An Unreasonable and Unnecessary Pirate Quandary

After the excellent rescue of Captain Phillips by the United States Navy, the government is now in a quandry over what to do with the 4th living and captured pirate involved in the incident.

Potentially they might consider this a law enforcement matter and try him in New York or Washington D.C.:
US weighing where to charge captured Somali pirate

The Justice Department was considering whether to prosecute a Somali pirate in Washington or New York, U.S. officials said following the rescue of a U.S. hostage and the apprehension of his only surviving captor.

The decision will determine where the pirate will be flown in what is shaping up as the first U.S. piracy case in recent memory.

Three pirates were killed Sunday in a military operation that rescued Capt. Richard Phillips, who had been held hostage aboard a lifeboat for days. A fourth pirate was in discussions with naval authorities about Phillips' fate when the rescue took place.

Both piracy and hostage-taking carry life sentences under U.S. law.

Great, so we'll now have the expense of a securing this guy in jail in the US pre-trial, a trial and government appointed defense counsel with all rights granted to a US Defendant, then hopefully with a conviction and then we get to keep him for life in a U.S. Prison probably with living conditions and civil rights far ahead of what he has ever had and when he gets out then what, more years of legal wranfgling to deport him, or is piracy going to be a new eventual path to citizenship?

Just grand, and ceetainly not a disencentive to commit Piracy.

How about a simpler situation and instead of mamking this international act a US domestic law enforcement issue just enforce the law of the sea in situ.

Yardarm, Rope, Pirate -- some temporary assembly required.

Thank You, Car Captain Obvious

Minicars at risk in crashes

This headline wins the week's bleeding obviousness award, and its only Tuesday. (We can expect tomorrow's headline ("Your taxes are due today" or alternatively "Long lines at Post Office as people file their taxes at the last minute") to posibly beat it out.)

The sub headline is also a master of the obvious: Study finds smallest vehicles perform poorly in head-on accidents

That we need such a study is a triumph of the scientific method to confirm that which we all should certainly know (but in this blighted age of scientific ignorance probably don't) - when big and heavy hits small and light, typically small and light will come out the worse for it.

David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
The smallest cars on the road are at a high risk for damage and personal injury in frontal crashes with midsize sedans, a study released today finds.

And, the death rate in one- to three-year-old minicars -- vehicles most automakers are building or considering bringing to market -- was almost twice as high as the rate in very large cars in multiple vehicle crashes, according to the report from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry-funded group that prods automakers to improve the safety of vehicles.

The IIHS crashed a 2009 model Toyota Yaris into a larger Toyota Camry; a Smart Fortwo into a Mercedes C-Class; and a Honda Fit into a Honda Accord. Each vehicle was traveling at 40 mph. All three small cars performed poorly, while the larger vehicles were rated good or acceptable.

Frontal crashes are the most dangerous traffic accidents, causing about 15,000 out of roughly 40,000 U.S. traffic deaths annually.

"There are safety trade-offs with buying minicars," said Adrian Lund, IIHS president. He said larger, heavier hybrid vehicles may be a better choice, since they often get similar gas mileage but fare better in head-on collisions. "Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes."

This is called a trade-off - impressive fule economy in return for higher risk of injury in accidents, pushed by governmental CAFE standards and mandates.

Automakers are betting on smaller cars in the face of last year's $4 a gallon gasoline prices and higher government fuel-efficiency standards, which are pushing automakers to bring lighter, smaller vehicles to market. Federal fuel rules call for a 35 percent fleetwide average increase in fuel efficiency by 2020. To that end, Ford Motor Co. is bringing the Fiesta to the United States and General Motors Corp. is introducing the Chevrolet Cruze next year. Chrysler LLC is trying to finalize a deal with Italian automaker Fiat SpA, which would provide it with small vehicles. Volkswagen AG is considering bringing its minicar to the U.S. market as well.

Small cars are good for decent weather, intra-urban driving. On the highways or in Michigan snow, not so much.

The bootrom line: if you've got the cash for a fuel efficient car for in-city trips and enoguh for another for a vehicle that can actually haul your kids around, handle snow and offer some decent crash safety it might not be a bad idea to have a Smart or such as a second car. Solely having a Smart or similar unless you're an unattached, childless hipster that doesn't need to haul much around and doesn't need to travel much outside of the city streets probably won't make a lot of sense or safety.

Mind you, Obama may just change the nature of things by legislative Fiat and force all cars from now on to be built small.

Update: Instapundit has a link to Autoblog that refers to the same story and even has links to video of the crash tests. Some of the comments on Autoblog are truly priceless.

If you can't add Gas to your car, maybe you shouldn't be driving

So yesterday I'm on my way home in a bit of a rush and realize I need to fuel up my car. No problem, I'm making good time, I'll just pop by Costco on the way home and fill up there as their gas tends to be cheaper.

I get there and there's a problem.

They have one lane completely closed with a trailer there doing something that looks like sewer cleaning.

Other lanes are also partially blocked with some pumps closed.

So I get directed into a line at a lane that has one pump open, with the nozzle on the opposite side from my gas tank (the Costco pump hoses are long, on bungee-like supports that can easily reach around your car so it doesn't matter what lane you get into - pretty efficient right?).

In front of me the car at the pump leaves and the car immediately ahead pulls up to the pump, this should be quick, its a Chrysler 300M and adding gasoline to it is a pretty easy process.

In a few words: for some, not so much.

Out get this middle aged lady (ie its not a teen with her first car and not an elderly person with early onset alzheimers - then again as you'll see maybe its extra-early onset alzheimers after all). She goes up to the pump and stares at it for a while, then fishes in her purse, gets out her card and starts to do something, presses a few buttons and seems to try again.

She then does it again, takes the hose out, looks for her gas tank (on the opposite side from the pump) and proceeds to stick the handle into the tank upside down (trigger an handle on top). This should be good.

Of course it doesn't work as the auto shut off triggers as the handle is upside down! She doesn't seem to understand.

While this is entertaining, people behind me in other lines are now done already and I'm stuck behind this bozo and pined in place with another car firmly attached to my rear bumper.

She goes back to the pump and stares.

Finally a Costco attendant comes by, hits the buttond, and then fills the gas for her, then stops, and then she puts her card in again and he continues to fill. WTF?

Eventually it is done. She now has to navigate the dreaded orange cone blocking the closed off pump in front of her. This takes a while. Finally she's gone. To put it in perspective and a rough estimate of time, I've now listened to three songs waiting for this moron to figure out how to put gas in a car.

I pull up, already with my card in hand as I've had PLENTY of time waiting. Get the process started, drag the hose over the Jeep and start filling in oh 5 seconds.

The Costco guy passes by and I ask what was the difficulty the lady was having.

Well he says first, she wanted midgrade gas (Costco only has 87 and 93 and skips the midgrade) for her car and she couldn't figure out where the button for midgrade was. Then when she realized there was no button she couldn't figure it out how to do it.

Here's a clue -- Fill half your tank with 93, the other half with 87 and voila, you have midgrade at actually a cheaper price than midgrade is typically sold for.

Here's another clue - when there's a long line line behind you have some courtesy and common sense and chose one, do not stop, do not pass go, do not stand there all slack jawed all day, just put one fuel in. If you're really concerned put in the premium, but the 300M will run on 87.

The final clue - put the handle in facing down, it works so much better then, really.

Some people probably shouldn't be allowed out in public by themselves, much less behind the wheel of a car.

Anyone really believe Iran is just looking for nuclear technology for peaceful purposes?

Yeah right, then why are they caught doing this: Iranian nuke plot vaporized in the city: NY banks unwittingly aided in material transfers, says DA Yes it's a rather sensational headline but here's what Iran was doing:

The Manhattan district attorney's office has smashed a sinister plot to smuggle nuclear weapons materials to Iran through unwitting New York banks, the Daily News has learned.

Officials plan to unseal a 118-count indictment Tuesday accusing a Chinese national of setting up a handful of fake companies to hide that he was selling millions of dollars in potential nuclear materials to Tehran.

"This case will cut off a major source of supply to Iran and it shows how they are going ahead full steam to get a nuclear bomb. Long-range missiles they pretty much have already," a law enforcement source close to the case said.

. . .

Experts say Iran, under the leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appears close to amassing enough nuclear material to make an atom bomb. A United Nations embargo bans Iran from acquiring the high-tech metals needed to make a long-range nuclear weapon a reality.

The indictment will outline the financial conspiracy behind 58 different transactions, including shipments of various banned materials from China to Iran between 2006 and late 2008.

Among them:

33,000 pounds of a specialized aluminum alloy used almost exclusively in long-range missile production.
66,000 pounds of tungsten copper plate, which is used in missile guidance systems.
53,900 pounds of maraging steel rods, a superhard metal used in uranium enrichment and to make the casings for nuclear bombs.
The recipient is believed to have been a subsidiary of the Iranian Defense Ministry.

Now for a harshly worded letter from the State Department...any day now.....

It's pretty sad when its the Manhattan District Attorney taking the lead on this rather than the Feds.

A Taxing Time

So my taxes are now filed, electronically no less. How about yours?

On the upside it looks like we will be getting a decent refund this year.

The downside:
a. A refund simply means you're getting back money you had the government withhold and use for no interest to you.

b. The reason we're getting a refund is not due to any accounting magic or government stimulus or tax breaks. Instead it is beacause we badly overwithheld our taxes. Why? Well we figured my wife's business as a Marriage and Family Therapist would do as well this year as it did last year (the whole safe harbor witholding thing - if you don't witthold the appropriate amounts you're penalized). Instead it was down 90%.

Why is it so down: Well the Michigan economy is a great explanation. People won't pay for therapy and try to hold a marriage together or other counselling needs when they need to focus on necessities.

Another reason is beacause of the strange insurance landscape in Michigan. Blue Cross / Blue Shield does not recognize my wife's Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy, for counselling purposes mainly due to the lobbying of Psychologists and Social Workers (Social Workers mind you have far less training than MFTs in counseliing but due to their numbers provide a large lobby indeed). Other states do, and amazingly enough, BC/BS in other states also recognizes it and will have MFTs as providers.

This year doesn't look much better either, but we'll see what happens.

Michigan State vs North Carolina Competition

Let's see how they line up:

Michigan State:
Unemployment: 12%
Job loss/gain (2009): -277,000 to date
Foreclosures: 6th in the nation
Economic Potential: Been in a recession since before it was fashionable, devoted to wrong ideas and single-industry concentration.
Union or right to work: Union

North Carolina:
Unemployment: 9.5%
Job loss/gain (2009): 38,00 predicted for all of 2009.
Foreclosures: 25th in the nation
Economic Potential: Taking a hit now, but has a great deal of potential for a comeback with a very diversified and advanced economy.
Union or right to work: Right to Work

The quick comparison shows North Carolina is ahead, and it was much farther ahead last year.

Oh, you mean the NCAA match up? Two great teams of hard-working athletes, but the Tar Heels have the edge so it should be a great game. Not a bad thing to watch to get your mind off the economy.

More Sure Signs of Global Warming

Or just Nature's idea of a late April Fool's Joke:


Another shot of winter: Heavy snow slows morning commute

Or Maybe Al Gore is in town to watch the NCAA finals?

The Detroit News:

What a sloppy, gloppy, drippy, mushy mess.

A spring storm whipping in from the Midwest brought rain, snow, thunder and lighting while dumping up to 5 inches of wet, heavy snow across the Metro area. The storm sent winter-weary residents of southeastern Michigan rooting through their closets for galoshes and parkas they thought they had put away for the year.

"We had rain that turned into snow starting at about midnight," said National Weather Service Meteorologist Phil Kurimski.

"It dropped 3-5 inches across most of the area. We had some real intense snow occurring between midnight and about 5 a.m., with up to 1-2 inches of snow per hour. The heaviest snow was south of Flint down through the Interstate 96 area. The hardest hit areas were Lenawee, western Wayne and Oakland counties."

Snow accumulations included 5 inches in White Lake Township, 3.9 inches in Ann Arbor and 3.8 inches in Garden City and Dearborn.

According to Kurimski, the snow storm was also accompanied by thunder and lightning.

"We did have thunder snow last night, and there were a couple of reports of lightning strikes," Kurimski said. "It was a very heavy, wet snow. If you tried to make a snowball you'd have to wring out the water. The storm should be over with by about noon, and any accumulation will probably be held down once the sun comes out. We may also get another inch of snow tomorrow."

The spring storm is expected to have little effect on tonight's NCAA Final Four championship game between the Spartans of Michigan State University and the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina.

In any case, this Snow after we had a tantalizing week of spring last week just plain coldly sucks.

Dive 105 - Doublin' Down

10:00 am at Union Lake, a rather cold day with the water temp reading 43 degrees.

My fist time in double tanks.

Its a little different from a single - the double tanks weigh a good 110 pounds or so, and putting them on is fun, not to mention getting your fins on in the water.

The back kick is a fair bit harder in them as well...you kick and nothing moves for quite a bit and then finally you go backwards. Doubles are also a fair bit harder to control on ascent as the wing is larger and as you ascend the air expands, making you go up even faster, which is not desirable. So you're dumping air quicker from the wing and trying to mange things a lot faster.

On the upside they're very stable in the water, more so than the single tank rig, and a lot safer as you have a redundant air supply, and two primary regulators rather than only one primary.

This is going to take some practice, but its a lot of cool, indeed cold given the water temps, fun.

Obama, Democrats and Statistics

Obama to Name Advocate for statistical Sampling to Direct the Census.

Obama To Nominate U-M Prof. For Census Director

President Barack Obama is tapping Robert M. Groves, a University of Michigan professor who has pushed the use of statistical sampling, to be the next census director.

Why does this matter?

Well he is a proponent using statistical sampling, advocates of which claim there is an "undercount" of about 5 million people claimed to not be found in urban and minority areas, which tend to vote Democrat, and any such sampling will only increase the power of these urban areas in terms of congressional districts, spending etc. So the appointment of such an advocate of a method that just happens to cook the census numbers in the Democrats favor, combined with Obama's recent push to make the Census under the purview and control of the White House is enough to get people a bit worried.

As noted in the Detroit Free Press:

But Bob Groves’ selection came amid calls from some Republicans that Obama should pick someone else: During earlier tour as a deputy director of the bureau nearly 20 years ago, Groves advocated statistical sampling as a means of correcting a historically large undercount in the 1990 Census – a stand that put him at odds with the Department of Commerce secretary overseeing the bureau.

Sampling wasn’t used – and by the end of the decade, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that it could not be used in setting congressional representation. But the mere mention of Groves’ name Thursday as the man expected to be appointed by Obama set some Republicans on Capitol Hill on edge.

“With the nomination of Robert Groves, President Obama has made clear that he intends to employ the political manipulation of census data for partisan gain,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the ranking Republican on the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives. “This represents a reversal of recent White House assurances that it would not exercise political influence over the census.”

Of course Democrats say they'd do no such thing really:

At the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C., Andrew Reamer, an expert on federal statistical policy and programs, called McHenry’s statement “laughable.” He and other Census experts noted there are no plans to use sampling in next year’s count – the bureau’s mission plan doesn’t call for them and it’s too late to start now – and its own officials have questioned in the past whether they have an effective way of employing them to right the tally of historically undercounted populations, like young people, transients, African Americans and Hispanics.

Certainly such an appointment bears watching, and the whole "its too late to do sampling" claim doesn't carry a lot of weight - analytical decisions and processes can be changed and given the attention the Obama Administration is paying to the census there's certainly a risk of "change" happening to the results.

Meanwhile real human rights violations escape the Human Rights Councils investigatory purview

That tolerant Religion of Peace at work: Villagers attack homes of Baha'is in Egypt

Dozens of Muslim villagers have attacked the homes of members of the minority Baha'i religion in southern Egypt, hurling firebombs and denouncing them as "enemies of God," human rights groups said Thursday.

The attacks began Saturday after a prominent Egyptian media commentator denounced a Baha'i activist in a television appearance as an "apostate" and called for her to be killed.

The Baha'i religion was founded in the 1860s by a Persian nobleman, Baha'u'llah, whom the faithful regard as the most recent in a line of prophets that included Buddha, Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad. Muslims reject the faith because they believe Muhammad was God's final prophet, and Baha'is have been persecuted in the Middle East.

In Egypt, where the majority of the country's nearly 80 million people are Sunni Muslim, the Baha'i faith is not recognized as an official religion. The head of Al-Azhar, Egypt's dominant religious authority, has also declared it a "sacrilegious dogma."

After five days of violence, calm returned Wednesday to the village of Shouraniya, located about 215 miles south of Cairo. No one was injured in the attacks.

The village's 15 Baha'i residents were forced to leave, and police have prevented them from returning, rights groups said.

Waiting for the UN Human Rights Council to order an investigation, issue a strong denounciation, send a harshly worded note, speak a whisper of sanction.....

UN Human Rights Council set to stick it to Israel, as usual, and Obama wants to join in the fun

UN names South African to lead Israel-Gaza probe

The United Nations on Friday appointed a former chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda to lead a high-level mission to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Israel refused to say if it would cooperate.

Richard Goldstone was named to head the investigation ordered by the Human Rights Council in January.

Of course, the investigation will be unbiased (as if):

According to the mandate, the investigation will focus only on Palestinian victims of the three-week war between Israel and Hamas earlier this year.

Current paragons of Human Rights sitting on the Council include: Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a veritable rogues gallery of other outlaw nations.

In other words, a kangaroo council is setting up a biased investigation with the result a foregone conclusion.

Yet another reason the US should forgo trying to join the UN Human Rights Council and giving it any legitimacy by its presence, which Obama wants to do.

As part of President Obama's "new era of engagement," the U.S. State Department has just announced plans to seek one of the 47 seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council. This overturns the Bush policy since 2006 of shunning the Council, on grounds that, like its predecessor the U.N. Human Rights Commission, it is irredeemably tipped toward serving the interests of human rights violators.

Change, and not for the better.

A little selective news editing....

Interestingly, the Detroit Free Press article quoted in the previous post is missing something.

Gateway Pundit points out and posts about the full article from the AP, which has the following quote in it:

Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Barack Obama pledged on Friday to work repair damaged relations with Europe, saying the world came together following the 2001 terrorist attacks but then "we got sidetracked by Iraq."

"We must be honest with ourselves," Obama said. "In recent years, we've allowed our alliance to drift."

The new U.S. president said that despite the bitter feelings that were generated by Iraq, the United States and its allies must stand together because "al-Qaida is still a threat."
.....
Obama opened his Strasbourg appearance with a 25-minute prepared speech in which he set a dramatic, long-term goal of "a world without nuclear weapons." He said he would outline details of his.....

Let's look at the Detroit Free Press cut:

Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Barack Obama told a European audience today that he is setting a dramatic goal of “a world without nuclear weapons.”

The new American president opened a town-hall style gathering with the declaration, saying he would outline details in Prague in the coming days.

“Even with the Cold War now over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet,” Obama said, previewing a planned speech.

Now the USA Today take:

Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Obama told a European audience on Friday that he is setting a dramatic goal of "a world without nuclear weapons."
Obama said Friday the United States is changing, but it cannot be Americans alone who abandon long-held arrogance. Obama says Europeans too often have blamed the United States for what is wrong in the world, and that Americans have been dismissive of Europe's accomplishments.

Obama spoke to students at a town hall-style event with students in France. Obama used his opening remarks to praise NATO and says the 60-year partnership is a model for how the United States and Europe can work together.

Now I wonder why both the Detroit Free Press and USA Today got rid of the Obama's 'America Culpa' on Iraq portion of the speech? Just another leftist dissing America while in Europe.

Obama seeks world without nukes

And I want a Pony (not really, instead I really want a Barrett .50)

Welcomed with thunderous cheers, President Barack Obama told a European audience today that he is setting a dramatic goal of “a world without nuclear weapons.”

That's not only unrealistic, its downright irresponsible. Especially combined with his administrations complete passivity in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons development and North Korea's preparation to launch an ICBM.

And he gets in a little of the "Blame America first" mojo that he does so well.

Obama said the United States shares blame for the crisis, but that “every nation bears responsibility for what lies ahead — especially now.”

Nice to see the left wing of the Left wing of the Democrats are well and truly in charge.

Now I don't want the President to fail, he's doing that well enough on his own. But I would like him to root for the home team every now and then mmmkay?

Drunk Drivers, Hit and Run Drivers and Seatbelts

WJBK Fox Detroit: Man Severely Hurt after Hit & Run in Northville

Surveillance video (Click on the link above to view it - simply terrible) shows a white SUV rolling after a collision on Haggerty at Five Mile Road. A black truck caused the accident Tuesday around 7:00 p.m.

"He was going through the intersection at Five Mile and was just hit from the front. (That) sent him spinning and his car rolled, they say, three or four times," said Cassandra Callaghan.

Callaghan got the call a few hours later. Her father, 55-year-old David Dallas, was seriously injured. He was thrown through a window. His three grandchildren were waiting for him at the time of the crash.

According to witnesses, the driver of the truck was a white male with dark hair, possibly in his twenties. Police say he paused after the crash and they believe the suspect knew he hit someone before he took off.

"It was very clear that the driver stopped, looked and then left, which is probably the most disturbing thing to us," Callaghan said.

Even more disturbing, Callaghan's mother was hit by a drunk driver who left the scene of the accident back in December.

Dallas suffered broken bones in his back, neck and ribs. He was not wearing a seat belt.

Hopefully Mr. Dallas makes a complete recovery. I know the Callaghans -- darn good people -- so this makes it personal.

If you're in the area around Northville and you know the guy who did the hit and run, or notice the fresh damage to his truck, have him turn himself in or call police and turn the coward in.

And remember, wear your seat belt! - it reduces by far the chance of severe injury and being ejected from the car. No ifs, ands or buts. Having been in a rollover accident myself (in a Geo Prizm no less, but that's another story), the seat belt definitely saved me from being ejected and having the car roll over me, and I got through it with relatively minor injuries.

So, I pray that Mr. Dallas completely recovers and that the driver of the black truck does the right thing and turns himself in or someone else mans up and does it for him.

More Detroit City Council Clownery

Some days you wonder why we even pay attention to the goings-on at the Detroit City Council.

Sure its expected when they're jockeying for position as mayor they'll make some noise or more noise or even threats to get into the public eye.

Sure we're watching them trying their best to destroy Detroit not in order to save it, but both to aggrandize themselves and to stop the suburbs (ie white people) from having any say in keeping the City afloat and saving Detroit's "crown jewels", those rapidly declining edifices of what might have been but have been neglected into disrepair and mismanaged into shadows of their former glory.

Its a bit like watching the incompetent drunken engineer of a train cause a train wreck - in slow motion.

Enthralling, at the same time horrifying and ludicrous, a tragi-comedy of errors of epic proportions.

Maybe we watch because we just don't know what inanity they will think up next, or because the rest of the United States thinks that Detroit IS Michigan, especially southeast Michigan, and we watch Michigan decline as the rest of the US thinks we're in favor of this series of grossly negligent pronouncements of the council.

Onward Christian Soldiers (Detroit City Council Chapter only, no whites or suburbians please) indeed.

Michigan's Continuing Downward Spiral

The Detroit News: Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state

People are leaving Michigan at a staggering rate. About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving -- young, well-educated high-income earners -- are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.

Long treated as a symptom of Michigan's economic woes, outmigration has exploded into a massive problem of its own, a slow-motion Katrina splintering families, gutting state coffers and crippling an already hobbled economy, one moving van at a time.

Michigan keeps being one of our nation's leader in all the wrong areas: unemployment, foreclosures, out-migration, crime (Detroit), stupidity of city officials (Detroit).

You sure can't blame people for leaving. A crumbling auto industry, a Democrat led state government that keeps taxing and spending like there's no tomorrow, a government that unless you're the film industry isn't very bsiness friendly, an economy that was in recession before anyone else and is in a depression now before any other state, of course pople are going to move to more business firendly environments. That's where the jobs are.

Hopefully Michigan will eventually figure that out, but the Democrats seemed locked in their death spiral and unable to change.

At least the State has figured out one way to slow the emigration: make the roads so bad, so its hard to leave. Michigan roads designed and paid for to last 30 years are crumbling in 10 or less due to defective concrete. At about $1 million a mile in union wages, studies and "planning" to get them paved in the first place, Michigan is again getting shafted on its investment, and giving people a bumpy ride on the way out.

AWNAA Bill introduced in Congress

AWNAA, if passed, would create jobs for the Unabled:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced today the Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA).

AWNAA is expected to create up to 25 million mid-level jobs with good titles, good pay, and little or no responsibility for the substantial minority of U.S. citizens with no recognizable skills.

Using as its model the U.S. Post Office, where approximately 74% of employees fit that profile, and certain industries in the private sector such as the airline industry and home improvement retailers, AWNAA is designed to ensure long-term employment for this neglected group of Americans. President Barack Obama told reporters in a press conference today “As a President with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American with no ability space to take up and a good salary for doing so.”






Happy April 1, everyone.