Nice post today by Jenna at “Right off the Shore” on the newly formed “Justice Party,” which is the brain child of some nut job named Bernie Dalsey. I came to this story via the Capital Times, which reports:

Dalsey, a former Green and Libertarian candidate for state Assembly, has called the Federal Election Commission and the Wisconsin Elections Board to get authorization for the party name to appear on the ballots, if any candidates surface…

Dalsey is currently the only official party member, although he said several people he’s spoken with agree with many of his stances.

Some of the ideas are extreme, including closing all overseas U.S. military bases, severely limiting special-interest dollars in political campaigning and eliminating all foreign aid.
Dalsey is targeting nonvoters as those most willing to follow the Justice Party.

Gee, nobody’s ever thought of the whole “start your own party” shtick, have they? A couple thoughts:

1. How exactly is one crackpot forming his own party worthy of an article? Of course, this is the same paper that prints Matt Pommer’s articles, so Bernie may make complete sense to the cognoscenti over there.

2. I talk to at least two people a week that agree with many of my stances. That means in any given week, I have doubled Bernie Dalsey’s membership.

3. How on earth does someone run as both a Green Party member and a Libertarian? Does that perhaps indicate some confusion on Bernie’s behalf? Would anybody be surprised if they saw Bernie Dalsey pouring thousand island dressing down his pants at the Pizza Hut salad bar?

4. Targeting nonvoters is a brilliant political strategy. “Let me see… in order to get elected, I should appeal to those people who are too lazy to vote.” The whole idea that nonvoters are conscious objectors to the electoral process is absurd – 96% of nonvoters are sitting at home waiting to find out who the next baby daddy is on “Maury Povich.” The other 4% are locked in Steven Avery’s basement.

5. Another statistic – 77% of all third party members end up in the same house, wearing Nikes and breathing in the contents of suspicious balloons. The other 23% end up playing alien warlords in John Travolta movies.

6. Anybody who wastes the time of a poor government staffer that has to verify all these dopey election forms should have to pay the full cost of that staffer’s time. Otherwise, I have to pay for it and I’m so poor, I can’t pay attention.

7. There has never been a third party that didn’t advocate for restrictions on election spending. While legitimate parties serve as efficient fundraising machines, Bernie Dalsey will have trouble buying T.V. ad time with a button from his jacket, his childhood collection of “Highlights” magazines, and a signed, glossy picture of Ernest Borgnine.

Funny side note: The Heaven’s Gate movement is described as a a “destructive, doomsday cult centered in California” by a website called “Religious Tolerance.org.” I’d hate to see what they say about religions they may not treat with such reverential tolerance.

I take back all the mean stuff I’ve said about the Wisconsin State Journal. They are clearly now an unstoppable journalistic force.

2006 Pulitzer Prize Winner

I have a couple of ideas that will allow me to retire within hours of obtaining a patent.

First, I’d create toupees that simulate male pattern baldness. How many well meaning dudes are going to walk around with rugs that look like a rabid racoon fell out of a tree onto their head? At least be realistic – nobody’s going to believe that grew on your head – why not thin it out and start the hairline back a little bit? It’s better than the dreaded combover (which I am convinced is the reason Al Qaeda hates us).

My second idea is a real winner. Know how when you eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, you can’t wait for the cinnamony milk at the end of the bowl? Why not eliminate the “Crunch” portion of the equation and just sell the cinnamony milk? I’d buy it by the gallons! Who wouldn’t buy Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch leftover milk?

I’ve seen some commercials on TV that have offered to patent my inventions for me, so send them some money, quick, if you too want to be as wealthy as Tom Vu.

With the blogosphere breathless about Scott Walker’s “plan” to eliminate automatic increases in the gas tax, I thought I would add a little of my own perspective (it appears Owen may have passed out at his keyboard absorbing the “genius” of the plan). In order to make it more readable, I will add Mcbridean bold face to key terms.

I also heard a rumor that Larry King would return to writing his column for USA Today. I grew up reading his column, and revered it. So I will also write this post as if it were Larry King’s unintentionally funny USA Today column, with barely relevant, semi-lucid non-sequiturs and random thoughts.

* As everyone in the blogosphere has heard, candidate for Governor Scott Walker announced a plan that would eliminate indexing of the gas tax, earmark funds from vehicle related sales for the transportation fund, and protect the transportation fund from future raids. Apparently some bloggers are upset that local news didn’t break into “According to Jim” to report this groundbreaking news. Actually, this “plan” is the exact plan that State Senator Tom Reynolds introduced in the form of Senate Bills 330 and 331 back in September. Walker may have heard that Reynolds’ plan was gaining traction and decided to get out in front of it to take credit if it happens, but it is by no means his original plan. In fact, both Walker and his primary opponent, Congressman Mark Green, are likely to have taken interesting votes on this issue during their tenure in the Legislature (Xoff is reporting that Walker voted against what he is proposing now, but I need citations to figure out what the exact vote was).

*When midgets and dwarves get married, is it considered a “mixed marriage?”

*Proponents of the plan argue that there shouldn’t be any tax that goes up automatically every year. Fair enough. But in raw dollars, every tax automatically goes up every year, because most other taxes are figured on a percentage basis. For instance, the state always collects more from the sales tax because inflation pushes the price of goods and services upward, and five percent of that cost goes to the state. In most years state incomes increase but the tax rate remains the same, meaning the state collects more in income taxes without “raising” taxes at all.
The gas tax is different, in that it is a flat 31 cent fee on every gallon of gas, and is not figured as a percentage. There is a legitimate reason for assessing this tax differently. Since gas taxes are dedicated to a single purpose (road construction), it would cause havoc with the state transportation fund given the mercurial price of gas. If gas were taxed on a percentage basis, there would be no way to project how much would be in the fund for road construction in any given year. While prices of other goods and services fluctuate, the tax collected on them gets dumped into the enormous general fund and pays for an array of government programs, so it tends to even out. Assessing the gas tax as a flat fee allows state government some certainty in what projects they go ahead with.

Following the logic of the gas tax indexing opponents, you could say the gas tax actually goes down when gas prices hit $3.00 per gallon, since the percentage tax per gallon actually shrinks with the higher cost of gas and stagnant tax. So you see, the indexing of gas taxes is merely meant to reflect what happens to every other sales tax in the state, just assessed differently. (For information about the state sales tax, check this document out – you can see on page 14 that sales tax collections have grown from about $2.4 billion a decade ago to $3.9 billion in 2003-04, without a change in the rate.)

*For NBA purposes, do Europeans count as white people? If they do, do I have to start rooting for Dirk Nowitzki?

*Obviously, eliminating the automatic increase in the gas tax is the sexiest and most important part of the plan. The other parts are merely talking points and are essentially meaningless. “Protecting the transportation fund” from raids sounds good, but it’s impossible without a constitutional amendment. Sure, the Legislature could pass a law prohibiting fund transfers out of the transportation fund, but absent a change to the state’s constitution, the next Governor could just introduce a future budget that repeals this “protection” and not take much of a political hit for it.

*Can the name Robin Williams be used in a sentence without the word “genius” in it? Like in the brilliant Patch Adams, when he puts on the fake nose to make the little kids with cancer laugh? What a great message – it says laughter is the best medicine, unless you happen to be dying of cancer.

*Earmarking sales taxes from a specific source is worthless given the point made above, plus the fact that it just steals money from the general fund, causing a deficit there that would likely be filled from another one-time source. In the end, there wouldn’t be much change to the status quo. And fine, go ahead and lobby the EPA to do away with reformulated gas requirement until you’re blue in the face. That strategy seems to have worked pretty well so far, hasn’t it?

*Ranch dressing! The utility infielder of condiments!

*Just because I raise these concerns, don’t think that I’m not in favor of this plan. I am. I think road projects for the most part are bloated, and are a prime source of government waste. Any government should have to work within the parameters of what the people can afford, and Wisconsin’s gas tax is excessive.

But if the Legislature were to go ahead with this plan, they need to fund it. The State’s road plan scheduled projects between 10 and 15 years ahead of time, and the transportation fund is already facing a shortfall for the projects they have already approved. Merely passing the Walker/Reynolds plan without making cuts to road projects is a little short of honest, as it would create a transportation fund hole the size of which hasn’t been seen since Liberace’s final colonoscopy.

*Pancakes! Are they the new waffles?

*Conservatism, as I understand it, means lower taxes and smaller government. The plan addresses the lower taxes part, but takes a pass on the smaller government aspect. Less money means scaling back the road building plan. Where is that going to happen? If the Legislature passes a bill that doesn’t make the cuts to fund the loss in revenue just to get a cheap political vote and get a lap dance from conservat
ive bloggers, it better be ready to increase the tax in the future or increase vehicle registration fees, which is the other way roads are funded.

*If I were arguing in favor of gas tax indexing (which I am not), I would point out that if there ever was something that could be considered “Republican spending,” it would be road building. New and improved roads generate economic development – think the state could get by without renovating the Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee? Is there any question that businesses would help revitalize the north side of Milwaukee if there were a northern highway similar to I-894 to the south? Instead, all the north side malls are rotting and businesses are fleeing en masse. There’s a reason this plan is usually proposed by Democrats – it would substantially curtail road building, which placates the environmental left wing.

*We can clone dogs but we can’t make a pair of adult diapers that don’t make me look like I dropped a couple egg rolls in my shorts?

*One final note: It’s fine to believe legislators are in the pocket of this special interest group or that. Cynicism is healthy. But it’s a charge that is often thrown around without any facts, and is a cheap political trick generally used by liberals. It would be a shame to see conservatives resort to this type of trashing without evidence against fellow conservatives. If you have names, dates, and contributions that you can tie to specific legislation or legislative action, by all means make that connection known. Disclosure laws already exist that shed the light on most contributions, which is in stark contrast to the old days when state contracts could have been sold to the highest bidder and nobody would ever know. But generally decrying the influence of money in government only leads to more heavy handed regulation of political speech, and we’ve seen how convoluted that can be.

I’m shuttin’ the ol’ blog down for a few days while I try to break the world caloric intake record over the weekend. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and gets to spend time with their family (although often those two goals are mutually exclusive). If you can, be sure to help a food pantry out to make the holidays a little better for someone else. I mean, who are you kidding – that can of green beans has been sitting in your cabinet for a year!

As for me, I’m thankful for all of you that have come to my little dopey blog to check out my posts. I’m also thankful for all the support I’ve gotten from my new pals in the blogosphere – a lot of them are on my blogroll over there —–>, and a few you will have to find yourself. Most importantly, I am thankful that I am not Corey Feldman.

If you happen to be the poor sucker that my single, chain-smoking aunt drags to this year’s feast, I apologize ahead of time for the rest of my family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From the obituary:

“In his long years at Planned Parenthood, Roy Holly probably helped oversee the medical care of more women than just about any doctor in the state.

‘We were then the Planned Parenthood Association and had the one big clinic at 12th and State in downtown Milwaukee,’ said Barbara Jane ‘B.J.’ Bacon, now vice president for patient services at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

‘As medical director, Dr. Holly was in charge of running the program,’ she said. “And we saw 13,000 to 15,000 patients a year.’”

Let’s see… 13,000 to 15,000 patients for 17 years? I’m sure those 221,000 to 255,000 children that were never born are appreciative of his efforts.

1. Find the one you love
2. Lower the lights
3. Break out the scented oils
4. Brush your teeth (your breath is pretty bad. Seriously. No, seriously.)
5. Turn the stereo on…

Just when you think the nutjob campaign finance reform crowd can’t be any more self-parodying, feast your ears on this nugget: “The People’s Legislature Song.”

I have been critical of The People’s Legislature in the past (and will continue to do so), but this really takes the cake – and provides a portal to who exactly makes up “The People’s Legislature.” Even the song ridicules Republican involvement (see my previous post for info on Carol Mcky.)

Let’s just say Casey Kasem isn’t coming out of retirement for this one.

In a stunning announcement, Citizens for Responsible Government has announced that they will be filing recall papers against the Mayor of McDonaldland, Mayor McCheese.

“Mayor McCheese is rotten beef that needs to be recalled,” said Chris Kliesmet, organizer of McDonaldland CRG. “It is appalling that McCheese would refuse to pay me a lot of money to show him how to save money in city government,” said Kliesmet. “Not giving in to my blackmail attempt is a clear sign that he is corrupt,” added Kliesmet.

When asked why he would plan to recall the wildly popular McCheese three weeks before the next general election, Kliesmet answered, “The people can’t be trusted to make the right decision about who they elect. Therefore, we need to trust the people to make the right decision about who they elect, just three weeks earlier. It’s all about trusting the people, who can’t be trusted.”

Feather Bees, spokeswoman for MCRG, said “It was important for the whole group of us, none of whom actually live in McDonaldland, to go in and tell the people of that city who their mayor should be. Since I’m really not all that bright, it has never occurred to me how stupid it looks for me to meddle in their city’s politics, given the fact that McDonaldland is entirely capable of electing a mayor infinitely more objectionable than McCheese,” said Bees.

Kliesmet also cited McCheese’s opposition to a proposed McDonaldland constitutional amendment that would restrict the growth in the number of ketchup packets handed out by each restaurant. Kliesmet referred to McCheese as a “BINO (Burger in Name Only)” for turning his back on the plight of processed meat everywhere.

Speaking at a public hearing last year, McCheese bemoaned what the constitutional amendment would do to his city, saying it would cause draconian cutbacks in napkin quality and force everyone to drink out of straws less than an inch long. “If we are forced to cut back, the prisons will close and hardened criminals like the Hamburglar will run wild in McDonaldland,” said McCheese.

Orville Seymer of CRG immediately accused McCheese of government intimidation, saying last night he witnessed a sweaty, morbidly obese purple figure hunched over, slashing his tires. Originally believed to be McCheese’s henchman Grimace, it was later determined to be Kirstie Alley.

McCheese’s legal problems began in 1973, when he was successfully sued by Sid and Marty Krofft for being a ripoff of H.R. Pufinstuff. Following the lawsuit, McCheese fell into depression, battling addiction to Secret Sauce. Following an arrest for soliciting a prostitute, McCheese attempted to commit suicide by feeding himself to a terrier. The dog declined the invitation when he realized he would be eating his cousin, Javier.

“Mayor McCheese is in a real pickle,” said noted UW Professor of Lunchmeat Politics Avery von Snooterston. “Generally, politics is so complicated only highly educated UW professors can understand it, so I’ll try to make it understandable to you common folks. He’s fried,” said von Snooterston.

In order to deflect attention from the recall movement, McCheese announced his intention to invade Subway, as he had heard Jared is developing some lethally good chipotle dressing.

My favorite arbiter of right and wrong, the Reverend Sue Moline Larson, has returned to tell us why carrying concealed weapons is wrong, and that Martin Luther himself would have opposed the concept (For a complete roundup on my thoughts about Reverend Sue, go here).

In a Wisconsin State Journal editorial on Sunday, Larson channels Luther, saying unequivocally that Luther would oppose carrying concealed weapons (she most likely got this idea from his translation of the Bible that includes the passage “I get scared when I go to Minnesota.”) I don’t suppose anyone in the early 1500s was carrying around any weapons on them. Were there even murder laws then?

After going through a semi-lucid account of how the Bible is like the U.S. Constitution (in that they are interpreted differently in different times), this astonishing passage appears:

In today’s consumer culture, expense is not an issue. Guns can be purchased in shops, ordered online, collected at gun shows, or bought from a neighbor. For gun owners, a firearm is as common as having a chainsaw or a Weber grill. If the bill they support becomes law, more people will bring guns to the grocery store, gas station, library, child-care centers, shopping mall and even church.

The people of Wisconsin don’t want that. An April 2003 survey by the Public Policy Forum, a non-partisan, nonprofit research organization in Milwaukee, found that only 27 percent of Wisconsinites supported allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons.

I’ll leave comment on the first paragraph to the devoted gun people to make the case that this makes us all safer, and you would just be legalizing carrying a weapon for those people that are already carrying weapons into these places. There wouldn’t be an increase in the number of guns at all – just a legal recognition that people are already carrying them, and a licensing provosion that makes sure that those who are carrying them are competent.

What amazes me is the fact that Reverend Sue, as the director of the Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin, would actually cite a poll of Wisconsin residents in her push against concealed carry. What religion bases their beliefs on public opinion? You think you’d ever see a press release from the Catholic Church that says “55% of Wisconsinites believe abortion is wrong, so therefore it must be?” You think the Catholic Church is going to change its stance on birth control because a high percentage of women use it? Is the divinity of Christ in question if a certain percentage of Wisconsin residents believe he ain’t coming back?

I’m no theologian, but religions exist to dictate public opinion, not reflect it.

Side note: I’m also a fan of this statistic she uses: People who live in a home where there is a handgun are four times more likely to have someone in the house accidentally shot. The newsflash here: somehow 20% of people who are accidentally shot get shot in a home with no gun in it. How does this happen?

I read the following passage from a post at “Standards and Grudges,” and was genuinely moved.

For the past two years there’s been one girl that I’ve had very strong feelings about. I screwed it up the first time around, but I never could shake those feelings for her and believe me I tried. I found myself making excuses to ignore those feelings and rationalizing that now is not a good time to make a move. I was constantly setting another benchmark that needed to be accomplished before I tried again. Time kept going by and I waited. I’m tired of waiting. The feelings I have for her haven’t changed in two years. Obviously trying to ignore those feelings isn’t working. Lately has been especially difficult. I’ve had more contact with her, but by no means a lot. I actually see her maybe once or twice a month. But I’ve been dreaming about her lately. Very strange dreams. I can’t seem to get her out of my head and my subconscious seems to be giving me an ultimatum.

I’ve decided that excuses be damned. Get the girl or die trying. I have to make a move, but what kind of move? I could work my way into gradually spending more time with her or I could just blurt it out. Maybe a combination of the two. I’ll admit that the dreams I’ve been having fall along the lines of blurting it out. Probably a bad move, but the urge to do so is strong. At this point I think any amount of planning is pointless. I’ve suppressed this for so long that I don’t have much will power to resist my feelings and abide by a plan.

For us guys, I think we have all been there. There’s a girl that you can’t get out of your head, and it just kills you. The thought of her makes you stay up all night, babbling incoherently. You pencil her name in your notebooks over and over. You try to find out where she hangs out, so you can occasionally “bump” into her. You construct an elaborate tunnel system underneath her house and camp out with a stethoscope held up to her floor, to hear everything she says. Okay, maybe that last one is just me.

You don’t even really want a physical relationship – your reward is to just be in the same room with her as much as possible to feel the electric nervousness you get when she is around. You just want to be privy to the way her hair falls over her eyes and she flips it back, the way she giggles at your jokes that don’t necessarily deserve a laugh, and the way she bites her lip and looks at the ground when she smiles. She has no idea how big all the little things are to you, but you soak them all in.

You sit home and try to devise ways that you can trick her into being with you forever (since the last time you wore full body length spandex and a Seattle Seahawks helmet to her house didn’t work). You feel like you have a bowling ball in your stomach when she’s around. When the doctor tells you that you do, in fact, have a bowling ball in your stomach, you realize you have to take action, as you have only 12 minutes to live.

You play Scooter Libby and try to leak sensitive, classified information to her via friends, to see what she thinks. True story – in high school, I had a friend of a girl that I liked call her while I was on the other line via three way calling, just to see what she thought about me. During their conversation, my little sister picked up one of the other lines in our house and started yelling “Dennis likes a girl! Dennis likes a girl!” They never found my little sister again after that.

You finally decide that you want to tell her everything about what you think, but it has to be the right time and right place. You spend weeks penning the perfect speech and committing it to memory, as if you are going to debate Stephen A. Douglas. You chicken out at least 34 times before the scene is just right. After a delicious meal at KFC, your heart is pounding and your blood is on fire. You finally stumble through your speech, making nervously unexpected detours through the topics of David Hasselhoff, the occult, Chef Boyardee products, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Seconds later, you will have no recollection of a word you said.

So I want to use my blog for the power of good – we need to get Steven some tips on how he can best court this young lady. Go to the post above and comment to offer him some encouragement, or e-mail him some tips (or e-mail your best tips to me, and I’ll post them). I will stay on this until he does give her the big speech, and report on what happened. And if you know this woman, slap her upside the head and tell her she’s missing out.

Steven A. Stehling deserves this woman. He has served his country, now it is time for his country to serve him. Help him out!

Buried in the October 21st Wispolitics REPORT:

A new poll looking at the race to replace GOP Sen. Cathy Stepp shows fellow Republican Racine County Executive Bill McReynolds edging out his Democratic opponent, Rep. John Lehman. The poll, conducted by the Building IndustryCouncil, a group associated with the Wisconsin Builders Association, says McReynolds beats out Lehman in name awareness (73 to 64 percent), “hard awareness” – knowing either candidate well enough to form an opinion (47 to 32 percent), and favorability rating (32 to 20 percent).

The respondents to the poll also said the McReynolds would get 38 percent of the vote if the election were held today, compared to 31 percent to Lehman.

Some candidates stub their toe out of the gate after they announce, but Lehman stubbed his toe, sprained his ankle, fell in the mud, got trampled by a family of hippos, and burst into flames. Here’s his quote in the Racine Journal Times in the very article that announces McReynolds’ candidacy:

“Bill McReynolds does not have a legislative record,” Lehman said, “but he does have a record as a sheriff and county executive that I would love to debate… He has the philosophy of small government, watching taxes. And the question is if that philosophy will best serve Racine County.”

So I guess we now know who the candidate of bigger government and not watching taxes is, eh? Is higher taxes the philosophy that will best serve Racine County? It’s almost like Lehman is working for the Republican Party – get that man a membership!

It’s pretty clear that this election will be war – although it will be the first war in which Lehman will ever see action. He was convicted in 1971 of refusing to submit for induction into the armed services for the Vietnam War and served three months in prison*. He was pardoned by President Gerald Ford, which allows him to currently hold state office (unpardoned felons are prohibited from holding state office).

*Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 6, 1996

I know nobody likes hearing lame stories about other people’s kids, but a seminal event in our family occurred this morning when my two and a half year old daughter declared that her favorite song is the Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.”

She could now go on to win a Nobel Prize and I wouldn’t be as proud of her as I was this morning. She has rejected the Wiggles/Barney/Nemo paradigm and is destined to kick ass.

Wow. Whoever new blogger Playground Politics is, they come out of the box with a bang, unearthing holy pictures with Jim Doyle and recently minted Wisconsin punchline Steven Avery. Don’t suppose we’ll be seeing this picture come election time, will we?

Read the link here – and be sure to follow the timeline of what Avery has done besides the disproven rape charge for which he famously served 18 years. The only thing I would add to the timeline would be this egregious lapse in judgement:

2005 – Avery shows up at a press conference celebrating his innocence wearing a pair of jean shorts and a blue t-shirt with a burrito stain on it.

Makes you wonder why politicians would tie their fortunes to a guy who would set a cat on fire.

Here’s Playground’s take:

Avery has been out of prison hardly more than two years, and now is on the precipice of being convicted of one of the most horrific and brutal slayings that Wisconsin has ever seen. If you won’t stand by him now, well, that says one of two things:

You are horrible judges of character, and surely anyone who misjudges a person that badly cannot be entrusted to do the will of the people or to hold a leadership position in the State Legislature.

You are shameless media whores who never really cared about Steven Avery and simply used him as a visual aid to get yourselves on television, on the radio, and in the paper.

Take your pick, gentlemen. Steven Avery is your buddy. Which is it?

UPDATE: For a copy of the the press release Doyle issued at the above press conference, go here. In the release, he bemoans what a poor guy Avery is that he lost his marriage and his job. In hindsight, it appears that Avery’s prison time did all those people a service. Doyle says:

Steven Avery spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. At the time of his arrest, Avery had a wife, five children, and a job. When he was released, his wife had divorced him, his children – two of which were less than a week old when he was imprisoned – were grown, and his job was long gone.

In a press release today, Attorney General Candidate J.B. Van Hollen included the attached picture to show how tough on marijuana he is. What Van Hollen doesn’t tell you, however, is that the next day, he scored a large amount of a different substance. His office provided me a photo of that announcement, too.