Wisopinion Digest 9.23.2008

• Owen Robinson: Tough times call for fiscal discipline: "In short, all levels of government are asking for more money at the same time that Americans are facing financial uncertainty and having to spend more just to run their lives. When money gets tight for average people, they find ways to make do with what they have. Government should follow that example."
  
• Lance Burri: A black hole created by other people's stupidity: "In earlier days of Wisconsin history, the logging business made a number of people very, very rich. According to the history books, vast swaths of Wisconsin were clear-cut: not a tree left standing, the better to maximize short-term profits. This is obviously an unsustainable business model: sooner or later, you're gonna run out of trees, and then you're out of business. Your stock will crash, employees and investors will be out for blood, and you'll end up living in a cardboard box until some disillusioned African prince happens to hand you a billfold full of money."
  
• Bruce Murphy: Why the decline of Grand Avenue?: When folks come to the city they want to shop on the street, not in some fake suburban mall. Makes sense to me,
  
• James Rowen: Drop in the bucket for state rail: Good. Let's keep it that way.
  
• Nancy C. Unger: What would Fighting Bob do ... about McCain and Palin?: "In La Follette’s day, Democrats were dominated by white southerners who worked to ensure that the oppression of African Americans continue even after slavery ended. It was, for example, during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, that racial segregation was mandated in Washington D.C., from federal offices to streetcars."
  
• Tom Barrett: Chicago made one huge dump: "While no one wants to see sewage overflows occur at all, there are times when the sewers are overwhelmed and it is necessary to have overflow into waterways to prevent sewage backups into homes and businesses." Necessary, that is, if you have a combined sewer system in your city and have no intention of fixing it.
  
• Jay Bullock: Not solving the problem: "I am a freaking broken record about this, I know, but the problems of Milwaukee's schools, public or not, are not schools problems but Milwaukee problems."
  
• Ed Garvey: Morlino's actions a step backward: Do Catholics ever realize how boring their intramural squabbles are to the rest of us? Evidently not.
  
• Mike McCabe: AG's voter lawsuit is a fool's mission: The executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign engages in Van Hollen bashing. It's his job.
  
• Christian Schneider: The GAB's slimy underbelly : "the GAB is trying to make itself the sole group that decides what can and can’t be said during an election. They are looking into promulgating rules that would allow them to regulate the timing and content of political speech in Wisconsin by determining what is and what is not “express advocacy.” Is a television ad urging people to call their legislators to support tax relief political speech? Only the GAB will know. Is a newspaper ad asking voters to support candidates who are pro-life “express advocacy?” If the GAB decides so, it could be yanked from the papers. ... With the power of free speech vested in such a small group of “elites,” who knows what they will decide is appropriate? Is an ad discussing Barack Obama’s ties to Jeremiah Wright’s church legitimate, or is it a secret racist code? Is an ad criticizing Sarah Palin’s lack of experience accurate, or is it an unfair attack on working mothers? Only the GAB will be able to decide."
  
• Michael J. Mathias: AG John Byron Vanhollen: As you know, our blockade is perfectly legal : In Wisconsin the Attorney General is a Republican leading the fight against vote fraud. The Democrats hate this. Draw your own conclusions.
  
• Eugene Kane: Anonymity lets anti-black beliefs emerge: If we elect John McCain, we'll get a couple of weeks of this. If we elect Barack Obama, we'll get 4 years. Hmmm ...
  
• David Blaska: The audacity of anger: Liberals Behaving Badly.
  
• Kevin O'Keefe: Law blogs: The great equalizer : "With blogging, by being able to break it down and write three-, four-, eight-, 10-paragraph articles about what happens to people who get arrested in the real world, you're talking about the client, you're not talking about yourself," Spencer says. "That's what the client wants to see. They don't really care where you went to law school. They want to know, `What's going to happen to me, and what can I do to minimize the damage?'"

From Wisopinion.com