Obama Knows Snooki?

To be fair, he just reads the words off of the prompter. 

Sandra Bullock

If her part was in line with her beliefs, then who cares if an oil company might have been involved?

A spokeswoman for Sandra Bullock says the actress wants her parts of a video promoting Gulf Coast restoration removed until she learns whether oil companies influenced it.

The statement Thursday came after the website DeSmogBlog called the campaign an industry push to get support for drilling and taxpayer money to repair wetland damage caused by the BP oil spill.

Women of the Storm, a New Orleans group that produced the video, lists America’s Wetland Foundation as a partner. The foundation lists BP and other oil companies as sponsors on its website.

New Union Boss

Cheers.

The West Bend Education Association has new leadership.

West Bend West High School Library media specialist Jason Penterman was elected president of the teacher association.

Penterman started working in the West Bend School District in the fall of 2001 as an English teacher.

  He was elected president of the teacher’s association in March, along with Salley Heuer as secretary and Diane Praeger as treasurer. Terms of office are two years.

Penterman said he hopes to build the association’s relationship with the West Bend School Board and district administration. He also wants to improve student attendance and reduce drop-out rates.

  The WBEA represents about 500 professional staff and another 200 teaching assistant and secretarial support staff in the West Bend School District.

Friends of a Feather

Barrett, Doyle, and the President of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards (daughter of Ann Richards, former Pelosi staffer, married to SEIU thug, etc.).

Hat tip Charlie Sykes. 

Ripon Woman Becomes International Arms Dealer

Sort of...

Earlier this month, the Ripon Police Department received a tip from a firearms dealer in Iowa who said someone used a stolen credit card number to order a $1,600 rifle scope and have it shipped to an address in Ripon, Wallner said.

Police launched an investigation into possible credit card fraud and instead uncovered an intricate system to obtain military equipment banned by the U.S. State Department for overseas shipping.

Police identified several packages being sent to the same address and obtained a search warrant, Wallner said.

Inside they found about 20 packages, containing high-end rifle/sniper scopes, night vision equipment, police and military uniforms, GPS units, and electronics, all addressed to different names, that the woman was planning to readdress and ship to Novorossijsk, Russia - a city located on the north coast of the Black Sea and north of Iraq.

The woman, who police say has been cooperative with the investigation, told police the online temporary agency that hired her previously had sent five boxes with baby clothes and diapers that she opened, repackaged and shipped to what she thought was an orphanage in Russia.

The agency told her she would be paid $30 per package through her PayPal account and that the next packages didn’t need to be opened and repackaged, just readdressed and shipped.

Luckily, Wallner said, the woman had sent only the baby clothes and diapers by the time police intervened.

Police confiscated more than $15,000 worth of property purchased with credit card information stolen from at least 20 different victims across the U.S.

It’s hard to find fault with the woman other than by the old yarn, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” 

Fishing for Brown Trout

Wow.

The Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday it has certified the 41.5-pound brown trout caught July 16 in the Lake Michigan waters off Racine as the state record for the species.

The fish was caught by Roger Hellen of Franksville. It already earned him the $10,000 grand prize in the Salmon-A-Rama fishing contest.

Week In Review 7/30/10

I’ll be on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Week In Review tomorrow morning from 8 AM to 9 PM AM.  I’ll be discussing the issues of the day with Christine Bremer Muggli and YOU!

Tune in. 

Milwaukee County Supervisors Display Their Arrogance and Greed

Of course...

A divided Milwaukee County Board Thursday sidetracked a proposal to cut their own pensions and those of other elected county officials by 20%.

If ultimately approved, the cut would apply prospectively to future pension credit earned.

On a 10-9 vote, the board referred the measure for a legal opinion on whether the pension change could advance in the absence of any recommendation from the county Pension Board. The Pension Board, by county ordinance, weighs in on any pension change. But the pension panel has declined to state an opinion.

Voting to delay action were supervisors Gerry Broderick, Elizabeth M. Coggs, Marina Dimitrijevic, Nikiya Harris, Lee Holloway, Willie Johnson Jr., Theo Lipscomb, Michael Mayo Sr., Johnny Thomas and John Weishan.

Supervisors against the delay were Mark Borkowski, Paul Cesarz, Lynn De Bruin, Patricia Jursik, Christopher Larson, Joseph Rice, Joe Sanfelippo, Jim “Luigi” Schmitt and Peggy West.

The measure could come back to the board, but Thursday’s vote suggests there’s a solid though narrow majority opposed to the pension cut, said Holloway, the board chairman.

Whenever I see stories like this, I ask two questions…

Why are elected officials getting pensions at all? 

Why do we allow those elected officials to decide their own pension? 

It’s no wonder there are so many greedy dirtbags on the Milwaukee County Board. 

I Hear the Train a Comin’

I know it may sound a little silly to ask this at this point, but where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the power to force a state to construct and support a train?  At least up until now, the fed at least had to bribe state politicians to enact stupid federal initiatives.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Gov. Jim Doyle on Thursday portrayed a planned Milwaukee-to-Madison high-speed rail line as an unstoppable train that Republican gubernatorial candidates can’t derail.

“High-speed rail is coming to Wisconsin,” LaHood said. “There’s no stopping it.

LaHood was in Watertown to sign an agreement to release $46.7 million of the $810 million in federal stimulus money that Wisconsin is receiving to build the 110-mph line.

That’s the second installment, after a previous $5.7 million payment.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Scott Walker and Mark Neumann have threatened to shut down construction on the line if they’re elected, saying they don’t want taxpayers burdened by operating costs. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the leading Democrat in the governor’s race, backs high-speed rail.

But LaHood, a former Republican congressman now serving in a Democratic administration, brushed those concerns aside, saying high-speed rail is a national program that will survive changes in political leadership.

More Booze Allowed At O’Hare

Having just recently dealt with O’Hare for the umpteenth time, this is welcome news.

The Daley administration’s push to allow liquor to be sold at more places in Chicago took another step Wednesday as aldermen approved around-the-clock alcohol sales at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

For the first time, passengers would be able to take the edge off pre-flight jitters by buying beer and wine at pushcarts that now will be allowed throughout airport terminals.

The ordinance passed the City Council without dissent or discussion.

Not Fat.  Poofy.

Makes sense to me. 

GPs and other health professionals should tell people they are fat rather than obese, England’s public health minister says.

Anne Milton told the BBC the term fat was more likely to motivate them into losing weight.

She said it was important people should take “personal responsibility” for their lifestyles.

But health experts said the word could stigmatise those who are overweight.

Ms Milton, who stressed she was speaking in a personal capacity, said: “If I look in the mirror and think I am obese I think I am less worried [than] if I think I am fat.”

WikiLeaks Endangers Lives

Whoever leaked these documents has engaged in sedition and should be treated as such. 

U.S. officials said U.S. operatives inside Afghanistan and Pakistan may be in danger following the massive online disclosure Sunday.

In his first public comments, President Barack Obama said the leak of classified information from the battlefield “could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations.” He spoke in Washington after meeting Tuesday with Congressional leaders from both parties on the topic.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said a Pentagon investigation will determine whether criminal charges will be filed in the leaking of Afghanistan war secrets. Holder, speaking during a visit Wednesday to Egypt, said the Justice Department is working with the Pentagon-led investigation to determine the source of the leak.

In Baghdad, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters he was “appalled” by the leak.

“There is a real potential threat there to put American lives at risk,” he said.

What Lies Beneath

Wow.

There are dump sites in waters around the world, according to a 2009 Annual Report to Congress from the Department of Defense Environmental Programs. In waters bordering the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, tens of thousands of ammunition and explosives, as well as millions of pounds of chemical munitions lurk on the sea floor.

There are at least 5,400 tons of sulfur mustard in waters off the Atlantic coast and 9,100 tons off the Pacific coast.

The Department of Defense estimates that a total of 17,000 tons of sulfur mustard exist in United States waters, when the 2,300 tons buried off the coast of Hawaii and the 57 tons in Alaskan waters are included.

Although the number of dumped weapons may seem ludicrous in the environmentally conscious 21st century, it was considered the safest option for munitions disposal until 1970, according to a 2009 Department of Defense report.

The vastness of the ocean and its inaccessibility at certain depths seemed like the ideal trashcan for the volume of dangerous weapons left after two world wars. It was believed that seawater would dilute toxic chemicals, and that weapons deep underwater would be permanently unavailable to the hands of foreign powers.

Billions of Gallons of Sewage Dumped in Lake

Given the environmental catastrophe, we should immediately close all government sewage systems for six months until a thorough review can be done.

More than 2 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water spilled out of urban sewers into local waterways after last Thursday’s torrential rain storm, but even those overflows could not adequately relieve the sewers and prevent basement backups, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District says in a report to state environmental officials.

“The relief points could not get excess rain and flood water out of overburdened sewers fast enough,” the district says in a report released Tuesday to the state Department of Natural Resources. Three district rain gauges on Milwaukee’s north side recorded total rainfall of more than 8 inches Thursday and Friday.

MMSD estimates total overflows of 2.1 billion gallons - more than four times the total capacity of the district’s deep tunnel storage system - from regional sewers between Thursday evening and Sunday evening, said Peter Topczewski, the district’s director of water quality protection. The volume does not include overflows from sanitary sewers in Milwaukee and nine other communities in the metropolitan area that had acknowledged problems last week.

Combined sanitary and storm sewers in central Milwaukee and eastern Shorewood spilled a total of 1.985 billion gallons of a sewage and storm water mix to rivers and Lake Michigan, the report says. District-controlled separate sanitary sewers spilled an additional 171 million gallons.

No More Chieftains

It’s a sad day when we stop celebrating our Native American history. 

The Osseo-Fairchild School District in western Wisconsin was ordered Tuesday to drop its Chieftains nickname and logo after the state determined it was race-based and promoted discrimination and harassment.

The state Department of Public Instruction’s first-of-its-kind order comes under a new state law that went into effect in May. The law allows the agency to order schools to drop their race-based nicknames and logos if they are deemed discriminatory.