And, by the way, when does the union share any responsibility? They went from a 5/5 share to 0/10. Then they cry wolf when the state says time to ante up for those years you got a free ride? Gimme a break.

Detmer and Servant, you guys are sticking to the opposition point that it's about union-busting. It's not. If it was then it would call for the elimination of the collective bargaining agreement and units all together. It doesn't.

I really wish you guys would read the relevant fiscal notes offered by the Wisconsin legislative bureau. It's frustrating for me to explain as I've worked with state budgeting for several years now, but you guys want to take a cursory look at it.

As for the tax credits--I don't know the policy of why he did or didn't pass them. But it's insolvable to have a pension fund entirely paid for by the employer. This isn't Google where your stock shares multiple every day. You have a set tax base, set growth or lack thereof, and set costs incurred.

Quite frankly, Wisconsin is one of many states confronting the pensions/liabilities issue that was irresponsibly put off in good times. It is a travesty it takes until bad times for it to come up, but that's the reality we face.

And while I respect the teachers, Servant, I don't feel that bad for them. It appears, similar to my home state, that they already get a better deal and earn more than the average state government employee. But that's a result of them having a historically stronger union that negotiates with brass-knuckle tactics as we're seeing.

I'm done playing professor for the day because I can finally leave work (although ironically I work with a lot of this same stuff). State and federal budgeting processes are far more complex then they let on and far more complex then the 10 second editorials and news blurbs you can read on them.

In Wisconsin's case they exclude some of their mandated spending from their operating fund balances, they include counties and municipalities in their pension system (WRS) and they had unions with a unique ability to continue to force the state to pick up more and more of the employee retirement contribution amount. Bottom line is you can't get something for nothing and so their Governor is going back to one of their root budgetary problems which is horrible renegotiated union contracts that took their employee contribution rates from 5% of gross salary to under 1% while the state has picked up the difference. Rant on and on about fairness all you want, but do the reading.

Here's some reading on their current Wisconsin Retirement System, Servant:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/...20Retirement%20System.pdf

Teachers are 82,000 of their 180,000 employees covered by WRS. State-obligated pension growth was almost 26% from 2000-2009 (table 11, pg26 http://legis.wisconsin.gov/...20Retirement%20System.pdf) or roughly $142mil more.

Currently their state is contributing at 5% for general employees (6% for protected..LEO/firefighter utilizing SS and 8% for those not using SS). The employees were doing 1% then .9% and 1.5% for 2011. Take a look at other states where 2.5-5 is the average.

"Over time, state employee groups have negotiated
or have been provided an employer "pickup"
of almost all employee-required WRS contributions.
The state has agreed to assume the payment
of basic employee-required contributions equal to
5.0% of gross payroll for all employee classifications
as well as up to 1.3% of gross payroll for any
benefit adjustment contribution required from state
employees in the general classification (pg 41 http://legis.wisconsin.gov/...20Retirement%20System.pdf)".

Their unfunded liabilities aren't bad (193mil), but its largely because of the above.

Anyway, Detmer will ignore the fact that the unions negotiated tons of additional contracts there to get the state to pay more and more of the employee's supposed contribution. But that's fact.

You guys need to quit reading just the media's 2 cent take on everything and start digging in the weeds aka reading the non-partisan legislative reports produced.

Augh they do have a shortfall, folks just don't know how to read legislative mumbo-jumbo:
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&;Darling.pdf

Skip to page four. Their legislative staff separates our medicaid ($153.3 million estimated), public defender ($3.5 million), and corrections ($21.7 million). Why they separate these out is beyond me.

States are also advised to keep 5% of the size of the general operating budget/account/fund in reserve if they wish to maintain their bond ratings.

So they're rnuning about $178 million in the red. The medicaid growth is troublesome as they can likely expect to see expanded rolls in the outyears (rarely does this number ever go down). Their DOC numbers are also troublesome because for it to go down would require letting inmates out/shutting down a prison or two most likely. Thus they're running a structural deficit.

They need to come up with revenue somewhere. The concept that they had nada contribution before is astounding--especially to someone from a very pro-union state.

Is it that I don't know what I'm talking about or you don't?

I read you're convinced that this is about union-busting under the mistaken belief that Wisconsin is running a surplus. I don't know where to begin.

Perhaps I start by explaining how states budget. First off, most states do not have one big budget. This is a horrible misconception. Often they have an operating budget (sometimes called a general fund, operating budget, etc), a capital budget (sometimes called a bond budget), and pension liabilities. Do these interplay? Yes, but they are not one in the same.

Enter the concept of 'structural deficits'. These are created when you have future outlays surpassing future income/revenue/taxes. I don't know Wisconsin's outlooks, but many states do fiscal outlooks ranging from 5-10 years out. The goal being to avoid the train wreck before you get there. However, legislators and governors often prefer the game of papering over deficits. They do this through a number of methods. You tossed out stimulus dollars. Sounds appetizing. Free money, right? The reality is if you accepted education stimulus dollars then you could NOT offer a budget in any successive years less than the year you accepted the money. Or Medicaid, but you had to adjust who you covered and then keep covering them after the money is gone. These lead to bigger deficits in the long run. Another way is by raiding dedicated funds and/or transferring money around.

As for pension liabilities perhaps you can learn some here: http://www.swib.state.wi.us/WRSsustainability.pdf . I would love to engage you in the fun discussion of post employment benefits and/or healthcare costs, but alas you can learn more by reading about them. End-game is you either make severe reductions to benefits, utilitze layoffs/furloughs/some combination, increase contribution costs and/or raise taxes--obviously you can blend all of these choices.

Ignoring your projected liability increases, tapping your rainy day fund and/or failing to address the problem severely affect your bond rating which in turn means you're paying a premium in your capital budget (it's a death-spiral because it will end up expanding your deficits well beyond control and send you to the doldrums with California).

Need I elaborate more for you?

I'm not even reading the other responses on here, but are you insane? They paid 0% toward retirement. ZERO. Almost NO other state teacher's unions have that much of a sweetheart deal.

As much as I care about teachers, I think they whine a little too much sometimes and I dated one for a long time. Keep in mind often states provide them tax breaks, pay off their student loans and they're provided full-time benefits for working 75% of the time. And yes, I know, they take home work as do most other state employees.

I haven't looked closely enough at Wisconsin's pension plan, but in MD they're vested after 3 years as teachers. Normal state employees are 5 years. That's insane on both counts.

Something has to change.

So i post here it counts, right?

Zen's porn stash is bringing us down.

Bobby--drunk driving (or alleged drunk driving) is a cottage industry. You have lawyers that make thousands per case. It's about image and money.

Ask yourself why do they have checkpoints? Most state laws require between 12-16 officers present at a checkpoint, but often only nab 2-3 drunk drivers and 1-2 impaired drivers. That many officers on the road on a routine night typically gets almost 1.5-2x as many arrests. This one is about image.

My issue with drunk driving laws is that MADD pushed for the .08 limit because that's where studies show alcohol definitely impairs someone's motor capabilities (also known as 'per se' drunk driving). However, many states actually enforce .02/.04-.08 as 'impaired driving' because MADD decided they would go for zero tolerance and drivers get the same stigma as a drunk driver even though they often have only had two beers. If you're tired, on cold medications or you just finished working out, your response time is typically on par or worse than an impaired driver.

So it's all screwed up and it's mostly about money and image.

The notes aren't the bad part--it's when these two play skype photo session that it gets questionable.

Then please share the cigars!

Damnit, so you're not Katy Pery then? Dashing our dreams!

I'm joining your cheer for hoping...but I'm hoping you find some better zingers. That was so sophmoric. No, that's being nice. It was like the 'your momma so fat' lines circa the 90s.

Zen with one leg can bob around and therefore wins.

I drilled a small hole in the bottom of my one headlamp because the condensation kept getting inside it causing the light to be less effective. It helped out a lot. Halogens work great, but they're so annoying when they're in your rear view mirror.

Before you do the install, make sure you have the tools. I went to change my girlfriend's front headlight a few months ago and was surprised at just how complicated it was to get to it. If I had known that going into it I would've had the right tools on hand (and yah its my fault for not looking) or been lazy and let the shop do it.

HFStivals in 97,98,99(twice),00 and Chili Cookoffs locally in 05 and 10:
Chili Peppers
Staind
RATM
Limp Bizkit
Bush
311
Cypress Hill
Green Day
Beck
Prodigy
Offspring
STP
Godsmack
Linkin Park
Papa Roach
Chevelle
Alice in Chains

I know i'm forgetting a bunch.

Separate:
Metallica
Dave Matthews
Live
OAR
Trans-Siberian Orchestra with Steven Tyler
(Also forgetting something im sure)

You want to make some good money--develop better mapping software for legislative redistricting. There is one program I know of that's free using silverlight, but it's pretty weak

Started at 97/98. 27 now albeit that changes shortly, but I'd prefer to think of the smaller number each time :).

Have you ever lied? If so, does that make you still a liar? Exactly. I really don't think there is much, if any, cheating in EE because Pang and co are doing a good job routing it out.

Oh, and I don't cheat. Never have, never will. I do find it amusing that you guys hit the wrong tag.

I think it became "overwhelming odds" when you hit the wrong tag. Before that it was probably close to equal given you had the FS advantage. Of course my experience was having my country lightly ab-ed--I am glad I wasn't even online for it and instead enjoyed college bball because it was a pretty lame effort.

This thread is classic.

Figures the media points out he likes Drowning Pool, but doesn't notice his reference to ICP. Good to have context to his comments. In this case it reinforces my belief that he just really was losing it. Some of those rants are bizarre.

The problem is the vast majority of votes are actually non-controversial believe-it-or-not. The few that are controversial are usually where the members generally have the strongest conviction. I would say an interesting case study to look at would be the TARP vote.

I would agree. I guess from my perspective of working in the industry (haha, I don't think I should dignify it by calling it an 'industry') is that there is a broad variety of subjects people want to know about, but they want to know it all in about 30 seconds or less.

When politicians talk about conviction versus electability I think a lot of times they're making a veiled reference to the public. If they had the ability to hold the public's attention to explain a given issue then they may vote different, but they all know it's next to impossible.

Until the ceasefire, it had ingame value keeping SOLers preoccupied instead of hitting us in LCN. But sort of irrelevant in the big picture.

Were you there when we all went minigolfing? I hung out with the Omegans when they did their DC thing back in maybe it was 04 or 03. Good times.

Very accurate story and good quotes Pang.

Few observations:

1) The second amendment's creation is a hotly disputed topic that delves all the way down into which version of the Constitution are you reading because the actual placement of the commas varies among them. I listened to two linguists debating this once.

2) To quote Pres. Reagan, "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." It's probably even less than a generation depending on the situation. Students of history would remind people that pre-Reichstag fire, Nazi Germany was a Democracy. A series of events within the span of only a few dozen months literally converted the country to autocratic despotism. The moral is to be careful in assuming "it can't happen here."

3) Politicians do take a few key talking points because that's all the attention people will give them. I've heard so many people complain about negative campaigning, politicians talking in short sound bites, etc. Realize that like a marketplace, politicians follow what works. If people rise up in resentment to these practices then they will end. But like infomercials, so long as the balance tilts in favor of the practices then they will continue.


I think there is truth to the explanation provided that the Founding Fathers included the 2nd Amendment primarily for purposes of preventing the government from seizing weapons in case of a need for revolt. With that said, I think if you asked them about their government banning firearms they would have called you crazy. They didn't elaborate on this belief because they assumed if they won they would be writing the code. It's sort of a pattern you see in the Constitution--no quartering of soliders, no illegal search and seizure, etc etc.

Ok, fine by me. Sorry Trife, Mrford has spoken and that's enough for me =)

If you're speaking etymologically then regurgitation has its roots in Latin.

Of course in both cases--rhetoric and regurgitation--the actual nouns existed before they were defined ;).

They sure do take their time. One local investigation took four years and it's still raging. I still doubt they ever read those emails or gave them credence.

I would agree that whenever a politician is targeted the media gyrates toward suggesting a hostile political-lingo environment albeit conspicously excusing their own role in it.

I wouldn't argue with more civlity in politics--I would welcome it. But I do worry that the calls are leading to implications that tie the two events together. If people fall back on an explanation of "oh if our politics were just more civil" then we run they risk that they ignore the outward mental issues exhibited that lead to events like this. Put simpler, I'm worried folks will simply scapegoat modern political rhetoric and ignore the real reasons that really don't appear tied to the rhetoric at all.

Woops, i meant to edit and instead clicked quote. I was only adding in examples from the political discourse past such as Bloody Kansas, Civil War, etc.

Tying them together implies correlation even if that is counter to your point. You're also assuming folks agree that the state of political discourse is uncivilized. Comparatively speaking, I think our political discourse is actually more civilized then in our country's past and more civilized than many other democracy's discourse (note, not saying all here).

It's easy to say politicians say mean things and they're negative. Most people would probably agree. But the same people would also romanticize a political past that didn't exist. So it's sort of a crap shoot argument.

"Jared Lee Loughner is to blame for the shootings in Arizona," writes one member. "No one else."

Continuing, the member adds, "I am not inclined to debate this with anyone, and (uncharacteristically for me) am not going to provide my long-winded reasoning behind the statement. It's the truth, and is self-evident. I'm embarrassed for those who've tried to put the blame anywhere else."
http://kotaku.com/...ayed?skyline=true&s=i

I guess it's more a blog/media (Gawker, Gizmodo, etc part of this group).

What's sad about it is that several players e-mailed the FBI and it took the news media reporting on it before the FBI followed up. Goes to show that perhaps it's a waste of time to send the FBI tips.

The politics of this game shed light for me on the nature of people in negotiations. Back in college I would have said this game turned me into someone who professes to a real politik point of view.

The best part of the game is the people. I have made some friends I would probably otherwise never have crossed paths with.

Or they discovered SOL was running multies and therefore they reduced the count.

I'm with Fooglmog. I thought the summation was fair given the point of their story was about Jared's online interactions and not the game itself.

Two points:

1) The media has a keen ability to find the exception and turn it into the rule.
2) Political parties have been known to send in folks to the opposition camp to say outrageous thigs for the purposes of making their opponents look foolish (also known as paradigm shifting).

I went to probably a half dozen McCain rallies and never heard anything similar. Like I said I've rarely heard anything even remotely similar despite having campaigned in Lousiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey and in the Carolinas.

I read them quoting your comment in the one story. Glad they quoted that one instead of some other folk's (myself included) rants. Agreed, Jared is ultimately to blame--or at least Jared with his mental conditions. Not the game. Not politicians. Not friends. Not family.

I work in the political arena and so I've been to more rallies than I care to remember. I have never once heard someone say to kill the opponent. The closest I've ever heard was someone say they wished a member of the opposition passed away to which they were sternly rebuked by those present and that's not even the same as saying kill them. I don't want to call you a liar, but I suspect you're exaggerating here.

With that said I have seen crazy people. In one office I worked in we received a letter from a woman demanding passage of legislation to have the local sheriff stop spying on her brain or she would have to kill him. She was patently nuts and we promptly provided the letter to the sheriff so they could followup. But these are the exceptions and not the rule. And they're generally driven by a mental disorder.

No one is saying two in that manner. Does someone say this is a targeted race? Sure. Do they say they won the campaign using guerilla tactics? Sure. I've even heard of insurgent campaigners. But i've never heard the 'let's go kill them' except in a figurative sense as a pep talk before a big sports game.

As for the third item, my point was these delusional folks aren't drawing their delusions from the political lexicon.

1) Agreed. I would say the same thing applies to targeting a race. Declaring a battleground state. Etc.

2) That's a broad brush to use. I mean, the media calls PA, FL and OH "battleground states" and it's a theme, so will some people battle there?

3) IF someone is incapable of distinguishing literal from figurative then what makes you think they won't draw other illogical connections? Perhaps suggesting something innocous as English grammar is actually a secret government plot to brainwash? In other words--using the violent language or not using it becomes irrelevant because delusional folks will find violence in a peace dove image and peace in a bloody murder scene.

In your world someone drawing a political cartoon of a Governor with a big ax and the word budget on it would suddenly be promoting ax-murdering. That's ridiculous. I don't assume people are incapable of distinguishing literal from figureative.

And, quite frankly, I don't want people treating me like I'm 8 years old and living in Mr. Roger's neighborhood. The world can be a scary place.

What's high level political discourse? Everyone saying "you're so nice Sam, but I most respectfully disagree. May I present to you the following three points?" Give-me-a-break. Politics has always been peppered by emotionally-charged and sometimes heated rhetoric precisely because of the issues the discourse deals with.

It is a mistake to think everything should be like Mr. Roger's neighborhood.

I think what happened was a tragedy, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the so-called violent political rhetoric. If Kim Jung Il uses a nuke against us, would we say it's because the politicians discussed the 'nuclear option' 6 years ago when it came to judicial nominees? Of course not. We would say it's because Kim Jung Il's crazy. Same situation here. Jared Laughner didn't shoot up the event because Palin targeted political seats to capture or because Obama said don't bring a knife to a gun fight, he did it because he's delusional.

Almost everyone...except for "i Love snow" and the Canadian

So if you consider the justification comments redundant then why did you add in your justification as well? I mean practice what you preach, right? ;)

The complaints about the "violent words" is patently ridiculous. What do we call the process by which candidates work to win an election? We can't call it a campaign since that comes from military terminology. What do we call Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania: close states? We can't call them battleground states anymore. Do we censure President Obama for saying don't bring a knife to a gun fight? Senator Manchin for shooting the cap and trade bill? Sarah Palin for her map of 'targeted seats'? Senator Schumer for talking about the "tortured path?" We probably shouldn't use the word "cut," only reduction. Definitely shouldn't refer to the "budget ax." And oh my, imagine if we said 'draconian' and 'cuts' together!