Interesting weather around the ol’ rancheroo lately. One minute it’s hotter than the proverbial hubs of Hell and drier than a popcorn fart, and the next the trees are all sideways and the hail is bucketing down like Someone tipped the bed on a celestial gravel truck.
I don’t even want to think what the trails look like this morning. And from the look of things out the office window, there’s more on the way.
Just as well, I suppose. An unholy convergence of deadlines means I’ll be logging some hard miles in the office chair over the next couple of days instead of sluicing through the goo. And me with three befendered bikes in the garage, too. Oh, the shame.
Meanwhile, I’d say something filthy about what took place in Wisconsin on Tuesday if Charles P. Pierce hadn’t already said it, funnier, better and faster, too. What say we all move to Italy and sponge off Larry and Heather until the Republic comes to its senses?
Mad Blog Media 
Yup it’s all over here in Wisconsin. Except for the crying that is. Lots of numb people and gloating Teabillies on the airwaves. Democracy is dead, money is now King. Be afraid.
Patrick, I was going to write in yesterday and make sure you’d read Mr. Pierce’s take on Wis. but assumed, rightly, that you’d done so. One of his better ones I thought, though he never ceases to amaze me with his wit, eloquence and sheer brilliant output.
Oh, and I heartily approve of your Italy/Larry & Heather plan. Italy is just as fucked up politically as we are, but the food’s better.
Yes lets all got to Italy! Bike friendly (bike crazy) good food, good wine Italian girls. Yes, the political system is FUBAR. But being good Italians the populace does not care. And the country keeps rolling along. Kind of makes ya wonder what political parties are good for in general. If Italy does not need a Government…….How many times has the Government fallen in Italy since WWII? Many, many, times. Country is still there, And they STILL have better wine, food, weather, and a take on bicycles that we may NEVER understand. Yep sounds like a plan to me! 🙂
Arnold, you’re absolutely right about the populace not giving a crap about what goes on in Rome. EVERYONE knows what’s going on, and there is much hand waving and scolding and protesting, but outside of the major city centers, life and country just keep rolling along, as you said. It’s called “living” and the Italians are pretty damn good at it.
Italians, last time I recall worrying about it, are political as hell. Just not as screwed up as we are.
FUBAR is in the eye of the beholder, i.e., Citizens United vs. FEC.
They should rename Wisconsin, Kochland.
For another take on the Wisconsin debacle, go here:
I think this guy is spot-on, and I’m about as pro-labor as one can get, having grown up in a UAW household and having gone over the top of a car defending a picket line against a scab while being a board member of my own public-sector union.
Its time to take off the gloves, but one has to be strategic or one ends up pretty messed up–for example, Wisconsin. Labor unions need to form a unified labor movement that represents the working class, e.g., a rebirth of a worker’s movement, not a union shop movement. Until they do, it will be easy to cast them in an us vs. them role with the Tea Party folks. That is self destruction at its finest.
So Patrick, we need to breathe some life back into the IWW, Local US of A.
The Tea Party and the Koch brothers outspent the unions and the Dems by a 7-1 margin, and still only managed to pull out a bare whisker of a win.
The Donks ran a guy who already lost vs. Walker. He lost again. I swear, the Donks must practice fucking things up. As must the unions.
The phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” comes to mind.