The recent events in Wisconsin are, on one level, baffling. Somehow the GOP has convinced voters that the best way to balace state budgets is to squeeze the wages of middle class families –in this case public sector workers– while keeping taxes low for the wealthy. Today, a story on school property taxes in the New York Times sheds more light on this peculiar direction our country has taken. The article focuses on the decidedly upper crust community of Bronxville, New York, and the desire of its residents to maintain high academic standards and good schools, but not have to actually pay for them:

Read more »

Wow! What an exciting week! After incorporating an independent MySQL database within a WordPress display framework, we devised a barebones AJAX widget to handle refresh-free logins with dynamic error messages, adapted a jQuery Javascript plugin to display clickable and auto-loading overlays, deployed another jQuery plugin with CSS rollovers to replace form radio buttons with clickable highlighting images, pulled off a CSS3 gradient to create easily resized backgrounds that default to flat colors in older browsers, handcrafted cookies with salted-hash sha1 session IDs, and… and…

Hello?

Fine. Be that way. Here’s some bestiality. We have work to do.

[via Ezra]

The news coming out of Japan at midnight PT:

Large areas of Japan’s northern Pacific coast have been swamped by a devastating tsunami, engulfing entire towns following a major 8.9 offshore quake.

The meteorological agency issued its top-level evacuation alerts for the entire Japanese coast, warning of a tsunami of up to six metres.

Towns and farms around Sendai city in northern Japan are being engulfed by a tsunami, and a four-metre wave has swamped parts of Kamaishi on the Pacific coast.

We’re not hearing specific casualty reports yet, but the ugly details will surely emerge all too soon.

Tsunami swamps Japan after powerful quake [ABC Australia]

Tsunami hits north-eastern Japan after massive quake [BBC]

Massive 8.9 quake, tsunamis hit Japan [CNN]

Update: Tsunami warning now in effect from Point Concepcion, California, to the Oregon-Washington Border. Estimated arrival begins at 7:15 am PT.

Rand Paul, Master Logician: “I think there should be some self-examination from the Administration on the idea that you favor a woman’s right to an abortion, but you don’t favor a woman or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine.” [TPM]

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the new Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as a female. Enda Kenny is a male.” [NYT, via Weigel]

If anyone’s watching at home, New York Congressman Peter King (R-IRA), Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, has started his witchhunt hearings on Mooslems in Amerikuh.

For those of you with stronger stomachs, you can watch it live on C-SPAN or CNN. For the rest of us, enjoy this picture of Peter King back in the good old days hanging with some of his buddies in Belfast:

Because the now-famous Wisconsin Quorum Rule only applies to budget bills, Cheesehead Republicans have always had the power to bust public unions without the participation of their vacationing Democratic brethren. The only reason they didn’t was the pretense that union-busting was a financial requirement to further enfilth the already filthy-rich Koch Brothers.

So last night’s Stealthcare Bill wasn’t flat-out illegal — the technical dispute is whether under Wisconsin’s open-meeting law, repackaging it required a cooling-off period before taking a vote.

But never mind that. Enjoy instead this delightful example of how America is the Beacon of Democracy to the world.