The Detroit Free Press: 62 pickle makers pay $960K for jobless aid fraud
The state says 62 former workers at a Vlasic pickle factory have pleaded guilty and will make $960,000 in restitution for fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits while continuing to work.
$960K would buy a lot of pickles indeed.
Tam at VFTP posts that Reuters reports on riots in Stockholm, Sweden where Muslims, cutely and euphemistically called "youths", have been setting fire to cars and rioting for three days. The Reuters report neither menitons the "M" word nor the "I" word to identify these "disaffected youths".
Unsurprisingly, the Swedish left is blaming itself for the riots rather than the wrongdoers.
Our Left Says: "Why do they hate us?", and the Swedish Left says: "Why do they burn our cars?"
The left-leaning tabloid Aftonbladet said the riots represented a "gigantic failure" of government policies, which had underpinned the rise of ghettos in the suburbs.
"We have failed to give many of the people in the suburbs a hope for the future," Anna-Margrethe Livh of the opposition Left Party wrote in the daily Svenska Dagbladet.
Interestingly enough, neither the Detroit Free Press nor the Detroit News deign to mention this rather news-worthy, multi-day riot.
Funny how they've wholly failed to cover it while instead giving the lead in their compilation of World/Nation news such stories as "McDonald's CEO bawled-out by 9-year-old" (The Free Press) and Report: Nation’s kids need to get more physical (The Detroit News). Note the resuklts of searches for "Sweden": The Freepand The News - not a single mention of any riots at all.
Given our large Muslim population here in the Detroit area, it's hard to tell if this media blackout is meant to kowtow to them or instead is to prevent inspiration of some spontaneous youth riots here.
Remember, its not news until they decide to cover it.
The Detroit City Clowncil really outdid itself by giving racist, anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan a platform to broadcast his vile racist statements.
First Farrakhan went to a church run by the local NAACP bozo and gave quite the rousing anti-Semitic speech, with City Council members and Congressman John Conyers in attendance:
Attending Farrakhan’s speech were the pastor of the church, Rev. Wendell Anthony, who heads the Detroit Branch NAACP; U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit; Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and other religious and political leaders.
At Fellowship Chapel in Detroit, Farrakhan railed Friday night against what he called “Satanic Jews” and the “Synagogue of Satan,” which he said controlled major institutions in the U.S. He also alleged that President Barack Obama “surrounded himself with Satan ... members of the Jewish community.”Attending Farrakhan’s speech were the pastor of the church, Rev. Wendell Anthony, who heads the Detroit Branch NAACP; U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit; Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, and other religious and political leaders.
Farrakhan then beclowned himself by declaring that Kwame Kilpatrick's crimes would have been overlooked had he been white. As if.
Farrakhan then gave a rousing speech before an attentive Detroit city Council and got a nice resolution in his honor from property tax cheat councilwoman Jo Ann Watson:
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson presented Farrakhan with a testimonial resolution on behalf of the council after his speech.
That Detroit's churchmen and city councillors, and its senior Congressman for that matter attend, approve, and honor Farrakhan says all you need to know about Detroit's Democrat leadership.
So this morning I was working from home and I got a knock on the door.
It was Consumers Energy, letting me know that there was a gas leak right in my front yard.
It seems they were driving through the neighborhood doing a survey and it detected gas leaking.
Of course, it had to be on the lawn right where there are a bunch of large rocks decoratively piled and right under a Michigan white pine sapling that Leah brought home from school last year and we had planted in that otherwise bare space.
The gas leak explains why Leah's tree is having some issues with browning leaves and such.
So, they immediately got to work excavating a hole to get to the leak.
It became quite a large hole indeed.
They then found the leak almost immediately in the copper pipe leading to the house, right at the main. It made quite the whooshing noise when they found it. They then capped off the main and then pressure tested the remainder of the copper pipe leading to the house. No further leaks were found but they're going to replace the copper service pipe with a plastic one all thw way to the house soon so more digging will occur in the future. It was also clearly safe once one of the service guys had a smoke break right by the hole.
Here's the site of the leak and the remainder of the copper service pipe being tested.
A welder then arrived and they welded the connection back to the main. They then filled in the hole and finished up. Final leak testing comes later along with turning the gas back on, probably later this evening.
Very efficiently done, and the Consumer's Energy guys were nice people. It was pretty cool watching them skillfully do the excavation and repair work.
They're also going to cover the bare earth back up and move the rocks back into position once the final clean-up crew is available.
An interesting diversion and another reminder that it is always something.
Not a story you see everyday.
From the New York Daily News: Firefighters save cat and NYPD cop stuck in tree in Queens
Apparently, leaving doughnuts at the base of the tree was insufficient to get the cop to come down on his own, so they had to send the firefighters up to get him and the cat.
I took the kids to the old neighborhood to attend the annual fishing derby.
It was nice to see old friends and see how people are doing. The old neighborhood has a beach lot and boat basin on Cass Lake, and each year the homeowners association buys some trout, seals off the boat basing and has a fishing derby. As such trout could be taken, anything else was catch and release. As former residents we get invited to attend.
So I found, dusted off, and loaded the fishing rods into the car and off we went.
After we arrived, I then spent a while with them both teaching them how to cast. Abby picked right up on it and Leah took a bit more instruction which made sense. After awhile they got the hang of it and were happily casting away.
Neither of them wanted to handle the worms initially but Leah was soon having as much fun handling and scientifically examining the worms (which were huge) as she did fishing while Abby seriously concentrated on fishing. I was however the only one to put the worms on the hooks, as both girls asigned me that "yucky" job.
Here's one of the scientific worm exams:
Leah would carefully examine each worm and declare it fit for bait. With a fanfare of "Duh, duh, duuuuh - you're bait!" she would hand over the chosen worm to be hooked. She did however release a cute little worm onto the grass to escape being hooked up with destiny. Even worms can be cute to a six year old.
The first thing caught was by Leah - a dock with one of her casts. Since it wasn't dock season, we just removed the hook from the wood and got on with fishing.
After many a cast and many a worm was lost, Abby caught a three and a half inch bluegill, and was even able to reuse the worm after releasing it.
Then Abby caught the monster fish of the day - a nine and a half inch bass.
Leah then caught a three inch bluegill.
All three fish were released and swam off none the worse for wear,
We caught nothing further except for weeds and one piece of rope, but the kids were very happy with their achievements and had a very good time.
The snapping turtle that lives in the boat basin made a cameo appearance at the derby as he does every year.
After some snacking and small talk with old friends I took them home as they were happy but fried.
A really great day with the two of them.
With pensions underfunded by at least $600 million, two of Detroit's public pension funds sent four trustees to Hawaii.
The Detroit Free Press: Detroit's pension boards pay $22K to send 4 trustees to Hawaii
Four trustees of Detroit’s two public pension funds are heading to a Hawaiian beach resort this weekend with their $22,000 tab paid for by the funds, which are mired in claims of mismanagement and said to be at least $600 million underfunded.. . . .
Records obtained by the Free Press under the Freedom of Information Act show the expenses cover airfare — including a first-class flight for one trustee — lodging at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu, registration fees, meals and a per diem for miscellaneous expenses.
The Detroit pension plan situation is clearly desperate, but not considered serious by the trustees.
Of course, the trustees are just taking the President's cue about living large with lavish vacations to Hawaii at the public's expense, so can anyone truly blame them?
The Detroit Free Press editorial page, long a guaranteed apologist and defender of Obama and his priorities is finally getting somewhat annoyed with his administration as it interferes with the media's jealously guarded privileges.
Apparently it takes a direct attack on the media before the media lose their full-on lapdog mode and start to again fulfill their responsibilities as a free press.
The Detroit Free Press: Editorial: An attack on the press is an attack against us all
It’s hard to think of any justification for the Justice Department to have snatched up thousands of phone records from the Associated Press, but there had better be a forthright explanation coming.From Attorney General Eric Holder, and from President Barack Obama, who should probably be dusting off résumés of Holder’s potential replacements.
This is government intrusion at a level that goes far beyond the issue of press protections. If federal law enforcement feels empowered to rifle through journalists’ private phone records, ostensibly looking for evidence of a government leak, then nothing would restrain similar action against other citizens.
Of course, the editorial being from the Free Press, they had to pull back their angst and defend Obama in the very same editorial, perhaps out of fear of an IRS audit if they criticized him too much:
Of course, some conservatives have leapt to an illogical conclusion: that Obama is Richard Nixon, whose abuse of government power was his undoing.That’s absurd, but so would any suggestion that these transgressions don’t warrant serious inquiry, and serious consequences for those guilty of over-stepping their bounds.
Hmm, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, IRS and AP phone tapping and he's still not, at least in the minds of the Freep, as bad as Nixon. True enough. Nixon certainly did not enjoy this level of media sycophancy to cover his misdeeds.
Apparently the Freep will need to undergo a far bigger goring of its ox before it ceases to be a part of the Obama lapdog press.
As noted by Right Michigan, Detroit is teetering on the edge of Chapter 9 bankruptcy: The Corpse Is Still In The Morgue. Go read it to get a full realization as to how badly messed up the corrupt Democrat dominated city is in reality now that they can't hide the true picture anymore.
Right now, as reported in The Detroit Free Press the EFM is giving it 6 weeks to see if Detroit can be fixed by anything less than filing bankruptcy>
Oh, and the amount of Detroit's outstanding liabilities revealed so far is now up to $15 Billion.
40 years of Democrat corruption and neglect has destroyed a city.
You can read the EFM's Financial and Operating Plan report in all its sobering glory at the Detroit Free Press.
A Saudi man landing in Detroit with a pressure cooker in his luggage raised some eyebrows among Customs and Border Protection officers. Either this was a very weird probe, or this guy is just plain dumb, or a combination of the two.
The Detroit Free Press: Saudi traveler with pressure cooker arrested at Detroit Metro Airport.
Federal agents arrested a suspicious traveler with an altered Saudi Arabian passport at Detroit Metro Airport during the weekend after discovering a pressure cooker in his luggage.According to a criminal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court, the passenger, Hussain Al Khawahir initially told customs officers that he brought the pressure cooker for a nephew at the University of Toledo because pressure cookers are not sold in Saudi Arabia, the complaint said. The man then changed his story and admitted his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in America before, but it “was cheap” and broke after the first use
Adding to the fun of travelling with a pressure cooker was that his passport was suspiciously missing some pages. Combine that with lying to CBP and he's getting deported.
Apparently the pressure cooker was purchased in Amsterdam if you buy the Saudi's claim that you can't purchase them in Saudi Arabia.
The moral of the story for travellers, aside from being truthful and not traveling on an altered passport, is that you should stick to buying Dutch Ovens in Amsterdam and leave the pressure cookers there alone.
