What's Up with WOSH Lately?

I need to confess to something. I'm not proud, but if I find myself in my car over lunch, I listen to Rush Limbaugh.

I do it as opposition research, I promise.

Locally, WOSH 1490 is the station that plays the show. Has anyone else noticed their problems with production? Almost every commercial is played over another on. They seem to be playing two newscasts at the same time, dead air and one time they even played 10 minutes of Dennis Miller out of nowhere.

WOSH is a Cumulus station. According to their website:

Including all pending acquisitions announced through March 31, 2005, we will own and operate a total of 310 stations in 61 U.S. markets upon FCC approval and consummation of all of our pending acquisitions.

Therefore they are no small puppy.

What's the deal. Is it the only way they can make sure the breaks are less listenable than Rush?

Campaign Game

Click here for a little distraction.

New Years Resolutions

1. Practice Guitar Every Day
2. Blog More
3. Blood Sugar Under 100
4. Elect a Ton of Democrats

IA Starts...

Here is the order I sent a buddy earlier today, we'll see if I was right in a little bit...

1. Edwards

2. Obama

3. Clinton

4. Dodd

5. Biden

6. Richardson

7. Kucinich

(Note: my prediction, not the order I am supporting them)

Stew's right!

Credit where credit is due, great post Stew (responding to an anonymous forum basher of a signed letter to the editor):

Dear Keen,

At least she had the courage of her conviction to put her name on her opinion...hint, hint.
_________________
Stew Rieckman, ee

Winnebago County Board Election Signature Recap

Here are the papers that have been turned in as of the deadline of 5:00PM tonight:

Contested Districts:
District 1 -
Jackie Miller
Thomas Konetzke

District 4 -
Paul Eisen
Joe Hotynski

District 6 -
Joseph N Maehl
Bill Roh
* Note - Roh has challenged some of Maehl's signatures and Maehl may have not qualified for the ballot

District 7 -
James Koziczkowski
Kyle Reppert

District 9 -
William Pollnow, Jr
Tom Widener

District 14 -
Claud Thompson
Donna Lohry
Harold Steineke

District 15 -
Kathleen Lennon
Travis R Swanson

District 18 -
Bill Wingren
John Daggett

District 21 -
Robert Warnke
Christine Kutnink Richards

District 28 -
John A Schaidler
Jerold V Finch
Jay Schroeder

District 36 -
Patrick O'Brien
John L Reinert
Susan Rubick


Non-Contested, with an Incumbent
District 2 - Nancy L Barker
District 3 - Donald J Greisbach
District 5 - Shiloh Ramos
District 10 - Timothy Hamblin
District 11 - David Albrecht
District 12 - Kenneth C Anderson
District 17 - Jef Hall
District 19 - Alfred Jacobson
District 20 - Michael Norton
District 22 - Kenneth B Robl
District 24 - Arlene Schmuhl
District 25 - Stan Kline
District 26 - Susan Locke
District 29 - Joanne Sievert
District 30 - Chuck Farrey
District 31 - Jeanette V Diakoff
District 32 - Patrick J Brennand
District 34 - Thomas Ellis
District 35 - Harvey J Rengstorf


Non-contested, with a Non-Incumbent
District 13 - Tena Riste
District 23 - Christopher Wright
District 33 - Thomas J Egan


Vacant
District 8 - Vacant
District 16 – Vacant
* Note - The current incumbent did not fill out a declaration of non-candidacy, therefore the deadline for signatures is extended by 3 days
District 27 - Vacant

Tax Bill Mailings Remind Me of Local Issue

This story:

Tax bill messages probed - Endorsements are mailed to residents

A letter from Town Chairman Robert Hultquist mailed to all town residents with their tax bills in which he endorsed two candidates for the Town Board is under investigation by the district attorney as a possible campaign finance law violation.

"It does appear on its face to be a violation of campaign finance laws, although I have not made a final decision yet," Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel said of the letter.
...
He said the town paid to print the newsletter for distribution, postage was paid by the town for the mailing and some staff time was involved in getting it ready.
...
But because the tax bills were being mailed anyway and inclusion of the newsletter in those envelopes did not require additional postage, "it didn't cost the town another cent," he said.

"This is a big deal over nothing," he said of Schimel's investigation.

"I'm not worried because I didn't do anything wrong."

Sounds a little like this.

NYTimes: Lottery No Good for Poor People

The Super Lottery Is No Prize

Lawmakers pretend that lotteries make new taxes unnecessary. But lotteries are a tax, an inefficient, badly targeted one that is having a devastating impact on poor communities and beyond.
...
These new super lotteries are especially dangerous. One study in Texas showed the more expensive tickets selling best in the most poverty-stricken ZIP codes, ones heavily populated with Hispanics and blacks. Money that should be used for food and housing goes up in a whiff of hope instead.
...
They can dress it up all they want in slogans about buying a ticket and a dream. But the states are encouraging behavior that is too often addictive and ruinous for people who can least handle the burden.

NYTimes Profiles Dirty GOP Election Tricks

The big quote:

Such excesses are often dismissed as the work of a few overeager campaign staff members. Mr. Raymond argues, however, that illegal tactics are often standard operating procedure. “In my business,” he writes, “communications devices were all lethal weapons — and every fight was dirty.”

Such as:

It was a world in which, he claims, dirty tricks were the norm. When Mr. Raymond opened a political telemarketing firm, he was hired by a Republican challenging a New Jersey Democratic congressman. Mr. Raymond’s company — in a plan he says he hatched with the challenger’s advisers — called liberal Democrats and urged them to vote for the Green Party candidate.

Those same advisers, he says, gave Mr. Raymond another assignment: to call white households asking them to vote for the Democrat, using the voice of, as he puts it, a “ghetto black guy.” He also called union households, using voices with thick Spanish accents.

Quote of the Day:

Arthur Schlesinger, in his biography of Kennedy, quotes Richard Harwood of The Washington Post:

“We discovered in 1968 this deep, almost mystical bond that existed between Robert Kennedy and the Other America. It was a disquieting experience for reporters. ... We were forced to recognize in Watts and Gary and Chimney Rock that the real stake in the American political process involves not the fate of speechwriters and fund-raisers, but the lives of millions of people seeking hope out of despair.”

Something to remember as we go into the IA Caucuses and the 2008 race.

Stay off the OshNW site if you are under 8!

or over 107...

The following screen comes up at login time for their website:

Carol Owens' Nap

Another from the Recess Supervisor, Rep Carol Owens' nap on the Assembly floor:

More on the GB Nativity

Here a good quote from the Recess Supervisor:

It never ceases to amaze me that a small minority of Christians who clearly feel threatened by the concept of religious pluralism feel the need every holiday season to wage this pointless battle. They aren't putting their Nativity scenes up in public spaces to celebrate their faith. They're doing it to pick a fight with those whose beliefs are in the minority. It's nothing other than faith-based bullying.

Here's a great place for a nativity scene: in front of a church. Here's another one: in your front yard.

But, of course this has nothing with trying to establish a state religion, listen to this fair and balanced argument:

"This is crazy," said Tim Entringer of Green Bay. "It's Christmas. I'm sad in my heart. There is only one God, and you've got to keep him up. The only way to get to God is through Jesus. It's the true religion. You have to do it."

But, the market has spoken, and the secularists have won:

In the ongoing battle over whether it's better to use the term "Christmas" or "holidays," "holidays" came out the big winner in 2007.

In its fourth annual survey, GiftBasketsDeluxe.com (http://www.GiftBasketsDeluxe.com), a major gift basket company, today announced the results of an analysis of holiday gift card messages sent through their company.

The study showed that 60 percent of holiday gift baskets sent used the politically correct term "holidays" on their gift card, as opposed to the more traditional term "Christmas."

Joe on Green Bay Nativity

Personally, I think it is nuts. Green Bay is home to lots and lots of Christian churches. I think a good place for nativity scenes is on the front lawns of those churches. The reason there was an original nativity scene, after all, was not that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to worship. They were ordered to Bethlehem by an unpopular government and they weren't too welcome when they arrived.

Putting a nativity scene at the very center of a city government may not be the best way to recall the original reason for the season.

Ohio Election May Have been Stolen

Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen

Ohio's Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that "critical security failures" are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, "could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State." They have rendered Ohio's vote counts "vulnerable" to manipulation and theft by "fairly simple techniques."

Indeed, she says, "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant."

In other words, Ohio's top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen. Brunner's stunning findings apply to electronic voting machines used in 58 of Ohio's 88 counties, in addition to scanning devices and central tabulators used on paper ballots in much of the rest of the state.
...
The final official tally for Bush---less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast---varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory. Exit polls in 2004 were designed to have a margin of error of about 1%. In various polling stations in Democrat-rich inner city precincts in Youngstown and Columbus, voters who pushed touch screens for Kerry saw Bush's name light up. A wide range of discrepancies on both electronic and paper balloting systems leaned almost uniformly toward the Bush camp. Voting procedures regularly broke down in inner city and campus areas known to be heavily Democratic.
...
Brunner has now recommended that all Ohio's voting be done on optical scan ballots, with reliance on central tabulation. Voters with disabilities could use AutoMark machines with bar coding devices that allow the marking of ballots with little or no additional assistance.

Quote of the day:

Dissent in this country has become largely a culture of diagnosis rather than prescription, of describing what is wrong with them, rather than what is possible for us.

Yet again, Republicans are on the wrong side: Poll shows majority support state-run health care in Wisconsin

A majority of Wisconsin residents favor a state-run health insurance system, but even more like the idea of expanding existing programs or investing in health savings accounts, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The results lend support to Democratic lawmakers’ efforts to pass a universal health care plan rejected by Republicans during this year’s budget negotiations.

Fifty-one percent of respondents support replacing the current health insurance system with one administered by the state government covering all residents, the University of Wisconsin Survey Center’s Badger Poll said.
...
Seventy-two percent favor requiring all people to have insurance, either from their employer or another source. And 82 percent support expanding existing state health insurance programs for low-income people.
...
*50 percent said the state’s health care system had major problems, 35 percent said there were minor problems, 12 percent said it was in a state of chaos and 2 percent said there are no problems.

Is Winnebago DA Gossett for Forced Juvinile Confessions?

Winnebago County DA Christian Gossett signed a letter in support of a Supreme Court candidate that is being questioned by One Wisconsin Now as a possible violation of Supreme Court campaign rules.

There are a few points I would like to make about Gossett's foray into judicial politics:

1. He endorsed Annette Ziegler last year - we know how that turned out.

2. The OshNW, just on Dec 7th, stated:

Let's hope the days of Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates cheaply accusing one another of "being soft on crime" or taking gobs of influential cash from litigious interest groups are on their way out.

Yet here he is, part of a letter saying a sitting Supreme Court Justice was:

detrimental to our job of protecting the public

I would hope for a more clear and positive message and stop taking away from his job of protecting Winnebago County citizens.

3. But I am most disturbed by what DA Gossett says is so 'detrimental' about the Justice's votes and opinions such as:

Butler voted to require all interviews of juveniles to be recorded to be admissible in court for custodial interrogations.

Seriously, does DA Gossett really think it is a bad thing to make sure that confessions are not forced? If you look at the case, In the Interest of Jerrell C J, the WI State Bar summed up the case as:

the court agrees with the court of appeals in its decision in the same case that "it is time for Wisconsin to tackle the false confession issue" and "take appropriate action so that the youth of our state are protected from confessing to crimes they did not commit." In the instant case, State v. Jerrell C. J., the court threw out the written confession of a juvenile who claimed the confession was involuntary.

Does DA Gossett really want to have the opportunity to force confessions from juveniles?

And, while I am asking, because this passed with a 4-3 margin, does that mean that DA Gossett's candidate would have been the deciding vote to have secret coerced confessions from juvenile defendants?

My Take on the Guliani Police Security Scandal

If you don't know the story by now, Rudy Guliani, while mayor of New York, charged the city the costs of his security while he was having an affair on his then wife with his current wife.

The police also supplied security for his mistress (now wife) at the time.

While this is not a wholesome story, I do not think this is really the scandalous part. His behavior was wrong, but public figures to require security, even if they are misbehaving.

The unforgivable part of the scandal is this:

Security costs for those trips were charged to agencies like the New York City Loft Board, which regulates loft apartments and was billed $34,000. The Office for People with Disabilities was charged $10,000, while the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, which provides lawyers for indigent defendants, was charged roughly $400,000.

He did not charge the costs if his trysts to the Mayor's security account, he charged it to accounts that were established and funded to provide services to the city's citizen's.

How many disabled New Yorkers were not provided service so Guliani could have his affair?

How many indigent defendants received (even) less or no legal advice?

To look at this through a Wisconsin lens, remember that funding indigent defense is a problem we are dealing with right now:

Here's a question: If you're a single person and are charged with a crime, how low does your income have to be for you to qualify to be represented by a state public defender?

Maybe $15,000? Maybe the federal poverty level, which is about $10,000?

Nope. The income level for a single person in Wisconsin to qualify for a public defender is about $3,000. It's based on guidelines that haven't changed since 1987, when the federal poverty level was $5,500.

It's past time for that to change — and a bill in the Legislature aims to do it.
...
But county budgets are typically strained already, so some judges are reluctant to add to the strain. In those cases, typically misdemeanors or less serious felonies, defendants have to represent themselves.

The bill in Madison would raise the income level for public defender qualification to 115 percent of the federal poverty level, which for a single person would be about $11,750. That's the same income level as the Wisconsin Works program.

The bill also would provide 33 new public defenders and 17 new support staffers, and it would mandate that consistent standards are used in each county.

It would cost about $4.5 million a year. But Wisconsin's counties are spending more than that in court-appointed lawyers. It would basically be a cost shift, from counties to the state — and more defendants would get representation.

That's the point — people aren't getting the representation that they're ensured under our constitution. Even if it were to cost more money, justice demands it. The fact that it should save a little money is a bonus.

Yep, Rudy's fling would have funded 10% of our entire state's public defender need deficit.

That's the scandal. Yet another Republican who feels his selfish needs are more important than the poor sap who just might need a hand.

White House Press Sec Didn't Know Cuban Missle Crisis - Answers Question Anyway:

From The Raw Story:

Appearing on National Public Radio's quiz show, "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me," this weekend, Perino admitted a story she'd previously only shared in private: When a reporter asked her a question during a White House briefing in which he referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- she didn't know what it was.

"I was panicked a bit because I really don't know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

The exchange was first noted in the Washington Post.

"I came home and I asked my husband," she said on air. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.' "

Perino was referring to the White House briefing held on October 26, when a reporter asked her, "Do you want to address the remarks by President Putin, who said the United States setting up a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe was like the Soviet Union putting missiles in Cuba, setting up a Cuban missile crisis?"

"Well, I think that the historical comparison is not -- does not exactly work," Perino had responded.

What I don't understand in this otherwise "cute" story is where is the outrage that she answered a question as the spokesperson of the President of the United States, without knowing what she was talking about!

Wait, maybe she is the ideal spokesperson.

NYTimes Looks at Immigration in Phoenix

The NYTimes Editorial Observer looks at the clash over immigration in Phoenix:

Want to see America unraveling? Come here, to Thomas Road and 35th Street, to M. D. Pruitt’s furniture store. Come on Saturday morning and stand near the eight delivery trucks barricading the parking lot, like the wall of an urban Alamo.

For the last seven weeks, a sidewalk protest here by Latino immigrants has blossomed into a feverish reality show, attracting Minutemen, mariachis, children dancing in Mexican folk costumes, white racists, United Nations observers, Phoenix police officers and Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies.

The weekly confrontation — strident and stalemated — perfectly mimics the national debate. But it’s a sideshow to something even uglier: what happens when immigration’s complexities are handed to local law enforcers sympathetic to the fury of one side.

Thomas Road has lots of Latino day laborers, or jornaleros, who hustle for work near Home Depot. A few months ago, the Phoenix police shooed them away. They dispersed to streets nearby, angering local businesses. One of the biggest, Pruitt’s, hired off-duty city police officers to keep jornaleros at bay. The city put a stop to that, so Pruitt’s turned to the county sheriff, Joe Arpaio.

They also have an audio slideshow here.

Good Economic Cartoon

From the Center for American Progress:

OshNW Sidebar Unnecessary,..

Along this the OshNW's story about the current tax bills going out, they included a sidebar informing people of the consumer purchases they could have made with the tax bill on a $100,000 home instead of paying taxes.

Things such as:

What you could buy

For 2008, the property tax bill for a homeowner with property worth $100,000 is $2,208. But there are a number of other things people could get for $2,208:
A Dell XPS Computer with 20’’ widescreen display, a high-speed processor and Microsoft Office: $1,999 total plus tax.
A five day, four night trip for two to West Palm Beach Florida from Appleton, Wisconsin on Priceline.com: Total $1,875 plus which means you’d have $333 left for spending money.
Five 8 GB iPhones at $399 each: $1,995 total plus tax

What the OshNW leaves out of the story is what you are getting out of your tax bills. Things such as:

Plowed Roads
Fire Protection
Police Protection
Garbage Collection
Care for Indigent Elderly
Jail Services
Public Education

As you know, I could go on (and on). To see a list of services your county provides to you, go here.

I personally feel that the ability to safely traverse your community, live in your home, educate and prepare your children, know you will be safe in retirement and have access to aid in any disaster is a much better deal than a Dell PC or a few I-Phones.

I would hope the OshNW would consider what you receive for your tax dollar. Not just deliver hype in numbers.

The History of Oil

A huge hat tip to the Chief - this is a great post:

The History of Oil

This headline (and its subsequent article):

Iran drops the dollar

-- reminded me of a wonderful stand-up routine by the British writer/comedian/actor/activist Robert Newman, specifically the part of the act below:




The audio track doesn't seem to jive well with the visual track, but I think the point still gets across. If you have 45 minutes to spare, I highly recommend watching the whole thing, which can be found here in its entirety (and in much better quality).

Book-Banning, Oshkosh Style

This from the OshNW:

At least one local school has temporarily pulled the books from its library shelves that the film “The Golden Compass” is based on, over concerns about what critics call its anti-Christian message.

“The Golden Compass,” which opens in theaters Friday, is based on the first book of the trilogy, “His Dark Materials,” by British author Philip Pullman. It follows a headstrong girl named Lyra on a quest to help a world that is somewhat like the real world.
...
Mary Miller, media specialist at St. John Neumann Middle School and Lourdes High School, said she has temporarily taken the series off the shelf at the shared school library because she wants to have a chance to read them and decide for herself if they are appropriate for students.

“I just heard all the news and I decided to pull them,” Miller said. “After (I read them), I’m not sure what I’ll do with them.”

I guess I'm curious about the quote "I decided... and what I'll do..." Is there truly no policy? Is it one person's opinion?

Another question:

Why, if this book is such a threat, has it been on the self until there was a movie made?

Hype is more dangerous than knowledge...

Multiple Voting Scandal?

Here's a good one. I wonder if we will see the same thing on Wisconsin Eye?

Hat tip to the Chief.

A reason to stay alive for awhile...

Mythbusters announced that they will have an all MacGyver episode coming up!

WSJ: Sub-Prime Loans Pushed on Buyers Qualifying for Regular Loans

How much could consumer protection regulation have averted this?

One common assumption about the subprime mortgage crisis is that it revolves around borrowers with sketchy credit who couldn't have bought a home without paying punitively high interest rates. But it turns out that plenty of people with seemingly good credit are also caught in the subprime trap.

An analysis for The Wall Street Journal of more than $2.5 trillion in subprime loans made since 2000 shows that as the number of subprime loans mushroomed, an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.

In 2005, the peak year of the subprime boom, the study says that borrowers with such credit scores got more than half -- 55% -- of all subprime mortgages that were ultimately packaged into securities for sale to investors, as most subprime loans are. The study by First American LoanPerformance, a San Francisco research firm, says the proportion rose even higher by the end of 2006, to 61%. The figure was just 41% in 2000, according to the study. Even a significant number of borrowers with top-notch credit signed up for expensive subprime loans, the firm's analysis found.

The analysis also raises pointed questions about the practices of major mortgage lenders. Many borrowers whose credit scores might have qualified them for more conventional loans say they were pushed into risky subprime loans. They say lenders or brokers aggressively marketed the loans, offering easier and faster approvals -- and playing down or hiding the onerous price paid over the long haul in higher interest rates or stricter repayment terms.

The subprime sales pitch sometimes was fueled with faxes and emails from lenders to brokers touting easier qualification for borrowers and attractive payouts for mortgage brokers who brought in business. One of the biggest weapons: a compensation structure that rewarded brokers for persuading borrowers to take a loan with an interest rate higher than the borrower might have qualified for.

What is the GOP Agenda?

Rolling back consumer, worker and environmental protection. Let them run on this:

WASHINGTON - Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

There's a growing sense, a growing probability, that the next administration could be Democratic, said Craig L. Fuller, executive vice president of Apco Worldwide, a lobbying and public relations firm, who was a White House official in the Reagan administration. Corporate executives, trade associations and lobbying firms have begun to recalibrate their strategies
...
At the Transportation Department, trucking companies are trying to get final approval for a rule increasing the maximum number of hours commercial truck drivers can work. And automakers are trying to persuade officials to set new standards for the strength of car roofs - standards far less stringent than what consumer advocates say is needed to protect riders in a rollover.
...
At the Interior Department, coal companies are lobbying for a regulation that would allow them to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. It would be prohibitively expensive to haul away the material, they say, and there are no waste sites in the area. Luke Popovich, a vice president of the National Mining Association, said that a Democratic president was more likely to side with "the greens."

Krugman on the Sub-Prime Crisis

“What we are witnessing,” says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, “is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August.”

All here.