This should help revitalize the economy.....

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law.

Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution.

...at the Cork and Cleaver. Badger Blogger crunches the numbers.

MPS has spent $54,438.86 at the CORK N CLEAVER restaurant for things like what the call “Data Retreats,” “Holistic Writing Scoring,” “Writing Assignment Food” and “Management Inservice” meetings.

Two of the entries were labeled “UNDERSTANDING POVERTY - SITE.”

If you really, really want to waste time learning more about this.... here's a useful backgrounder. And, no, The Supreme Court is NOT going to take up the case. Get over it.

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Michelle Malkin also wants to knock off the kookiness.

I believe Trig was born to Sarah Palin. I believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. I believe fire can melt steel and that bin Laden’s jihadi crew — not Bush and Cheney — perpetrated mass murder on 9/11. What kind of kooky conspiracist does that make me?

Jim Manzi deconstructs GM's latest "business plan."

Now, the most obvious response to all of this is to say that I’m the fish at this table, because this is not a real business plan, but simply a political document. It exists to provide political cover to members of Congress. But if that’s the case, it’s an unintentionally beautiful illustration of why industrial policy fails. It’s both economically crucial and very hard to allocate capital well; that’s why people who are good at it make so much money. Businesses struggle to do this well, and they’re really trying. What do you think the odds are that this is a wise use of money, when the people involved are barely pretending to try?

Ladies and gentleman, your Milwaukee School Board.

But you have wonder, just how serious was this investigation. dan Bice reports:

In the end, he said, investigators decided it was not necessary to interview Hardin.

"For my purposes, it's a crime if the plan was never to attend (the conference)," Feiss said. "If they weren't competent enough to carry it out, that's really an employment issue."

Even after the DA's review, much about the junket remains a mystery.

Feiss never explained what bungling occurred that kept Hardin and Pearson from attending the conference, even though it's clear they flew to Philadelphia, took out a rental car and registered for the event. It also has not been revealed where the pair stayed - they were not at the conference hotel - or how much the trip cost.

So they never...bothered... to... even....talk....to...Hardin? Something tells me that Steve Biskupic would have handled this differently.

BTW: How pathetic is it that prosecutors say that one of MPS' longest serving school board members is simply incompetent... and use that as a defense of her actions?

...from the religion of Peace? Thomas Friedman wonders.

On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?

Christian Schneider deconstructs the JS's headline today.

Today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel features a blaring headline warning that some group has given Wisconsin an “F” in helping students with college financial aid.  Sounds pretty serious  - we must really be falling behind other states in offering financial aid, huh?

Well, actually, no.  Forty-nine of the fifty states got grades of “F” for affordability, which might make one think this bogus “study” might just be a crass ploy by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education to push for more taxpayer money.  And one would be right.  Couldn’t the Journal Sentinel just as easily have written the headline “Wisconsin Keeping Up With College Affordability?”

You may notice that college “affordability” to university bureaucrats always means “more taxpayer money,” never “keeping tuition down.” 

How to explain this? Teens Charged in Nursing Home Abuse....

DECEMBER 2--A group of teenagers working at a Minnesota nursing home abused and sexually humiliated elderly residents suffering from Alzheimer's disease and dementia, prosecutors allege. The six young female caregivers were named yesterday in criminal complaints charging them with a variety of cruel behavior at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, a city in southern Minnesota.

Only two of those charged--Brianna Broitzman, 19, and Ashton Larson, 18--are named in the complaints since they were not minors when the alleged abuse occurred. According to District Court complaints filed against Broitzman (pictured above left) and Larson (above right), nursing home residents were spat upon, spanked, improperly touched, and tormented by the teenagers earlier this year. Excerpts of the misdemeanor complaints can be found below. Broitzman allegedly poked one resident's breasts, spit into the mouth of another elderly person, and "put her bare butt" in the face of a Good Samaritan Society resident identified as "S.W." Larson once "inserted her finger into a resident's rectum," spit water on another "vulnerable adult," and would deliberately bathe a resident in a rough manner so the elderly man would get an erection.

John Stossel thinks the government is setting us up for the next bust.

When we hear that the U.S. Treasury is doing this or the Federal Reserve is doing that, we should remember that these agencies are run by mere mortals, and as such, they cannot know how to "fix" something as complex as an economy. But they certainly are capable of wrecking one.

That's what their inflationary policies will do.

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James Pethokoukis thinks Obama's Stimulus Blockbuster might flop...

Hollywood has nothing on Washington when it comes to shamelessly recycling stories and plot devices. Remember that big-budget turkey of the fall, "The Amazing Trillion-Dollar Bailout"? It was the story of how Uncle Sam persuaded American taxpayers (or at least Congress) that if they didn't fork over nearly a trillion dollars to rescue Wall Street, the U.S. economy would tumble into a job-destroying, wealth-eviscerating free fall. (Director Hank Paulson has produced several sequels to that one already.)

But the inside-the-beltway crowd is already cooking up an obvious knockoff of that one. Coming soon in January 2009: "The Wondrous Trillion-Dollar Stimulus." It's the thrilling tale of how the new American president and Congress persuade American taxpayers that if Uncle Sam doesn't borrow hundreds of billions of dollars for a massive spending spree, the U.S. economy will tumble into a job-destroying, wealth-eviscerating free fall. (I can already imagine the teaser trailer. Deep-Voice Narrator Guy: "In a world gone mad, where banks are imploding and automakers disintegrating, only One Man and his Wondrous Stimulus Plan can save America ...")

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And, finaly, Holman Jenkins on the bailout... so far. Not so good.

Here's a fact to mull over: Washington a few months ago might have bought the entire stock of subprime mortgages for about half the money committed by the Fed and Treasury last week to prop up Citigroup and spur consumer and mortgage lending.

True, had it done so, it might have irritated taxpayers and moral-hazard philosophers, since it would have meant relieving bank shareholders of their mistakes. But buying up bad mortgages would at least have left the private sector in charge of issuing new credit, which -- however bad its performance during the housing bubble -- would likely produce better results than government directing credit allocation in the economy.

Sadly, that's where we are today. Bless them for trying, but our firemen have done an objectively crummy job.

PC University reverses itself after being publicly embarrassed by its diversity-mongering absurdity.

Last month the university dropped a fund raiser for cystic fibrosis because it was.... too white.  Reaction was less than enthusiastic.

The student council at an Ottawa university has reversed its controversial decision to pull out of an annual fundraiser for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Following vocal protests from students, the Carleton University Students Association voted unanimously Monday night to:

*Support next year's cystic fibrosis fundraiser, called Shinerama.

*Donate at least $1,000 to the organization.

*Issue a formal apology.

...who are paying the bills.

The ever-sensitive, in-touch, man-of-the-people Harry Reid:

My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true."

But it's no longer going to be true, noted Reid, thanks to the air conditioned, indoor space.

And that's not all. "We have many bathrooms here, as you can see," Reid continued. "Souvenirs are available."
 
$621 million well spent.

The head of the Child Welfare Bureau needs to come out of the bunker. Crocker Stephenson writes:

Her secretary no longer even bothers to take my messages.

I do not understand how the director of the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare can have a baby beaten to death and a toddler tortured and not feel an obligation to appear in public to express her pain, to extend her condolences, to explain what happened and what she is going to do about it.

From Desperate Irish Housewife.

This note is pasted on the door of a wounded Navy SEAL.

Noemie Emery wonders, who can she be now?

Madame Secretary — Madame Senator — Madame First Lady . . . Hillary Clinton is an enigma who is best seen in stages; as a series of parts, not a whole. Stage Number One was the Goldwater girl from the Midwest, an overachiever raised by conservative parents, and a girl who later rebelled in Stage Two, becoming the classic late-60s Ivy League feminist, who brought her bad hair, bad clothes, thick glasses, and in-your-face views into backwater Arkansas, proudly disdaining adornment and deference, or at least till Bill lost. Then came Stage Three, when she changed herself into a southern belle (or a northern idea of one), losing the glasses, going much blonder, and taking Bill’s name. For the campaign, there was Stage Number Four, when she emerged as America’s sweetheart with the glossy blonde flip and soft dresses who giggled with Tipper, as the Clintons and Gores stormed their way through the heartland on that great double date that enchanted America. That didn’t last long.

**

Roger Simon wonders: Is this the end of Hillary?

Not hardly.

Irony.

Kids lie, steal and cheat. But feel good about themselves.

In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards.

Add this to the long list of "What Were They Thinking?"James Poniewozik reviews the train wreck that was "Rosie Live."

I'm not very good with emoticons. Does that symbol above appear to convey, "Eyes wide open in stunned perplexity"? Because that's what I was going for. That's the image that would best convey my response to the disturbing, unfunny, bizarre-but-not-in-an-entertaining-way spectacle that was Rosie Live. 

Much as with Knight Rider, another NBC attempt to faithfully re-create an outmoded format from the Big Three network era, Rosie Live made me wonder: Is NBC now being programmed by a team of drunk monkeys wearing a Ben Silverman costume?

They may vote for Democrats, but Wisconsin voters seem to understand that raising taxes on businesses isn't a good idea.

Wisconsin residents oppose raising taxes on business profits by a range of 73% opposing it while only 19% supported raising taxes. These are among the key findings about statewide policy issues from the most recent survey of 600 Wisconsin residents conducted by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Inc. and Diversified Research between November 9 and 10, 2008.

Geographically, the most support for raising taxes came from LaCrosse where 33% of the respondents supported it and Madison where 25% were in agreement. Among Republicans only 10% favored raising taxes on businesses, while 25% of Democrats agreed. Ideologically, 31% of Liberals said they would favor raising taxes on businesses, only 9% of Conservatives agreed with that.

There is overwhelming opposition to the idea of raising taxes on business profits, especially when Wisconsin’s economy is sliding into a serious recession. The opposition crosses all party lines, all ideologies and all regions of the state. It is actually surprising just how much opposition there is to this idea. It will make it very difficult in the next biennial budget to solve the state’s deficit on the backs of employers and employees.

Charles Krauthammer says we have replaced the market with the political economy.

In the old days — from the Venetian Republic to, oh, the Bear Stearns rescue — if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance sheets. Today you learn to read political tea leaves. You don’t anticipate Intel’s third-quarter earnings; instead, you guess what side of the bed Henry Paulson will wake up on tomorrow.

Today’s extreme stock market volatility is not just a symptom of fear — fear cannot account for days of wild market swings upward — but a reaction to meta-economic events: political decisions that have vast economic effects.

As economist Irwin Stelzer argues, we have gone from a market economy to a political economy.

This is how it works. Another business killed by an underfunded union pension fund.... The Racine Journal-Times reports:

RACINE — Brannum Lumber almost made it to its 100th anniversary — but instead will close next month after 99-plus years.

Company officials said the long-time Racine construction supply company at 1720 Taylor Ave. will close Dec. 20, just five months short of its century mark in business.

A funding shortfall in a Teamsters national pension fund, affecting just two employees, was the tipping point, Brannum President and minority owner Dale Anderson said Monday....

Patrick wonders, "Where's the Change?"

It has not been a good week for the doctrinaire progressive, and we have President-elect Barack Obama to thank.

First there was his economic team, to which one writer in that American Pravda, The Nation, reacted with self-loathing: “His victory, it appears, was a triumph for the cautious center-right politics that has described the Democratic party for several decades. Those of us who expected more were duped, not so much by Obama but by our own wishful thinking.”

They worked their hearts out to elect President Spread the Wealth and wound up with a man who appoints free-traders and tax-cutters as his economic brains. As Larry Kudlow puts it, this could well have been the President-elect McCain team.

Then there’s the foreign side, the encouraging choice of keeping on Robert Gates, the defense secretary who oversaw Bush’s spectacularly successful surge in Iraq. ..

This must be a difficult moment, then, for the particular ideologues who have been baying for years that we have to get out of Iraq yesterday, writing it off as a dead loss, or according to some date certain. ... Now the guy goes and sticks with Bush’s defense secretary – the cabinet officer in charge of the Bush policy that the hard left most loathed.

I find myself reacting a lot like Thomas Friedman.

I spent Sunday afternoon brooding over a great piece

of Times reporting by Eric Dash and Julie Creswell about Citigroup. Maybe brooding isn’t the right word. The front-page article, entitled “Citigroup Pays for a Rush to Risk,” actually left me totally disgusted.

Why? Because in searing detail it exposed — using Citigroup as Exhibit A — how some of our country’s best-paid bankers were overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn’t only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.

So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties, as if they were AAA bonds, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA, but made a fortunes doing so; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so.

Citigroup was involved in, and made money from, almost every link in that chain. And the bank’s executives, including, sad to see, the former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, were clueless about the reckless financial instruments they were creating, or were so ensnared by the cronyism between the bank’s risk managers and risk takers (and so bought off by their bonuses) that they had no interest in stopping it.

These are the people whom taxpayers bailed out on Monday to the tune of what could be more than $300 billion.