Today's Feature
Law Enforcement Tax Approved.

The Jasper County Sheriff sales tax was approved by county-wide vote on Tuesday. The official total votes for all 66 precincts in the county was 6,062 in favor of the tax and 5,203 against the tax. Voter turnout was at 15.45 percent of total registered voters.

In Carthage the five precincts totaled 1,559 voters. 824 voters were against the tax and 735 were in favor.

Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn was relieved and excited at the passing of the tax.

"It’s like a big load taken off our shoulders," said Dunn. "Now we can get back to police work."

Dunn said that the Sheriff office has been working on the tax campaign and procedure for a year and the first step after its passing is to make plans for an order of instatement of the items listed in the proposal.

State statute rules that the tax can’t go into effect until after the first quarter. According to County Clerk Ron Mosbaugh the tax should begin around April and the Sheriff department should begin receiving the funds a month after the instatement of the tax.

Dunn said the Sheriff department doesn’t expect any funding to be received until around July. Tentative top items on the priority list for Dunn include adjusting the pay scale for the department and reinstating courthouse security.

Stench Report:
Wednesday,
11/9/05

No Stench Detected

Although overall the larger communities leaned more against, and the smaller communities and rural areas leaned more for, it was pretty well a split vote in all areas.

It ended up with about one percent of more of the registered voters votin’ for the tax.

It just goes ta show once again that a small percentage of votes can and do make a difference how elections turn out.

For what I’m guessin’ is about half of those eighty-five percent of the voters that didn’t turn out but were against, I don’t wanna hear any gripin’ about the outcome. If ya didn’t vote, you missed the boat.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

Dear Tom and Ray:

In the 1940s and early ‘50s, we had a big old buffalo robe, and I remember my "old man" putting this blanket on the hood of the car or on the engine to keep it warm in the winter. I’m wondering now if that had any effect in cold temperatures as far as keeping the engine warm for cold Minnesota morning starts. - Ken

RAY: Well, let’s start by discussing blanket technology, Ken. A blanket works by slowing heat loss. So, if you wrap yourself in a blanket at dinnertime and then sit outside in zero-degree weather, you’ll lose less heat than you would have without the blanket.

TOM: But is the same true for a car? Well, the big difference between you and a car engine is that you keep generating heat all night. That’s a function of being alive.

RAY: So the question is, Does a blanket slow heat loss enough to keep some heat in the engine 12 hours later? Probably not.

TOM: In cold weather, an engine normally loses most of its heat in about three hours. The only exception is the oil, which can take as much as eight hours to reach complete equilibrium with the outside air..

RAY: Can a blanket extend the time it takes for oil to get cold by an additional four to six hours? I don’t think it’s likely. But if the car were driven at 11 p.m. and then started at 6 a.m. the blanket might make a difference.

TOM: But while a blanket might have been the only option for your old man, there are better alternatives these days. There are block heaters that you can plug into an electrical outlet. They actually generate heat. And then there’s the greatest advance ever in cold-weather car-starting: The heated garage.

RAY: And if you build one, Ken, put the horse in there too. He’ll appreciate that a lot more than a stinkin’ blanket.

RACING
by Greg Zyla
Sponsored by Curry Automotive

Don’t Blame Goodyear for Charlotte Fiasco

Q: Greg, I thought the Charlotte 500 was going to end up being like the Formula 1 race at Indy when most of the cars (all but six) refused to start the event due to tire problems. The drivers in NASCAR did race, but what’s wrong with Goodyear? — Alan, e-mail from Texas

A: Alan, I agree that the 500-mile Lowe’s Speedway event at Charlotte came close to being either postponed or shortened in length due to tire problems. But the problems arose after the speedway had been scraped for a better overall show, and no one really knew about it but the Charlotte staff, led by promoter H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler.

Wheeler basically had the Charlotte racing surface scraped without knowledge of either NASCAR or the Goodyear Tire Company. The result was an extremely fast track, but also one that ate the tires.

In Goodyear’s defense, a company cannot develop a tire that will withstand a scraped surface unless it first tests and then develops the proper rubber for the re-configured track. Goodyear was defenseless. So, let’s just chalk this one up to H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler. Everyone makes a wrong call now and then, so as for me, Humpy is still the best when it comes to putting on a race.