Wisconsin

Is this about the problems our government has with never ending budget balancing or is it about the government of the people, by the people and for the people having issues with those same people?
How difficult can it be to balance one's budget? We all do it. Everyday. All of us, individually. Regardless of our individual level of education and sophistication we all know that you can't spend more than you make, and that takes care of it. Our government, apparently is not capable of doing the job we gave them our confidence to do. They simply blame their predecessors and then, they just pass the ever growing imbalance onto their successors. And that's how we got here. And that's been going on for a long time now and nobody is willing to go back and find that "first guy" who started it all. And, honestly, it wouldn't matter one bit, at this point.
Or is it maybe that for political reasons, they saw it more profitable not to balance the budget? It is whole lot easier to just blame their constituents for it instead? Yes, constituents. Us. In a progressively speeding vicious tricycle of "of, by and for the people" we the people vote for our political representatives who are only on our side during the process of being elected. And as soon as they do (get elected), the tune gets changed and we the people become the most expendable part of the whole process. Now they want Wisconsin taxpayers to pay for their (politicians') mistakes. And it's not that they will have to pay financially, by increased taxes and their standard of living being lowered. They will pay for it by giving up (or loosing) some of their democratic rights: right to get and stay organized and keep the democracy alive.
Democracy is the rule of the people through it's representatives. Once those representatives turn against those they represent, democracy becomes dictatorship.
And that's not what America is all about.

Fortune

"And when we come to examine their actions and lives, they do not seem to have had from fortune anything other than opportunity. Fortune, as it were, provided the matter but they gave it its form; without opportunity their prowess would have been extinguished, and without such prowess the opportunity would have come in vain."

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince p.18

Slavery in Europe!

"In order to obtain financial means for this trip, Mehmedbasic granted liberation to the last two kmets his family owned." 

- Vladimir Dedijer, The road to Sarajevo p. 282

Joke of the month

Eileen and her husband Bob went for counseling after 25 years of marriage. When asked what the  problem was, Eileen went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 25 years they had been married. She went on and on and  on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.  
Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and after asking Eileen to stand, embraced her, unbuttoned her blouse and bra, put his hands on her breasts and massaged them thoroughly, while kissing her passionately as her husband Bob watched with a raised eyebrow!
Eileen shut up, buttoned up her blouse, and quietly sat down while basking in the glow of being highly aroused.
The therapist turned to Bob and said:
"This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?"
Bob thought for a moment and replied:
"Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I play golf."

What a great country!

"Isn't it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to
a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail, but the penalty for a
congressman lying to you is another two years in office."

- Peter Schmuck (on Roger Clemens' indictment)