Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

Just a few minutes ago, the Wisconsin State Assembly voted to not overturn Gov. Doyle’s veto of a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed handguns, knives, and other weapons to shopping malls, outdoor concerts, and other public areas.

Bottom line is that once again, the pro-gun movement has been defeated in their attempts to arm people as an excuse for protecting them. The twisted logic is that more guns on the streets would make the streets safer.

Thankfully, the Governor veto’d that bill and it’s logic, and the Assembly has upheld his veto. This is a huge win for Democrats in the State Assembly although a very close one.

Now maybe the Republican controlled legislature can get down to real business like creating jobs, expanding health care for children, and fiscal policy that will help middle class families across the State.

Instead, expect to see more issues from Republicans intended to divide Wisconsin like anti-gay initiatives, photo ID voting, and controlling women’s contraceptive choices.

Regardless, this is a big day for those who oppose violence and guns on the streets in the towns and cities of Wisconsin.

Ultra conservative Samuel Alito was confirmed today to be the newest Supreme Court justice. The Democrats put up a bit of a fight on this, but in the end it was too little too late and he was confirmed by a vote of 58-42 this morning.

With his appointment the Supreme Court swings even farther to the right and I have no doubt that we’re in for a tough 20-30 years as far as SCOTUS rulings go.

Women everywhere should get ready to lose the right to choose the best decision for themselves when it comes to reproductive rights. Average law abiding citizens should prepare for unwarrented and random strip searches and wire taps. Congress, get ready for a full out attack on your role in the system of governmental checks and balances as even more power shifts to the executive branch.

All in all, it’s a sad day for the average hard working American, and this is yet another example of why having a Democratic majority in Congress matters. With a Democratic majority, the President wouldn’t have been able to nominate such an obvious proponent of the views from the extreme right wing of the Republican party. With a Democratic majority, the nominee couldn’t have gotten away dodging the questions posed to him by the Judicial Committee, passage would have required real answers and not over-generalizations or “I don’t recall” answers.

Finally, this is another great example that shows there are major differences between Democrats and Republicans, despite the attempts by some to label the Democrats as ‘Republican lite’.

Exxon Mobil had it’s best financial quarter ever to end 2005, pulling in an amazing $10 Billion in profits for the last 3 months of the year.

Clearly they needed those tax breaks their buddies in Congress got passed for them last year. Because the gauging that you and I have been taking at the pump might not have been enough to get them over the $10 Billion mark alone.

While oil and gasoline prices in the fourth quarter were down from the levels seen in September, that barely dented Exxon Mobil’s top line. Revenue for the quarter was $99.7 billion, up from $81.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter, and down only 1 percent from the $100.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter. Full-year revenue came to $371 billion, or just over $1 billion a day.
CNN

If you have a decent Internet connection, check out this hilarious preview of next weeks State of the Union address.

“Jesus was flying!”

You might remember months ago after the fiasco that was the governmental response to the hurricane Katrina disaster when everyone in D.C. was urging citizens and the media to not ‘play the blame game’ and focus instead on rebuilding and cleaning up.

So here we are months and months later. The money still hasn’t arrived, the temporary trailer homes from FEMA are sitting idle in Arkansas, and the area remains vulnerable as the next hurricane season approaches.

When can we start playing the ‘blame game’ for the disasterous governmental response to the worst natural tragedy in recent American history? Will it take another hurricane and a similar screw up to really get something done this time?

Then there’s this piece of news coming from the half hearted attempts at congressional oversight from our elected represenatives:

The US government was warned about the risk Hurricane Katrina posed to New Orleans before the storm hit, but the warning was ignored, a senator says.

Democrat Joseph Lieberman, on a Senate panel studying the response to Katrina, said emergency agency Fema had warned on 27 August the city could be flooded. - BBC

Granted, it’s Joe Lieberman.. But when even he’s attacking his pals in the White House, you know something is going on.

It turns out that while the President said, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees” there is documentation that proves the exact opposite, which makes the terrible relief response to Katrina all the more in-excusable.

Of course, that lie is brought to you by the same people who came up with the “We couldn’t predict that they’d turn airplanes into flying missles” whopper and the “We couldn’t have known the insurgency would react the way it has…” doozy.

Regardless of Katrina, when will anyone in the administration be held accountable for the years of misrepresentations, unabashed lies, and just plain screw ups that have cost our country thousands of lives, untold billions of dollars, and embarrassment in the eyes of the world?

…Oh, and it’s good to be back!

It’s been a great first day on the ski runs here in the mountains of Colorado. No broken bones (yet), but a few muscles that only seem to be used while snowboarding are shaking from overuse.

In the past 24 hours we’ve gotten about a foot of new snow making for a perfect first day on the slopes. The picture above was taken this afternoon looking up at one of the base runs at Loveland Pass.

This wireless Internet in the hotel thing is going to change the world!

I’m heading out to Denver for the annual Detroit Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche game a few days early this year to do some snowboarding. As a result, the blogging will slow down over the next few days, although I will have the laptop and might pop in here and there. If you watch the game this Saturday (3pm CST I believe on ABC/ESPN) and see someone in a Red Wings jersey taunting super goon Rob Blake, that’s me. Go Wings!

Links to consider in the meantime:

- Bryan Kennedy is a Democrat running for the 5th Congressional District here in Wisconsin. Consider chipping a few bucks in for the cause.

- Conservative group calling for NSA wiretapping accountability.

- Red Wings Weblog.

Time to renew that ACLU membership:

Saying that the Bush administration’s illegal spying on Americans must end, the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the National Security Agency seeking to stop a secret electronic surveillance program that has been in place since shortly after September 11, 2001.

“President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or Congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon. -
ACLU

Barring any surprises when it comes to a full vote in front of the Common Council next week, Milwaukee will soon be one of the first ‘major’ cities in the US to be covered by wireless Internet access.

The agreement has a few key provisions:

• The wireless network will have between 2,000 and 3,000 antennas in the city, or about 1 per block.
• The city gets 400 free ‘account’s, although there seemed to be a lot of confusion in the meeting this morning about what an ‘account’ was. For example, if every police squad car used this technology, that would take up all of the free ‘accounts’ right there. This is something to watch going forward.
• Midwest Fiber Networks will be contributing an initial $150,000 to a ‘digital divide’ fund the purpose of which wasn’t 100% clear but seems to be aimed at getting low income families access to the network.
• Free access will be granted to 60 or so websites - including milwaukee.gov - through the network. That is, you won’t have to pay the $20/month fee to access these 60 websites. Another item to watch going forward as companies in the area jockey to be one of those 60 websites.
• Completion time is set at 18 months, although there will be a testing area on Milwaukee’s near West side set up within a few months. The test network area will stop short of my house by about 7 blocks. Also, the 18 month time frame will more or less knock us out of the ‘first city to have Wi-Fi’ running.
• The city receives no revenue from MWFN for the first three years, but will get 3% of gross revenue from MWFN after 7 years to compensate the city for the success of the network.

All in all, it appears to be a good compromise for both sides, although there appeared to be a number of issues that remain to be worked out.

One of the most interesting things to watch as the wireless network expands it’s coverage over the next 18 months is how other ISP’s like Time Warner and SBC are going to adjust their strategies and rates to compete with ubiqutious wireless Internet access for about half the price they charge now ($35-$50/month).

Hopefully this deal drives the cost of things like Road Runner down a bit because they’ve got a fair lock on the high speed Internet market right now. That brings up a few interesting technical questions too which I don’t think anyone has brought up yet:

• How fast will the upload/download speeds be for the wireless network? Not so much the speed of the network itself, but the speed at which you can download a movie from Yahoo or the like. If the speed isn’t great, expect people to stick with Road Runner and SBC DSL.
• How is the ISP (Earthlink is the only company I’ve heard mentioned thus far) going to handle ‘rouge’ users who will run their own private wireless networks for neighbors? That is, if a customer pays the $20/month fee, there’s nothing to stop them from sharing that signal - or rebroadcasting it - to neighbors who wouldn’t have to pay the access fee.
• Will there be any sort of filtering or blocking of web sites and/or content deemed ‘objcetionable’ or will the network be wide open?

While there are still a lot of questions to be answered about this plan, I for one am pretty excited at finally having the ability to access the Internet from anywhere in the city with a Wi-Fi capable computer.

At a Common Council meeting this morning, it’s expected that the terms of agreement for the citywide wireless project between Midwest Fiber Networks and the City of Milwaukee will be announced.

I’ve been keeping tabs on this issue ever since it became public, click here to learn more about my coverage of this project.

At any rate, the meeting starts in about a half hour, and I’m going to try to make it down to city hall for a few hours to listen in and provide details back here. This is a major event for the city of Milwaukee and it’s residents, and I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more coverage in the media and in other weblogs.

Ever since this story broke, I’ve been quite vocal about my concern that the city benefits from what I think is going to be a very successful venture. Benefits mean many things of course, but I’ve believed that the common council and the Mayor’s office should look past the “We’re going to be first” appeal of this project to make sure that in our rush to be first, we don’t give away too much to Midwest Fiber Networks in terms of exclusivity and financial considerations.

I’ve learned that some of the terms of the agreement that will be announced this morning could be things like:

- Free access for certain city workers.
- Free access to a set number of public web sites like the City web site.
- A cash payment every year between 1% and 5% of revenue for MFN.
- $100,000+ in grants for low cost of free computers for low income families.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but all of those things look encouraging so far, especially the revenue sharing which I’ve been pushing for the whole time.

I’ll have more later this morning…

Houston TV stations are refusing to air an advertisement critical of indicted Rep. Tom DeLay. Liberal media alert! Quick, call your conservative radio talk shows, alert your Fox news affiliate, and write your favorite right wing blogger asking them to point out another George Soros funded ploy to destroy conservative ideals!

The four Houston television stations that sold airtime for a commercial criticizing U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay refused to air it Wednesday after objections from a DeLay lawyer, but the ad was accessible on cable channels and the Internet.

The stations offered little or no rationale for their decisions, nor would they comment on whether the letter from DeLay campaign lawyer Don McGahn influenced them. - Houston Chronicle