My thoughts on the Chadcast

For my thoughts and opinions on this week's podcast, feel free to visit me here. I tend to do a review each week. Sometimes I have quite a bit to say, sometimes Chad pretty much says it all...

new podcast

Another week, another podcast...this one on Pop Culture and hero worship.


LISTEN TO IT!!


http://thechad.mypodcast.com/2009/07/No_More_Heros-220863.html

Oh how I love being an American....

or What I did on my 4th of July holiday weekend.


Thursday night: painted the apartment with the future inlaws and the fiancee. The kitchen is now Weeping Wisteria (a shade of purple) and the master bedroom has one wall that is Frozen Pomegranate as an accent wall. The bathroom will by Utah Sky (blue) when done, but for now, it's only trimmed out and waiting for a roller.

Friday: slept in then Beloved and I went to see Transformers 2, or otherwise titled "Let's watch Megan Foxes' boobs bounce around." Not bad, and I picked up some details I missed the first time I saw it last weekend. Back home to pack the cooler and then take the shuttle down to the lakefront for the fireworks....wait...what's that? I can't take the cooler on the bus? Oh...well then...we'll just leave it in the car.

Get to the lakefront and connect with my buddy Chris and his girlfriend Sarah and make our way up to Mckinley Park to wait for the Baddest Fireworks Evar!...or so I say. Bumped into Asian Badger and Chris from Racine's Spousal Unit, then headed for the nearest open patch of grass we could find.

Side note: Seriously people in Milwaukee, why are you staking off areas of the park big enough to build a stinkin' house on??? Basketball hoops? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. /rant

Fireworks make Chad happy...very happy. Bus ride home wasn't too bad. Said goodbye to Chris and Sarah, knowing we will see them in less than a month since Chris is one of my Honor Guard.

Saturday: Up and over to Beloved's house to meet up with her Dad and head to Holz Chevrolot's annual car show. Hook up with Curtis, who has his 1964 Corvair Spyder convertible in the show, and drool over cars we can't have. Much fun and sun. Back to Beloved's house for Chili dogs and dominoes with Uncle Howard. At this point, I feel a slight head cold coming on...Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?? Head home and dope up on Nyquil and Emergen-C.

Sunday: up for church, then lunch with friends. Back to the O-town Compound to work on a client's PC and rest before going to Slinger for the stock car races with the same friends we had lunch with. YAY RACECARS!!! I love racecars!! :D:D:D

Back home, drop off the friends and Beloved and then make my way to the O-town Compound to check on said computer and soon sleep.

Not once this weekend was I interrogated by special police asking for my papers or anything like that. I drove my car where I wanted to see who I wanted to see, because I'm an Americian, and someone died for that privilege, and for that, I am thankful.

Two people in the world have ever died for you: Jesus Christ, and the American solider. One died for your sins, the other died for your freedom.

AMEN!!

Doyle's Travel Reports Deficient

Doyle spending excessively? Not turning in receipts? I'm shocked...SHOCKED!! A few snippets from this article...

Gov. Jim Doyle and his staff failed to properly account for 145 travel expenses over two years, including a $5,200 business-class flight to Ireland and a $654-a-night stay in a London hotel.

Nearly three-fourths of the time in 2007 and 2008, Doyle and his staff didn't supply receipts as required under state travel policy. By comparison, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and her staff didn't provide receipts one-third of the time during the same period.

Travel records also showed Doyle spent more than $1,500 on two chauffeured vehicles in Canada. That expenditure did not violate state travel policy, however.

State policy requires employees to provide receipts for purchases made with their state-issued credit cards for flights, hotels and other expenses. That documentation was often missing from hundreds of pages of Doyle's travel records obtained under the state's open records law.

But Susan Goodwin, Doyle's chief of staff, said the governor's office acted appropriately in all cases. "We are careful," she said. "We are frugal. We minimize costs. If you stepped back and looked at the bigger picture instead of the tiny details of following some (Department of Administration) policies, you would look at that list and say, 'Wow, how many times did he actually have dinner somewhere? . . . How little did he travel?'

Among expenses that weren't properly documented was a business-class ticket to Ireland for Doyle in April 2008 that cost $5,226 round trip. An accompanying coach-class ticket for Goodwin cost $830. They made the trip to Ireland and England to meet with the head of SABMiller about the merger of Miller Brewing and Coors and to discuss policy issues with government officials.

The travel policy requires state employees to purchase the lowest appropriate airfare, which is described as coach fare. More expensive charges require written justification, but that wasn't provided for Doyle's trip to Ireland.

Goodwin and Chandra Miller Fienen, Doyle's chief legal counsel, said the more expensive ticket was warranted because Doyle needed to be well-rested. "We can't afford to have the governor sick," Miller Fienen said. "We have to make sure that the governor arrives able to do his job, able to participate fully . . . and we have to protect the governor's health."

Are you kidding me?? We can't afford to have the governor sick?? Sorry folks, but what we CAN'T AFFORD is to spend an extra $4,396 to make sure that this jackass is "well rested." Is this the best justification they can come up with?? The arrogance of this man is astounding. From the chauffered vehicles in Canada to the $600+ hotel rooms in London, it sure seems to me that this governor moves around quite a bit, contrary to his chief of staff's assertions.

I simply cannot understand how this pompous ass can face himself in the mirror while people all over Wisconsin are losing their jobs and businesses are fleeing the state at an alarming rate. We deserve better...MUCH better. 2010 can't get here soon enough.

Fundraiser for a Killer: Update

An update to this post...

CAMPBELLSPORT, Wis. -- A bar fundraiser for a man accused of killing a woman while driving drunk has been canceled.

Fatties Bar near Campbellsport was planning to raise money for Jay Taylor.

He's accused of crashing his motorcycle while driving drunk in May, resulting in the death of his passenger, Crystal Daly.

Her family denounced the fundraiser for taking place at a bar, and for using Daly's photo in the fliers advertising the event.

Bar workers said that the event was canceled on Saturday.

While I would like to believe that common sense prevailed, I suspect it was more public outrage that resulted in the cancellation of this ridiculous event. Regardless of the motivation behind the cancellation, the outcome is, in my opinion, the correct one.

A Tribute to America

Godaddy.com has created an AWESOME tribute for the 4th of July. You can see it here. This video gave me goosebumps and made me mist up a bit. I guess for those of us who cherish and honor our country and those who fought and continue to fight for it, this is a natural reaction. Thank you godaddy.com!!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

Our taxpayer dollars at work

This was on the front page of the Racine Journal Times today. The jist of the story about a man who found a deer on the side of the road, ate it and had the head stuffed:

A “confidential informant” called the DNR in June 2008 to say Longo had collected the carcass and never got the permit. A DNR warden went to his house, and Longo confirmed the story.

On June 23, 2008, Longo got a ticket for not obtaining the permit. He fought it.

Longo pleaded not guilty in Racine County Circuit Court and in August took the case to trial before Judge Allan “Pat” Torhorst. Torhorst found him guilty, fined him $1 and ordered him to surrender the deer head to the DNR “upon request.”The judge then set a time limit of Oct. 31, 2008 for the DNR to get the deer head from Longo. If the agency failed to do so by then, Torhorst ruled, the DNR must give Longo a permit to possess the head.

When Torhorst ordered the agency to issue a permit allowing Longo to keep the head, even though it was illegal, the agency decided to appeal.Longo never responded to the appeal, giving up his right to fight the claim. On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals reversed Torhorst’s decision and directed him to order Longo to “return the mounted deer head to the DNR without further delay.”“(Torhorst) had no authority to require us to give a permit to possess a deer (Longo) had no right to possess in the first place,” said Michael Lutz, chief counsel for the DNR. “No one in the DNR felt they were in a position to comply with that court order. None of us could in good faith or good conscience allow him to possess something that’s illegal to possess.”

This is what our taxpayer dollars are being spent on?? Freakin' DEER HEADS?? Now, I know that the DNR is a bloated, power hungry agency with their heads up their collective asses, but come ON! Perhaps they were correct (as the court ruled) that the Judge had no authority to do what he did, but WTF people!! It's a deer head for cryin' out loud. It's not like the DNR picks up the animals on the side of the road anymore...let the guy have his stupid head.

As a disclaimer, through my job I know the gentleman in the article, and he can be annoyingly stubborn, but this, in my opinion, is a COMPLETE waste of the court's time and taxypayer money.

Fundraiser for a Killer

This just turns my stomach…

A guy gets drunk on beer, climbs on a motorcycle and his female passenger dies in a crash. His favorite tavern, Fatties on the Lake, plans a fund-raiser. For him. For Jay Taylor, the guy in jail facing drunken homicide charges. And it's featuring free beer part of the day, though the flier makes no mention of safe rides home for everyone.

Even by Wisconsin drinking standards, this is messed up. And it has enraged relatives of the victim, Crystal Daly. "Why are they sponsoring drinking and driving?" wondered Kari Hartl of Milwaukee, Daly's cousin.

The prosecutor on the case, Kimberly Tenerelli, put it bluntly, making it clear she was speaking personally and not for her office. "I would hope in that situation that a bar would be collecting money for the victim and the victim's family, and not the person who killed them," she said.

I agree 100%. Seriously? Holding a fundraiser for a murderer?? Sure, I understand that the guy probably has friends who want to help, but isn’t this a bit insensitive??

Maybe the bar could skip the bikini motorcycle wash, too. And the bachelor auction might come off as insensitive, considering that it was Taylor's girlfriend who was killed. Taylor couldn't go to the party even if he made bail; the court ordered him to stay away from taverns.

Umm – bikini motorcycle wash and bachelor auction? Has everyone forgotten that a woman was killed because of this a$$hole’s actions?

The crash happened May 24 on Highway 67 in southern Fond du Lac County. According to the criminal complaint, the borrowed motorcycle careened into a ditch and tossed both riders. Daly, 31, flew into a pole and died at the scene. Taylor, 32, who also is charged with having no motorcycle license, was injured. His blood registered an alcohol level of 0.14, a little under twice the legal limit for driving. He has a 2004 OWI conviction in Milwaukee County. Even in his condition, Taylor understood that he faced dire consequences. The complaint says he told one of the cops that he might as well "shoot him right now and get it over with."

But then there's this aggravating detail: After he was treated at the hospital, Taylor was accidentally freed rather than handed over to sheriff's deputies. When they aught up with him later, tests showed he had been drinking again, Tenerelli said.

Hmmm – sounds like he’s really grieving, doesn’t it? For God’s sakes – he killed a woman, and his first thought is to go out and drink…again???

Taylor had a Campbellsport residence, but after his arrest, he changed it to a Bay View address where his family lives. Daly was going through a divorce and had moved out of her husband's place in Cudahy and into a West Allis apartment. They had no children. License records in Fond du Lac County show that Taylor was a bartender at Fatties on the Lake, near Campbellsport on Lake Bernice.

On the fliers it posted around that area, the bar says Taylor was in a "very bad and tragic bike accident" but doesn't mention his role in that crash or say exactly how the money will be used. The flier says he can't work or get insurance. "We hope that you will join us for some of the fun activities that we are going to hold to help our friend down this long, hard road ahead of him," it reads.

Now this makes my blood boil. HIS long hard road?? WTF? What about the long hard road for all of Ms. Daly’s friends and family? Ya know – the woman who DIED?? Good grief people – can we get our priorities straight?? Not a single mention of the victim?? In fact, not only is there no mention of Ms. Daly, but they are turning the PERPETRATOR into the victim.

Can’t work…can’t get insurance…cry me a freakin’ river.