It Must be Nice

So you are told that your disease is terminal.

Hours later, you and your husband hold a news conference to talk about it.

You go on 60 Minutes to talk about it.

Then, you go out on the campaign trail and talk about it some more.

CLEVELAND -- Elizabeth Edwards said Monday that since announcing a recurrence of her cancer she's been buoyed by a national outpouring of sympathy, including 12,000 emails.

Now she understands how seven-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong felt as he competed before cheering crowd bicycle races, Edwards said at her first solo public appearance since she and her husband, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, announced last week he would stay in the presidential race despite the incurable cancer that has spread to her rib.

"You can't stop when people are cheering for you all along the way," she said in a speech at the City Club of Cleveland. "It makes the private journey we are going through now easier."

As Edwards entered the room, the crowd about 270 people unanimously rose and applauded. Smiling, she shook hands with everyone at her table before lunch. She received a second ovation as she approached the podium to speak.

As I said before, I'm not going to question how Elizabeth Edwards and her family are dealing with her health problems.

They have to do what's right for them.

Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the matter.

Twelve thousand e-mails.

Standing ovations.

Cheers and applause.

That's nice for Elizabeth Edwards. I'm sure her spirits are buoyed by the outpouring of concern.

Something to remember:

Right now, hundreds of thousands of people are going through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and other treatments to battle their diseases. Their loved ones struggle to come to terms with the painful reality and persevere.

They are no less courageous than Elizabeth Edwards, yet they receive no e-mails of support.

No standing ovations.

No cheers and applause.

Say a prayer for all those struggling with disease, especially the ones who feel alone and don't have support or get a standing ovation as they fight for their lives.

Teach Your Children Well

I wonder how much it cost taxpayers for the National Institutes of Health to conduct this study.

One dime is too much.

Common sense would tell you that children need quality care.

WASHINGTON -- Children who got quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower quality care.

Also, the more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem behavior.

The findings come from the largest study of child care and development conducted in the United States. The 1,364 children in the analysis had been tracked since birth as part of a study by the National Institutes of Health.

In the study's latest installment, being released Monday, researchers evaluated whether characteristics observed between kindergarten and third grade were still present in fifth grade or sixth grade. The researchers found that the vocabulary and behavior patterns did continue, though many other characteristics did dissipate.

The researchers said the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development.

In the study, child care was defined as care by anyone other than the child's mother who was regularly scheduled for at least 10 hours per week.

I'm sure the findings of this study will be used by lawmakers to push for more and better government-sponsored early child care programs. Of coure, that translates to higher taxes.

The National Institutes of Health certainly gave the Nanny State a big boost today.

Even though child care is cited as detrimental generally speaking ("the more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem behavior"), there's no way there will be a push to encourage parents to keep their children out of child care and to stay at home with them in their early years.

What are the odds that the government would promote personal responsibility?

THINK!

Kate has bestowed an honor on my blog, a Thinking Blogger Award.

Thank you very much, Kate.

Now, it's up to me to come up with five blogs that make me think.

That's an easy task.

I would include Kate's blog, but as a "thinking blogger," I think Kate is out of the running for my list. I'll pick blogs that, to my knowledge, haven't been listed yet.

What's difficult is choosing only five blogs to highlight.

I won't include blogs, such as And Another Thing... by Mark Levin because his site is connected to a major news outlet. I've taken all of those out of the running.

Here are five worthy "thinkers" among the pluribus:

1. Casting Pearls Before Swine

2. Lores Rizkalla

3. RJay Conservative American

4. Sparks from the Anvil

5. The Right is Right

Rules:

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme. The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!

Milwaukee's Crime/Leadership Crisis

For months (years?) now, I've talked about the deterioration of Milwaukee.

A few days ago, Mike Nichols wrote a column in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in reaction to the murder of Scott Huggins.

He speaks of the murder as a nail in the city's coffin.

I agree completely.

He also reflects on another murder that had a tremendous impact on the way he and others viewed the city.

Nichols begins:

Some crimes mark a city indelibly, change the feel and the thought of it and in a way that is lasting.

There is one like that for me, I told a colleague in so many words Friday, and before I could even get it out of my mouth he beat me to it.

"Popeye's," he said.

Yes, Popeye's.

It's 14 years and about a thousand murders ago that Christine Schweiger stopped for chicken in the 2900 block of W. Capitol Drive in Milwaukee.

She was returning to her car when a 16-year-old boy with a shotgun forced her to her knees. Down on the ground with her arms outstretched, insisting she had no money, she was shot in the back of the head as her 10-year-old daughter watched.

Reading that gave me a chill. That was a turning point for me, too.

I didn't realize that 14 years had already passed since then. God knows the city has had plenty of memorably horrific crimes and incidents of unspeakable brutality, but for some reason, the murder of Christine Schweiger has remained very vivid in my mind. The shock of that hasn't dulled with the passing of time.

Maybe it's because that's when I realized that Milwaukee was in serious trouble.

That was 14 years ago.

What's changed since then?

Things have become worse.

No progress. Only a downward spiral.

In his column in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nichols shares some feedback he received from readers of his previous column.

He points out that the city's politicians don't seem too upset about the current state of Milwaukee and what's happened to their city.

Residents and former residents are reacting much differently. Nichols notes that some mourn Milwaukee's downfall while others flat-out fear the place.


Todd Shroeckenthaler calls Nichols out for adding to the problem.

[A] Glendale resident who used to live in Milwaukee and said I could use his name, thought that I (a Cedarburg resident who also used to live in Milwaukee) did nothing but make matters worse.

I usually enjoy your articles, but this one I took offense to. It does nothing but fan the wings of white flight from Milwaukee.

You even went so far as to dig up stories from 14 years ago. Please think about it harder when you publish (an) article that stokes the perception of fear vs. reality. It also reinforces the negative stereotypes held by many throughout the rest of the state that think of our fair city as a pariah.

I think Shroeckenthaler is wrong.

Nichols isn't fanning the wings of white flight.

With all due respect, he doesn't have that sort of clout.

Furthermore, it doesn't do any good to not talk about the problem and pretend that it doesn't exist. That hasn't worked for the past 14 years, has it?

People are leaving the city of Milwaukee because it's not safe to pump gas at a station located on a busy street at 3:00 in the afternoon. It has nothing to do with Nichols.

It's hard for me to think of Milwaukee as a "fair city" anymore.

Shroeckenthaler apparently believes that Milwaukee isn't that bad. It's a fear v. reality thing to him.

He should tell that to the dozens of business owners in Bay View and on the far south side that were the victims of robberies.

He should talk to the people who were simply eating a meal out or grocery shopping when they were ordered to get on the floor during the robberies.

He should ask them about their perception of the city.

And what was the point of Nichols relaying the story of the murder from 14 years ago?

It reveals that Milwaukee has not progressed one iota since then.

There has been no "War on Crime" in Milwaukee since Schweiger's execution. Shouldn't that have been Milwaukee's wake up call?

Huggins' murderer, Antonio Jones, was only two-years-old at the time Schweiger was killed. That little boy didn't grow up to respect life and obey the law.

No, in those 14 years, he grew up to become a murderer along with an entirely new generation of thugs. What will the two-year-olds of today grow up to do?

I think it's horrible that Milwaukee lacks the leadership to save it from drowning in crime.

No leader, no mayor, no police chief has made a dent in solving the problems. Have any really tried?

During the same time that Milwaukee was sinking, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City.

Today, New York is safer than Milwaukee.

Are Milwaukee residents supposed to believe that leaders are powerless to save their city, that the problem is too big?

They shouldn't.

It can be done, with the right leadership. Obviously, Milwaukee doesn't have it.

Bottom line: Mayor Tom Barrett needs to be replaced.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: America, the Terrorist

In today's Washington Post, Zbigniew Brzezinski explains one of his lamest theories yet (which is saying a lot) -- The Bush administration is responsible for terrorizing America by using the words "War on Terror."

Brzezinski writes:

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

The damage these three words have done -- a classic self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being "at war."

Hey! Ziggy!

The Bush administration didn't manufacture a "culture of fear."

It warned against panic and encouraged people not to be afraid after the 9/11 attacks.

Acknowledging a state of war doesn't require fear.

That suggestion, that Bush and his people "deliberately (or instinctively)" used the "War on Terror" terminology to establish a fear-based mindset among Americans is really disgusting.

This guy is clueless.

HOW WAS THE U.S. SUPPOSED TO RESPOND AFTER 9/11?

WERE THE ATTACKS ACTS OF WAR OR NOT?

Brzezinski doesn't think so. Sure, he thinks they were horrible, but not nearly as horrible as the damage done by the Bush administration's use of the term "War on Terror."

That's sick. Seriously, it's worse than typical Leftist drivel and his usual criticism of the Bush administration's policies.

This crap is so ridiculous that it should be relegated to a kook fringe Left-wing blog.

In effect, he's saying that the Bush administration engaged in psychological warfare against the American people in order to trick them into submitting to its wishes to wage war.

That's nuts. That's true paranoia.

Brzezinski asserts that the Bush administration has wounded America far more severely than "any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves."

That's disgraceful.

Brzezinski is talking like a crazed Bush-hating loon.

Do you want to look for the roots of Islamic extremism?

You have to dig far deeper than January 20, 2001. You have to at least go back to the Carter administration and look to Ziggy's role in handing Iran over to Islamic radicals. (Nice going, Ziggy.)

...The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis, the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100 million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided, uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event of another terrorist act in the United States itself.

That is the result of five years of almost continuous national brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a war of terror here in the United States.

"NATIONAL BRAINWASHING"???

"MUTED REACTIONS OF SEVERAL OTHER NATIONS"???

The other nations that Brzezinski mentions did suffer attacks, but nothing remotely on the scale of the 9/11 attacks.

Does this guy remember what happened???

THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE WERE SLAUGHTERED.

Two 110-story towers crumbled.

A section of the Pentagon was smashed.

And United Flight 93 never made it to its planned destination, believed to be the United States Capitol Building.

Does it take brainwashing for a sane person to understand that the 9/11 attacks were acts of war?

To the contrary, it takes brainwashing to get people to believe that a muted response to such horrific attacks on our country would be appropriate and that there really was nothing at all to fear.



This looks like an image of war to me. It's frightening. But Brzezinski wants you to forget. At the very least, he wants you to believe that Bush schemed to manipulate the public with fear.

The image speaks for itself. No exaggeration by the Bush administration was necessary.


As if all of that isn't bad enough, Brzezinski goes on to bash the entertainment industry for exploiting the public's anxiety.

He also claims that this climate of fear has resulted in harassment and discrimination.

The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate, not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.

Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers, has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified, while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive interracial and interreligious relations has suffered egregiously.

The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.

Brzezinski is carrying water for CAIR. If that's not a red flag that Brzezinski is a terrorist appeaser, then I don't know what is.

He just doesn't get it.

That's what makes him and those of his ilk dangerous.

Ignorance will get you killed.

I question whether Brzezinski sincerely believes what he's saying.

I think he could be in CYA mode.

By being critical of the Bush administration, he builds a case to justify the lamentable policy decisions he urged the Carter administration to make.

Brzezinski can criticize the Bush administration to his heart's content. I think it would be wiser for him to beg forgiveness from Americans or to slink away and crawl under a rock. Nothing will change his role in handing Iran over to Islamic extremists.

He is in no position to bitch and moan about what he calls the "culture of fear."

He played a part in stoking the fire that fuels this war against America, the Islamic extremist culture whose greatest achievement to date is 9/11.

Antonio J. Jones

UPDATE, February 8, 2008: Antonio Jones sentenced to 35 years in prison.
____________________

Barbaric.

Savage.

Monstrous.

Those words are frequently applied to terrorists, our enemies.

I think they aptly describe 16-year-old Antonio Jones.

At 3:00 pm on Wednesday, Jones murdered Scott Huggins while he was at the Citgo station at 4302 W. Capitol Drive in Milwaukee.

Jones was robbing Huggins when he shot him to death.

Huggins was an electrician and volunteered as a boxing coach, helping youth and serving the community. He was 44, married, a father of four and grandfather of six.

Besides robbing Huggins of his life, Jones stole a husband, a father, a grandfather, and a model member of society.

Utterly senseless.

This thug walked up to Huggins while he was filling his gas tank, tried to rob him and then killed him.

Barbaric. Monstrous.

On Friday, Jones was charged as an adult.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A 16-year-old boy was charged as an adult Friday with first-degree intentional homicide in the fatal shooting of a Waukesha boxing coach during a robbery at a busy Milwaukee gas station.

Antonio J. Jones faces a possible sentence of life plus 25 years in prison in the death of Scott Huggins, 44, at a Citgo station at 4302 W. Capitol Drive.

Jones, of the 5100 block of N. 64th St., is charged with committing the killing while armed and with attempted armed robbery, use of force, according to a criminal complaint.

...According to the complaint issued by Assistant Milwaukee County District Attorney Mark Williams and based on the accounts of two boys, ages 16 and 17, who were with Jones at the time of the shooting:

About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, the boys were in the area of N. 1st and W. Palmer streets when Jones displayed a snub-nosed revolver and suggested that they rob someone.

The trio then boarded a Milwaukee County Transit System bus on their way to Custer High School, 5075 N. Sherman Blvd., and got off the bus at W. Sherman Blvd. and W. Capitol Drive.

The three then walked to the gas station, where Jones crept up on Huggins, who was filling up his SUV with gasoline, the complaint says; Jones pulled out the gun and pointed it at Huggins, who shouted a couple of profanities and appeared to try to grab the gun.

One of the boys told police that he then heard possibly two shots go off.

Huggins stumbled and collapsed at the door of the gas station, the complaint says.

These sociopaths need to be taken off the streets now.

They aren't victims of poverty, or joblessness, or hopelessness.

Jones is a cold-blooded killer.

Where are the parents or guardians of these three young men?

Did they teach them to respect life, work hard, study, and take responsibility to be good individuals and assets to society?

If they didn't, they should have taught their children those lessons.

Parents must instill morals in their children.

Killing, other than in self-defense, is immoral. No excuses.

I have no sympathy for these sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. No one is to blame for Huggins' death but Jones. He pulled the trigger. He shot Huggins once in the abdomen and once in the back.

Jones chose to kill him.

Society hasn't failed Jones. Society can't be blamed.

Jones doesn't get a pass for deciding to gun down a man because there aren't enough jobs in the city. That's an excuse and a lame one.

Jones did not shoot Huggins twice because there needs to be tougher gun laws, as Mayor Barrett would like citizens to believe.

Guns are inanimate objects. Guns don't commit murder.

Jones does.

So is this the last straw?

Will Milwaukee's leaders finally say, "ENOUGH"? Will residents finally say, "We will not tolerate this"?

They've said it all before whenever some horrific crime gets a lot of attention in the media.

We've heard it all before: This is it. This is such a disturbing crime that we are compelled to addresss the problem. After a few days, that's forgotten.

There are no signs that Milwaukee's leaders are going to start seriously addressing this senseless loss of life.

Clearly, Milwaukee needs new leaders. Tom Barrett does NOTHING but wring his hands, muster up some anger, and whine about inadequate gun legislation from Madison.

Police Chief Nan Hegerty is retiring in November, but that doesn't excuse her. For now, she's in charge.

There can be no tolerance whatsoever for Antonio J. Jones.

NO EXCUSES.

DEMS' MARCH MADNESS

Democrats are celebrating their March Madness victory.

I imagine that so is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, Bashar al-Assad, and Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda, Hamas, and every other anti-American terroist regime and tyrant are thrilled. Jihadists the world over have reason to cheer.

The Dems, once again, are doing the bidding of our enemies.

WASHINGTON -- A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.

Just over an hour later, an angry Bush accused Democrats of staging nothing more than political theater and said that if the spending bill is not approved and signed into law by April 15, troops and their families "will face significant disruptions."

Ignoring Bush's promised veto, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."

I hope that the American people see the reality of Democrats in control of the House. DISASTER.

Pelosi doesn't speak for me.

"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war."

She has no right to say that. It's not true.

She can say some of the American people or even most of the American people have lost faith; but she cannot say the AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Some of us understand the importance of victory in Iraq.

Far too many of the Dems do not.

I support everything that President Bush said in response to the Dems' idiocy.

Read the President's remarks.
President Bush Discusses Iraq War Emergency Supplemental

Bush is angry. He should be.

Americans should join him. We should be angry at the Dems for their utterly irresponsible actions.

Bush said:

The purpose of the emergency war spending bill I requested was to provide our troops with vital funding. Instead, Democrats in the House, in an act of political theater, voted to substitute their judgment for that of our military commanders on the ground in Iraq. They set rigid restrictions that will require an army of lawyers to interpret. They set an arbitrary date for withdrawal without regard for conditions on the ground. And they tacked on billions for pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror. This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal.

This is what the Dems and their allies (tyrants, terrorists, America haters) are applauding.

It's disgusting.

The President is urging Congress to send him a "clean bill that [he] can sign without delay."

Bush said, "I expect Congress to do its duty and to fund our troops, and so do the American people."

The Dems are derelict in their duty.

Pelosi and her minions shouldn't be proud.

They're an absolute disgrace.

Mayfair Mall Rules

March 30 is TAKE BACK THE MALL day at Mayfair.

Mayfair Mall patrons under 18 will have to be accompanied by an adult after 2 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, under new rules announced by mall officials this afternoon.

...Under the new rules, anyone under 18 must supervised by an adult 21 or over at the mall or the AMC theater after 2 p.m. Adults can supervise no more than four youths at one time.

The restrictions also will apply to the AMC movie theater, which has been a source of trouble at the mall. Parents will no longer be allowed to drop off children at the theater after 2 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Under the new policy, an announcement will be made at 1 p.m. each Friday and Saturday that unsupervised youths have one more hour to shop the mall. At 2 p.m., mall security guards will tell unescorted youths that they have to leave the premises.

Young adults who are 18 and over can ask for wristbands that they can wear at the mall to show they have met the age requirement.

In addition, mothers who are not yet 21 years old will be allowed in the mall with young children.

...For now, the age restrictions will only be in place on Fridays and Saturdays, but Smith said the new rules will be monitored to see whether any changes are needed.

It's possible that the movie theater at Mayfair will see a drop in business. It's also possible that the theater will get patrons back that have abandoned it because of the thug factor.

I suppose it will take a while before shoppers and moviegoers that got in the habit of taking their business $$$ elsewhere will return.

Maybe they'll never return.

I think Mayfair wimped out by choosing to have the restrictions in effect only on Fridays and Saturdays.

I understand that the mall is testing the new policy out and may make adjustments.

But for the time being, if you're concerned about mobs of threatening teens wrecking your shopping or movie viewing experience at Mayfair, avoid the place on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Also, stay away before 2:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Teens and their parents really shouldn't complain about the new policy.

There are lots of hours when teens can freely roam the mall.

There are far fewer hours when Mayfair Mall will be designated a thug-free zone.

Cell Phones and Guns in Milwaukee Public Schools

The Milwaukee Public Schools are a mess.

That's a generalization but it's a fair one.

I know there are many excellent, dedicated teachers and staff in MPS serving many students eager to learn and make something of themselves and strive for a promising future. There are success stories.

What they do manage to accomplish is even more impressive given the fact that they are having to struggle with thug students and their thug parents on a daily basis.

Earlier this year, there was an uproar over the decision by MPS to ban cell phones.

MILWAUKEE -- School brawls have gone high tech, with students using cell phones to call in reinforcements — in one case requiring police and pepper spray to break up a fight that swelled to about 20 family members on school grounds.

The fracas earlier this month, in which six students and three adults were arrested, was the latest in a surge of cell phone-related fights and prompted Wisconsin’s largest school district to ban cell phones in its 217 schools beginning Monday.

“We consider (cell phones) almost as weapons because when they call, we’re the ones out in front and we don’t know these people are coming,” said Mike Heese, safety security assistant at Bradley Tech High School, where the fight happened.

Has safety improved since the cell phone ban went into effect?

I'm not sure.

There have been some problems because of the ban. A 15-year-old student assaulted a teacher because she tried the cell phone from the girl.

A teacher at Fritsche Middle School took a phone from the student Tuesday.

The student is accused of then turning on the 53-year-old teacher and punching her in the face 10 times.

The girl has been charged with felony battery to a school district employee, but her mother claims the girl was just defending herself.

"I think she has a problem with people forcefully putting their hands on her when they shouldn't. I mean, they're taught all the time if people are touching you inappropriately, you're supposed to defend yourself or tell someone," the mother said.

The girl's mother said the phone didn't even work.

The teacher is recovering from facial pain and a chipped tooth.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

No matter what rules and regulations are put in place, there will always be those who will ignore them.

For example, take guns.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that MPS students know that guns aren't allowed in school.

I may be going out on a limb, but I assume that's the case.

Today, a student broke the rule.

An 18-year-old student at Pulaski High School was arrested after a gun was found in his locker Thursday, Milwaukee police said today.

The gun was not loaded, said police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.

She said the boy dropped the gun from his pocket during a class and a school safety officer alerted the police.

The gun wasn't loaded.

I guess that's not so bad.

Never mind. Carry on.

CODEPINK: "All Life is Sacred"

CODEPINK, that group of nutjobs committed to getting arrested, proclaims on its website that "all life is sacred." I don't know how that managed to get on to the site.

Have these radical Leftists turned Pro-Life?

Are they against abortion?

Of course not.

"All life is sacred" doesn't really mean ALL to these Pinkos.

They're talking about Darfur.



Because of the crisis in Darfur, CODEPINK has some suggestions for its followers:

1. Sign the Petition to send in Peace keepers through Amnesty International

2. Help organize a UN Peace Envoy

3. Divest from Sudan

4. Call President Bush

5. Genocide is news: Tell the media to cover Sudan

Darfur is a humanitarian disaster.

Taking action to end the suffering there is a noble effort.

What I have a problem with is the notion that CODEPINK presents itself as a group that believes "all life is sacred."

What a load!

Among its many "campaigns," CODEPINK has taken no action to end the practice that has resulted in the deaths of 45 million (and counting) unborn children. Those lives aren't sacred.

And what about Iraq? Is ALL life sacred there?

CODEPINK wants the U.S. to end its involvement in Iraq now, as in right now.

What about the humanitarian disaster that would surely follow an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq?

They don't care.

Bringing American troops home wouldn't mean there would be peace. If anything, there would be chaos and an uncontrolled escalation in hostilities in Iraq and the Middle East.

Is all life sacred or not?

No, not to the Pinkos.

Paul Asik, Jr.

ONE of the thugs terrorizing Bay View and the south side of Milwaukee has been charged.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The first criminal charges in a robbery spree that plagued the Bay View area and St. Francis since November were filed Thursday.

According to a criminal complaint, Paul Brian Asik Jr., 30, confessed to three of the armed robberies: Lopez Bakery, 1601 W. Lincoln Ave., on Jan. 25; Radio Shack, 1844 S. 15th St., on Feb. 10; and Bella's Fat Cat, 2737 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., on Feb. 18.

Asik told police he commissioned a "neighborhood crackhead" to rob the Radio Shack, had a friend drive a getaway car from Lopez Bakery and robbed Bella's Fat Cat on his own, the complaint says.

...Asik faces three counts of being party to armed robbery with a threat of force and would face a maximum sentence of 120 years in prison and $300,000 in fines if convicted on all charges.

He also admitted to participating in other robberies with multiple accomplices, the complaint alleges.

The Milwaukee County district attorney's office said more people are expected to be charged in the robbery spree....

Great!

Asik will be held accountable for his crimes. He could be looking at years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

What will his punishment be?

It won't be 120 years in prison.

No doubt, Asik will be back out on the streets and back to "work" relatively soon.

I don't think the slap on the wrist he'll probably get will deter him.

He'll be back.
________________________

MORE on Asik:

Asik has a history of "bad behavior."

It goes back over a decade.

Asik was charged with participating in a shooting that wounded a six-year-old boy.

Paul B. Asik Jr., 20, of the 2100 block of S. 15th Pl., has been charged with participating in a shooting Dec. 4 that wounded a 6-year-old boy. He was incorrectly identified in Tuesday's Journal Sentinel based on Circuit Court records that do not list him as Asik Jr.

This correction is from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 25, 1996.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


Asik is obviously an experienced thug.

Egg on Ben Smith's Blog

Ben Smith stepped in it; or, depending how you look at it, he took the bait.

Smith broke the story that John Edwards would be suspending his campaign. Of course, that turned out to be completely WRONG.

He explains himself here:

A single, confident source close to John Edwards told me this morning that Edwards was "suspending his campaign," and I posted it to the blog at 11:06 this morning.

My source, and I, were wrong.

The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect, spoke of the kind of grim prognosis Elizabeth Edwards herself just described hearing before a second round of tests came back. I trusted the source, somebody I've known for several years, and who has always been reliable.

And with less than an hour before Edwards was to announce, I unwisely wrote the item without getting a second source.

When the campaign pushed back harder than I'd expected, I added that information to the original item, but that doesn't undo the damage.

My apologies to our readers for passing on bad information.

I'm not carrying water for Politico or Ben Smith.

But before the news conference, the networks were basically saying the thing -- that the campaign was likely to be on hold because of Elizabeth Edwards' health.

CBS ran with the incorrect story.

Brian Williams on NBC backtracked after cutting away from the news conference. He said that when coming on the air, they believed that Mrs. Edwards had a health setback and the campaign would be suspended or Edwards would drop out completely.

Williams said that they got part of it right.

Politico was the source, but it was not the only outlet to run with the bad information.

In terms of getting it wrong, it was Election 2000 night déjà vu.

It's not as if this sort of thing hasn't happened before.

It's not like Smith concocted a story with forged documents or set out to destroy Edwards' political future.

John Edwards Does NOT Suspend Presidential Campaign

The speculation of earlier today was wrong:

According to Politico, John Edwards is putting his presidential bid on hold due to his wife's health.

Edwards is doing exactly what he should be doing by suspending his campaign.

Family comes first.

Speaking from a purely political standpoint, I don't think this really is much of a setback for Edwards' campaign.

He's well-known. It's not as if he has to get out on the campaign trail and work on name recognition.

His fund-raising will probably take a hit, but not much. It's not as if Edwards doesn't have a personal fortune from which to draw, at least temporarily, if he's able to focus on a presidential campaign again.

Furthermore, it would likely hurt Edwards politically for him to do anything but stay at his wife's side.

Also, it should be remembered that it's only March 2007.

My prayers are with Mrs. Edwards and her family.
_____________________________

Update:

That report was false.

Edwards is NOT suspending his campaign in spite of the fact that her illness has recurred.

The campaign goes on.

I don't think anyone should second guess or pass judgment on the decision of Edwards and his wife to go forward with business as usual as best they can.

Everyday, families receive similar news and they don't shut down.

They need to do what is right for them.

Again, my prayers are with the Edwards family.

Gore's Personal Energy Ethics Pledge Lapse

Yesterday when Al Gore returned to Capitol Hill and pontificated about global warming, he balked at taking a Personal Energy Ethics Pledge.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma merely asked Gore to personally commit to the sort of lifestyle that he's pushing on others. Gore refused and Barbara Boxer flipped out.



Read how the lib media are covering Gore's stunning hypocrisy.

From The New York Times:

In the House, there was little debate about the underlying science; the atmosphere was more that of a college lecture hall than a legislative give-and-take. But in the Senate, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, set a pugilistic tone, challenging Mr. Gore’s analysis of the dangers of climate change from hurricanes and melting ice in Antarctica.

“It is my perspective that your global warming alarmist pronouncements are now and have always been filled with inaccuracies and misleading statements,” Mr. Inhofe said.

Beneath the carefully groomed surface of the House and Senate committees’ scripted production, a rift was evident. Republican committee leaders, including Mr. Barton in the House, and Mr. Inhofe in the Senate, seemed somewhat isolated from their rank-and-file colleagues, who appeared more receptive to Mr. Gore’s message and the scientific consensus on climate change. Even J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the former House speaker, seemed to accept the scientific consensus.

So Inhofe took a "pugilistic tone."

He's "isolated" because he wouldn't buy into the hysterics of the alleged consensus on the environmental doomsday scenario.

And what was Gore's tone? His usual dull, boring, monotonous drone?

...Waving his finger at some 40 House members, [Gore] said, “A day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and they’ll ask one of two questions.”

Either, he said, “they will ask: what in God’s name were they doing?” or “they may look back and say: how did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy?”

Yeah, our children and grandchildren should ask: what in God's name was Gore doing by devouring massive amounts of energy, flying all over the world, living in an enormous mansion?

They may look back and say: how did Gore find the uncommon moral weakness to sink so low and be so selfish and disingenuous?

On the Senate side, Mr. Inhofe quickly hit an issue that some of Mr. Gore’s critics have sounded in recent weeks — the size and energy-consuming properties of his new home in Tennessee. Mr. Inhofe sought to exact a pledge from Mr. Gore to cut electricity use so that his home outside Nashville used no more than the average American home in a year.

This triggered a jousting match with both Mr. Gore and Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the committee chairwoman, which ended when Ms. Boxer made a tart reference to the change in power in the Senate. “You’re not making the rules,” she told Mr. Inhofe.

Mr. Gore then said he pays extra to use wind-generated electricity at the home; Mr. Inhofe took that response as a rejection of the pledge.

Boxer is such a joke with her "tart reference."

When faced with Gore's obvious hypocrisy, Boxer deflected Inhofe's challenge by yapping about Dem power.

She's as heavy-handed as Gore is heavy.

The fact is Gore is all talk -- hysterical, misleading, inaccurate talk.

And he most definitely does not walk the walk.

Why should he? There's no controlling legal authority.

Let's face it. Emperor Gore has no clothes.

(Yuck!)

Philip de Vellis

A mystery is solved.

The person responsible for creating the "Vote Different" anti-Hillary Clinton ad has been identified.

The ad didn't come from a member of the vast Right-Wing conspiracy. It was the product of Philip de Vellis, a self-described "proud Democrat" and a man with connections to Barack Obama's campaign.

WASHINGTON -- The anonymous creator of the video comparing a future with Hillary Clinton as president to the world in George Orwell's '1984' is an ex-employee of a digital consulting firm with ties to rival candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.

De Vellis said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by liberal pundit Arianna Huffington on her Web site, HuffingtonPost.com.

He later posted his own lengthy admission and explanation on the Huffington site.

Is that how The Huffington Post operates?

First, blackmail someone; and then offer the individual space to fess up and explain via an exclusive blog entry found only on The Huffington Post.

De Vellis, AKA ParkRidge47, tells all.

He writes:

Hi. I'm Phil. I did it. And I'm proud of it.

I guess this wasn't blackmail.

De Vellis seems eager to have his fifteen minutes of fame and be embraced by the fringe Left.

I made the "Vote Different" ad because I wanted to express my feelings about the Democratic primary, and because I wanted to show that an individual citizen can affect the process. There are thousands of other people who could have made this ad, and I guarantee that more ads like it--by people of all political persuasions--will follow.

This shows that the future of American politics rests in the hands of ordinary citizens.

The campaigns had no idea who made it--not the Obama campaign, not the Clinton campaign, nor any other campaign. I made the ad on a Sunday afternoon in my apartment using my personal equipment (a Mac and some software), uploaded it to YouTube, and sent links around to blogs.

The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.

I think de Vellis is giving himself way too much credit.

He put out an anti-Hillary ad on YouTube. So what?

I don't think that indicates that he holds the future of American politics in his hands.

Certainly, the Internet provides a forum for "ordinary citizens" to express themselves. It amplifies the voices of the masses, something that wasn't possible before the Internet era.

Still, I wouldn't say that de Vellis' ad had any significant impact on the 2008 campaign.

The reason the ad drew so much attention was all the speculation about its source.

Now we know.

De Vellis wants Obama to be president. Watching the ad, that was no mystery.

De Vellis continues:

I've resigned from my employer, Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology to several presidential campaigns, including Richardson's, Vilsack's, and -- full disclosure -- Obama's. The company had no idea that I'd created the ad, and neither did any of our clients. But I've decided to resign anyway so as not to harm them, even by implication.

This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.

Another one of those "I've decided to resign" situations.

It's sort of like Richard Nixon "decided to resign."

I'm sure de Vellis received a lot of encouragement from his employer to leave the company.

And Obama wants to look clean. He can't be seen as condoning an anti-Hillary ad this early in the game.

We've seen that blogs and Internet postings can be extremely influential. I don't mean to underestimate their impact.

But in the case of de Vellis and his ad, I think he's overestimating his importance.

It was just a YouTube ad.

It's not like it ran during the Super Bowl.

Get a grip.

I don't know which is more dangerous -- underestimating someone else's power or overestimating your own?

Milwaukee Crime Spree Rolls On

It's too soon for Bay View and south side Milwaukee residents to breathe a sigh of relief.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Police are looking for a lone bandit who held up the North Shore Bank at 4230 W. Oklahoma Ave. on Tuesday morning.

The suspect is described as a white male in his mid-30s about 5-foot-7, weighing 150 pounds with a graying mustache. He was wearing dark-colored sunglasses, a gray hooded sweatshirt, baseball cap and polyester trench coat with white tennis shoes, said Deputy Chief Brian O'Keefe.

He said the man, who was not armed, presented a note demanding money.

How do the police know the man wasn't armed?

Did the "lone bandit" say that he had no gun when he demanded money?

Not showing a gun in the robbery doesn't mean that the guy didn't have one.

The question: Is this latest suspect part of the gang responsible for the other crimes?

He could be a copycat.

Does it matter?

If I were the victim of a robbery or other crime, that would be completely irrelevant to me.

The bottom line is crime is becoming commonplace in previously safe areas of Milwaukee.

I think Mayor Tom Barrett needs to take another walk -- a long, long, long walk.

Al Gore Emergency: PANIC NOW!

Al Gore is desperate.

Actually, he's an emotional wreck.

According to Gore, "Our world faces a true planetary emergency."

Poor Gore.

He's trying to save all of civilization and the polar bears, too.

He's begging people to stop their gluttonous energy consumption.

(Forget about the fact that he gorges himself.)

Gore was on the verge of tears during his testimony before House panels today.

"I want to testify today about what I believe is a planetary emergency a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth," Gore told the House committees. "The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophic unless we act."

What drama!

It's the end of the world!

Is Gore's "carbon-neutrality" crap enough to avert catastrophe?

Drastic times call for drastic measures.

Maybe we should ban all air travel immediately.

I suppose we could limit the square feet of living space each person can have.

No more big houses with those evil incandescent light bulbs. Think of the damage that enemy of civilization Thomas Edison has done!

I don't think we have any choice but to round up the demonic cows. We can't sit by as their emissions destroy the planet. Is it possible to keep the cows and their "byproducts" in enclosed chambers?

We put a man on the moon. Why can't we conquer the cows?

Oh, the humanity (and polar bears)!

Feingold Sets Three Hour Deadline for Withdrawal

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold likes deadlines and timetables.

He has been a very vocal advocate for a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.

First, he set December 31, 2006 as the magic date. Then, he joined with John Kerry in proposing a July 1, 2007 deadline. Senate proposals for troop withdrawal deadlines change from day to day. I'm not sure which deadline Feingold supports now.

Yesterday, Feingold released a statement announcing his support of a bill for a three hour deadline for withdrawal.

This bill isn't about troops or Iraq or war. It's about passengers on planes.

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold is standing up for the rights of airline passengers by cosponsoring the bipartisan Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act, introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill would allow passengers to safely deplane if a plane sits on a runway for more than three hours. The bill also would mandate that food, water, and adequate restroom facilities are provided to passengers during a delay. The legislation was introduced following storms in February that left some airline passengers across the country stranded for up to 11 hours in some instances.

“Many of us have had air travel experiences we’d like to forget, but nobody should have to be stranded on a runway for hours on end,” Feingold said. “While we can’t do anything about the weather, we can make sure that airline passengers are not subjected to the terrible conditions we witnessed last month.”

Yes, Feingold believes that legislation is necessary to protect passengers from torture at the hands of the airline industry.

He and Boxer and Snowe (Oooh! Bipartisan!) are proposing three hours as the deadline.

Why three hours?

I think that's too long. That's too many hours to be held captive on a plane going nowhere.

These sort of arbitrary deadlines are always a problem.

Deplane, deploy, whatever.

DEMS' SHOCK AND AWE

One of the Democrats' campaign promises in 2006 was to hogtie the administration with investigations.

On Meet the Press, May 7, 2006, Nancy Pelosi and Tim Russert had this exchange:

MR. RUSSERT: Headlines in the Capitol Hill paper: “Dems prepare for transition.” Today’s Washington Post: “Confident Dems lay out agenda.” You’re measuring the draperies in the speaker’s office.

REP. PELOSI: No we’re not. No we’re not. The American people would like to know what we would do if we take over.

MR. RUSSERT: Ah, absolutely. If they...

REP. PELOSI: And that’s what...

MR. RUSSERT: ...and let me ask you about that, because you told The Washington Post that there will be investigations if the Democrats regain control of the House. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee would be someone named John Conyers. I went up to his Web site and this is what’s on his Web site: “Stand with Congressman Conyers. Demand an investigation of administration abuses of power and make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.”

REP. PELOSI: Democrats are not about impeachment. Democrats are about bringing the country together. This is what we have to do.

MR. RUSSERT: But that’s the man who would be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

REP. PELOSI: Yeah, but that is not where the decision would be made. This is a—what I had told The Washington Post was that we will assume the responsibility that this Congress—this do-nothing, rubber-stamp Congress, rubber-stamp for President Bush—hasn’t done, has not exercised the congressional obligation and responsibility to have oversight.

MR. RUSSERT: So there would be investigations.

REP. PELOSI: Well, what I told them is we will have an investigation of energy prices. We will have an investigation. Then how that was done...

MR. RUSSERT: How about of the war?

REP. PELOSI: That would be if—I said we’d have hearings on the war. We’d have hearings on the war. But I don’t see us going to a place of an impeachment or all of that.

MR. RUSSERT: Is impeachment off the table?

REP. PELOSI: Well, you never know where the facts take you, but the—for any president. But, but that isn’t what we’re about. What we’re about is going there and, and having high ethical standards, fiscal soundness and a level of civility that brushes away all this fierce partisanship.

BS!

That last quote from Pelosi is a crock!

She said that Dems were "about a level of civility that brushes away all this fierce partisanship."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Dems are making good on their promise to probe EVERYTHING.

They are trying to paralyze the Bush administration with attack after attack and investigation after investigation.

It disgusts me that they are shutting down our government with their idiotic, cooked up, false scandals as they attempt to destroy the President.

It has reached a "shock and awe" level.

From The New York Times:

President Bush and Congress clashed Tuesday over an inquiry into the firing of federal prosecutors and appeared headed toward a constitutional showdown over demands from Capitol Hill for internal White House documents and testimony from top advisers to the president.

Under growing political pressure, the White House offered to allow members of Congressional committees to hold private interviews with Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff; Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel; and two other officials. It also offered to provide access to e-mail messages and other communications about the dismissals, but not those between White House officials.

Democrats promptly rejected the offer, which specified that the officials would not testify under oath, that there would be no transcript and that Congress would not subsequently subpoena them.

“I don’t accept his offer,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “It is not constructive, and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation or to prejudge its outcome.”

Responding defiantly on a day in which tension over the affair played out on multiple fronts, Mr. Bush said he would resist any effort to put his top aides under “the klieg lights” in “show trials” on Capitol Hill, and he reiterated his support for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose backing among Republicans on Capitol Hill ebbed further on Tuesday.

“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants,” the president told reporters in a brief and hastily convened appearance in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

The only offer that Leahy would accept from President Bush is his immediate resignation.

I think President Bush is too nice.

He has been too accommodating to the Dems and he has received no cooperation from them.

Fearful, spineless Republicans have buckled again and again rather than standing firm with the President.

The administration has made concessions to no avail.

The President nailed it when he spoke of "show trials" and "a partisan fishing expedition."

From the Associated Press:

Flexing their political muscle against the White House, Democrats in the House and Senate are insisting that President Bush's top aides describe their roles in the firings of eight federal prosecutors on the record and under oath.

A House committee was to vote Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for political director Karl Rove and other administration officials despite Bush's declaration a day earlier that Democrats must accept his offer to allow the officials to talk privately to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but not under oath and not on the record.

Would he fight Democrats in court to protect his aides against congressional subpoenas?

"Absolutely," Bush declared Tuesday in televised remarks from the White House.

..."If the Democrats truly do want to move forward and find the right information, they ought to accept what I proposed," Bush said. "If scoring political points is the desire, then the rejection of this reasonable proposal will really be evident for the American people to see."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate probe into the firings, dismissed the White House offer.

"It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them, but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here," Schumer said.

Schumer is such a slimy hypocrite.

The Dems are absolutely ruthless.

They are willing to do anything to crush the administration.

Their mouthpieces in the lib media are enthusiastic accomplices.

It's a truly shameful display.

There's no question that the Dems have declared war on the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Fronts in the War on Terror--

Afghanistan

Iraq

Washington, D.C.

______________________

Transcript of President Bush's Remarks on Resignations of U.S. Attorneys

Frank Busalacchi, the IT Guy, and Rose Mary Woods

Accidents happen.

Things happen inadvertently. For instance, President Richard Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods made a mistake. She erased portions of Nixon's tapes revelant to the Watergate probe.

Sometimes important evidence just disappears, unintentionally of course.

Calendar entries for state Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi and his top assistant have been erased, making it impossible to know where they were for their first two years in office.

The Journal Sentinel recently requested Busalacchi's calendar going back to January 2003, but the Department of Transportation said his calendars for 2003 and 2004 were accidentally destroyed because of a problem with a computer server. Deputy Secretary Ruben Anthony Jr.'s calendars also are missing for those years.

Busalacchi has said he never talked to now-indicted Kenosha businessman Dennis Troha about tax troubles faced by companies Troha owned at the time. Busalacchi was to meet with Troha on the issue in April 2004, but Busalacchi said Troha - a major contributor to Gov. Jim Doyle - did not show up for the meeting.

The Journal Sentinel asked for Busalacchi's schedule to see how involved he was in the tax cases affecting Troha's firms. But the Department of Transportation said this week that it did not have the calendars for 2003 and 2004.

"This is nothing we did on purpose," said Chris Klein, an aide to Busalacchi. "It was a mistake that occurred."

...Sometime before August 2006, an information technology worker tried to back up the calendars of Busalacchi and Anthony but inadvertently erased them instead, Klein said. He said he did not know whether anyone else's calendar was wiped out.

Klein did not name the IT employee.

...A spot check of other state agencies by the Journal Sentinel found no other problems. Calendars for top officials going back to 2003 are available for the Department of Revenue, the Department of Health and Family Services and the Department of Workforce Development, the agencies said.

Sure. The calendar entries have disappeared, not on purpose. There's no coverup. It was just a mistake.

"Mistakes" can be so convenient sometimes.