Big shoes to fill …

in the Wisconsin 8th district blogosphere.  Todd Lohenry has closed up his part of the bunker over at THE Right Side of Wisconsin.

Best of luck in whatever the future holds.  Your voice will be sorely missed.

Don’t worry though Dr. Kagen, there are others in the 8th who will keep up the heat by reporting what the MSM fails to.

Wednesday Hero 06/24/09

Yes I know it is Thursday but it’s the Wednesday Hero series.

Band Of Brothers

Something a little different this week. Instead of profiling a service member, Wednesday Hero will be profiling a movie. Band Of Brothers. It was a miniseries tha aired on HBO in 2001. It follows Maj. Richard Winters, Cpt. Lewis Nixon and the men of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, aka E-Company or Easy Company on their march to Germany. From their training to their battles at Normandy and Bastogne, their liberation of the Kaufering IV concentration camp to their taking of Hitler’s Eagle Nest. A great cast and great writing make this one of the best war movies ever made. But it is graphic in visuals and language. And parts of it may be hard to watch, but it is worth it.

What the men of E-Company did will never be forgotten. They are the heroes that helped the cause of freedom.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

R.I.P. Ed McMahon

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A “Tonight Show” legend and Johnny’s famous sidekick has passed away.

Ed McMahon, the loyal “Tonight Show” sidekick who bolstered boss Johnny Carson with guffaws and a resounding “H-e-e-e-e-e-ere’s Johnny!” for 30 years, died early Tuesday. He was 86.

McMahon died shortly after midnight at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center surrounded by his wife, Pam, and other family members, said his publicist, Howard Bragman.

Bragman didn’t give a cause of death, saying only that McMahon had a “multitude of health problems the last few months.”

McMahon and Carson had worked together for nearly five years on the game show “Who Do You Trust?” when Carson took over NBC’s late-night show from Jack Paar in October 1962. McMahon played second banana on “Tonight” until Carson retired in 1992.

“You can’t imagine hooking up with a guy like Carson,” McMahon said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1993. “There’s the old phrase, hook your wagon to a star. I hitched my wagon to a great star.”

McMahon, who never failed to laugh at his Carson’s quips, kept his supporting role in perspective.

“It’s like a pitcher who has a favorite catcher,” he said. “The pitcher gets a little help from the catcher, but the pitcher’s got to throw the ball. Well, Johnny Carson had to throw the ball, but I could give him a little help.”

“And now h-e-e-e-e-e-ere’s Johnny!” was McMahon’s trademark opener for each “Tonight” show, followed by a small, respectful bow toward the star. McMahon’s style was honed during his youthful days as a carnival hawker.

The highlight for McMahon came just after the monologue, when he and Carson would chat before the guests took the stage.

“We would just have a free-for-all,” he said in the AP interview. “Now to sit there, with one of the brightest, most well-read men I’ve ever met, the funniest, and just to hold your own in that conversation. … I loved that.” (Source: “Tonight Show” legend Ed McMahon dies at 86 – Green Bay Press-Gazette)

Condolences to the McMahon family.

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Earthquake jolts Alaska

Image via Wikipedia

Damage minimal but scares residents.

A strong earthquake in Alaska’s most populous region has scared a lot of people but caused almost no damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the 5.4 magnitude temblor struck about 24 miles from the town of Willow. The rumbling lasted several minutes in Anchorage, about 58 miles away.

The shaking sent residents and office workers diving under desks and huddling in doorways and was felt as far south as Kenai and north to Fairbanks, a span of 300 miles.

Janet Herr, an employee of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center says the quake was 26 miles deep, a reason for both the minimal damage and the vast area over which it was felt.

Anchorage has about 285,000 residents, most of the vast state’s population.

Alaska is seismically active, and has frequent earthquakes although most can’t be felt.

Which is why it’s rare to hear about them.

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Protest time in Madison

Image by midnightcomm via Flickr

Receieved an email that the Recall Doyle group will be holding a protest at the Capitol Rotunda tomorrow.

There will be a protest at the Capitol in Madison on Tuesday! The next step is for the formation of a conference committee to reconcile the two versions of the budget (House and Senate) WE WILL BE THERE!

We will hold a protest Tuesday at noon in the Capitol Rotunda. Any one who can make it for even a hour will be greatly helping. We will provide signs if you need them. The idea is to have a ring of people holding 4×4 foot cardboard signs circling in the rotunda showing the faces of bad actors on the finance committee who have put together this lousy budget. If anyone has a pig face mask please bring it (dollar store may sell these). We want to emphasize what pigs our goverment is filled with.

Additionally we will have the message on signs showing our intent to recall additional Legislators for their breach of trust with the people of Wisconsin. Please call anyone you know who may be able to help. PHYSICAL PRESENCE is the most effective means of communicating with DEAF politicians!

Attend if you can!

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• The ‘Recall Doyle’ movement… (rightsideofwisconsin.com)
• “Recall Doyle” update… (rightsideofwisconsin.com)

Senator Hansen defends garbage

Here’s State Senator Dave Hansen’s statement on the piece of garbage called a state budget passed by the Senate earlier this week.

“Today Senate Democrats approved a budget that cuts over $3 billion in state spending, creates jobs, and protects health care and our local schools without raising the sales tax, payroll tax or increasing the income tax on 99% of Wisconsin citizens.

Working with Governor Doyle and Democrats in the Assembly we have met the difficult challenge facing our state and we did it on time. I am confident that the remaining differences between the two houses will continue that trend.” (Source: Sen. Hansen – Statement on passage of the budget – WisPolitics)

How exactly do things like a cell phone tax, increased tipping fees and increased property taxes on Wisconsinites during a recession meet the difficult challenges?  How do policy changes like allowing the DWD to raise the minimum wage through rule-making, mandatory auto insurance, and repealing QEO meet the difficult challenges in the state?

More importantly how is crafting a budget in secret without public input or input from the minority in the public’s best interest?

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Obama’s FDA going after Cheerios

Image via Wikipedia

This is downright ridiculous and stupid.

The war on drugs has opened a new front: the breakfast table. The FDA, under orders to tighten enforcement on health-related claims for food products, informed General Mills that their promotion of Cheerios transforms it from a food to a drug when they claim the oat-based cereal can help lower cholesterol. (Source – Video: FDA declares Cheerios a drug – HotAir)

Be sure to go to the source.

Welcome to the next step in the nannystate’s attempt to control every aspect of our lives.  In other words Obama shows yet again his ultimate goal is socialism.

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Shoebox has a good question

when it comes to Obama’s explanation for firing Americorps IG Walprin.

In a letter sent to leaders of the Senate, President Obama now claims that Inspector General of the Americorps, Gerald Walpin, was fired because he was:

so “confused” and “disoriented” that there was reason to question “his capacity to serve.”

If that is grounds for termination in the Obama administration can someone explain to me how Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid are allowed to stay in office? (Source: Just Wondering – No Runny Eggs)

Anybody else smell a rat with the explantion the President gave?

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Obama clueless yet again

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This time it’s on Iran.  A brilliant piece by Charles Krauthammer. (H/T – Charlie Sykes via Silent E)

Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued “dialogue” with their clerical masters.

Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists, arresting activists. Engagement with — which inevitably confers legitimacy upon — leaders elected in a process that begins as a sham (only four handpicked candidates permitted out of 476) and ends in overt rigging.

Then, after treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamanei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of “some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election.”

Where to begin? “Supreme Leader”? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts — a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.

Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren’t dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators. (Source – Obama clueless on Iran – Real Clear Politics)

Go to the source and read the whole thing.

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Taking the summer off

No, never fear my three or four loyal readers I’m not closing up shop for the summer.

Waukesha’s own James Widgerson is closing the pub for the summer.

Enjoy the time off James, it’s well-deserved after 5 years.

Geez I hope I can keep things going that long when it comes to blogging.