If McCain loses, will Joe the Plumbing-Contractor be flushed?

Just a thought. But if McCain loses — still a possibility — what will happen to Joe? Or what happens if McCain wins, and he indeed takes Joe to Washington? What on earth would happen with him? What would he do? [Insert token Secretary of... jokes here.] But I think he’ll be left high and dry, perhaps either way.

Just a thought.

People lining up to vote early in Milwaukee

A friend sent along this picture of the line outside Zeidler Hall in downtown Milwaukee. I think it’s great that we’ve got early voting so that we can keep the lines moving next Tuesday. Click the picture for a bigger version of it, in which you can actually see the people in line.

The line of people waiting to vote at Ziedler Hall in downtown Milwaukee wraps around the block!

Another GOP voter supression trick dies fast

Verbatim from the email I got from WisPolitics:

The City of Milwaukee Election Commission dismissed a last-minute voter registration challenge by a Republican Party activist tonight that could have affected some 1,000 voters who have already cast absentee ballots in person.

The complaint sought to disqualify the ballots of voters who registered and cast in-person absentee ballots during a time period in which voters did not have to show proof of residence to register.

See Milwaukee Notes for more: http://milwaukee.wispolitics.com

Well, they sure do try…

Joe Biden is welcome here any time.

Unlike, say, John McCain.

Yes, FOX loves me no more.

*sigh*

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

From 1,791 in one day — an all-time record for this blog. Then down, down, down, down to just 44.

Blogging shall continue as normal.

UWM’s double message: “Live and learn in the city” and its Wauwatosa expansion plans

Ah, my fair university, how fickle thou art.

UW-Milwaukee is preparing for its annual open house. A theme of the event is “Live and Learn in the City!” In the promotional image shown below, a diverse group of young students are standing in front of some buildings in downtown Milwaukee as a Milwaukee County Transit System bus whizzes by.

That’s a laudable goal. It makes a lot of sense to restock downtown Milwaukee with people and businesses.

But if Chancellor Santiago has his way, the university will not be expanding in Milwaukee. but building a sprawling new engineering campus in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. Despite the urging of the City of Milwaukee to stay in town and the persistent work of Dave Reid at UWM Downtown, the winds have blown away from having a downtown engineering campus, as the County panel working on the matter has spoken in favor of the suburban expansion.

It’s amazing that despite the recent spike in gas prices and the steady flow into the city, the push to spread out presses on. But it’s also not too surprising given the county executive’s will for everyone to have a car and for the suburbs to thrive (despite persistnet traffic jams) while the city… well, we don’t need to talk about that place. Right, Scott? Never mind that it’s the state’s economic engine, that it’s held up better in the decades of deindustrialization than Detroit or many Ohio and Pennsylvania cities and towns.

UWM should devote itself to making it possible for people to live, work, and learn in the city. It’s impossible to learn much while stuck in your car on I-94. But that exactly is what UWM’s Wauwatosa expansion plans call for.

Why compare screenshots of Windows 7 to Mac OS X 10.6?

It irks me that people have compared the screenshots of Windows 7 to OS X 10.6. Neither of the two are out yet. And at the rate they’re going, Windows 7 may not be out till the next decade, by which time Apple will probably be on 10.9, if not 11.

Who is “the most liberal person to ever run for the presidency”?

In 2004, the RNC called Sen. John Kerry “the most liberal person to ever run for President,” a line that Sen. John McCain echoed about Sen. Barack Obama today. Now I could tell you four years ago that Kerry was not “the most liberal,” nor is Obama today. In fact, the person who came to mind for me was the Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs, who, along with  Progressive Party nominee and former Republican Theodore Roosevelt, may have played a role in tipping the election of 1912, unseating Republican President William Howard Taft in favor of Democratic Party nominee Woodrow Wilson.

Debs was an actual American Socialist. Unlike Sen. Obama, Mr. Debs ran with some pretty wild ideas, including:

Women’s Suffrage—Women get the right to vote

Minimum Wage—By establishing minimum wage scales.

Direct Election of President—The Election of the President and Vice-President by direct vote of the people.

Aside from the sensible last item, we actually have all of those in some form in the United States.

Other things Debs ran on, including public ownership of utilities and a shortened work day, have yet to come.

Barack Obama isn’t running on those issues. Nor is he planning any Marxist seizures of property or financial resources. And, once again, it is the Republican presidential administration that has nationalized part of the financial system. Let us hope they don’t have to start nationalizing real industry as well. (I do not want that!)

My deep condolences to Gretchen Schuldt

Gretchen Schuldt, author of Milwaukee Rising and Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, and a most respectable blogger, has recently lost her best friend and husband, David Doege.

I’ll light a candle for him tonight.

Yep, Stevens is guilty.

Old news at this point that Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was found guilty on all seven counts of making false statements for not reporting gifts on his Senate disclosure forms.

Speaking of crooks, according to NPR’s All Things Considered, ” Johnson County, [Kansas] Commissioner John Toplikar has been charged with theft in connection with the theft of campaign signs belonging to his rival, Calvin Hayden. Over the weekend, Hayden campaign worker Teri Atwell captured the theft on video. She says she initially did not suspect the commissioner.”

Recently I read that Johnson County, where Kansas City is located, is also the seat of frequent white collar crime. Even though I haven’t lived there since I was five years old, long before I hand any sense of politics, I still find this embarrassing. I know some people do it up here in Wisconsin, but I’ve never heard of it being quite so bad.