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The contract over at InTrade is up to 86% for Walker as of this writing. As of the last week or so, the people on the Barrett side seem to have finally given up and are bailing furiously. Here is the chart.

The MSM is in a full court press to try to save Barrett but nothing seems to be working. The first three stories on our local “news” last night all bashed Walker in some form or another. It was ridiculous. They don’t even try to act impartial anymore.

Walker’s enormous war chest is crushing the Dems with wave after wave of mailers and TV ads. On top of this he will probably have $$ left over to spend for his candidates this fall. I have read that the national funding has dried up for the Dems. I think the unions are out of money. I don’t have any real proof of these things besides what I am hearing and seeing.

I don’t know how the state senate recall races will end up. I have a feeling the senate will be lost, but no big deal. Walker’s reforms are already through and are working. In addition, there is no legislative business until next year, and the R’s can perhaps peel back some of the D’s gains in the state senate (if there are any) this November.

There is more good news – super liberal congress critter Tammy Baldwin is behind ANY of the three Republicans currently running in polling for our vacant US Senate seat. That would be a pick up for the R’s as Dem Herb Kohl is (finally) retiring.

I don’t want to start celebrating yet, but the fat lady looks to be arriving at the opera hall pretty soon.

Disclosure – this blog is an InTrade affiliate.

Remember the standard: “If you are going to cover a song, rip it apart a bit and make it your own.”

Coldplay, in tribute to the recently departed MCA of Beastie Boys.

…are just meant to be outside.

Some cocktail napkin math and most likely incorrect analysis of yesterday’s recall primary under the fold for anyone who is interested.

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Does anyone remember the “protests” last February from up here behind the cheddar curtain? I sure do.

Next Tuesday the recall primary goes off, with Kathy Falk, dedicated union lover running against Tom Barrett. Yes, that Tom Barrett, the guy who lost to Scott Walker in Nov. of 2010. Falk has been effectively kneecapped by her own party. She is a lefty liberal from Madison with strong union backing and the Donks realize there is no way for her to win against Walker.

I have heard from a few places that team Obama/Emmanuel have had something to do with the Democratic Party killing off Falk. I don’t have any proof besides what I have heard from friends and volunteers in the Falk campaign.

Barrett is a far more moderate choice than Falk. Early ads against Barrett were run by AFSCME and others.

Neither candidate is really mentioning collective bargaining for government unions anymore. It is a dead issue. This fact, combined with the Donks getting behind a much more centrist, corporate sponsored candidate tells me one thing. The recall and all of the b.s. associated with it is nothing more than a power grab. Plain and simple. The left and government unions have been played. Will they vote for Barrett if Falk loses? Probably. But that will be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

In general, I am not in favor of government regulation of pretty much anything, since most of the time the rules don’t make sense or favor certain parties, and/or are written by people that don’t know what they are talking about. But I think what I saw Saturday night was an exception that I am willing to make. What you see below is our fight team head coach taping the hands of one of our fighters. As an aside, we had three fighters in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competition Saturday night and went 3-0, with two knockouts and one submission.

I have been backstage many times with the fighters, but there was never anyone watching or looking around. The woman dressed in the black is a state of Wisconsin inspector. She was making sure that the taping of the hands was legal.

There are rules now on how you can tape hands – the most important being that you can tape between the knuckles, but not over them. This disallows the “casting” of your hand, which effectively turns it into a club. The regulation tape is only 1″ wide.

After the hands were taped, the inspector signed the tape. Then the glove goes on over the taping, and that is taped as well – and the inspector watched me doing this and signed off on that too. After you are taped and signed, no fighter was allowed to leave the locker room area without having an inspector escort (typically to the restroom, or to the cage to inspect for footing and the flex of the fence).

In the old days, none of this happened. We just taped the hands, one of the guys running the fights would glance at it, and that was that. There were no locker room regulations, or anyone from any authority back there. The inspectors also checked everyone’s shorts and one guy had to cut some laces off that weren’t able to be tucked away.

The pre-fight meeting was better too. The referee clearly explained all the rules (there are many more than you think) to the fighters and the coaches and corners. The promoter of the fights also said that no taunting of the opponent would be tolerated, and that if you did taunt, you would never appear on the card again. And that went for coaches and seconds as well. Celebration, OK – but taunting, no way.

Security was also tighter. I had to show my “seconds” license from the State of Wisconsin to receive my passes to enter the locker room and to be cageside. By the way there is no test to be a second. Just fill out a form and send in $40.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I typically disdain the government getting into stuff like this, but every single person there from the State knew exactly what they were talking about, knew the rules, and were extremely professional and helpful. There were a lot of questions since this was the first time a lot of us had seen a state presence such as this and all were dealt with fairly.

The fighters have to go through a much more rigorous testing to get their license; blood work, doctors inspections and more.

MMA is huge and getting bigger every day. I think that a set, established, group of rules is a good thing for the sport, and will help keep idiots out of the ring and out of the way.

A few blocks up the road from where I live there was an estate sale last weekend.

The deal with these for those who don’t know, is that you hire a company to advertise and create interest in the sale, come into a house, tag everything up with prices and try to liquidate the stuff. In exchange, the company gets a cut, of course. This particular estate sale was very well attended.

The road that I live on had cars parked all along it for the majority of the time that the sale was open. I think that more people have taken up this type of thing as a hobby. I can certainly see the appeal of getting something for cheap and re-selling it on Ebay or Craigslist or wherever. And most (all?) of these transactions, I would assume, go under the radar of the tax man.

This particular house was of some interest to me since it was the Frau Becker’s house. I had a passing acquaintance with Frau Becker – she always had a little dog of some sort and she walked it in the neighborhood. When I was outside doing yard work or whatever, we always had a little light conversation. A nice lady. I asked my wife about the sale and assumed she had moved away. My wife told me that Frau Becker died a few years ago from ovarian cancer. Sad news, that. I suppose the husband finally died too, and that was the reason for the sale.

While I wasn’t close to Frau Becker, I knew her. So yesterday when I sauntered down to the sale to see what was left, it was sort of like seeing part of her that I didn’t know about.

So many chemicals and lubricants. There was a nice, barely used lathe in the basement that they were selling “dutch auction” style.

Lots of airline glassware. The Frau flew first class back and forth from the homeland, it appears. And kept the glassware. Or do you get that for free up in the front of the plane?

She kept sewing kits from all over the place. You know, the little free ones that you get in hotels? I imagine the Frau came from a depression time where you kept pretty much everything you could.

Matchbooks.

Maps from every country of Europe.

A mass of costume jewelry here, a pile of magazines there. I imagine the good jewelry was sold elsewhere by the family.

Lots of old books – in German. Those don’t do me any good.

Unwritten post cards.

An old HP laptop battery.

The dresser where Frau Becker used to keep her clothes. The dressers were quite nice but I didn’t dare bring home a piece of furniture without the express written consent of my secretary of interior decorating (i.e. the wife).

It was an interesting half hour that I spent in Frau Becker’s home. I had never attended a sale like this and it was a neat feeling to be able (yea, encouraged) to rifle through someone’s personal effects. Since I knew the Frau, I was a bit creeped out, but not too much.

I may attend a sale like this in the future. I wonder if I will think about the deceased the next time. I am sure I will – that is the historian in me.

I was reminded of a great lesson. In the end, it is all crap that you can’t take with you. It was good for me to get that reminder.

Cross Posted at LITGM.

…is happy that the grass is up.

Story:

President Obama today affirmed American neutrality in the dispute between Argentina and England over the Falkland Islands. In the process, he made clear that the “special relationship” between the UK and the United States is not very special.
 
Obama’s comments were made during a speech in Cartagena, Colombia, at the Summit of the Americas. It was delivered in English, but Obama chose to refer to the disputed islands by their Spanish name – the Malvinas. Argentina has insisted that the islands should always be referred to as “the Malvinas,” while the British have been adamant about calling them “the Falklands.” Obama’s choice of Malvinas might have been seen as a slap at the UK. Instead of feeling slapped, though, the British might be amused: He called them “the Maldives.”
 
The Maldives are a group of Islands off the coast of India, half a world away from the Falklands. The story for people who enjoy presidential gaffes is that Obama got the wrong islands in the wrong ocean, but because Obama is so clearly brilliant, we’ll just file this away as an anomaly, along with the extra states. The real story is that he wanted to call them “the Malvinas” in the first place. It puts the British on notice that if push comes to shove, they might expect us to be as neutral as France.

I agree with the quote. The big deal to me isn’t the Maldives vs. Malvinas gaffe (although it is unbelievable that our president would actually make that mistake), it is the fact that he isn’t calling them what they are. The Falklands. As an aside, who in gods name does Obama have making his speeches/helping him with public appearances? I get the fact that he hates Great Britain, but at least fact check the Maldives/Malvinas. Sheesh.

The never, ever, ever, ever, ever ending voting, re-voting and re-re-voting continues apace here behind the cheddar curtain. A small update below the fold if you are interested.
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Barry Ritholtz put up an interesting post this past weekend. He attended some lunches and dinners with the heads of some start up companies. I am encouraged about what he had to say. Here is the money, italics mine:

The youth of America are full of ideas and energy. They don’t give a shit that their parents fucked everything up — they are going to steam roll over the old order and replace it with one of their own. They understand that future is not about the past. They know that they are a business of one, that no company or government is ever going to offer them economic security. They are their own team, brand and idea factory.

There are lots of things people are rightfully upset about — I lost my voice ranting last night about eejit economists who think the crisis was caused by “predatory borrowing” (it wasn’t). But that’s not what is going to be propelling us forward.

Don’t look to DC — the political debates there are laughable. Its like watching two different T-Rex debating who gets to eat the dead plant eater unaware of the the giant asteroid hurtling their way. Their argument gets resolved when the asteroid turns their summer into nuclear winter.

The old order, the political hacks and hangers on, the whiners and recession porn stars and permabears — the dinosaurs — all have no idea WTF is coming their way. They are going to be mowed down like so many extinct species before them. They cannot see the asteroid hurtling their way from the deep black depths of space.

The Future of America is coming. It is not being driven by Goldman Sachs or the GOP or Obama. That’s old school, the old order, yesterday. It’s coming, and coming sooner than most people imagine.

When you get run over, don’t say you weren’t warned . . .

While I think Rithotlz ignores some of the roadblocks along the way that will slow down and possibly derail this new breed, such as old school politics and the like, I agree with his thrust in general.

My generation – the Gen X ers, and those who are coming after us have received a pretty raw deal, perpetrated upon us by the Boomers. We realize that there will be no Social Security at this pace, even though our weekly paychecks are deducted for it. We understand that there are millions of people who have enormous salaries and benefits for pushing papers across the desk of a DMV, and we resent it. Now that we are starting to have kids, we are teaching them that there is NO REASON to rely on the government for ANYTHING and that they are on their own. And that we vote accordingly.

I agree with Ritholtz – some of the new tech and other things coming down the pipe are going to blow the old guard away. We can organize a rally very quickly with thousands of people with a simple Facebook page. This is just one example. The dinosaurs better get ready. Because it is coming. It may take a decade or two, but it will be here before you know it.

Cross posted at LITGM.

*the comments at the Ritholtz post are very good

I just wanted to make this post to do my part for Google searches. It smarts when the mask slips.

1. Will the Black Panther Party give the bounty money (remember the dead or alive thing?) for Zimmerman to the police department where he turned himself in?

2. And more seriously, does anyone besides me think that there is zero chance Zimmerman walks? I bet his own lawyers have already sold him up the river for a reduced charge. Alternately, I think that Zimmerman might kill himself – he is already acting quite irrationally, going around his attorneys and talking to the authorities, as well as having a rumored conversation with Sean Hannity. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever talk with the police without your attorney present!

3. Even more seriously, I am guessing there will be riots somewhere, somehow for some reason over this. Evidence be damned.

With the “protests” here in Wisconsin a lot of people have been invoking the “sacred” name of Bob LaFollette. When I tell my friends that I am surprised that they would support a Republican I get a lot of crazed looks. Of course when people invoke LaFollette around here they are thinking of the Progressive one, not the Republican one. And of course party philosophies change over time (does anyone remember the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Southern Democrats?).

As another interesting side note, the great grand nephew of Bob LaFollette is Doug LaFollette, the current office holder of Secretary of State here in Wisconsin, an essentially meaningless role. He has announced his candidacy for governor in the recall election. And he is nuts, as you can see in this video. You would think the Democrats would kick a fruitcake like that out of their party.

But I digress. Boy do I digress.

I am looking for a book about Bob LaFollette that I can read that will give me a proper perspective of the man, where he came from and the actual story of his life, versus some watered down progressive tome. Any help here?

Up here in Wisconsin the non stop elections continue. More under the fold if you are interested.
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I posted this on Facebook but I may as well post it here to ca$h in on the ChicagoBoyz mind hive.

The few stores I have been to in Madison don’t seem to have nice shirts that are fashionable so I am looking for an online store that has good variety, and good quality. I like shirts with cuffs. These are to be worn with nice slacks and/or jeans for a cool night out (not with a suit and/or tie). Need a decent return policy as well in case they don’t fit. Thoughts?

Back on November 21 of last year we played our first game of Name That Breed. There were a lot of good guesses in the comments. Below is the subject, our dog Jameson.

Well, we had his DNA run at the vet and below the fold I will put the results.
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I am an avid user of Facebook, for better or worse. The last few weeks many of my friends have been engaging in a large amount of slacktivism by linking a video called Kony 2012.

Some of the scenes in this video may be disturbing, as the topic is general violence and exploitation of children in Africa.
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Prison Bound by Social Distortion, 1992, at CBGB:

As an odd sidenote there is a chance I may have actually been at this show.

Prison Bound by Social Distortion, 2011, at the Guitar Center Sessions:

It is cool sometimes to see how we grow up. I love both versions.

A few weeks ago I took a whole hog butchering class in Milwaukee. Photos and info are posted at my “home” blog, Life in the Great Midwest. The photos may be disturbing to some, however the dispatching and evisceration of the animal are not part of the class. More importantly, if you go to part one you get to see a picture of Dan from Madison with a hair and beard net on.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.