This just in: The Walker administration will offer/give its employees a zero (0) percent pay increase for 2012. But no state employee will be laid off in a national economy with 9 percent unemployment (16% functional) and a sputtering stock market.
Great lede by Dennis Punzel in this morning's WI State Journal on the Brewers' crunch-time victory Thursday night in St. Louis.
O.K., Milwaukee Brewers fans, raise your hands if you thought Randy Wolf was going to save your team's post-season hopes.
My hand stays down, which makes Wolf's achievement so much more impressive, given the ugly pasting the lefty pitcher took in Arizona. That was a gutsy game that took the Brewers from backs against the wall to a happy Miller Park homecoming. Performance under pressure!
Is pessimism a Wisconsin trait, something borne of winter's cold and dark? Or has it been nurtured by too many years of disappointment (and two years of Barack Obama)?
Jerry Hairston, post-season MVP? The guy keeps getting big hits, gives great at-bats, flashes good leather and his base-running is sensational. No way he should have scored from second base on Yuni's hit. He beat a great defensive catcher in Yadier Molina with a slide that was a fall classic in its own right.
Time to sit Rickie Weeks.
Keeping busy
Got the Airstream Bambi travel trailer -- aka the Terrestrial Exploration Module and Mobile Blog Pod -- all buffed and polished to ride out the winter. My first picture is a close-up of what a coating of Zaino "All In One" can do on aluminum. Will we decamp for warmer climes as we did in February 2009? Stay tuned. Wood pile is covered with a tarp. Beets planted in late August after expiration of green beans just may produce a crop. Reading C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy.
The squire and his loyal Stately Manor servants have an appointment Saturday at Camp Randall for the Badgers-Indiana Big Ten football game. Minus Ruben Mamoulian, that is. My untrustworthy aide de camp has gone missing once again. We believe he is participating in the Occupy Fitchburg movement.
Then trap shooting Sunday with Miss Vicki and Ken Heim at the Stoughton Conservation Club. Then the Packers and Brewers via TV.
Yes, it's a hectic schedule. Next week, eight hours of handgun training at MATC. I can live with A.G. Van Hollen's four hours of training. But maybe Gov. Walker cannot, the Lakeland Times says.
Nature's glory
Duane sends this video link of an owl flying straight at the camera. You see what the doomed prey sees just before it becomes food.
Word for the day
Thanks to cousin Jeff:
Ineptocracy (in-ept-o-cra-cy) -- a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Difference between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street is illustrated here.