Circle the wagons, the two-party paradigm hacks are making a last stand. More and more during my daily toils as I listen to the radio and pass by one of my television sets, I notice the media, financial, academic, and two-party elitists yammering about "their" ethos. The economy sucks, but "they" know best. "They" will save us. The recovery is just around the corner, I know because them smart fellers say so. The Wisconsin Democrats are forming a task force to get to the bottom of this here "Great Recession." Some business and government peeps in Rock County have initiated Rock County 5.0, a coalition to "make things better." 

    Some of the disdain and cynicism in these parts might be coming from the fact that we have been entrenched in this "Great Recession" now for almost two years. Unemployment is running out; people have moved away from Wisconsin to find work elsewhere; workers have had their lives ruined; a 40 year old man from Watertown has had to join the Army to pay for his wife’s cancer treatments; what the heck, site your own horror story here, we have all lived this bad movie ad nauseam. 

    A problem is, all the while, both Repubs and Dems have focused on smoking bans, auto insurance rules, kids in bars, (the one Independent Wisconsin legislator has focused on getting himself arrested over and over); and, of course the whole tired crew has been obsessed with raising fees and taxes until our collective noses bleed; oh heck, choose your own new nanny state rules they have diverted to. Stay tuned for helmet laws. 

    The play house does not work well if no one has a job to pay the taxes and fees - stating the obvious, but apparently not so obvious to the ruling class. 

    The Dems have been in charge now long enough to actually have to take ownership of this economic hell. They claim, "ideas generated by the task force group’s work will be introduced as bills in the Legislature early next year." Yikes, we are going to legislate new jobs? If that was even remotely possible, why didn’t they do it five years ago? 

    And of course, The Bush train wreck is now way back down the tracks. And the Republicans collectively say, "We didn't do nutin'." You got that god damned right! 

    It is my general impression from working 45 years in various train wreck economies, that the controllers of this current train wreck will keep sucking our last personal resources out of us until we get a collective nose bleed. They are like a parasite that kills its host and moves on. I wonder were they will head to when we are all living in card board boxes? Hell, the perps in this economic catastrophe would most likely live in a cardboard box themselves to prove their miserable logic, claiming in the spirit of perpetual optimism, "At least it ain't as bad as sleepin' on newspapers on a park bench.

                              Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
          (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    Army Private First Class Kyle M. Hemauer, 21, of Manassas, VA, died May 23, 2005, in Afghanistan. Hemauer was assigned to the Army National Guard's 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division based in Manassas, Virginia. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Kyle grew up in Chilton, Wisconsin and played foot ball for the Chilton High School Tigers where he was named to all-conference status. He is a 2002 graduate of Chilton, a city of about 3,800 in Calumet County, Wisconsin. He went on to play punter for the Northrop Grumman shipyard Apprentice School football team at Newport News, Virgina. There he studied sheet metal apprentice. He was named to the second offensive team of the All-Atlantic Central Football Conference. The Journal Sentinel went on to note that at the time of his death Hemauer was survived by his mom and dad, Andy and Ann; and two brothers, Brad and Lucas. Private First Class Kyle M. Hemauer was Wisconsin's second military service person to die in the Afghanistan War. 

                                                As of this blog entry's posting date:

    94,008 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,308 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,365 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    911 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    594 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,557 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    4,434 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.