Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Village Buzz - May 7th...
County Highway Q Approved...
After much back and forth, and the application of some political pressure, the decision has been made to proceed with the County Line Road work that had originally been approved as a 'shovel ready" project by the state Transportation Department and its Secretary, Frank Busalacchi.
The efforts of village and county elected officials, and by our state elected officials has resulted in Mayor Barrett not getting everything he had wanted, nor which had been originally decreed by SEWRPC.
This political football has been kicked around since late-March due to Barrett's whining, and the waffling by SEWRPC.
Metro Cigars in Germantown Grandfathered On Smoking Bill...
My blogs have long espoused that private businesses be able to set their own rules, as regular readers know. The blanket approach to banning all smoking indoors has finally been agreed to and will take effect on July 5, 2010. This has finally been railroaded through by the Democrats who used shoddy tactics even now to hold public testimony down by announcing the meeting dates/times barely 24 hours before those meetings as is the absolute minimum under law.
Existing cigar bars have been excluded from this about to be new law and that is a very good thing. I met with Sen. Darling and her staff many months ago to discuss this exemption. While I don't know all the behind the scenes activity that led to this approach, it makes sense. People who walk into a cigar store or cigar bar know exactly what they're in for, and they look forward to it. The people who work in these establishments are almost always cigar smokers themselves, and are often customers of the store that work a few hours a week in those stores. There is no second-hand smoke issue in these places.
The whole smoking "thing" points up the hypocrisy of laws that add significant levels of taxation to, and fund health-related programs on, the backs of tobacco users, while trying to bar the use of this legal product. Sooner or later, the laws will be so restrictive that smoking will be reduced to insignificant levels, but so will the revenue stream. The programs won't go away, so you and me will pay even more in taxes in some other way.
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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "Wisconsin Budget Hole"
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