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Monday, March 15, 2010 |  Madison, WI: 38.0° F  
Blaska's Blog
Blaska's Blog explains the stimulus

Here we are a year after the $787 million and one out of every 10 Americans are out of work. Many more are discouraged workers, meaning they’ve quit looking. Even Dane County's unemployment rate is twice normal. No wonder tax revenues are down. So, what is the response of our liberal/progressive friends? More government stimulus! More government spending! Only they call it a "jobs" bill. >MoreBlaska's Blog flunks the school for Leftists

Miss Emily Mills, fearless sifter and winnower that she is, is aghast that a respected University of Wisconsin political scientist would oversee public opinion polling for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute -- a "partisan" organization. Unclean! Unclean! >More Blaska's Blog conjures a new enemy: private insurance!

One would think portraying insurance companies as inglorious basterds would be a tough sell in a place like metro Madison, WI, home to American Family, National Guardian Life, CUNA, General Casualty, and others. But that is what our current President is trying to do to breathe life into his moribund ObamaCare. >MoreBlaska's Blog turns up the heat on City Hall

The squire of Stately Blaska Manor, clad in a black velour smoking jacket, entered the Karl Rove Study of the Stately Manor, now hushed for the midnight hour. There he encountered Ruben Mamoulian, his bibulous manservant, in his customary state of dishabille, face-down in a bowl of punch. >MoreBlaska's Blog confirms Dane County RTA vote won't be binding

The Wisconsin State Journal got it wrong. "RTA board agrees to binding referendum," reads today's headline. Except the resolution passed by the RTA at its first meeting late Thursday afternoon is not binding. >MoreBlaska's Blog says let education compete for business

Government-run, union-controlled education is as antiquated in 21st Century America as a mimeograph machine and as outdated as the New Deal. The entire history of this great country is choice -- except in the all-important field of education, wherein one size shall fit all. >MoreBlaska's Blog knows why liberals distrust the people

The State Assembly on Tuesday did the right thing, of course, in upholding the people’s right to control their natural resources. I predicted it would. But it was a damnably closer thing than it should have been. A majority of the Assembly voted, 58 to 38, to override the veto. But 64 votes were needed. >MoreBlaska's Blog asks who's driving the ($150K) bus?

My old boss Dave Zweifel, is one of the genuinely nice guys. Dave is nonplussed at the understandable outrage over a Madison Metro bus driver earning over $150,000 a year, what with overtime and a Teamsters Union labor contract. Others earned almost as much. >MoreBlaska's Blog thanks Paul Ryan for thinking about tomorrow

Maybe because Paul Ryan is a young man (age 40) and because he is a serious man. Perhaps that is why he is proposing a far-reaching plan that gets at some of this great country's systemic ills rather than temporary quick cures that don't work. >MoreBlaska's Blog would abolish the minimum wage

Big Government advocate Bill Lueders prays the liberal rosary for that Hallelujah moment when the Democrats in the Legislature raise the minimum wage to $7.60 from the current $7.25 an hour "along with automatic adjustments." Because, gosh darn it, that’s what Democrats do. They look out for the little fella. They create economic prosperity through the holy sacrament of the party-line roll call vote. >MoreBlaska's Blog supports parental responsibility ordinances

Are parents responsible for their children? In practice, no, as many of those who live here on the Southwest side can attest. >MoreBlaska's Blog is pro-choice -- for the baby

As you know, the mission of the Blaska Policy Research Center and Experimental Work Farm is to plumb the depths of the liberal mind in all its exotic wonders and publish the findings for a grateful nation. Compassion compels me to help the less fortunate. We can cure liberalism if only we commit the resources! (If a man can land on the moon ...) A grant application is pending before the National Institutes of Health. And the Bradley Foundation. >MoreBlaska's Blog: Our president would rather fight

I thought Barack Obama gave one of his better speeches Wednesday night for his first State of the Union. It was more colloquial than the ponderous lectures he has given recently. Hovering over the words flashing by on his TelePrompTer, however, had to have been the spectral image of Scott Brown and an outline of the state of Massachusetts. But Obama did not chart a new direction, he repackaged. >MoreBlaska's Blog fights liberal deficit attention disorder

Which Democrats will be happy Thursday morning? The Ron Kind/Evan Bayh Democrats or the Dave Obey/Ed Garvey Democrats? Depends on what the President says in his State of the Nation speech tomorrow night. >MoreBlaska's Blog announces his candidacy for public office

The squire of Stately Blaska Manor has thrown his name in the ring. Yes, I have informed Hizzoner the Mayor that I have deigned to take my rightful place on the Equal Opportunities Commission. I have chosen that body as the one most in need of my unusual common sense. The application form asks if I am a minority. I am indeed a minority. I am a Madison conservative, aka the party of Hell No! >MoreBlaska's Blog says 'we're all journalists now'

Day 2 of Freedom on the March. Jim Pugh of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce now has the same free speech rights as John Nichols of Mi>The Nation/The Capital Times. >MoreBlaska's Blog celebrates freedom of speech for all

First Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Now this most wonderful news: The Supreme Court of the land has gouged out the shriveled heart of the mistaken McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform" once and for all. Truly, freedom is on the march! >MoreBlaska's Blog wonders if Russ Feingold is in trouble

I am gobsmacked by Republican Scott Brown’s victory Tuesday in Massachusetts. Euphoric, optimistic and completely jazzed. There’s hope and change for you! >MoreBlaska's Blog takes on the Takings Clause

This is the kind of thing that has been fueling tea party anger across the nation. Maybe now some of my Madison liberal friends will begin to understand the fear and loathing many of us have for an all-knowing, ever more-intrusive, metastasizing Big Government. >MoreBlaska's Blog: Colonize Haiti so it can become Mauritius

If Haiti can be rescued, that rescue will require much more than Type O blood, powdered milk, and bulldozers. It will require a top to bottom structuring (not "re-structuring") of the entire society. >More MORE BLASKA >>
David Blaska was elected six times to the Dane County Board, worked for Tommy Thompson, wrote for The Capital Times, used to be a Democrat, is married to the Lovely Lisa, is proud of Number One Son, grew up in a large family on a working farm in rural Sun Prairie, remembers some of the '60s, thinks Jimi Hendrix and Wm F. Buckley should be on postage stamps (separately, if possible), raises asparagus in his garden, swims upstream like a heretical flagellate among the collectivist majority, cherishes the tactile pleasure of words printed on paper but yet doth he blog the chronic electronic phonic. Vicki calls me "irascible" but it's a good kind of irascible. Like they say, he means well.

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