Meeting changes

I’m going to comment on this meeting change once. If you think my statements are crazy, fine. This is based on what I know, not what I think.

Some members of the City council brought up changing the meetings again. Regardless of the public statements they are making, they do not have the public’s best interest in mind. I seen with my own eyes proof that these people want to restrict, or deny not only public input, but other council members, and also attendence at these meetings.

So here’s the deal- I’m not going to release any information now, but if this passes I will post what I have right around election time. While it wouldn’t affect the people not running, it would hamper the campaign of all who are behind this lie. This is a promise, not a threat. I know what’s being said, and who said it, and if this isn’t a lawsuit magnet, I will follow up on my promise. This little gang of four had better wise up and realize that some of the public have proof of what they’re trying to pull, and how they really feel about the public input part of the meetings. Some of us know you refer to it as ‘the worse part of the meeting.’ Or my favorite ‘When and how often should the Council meet, and how much, if any at all should it dialogue with the Public?’ Ring a bell gentlemen? Some of us know you guys want total control with no opposition. Just remember some of us aren’t afraid to let the rest of the public know what you’re trying to pull. So take care of the real issues and quit trying to muzzle the people who elected you. That’s what I know. Your comments are welcome.

Man shot dead, and rumors

A Davenport man shot by Police Saturday night dies of injuries more information at QC Times. This guy was trying to commit suicide by cutting off his leg.

The jerk who shot the other jerk on Pershing in January was charged with another charge of felon in possession of a handgun when he was arrested. For more on this story go to the story.

There are also the usual rumors floating around. One that there was a shooting today involving one of the Howards. Another one there was grafitti sprayed on some SoLo garages last night. There were supposedly 3 more incidents involving cars being stopped and damaged by gangs of young men on West 14th. And a rumor that the City Council is going to bring back the meeting change issue again. Get ready people, it looks like they do want to limit public input. To all you people who give me a nod, I appreciate it. I don’t normally name my sources unless I’m told up front it’s ok. You know who you are and thank you. As is the norm, your comments are welcome.

—-Addendum——–

The two pictures above are of two differnt garages that were victims of grafitti last night. There was also another garage and house, a wood fence, a shed, and a vacant boarded up house. All this happened Saturday night. Now these jerks don’t even have the sense to go inside during weather like that.

Open Thread

This is going to be an open thread post as I’m going to be a little busy Friday. Will the IOC stay downtown, but north of River Drive? Heard about the carjacking yesterday on Locust? Can’t wait for the cigarette tax to be a done deal? Worried about Anna Nicole Smith?

A carjacking involving ballbats was in the news yesterday, if you didn’t hear about it you can go
to the story. These punks should get the maximum sentence allowed, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

It appears the IOC will have some answers by mid-March. There will probably be a story soon in QC Times. It might even be tomorrow. It looks encouraging for the Downtown folks as the IOC is rumored to be looking at sites north of River Drive, but still in the Downtown area. It seems to be a shoo-in if the land based casino bill passes. Could this be the reason they backed out of giving the Blackhawk Hotel back to the city?

The cigarette tax mess, will have many of us spending our money in other states is due to be decided by next week. I see a string of new Convience Stores cropping up just south of the Missouri border if it passes. For more information you can go to that story.

The grandstanding judge in the Anna Nicole Smith body trial gave custody to the baby’s guardian, attorney Richard Milstein. For more about this go to
that story. I have a feeling it’s nowhere near over.

Comments are welcomed, as are suggestions.

SoLo problem starts early this year

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes they are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But my question would be; why? Shouldn’t we as citizens be able to go where we want, when we want, without stupid hassles. Sometimes the problems are minor, sometimes scary, and sometimes they’re deadly. Thankfully nobody was hurt in this one. But who gives punks the right to ruin our day. I don’t think we want violence in our daily routine. I don’t believe the Police or City Council do either. So why does it keep happening?

I’ll print a letter that I edited slightly to protect the lady involved. I don’t want her to have to worry about retribution after what’s she’s been through. So here’s her letter-
———————

People of Davenport,

With the advent of warm weather, I have already encountered a problem in my
n’hood, near the frequently problematic intersection of 14th and Gaines. At
3 PM today, Tues., I was heading to Central to pick up my daughter. Just
east of Gaines on W. 14th, I encountered a large grp. [maybe 20?] of young
adult black males. There was no cross street for me to turn, so I had to
proceed. There were 2 cars ahead of me.

Several of the men jumped, yelling, on top of the first car’s hood and roof.
They pounded HARD on that car, and on the 2nd car and mine as well. I was
frankly terrified that they would break in the windows. They were loud,
boisterous and acting like they were angry and looking for trouble.

I am dismayed to once again be unable [from a safety standpoint] to drive my
preferred route. During warm weather for several years, I have had to
choose a different way across that part of town. I have instructed my son
to do that as well. It makes me angry to be basically chased out of my own
n’hood by thugs. I hope there will be extra patrols in that area. I hope,
too, that police on that beat will sometimes be on foot, getting to know the
people in that area, heading off trouble. It is not fair that we citizens
are captives due to this foolish and dangerous behavior.

Thank you for your attention to this. Please let me know what the plans are
to address potential trouble in this area.

a concerned citizen
———————–

This is from someone’s wife, mother, daughter, friend, and a really nice person. I don’t think she, nor anyone for that matter, should have to deal with stuff like this. People don’t want Guardian Angels around, the Police Chief says crime is exagerated, the Mayor and City Administrator don’t think it’s a priority, and some people feel safe. Tell that to this woman. It’s time to get tough on these punks and get these gangs broken up. I’m tired of hearing about things like this happening and nothing being done to stop it. How much fun will it be when summer gets here? You’re comments are welcome.

7 figure embezzlement

It would seem the FBI has made 2 arrests. While Chief Bladel and the DPD were involved from the beginning, the case got fedalized a few weeks ago because of embzzlement and money laundering in the 7 figure range. While the DPD has been helping the QC Times and Lee Enterprises in the investigation for weeks, the FBI made the arrests. And for you people who say crimes are commited here by people who live elsewhere, the people arrested are from Illinois.

So to Chief Bladel and the DPD I say good job. When this comes out it will make for an interesting read.

————Addendum————–
snarky chick sent a link to the QC Times story that wasn’t available when I posted this morning. A big thank you nod to you snarky. It’s hard to read in the pop up comment section so I thought I’d put it here.
To read the story go here.

Cruisin in Heaven

The street rodding hobby lost another friend Saturday. Dennis L. Van Theesmsche died at Genesis Medical Center. He helped me a great deal when we set up the disc brake front end on our 40′. He was a fixture at local cruises, loved his family and liked golf.

Is Ethanol the Answer?

In the Frbruary 12, 2007 issue of U.S. News & World Report magazine is a story about ethanol. It asks ‘Is Ethanol the Answer?’. It mentions Galva, Iowa as an example. This small town of less than 400 has put $13 million into the hands of investors since 2002. This is good for this small town. But is ethanol the answer? I think not. The government is paying out billions in subsidies to the ethanol industry. That’s our money. While running alcohol in cars is nothing new; Henry Ford Ford built his 1909 Model T to run on gasoline or ethanol. While it’s good for Archer Daniels Midland, Vera-Sun, and others, we as consumers get hit more than once. We pay for it with the federal subsidies, we are going to pay for it with higher meat prices and produce prices this summer, and we pay for it because it’s extimated that we use 1.5 gallons of E-85 to go as far as 1 gallon of gasoline will get us. Last year’s ethanol production used up 20% of the U.S. corn crop. This could grow to 50% by next year in the governments new push for ethanol. Feed corn, on the other hand dropped by 10%.

Now it’s E-85 that’s getting pushed. Even though it’s only available at 1,000 of the Nation’s 180,000 gas stations. The house should pass a bill this year that will direct federal agencies to figure out how to make the change. And even if E-85 was widely available, only 2.5% of all the cars in the country could run it. Automakers aren’t making more E-85 vehicles because Congress created an incentive that allows them to produce more gas guzzlers so long as they make a minimum amount of flex fuel vehicles. Thanks to Congress’s CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards fuel effiency has dropped since 1988, which is a problem since E-85 makes for lousy gas mileage. Ethanol CAN be produced with non-food based vegetation. Things like cornhusks and rice hulls, or even switchgrass. This would ease reliance on edible grain and add another bonus: Biotech enzymes rather than heat energy would break down the cellulose to fuel, reducing greenhouse gases to a fraction of those produced by corn. I’ll keep running regular unleaded. And instead of pushing a product that ends up so costly, shouldn’t research and development of other viable fuels be the priority?

Saturday musings

Since it’s Saturday, I got to thinking. Man, I hate that when it happens. Anyway what I was thinking about is why are there so many crime related shows on TV?
Almost everyone in a position of authority doesn’t want to admit there’s a problem, but year after year the shows stay on the air. COPS, America’s Most Wanted, Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, Video Justice, Nancy Grace, Dateline’s series on child molesters, etc. There’s even a Court TV channel. If crime isn’t an issue, why do these shows keep popping up? They’re not as flashy as some shows, they don’t have more drama, and they’re real. Why don’t we see something like Local Heroes of Government, or Developments of Central Cities, or How They Govern? Maybe it’s just me but if you have any ideas I’d sure like to hear them.

Blowing smoke open thread

Government is messing with some of my rights again and I don’t like it. First off, I don’t want to quit smoking, and our teenage son doesn’t smoke. Iowa wants to raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack. Claiming it would stop children from smoking and get older smokers to quit. In my case it would get me cruising accross a bridge to save $3.80 a carton. What it would do for local convient marts, is put them out of business. So that would mean less tax monies go into the state and city coffers in two ways. I’d be buying my smokes in Illinois and Iowa would be losing $13.60 in tax per carton. It would also mean no sales tax from closed gas station type convient stores.

They say it’s for the children. Do you know the number one cause of death for kids 2 to 14? It’s car crashes. And 21% of these kids killed in car crashes were killed by a drunk driver. In 2004 there was a fatal drunk driving accident every 31 minutes. To find out more about the facts go to the MADD website.

The government says smoking is the number one cause of death, and I believe it is. What they don’t tell us is it’s not the only car in the race. In 2,000 the leading cause of death was tobacco at 435,00 deaths. Number 2 was poor diet and physical inactivity at 400,000 deaths. Alcohol deaths were 85,000; and car crashes were 43,000 deaths. There are other figures for things like microbial agents, toxic agents, incidents involving firearms, sexual behaviors and drugs.

So here we go again; it’s for our health. Bull! It’s because the government is losing tax money because smoking is down, and since fewer people smoke they can work the non-smokers against use. I do not litter, I do not smoke in someone else’s house, and I always ask before I light up. If you don’t like my habit fine. Make it illegal, don’t tax me to death. Because if you tax smokers now, you will be next. I can already see an obesity tax, an alcohol tax, a trans-fat tax. You see where it could go. The state cannot make money on a tax people won’t pay. And Senator Kennedy has no business telling me my habit is killing others. I believe his habit has killed more people than mine. That’s my thoughts, you’re welcome to post yours. Post on anything, good, bad , complaint, compliment or praise.

Some changes and Daytona

Sunday is the Daytona 500. Here’s some NASCAR NEXTEL rule changes this year. I won’t bring up the fines and suspensions because I don’t know where it’s going to end. And I can’t say I have a favorite to win, but the Busch race should be as much fun to watch as the 500.

NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series changes-
As expected, changes to the Chase format were revealed by NASCAR Chairman Brian France. The key elements: 12 drivers, instead of 10, will advance after 26 races; the 400-point cutoff is eliminated; the 12 drivers will have their point totals reset to 5,000 each plus a 10-point bonus for each race victory in the first 26 races; all race winners will get an additional five points. Changes to the Nextel All-Star race format include 10 fewer laps, in four 20-lap segments, with the finishing order of the Pit Crew Challenge used to determine pit selection. Roger Penske plans to build a test track on the grounds of his 400,000 square-foot race shop in Mooresville, N.C. Plans call for an oval of more than a half-mile in length, an infield road course, and skid pad. An official groundbreaking ceremony for the NASCAR Hall of Fame was held in Charlotte. For more information on NASCAR go to
nascar.com

Yes, He REALLY Said That
Dale Earnhardt Jr., on his on-going contract negotiations with Teresa Earnhardt. “The main factor is the ownership (of DEI) part. It has nothing to do with money and nothing else really . . . My father has been gone for almost six years now. I want majority ownership.”

You don’t stop laughing because you grow old–
You grow old because you stop laughing !!