Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative

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A Wisconsin conservative Christian writes about, well, whatever I feel like

Starbucks to Close Stores and End Sandwich Sales

Yes, Virginia, we are in a recession.

Starbucks will

close 100 underperforming locations in the United States while scaling back the rate of store openings domestically. At the same time, Starbucks will move more aggressively to open stores overseas, where business remains robust.

Starbucks reported anemic sales growth of 1 percent at stores open at least a year, the worst three-month performance in the company’s history. United States sales have been battered by a weak economy and increased competition from the likes of McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. Same-store sales for American stores declined 1 percent.

Can there now be any doubt?

Filed under: Economics , , ,

Democratic Debate

Once again steveegg at No Runny Eggs is live-blogging and that’s where you’ll find me.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , , ,

Nancy Cartwright makes large donation to Scientology

Via Michael Mathias, who links to this article,

Actress Nancy Cartwright, the voice behind cartoon character Bart Simpson, has been awarded Scientology’s Patron Laureate Award after she donated $10 million to the faith in 2007.

Others who got awards for their gifts were Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, and Priscilla Presley.

The prizes were handed out at a top-secret ceremony in Florida last summer, according to the publication.

While the ceremony may have been secret, there would be no secret as to where in Florida, as Scientology owns a large chunk of my adopted hometown of Clearwater, FL. The place would have been the old Fort Harrison Hotel, the main building in Scientology’s holdings.

A listing of other celebrity Scientologists is here.

Filed under: After hours , , , , , , , , ,

Republican Debate

Steveegg at No Runny Eggs is live-blogging. That’s where I am.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , , ,

Edwards/Giuliani call it quits

And all those delicious visions of a brokered convention vanish.

UPDATE: So does Giuliani, who endorses John McCain

Filed under: 2008, Elections, presidential , , , ,

When a Rebate Isn’t a Rebate

Lance Burri tells us.

Since only about 50% of wage earners in this country actually pay federal income taxes, much of this – maybe most of it – is a transfer, not a rebate. We – myself included – will receive money we never paid in.

Read all of it.

Filed under: Economics , , ,

Influential?

I have noticed that for the month of January I have appeared in BlogNetNews’ Most Influential Blogs in Wisconsin every week this month. Although they don’t reveal the exact method they use for obtaining their rankings, certainly they have to take into account links and readership. Once again, I express my appreciation to folks who visit and link to me.

I blog, not for ratings, but because I like politics and I like to write. I think most folks do. The fact that some people actually find my posts important enough to read and link to is further gratification.

Filed under: Blogging , ,

Butler – Gableman debate

With a tip of the conservative cap to illusary tenant, we were directed to a debate between incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler and candidate and Burnett County Circuit Court Judge Michael Gableman. Wispolitics.com covered it, but the program is still available to listen to on Panther Talk Live, the blog of UW-M student Kyle Duerstein, who did a very good job of moderating.

Filed under: Wisconsin , , ,

McCain beats Romney in Florida

From Yahoo! News

Returns from 64 percent of the state’s precincts showed McCain, the Arizona senator, with 36 percent of the vote and Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, with 31 percent.

That percentage will probably hold about the same when all returns are in. As winner, McCain gets all 57 of the delegates at stake.

Hillary Clinton won the Democratic side but will get no delegates (so far) because Florida, as well as Michigan, which Clinton also won, are being penalized by the DNC for having their contests early.

McCain won among moderates (moderate Republicans? Is there such a thing?), veterans, those concerned about the economy, Hispanics and senior citizens. Romney won among conservatives, including social conservatives, it may be presumed from the abortion question, and those opposed to easier route for those here illegally.

For those interested, evangelicals were split between Huckabee, McCain, and Romney.

Speculation is rampant that Giuliani will drop out and endorse McCain (link via Letters in Bottles).

One could question Rudy’s strategy. Certainly, in my view, tactical mistakes have been made by Romney, Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Giuliani in not contesting certain races. McCain has been in them all.

Filed under: Wisconsin , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Waukesha Carnival 01-29-2008

I apologize for not posting over the weekend. Just wiped out from work, I guess.

Anyway, following are those posts in the Waukesha County portion of the Cheddarsphere that I found most interesting. They appear in no particular order.

Mayor Nelson posted his memo that he usually posts before a Common Council meeting.

James Wigderson had some advice on picking the new school superintendent.

The Asian Badger posted his thoughts about a piece that was printed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last Sunday concerning the business climate in Milwaukee.

Jessica McBride wants folks to stop “disrespecting social conservatives” not that many folks will listen, but I agree.

Troy Fullerton ponders whether a conservative of conscience could vote for John McCain. I say yes, since McCain’s conservative rating matches closely with Fred Thompson’s rating among other well-known conservatives.

Kyle Prast at Practically Speaking tells about the trials of going green.

Scott Feldstein asks, “If there were a magic button which would make it so that no sexually active couple ever became pregnant unless they explicitly wanted to, would you push it?” As he says, as a group, pro-lifers would say no, but I’m one of those who would say yes.

If you haven’t followed the Kevin Fischer brouhaha, you’ve missed a doosie. Cindy Kilkenny, now blogging at Fairly Conservative, was involved and even James Wigderson got pulled into it. Be ready to do some reading and clicking if you hope to follow this.[ed. - For those surfing over here, please note, I have no horse in this race. Some of the posts and comments have been removed and I have not followed it from the beginning, nor do I particularly want to. My interest is the amount of bandwidth that has been expended in this endeavor.]

Yorick’s Persiflage reports on a health care forum held at Carroll College.

Jeff, whose posts at Five Points Blog are usually found here, has another blog, Eat Wisconsin, which is going under some reconstruction. Keep your eye on it.

Spring City Chronicle proposes something called the Larry Nelson Memorial Auditorium. I just give his warning,

This post advocates public spending on what some might call a grand scale. This may cause my more sensitive conservative and libertarian readers to suffer the vapors or have a conniption.

Ya gotta love it when anyone uses the word conniption.

Finally, Lisa at Sequentially Speaking has a list of the Marvel comic books that have “Lost” easter eggs in them.

That’s all there is this week. If you have some you’d like to suggest for this week or next week, let me know, either in the comments or e-mail to thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com .

Filed under: Blog carnivals, Waukesha, Waukesha Carnival, Waukesha blogs, Wisconsin , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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  • OK, folks. I'm off to the north. Have a great Thanksgiving. 2 days ago
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