(Subtitled:  How to begin the first Lightning Round in 2009)

Apparently there is a belief that America hasn't been cool since Slick Willie was getting serviced by Monica... So inaugurations are either cool or not... I think the Obama presidency will be a political and economic nightmare, but a milestone like a black man becoming president isn't a horrible thing... So who really thought the Cards would take out Atlanta, Carolina and Philadelphia?  Not many, as they were dogs for all three games (two of those games at home)... Pittsburgh is good - not great -, but Arizona is not gooder so look for the Steelers to win The Big Game (because I can still call it that!)... What the hell's the matter with Anquan Boldin?  Can't you be happy about going to The Big Game?  Hell, Asante Samuel was excited about losing the NFC Championship... Being busy at work in inversely proportional to the amount of blogging that I do... Did everybody watch the season premiere of Flight of the Conchords yesterday?  No?  Did you at least watch the season premiere of Big Love?  Thank goodness for DVRs because I actually watched the four-hour football game last night... Tommasino Italia now serves lunch during the week, including the best chili this side of 17th & Wells... Speaking of chili... The Milwaukee Wave game this weekend will feature a tribute to the past, honoring their 25th season.  After the game will be an alumni game... Ask me a Wave trivia question, I bet I know it.  I also bet that no more than 10 non-employees have seen as many home games in 25 years as I have... I hate when websites get too cute.  I tried to link from the Wave's homepage, but it is all Java-y and wouldn't let me... First one to stump me on a Wave trivia question (and you'd better be dang sure of the answer) wins a MyCommunityNOW.com pad of post-it notes and a pen... I haven't mentioned bowling yet... Planning a trip to Las Vegas in April for the USBC national tournament.  I found rooms at the Sahara for $28/night, but flights (at convenient times) are still hovering in the $250 range...  There, the obligatory mention of bowling.

I voted this morning at Wilson Elementary School on 88th & Orchard.  I got in line at 6:40 AM and was about 30th in line.  By the time 7:00 rolled around there must have been 150 people in line.  I got out of there by 7:15, and the line was even longer than it was at 7:00.

I was 12th in Ward 20, I told the lady my name, and she wrote a "12" next to my name.  Then she found the page for the other book guy and waited for him to also write "12" next to my name.  God bless the election workers, but this elderly gentleman should have been nowhere near an area where speed would have been an asset.  I'm not trying to be mean, but his fingers weren't turning the pages well, and his hand was shaking when writing the "12" next to my name.  Notwithstanding the old guy trying to help America vote, but neither of these two did anything to check my address, nor did they hide the book from me.  As these two were getting their "12"s straight, I could have easily - easily - taken mental note of other people's last names and gotten back in line to vote.  I am sure they wouldn't have recognized me.  I also could have come back later when recognization would have been even more remote.

I look at the rest of the volunteers at the polling place and think of how much more organized and efficient it could have been.  For example, the line was single file on the school's playground until the doors opened at 7:00.  Then a worker came out and said that Ward 20 should use the left door and Ward 19 should use the right.  However there was no map available, and lots of people didn't know where they should be.  Nobody seemed too concerned about being shuttled from one line to the other or "skipping" somebody else in line, but the dual lines should have been set-up (with a ward map handy) at least 15 to 30 minutes before the polls opened.

Now picture a double door, with lines going into both doors.  Do you see this in your mind?  Do you now see people trying to EXIT the polling place?  I didn't have to picture it in my mind.  I did get the honor of squeezing my svelt 300ish pound frame past a lady of equal carraige through a door that she was in no hurry to vacate.  And with the speed of the checker-inners, that line wasn't moving really quickly to assist my egress.

I see the aging-but-trying-hard set running the polling place like it is an episode of The Wonder Years set in the early-70s.  But this is 2008.  Let's work smarter, not harder.  The whole set-up is due for a massive overhaul.  (Side note; please people, I am not picking on the workers.  Don't post comments that I don't want to see the old guy with shaky hands.  Don't tell me that seniors have a right to volunteer.  I get it.  But I think the entire idea of a quaint, small-town, everybody knows each other, "Gee, isn't the right to vote swell?" set up of Election Day should be abandoned at once.  I read JSOnline's accounts of long lines at the polling places, and know this can be improved.)

Let's start at the location.  Wilson School is nice, but the actual part of the building has a major bottleneck at the doorway.  If there isn't a different part of the school that would allow for exiting a different door than entering OR if there isn't a part of the school to allow the lines to be inside the building, then another location is needed. Think big and use the State Fair Park Expo Center.  Certainly the room is available for many, many wards from all over West Allis and even Milwaukee, and there wouldn't be problems both entering and exiting.  And nobody can complain about a lack of parking.

Next are the workers.  Maybe seniors can be used like a Wal-Mart greeter, but what kind of workers get excited about American civics and can also be motivated in non-financial ways?  That's right, high schoolers that can get a day off of school, earn a higher letter grade and also extra curricular credit on college applications.  Lots of high school students - pumped full of Mountain Dew and Rock Star Energy Drink  - will have the energy to work at a high pace all day long.  When a voter comes to his place in line, the voting log (hidden by the counter that would be there) would be out of site and the voter should have to state his name and address to get a ballot.

Now, about segregating the wards (or even the cities).  Think of the type of business that might have many people looking for something.  How do grocery stores do it?  Right.  Big ol' signs suspended from the ceiling or on a pole.  At Sentry, when you know exactly what you want (bread, peanut butter and milk), a quick look at the aisle listings get you to the areas you need to be.  And at checkout time, that "Express Lane" is pretty easy to find, isn't it?  Apply that logic to the polling place, and nobody should be confused about where to go to check-in.

Then we get to the on-site registration.  The fact that Wisconsin allows it is a joke, but the way it is administered is even worse.  At my site this morning, new registrants went to the front of the line.  I understand that the process takes longer, but even if you register them right away, then they should go to the back of the line.  However, in a larger venue with a clearly distinguished location for new registrants to apply, not only would they be "cutting" in front of people, but upon completion of the process the line in that person's ward would be quite short.

Vote fraud is a constant concern, and one of the objections is that there aren't enough officials to be stationed at all of the polling places.  But having many wards in one large venue would not spread election officials out too thin.

Another problem that we hear about on days with large voter turnout is in hardware... the lack of booths themselves, runing out of ballots, ballot reading machine fails, etc..  Having one large venue would certainly require numerous machines, so if one or two breakdown there would be many others on the same site so that the outage would be barely noticable.  And when it comes to reporting the precincts at the end of the day, one location reporting would allow for one large block of returns instead of having them trickle in.

Now, if the large venue couldn't be "donated" for the couple days, how could we pay for this?  Concessions!  Most polling places in schools already have bake sales so people are trained to buy brownies upon the completion of voting.  If the Expo Center won't allow their equipment to be used, you can still set up stands in many locations within the Expo Center for food, drinks, merchandise (what die-hard lefty wouldn't want to buy a donkey-logoed baseball cap?)

I realize that some of my ideas would need some fine tuning, and may not work in other parts of the city (I am thinking that the main concourse of Miller Park could be used, as could the east and west atrium of the Bradley Center, large hotel ballrooms, etc).  But overhauling the entire Election Day Experience is an idea whose time has come.

And I have two teenagers who will be told to happy to volunteer.

The thousands of you - well, make that the 18 of you that actually read my blog post from last week - may be wondering how the pre-Hallowe'en weekend worked out.  Well, do I have a story for you...

Thursday evening, (Sponsor's Name Here)'s Official Baby Brother, St. Jon, called with another potential doin' for the weekend.  I had forgotten that Downtown West Allis was holding its Meet & Treat from 10:00 AM to Noon on Saturday along W. Greenfield Ave. 

So during the best weather segment of last weekend, My-Sugar-Na and I took the daughters (Gooey and Sloppy) and met St. Jon and his wife, Strawberry Fields, and kids Jelly Bean and Mr. Cranky Pants behind City Hall to start meeting and treating.  The three girls ranged from scary to cute (clockwise from upper left, Gooey, Sloppy and Jelly Bean)...

Also in tow was Vier Pogo Squad 51, dressed as his "separated at birth" twin, Law & Order charachter Max Greevey...

Along the way, St. Jon mentioned that Jelly Bean was afraid of big, mascot type charachters.  But not too long after he said that, we found favorite Sesame Street charachter Elmo (on the left, with St. Jon in the center and Jelly Bean on the right)...

(Side note:  Nobody believes me when I tell them, but the puppeteer and voice for Elmo on Sesame Street is a 6'5" black guy.  Don't believe me either?  Read this.)

 Following closely behind on Greenfield Ave. were Strawberry Fields (pushing Mr. Cranky Pants) and My-Sugar-Na...

Overall it was a great time.  We started right about 10:00 AM and the volume was light as we headed east from S. 75th St.  But by the time we reached the turnaround on S. 70th St., there were kids everywhere!  At a couple of stores, the lines were at least 10 deep.  However, we completed the loop in about 75 minutes, and the kids got quite a haul.

After bidding adieu to St. Jon's family, we went home and plotted our course.  Still expecting bad weather all day Sunday, we let the girls talk us into driving to our previous neighborhood in Bay View for their nighttime Trick-or-Treat that Saturday evening.  (Side note:  I have lived in three different Bay View neighborhoods in my life, and some of the areas can get a little seedy.  However, there are a lot of nice homes in Bay View, especially between Howell Ave. and Pine St. just south of Oklahoma Ave.  It was in that area where I was stunned by the number of Obama yard signs.  They outnumbered McCain signs 10:1.  So the first house that we approach that has an Obama yard sign allows me to comment "Kids, get your candy here this year.  By next year if Obama wins, they won't be able to afford to give away candy".  Right next door was another Obama yard sign, and I said "Kids, get your candy her...." at which point, My-Sugar-Na says that kids dressed in costume don't care about what I think.  Sigh.  I'd better keep her occupied on November 4th, just in case.)

We get home around 8:30 Saturday night with enough candy to compete with Freese's.  Once the girls collapse into a sugar coma and go to bed, My-Sugar-Na and I discuss the fact that I only procured a cannister of 240 Tootsie Pops. Because I - as man and blogger - know everything, I assure her that due to the weather forecast, of course it will be enough candy.

So Sunday morning rolls around, and it is beautifully bright and sunny.  A little chilly, sure, but not nearly as bad as had been predicted.  Sigh.  So not only do I start worrying about my 240 suckers, but the girls start begging relentlessly about allowing them to Trick-or-Treat AGAIN.  I give in to them, and at 1:00 PM, my wife dutifully begins passing out the candy to the children.

Although the weather slowly deteriorated to cloudy and windy (and with a few rain drops for good measure), the kids kept coming...

OK, so we ran out of candy.  Sort of.  You see, two prior Trick-or-Treating events gave us lots of, um, let's call them "reinforcements".  I dutifully counted 25 suckers (Dum-dums, Charms, you name it) from both Gooey's and Sloppy's stashes, snuck them into the Tootsie Pop cannister, and we made it stretch until all children had been serviced.  And until they read this (unless they stop looking once they see their photo) they are nonethewiser.

(Side note: When Mitten was way, way younger - as in "pre-Gooey", he was to small too eat all of the Hallowe'en candy and Easter candy that he received.  One particular year we ran out of candy for handing out, so we actually went into the cannister of Easter and the previous year's Trick-or-Treat candy that we never finished [actually, I think we had plum forgot about it until it was "go" time].  At least the re-candying we did Sunday afternoon was only a day old instead of that year old stuff!)

Now with that said, why isn't Trick-or-Treat on Hallowe'en Night?  It worked out great in Bay View, and also in the Wedgewood Park neighborhood (in which I lived in a prior life) where Trick-or-Treating is at night.  It is way cooler than on a Sunday afternoon.

There will be one last event for My-Sugar-Na and Vier Pogo Squad 51, that would be the "Howl at the Moon Dog Walk" in New Berlin on Wednesday, October 29th @ 6:30 PM.  Our own Max Greevey will hope to win the costume contest.

Ok, so I'm not really a plumber, not named Joe, from Ohio, or looking to buy the business in which I am currently employed.

By now, most everybody knows (and if you don't, read this) that Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is not named "Joe", is not a liscenced plumber in the State of Ohio, has a lein on his property for back taxes, may not be a registered voter, and is bald.

But like Joe, I would like to be able to ask a question of a political leader and not ground into dirt for it.  Joe and I have other things in common.  I've had a few tax issues, I don't have a liscence or degree in my profession, and I too am bald(ing).

Joe asked a good question, and because Barack Obama stopped in the guy's driveway, he should not have been condemned for asking that question.  Do you know why else I am not an Obama supporter (besides the fact that he is by far the most liberal Presidential candidiate in eons)?  Because he is just a PR stunt.  I was watching PBS' Frontline last week and they had a dual biography of both Obama and John McCain.  While the first 45 minutes or so was kind of by-the-numbers, when they started talking about Obama's first few days in the Senate, they (and define "they" how ever you'd like) started grooming him for this run...

As McCain the maverick was trying to make peace with his party, Obama the newcomer was being urged by party elders to consider a future run for the White House. Within two years of his arrival in the Senate, a window of opportunity seemed open, if he was willing to take the chance.

"I told him he should do it," former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle tells FRONTLINE. "The longer he's in Washington, the more history he has, and the more history he has, the more he's going to be explaining his votes and his actions and his statements and his positions that undermine his message" -- a message that was all about breaking with the past.

My eyes popped open and my mind started racing.  Did I really just hear Daschle imply that he should do nothing, so that he can't be ripped down?  He wasn't a Senator, he was a black figurehead.  As a state senator in Illinois, Obama voted "present" numerous times... often possibly so that the vote couldn't be held against him.  Since "present" is not an option in the US Senate, he went ahead and voted his way to the title of Most Liberal Senator of 2007 according to the National Journal.

But that's not why I am voting for John McCain (though the above is a hell of a reason).  Basically of the two, McCain comes closest to my views (and I want to reiterate the same thing I mentioned around primary time... that of the all of the brilliant university graduates and political scientists, these two morons are the best we could come up with).

On February 19th, as a response to a comment made in this blog entry, I listed what I wanted in a president...

"I can't afford an Obama presidency.  I want a president to stop spending, so taxes can be cut and the deficit reduced.  Defense spending, however, to defend our nation from another 9/11 attack, as well as to prevent attacks on American interests on foreign soil is absolutely critical.  

I want a president that chucks the illegal aliens out of the country (the jailed ones first).  I want a president that is morally conservative - no abortion, no gay marraiges, etc.  I want a president that realizes that this is a global economy and that for an American company to be profitable, components will be made in foreign countries.  We need to embrace this and work to up the exports to those countries of the finished goods.  Balanced with that, I want a president that works to keep government out of businesses.  The less government, the better.  I want a president to understand that the climate of this planet has been changing for millions of years, and that it will continue to change... and to understand that the global climate in 1876 might not be the perfect temperature.  I want a president to appoint conservative judges - both to US courts and the Supreme Court - to try to stem the tide of "feel good" legislation and reduce the mountain-out-of-molehill lawsuits.

Now, find where the platforms of Obama or Clinton (or Huckabee or McCain, for that matter) match up with my views.  I know that George Bush wasn't the ultimate president (not all can be Ronald Reagan), but if he were running for a third term against these dufuses, I would vote Bush in a heartbeat."

WIth that said, I suggest that you take the ABC News "Match-o-Matic II" test.  It is actually more of a game to determine if you can guess which candidate made a particular quote on 12 issues.  I took the test, and of the 12 sets of quotes, I correctly identified McCain on 11 of them.  The one I missed?  It had to do with the myth of global warming (which we all know can't be attributed to man, and that American's can't afford to fix, right?)  See how many statements you agree with.

Because if Obama and his partymates get their death grip on Washington DC next month, God help us all.

I was playing poker with the guys on Saturday night, and of the seven other guys, most of the table was lamenting the lack of a real conservative still in the hunt.  Two of the players are early-20ish guys, and one said that he really likes Barack Obama because "He stands for change".  The other guy chimed in with comments about young people getting turned away from his rallies and appearances.  I didn't ask (because it was the wrong place) but I've now been wondering for three days...

What change?  And why - just because young adults like the guy - does that make him a good president? 

I mean, any new president will be a change.  Like him or lump him, Mike Huckabee is a change from George Bush.  That doesn't qualify either of them.  And in this MTV-style, short attention span, E!-tainment, sound bite culture we live in, I can't imagine all of these young adults that like this good-looking, relatively young politician actually know (or care) what he stands for.  But the sound bite says "Change", and the banner behind Obama always says "Change", so dammit, he must be the guy.  I don't get it.  Change what?

So I "Googled" Obama.  (Side note - vote for who you want to.  I don't like any of these four morons, so I am the last person to tell you who to vote for.  But I understand the candidate's positions, and Obama couldn't be further away from my opinions).  There is no chance that I will vote for him, but I am intrigued in this "change".  If you disregard Obama's website (and his Senate page) and the Wikipedia articles that aren't always based in fact, you will see a whole lot of non-substance.  There are two music videos, a MySpace page, and links to news articles.

In other words, there isn't anything out there that doesn't take a lot of digging to get to.  So I chose one that looked good called On the Issues, and here is a summary of what I found...

• He is OK with abortion, partial-birth abortion and with stem-cell testing (all is now legal, no change there)
• Wanted seniors and unemployed to get part of recent sutimulous package (which happened under Dub-ya)
• OK with affirmative action for women and minorities (status quo)
• Decisions about gay marraiges to be left to each state (just like now)
• Do not lower drinking age from 21 to 18 (current law is 21)

Read the article for yourself, but there isn't a lot of change that Obama supports.  What we appear to be left with is a person who is not George Bush that is good-looking and well-spoken.  But not a person qualified to run the last super power in the world.  And certainly the fact that he has a disconcerting number of groupies that may push him into office scares the hell out of me.

Last night in a speech in El Paso, Hilary said she would raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour.

So much for being friendly to businesses.  (Disregarding the issue of illegals for a moment...) If a business can hire a person for $6.00, then that job is worth $6.00.  If an employee feels that he or she is worth more, then that employee should improve themselves so that they can be hired for a job that is worth more. 

Hypothetically, if a business has 10 employees at minimum wage, they would get about a $4.00/hour bump (or $40.00/hour to the overhead cost of the business).  Then the 5 people currently at $7.50/hour would get at least an extra two bucks, but that would make them minimum wage and not make 5 happy employees.  So add that $20.00/hour bump to the business, and Hilary has now cost this company $60.00/hour just to stay in business.  And who would that business pass their costs onto?

Right.  You, me, and the guy now making $9.50 an hour who still can't afford the product because the cost of goods has (at bare minimum) gone up the cost of the labor.

Speaking of me, lets say that in my hypothetical situation, I make $11.00 an hour.  I don't get a raise.  But my expenses on EVERYTHING I BUY goes up.  Has my life improved?  I had improved myself to make double minimum wage, but the economy has just kicked my rear end.  I am a loser in this scenario.  My budget for groceries, clothes, home items, etc., goes all kittywumpus and now it may increase my debt (or at minimum, it kills my discretionary income).  So now I don't have money for the food, the clothes, the ball games (stadium workers make minimum wages, too), the movies (ushers and concessionaires) which are now more expensive.  Because less people will have money to pay for those items, business will suffer and either cause layoffs and go out of business.  I think that is called a recession.

Do these politicians think before proposing dumb ideas?  How about no minumum wage.  If I am a businessman that wants to offer a job at $2.00/hour, and if I can't get any takers, I would have to increase it until I hit a level in which I get a taker.  If that level is $4.25/hour, then that is what the free market dictates, and now I have a lower cost of doing business.  My business with lower costs can sell its goods or services at a lower price, increasing my business and improving the economy.

Makes sense to me.

If that blog title doesn't say it all, there is nothing more I can do.

Russ' friend John and Harlan Huckleby are not conseratives.  Either one may do more damage to the country than the more manly Clinton, and (using my best basketball announcer voice) "From Honalulu and Occidental College, Six-one-and-a-half, Number 42, Buh-rock (pause) Oh-Baaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmaaaaa".

Fred Thompson was the man.  Thompson ran a non-traditional campaign on the internet, and focused on winning the southern states - specifically South Carolina.  But by the time the SC primary came around, there was no buzz.  (Side note, ditto Rudy G and Florida, although I wasn't much of a fan of him.)  So with Thompson gone, I focused on Mitt Romney.  Well, that barely lasted until Super Tuesday.  I knew Mitt was in trouble when he told the pastor to bail so he could get more votes.

So all four that remain have way - WAY - more negatives than positives.  None of the four are fiscal conservatives.  None of the four stand for much (McCain = whiney old man, Huckabee = the Republican Bill Clinton, Hilary = the mean Bill Clinton, Obama, the pretty boy with absolutley no qualifications for the Presidency).

I can see only one alternative.  Him.