While remarking about the recent shooting of two police officers, allegedly by an 18-year-old that may have schizophrenia, Milwaukee’s mayor, Tom Barrett said,

I don’t care what these special interest groups say. I want them to see what happens in that hospital room when you’ve got police officers laying there because someone says it’s a great idea to be carrying a gun in the middle of the city. It has to change and it has to change now. I don’t want to go through this again in this community.

Are you kidding me, Tom? Yes, there are SO many special interest groups calling for 18-year-old schizophrenic thugs to carry guns.  You “don’t want to go through this again in this community?” Well, then you better start teaching parents how to better raise their children, eliminate gangs, oh, and find a cure for schizophrenia. This has nothing to do with responsible citizens owning guns, this has everything to do with irresponsible parenting and an inner-city culture of violence.

The shooting was a tragic event. My prayers are with the officers and their families. This situation, however, can in no way be put upon the shoulders of the “special interest groups” that Barrett was referring to. He should be ashamed of himself for trying to cash in on the officers’ injuries, politically.

If you haven’t heard already, the West Bend Library is immersed in controversy over whether or not books that contain explicit, adult-oriented material should be moved from the library’s young adult section to the regular adult section.

Those opposed to moving the books consider the proposal to be censorship.

I’m on the record as stating that both sides of the West Bend Library issue are flawed and unable to look at things logically. Last night’s library board meeting only highlighted my sentiments.

The side that wants to move the books is backed by an ultra-religious group that thinks that supplemental pro-Christian material (pamphlets, etc.) should be placed in the library to balance out all of “the smut.” Last night, in fact, one of the “move the books” proponents went as far as to say that books like Harry Potter should be torn up and burned.

Whooooooa, pops. You lost me.

There are books in the young adult (11-15 years old) section that talk about fellatio and all sorts of other sexual acts in great detail. I would feel more comfortable with the library moving those books the regular grown-up section. But burning books? Sorry, Hitler, this is America. We don’t do that here.

The problem with the opposing side is that they come off like they are forcing sexuality down everybody’s throat (so to speak). They say that sexually explicit books should be left in the youth section so that parents “have the choice” of whether or not their kids should be able to read them.

The “parents’ choice” concept sounds reasonable, but then that group also brings kids’ sexuality into the argument. Some of their speakers over the last few months have talked about their own sexuality and how hard it was for them as homosexual teens growing up. They use the adversity that they experienced as an argument for keeping the books where they currently reside.

This issue isn’t about being gay or straight, it’s about sexually explicit books that are mixed in with books written for 11-year-old children.

As a logical parent, without religious or sexual agendas, I would much rather see the books moved to the grown-ups’ section. Moving them still allows parents the ability to dictate what their children read, and since there are no age restrictions on any areas in the library, there is no actual censorship taking place. Everyone is a winner.

Last night, however, the board decided to leave the books amongst the rest. After hearing those screaming about burning books and how God was going to strike them down, there was no way that the board could have sided with those people. I don’t like their decision, but it was the right one at this time.

And we were told George Bush was an idiot:

How embarrassing.

For a good 75 seconds, I was all alone on my side of the Panera restaurant trying to get some work done. While there were are at least 13 empty tables on this side of the divider wall, two HUGE women decided that they wanted to sit down at the table right next to mine. These weren’t just big women, they were big women that had two of the loudest mouths and stories that I have heard in a long time.

It was impossible for me to even think, much less work, with this kind of garbage four feet from my head:

Woman one: “Well, Tommy has never even been to Summerfest, but he’s really looking forward to going this year.”

Woman two: “You know, they’re saying that if this Swine Flu turns into a pandemic, there won’t be a Summerfest this year. They’re going to cancel Summerfest, and the Washington County Fair, and the State Fair, and all of those other big events. I bet there won’t even be baseball games.”

O.M.G. I need to leave.

…way to go SEALs!

…this guy.

(From The Sacramento Business Journal):

Media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. on Tuesday told its employees it is cutting about 9 percent of the work force, a reduction that will affect all of the media company’s departments.

The San Antonio-based company, which has operations in radio, television and outdoor advertising, gave pink slips to 1,850 workers at its corporate offices, outdoor advertising and radio divisions, according to a memo from chief executive officer Mark Mays.

The company employs about 20,000 workers.

Clear Channel operates four stations in the Sacramento region.

Mays wrote in the memo that most cuts were in the sales department, but ultimately all operations were affected.

A representative for the company said in an e-mail response to questions that Clear Channel isn’t breaking down the cuts geographically or commenting beyond what is stated in the memo.

Obama is often praised as a “great orator.” That is, unless he is speaking without his teleprompter. When speaking off the cuff, he sounds more like a great, ah, uh, well, ahh, you see, uhm, bumbler.

So, in a move that makes him look like the biggest empty suit to ever walk the Earth, his handlers have decided that he should bring his teleprompter with him every time he opens his mouth.

It appears Barack Obama’s teleprompter is hitting the campaign trail.

The Democratic presidential nominee has never tried to hide the fact he delivers speeches off the device, though normally he doesn’t use one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events.

But the Illinois senator used a teleprompter at both his Colorado events Monday — making for a particularly peculiar scene in Pueblo, where the prompter was set up in the middle of what is normally a rodeo ring.

Bwahahahaha.

Cool! (from CNN):

It has been buried for decades under the sands of the Gulf in Fort Morgan, Alabama. Hurricane Ike uncovers this Union Civil War ship that was burned by Confederates during the Civil War.

Go check out the photos, here: Ike Uncovers Civil War Ship

From the Brewers’ website:

With Hurricane Ike causing severe weather conditions throughout the Gulf Coast, Major League Baseball has moved two games of the series between the Astros and Cubs to Miller Park.

The series will include a single game tomorrow, Sunday, September 14, and another on Monday, September 15.

The Astros will be the home team for both contests, which were originally scheduled to be played at Houston’s Minute Maid Park from Friday through Sunday.

After reading about the tragic train wreck in Los Angeles, I can’t help but wonder why trains aren’t automated, yet? It would be extremely simple to man every train that runs on rails by computer. Sure, you could have a human babysitting the computer, but the chances of a computer running a stop signal are less than with a human behind the wheel.

Sure, the unions wouldn’t like it, but it may be cheaper for the rail companies and safer for the passengers.

Human error led to fatal train crash in L.A.

As a kid, I worked for Achtenhagen Services in the Big Bend/Muskego area. I was in charge of a lawn maintenance crew. It was a lot of fun and I loved just about every minute of working there. I don’t think that I’ve ever had a boss that was more fun than Bart Achtenhagen.

Though I loved mowing lawns, there was one apartment complex that I absolutely despised: Burr Oaks in Waukesha.

Burr Oaks is on the corner of Highway 59 and Oakdale Dr. On the south side of the property there is a huge hill that falls from south to north. On more than one occassion, I almost lost a big mower (and, well, my life) off the side of a 10-foot railroad tile wall that is located at the bottom of the hill.

There was also a time at Burr Oaks that we could not leave after the job because the police found a murdered body in a home across the street from the apartment complex. Nice.

It didn’t really surprise me,  yesterday, when I heard the story of the pipe bombs that were found in that complex. Don’t get me wrong, the complex itself isn’t bad, but for some reason there are a lot of hoodlums that live in about a six block area near Burr Oaks. I never understood that, either. It’s not a low-income neighborhood. It just has a higher instance of gangbangers, white trash, and rednecks.

From JSOnline:

Police evacuated dozens of residents for hours Wednesday as a Milwaukee County Bomb Squad crew detonated three pipe bombs found in the basement of an apartment building.

The building, at 1159 Burr Oak Blvd., was once the home of David J. Emiley, who is serving a prison sentence after police found an assault rifle hidden in a heating vent in his apartment, a pistol-grip shotgun stored in a secret compartment in a dresser drawer and a handgun and bullet-filled magazine inside a hollowed-out book.

Police discovered the weapons in April 2007 after Emiley accidentally discharged the assault rifle in his apartment and a bullet tore through his wall, across a parking lot, through the wall of another apartment and landed on a bed, according to court records.

Eek. There goes the neigborhood (again).

Natalie Dylan (pseudonym) is a whore. That’s not just an insult, that’s her new profession. This young woman has decided that, in order to pay for graduate school, she is going to auction off her virginity. “Auctioning off your virginity” is a fancy way of saying, “screwing a stranger for money.”

Before I get to my “better idea,” I have to point something out. The winning bidder is not even getting a good buy. Think about it. Some john is going to pay through the nose to sleep with a woman who quite possibly doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. If you’re going to pay for it, you should at least get somebody with experience. It’s kinda like the 2008 presidential election. Dylan is the Obama of whores — she’s got nothing to bring to the table.

Back to my point. If she truly wants to pay for her graduate degree, she could make an honorable decision and join the United States Military. They’ll pay for her degree, and since she already has an undergraduate degree, she could join as an officer.

Instead, she’s chosing to take the easy (in her words: “capitalistic”) route — by lying on her back. Here’s another gem of a quote from Ms. Dylan, “But I think this is empowering. I’m using what I have to better myself.”

Oh, by the way, her sister is an ‘employee’ at the Bunny Ranch in Nevada (the same place that is conducting the auction).

Do you think once she gets laid-n-paid and turns her cash into a graduate degree that she is going to have a lot of companies knocking down her door to hire her? And by ‘hire her,’ I mean give her an actual job. And by ‘actual job,’ I don’t mean… ah, never mind.

It’s like they made a real-life Polish joke. Were they holding the blueprints upside down? From Reuters (emphasis mine):

A house that is entirely upside-down opened its doors to the public on the northern German island of Usedom this week.

The family-sized house, designed by Polish partners Klausdiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk for the Edutainment exhibition company, is furnished with chairs, tables and carpets stuck to the ceiling.

“We didn’t do it for a reason. We just wanted to do something different,” Mikiciuk told Reuters on Friday.

http://www.ocregister.com/slideshow/day-in-photos-2137103-mar-is?pos=0

You know those two jamokes who claimed that they found Bigfoot? Well, it turns out that they had a really big rubber suit in that cooler.

From CNN:

Whitton and Dyer announced last week that they had found the body of a 7-foot-7-inch, 500-pound half-ape, half-human creature while hiking in the north Georgia mountains in June. They said they put the carcass in a freezer and had spotted about three similar living creatures.

“We were not looking for Bigfoot,” Whitton, a Clayton County, Georgia, police officer, said Friday during a news conference. “We wouldn’t know what we were doing if we did.”

He and Dyer insisted that scientific analysis would bear out their claim.

The hoax was discovered after an “expedited melting process,” Kulls wrote. “A break appeared up near the feet area … as the team and I began examining this area near the feet, I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot.”

It sounds like these two are going to get sued by all of the people who were ready to perform tests on the “animal.” The “police officer’s” career is also going to be over. There’s no way that he can ever testify in a trial after conducting  a lie this big.

I’m an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

~Bernie Mac

May he rest in peace.

Received this email at work, as we use Simon Delivers for pop and coffee delivery to our office.

Economic fall-out is starting the domino chain.

Dear Valued Customer,

After almost 9 years of striving to provide you an exceptional online grocery
experience, I am sorry to inform you that we will be delivering our last
orders over the next two weeks. Today’s economic conditions, including the
spike in food and fuel costs, have forced us to make this very difficult
decision.

Over the years we have valued your business and appreciated the
relationship we have developed with you. We have an incredible team behind
the scenes responsible for our nationally-recognized website and the
processes necessary to fulfill your orders. Our team members have done an
exceptional job selecting, picking and packing your orders to your
satisfaction. Our friendly Neighborhood Service Representatives have come
to know you, your families and your businesses well.

We have heard many stories over the years about how our service made a
difference in your lives, and those stories fueled us to work hard for our
business and you. You made a significant difference to our 300 team
members by continuing to support our service.

We made a promise to provide you with a great website, great products, and
most importantly, great service. We are sad that we cannot continue to fulfill
that promise.

On behalf of all of us at SimonDelivers, thank you most sincerely for nine
years of support.

Liwanag Ojala
President, SimonDelivers Inc.

A while ago, a man came up with a website called “Obama’s Chocolate Nuts.” He thought it was “nuts” that people were giddy over a man that they new nothing about. So, like any good American capitalist, he started selling something — chocolate covered peanuts graced with Obama’s likeness.

Enter Jesse Jackson.

The other day, Jackson said that Obama was “talking down” to black people, and that Jackson wanted to, “rip his nuts off.”

Go ahead, Google, “obama’s nuts.” Yup… you get ObamasChocolateNuts.com.

David Feingold, the owner of OCN.com (and FatJewishGuy.com) had this to say:

Thank You Jesse Jackson For Loving Obamas Nuts

I went to the dentist today.

Thought I was getting a root canal, but that’s gonna be next Wednesday.

Today was just a cleaning.

I did get some gas, however, because I am scared.

Yeah, I know I am a little baby, but still I HATE the dentist and the gas takes away the fear.

It also sent me into a world that I wish I could get back to.

I think I was hallucinating, because I thought I heard Jesse Jackson say that he wants to “Rip Obama’s Nuts Off.”

He couldn’t have said that?

Right?

I mean I was the one who talked about Obama’s Chocolate Nuts.

Not a respectable reverend like Jesse Jackson?

But apparently it wasn’t the gas.

It’s true.

Perhaps one day we’ll learn that Jesse Jackson and Dave Feingold are in cahoots. Feingold couldn’t have bought advertising this good… but good for him.

Is this guy serious?  Imposing any type of speed limit to “save American’s money on fuel costs” is just stupid.  First, you can’t regulate what speed people travel at.  Second, more fuel is expended slowing and accelerating in rush-hour gridlock, not traveling at 75 down I-80 through Nebraska.

This guy is trying to make a name for himself, and idiot or attempting to divert the issue of rising fuel prices by finding ways to put the onus on drivers.

From CNN.com:

An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and possibly ease fuel prices.

 

Sen. John Warner has asked the Energy Department at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient.

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Officials in Canada have found a sixth foot…

Read it on CNN.