19 January 2007

Friday's Odds And Ends....

It not only comes in a bottle, but in DIFFERENT COLORS to boot. Yes, it's FRIDAY....welcome to the weekend. And with it comes the tidbits of pages 3-8 news you might never find, because the media loves to "bury" these stories ASAP, so you can get POed at something on the FRONT page instead.
But we just LOVE dredging up the things you SHOULD be cheesed at...the things that affect YOU.


Ten Jobs Shrinking Faster Than A Wool Sweater -

1) Cashiers (self-scanning of UPC codes...have fun tying up the lines)

2) Couriers-messengers (why ride a bike when you can FAX or EMAIL...sorry Kevin Bacon, those "Quicksilver" days are GONE)

3) Inspectors-testors-sorters-samplers-weighers (all the menial work done by everyone from the disabled to illegal immigrants...sorry, we have MACHINES we don't have to pay "under the table"...or feed..or provide health care for)

4) CSRs (customer service reps..THANK GOD...finally....a mechanized voice routing system WITHOUT a live person OR a HINDU accent...YES!)

5) Book binders (again...all done by machines...and cheap-ass foreign slave labor)

6) Film processors ( Two words...DIGITAL CAMERA).

7) Fishers & fishing vessels operations (seems there's a GLUT right now ...habitats are disappearing faster than pork products at Michael Moore's house)!

8) Electronic home entertainment equipment installers & repairers (OK...we don't FIX this crap anymore...we just go & get ANOTHER one...got it. We used to call that "planned obsolesence")

9) Procurement clerks (better than 2 words here...just one...AUTOMATION)

10) Power plant operators (automatic control systems and monitoring devices, ergo, fewer "button pushers" needed)

This doesn't mean these jobs will totally disappear...people will ALWAYS want some film procesed, or "need" a cashier...

FWCS Hostage Situation "Not As Bad"? -

A meeting of the YRTF (yellow ribbon rask force) has come to the conclusion that repairs to all 53 bulidings in the district will ONLY come to a maximum of $600 MILLION. Well, that just makes me breathe that sigh of relief...and here I thought we'd be fronting a BILLION bucks....(whew)... Wait a minute.....I see what's going on here...they're going to be giving out Preparation H instead of Vaseline...verrrrrrry sneaky, people. Very sneaky.

Maysville Rd. (Cheap-Ass) Housing to proceed -

The County Plan Commission (read head ramrodders) is going AHEAD (oh, big surprise here, eh?) with this low(er) income housing (apartments) along the 9300-9400 blocks of Maysville Rd. The neighbors wanted a fenced buffer zone between the facility and their properties, but instead "settled" for an earthen abuttment with trees (oh yeah, that will DEFINITELY keep all those low-lifes OUT of YOUR backyard...sure it will...when pigs fly). Hope your homeowners and personal insurance if paid up, 'cause you're going to be needing it. Oh, and expect the city/county to reassess your property HIGHER, so you can help PAY for the "section 8'ers". But just TRY and sell your home (because you WILL want to soon enough with those new "neighbors") for that assessed value. Good luck.

TAB Hearing -

Allen County Council heard the pros & cons (not THOSE cons..they're still in lockup) over reinstituting the TAX ADJUSTMENT BOARD (gone since the late 80s). What this board used to do was oversee the budgets & levies of ALL local taxing bodies (those 30+ entities talked about in previous posts). They would review total dollars property owners must pay and then would decide how to EASE (love that word) the burden if needed.

Such has not been the case for over 15 years...and we can see the result....overly assessed values of properties in blighted areas, and a cavalier attitude with taxing homeowners to defray the costs of any and all "desirous" projects the city or county wanted to impliment.

Our own Mitch Harper (of FWOb) was there, pressing home the need to reinstate the board...good for you, Mitch! The TAB could not increase taxes, nor could it delete specific budget items, but it could instruct an "entity" on how it could reduce it's budget. This board can provide oversight, because governments should NOT function like a "non-profit" by trying to garner as much of OUR money as they can.

So there we are....all the news that's fit to type....(or print to fit).

It's what I do. No applause, please......just throw money (...and later we'll show you how to take that spare change and turn it into FOLDING money...)

;)

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