Badger Blogger

Osama issues an appology to the Iraqi people for their murders of thousands of people, then admits that al Qada is getting their collective asses kicked in Iraq… and suddenly, the media is quiet. Nope, no bias here.

Another sexual predator, removed from the streets.

Man jailed for repeated assaults of boys
A 52-year-old Dane County man remains jailed this morning on allegations that he has been having sexual contact with several teenage boys in his Town of Pleasant Springs home, the Dane County Sheriff’s Department reported.

Sheriff’s detectives arrested the man last week on four potential felony counts of engaging in repeated acts of second degree sexual assault of the same child.

After an ongoing investigation into the sexual assault allegations, detectives have identified at least four victims who reported they received money in exchange for participating in sex acts with the man.

The victims, who ranged in age from 12 to 16 at the time of the assaults, reported the activity took place over several years…

Good news, this didn’t happen in Sheboygan.

I wish I had more time to invest on this, so I thought I would throw it open to you guys & gals. What do you think about the budget?

Mike Huebsch is putting lipstick on this pig, but the more we learn about this budget, the more I find that I dislike. Some of the most horrendous things have been defeated, but there is still way to much crap, and again, it does NOTHING to control spending! And remember, we still have a battle to be fought over the transportation budget, which is not included in this mess.

Fee increases, tax hikes, all the same thing, and they stick it again to us lowly taxpayers, and it sucks.

• Denita Ball: 22-year veteran climbed ranks
• Edward Flynn: Outsider offers lengthy resume
• Ramon Galaviz: Deputy inspector tries again for MPD chief
• James Harpole: District residents say they trust captain

When my friend told me about this, I had to chuckle. Eau Claire Wi. has an archery range in a park that has been a popular place for hunters and archery enthusiasts to gather for the past two decades, but this fall, when archery picks up because of the bow deer season, the city closed the park to “all firearms including bows and arrows.”

They have built berms and planted trees around this park, to stop the arrows, but over the past 15 years, police claim that several complaints have come in from neighbors that have found arrows in their yards. There is no word on how many complaints have actually come in, so I don’t know how much of a problem it really is. Is several complaints over 15 years 3 a year, or 5 over 15 years… it makes a difference.

Yes, I know, I wouldn’t want arrows in my yard either (except the ones I shot myself) but clearly someone has to be doing something really irresponsible to get an arrow over the trees, so a lot of people are being punished because of the irresponsibility of a few… and you have to admit that Archery park banning archery is a little funny

Archery Park No Longer Allows… Archery

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) — The city’s Archery Park may need a name change. How about No-Archery Park? Tom Draper and his bowhunting friends have practiced archery at the park for more than 20 years, and he was surprised recently when he found a sign that cited a city ordinance prohibiting firearms — including bows and arrows.

“Several archers that I’ve talked to are kind of in disbelief,” Draper said. “For all these years it’s been there for the public to use. … It was so convenient. And there was the camaraderie. During peak time it wasn’t uncommon to have seven or eight guys down there.”

Hat tip to my BrotherFromAnotherMother, Jime.

Well, I guess all of the talk about violent crime and murders being down is all over, because overnight, the 5th murder in the past two days occurred on 35th & Nash, and we are now even with last years murder total (89) on this date.

This is proof that an aggressive policing plan is needed all the time, not just when the Mayor wants to look good.

Green Bay Packer fans have lost one of our legends, one of the most colorful, and talented players of the Lombardi era. And for many of us, we grew up having Max as one of the voiced of the Packers as he spent 20 years calling the game on the radio with Jim Irwin.

Green Bay - Max McGee, a record-setting receiver who helped the Green Bay Packers win five World Championships and later was a popular color commentator on the team’s radio broadcasts, died Saturday at his home in Deephaven, Minn.

McGee was 75.

Emergency crews were called to McGee’s residence at approximately 5:20 p.m. after a report that a man had fallen off his roof and was unconscious.

Life-saving measures were performed on McGee, but emergency personnel were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

I hope Brett & the boys go out and win one for Max today.

Just a heads up, I am adding a few things to the blog, including a theme changer, since I know some do not like the current three column theme (but I like it so it will remain as the default).

You will see the theme changer on the sidebar, just below the Admin links. As of now, I only have three (only 2 are current as of this post) and I will bring another one or two on line. They can be a pain in the @zz to keep updated, since I have to update each theme by hand, so they may not have the exact same things on each theme, but the default “Journalized Blue” will have all of the bells and whistles.

Feel free to play with it, let me know if you have any problems or suggestions, and keep in mind that this is a work in progress right now.

I got to spend some time in the home town of my favorite Alderman and my favorite legislative staffer/radio-host/blogger today as I attended another gun show where, shockingly (by the papers standards) no one was shot in a hail of gunfire. As always, it was great to spend time around hundreds of sportsmen, thousands of guns and lots of camouflage

When Mayor Barrett speaks, thugs don’t listen. One day after everyone’s favorite career politician talks tough about Milwaukee’s post-NSI wave of deadly violence, local thugs react with… another night of deadly violence.

On Friday night, three more homicides in Milwaukee including, according to WTMJ-AM’s website, a double homicide of a man and woman in a home allegedly used as a recording studio on 55th and Lisbon.

In another shooting, a woman driving her car near Teutonia and Custer was shot and crashed her car. She will be the latest name added to the ghosts of Milwaukee’s streets.

I suspect there won’t be much tough talk or action from Milwaukee’s “leaders” resulting from these three overnight murders, as press releases aren’t often published on weekends. By Monday, most folks won’t even remember these three people who walked our streets just days earlier, except for their grieving families, and the cycle of hopelessness in certain communities of this city will continue.

Close your eyes and picture Milwaukee’s skyline. This is what a city with no leadership looks like.

When I opened jsonline this morning and read this, my first reaction was one of amazement. Then I snapped back to reality. After all, this IS Milwaukee and the proposal is being made by City “Leaders”.

It looks like the Wisconsin legislature has just about worked out a budget deal, so we will soon learn how badly we taxpayers get screwed. It seems that the last major sticking point is the asinine KRM choochoo connecting Kenosha, Racine & Milwaukee. Fred has details on this boondoggle.

It also looks like smokers will be taking it in the shorts again, since they never seem to voice an objection when someone wants to raise their taxes. It appears that the compromise will be $1.00 a pack, the Democrats wanted $1.25.

It looks like the gas tax hike that was to be disguised as a tax on oil companies, and the hospital tax that would have been paid by the sick people, are both dead.

If it is passed, we will learn more and this post will be updated.

Update: It looks like it is official.
State Officials Have Reached a Budget Agreement

Last night, a blustery rainy evening erupted in violence that left 2 people murdered and 5 others wounded, including a 13 year old girl that is fighting for her life.

2 dead, 5 wounded in 5 overnight shootings

The 13 year old girl that was shot in the middle of the back, and another man, shot in the leg, were in front of a house on 25th & Hadley. She is in critical condition, and there is no one in custody… Why do children have to live under these conditions?

On a personal note, one of the murders was just a few blocks from my home. On 50th & Fairmount a man answered a knock on his door, he knew the person and stepped out to talk with them. A few moments later, he came back into the house and said he had been shot, then collapsed dead on the floor. Police don’t seem to know if the person that knocked was the killer of if it was someone else in the neighborhood, but there is a murderer on the streets within blocks of me again.

The keys to the blog are all yours. Feel free to use this area to talk about anything you think we should talk about his weekend.

The strange story of millionaire John Jazwiec claiming that someone held his family hostage, has taken another twist. Now he is trying to get the police to stop investigating the “crime”.

A lot of people on the east side are talking about this, and asking the question: is this a case where a family cried wolf?

Originally the Jazwiec family said an armed man held them at gunpoint. Now they are telling police they don’t want to talk about it anymore.

The claim by John Jazwiec and his wife was shocking. They say an armed black man walked into their east side home and held them at gun point and robbed them.

“There was a 300 pound man in the foyer with a gun,” Julie Jazwiec said.

Now, some are questioning if this home invasion ever happened in the first place.

After listening to the long rambling conversation he had with Charlie Sykes in the days after this incident, it was clear that something didn’t smell right, and the stink just got worse. Does he think that the police will stop investigating now?

The sad thing is, this embarrassment will probably lead to John Jazwiec not expanding his company, Red Prairie, in Milwaukee as was hoped. That will mean a lot of high paying technical jobs will go somewhere else. This is just such a screwy story on so many levels.

Is the entire story made up? Did something happen that he embellished? At this point, we just don’t know, but it just isn’t right…

Quick, someone call Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio! Joe Torre is available!

I frankly don’t know how I missed this federal indictment last week against former City of Madison employee and Director of Madison’s Overture Center Bob D’Angelo. Of course, he’s innocent until proven guilty, but any way you slice it, 39 federal counts are bound to amount to something… actually, up to 650 years in prison.

The complaint alleges that, while a City of Madison employee for nearly 15 years, D’Angelo ran several side businesses out of his city office, using city employees, computers, and properties for storage of his merchandise. The feds allege that these businesses, which include consulting stints for other cities (while being paid over $118,000.00 a year as a Madison city employee) without any of his direct superiors’ (including former Mayor Sue Bauman) knowledge, brought in nearly $238,000.00 of additional revenues for D’Angelo.

D’Angelo was also charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and several counts of filing false income tax returns, all for a variety of alleged crimes resulting from his activities while on taxpayers’ time.

This story has received almost no coverage in the Madison media (I read about it today in The Badger Herald). I wonder why? It wouldn’t have anything to do with all those AFSCME crybabies pleading their case down there on the Capitol Square yesterday, would it?

This Wednesday, there was a large rally in Madison. This rally brought out hundreds of state employees and others that are paid by our tax dollars, to thuggishly shout them down. I thought about going, now I am kicking myself for not going, if I would have known that the thugs were going to show up in such force to scream at us that we aren’t paying enough, I would have loved to have been there!

With all of those state employees being there to counter protest, it proves that the state is over-staffed.

Charlie has a round-up of other bloggers from around the state that were there. Next time, I am SO there!

UPDATE: CRG looking into the use of uniformed fire fighters and equipment

Citizens for Responsible Government has begun open records requests to discover the policies and costs of having fire fighters in full uniform as well as several fire trucks, all being used to call for higher taxes.

They also have video of the rally.

A man in jail, but out on “Work Release” calls the jail, says he will be late to work overtime, then calls another inmate and asks him to “sign him in” to the jail… Then at 2:45 a.m. he murders a man on 62nd & Custer, just a few blocks from my house. No one ever knew that he was out of jail all night!

What a perfect alibi, as far as anyone knew, he was locked up in jail! He would have gotten away with this murder if he had not confessed to his crime.

Work-release inmate charged with slaying

Then Dudley gave this account of how he spent the day he killed Mitchell, according to the complaint:

Dudley never went to work after leaving the work-release facility on Sept. 19. Instead, he went to a hotel to drink and do drugs. Later, he was with two friends when Mitchell, who police said was 62, drove up in a silver BMW, wanting to buy crack early in the morning of Sept. 20. The three decided to rob Mitchell. Dudley pulled out a gun, fired into the car four or five times, then ran to his girlfriend’s house. Mitchell was found after crashing in the 6200 block of W. Custer Ave.

Three weeks later, on Oct. 12, Dudley called police to talk about the killing. Eventually, he confessed: The drug robbery had gone badly. But the complaint notes that Dudley refused to say what he did with the gun “because it may have other homicides on it.”

They don’t check on people on work release or in the city of Milwaukee jail???

How long until Wisconsin school boards see this and think it’s a good idea?

In Maine, they are trying to expand a program in schools that allow them to give birth control prescriptions to middle school students… that’s 11 to 13 year old girls… And it would be up to these children if they tell their parents that they are taking these prescription drugs or not. Who on their right mind thinks that 11, 12 and 13 year old children are competent enough to make medical decisions on their own and be allowed to hide it from their parents?

Panel to Consider Birth Control Prescriptions at Maine Middle School

PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine middle school is poised to become the first in the state to offer birth control prescriptions to students through its student health center.

The Portland School Committee will weigh the proposal Wednesday, which would enable students at King Middle School to obtain the pill.

Under the plan, King would become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in sixth through eighth grades, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Thanks to Mickey for pointing this insanity out to me, this is crazy.

Today we learned that Milwaukee’s unemployment rate is the second worst of the 50 largest cities in the nation.

City jobless rate is 2nd worst
Among the 50 largest U.S. cities, only Detroit had a higher unemployment rate than Milwaukee in August, according to a new study at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“It’s a serious indicator that we need to take some notice of,” said Marc Levine, a professor of history and director of the Center for Economic Development, which takes a monthly look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data for Milwaukee and 49 other cities.

Based on household surveys, 8% of Milwaukee’s residents working or seeking work said they couldn’t find a job in August. Only Detroit, at 15.1% unemployment, was worse off. And all but 10 of the 50 cities had unemployment rates of less than 6% in August.

Does it strike anyone as strange that even with news like that and learning that “Milwaukee also ranks in the bottom fourth in terms of employment growth in the last 12 months, the last 36 months and the last 84 months,” our Mayor, Tom Barrett appears to be running unopposed. I know there has been talk of Sheriff David Clarke running, and I honestly hope he does, but I have heard him talking on the radio (he appears on WMCS’ Eric Von Show occasionally) and what I hear isn’t really encouraging… Hope I am wrong, but time is running short.

Does this sound familiar? According to a report in today’s Wisconsin State Journal:

“State agencies will be paying off a questionable computer project for the next 20 years, according to a report by the state’s top computer official. That’s in spite of the fact the project was originally supposed to save the state millions of dollars over just a few years.”

20 years to pay off? That’s, like, 20 times the normal life cycle of a computer, right?

“By June 2008, the state likely will have spent an estimated $65 million on the server project. That’s about five times the consultant’s incomplete cost estimate, which also projected millions of dollars in savings from the project over just five years…

The costs of the project currently far outstrip the payments that state agencies make to participate in it, according to the report. Those deficits mean that the program will have to be paid off through payments by agencies until 2028, the report said.”

That waste like this occurs in state government is nothing short of shameful.
Where is the outrage?

These are the same people who are pushing to make a “model of efficiency” out of every aspect of Wisconsin’s (a.k.a. “your”) health care system…. all based on the “projections” of their advocacy groups.

After all, according to the Healthy Wisconsin website:

“Healthy Wisconsin Reduces the Cost of Government in Wisconsin: Wisconsin state and local governments are being hit hard by skyrocketing health care costs. Under Healthy Wisconsin, it is estimated that state and local government will save $1.3 billion, half of which will be used to reduce property taxes.”

It actually reduces costs? Wow, that’s fantastic. Just like those computers that are going to burden us until 2028, right? Don’t buy into the Democrats smoke-and-mirrors, folks. Stand your ground.