Sorry, but a (AoSHQ) headline like that deserves all-caps. Anyway… bull sharks! From the river! Swimming through the flooded town! Then local Australians captured and started riding them!
OK, I made that last bit up. But “Australian riding sharks…” that just rolls off of the tongue, doesn’t it? I’m surprised nobody’s tried that one in real life yet.
…For Illinois businesses, that is: the new Governor is doing everything that he can to encourage a mass corporate exodus to Wisconsin, short of actually calling out the local National Guard to provide covering fire for the refugee columns. This is less of an exaggeration than you might think: the official slogan that Governor Walker is using is “Escape to Wisconsin.” They’re kind of serious about it, too: the Lt. Governor is going around and calling companies worried about the proposed Amazon* tax that’s about to destroy the business model of thousands of individuals and corporations in Illinois.
One thing that’s kind of entertaining about this situation – well, there are many things that are entertaining about this situation – is watching folks attempt to push back on this by arguing that taxes are still technically higher in Wisconsin than they are in Illinois. Indeed: the Democrats took the Governorship in 2002, the state Senate in 2006, and the state Assembly in 2008 – and then they promptly hiked taxes like they were, well, Democrats. Which is a major reason why the state government flipped so overwhelmingly Republican in November – and why the lightning push to cut business taxes and regulation in January has Democratic screams of outrage for counterpoint. I’m sure that Governor Walker would love to wave a magic wand and retroactively erase the bad business decisions of the Wisconsin Democratic party in an instant, but unfortunately this is the real world, where magic wands are not particularly known for working. Believe me: if they did then the Democratic party would have invested in that technology years ago: it’s precisely the hardware that they need to make their economic policies work. Continue reading Scott Walker makes Wisconsin a sanctuary state.
All Around My Hat, Steeleye Span
Well, nobody’s making you listen to that, are they? I like what I like.
…which she (name’s Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker, D-Essex) is using to propose a law mandating license plates for bikes. $10 or face a fine of $100, renew every two years, and I can’t wait for the first news reports of kids being dinged with this.
No, kids will get dinged with this. It’s the government: you can always count on somebody in it to do something obliviously damfool in front of a reporter. It’s practically a natural law, or something. But, hey: I’m glad that New Jersey has solved all of its real problems already…
Via Drudge.
Short version: Glen Busch was the Chicago director of the nonprofit Coats for Kids, right up to the point where he (on his own personal Facebook page, and on his own time) made the completely accurate and noncontroversial points that Tucson shooter Jared Loughney was not, in point of fact, a right-wing crazy; and that later evidence that Loughney has left-wing beliefs didn’t prove anything about the situation, either. A day later, Coats for Kids national president Paul Darby (of Virginia: guess where he and his wife Cheryl’s political contributions overwhelmingly went in previous election cycles*?) fired Busch for it.
That’s not the (most) galling part: no, the most galling part is that Darby actually wrote Busch to tell him that “You have every right to make whatever comments that you wish as a citizen” while firing Busch for the comments that Busch made as a citizen. It’s not actually contradictory – this sort of volunteer work is typically ‘at will,’ which means that Darby could have removed Busch for any reason, or none – but it’s incredibly tin-eared to remove a guy for (accurately) saying things on Saturday that the President of the United States essentially repeated the next Wednesday. Honestly: unless there’s something here we’re not being told, my major problem with Ed Morrissey’s take on it is that it’s being too nice. Continue reading Coats for Kids fires guy for agreeing with Obama?
One of my readers asked, in response to this post:
I’m worried that your approach may be overly subtle. Are you sure they will understand your point when they read that highly nuanced, finely crafted post?
You know, I’m not quite (HI, DEL RAY, BAEN BOOKS, TOR, AND NAL/ROC. I ALSO READ A LOT OF SCIENCE FICTION, PARTICULARLY ALTERNATE HISTORY. CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THE STUFF, REALLY. AGAIN, CAN BE REACHED HERE) sure.
(Via Patterico) Why, they’re so terribly, terribly concerned that the Republicans’ oft-stated – and reiterated – intention to have a House vote to repeal Obamacare might hurt us that the newspaper is writing articles giving us a friendly head’s-up about how bad an idea such a repeal vote would be right now. And to back that up they got quotes from such disinterested, Republican-friendly individuals as Rep. Robert Andrews (D, NJ) (who was calling the 112th Congress the ‘Hypocrisy Congress‘ before it even started) , Rep. Chellie Pingree (D, ME) (who called the use of the term ‘job-killing’ “hate speech“), and Rep. John Garamendi (D, CA) (who took up the mantle of now-ousted Alan Grayson to accuse Republicans of wanting to kill people). It makes me feel all tingly and bipartisan: how about you?
The GOP is not in a “bind” over this, ladies and gentlemen: we are merely showing some delicacy and tact in what are genuinely unique and trying circumstances. But we are also aware that the Other Side is going to start howling anyway the second Republicans start up regular business again, so don’t expect significant delays along those lines.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Seriously, read that article again. And note – again – that while there’s a lot of people out there ready to say that the Republicans should slow down or stop the drive to repeal Obamacare, none of those people are actual Republican legislators.
…they’ve recreated the old, thirteen-sign Babylonian astrological system. If this cannot be turned into fodder for a “secret history” or “modern supernatural esoteric” role-playing game, then nothing can. Particularly if cross-indexed with the mystical beer subplot from The Drawing of the Dark.
Or something.
(Don’t remember where I saw this first, sorry.)
Moe Lane
PS: No, I don’t believe in astrology. However, it’s useful stuff in a RPG.
Diablo III. Coming out in March, supposedly.
I got asked why I didn’t blog about this: answer, it’s not like I’m on any video game maker’s review copy lists (HI, BIOWARE. I LOVE YOUR STUFF. THE OTHER BLOG THAT I WRITE FOR IS ONE OF THE LARGEST CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL WEBLOGS ON THE INTERNET. MANY CONSERVATIVES ARE SECRET GEEKS. YOU CAN CONTACT ME HERE.) or anything.
