On Illinois manufacturer considering move to Janesville
Posted on January 20 at 11:06 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
High paying jobs require workers with advanced skills, and if we had that kind of workforce here companies wouldn’t need an extra incentive to come to Rock County. Let’s face it: Our unemployed workforce is mostly made up of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers and in the Midwest, those kinds of workers are a dime a dozen. Compounding the problem, decades of artificially high union pay have given our people an unrealistic sense of entitlement. Our education system in Janesville is tailored more toward producing factory workers than to producing professionals, and the current budget problems suggest that a significant number of taxpayers aren’t willing to make a change. It’s a classic chicken-or-egg problem, but at this stage one effective method of encouraging quality employers to come to this town is to offer them tax incentives. Think of it as subsidizing on-the-job training instead of subsidizing higher teacher pay. With any luck many of our workers will learn advanced skills, more advanced companies will come here to setup shop, our education system will be forced to improve, our highly skilled young people will choose to stay in Janesville, and in 15 or 20 years we’ll be back on the road to prosperity.
On Illinois manufacturer considering move to Janesville
Posted on January 20 at 5:07 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Some people still think assembly line workers are worth $30/hour.
On Bash, bang, bother: Pedestrian signs face vehicular assault
Posted on December 30 at 11:20 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Duplicating the Dutch plan here would certainly be a bold move. Removing road signs, lane markers, and curbing in order to force drivers to slow down is an interesting idea but requires a great deal of faith.
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In a discussion here two years ago (http://gazettextra.com/news/2009/apr/25/...), some parents reacted to perceived pedestrian hazards near their children’s school by removing their kids from the sidewalks and chauffeuring them to and from school each day. If we tried the Dutch model here, those parents might forbid their children to play outside.
On Bash, bang, bother: Pedestrian signs face vehicular assault
Posted on December 28 at 6:23 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
The Red Flag program wouldn't work.
1. There's at least a 50% chance the flag would be on the opposite side of the street from where you are standing.
2. People would be reluctant to carry the red flag for fear of looking like a dork.
3. Kids would steal the flags.
On More charges possible in Janesville child porn case
Posted on December 7 at 10:09 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Ok, but it seems like a huge amount of work. If I was 17, "sexted" a naked photo of myself to somebody, and that person let it escape into the wild, it's tough to believe that an investigator somewhere is going to track me down and try to figure out how old I was when I took the picture, especially if I didn't reveal my face.
On More charges possible in Janesville child porn case
Posted on December 6 at 8:46 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
From a technical standpoint, I wonder how you "scan" a computer’s hard drive for child porn. A photo of a naked 17-year old taken a week before the 18th birthday would be illegal, but the same photo taken two weeks later would be legal. How could an investigator determine the ages of anonymous people in the photos?
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There was something on E! a few years ago about a porn actress who starred in several adult movies before getting busted because she was only 17. When she was hired she fooled the studios with her fake ID. The industry had to quickly retrieve and destroy all her pictures and movies because they were considered child porn. Clearly, 17 is just as illegal as 7, but it seems there are degrees of the offense and from this article we don’t know the full story.
On Cain turmoil major distraction for GOP
Posted on November 9 at 2:55 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Herman Cain, 11/8/11: "They simply didn't happen. They simply did not happen." “There's not an ounce of truth in all of these accusations."
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Bill Clinton, 1/26/98: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." "These allegations are false.”
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSDAXGXGi...
On Cain turmoil major distraction for GOP
Posted on November 9 at 12:54 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Veteran Democratic and Republican strategists think Cain is making some serious mistakes.
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Democrats, on Cain’s attempt to discredit Sharon Bialek by distributing her bankruptcy records: "It's a poor tactic, and it doesn't work, and it will erode his poll standings."
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Republicans: “Whether the allegations are true or not, which should be a concern to voters, they should be even more concerned that he's showing an ineptitude in being able to handle stressful and complicated crises situations, much like you would experience on a daily basis in the White House."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/...
On Cain turmoil major distraction for GOP
Posted on November 8 at 9:51 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
As troubling as the sexual harassment allegations might be, I find equally worrisome the supposed inducement with which at least one alleged incident took place. “You want a job, right?” That sounds too much like a Rod Blagojevich. The last thing we need is that kind of corruption in the White House.
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On Illinois manufacturer considering move to Janesville
Posted on January 21 at 12:37 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
I didn’t say we shouldn’t pay taxes for school improvements, I said that many people in Janesville are against the idea. Personally, I think that education is the key to getting ahead in life. I think we should pay to maintain and improve the quality of our schools -- it’s an investment. I understand though that many people disagree.
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Ideally, we’d have to “bribe” only the first companies. Once Janesville has proven its supply of highly skilled workers, more companies would locate here and there would no longer be a need to offer the incentives. As demand for the workers increases, salaries would rise.
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By “skilled” workers, I didn’t mean “competent” workers. I’m sure Janesville workers are as likely as anyone else to be punctual, be efficient, etc. I was referring more to information workers, engineers, scientists, etc. that tend to have a college degree or several years of classroom education following high school.
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I wasn’t “pissing and moaning” about anything. When I wrote that union pay was artificially high, I meant that union pay rates for performing a given task were higher than they would have been in a normal self-regulating economy. I didn’t mention “excessively high health insurance costs” because I didn’t know the matter pertained to this discussion. Please explain.
I didn’t see the BTC article cited until a moment ago, but upgrading our workers’ skill set is exactly what I mean.