Anger is not an excuse, neither is stupidity.

This is disgusting, there are people who will use any thing to promote their program, even use a war memorial! These idiots use a memorial to promote the union. They are promoting their cause at the expense of a group of people who HAVE given their lives for the freedom of speech. Now they have the balls to cover it with cheap homemade signs and blue duct tape.
They argue that they should be allowed because their "cause" is worthy. To me their cause is immaterial. They are argueing that they are not disrespecting the memorial in fact they didn't know that this was a memorial, don't they even read. I don't understand how they point the finger at others, and not accept the blame for their own actions, and oh by the way YOUNG LADY... you look at where you are before you put up one piece of tape. I realize you do this for a living, but honestly did you think that because it is your job to dessimate information that you have the right to do it any where you please? Would you have put tape on the Lincoln Memorial to protest? HELL NO> look do me a favor and go home. If you can't respect the dead heros of this country, you are too young to be there.

One of my favorite sites is Sodahead .com, it is a web site that allows the average person to post their opinion or question on a wide variety of topics. One of the questions today is should smoking be banned outdoors? I honestly am against banning a legal activitey, simply because it doesn't work, it drives it underground. Any one familiar with Prohibition? Well if the nannies continue to push this it will become this generations Prohibition. We can legislate all kinds of things, but intelligent choices and freedom to choose our actions will and never should be one of them. I may not like walking through a cloud of smoke to get to my car, but you know what? I have the option of going out another door, I may not like smelling cigarette smoke in the air, but then I also don't like the smell of fertilizer in the air, so do we ban farming? Some people don't like the smell of burning leaves in the fall, I love that smell, reminds me of my childhood. Please remember that any government that is big enough to give us what we want is also big enough to take everything we have.

I guess not..

Well here we are, we have not gotten to where we need to be because we still have the absent 14 in hiding. Honestly,my mind is whirling with issues that need to be addressed, and these bozos who were elected are not doing what must be done.
I support Walker, he shouldn't back down. If he does then he will be a lame duck governer from the begining. He needs to stay the course no matter what jackass stunts get pulled to embarrass the Governer.
Hey idiot it must be nice to take shots from the cheap seats. If you are so great why are you not sitting in the big chair? I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A SHOT, but you know what, I can't afford to run! Why you ask, well I will tell you 1, I don't have a couple million to invest in a campaign, 2 I have no one who would be willing to back me unless I were part of a mulitbillion dollar group, (read Union) and 3 I don't want to be the target of nuts.
I know that the Dems have a right to protest and that they have the right to free speech. What they do not have the right to do is not do the job that they promised to do when they were elected. It is time to get back to work.

Are we ready to grow up now?

My mom always told me to stand and fight for what is right, well we here have seen both sides defend their stance, and while I disagree with the way they are going about it, I disagree more with the Democrates who are not appearing for work. You can't fight the battles you aren't in, so in effect you are losing a lot of battles right now. How about the new voter i.d. initive? I thought that was one of your pet peeves, well pretty soon it will be law, because you chose not to show up for work, and oh hey how about not just collecting your paycheck, now you have to show up to get it.. To bad so sad, you decided to hide in Illinois instead of doing what you were hired to do. See there are consequences to your non actions,and evidently you are willing to give up on everything to get what your union bosses want. You need to be here, even when I don't agree with anything you do, because frankly you are showing the rest of the country what fools do. Yes you are very foolish, and are acting like children who are spoiled beyond belief. You also let others use you, (unions) which is showing again how foolish you are, I can not believe that you think this is an effective means to an end. You need to get back into the arena, not stand outside and then cry foul when things happen you don't like.

The Mouse that Roared

T.E.A.C.H.
T.o
E.ducate
A.ll
C.hildren
H.appily
This was the "goal" of every education major, or so I thought. I wonder though,after seeing the protests of the teachers in Madison. I realize that as a person, you have the right to protest, but as a professional that they are supposed to be, they should be standing in front of their classes, not in front of the capitol. As a private citizen they have the right to gather and protest on their private time, not on their payroll time! Are their benefits more important than the students they are supposed to be educating? What are they teaching the students? Language arts, Math Skills, Political arm twisting?
Hey Do your jobs and let the Politicans do theirs.

Teachers teach

While I agree in principle with protests,( how can I not, being a child of the 60's) I can honestly say that to protest when your career is on the line is not only stupid but reckless.

I have been following the protests in Madison, and find that while I am a state resident, I do not support the unions in this. There are a number of levels that this issue bothers me on.
1 Who is teaching out children? Political activists or professional teachers? I find that taking time off of your job to protest is not what You are hired for? Teaching is, and with our general test scores being in the bottom I really think that you are failing on both issues. You are not political activists, you are now acting like union flunkies. Did you not learn to reason and think through issues while in college, or were you trained to follow the lemmings to the sea and not think independently?
2 Who are you protesting for? Are you protesting for yourselves, or for your union bosses? Do you honestly believe that making 53,000+ a year is mediocre? I beg to differ with you, barely getting by hard, not having insurance is hard, denying your child something they need is hard. I have never had a job that gave me insurance and retirement benifits, I owned my own busisness, and due to the economy, I lost my insurance,then my retirement,then my childs college fund. So I really can't understand why you are whining!
3 By allowing your bullying tactics to be effective, you are allowing the union to thumb it's nose at the election results, the DUELLY elected officials, of the state want to close the largest budget shortfallin Wisconsin history, having to choose between laying off teachers, aides, and adjunct personell or making you do what is done by thousands of people who work in the real world.
4 Pay your fair share, not expect others to pay our way. That is socialism and it's been proven to be a social killer.
5 Honestly are you that selfish and shortsighted that you would be willling to see your fellow teachers let go rather than pay what is not the worst options available? Would you allow the bullies in your schools to shut down the school because they can?