From the “what I learned from right-wing talk radio” category today…

It’s “stupid!” for America to utilize wind and solar energy to power homes and businesses according to Jay Weber of WISN 1130.

Why?

I mean really… why? Other than the fact that a Democrat like Al Gore is the latest to propose such an idea, and the right-wing just hates Al Gore, why on it’s merits is renewable energy a bad idea?

If it weren’t Al Gore, and say a staunch Republican political contributor like T. Boone Pickens making the same proposal, would that be “stupid!” too?

Maybe some of my conservative friends can explain it to me.

One of the main arguments that Scott Walker and his cohorts are using in their fight against taking transit, park, and EMS services off our property tax bills is that a sales tax would literally force consumers to drive to neighboring counties for purchases so they wouldn’t have to pay the extra money Milwaukee County might charge in sales tax.

My question: If that’s the case, and it’s such a driving factor in consumer purchasing decisions, why isn’t it happening already?

Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, and Milwaukee counties all currently have a 5.6% sales tax.

Waukesha’s is 5.1%, a full half percent lower.

According to County Executive Scott Walker and his right-wing talk radio sycophants, this should drive everyone looking to buy a washing machine or set of tires to Waukesha County and run those businesses in neighboring counties out of business.

And yet every Circuit City, Macy’s, and Firestone isn’t located in Waukesha County. Somehow, they manage to stay in business here in Milwaukee County even though you could spend $5 less on a washing machine in Waukesha than if you bought it in Mequon or Greenfield.

Odd, isn’t it?

Most people may not know, but more US troops have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last couple months than Iraq.

Sen. Obama would do the right thing and focus our military on the real threat to national security by sending more troops to Afghanistan:

The proposed force increase — about 7,000 troops — is part of Obama’s plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq and focus on the growing threat from a resurgent al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

“As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan” – AP

The al-Qaida have regrouped in Afghanistan. It’s time America re-committed the necessary force needed to destroy, once and for all, those who pose the most serious threat to our National Security.

Good for Sen. Obama to keep his eye on the ball.

A reader emailed alerted me to a telling and somewhat disturbing opinion from one of the Journal Sentinel’s “Reader Advisory” committee members in this mornings paper about the shooting over the 4th of July weekend:

The most important step is for the state Legislature to pass a concealed carry gun law. The gang members can kill each other all they want and we’ll all be better off, but citizens should be able to protect themselves without fear of conviction if they kill someone in self-defense. Secondly, although this won’t combat gun violence and is easier said than done, move to a safer neighborhood or city. – Barbara Lindert, Hartford

So the answer according to Mrs. Lindert is to put more guns on the street so that even more people could have been killed. Wrong and wrong.

Secondly, in her opinion, all those people who live in certain Milwaukee neighborhoods should just pack up and leave! I wonder where she thinks they should go, if it were only that easy? It’s a great example of exurban disconnect on display here by Mrs. Lindert. I wonder if people like her really think it’s just that easy for many of the honest, hard working, law abiding people who live in areas like those affected by violence to pick and move.

The disconnect here is thinking that anyone can just pick up and move and be able to purchase a place up in Hartford or Germantown – both of which have an extremely small amount of lower income housing, if any.

You have to wonder why more than half of the “community advisors” aren’t even from the community they seem so willing to dish out advice to, and obviously have little understanding of.

Maybe it’s hard to feel the effects of a recession when you’re a multi-millionaire, or married to one as Sen. McCain is, but saying we’re in an “mental recession” is just plain out of touch.

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said. – Washington Times

We’re starting to see a trend here from the McCain campaign, aren’t we? Super rich executives of multi-national corporations who serve as top advisers for the Republican candidate making increasingly frequent and increasingly out of touch comments about the state of the American economy.

The 400,000 people who’ve lost their job this year? It’s all mental. And you’re whiners according to the McCain campaign.

So much for Sen. McCain not politicizing his military service during Vietnam.

This is an odd advertisement for someone who chided Sen. John Kerry for using his military experience as a campaign issue in 2004, saying at the time, “I’m sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War. And most importantly, I’m sick and tired of opening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I’ve spent the last 30 years trying to heal”.

Apparently he wants to reopen the wounds open just long enough for them to benefit his Presidential campaign.

Remember: It’s OK for him and him alone to use his military service as an issue during the campaign, but if anyone else even questions it, they’re wayyyyyyy out of line and dishonoring his service.

On a side note, what’s up with the flower children at the beginning of the ad? Is he trying to say that anyone who didn’t get shot down over Vietnam was smoking pot on Haight Street or something? I wonder what Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and pretty much every official in the Bush administration who received deferments would say about that?

Sen. Obama was what… seven years old in 1969? Was he a wimp because he didn’t put down his Tonka truck and lie about his age so he could enroll in the Army and go fight Charlie in the delta?

I know Sen. McCain doesn’t exactly appeals to younger voters, but when they’re using inside jokes about a point in time of history that no one under 40 will even get because they weren’t born yet, it’s not hard to understand why.

What’s next? “A chicken in every pot” jokes?