Waukesha Carnival 02/08/2009

Welcome to this week’s edition. It’s gettin’ late and I have to work tomorrow, so let’s get to it.

First sad news, Darryl Enriquez at Waukesha FYI tells us about the Waukesha Freeman layoffs. One of those laid off was photographer and Waukesha blogger Byron Houlgrave, who shared the last picture he clicked for the Freeman.

Continuing in Waukesha city, Jeff reviews the fish fry at Michael’s Italian America Restaurant at Five Points Blog.

James Wigderson went to the Waukesha Common Council meeting and shares his thoughts with us at Wigderson Library & Pub.

Spiralling out a little, Linda Richter at Inside New Berlin finds the security cameras in schools unsettling and it’s not just the price tag.

At peterepublic, Pete Fanning drops by to remind us he’s still alive, just very, very very busy.

Kyle Prast at Practically Speaking reminds us that US Rep. Sensenbrenner and state Rep. Leah Vukmir will have several town halls. One is past, two are upcoming.

In posts about state news, Wisconsin Sen. Mary Lazich (chief aide Kevin Fischer?) points out at Conservatively Speaking that the Wisconsin Covenant program could be costly.

In a couple of miscellaneous posts, Curt Otto gives us the question to last week’s answer, or something like that. Any way it’s all over at Maple & Main.

Meanwhile, over at the Spring City Chronicle, Michael Phelps gets the Bonehead of the Week award. Pretty much a unanimous vote, I would say.

Then in posts on national issues, MommaBlogger takes time out to rant over that Florida case of the botched abortion at Homemakers Guide to the Galaxy.

Dan Deibert shows us how fast government can move when they want to, with pictures at The D Spot.

Alex has some thoughts about Republican votes and raises at A Little off Main.

At The Other Side of  My Mouth, Tim Rock has some thoughts on the Republican vote on the stimulus package.

Silent e tells us why Democrats are unpatriotic at silent e speaks.

Cindy Kilkenny has a two-parter over at Fairly Conservative on building our own stimulus package.

Dad29 points out that the American people seem to be understanding the ramifications of the stimulus package.

Whew, that’s it for another long one. As usual, if you have one you liked add the link in the comments below or e-mail me at thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com. Same for posts you’d like to nominate for next week’s carnival. It doesn’t have to be one of your own. Links to our archives and future editions can be found here.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Blog carnivals, Democrats, Economics, Ethics, Fifth Cong. District, Republican, Sports, Taxes, Waukesha, Waukesha Carnival, Waukesha blogs, Wisconsin, government spending, policy , abortion, Blog carnivals, blogs, Democrat, James Sensenbrenner, layoffs, Leah Vukmir, Mary Lazich, Michael Phelps, New Berlin, privacy concerns, recession, Republican, Rod Blagojevich, Stimulus package, Waukesha, Waukesha Carnival, Waukesha Common Council, Waukesha Freeman, Wisconsin

Saturday Snippets

For your reading pleasure while I go to Mayfair Mall.

Boxer Urges Quick Handover of U.S. Power to UN

The UNCRC imposes on all treaty signatories power over laws concerning children and, by extension, families. The largest portion of laws concerning children and families in the U.S. are state statutes so this treaty would, in actual fact, eliminate all family laws in the various states and hand the power over this area of law to the U.N. as per the Supremacy Clause to the U.S. Constitution (Article V1) that states that treaties preempt state laws.

Boxer is eager to destroy the entire lot of family laws throughout the country supposedly to protect “the most vulnerable people of society.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Every so often we read something like this where some politician is going to give up US sovereignty for some UN mandate.

I’m still waiting. Watchful, but waiting.

A God-shaped hole? via THE Right Side of Wisconsin

The Man the Left Wants Hanged for Tax Cheating by Warner Todd_Huston

Tax troubles were all the rage for certain folks recently. ABC News screamed in a headline about one fellow that was, “America’s Overnight Sensation… Owes $1,200 in Taxes.” Huffintgon Post was all up in arms over the same story. The San Francisco Chronicle was tsking the fellow for being “concerned about increased taxes – but hasn’t paid his own income taxes.” The Chicago Tribune chided this figure for being “delinquent on his taxes.” It was a crime, they all said. An outrage. This is not to even mention the unhinged, screaming mimis of the left blogosphere that dug in like pitbulls to excoriate this notorious tax cheat.

No, you know how this works. You have to read the whole thing to find out who.

Gmail Labs: Ten Gmail Labs Features You Should Enable. Yes, I still use Gmail, with caution.

Gmail has been slowly but surely rolling out cool new features ever since they started Gmail Labs. If you haven’t taken advantage of the fruits of Labs, here’s a look at 10 Labs features you should enable.

25 Random Tips for the Busy Facebook User. Been hit with one of those lists requests, yet? You will be.

A Times analysis of 2.5 million lists (okay, maybe more like six or seven) yielded the following formula for the perfect list, which we offer in the interest of – well, which we offer, anyway, in case someone wants to read it.

Hot Air reports, Scandal for Steele? Do Republicans have scandal (again)?

Federal investigators have begun looking into claims that Steele diverted campaign funds from his 2006 Senatorial run in Maryland to family members, but the Post has found at least some support for Steele as well.

Palin’s Explanation Brings Out the Crazies via Lakeshore Laments. She always seems to. Amanda Carpenter has a take also.

Enjoy!

Filed under: Christianity, Conspiracy theories, Democrats, Ethics, Humorous, Money in politics, Politics, Republican, social networks , Barbara Boxer, campaign funds, Christianity, Facebook, Gmail Labs, humor, Michael Steele, Religion, Republican, Tax cheats, Taxes, United Nations, US sovereinty

“RiNO’s are NOT the Enemy”

John Brodigan has some good thoughts but the best is in the update,

Point of Fact, thirty-four people who voted against Tim Geithner include Sens. McCain, Specter, and Collins…three people that are frequently accused of being RiNO’s, and Specter is the one most holding up Eric Holder. The R’s who voted for him include Sens. Corker, Shelby, and Ensign…three cats we were singing the praises of for holding up Grand Theft Auto Bailout. It’s ain’t all black and white, folks. [Emphases mine]

Filed under: Politics, Republican , Republican Party, RINO

Obama picks leave openings for the GOP

At least that’s the headline on USATODAY.com.

But looking at the nifty chart they included (Obama, Biden, Clinton, Salazar, Napolitano, Richardson and Solis) only Napolitano would be replaced by a Republican and only Salazar’s seat has a reasonable chance of being picked up by Republicans.

So I’m not sure what openings they’re talking about.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Republican , Barack Obama, cabinet appointments, Republican Party

Colin Powell takes on Rush Limbaugh

Tim Cuprisin on his blog links to a CNN report on an interview with Colin Powell to be aired Sunday at 1pm ET, in which he talks about what Republicans need to do and wonders whether Rush Limbaugh serves the party well.

Cuprisin doesn’t much go for the “sqwakers” anyway, so this fits in his meme.

Powell, of course, supported Obama over McCain, whom I suppose was too conservative for him.

There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don’t object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority.

The thing that surprised me was that Powell considers himself a Republican. I must have missed that.

Any way here’s what he said about Limbaugh,

“Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?” Powell asked. “Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?”

I’m not a big fan of talk radio and hardly listen to it, unless I’m in the car, but doesn’t Air America do the same kind of thing? It didn’t seem to hurt the Democrats.

But I guess he’s saying Republicans should become Democrats.

That should give the country a choice.

I guess some Republicans feel like Powell and Emil W. Henry Jr.

who wrote in the Washington Post about infrastructure spending, which was not bad, but he started with this,

In the wake of the recent electoral rout, we conservatives must redefine ourselves in a world that has changed since the birth of the Reagan Doctrine.

Rout? Oh, it was a convincing victory and we should learn some lessons from it, but a rout? I guess his definition of a rout is different from mine. And Republicans have won twice since the election–hardly what you would expect from a rout.

Filed under: 2008, Elections, Republican, conservative , 2008 election, Colin Powell, conservative, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh

I’m a map geek

The best way to get my attention is with a map. I explore maps; I pour over maps; I collect maps.

I just love maps.

So here are some electoral maps I’ve run across.

The Washington Independent has a group of maps which answers the question, “What would the 2008 electoral map look like if the election were decided by [Fill In the Blank]“

The Electoral Map uses the first of a series of maps from the New York Times to state that the country is turning blue, but if you use the comparison from ‘92 and ‘96 we’re turning red. Obviously we’ll have to see what the next couple of elections tell us.

The USATODAY.com has a time lapse of when counties were declared one way or the other.

Frontloading HQ has a map of the 2012 projected Electoral College votes.

And last, but not least, Christopher Healey from the Computer Science department at North Carolina State university has a series of maps which subdivides each congressional district into four quadrants and visualizes

“four elections of interest: President (upper-left), U.S. Senate (upper-right), U.S. House (lower-right), and Governor (lower-left).”

In addition,

“saturation [of color] represents the winning percentage (more saturated for higher percentages); the small disc floating over the state shows aggregated state-wide results; incumbent losses are highlighted with textured X’s; the height of the state represents the number of electoral college votes it controls.”

Whew.

These maps also dispel the notion of Red State-Blue State, for the most part.

Filed under: 2008, Democrats, Elections, Republican, presidential , 2008 presidential election, Democrat, Electoral College, maps, Republican

Rebuilding the GOP – Wisconsin

Cindy Kilkenny at Fairly Conservative continues her series on Rebuilding the GOP. She looks at what the Wisconsin GOP has to do to return to power.

Other posts in the series:

1) What went wrong?

2) Where to look next.

2a) Discerning the candidates.

Filed under: Republican, Wisconsin , Republican Party strategy, Wisconsin Republican Party

Get a spine

GOP Senators Uneasy With Ejecting Stevens from Caucus

Many of Stevens’ Republican colleagues fretted Monday that DeMint’s motion is premature, given that the outcome of Stevens’ re-election bid remains uncertain.

Vote the bum out already.

Filed under: Ethics, Republican, US House , government corruption, Republican Party, Ted Stevens

Whither the GOP?

This is not opinion, just some articles/posts I’ve run across. Most of my thoughts are here and here, although I may add some here.

Cindy Kilkenny had some thoughts that I agree with here and here. She promises more. She promises to answer four questions,

1) What went wrong? [Ed.--Part 1]
2) Where to look next. [Ed.--Part 2]
3) Rebuilding the Wisconsin GOP.
4) Rebuilding the national party.

The only thing I might quibble with in part one is that it may be harder to be moderate on the abortion issue (she is, and I pretty much am) and keep those social conservatives that Christine Todd Whitman seems to think the GOP is hostage to (she refers to them as “social fundamentalists.” I think Ms. Whitman fails to observe that social fundamentalists–I prefer to simply refer to them as “traditionalists”– passed Proposition 8 in California, which ofter votes Democratic). I have a similar quibble with elliot on the immigration question. I believe they’re both right, but it’s easier to say we have to convince people than it is to do it.

In Part 2, she refered to this article by Rep. Paul Ryan.

In OnMilwaukee.com there was this article by Steve Jagler who talked with Craig Peterson, a conservative political advisor. Some of what was written was right on, others (Sarah Palin) I disagreed with.

This LA Times article looks at the Republican Governors Conference and thoughts coming out of it on what the GOP needs to do. Again, some I think are good, some not so much.

One more article looks at five governors to watch (Christ, FL; Jindal, LA; Daniels, IN; Palin, Alaska; Pawlenty, MI).

Filed under: Republican , Republican Party strategy

Quote of the day 11/13/2008

Over at From Where I sit elliot summed up in one sentence what I tried to get at last week.

[The GOP] has to stop being the party of white folks.

He says more, but that’s the jist.

And neither he nor I believe the GOP/conservatives have to sacrifice conservatism to do that.

And that’s the quote of the day.

Filed under: Quote of the day, Republican, conservative , conservative, Quote of the day, Republican Party