Wisconsin Leap Year History

On Leap Year Day in Wisconsin History:

1956 - Father of Modern Wisconsin Republican Party dies
On this day William J. Campbell, a major contributor the Wisconsin Republican Party, died at his home in Oshkosh. A lumber broker and former University of Wisconsin regent, Campbell never held public office, but was generally given credit for the founding of the Republican Voluntary Committee, the working party organization in the state. State Attorney General Vernon W. Thomson hailed Campbell as a "true political pioneer" for steering the selection of GOP candidates away from the "domination of Robert M. LaFollette, Sr." An ardent opponent of the "nomination paper" method of endorising candidates for office, Campbell founded the Republican Voluntary Committee in 1925, in large part as a means of circumventing state limitations on spending by the statutory Republican Party. [Source: Milwaukee Journal 2/29/1956, Section 2 p. 12]

This morning we had a seance and I was able to channel Mr. Campbell and gleaned three quotable quotes worth blogging:

"Mr. Obama... I knew Abraham Lincoln. I worked with Abraham Lincoln, and you are no Abraham Lincoln."

"Modern Republican Party... I knew the Republican Party. I worked with the Republican Party, but who in the hell are you?"

"I haven't seen 'Fightin' Bob even once since I've been here. I can only assume he's..."

...End of seance.

Wisconsin History

February 28:

1757 - Phineas Cadwell, Revolutionary War Veteran, Born
Cadwell was born on this date in 1757 in Hartford, Connecticut. He served in the Revolutionary War for almost four years. In 1850, he moved to the Town of Yorkville in Racine Co. In 1856, at age 99, he was given a government land grant of 160 acres for his service during the Revolutionary War. He died on February 11, 1857. [Source: U.S. Government Records-National Archives]

Ingrate!

Couldn't ya at least have made it to an even 100?

The second-best news a Packer fan could get!

CHICAGO (AP) - The Chicago Bears and quarterback Kyle Orton agreed Monday on a one-year contract extension that runs through the 2009 season, setting up a competition between him and Rex Grossman.

The deal comes two days after Chicago re-signed Grossman to a one-year contract and said he would compete for the starting quarterback job with Orton.

Yes!

Global Warming:
A Commentary

(Photo by Jane Swanson)
Global warming, my cloaca! Next year I'm FLYING south 'cause...

...last Fall I tried to boost Jerry's truck to drive down and that didn't work out so good.

(Photo by Jerry Burri)

Journalists:
C-c-can't We All Just Get Along?

(SATIRENEWSSERVICE). American Media Corporation (AMC), publisher of The National Enquirer, today revealed that its Board had voted to terminate the company's agreement to acquire the New York Times. "Because of recent actions by the Times, we no longer believe that the two newspapers represent a strategic fit," said Hildebrand Johnson, Jr., an AMC spokesman in an early morning conference call. "It's over."[...]

According to industry sources, AMC planned to combine the Times' valuable sports and entertainment sections into the National Enquirer while moving the news and opinion sections into another AMC supermarket tabloid publication, The Weekly World News - which Sulzberger once famously called "The New York Times' twin regarding accuracy and relevance".[...]

Rumor has it that Mad Magazine is interested.

Bipolar Disorder:
The Mania is Always Followed by Depression

[...]I have an answer; it is not one I like, but I believe that it is the truth; that Senator Obama is the candidate of the intellectually bankrupt. It is no wonder to me that so many young people are swooning over this charlatan. He is all show and no substance, like so much of modern entertainment. He is the MTV candidate. He is the candidate of people who love special effects and don't care about the plot. Politically they are oblivious to the consequences of electing someone who is as gullible as they are. He is their drug that will make all problems go away, but like with a drug, the problems don’t really go away and after effects are terrible.[...]

Whenever I see Senator Obama's face, I can't help substituting the vision of Smilin' Bob:
Mania, Phase I:


Mania, Phase II:


Depression:

Texas Cowboy Bootery

Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat... Presto!



No doubt about it. I gotta get another hat!

I used to officiate high school basketball in the Bay City area regularly. I would lecture the kids to flush their steroids and play clean. I suspect that my brilliant rhetoric caused many of them to respond positively. The 13 foot gator, however, did not heed my advice. (The gator is nicknamed, 'Roger Clemens.')

By Jove, I Think He's Got It!

There have been many questions asked and equally as many speculative answers given to the enigma of Barack Obama's hysterical popularity. He has accomplished nothing and has proposed nothing substantive. His astronomical rise in American politics is a mystery.

Joe Biden:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

A bright, clean, articulate, nice-looking guy, indeed, but that doesn't explain his fanatical following.

David Ehrenstein:

But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."...

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

A bright, clean, articulate, nice-looking benign Black guy that assuages White guilt. But that still doesn't add it all up.

Several of the researchers from my secret basement laboratory decided to research the question scientifically and have been attending meetings of Obama supporters and rallies at which the Senator speaks. They have interviewed thousands of groupies and collected various and sundry environmental samples. Every interview proved as vacuous in hard data as the candidate's speeches themselves. The environmental samplings, however, produced the information to provide an Edisonian 'Eureka!' moment.

The atmospheric samples taken at venues with Obama in attendance showed the presence of some unknown aromatic organic compounds. After much chemical analysis these complex molecules proved to be odoriferous pheromones that had yet to be classified and named. After much deliberation and consultation with the I.U.P.A.C., they were finally dubbed Hoffen-Cambiare Pheromones; Hope and Change Pheromones. These chemicals in diluted quantities cause tremendous euphoria in emotionally disabled, metrosexual humans. Many others have been inoculated from their effects by experience and solid reasoning. In too large of a parts-per-million percentage, these pheromones have the paradoxic effect; they just stink.

One researcher began to laugh uncontrollably. After several minutes she was able to explain her jocularity. She accounted that we had just finished thousands of hours of blind research when the answer had already been given to us months ago:

In an interview with Glamour Magazine, Mrs. Obama details her two girls' morning ritual, a time, she says, when her husband Barack is often "snore-y and stinky."

“We have this ritual in the morning," Michelle Obama told Glamour. "They come in my bed, and Dad isn’t there — because he’s too snore-y and stinky, they don’t want to ever get into bed with him."

The first to post a comment on this article, Anonymous, exclaimed:

Thank the lord for honest people telling it like it is! People will like Barrack more because he is more like us!

I would vote for him!!

Eureka!

We released our conclusions to John McCain's and Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters and have received previews of parts of some upcoming speeches by the candidate's spouses.

Former President Bill Clinton: "Hillary is so stinky, I can't even sleep in the same room with her. Heh, heh"

Cindy McCain: "It's a little known fact that negotiations didn't provide for John's release from the Hanoi Hilton. He smelled so bad that the North Vietnamese threw him out."

Finally, Down to Real Issues
in Democrat Campaign Rhetoric

Obama:

Unfortunately, the old adage is true of my worthy opponent; "You can't hope to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

Hillary:

At Wellesley we often quoted our sister, Jezebel, "Ahab, you can't change a silk hankie into a leather scrotum."

Coffee Klatsch Putsch

George Neumayr attempts to plumb the depths of Obama in If It Feels Good, Say It posted on The American Spectator. Excerpt:

Obama's faux-radicalism and idealism, carefully stirred into a safe brew of truisms, is catnip for a decadent elite that would rather feel good than be good and complains amidst prosperity of the need for dramatic change. But how urgent could their "revolution" possibly be if it was hatched down at a Starbucks?

Dang! I broke a nail. The government ought to provide universal nail insurance. Cuba provides it, and it's a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

Loonar Eclipse

Researchers in my secret basement laboratory developed some specialized geo-political photographic filters with which to document tonight's lunar eclipse. Here are a couple of the resulting photographs:

We'll have to wait and see if this is just a partial eclipse or a total lunatic eclipse.


Even the moon and the stars bow down before him in emetic posture.

Headline of the Day

AP:Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks

Alternate category: Reason #438 not to smoke crack.

(H.T. Commonsense and Wonder.)

Real Hope & Change

Wayne Larrivee's analysis on The Back Page Tuesday parses all of the recent political acclamations and gyrations into one precise nutshell:

You may have, like I, questioned Congress' involvement in the baseball drug issue. Don't they have better things to take care of in Washington?

Well, I was wrong. When Roger Clemens reported that his wife, Debbie, took injections of HGH in her preparation for an appearance in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, red-blooded American male-dom suddenly had an interest in these otherwise pointless hearings. It's not about cleaning up the game. It's not about the kids. It's not even about little known legislators having their day in the sun. It's bigger than that.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is the most anticipated sports magazine in the free world. It follows the Super Bowl and precedes pitchers and catchers as the sure sign of spring... in the dead of winter. Juiced up baseball players hitting home runs, pitchers throwing 100 mile per hour coming out of the womb are one thing, but the legal integrity of the thongs, bikinis, and babes who fill them is what this is all about.

The HGH enhanced Mrs. Rocket looked pretty awesome a few years ago in that spread. If we don't nip this in the bud- or is it butt?- right now, guys are going to be giving their girlfriends and wives steroid injections for Valentine's Day. Red-blooded America needs to know that the half-naked women it gawks over every winter are on the up and up. And our lawmakers are getting to the bottom of it... through tax dollars at work.

Brilliant!

I've already voted in today's primary, but if I knew then what I know now, I would instead vote for Hillary. It is a certainty that she is not using HGH.

Performance Snake Oil

Jerry Holbert:

As I was making coffee this morning, I thought to myself...

...if we had another baby (which we're not gonna, but if we did), I'd want to name it Joe. Or Jo, if it was a girl.

Then I'd get him/her hooked on Bonanza reruns and start calling him "Little Joe."

And then I could offer him coffee by saying: "Little joe, Little Joe?"

Why Didn't I Think of This?
Entry #63,147

As marketed on The People's Cube, for those Conservatives that are on the fence about voting for Senator John McCain:




I'm getting some of those 'voter blinders' for Grandpa John when they come out. They will be a perfect accessory for his headwear.

Governor Doyle,
Please, Help Us!

According to American Heart Association:

Research studies have shown a link between snow shoveling and heart attack. One study estimated that as many as 1,200 people nationwide die annually of coronary artery disease during and after major snowstorms.

These studies do not even include back injury, hypothermia, frostbite, arm, wrist, and hand injury. Nor does it cover automobile accidents; time loss for work and school; nor all the plagues of exacerbating the deadly global warming through the increased CO2 emissions from lengthy car warmups.

Governor Doyle, you simply must call a special emergency session of the state legislature to pass a state-wide snowing ban. It is an urgent matter of public health. If it is opposed and stalled by those evil, citizen hating Republicans, at least give each of us a high powered two-stage snow thrower.

And, please hurry. We are expecting 6-10 inches of new snowfall tomorrow.

If I don't shovel the sidewalk, the city will give me a ticket and fine me to pay the cost of sidewalk clearing. If I do shovel, I might die. I don't know what to do. I'm scared.

Governor Doyle, since President Obama has yet to be seated on the throne, I need you to heal my troubled soul.

Iraq: This Generation's Viet Nam

Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. writes an interesting piece titled Boomers and the Vietnam Shrug posted in American Thinker:

Back in 1963,[...]

...a speech that Dr. Thomas Dooley had given to a group of nuns, reporting on his experiences in Southeast Asia between 1954 and 1960.[...]

He was the author of three solid books about conditions there, the most well-known being 'Deliver Us From Evil', published in 1956.[...]

The subject was the same as the books, Dooley's first-hand impressions of the refugee camps in Haiphong and the repulsive cruelty of the the Stalinist regime from which they fled. I still remember him describing the exact meaning of the title 'Deliver Us from Evil' , which only indirectly referenced the Scriptural passage. The direct reference had to to do with an incident which Dooley had personally witnessed and in which he even participated.

Three young Vietnamese children had been brought to the border by the police of the North Vietnam. Their vocal cords had been cut (or tongues cut out, I forget which) as punishment for treasonable speech. When Dooley asked the guard how children so young could possibly have committed treason, the guard asked him, Dooley, to recite the Lord's Prayer. When Dooley reached the phrase, 'And deliver us from evil', the guard stopped him.

"That is the treason", he declared, "for there is no evil in the People's Republic of Vietnam."[...]

But as the 60's lengthened, and Vietnam became more controversial with each passing year, that base insight was lost.[...]

This transformation of the dialog from a limited political issue to a great, sweeping moral condemnation that was absurdly blind to the actual facts of Vietnam has had huge repercussions. It was catastrophic for the people of Southeast Asia.[...]

But the fact was that Tom Dooley had been telling the plain, unvarnished truth. The Vietnamese people -- the real flesh-and-blood kind, that live and die, suffer and hope (not the mythic 'People' of immemorial Leftist cant) -- began running from Ho Chi Minh in 1955. They kept running for the next two decades, as far south as the land would take them, then into boats and the open sea when the land ran out. The war was a dumb war, unwisely formulated, stupidly communicated, even more stupidly fought. But it was a just cause and a moral undertaking. It was the protest, with its utter contempt for the actual human reality, that was immoral.

Tom Dooley had it right. I heard him clearly enough back in 1963. But by 1968, I'd stopped listening. So had everybody else.

Back in 2003, we saw clearly that the Iraqi people-- the real flesh-and-blood kind, that live and die, had long suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Ignoring him would have been catastrophic for the Middle East. In 2008, many stopped listening.

Now It Makes Sense

Amid Tavis Smiley's February 11th interview with Susan Sarandon came this jewel of wisdom to enlighten us unwashed:

Sarandon: I was an Edwards supporter, still am an Edwards supporter.[...]

Tavis: So what do you do now?

Sarandon: Well, I'm going to back Obama.[...]

So I think he definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.(Italics mine)

Now Obama's groundswell of support is starting to make sense in a vacuous, inane, vapid sort of way.

Grandpa Jerry & Obama

Grandpa Jerry:

I had the opportunity to meet and photograph the probable 2nd place finisher for president yesterday at the plant [GM plant in Janesville, WI]. I did not tell him I was a Republican or that I had one socialist brother, one right wing extremist brother or one independent brother. The SS men he had surrounding him were all younger and about 8 foot tall!

I didn't know that Jim was a right wing extremist!

Obama is the only one in that picture that is out of focus. Your camera is accurate.

Change of Pace

Hillary, McCain, Obama, Huckabee, Obama, Hillary, Huckabee, McCain. I'm glad this decade long primary season will soon be over. I think I'll turn over to ESPN and see what's going on in the world of sports.

Henry Waxman? A congressional hearing? I'll turn it over to ESPN2 and catch some scores. Arlen Specter? Questioning Roger Goodell?

Apparently, truthful answers are hard to come by.

I propose sending the candidates to Guantanamo for a debate. All questions are asked during the waterboarding of the wannnabes. Congressional hearings could be held there, too. Waterboarding those under investigation will get some truthful answers. And while we're at it the congressmen could answer a few questions as well. That oughta get some actual results for our tax dollars.

Methinks Thou Doth Crappeth Thy Pantaloons, Limey

Iowahawk:

Heere Bigynneth the Tale of the Asse-Hatte

An Archbishop of Canterbury Tale

[...]83 "But the Musselman is sure to see
84 Thy funne as Western hegemony.
85 'Tis not Cristian for Cristians to cause
86 The Moor to live by Cristendom's laws
87 Whan he has hise sovereyn culture
88 Crist bade us put ours in sepulture.
89 To be divyne we must first be diverse
90 So cheer thee well, thynges could be wors
91 Sharia is Englishe as tea and scones,
92 So everybody muste get stoned."[...]

Conspiracy Against Todd

It seems there are those conspiring to get Todd to emigrate from the whole planet:

SEOUL (AFP) - A specially engineered version of kimchi, South Korea's beloved pickle dish, has been cleared for a historic space mission this year, officials said Wednesday.

It's a trick, Todd! Don't go!

Inside Info

I hacked into Barack Obama's laptop and found the rough draft of his next campaign speech:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
We will seek change to my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
I promise the hope of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
We'll hope and change to my favorite things

When my laws bite
When my tax stings
When you're feeling sad
You'll simply remember my favorite things
And then you won't feel so bad.

Not exactly original, but it has been very effective since intra-cranial vacuums are quickly filled with the nearest available twinkie filling. Just ask Hillary. (And I suspect that Obama included the line, 'Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes' to lure Bill's vote.)

(With apologies to Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers.)

Thou Shalt Not Diss Chelsea

Ed Driscoll:

Back in 1993, in a "Wayne's World" sketch, Saturday Night Live made a joke about young Chelsea Clinton, and caught hell from her parents. "Wayne's World" star Mike Myers and producer Lorne Michaels both apologized, and the latter cut that joke from reruns of that episode.[...]

No wonder... both Michaels and Meyers are Canadian.

However, Thou Mayest Diss the Bush Twins.

I Respecfully Deckline

Subject line on an incoming e-mail today:

Enter to Win a FREE Scholership!

Sorry, sir, but I've already passed the third grade.

... Or Get Off the Potter!

.

They say politics are too dirty these days...

'Nads!

On this day in Wisconsin history:

1858 - Wisconsin Congressman Starts Fight in Legislature

Just before the Civil War, the issue of slavery tore apart the U.S. Congress. On February 8, 1858, Wisconsin Rep. John Potter (considered a backwoods hooligan by Southern aristocrats) leaped into a fight on the House floor. When Potter embarrassed a pro-slavery brawler by pulling off his wig, the gallery shouted that he'd taken a Southern scalp. Potter emerged from the melee covered in blood and marked by slave owners as an enemy. Two years later, on April 5, 1860, he accused Virginia Rep. Roger Pryor of falsifying the Congressional record. Pryor, feeling his character impugned, challenged Potter to a duel. According to Southern custom, a person challenged had the right to choose weapons. Potter replied that he would only fight with "Bowie knives in a closed room," and his Southern challenger beat a hasty retreat. Republican supporters around the nation sent Potter Bowie knives as a tribute, including this six-foot-long one. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes]

(Photo from Wisconsin Historical Society.)

Flyover country Republican hooligan, indeed! The rumors that Potter was a metrosexual are greatly exaggerated!

32,000 Pounds

With apologies to George Davis, Merle Travis, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, I offer to you my latest version of this golden oldie, sung in my deepest bass voice:

You move sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another foot deeper and clothes dripping sweat.
Saint Peter, won't you call me, 'cause I gots to know;
Will you grab that shovel and help dig through the snow?...

"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move." (Matthew 17:20b, NIV) It never said that the mountain would get up and walk by itself.

F.E.M.A. didn't even offer an ice fishing shanty. They said that if Global Warming hadn't so severely occurred, we would have gotten another foot or two. The Polar Mosquito is now much endangered. In addition, all species of mosquito vectors of West Nile Virus are increasing exponentially. Oh, what Man has wrought by refusing the wise leadership of Al Gore.

Stop Whining So Liberally,
Wussie Conservatives

Burt Prelutsky: Bingo!

[...]I would have voted for him [Giuliani] if he hadn’t bowed out, but that doesn’t mean that if Romney, Huckabee or even John McCain, gets the nomination, I plan to stay home and sulk on election day.

I happen to think that people who support Clinton or Obama have a screw loose, but they strike me as being far more rational than my fellow Republicans who are threatening to boycott the election if their favorite candidate doesn’t head up the ticket. I can’t tell you how many people have written to me insisting that they’re sick and tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. I understand that they’re trying to convey their frustration, but I can’t help sniffing the undeniable stench of self-righteousness.(Italics mine)[...]

If there’s a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it’s that none of the current candidates possess the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn’t exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Governor Reagan gave Governor Jerry Brown a run for his money -- or should I say our money? -- when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large part for the streets of our cities being turned into public latrines by the unwashed, the unwanted and the insane when, to save a few bucks, he oversaw the closing of California’s mental hospitals. He also signed the nation’s most liberal abortion bill. Although he had a change of heart a scant six months later, one never hears him condemned for flip-flopping on the issue.

And, lest we forget, as president, he opened the floodgates to illegal aliens by signing an amnesty bill in the mid-80s, and, for good measure, appointed Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, neither of whom was the answer to a conservative’s prayer. Frankly, as admirable as Reagan was in so many ways, I suspect that if he were seeking the GOP nomination this year, he’d be dismissed as a RINO by many of the party’s zealots.

None of this is intended to tarnish the man’s image, but simply to point out that the common perception of his conservative purity sometimes owed more to his charm and his ability as an actor to read a script and deliver a funny line, than to his politics.

Yeah, what HE said!

Since when did the entitlement mentality become a Conservative trait?

Lots of Supreme Court appointments soon. Let the Progressives pick them and we can guarantee a lifetime fulfilled by whining; for us as well as THE CHILDREN.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Don Surber:

The global warming hysteria cycle is nearing its end. How do I know this? Republicans have embraced it.

Wince.

"Because My 12hp, Two-Stage Snowthrower Wouldn't Start"

As Gaius states, "When snow shovels are outlawed only outlaws will have snow shovels."

Beaten and bloodied by his own snow shovel.

[...]The women were unloading groceries when the thieves tried to steal two purses from their cart.

One of the women grabbed a shovel from the suspects' pickup and smacked one of the men upside the head. The other woman jumped into the cab and attacked the other suspect, then grabbed the keys so he couldn't drive away.[...]

[...]required staples to close the gash in his head. (Must've had an Easy Button.)

No, I don't want to meet YOU in St. Louis!