Closed for the Season, or at least until the media frenzy results in my being traded to a larger venue with more lucrative marketing possibilities

UPDATE - geez, I should have updated this a long time ago. I'm blogging now over at The TrogloPundit. Come check it out.

END UPDATE

As noted over at Badger Blog Alliance, LanceBurri.blogspot.com is shutting down for the forseeable future. The reason: I was coming to dread having to come up with something to write over here. It wasn't something I really wanted to do anymore, which led to me - at least, I think - mailing it in.

Oddly, I have neither feeling about posting over at BBA or at FoxPolitics.net, where I'll continue to contribute once a week, at least as long as Jo lets me (and possibly longer).

Thank you to everyone for all the support and kind comments I've received over the last few years. I look forward to receiving far more of them in the years to come. And don't worry: when I start writing over here again, I'll let you know.

Meantime, don't forget to bookmark Badger Blog Alliance, and add it to your reader!

There’s nothing government can’t do.

It’s the first salvo of the year from the Wisconsin State Senate and its encouraged Democrat majority. Not likely the last. Three bills, introduced on Thursday: increase the state’s minimum wage and index it to inflation; mandate that bankruptcy-headed businesses pay their employees before paying other debts; and mandate health insurance coverage for autistic kids.

Good, populist bills – an indication, we both hope and fear – of what two years under complete Democrat control will be.

Three bills, two opinions. One: this is what happens when adults are in charge. Two: what are they, crazy?

The latter comes from WPRI’s Christian Schneider:

If the Legislature were to actually walk on to the floor and vote for a bill to reduce the number of jobs in Wisconsin by 5%, it probably wouldn’t be as effective as these three bills in unison.

...When mixed together, these bills constitute a noxious cocktail that the Wisconsin economy is going to have to swallow.

Chris “capper” Liebenthal has a different view:

This Is What Happens When Adults Take Over

Good news from Madison! Senator Decker has announced the first three major bills that they will be working on.

I have four children who can’t remember to put their shoes away. Ever. If this is what happens “When Adults Take Over,” then I’m handing my keys to them.

The three bills are all examples of populism at work: the minimum wage, because you just can’t live on that!

News flash: you won’t be able to support a family on the new minimum wage, either, no matter how long it’s been indexed for inflation. Of course, you won’t have to: there’ll be fewer low-wage jobs to go around.

The wage lien bill: hey, the employees should get paid. You want that, I want that. But requiring employees-first by law makes it riskier for banks to loan money. Thus, they’ll be tighter with credit. Thus, there’ll be less available capital. Thus, there’ll be more laid-off (or might-have-been-hired) employees.

The autism mandate: no one denies the difficulty of raising an autistic child, but forcing insurance companies to cover it will simply raise the cost of insurance, at a time when health care costs are already – and I know this, because I keep reading it in the paper – “out of control.”

Three bills. Three happier interest groups. Greater strain on the economy. Less freedom.

Yes, I’m invoking freedom, as hokey as that might sound. You’ve got a dollar in your pocket, you get to choose how to use it. That’s freedom. The government takes that dollar away – even for the noblest of reasons – and that’s freedom you’ve lost. That’s why government should be very circumspect in reaching for more tax money.

Okay, so what about the freedom lost by those employees, whose former employer didn’t pay them for three months before declaring bankruptcy? Hey, good point. Also for parents of disabled children – their freedom is certainly curtailed. And the guy who can’t get a job that pays more than minimum wage. He could use a freedom stimulus, I guess.

To this I can only say, uncomfortably: life isn’t always fair, and neither are people. That life and/or people did something unfair – something wrong, even something immoral – doesn’t give the government authority to spread that unfairness around to everyone.

Or…well, I guess it does, from the liberal point of view. Liberals – who despise any government constraint on personal freedom, no matter how minor, until it's in their political interest not to – won’t hesitate to constrain their neighbors financially. Because that’s compassion.

The moral of the story: there’s nothing government can’t do.

Well, there isn’t. There is no authority the government does not have. That dollar in your pocket? They can take it. Whether you like it or not. Whether you worked for it or not. Whether their taking it will make you think twice about earning another one or not.

Someone else needs it, so it belongs to the government.

That’s what they call “adult.”

How Obama could please both the far Right and far Left at the same time, and why he won't.

New column over at FoxPolitics.net. An excerpt:

That won’t please the far – or even the middle – Right, either. Vastly greater government spending; government debt to support that spending; government interference in private business; increased government influence over private business. These are not good things.

It doesn't please the Left, either, although their philosophy of bigger-better-stronger government is well-served when everybody and their Governor are begging Congress for a few more billion.

No, any real enviro-Leftist worth the label should find the idea of government economic "stimuli" quite disturbing: Americans have finally toned down the consumption! Less waste, less fuel, less pollution, more squirrels!

How can a liberal, Democrat government – a liberal, Democrat president – even think about trying to change that?

Thus, Obama could please both sides by killing the bailouts on Day One.

Go read the whole thing.

Wish List 2009

Aught-Seven ended "neither with a bang, nor with a whimper, but rather…a bang waiting to happen…Powder’s dry, and it’ll go off soon." Or so I wrote at the time.

If 2007 ended with unresolved tension, 2008 ends…well, like a long exhale. So far, 2009 feels like a day-old balloon: still floating, but slack. No longer strained taut from the pressure.

Powder's spent, and we've drawn some R&R. Now we're just waiting for the Quartermaster's next pass through the line.

Anyway. If nothing else, my Wish List 2008 proved one thing: I should stick to wish lists, not predictions. With a few notable exceptions, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. The sun did shine. Snow did (and continues to) fall. Kids got owies, and I spent more time on my computer than working in my yard. On that much, for the second straight year, I was right.

Other than that? Judge for yourself, if you want. In the grand tradition of punditry, I choose to ignore my past misfires and instead plow forward to 2009!

This is the year Son #1 gets his first deer. He was so close in 2008. Twice.

I'll do my usual George Thorogood imitation.

Sons #2 and #3 will add several Cub Scout awards to their shirts. Son #2, in particular, will place in a Lego-building contest. The Daughter will get her driver's license and will be a far more responsible driver than her father was at her age.

Yes, I'm that old.

The Wife and I will go dancing exactly once. She'll forgive me for not making it twice.

Brett Favre hangs up the cleats, this time for good. The all-time NFL fumbles record will stay with Warren Moon.

Elsewhere in sports, Baltimore Ravens safety Jim Leonhard makes an interception in the Superbowl; Bret Bielema spends the year feeling the heat; the Bucks and the Brewers play a bunch of games in unmemorable seasons; and Bo Ryan takes the Badgers to the Elite Eight, helping him land a recruit who almost guarantees a return trip and more.

The Packers will make the playoffs after adding one big-time free agent and one touted rookie to the defensive line. Donald Driver will remember how to make one cut after catching the ball, and his numbers will improve accordingly.

In state politics, all-powerful Democrats will be unable to restrain the liberal impulse, and will put forward every bigger-government, higher-taxes, business-is-evil and nanny-government proposal they've ever thought of in the past, plus a few more. Most will go nowhere, as Democratic leaders realize the voters will freak out, but some – the hospital tax, cigarette tax, gas tax, smoking ban, etc. – will become law.

The budget will be "balanced." Governor Doyle's staff will begin floating predictions of a $6.8 billion deficit two years from now.

The so-called Healthy Wisconsin will be the big hole in their liberal cornucopia, because President Obama will socialize health care at the federal level.

In federal politics, all-powerful Democrats will restrain the liberal impulse to retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan – President Obama will prove to be far more hawkish than his most ardent supporters expected. Otherwise, government spending and socialization are in.

Democrats and liberals will spend a lot of time vilifying President Bush, who will be nothing but classy and supportive of the Obama administration.

Republicans will learn just how much fun it is to be surrounded and outnumbered. They can't get away from us now!

The economy will improve in 2009, but not by much. What improvement does occur will be thanks to consumer confidence brought about by the mainstream media's positive economic coverage.

Entitlement reform and, closest and dearest to me, Social Security Reform, are over. By the time enough conservatives get enough political power to do anything about them, it'll be too late.

Yes, that's really pessimistic of me. One more bit of pessimism: I will again fail to land a dead-tree byline this year.

Wait…was that pessimism? Or reverse psychology?

Now for a few blasts from the past:

I get better at everything. Better at writing, better at working, better at Dad-ing and better at husband-ing. It's no secret how. It’s just a matter of doing it.

Politics doesn’t get any nicer, bipartisan, cooperative, or any less nasty, but we’ll all be a little less uptight about that.

Duh. There's a Democrat in the White House.

George Lucas finally admits that there’s way too much money in the franchise not to make the final three Star Wars movies, not to mention the inevitable re-make. Josh Whedon will agree to write and direct.

And, the Oldie-but-Goodie you've all been waiting for:

The kids learn to pick up after themselves without being nagged.

I crack myself up.

Happy New Year!