Efficiency of government

I signed up for alerts on AB 427 a few weeks ago. Just got this:

WI Legislature Notification System

To ckuecker*****@*****.*** 

 

Today at 5:23 AM

You requested to be notified of the following legislative activities:

Subject subscriptions: Based on the keyword: "ab 427"

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Proposal: AB427 (-3158) View Bill History
relating to: comprehensive firearm education for high school pupils.

• 8/3/2017: Public hearing held

To change or stop email notifications to ckuecker2000@yahoo.com, please go to the Notify website.

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I'm amazed at the efficiency of the government. The hearing was Thursday, the notification came only two days after!

Thanks to WAVE, I made the hearing. If I had relied on Wisconsin's bureaucracy, I would not have had a chance to register my support to the committee.

Dealings with Ill-Annoys UI

Just mailed this off:

 

Illinois Department of Employment Security

P. O. Box 19509

Springfield, IL 62794

Charles A. Kuecker

xxxxx.

xxxxx

03/16/15

Re: Claimant ID xxxxxx request for reconsideration

Recently, I received  a "Determination" telling us we were ineligible for unemployment insurance since we had not supplied proof of identification, i.e., copies my driver's license (both front and back) and of my Social Security card. We included all of this in a fat envelope, and paid extra postage registered mail to P. O. Box 19509.

We mailed this packet over a week ago. Today, I spoke to a nice lady who has the onerous job of handling calls from irate people like me who are entangled in the bureaucracy of Illinois unemployment insurance. She told me that I needed to not only send the information that I had sent, but also a formal letter requesting that you accept that data and reinstate my claim for benefits. She also said that the copy of my Social Security card was not in the scanned-in documents. It was in the packet originally mailed, so somewhere in your organization, it was lost.

So, here is that letter, asking that you please reinstate my claim for unemployment benefits, along with more copies of everything, again sent by registered mail. I am also spending extra for a return receipt, as I cannot trust your office to handle things without losing pages.

Why it is necessary for a claimant who has records on file from Illinois employers as to employment history to provide a copy of a Social Security card that plainly states "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES - NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" is beyond me. Though since I am simply a college graduate electrical engineer, perhaps I am just too stupid to understand the marvelous complexity of Illinois unemployment law.

Regards,

Charles A. Kuecker

Enclosed:

Copy of Wisconsin driver's license, both sides

Copy of original Social Security card, front only (laminated in 1960-something)

Unemployment insurance follies

Since the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development website won't allow me to fill in the dates I've worked, I dial into the "help" system.

"If you speak English, press 1". I'm curious, so I don't touch the phone,

"En Espanol...dos". I continue to wait.

Some Asian language - Hmong? Cute female voice, anyway. Continue to do nothing.

"Do you speak a language other than English?". More waiting.

Instructions to make sure your phone is set for touch-tone - and if it's a dial phone, please wait.

Finally - "We are going to attempt to connect your call". Nine in line. Time is around ten minutes.

Or, I can ask for "virtual hold", and they will call me back in around half an hour. Still waiting - seven ahead of me now.

They really want me on "virtual hold"...

Number 6 now.

Number 2 now - still want me to go on virtual hold...

Finally - a human. Nice lady. The reason I can't get into the system is because I was working in Ill-Annoys, not Wisconsin - have to file down there. Thanks for your help, have a good day.

Off to the Ill-Annoys UI site - will update...

The Ill-annoys site worked OK, but did ask for my WEIGHT on my driver's license. If all goes well, I'll get benefits in two weeks - about a quarter of what I was earning.

Tax time

Did our taxes today. Only took three hours, including the "e-file". Getting a good refund, at least that's what the filled-out forms tell me. I'll believe it when the checks clear.

Aside from the Wisconsin e-file form not being readable in the browser, but just fine downloaded and opened in Adobe, and the fact that the Wisconsin W-2 form not allowing punctuation and cents where the federal form did, I think I only damned the fed and state IRS to eternal hell with extra brimstone fifty or so times.

Encounters with Monster and the Wisconsin DWD

I have a Monster login, last used about three years ago. So, when a search found a possible job in Janesville right next door, I eagerly clicked on the "apply" button. The Monster login screen appears.

I enter my user name and what I think is my password - it's been a long time. Monster tells me I must have made a mistake - I am trying to access the job seeker's page, and do I want to go to the employer's page instead?

The employer's page is just that - where employers go to post job opportunities. I have never been an employer unless you count the time I paid my two older kids to assemble military battery pack control prototypes for a customer. They learned surface mount soldering, and I got my 25 prototypes built while I worked on other things.

Tried logging in with my Google account, as they suggest. Same result.

So, Monday I'm going to contact the company directly. If they are paying Monster to post jobs, at least Monster should ensure that the website allows job-seekers to log in correctly.

Next stop is the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. As much as I detest asking for government aid, I like to keep my wife fed and housed, and I've paid enough self-employment taxes to think I'm entitled to get something back.

I log in, using the same credentials I had three years ago. It lets me in. So far, so good.

Answer all their questions. No trouble.

Now, they want my work history since I last had gotten a UI check. OK, I'll fill out the forms.

"When did you start this job? If you can't remember the exact date, be as close as you can.". I enter a date in MM/DD/YYYY format, as that is what they asked for in an earlier question - the slashes are mandatory. Tab to the next question - and my entry disappears.

Try again - same result.

Try answering the next question - "When did you end this job?". Same result.

Try clicking on "Next" with both questions unanswered. "You must enter a valid starting and ending date". Also, the website informs me that claim entry will close in 45 minutes. It's a quarter after 6.

Start looking for the "contacts" tab, so I can ask for help or tell them their website is broken. Get a nice list of phone numbers that Ii can't call until next Monday during normal bureaucracy hours.

Fun way to start the weekend.

More BATFEIEIO bullshit

In preparing for a gun transfer, I went to the FBI E-Check page to fill out the Brady check info for the customer.

The on-line form now asks if this is a pre-check for a pawn.

Since when are we supposed to do a Brady check on someone turning a gun in for money?

This might have been SOP forever, and I just noticed now - I'm not running a pawn shop.

Letter to the editor

Beloit got buried last weekend - and as usual, the city could not figure out how to plow the road properly - so, a letter to the editor of the Beloit Daily News:


Before moving to Beloit, I've lived in several places. Chicago, Suburban towns. All of them were able to maintain their roads, especially in the downtown areas where most cities would like people to go to shop and visit.

Beloit, however, can't seem to manage to remove the snow from downtown. After every big snowstorm, there are three and four foot high berms of snow filling the center of the street and most left turn lanes. It's impossible to make a left turn into parking lots. This morning, a car was stuck in the snow left in the middle of Fourth Street by the bridge over the river. Two police vehicles were needed to prevent accidents.

In the paper today, the streets supervisor was quoted as saying they can't use trucks to haul snow because the snow would leave them wet and they can't spread salt from a wet truck.

South Beloit does not seem to have a problem keeping their roads clear. Neither does Rockford.

Perhaps Beloit needs to set aside one or two plow trucks to haul snow, and clean up the mess the right way, right away. Let's see our city have some pride in keeping the downtown plowed properly.


Let's see if it gets printed - they only have letters to the editor one or two days a week lately.

Save a tree - abolish the BATFE!

Just got a love note from these guys - as a FFL, I am required (by an illegal rule promulgated by an illegal bureaucracy) to use the latest and greatest issue of the good-old 4473 form whenever I transfer a freedom tool to a citizen exercising his or her inalienable right - as guaranteed to not be infringed by the Second Amendment of that almost forgotten document.

Well, the pencil-pushers decided that there's no reason anymore to verify that a resident alien is truly a resident of the state he or she attempts to purchase a firearm in - so all those yellow 4473s are not obsolete and "illegal" to use after July 9th.

So, a stack of about 200 of them just went into the garbage - I won't glorify them with recycling.

How many millions were just wasted on printing a new 4473, and mailing half a ream of paper to every FFL in America?

The European Union knows best!

Just like California...the state has real brains...

++++++++++++++++++

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.

By Victoria Ward and Nick Collins

6:20AM GMT 18 Nov 2011

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.

“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.

“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”
++++++++++++++++++
It only took them three years to figure that out. The money quote:

A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.

Have to wonder about the credentials of those "scientists".

Good news!

Let's hope they continue...

EPA delays global warming rules again

byConn Carroll Senior Editorial Writer

For the second time in four months the Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed that they will again delay the release of their much anticipated global warming regulations.

An EPA spokeswoman told National Journal Thursday that the EPA will not issue caps on greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to the Clean Air Act by their latest September 30th deadline. The EPA had originally promised the environmental activist groups suing the federal government that they would issue global warming regulations by July 26th.

Want an FFL?

It's easy. Just fill out this form:

ATF F 5310.12 (Form 7) — Application for Federal Firearm License (FFL)

You have to send a copy of your completed form to your local police chief or sheriff. You also have to certify that you conform to all local laws and regulations, so if your community bans home businesses, forget getting an FFL unless you can find and afford a suitable commercial zoned site. You also must intend to be operating a for-profit business - hobbyists are not invited.

(Individuals and collectors CAN get a "C&R" license, with similar paperwork - and then can only get "curio and relic" guns - not anything modern.)

Then fill out this one:


ATF F 5330.20 — Certification of Compliance - stating that you are a citizen of the USA. Why this is duplicated on the "Form 7" is beyond me.

Then fill out two FD–258 fingerprint cards for every "responsible person":

Get some 2″ x 2″ passport pictures for every "responsible person":

Send them some money. For a garden-variety FFL, it's $200.00.

Once all this is done, you can expect to wait up to 60 days to get your paper license. It's good for three years. If you violate any of the thousands of (illegal) gun laws on the books, expect at the least crippling lawyer bills, if not free room and board courtesy of Uncle Sam.

The ATF website is innocent of any links to the form to renew an FFL, so I had to inquire of my local office in Milwaukee. Lucky for me, the renewal process omits photos and fingerprints.


And the antis still complain it's too easy to get hold of guns...