The Annual Mayfly Gross-Out in Radar

Wisconsin Is Getting Smothered by Millions of Gross, Horny Flies

Comment: Image from the article. Many gross photos in the article. The upper midwest version of Florida's lovebug. More on: The mayfly’s lifecycle: a fascinating, fleeting story

The mayfly’s lifecycle is one of the most fascinating and fleeting stories in the natural world. One of the many charactersistics that makes mayflies the unique insects they are is the potential for two different winged adult forms in their life cycle. The nymph emerges from the water as a dull-coloured sub-imago (or dun) that seeks shelter in bankside vegetation and trees. After a period of a couple of hours or more, the sub-imago once again sheds its skin to transform into the brightly coloured imago (or spinner). It is not clear why mayflies have retained this unique step in their lifecycle, however it is thought that they may not be able to achieve the change from nymph to sexually mature adult in one step. A mayfly’s life cycle starts with the males forming a swarm above the water and the females flying into the swarm to mate. The male grabs a passing female with its elongated front legs and the pair mate in flight. After copulation, the male releases the female, which then descends to the surface of the water where she lays her eggs. Once mated she will fall, spent, onto the water surface to lie motionless, with her wings flat on the surface, where fish pick them off at their leisure. The male fly rarely returns to the water but instead he goes off to die on the nearby land. The eggs fall to the bottom of the water where they stick to plants and stones. Flies of the Mayfly family Baetidae pull themselves under the water to attach their eggs directly to the bed before being drowned by the current. The nymphs take anything between a few days to a number of weeks to hatch depending on water conditions and the species, and the resultant nymphs will spend various lengths of time, up to two years, foraging on the bottom before emerging as an adult fly. When it is time to emerge, the nymphs make their way to the surface where they pull themselves free of their nymphal shuck and emerge as a sub-imago. While they rest here to dry their newly exposed wings, they are at their most vulnerable to attack from fish. Some species exhibit great synchronicity in their hatching. The North American species Hexagenia limbata hatches in huge numbers from the Mississippi every year. The total number of mayflies in this hatch are estimated to be around 18 trillion – more than 3,000 times the number of people on earth. The newly emerged insects are attracted to lights in riverside towns and villages and the local authorities deploy snow clearing vehicle to remove their rotting corpses. Ironically, what is seen as a nuisance in America is seen as a gift in Africa. Locals around Lake Victoria gather adults of the mayfly Povilla adusta together with Chironomid midges to make a type of patty called ‘Kungu’. This protein rich food stuff is an important part of their diet.

Peet cemetery - West Marshland Township Wisconsin

Burnett Co.Cemeteries
Comment: Need to visit .... links
Google mapping
http://burnettwi.mapping-online.com/BurnettCoWi/
Burnett County

Wisconsin - one of the hardest-drinking states in the country

Study: People Who Live Close To Bars Drink More Heavily
Excerpt:

A new study finds that people who live close to a bar tend to drink more. A group of Finnish researchers collected data from nearly 55,000 participants from 2000 to 2009. The study found that heavy and extreme drinking occurred when people lived about a half-mile away from the bar.

Some See Big Problem in Wisconsin Drinking
Excerpt:

In Wisconsin, people often say, there is always a bar around the next corner. But drinking is scarcely limited to taverns. A Friday fish fry at a Wisconsin church will almost surely include beer. The state counts some 5,000 holders of liquor licenses, the most per capita of any state, said Peter Madland, the executive director of the Tavern League of Wisconsin.

Journal Sentinel special reporting "Wasted in Wisconsin"
Excerpt:

But actually reshaping the culture of one of the hardest-drinking states in the country is another matter.

Comments:

• I love Wisconsin (the place of my Wife's birth (Mattoon).
• And I am not an abolitionist
• But perhaps they have too many bars!

Scott Walker: "our reforms confront the barriers of collective bargaining that currently block innovation and reform"

Excerpt:

My state's budget-repair bill, which passed the Assembly on Feb. 25 and awaits a vote in the Senate, reforms this union-controlled hiring and firing process by allowing school districts to assign staff based on merit and performance. That keeps great teachers like Ms. Sampson in the classroom.

Most states in the country are facing a major budget deficit. Many are cutting billions of dollars of aid to schools and local governments. These cuts lead to massive layoffs or increases in property taxes—or both.

In Wisconsin, we have a better approach to tackling our $3.6 billion deficit. We are reforming the way government works, as well as balancing our budget. Our reform plan gives state and local governments the tools to balance the budget through reasonable benefit contributions. In total, our budget-repair bill saves local governments almost $1.5 billion, outweighing the reductions in state aid in our budget.

While it might be a bold political move, the changes are modest. We ask government workers to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions and a 12.6% contribution to their health-insurance premium, both of which are well below what other workers pay for benefits. Our plan calls for Wisconsin state workers to contribute half of what federal employees pay for their health-insurance premiums. (It's also worth noting that most federal workers don't have collective bargaining for wages and benefits.)

Comment: Worth a read!

Public-employee unions force every taxpayer to fund the Democratic Party

Public unions silence the voters’ voice

Excerpt:

Unlike private-sector jobs, which are more than fully funded through revenues created in a voluntary exchange of money for goods or services, public-sector jobs are funded by taxpayer dollars, forcibly collected by the government (union dues are often deducted from public employees’ paychecks). In 28 states, state and local employees must pay full union dues or be fired. A sizable portion of those dues is then donated by the public unions almost exclusively to Democratic candidates. Michael Barone sums it up: “public-employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.”

Big money from public unions, collected through mandatory dues, and funded entirely by the taxpayer, is then redistributed as campaign cash to help elect the politicians who are then supposed to represent taxpayers in negotiations with those same unions. In effect, the unions sit on both sides of the table and collectively bargain to raise taxes while the voters’ voice is silenced. But the noisy mob in Madison is amplified beyond its numbers. Wisconsin faces a $137 million deficit this year, and a $3.6 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget. The proposals offered by Gov. Scott Walker would avert 5,500 layoffs of public employees and save $300 million. The public unions, representing just 300,000 government employees in the Badger State, are trying to trump the will of the voters. Though voters don’t get to sit at the bargaining table, they do speak collectively at the ballot box.

Comment: Why the Wisconsin case is important.

Cheese Head Teachers

Oh, To Be a Teacher in Wisconsin

Excerpts:

The average Milwaukee public-school teacher salary is $56,500, but with benefits the total package is $100,005, according to the manager of financial planning for Milwaukee public schools. When I showed these figures to a friend, she asked me a simple question: "How can fringe benefits be nearly as much as salary?" The answers can be found by unpacking the numbers in the district's budget for this fiscal year:

• State Pension. Teachers belong to the Wisconsin state pension plan. That plan requires a 6.8% employer contribution and 6.2% from the employee. However, according to the collective-bargaining agreement in place since 1996, the district pays the employees' share as well, for a total of 13%.
  
• Teachers' Supplemental Pension. In addition to the state pension, Milwaukee public-school teachers receive an additional pension under a 1982 collective-bargaining agreement. The district contributes an additional 4.2% of teacher salaries to cover this second pension. Teachers contribute nothing.
  
• Classified Pension. Most other school employees belong to the city's pension system instead of the state plan. The city plan is less expensive but here, too, according to the collective-bargaining agreement, the district pays the employees' 5.5% share.
  
  Overall, for teachers and other employees, the district's contributions for pensions and Social Security total 22.6 cents for each dollar of salary. The corresponding figure for private industry is 13.4 cents. The divergence is greater yet for health insurance:
  
• Health care for current employees. Under the current collective- bargaining agreements, the school district pays the entire premium for medical and vision benefits, and over half the cost of dental coverage. These plans are extremely expensive.
  
  This is partly because of Wisconsin's unique arrangement under which the teachers union is the sponsor of the group health-insurance plans. Not surprisingly, benefits are generous. The district's contributions for health insurance of active employees total 38.8% of wages. For private-sector workers nationwide, the average is 10.7%.
  
  

If the president is so upset with Wisconsin's labor law reforms, why won't he allow federal workers to bargain collectively?

Excerpt:

The union horde is spreading, from Madison to Indianapolis to a state capital near you. And yet the Democratic and union bigwigs engineering the outrage haven't directed their angry multitudes at what is arguably the most "hostile workplace" in the nation: Washington, D.C.

It will no doubt surprise you to learn that President Obama, the great patron of the working man, also happens to be the great CEO of one of the least union-friendly shop floors in the nation.

This is, after all, the president who has berated Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees, calling the very idea an "assault on unions." This is also the president who has sicced his political arm, Organizing for America, on Madison, allowing the group to fill buses and plan rallies. Ah, but it's easy to throw rocks when you live in a stone (White) house.

Fact: President Obama is the boss of a civil work force that numbers up to two million (excluding postal workers and uniformed military). Fact: Those federal workers cannot bargain for wages or benefits. Fact: Washington, D.C. is, in the purest sense, a "right to work zone." Federal employees are not compelled to join a union, nor to pay union dues. Fact: Neither Mr. Obama, nor the prior Democratic majority, ever acted to give their union chums a better federal deal.

Out of Wisconsin, a lesson in leadership for Obama

Excerpts:

A few days after President Obama submitted a budget that would increase the federal deficit, he tried to sabotage Wisconsin's progress toward solvency. The Washington Post: "The president's political machine worked in close coordination . . . with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals." Walker notes that in the 1990s, Wisconsin was a trendsetter regarding school choice and welfare reform. Obama, he thinks, may be worried that Wisconsin might again be a harbinger.

...

Walker, by a fiscal seriousness contrasting with Obama's lack thereof, and Obama, by inciting defenders of the indefensible, have made three things clear:

First, the Democratic Party is the party of government, not only because of its extravagant sense of government's competence and proper scope, but also because the party's base is government employees. Second, government employees have an increasingly adversarial relationship with the governed. Third, Obama's "move to the center" is fictitious.

Comment: Of the three articles the first (please read the whole) is a real eye opener. I personally am not opposed to unions but when there is a symbiotic relationship between unions and government disaster ensues. Governor Walker offered some good advice to Obama: "The president really ought to concentrate on the $1.65 trillion deficit on the national level ... rather than put his nose in Wisconsin’s business"

Man stopped for not disobeying the law!

Police Stop Man For Carrying Gun Out In Open

Excerpt:

As WISN 12 News was interviewing a West Allis man about his past arrest for carrying a gun in the open, police confronted him again Tuesday night -- one day after the state's attorney general ruled it's legal.

"Somebody called the police that somebody was walking around with a gun on their hip," a West Allis police officer said.

"I would fit that description," Krause said.

"That would be you," a West Allis police officer said.

Police arrived up to investigate Krause while 12 News was interviewing him about his previous arrest for carrying a holstered gun on his hip outside his home. One officer saw Krause's gun and asked what agency he's affiliated with.

"I'm the same guy I was when you arrested me the last time," Krause said.

The officers asked for his name and called dispatch.

"The reason I'm checking is because felons can't have guns in Wisconsin," West Allis police said.

Krause is not a felon. He's a certified firearms instructor.

"Pretty much any time my pants are on, I'm armed," Krause said.

That includes carrying a gun outside his home as Wisconsin's attorney general has ruled is legal.

Comment: Video w the article

Combine vs Bear

Farmer Kills What Could Be Record-Setting Black Bear

Excerpt:

This bear was killed last month near Boyceville. The bear was hibernating in a corn field when a farmer ran over it with his combine. The farmer's wife says the bear measured seven feet long from head to tail and weighed more than 700 pounds.

Comment: We were out to dinner with friends last night and heard about this. This is where Aaron B of SharperIron pastors a church. Article has pic of massive bear.

Trying to turn back time

Mom allegedly uses daughter's ID to be cheerleader

Excerpt:

A 33-year-old woman stole her daughter's identity to attend high school and join the cheerleading squad, according to a criminal complaint filed against the woman.

Wendy Brown, of Green Bay, faces a felony identity theft charge after enrolling in Ashwaubenon High School as her 15-year-old daughter, who lives in Nevada with Brown's mother.

According to the complaint, Brown wanted to get her high school degree and become a cheerleader because she didn't have a childhood and wanted to regain a part of her life that she'd missed.

Brown allegedly attended cheerleading practices before school started, received a cheerleader's locker and went to a pool party at the cheerleading coach's house.

Comment: Don't we all sometimes want to "regain a part of life missed? News of the weird from the land of cheese-heads.

The La Pointe windsled

Across the Bay, on a School Bus Wearing Skis

Excerpt:

From a distance, the large red aluminum contraption parked on the frozen shore of Lake Superior here looks like a small houseboat perched on skis. Up closer, as schoolchildren pile in with their backpacks and iPods, it becomes clear that the mystery vehicle, with two large fans on the back, is something else entirely.

For residents of this remote village on an ice-locked island off the tip of mainland Wisconsin, the gliding boatmobile, known here as a windsled, is a kind of school bus.

That’s right: in one of the more unorthodox modes of student travel anywhere in the country, the children of La Pointe, on Madeline Island (full-time population 250, triple that in the summer), actually windsled to class several weeks out of every year. It is the transportation a school district needs when students are separated from class by more than two miles of jigsaw ice blocks coming together to form something that approximates a floating road of shallow depth across a bay.

Comment: Image from http://www.jlindquist.com/.


View Larger Map

Another reason I don't use aftershave!

Wisconsin man sues when aftershave ignites

Excerpt:

According to court filings, Lewitzke was burned while camping with family members on Memorial Day in 2004 in Wisconsin Dells, a popular resort area outside of Madison.


He washed and shaved in a bathhouse on the camp grounds and applied Brut lotion to his face, neck and chest with his hands. He also used the aerosol deodorant. He then went to a fire pit to cook breakfast.


His face, neck and chest ignited while he was starting the cooking fire, his lawsuit says.


Lewitzke's attorney, Michael Hanrahan, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that his client suffered burns on 30 percent of his body and underwent three skin grafts.


He claims in court documents that the Brut products and their packaging were the direct cause of Lewitzke's injuries and were defective because they were "unreasonably dangerous.'' The suit also says the products' labeling was unsafe because it should have warned about the danger of fires, and the manufacturers should have tried to minimize that risk.


Brut's manufacturers and companies selling the products should be held liable for Lewitzke's injuries, medical expenses, and the pain and disability he has suffered, the lawsuit argues.


"Our view is there is no warning that after you apply it, you remain flammable for some period of time,'' Hanrahan told the newspaper. "You aren't thinking, 'I'm still flammable.'''

Comment: The other reasons: 1.) It stings; 2.) I don't like the smell; 3.) Seems like a waste of money!