"City Hall to close a fire station-RFD calls are up 4.5% for emergency assistance"

From RacineUncovered.org:

"WAY TO GO CITY HALL! It’s confirmed, the 2013 proposed budget is up on the City of Racine’s website. City of Racine. Budget numbers and documentation show that they want to close a station. The number of calls are up that the Racine Fire Department responds to. Data shows the amount of calls is up 4.5% and that aprox 16% of calls can take over 8 minutes to respond to.
Page 10 reflects that they are planning on closing a fire station and that 3 firefighter positions will be eliminated from city services."

Read more: http://racineuncovered.org/2012/10/city-hall-to-close-a-fire-station-and-eliminate-3-positions-from-rfd/


When they said "belt-tightening," you didn't think they meant at City Hall, did you?

D.I.E.T

Useless Information

Did you know:

The United States consumes 70 million carmel apples a year?

Open Blog - Weekend

Enjoy yourselves.

The official Halloween Trick-or-Treat times

Brought to top as a reminder.

The official Halloween Trick-or-Treat times for Racine and surrounding communities by date are:

 

• Racine, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• Elmwood Park, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• Mount Pleasant, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• Caledonia, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• Wind Point, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• North Bay, Oct. 28, 4-7 p.m.

• Village of Rochester, Oct. 28, 3-6 p.m.

• Raymond, Oct. 28, 4-8 p.m.

• Somers, Oct. 28, 3-6 p.m

• Wheatland, Oct. 28, 2-5 p.m.

• Lyons, Oct. 28, 2-4 p.m.

 

 Sturtevant, Oct. 31, 5-7 p.m.

• City and Town of Burlington, Oct. 31, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

• Norway, Oct. 31, 5-7 p.m.

• Wind Lake, Oct. 31, 5-7 p.m.

• Dover, Oct. 31, 6-8 p.m.

• Union Grove, Oct. 31, 5:30-7 p.m.

• Yorkville, Oct. 31, 5:30-7 p.m.

• Town of Waterford, Oct. 31, 5-7:30 p.m.

• Village of Waterford, Oct. 31, 5-7 p.m.

 

Courtesy of Racine Journal Times

The Men Who Built America

The Men Who Built America I have been watching this series on the History Channel. Extremely interesting: I never knew what a bunch of bastards these guys like Scott, Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were.

Yes they did do a lot for America but they also cause great pain for millions of Americans.

Constant competition between themselves and I do truly believe they are the ones who started the Great Depression because of their greed!

men-who-built-America   If you get a chance I would recommend watching it.

……SER

Four for Fridays

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Four for Fridays! It's been a short and pleasant week. Certainly a huge difference in the prior weeks. About time... Anyways, here are some questions...

1)  Have you ever gotten the flu shot?

2) If you could win a 'life-time supply' of anything what would you want it to be?

3) What do you love the smell of?

4)  Would you rather be hungry or thirsty?

Enjoy your weekend!

Open Blog - Friday

OK. 

:-)

Open Blog - Thursday

"Sorry, Mrs. Thursday, but this card is no good."

I am pure evil. If I have to suffer a loop, the world suffers with me.

Dear Madame Zoltar

Hello, my mixed bag of nuts!  How are you?  Fall continues to fall, but “they” are predicting a relatively warm week.  “They,” of course, are the ones who were convicted in Italy of not predicting an earthquake.  I understand that some Italian officials are now resigning their positions in a show of unity with the convicted scientists.  Oh my.  How crazy can it get?  What if they start prosecuting psychics who make inaccurate predictions?  Oh my, oh my.  Of course, I have nothing to fear.  My customers always end up 100% satisfied, one way or another. 

The Green Bay Packers played a 100% satisfying game last Sunday against the St. Louis Rams, adding another win to their record.  Next up are the Jacksonville Jaguars, this Sunday, October 28, at noon, in Lambeau Field.  I’m sorry, but Jacksonville Jaguars sounds like the name of a car dealership.  In any case, our Packers should make road kill out of them.  Go Pack!  Destroy, destroy, destroy!  Yay team!

I was saddened to hear about the shootings in Brookfield. What a tragedy.  My sympathy and prayers go out to all who were touched by it.

My telephone rings every day with robocalls about the upcoming election.  My mailbox is stuffed with large, glossy campaign literature for one candidate or another.  Almost all news media focus and refocus on the campaign.  I know who I’m going to vote for.  I made up my mind weeks ago.  There should be some way for people like me to avoid all of the marketing that’s going on.  Of course, there isn’t.  The din of the campaigning won’t fade until after November 6.   I can hardly wait.

I don’t even read the campaign literature, but it must cost millions of dollars to put out so many mailings.  Wouldn’t the money be better spent lowering our debt or providing needed services?  Of course it would, but marketing has replaced integrity in our politics, and we are the poorer for it.

I received a call from Junior’s school the other day.  They are concerned because he keeps placing “hexes” on teachers and students he doesn’t like.  Of course, the hexes don’t work, but his behavior creeps out some of the other people.  I had a long talk with him and I think he understands now that should he develop any sort of powers, he must use them for good.  Or I’ll hex him back into last week. 

Señor Zanza has been out of town, attending a family reunion in Indiana.  The Indiana Zanzas are not to be confused with the Montana Zanzzas, who spell their name with an additional z.  There was some bitter dispute centuries ago and the Zanza clan split up because of it.  Today no one remembers why the feud even started, but the participants don’t let that dampen their zeal.  Mr. Zanza can orate for hours on the subject of the Zanzzas and what dastardly dirt bags they are.  Family politics can be very challenging.

Well, that’s my blast for this week, my dears.  Thank you so much for stopping by to read it.  I love visitors and I love love.  Remember, love is the drug. 

In love or in lust?  Find out: madamezoltar@jtirregulars.com.

Have a glorious week, one and all.  Stock up on spooky stuff and Halloween candy.  Boo!  Watch out for ghosts and goblins and black cats.  Meow.  Galeanthropy!

Open Blog - Wednesday

I'm feeling wacky already.

Posting to Toad

I was asked to post this.. It's funny at the same time I just wanted to cry and really hope it wasnt real..

10 good things to know about Sweden

In case there is a stop in Sweden during the next bus trip I thought I would post this little informational video. There is a mix of Swedish and English so I hope you all get the gist of it..

Open Blog - Tuesday

Ferocious, but fun, too.

For Lizardmom (Don't Watch, Froglover)

Sorry for hogging the blogging. I'm on a streak.

"L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter"

"Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila.

"A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.

"Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes.

"The 6.3 magnitude quake devastated the city and killed 309 people.

"Many smaller tremors had rattled the area in the months before the quake that destroyed much of the historic centre.

"It took Judge Marco Billi slightly more than four hours to reach the verdict in the trial, which had begun in September 2011.

"Lawyers have said that they will appeal against the sentence. As convictions are not definitive until after at least one level of appeal in Italy, it is unlikely any of the defendants will immediately face prison."

Read more:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20025626  


This is great news.  How soon before I can sue the National Weather Service?

Better get a lawyer on retainer, hale-bopp.

Reclaim your Brain™

Toad suggested a site to me the other day.  It's Lumosity, http://www.lumosity.com/, for training your brain.  I haven't tried it yet, but I thought some other Irregulars might want to give it a whack.

Any Thoughts on Mass Shootings?

I don't have any solution and don't know what to say, but I feel compelled to say something.  What the hell is going on with our country?  I mean, we had nut job shooters when I was young, too, like Charles Whitman at the University of Texas Tower.  He killed 13.  But that was very much the exception.  Today, it's not yet commonplace for mass shootings to occur, but it's getting there.  Is it a symptom of a sick society?  Do we blame movies and TV and video games and music?  No matter who or what we blame, is there any way to "fix" it? 

As I said, I have no solution.  I just felt it necessary to say something, something about so many people dying senselessly. 

Closed Captioning I have a pet peeve about Closed Captioning. When TV is closed captioned, Government funds are spent to defray the captioning process. This is great when a good captionist transcribes the spoken word, and a total failure when computer voice recognition is used. Case in point, NetFlix. NetFlix promised me that by this time they would have 80$ of all their content captioned. Sorry, FAIL. They might have 45% captioned. Now, if it was quality captioning, I could give them a By on their lack, but it is bad, nay, terrible captioning. YouTube is a travesty. To see what I mean, check out just about any of the George Carlin skits. Try SNL skits on youtube also. We aren't even talking bad Youtube captioning, were talking incomprehensible bad. Later, I'll find some links. Youtube is free, so you have to give them some slack. NetFlix and other internet movie providers are pay for though, and there is no excuse.

OctoNovemCember and Pumpkin-Headed Turkey Claus

http://www.retailmenot.com/

HappyHoliday.

Open Blog - Monday

It would only be worse on Windows 98.