FEB03A

With a 452 million dollar deficit in the state books Governor Doyle goes good on a campaign promise in the 2002 election. He vows not to raise state income tax for Wisconsin residents, but stopped short of making any other promise. During the State of the State Address on Thursday night Doyle hinted that maybe not all of the 11,500 state employees will make it through the cutting of jobs and budgets which will

take place on a scale never before seen in the State of Wisconsin. With no rainy day fund like a lot of other states have to cover the deficit, Wisconsin will have to resort to budget cuts and the dissolving of expensive programs. Wisconsin's contingency fund intended for this purpose has a balance of only $201.00 and with a bond rating so poor that only three other states are worse, only a few choices are left to get the state back in financial shape. Doyle has called the legislature back for a special emergency session to solve the deficit dilemma by approving the cutting of $161 million in the state budget. This will still leave $291 million to get us back in the black, where will that come from? While most of the hour long address focused on fixing the deficit problem several other points were touched on like the alarming rate of dropping out of high school by African Americans in Milwaukee, only one out of three black students receive a high school diploma in Milwaukee. The decline in farming was addressed by Doyle citing medical insurance payments as one of the greatest expenses endured by the family farm operation today. Doyle proposes lumping them into the same group as State employees as a solution. Doyle a life long Democrat spoke more like a Republican Thursday night than recent republicans in that office had done for a long time.

NASA who learned about the breakup of the craft from watching television points to a piece of insulation breaking off of the massive fuel tank upon takeoff as a possible problem by hitting the wing and breaking off some tiles. I submit to you that it was not such an obvious minor thing as a piece of foam insulation. What the hell kind of stuff are those guys buying if a piece of foam hitting the wing wrecks it? What's it made out of? Paper? If they are spending 500 million dollars on a space craft you would think it would stand up to a piece of foam hitting it. Secondly the craft was flying on automatic pilot, probably by a robot, perhaps the robot got confused, perhaps during re-entry he picked a fight with one of the crew members and was not at the controls where he was needed at a critical moment. Maybe during the critical decent the robot realized he was without emotion and human feeling and his desire to become a human being could never be realized, after which it would be logical to turn himself off.

With today being Ground Hog Day, it seems certain that winter will be over soon. While checking for shadows I spotted Ground Hogs having a party near the KAT AND MICK REPORT offices. With no shadows in sight Ground Hogs could be seen dragging out their lawn furniture and barbeque grills for a new summer. After witnessing this, it seems certain that warm weather is on the way. For those of you interested in Rockfest a new website is online to keep up on the camp sites in VIP row Bob. Just click www.rowbob.homestead.com if you would like to visit. Or if you don't care then the hell with you. This year's concert looks like a good one already with three bands already announced, Grand Funk, Alice Cooper, and Sammy Hagar are already signed up for this year. That's all the news that is news, see ya.

A number of people including myself have been employed at one time or another by the company located at 314 N. Broadway Green Bay WI. Most of us remember the company as The Larsen Co. which was the original name of the company that began vegetable processing at that location in 1892. In 1987 the company was sold to Dean Foods who ran the company for 12 years (ran it into the ground would be a better description) with little or no success and closed 4 of the original 7 plants in the Larsen family. In 1999 the company was sold again to a CO-OP company called Agrilink, a serious no nonsense vegetable producer from out east who wanted to expand nation wide purchasing companies in the Midwest, south, and northwest parts of the country. While Agrilink had a good management philosophy they were overextended on their assets to debt ratio and had severe cash flow problems. In the fall of 2001 the work force was trimmed by 20% to try to cut payroll expenses to a manageable level, again some dirty work left over from the poor management practices of Dean Foods. My own job fell victim to this cut and I would be spared being thrown in with the now 90 people competing for the low number of open jobs in the Green Bay area. When my job was eliminated I was given a 4 mo. Severance package including health insurance and the services of an outplacement center. The job I found is a good but I am not making the money I was when I was at Agrilink and it took the entire 4 months to get placement where I am now. It is unknown what the people leaving now will be offered for severance if anything and who knows where they will wind up for employment. The plant is scheduled to close June 30, 2003 after a spring pack designed to hold over the new owner with some Veg-All until they can get set up in their own plant to run it.

Saturday was the day that Brittany Sobieck and Megan Krueger known as Megadeth took their A.C.T. s and the results are unknown as of now. Sobieck who is still thinking about what she would like to become upon graduation is leaning toward being a foreign diplomat while Megadeth is certain of her future as a surgeon specializing in the transplanting of human organs. While Megadeth has always had the dream of becoming a great surgeon Brittany has only recently thought that becoming a foreign diplomat would be fulfilling with all the publicity focused on Iraq, and North Korea. Megadeth has expressed a desire to transplant parts of the body that have never been done before such as the pancreas, and the spleen but her ultimate goal is to transplant a human head from one body to another. Even though she has been practicing on her kid sister Rachel she says she still does not have the expertise to perform such a delicate operation, but upon the graduation from Med. School she expects to be able to perform such an operation. Should she be able to perform such a medical miracle it is said the Michael Jackson is interested in speaking to Megadeth about a possible procedure involving him and Liz Taylor in an even exchange?

Joe and Lola Sobieck, the "newlyweds" are acting just as the acronym would suggest now arriving late at scheduled family events and acting skittish when asked about it. Acting as though they are 20 again each calling the other by syrupy little pet names comes easily to them as they behave like teenagers even though they are entering their "twilight" years. I wouldn't be surprised to hear they get caught parking on a dead end road somewhere.