Good Times

We went to (yet another) high school basketball game this evening.  The whole fam went.  We had the best time and drove home singing to Queen at the top of our lungs. 

Good memories were made tonight…

Bill To Include Mental Health For Background Checks Passes Senate

I’m OK with this bill.

The state Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would require gun dealers to check whether someone has been involuntarily committed for mental health reasons before selling them firearms.

The move is meant to help prevent shootings like the one at Virginia Tech in 2007 that killed 32 students and teachers.

Gun dealers currently have to conduct background checks through the state Department of Justice, but the checks don’t include information about mental health commitments by state courts.

The bill passed without debate and now heads to the Assembly, which like the Senate is controlled by Democrats. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has supported the idea in the past.

As the bill is written, the courts would have to declare if someone is unfit to possess a gun and notify the DOJ.  The courts would also have to notify the DOJ if a person is returned to being deemed fit to possess a gun.  Then the DOJ includes this information in the criminal background checks that they already do and the gun dealers are already required to request.  So the gun purchasers are afforded due process in the court system regarding their mental health status and it provides a reasonable layer of regulation for preventing nuts from legally buying guns. 

I don’t think that it will have any substantial effect on the true nuts who will find a way to get a gun, but it doesn’t strike me as overly onerous.  Nobody wants a nutjob to have a gun.

West Allis Alderman Fights Back Against Unfunded Mandates

Good for him.

The Legislature has approved an expansion of health insurance benefits for state and local government employees without providing any money to local governments to pay for them, Ald. Michael Czaplewski says.

“You have a Cadillac plan and now make it a Mercedes plan and have the people driving a 10-year-old Chevy pay for it,” he said Tuesday.

In an effort to stop what he says is another unfunded state mandate and a burden on taxpayers, Czaplewski is presenting a resolution tonight to the Common Council.

The resolution says that if the state passes any more mandates regarding pay or benefits for government employees, that it also give local governments the power to pass on the costs to employees.

As it is now, Czaplewski said, local governments must provide the benefits mandated by the state but can’t pass along costs because they are bound by employee contracts.

[...]

Czaplewski said he was prompted to propose the resolution after hearing news about some of the new benefits for state and local government employees that took effect Jan. 1.

Among them: dependents must be covered, up to age 27, if they are not married or employed and covered by employer health insurance; treatment of autism must be covered; hearing aids and cochlear implants must be covered at 100%, up from 80%, for deaf children.

Wood Says He Shouldn’t Be Disciplined By Assembly

Of course he did.

In a resolution released Tuesday, Wood recounts a series of lawmakers who have been charged with a range of crimes dating back to the 1940s. He said the Legislature took no action against them, and shouldn’t discipline him, either.

Wood, a former Republican, suggested he is being treated differently because he is an independent.

When Government Picks Winners and Losers

Doyle has been touting his spending of taxpayer dollars on buying trains with a no-bid contract and luring a Spanish company to Milwaukee.  It looks like it will result in some good things:

The passenger train factory to be developed at the former Tower Automotive plant on Milwaukee’s north side will create around 125 jobs, Gov. Jim Doyle and other officials said Tuesday morning.

Spanish train manufacturer Talgo will use a refurbished building at the former Tower site to assemble passenger trains that will be used in Wisconsin, Oregon and possibly other states. Around 60 positions will be needed to build the trains, with another 65 jobs tied to maintenance work.

Talgo had initially been expected to have around 80 positions at its Wisconsin plant. Doyle said the factory at the Tower site will also indirectly create an estimated 450 jobs at companies located throughout the Midwest that will provide supplies, equipment and services to Talgo.

That initial number of 80 jobs was based on Wisconsin’s $47.6 million controversial no-bid deal with Talgo to build two 14-car trains for use on Amtrak’s Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line. That contract includes an option to buy two more trains for a planned extension of that route from Milwaukee to Madison.

Of course, Milwaukee already has a company that builds trains: Super Steel.  But Doyle didn’t want to favor a local company because that’s not as cool.  Well, when the government picks winners, it also picks losers.

Milwaukee manufacturer Super Steel Products Corp. filed for receivership Tuesday, listing $44.4 million in liabilities and assets of “significantly less” than $16 million.

[...]

In this case, the receivership filing comes just one day after Super Steel was told it wouldn’t win a contract to build train cars for Spanish company Talgo. Super Steel had been pursuing the work.

German Family Receives Asylum Because Homeschooling is Persecuted in Germany

This is an interesting case.

The Romeikes are not your typical asylum seekers. They did not come to the U.S. to flee war or despotism in their native land. No, these music teachers left Germany because they didn’t like what their children were learning in public school - and because homeschooling is illegal there.

“It’s our fundamental right to decide how we want to teach our children,” says Uwe Romeike, an Evangelical Christian and a concert pianist who sold his treasured Steinway to help pay for the move.

Romeike decided to uproot his family in 2008 after he and his wife had accrued about $10,000 in fines for homeschooling their three oldest children and police had turned up at their doorstep and escorted them to school. “My kids were crying, but nobody seemed to care,” Romeike says of the incident. (See pictures of a diverse group of American teens.)

This is a mindset that’s becoming more prevalent in America.

Concerns that homeschooling could lead to insularity - or worse, as Kraus puts it, “could help foster the development of a sect” - are shaping policy debates in European countries.

Domino’s Gamble Pays Off

They took a risk and it’s paying off.  Good for them.

Revamped pizza and a frank advertising campaign helped Domino’s Pizza Inc. more than double its fourth-quarter profit as curious customers tried out its new recipe, the delivery chain said Tuesday.

Executives have said that the chain decided to start overhauling its recipes more than 18 months ago after mounting criticism from focus groups and on social media sites. And it boldly admitted in a series of documentary-style spots that under its old receipe, customers complained its crust tasted like cardboard and its sauce was reminscent of ketchup.

The company began promoting its new pie, which has a new sauce and cheese combination and herb- and garlic-flavored crust, in December. That helped the company’s profit climb to $23.6 million, or 41 cents per share, for the three months that ended Jan. 3.

Domino’s earned $11 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.

Removing one-time items, the company’s profit was 30 cents per share — well ahead of forecasts.

Neumann fires opening salvo

My column for the Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Neumann fires opening salvo.”  It starts…

The first angry shot of the gubernatorial Republican primary race was fired from the S.S. Neumann last week. Let’s hope it’s not the warning knell of a protracted bloody war.

Council Refuses to Weigh In on GM Decision

The West Bend Common Council got this one right.

The Common Council decided not to act on a resolution that would have protested the removal of the automobile franchise from Heiser Chevrolet Cadillac of West Bend.

   “I don’t see how the city gets off telling a corporation (what to do),” said Alderman Tony Turner.

   Mayor Kristine Deiss introduced the resolution, saying it came at the request of the chief operation officer of Heiser Automotive Group Inc., which runs five auto dealerships in Milwaukee and West Bend and a pair of Milwaukee auto body repair shops.

   “This is the first request we’ve ever gotten like this,” Deiss said of the resolution, which would have had the city urging “GM to reinstate the Chevrolet and Cadillac franchises to Heiser ...”

   She said the resolution would help Heiser “with their battle with GM to keep the franchise.”

   Alderman Michael Schlotfeldt said another GM dealership in West Bend could apply for those franchises.

   “I don’t want to be siding for one dealer over another,” he said.

Exactly.  Beyond the fact that it is meaningless since there’s no way that GM, owned by the federal government, is going to change its decision based on a resolution from West Bend, the city has no place inserting itself into business decisions like this.

Clinton Called Tiger

Well, if you’re going to get advice about something, go to a pro. 

Bill Clinton offered his support to Tiger Woods in a phone call with the embattled golf star, a spokesman for the former president confirms.

“President Clinton spoke with Tiger and wished him well,” Matt McKenna tells PEOPLE confirming a report in Golf Digest that the two had spoken.

It wasn’t clear when the former president spoke with Woods or how the phone call came about. But Clinton, who has navigated his own infidelity scandals, offered words of encouragement to the golfer, who is reportedly in an Arizona rehab facility for therapy.

Those Evil Rich with Six-Figure Jobs

Glad to see we’re putting them in their place. 

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz doesn’t want city bus drivers earning six-figures due to overtime and other compensation anymore.

Cieslewicz has asked Metro Transit General Manager Chuck Kamp, bus drivers union leader Gene Gowey and others to find a solution to absenteeism and staff shortfalls that created a demand for overtime and let one driver earn $159,258 and six others more than $100,000 in 2009.