Madison – A revolutionary new law enforcement program hopes to confuse pedophiles by having their child targets dress as adults to throw them off the scent. \”This is a cutting edge police program that should serve as a model for the nation,\” said Madison Police Chief Noble Wray.

A recent test of the program yielded spectacular results. First, a number of known sex offenders were pulled from the Democratic Party mailing list and stationed around a local elementary school. The cops then sent a fourth grader out of the school dressed as a janitor smoking a cigarette and talking about what a pain in the ass his wife is, and he slipped by, unscathed. Another kid was then sent out of the school dressed as Batman. \”Everyone knows Batman is really a grown man, so there\’s no way I was going to mess with him,\” said sex offender Miles Charles. \”You don\’t get good at luring children into your van by being stupid,\” he added.

\”We\’re going to need $3.2 billion in order to carry out the program, which will save thousands of children from sexual abuse,\” said Wisconsin Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Burmaster. The additional funds are necessary to buy approximately 200,000 fake mustaches for the boys and an equal number of fake cigarette burns for the girls. The teachers\’ union has some experience with a similar program, where they dress children up as union demonstrators and bus them down to Madison to protest their lack of a pay increase.

Despite the program\’s resounding success, it has has some minor glitches. So far, a problem with the program occurred when a child dressed as a cowboy gave a kid dressed as an Indian a blanket infected with smallpox during naptime. The little Indian was immediately sent home from school, where he was greeted by Governor Jim Doyle seeking a campaign contribution. In another mixup, Stevie Jensen dressed up as a soldier and was immediately called up to join fighting in Fallujah by the Bush Administration.

In an ingenious move, little Joey Moretti decided to dress up as a pedophile, in hopes of repelling actual pedophiles. Ironically, Joey was immediately hired as the Dean of Students at UW-Madison.

This program will be followed up by a new sting operation where police officers dress like children in an attempt to lure pedophiles.

Courtesy of \”Flavor of Love 2:\”

\”Quit interrupting my prayers before God direct me to whoop yo ass.\”

A new report out proving that the Packers are conspiring to kill me:

Televised sports could be killing its key male demo…literally.

That\’s according to a study being presented to the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in New Orleans.

The three-year study, conducted by Dr. David Jerard, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore, found that \”Male patient visits to the ED [Emergency Department] increase significantly in the hours immediately after the conclusion of sporting events broadcast on radio and TV.\”

How significantly? His emergency room saw 75% more male patients in the few hours following a Division I college football game broadcast on TV and radio than during a comparable nongame period, 50% more male patients immediately following a pro football game, and 30%-40% more following a baseball game.

Remind me to put 911 on my speed dial for the next game. Thankfully, the Pack has a bye week this week, so Commissioner Goodell has granted me an extra week to live.

In the spirit of multicultural understanding, I thought I\’d post this clip from Saudi Arabia, where the speaker explains the difference between the sexes. Proof that we may actually be able to find common ground with the people of the Middle East.

For those of you dying to know what I look like, my daughter drew a picture of me. It\’s a dead ringer – I may just see if I can sub this in as my driver\’s license photo. I also think it accurately reflects my mood while at work.

Madison – The Wisconsin Democrats\’ chances of winning took a big hit yesterday when Attorney General candidate Kathleen Falk fell to the floor in agony during a debate. Apparently, Falk was injured while attempting to back-pedal on the previous pro-illegal immigration stance that she championed in the primary.

Early this week, Falk and Governor Jim Doyle announced that they had found $1.2 million in the couch cushions of the Governor\’s mansion to pay for increased staffing at the state crime lab. Political observers have noted how closely aligned the Falk and Doyle campaigns have become, especially since Falk has begun to refer to the Governor as \”Captain Snuggles.\”

As Dane County Executive, Falk is best known for the political courage it took for her radically change hairstyles in mid-administration. Political observers have called it the most daring change in Wisconsin political hair since Lee Sherman Dreyfus began waxing his armpits.

With Falk unable to campaign, the Democrats have the option of using her backup, current Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, to finish out the campaign. However, Lautenschlager is reportedly unfit to run, as she has ballooned to a weight of 330 pounds on a diet of Quarter Pounders and Colt 45 malt liquor since her devastating primary defeat. Sources say Lautenschlager routinely spends her entire day at home watching the Maury Povich show, yelling \”OH, NO – SHE DIDN\’T!\” at the television, while her dog Bubbles licks her feet.

At the beginning of the race, Falk was asked whether she had ever driven drunk, given that she would eventually attack Lautenschlager for her drunk driving arrest. Falk said she didn\’t know, then admitted that she also doesn\’t remember how she woke up with so many beads after Mardi Gras a couple years ago.

I think I\’m a pretty astute follower of Wisconsin politics, but how in the world did I miss this story for a week?

Candidate touts sex with Packers in campaign

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) — Sex! The Green Bay Packers! Sex WITH the Green Bay Packers! The usually ho-hum race for Wisconsin secretary of state is being spiced up by one candidate\’s naughty tell-all book about her bed-hopping exploits with Green Bay football legends during the team\’s glory days under Vince Lombardi in the 1960s…

Hornung did not return numerous messages left by The Associated Press. The book, however, includes a foreword in which he describes Sullivan as a \”carefree, fun-loving girl who fit right in with me and the rest of the \’Pack.\’\”

Actually, I think Hornung has it wrong. It sounds like the Packers actually fit right in her.

Seventy-eight-year-old Carol Williams of Menasha said she was surprised at Sullivan\’s openness, but not her exploits.

\”Who isn\’t doing things like that these days?\” she said.

She\’s absolutely right – in fact, I went to pick up some braunschweiger at Sentry the other day, and accidentally ended up having sex with Bubba Franks. It really is unavoidable.

To pick up on the media attention, JB Van Hollen today announced that in college, he once got hammered and plowed a girl that looked like Ray Nitschke.

Let me just start this post out with a disclaimer: My wife is a smokin\’ hot babe. (You can tell I\’m about to get myself into trouble.) Somehow, I tricked her into marrying me, and the Devil hasn\’t even shown up to collect my soul yet.

Men are often accused of living in a state of arrested development. Much of this is purely optional – I don\’t have to use the top of the pizza box as my plate, I simply choose to. The vacuum cleaner sitting in the middle of the living room floor is just fine with me, as long as it\’s not in the way of the TV. But sometimes, there are things simply beyond our control.

My wife and I took our daughter in for a checkup recently. My daughter\’s pediatrician is, to put it diplomatically, a fine looking woman.* (Men only – please check the end footnote for translation.) So she starts doing the usual tests on my daughter, and begins asking me questions. Suddenly, I got really clammy and started stuttering. I could feel myself breaking out into a cold sweat. I assume words were exiting my mouth, but I don\’t know what they were. There\’s an equal chance that I was either answering her question or telling her how much I enjoy tuna salad.

After a couple minutes of this, my wife shot a look at me, as if to say \”ARE YOU COMPLETELY RETARDED?\” And the answer was, well, yes. For some reason, despite being happily married to the woman of my dreams, I still have a complete inability to talk to other pretty women – even when my wife is in the room. Even though I\’m a grown-ass man, I still expect every conversation I have with a pretty girl to end up with her beating me over the head with a Trapper Keeper, as most of them did in high school. And this time, I can\’t hold on to false hope that getting my braces off is going to turn things around.

So how am I supposed to get over this? Should I not leave the house? To make sure I don\’t run into any pretty women in public, should I just hang out at Democratic Party events? (Hee hee.) I know that I now shouldn\’t care what women think about me, but it feels like I\’m on the spot – and I don\’t know what to do, other than carry out conversations with my shirt pulled over my head, which may or may not send the wrong message.

And at what age does this stop? Is there a certain point that you reach where you just don\’t care anymore? Does this point roughly coincide with the age where you decide to wear sweatpants exclusively?

Are there shy 70 year old men at the nursing home that get nervous about talking to Mabel in the room next door? Does he keep getting up to shave and comb his hair every day, just on the chance that he might get to see her? Does he sneak her the occasional extra bran muffin in the cafeteria to get on her good side? Maybe hide behind a bush to force a \”chance encounter\” when she goes out for a walk? I would think that at that point, most of your day is spent trying not to die, so I don\’t know how much time old guys actually have to pursue romance. Then again, God did the hard work and took care of making this woman single, so it was meant to be, right?

Mostly, I just wanted women not to be too tough on their husbands or boyfriends if they suffer from the same affliction. If your guy can\’t spit out a coherent sentence when talking to the ladies, it doesn\’t mean he doesn\’t think you\’re the greatest person alive. It just means that maybe he isn\’t necessarily convinced that he is.

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* – Bootylicious

P.S. – At some point, everyone\’s going to figure out who I am – when that happens, if you are a female who I have had a meaningful conversation with, don\’t be insulted. I was likely drunk when it happened. Who are you again?

From today\’s Wisconsin State Journal:

MON., OCT 9, 2006 – 12:04 PM
Hundreds rally to legalize marijuana
By NATHAN LEAF
608-252-6126
nleaf@madison.com

An article about marijuana written by Nathan Leaf? Was Smokey von Bongwater not available?

Some things that didn\’t really fit into a post:

I finally buckled and bought a plasma HDTV, just in time to watch the Packers\’ disaster yesterday. In fact, I actually think it did the trick – the high clarity and resolution made Favre\’s fumble seem 30% more like sticking my head in a deep-fryer. With big screen TVs, I actually found that each inch of additional screen space translates to 15 minutes less per day that you spend with your family.

Has there ever been a moment where an entire state drank rat poison at once? That may have been close to occurring after yesterday\’s game. One of these days, the whole state is just going to end it all after a Packer game, then what used to be Wisconsin will be up for grabs for whatever existing state wants to take it over. We\’ll be known as \”North Joliet.\”

The Packers losing that game would be like Mark Green surging ahead in the polls in the last couple of days in the campaign, then denying that the holocaust existed the day before the election. Or saying Julia Roberts deserved her Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich. One of the two.

I had the chance to go see \”The Departed\” on Friday night. Just an outstanding movie – a masterpiece of violence. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon may have just assumed the roles of Deniro and Pacino for the new milennium (I\’m actually just trying to get on a TV ad). Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark Wahlberg are even good. I really suck at reviews, but I\’m just telling you – go see it.

Senator George Allen of Virginia is back in the news, for reportedly failing to report his stock options. You may recall his previous episode, where he called one of his opponent\’s campaign workers \”macaca,\” which apparently is a slur. Here\’s my advice to George Allen – if you\’re going to call someone an ethnic slur, at least make it one everyone already knows. If you pull out a really obscure one, people are going to think you stay up all night thinking of new and exciting ways of offending people of color. You know your campaign is in bad shape when your chances of being President would actually improve if you got caught molesting 16 year old boys.

I was walking down State Street last week, and I saw two birds on the sidewalk standing right in front of a whole bag of popcorn that someone had dumped over. Those may have been the two happiest birds alive. If you were to extrapolate that to the human world, what would be the human equivalent of a pile of popcorn that big? Is there anything that would even translate on the human happiness scale? A 100 inch plasma TV? Charlize Theron ordered to feed you Krispy Kremes every morning by the Supreme Court? A bloody Ben Affleck zamboni machine accident?

A friend of mine watched \”The Presidents\” on DVD the other night (some History Channel thing), and came away from it wondering how in the world Republicans lost the black vote in America. Historically, the Democratic Party was horribly racist – most notably Andrew Johnson and his southern Democrat pals. The GOP were instrumental in getting blacks the right to vote during Reconstruction, so why don\’t Republicans have 80 percent of the African American vote today? Personally, I think blacks turned away from the GOP when Dwight Eisenhower famously banned the playing of \”Whoomp, There it Is!\” at major sporting events.

I don\’t get HBO, so if there\’s any TV show I want to watch, I have to rent the DVDs. So my wife and I have plowed through two and a half seasons of \”The Wire,\” and I think it may be the best TV series I\’ve ever seen. Seriously.

Our friends at the Third District Court of Appeals send us this case this week:

A woman who was staying at an assisted living facility looked up to watch Air Force One fly over her head while President Bush was leaving Duluth. When she looked up, the resident dog wrapped its leash around her legs, which caused her to trip and fall. She then sued the owner of the facility for damages, saying their insurance should pay for her injuries. The trial court and now the appeals court both shot her down, and we here in Wisconsin are all a little dumber for having been exposed to this bogus lawsuit.

Does the Overture Center for the Arts have a \”customers only\” policy for their restrooms? If I\’m walking down State Street and really need to \”go,\” would they force me to look at a couple paintings before I could pee?

Special thanks to the confused person reading this blog at 5:31 PM today, who became the 100,000th unique reader. Goes to show Wisconsin has a long way to go if we want to claim to have good taste.

Then again, Ann Althouse gets 100,000 readers a week, which makes my yearly total look a little paltry. But thanks to everyone who takes a break from doing something important every day to read this dopey blog. I can now cross you all off my \”people to stab today\” list.

I thought a quote from Statler and Waldorf was appropriate when describing my blog:

Statler: \”Hey, that wasn\’t half bad!\”

Waldorf: \”You\’re absolutely right – it was ALL BAD!\”

Being speechless isn\’t a very good trait for a blogger, but I have to admit that a completely incomprehensible \”press release\” issued today by Democratic state senate candidate Kathleen Vinehout has me completely perplexed.

We all know that running a campaign is stressful, but it appears that Vinehout has completely lost her mind. In her \”release,\” she writes a rambling four page poem about her opponent, incumbent Ron Brown of Eau Claire, that simply defies description.

Has Wisconsin ever seen a candidate melt down so completely? Her semi-lucid release reads like it was written while she was on acid. In it, she accuses Brown of somehow being in cahoots with Saudi Arabia to lower gas prices so he can get re-elected, she attempts to take shots at a primary opponent (Chris Danou) that she defeated two weeks ago, and she takes lame shots as Senator Dave Zien (whose name she misspells throughout), who is running in a completely different district.

My description can\’t even do this justice, so just read it for yourself. It is proof positive that Kathleen Vinehout isn\’t fit to serve in the State Legislature. I\’m not sure I\’d even let her near my kid. Is she going to demand that all their debates be done in haiku? Are her radio ads going to be in iambic pentameter?

The flip-flop she references in her campaign poem deals with her position on abortion. Vinehout, a Catholic, always considered herself pro-life – she was active in the Catholic Rural Life Conference. However, as her Democratic primary opponent pointed out, her position on abortion changed completely when she began running for the State Legislature.

In 2004, Vinehout gave an interview to the National Catholic Reporter, where she said – and I am not making this up:

Meanwhile, as Vinehout plans her bid for office, she worries that support from traditional Democratic backers will not be forthcoming because of her antiabortion views. \”I\’ve been told that if I run as a \’pro-life Democrat\’ that I won\’t get any union money, Sierra Club money or environmental money,\” says Vinehout…

Vinehout plans to soft-peddle her pro-life stance when she runs for office. \”If somebody asked, \’How do you feel [about abortion],\’ I\’d tell them,\” said Vinehout, but she will go out of her way to avoid the \”pro-life Democrat\” label.

So, in other words, she\’s ashamed of her position, and is willing to switch it if it helps her get more special interest (union, environmental) money. She even recently spoke at a Women\’s Choice event, where she was endorsed. So fetuses need to watch their backs – their life is only worth something to Kathleen Vinehout in the years she\’s not running for the State Senate and needs special interest cash. Better start up FetusPAC and give her money if you want to stand a chance.

So if Vinehout is so willing to change her position on a fundamental moral issue like abortion to chase campaign money, what do you think she\’s going to do on issues of taxes and spending? Ironically, it was Vinehout who may have terminated her own campaign today with her incomprehensible press release. She won\’t be missed.

Both consistent readers of this blog are aware of my visceral contempt of Ahmad Carroll. It appears that I now will no longer have him to kick around anymore, as the Packers mercifully released him today. A stroll down memory lane from some of my posts over the past year and a half:

October 23, 2005:

1:43 – The Vikings are immediately on the move. Koren Robinson, three weeks out of alcohol rehab, catches a pass after receiving a lap dance from Ahmad Carroll, and tips Carroll 5 bucks. After the catch, play is halted, and Carroll is awarded a trophy for being “Worst Player on an NFL Roster.” Carroll accepts the award, and play resumes.

2:00 – Troy Williamson catches a pass for a first down on third and ten, after being “covered” by guess who? Ahmad Carroll.

2:02 – On the next play, Culpepper throws a touchdown to Marcus Robinson in the same spot of the end zone. I’ll give you one guess as to who was covering (or not covering, in this case) Robinson. That’s right. #1 draft pick Ahmad Carroll.

Remember the part of “The Muppets Take Manhattan” when Kermit gets run over by a car, gets amnesia, and thinks he’s a soap salesman? He shows up at work (named Phillip Phil) and comes up with terrible new slogans like “Ocean Breeze Soap – for people who don’t want to stink,” and “Ocean Breeze Soap – it’s like an ocean cruise, except there’s no boat, and you don’t actually go anywhere.”

It’s like Ahmad Carroll was hit in the head at some point, got amnesia, and now believes he is an NFL player. He just keeps showing up for work, and nobody wants to say anything in case it hurts his feelings. One of these days he’s going to get hit in the head again, regain consciousness, and return to filling the ketchup dispensers at Culver’s. 17-7 Packers.

August 13, 2006:

Somehow, Derrick Turnbow managed to make it out to San Diego and sneak into the game at cornerback for the Packers, wearing number 28. I actually thought about adding a picture of Ahmad Carroll to my \”people who suck\” post, but I thought it was too parochial. Imagine how prescient that would have been – although predicting Ahmad Carroll will give up a touchdown catch is like predicting Katie Couric will bomb at CBS.

August 28, 2006:

York: Ahmad Carroll defending…
York: Carson Palmer could be playing in a wheelchair, as long as he keeps throwing to Carroll\’s guy.
Lamas: At least Carroll didn\’t kick him in the groin.
York: Carroll is never close enough to anyone to kick them in the groin. He\’d need 20 foot legs.

September 6, 2006:

That\’s 8 out of 25 players acquired via the draft that are on the active roster after three years. Of those 8, three are first-rounders: Nick Barnett, who is a quality linebacker; Aaron Rodgers, who has yet to play any meaningful downs; and Ahmad Carroll, who has proven that he has about as much business on a football field as I do performing open heart surgery.

September 18, 2006:

Game time is upon us, as the captains make their way to the middle of the field. I rhetorically ask what the hell Ahmad Carroll is doing out there with the team captains for the coin flip, then joke that that’ll be the closest he gets to a Saints player all afternoon…

Then, with about a minute left in the half, the Saints are driving again. Following a pass play, Ahmad Carroll drops to the ground in pain, causing the Packers to take a time out. After laying on the ground like he had been shot for two minutes, Carroll gets up…and then…stays… in the… game. I immediately stood up and started yelling in disbelief. Let’s see, if you’re the Saints, and you know there’s a terrible corner staying in the game after being injured on the previous play, what would you do? I was yelling “THEY’RE THROWING TO CARROLL’S GUY!” over and over, but sadly, Mike McCarthy didn’t hear me.Sure enough, with 56 seconds left in the half, Saints receiver Devery Henderson blew by Carroll and caught an easy touchdown pass.

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So how is it that it took Packer coaches three years to figure out what everyone already knew?