News Net Too sick for factory tour, flu-addled Walker still extends sneezy hand to visiting President Obama

Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked over the work week. Here are some things to think about as the weekend begins.

• Possibly attempting to get back at President Obama for conspiring with the “Wisconsin Local 1848” union at Master Lock, Gov. Walker assaulted the commander in chief by germing up his hands upon his arrival in Milwaukee, sharing his “nasty case of the flu.” Tonette’s pleas for the governor to remain in bed to nurse his illness with her soothing Idol chili went unheeded as a matter of political necessity—after all, the only way to get more conservative brownie points than yelling in Obama’s face is to sneeze a wad of Wisconsin-grade flu virus down his throat.

• The top secret location of the Wisconsin Recall Big Brother house isn’t such a big secret anymore—turns out Government Accountability Board employees had been counting the thousands upon thousands of petitions in one of the generic-looking buildings right behind Mickey’s Tavern. If becoming an overnight reality TV star via the GAB webcam wasn’t a major recruitment tool for additional GAB staffers on the project, the location has to be. That kind of easy access to drinks and pool for those late nights sifting through signatures—or for that matter, a nice brunch spot for those REALLY late nights—almost makes it worth being called “Pearls” or “Neckbeard” when paying for a beer.

• As for the recall signers themselves, the campaign of Sen. Scott Fitzgerald issued a new edict in its challenges of a large chunk of the signatures against it: If your penmanship sucks, you don’t get to recall anybody. The campaign challenged numerous signatures on the basis of having phony addresses, but it determined their validity by making a limited attempt to read the name and address on each signature form, mailing a postcard to its apparently random guess of what it reads, and challenging any signer whose handwriting made delivery of the postcard difficult or impossible. At last, the nefarious political machination behind eliminating cursive from public schools has been revealed.

• Channel 3000 reports that 115 out of 416 surveyed in Madison last year charged their customer the incorrect price at the checkout. The roughly 28 percent who made mistakes generally blamed human error related to price-checking, but we all know what’s really going on—a massive conspiracy on the part of Big Grocery to gather the extra pennies, nickels, and dimes in overcharges we don’t notice to bolster their profits. Good thing we have totally not-insane people like these looking out for the interests of honest folks.