Weary Wanderers Wary of Winter?

We've been lucky this year. It hasn't been quite so cold in Wisconsin. Sure, it dropped down to zero degrees one day this year, but it's mainly hovered around the teens and twenties.  Today, it got up to 40.  I gladly shed my parka and trotted down University in just a t-shirt and unbuttoned cardigan.

That being said, the mild winter has surely been a blessing to the over 3,000 people who stayed in homeless shelters (admittedly, the most recent numbers are from 2010).  Of those who stayed in shelters, 20% said they had slept outside or in a car the night before.

So is a warm winter something to be happy about if you're homeless?

A pleasant kind of Onion

"It smells like roses!" he yelled.  The crowd erupted in cheers.  "They said that's wind you guys up."

Monday evening, UW alumni Joe Garden and Carol Kolb of The Onion came to speak at the Distinguished Lecture Series in what was titled "An Evening with The Onion."

I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen, but it did not disappoint.  Garden and Kolb proceeded to give a presentation worthy of Onion fame.  They began with the history of the paper, which they claimed was established in 1783 by T. Herman Zweibel, a Prussian immigrant and "tuber farmer" who established The Mercantile Onion.

Occupy...

For weeks now, hundreds of thousands of people have been camped out in New York City in the "Occupy Wall Street" protest. While it has received little media attention, this protest began a huge campaign centered around the slogan "We are the 99%," demanding that high paid CEOs and politicians put aside their "corporate greed" and help Middle America.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protest has now turned into a movement, with similar protests starting up all across the United States. Angry middle class Americans who are fed up with high taxes and high unemployment are finally ready to take a stand.

But is the Occupy Together movement fair? Billionaire Warren Buffett, who allegedly has a lower tax rate than his secretary, is standing beside President Obama for his new jobs act. The complicated "Buffett Rule" would ensure that those with higher incomes pay more in taxes. Despite what seems like support for the working man, Buffett is still one of the "wealthy" being attacked by these protests.