When Walker Hails The Mine In His Speech Tonight...

Remember that its initial, Penokee Hills tear down phase is projected at about 1,000 feet deep, a half-mile wide and 4.5 miles long - - or 30% farther, for example, than the 3.5 miles distance from the State Capitol to the landmark Oscar Mayer meat-packing plant on Madison's northeast side.

So when Walker touts the bazillion jobs the mine will create, and the water-rich environment in Northern Wisconsin that the mine will somehow enrich, just picture an dynamited and trucked excavation beyond a corridor from the meat-packing plant to the State Capitol framed above a statement famously attributed to the former New York Republican politician Al Smith:

"No matter how you slice it, it's still bologna."