

MRQ will be published tomorrow.

Today is about something else entirely.

On this Memorial Day.

On this Memorial Day nothing else matters.

On this Memorial Day we set aside a little time to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us.

On this Memorial Day we should put aside our partisan bickering.

On this Memorial Day we should stop, pause and pray for those who are currently in harms way.

On this Memorial Day I thank those who have served in all branches of our armed services. You are our best, and you gave your best.

On this Memorial Day, and every other day, may God bless you and your families.

Weekend Funny

Subway says no to home schooled children...

I think I'll be saying no to Subway.

Guess the number game...

10

Update: Minor leaguer traded for 10 baseball bats

Commies vs. Indiana Jones

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Communist Party members condemned the new "Indiana Jones" film on Friday as crude, anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.
The comments were made at a local Communist party meeting and posted on its Internet site www.kplo.ru.

The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest ever release for a Hollywood movie.

In past episodes Indiana Jones has escaped from Nazi soldiers, an Egyptian snake pit, a Bedouin swordsman and a child-enslaving Indian demigod.

RUNNING DOGS

"Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country," said another party member, Andrei Gindos.

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.
Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history. They advocated banning the Indiana Jones outright to prevent "ideological sabotage."

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," St Peterburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told Reuters.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war."

"It's rubbish ... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the U.S. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another member of the local Communist Party, said in comments posted on the Internet site that he would ask Russia's Culture Ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda."

The "Indiana Jones" film is not the first Hollywood production to offend Russian sensibilities.
In 1998 the Russian parliament demanded the government explain why the Hollywood film "Armageddon" - which depicted a dilapidated Russian space station that blows apart because of a leaky pipe -- was allowed onto Russian cinema screens.

A government official at the time said the film, starring Bruce Willis as the leader of a team of astronauts sent to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, "mocked the achievements of Soviet and Russian technology."

Gee what do you know, Jupiter is warming.

Must be all those SUVs...

H/T The Game.

Father-Daughter Talk.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals,was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

Her father responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is ablast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.'

Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily firedback, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!'

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the Republican party.'

The great debate issue of all time.

This weekend kicks off the grilling season once again.

In terms of full disclosure, I grill year round. I've been known to start the pit of fire and char animal flesh in snow storms before so I am hardcore on this issue.

I'm a charcoal man, and I light my charcoal with newspaper, not any lighter fluid. One, the newspaper is fit to burn and two the fluid can leave a bad taste.

Frankly I find those of you who use a gas grill to be pretenders in the great grill off of the summer.

So chat it up folks, Charcoal, or gas....

Burning charcoal is also environmentally friendly. Why if I was not cooking my meal over an open fire, I might drive my gas guzzling car out to eat somewhere.

FOIA Friday.

On May the 6th I sent out a FOIA request to each and every member of Wisconsin's Congressional Delegation.

My FOIA request was inspired by my post on Congress Cars on May the 2nd. That post highlighted an article that exposed a program where House members could lease virtually any car that they wanted and charge it back the taxpayers. The focus on that article was the New York area but it got me to thinking about the Wisconsin members.

My questions to our House reps was simple...

Do you participate in that program?

If the answer is yes, what kind of vehicle do you lease and what is the cost to the taxpayer?

In two and a half weeks I have gotten a response from only two members: Congresman Paul Ryan and Congressman Steve Kagen.

I am happy to report that neither of them participate in the program and both of them indicated they would not be participating in that program in the future.

As I get in more responses I'll pass them along. If any of our delegation ignores my request I'll be passing that along as well.

Interview with a DNC Caterer...

A taste...

DNC: Welcome Chuck. Please have a seat.

CHUCK: But there aren’t any chairs?

DNC: This is a fictional humor column Chuck. Use your imagination.

CHUCK: Ok. And thanks for seeing me. I sure hope you’ll give us a shot. I work real hard and our food is very popular around here.

DNC: Have you heard about the lengthy 28 page "DNC Catering Vendor Request for Proposal" or RFP for short?

CHUCK: Yes. Isn’t that an actual document that will be referenced often in this column?

DNC: It certainly will. It can be found at www.denverconvention2008.com

CHUCK: Good.

DNC: And I see that you are a white male.

CHUCK: Uh, yeah. Is that a problem?

DNC: Probably. On page 8 of the RFP, we clearly state: "The planning committee will look to award 15% to minority business enterprises."

CHUCK: Well, that sucks.

DNC: Excuse me?

CHUCK: Nothing.

DNC: We also expect contracts to be awarded to "..no less than 15% to women-owned business enterprises." Are you by chance, owned by a woman?

CHUCK: Yeah, you could say that. I’m married.

Read the rest, it is well worth it.

'Raqstar

King Canute Award

This week’s winner of the “King Canute Award for Cluelessness” goes to Wisconsin’s own Steve Kagen, who sponsored legislation to sue OPEC for price-gouging.

Way to go, Rep. Kagen! Let us know if the tide rolls back out, okay?

Other finalists:

Freewheeling crank Ron Paul, for insisting that he still has some kind of role to play in the Republican nomination besides the role that your flatulent uncle plays at Thanksgiving.

Columnist John Tomase, who decided that evidence isn’t totally necessary when you’re going to accuse the 3-time NFL champions (who happen to be the hometown team) of cheating for the past decade.

Barack Obama, who seemingly never heard the “50 Nifty United States” song in elementary school. Or counted the stars on the flag. Or paid any attention to national electoral politics. Or divided the number of senators by two.

The NFL, which simultaneous opted out of the collective bargaining agreement to get more money and discussed adding a seventeenth game. Gee, do you think the players will want more money to play more games or something? Naah, couldn’t happen.

I feel your pain Jeff.

The following letter to the editor was published on 5-18 in the Racine Journal Times.

Funny math?

Today we received our annual real estate assessment. We were assessed $5,000 more than last year. The year before was an $8,000 increase. How is this possible in today’s housing market? Recently The Journal Times reported a five percent decline in median home prices for the first quarter of 2008 in Racine County.

Every year our assessment goes up while home prices decline. I’m starting to wonder if we are being gouged by the tax man. I’d be curious to see what percentage of homes were assessed lower this year than the previous year. The Journal Times should investigate this.

Jeff McCarrier
Racine

Last year I contacted the Mayor of Racine to ask him how my yearly assessment had increased 5.9% in a down market. He was perplexed by my question and asked if I was questioning the integrity of his department. I explained to the Mayor that if the assessments were indeed tied to actual market value as is claimed then assessments should be down, or flat. He failed to see my point.

Yes Mayor Becker, I am questioning the integrity of your department.

Well Jeff, my assessment, like yours, is up again this year. (If only the market was.) I have obtained a fair market assessment of my home and will be protesting my current assessment as it is $20,000 over the fair market value.

If the market continues its downward spiral my guess is the city will continue to increase assessments. As we all know this is not about fair market value this is about increasing taxes.

I wish my Alderman would do something about this.

Of myopia, lawsuits and treehuggers.

As the Union officer in "The Outlaw Josie Wales" said :

"Doing right ain't got no end."

Chelsea 2016....

It will never end.

Red State Update: Hillary Wins Kentucky, Obama Takes Oregon

I'm speechless, but it is because I am laughing so hard!

MRQ of the week.

Our MRQ of the week winner this week is actually our first TRQ to win the honor.

This place is a portal to hell with tasty bread.

Congratulations to Nikol!

I've said it before...

The "science" is not settled...

By Bob Unruh© 2008 WorldNetDaily

More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.

But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project. "Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson.

Read the rest.

More Packers = Good.

I could get behind this idea...

ESPN. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell raised the possibility of having a 17th regular-season game as an option to help settle some of the league's future labor problems.

"We are actually looking at that as one alternative," Goodell said Tuesday at the NFL owners meeting in Atlanta, the same day that the league's owners voted unanimously to opt out of their labor deal with the players' union two years early. "We think that may have an impact on some of the things we would want to talk to the players about. It's on the table."

A 17th regular-season game could replace a fourth preseason game and the possibility comes at a time that the league is not satisfied with the quality of the preseason. The league made a presentation to owners about ways to improve the current preseason Tuesday.

Where's Papa's?

Esquire Magazine rated the top 100 bars in the country. Somehow Papa's Social Club, the home of Drinking Right, was excluded from the list.

Oh well, I'm not really much of a bar guy anymore. For those of you so inclined I present the Wisconsin representatives:

The Bars of Silver Street Hurley
Stadium View Green Bay
Silver Dollar Tavern Madison
Old German Beer Hall Milwaukee
Nomad World Pub Milwaukee
Milwaukee Ale House Milwaukee
Lakefront Brewery Milwaukee
Essen Haus Madison

See the whole list here.

The Discombobulater Ray

I think that the governments should be working on space-mounted discombobulater rays. Not a death ray; just something that when it hits you, you crap your pants and spend the next 24 hours drooling on yourself. Then you can go about your business sufficiently chastised.

Why do I want the discombobulater rays? Because the following infractions need to be punished severely enough that they are not repeated, but don’t warrant a visit to our already crowded penal system:

Plane Cell Phone Talkers: You know those idiots who, the moment the plane wheels hit the runway, fire up the cell phone so they can call home and shout “YEAH, HONEY, WE JUST LANDED. WHAT? I DON’T KNOW, THEY HAVEN’T LET US OUT YET. WHAT? NO, LISTEN, I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I GET OUT TO THE TERMINAL. WHAT? OKAY, BYE!” Discombobulate them. And destroy their cell phone.

Bathroom Sink Skippers: Yes, this one’s for all you men out there who use the urinals, dash out, then want to shake my hand. Call me a germophobe, but that’s gross. And I’m well aware of the old joke about “don’t pee on your hands.” So don’t go quoting it here.

Awards Shows: After you get whoever it is accepting for “Best Documentary”, be sure to sweep the audience, too. They all deserve discombobulation.

I love you so much I can’t talk to you people: This should be the societal rule: if you’re at a restaurant with somebody, and they talk on their cell phone for five minutes while you sit there and stare into space, you should have the right to call down a discombobulation on them.

SUV Stroller Parents: The big new fad is these four-foot-wide strollers with all-terrain tires, bumpers, and big gulp cup holders so parents can push around their four-year-olds. These things are a plague at malls and parks all across this great nation. The parents need to be discombobulated, the stroller taken away and sold as a smart car, and the children forced to walk. It may be harsh, but it’s nevertheless a good idea.

Mike Huckabee Appearances: Although you can rarely tell whether or not he’s been discombobulated from his comments, it’s high time somebody started helping convince the Huckster that he’s simply not needed anymore on the public stage this election cycle.

Got anything else that deserves discombobulation? Put it in the comments.

(If you liked this, you can read more stuff at Daily Dollop)

Yes, I'm fine.

I got a rather concerned email from a regular reader a little while ago, it went something like this?

Are you all right Fred, you have not posted anything on RDW all day.

I'm absolutely fine, thanks for asking. I'm busy is all. Believe it or not I have a family, a job and other stuff like that...

I'll put something fresh up later.