gay and straight couples..... let's hear the years you've been happily or not, been together...... I'll start..... 34 years of, well, at least half of them were happy, so half of 34 years of happy. Next???

Rock Hudson, Patrick, #6, Mcgoohan, James Brown, and Earnest Borgnine, good movie, and no advertisements.......

While Sargent has yet to convince more than six other legislators to sign onto her proposal, one place you're not likely to get in a lot of trouble for smoking weed recreationally is Madison. The city is well known for its lax approach to casual pot smokers, but that leniency doesn't extend to dealers, who face much harsher penalties. Jack Craver writes about that in this week's cover story.

As the legalization debate continues and even as the city has increased other fines and fees over the years, the City Council has taken pains to keep fines for smoking pot as low as possible. Ald. Mike Verveer says "it's almost like a sacred cow."

Speaking of… well, cows, we've got burgers on the brain this summer, and we're searching for Madison's best one. For now, we're tackling the beef variety — we'll get to the veggie, lamb and what-have-you varieties later. Do you ever get the feeling that your vote doesn't count for much? Well, here's your chance to determine which burger rules the isthmus. Will it be a dive burger or gourmet concoction? The fate of our burgerpublic depends on it.

The burgerpublic is a nice place to visit in our imaginations (and our stomachs), but we do have a real government to pay attention to here. And there's plenty to keep an eye on.


http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/in-case-you-missed-it-happy-cows-come-from-wisconsin/article_251c9f62-fca8-11e3-9ab7-001a4bcf887a.html

there some new video on google and it's not what I'm looking for, the videos are all dated this month, June of 2014 and the video I'm looking for is way older then what's being shown now. Would anyone have it? I'm thinking it's all music, no singing, and if I remember it's all in black and white. I saw it a while ago.....I'm thinking about 6 months for sure. Would love to see it again. My movie club saw the Jersey Boys today and I was talking about this awesome video of Christopher Walking dancing in this video by himself and would love to show it to my fellow movie goers....and I can't find it. Thanks ahead of time.

http://www.google.com/

That looks like the Irish flag to me, not Italy's. JMO.

Charles and David Koch are no strangers to Wisconsinites. It was three years ago that the Buffalo Beast's Ian Murphy pulled off the mother of all prank phone calls by ringing up Gov. Scott Walker while posing as David Koch, and we've been getting a steady dose of news about the billionaire brothers' political doings ever since.

But the rest of the country is catching up. Even though neither one has been on a ballot since David Koch was a Libertarian vice presidential candidate in 1980, polling shows that 48 percent of Americans recognize their names, according to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who backs a plan to attack the conservative donors ahead of the mid-term elections.

Some might say that Democrats are late to the party. The Kochs have for years been targeted as Public Enemies No. 1 and 2 by film makers, liberal watchdog groups, and just about everyone else on the left.

Now the brothers, together reportedly worth about $80 billion, are looking to soften their brand by running a national ad campaign that focuses not on their politics, but on the inherent goodness of their mega-congomlerate Koch Industries, which last year raked in $115 billion in revenue. The ads have recently begun airing in the Madison market.


http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/steven_elbow/koch-brothers-look-to-rebrand-in-national-ad-campaign/article_ef004fa3-8f87-5226-ba15-b7ca41db1629.html

Shoot, last year we had 3, or at least we counted 3 different humming birds around our feeder. So this year we bought one that attaches to our front window so we can see them up close and personal. Well, a couple have been drinking for a few days, and now for the past 2 days, not a one. Anyone else notice this?? I miss them terribly.

Brett Favre stars in political ad boosting Republican Senator Thad Cochran

Looking a lot like Dan Haggerty, star of “Grizzly Adams,” former Green Bay Packers (and New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings) quarterback Brett Favre stars in a commercial released this week by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The spot backs Thad Cochran, a Republican U.S. senator from Mississippi, Favre’s home state and full-time residence since retiring from pro football in 2011.

The U.S. Chamber hopes the spot will help Cochran beat challenger and tea party favorite Chris McDaniel in a runoff for the GOP nomination on Tuesday.

“I’ve learned through football that strong leadership makes the difference between winning and losing,” Favre says while seated on the back of an ATV near a pond and a willow tree and what appears to be a golf course. “When it comes to our state’s future, trust me, Mississippi can win, and win big with Thad Cochran as our voice in Washington.”

Cochran, 76, is seeking his seventh term, but his seat is particularly vulnerable after McDaniel forced a runoff earlier this month. Establishment Republicans are concerned that Cochran could go the way of former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who lost his seat to a tea party opponent in a Virginia primary earlier this month.

“Whether it’s getting critical funding for our schools, Thad Cochran always delivers, just like he did during Katrina,” Favre says, invoking the name of the 2005 hurricane that ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

In an interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio last week, Favre confirmed that the Packers tried to bring him to Lambeau Field for a game last December, but the high school team he helped coach was in the state playoffs

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jason-joyce/brett-favre-stars-in-political-ad-boosting-republican-senator-thad/article_3338290c-f73c-11e3-b8a5-0019bb2963f4.html

Possibly the beginning of the end??

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team’s name “disparaging to Native Americans,” Theresa Vargas of the Washington Post reports.

The landmark case, which appeared before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, was filed on behalf of five Native Americans. It was the second time such a case was filed.

“This victory was a long time coming and reflects the hard work of many attorneys at our firm,” said lead attorney Jesse Witten, of Drinker Biddle & Reath.

Federal trademark law does not permit registration of trademarks that “may disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.” The ruling pertains to six different trademarks associated with the team, each containing the word “Redskin.”

http://www.theredzone.org/BlogDescription/tabid/61/EntryId/43140/U-S--cancels-Redskins-trademark/Default.aspx

A journey through the poisonous, racially divided world that produced a Republican star. (Long article, but wow, very informative.... )

.......... “Have you,” he asked, “sat back and thought about what has been accomplished by yourself and the Republican legislature? Has it really sunk in that you’ve transformed a fiscally reckless state into perhaps the most fiscally sound state in the nation? Has it sunk in, I guess is what I’m saying, do you realize what’s been accomplished?” Walker replied that no, his achievement had not sunk in, because he had been “so busy doing it.”

That accomplishment—effectively eliminating collective bargaining for most public employees in the state, facing down the angry protests that followed, surviving a rancorous recall election—has vaulted Walker into the top tier of Republican presidential contenders for 2016. He is the closest person the party has to an early favorite, and not simply because of Chris Christie’s nosedive from grace or because Jeb Bush is still waffling about his intentions. Walker has implemented an impeccably conservative agenda in a state that has gone Democratic in seven straight presidential elections. Unlike Mitt Romney, or, for that matter, John McCain, he is beloved by the conservative base, but he has the mien of a mainstream candidate, not a favorite of the fringe. His boosters, who include numerous greenroom conservatives in Washington and major donors around the country, such as the Koch brothers, see him as the rare Republican who could muster broad national support without yielding a millimeter on doctrine.

This interpretation of Walker’s appeal could hardly be more flawed. He has succeeded in the sort of environment least conducive to producing a candidate capable of winning a national majority. Over the past few decades, Walker’s home turf of metropolitan Milwaukee has developed into the most bitterly divided political ground in the country—“the most polarized part of a polarized state in a polarized nation,” as a recent series by Craig Gilbert in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it. Thanks to a quirk of twentieth-century history, the region encompasses a heavily Democratic and African American urban center, and suburbs that are far more uniformly white and Republican than those in any other Northern city, with a moat of resentment running between the two zones. As a result, the area has given rise to some of the most worrisome trends in American political life in supercharged form: profound racial inequality, extreme political segregation, a parallel-universe news media. These trends predate Walker, but they have enabled his ascent, and his tenure in government has only served to intensify them. Anyone who believes that he is the Republican to save his party—let alone win a presidential election—needs to understand the toxic and ruptured landscape he will leave behind.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118145/scott-walkers-toxic-racial-politics

and d*mn I hate scott wanker.....