Stateline News-Tribune
May 20, 2009
by Sven Olsen

(La Crosse…) Inspired by a provision in his own state budget proposal, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle scored a free dinner last night when he got Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to pick up the tab at a local Outback Steakhouse.

Buried deep in Doyle\’s budget plan is language that could make someone who is only 1% at fault in an accident financially liable for 100% of the damages.

\”Jim told me that under the terms of his budget\’s joint and several liability clause, I had to pay for the whole bill. But I only ate two tiny wedges of a Bloomin\’ Onion, while the Jimster had soup, a salad, a rib eye steak, washed it all down with four Wallaby Darneds – and I\’m the one responsible for the whole bill?\” asked an incredulous Pawlenty.

Held up by meetings in St. Paul, the Minnesota chief executive was late to his dinner appointment at the Australian-themed restaurant. Upon his arrival, Doyle apologized for having already ordered and eaten most of his meal saying he was simply famished and could wait no longer.

The two Governors try to meet for a meal annually to discuss issues of the their states\’ mutual interest. This year\’s topics included discussing further interstate cooperation efforts and how to avoid bloodshed should Brett Favre become a Viking. The two state leaders worry the latter scenario will almost certainly lead to border riots that will choke the Mississippi River with dead bodies, which could adversely affect commercial freighter traffic on the waterway.

Hours after he and Doyle parted ways for the evening, Pawlenty was still irked at the way the check was handled.

\”I like the old way we did it where there was actually some relationship between what we each ordered and how we split the bill, \” said Pawlenty. \”If this is how they roll now in Wisconsin, I may just stop going out to eat there altogether.\”

Shaking his head as he looked again at his $73 credit card receipt, Pawlenty muttered, \”I knew we shoulda gone to Taco Bell instead.\”

\’Tis the season for mailboxes across America to be filling up with mail pieces from campaigns and interest groups. This one from the AFL-CIO looks like something you\’d expect to get from them – a picture of a concerned looking union member and some predictable class envy whining about how rich Republicans hate working families.

But one line in here absolutely astounded me:

\”McCain\’s practically had free health care his whole life.\” – Dave Fecke, Union Worker

Wow. The Viet Cong gave U.S. Navy Lt. Commander John McCain free health care alright, if you consider five and half years of daily beatings and solitary confinement in the Hanoi Hilton to be free health care!

Mr. Fecke goes on to say, \”The difference between me and McCain? McCain\’s rich.\”

I have another difference between you and McCain, Mr. Fecke. You\’re an ass.

For years, people have been playing the \”would you rather\” game, where one is forced to choose between two roughly equally-unpleasant scenarios. (Would you rather eat a bowl of tomato soup strained through a vagrant\’s beard or eat a kidney bean-sized chunk of his ear wax?) The game is usually good for some laughs, but I\’m about to ruin the fun by posing a question that will require hours of serious soul-searching:

Would you rather, this season, that the Chicago Cubs win the World Series or the Minnesota Vikings win the Super Bowl?

The Case for Why It Would Be Worse for the Vikings to Win the Super Bowl:

A. WHY IT COULD HAPPEN THIS YEAR: Adrian Peterson breaks every running back record in the book. Key off-season acquisitions on offense and defense come through huge. Tarvaris Jackson has a breakout year and guides to glory a team that is solid at almost every other position.

B. HISTORY OF INEPTITUDE THAT WOULD BE ERASED WITH A CHAMPIONSHIP: The Herschel Walker Trade. The 1999 NFC Championship Game. Losing four Super Bowls in eight years.

A Vikings Super Bowl win would render unusable a Packer fan\’s best bar joke. (Empty pint glass of *Miller Lite into mouth. Place empty pint glass upside down on bar, turning it slowly. What is this? The Vikings\’ trophy case!)

*If you have been served Grain Belt beer, follow each step of the joke above but empty glass directly into toilet.

C. MOST HATED MEMBER OF TEAM: John Randle, Cris Carter, Chris Hovan, Randy Moss, Ragnar and his horn

D. FANS: The average Vikings partisan, with some exceptions, is a total fair weather fan. They seem to care more about needling Packer fans than being loyal to their own squad. Now that the Vikings have lost to the Packers in the season opener, you will notice that sightings of people wearing Vikings gear has dropped 75% from a week ago. In fact, as a public service to prevent stampede injuries, I am legally obligated to remind Vikings fans that the line to jump off the bandwagon forms to the left.

The Case for Why It Would Be Worse for the Cubs to Win the World Series:

A. WHY IT COULD HAPPEN THIS YEAR: The Cubs lead the division and have had the best record in the National League for much of the year. Great hitters. Great pitchers.

B. HISTORY OF INEPTITUDE THAT WOULD BE ERASED WITH A CHAMPIONSHIP: The legendary collapses of 1969, 1984 and 2003 (may God bless and keep you, Steve Bartman.) A century-long championship drought.

C. MOST-HATED MEMBER OF TEAM: Carlos Zambrano, Lou Piniella, Sammy \”Corky\” Sosa

D. FANS: They think they are adorable and America loves them even though their team is just the National League\’s answer to the Yankees. They think that mumbling drunk Harry Carey was endearingly quirky. They think Wrigley\’s ivy is something cooler than just weeds on a wall. They\’re the loyal, lovable losers. The \”Cubs\” – even the team name is cutesy.

ANALYSIS:
A. The Cubs are more likely to win the World Series this year than the Vikings are likely to win the Super Bowl. That probably isn\’t even debatable. ADVANTAGE: Cubs

B. While losing all four of the Super Bowls they\’re ever been to is hilariously pathetic, it pales in comparison a 100-year streak of heartbreak. ADVANTAGE: Cubs

C. The Cubs and Brewers have only been division rivals for a few years. Packer fans have generations of intra-division hatred for the Vikings. ADVANTAGE: Vikings

D. If you think Cubs fans are obnoxious now when they invade Milwaukee, just imagine how bad they\’d be next year wearing \”2008 World Series Champs\” shirts. The thought of Cubs fans at Miller Park in 2009 parading around in those shirts and \”Re-elect President Obama in 2012\” buttons makes me want to jump off a bridge. As nauseating as it would be to see a Vikings fan wearing a Super Bowl Champs shirt at Lambeau, one could take comfort in the fact that said fan would be pummeled to death by 70,000 people wearing green and gold. Cubs fans positively take over Miller Park and they\’d be more than happy to rub it in. ADVANTAGE: Cubs.

Conclusion: I would pick the Minnesota Vikings winning the Super Bowl as the less horrible of the two options. But I\’m aware that a compelling case could be made for the other side. Trousers readers, the floor is yours.

Sparking a nationwide party whose scale hasn\’t been seen since Victory in Europe Day in 1945, Americans from coast to coast today celebrated the successful end of the United States\’ 44-year War on Poverty.

Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his declaration of war on want in his State of the Union Speech on January 8th, 1964. LBJ\’s \”Great Society\” anti-poverty programs expanded upon the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. While FDR\’s \”New Deal\” programs were really just a slap-fight against poverty, it took LBJ\’s bold action to escalate the battle to full-scale warfare.

Heartless conservatives initially derided the War on Poverty and decried its expense. They absurdly suggested that no amount of taxpayer dollars would ever truly end poverty as long as some individuals chose to drop out of school, abuse drugs, join gangs and give birth to children out of wedlock. Those reactionaries who predicted War on Poverty welfare policies would institutionalize a culture of government dependency are eating crow today.

History will not be kind to the conservatives\’ now-discredited assertions that the only real way for an individual to climb out of poverty was through education, gainful employment, marriage and thrift.

\”The Democrats said we could end poverty as long as we spent enough of my money for enough time on government programs,\” said taxpayer Alice Anderson. \”By golly, they were right! Nobody is poor anymore.\”

As it so often has been in its history, the United States was behind the curve on defeating poverty. Wealth redistribution and forced collectivization in places like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and communist China ended poverty in these countries decades ago.

On the campaign trail today, Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama marked the historic event. Mr. Obama chastised Republicans who had long sought a timetable for America\’s withdrawal from the War on Poverty.

\”The Democrats saw poverty could be eliminated, but only if we spent trillions upon trillions of taxpayer dollars over 44 years on government handouts,\” said Mr. Obama. \”We saw poverty was the enemy and we knew war was the only answer and we promised to fight. And Democrats would never just up and quit in the middle of a war!\”

\”Hope. Change.\” added Mr. Obama.

The smashing success of the now-ended War on Poverty has given hope that similar wars may be waged and won. The tax hikes and strict government regulations that make up plans for the Democrats\’ War on Climate Change are expected to be just as effective in the fight against global warming.

About a week ago, the Today Show was on in the background as the Shuff-haus was getting ready for the day when one of my favorite things occurred. Today aired a segment it\’s producers likely would have been deemed completely non-newsworthy if not for the sensational video they had.

The seven minute story was about jerky teen boys playing Fire in the Hole. Apparently FITH is the act of ordering a soda at the drive thru, yelling \”fire in the hole\” and then pretending your soda is a grenade and the server is Charlie peeking out of a tunnel in \’Nam. Now teenage boys being destructive and mean may happen all the time, but it becomes national news when they have videotaped their A-holishness and posted it on YouTube.

Now some TV programs, like Maximum Exposure and World\’s Wildest Police Videos, are up front about their products. They show shocking and titillating videos because they know viewers can\’t turn away. There is no moralizing or any attempt to find some deeper truth. It\’s, \”check out these awesome explosions and skateboard accidents.\” I enjoy these shows and so do you, whether you admit it or not.

But the Today Show fancies itself as being a little more high-brow than that. We\’re news, dammit! So what we got instead was a very serious Matt Lauer interviewing a FITH victim and condemning these mean teen boys. Taking a cue from a Bart\’s People segment, Lauer runs up the score by lamenting, \”here\’s a hardworking single mom just trying to earn a living\” who doesn\’t deserve this kind of abuse. Well no kidding she doesn\’t deserve it, Matt! But she\’s not on your show so you can make your bold defense of hardworking single moms. She\’s on your show so you can play over two dozen clips of drive thru workers getting humiliated with Mountain Dew facials! (I counted.)

\”Oh gosh, that\’s just terrible the way you got drenched with pop. Let\’s see that again. OK, now once more in slo-mo. Oh, that\’s just awful, this video we\’re showing over and over again that will get people buzzing and boost our ratings. Oh that\’s just awful. You didn\’t deserve that. Don\’t run that clip again. OK, maybe just once more.\”

National TV news does this kind of thing all the time. Just once I\’d like some honesty like, \”OK, here\’s what we have for you tonight. First, we have some gently-edited Obama campaign talking points. Next we have some alarmist stuff about a disease you\’ll never catch. Then we\’re going to do a story about porn later. C\’mon, you know you\’re intrigued. Stick around to see provocative clips where we\’ve fuzzed out just enough nudity so we won\’t lose our FCC license.\”

And speaking of honesty, here\’s something else I\’d like to see. I\’d like every national news broadcast to start out with the reporters and anchors announcing who they voted for in the last elections. Government officials have to release information about their business and investment dealings so the public can be assured they aren\’t doing things to line their pockets. Similar disclosure from the mainstream media would be nice so the public would be constantly reminded that decisions about what is presented as news and how that news is reported is coming from liberals.

OK, I got a little sidetracked there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, someone needs to throw a soda at Matt Lauer.

Certainly, you have heard the parable about the boiled frog. The story alleges that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough. It is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.

I\’m not sure if this is true, but then again I\’ve never been able to test it. My second-grade teacher made it very clear to me that I shouldn\’t conduct any more animal experiments after I tested my ill-fated \”Can the class hamster survive on a week-long diet of Skittles and Mr. Pibb?\” hypothesis.

Anyway, the point of the boiling frog parable is that radical change scares people and doesn\’t work. Turn up the heat on them slowly and they\’ll never notice.

Government understands this. Income tax and Social Security taxes are withheld from your paycheck. You never even had your money in your hand so you never miss it.

And when the government wants to spend more of your money on something, it\’s always presented as, \”for just nickels a day, we can have an awesome light rail system everyone will, like, totally use.\”

Furthermore, we get all giggly when government sends us our refund checks in spring, even though that is just the government equivalent of getting your change back from the clerk after buying a stick of beef jerky with a five dollar bill.

So why are our pots starting to bubble? It\’s because a whole heckuva lot of people out there think the government should be doing everything for everyone.

Here\’s an example: school breakfasts. 50 years ago, it would have been unthinkable that the school would be feeding kids their morning meal. Today, we\’re crowing because we just handed out 4 million more free school breakfasts this year than we did last year. Since it\’s the school\’s responsibility to make sure some kids eat breakfast and lunch, can dinner be far behind? The logical extension of this nanny-statism ends with the lunchlady knocking at my grandkid\’s door with a pudding cup for his midnight snack. Yeah, yeah, nobody wants kids to go hungry, but is it really so outrageous to suggest that parents be responsibly for feeding their own kids?

So we have a situation where government is doing for people what people should be doing for themselves and the taxpayers footing the bill are barely noticing. We\’re inching toward full-fledged socialism without even realizing it.

There is only one solution to reverse the trend – we need to change the law to make it so we have to pay all of our taxes at once. And when I say \”all taxes\” I mean all taxes. Federal. State. Local. Income. Sales. Property. Alcohol. Smokes. No withholding. All at once.

You made $40,000 this year? You owe $15,000 in one shot. Pay up. Your family income is $100,000? Your check for $38,000 is due right now. You\’re a pack-a-day smoker too? Better tack on another $650.

Your giant tax bill is due one week before the general election.

Imagine if that is how we did it. Heads would explode. The beauty of having to pay taxes this way is that it would sure get the conversation started about how much is enough when it comes to government spending.

Maybe it IS worth millions each year for state government to consistently overpay for a ton of land to keep it out of the hands of private owners. Maybe it IS worth county government to have union employees who primarily cut grass to be on the payroll in February. Maybe the $16 billion we pay NASA to keep an eye Uranus for us is worth it. But maybe it ain\’t. I\’m even willing to have the debate on stuff I think we should spend a ton of money on, like national defense.

If this pay-it-all-at-once plan doesn\’t get us to jump out of pots, nothing will.

I regularly have occasion to drive on Madison’s isthmus, which is home to the worst liberal bumper stickers on the planet. Below, I have listed the top ten most egregious. I originally planned on ranking them from least to most obnoxious, but that was simply too difficult. Therefore, we have a ten-way tie for the title of Most Obnoxious Bumper Stickers I Have Seen In Madison.

“COEXIST” (spelled out with various religious symbols) – If some of the followers of the religion represented by the crescent moon “c” on your cute little bumper sticker would stop hijacking planes and blowing up buildings, coexisting would be a little easier.

“A PBS Mind In a FOX News World” – This particular bumper sticker is positively oozing with smugness. “God, I can\’t stand being surrounded by these Wal-Mart-shopping, NASCAR-watching, deer-hunting troglodytes. How can these country-fried rubes allow themselves to be spoon-fed White House talking points from Bill O’Reilly? They must not be smart enough to enjoy watching some dusty old Brits mumble through a clunky drama on PBS like I am.”

“Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live” – The airheads with this little chestnut on their bumpers are confusing simple wordplay with incredible profundity. This bumper sticker sounds really deep until you realize that a.) it doesn\’t mean a damn thing and b.) the dork in your office who asks if you’re workin\’ hard or hardly workin\’ is making an equally clever play on words.

“Bush/Cheney 1984” – Because the Bush Administration has turned America into an Orwellian dystopia where a totalitarian government throws thought-criminals into gulags. Earth to the under-30 crowd that has this sticker on your bumpers: the Patriot Act is for keeping tabs on terrorists. The feds don’t give a damn about eavesdropping on your phone conversations about ultimate Frisbee.

“Pro-Child, Pro-Choice” – I’m for the kids, but I’m also for aborting them willy-nilly too. This bumper sticker has the intellectual consistency of “Pro-Ants, Pro-Raid.\”

• A close runner-up in the worst abortion-related bumper sticker goes to “Against Abortion? Don’t Have One.” (Against Robbery? Don’t Rob People!)
• Dishonorable mentions: “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries” and “Keep Your Laws Off My Body.” Ugh.

“Health Care Is A Right” – Says who? This one perfectly captures the entitlement mentality of liberals. I am owed whatever I want and someone else is going to pay for it.

“Defend America, Defeat Bush” – On the list of Threats to America, I would rank “Terrorists” in first place and “President Bush” in 436,957,647th place just below “Crabgrass.”

• Runner-Up in the worst I Hate President Bush Category: “Bush Knew.” That one is so positively unfair I don’t even know where to start.

“Defy Corporate Domination” – I spotted this gem on the rusty bumper of a Honda Civic on November 8th. Chances are you have never heard of Honda, but its a small automobile-making co-op based out of Mazomanie.

“Remember Katrina. Fight Global Warming” – Fight it with what? Nunchucks? Me attacking global warming like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, you driving a Prius or the U.S. signing the Kyoto Protocol all have the same effect on changing the earth’s temperature: zippo. I started mocking all the angles on this bumper sticker and it started getting too long. Look for a thorough dismantling of the fraud that is human-caused global warming in a future post.

“Peace Through Music.” – Trouble in the Sudan, you say? Send in State Street’s bongo-playing hippies. They’ll calm things down. Al-Qaeda insurgents wreaking havoc in Iraq? I’m sure Mr. Johnson’s fourth-hour band class can get in there and straighten things out.

There you have it. The ten worst bumper stickers I\’ve seen in Madison. Got an entry of your own? Post it and your pithy retort in the comments section.