Monthly Archives: July 2005

Wisconsin Press Gives Kohl a Pass?

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Joel McNally asks some timely questions about the mainstream media’s coverage (or lack thereof) of Senator Kohl (and Feingold, frankly):

It would be remarkable for any local sports owner to be protected by such a shield of invisibility, but it is nothing short of astounding when the owner also happens to be one of the state’s top elected officials. It’s not as if the press doesn’t know where to find the guy. He has a public office in Washington, D.C. And when he’s in Milwaukee, he eats breakfast almost every morning at Ma Fischer’s restaurant.
It has to be a conscious decision on the part of reporters not to ask Kohl questions about anything he’d rather not talk about.

There are actually a number of important votes that our media should be asking both Senators about.

Why do they run from these stories? McNally raises some very interesting questions. Read the whole thing.

Doing Less With More

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Capt Dan Ward, USAF (pdf) on the pitfalls of overfunding:


Let me get right to it: the Department of Defense acquisition community today has too much money. There, I’ve said it, and it feels good. It may be a career-limiting opinion, but after 10 years in this business, I can confidently (albeit naïvely) conclude we have too much money. More important, I con- tend this overfunding is limiting our ability to innovate, which has negative consequences for America’s warfighting capabilities. Now that I have your attention, let me explain how I reached this conclusion:

Property Taxes Biggest Share of Income in Milwaukee and Madison Areas

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Wistax:

The other part of the state where the property tax burden was high was Dane county, according to WISTAX. The city and town of Madison led the area with property taxes at 8.8% and 8.2% of income, respectively. Five suburbs surrounding Madison also made the top-50 list: McFarland and Mt. Horeb (both 7.4%); Sun Prairie (7.3%); and DeForest and Stoughton (both 7.1%).
..
In a separate part of the report, WISTAX notes that the property tax-to-income ratio is much like a political “heart monitor.” When property taxes relative to income climb above 4%, discontent begins to grow. The study cited several periods in the postwar era when property taxes were unusually high and led to a major change, either in politics or in policy-making. Most recently, this occurred in 1993-94, when property taxes completed a 14-year rise, hitting 4.8% of income. Then, a bipartisan majority in state government imposed school revenue limits and first committed the state to providing two-thirds of local schools’ revenues.

The Price

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Looking forward to July 4th, I came across this article by James H. Warner, a Marine Corps Officer who spent five years and five months in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp:

the first of June, I was put in a cement box with a steel door, which sat out in the tropical summer sun. There, I was put in leg irons which were then wired to a small stool. In this position I could neither sit nor stand comfortably. Within 10 days, every muscle in my body was in pain (here began a shoulder injury which is now inoperable). The heat was almost beyond bearing. My feet had swollen, literally, to the size of footballs. I cannot describe the pain. When they took the leg irons off, they had to actually dig them out of the swollen flesh. It was five days before I could walk, because the weight of the leg irons on my Achilles tendons had paralyzed them and hamstrung me. I stayed in the box from June 1 until Nov. 10, 1969. While in the box, I lost at least 30 pounds.

Kohl/Feingold Oppose CAFTA, Local Coverage

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The Capital Times covers Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold’s opposition to CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement). Perhaps the Wisconsin Media might start asking questions about recent Feingold and Kohl support for:

Opportunities for Small Banks

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Eve Tahmincioglu:

Aside from roadside deposits, Western National offers a courier service to pick up deposits from small-business customers and gives out toy safes for the children of the personal account holders.

It is touches like those that Mr. Hinz says will snare customers frustrated with the impersonal faces of the giants. Customers, he says, want to be greeted by name and treated as though their $2,000 savings accounts or $50,000 small-business loans really matter to Western National.

“We found that especially with small-business lending and banking, being able to know your customer is critical,” he said. “Being part of the community in which they work is critical. The big bank networks aren’t really built to take care of smaller loans.”

Sort of business 101…

An Open Letter to SBC’s Ed Whitacre and Yahoo’s Terry Semel

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I find it ironic that SBC, a regional “Baby Bell” and the dominant telco in Wisconsin, that makes its money on two way voice conversations and a growing data business would invest heavily in legacy one way media (more cable TV). SBC is offering customers bundling deals with satellite tv providers along with their Yahoo DSL service. [Stephanie Mehta’s article]:

Whitacre may well be honing his schmoozing skills for his newest—and unlikeliest—role: aspiring media mogul. In a few short months, SBC will unveil what it hopes will be the ultimate weapon in the war between cable and the Bells—a high-tech TV service that Whitacre insists will offer viewers as many channels as they currently receive from regular cable and then some. SBC has anted up $4 billion just to get its network ready to offer the service, known as Internet protocol TV, or IPTV, and it will spend additional hundreds of millions to acquire TV content. But much more is at stake: SBC’s future as a major player.

Ironically, and with perfect timing, it appears that true high speed fiber networks are starting to appear (The US lags well behind other countries on broadband costs and performance).

  • Cablevision is implementing 50Mbps service in NY (slashdot discussion)
  • LaFayette, Louisiana is going to a local referendum to fund a municipal fibre network July 16, 2005
  • Verizon, far more aggressive than SBC in broadband implementation is actually rolling out fiber to the home in some markets.

SBC, in trying to become a TV player when there is little meaningful growth in that market, evidently refuses to spend the money required to upgrade its network (keep in mind that we, the ratepayers, paid for the copper network years ago). Why Yahoo, ironically, a major beneficiary of the two way web, would spend any brand capital on this is a mystery.

SBC, in an effort to keep the cash flowing for these forays, still requires that the purchaser sign up for traditional phone service as a tax on the dsl product. This is a blatant attempt to stifle VOIP service across sbc dsl service.

Meanwhile, IEEE Spectrum says goodbye to AT&T (SBC plans to acquire what’s left of AT&T).

Update: Bellsouth plans to accelerate their fibre rollout.