Judge Ziegler: End of the line

Judge Annette Ziegler and consultant Mark Graul (that ought to inspire confidence in conservatives all across the state) never did enter the contest, but I imagine it would have looked something like this:
At any rate, the contest deadline has passed along with 2006. The winner will be announced tomorrow. Have a safe and reasonably happy new year, everyone.

Judge Ziegler: Cartoon? New Orleanian? Kiwi?

Well, the news that Judge Annette Ziegler has committed perhaps the most unpardonable sin among conservative bloggers--she hasn't taken any sick days--may indeed have her wishing that this contest was the worst news for her this week.

You have just one more day to get your entries in--this is the last set unless I get some more (hint, hint). So you may as well use the comments here to recommend your favorite. Not that Aaron and I would necessarily listen to you, but you can at least let your favorite photoshoppers know they did well in your eyes."New Zealand" by contest co-sponsor Aaron; "Flintstones" by me; "Justice League" by Casper; and "Katrina" by Puba. Hey, Mark Graul--still waiting on your entry!

You Won't Have Saddam Hussein to Pick Lice Out of Anymore

His demise is not surprising. But see if you can guess what caught my attention in this blurb:

Some Arab media, including Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and the U.S.-financed Al-Hurrah, reported about an hour before daylight Saturday (about 10 p.m. EST Friday) that Saddam had been executed.

Yes, boys and girls, our US-sponsored TV news channell is called Al-Hurrah. Hope may not be a plan, but it is, apparently, just fine for news.

This may be your only chance

My friend Kenneth is giving it to you:

I've been working on a novella/novel that basically consists of an interview with God. I've used my imagination to come up with as many questions as possible, but I want to ask for your help in coming up with more questions. The premise is that God grants an interview with one human being and that person can ask as many questions as they want. People send the reporter questions, so it isn't just a single person's point of view.

So, if you could ask God a question, what would it be?

I'm still working on mine. It would probably be something along the lines of, "You're kidding, right?" Anyway, go ask your question. I'll let you know when the answers come.

Judge Ziegler: TV Star

"24" submitted by Cantankerous; "Star Trek" submitted by Dave Diamond.

Of course, as part of the Liberal Hollywood Elite, Judge Zielger must be going straight, well, here:
Submitted by contest co-sponsor, Aaron.

There's still time to get your contest entries submitted!

Friday Random Ten

The Have You Met Bert? Edition
Bert will be sitting in with the band here at the blog for a while. Show him love while he's here. We may get another guest player or two as well.

1. "Early" Victoria Williams from Going Driftless
2. "Folksingers are Boring" Andrew Calhoun from Shadow of a WIng
3. "Train to Jackson" Jeffrey Foucault from Ghost Repeater
4. "The Captain" Kasey Chambers from The Captain
5. "Pound of Prevention" Vance Gilbert from Fugitives
6. "Closer to You" Dan Bern from Fleeting Days
7. "New Thing Now" Shawn Colvin from A Few Small Repairs
8. "El Otro Lado" Josh Rouse from Subtitulo
9. "Hallelujah" Jeff Buckley from Grace
10. "Don't Blame Me" Thelonious Monk from Straight No Chaser

More hippie types denouncing the war

by Bert

To the likes of George Will, James Baker, many generals, and many grunts, we can add Gerald Ford and Donald Trump to the gaggle of poorly groomed, knee-jerk Marxists who criticize George Bush, his war, and, therefore, America itself.

Donald, the titan of capitalism, told Maureen Down in her column that came out last Saturday:

"No matter how long we stay in Iraq, no matter how many soldiers we send, the day we leave, the meanest, most vicious, most brilliant man in the country, a man who makes Saddam Hussein look like a baby, will take over and spit on the American flag. Bush will go down as the worst and the by far the dumbest president in history."

Just today, papers are releasing what the late Republican President Ford had told Bob Woodward in July, 2004:

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

I'll admit that Ford's criticism is mild and restrained. Nevertheless, back in the bad old days when right wing hyenas felt they could get away with destroying Natalie Maines and Cindy Sheehan, even the soft jabs that Ford is delivering here would have earned him charges that he supported terrorism, etc., blah, blah, blah.

McIlheran Watch: Quiverfullofit

Sometimes I feel what Batman must feel if he goes on vacation only to find out that the Joker has been hard at work--what a mess to clean up. It's so bad that even with several heroic others steping in, there's an overwhelming pile of Patrick McIlheran-flavored baloney yet to address. I may not get to all of it anytime soon.

Burt I need to start with McIlheran's column from yesterday, on the "Quiverfull" movement. Now, I got no beef with people who want a lot of kids (I want exactly zero, but to each his or her own, I say), and I certainly would not say, as P-Mac quotes Pam Spaulding as saying, that I "imagine masses of bible beaters shooting out of wombs." Of course, I also wouldn't truncate Pam's context, as McIlheran did--Pam's concerned not about real battle, but about future voting habits.

It is, in fact, the Quiverfulls themselves who see what they do as a part of a battle, despite McIlheran's insistence that Pam's "rudeness clashes with the more gentle reality of big-family Christians around Wisconsin. This is less about breeding weapons for a culture war and more like putting daisies in gun barrels." The name of the movement evokes arrows in a quiver, and comes from Psalm 127:

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.

What makes McIlheran's daisy-in-a-gun-barrel statement so very offensive is that he devotes a considerable part of his column to one such happy man, Matt Trewhella. I particularly love this line: "Not that Trewhella doesn't do politics. He's a leader of Missionaries to the Preborn, which protests abortion."

Saying that Trewhella "protests abortion" is a like saying that Michael Jackson is quirky. Or that Brett Favre plays a little football. Among the things Trewhella is best known for is getting himself arrested, repeatedly, for harassing and abusing people outside of family-planning clinics, both here in Milwaukee and all over the country. His group famously handed out bullet-shaped tracts at Milwaukee schools in the aftermath of Columbine and other school shootings. He supports killing abortion providers as "justifiable homicide," and has praised and defended their murderers. Trewhella also wants his followers to "buy each of [their] children an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition."

Now, I don't know for a fact that Trewhella (or any of the other families McIlheran mentions) is buying his kids Armor of God PJs and reading Birthing God's Mighty Warriors as bedtime stories. But McIlheran tries to structure the article to make people like me--and people like Pam Spaulding, who see the Quiverfull rhetoric as being war-like and dangerous--out to be the warring ones, all the while ignoring the very violent words (and, indeed, deeds) of the very people he praises.

(And I love Steve Gilliard's reaction to the Quiverfulls. Steve, like Pam, is black, but McIlheran doesn't quote him: "When black women have eight or nine kids, they're called welfare queens and looked down as parasites. Why not these people?" McIlheran has his own opinions about welfare, which seem to clash with his views on the Quiverfulls.)

Thursday Thumbs

Another in a series wherein I express my approval or disapproval concerning news of the week, happenings, or other trivia through a cute graphic, rather than with my usual long, hard-to-follow, and humorless rants and rambling.

Thumbs down to Fred Kessler. I like the guy, but his gift-card tax is a stupid idea.

Thumbs up to ClearChannel, the media giant that decided that maybe there is a market in Madison for explicitly liberal radio. (And all you conservatives were so sure it was dead.)

Thumbs down to Judge Annette Ziegler. You'd think I was being hard enough on her already, but she apparently doesn't know simple campaign techniques. And she hasn't entered our contest yet.

Thumbs up to the Brew City Brawler, for showing us all how your local daily buries the lead--and makes you believe that which isn't true.

Thumbs up to me; I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I don't think they edited it too much.

Thumbs down to stifling information that makes you look bad. That list is bad enough, but Jonathan Singer and Gretchen Schuldt can both find things to add.

Thumbs up to Milwaukee County's unions. They at least know how to play the game so that everyone wins, even if some others we could name would rather pick up their toys and go home.

Judge Ziegler: DaVinci's favorite model

To the left, we see, according to Jim McGuigan, that she posed for DaVinci's Last Supper fresco. To the right, you see that Fred Dooley thinks he knows who the model was for DaVinci's masterpiece, Mona Lisa.

Do you know of any other modeling gigs Judge Ziegler may have had? Then enter our contest!

Another Cold Day in Wisconsin

But that's okay; Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Judge Annette Ziegler is spending some time in Florida, as seen in these entries to the contest. On the left is one from Watchdog Milwaukee's Jim McGuigan; on the right is my favorite among the others I mocked up at the start of the contest.

Remember to get your entries in by December 31!

RIP, Gerald Ford

Ford took the oath of office just weeks before I was born, and was out of office before I was out of the crib. But he was a president, after all, and not all that bad given the circumstances.

I endorse what Steve Benen has to say.

I feel bad

James Brown is dead. Plaisted Writes better than I do.

Happy Boxing Day! And that pesky contest reminder.

I'm working up to posting some real content; I'm mostly still sleeping off the mashed potatoes. But here's an update on the Judge Ziegler situation.

The photo to your left there is from Patrick at Badger Blogger; it's much nicer than my own North Pole pic. If you don't already know why Judge Annette Ziegler seems to be freezing herself posing there, well, it's all part of the contest.

I'm actually willing to believe Ziegler's campaign people who said (Madison TV News and Madison paper) it was a campaign volunteer testing whether some web software would work that led to the seeming deception her website. The volunteer doctored photos to make it look like Judge Ziegler had visited places she had not. I certainly don't think (contra DICTA), that it's a real violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct--in part because her campaign did act quickly to take the photos down once word got out--and replaced them with real photos from (mostly) the real places in question.

Carrie Lynch caught the doctoring, I promoted it, and Aaron took it a step further prompting a contest. The Wisconsin State Journal story linked above does give credit to "left-wing bloggers" for discovering the photos, though it doesn't credit anyone in particular. One of the people involved in the WKOW-TV report (which didn't mention bloggers at all) gives us credit at his own blog, even plugging the contest.

I'll be posting more entries every day as I receive them (I have at least three more) up until December 31, the contest deadline. The prize is the chance to do a podcast with me and Aaron. Email me your jpgs or gifs, or post them to your own blog (try to send me a link, though), and good luck!

Happy Holidays, and Contest Reminder

That Judge Ziegler sure gets around, doesn't she?

This is just a friendly reminder that Aaron and I are running a bi-partisan photoshop contest to liven your holiday spirit. The rules and explanations are here. As you can see from the 'shopping I've done, you don't have to be an expert (or even have Adobe Photoshop, as I clearly don't). We've got entries from a few people, which we'll start posting in another couple of days, but the contest is still wide open.

Email me or Aaron (sub2change-at-gmail-dot-com) with your (PG-rated) pics!

And enjoy the holidays!

Selective memory on voter fraud prosecutions

Yesterday, Donovan Riley reached a plea bargain on his charges of voting twice in the 2000 presidential election. The allegations about Riley surfaced when the pro-school-voucher group All Children Matter--a group with problems of its own--targeted him, since he was running in the primary against voucher supporter Democrat Jeff Plale.

Local wingnut hero Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher, who this year lost his own primary against a guy who thought he was Batman, is being lauded by the conservative half of the Cheddarsphere today for securing the plea bargain. The plea bargain includes a number of provisions that Riley pleaded to, including the loss of his law licenses and a $10,000 fine, but no jail time--one of the perks of getting a plea bargain, I guess. Am I sounding repetitive about the plea bargain? It's for a reason. This reason:

Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher goes out strong by getting ex-State Senate candidate Donovan Riley to give up his law license [. . .] There's a difference between Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. One set of prosecutors gets tough on vote fraud, while the other plea bargains.

I repeated the phrase "plea bargain" so much because I wanted its appearance at the end of Sean Hackbarth's post to stand out. See, the conservative half of the Cheddarsphere loves them some Paul Bucher and hates them some E. Michael McCann, the outgoing DA of Milwaukee County, and they try to put down McCann every chance they get. Sean here is typical; Owen and Wiggy make the same implication that McCann is somehow light on vote fraud prosecutions. But Sean seems to miss the point entirely that Bucher pulled a McCann--negotiating a plea deal instead of throwing the book at Riley.

And here's what's even funnier: The story Sean linked to (a link I included, so you can read it, too), is the story of McCann's prosecution of a group that fraudulently filled out absentee ballots during the 2003 recall of County Board President Lee Holloway. And in the story, we learn that McCann won jail time for a convicted fraudster--something Paul Bucher didn't get in the Riley case. The story was mainly about how McCann cut a deal with seven defendants on dozens of charges, securing more voter fraud convictions in a single day than Paul Bucher has in his career.

Many of the conservative bloggers, I think, are still upset over the tire-slashing episode from 2004, which McCann did plead out. That secured actual convictions for four of the five perpetrators who otherwise would have walked (the one who didn't plead got a not guilty verdict from the jury). The bloggers wanted the slashers to face the firing squad, or something, but those four convictions (again, on one day) are still more than Bucher ever got in his entire career.

For the record, want to know the total number of convictions for voter fraud that Paul Bucher has earned in his entire career? One--Donovan Riley.

A Photoshop Contest!

We all had a good larf at Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Annette Ziegler this week. I won't rehash the story, but let's just say she made a rookie photoshopping mistake and opened herself up to exactly the kind of criticism and ridicule we bloggers are so good at. She's long since fixed the error of her ways, but the idea is out there, and, well, taking on a life of its own. Yesterday I saw this . . .
. . . and I nearly died of laughter. That's Aaron at Subject to Change going for, as he calls it, "the gusto."

So I real quick did a little work of my own, and came up with this one, of Judge Ziegler keeping the peace in Bagdhad:


Aaron and I did a bit of emailing late last night and decided this was too much fun to keep to ourselves, so, we're having a contest. You, too can grab this photo . . .
. . . and do your best. The contest deadline is 12/31/06, so you have a few days to think of a doozy and knock it out. I will post all submissions, and Aaron and I will pick a winner. The prize is the opportunity to do a podcast with me and Aaron on Aaron's podcast. The only reqirement, I think, is to keep the photos PG-rated. I don't run that kind of blog, 'kay?

You can email your submissions (in GIF or JPG format) to me. Have fun, be creative, and, most of all, don't send me any cease and desist letters, Judge Ziegler, please please please.

UPDATE: Just a reminder, the soon-retiring Carrie Lynch of What's Left got the scoop on the picture problems originally. But Madison TV station WKOW ran the story yesterday with nary a mention that the blogs scooped them. On the bright side, it might make for a more exciting contest!

Friday Random Ten

The Harry Potternalia Edition
MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: Though I do not have a publication date yet, I am announcing the title of my next book. It will be called Little Timmy Mitchell and the Closet of Doom*. I'm sure your local bookseller will be happy to pre-order it for you.

1. "Faking" Melissa Ferrick from Willing to Wait
2. "Twilight" Shawn Colvin from Cover Girl
3. "City Love" John Mayer from Room for Squares
4. "I Want to Sing that Rock and Roll" Gillian Welch from Time (The Revelator)
5. "Pocket" Sons of the Never Wrong from 4 Ever On
6. "Georgia O" The Nields from Play
7. "All I Really Want to Do" Bill Camplin from Bob Dyan: Project One
8. "Astronaut Dreams" Peter Mayer from Elements
9. "Who Woulda Thunk It" Greg Brown from In the Dark with You
10. "You're Still Standing There" Lucy Kaplansky from Every Single Day

* I actually wrote a short story by that name in high school. I thought it was good at the time.

Thursday Thumbs

Another in a series wherein I express my approval or disapproval concerning news of the week, happenings, or other trivia through a cute graphic, rather than with my usual long, hard-to-follow, and humorless rants and rambling.

Thumbs up to you, you person of the year, you.

Thumbs down to Microsoft. I remember the old "Windows 95=Mac 88." We can now say "Vista=Jaguar."

Thumbs down to anti-Muslim bigotry. Keith Ellison, by the way, was born in this country to Christian parents. Jeebus save Ellison from his fellow Congressmen.

Thumbs down to anti-Muslim bigotry. (It's a different link this time; it's about Obama.)

Thumbs up to this metaphor: I would also like a president willing to stand up for me in a bar fight.

Thumbs down to Judge Zeigler, who still has geography issues.

Thumbs up to Aaron, who is walking us through all seventy-bleeping-nine of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. Too bad for Aaron that the Decider done decided to ignore the ISG.

Thumbs down to the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Would I like $100,000 a year? Yes. From a private company like Edison? No way.

Thumbs up to Midwest Airlines, and their cookies. And, sad to say, some of us need those extra two inches.

Thumbs down to people who don't understand the concept of satire. Not that I favor censorship in any form, however.

What are you thumbing up and down this week?

What I Want for Christmas

Guest bloggers; email me if you're interested in learning a trade.