AG Says Reilly Didn’t Follow Policy In Hiring Doyle Loyalist

This would seem self-evident.

The decision to give Gov. Jim Doyle’s top aide a choice job in the University of Wisconsin System likely violated university hiring rules, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Wednesday.

Van Hollen said UW System president Kevin Reilly didn’t follow university policy in giving the high-paying job to former Administration Secretary Michael Morgan because he didn’t consider other candidates.

But Van Hollen, who was responding to a request by Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), said he didn’t have authority to act in the matter and instead referred it to the state Board of Regents to review.

Morgan’s new job as the system’s senior vice president for administration and fiscal affairs provides him with a 79% boost in pay.

Morgan, who made $136,944 as administration secretary, is receiving $245,000 a year in the new job he started Tuesday. It is the same pay as that of the former person in the position, Tom Anderes, who has 30 years of experience in higher education and left to head the University of Arizona system.

Money Race in the 7th

Considering Obey has thrown his entire weight behind helping Lassa raise money, this is telling. 

State Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, announced Tuesday that she has raised about $313,000, the same day she became the lone Democrat seeking to fill Obey’s 7th Congressional District seat. Joe Reasbeck of Iron River said Tuesday he would exit the race, citing family issues.

Lassa will face the winner of the September Republican primary, either former Ashland County District Attorney Sean Duffy or Rudolph farmer Dan Mielke.

Matt Seaholm, Duffy’s campaign manager, said he expects his campaign to report raising $420,000 this quarter, bringing its cash total to about $620,000. Duffy reported $339,000 in cash at the end of March.

“Obviously a strongly elongated penis is the solution”

Learn something new every day. 

“The mature male squid was caught during a deep-water research cruise on the Patagonian slope. We took the animal from the catch, and it was moribund with arms and tentacles still moving, and chromatophores on the skin contracting and expanding,” he told the BBC.

“When the mantle of the squid was opened for maturity assessment, we witnessed an unusual event.

“The penis of the squid, which had extended only slightly over the mantle margin, suddenly started to erect, and elongated quickly to 67cm total length, almost the same length as the whole animal.”

[...]

Deep-water male squid are known to use a more primitive method, which involves somehow injecting their sperm into the female’s body.

However, it remained a mystery as to how they did it, as they lack a modified arm.

“In deep-water squid we could only guess how this happens,” says Dr Arkhipkin.

But the catching of the male deep-sea squid, of the species Onykia ingens, has revealed the answer.

“Obviously a strongly elongated penis is the solution,” says Dr Arkhipkin.

The squid uses its lengthy organ to reach into the body of the female, and it then injects the sperm directly to prevent it being washed away.

How the sperm injected into a female’s body then reaches her reproductive organs remains a mystery.

It may circulate in the cephalopod’s blood, just as it does in the bodies of gastropods, which are snail-like molluscs that are distantly related to cephalopods, which are also molluscs.

Belling Calls Out West Bend’s Elected Representatives

Ouch.

That was the ominous headline last week in the Washington County Daily News but it really could have been in any southeast Wisconsin newspaper. Two-bit local political hacks whining away that the public – THE PUBLIC! – wasn’t being nice enough to them. “Woe is us,” they wailed. “The lack of civility is unhealthy,” moaned City Administrator Joe Melvin. The chief whiner, Joe Carlson, the president of West Bend’s apparently too-picked-on school board, complained that too many citizens were too angry. It all gives West Bend a bad name etc. Such baby talk isn’t limited to West Bend. You hear it in New Berlin from the mayor, Jack Chiovatero. Wauwatosa’s mayor, Jill Didier, even bored a recent lunch companion with her complaint that I was trying to ruin her life. In Menomonee Falls, the cabal led by former Village President Joe Greco is perpetually angry that mere taxpayers have the audacity to speak out.

   I have some advice for Carlson and his ilk. Resign. This is America, not Joe Stalin’s Russia or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Speaking out, often loudly, isn’t an indecent abuse of decorum but the prerogative of an active citizenry. The louder the better, by the way. What the crybabies are upset about is they prefer to govern conservative communities in a moderate-to-liberal squishy way. When the public revolts, the leaders cry foul. A telling quote from West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss: “The hardest thing has been fighting communication ... perception over reality.”

[...]

In each case, the citizenry is speaking out. Good. Carlson a few months ago berated a fellow school board member for daring to air differences in public. Horrors! Hey, Carlson, differences of opinion in government are supposed to be in the open. West Bend belongs to the residents of West Bend not Carlson and not Deiss. They are the employees but think of themselves as the bosses (or dictators). The taxpayer/owners have a right to see public business dealt with in the open.

   Yeah, sure, they’ll respond. But can’t we be, you know, more “civil?” While some people always go too far, the problem in most communities is too much civility, not too little. Most folks let the power structure tax and spend, preside over mediocre school systems, lard public payrolls with unneeded workers, dole out unconscionable benefits and act like their the leaders of Liberalville. The few communities where people object are the ones whose residents are care the most.

   America was founded loudly and angrily. Every positive development in this country – civil rights, the end to slavery, tax relief – has been a result of the populace raising hell. It’s what makes America great. The reason suburbanites are yelling now is that they fundamentally oppose the leftist drift of their hometowns. Their vocalism is a very good thing, whether the thin-skinned small town politicos like it or not.

Sporcle of the Day, 7 Jul 10

OK Packers fans.  This one’s for you.

15 minutes to name the top single season offensive performances in Packer history.