THIS JUST IN: The Kathleen will formally resign as Dane County Exec on December 21 but the county board chair will appoint her as interim exec until the April 5 election. Also, Parisi is in the race. Now, kids, where have we heard that before?
It was indeed predicted by the President of the Dane County Association of Political Pundits! Brilliant! (O.K., I said the 28th but it was the reappointment that nobody else got.)
How does he do it! He buys right. And so can you by reading Blaska's Blog every so often.
Overture to success
Didn't Mark Twain write about Mr. Frautschi's gift of the Overture Center? Wasn't that the gist of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg?
It is just like Madison to tie itself into knots when presented with a first-class cultural arts facility. It's like the 4-year-old given a chemistry set; too soon for his maturity level.
Council President Mark Clear has come up with a private/private operating plan, which I like, as opposed to Mayor Dave's public/private proposal. Worries Hizzoner: "My agreement would have essentially guaranteed a union job for every current union employee. How can we demand that of a totally private facility?"
The answer: you cannot. Why should the City of Madison have anywhere on its list of priorities the guarantee of "a union job for every current union employee?"
Sure enough, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 60 "and community activists" are going to rally before tonight's Council meeting.
It is injurious that the political Common Council should approve the Overture Center's "staffing patterns" every three years.
That does not make for accountability, as sensibly pointed out in a November 29 letter to the Common Council from Linda Baldwin O'Hern, Chair, MCAD Board, and Deirdre Wilson Garton, Chair, 201 State Foundation Board. They sensibly observe:
The Overture boards are unable to support the alternative public authority model. It continues the current flawed model. Having leadership and staff that isn't hired, fired, directed, and evaluated by the operating entity's governing board leads back into the many challenges we now experience with the MCAD/201/City Employee arrangement. The cost of the option is therefore dramatically high, and does not provide much return.
Baldwin O'Hern and Garton could not promise giving Overture Center employees "benefits at the city level." Instead, benefit plans for employees will be based on local industry norms.
Isn't Biddy Martin fighting for more operational discretion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; aren't they fighting unionizing faculty? Might there be a reason?
Madison's doppelganger
This is rich. James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal reports that the mayor of Portland, Oregon, that model for all things Madison, learned about the planned Christmas tree terrorist bombing "at the same time the public did: when the FBI announced Mohamud's arrest on Friday." Don't blame the FBI; blame the prog-lib abhorrence of profiling:
That's because in 2005, Portland became the only city in the country to withdraw from the Joint Terrorism Task Force. The reason ... is that then-Mayor Tom Potter "said the FBI refused to give him a top-secret security clearance so he could make sure the officers weren't violating state anti-discrimination laws that bar law enforcement from targeting suspects on the basis of their religious or political beliefs."
[The current mayor] then a city councilman, was part of the 4-1 majority that voted to withdraw from the JTTF. Now he's having second thoughts, reports the Oregonian.
No shinola, Sherlock!
In The Daily Beast: Asra Q. Nomani argues the case for religious and racial profiling:
As an American Muslim, terrorism experts are increasingly recognizing that religious ideology makes terrorist organizations and terrorists more likely to commit heinous crimes against civilians, such as blowing an airliner out of the sky.
Instead, we have Barack Obama's TSA groping granny at our airports. Peggy Noonan in the WSJ says: "every businessman in America already thinks you've been grabbing his gonads."
Progressivism Watch
The folks over at The Progressive Magazine like to pretend that their favorite hobgoblin, Joe McCarthy, is alive and sober and that the Communist menace never occurred. They have a regular feature called "McCarthyism Watch:"
Another Arab American Finds Tracking Device in His Car
A retired social worker, who is a U.S. citizen, was humiliated and his expectation of privacy was violated.
No discouraging word from The Progressive on the TSA's molestation of innocent American citizens, whose expectations of privacy are being violated even as we speak.
Speaking of apologies
Hurricane Katrina over at The Nation has apologized to the "Don't grab my junk" guy for tarring him as disloyal to Obama's America.
Still no word from The Capital Times in why it has not demanded that Russ Feingold apologize for corruptocrat Charlie Rangel's misdeeds. (If Ron Johnson is supposed to apologize for David King.)
Professor Charles Franklin has apologized -- in so many words -- for calling voters "pretty damn stupid." He writes over at WisOpinion.com:
"There is only one stupid voter here and that's me. I made an exaggerated wisecrack in response to a reporter's question. ... I went for a cheap punch line when I should have been serious. ... I knew better. I have no one to blame but me. The voters have my sincere apology.
"When a party loses touch with voters, passes programs a majority doesn't support, and puts the country on the wrong track voters punish that party with the blunt instrument of throwing them out of office."
Still waiting for Bill Lueders' sackcloth and ashes.
Lookin' like a fool
With his pants on the ground. Madison police arrested the notorious "Bike Path Flasher" for lewd and lascivious behavior on Saturday after he was spotted by two women, ages 55 and 49, on the southwest commuter path with his pants allegedly down around his ankles, The Capital Times reports.
The women have been referred for counseling to be administered by the news editor of Isthmus, who has opined that "sooner or later most people are going to see a naked human body." And this was written about pre-school children.
Madison police report that they are investigating a report of gun shots being fired from a moving car early Friday morning on Hammersley Road on the southwest side.
Police recovered three shell casings at the site in the 5200 block of Hammersley Road. This is on the heels of a shooting in a Russett Road apartment at a 3 a.m. party Sunday night. No one has to go to work the next day, apparently.
Or look for work.
