Wisconsin Should Have Read the Fine Print

Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved

From Esquire

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states, where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done, and where yonder stands the orphan with his gun.

We begin our tour this week in the great state of Ohio - John Kasich, moderate Republican, governor. You may recall that, on Tuesday, we brought you the story of Alva Campbell, the dying murderer whom Ohio was trying to make as comfortable as possible while it killed him.

Well, the time came on Wednesday and, predictably, as The Columbus Dispatch reports, it all went completely sideways.

The scheduled execution of twice-convicted killer Alva Campbell was called off when a medical team with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction could not find two viable sites for a lethal intravenous injection, prisons Director Gary Mohr said. The state’s protocol requires two such sites, he said. Afterward, Gov. John Kasich issued a temporary reprieve and rescheduled Campbell’s execution for June 5, 2019.

I don’t believe it’s completely out of line to speculate that moderate Republican Governor John Kasich has delayed the execution for a year and a half in the hope that, in the interim, one of Campbell’s several serious illnesses will take its natural course before they have to break out the wedge-shaped pillow again.

The execution process began an hour late while Campbell’s arms and legs were inspected. At 10:57 a.m., he was wheeled into the death chamber, helped onto the gurney and strapped in. For half an hour, the medical team used an ultraviolet light to probe his left and right arm for a vein. They stuck Campbell twice in his right arm, once in his left and once in his left leg before giving up. During the leg stick, Campbell threw his head back and appeared to cry out in pain.

No, I don’t believe it’s out of line at all.

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Let us skip on out to the sunny climes of California, a state which, if the L.A. Times is correct, has become god’s own kindling.

The decimation of that 1950s tract development at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains illustrates a phenomenon that is commonplace in Southern California - neighborhoods built so close to forest and chaparral that they could fall to the kind of urban conflagration that wiped out a whole neighborhood of Santa Rosa in last month’s fires. From Ventura to San Diego, hundreds of thousands of homes - both in mountain enclaves and flatland tracts - are part of what is called the wildland/urban interface, where there is a higher risk of fire. That’s because homes are close enough to wild land areas that ember from brush fires could spread to them.

A Times analysis of the state’s maps for the highest-risk fire areas in Southern California shows about 550,000 residences covered by the zones. If areas with a lower but still significant fire risk were added, the number would roughly double, The Times analysis found. Complicating the situation, some cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have expanded the state’s fire zones to include many more homes, while others have not. Agoura Hills, La Canada Flintridge and four cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula declared their entire areas hazard zones, said J. Lopez, assistant chief for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. San Bernardino County adopted the state boundary unchanged, despite an obvious flaw. The boundary excludes a portion of the Del Rosa neighborhood that burned in 2003. Replacement houses like Mead’s, built to more modern fire standards, are still outnumbered by ‘50s tract homes with features such as wooden siding and open eaves that would not be allowed today.

If you read the whole story, you’ll find that this problem has local officials pretty damned flummoxed. Fire, it seems, is unpredictable. Go to the links at the bottom of the story (Fires! Mudslides! Landslides! Sinkholes) and you come away wondering whether California or Mars is more conducive to human habitation.

Let us waft on updrafts of superheated air north to Wisconsin, which is in the process of welcoming Good Corporate Citizen Foxconn - leave those suicide nets in China, thanks - which certainly will redound to the credit of both the state and the company... no, wait. What’s that you say, Reuters?

While the 10th anniversary version of iPhone has seen parts suppliers struggle with specifications for new features such as facial recognition and edge-to-edge display, red-hot demand for the product, which went on sale this month, is expected to lead to a relatively rapid recovery for Foxconn… The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, said third-quarter net profit tumbled to T$21 billion ($700 million), some 42 percent below an average estimate from analysts.

Whew. Good thing for that red-hot demand, because Wisconsin’s really putting out the gilded welcome mat for Foxconn, as The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel shows us.

Word of the possible development here emerged Monday from Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, as he spoke at a meeting of the Greater Milwaukee Committee on the challenges the region faces in preparing for Foxconn. Among those challenges are increased traffic and the problem of getting huge numbers of workers - Foxconn says it will employ as many as 13,000 - to a semi-rural area 8 miles west of downtown Racine and more than 20 miles from downtown Milwaukee. But with state money earmarked to widen I-94 to eight lanes and plans in place to improve local roads, Sheehy said regional officials “thought we were ahead of the curve” on traffic issues. Then they briefed Foxconn on the accomplishments. “And we were all dumbstruck,” Sheehy said, “when they looked at us and said, ‘So where’s the autonomous vehicle lane?’”

Where’s the unicorn lane? Where’s the rainbow bridge to Asgard? What’s wrong with you cheeseheads anyway? Don’t you read the fine print? You’re under new management now.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Eternally Surprised Liberal Friedman of the Plains ponders this suddenly Democratic stronghold, and brings us this week’s installment of What Could Go Wrong Anyway? From KOCO:

According to a draft of the study on the DHS official website, the proposed tests will be conducted in early 2018, and again in summer 2018 at the Chilocco Indian School Campus near Newkirk, Oklahoma. According to DHS officials, the study will include low level outdoor release of inert chemical and biological stimulant materials. Officials said the purpose of the study is to gather data that enhances the department’s predictive capabilities in the event of a biological agent attack. However, residents in the area are concerned.

Jargon will save us. It’s in the Bible.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

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