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←May-Jun 2013→
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Subscribe to the RSS feed -- the bitmark is now bit.ly/wiselinify. June 28, 2013 High Court strikes down SW 127th Street speed limit The Southwest 127th Street speed limit was struck down by the Supreme Traffic Court today in a 5-4 decision. Writing for the majority, Chief Traffic Justice John Roberts wrote that the posted speed limit on Southwest 127th near State Route 43 is based on outdated data. "Just because speeds above 35 mph were too fast for that bend in the road in 1965 is no reason to expect those speeds would still be too fast today," wrote Roberts. He sent the case back to the county roads department with instructions to create a new formula for calculating speeds on 127th, all similar curves in the county, and school zones. Roberts was joined in the majority by Associate Traffic Justices Luke Duke, Bo Duke, David Starksy, and Jim Rockford. In a concurring opinion, Justice Bo Duke wrote that present day motorists should not be judged by the speeders of 1965. "America aspires to be an velocity-blind society where speeding is a thing of the past. It can be argued society has evolved beyond outmoded labels like 'too fast'," Duke wrote. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) June 21, 2013 Bachmann launches nonsilence campaign Congresswoman Michele Bachmann today gave reporters a preview of the 'nonsilence campaign' she plans to conduct after leaving office following the 2014 midterm elections. In her May 29 announcement that she will not seek a fifth term representing Minnesota's 6th District, Bachmann, 62, promised she would not be silent on her trademark conservative issues. Rep. Bachmann began the day with a rally at the Hennepin Avenue light rail station in Minneapolis. "This is the kind of public transportation investment I have always railed against, and will continue to in the future," she told rush hour commuters. Then it was off to visit a new conservative business, a car manufacturing company in the Minnehaha Park area. The Brown Car Company, a new startup Bachmann has called the anti-environmentalist alternative to Tesla, plans to convert electric cars into internal combustion engine, gasoline powered vehicles, or GVs. Unfortunately, Bachmann's appearance was delayed over an hour due to her car being stuck in traffic. When she finally arrived, the company's employees, who had been given an hour off without pay to attend the scheduled rally, had returned to work on the disassembly line. Bachmann came away impressed following a tour of Brown Car's operation. "What they do is take engines out of old junkers and drop them into Nissan Leafs, which amounts to recycling and is therefore green," she said. Brown Car CEO Frandle Koch Jr. said his firm hopes to get Bachmann's assistance in obtaining a federal business development loan. "Eventually we hope to put bigger gas tanks on Smart cars and Chevy Volts," Koch said. Mrs. Bachmann praised Koch, telling him to "keep up the conservative breakthroughs." "Someday I hope to drive a coal-powered steamcar, made right here in the US of A," she said. The next stop in Bachmann's nonsilence campaign will be July 4 at Carlsbad Caverns, "the echoeyist place we could find," said Bachmann aide Whit Whiteman. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) June 17, 2013 Putin suggests deciding Syria policy by 'a series of manly challenges' Russian president Vladimir Putin created a stir on the sidelines of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland today, offering a creative means for coming to agreement on policy regarding aid to Syrian rebels. Russia and Syria are longtime allies, and Putin opposes arming rebels opposed to Bashar Assad's government. In discussions with president Barack Obama, Putin said he put little stock in ongoing diplomatic negotiations: "I'm sick of the diplomats and their talk talk talk like a bunch of little girls at a tea party," Putin said through an interpreter. The Russian leader said he is willing to decide the Syria question in a manner befitting the weighty issue. "All I want is to settle it in a robust, muscular way, like the men we are, even Angela Merkel," he said. "What would be great is a series of manly challenges, such as chopping a mighty oak tree into firewood," Putin explained. Other challenges he suggested include: boxing; capturing an endangered Indian elephant, fitting it with a radio tracking collar, and releasing it back into the wild; swimming the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska without a wetsuit; a space jump from 128,000 feet; parachuting into Afghanistan on a mission to rescue hostages held by Taliban fighters. Ties would be settled by arm wrestling. Las Vegas oddsmakers are making Putin the favorite to sweep the challenges, at 5:1. Barack Obama is at 2:1, Merkel is even odds, while Francois Hollande is 1:4 and David Cameron is 1:50. Putin and Obama will discuss the proposal further during tonight's G8 pubcrawl. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) June 13, 2013 Snowden not hiding Is binge-viewing Arrested Development The man at the center of the NSA leak affair emerged from seclusion today, expressing surprise at being the subject of a worldwide manhunt. Edward Snowden, 29, denied hiding from US authorities. "I was where I've been for the last couple days -- in my Hong Kong hotel room binge-viewing Arrested Development on Netflix," Snowden told reporters as he visited a FedEx store to pick up his last paycheck from intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden said he has seen 11 of the 15 episodes of the returning show's fourth season. "The fifth episode is my favorite so far," said Snowden. "That's the one where Tobias goes to India, where Lindsay already is. I guess I like it because of how it shows India as a fairly easy country to enter and, once there, lose yourself," he said. News of Snowden's public appearance quickly reached Washington DC, where House Speaker John Boehner lead a chorus of lawmakers demanding explanations from the intelligence community. "The CIA needs to explain how it could lose track of Snowden, when all they had to do was ask the NSA to look at the traitor's Netflix activity," Boehner said. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) June 7, 2013 Jobs higher on robust scandal sector The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued a glowing hiring report for the second quarter of 2013, showing 200,000 new jobs have been created as a result of Republican-led inquiries into the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, as well as multiple revelations concerning the Internal Revenue Service. The report does not account for impact on hiring of the NSA phone and internet data collection program, since it was revealed too late to be included. "These are some of the jobs I've been promising for the last five years," said House Speaker John Boehner, referring to the report's inclusion of 85,000 staffers hired to work on the 37 House investigations into targeting of Tea Party groups and spending on training expense by the IRS. Boehner credited former President George W. Bush, "who had the foresight to appoint IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman in 2007." Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsay Graham claimed credit for 60,000 temporary Senate lawyers working for him on Benghazi investigations. "They're all fully qualified lawyers, they only look like male models," Graham told CNN. The private sector also got into the act, with 25,000 new Alex Jones copycats working in conservative media and 30,000 factcheckers at progressive media outlets. White House press secretary Jay Carney noted the report proves the importance of public spending in reducing unemployment, since most of the new jobs were created by Congress. However, this view was countered by Rep. Darrell Issa, whose Oversight Committee created 53,000 of the new jobs. "Most of my funding comes from the Koch brothers," Issa said. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) June 3, 2013
Employer won't cover contraceptives Dear New Leader, My boyfriend and I live together to share expenses. We have full time jobs but still can't afford to have kids, so I want to avoid pregnancy for the foreseeable future.
Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 30, 2013 Bachmanns to start Swiss chocolate counseling clinic Congresswoman Michele Bachmann gave her first statement today about her future plans, one day after announcing she will not seek a fifth term in the House of Representatives. Mrs. Bachmann said she, her husband, Marcus, and his close personal assistant, Gary, will be closing the couple's Minnesota homosexuality deprogramming clinic and relocating to Bern, Switzerland. "The Lord has shown me the way, and that way is opening a counseling center in Switzerland, which suffers so from chocolate addiction in many forms," said Mrs. Bachmann. "Marcus and Gary have been working tirelessly in the tiny studio apartment behind our St. Paul clinic, perfecting the process for curing people of the gay. Marcus says the process is ready to apply to other sinful lifestyle choices, beginning with the chocolate addiction in his beloved Switzerland," she explained. The Bachmanns have had a longtime interest in Switzerland. The neutral nation is Marcus Bachmann's ancestral homeland, and Mrs. Bachmann claimed dual US-Swiss citizenship from 1978 until May 2012, when she renounced it to focus on her campaign for the American presidency. She said she plans to devote the next several months to ensuring her 6th District seat stays in Republican hands. "As I understand it, the official process involves days and days of prayer, after which my successor will be revealed through signs -- a beam of light from heaven, a newborn lamb, and a Target store," she said. Mrs. Bachmann said she expects to anoint the new Republican candidate with oil sometime in February 2014. After that her attention will shift, "wholly to focus on our Swiss clinic," she said, but "will try" to return to the US to help with investigations, by the House ethics office and the FBI, into possible campaign finance violations by her presidential campaign. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 22, 2013 Graham sees backdoor route in same sex marriage fight Encouraged by withdrawal of an amendment giving same sex couples protection in the Senate immigration bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would try to replicate that success in order to hamper other marriage equality legislation. "Sure, a defensive fight is the backdoor route, when compared to our usual anti-gay ballot measures at the state level," said Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. "But more and more Americans, under the sway of liberal Hollywood pro-gay propaganda, seem to think gay marriages are the same as traditional marriages, like the kind I still tell my mother I'm going to have someday. Therefore small battles are where the fight is until traditional marriage is popular again," he explained. Sen. Graham said he will resume the fight after he and his longtime legislative aide, Clyde Tolson, return from a Memorial Day weekend holiday in Provincetown, Massachusetts. "I'll start with any legislation limiting drone strikes. If anyone tries to ban drone attacks on Afghan wedding parties, I'll make sure we can still attack gay Afghan wedding parties," Sen. Graham said. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 20, 2013 Florida county taps new revenue source "We'll do your parenting for you" Overworked and distracted parents in one Florida community are getting some much needed help, thanks to a new government program now in the testing phase. Today Indian River County announced it has begun sending Sheriff's Office deputies to perform parenting duties for county residents, for a fee of $99 per month. "We'll do your parenting for you," said County Commission Chairman Martin Figurehead. "This is a great service for people like us who are too busy to give a damn," said one parent who spoke on condition of anonymity, whose 15 year old daughter attends local Sebastian River High School. "After years of not being interested in my daughter's life, now my wife and I can hire the police to break up our daughter and her girlfriend. In fact, not only can we call, we did call," he said. The case was handled by Deputy Mark Frandle of the Sheriff's Office Girls Gone Wild Squad. Frandle investigated the relationship between the 15 year old and senior Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, which led to Hunt's arrest. "Helping families is why I became a cop. Plus, I can't get enough of lesbians, so it's a win-win," said Frandle. Commissioner Figurehead said fees collected from parenting this fiscal year will support the budget of the County Attorney's office. "They're experiencing an unanticipated spike in lesbian-related prosecutions," Figurehead said. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 15, 2013 PHOTOS - Bachmann tries Google Glass
Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 13, 2013 Richwine, Reinhart & Rogoff reports to power Norwegian trash incinerators Jason Richwine has resigned from the Heritage Foundation to start a business based on the controversial immigration report he wrote for the conservative think tank. "Part of the reason Heritage and I parted ways was that they didn't have room to store the copies of Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the US Taxpayer," explained Richwine, 31. Enter Norway. The green-minded Scandinavian country has been so efficient at reducing the size of its waste stream that it doesn't have enough trash to power its waste-to-energy incinerators. Richwine moved swiftly over the weekend, negotiating an agreement to supply Norway's incinerators with copies of his immigration report . "It's a business plan that can't miss because, you know, I'm white. And it's green, since recycling old ideas about racial intellectual inferiority is still recycling," said Richwine. And just to be sure his new venture can handle Norwegian demand, Richwine has signed up economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart as suppliers. "The combined output of their bogus austerity report and my racist ideas should be enough garbage for the Norwegians to turn into electricity for the next 50 years," Richwine said. Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 8, 2013 Another LaPierre plan to address school shootings - Home schooling In a response to the lackluster reaction to the National Rifle Association's 'School Shield' plan advocating armed guards in schools, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre today unveiled another strategy to address gun violence in schools. Called 'Fewer Targets,' the new plan aims to end school shootings by closing all public schools, replacing them with a system of government-paid home schooling. "This is about saving lives. Our children will be protected from school gun violence if they never leave the heavily-armed family home," said LaPierre. LaPierre denied the goal of Fewer Targets is to weaken public education. He said the plan would actually increase education funding by enabling closure of school buildings and layoffs of teachers and administration, with the savings shifted to home schooling and security. "The benefits keep coming, I can't believe I didn't have this idea decades ago," he said. LaPierre said the NRA is also developing a companion plan to Fewer Targets: 'Home School Shield,' addressing gun violence and accidental shootings in the home. "The NRA believes shootings in the home can be solved by encouraging universal homelessness -- or as I like to think of it, 'complete freedom unfettered by property'," LaPierre said. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? Please consider a donation of $1.11 (or more!) May 2, 2013 Driverless megastrollers to make family outings even more irritating to strangers minding their own business Megastrollers, those baby carriages with spaces for multiple children and enormous cargo capacity, are about to go high tech. John Rude of the Automated Rover, Go-Cart & Hansoms Co. (NYSE: ARGH) of Auburn, WA announced today his company is applying driverless Google Car technology to megastrollers. "Our market research shows that parenting duties distract from the quality time people spend with their mobile wireless devices. What they want is a stroller that drives itself, so that family outings don't interfere with texting or activity on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook," said Rude, Automated Rover CEO. "What we've done is taken a standard sport futility vehicle that has to be pushed by hand, and added computerized wayfinding, steering and collision avoidance systems, creating the world's first driverless child carriage vehicle. We call it the Dumbvee 5000," he said. The prototype Dumbvee 5000 is a three-seater and comes equipped with rooftop storage, hard-shell panniers, seatbelts, and airbags. Passengers in the middle and rear seats can enjoy videos on seatback-mounted viewing screens, while the front seat passenger can watch on a heads up display projected on the curved windshield. On the rear where one would expect a pushbar, the Dumbvee 5000 instead sports a fold-out 12-device charging dock, so the rest of the family can power up their phones, tablets, phablets, and ultrabooks. Not for Trader Joe's The Dumbvee 5000 measures 8 feet long and 5 feet-3 inches wide, "allowing it to navigate most museums, restaurants, Walmart stores, and farmer's markets," according to ARGH literature. Rude said much remained to be done in terms of creating infrastructure for Dumbvees. "Charging stations will be expensive at first, currently we are exploring public-private partnerships with cities, to install charging kiosks on downtown sidewalks. But eventually the cost should come down so most business will be able to afford one." There is also the matter of liability. "Right now the stroller occupant is legally considered the operator of a driverless megastroller," said insurance industry analyst Liberty Del Mutua. She said for the foreseeable future insurance companies will only insure licensed infants and toddlers, until government safety regulations catch up with the technology. Follow us all the time at @WiselinePRT Permalink | Comment | Like it? 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