Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Walker's Juvenillia Will Set Back Great Lakes Control Of Asian Carp

Poking a stick in Illinois' collective eye over its budget crisis, and trying to raid their businesses and jobs will do nothing to get Illinois' cooperation on keeping Asian carp out of Lake Michigan.

Citing economic losses, Illinois opposed the closing of a possible shipping canal route for carp migration, but has been brought along and is part of a regional effort

This is a time for diplomacy and coalition-building. It's a slow-moving, tricky, multi-state issue, yet we have heard nothing from Walker about ramping up Wisconsin's regional role in carp management or his plan for working more closely with Illinois, which is ground zero for the entire issue.

Can we get some policy coordination out of Walker and his people?

And a recognition that there is a bigger picture than press release fun and games at Illinois' expense?

You want to talk jobs and development?

Watch what happens to Wisconsin's commercial fishing, tourism and recreational industries if the carp break through from the Mississippi River system into Lake Michigan.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Rowen where did your post about the floods in Australia go?

Apparently you did not have the integrity to leave it up once you realized how stupid it made you look.

James Rowen said...

You know - - this is the perfect illustration of the problem with the anonymous commenter.

I have reposted the item with an explanation. And invited the commenter to resubmit the comment.

I had a glitch in my posting. I did not have the time this morning to fix it, so I simply deleted it with the goal of putting it back when I got back online.

The commenter is a mind reader. He thinks he knows my motives, which actually are allin his mind, not mine.

He also feels free to call names and impugn my integrity. I am stupid, he says. What is the point of all that?

People like this sit back with the cloak of anonymity and distance and say things they would probably not say in person.

I still post nearly all comments because dialogue and interchange is usually worth it, but I am getting more and more inclined to zap these comments and cost the writers their access.

Anonymous said...

Yes, please Illinois, relocate your businesses here. You can probably relocate your corporate headquarters here and we'll work out a deal so that you pay little or nothing in corporate tax, and you'll probably want to retain much of your Illinois workforce as well. So bring them too, but they'll want to commute because personal income taxes here are so much higher (after all, the corporations aren't paying it), but how will they get here with no HS trains?

Scooter, we won't let you count those jobs toward your 250,000 pledge.

Max B said...

Hey, Illinois! Be sure to investigate all Walker claims of that 'talented workforce' he offers you.

In 1993, Walker and his legislative chums engineered a major change in Wisconsin public school funding. Also in the mid-1990's the same bunch figured out a way to hand over huge sums of public taxpayer money to private, mostly religious, schools. Coincidentally (? or not?) Wisconsin students' performance on standardized test scores have also dropped, moving our state which had held the #1 or #2 positions in educational test scores, to #12 or #13 in 2010.

Kids who entered kindergarten in 1994 (when 'reforms' were first enacted) will begin graduating college this spring. Good luck, graduates! Good luck world!

So, Illinois, please do hop on that train and ride it to Dead End Wisconsin.

"Escape to Wisconsin"? Try "Escape from Alcatraz" !

Anonymous said...

Rowen: I tend to agree with the 12:03 poster. He bested a fool. Many of your opinions are mindless criticism of Scott Walker and anyone conservative.

1) Doyle was in office during this carp caper. Yet little criticism from you. Are you seeing a pattern?

2) The carp caper is an interstate issue for the feds--not Wisconsin. It's international also b/c Canada is involved with the Great Lakes Pact.

3) Walker's duty is to Wisconsin and its constituents first, not your personal agenda that Walker is going to destroy the G.L. (Like Obama is going to destroy the USA).

4) Illinois' lame duck legislature raised personal income taxes today by 66%. Walker, in contrast, will cut our state government by reducing the spending.

I always sign my name to anonymous entries. If you cut the others that sign anonymously, you will only receive less responses. Your blogging does not generate many replies as it stands.

germantown_kid

James Rowen said...

To Germantown_kid;

The states are very much involved with the carp issue. They all went to court to try and force a solution, and are involved with additional efforts, so you are wrong that it is a federal issue only.

I am not sure what you mean by the "Great lakes Pact"- - if you mean the 2008 Compact, it has nothing to do with carp control.

And are you arguing that your signing with a pseudonym, "Germantown_kid" isn't signing anonymously?

Boxer said...

James, Don't worry. Your integrity is safe among the thoughtful readers and posters of your blog.

Anonymous 12:03 pm: 1. What in James's post gave you the idea he realized "how stupid it made [him] look" and therefore he took down the post? and 2. What in your experience on this blog would lead you to accuse him of lacking integrity? I read this blog almost daily and James is quick to offer a correction or an apology when errors are found by him or anyone else--even typos!

As a former journalist, James employs journalism standards when he writes the stuff in the first place. I know that sort of thing is lost on you Fox 'news' dittoheads and climate change deniers, but it's important to those of us who share a healthy skepticism (i.e. normal people) and expect their facts to be checked (and actually facts, not the usual made-up crap you've been fed on.) Geez, James even included lots of flood pictures for those too lazy or illiterate to read the story copy.

If you read this blog regularly, you'd know that postings and comments simply do not disappear without explanation, such as the map with gun sight targets did from Sarah Palin's website just recently.

Go ahead and disagree with James, or any of us other commentators; listen to Rush, Charlie Sykes and Belling all you want. You're entitled to your opinions, however boring, misinformed, illogical and unscientific they may be. Just don't come on this blog with your sneering words and disrespect the writer because you can't find anything intelligent to say.

"Hey Rowen. . . you have no integrity . . . . it makes you look stupid!" will get you nowhere and in the process show how rude and ignorant you are. You're a waste of characters and space, and frankly, our time in putting you in your place.

Anonymous 6:12 PM, a/k/a the germantown kid: You're hardly any better. You attempt a somewhat reasoned argument re the carp issue. And yet, you appear not to have read Anonymous 12:03 or James 12:39 or you would have realized they were discussing a previous post, not of carp, but of climate change and tsunami-like flooding. Yet you support Anon 12:03 unconditionally and determine he "bested a fool" because "many of your [James']opinions are mindless criticisms of Scott Walker and anyone conservative". I think your criticisms are mindless--and subjectless as well.

Can you not even track 2 different issues through a few paragraphs in only 2 posts? What are you on?

Having an argument with people like you two is like having an arm wrestling match with an armless man--there's no "there" there.