If the proposed legislation in Wisc doesn't pass, 5,000-6,000 teachers will be layed off. 

Ask the Union to provide a list of the teachers they'd recommend laying off - then publicize the list.  THAT might change a little thinking on BOTH sides of the matter and redound to the Gov's benefit.

IF the Union fails to provide said list the Gov can release his own, prposing that thehighest paid targets be layed off.  This ALSO should change thinking on both sides of the issue and should ALSO redound to the Govs favor.

Suggestion for Governor Walker in Wisconsin:

Let the absentee Donks in Illinois know that you'll be keeping your legislature in session and that they will be arrested and returned to Madison upo re-entering the state.

Ten wait 30 days (now down to about 28.)

Under Illinois law cited to enable Rham Emanuel (sp?) to run forthe Mayor of Chicago they become Illinois residents after 3 days.  

Wisconsin would of COURSE want to grant "full faith and credit" to the Illinois statute under the U.S. Constitution.  

The Donks would then be residents of Illinois and ineligable to serve in the Wisconsin  legislature.

Governor gets to appoint replacements until special elections are held.

It's a win-win!

"words mean things."  So do numbers.

The WAPO ran a story last week about DC gun ownership post McDonald and Heller.  So far residents of richer, safer neighborhoods have been more likely to register handguns than residents of poorer, rougher neighborhoods. "Since D.C.'s Handgun Ban Ended," the headline said, "Well-Heeled Residents Have Become Well Armed." Reporter Paul Duggan began the piece this way: "In the 2½ years since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the District's handgun ban, hundreds of residents in Washington's safest, most well-to-do neighborhoods have armed themselves, registering far more guns than people in poorer, crime-plagued areas of the city."

Cato Institute Chairman Robert Levy—a driving force behind D.C. v. Heller, the case in which the Court overturned the D.C. gun ban—questions the Post's emphasis:

The important conclusion...is not the difference between two inconsequential registration numbers [151 among the 15,000 wealthy households of the 20016 ZIP code vs. 240 among the 52,000 households east of the Anacostia River], but the fact that the two numbers are so close to zero. In Zip code 20016, nearly 99 percent of the households did not register firearms. East of the Anacostia, more than 99 percent did not register. Rather than ask why there were so few registrants, Mr. Duggan conjured up class warfare with his rich-poor comparison.

Here is the relevant point: The District still has no gun retailers, and a de facto ban on firearms endures. When a Post reporter tested the registration process, he found that it cost $834—dwarfing the cost of most weapons. Moreover, registration required 16 hours, four trips to the police department, two background checks, fingerprints, photos, a vision test, a five-hour class and a 20-question examination. No wonder only 1,400 firearms have been registered since June 2008 in a city of 600,000 people.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Decline Is In The Mind. Indeed. Plus this: “In America’s case, these are choices, not fate. The Constitution is still here should we wish to follow it. Our ancestors left us freeways, airports and universities and a rich infrastructure. Napa Valley, Silicon Valley, and Central Valley agriculture here in bankrupt California are still sources of amazing ingenuity and enormous wealth creation. Even with 9.6% unemployment, millions rise at 6AM to go to work; millions work the night shift. So to nullify that dynamism, well, that takes work. It requires constant sloganeering about inequality. It demands massive social engineering to create huge public work forces to administer redistributive entitlements. It must entice a new privileged elite to go over to the side of crony capitalism and insider favoritism of the GE sort. . . . If we speak ‘truth’ to power and ignore the incoming salvos of ‘mean, greedy, selfish, privileged, racist, nativist, sexist, homophobe, Tea-bagger, and yokel’, decline can stop. It really is a state of mind—the choice not to brush off opportunistic rust from hard steel after a very brief rain.”

going, Mr. President?

many links ... a few dupes:

for this and I'm paraphrasing, but I've heard/seen it used TWICE today in reference to very different stories:

"It ain't what folks know that get's 'em into trouble, and it ain't what they DON'T know .... it's what they THINK they know that ain't so."

Sounds a LOT like Will Rogers but that might just be because of the vernacular used.   Guidance appreciated.

New claims for unemployment aid rise more than expected. “The Labor Department said Thursday that 410,000 people sought unemployment assistance last week, a jump of 25,000 from the previous week. The rise was much larger than economists had expected.”

Kinda mkes you wonder who's expectations they're relying on

The NYT Fifth Down Blog has a heart rending post about “the little guys” who will “lose their jobs” if the NFL goes on strike. Concessionaires, parking lot attendants, groundskeepers, etc.

Um.

No.

Losing NFL games would cost, at MOST a dozen days of work. Those facilities which host NFL games also host MLB games, rodeos, circuses, concerts, truck pulls, revivals and other events. Those folks will NOT be losing their jobs due to the NFL but rather, perhaps, to bad management of the facility, if then.