geezers need for speed

A German pensioner was arrested after fitting a chainsaw engine to his wife's bicycle and hurtling down the road at 40mph.
The 73-year-old man, from Ulm, said he was only testing the bike out but now faces charges of operating a motor vehicle without a licence.
He told officers he meant his creation to be nothing more than a conversation piece.
But police disagreed and told him the 2.3 horsepower petrol motor attached to the bike's rear wheel constituted a motor vehicle.
Police confiscated the bike and sent the man on his way - with a summons and a borrowed bicycle.

cheeseheads are using wackos from Arizona - will the madness ever stop!

Assembly Speaker John Gard's decision to appoint an extremist group as the Legislature's counsel in the fight over whether to extend health benefits to the domestic partners of state workers has evolved into a national embarrassment for Wisconsin.
Unwilling to trust Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and the state Department of Justice to do their job, Gard brought in the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona legal firm that is closely tied to far-right religious and political groups, to oppose a lawsuit that seeks health insurance for domestic partners. Gard, who seems to have become obsessed with denying protections to gays and lesbians, is concerned that the lawsuit might force the state to stop discriminating. And, apparently because its principals share his homophobia, Gard believes the Alliance Defense Fund team will do a better job of promoting his agenda than Wisconsin lawyers would.
Unfortunately, the Alliance Defense Fund has been associated with some of the wackier instances of anti-gay extremism to surface in recent years. The fund's co-founder has devoted inordinate amounts of time to arguing that the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is gay. He has also called for a "second civil war" - over cultural issues - in the United States.
As Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, correctly noted after the controversy heated up last week: "If bringing in fringe extremists who think cartoon characters are gay is the only way to fight providing health care benefits to Wisconsin families, it is a sad day in Wisconsin."
Just how sad is rapidly becoming evident.
Gard's decision to make Wisconsin the first state in the country to align with the extremists at the Alliance Defense Fund is drawing negative attention far beyond the state's borders.
Noting the legal firm's history of fierce opposition to equal treatment for all citizens, Joe Solmonese, the president of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, condemned Gard's move. "This group is far from unbiased and the people of Wisconsin did not elect it to speak for them," Solmonese said. "Wisconsinites did elect the attorney general, who should be the one seeing this case through. The Legislature has seriously overstepped its bounds."
Solmonese, who heads the nation's largest lesbian and gay political organization, explained that "Wisconsin's interest is best served with an unbiased, thoughtful assessment regarding equal employment benefits. Employees with same-sex partners are now doing equal work for less compensation. Domestic partner benefits make good business sense. They enhance an employer's overall compensation package with negligible cost to the company and are a hallmark of whether a company values diversity. If the Legislature is hearing from the Alliance Defense Fund, I urge legislators to also hear from companies in the state that have already learned these lessons."
More than 60 major corporations in Wisconsin offer domestic partner benefits to their employees. They include Miller Brewing Co., American Family Insurance Group, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, and SC Johnson & Son Inc. In addition, 11 states - California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - provide these benefits. In Massachusetts, where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, equal access to benefits is also assured.
The debate over same-sex marriage is far from being settled in Wisconsin, or nationally. But Wisconsin, which has a better history than most states of protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation, ought not be bringing in extremist groups to represent the Legislature in this fight.
Gard should back off his relationship with the Alliance Defense Fund. If he fails to do so, then legislative Republicans really need to ask whether they want the state's good name to be associated with a fringe group that specializes in "exposing" cartoon characters and calling for a new civil war. In particular, Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, the Richland Center Republican who is one of the Legislature's saner members, needs to distance himself from Gard's madness.

Yes, a spill does change everything...for awhile at least....

A spill on a bicycle in spring changes everything
By Michele Herman
I’m lying in a pothole on Bleecker St. stopping traffic, which is interesting because a second ago I was traffic. A second ago it was an ordinary sunny April Sunday and I was riding my bike right behind my husband, as always. We were headed to Bigelow Pharmacy for an embarrassingly ordinary middle-aged errand: shopping for reading glasses. What was I thinking and where was I looking when I rode into a pothole big enough to swallow my front wheel and reconfigure my season? I have no idea.
Here’s what I do remember. Something big and soft plops onto my head. Ah, I think. Here comes my knapsack from the baby seat. I reach instinctively for my left elbow — my dominant elbow, my writing elbow — and find it, but not in the right location at all. I am suddenly overcome, not with pain, anger or fear, but gratitude for my long unbroken string of good fortune and health, my 20-odd years of uneventful daily bicycling, my comfortable life. Lying with the sun on my face and the Bleecker St. strolling fashionistas looking quite concerned, I wonder how I got lucky enough to live in a world that grants me a hot shower every day. If a broken bone or two is the price I have to pay, I tell myself, no problem! I can do this! I can do it with grace and good humor!
I calmly watch the day’s plot change, as if the editor has yelled, “Get me rewrite!” My husband, noticing I’m no longer behind him, comes back for me. A kind (and fashionable) stranger calls an ambulance. The saleswoman from Marc Jacobs brings me a bottle of water (what, no handbag? says a friend later). It’s a good day at the St. Vincent’s E.R.: only three-and-a-half hours. My thoughtful husband leaves to shoot pictures of the hole for possible lawsuit purposes. When the resident finally tells that I’ve broken my olecranon bone and will need surgery, I say, “Olecranon. That’s a nice word.”
Shock is a beautiful thing. Mine, wearing its clever disguise of lucidity, carries me through the day. But as I leave with my husband, the name of a surgeon and the general idea of wires or plates and screws in my future, new feelings pry at its edges. I try to hold them at bay, but when do nausea and discomfort and worry take no for an answer? I am wearing a hand-to-armpit plaster cast. Inside I’m wrapped tightly in synthetic cotton and outside in synthetic ace bandages. I have a slippery synthetic sling held in place with a hard square of velcro. They might as well roll my arm in poison ivy and saw my shoulder open. Seventh Ave.’s surface has been roughened in preparation for repaving, a sight any cyclist loves to see. I realize with a pang that this is irrelevant to my life.
The orthopedic surgeon is kind and professional and metes out bad news in small doses. Oh, bone pain, he says. It’s on a whole different scale from soft-tissue pain. Later he tells me about the stagnancy of elbow skin, sitting there right on the bone with no blood supply to renew it. That, and the swelling, are why I have to wait two weeks for surgery.
The day after the pothole, Ruggles the puppy is scheduled to be neutered. The whole household is bollixed up. Unused to walking on my right side, he insists on coming around to my left. All spring long, every few steps I have to untangle us.
Back for pre-surgery X-rays, they cut off my bandages (before I’m done I’ll have four casts; they toss out plaster and bandages around here like candy wrappers). I carry my denuded yellowish arm in my good one, cradled like a wounded waterfowl, shrunken in the bicep, enlarged at the elbow. I walk slowly to the X-ray room praying: please don’t touch me; please don’t hurt me.When I wake up, the recovery nurse, the friendly face of post-op, keeps asking if I feel pain. I nod. She turns up the morphine drip and shakes her head with increasing disapproval. Dry-mouthed, I ask about the friend who agreed to pick me up. No one’s arrived and no one’s called, she insists. I defend my friend. Again she shakes her head as if to say, what do you know about friends? Turns out my friend has been in the waiting room all along. Before she’s done, she will make a pharmacy run, button my jeans, dispose of my barf basin and other unsavory tasks only a good and reliable friend would perform.
I can’t bike, can’t run, can’t lift weights, can’t do laundry but, oh, can I ever walk. I become a student of the sidewalk. One Duane Reade goes by, then another and another. “Eyebrow threading” businesses, whatever they are, are everywhere; how have I missed this? Whole days slip by. Thank heaven for the long and sunny spring.
At the surgery follow-up, the surgeon says, “Manage the pain however you have to. You have to get the motion back.” I begin occupational therapy and move to a hard plastic splint, removable, that looks like a giant bone. I like my therapist. I like her receptionist and her other patients and their stories. If only she didn’t hurt me on purpose. The therapist says it’s a terrible strain physically and psychically to navigate the world without your dominant arm. It’s true. Sleep is the bonus. My body craves it, my bones demand it. Once I was a writer; now I am a napper.
I stand in the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. I move my head forward and to the left like an Egyptian; I Mick Jagger my lips. The toothbrush is still a foot from my mouth. Just because you can’t do it now, I tell myself, doesn’t mean you will never do it. You have to be patient and have faith. No wonder my kids scoff at my lectures. It’s obvious I will never brush my teeth left-handed. My right arm is a good sport, but it’s gawky and dumb.
One pothole, and I spend a season devoid of my two most trusty tools, two of the things that make me most myself: my left arm and my bike. Without my writing arm, my conduit between my inner and outer selves, I clog up with words. My old friend the keyboard taunts me. I hunt-and-peck an occasional e-mail, all lower case, and need a nap. Bicycling seems like Anatevka, a homeland far away that I was forced to vacate without notice.
This morning in the shower, doing deep cleansing breaths, I succeed at thumbing my nose. How can I have criticized my right arm? My right arm is brilliant; how easy it makes everything look! I hold thumb to nose for a count of 30, though my bones and joints, down to the wrist, tell me this is wrong, this is too taut, I will crack open. I emerge triumphant. A month ago my world was wider and my goals loftier: novels, story collections, political actions. For now, I stand in the hot shower counting my blessings and taking my successes where they come.

This sucks

Anderson, Indiana - A man who pedalled across the United States after heart bypass surgery gave him a second chance at life has died of a heart attack, one day after completing the 3 900km trip.Broc Bebout, a 57-year-old retired engineer, died on Thursday on the drive back to his home in Anderson, about 40km north-east of Indianapolis, one day after completing the ride from Carlsbad, California, to Brunswick, Georgia.His wife, Patricia Brinkman, said cycling became Bebout's ticket to nearly 20 years of good health after quadruple-bypass surgery at age 39.He also learned to eat right and take care of himself, she said.

Feeling happy, or feeling sad?

Where can you find happiness? Texas, that's where. Three of its cities placed in the top four: number one, Laredo; number two, El Paso; and number four, Corpus Christi.
The 20 Happiest Cities
1. Laredo, TX: A+
2. El Paso, TX: A+
3. Jersey City, NJ: A+
4. Corpus Christi, TX: A+
5. Baton Rouge, LA: A
6. Honolulu, HI: A-
7. Fresno, CA: A-
8. San Jose, CA: A-
9. Lincoln, NE: B+
10. Bakersfield, CA: B+
11. Buffalo, NY: B+
12. Anchorage, AK: B+
13. Stockton, CA: B+
14. Shreveport, LA: B+
15. (3-way tie) Madison, WI: B, Montgomery, AL: B, and Des Moines, IA: B
18. Wichita, KS: B
19. (tie) Sacramento, CA: B and Omaha, NE: B
The 20 Most Depressed Cities
1. Philadelphia, PA: F
2. Detroit, MI: F
3. St. Petersburg, FL: F
4. St. Louis, MO: F
5. Tampa, FL: F
6. Indianapolis, IN: F
7. (3-way tie) Mesa, AZ: F, Phoenix, AZ: F, and Scottsdale, AZ: F
10. Cleveland, OH: F
11. New York, NY: D-
12. Salt Lake City, UT: D-
13. Atlanta, GA: D
14. (3-way tie) Yonkers, NY: D, Pittsburgh, PA: D, and Kansas City, MO: D
17. (3-way tie) Long Beach, CA: D, Los Angeles, CA: D, Nashville, TN" D
20. Portland, OR: D

Save Oil, legalize hemp!

Hemp industry poised for a comeback
Ron Chepesiuk, Vermont Guardian
Industrial hemp has long been a lucrative crop for farmers in Canada, Europe, and Asia, and governments in many countries have encouraged research into its development. In April, for instance, the Government of Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program awarded Hempton Clothing, Inc., the world’s largest hemp T-shirt apparel brand, a $223,118 grant in recognition of the company’s work in developing environmentally friendly fabrics and garments in 2002 and 2003.
This is one of many such grants the Canadian government has made available for hemp research.
In the United States, however, the forces of drug prohibition have long associated hemp with marijuana, and the U.S. government has blocked its use. Yet, hemp and marijuana come from different varieties of the cannabis plant, and low THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) varieties of cannabis are cultivated for non-drug uses, such as soap, paper, food, and even high tech bio composites used in automobiles. THC is an active ingredient found in hemp, marijuana, and hashish.
“There are millions of cars on the road with hemp door panels, tens of millions of dollars spent annually on hemp food and hemp body care, and hemp paper is being made in the U.S., ” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, director of government relations for Vote Hemp, a Washington, DC, nonprofit dedicated to the acceptance of industrial hemp. ”So people are asking tough questions about why the U.S. government won’t distinguish low THC hemp from high THC drug varieties.”
But it looks like this state of affairs is about to change. Hemp industry spokesmen are optimistic that hemp farming is about to make a comeback almost 50 years after federal law prevented U.S. farmers from growing the crop. The end of its three-year battle with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and recent pro-hemp, state sponsored initiatives are the two big reasons for the hemp industry’s optimism.
The hemp industry’s battle with the U.S. government ended in February when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the DEA to pay $21,265 in legal expenses to Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. The Escondido, CA-based company, which has used hemp oil in its soap products since 1998, largely financed the Hemp Industries Association’s fight to overturn DEA efforts to ban the sale of foods containing hemp products. The association is a trade group of hemp businesses that represents the interests of the hemp industry and works to encourage research and development of new hemp products.
Earlier, the 9th Circuit ruled that the DEA had ignored Congress’s exemption to the Controlled Substance Act, which specifically exempts hemp seed, fiber, and oil from government regulation, and agreed with the association that hemp seed contained just minor traces of THC, much like poppy seed contains insignificant amounts of opiates. In regulating the manufacture and distribution of controlled substances, the Controlled Substance Act provides the legal foundation for the U.S. government’s war on drugs. Then, on July 2, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the DEA’s petition for a re-hearing of the case. The DEA had the option of appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the allotted time for an appeal expired on September 28, 2004.
“Nobody has ever been able to block the DEA in court from interpreting the law the way it wanted,” said Adam Eidinger, Vote Hemp’s communications director. “The court decision was 3 to 0, and even the Reagan appointee on the court agreed with us. It was a reality check for the DEA.”
David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, added, “It’s a sweet victory and certainly an embarrassment to the DEA. It proves that the DEA’s attempt to ban hemp never had any legal merit.”
In making its case to ban hemp, the DEA claimed that the use of hemp products could cause a false positive reading of drug tests. Hemp activists maintain that companies in the hemp industry voluntarily observe reasonable THC limits similar to those observed by hemp businesses in Canada and European countries, and that these limits protect consumers with a wide margin of safety from workplace drug testing interference.
Manufacturers of hemp nut and oil products in North America also participate in a TestPledge program, hemp activists pointed out. Manufacturers pledge to hold the THC in hemp nut and oil below levels that makes failing a drug test extremely unlikely, even when a person consumes large amounts of those products on a daily basis.
As for personal care products made with hemp seed oil, Eidinger said, “In recent years, a handful of people have alleged that they failed workplace drug tests because of using hemp oil products on the skin. Such allegations were routinely proven false, and there has yet to be a case in which someone was excused [from work] due to the use of hemp oil personal care products.”
As the hemp industry savors its court victory, it is making gains in the legislative arena. This year, several state legislatures are considering hemp legislation that would allow farmers to grow industrial hemp. Five states (Hawaii, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia) allow for hemp farming on a commercial or research basis, but hemp can’t be legally grown in the United States without a permit from the DEA. According to Vote Hemp, the agency has allowed only an experimental plot in Hawaii.
In California, Assemblyman Mark Leno introduced a bill that would allow the California State Department of Food and Agriculture to issue licenses to grow and process hemp. Companies that sell hemp products must now contract with Canadian farmers for their hemp. Nutiva, a California-based organic food company, estimates that it would save more than $100,000 in transportation and related costs if it could buy hemp seeds from California growers and process them at a plant the company plans to build in California.
“We pay Exxon and Chevron a lot of gasoline for truckers,” John Roulac, Nutiva’s president and founder, told the Sacramento Union newspaper. “We’d rather pay that money to California farmers to grow a sustainable crop.”
Leno’s bill bans anyone with a criminal conviction from getting a license to process or grow hemp and requires that the hemp be tested in the fields so as to ensure that the THC levels don’t exceed the prescribed limits. A hearing of the bill before the Senate Environment and Wildlife Committee was scheduled for April 19.
The California initiative is similar to other bills introduced in North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Oregon.
In North Dakota, House Bill 1492 passed Feb. 16 by a vote of 87 to 3; a similar bill passed in the Senate on March 1 by 46 to 0, and is awaiting the governor’s action. In 1999, North Dakota became the first state to pass hemp farming legislation, but it hasn’t challenged the DEA’s authority in the courts. The proposal allows North Dakota State University to begin storing “feral seed hemp” in anticipation of the day the growing of industrial hemp becomes legal.
The bill in Oregon allows the State Department of Agriculture to administer a licensing, permitting, and implementation program for growers and handlers of hemp. On April 6, the state Senate Environment and Land Committee took testimony.
The New Hampshire proposal requires qualifying farmers with no criminal convictions to plant at least five acres of hemp annually. A bill passed the New Hampshire House on March 23 by a margin of 199 to 68, and has moved to the Senate for consideration.
Vote Hemp is currently working with Congressman Ron Paul, R-TX, to introduce the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, which aims to distinguish hemp from marijuana and legalize the former for U.S. farmers to grow.
Hemp advocates say these legislative initiatives make them excited about their industry’s future. “We want American farmers to have the opportunity to grow industrial hemp without being harassed by the DEA,” Eidinger said.
About

Robot Soldier....

"They don't get hungry. They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot."
- GORDON JOHNSON, of the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command, on robot soldiers.

Oh my gawd, Bush tells a fib?

Mr. Emanuel said: "The new cost estimate destroys the credibility of the Bush administration. Officials were so far off in estimating the cost of the Medicare law. Why should we believe what they say about the financial problems of Social Security?"


Why should we believe him about Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Why should we believe him that the Iraqi's will love us?

Other fibs will come flowing shortly....

Hey, I am not 55 either for 60 days...

A quote from an editorial....I agree....

On a point of personal privilege, I note that Bush promised Americans aged 55 and up that they would receive full benefits, but threw open the doors of the opportunity society to all “younger workers.” That means that if Congress were to enact Bush's program (which he took pains not to spell out last night) within the next month, I'd be exposed to the vagaries of the market; after that, I'd be a full-fledged geezer eligible for full Social Security benefits. So, memo to Congress: Take it slow, guys. Better yet, don't take it at all.

I remember when gas was this price!

I remember a time when my dad was so happy that he could buy 5 gallons for a dollar! Gas wars of the 60's as I recall. I was just a yungun....


OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- A misplaced decimal point gave drivers a surprisingly good deal on gas, and even inspired some threats of violence at a west Omaha filling station Wednesday night.
Carolyn Folsom, who occasionally helps her brother and father run the self-service, attendant-less Shell station, said she goofed Wednesday afternoon when entering prices into the computer that runs the fuel tanks. A gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline was supposed to cost $1.89 but ended up costing only 18 cents.
"I don't know if my finger missed the nine or what," Folsom said. "The whole family is laughing about this. I will never live this down."
Folsom said about 500 gallons of gas were sold during the several hours the price was down, costing the business about $1000. The station does not have an attendant and the only way to pay is at the pump, so the mistake went unnoticed for hours.

A fuel truck driver who came to deliver gas discovered the problem and tried to block the entrance of the station with his truck, Folsom said.
But by then word was out and the rush for cheap fuel was on.
Folsom said one person threatened to hit the fuel truck driver with a hammer if he didn't stop blocking the entrance.
"That's the thing that upsets me," Folsom said. "I mean, grow up."
Folsom said her father fixed the price about 7:15 p.m. And he's forgiven her for the mistake, she said.

A geezer bike owned by a geezer

For 75 of his 95 years, William Wagstaff rode the same bicycle -- until a brush with a car finally made him decide to stop pedalling and donate the bike to a transport museum.Wagstaff, from Croydon in southern England, bought the bicycle for £14 in 1929, the Daily Mirror newspaper said on Wednesday.Over the years he pedalled more than 80 000km on the bike, which he named "Evans" after its manufacturer.He replaced the saddle twice, used up 15 sets of tyres -- but kept the original saddlebag and tool-kit, plus a World War II oil lamp masked with blackout paper."Even into his nineties, he used it two or three times a week. But a car knocked him off and upset his confidence," Wagstaff's daughter told the newspaper.Robert Excell, curator at London's Transport Museum to which Wagstaff donated the cycle, said: "It's remarkably well preserved, partly because they were made out of stronger steel in those days and partly because Mr. Wagstaff soaked everything in oil to preserve it. It's a real gem." -- Sapa-DPA

What did you think?

They probably lack the capability the people of Vietnam did....don't care!



"The Iraqis lack certain capacities, and if we focus in this next period after the election on helping them to build those capacities beyond where they are now, I think we will have done a major part toward the day when less coalition help is needed."
- CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Comet crashing rocket

Sort of worried about NASA sending a rocket to crash into a comet. I can only think of bad things that could happen.

1) The rocket hits the comet. It changes the course of the comet which then runs into the earth and kills us all. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!

2) The rocket hits the comet. Really pisses off the aliens that are using it for their observation site. They attack the earth and kill us all!

Hmmm, you can see there are all sorts of bad things that can come of this!

Tourist says he has been stumped by this situation!

A German professor who went on a dream holiday to Costa Rica woke up in an airport departure lounge to find his leg had been amputated. The professor said he had gone to see a doctor at a hospital in San Jose because his left foot was swollen. He said: “An aspirin usually did the trick. I have had the problem before - it was nothing serious - just something caused by my diabetes. “When I got to the hospital they put me on a bed and I heard the word amputate. I tried to protest, but before I knew it they had given me drugs to black me out, and when I woke up I was at the departure lounge. “My suitcases were by my side - and then I realised my leg was missing. I couldn’t move, and when I checked my wallet I found that £200 had been taken out and replaced with a receipt for the amputation.

GET DOWN AND DO YOUR PUSH UPS YOU MAGGOT!!!!

"Tonight eat only half the dessert. And then go out and walk around the block. And if you are going to watch television get down and do 10 push-ups and five sit-ups."
- TOMMY THOMPSON, secretary of Health and Human Services, on new diet
guidelines.


Tommy doesn't look like he misses too many desserts!

How forward looking they are in Wisconsin

In 1972, my first job out of college, paid $6 an hour. I could have gone to work at a newspaper for $5 an hour, but I went to the higher paying job in surveying. It is nice that 32 years later, the great state of wisconsin thinks $6 an hour might be a fair minimum wage. GET A LIFE!

Madison - The Assembly's leader said Friday that he would be willing to raise the statewide minimum wage to $6 per hour - a sign that Republican lawmakers are increasingly nervous about the possibility of Milwaukee becoming the second city to set its own wage.
The Push for a Wage Increase
"I don't believe we should have all these communities doing all these different things," Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-Peshtigo) said, explaining why he could support a compromise that would lift the minimum wage from the current $5.15 per hour.
Gard offered no details of how or over what period the current wage should be boosted.
But Democratic Gov Jim. Doyle immediately said a $6-per-hour minimum wage would be too low. He would not agree to a scale of less than $6.50 an hour, saying that figure had been recommended by a bipartisan group of business and labor leaders.
The exchange came the day after Milwaukee leaders followed Madison's lead, and said they were looking into raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin's largest city. Madison increased its minimum wage to $5.50 on Jan. 1, and it is scheduled to rise to $7.75 per hour in January 2008.
Madison is being sued by business groups over the city's wage increase.
Last year, a committee Doyle appointed recommended a two-step increase to $6.50 an hour - a process the Legislature should seriously consider, another Republican leader, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), said Friday.
A co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, Fitzgerald said he had talked to Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) about a possible increase in the minimum wage, but Fitzgerald did not offer his own plan.
Wisconsin's minimum wage "should be closer" to the recommended two-stage boost of $6.50, Fitzgerald said. Republicans in the Legislature this week delayed until the end of 2006 a state agency's rule that would have implemented that boost, however.
Doyle has said he wants the state to have a uniform minimum wage, but he understands why frustrated municipalities might take action on their own.
"Like I've always said, I'm in favor of a statewide minimum wage, and we would make sure then that it's uniform across the state," Doyle said Friday.
"We have a process in Wisconsin that was established decades ago that. . . is intended to keep legislators from playing these kinds of political games."
State Sen. Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) offered his own compromise Friday. It would raise the minimum wage to $6.50 per hour and forbid any city from enacting any higher wage.
Also Friday, Gard said the Legislature should act quickly next week to refinance long-term state debt to save $11 million. But he said that $7.5 million of that should go to pay for a 2005 state income tax credit for Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs.
HSAs offer federal - but not state - tax deductions for setting aside money to pay future health-care bills. Gard said the state tax code should mirror the federal rules.
Gard said the Assembly could pass the debt-refinancing, which the governor wants, and add the HSA tax breaks as early as Tuesday.
But Doyle said: "Not much chance I'm going to agree to that. Here's $11 million of taxpayers' money. Let's not spend it before we even have the money."
Lawmakers bent on spending the $11 million should "restrain themselves," Doyle said. "It's simply a matter of making this (refinancing) so that we can save taxpayers the money and resist the temptation to go out and spend it as quickly as they can."
Senate leader Schultz said Friday that the $11 million should be set aside as a down payment on a deficit of more than $220 million in state health-care costs.

Be careful with those thermometers

DETROIT (AP) -- The sign on the toilet brush says it best: "Do not use for personal hygiene."
That admonition was the winner of an anti-lawsuit group's contest for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year.
The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal is "to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products."
The $500 first prize went to Ed Gyetvai, of Oldcastle, Ontario, who submitted the toilet-brush label. A $250 second prize went to Matt Johnson, of Naperville, Ill., for a label on a children's scooter that said, "This product moves when used."

A $100 third prize went to Ann Marie Taylor, of Camden, S.C., who submitted a warning from a digital thermometer that said, "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."
This year's contest coincides with a drive by President Bush and congressional Republicans to put caps and other limits on jury awards in liability cases.
"Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times," said group President Robert Dorigo Jones. "From the moment we raise our head in the morning off pillows that bear those famous Do Not Remove warnings, to when we drop back in bed at night, we are overwhelmed with warnings."
The leader of a group that opposes the campaign to limit lawsuits admits that while some warning labels may seem stupid, even dumb warnings can do good.
"There are many cases of warning labels saving lives," said Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy in New York. "It's much better to be very cautious ... than to be afraid of being made fun of by a tort reform group."

Dixie is a nice unity song for the Republicans!

Band's version of one-time Presley tune hits sour note with someAssociated Press
MADISON, Wis. - As if the incoming Legislature didn't have enough problems, a high school band's rendition of a tune that was an Elvis Presley hit decades ago drew a complaint from a newly elected member of the Senate.
The Richland Center High School band played "An American Trilogy" at the Senate's inaugural ceremony at the Capitol Monday - the first day of a session expected to be dominated by battles over budget-cutting, a tax-freeze amendment and a myriad of other issues.
Sen. Spencer Coggs, who is black, said he was shocked, as were his family and other guests, to hear the strains of the Southern anthem "Dixie" played in the Senate chamber as part of the trilogy, along with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "All My Trials."
Coggs, a Democrat from Milwaukee, complained in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center.
"Whether the slight was intentional or not, the selection was not appropriate," he wrote, noting that "Dixie" is often associated with slavery.
"While now it should be unnecessary to suggest, in the future a list of songs should be submitted prior to a performance and the list should be reviewed for its appropriateness," he said. "It is unfortunate that this special day was marred by such an unnecessary event."
Schultz had invited the band and choir to play at the ceremony.
He said the complaint caught him by surprise.
"A simple apology is what's needed," Schultz said, "and I will certainly be happy to do that."
He said he wasn't aware of every musical selection the band prepared for the event, and the piece has some historical significance.
"But I want everyone to feel included. If Sen. Coggs felt offended, I would want to extend my hand in apology."

Why we should not be in Iraq...

On Dec. 27, 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.


And it went so well for the next decade....

Get rid of cars!

"We're having too many fatalities. The streets are too wide," said Stanton, District 6. "We need to let pedestrians know that they are welcome on our streets."