Our good friend StB has run afoul of the city of Milwaukee. Some "inspector" is going to come out to his house and measure the length of the blades of grass in his lawn. Oh yeah, StB gets to pay for the privilege.
Looks like I may go to battle with the city after the notice I received yesterday. In the mail was a notice telling me I owed the City of Milwaukee $25.00 for an inspection. I didn't ask for any inspection. What could this be for? Weed inspection. It was for the notice I had saying I had weeds that were too tall.
Ok, I did need to cut the grass but it was kind of tough considering it had rained that week (Monday was Memorial Day) and I was camping that weekend. Some time on either that Friday or Saturday I got a notice taped to my door informing me I needed to take care of it.
And I did. Case closed.
Or so I thought. This notice does not specify what the inspection is for. Is it to inspect my property to make sure I took care of everything? Was it for the initial inspection? I am not paying anything until I have answers. Better yet, they say you can appeal this but only after you fill out a form and pay the $25.
StB attempted to call the office to find out what exactly was the issue, but of course everybody left for the day. The person answering the phones told StB he was not alone with his complaint.
I suspect the $25 doesn't even cover the inspector's time. Maybe Milwaukee should have a few less weed inspectors and a few more minimum wage employees cutting the grass on the boulevards this summer.
WISN's Mark Belling and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are reporting that former Milwaukee Archbishop Weakland will not be moving to the abbey in New Jersey as he hoped. (Ht: Dad29.)
Weakland said he rescinded his plans to move to St. Mary's Abbey in Morristown, N.J., on May 18 after Abbot Giles Hayes expressed concerns about his presence in the wake of a New York Times story recounting revelations in his forthcoming memoir.
"It seemed evident to me that they thought my presence there might be a negative element for the school and monastery," said Weakland, who discusses his homosexuality and his handling of clergy sex abuse in the book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church," which is due out this month.
St. Mary's is home to Delbarton School, a prestigious boys college preparatory school operated by the Benedictine monks of St. Mary's, about 35 miles from Manhattan.
Giles, who is the former headmaster of the school, said Weakland changed his plans without explanation a week earlier, and that he had no reason to believe controversy surrounding the book played a role.
Weakland said that the day he sent the e-mail offering his withdrawal, the Benedictine community was scheduled to meet to discuss concerns about his move.
"I put in the option that I would withdraw if it was a problem," he said.
Weakland, 82, said he would remain in Milwaukee.
As the Lovely Doreen from Waukesha pointed out to me, this means that when Weakland's book does come out he gets to live among the people he wrote about and victimized.
I can well imagine that St. Mary's might have legitimate concerns about having someone who excused and covered-up for pedophiles living close to "a prestigious boys college preparatory school." He certainly would not be considered a positive influence.
According to local environmental writer Jim Rowen, former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist said there were two stages to any transportation plan: “It’s too soon to know” and “It’s too late to do anything about it.”
By deciding to punt on this important question, the county board’s executive committee decided to push off the decision from possibly too early to possibly too late. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is expected to consider the RTA for southeastern Wisconsin today.
Contrary to Wolff’s assertion, the RTA is not an inevitability. There is a very real chance it may be defeated today, or else modified to only include Milwaukee County.
Waukesha County’s leadership could have taken the opportunity last week to express clearly the opposition of Waukesha residents to any proposal to include Waukesha County or any of its communities as part of the RTA. Such a clear statement that Waukesha County would never be a willing part of the RTA might have helped kill it.
Instead, Waukesha residents might wake up at the end of the state budget process to see Milwaukee County trying to suck more of our tax dollars to fund their buses and a train from Milwaukee to Illinois.
Even I could not foresee the Democrats' sense of self-preservation taking such precedence over any common sense. The Democrats, fearing a taxpayer revolt in Racine removing their Senator John Lehman, decided to exempt Racine and Kenosha counties from the proposed sales tax. However, Milwaukee County would be taxed, while Racine and Kenosha would receive representation on the RTA. Those counties would have representation, but Milwaukee County would not given how unreliable the suburbs within the county have proven in their support for a train or light rail system. Instead on the City of Milwaukee would have representation.
So we have no taxation with representation (Racine, Kenosha) and taxation without representation (Milwaukee County).
Waukesha County residents might take some false comfort in all this. After all, we have been spared in this opening round and a precedent has been set. Perhaps the city of Waukesha should petition the state to force Milwaukee County to build (and pay for) the pipeline necessary for Milwaukee to provide the City of Waukesha with water from Lake Michigan.
But the reality is the other precedent this sets. Waukesha County residents should be increasingly wary of any attempt to force them to subsidize Milwaukee's transit issues. That pressure will grow as the pressure on Milwaukee's taxpayers grows.
Unless we start taking firm stands now, the legislature may decide to punish our Republican representation, even as the state is currently punishing Milwaukee County residents who voted for Scott Walker as their County Executive.
Cooperation between the Waukesha and Milwaukee on transit is possible, such as the recent agreement between the City of Waukesha and Milwaukee County to eliminate the transfer fee between the two bus systems. But such cooperation must be as equals, and not imposed from the state.
The teenager's arrival came on the same day that his mother appealed to President Barack Obama for his release. She says her son was coaxed into piracy by "gangsters with money."
"I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager; I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial," Adar Abdirahman Hassan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from her home in Galka'yo town in Somalia.
His mommy has to stick up for him? Wouldn't that be the ultimate embarrassment for a pirate? His mommy has to call?
On the other hand, here was someone who had no compunctions against holding people hostage, pointing and shooting automatic weapons at people, and generally behaving like a thug. And his mother is trying to claim he should receive mercy? Who does she she think she's dealing with, a Milwaukee assistant DA and judge?
The City of Milwaukee will receive a 60% share of the long-delayed $91.5 million of Federal Transportation funding. The money would fund a streetcar system in the City, a longtime policy issue for the Barrett administration.
Pat Curley. the chief of staff to Mayor Tom Barrett, said the mayor took the matter to congress last year after County Executive Scott Walker turned down the mayor's suggestion to split the funds 50%-50%.
Instead, Walker will get 40 per cent for his buses, and Barrett's 60 per cent will go toward a rail connector system and a brighter future.
Walker's boneheaded stubbornness cost the county $9.1 million this time!
Unfortunately, the continuing costs of the street car system to be built because of Barrett's stubborness will cost the taxpayers a lot more than $9.1 million in the long term.
"It's going to be so cold you'll think it's January in Wisconsin." "We just want to warn the public that when it gets really cold like this, running outside naked right after taking a shower is not a good idea." "This is why mugging people at Mayfair is much more popular than mugging people at Bayshore."
I'm reminded of a classic line in the old sitcom, Taxi. "I know what's wrong with this cab. Winter."
I know, I know. We're going to get the usual warnings about pipes freezing, frost bite, exposure, and unattended space heaters. I have a suggestion. Just roll last year's tape.
The Wall Street Journal looks at the violence and mayhem the giant pizza-serving rodent brings to Brookfield. In Brookfield, Wis., no restaurant has triggered more calls to the police department since last year than Chuck E. Cheese's.
Officers have been called to break up 12 fights, some of them physical, at the child-oriented pizza parlor since January 2007. The biggest melee broke out in April, when an uninvited adult disrupted a child's birthday party. Seven officers arrived and found as many as 40 people knocking over chairs and yelling in front of the restaurant's music stage, where a robotic singing chicken and the chain's namesake mouse perform.
Chuck E. Cheese's bills itself as a place "where a kid can be a kid." But to law-enforcement officials across the country, it has a more particular distinction: the scene of a surprising amount of disorderly conduct and battery among grown-ups.
"The biggest problem is you have a bunch of adults acting like juveniles," says Town of Brookfield Police Capt. Timothy Imler. "There's a biker bar down the street, and we rarely get calls there."
I've never been a big fan of Chuck E Cheese. Regardless of the location, the MO is the same. The machines dispense tickets as rewards for good play, and then the tickets can be taken to the service counter to be converted to cheap prizes. The machines that dispense the most tickets are those that are designed to get the most game tokens from your child as quickly as possible. The more fun games dispense less tickets.
If you're seeing a parallel with a Las Vegas slot machine parlor, you would be right. Instead of teaching children to dispense their game tokens in longer-lasting fun games, the process encourages them to effectively gamble in the higher-stakes machines to get better crap from behind the counter.
We're creating a bunch of degenerate gamblers and we don't even get a decent buffet comp. Instead the parents are encouraged to buy poorly-made pizza and expensive drinks for the kids. Frequently add a birthday cake for an additional sugar rush. Add the kids' adrenaline (gambler's high) the parents' frustrations, the airport-level of noise pollution, the occasional disagreements that all children will have, and throw a little beer for the adults into the mix.
Anybody who has been to a casino knows there are always unhappy people there, usually short a few game tokens in their bucket. If tension can spill over there, add the pressure of watching their kid blow twenty game tokens to end up with only five game tickets. Then if the kid accidentally leaves one of them in the machine, look out.
If a Milwaukee mom can give her son a gun to go settle an argument on a playground basketball court, what do you think is going to happen in the pressure cooker I just described?
As the Wall Street Journal article makes clear, the problem is hardly limited to the Brookfield and the Milwaukee locations. Violent incidents are a nation-wide problem for the Chuck E Cheese business. But it's worth noting that since the Brookfield franchise instituted rules of dress and conduct and stopped alchohol sales that they have not had any incidents. Yet.
Ronald Hoppus, who pleaded no contest to voting twice in the November 2007 election, has been sentenced to serve nine months in the House of Correction.
I once knew a woman who was a real world-traveler. While up in the hills of Thailand someone asked her where she was from. When she told them, "Milwaukee," they immediately asked if she knew Jeffrey Dahmer.
Busy week next week. I'm going to be in Oshkosh on Monday, June 9th at the Americans for Prosperity Blogger Training School. 5:30 pm Reception and Registration; 6:30 pm Seminar Robbins Restaurant 1810 Omro Rd, Oshkosh, WI 54902 (920) 235-2840
I've been asked to make a short presentation. If you're interested in attending you can e-mail wirsvp@afphq.org or call 414-475-2975. Oh yeah, it's free.
If you can't make that one, AFP is holding a blogging seminar in Madison on Wednesday, June 11th. 5:30 pm Reception and Registration; 6:30 pm Seminar The Lucy Burns Institute 301 South Bedford, Suite 6 Madison, WI 53703 (608) 255-0688
Tuesday night is Drinking Right at Papa's Pub, 77th and Burleigh in Milwaukee. I'm going to try to attend. Really. I'll be the one with the laptop computer batting out a column.
State Senator Ted Kanavas takes a look at a study of the business climate in the Milwaukee area and the gap in the recognition of the problem.
It’s Always Darkest before It’s Totally Black
Will the last business in Milwaukee please turn out the lights? Just when we thought the news about the business climate in Milwaukee and, by extension, southeastern Wisconsin couldn’t get any worse, it gets worse.
Last week, the Lakeland College Center for Economic Education released a study showing that only 49 percent of the Milwaukee businesses surveyed ranked the community’s business climate as “very favorable” or “favorable”. Other cities in the study used for comparison purposes were Denver (75.5%), Green Bay (73.8%) and Raleigh-Durham/Chapel (RDCH) Hill, North Carolina (77.5%).
The news is equally bad at the other end of the spectrum, with 27 percent of Milwaukee businesses describing the business climate as “unfavorable” or “very unfavorable”. This compares to 11.2% in Green Bay , 9.5% in Denver and 8% in RDCH.
If those statistics haven’t scared you, this one should. Nearly one in five Milwaukee businesses have considered moving out of the city because of the unfavorable regulatory or business climate. Green Bay was second at 14%, compared to only 10% in RDCH and 8.5% in Denver .
If the business community is this upset about life in Milwaukee , then community and state leaders must know about it, right? According to the study’s authors, the disconnect between the business owners’ perceptions and the perceptions of elected officials is one of the main reasons for the bad business climate in Milwaukee .
The study’s authors surveyed the aldermen in Milwaukee and more than half of them cited low fees and cost compliance as a reason to do business in Milwaukee . High cost compliance was most frequently cited by businesses as a problem for those doing business in the city.
None of the aldermen thought government regulation was a serious problem for businesses in the city; 23.5% of the businesses thought it was a “very serious” problem. 36% of the businesses disagreed with the statement that Milwaukee goes out of its way to create a favorable business climate; only one alderman disagreed with that statement.
The study includes suggestions about how to improve this situation, but doesn’t really identify the problem with the business climate in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin as a whole. Mayor Barrett and Governor Doyle and their pals in state and local government see business as a never-ending source of tax revenues and continue to heap expensive regulation on the backs of businesses that can barely make it as it is.
The Democrats in Madison and Milwaukee fail to realize that the only way we are going to reverse our spiraling economy is to encourage Wisconsin businesses to stay here, grow new businesses organically and attract businesses from other states and countries. These businesses provide much-needed jobs and capital for an economy that has been flat-lining for a few years now.
A perfect example of how incentives for business can work is the film industry tax credit that recently became law in Wisconsin . Because of that tax credit, millions of dollars in new revenue have come to the state and the program has just gotten started. Since it is a tax credit, the state doesn’t lose any income, it merely earns less new income than it would have without the tax credit. Of course, without the tax credit, the film companies would have taken their business elsewhere.
Who opposed these innovative business incentives? Democrats in Madison kept them from being enacted more quickly and possibly attracting more film business to the state, costing us millions of dollars. Why did they oppose the business tax credits? Fundamentally, they do not believe in giving businesses a break and they do not understand the critical need for economic growth. They do not understand that incentives bring business to the state that would otherwise not be here, providing new jobs and revenue when we desperately need it.
The film industry tax credit model works for a variety of business types if we are forward-thinking enough to employ it. Businesses are telling the Democratic elected officials in Milwaukee and Madison that there is a serious problem. Republicans in Madison showed the Mayor and the Governor how to solve the problem. Are they going to lead, follow or get out of the way? Wisconsin cannot afford to wait much longer for them to figure that out.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and two local law enforcement officials want telephone users to help pay for police, firefighters and paramedics through their phone bills.
Barrett, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Police Chief Edward Flynn are asking Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature to give municipalities control over the 911 telephone surcharge that is supposed to expire Nov. 30. They're hoping to add that provision to the budget-repair bill now under consideration.
But the lawmaker who sponsored the original surcharge blasted the proposal as a stealth tax increase. State Rep. Phil Montgomery (R-Ashwaubenon) vowed "to do everything in my legislative powers to ensure that does not happen in this budget-repair bill."
The surcharge on cellular telephone users was created in 2005 to cover the costs of technology to pinpoint the locations of cell phones during calls to the 911 emergency number. Montgomery said that technology has saved at least 15 lives statewide.
The fee started at 83 cents a month, rose to 92 cents in 2006 and then dropped this year to 43 cents.
But before the fee expires, Barrett wants lawmakers to authorize municipal governments to retain the surcharge and expand it to cover all telephones, including land lines provided by both telephone and cable companies. Milwaukee would be able to boost its charge to a maximum of $1 a month in 2009 and $1.50 a month in future years.
Revenue from the surcharge would help fund the emergency services that respond to 911 calls, a technique that city officials say is also used in Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco and other major cities. At 50 cents a month, the surcharge would generate more than $2 million a year for Milwaukee, rising to $5.2 million for a $1 charge and $7.8 million for a $1.50 charge.
That's right. They want to take an existing one-time fee and expand it into a permanent tax on phones and then spend the money on something tax dollars currently pays for rather than for what the original fee was intended.
What a good week for the idiots. Despite the onset of decent weather, the idiots mostly remained indoors. One of the few to venture outside was former President Jimmy Carter who continued his nostalgic tour of the Middle East and hugging the terrorists. Remember when Jimmy was King of the Idiot Politicians? He does, and this bitter old crank has been taking it out on us ever since. Of course, the rest of the world remembers, too, which is why America’s enemies greet him so warmly. The wreath laying at Arafat’s grave was a nice touch. I would have followed it up by watering the flowers.
Idiots here, there and everywhere.
From the “Idiots here” category we venture east across 124th street into deepest Milwaukee to observe some idiots in their natural habitat. The state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, Hobbes famously observed. In Milwaukee, stupid also applies, as politicians gathered to take advantage of the anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy to promote their anti-gun agenda. Unless the ribbons handed out were made of Kevlar, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, State Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) and State Rep. Leon Young (D-Milwaukee) should find something a little more productive to do. But I bet they felt great after their little rally, like they really accomplished something.
Further east to the tragically hip and trendy Milwaukee East Side where organic produce is not only eaten but often smoked, some students of UW-Milwaukee are squabbling over perks and pay and how they’ll be divvied up next year at their fellow students’ expense. Rather than just tell them to go play nicely in the sandbox, newly-elected Milwaukee Alderman Nik Kovac is wading into the fray. We suggest they settle the whole dispute over a kegger at Nic’s house since he apparently has plenty of time to plan a party. While the rest of the city debates what to do about more bullets flying than in a John Woo movie, he’s worrying about which college kid gets to play "grown-up."
From here to there to Washington, where Congressman John Murtha demonstrates that when it comes to idiocy, he’s “special.” Murtha accused Senator John McCain of being too old to be president. McCain is 71. Murtha is 75.
But the clear winner of the Idiot Politician of the Week award goes to Senator Barack Obama, who in the space of one week made himself the Republican choice for the Democratic presidential nominee. It was a cumulative idiocy that made him number one on the Idiot pop charts this week.
There was the flag pin controversy where he completely denied ever saying he wouldn’t wear a flag pin, even though he made a point of saying so publicly. Even Michael Dukakis wore a flag pin and had the good sense not to lie about the whole “Pledge of Allegiance” controversy.
Then Obama compared former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers to US Senator Tom Coburn. When that wasn’t good enough, Obama’s campaign later complained that the unrepentant Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were really mainstream Chicagoans. You know, your typical Chicago Bears fans that wanted to “off the pigs,” praise Ho Chi Minh, cause riots and blow up some buildings. Really, they’re very typical Midwestern stock, just like the kind that are so bitter and resentful that they cling to their guns and their religion rather than look for help from Washington DC. Typical white people that we should all like and respect.
Then they complained, can we please move onto some “real issues” now? These questions are hard. We don’t want to play this game, and we don’t like ABC anymore. As Jim Geraghty at National Review Online put it so well,
I thought about the contrast with McCain. The guy does town hall meetings everywhere he goes. He has reporters on the bus with him all the time. He does conference calls with bloggers.
Does he ever grumble about some questions? Oh, once in a while we'll see McCain get a bit curt with a New York Times reporter on his plane. I remember him getting surprisingly defensive in response to a question about Israel on one of those blogger calls, and I'm sure we all remember the "thanks for the question, you little jerk. You're drafted!" (which everyone at the event understood as a joke, but was easy to take out of context). But all in all, McCain's off-key answers have been pretty small potatoes. When the New York Times did that inane front-page story insinuating, but never quite coming out and accusing him of having an affair with a lobbyist, he took every question until no one had any left.
Meanwhile, Obama gets a couple questions on unpleasant topics — do you understand why your San Francisco comment bothered some Pennsylvanians? Why did you ask Jeremiah Wright to not play a role in your campaign kickoff? Why don't you wear a flag pin? Can you explain your relationship with William Ayers? — and his supporters go apoplectic, some even screaming Obama should retaliate against ABC as President. And his campaign whines that it's "gotcha politics and distractions."
Hey, welcome to the big leagues, rookie. You're gonna get some questions you're not going to like. Not everybody gets to have their main opponent's bid implode when their divorce records are unsealed and compete against Alan Keyes in a general election.
Seriously, if Barack Obama can't handle questions like this from Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous, maybe the portrait of the cracking-under-pressure whiner depicted in the Saturday Night Live sketch isn't as wild an exaggeration as we thought.
Senator Barack Obama, that wasn’t an earthquake in Illinois this morning; that was your reputation imploding. But that’s what happens when you’re the Idiot Politician of the Week.
Jeff Wagner writes "No No Nanette" in response to Nan Hegerty becoming the second ex-police chief in a row to sue for discrimination.
Back in October of 2003, former Mayor John Norquist was on his way out of office in the wake of a sex scandal involving a Mayoral aide. In a parting gift to the City of Milwaukee, Norquist's Fire and Police Commission hired Nan Hegerty to replace Arthur Jones as Police Chief. Four and a half years later, it seems that Hegerty may have had a lot more in common with Jones that anybody thought.
When she was first hired, Hegerty (who had never been a police chief before) was paid around $112,000. When Hegerty retired after four years on the job, she was earning about $132,000 - the same amount that Jones was making when his contract was not renewed. Based on her years of service with the Department, the 56 year old Hegerty pulls in an annual pension of almost $82,000.
Not satisfied to simply retire in her mid-50's on a pension of $82,000 (plus whatever she also ultimately receives from her years of service as United States marshal for the Eastern District of Wisconsin), Hegerty has filed a gender discrimination complaint with the State of Wisconsin. In her complaint, Hegerty alleges that new Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn is being paid $143,881 - about 8.5% than she was making when she left office. To Hegerty's way of thinking, the salary difference has to be because Flynn is male and she is female.
This is not the first time that a Milwaukee Police Chief has refused to go quietly into the good night.
After Arthur Jones was not rehired, he filed two lawsuits against the City. One lawsuit alleged that he was mistreated because he was black. The other accused the Fire and Police Commission of retaliating against him because he complained that he was being mistreated because he was black. Both suits were dismissed.
As was the case with Jones, my guess is that Hegerty's claim is going nowhere. Unlike Hegerty, who had no experience as a Chief of Police, Ed Flynn was hired after 20 years as police chief of five different departments. This fact alone probably defeats her claim.
Intruders ransacked offices of the main opposition party and police detained foreign journalists Thursday in an ominous sign that President Robert Mugabe might turn to intimidation and violence in trying to stave off an electoral threat to his 28-year rule.
Earlier, Mugabe apparently launched his campaign for an expected run-off presidential ballot even before the official results of Saturday's election were announced, with state media portraying the opposition as divided and controlled by former colonial ruler Britain.
Five days after the vote, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission still had not released results on the presidential election despite increasing international pressure, including from former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who recently mediated an end to Kenya's postelection violence.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change already asserted its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidency outright, but said it was prepared to compete in any run-off.
Who knew something like that happens in third world kleptocracies? I wonder if it looked something like this?
Otto claimed that the two once made love no less than eight times in one single day. He soon became so fixated on Dolly that he secretly moved, with her help, into the Oesterreich's attic. Over the next few years, the Oesterreichs moved to various residences in Milwaukee,and so did Sanhuber. By day, Sanhuber did housework and kitchen chores and fulfilled his duties as a lover. He lived on left overs he was fed in the kitchen. At night, in the attic, he read murder mysteries by candlelight and wrote imaginative tales of lust and romance that he sold to pulp magazines. In 1921, Dolly convinced Fred {Oesterreich} to move to Los Angeles and Sanhuber followed.
The Milwaukee Public Museum should have a replica of her house in the "Streets of Old Milwaukee" exhibit, complete with a scantily clad Dolly "wearing only stockings and a silk robe."
For those watching the budget, a white Christmas - while pretty and all that - brings a bah, humbug.
"I used to like it," said Milwaukee Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of the council's Finance and Personnel Committee. "I don't anymore. It's like a running cash machine."
The city's 2007 snow-removal budget, using past winters as a guide, was based on the projected need for 26 ice-control operations and three full-scale plowing operations. So far in 2007, there have been 36 ice-control efforts and six full-scale plowings, three of which came this month.
In Waukesha:
In Waukesha County, highway operations manager Pete Chladil said his department had gone through 6,214 tons of salt as of Dec. 14, already exceeding the 4,700 tons that had been projected.
"We projected to spend $50,000 in overtime for December," he said. "But we've already spent $120,000 on it, and that was only through Dec. 14."
In Waukesha, officials say the city is about $50,000 over budget on salt costs and $20,000 over budget in personnel costs.
Unfortunately for them, this is Wisconsin. It often snows here. That's why I have a snowblower in the garage with some pre-mixed gasoline. It's why I have several bags of salt. It's why my wife keeps some cash on hand in case the local kids offer to shovel my walk.
Over the past 10 calendar years, Milwaukee has received an average of 46.1 inches of snow a year, according to an analysis done by the city budget office. The city tracks snow by calendar year, to match the budget, not by winter. So far this year, there has been about 70 inches, or 52% more than the average.
That trails only one year in the period, 2000, which featured those repeated December snows and brought the total for the year to 89.9 inches.
(In my best cranky old man voice) I remember the snowstorms we had when I was a kid. We would dig tunnels under the snow and have little snow caves to hang out in. This stuff is nothing compared to what we had. After all these years, you mean to tell me each of these communities don't have some sort of contingency plan?
Update! The lovely Doreen from Waukesha blames it on Global Warming.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports a pizza delivery man was fatally shot at 3:00AM near the 1500 block of W. Hopkins St. Details are not known yet, but the newspaper reports ten people in custody. Round up the usual suspects?
We've written about the case of Vegas — who shot two would-be robbers in the space of seven months — several timesbefore and will have a more complete analysis in tomorrow's newspaper. In the meantime, Noonan's 10-page decision is worth checking out.
The quick version of it is that he finds the concealed-carry ban is an unconstitutional infringement on Vegas' right to protect himself while working, under criteria laid out by the state Supreme Court in decisions on the Hamdan and Fisher gun cases.
"Given Vegas' experience, he has a need for a gun at a moment's notice," Noonan wrote in today's decision. "Enclosing and unloading the weapon is not a reasonable alterative (sic) to secure and protect his safety. Plus, Vegas while delivering pizzas enters and exits his car constantly; it would be unreasonable for him every time that he enters his car to require him to unload it and place it in a case and then reverse the process every time he exits. This defeats the purpose of having the weapon for security and protection."
Sheriff Clarke takes up the theme where I left off in responding to Governor Doyle's proposed commission to study the incarceration of young black males in Wisconsin:
Wisconsin's criminal justice system does discriminate - against victims of crime, not criminal defendants.
Watered-down sentences in exchange for plea bargains, finding excuses not to prosecute, low or no bail allowing perpetrators to return to impoverished minority neighborhoods to victimize law-abiding black residents once again, is what a governor ought to be outraged about. This has created a system of revolving-door injustice, which results in a criminal justice system that disproportionately discriminates against black residents.
On Dec. 29, I attended another memorial service at a central city church for all of the people violently killed in the Milwaukee area in 2006. Only one other elected official attended. The rest must have been busy framing their position statement of "concern" over the report from the crime council.
The surviving family members who were in attendance also were disproportionately black. They are the ones deserving of our concern, but they don't fit the race-baiting agenda.
