So by now, you\’ve all heard the story of Johnny Lechner, the \”lovable loser,\” who has spent twelve years at the UW-Whitewater. He\’s been featured in both the state and national media, and was only marginally entertaining then.

Well, there he was this morning, on the front page of the state\’s two largest newspapers (the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal), as he was announcing that he would be staying for a 13th year of college. Translation: he\’s going to milk this thing for all it\’s worth. Not to be outdone, the MJS is offering an online chat with Lechner.

We get it; he\’s got a publicist and feels the need to \”announce\” things to keep his name in the news, since he is unqualified for anything other than being a media hound. If his goal is to keep embarrassing himself and the UW-Whitewater, he has been a resounding success.

It is shameful that the supposedly serious media in this state would continue its complicity in this charade. I hope they\’re happy that they continue to be manipulated in the \”Get Johnny Lechner Laid\” sweepstakes.

I imagine his little stunt is less popular to the kids who legitimately want to go to college and succeed, and they probably resent his taking up a spot for someone who actually does want to go to college. Then again, if you can\’t get into UW-Whitewater, you may want to consider the possibility that college may not be for you.

I\’m too lazy to re-type my entire discussion with a buddy of mine about this week\’s \”24,\” so I\’ll just cut and paste what we had to say. There are spoilers in here, in case you haven\’t watched it yet. My friend demanded to go by the name of Evil Grossmouth, the bad guy in this Wisconsin Dental Association comic book.

Dennis York: You\’re right – 24 was outrageous.

DY: There wasn\’t a single scene without a hole you could drive a truck though.

Evil Grossmouth: Was there not a 100% chance that the worm Miles was going to rat them out to the President? Anyone with a GED or a certificate from a welding college could have figured that out.

EG: That was where I lost it. And I love how Bierko\’s henchman is driving the van taking him from CTU, and they give us no explanation how they set that up.

DY: So Jack risks the lives of 50 plane passengers to secure the recording, gets back to CTU, then promptly hands it over to Chloe to go see Audrey for 15 minutes.

DY: PLAY THE F—ING TAPE!

EG: Or better yet — MAKE A COPY OF IT. He gives it to her, doesn\’t tell her to copy it, but tells her to \”clean it up\” And he tells her to work alone and let nobody near her and then you see her siting there working in a goddamned conference room?

DY: When he was on the plane, he was on the phone with CTU – why wouldn\’t he play the tape for them over the phone? Then, if they got shot down, which he knows the president was trying to do, the evidence would survive.

EG: Also, to prevent the country from having to deal with the agony of a sitting president being charged with murder and treason, Logan decides to blow his own brains out? Yeah, that would have really prevented a scandal.

DY: And Mike Novek was already on the phone with the woman from CTU a couple times that day. All it would take would be for one of them to call each other during the plane incident, and everything would be cleared up.

DY: He would never think to call Jack? Or CTU?

DY: When he knows something is going on?

EG: The more I think about it, the more angry I get. Thanks a lot.

DY: Actually, the Bierko scene was one of the least outrageous to me. I was just thinking \”Jesus, how many moles can there possibly be?\”

EG: And none of the eight guards with him noticed him nod at the driver and the drive nod back? Nobody would have caught that?

DY: But when Jack left the recording to be with Audrey, who he had already been told was okay, I almost had an aneurysm.

DY: Or when Karen, Chloe, and Bill Buchanan are in the conference room and Karen decides she has to tell Miles what\’s going on. Everything is going totally fine, and telling him would do absolutely no good, but could jeopardize the operation.

EG: Of course. He wouldn\’t need to prepare anything to brief the AG about the president being a traitor and a murderer. Karen telling Miles was really the last straw for me. I almost turned the TV off there. I only kept it on because I was hoping against hope that she was luring him into the hallway so she could tell him she knew he was working with Logan and then stab him in the throat.

DY: I actually considered just not watching anymore after 21 hours.

EG: I thought about it too, but I can\’t do that. It\’s the same reason I\’m sticking with Alias despite its awfulness — I\’ve already invested enough time in the thing, I ought to see how it ends.

EG: I just hope they finally set 24 somewhere other than LA next season. Seriously, after the last five years, why would any president, government official or person ever go to LA?

DY: And, gee, what was the chance that Logan was going to get a call from someone right as he was about to kill himself? And I\’m sure calls that come in to the retreat from a cell phone go right to him at 4 AM.

EG: That\’s usually how it works. \”Yes, I\’d like to speak to the President. May I tell him who\’s calling? My name is Miles. One moment please, sir.\”

DY: \”Please hold all calls except any unexpected calls I might get from people named Miles.\”

Not exactly Pulitzer material, but I had to complain.

Lodi, Wisconsin (AP) – The much anticipated race for Wisconsin Klan Grand Dragon between Orville Hornblower and Herbert \”Stumpy\” Williams has turned into a contentious race, with each candidate accusing the other of not being sufficiently culturally ignorant.

In a race littered with charges, counter-charges, and broken English, Hornblower has vowed to take a hard line stance, while Stumpy has pitched himself as practicing a more family friendly brand of racial and religious hatred.

Williams introduced his four part\”compassionate racism\” platform to appeal to middle of the road Klansmen. \”Under my plan, we would give people at least 60 seconds\’ notice before we torch their house,\” said Williams, who also vowed that biracial residents would only be harassed every other week.

Williams emphasized personal responsibility and a good work ethic. \”I once lost a job down at the grain mill to a colored fella,\” said Williams. \”I didn\’t get mad, though. It just made me work that much harder to burn his house down,\” he said.

Williams believes he can find an audience by bringing racism home to the average American. \”You know how when you\’re at the grocery store and you really want a bag of Ruffles potato chips, and there\’s only one bag left, and somebody grabs it right out from under your nose, even though you saw it first? It\’s just like that, except the potato chips are taken by the blacks, Jews, and Catholics,\” said Williams.

Meanwhile, Hornblower has called Williams a RINO (Racist in Name Only), and promised voters that he will reward them with truly vitriolic hatred of people of different religions and skin colors. \”Racism really is a growth industry,\” said Hornblower. \”There are Armenians, Greeks, Brazilians… groups out there that we really have never thought about hating before. Hatred really can be a limitless endeavor under the right guidance,\” said Hornblower. He also said he has evidence that Williams\’ great aunt once got a footrub from an Eskimo.

Both candidates agreed, however, that images of black men and white women together should not be condemned. \”Naw, that\’s too hard core for me,\” said Hornblower. \”Anybody that\’s uncomfortable with a public image depicting interracial affection is a little too extreme for the Klan,\” said Williams.

Record turnout for the election is expected, but only if Hornblower gets his cocker spaniel to vote. Last year, the vote was tied 1-1, but Williams was disqualified, as he failed to spell his name correctly on the ballot. \”I got a third grade education, and I ain\’t afraid to show it off,\” said Hornblower.

Madeline is a 58 year old single woman who lives on Milwaukee’s East Side. She’s a UWM psychology professor who gladly pays extra for a good cup of fair trade coffee. She volunteers at a local homeless shelter, helping people get back on their feet. Her Joan Baez records still speak to her. She didn’t think John Kerry reflected her views very well, but held her nose and voted for him anyway. Divorced for 20 years, she feeds her strong sense of self through her work and by continuing to raise her adult children.

Madeline walks to work, and takes the bus on the days it rains. She’s dismayed at how many people drive to work and school and strongly supports government investment in public transportation. She has contacted Mayor Barrett in support of light rail service. She supports increased gas prices because she knows that the higher gas prices go, the more people will be forced to find alternative modes of transportation. She knows that if gas rises to $4.00 per gallon, people who now drive to work alone will begin to be more creative with how they get around. They will begin to carpool or take the bus.

Also, she recognizes the benefit to the environment that high gas prices offer. The fewer miles people drive, the less gas tax will be collected, which means less road building. The fewer people drive, the cleaner the air will be, and the ozone layer won\’t be damaged at the rate it is now. She sees protecting the environment as a moral choice, and supports anything that gets us closer to a cleaner earth, since current conservation efforts have been ineffective.

Madeline is concerned about lower income individuals having to pay more for gas, but believes the government can set up a program to direct help to the people that need it. Instead of sending money for a war she disagrees with, she thinks we can at least help out the poor with gas prices or pay for their public transportation.

Doug is a married 35 year old father of three who works at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. He joined the United Auto Workers union fresh out of tech school when he was 22, and has been working at the plant ever since. He has been an active UAW member because he believes the union gives him the job security he needs, and he desperately needs to keep his job to feed his family. He knows the union has fought for better health benefits, hours, and working conditions. He values all of these accomplishments, as he likes nothing more than spending time with his family, and there\’s no way he could pay for his son\’s braces without the benefits.

Doug knows that the plant in Janesville dodged a bullet last year when GM announced it was laying off 30,000 workers, but none in Janesville. He worries that the Janesville plant is so reliant on SUV\’s, which use more gas than other GM vehicles. Doug knows that when gas prices rise sharply, people will be much more likely to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or hold off on buying a car altogether. When this is the case, GM\’s profits will fall off even further, leading to even more substantial layoffs than the ones announced last year. He fears that he could be among those that lose their jobs.

Doug has also talked to union members in other trades that worry about the ripple effect that high gas prices have on their business. When gas prices go up, it costs more money to transport goods, and when the prices of those goods go up, fewer people will buy them. When profits from things like plumbing pipes, electrical wiring, and groceries go down, employers will either look to scale back benefits or move right to layoffs. Doug doesn\’t want this to happen to him or any other union family that depends on their jobs.

———————————————————————–

While these are two hypothetical people, they are two very real points of view. While Republicans at the state and national level try to come up with a solution to high gas prices (they have to, they are in charge), Democrats have been relatively silent on the issue, other than to reflexively criticize whatever Republicans come up with.

Democrats have gone into PR overdrive with the gas price issue, offering \”anti-gouging\” legislation and criticizing oil companies\’ \”record\” profits. A day hasn\’t gone by over the last two weeks without a new Democrat plan or a politician threatening to send people to a ridiculous website to sign a petition to threaten oil companies into lowering prices (they could exert meaningful pressure by conserving their gas use, but apparently choose not to).

However, when you put politics aside, isn\’t there a wing of the Democratic Party that actually doesn\’t mind high gas prices? Don\’t high gas prices promote conservation and smarter transportation options? On the other hand, don\’t high gas prices line the pockets of big oil companies and sheiks with which we are at war?

Last week, the State Senate took up a bill (SB215) to repeal the state law that requires the price of gas to be increased by 9%, as it keeps small gas stations in business. There aren\’t many things that can be done at the state level to keep gas prices down, but this is the biggest one. That 9% markup costs the average consumer between 25 and 30 cents per gallon when gas is at its current levels. Yet when a vote on the bill was taken, every Democrat except one voted to kill the bill. Despite all of their huffing and puffing about \”gouging\” and the effect of high gas prices on working families, Democrats completely whiffed on offering real relief.

So when you see Democrats decry high gas prices, you should wonder if it really is in their best interest to do so. Every \”anti-gouging\” press release is really an \”anti-conservation\” press release. It appears that the Democrats\’ official position is that using as much gas as you want is a fundamental human right. The more you want gas, the less you should have to pay for it, environment be damned.

Are you Doug, or are you Madeline?

It\’s about time the Journal Sentinel recognized the contributions of the true heroes of society. It is people like Rotation Slim that are out promoting real economic development (as well as contributing to the windfall profits of the syphilis ointment industry).

Slim was fond of whores; he had an affinity for them.

And who isn\’t?

I love that they refer to him as a \”retired pimp.\” Is he collecting Pimp Social Security? Is there a retirement plan for that? When he needs his prescription drugs, does he go in, flash his pinky ring and cane the pharmacist?

So does it make me a dork that I now snap my cell phone shut with a little extra vigor so I can be like Jack Bauer? It\’s awesome – I want my friends to call me just so I can can hang up on them.

Never mind, I think I answered my own question.

So you know when you\’re in a job interview and they ask the stupid question \”what is your biggest weakness?\” And you have to come up with some completely bogus answer, like \”I work too hard,\” or \”I\’m too dedicated to my job\” or some BS like that?

This weekend I figured out that I am terrible at gauging the correct amount of ranch dressing I need for whatever I plan on dipping into it. Whether it be chicken wings, pizza crust, or chicken strips, I always put way too much ranch into the cup I\’m using, which means I end up wasting about four ounces of perfectly good dressing.

So there you have it, prospective employers. I have now come up with my answer. So there\’s really no need to ask it anymore.

Although I spent most of my weekend mesmerized by the NFL Draft, I had the good fortune to catch a special one hour \”Elimidate\” on Saturday night. As a result, I may not be posting at all for the next week, as I will be in the shower scrubbing myself clean until next Saturday. I think I can say without hyperbole that Eliminate will lead to the fall of civilization.

For those of you who haven\’t had the pleasure of watching an Elimidate episode, it goes something like this:

A musclehead doused in equal parts hair product and self-tanner goes on a date with four women who are growing more bacteria than the UW biological science lab. These scantily clad women feign interest in this complete dope for a chance to be on TV, ripping each others\’ appearance, weight, hygiene, etc. in an attempt to gain more screen time. The producers, of course, throw in plenty of alcohol, which makes for a highly combustible cocktail of tattoos, bad teeth, sexual double entendres, and a shocking paucity of dignity and college degrees. In the end, he has to pick between this collection of future single mothers, based almost entirely on who has the best jugs.

It\’s almost like porn, except it\’s a lot worse, since there\’s a lot of talking and no nudity.

The main problem with the show is that it completely goes against human nature. Anyone who has ever studied male/female relations knows that men are in constant competition for women. There are actually anthropological roots to this – something about men having an infinite number of sperm and women only having a finite number of eggs, so women are much more in demand. Sounds crazy, but I actually took a class in college on it – look it up.

There has never been a situation where four women are all after the same (non-famous) guy. There are plenty of situations where a bunch of guys are after the same girl (and some of the shows are one girl and a bunch of guys). For men to be able to get any woman they want, they either have to be Brad Pitt or an anonymous blogger. OK, scratch the last one. Of course, every woman has figured out that all they need to possess to get any man they want is an Altoid and about 3 minutes.

I look forward to seeing my next episode of Elimidate just a little less than I look forward to the death of my puppy dog. The good news about the show is that all of these contemptible people live in Los Angeles (the birthplace of 90% of everything that is objectionable in the world), so they can continue to infect each other with whatever groundbreaking venereal science projects they contract.

Nice job by Michael Horne at MilwaukeeWorld of picking up the police report on the recent traffic stop of State Senator Tim Carpenter:

They had observed the vehicle driving on the shoulder for half mile or so andthought it struck the median wall. I observed the vehicle SE CTH F LL. The driver of the vehicle leaned to the right and totally disappear from sight on two occasions. During these times he deviated and came near to striking vehicles around him. The callers were trying to box him in, but he got around them. I activated lts and siren. Vehicle stopped RS at Golf Rd. WI DL going to Chicago for art exhibit that closes at 5 and needed his I-Pass and was looking for it and his cell fell and he had to look for that and there were other items on the passenger side he was trying to organize.

“He was doing everything but driving the car.”

Now we know why Democrats oppose having to show your driver\’s license to vote. By the end of the year, none of them will have one.

Washington (AP) – The U.S. Senate took a dramatic turn today as a lunchtime Taco Bell run in Senator Russ Feingold\’s car was poisoned by a toxic anal cloud. It is still unclear who released the rancid fart, with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) riding shotgun and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in the back seat.

\”Whoever is responsible for that atrocity should be held accountable,\” said Feingold, as he took a bite of his steak Grilled Stuft Burrito. Feingold immediately had his staff look into whether a large intestine has been ever been censured. It only appears that Senator Jacob Welsh Miller\’s beard was censured in 1802 for accepting numerous bribes.

Unnamed sources close to the situation have reported that Obama is most likely the responsible party. However, no senator was willing to finger the freshman senator from Illinois as the culprit. \”If we blamed him, he\’d just play the race card,\” said Lautenberg. \”What he needs to do is play the \’race to the bathroom\’ card, because it smells like a woodchuck died in his colon,\” added Lautenberg.

\”It was totally Obama,\” said Landrieu, who immediately phoned in a report of Centox Nerve Gas to the Department of Homeland Security. When told that Centox gas only existed on the popular television show \”24,\” Landrieu immediately suspected Obama. \”I saw him giggling back in the corner while he pulled his shirt over his nose,\” she said.

It appears that Obama was invoking a little-known legislative maneuver known as \”hot boxing,\” in which a legislator rolls all the windows of the car up before flatulence occurs. This tactic, also known as the \”Dutch oven,\” apparently was first employed by Senator Henry Clay in 1830, which earned him the nickname \”Old Rotten Ass.\”

Republicans immediately pounced on the revelation, with Sam Brownback (R-KS) relating an unfortunate recent encounter with Obama. \”We were working late one night, and he tried to give me a cup of \’F\’\”, said Brownback, referring to a little-known tactic where the perpetrator \”cups\” a fart in their hand and delivers it directly to the face of the victim. Brownback claims he got his revenge the next day when he rubbed Crisco on Obama\’s office doorknob, followed by passing a bill declaring Illinois \”Kansas\’ bitch.\”

Hearings are set to begin on the controversy in May.

Welcome to the world of cyberspace, where things might not always be what they seem. At least I hope that\’s the case with a comment that I received on this post from last Friday.

The post, entitled \”MPS Boys Score #1 in Nation on Female Anatomy Tests,\” was an attempt to poke fun at the ridiculous new program in Milwaukee Public Schools that will provide free wireless internet to students and teachers in their homes. The picture accompanying the post featured two African-American boys doing what young boys of any color would do with free internet – looking at salacious websites.

It appears that \”Art Hackett\” had a problem with the post. In his comment, he wrote:

Warning: Severe rant ahead.

In my home state of Texas a dummied up photo like this would be the product of someone else who remained anonymous. Except they would hide under a pointy white hood instead of a sock puppet. The goal in that case would have been to get these two boys lynched. I presume your target is a school board member, the head of the state teacher\’s union, or maybe some education professor. Lord knows the Milwaukee Public Schools have problems. But people of all political stripes have been trying to fix those problems with some success. But I\’ve been looking at this photo for three days now and I just couldn\’t stomach it any longer.

Art Hackett 04.23.06 – 6:05 pm #

Art Hackett, as none of you know, is a \”reporter\” who has worked for Wisconsin Public Television for 24 years, according to his bio. Now this being the internet, I have no idea whether it was actually Art Hackett who posted that comment or not. It\’s perfectly possible that it\’s someone with a grudge against Hackett trying to provoke me into going nuclear on him. I don\’t really know, but I\’m actually willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn\’t post something so offensively stupid.

But for argument\’s sake, let\’s say Art Hackett really is that detached from reality. Let\’s say that he thinks coming after me for a completely inoffensive, race-neutral joke post is more important than actually taking on the difficult issues that are killing MPS, like fatherless homes and gang violence.

First of all, someone needs to tell Hackett that MPS is 60% African-American, 20% Hispanic, and only about 16% caucasian. If he ever drove his little Prius to Milwaukee, he might know that. The truly strange thing would have been if I tried to represent typical MPS boys by using a picture of white kids, which apparently would have been just okay with him. How dare I ascribe the same characteristics to black kids that are inherent in every white kid? (I used to be a white kid; I know.)

Secondly, the post itself makes no mention of race, and ridicules the policy, not the students. When an idiotic policy to spend a half a million dollars in MPS to give students free internet, it doesn\’t hurt white kids. It hurts minority kids, who, given the abysmal graduation rate in MPS, seem to need all the classroom resources they can get. But I guess the fact that I was advocating for a change to help African-American kids get a better hands-on education seems to Hackett that I was advocating their \”lynching.\”

Hackett, of course, is one of these lefties who is all for an honest debate on race until an honest debate actually occurs, in which case you\’re a KKK member if you\’re not on his side. He\’s the type of guy who advocates for a color blind society, but sees race in everything. It makes him sleep better on his little publicly-funded pillow when he thinks he has the answers to racial inequity, when centuries of our best thinkers haven\’t been able to come up with workable solutions. Isn\’t it funny that you can be fired for being a racist, but get to keep your cozy public job when you go around falsely accusing people of being racists?

So I apologize if Hackett can\’t \”stomach\” pictures of black people. Surely, he sent an angry e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel just today when they chose to run a picture of a 9-year old African-American student in an article about school choice.

That is, of course, if it is Art Hackett. I guess we\’ll soon find out.

In the interest of helping Hackett overcome his fear of pictures of black people, I have decided to perform a public service and post a sample photo of one of my favorites.

UPDATE: It appears that Xoff has bought into this nonsense, too. Let\’s just give all the lefties their sensitivity award and be done with it.

I also appreciate Dan Knauss\’ spirited opposition to interracial relationships, as he is aware of \”the history of fear and violence among white people incensed by any remotely sexual interest a black male might have in a white female.\” I should probably call my African-American brother in law and tell him that he and my sister shouldn\’t go out in public together because it might feed into a stereotype of dominant black sexuality. Maybe I should tell my biracial nephew that he\’s the product of a relationship that offends sensitive liberals and feeds the hatred of bigots.

Of course, my choice of picture was completely arbitrary. Had I chosen a black woman, I would be accused of portraying black women in a negative light. Of course, he didn\’t think my post about Russ Feingold boning Geena Davis was all that objectionable when he linked to it a couple of months ago (an it was, by any standard, more objectionable.)

Completely wasted this weekend. Mostly dicking around with my guitar.

I am a terrible guitar player. Every now and then I pick it up, record about 10 little bits and pieces (never a whole song), then put it down for a few weeks. All of these pieces of songs will remain on my hard drive until I die, at which time they will be uncovered and embarrass me from the grave.

If you wish to torture your senses, feel free to listen here and here. Couple of mess-ups, but I generally think of these things, record them 5 minutes later, then never listen to them again. Song title suggestions are welcome.

I also watched \”Dog Day Afternoon\” on Friday night, since these are the important details about my life that you absolutely must know. Seemed topical, since Pacino\’s character invokes the Attica prison riots (where police and corrections officers killed 40 inmates) to turn the crowd against the police on the scene. Seems to mirror the anti-cop sentiment in Milwaukee these days with the Jude beating verdict.

Hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekend, and let\’s all pray for good weather and a couple of Brewers wins.

In the words of Rick James:

Way back in February when the new Taxpayers Protection Amendment was introduced, we all saw a lot of the usual press releases fly back and forth. Tax and business groups supported the new amendment, while groups that actually spend tax money uniformly lined up against it.

But there was one release in particular that caught my eye for its stunning hyperbole. It was written by Kenosha County lobbyist Michael Serpe, and contained some mind-numbing passages such as:

The “hard working families” of Wisconsin are very capably represented by their local units of government, who deliver the services the families want while balancing their budgets under the rules of finance imposed by their rich uncles and aunts in faraway capitals. Now the rich uncles and aunts who have soiled their own balance sheets so shamefully are going to get into their big limousines and drive to see us at our kitchen tables and deliver us from our balanced budgets and efficient ways of life…

With this amendment, its authors and supporters have simply washed their hands of their responsibilities under the law. They have said they are no longer capable of making the tough decisions. They have said they are no longer relevant when it comes to finance. They have said that they\’re not up to the task. Pontius Pilate would be proud.

Michael J. Serpe
Administrative Assistant/Lobbyist
Kenosha County Executive\’s Office
1010 56th Street
Kenosha, WI 53140
Telephone 262-653-2831
Facsimile 262-653-2817
Email mserpe@execpc.com
\”The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.\”
William James

So we get it. Apparently, enacting TPA is akin to the death of Christ. Very appropriate with Easter coming. And for those counting, that\’s a 10-line signature. He clearly paid more attention to writing his own description than he did in 9th grade creative writing class.

Reasonable people can, and do, disagree about the TPA. But those that don\’t like it often make constructive comments or suggestions, rather than throwing a fit with all the coherence of a junior high breakup letter. So if Kenosha County is having trouble making its budgets, I can think of one place you can start to save money.

But what puzzles me is why the Kenosha County Executive would allow himself to be represented by such foolishness. Here you have someone that is actually doing your cause more harm than good complaining that local governments don\’t have enough money. At the same time, Michael J. Serpe is:

1. Arguing that local governments don\’t have enough money, and;
2. Proving that Kenosha County has enough money to employ a complete buffoon.

Anybody catch the irony there? He truly is living, breathing government waste.

The state keeps a database of what bills lobbyists are interested in and what positions various groups take on those bills. Occasionally, a lobbyist will register a short snippet to explain their position on a bill. So I went to Kenosha County\’s Ethics Board page to see what Michael J. Serpe has been up to. I found a gold mine of smug, self-congratulatory comments that must have just pleased Serpe to no end to register. Among them:

2005 AB 49, 1/27/2005: Would be more likely to look favorably on this usurpation of local control if the minimum wage as set by the state bore some actual resemblence to a living wage.

2005 AB 509, 1/12/2006: Isn\’t it about time that local units of government enjoyed the same treatment as the state?

2005 AB 756, 10/13/2005: What don\’t the authors understand about 2005 Act 40? And in urban counties, guess where the guests in our jails come from?

2005 AB 902, 12/29/2005: Don\’t we have better things to do?

2005 AB 1156, 4/5/2006: Why are the sponsor\’s [sic] so hell bent for leather to restrict local government\’s efforts to take care of their own business?

2005 AJR 77 (TPA) 2/14/2006: A trainwreck.

2005 SB 564, 2/9/2006: The bill gets close to accusing clerks of inappropriate behavior, and that\’s really inappropriate.

The only ones not laughing are the Kenosha taxpayers, who pay the salary of this clown to fight to keep their taxes high. They actually pay this guy to hurt their cause at the State Capitol. Message to the Kenosha County Executive – you\’d do just fine under TPA if you\’d just get rid of dead weight lobbyists that are a little too secure in their jobs.

Madison… Today a group of five-year-old future smokers rallied at city hall to protest the city\’s draconian anti-smoking policy. \”When I grow up and start a three pack a day habit, I want to be able to eat wherever I want,\” said Elijah Stevens, a kindergartener. \”I mean, I lit up at Chucky Cheese the other day and they got all up in my grill,\” said Stevens.

Madison\’s ordinance, passed several months ago, forbids anyone in a restaurant or a bar from smoking, using chewing tobacco, saying the word \”cigarette\” out loud, or dressing like the Marlboro Man (specifically for the Rainbow Room). \”People need to be protected from other people that are partaking in a perfectly legal activity on private property,\” said Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. \”It\’s not like people actually have a choice of what restaurants in which to eat,\” said Cieslewicz, chowing down on his government-issued Plazaburger.

\”Mommy said there\’s nothing like going to the bars, getting hammered and smoking like a chimney when she\’s picking up men,\” said Stacy Murray, who has never met her father. \”She says lighting up a cigarette at a bar is a great conversation starter,\” said Murray, noting that such \”conversations\” have led to six brothers and sisters from her leathery mother.

Emily Anderson, 5, said she is looking forward to entering Marlboro\’s \”Nico-Teen\” program, which teaches pre-teens to be responsible smokers. \”Nothing is more important than filling your young healthy lungs up with thick black tar in a responsible way,\” said Anderson while cleaning her pistol.

Recently, children\’s programming has come under criticism for glorifying smoking. PBS has seen its taxpayer funding drop, so they have had to find funds elsewhere. This explains why Snuffleupagus was recently seen puffing on a Newport and The Count was counting down the days before he died of lung cancer.

Stevens said he was close to collecting enough camel cash for a \”Tracheotomy Elmo.\”