Thursday Morning Burnt Toast and Coffee Time

At 4:45 a.m. a train horn so loud that I could hear it over the air conditioner in the bedroom.

The big news of the day is my toaster is broken. One side of one of the slices turns out soggy, not toasted. I don’t plan to fix it, I plan to pitch it. There have been great advances in toaster technology in the past 20 years.

• Sound Off features more people who object to the unceasing train horns. Does Alderman Cummings still think we’ll “get used to it”?
• What we have here is like the sewage dumping into Lake Michigan. No one in the Milwaukee sewer administration is held accountable. All we hear is, “the forms didn’t get filed on time.” Well, whose responsibility was it to file the papers? I want names and I want some accountability. A Freeman letter writer agrees.
• The British Open is on TV this morning and the weather out there is frightful. The worst of a gloomy March-looking Wisconsin day. Here it will sunny, humid and hot. It just goes to show, it could always be worse.
• Natural gas price increases mean a long, cold winter for you but I get a new boiler next week. My heating costs should be lower. Do I get a tax rebate from anybody?
• Our high school cheer: “PBR, that’s for me! We’re the Class of Seventy!” Who knew that Pabst would end up as the number one American owned brewery?
• Here’s the difference between Journal “Waukesha” columnist Laurel Walker and the rest of Waukesha County. Note how regretful and envious she sounds of Milwaukee County’s plan to raise taxes:

Shades of Waukesha County nearly 20 years ago – night-and-day shades – come to mind with the debates in Milwaukee about a county sales tax increase and a $20 wheel tax for street work. Milwaukee County supervisors want voters’ opinions on a 1-cent boost in the half-cent-per-dollar county sales tax, but County Exec Scott Walker vetoed it Wednesday. A committee of Milwaukee aldermen Wednesday endorsed a $20 wheel tax, though Mayor Tom Barrett promises a veto. Back in 1989 and 1990, the Waukesha County Board considered both a $20-per-car wheel tax and a new, half-cent county sales tax to ease property taxes and support transportation. The fights were futile. We still have neither.

• Despite the fact that I think a majority of the community is against it, the Northwest League baseball plan advances to the Waukesha Parks Board. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll be in line for season tickets, but I still think it’s a bad idea. Darryl has more.
• Waukesha County kids are defintely getting stupider if they are using heroin. I blame over-protective, over-indulgent parents, the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry for convincing doctors and the public is that there is a pill for every malady. I could waive my objection to the death penalty in the case of heroin dealers and distributors.
• School closings are still being kicked around in Waukesha.
• What about Bob?
• Do you want some company over the Labor Day weekend? Housing needed for the 105th.
• Drunken carnys with knives. Who knew? You come from South Africa on a work visa and go to work for a carnival? You’ve made your country proud.
• Waukesha residents are conserving water.
• Yet another reason to read the blogs in the Chonicle sidebar. the Freeman gets around to reporting that Great Northern BBQ is closed. Blog readers knew that a week ago.
• Have the bicycle races been around long enough for us to start calling them “The Zach”?
• Wigderson thinks the Packers should let Favre play and admits to reselling Packer tickets.
• Keith Best, a member of the Waukesha County Republican Party executive board, gives you some questions to ask that Democratic candidate who comes to your door this Fall.
• While Mayor Larry is attending the opening of the local Obama for President office, somebody ask him whether this the change we can believe in: Obama proposes a “civilian national security force” with power and a budget which exceeds the current military’s. (h/t Real Debate Wisconsin) A national police force? Is that what you want from your next president? Positively scary.