Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs

The tax-averse city of Colorado Springs, Colo., is about to learn what it feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric. More than a third of the streetlights in the city will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops and dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

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I wonder how many of those 89K jobs the city cut?

"$89k jobs"

Colorado Springs is a heavily Republican city. Not gonna go over well with the natives.

CS is also the site of Tesla's experimental tower to send electricity through the atmosphere. Tesla has to be our greatest inventor ever. Glad he was finally given credit for inventing the radio.

AU, maybe they could sell the rights to claim tesla to another city?

"Topeka, home of Tesla!"

"Topeka, home of Tesla!"

Sorry...gotta go with the obvious...

Tulsa.

Tesla's primary lab was in NY and he lived there most of his working life, but he had one on CS for studying the atmospheric transmission of electricity. Fascinating American inventor and figure.

There a many good biographies of Tesla's life, but the one considered the gold standard is 'Tesla: Man Out Of Time'. I've read a few bios of him. A too-little recognized American genius.

" Tesla has to be our greatest inventor ever. "

I don't know about that, I think that would be whoever came up with the wheel, but he certainly understood alternating current electrical distribution better than Edison.

Ya, Edison took a giant several notches down in my mind's eye after reading about his tactics with Tesla. I meant to say "greatest American inventor ever"

I did say "Tesla has to be our greatest inventor ever".

" Fascinating American inventor "

Right.

" Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika, which was then part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire, region of Croatia. "
www.teslasociety.com

Albert Einstein; Fascinating American.
Enrico Fermi; Fascinating American.
Edward Teller; Fascinating American.

Dick Garwin is America's greatest inventor. And he is not dead quite yet.

""So that first design," Dr. Teller said, "was made by Dick Garwin." He repeated the credit, ensuring there would be no misunderstanding."
www.nuclearfiles.org

ZATOICHI

He lived and worked most in America most of his adult life. Give it a rest dude. He moved here when he was 25 and was a naturalized citizen of the U.S. by 35 - making him what, genius? An American.

Sorry, in case you want to get all anal, ZAT. He was 28 when he moved to the U.S.

For the sheer numbers of ground breaking inventions in such a wide number of areas, I'll stick to my opinion.

Can we all agree that the greatest inventor from the region around Croatia is whoever designed the Yugo.

LOL Andy

Dick Garwin's most important patent is still secret.

www.youtube.com


"$89k jobs"

#2 | Posted by American1st

For many government jobs, $89k probably is far too much. On the other hand, it's sure funny that someone who makes $250k a year and is facing a tax hike is just middle class.

Interesting story.
Interesting because Colorado Springs has chosen to operate within it's budget instead of recklessly running up deficits. No future taxpayer funded bailout needed here.

In CS, the 2010 sales-tax forecast is almost $22 million less than 2007, a strong indication that the public is financially strapped. CS ignoring this obvious reality, attempted to triple property taxes on the residents who are clearly financially strapped already. The public overwhelmingly voted down that referendum. Now the City has to live like the little people...making tough choices and tightening it's belt.

I for one have no problem making the Gummit eat from the same table as the little people. Perhaps it will humble some gummit officials and dull some of the pretty off their elitism crowns.

You still gotta wonder how many social services jobs and supervisor jobs have been cut.

They rattled the usual sabers before the tax hike vote, promising to cut fire and police and the things that we don't mind paying for.

But then politics intervened, and politicians realized that we would be holding them personally responsible for cuts in essential programs.

And it's working.

Perhaps the good people of Colorado Springs should take a look here www.springsgov.com they may get an idea where the money goes. I just skimmed through the report and found under Fiduciary Funds Statement the Trust totals for fire and police pensions total some 13.5 million. One small area to look. Allot of money for one fund in a city this size. Note: the investment pool totals and accounts are not shown in the cafr. If you want to look-up your own local cafr a good place to start is here: http://www.cafr1.com/

You MUST live within your means. That means making tough choices. Did you see this in the article??

Broadmoor luxury resort chief executive Steve Bartolin wrote an open letter asking why the city spends $89,000 per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends only $24,000 on each.

Fuckin gov jobs. there is no accountability. BTW current payroll is nothing compared to pensions and HC promises. It's what's been promised that is catastropic....

BTW current payroll is nothing compared to pensions and HC promises. It's what's been promised that is catastropic....

#24 | Posted by DavetheWave

Try about 3 trillion underfunded pension programs.

$3 trillion in underfunded programs.

www.cato-at-liberty.org

www.usatoday.com

When I read this, especially the part about cutting cleaning services in the local parks, I immediately began to wonder if the $89k per year employees working for the city were SEIU members. If you recall, several months ago the president of a Pennsylvania branch of the SEIU threatened a boy scout who had decided to do some public service cleaning up a park. Apparently, this gentleman felt that the SEIU owned the park, and therefore had the right to dictate who cleaned it up.

Wait, you mean if you want to live in civilization you have to pay for it?

I don't envy the poor fellow who has to break the news to the Republicans.

Dark streets mean a good opportunity for those like myself to gain goods we have always wanted.

...myself to gain goods we have always wanted.

Proof of ratsa's split personality. When are you going to trot timbci out, ratsa?

we meaning everybody. Tim lives in NJ. Rcade can easily verify we are not the same people by our IP addresses. Secondly I know little of financial markets where Tim claims to know quite a bit. What I know about is taking goods from others by hook or crook.

"What I know about is taking goods from others by hook or crook."

Aren't you concerned that someone is going to shoot you? The Springs is also the home of the US Air Force Academy, and home to a lot of retired military personnel. Not optimal targets.

I'm not sure where you live, but I would guess that the best places to be a cat burglar would be those left wing cities that have placed restrictions on gun ownership. Washington DC and Chicago come to mind. Not only have they actively discouraged personal protection, but they are likely to have an overloaded police force that lacks the resources to properly prosecute you for your crime.

In other words, you need to find those rich people that have are ideologically hindered from protecting themselves. A little bit of audacity, combined with a little bit of common sense, and you can probably take quite a bit from those folks.

No money in the budget for police or fire or essential services... but the hookers and mistresses jobs are ALWAYS protected.

Wow madbomber, i heard that thug union member on the bigtalker radio here in philly. He was a fucking goon squad union asshole. He kept pushing his talking points and refusing to use any commonsense.

I had no idea he was SEIU. I do know he seriously pissed off a bunch of the listening audience....


Dark streets mean a good opportunity for those like myself to gain goods we have always wanted.

#31 | Posted by jackass at 2010-02-07 12:23 AM


Slugs like yourself don't know how or what to do with them once you have them.

Owning "things" takes work.

Get it, slug?

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