Whoa, did crews find a portal into the fourth dimension? Rumor has it there's unlimited capacity to chuck our McDonald's wrappers and moldy carpeting.

Nope. The projections just change depending on how much stuff we throw out.

"It's full when it's full," said Mike Williams, general manager of Republic Services, the firm that manages the Kestrel Hawk landfill.

If the current volume continues, the dump has room for about seven to eight years of trash, he estimated. Illinois garbage is no longer trucked here, and increased recycling has also cut down on the junk population, he said.

So has the smelly economy. With little to build, contractors fill fewer trash bins. And, with less cash to buy stuff, consumers have fewer plasma-screen boxes to discard.

Kestrel Hawk's lifespan could be longer or shorter based on how much garbage comes in, Williams said. There are no plans to expand what many affectionately call Mount Racine, and he said another dump in the area is unlikely.

"They tend to expand current landfills so you're not disrupting a new area," Williams said.

The state also requires companies to maintain landfills for 40 years after they close.

Who took down the stop sign on the south side of the intersection of highways C and 20, and why was it changed to a right-turn, merge lane?

The reader wrote that drivers heading east on Highway 20 haven't been clued in to the change and think those coming from C are cutting them off. She's concerned it'll lead to something worse than road rage.

The state Department of Transportation made the switch a while back. Spokesman Dennis Shook said the free flow of traffic tends to cut down on rear-end collisions, which have occurred there more often than engineers would like.

Making it right

A few weeks back, I ran this question: If I vote for Candidate A by connecting the arrows and then put a name in the write-in space without connecting the arrows, for whom would it count?

Poll workers in Burlington and Racine, who have to sort through ballots to check for that kind of voter indecision, said the answer I got from the state Government Accountability Board - Candidate A - didn't compute. They were right. According to the voting manual, the write-in takes precedence, said David Buerger, an election specialist with the GAB. Sorry for the error.

Mike Moore compiles the Glad You Asked column. Call (262) 631-1758 or e-mail:

ask@journaltimes.com