TomT

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All eyes are now firmly fixed on the Wisconsin Senate after Republicans in the General Assembly used a parliamentary maneuver early this morning to cut off debate and push through a vote on the Governor’s union-busting bill.



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It’s official: The Wisconsin State Police have been sent to round up the 14 State Senators who went on the lam to prevent State Senate Republicans from having a quorum with which to rush through the anti-union bill.

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John Hicks

If you happen to watch HBO (you can send that check any time now, fellas) then chances are you’ve seen the new film adaptation of The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy.

I could fill a lot of space here by going over plot and characters, but I won’t. Instead, I’m going to encourage anyone who’s not familiar with the work to bop over to The Sunset Limited’s Wikipedia entry and, yes, spend even more of your precious time on the Internet.

TomT

Is Governor Scott Walker really a Koch whore?
On the heels of his admission that he actually considered dispatching operatives to infiltrate and disrupt the protests against his union-busting budget bill (this was in the prank phone call from a journalist whom Walker believed to be one of the Koch brothers), the real Kochs have leapt to his aid with a new TV ad-buy, an astro-turf support group, and a new right-wing lobbying HQ across the street from Wisconsin’s Capitol building.

Jimmy Gabacho

It was the Saturday before the mayoral election in the Windy City, and my wife and I were in Chicago running errands.  Once a month we make our escape from the desolate cornfields and head to the Second City for shopping, groceries and dinner.  Over the years we have started to buy organic, so we always hit Whole Foods Market on North Avenue before heading for home. When we arrived, the parking lot was so jammed packed that it seemed like they were giving away food.

I was already in a pissed-off mood.

TomT

At our gracious host’s suggestion, I’ve thrown together a roundup of (hopefully useful, or at least interesting) info on what may be the last stand of the Badger state’s middle and working classes. (All due credit to Meteor Blades and the other folks at Daily Kos, David Dayen at Firedoglake, and the Milton Education Association, Milton WI.)

John Hicks

A few hours after I fired off my last post (“True Grit”) to B2L2, I cracked the February 14 & 21, 2011, issue of The New Yorker and discovered, to my great delight, a piece by staff writer Adam Gopnik titled “The Information.”

I was delighted because “The Information” addresses the curious state of being I’d touched on in my previous post – the calm and, well, happiness I’d begun to feel after several days of life without the Internet.

G Bitch

5 Years Later

  • The opening prayer oddly asked God to still or help instill “self-control” and “punctuality” in the students under discussion, and he was not talking about Holy Name or Lusher.
  • Asher’s teacher-blaming started from her opening words–that the children haven’t failed, it’s that “adults have failed to teach” them.
  • Guttierrez calling the RSD the “ultimate accountability” body was rich considering recent news.
Grant Bailie

He first saw Alfia Furst on the corner of First Avenue and First Street. It was May Day and the sun was shining on her in a way it was not shining on the parking meters or the grey and melting snow banks that still lined the street.

He followed her all the way to the coffee shop, and then continued on without her to the dry-cleaner, which had been his original intent. At the dry-cleaners there was a clerk he had always found attractive but this attraction was significantly diminished today. He accepted and paid for his pressed shirts with no more than the required amount of friendly banter.

B2L2