by Abe Sauer

Yesterday we noted the details of a bill introduced by Wisconsin’s new Tea Party Republican Governor Scott Walker that would increase payments from public sector employees while eliminating collective bargaining powers for unions (including teachers) — while also introducing unprecedented executive powers to terminate state employees with little due process. In passing, Walker mentioned plans to call in the National Guard, if necessary. It’s an announcement that rankled many (maybe intentionally), including the 100,000-member “voice of America’s 21st century patriots” organization VoteVets: “Veterans are strongly objecting to Governor Scott Walker’s inappropriate threat….”

Today, response to Walker’s bill has been… unfavorable. About ten thousand currently surround Walker’s capitol office and are streaming into the dome. Walker should be extra-worried to know that the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers and its former stars, the most important political lobby in the state, have come out against him.

And what is the brave Republican Governor, who calls himself “tough,” doing in response? He is standing up to his critics by moving his legislative budget address to the compound of a private corporation.

Even in biting wind, protesters are continuing to surround the capitol. Firefighters and police, whose unions are exempted from the collective bargaining elimination, have come out in support of their state colleagues. At top, a photo from inside the capitol dome. Meanwhile, the line for those waiting to speak at a an open session of the Joint Finance Committee meeting, which began today at 10 a.m., snakes through the capitol’s stone corridors. All of this on a state primary day for candidates running for Madison mayor, Dane County executive and State Supreme Court.

Instead of holding the address in the state capitol, Walker has moved the event to Vita Plus, a large private manufacturer of livestock feed and supplements. Walker waited until today to announce the move. His excuse for holding a refugee session?

“I am giving my budget address outside of the Capitol to highlight the goal of my administration, ensuring Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs by the end of my first term.”

Recently unemployed Russ Feingold has joined the fray, rallying supporters to oppose the governor.

In cities all over Wisconsin, protests are popping up. In the capitol building itself, “solidarity” signs could be seen in some windows.

The bill, introduced just this week, is already up for a planned vote on Thursday. State Senator Robert Jauh (D-Poplar) asked for more time, saying “Even God took seven days.”

But Walker knows time is his enemy. With opposition to his bill growing, even from inside his own party, Walker has to ram this thing through now. And ram it through he might. Word on the street is that Walker has the votes.

The unheard of move to take government functions to private industry locations could not be more perfect symbolism for what Walker and the GOP intends to accomplish over the next four years — first in Wisconsin and then in your town. With his choice of words explaining his move of the event, the governor has launched the culture war for the next political cycle, pitting publicly employed Americans against their private counterparts in a battle where the only assured outcome is losses by both sides.

Email Abe Sauer at abesauer [at] gmail.com. And for continued coverage from the field followUppity Wisconsin and #NotMyWi and #SolidarityWI.

“Let me start off by saying, I don’t know Chinese or anything about China. AT ALL. I am a total dumb-dumb. I couldn’t even tell what city this was set in and I kept trying. I also have never seen the original movie. I’m also homosexual and I think understanding other people is hard even when there isn’t a gender gap because the differences between two individuals is way greater than the similarities between people of the same gender which are actually pretty minor. So I kind of think the whole premise of this movie is bogus and it really should more be a movie about being psychic rather than a movie about how men don’t know What Women Want. Also, pretty much every single character in the movie is female anyway, so it pretty much already is a movie about being psychic. The only other male characters serve as a reflection of the protagonist.”
 — Cat expert Brad O’Farrell reviews the Chinese remake of What Women Want.

From time to time, even our spectacularly intelligent, thoughtful and hilarious commenting community runs into a spot of trouble. That’s okay! It happens — pretty much every four months or so, something here provokes heated feelings and words. (And often that’s a good thing, in the end. Sometimes, less so, sure.) But in general, things are so relatively well-oiled here (sorry, that sounds gross?) that when there’s some conflict, it’s surprising and even upsetting! Upsetting to the feeeeeeelings.

So some general thoughts on commenting and on how things work — here, at least.

• Name-calling really never goes anywhere good, anywhere in the world. Hey, you? Don’t be calling people names. Thus concludes the latest repetition of that thing you’ve been told since kindergarten, you silly name-caller. Picture me making my Coach Taylor angry-disappointed face at you when you’re calling someone names.

• You are responsible for yourself, which is the greatest freedom of all. (USA! USA!) That means that the editors of this site will not be coming to give you a star for the day (see again: kindergarten), or giving you a “time-out,” or what have you. You’re not eight years old! The reason I actually like commenters is that they’re grown, thinking, playful adults, doing their own thing, with diverse opinions and backgrounds and therefore something to bring to the table. So you are grown up enough to own your behavior and treat people (at least pretty much) the way you’d want to be treated. That is why we have a successful commenting community of smarties: because you get to act in the way you see fit, and it’s not because someone’s patting you on the head like you were a particularly smart golden lab (which is to say, not that smart, because man, I had to fend off a lab the other day that was trying to get through me to kill its reflection in the mirror, it was not very impressive).

• People can easily mistake your vehemence for rage, insanity or rudeness, and they will treat you accordingly. (This is something that happens to me quite a bit, as I often get very worked up! So, you know, I’ve been there! Regularly.)

• People can easily mistake your sarcasm for assholism, if you’re not careful. (And it’s not, we know that: we love sarcasm.) Oh, the “printed” word, with its inability to convey tone without great explication.

• Sometimes you should ask yourself: Am I a man? And if so, am I mansplaining?

• From time to time, I am just plain misunderstood! And that’s because I expect people to understand me as if I was saying something to their face. But I’m not — I’m just typing. So sometimes I have to go back to a conversation and say, “Whoa, sorry, I really meant this like that, my bad,” or, “Garbage! What I was trying to say was x, and I made it sound like y.”

• In terms of this site’s administration, we still reserve the right to straight-up ban anyone who seriously uses “tl;dr.” You’re just too confused! For land’s sakes, why would you admit your shameful ignorance in public anyway? Come back when you have the time to “r” something that wasn’t really that “l” anyway, future pal!

Hmm. What have I missed?

The New York City Department of Health wants to be all up in your smartphone so you can do sex safely. Its new application, “available for download on the iPhone and Android phones, taps into the city’s database of over 1,000 different locations which offer free condoms. It uses GPS technology or an address input to give users directions to the nearest five places in the city that are giving out free condoms.”

I can’t believe you did that, Bobby. I thought you were cool. But you know what? You’re not cool. Not at all. You know what you are? You’re a narc. And a social reject. You think you’re all big now? Because you wrote a paper in the The American Sociological Review? That doesn’t make you big. It makes you a loser. You think anyone’s going to want to hang out with you now? Good luck, dickwad.

Oooooh. Oooooooh. Bullying is so bad. It’s such a problem in society. And it’s so misunderstood!

“Most victimization is occurring in the middle to upper ranges of status… What we think often is going on is that this is part of the way kids strive for status. Rather than going after the kids on the margins, they might be targeting kids who are rivals.”

Yeah, well, you’re not going to have to worry about that anymore. Publishing “studies” isn’t exactly “studly,” know what I mean? Especially ones that are liable to get us busted and make it so we have to sit in the auditorium and listen to Mrs. Friedman talk about being nice to each other. Welcome to marginsville. Have fun watching Saturday Night Live every weekend with the D&D; club. Maybe Schnitzbaum’s elf character will give your dwarf dick a handy. Enjoy that.

“The overall rate of aggression seems to increase as status goes up. What it suggests is that a student thinks they get more benefit to going after somebody who is a rival.”

Come to think of it, I always knew you were a dork. I don’t know why anyone ever hung out with you in the first place. You can’t chug for shit. You suck at sports. You dress like a retard. All the girls think you’re fug. We should have known you would end up doing something like this. Ever since that time at Jonesy’s when you were like, “It’s so interesting how the vacuum or gravity or whatever affects the whatever…” when we doing those funnels. Which, again, you sucked at. Because you’re a wuss. Remember you hurled into Christy’s mom’s flower vase that time? Whoops. That’s right. That was supposed to be a secret, wasn’t it? No one ever knew it was you before. Sorry, Bro.

“The literature on bullying has so focused on this one dynamic of repeated chronic antagonism of socially isolated kids that it ignores these other forms of aggression. It’s entirely possible that one act, one rumor spread on the Internet could be devastating.”

You’re right. It could be. I guess we’ll see. Christy’s mom is still pretty pissed about that flower vase, even after all these years. And Kev-O still has that video we took that night you passed out at Coley’s. You looked pretty sweet with that cock drawn on your cheek. What angle was it entering your mouth at? Maybe you can measure it with your protractor after we post it on Youtube. Maybe you can do a “study” of that. Maybe your science-dork friends at the “University” can help you.

Oh, what? Are you gonna cry? Jesus, you’re pathetic. Why don’t you just go home? Go home and cry to your mommy. Oh, wait, I think Gooch and the rest of the varsity dudes might be over there now, tag-teaming her. Better call first.

Ha ha. Loser.

It was forty years ago today that the good people of Knifecrime Island ushered in the age of decimalization, although they spelled that with an ‘s’: “The country went to bed on Sunday night with 240 pennies to the pound, and woke up on Monday morning with 100. Silver coins continued in circulation (with the shilling and florin worth 5p and 10p respectively), including the heptagonal 50p which had been around for a few years in place of the ten shilling note. But it was only on February 15th 1971 that we got our hands on the new coppers. Theae had no direct pre-decimal equivalent, so lots of people went shopping with helpful cardboard ready reckoners to aid conversion.”

11. MC Breed

10. Mac Dre

9. Eyedea

8. Pimp C

7. Eazy-E

6. Guru

5. Ol’ Dirty Bastard

4. Tupac

3. Big L

2. Big Pun

1. Biggie

Cord Jefferson writes for The Root, Wonkette and The American Prospect.

I second this assertion that the great Judy Greer is ill-served by the roles in which she has been cast since “Arrested Development.” Why won’t Hollywood appreciate her genius?

First off, hats off to the Humans fighting on the side of Humanity in this week’s “Jeopardy’s IBM Man v. Machine Throwdown.” Go Humanity! When ATMs and toasters can come up with the questions for answers on pop culture subjects better than people like you and me, who will work at Entertainment Weekly magazine in the future? Computers with spinning globe icons for heads. Then Human Beings will be in real “Jeopardy.” What kind of media jobs will we have then? Making sure the machines are plugged in? Doesn’t sound so fulfilling. So either Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter has to defeat this fucking closet full of air-conditioned servers or we’ll be working for Hal 9000 for the rest of our damned lives. And that fucking vending machine knows when you’re .0009 seconds late for work.

Obviously the computer is CHEATING. While Ken and Brad have to actually read and hear the question, the big Speak n’ Spell is already on Wikipedia and checking its Gmail and has the fucking answer. You’re telling me they let IBM come on the set of “Jeopardy” and have a whole room full of load-spinning computer bullshit and not in any one corner of that monster computer is there the technology to get online? Come on. I’m stupid, but I’m not THAT stupid. IBM cheated during the Kasparov v. Deep Blue chess matches, too. They covered up their complicity in the Holocaust, for Christsakes. You don’t think they can grease a few games of “Jeopardy”? Alex and the writers of Jeopardy aren’t really smart, they’re TV smart. For all we know those black boxes are just filled with howler monkeys and in one cabinet there’s a dude looking up the answer on his laptop.

So the Watson computer gets the hints pumped into its servers digitally. Why not plug in Ken and Brad, like in The Matrix? Just jam a USB right into the backs of their skulls, too? The machine is ringing in quicker because it doesn’t have to take any time to understand the answer-question. How the hell does a person write about “Jeopardy”? The answers are the questions and the questions are the answers. Whatever. So the thing gets the questions quicker, doesn’t have to listen to Alex woodenly read, is already working on the answer and has some sort of killer Terminator arm that is a billion times better than the human hand-eye-thumb-brain connection. And yet the Humans are doing pretty well! Go Humanity!

The computer sometimes doesn’t understand the category. So let’s hope “Jeopardy” has subjects like Pig Latin, Sex, Feelings Machines Don’t Understand and Episodes of “Seinfeld.” I like that they show you what the computer doesn’t know at the bottom of the screen. Stupid computer! You don’t understand what decades are! Time has no meaning to you! Your clock is probably flashing 12:00 like some kind of fucking VCR from 1985! Humanity rules!

You can tell the computer is cheating from the video above. Its first choice on the board happens to be the goddamned Daily Double? Now maybe the dopey “Jeopardy” producers put the Daily Double in the first row at $800 like 51% of the time or something. Has a Daily Double ever been at the top of a row? No. And let’s hope they have some of those Visual Daily Doubles, there’s no way a computer can understand a person talking. Have you ever tried to look something up on your phone with the audio Google technology? Especially porn? Forget it. I keep getting crabcakes. So how the hell did it know where the Daily Double was? Does it have the ability to slip money into a Swiss Bank Account for Alex Trebek? That only he and the evil machine know about? Because the answer “What is Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Who is Maxwell” is not even in the same ballpark. The microwave didn’t understand the question-answer and if some human had said something so non sequiturious Alex would have laughed at them and then eaten their liver. C’mon, Alex! Aren’t you on the side of Humanity? Are you some kind of fucking cyborg? Throw humans a bone, man!

I’m still pissed at Gary Kasparov for getting frustrated and quiting against Deep Blue. I understand his complaints. First, if Deep Blue is such a great computer, why did they need to have every other Chess Grand Master in the World who hated Kasparov on IBM payroll, consulting on the games? Computers don’t need consultants. They need human blood, to keep the gears lubricated. Deep Blue knew every game Kasparov had ever played. So his normal bullshit wasn’t going to win. Play the dumb computer to like 400 draws in a row, find the fucking flaw in the system and beat the shit out of it forever after. Computers don’t get frustrated, why should you? Ego? Computers have no ego. Look at Commander Data. They kept him sitting at that front seat driving the Enterprise van for like 25 years. I’m a computer that knows everything. “Yes, bring the car around Jeeves. Set a course for the Neutral Zone. Do you have any Grey Poupon?” So you ain’t gonna make Deep Blue sweat or cry or flip the chessboard. You’re a chess champion, you play people to draws while you get blowjobs from groupies.

So far, only Brad has been visibly flustered by his inability to ring in. And he’s tied with the cheating computer! And the Humans do have a few advantages on the machine: they can hear the other players give incorrect answers. Watson will just answer whatever wrong answer one of them already gave, it has no fucking ears. It’s probably listening to the new Radiohead the whole time. Who knows what computers do other than try to Kill Us! By not opening the cargo bay doors. Just stay cool, Humans. I mean, I know you have already taped these shows, but if you’re reading this and can travel back to the past when the games are being taped, just be cool. No doubt the “Jeopardy” writers want this box of crap to start smoking and malfunctioning during the show. So
they’ve probably got some curveballs hidden on the big blue board. There will be at least one category it doesn’t understand. And maybe Final Jeopardy will be “Fun Hats to Wear at Parties.” Computers don’t get invited to parties. Therefore We Win! If we lose this battle against the rise of the machine the Unabomber will have been so right. We’ll all have to move to the countryside and live in papier-mâché wasp nests. So Win, you Humans!

At least they still haven’t built a machine that can win “The Price is Right.” You just can’t handle those little plinko chips. Stupid computers!

Won’t someone come to the aid of this poor person?

My offer is that I will buy you breakfast (anywhere you want) in exchange for an hour of your time and intimate knowledge of the TV series Lost. First, a bit of background: 1) I have seen every episode of Lost 2) I’m not a complete idiot 3) But I’m not a Mensa member either. Also, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why don’t you just look the information on the ‘ol World Wide Web?” Well, I have a series of questions that aren’t really answered by specific web posting(s). And while one posting might answer one question it can, at times, contradict another answer I thought I had nailed down. So I want to be able to ask follow up questions, in real time, as they arise. My main confusion (read: frustration) is the last season’s crescendo of disappointment that climaxes with the last episode. I want to move on with my life; I need a healthy relationship with a new TV series, but I have baggage I need to check. This will be as cathartic as it is educational for me. That is also why it is of absolute importance that this happen with a stranger. I don’t want to be reminded of this experience every time I see someone I know; it needs to be a clean break.

Hey, maybe this will help. I mean, all I know about the show is that Hurley died.