Rule of law.

In a 33-page decision issued Thursday, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said she would freeze the legislation because GOP lawmakers on a committee broke the state's open meetings law in passing it March 9.

The legislation limits collective bargaining to wages for all public employees in Wisconsin except for police and firefighters.

"It's what we were looking for," said Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat.

No shit.

As Ben points out in the sidebar, this is a made-up procedural defect, not a made-up substantive defect, so they could just re-pass it.

Of course, the Flegislators will flee again, and they'll just make up some new crap, and etc.

Posted by: Ace at 08:04 AM | Comments (46)
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This is your "what the hell?" video of the morning.

Treasury Secretary Geithner is asked if he knew about the "predatory atmosphere" at the IMF. He says "this is a hard question to ask a man." Except, it's not a hard question, for a man or for anyone. "Were you aware of the culture of rape at IMF" has two possible answers: "yes, I noticed" or "no, I just didn't see it."

But, of course, he can't say either because if he saw abuse then the follow-up question is going to be why he didn't do anything about it. And if he didn't notice what was apparently quite obvious, which he specifically says he's not saying, then the question is: is he unobservant, stupid, or lying?

God bless YouTube, because he picks a nuanced third way and he's really just a stupendous troglodyte:

So his answer seems to be: "yeah, I saw it, but I just couldn't fathom it, so I didn't really know what it was. Because I'm a man and women are, like, deep and stuff. So you should ask a woman."

This is post-PC neanderthal bullshit. Of course men can understand what it's like for a woman to be hounded by her coworkers and superiors. Men get pursued and abused too. It's certainly less common than mistreatment of women, but we're not talking about something completely out of the realm of human behavior here. It's not utterly unfathomable. You'd think one of "Barack's Beauties" has been pursued once in his life.

Incoherence as a defense mechanism. Who could have expected it from a professional like Geithner?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:56 AM | Comments (287)
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This is just a notice to the Moron Horde that I'm going on an internet-free vacation for the next few weeks. This means no DOOM or Sunday Book Threads for awhile. I'm sure the DOOM will still be there when I get back. (Unless the Rapture really does come before then -- in which case, well, problem solved.)

Anyhow, have a great (and safe) Memorial Day weekend.

Posted by: Monty at 04:27 AM | Comments (131)
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He'd disturbed nothing, changed nothing, had only called attention to himself by the manner of his death. It was almost as if he'd never existed.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:35 AM | Comments (146)
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Here's the first paragraph - read the whole thing at this link.

The Economy: "Make no mistake about it - we must have critical new investment and government priming to free us from the Bush recession. Therefore, if America is willing to embrace such Keynesian spending, I will promise to keep our unemployment rate below 10 percent, while my team borrows no more than an additional $5 trillion for new shovel-ready stimulus. I envision our national debt rising to no more than $16 trillion over my tenure. I also promise to take over any corporation that explores bankruptcy as a way to default on what it owes its union members and pensioners, who will always have a higher claim than any creditors or Wall Street speculators. I have already talked of spreading the wealth; but as president I promise to extend food stamps to more Americans than at any time in history."

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:32 PM | Comments (23)
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In the eighties a pop heavy metal band, or maybe a real heavy metal band, had a performance video.

In a crowd shot, a girl lifted up her shirt to flash the band; the video cut away at the moment she was about to expose herself.

What is this video? I thought it was Pour Some Sugar On Me but it seems it's not. Maybe it's Motley Crue? Answered. It is in fact Motley Crue, Home Sweet Home.

This is for a neato project I'm helping to do; yes, it'll be shown here. Any assistance would help.

Also:

Recommend a rap video which contains an iconic scene of booty-shaking girls, preferably in the back of stretch limo or other cool setting, hopefully with guns and bling?

Posted by: Ace at 07:53 PM | Comments (120)
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It is shot like a campaign commercial, which I know no one will take as an insult, because her supporters want it to be a campaign commercial.

I'm thinking this is still testing the waters. It's not so terribly different from publishing a book.

Posted by: Ace at 06:45 PM | Comments (112)
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How To Pay Off Your Student Loans and Own A Mortgage-Free House In Just 3 Years

Okay this story might have a slight whiff of hippie to it but I enjoy stories of this kind where people go out and build their own homes so they can live their lives exactly the way they want to. Even if they use words like 'natural' or <shudder> 'sustainable'.

Here Ian graduated from college with $35,000 in student loans. Yet just three years later he had paid off his loans and saved up enough to build his own off-grid home. How? By working very hard, saving most of his money, and staying focused on what he wanted.

Saving was immediately gratifying, because I brought home my dayÂ’s earnings in cash every night. I budgeted out what I needed to live on (rent, gas, food), and put that much in my living expenses envelope each evening. Â…I didnÂ’t eat out, I didnÂ’t go to bars, I replaced my big beater truck with a little beater truck that got much better gas mileage, I didnÂ’t have a TV, and I split an internet connection with a neighbor in my apartment block. I grabbed every extra shift at the bar that I could manage. It paid off. In 53 weeks, I zeroed out that student loan.

So I replaced my “Loan” envelope in the closet with a “House” envelope and went right on with the same budget. Soon the envelope filled up, and I replaced it with a shoebox. Eventually the pile of cash in the shoebox started making me a bit nervous, and I got a safety deposit box at my bank.

When my second year on the budget netted me as much as the first, I crunched some numbers and concluded that a third year would be enough to get me enough money to build the house. I informed my manager at the bar that I would be leaving on May 31st of the next year, when it had warmed up and I deemed that building season was in full swing.

The beauty of having your own place and no debts is that it gives you the freedom to follow your dreams. Or maybe no dreams at all. That's a much better, happier life than being a parasite on your parents or society at large. Now hopefully ObamaCare will get killed in the courts before Ian has to come up with the annual individual mandate penalty.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:55 PM | Comments (755)
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The Senate Democrats don't have a budget yet they are trashing the Ryan budget. That means the only Democratic budget on the table is the one Obama submitted. It was not well revived.

Behold the beauty of bipartisanship!

No senators voted for President Obama's 2012 budget when it came up for a vote in the Senate Wednesday.

A procedural vote to move forward on the president's plan failed 0-97.

Just minutes earlier, the Senate failed to advance Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget plan by a vote of 40-57, a vote on which five Republicans voted against their party.

Democrats sought to put Republicans on the defensive over the Ryan budget, which they have described as extreme. But Republicans, who demanded a vote on Obama's plan, sought to flip the script after the later vote.

Mitch McConnell (who voted for the Ryan budget) gloated in an emailed statement.

“The President identified the problem more than a year ago when he said that ‘almost all of the long-term deficit and debt we face relates to the costs of Medicare and Medicaid.’ But Democrats in the Senate showed today that don't even want to talk about it. They rejected every single proposal to deal with it. They've chosen to ignore this crisis just like they ignored the last crisis. They're so focused on an election that's nearly two years away that they can't see the crisis in front of us.”

Of course the only news coming out of this is what a disaster the Ryan plan is and what a huge setback it is for the GOP who will never win another election or something. Meanwhile, President Dreamy's budget not garnering a single vote? Not a big deal or anything.

I don't know who Ace was talking about going on offensive over Medicare in the wake of NY-26 but it wasn't me. Still, I was talking to some folks about the same thing on Twtitter. We need to understand that Democrats are going to lie about the Republican plan no matter what it is. While it's important we sell our plan, we simply can't fight such demagoguery simply with calm, rationale appeals and math. We need to blend in a little fire and brimstone of our own. If it's remotely true, so much the better.

I'm thinking something like, "Democrats lied and Medicare died". Or, "The Democrats plan bankrupts Medicare in about 10 years. Then you'll have nothing".

We need to attack on a gut level in addition to appealing to the brain. If it involves scaring seniors and those nearing that age, fine. They, like the rest of us should be scared.

In case you're wondering, here are the Republicans who voted no on Ryan.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against the proposal. Two other Republicans, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KY) did not vote.

Rand Paul voted no because he didn't think it went far enough. I think that's kind of weak tea since it's the most far reaching plan on the table. Vote yes and try and get more later. Voting no is just a vanity play.

Added: In addition to the Ryan and Obama budgets, there were two other options put up for a vote. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 04:10 PM | Comments (339)
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Here we go again...

I'll keep this link to livestreaming storm chasers on top.

Added:

Weather Underground's severe weather map

If you aren't near a TV, here's The Weather Channel's livestream

7:23 P.M. EST - Tornadoes reported in the Indianapolis area:

WRTV livestream

WISH livestream

7:12 P.M. CST - Line of tornado-warned storms approaching Evansville, IN:

WEHT livestream

7:00 P.M. CST -Memphis is currently under a tornado warning:

WMCTV livestream

WPTY livestream

Posted by: Genghis at 03:59 PM | Comments (53)
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