Random Ramblings of a Somewhat Common Man

Continuing my rant on the media

2007-10-02T14:37:00.000-04:00

Continuing my rant on the media, I will admit to not watching Live! with Dan Abrams, but I do, from time to time, click over to his show during the commercials of another. The thing I noticed last night was that Dan both opened his show and closed his show with Brittney Spears. The opening segment went on for at least 10 minutes at which time I gave up flipping over to that channel disgusted that so much air time had been given over to Brittney.

When you think of how much time these so-called news outlets spend on crap, is it really any wonder why Americans are so ill informed of world happenings? Now the suits will say the reason they cover crap like Anna Nicole, Brittney, and OJ is because that's what people want. And to that I say Bull Shit! The real reason is the same reason we don't have any real reporting on any of the Presidential candidates, reporting isn't easy; reporting costs money. It is so much easier to just pick up a tabloid or go to a website and see what the latest exploits of the rich and famous than it is to do an critical look at why there have been so many food recalls lately.

There is so much news out there that isn't being reported, and so much more news just waiting to be dug up. It's a pretty said statement, but they only TV coverage I saw of the falling dollar was on the Colbert Report. While there was all sorts of coverage of the failing housing market and the “sub-prime meltdown” there has been no coverage of why this has happened, the only discussion on the causes of this problem I've heard was on the Thom Hartmann show. What we get instead is the same news stories told over and over, and to break it up a bit we get hours of celebrity crap. Lou Dobbs gets an hour every day to blame every bad thing that happens in the US on illegal immigrants, yet they don't have enough time to cover all the other times Blackwater went cowboy and killed civilians.

While MSNBC runs their annoying “Doc Block” about life in jail, they leave the actual news aspect of what they are covering to the Discovery Channel. Koppel on Discovery will actually cover the part of the story that is important, the fact that we are running out of room in our jails and prisons.

MSM Hearts Hillary

2007-10-01T16:18:00.000-04:00

You gotta love the MSM. According to them there is no way for anybody to win the the Democratic nomination except Hillary Clinton. Wow, it's amazing how their time machine works now, but didn't work in the build up to war. If you listen to the media, if Edwards wins in Iowa it kills Obama everywhere else and Edwards won't be able to win anywhere else (Hillary wins). At the same time the media also says if Obama wins Iowa it doesn't matter because Bill Clinton sat out Iowa and Edwards will never get the nomination without the first big win in Iowa (Hillary wins again). The only other option, according to the media is for Hillary to win in Iowa which means she will win everywhere else. So what is the fascination the MSM has with Hillary? Is it just a matter of the MSM willing Hillary to become the nominee? I would have to guess that if Hillary does indeed become the nominee, the very media that is in love with her now will be on the attack in the general.

When it comes to debates the talking heads all say as long as Hillary doesn't lose she wins. What the hell does that mean? In every post debate wrap-up I have seen (to be fair I haven't seen them all), there is at least one person saying Hillary won. In fact, only the last debate on MSNBC that I've seen has the number of people saying Hillary won been so low; Pat Buchanan was the only one stating that Hillary won the debate this time, but the others were quick to point out she didn't lose (however that seems to kick dirt in the face of all of their past post-debate analysis when they declared Hillary the defacto winner by “not losing”). In the pre-debate coverage it is all about how do the other candidates make themselves stand out from Hillary.

When covering the other candidates it seems to always be from the angle of how do they catch up with Hillary Clinton. When you listen to some of the people in the media they state that every Democratic candidate BUT Hillary is too far left to win. While few in the media actually come out and say that, t's implied by saying things like “John Edwards is courting the far left side of the party,” and “Hillary is a candidate that even some Republicans are looking at and saying they could live with her policies.”

Really though, this is a rant about the Media- not Hillary Clinton. I welcome reporting on Hillary along with all the other candidates as long as it is about something. Right now all anybody in in the MSM is doing is reporting on the reporting. I don't think I buy the case some are trying to make that Hillary is the least threating Democratic candidate to the Corporate overlords that control the media (at least not yet, we'll see where this Dan Rather stuff goes) and that is the reason they are so addicted to her. I think it is much simpler than that: lazy reporting (if one can even call it that). There is no journalism going on, these media outlets commission a poll and then yammer on and on about it. There's no digging around, there's no critical looks at her positions, there isn't really any arguments for or against what she is saying. It's not even just picking the low hanging fruit, it's buying the fruit that has all ready been picked, cleaned, and dyed to appeal to the eye regardless of the actual substance that fruit contains.

When someone tries to do a halfway thoughtful analysis of some of the claims the media is making, the discussion is steered right back to where it began. If someone tries to put some of these polling numbers into context, they are told how wrong they are and that the only context the poll numbers need are the polls themselves. Their argument is that the poll numbers are in line with the other polls, and since those numbers have always been in one candidates favor, they will always be in that candidates favor. But when reality is pointed out that in the past this is rarely the case, the media is quick to say this time is different. The past cannot be a predictor of what's to come this time they state because: Currently we have a very unpopular president, there is a woman candidate, there is an African American candidate, Democrats just want someone who can win, the campaign season started earlier this time, every single national poll has Hillary in the lead, one of the candidates is a former first lady, Republicans don't have a clear front runner, or any number of other nonsense they can come up with.

I have no problem with Hillary being the nominee (I do happen to think there are better candidates though), but can the media at least pretend that we still live in some sort of democracy? If we are to believe the media, all the other candidates should just drop out right now and we shouldn't even have a primary process. In fact we don't even need an election in 2008, Hillary won. I guess I really shouldn't expect anything more from an industry that punishes those who accurately report the news, and dare to ask a couple of difficult questions.

The Mad Money take on the UAW strike

2007-09-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

So I was watching Hardball yesterday, and they had the Mad Money guy on there to talk about the UAW/GM strike. He said this is all about union busting, and I have to think that this was being thought about at GM. However, what he said next was, that the only way to save GM was for GM to win the labor negotiations and break the union. Mr. Mad Money said the only way for the union to get the job security it wants is for the union to be destroyed because no American Business can operate with a union as strong as the UAW. And this time you have to give some credit where credit is due to Chris Mathews when he asked Crammer how an ex-CEO of GM can say "what is good for GM is good for America," when you are taking all of the jobs out of America.

Crammer's argument is all about the shareholders as evident for this comment:

"If GM is successful and they bust the union, I'm tellin' you you're going to have a five fold increase in this stock. And in the end, this is America and that's what we care about... Well, I think if you root for UAW, than you should just let GM go away.”

He seems to be saying in his rant that if you want to keep manufacturing in America, it must be non-union and you must allow these companies to move these non-union jobs to other counties. It seems to me what he is trying to say is that if a manufacturing company is based in the US even if everything it manufactures is done so in other counties than that company is still manufacturing in the US.

The thing is, if GM were to bust the union, do you really think Ford and Chrysler wouldn't try and do the same exact thing? Next would come the suppliers, and then the steel workers, and then every other union in America and I'm sorry but that's not ok. We don't make the US more competitive on the world market by knocking it down. It seems like a lot of these people would love it if workers in the US would work for the same amount as they do in China and live in Company owned slums connected to the factory. But these people forget that if people don't make money, how can they be expected to spend money. If people only made $5/hr in this country do they really think people would still buy cars, or DVDs, or Toys, or anything else? If these companies actually got what they wanted and only paid people minimum wage and no benefits then there would be thousands of companies failing by the end of the quarter and thousand more by the end of the year. The entire economy would be in ruins in the blink of an eye.

At least Crammer did concede that some kind of Government run health care would help to save American jobs, but he is dead wrong about busting all unions.

Frustration

2007-04-13T01:13:00.000-04:00

I know a lot of my posts have been about education, but I feel that it is an important subject. The reason is, the quality of education in this country is something that affects every single person living in this country, even if they themselves aren't in school or don't have children in schools. The students in school today are the future doctors, inventors, lawyers, and yes even future Presidents. Every single person has a personal stake in the quality of education. The people in school right now are my future co-workers or employees. They are the people that are going to build my house, grow my food, and save my life. Just because people don't see how education impacts their lives doesn't mean that impact isn't there. We need to make people realize that improving education, improves their lives.

The cold hard truth is that right now in Michigan schools are endangered. Republicans won't let anything through the Senate that doesn't include massive cuts to much needed services and therefore are causing schools to gasp for air.

The sad part is that schools aren't going to get any help to improve themselves anytime soon. Schools have to try to tackle large issues on their own, all while giving students a quality education. If education is continually over looked, things will never get better in Michigan. You think it's bad now, keep cutting spending for education and see how bad things get.

Technology in Schools

2007-04-11T17:53:00.001-04:00

So the iPod idea was a little blown out of proportion by the MSM (big surprise), but I hope that it opens a discussion of the role of technology in education, or really the lack thereof right now. As I've stated in my iPod post, industry is using technology for many different things, including using mp3 players as training tools, so if schools are supposed to ready students for the “real world” why isn't technology playing a larger role in education?

Even stocking shelves at the local supermarket requires you to scan bar codes and it is only going to get more technology dependent. If you walk into many class rooms around the country though you'll be lucky to find one computer in a class room of thirty. Right now if you enter the workforce and you don't know Ctrl+Alt+Delete you are screwed. Technology is supposed to be the future of Michigan's economy, and if that is true why aren't we preparing our students for that?

Education has a lot of problems, and it seems clear that it requires new ways of thinking in order to truly improve education.

iPods & Schools

2007-04-09T10:11:00.000-04:00

The iPod idea is already starting to make some waves, but this idea though isn't one that should be discarded right away however. Let's not forget where the idea came from, Duke University (and I'm sure there were others but I not sure who they were) began giving iPods to every incoming freshmen.

Right now I am helping a company develop a new training system to get it's new employees up to speed faster and more efficiently. Right now this company gives an mp3 player to all of the new associates for the first few months to help train them, along with what are basically podcasts on their private website that also contain training material in both audio and video formats. These combined resources have helped this expanding company train people quicker, cheaper, better, and the associates come away with a better understanding of the material.

Of course the success of something like this would all depend on how it is implemented. If used correctly it could indeed be a powerful tool to help educate students. The hardest part would be training educators on how to best use the technology and developing lessons to be used on the iPods.

Both MIT and Stanford have their own Podcast on iTunes that contain prominent lectures from some of their classes. Other universities have entire recording available for free download on their websites.

If you buy into the idea that this could have a potential pay-off to our educational system, the question becomes is now the right time to invest in this? The idea arose in a discussion over how to fix the states budget problems, and therefore was immediately under attack since it meant making an investment rather than making a cut. The implementation of this idea of course will not yield results for sometime, and the short term impact to the budget will be the cost of implementing the program. There is no doubt that a program such as this would be a hard sell the the general public. How does one justify the cost of giving students a high tech device that little in the public will see the educational value of during such hard economic times?

I have long thought that education has always been a little behind the times. Schools have always been on the back end of adopting technology, and it would be nice to see schools embrace technology for once; not to mention adopting to the way students intake information now days. It truly is time to schools to evolve beyond text books and chalk boards. I would like to see more computers and technology in the classroom (many classrooms only have one computer in them).

I'm not sure if this is the right idea right now but I'm certainly not opposed to it, nor do I think it is a silly idea. I am actually very encouraged by this idea! This shows that the Democrats are willing to think out side the box, are willing to make long term investments rather than the quick fixes proposed by the Republicans, and that they realize it takes more than mandating higher tests scores to fix education. It's important to remember that without long term investment, any budget “fix” will be only short term.

Quick idea, maybe the idea would be received better if iPods were switched to PDAs. Most PDAs can do just about everything an iPod can (short of sycning with iTunes).

As far as the Detroit News Editoral goes, This is all you need to remember from it:

Democrats are either entirely indifferent to the idea that extreme hard times demand extreme belt tightening, or they are bone stupid. We lean toward the latter.
-Snip-
Stop the stupidity. Michigan can't tax or spend its way out of this economic catastrophe.

Ah, yes. Gotta love that liberal media.

The War On Education Vol 2

2007-04-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

The war on education wages on. Everybody and their brother knows about Michigan's budget problems by now, and most people realize what is at stake. Schools have kept an keen eye on this issue, while all along assuming the worst. Yes most schools are pretty pessimistic right now, most are looking for ways to stretch this year's budget, and cut next year's. Some schools have already started handing out pink slips, others are talking about cutting back busing routes or eliminating busing altogether. A lot of schools have gone to pay-to-play sports, and the ones that haven't yet are fighting not to have to. Times are tough for schools right now, and all indications are that it's going to get worst before it gets better.

To a certain extent, I get it. Public schools are easy targets. For one thing they are public, they don't operate behind close doors; when public schools have the slightest mishap the whole community knows about it. All you have to do is look at this teacher not wearing his name tag in Clinton to see this principle at work. This was all over the area papers for weeks, with more than half of the articles making the school district out to be a boogie man (that was a large reason I sided with the school over the teacher was the way he handled the situation and dragged the school down in the process). Every one has had a bad teacher, or a teacher they didn't like and it's always those teacher the stick out in people's minds once they are out of school for a few years. And of course, there is the crowd that thinks that any one can be a teacher (oddly enough it is usually that same crowd that thinks that most teacher's aren't any good). Which brings us the the group that views schools as free daycare.

These views stem largely from the fact that most people have no idea what it takes to run a school, have no idea what goes into being a good teacher, and don't realize the potential pay off of giving students a quality education to the general public. Most people have no idea how much it actaully costs to run a school. The truth is that the public and politicians need to be educated about education. Students don't have lobbyist.

Politicians will always talk about making education better, but their idea of making education better is mandating more tests, and if you'er a Republican, cutting school funding, taking money away from public schools and giving it to private schools in the form of a voucher, and creating a nation wide program that your brother Neil will make huge profits from. Sigh

The war on Education

2007-03-02T12:33:00.000-05:00

You gotta love it when someone tries to make an argument and they don't think it through all the way. Check out this quote from the Livingston Daily in their article about making all teachers state employees:

Every three years or so, you'd have one big set of contract negotiations between the various unions representing school employees and state education authorities.

One result might be a statewide pay scale that directly links teacher pay to educational outcomes.

If things were settled with one big negotiation, you could bake merit pay for top performers into the system

Moving past the idea of making all teachers directly state employees (they really already are) let's look at the sentence in bold. Making the pay scale directly linked to student grades; ever heard of cooking the books? What is to stop a bad teacher from just giving the bulk of his students good grades regardless of whether or not they earned it? There are some bad teachers out there and there are some immoral teachers out there.

Of course the proponents of this idea would say, that's why we have standardized tests. But anybody that actually thinks about this, can easily find holes in tests being the savior of this idea. First, standardized tests are only given every few years. What is to stop a bad teacher from saying, “It's not my fault they did bad on the test, they got good grades in my class.” Or a bad teacher could say “In order to do well on this test you not only have to be good at the subject I teach, but also other subjects that I don't teach.” So to try an fix these holes we would have to test every year, taking more away more time teachers have to actually teach, and wasting that time on trying to keep teachers “accountable.” The tests would have to be rewritten to be more specific in order to test on only the subjects as they are taught rather than testing how students integrate the knowledge they have (which is a much better measurement of a student than testing on facts). And then comes another problem, Michigan is switching from the MEAP test you take as a junior to the ACT, are you going to ask the ACT people to to bend over backwards to redesign all of their tests to fit this new testing scheme that would have to be implemented? When you jump through all these hoops to make the testing better reflect an individual teacher's performance, then are you really still testing the student?

The article also mentions that by consolidating schools to be state ran it would eliminate the need for each district to have a lawyer. But if they are going to base pay on “teacher performance” you can bet there would be a lot more lawsuits. Even if testing measures were redesigned to better test on only one teacher's effectiveness, there would still be an insane amount of loopholes. Every teacher that thought they weren't getting paid enough would sue the state for unfair wages.

Then there is still a problem of what to do about the classes where they don't give standardized tests. How are they going to judge how a teacher is doing there? Are they going to create a standardized test for band? If they do what are they going to test? Can you write out all of your scales, or how musical each student is? What about an art class, or gym, or shop, or CAD, or any number of other classes offered by different schools?

If you are going to make an argument on how to better schools, make it a valid one. Think things through, don't just come up with a bunch of ideas that aren't possible to implement, or would cost millions to implement. (I though we were trying to save money, and if you don't think this idea would cost millions, then how are you going create all the new tests that would be needed. On top of that, how would you pay to have those tests updated every year, because you can't just create them one year and use them for the rest of time.) I guess my point is stop coming up with these hair brained ideas to “fix” schools that would actually do just the opposite. Spend a little more than two seconds thinking over an idea and what it would actually mean and cost rather than just babbling on about how you think teachers make to much and aren't actually teaching students anything (or as some people think schools are teaching liberal propaganda).

A new incandescent bulb

2007-02-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

A while back I heard about California thinking about a bill baning incandescent bulbs, and just recently I heard about a bill like this being tossed around in Australia. When I heard about these bills I thought to myself about how horrible an idea it is. I am all for reducing greenhouse gases, but banning light bulbs? During the day my house is lit by natural daylight, and at night the bulk of the lights in my house have CFL bulbs in them.

CFL are great little energy savers, but they aren't the be all and end all of lighting. For one thing you can't use them everywhere. Some of the lights in this house I wish I could throw a CFL into but they just don't fit, the fixtures were designed for a standard bulb. They don't do well in areas with a lot of moisture (bathrooms), and they really don't have as pleasing light as an incandescent bulb does. Not to mention that a CFL will never have the throw (CFL are a softer, more diffused light) that an incandescent light will have. While they are getting better about this, CFLs still have the potential to give you a headache since they aren't consistently emitting light like an incandescent (most CFL have ballasts on them that step up the electricity to 120 or more Hz so they are less likely to cause headaches). Also CFL can't dim (useful in film making).

I am a film and video guy, so I use a sorts of different kinds of lights in my job. When I first heard of this proposed ban on incandescents I thought that it could have to potential to screw over a lot of low budget and even big budget filmmakers who use normal everyday, 98 cent incandescent light bulbs everyday for lights on set and as extra fill lights (a household light bulb in a chinesee lantern makes a great soft fill light). Also if it wasn't worded carefully it could cut off the supply of bulbs for the big film lights as well, not to mention all the lights in projectors.

So here is the good news, GE has devolved a new high efficiency incandescent lamp. The new bulbs will emerge as about twice as efficient standard incandescents bulbs and ultimately they will be four times as efficient and will make them comparable to CFLs. This is a much better solution that trying to regulate light bulbs. These lights are expected to hit the market by 2010.

By the way, I am no way trying to say don't use CFLs, just that these were silly bills. Bills like these were really only ment to give the impression that they are trying to do something for the environment without really doing anything. Why not try to regulate the way electricity is made instead?

GE's press release about the new bulb:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi_menuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=946895406&newsId=20070223005120

What would it mean to Michigan if GM bought Chrysler?

2007-02-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

There have been quite a few different articles popping up about the possibility of GM buying Chrysler and my question is what would that do to Michigan's all ready ailing automotive industry? Would the good out weigh the bad?

This question is of course not an easy one to answer. There is no quick fix to either GM or Chrysler's problems. Even if GM were to buy Chrysler and get it out of the red while helping GM itself turn around, these things aren't likely to happen any time soon. For any of the benefits of a marriage such as this there would first have to be some house cleaning, meaning redundant managerial departments would be rolled into one (lay-offs) and most likely plants would be combined to make better use of economies of scale (more lay-offs). Not to mention it would compound GM's growing health care problems. The UAW would have a problem with lay-offs (as would I) that the new super company would have to over come. Then there would be the problems integrating dealers.

It's easy to see how the combining of these two companies could be bad for Michigan, but could it be good? The merger would allow the company to take advantage of greater economies of scale by sharing parts and R&D between more cars. It would allow Chrysler to better integrate it's engineering into it's parent company in ways that Daimler could only dream of (there aren't a whole lot of Mercedes built on Chrysler bodies, but it would be no problem building a Buick on a Chrysler body). The benefits of the the two companies coming together could save them billions and ensure their future better than if they were alone.

Then course you can't bring this subject up without mentioning the possibility of Toyota knocking GM out of the number one automaker spot. This spot isn't something GM wants to give up and combining the two companies would make GM that much harder to knock from it's spot. Not to mention that both Renault-Nissan and Hyundai want an American brand and are interested in a Chrysler buy. GM can't be very happy about the idea that either of these companies getting their hands on Chrysler.

My question still remains though, would this be a good deal for Michigan in the long run? I would have to think that anyway you slice it, if GM were to buy Chrysler it would hurt Michigan in the short term. But are they any ways that Michigan's ecomony comes out a winner in a deal like this? And would it really hurt if Chrysler were sold to Nissian or Hyundai? Right now it is already held by a German company. Also is it really worth all the hoops GM would have to jump through in order to make a deal like this profitable for them? Right now I think Michigan would get the short end of the stick when it comes to a deal like this, but really I have no idea. If all the talk in various media outlets are any indication this is a real possibility.

Here are just a few links to articles on the Subject:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17186447/
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070217/BUSINESS01/702170320/1014
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/feb2007/bw20070220_219247.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2007/db20070218_013874.htm

A quick google search will turn up a lot more

ID badges for Teachers

2007-02-23T12:58:00.000-05:00

I'm not to sure how many of you know about a little village called Clinton Michigan, but right now it is being dragged into the spotlight and causing The Daily Telegram to support a teacher while bashing the school board and Superintendent. The issue that is dragging this little school into the limelight is a new safety measure that is being adopted by other schools in this area and has already been adopted in larger districts. The district is requiring all school employees to wear a name tag and that every visitor to the school wears a visitor pass. When the policy was implemented, all of the teachers complied, all but one and this teacher is facing losing his job over it. The problem the teacher has with this policy is that he states that wearing a badge takes away his individuality. The School states that the badge is a way to help first responders identify staff in an emergency situation saving time and hopefully saving lives and as a way to identify people who are not supposed to be in the building. The police chief of the village supports the IDs as does a security firm hired by the school over the summer before the policy was implemented.

When the teacher was first asked to comply with the policy he walked out of class in the middle of the day and has not been back, taking sick days up to this point. At Monday's School Board meeting the teacher made his case to the board, after failing to make it to the superintendent. The School Board stated that they did not want to see an “excellent teacher” leave the district over this matter, but that he had to wear the name badge. The teacher then offered a few comprises; he would personally introduce himself to every student and learn every student's name, in addition to personally introducing himself to every Clinton Police officer and he would take one week unpaid as a deterrent to other staff members also not wearing their badges. After the meeting he offered another compromise to the superintendent where he would sign a liability weaver stating that he would be willing to be shoot by any intruder if he did not have to wear the badge.

This item popped up in both The Daily Telegram and The Tecumseh Herold and my problem with both stories is how one sided they both are. Both articles made the School Board meeting sound as if it were the entire community versus the School board and all but two members of the audience were in support of the teacher. Sorry, but that just wasn't the case. My understanding from someone there in support of the board, is that the teacher had a lot of support in the audience (I guess he is a very well liked teacher by his students) and his supporters were by far the most out spoken members of the audience, but they were not the only members. The articles also fail to mention that the state has required schools to beef up their security measures by requiring schools to do two lock-down drills a year*, along with the fire drills, and tornado drills it is already required to do. Oh and the articles also fail to mention how all of the other staff members of the district have complied with the policy and that many teachers support it. Did I forget to mention that that The Daily Telegram compares the teacher to Henry David Thoreau? Both articles make the school board sound as inflexable tyrants, when really what they are doing is applying this policy to everyone equaly.

To a certain extent I understand the teacher, but I still have to side with the School on this one. The IDs are not just for the safety of the person waring them, but for everyone in the school. Clinton is indeed a small town (that fact was raised as a defense for not wearing the ID), but it has still had its issues. Parents have had to be hauled away from the school by the police for violent behavior. Kids have brought guns to schools (in elementary, middle and high school). Students have beaten up teachers and any number of other things have all happened in this small town's schools. Even if the teacher were to introduce himself to all of the Clinton Police Officers, if there were a major incident the small Clinton Police force would not be able to handle it themselves. If the ID had more than just the persons name, picture, and Clinton Community Schools on it the teacher would have more of a case, but I have many friends that work places where they have to wear an ID badge (including as teachers in other districts) and most of the time that ID has much more info on it than the one Clinton Teachers are required to wear.

Even in a small district like Clinton not all staff members know each other as evident by a security check ran in the districts buildings. This check was one reason the new policy was enacted. A member of the security firm hired by the School walked through each of the buildings, timing how long it took to be told to go to the office to sign in. The member of the firm was able to walk all around the middle school and high school buildings before being asked to sign in at the office (The elementary staff stopped him almost as soon as he walked in the door). In the middle school the security member was able to wander the halls for 13 minutes before being questioned as to why he was in the building.

I don't always like all these new security measures all the time, but wearing an ID badge at work is not something I consider over the top. A lot of those working in the private sector have had to wear IDs for a very long time. Even at a fast food joint people are required to wear name tags. If I knew the guy I would most likely have more sympathy for him, but it is not worth losing your job over having to wear what is really just a name tag.

* There are two levels of lock-down one where every door into the building is locked, every door to classrooms are locked and the windows are blocked and one where in addition to have the lights have to be shut off and students and teachers have to sit in the corners of the rooms silently. Each version of lock-down must be practiced twice a year.

Think before cutting benefits for teachers

2007-02-04T23:55:00.000-05:00

The school funding problem has been brewing for awhile now here in good old Michigan. There has been a lot of ideas thrown around as to how to fix this problem and one of those ideas is cutting benefits to the staff. To that I say hold your horses and think about this for a minute.

As if it isn't already hard enough to get good teachers, now there are people out there saying we should give them less (to be fair there were already a lot of people out there saying teachers get to much, but now there seems to be a few more, or at least those people are louder now that the shit is starting to hit the fan). Being a teacher is such a thankless job, and being a good teacher is a lot of hard work that doesn't end when the school bell rings. A good teacher can make more money and probably with less effort working in the private sector. Teachers not only have to have a degree and teaching certificate, they have to have X amount of schooling after they get that certificate to keep it. Then they need more training for the state, and more on top of that for the district. Some of that the school pays for, most of it they don't.

One of the things that has set Michigan schools apart from schools in other states are their benefits to staff. Because Michigan schools have a good union and good benefits because of that, they have enough teachers and are therefore able to keep class sizes smaller. If you look at schools in some other states, they have poor or no unions, and weaker benefits. And those same schools are always in need of teachers because of that. Teachers may hire into schools in those states, but many move away after a few years of teaching to other states like Michigan. I'm not saying that every state that needs teachers has lossy benefits, just that every state that has lossy benefits needs teachers. In some of those states the teacher even has to eat lunch with the kids because there is no lunch room staff.

I've talked a lot about schools on this blog in the past, and that's because I think they are important. But the thing that makes or brakes a school is the people who work there, most importantly the teachers. Without teachers a school is just a building with text books in it. Until we get some sort of Universal Health Insurance, schools need to continue to provide benefits to their teachers, or they won't have any more.

The Politics of 24

2007-01-30T17:33:00.000-05:00

Well, first off let me premise this post by saying I fell a little dirty liking a show that Chaney reportedly “loves.”

I started writing a post similar to this after watching the 2nd half of the season opener of 24, but abandoned it after meandering all over the place and not really saying much. Then I came across this article and my thoughts were once again focused on this subject.

24 is really quite an interesting show. Being a film and TV nut when I first heard about a show that would take place in “real time” I was interested and after watching a few episodes I was hooked. It had a fascinating gimmick, lots of twists and turns, and loads of action. It was fun to watch. I never really thought of the show much until the who torture issue bill arose, and the fictional Television show 24 was not only used as a justification of torture, but also as in argument that Americans supported torture by watching the show. WHAT!? Then this season premier came along and within 4 hours of the show's day, middle eastern terrorist blew up a nuclear bomb in California. That's when I realized that what some are saying just might be true: 24 could well be a NeoCon's wet dream.

The show portrays America as constantly under threat from terrorist and that only the Government can protect us from those threats. Jack Bauer, the hero and only character still alive from the first season, uses any means necessary to get the info or the man he wants. In the second season of the show he kills a government witness against a bomber to reestablish the bombers trust, Jack was undercover in the bombers organization in the past, to find out if the intel was true about the bomber's plot to blow up a target in LA. In every season and just about every episode Jack resorts to torture to get his information, and not only does the torture always work (sometimes it takes longer than others), but it is correct 95% or more of the time.

I have to say that I never gave the politics of 24 much thought until the torture issue was raised at the national level. I have always and continue to view the show as purely fictional. It's an action movie made for TV, and to view it as anything else seems silly. But yet I have heard all sorts of people use the show as a justification of torture and the importance of the Federal Government becoming more and more involved in our everyday life (“We don't want something like 24 to happen.”) I'm sorry, but a show like this cannot be used as a justification for anything, like I said it's basically an action movie made for TV. I don't want to defend the politics of the show because I don't agree with what it seems to be saying, but on the other hand if this ever was meant to be some kind of propaganda, it sure isn't subtle about it, and I can't see many people being won over to their cause because of this clearly fictional TV show.

Good for Barack!

2007-01-25T14:03:00.000-05:00

In a speech today Barack Obama not only called for universal health care, but he said it should be in place by the end of the next President's 1st term! Six year until universal health care? I hope so!

I still haven't decided who my favorite is yet, but Obama just got some points today in my book!

The Daily Telegram shows it's stripes once again.

2007-01-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

In a recent Editorial they yak about how how the Democrats in the US House locked Republicans out of debates, wouldn't allow amendments and yada, yada, yada. They repeat the exact same talking points against these bills as every other Republican shill. And come on, you have to love this last paragraph:

It’s no surprise that Michigan’s newly elected District 7 Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, has voted “No” — as have most Republicans — on the first four of these issues. (He voted “Yes” on the student loan bill.) Until Pelosi’s Democrats pay more than lip service to their pledges of reform and bipartisanship, perhaps the best thing anyone can say is “No.”

They praise Walberg for voting no on every other bill and basically blast him for voting yes on the student loan bill (in an earlier paragraph they blast the bill). Reading this article it really seems that they don't really follow the national news that they are supposedly reporting on and commenting on. If this is the way that a lot of local newspapers are run and if people actually read those newspapers, I guess it isn't any wonder why there are so many red states.

http://lenconnect.com/articles/2007/01/19/news/news06.txt

N.A.I.A.S. and the Auto Industry

2007-01-13T11:37:00.000-05:00

Well, the 2007 North American International Auto Show is here and along with it some insight on what the year holds for auto makers. As I said in my last post I wasn't able to go an cover the show during Press Week as I was last year, I was still able to get a press pass for the Industry days. Industry days are days were the press that couldn't make it to Press Week, or just wanted some more time with the cars, and those who work for the Auto Industry are able to get into the show before the public. The only problem is you have to deal with a few of the booths still switching over from Press Week to Public. I was actually there at the same time as The Governor, however we didn't see her anywhere at the show.

GM's booth was rearranged, and pushed back against the wall from last year. It was a nice booth, nicer than last year. I was really hoping to see the Chevy Volt, however it must have been out for a photo shoot or something because it was nowhere to be seen on the show floor. I did get a look at the new Malibu. I have to say I wasn't impressed. It looks a little better than the old one I guess, but nothing exciting. GM does seem to understand that they have to step up their designs as evident by them winning both the car of the year, Saturn Aura, and the truck of the year, the Chevy Silverado. I have to say, sitting in some of their new cars, they have stepped up their interiors on a lot of cars and trucks; one step in the right direction to better compete with Toyota and Nissan.

Ford's booth was set up much like last year's, only not as flashy. Gone are the giant video walls that surrounded the booth on the outside, replaced with two slightly smaller video screens. The Ford emblem embedded in the floor in the center of the booth is gone as well. The cars Ford was showing were I think a little more interesting however this year as opposed to last. The Ford Intercepter and Airstream were much more exciting concepts than last year's Super Chief. Of course one for Fords biggest announcements at the Auto Show was their team up with Microsoft for their Sync. Sync seems like a very interesting idea, and if they are able to make it work as well as advertised may help pull Ford out of it's slump. For those of you that don't know what Sync is, it is a package of voice commands, mp3 input and controls, wireless interfacing with bluetooth phones, and audible text messages. Sync will be available in twelve different Ford, Lincoln, Mercury models by the end of the year starting with the Ford Focus.

Chrysler's booth was almost identical to last year's in layout (well at least the parts that were completely switched from Press Week to Public while I was there). They had a few concepts there, along with the new Dodge Avenger and Dodge Challenger, both very cool, and new models of their minivans. The car that I was most interested in was the Dodge Magnum, a car I am thinking about getting. It has all the room for my video gear, and has better millage than SUVs. (I wish I didn't need a big car, but to lug around all of my video equipment for shoots I need a lot of room.) Across the hall from Chrysler the other half of Daimler-Chrysler, Mercedes booth was busy. The floor was interesting, ice. The ice has something frozen into it to give it treads while other parts of the ice were covered with carpeting. Something new NAIAS this year was a small booth across from Chrysler's, Smart. Smart is a tiny little car, made by Mercedes, due out in the US next year

Toyota and Lexus's booth were interesting. While they are poised to displace GM as the largest auto maker, their floor space at the show still isn't as large as the Big 3. Looking through their booth it is easy to see why some would buy those cars over the Big 3's, they are nice cars and fuel efficient. But it is also easy to see where GM, Ford and Chrysler can catch up in the near future (in many ways they have already started).

The rest of the show was interesting, and some of the booths showed major changes in them, while others retained the lay out of years past. The Scion booth was kinda cool as they had cars stacked on racks on their back wall. Also this year, VW went from occupying space both upstairs and downstairs to only having space upstairs and in that space had few cars.

It it interesting to look at this show and see how it relates to the industry itself. From my friends that did cover the Press Week, most said they saw quite a difference show from last year to this year. The Industry itself flies in reporters from all over to cover this show, and this year less money was spent on flying in press from outside the area. Also they said the press conferences themselves where less flashy and the giveaways to impress the press were not as plentiful this year. Their consensus from Press Week, the auto industry isn't what it once was.

The thing I came away with from the Auto Show is that the industry hasn't given up. It is still fighting and will continue to fight. As the Governor said, Michigan has the largest amount of auto research than anywhere else. Companies like Tesla Motors are coming to Michigan for engineering and are considering Michigan for manufacturing as well. The Big 3 are calling on companies and the Federal Government for research on Batteries (at least one of three main companies tapped to do the research are in Michigan) to power the next generation of Hybrids and Electric Vehicles such as the Chevy Volt.

North American International Auto Show

2007-01-07T15:22:00.001-05:00

Well, the Auto show is here again. I am more than a little disappointed that I am not there covering press week this year as I was last. The decline of the auto industry has caused a decline in the need for people like me (video producers) to work for the auto makers in the booths (during press week even the smallest booths there have a crane there for the automaker, and the larger automakers have cranes, steadycams, and three other cameras covering the event to show on the booths huge videos walls at the press conference) and few people are needed to cover the show. Last year the company I was covering the show for (think very big company that is one of the sponsors of the show if not the main sponsor) hired ten people to help them cover the show along with their own internal press team. This year they hired one person outside their own press team. In years past anybody who was anybody that has to do with video in Michigan would be at the Auto show either covering it, or working in one of the booths. Long story short, not so this year.

But enough bitching about about how a big chunk of money from that show won't be coming my way this year; let's look at the few things that will be happening there. GM and Ford's biggest goal this year will be to try to show the world that they are still relevant. And Chrysler will try to show it's German co-owners that they were not a bad investment. Not only that, but the Big Three will also be interested in the Chinese autos that will be on display for the second year in a row at Cobo.

GM this year is trying to show that they too can be green. They have reintroduced an electric concept car that also has a three cylinder flex fuel internal combustion engine in it to recharge the car on long trips. This is of course a great thing, however GM states that a car such as this is still years away from being in production. They announced a plug in version of their Satan Vue hybrid at the LA auto show last year, but once again stated it is a at least a year away from being in production.

Ford's big announcement will be a partnership with Microsoft to make their cars more applying to younger buys by offering MP3 integration, voice commands, text messages, and of course some flash and dash.

Michigan Health Care

2006-12-27T08:58:00.000-05:00

A while back it was asked on one of the Michigan Blogs what we should be fighting for now that the 2006 election is over. Well, I vote for universal health care. This is something that is way past due and will become even more of an issue if (and most likely when) more high paying manufacturing jobs move out of the state (and the country for that matter). If a plan was devised that could save employers money on health care, we could see more new jobs created here.

Now would be a great time to take up this fight, as it seems we may have some help now - Joe Schwarz. He is working on a plan to create a new board appointed by the Governor and the Legislature to create a universal health care system for the state.

We need to get behind the idea of universal health care. We need to blog about it, write to our representatives, and we need to make those in Lansing know that this is an important issue to a lot of people in our state.

There is some talk of universal health care at the national level, but we shouldn't wait. Michigan needs a shot in the arm right now.

This is an issue that I really care about, and an issue that I think needs all the help that it can get. Maybe this issue needs it's own blog. I would offer to start it up, but I don't really have the health care knownledge to do it justice.

Article on Mr. Schwarz and Health Care
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061226/NEWS06/612260388/1008/NEWS

Shopping for health insurance sucks

2006-12-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

I've started shopping for health insurance. It isn't fun. There are so many variables. Honestly it is no wonder clerical costs in the health industry are so damn high. Honestly if the plans were at least somewhat the same, I bet a lot of paper work could be saved and therefore would cut down on costs for the provider and ultimately cut down on costs for us. There are a lot of different health insurance agencies, not to mention all those health co-op things that you pay into and you get a discount at the doctors office.

The prices of these plans are ridiculous. Then on top of the high prices you have the deductibles, the co-insurance, and the co-pays. Half of the plans don't even cover normal doctor visits, and the ones that do only cover two a year.

If the people in Washington had to pay for their own insurance (and weren't so damn rich), we would be so much closer to having universal health care for everyone. That to me is something that should be covered in the media and in the blogs more.

The joys of being self-employed I guess.

Michigan and the Film Industry

2006-12-18T16:08:00.000-05:00

Being a film guy, I was really happy to hear that Michigan is finally going to be giving some incentives for films to be shot here. Films can bring a lot of money to a state through sales taxes and jobs. Big cities have a whole film office, Michigan has one person for the entire state.

Michigan has been all over the place with trying to get filmmakers to come here. A few years back I had a friend that worked for the Michigan film commissioner. Their job was to supposed to be to attract films to shoot in Michigan, but most of their job ended up being sending Michigan license plates to films set in Michigan but shot elsewhere. For a very brief time Michigan had a film council to help the film commissioner but that didn't last very long ( I only remember hearing of a few meetings). A few years ago Michigan was battling with Chicago for the title of 3rd coast, but neither followed through with the title.

The sad thing is, at one point Michigan had the 3rd largest film industry in the country since most of the auto companies would shoot their commercials, running footage, and b-roll packages here. More feet of film was shot in Michigan than in New York and LA combined. There are still some of that kinda of stuff shot here, but most of the crews that do it now are from Chicago.

I really would like to see at least the films that are supposed to be set in Michigan shot here. Locations are much cheaper to get here than in LA and NYC and most places you don't need a permit to shoot; if you do they are much cheaper.

I have worked on three independent feature films shot here in Michigan, so it does happen. You just don't see many big films come here, the kind that bring a lot of money. The last big film that shot in Michigan that I know of is The Island. It shot for two weeks in Detroit.

Media Vs. Barack Obama

2006-12-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

The attack dogs have come out early and are nipping at Mr. Obama already. Is Barack the best canidate for 2008? I don't know yet, but some of the things the media is saying about him are just silly.

Here's CNN saying he looks too much like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President.

You could expect this from Fox, but CNN? Come on.

Lack of posts

2006-12-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

As you might have noticed I haven't posted anything in a while, sorry about that. I have however posted twice at Walberg Watch since posting here and have started a new project which I hope to lunch within the next couple of weeks.. Thanks for hanging in there.

I joined Walberg Watch

2006-12-07T12:03:00.000-05:00

I joined Walberg Watch. I figured it is a good way to keep on one what he is doing and a good place to bitch and wine about the crap he will try and pull. Look for my first post there soon (I have to finish a post I am working on for this site first, it's almost done.)

Since Blogger is screwy I had to use a different account other than this one, but it is me.

Political Films: Documentaries Vol. 1

2006-12-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

Being a film guy (I am still debating on starting a film blog), I thought I would share with you some of my thoughts on some political films.

For this first post on the subject I thought I would start out with some of the favorite politically themed documentaries.

1. Bowling for Columbine: This is a great example of what a documentary should be. It's not all people talking to the camera, it has humor to it, it makes you cry, and it gets it's point across. I don't always agree with everything the man says, but Micheal Moore sure made one hell of a documentary here. By the way, if you ever get a chance to go hear him speak live, go do it. He is a very good live speaker.

The rest aren't really in any kind of order, but they are all at the top of my list of good political docs.

-An Inconvenient Truth: As far as a film about a Keynote presentation (and the software he uses is Keynote, not PowerPoint, give credit where credit is due. The man is on the board of directors for Apple after all.) goes, I really couldn't imagine doing any better than this.

-Who Killed the Electric Car- Very interesting stuff, and again done the way a good doc should be done, with visuals not just testimonials.

-Roger & Me: Micheal Moore's second best documentary.

Why we Fight: A lot of talking to the camera, but I still dig it.

The War Room: This is a really interesting peek inside a Presidential campaign. Plus it has James Carville in it before he went even more insane.

Frontline- The Dark Side: All of Frontline's shows are very talk heavily, but they are still very interesting.

The Fog of War: I didn't know what to think about it when I first heard about this film, but I am glad I watched it.

Frontline – The Lost Year in Iraq: A look back at what we did wrong in the first year of Iraq.

Frontline - Is WalMart Good For America: One of the best documentaries about this controversial store.

Frontline – Karl Rove: The Architect: This is a much better doc than Bush's Brain (although they bring up a few different points), on a man that will stop at nothing to make sure his candidate wins.

Left of the Dial: A very interesting look at the beginnings of Air America Radio.

This is no way a comprehensive list of good politically themed documentaries, but these are at the top of my list right now. In the future I will list other good political docs and why they weren't at the top of my list, along with naming new movies to the top of the list.

If you haven't seen any of these flicks, check them out. Most of the Frontlines can be watched online at PBS.org. Also let me know of any good political docs you think I should see.

More on HB 6456

2006-12-02T16:03:00.000-05:00

I was asked for some more info on HB 6456 after my last post, so here goes.

I am on the fence about this bill. Michigan needs more than just Comcast (or whom ever may have the small part of Michigan that Comcast doesn't cover) offering terrestrial video services. But this bill isn't perfect. I think I would fully support this bill if it included provisions insisting the service be rolled out to all parts of the state not just the wealthy, most profitable parts. (The bill states that 25% of the customers enrolled in the service must be low income within 3 years, and 50% within 6 years so that is at least a start. But it also states that if proving video through the phone line, IPTV, it does not have to service an area larger than what it already services.)

Google is the entity pushing the hardest for net neutrality in this bill, and as mentioned in my previous post, for good reason. The other groups that have jumped on board over this issue have done it for much the same reason Google has, to raise awareness of the issue. Part of the problem is, the reporting on this issue hasn't been very good. Most articles about the bill only talk about Google's opposition to the bill in regards to net neutrality making it seem like this bill deals much more with the internet than it does. (It only mentions the internet four times and once it is in regards to advertising, and once in the definition of IPTV.)

Another group opposed to the bill is local municipalities. They throw around a lot of reasons why they are against it, but really it boils down to money. Local governments make the decisions right now as to who gets to operate in any given area, in exchange for a list of provisions and a nice little franchising fee, the company gets to operate in that area. A lot of numbers are being tossed around as far as how much local governments could lose if this bill passed, but all of them I have seen look largely over estimated. When those numbers do get published, all local monies are pooled into one, making the loss per city look much larger than it actually will be. The bill actually provides for some of the money collected from the franchising fees to be given to the local municipalities, but they argue that would not be as much as they would get if they themselves issued the franchise.

The local municipalities other qualm with this bill is that it will take away local bargaining control. Right now the local governments can bargain with the telecos, stating that if they want to operate in the area they have to give free cable to prisons, schools, and other public buildings. They can also request public access channels, and define the areas that the company must provide services for. This new bill will take control over these areas from the local government and give it to the state. The local municipalities argue that doing so will take away the local access channels and take way the free cable to prisons and schools, however that is not the case. It will not take local access away, but instead will make the requirement and the number that must be offered uniform across the state. The bill actually states that the same amount of local access channels that are provided now is required if the company wants to operate in a given area. Also I think this will give us more bargaining control over things like free access for schools since they will be bargaining to cover the entire state verses one town None of these issues seems to be really striking a chord with the Michigan people so now some local municipalities have jumped on the net neutrality band wagon and are stating that the new bill will leave large areas of the state not covered by any service.

There are also a couple smaller arguments they raise as well. They list right-of-away issues (where the new wires will be ran, what poles can the new wires go on, will they need new poles) that would have to be somewhat rethought as a reason against this bill. As I see it rights-of-ways have been figured out many times in the past, they should be able to be figured out again. Local municipalities argue that consumers will have to complain to the state rather than local governments in order for their issues to be heard and therefore it will take longer for complaints to be resolved. To me, this is a very bold augment to be made since my local government has been bullied in the past from Comcast. Our government complained to Comcast that we are over paying for our service compared to other towns and cities. The city council stated that Ann Arbor pays the same amount of money that we do, but gets a lot more channels, something in the order of 10-15 more than us. Comcast said they were not going to lower their rates and they would not give us more channels.

Yet another argument against this bill is, heavy opposition to and a dislike of AT&T. Right now AT&T is pushing for this bill to go through so they can begin to offer terrestrial video services (their IPTV which sends cable programing through the internet) in Michigan. People argue that this bill is really a give away to AT&T since it would allow them to expand their IPTV which right now is only in a few areas of the country. This bill really isn't designed to be any kind of giveaway, right now AT&T has shown the most interest in proving a service in Michigan that they can not provide right now. That is not to say that some other company might not went to offer their services in Michigan in the future as well.

All in all, I don't think the bill is bad, but it could use some work. I don't think it needs to be completely rewritten as some have called for (this bill already is a compromise of an earlier bill that tried to set up multiple terrestrial video services in Michigan), but a couple extra items could help making it easier for some to swallow. I love the idea of opening up competition in Michigan. As far as net neutrality goes, I am not that worried about it at the state level, yes it would send a message to Washington, but it would do little to ensure an actual neutral internet. Also, something that has been brought to my attention is that if the Telecos actually do go to a two tiered system and congress did nothing about it, they would take their fight to the Department of Justice's Anti-trust devision.

Mini disclaimer: I am not an expert on this bill, but I have read parts of it (it's 24 pages long) and have read some reporting on it prior to the whole net neutrality issue being raised, along with a bunch after the issue was raised. Also I am very, very fed up with Comcast and their very poor service and insanely high prices. But I also was Telecommunications major at MSU.

Here are a couple of links explaining the anti-trust route Google may take
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2416
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/07/google_neutrality.html

Here is a link to the bill
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2005-2006/billengrossed/House/pdf/2006-HEBH-6456.pdf

Once again cross-posted at Michigan Liberal

Net Neutrality

2006-12-01T12:12:00.000-05:00

With net neutrality once again being talked about, I thought I should give my 2 cents about it.

With HB 6456 passing the Michigan House there has been a lot of talk about passing a bill statewide enforcing net neutrality. This is a good first step, and it sends a message but really it doesn't stop a two tiered internet. What passing a net neutrality bill in Michigan would do is it wouldn't allow any two tiered system equipment in the state. Information sent and received within the state would be treated by the telecoms as equals. However, a neighboring state may not have net neutrality on the books and therefore could cripple the traffic coming from that state. If such a thing were allowed to happen, a few states without net neutrality would effectively create a two tiered system for the entire country.

Since the Internet has no set path from point A, the server the data is stored on, and point B, the user, any kink in the system could cripple the entire system. If a switch or router your data goes through on the way to your computer is in a state that doesn't have net neutrality it could be slowed at that point eliminating the neutral net work in a state with net neutrality.

Even if every state had net neutrality on the books, but there was not national net neutrality law, the telcos could still create a two tiered system for information going into and out of the country, not to mention data crossing state lines. Each state would have different guidelines as to what passes as a neutral network which would create loopholes large enough to drive a semi-truck through.

Net neutrality is a very important issue that must be taken on at the national level to be truly effective. Passing net neutrality bills in states is a good first step, it sends a very important message to Washington.

So the question could be asked then, why would Google raise such a fit over HB 6456? Well quite simply for what is going on right now. Net neutrality is an important issue again. People are talking about it, people are getting mad over it. If Google succeeded in getting net neutrality added to the bill it would be a huge victory for them. They would have somewhat of a blueprint as to how to take the issue to other states and to Washington, their ultimate goal. They would send a very important message to the Telecom companies that the American people want a neutral network and they now have the means to fight back.

A bill allowing multiple video services in Michigan could actually help keep the Internet stay neutral. If either Comcast or AT&T decided to go to a two tiered internet, there would be a mass exodus from that service to the competing service. If that service went to a two tiered system, users would move to a third service. This would continue as the large telcos made their move to a two tiered system. We would see an increase in local ISPs again. Once the telcos got it through their greedy little heads that people are unwilling to pay for a services that cripples most of the internet they will drop this stupid idea of a two tiered system.

P.S. Also keep in mind AT&T already offers internet in Michigan. And the proposed upgrades to the system in order to offer video services as well, would actually make their internet offerings faster. Also the goal of this bill is to open up competition in video services, not just allow AT&T to operate.

My point of this post is to say that net neutrality is much, much bigger than just this HB 6456. We cannot forget that, and therefore we need to focus our efforts on the issue rather than just on this bill.

Cross-posted at Michigan Liberal

HB 6456

2006-11-29T13:24:00.000-05:00

In Michigan right now there is HB 6456 that is being talked about. This bill didn't get much attention until Google called for net neutrality to be added to the bill.

I have to say Michigan badly need more competition in terrestrial video services. Right now Comcast has franchising rights to most of Michigan, meaning most of the places you go in Michigan they will have Comcast cable. As things stand right now only one cable operator is allowed to operate in a given town. The reason behind this is that more than one cable company operating in the same area meant that each company would need to run their own cable on the poles. Things are changing. There is now IPTV which more or less sends TV over the Internet. People are used to choices, you can even choose your phone company now, and people want a choice in who they get their terrestrial video services from. Cable companies right now are able to operate as legal monopolies and they want to keep it that way.

There was a bill offered up in the Michigan House to allow multiple video services in the state, however Comcast fought it tooth and nail and it didn't make it very far. HB 6456 was later offered as a compromise. The bill, which made it through the House, gave the power to the state, rather than local communities, the power to grant franchising rights. The underlying goal of the bill was to lay the ground work for multiple terrestrial video companies to compete.

Google saw this as an opportunity to work in something very near and dear to its heart, net neutrality. They warned that if net neutrality was not added to the bill, when the cable operators decided to move to a two tiered internet they would be able to affect the entire state, including Google's new offices in Ann Arbor.

We need net neutrality, but we also need competition in terrestrial video services. That being said, I'm not sure if net neutrality needs to be addressed in this bill, it could be addressed in it's own bill and still have the same affect.

Michigan is not the first state to take on this problem. Eight other states have enacted a bill allowing multiple video services to compete for customers. I haven't found any hard information on this (basicly because I get tired if sorting through Google results) but is looks like the other states that have passed a bill like this have not included net neutrality in them, but rather have introduced other bills to cover that issue. The way I look at it is that I would love to see net neutrality added to this bill, however I will take the victory of having multiple competing services over nothing. As I said I see net neutrality as a very important issue, but not necessarily one that has to be addressed in this bill.

I'm not saying that this bill is perfect, or even that it needs to be passed, but we do need competition in terrestrial video services in Michigan. Please don't get me wrong, I am all for net neutrality, I have even writen a letter to Senator Levin about the issue, but let's not try to make this bill into something that it is not. If passed this bill will not kill a neutral internet in Michigan. It only creates the potential of network abuse statewide if the Telecos decided to take up war against the consumers.

Higher Ed overhaul

2006-11-28T15:24:00.000-05:00

I really think higher education needs an overhaul in this country. I feel a little ripped off from my higher education experience. Less than half of my classes had to do with my chosen subject, there wasn't enough sections of the classes I had to take, and there wasn't even close to enough equipment.

Let's put all that aside right now and talk about the useless general education requirements. I understand the thinking behind them, they are supposed to make us more well rounded and better informed. That's a great goal, but the gen-ed requirements that most people take fall very, very short of it. What use is a class on astronomy in the the real world? What about a class on linguistics, how am I going to use that? Why don't we rethink these classes and make them more useful for the people taking them.

What I suggest is something a little more practical. Instead of a class on theoretical mirco-economics, how about a class that talks about economics that we will see in our everyday life. (Someone in my micro-econ class asked the question “How is any of this used in the real world or business world?” My professor's answerer was: “Nothing in this class has anything to do with the real world, this is all theoretical economics.”) This class could talk about world trade policies, how raising or lowering the interest rate a certain times helps or hurts the economy. How about how raising or lowering taxes effects the economy? There are any number of things that could be talked about in an economics class that deals with real world, day-today economics.

How about a class that talks about the history of war. A class that talks about American politics. What about a biology class that talks about biology in reference to health. You know stuff that we will actually use. Stuff that will help us to make informed decisions at the polls, or about what car to buy, or any number of other things that impact every American much more than any of the stuff you get in the gen-ed classes now. Maybe if people had some of these classes rather than a class about the history of sentence structures people would be able to choose better politicians and demand we only go to war as a last step and that when we do things are planned out.

I'll most likely come back to this topic in the future because I think we need to make education work for us and should actually try to accomplish the goal of helping people be more informed and well rounded in their day-to-day lives.

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

With all that needs to be fixed in this country, it's important to remember how lucky we are compared to the rest of the world. Freedom of speech is at least squashed some what covertly. Most of us have food to eat and clean drinking water. We don't have a war being waged here at home. And of course the thing that we can all be thankful of is that we only have two more years of the Bush Administration.

Detroit News Vs. Teachers & Education

2006-11-21T10:39:00.000-05:00

The Detroit News needs to be run out of town. Now they are bitching about Detroit not fining teachers for striking, and are bitching, albeit not directly, for school vouchers.

In this article The News bitches about how the court won't up hold the anti-teacher strike law. My guess is the reason this law wasn't enforced is because the judge knew that if the law was ever challenged in the Supreme Court they would side with the teachers, and the school district and the state would waste money pursuing it.

This is a stupid law, and I don't think it is even constitutional. The state doesn't out law auto workers from striking. All they would have to do is say the auto industry is too important to Michigan, a strike would cripple the manufacturer, which would then be in trouble of going under, which would cripple Michigan. There is no law like that, and there never will be a law like that because the court understands that workers have rights. So why should they be able to pass a law outlawing a teacher from striking? All that does is say that state employees rights are less important that every other worker's rights, and that just isn't true.

You don't make education better by punishing teachers, all you do is lose teachers. If you want to make education better, ask for good teachers. If you want good teachers, you have to pay them well. Teaching is a thankless job to begin with; the people who are teaching right now could make much more money if they went into the private sector somewhere and left teaching. They call the teacher's union "militant", when really it is just doing its job; making sure that teacher's rights don't get trampled.

A teacher's job never ends throughout the year. When they come home they have papers to grade. They have to go back into school at night for meetings. They have to have conferences with parents. They have to put up with asshole students and parents. They have to put up with people like the assholes at the Detroit News telling them they make to much money and are ruining education.

Teachers are people just like every one else, they need money to live. Just because they are teachers doesn't mean that they get free food to eat, or a free car to to drive to work with. They don't get a free house to live in, or any other special perks just because they are teachers. They have all the expenses that everyone else has, and sometimes more. Teachers are required by law that they continue to get more education even after they have a degree and a job. Teachers have to go to conferences about different teaching techniques throughout the year. The school they work for will pay for part of this additional education and training teachers have to take, but a good deal of this costs still comes out of the teacher's pocket. Not to mention all the little odds and ends that the school district doesn't pay for that the teacher buys for their class room.

I think these Detroit News hacks should have to live on what teachers make for a year and then see if they say teachers make to much. I swear, if these people had their way teachers would be making minimum wage, with no health care. Their idea of helping schools is treating teachers like slave labor, and taking money away from public schools and giving it to private schools. All these people do is rag on education, yet they refuse to give it any more money and insist that teachers be treated like crap.

Here's the article:
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/OPINION01/611210305/100

Cross-posted at Michigan Liberal

Why we must win the correct elections

2006-11-18T18:25:00.000-05:00

In my posting “Beyond the All district strategy” I talked about how important it was for Democrats to win not only as many seats as they can but the correct seats. I argued that it is important to win the races where the Republican would actively work against us in congress. Well, Tim Walberg won Michigan's 7th district and has vowed that he will see his agenda through, even with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.

He has stated that he will vote against any repel any of Bush's tax cuts. He also states that we will pursue “rolling back abortion rights” and banning gay marriage even if it is only bit by bit. He at least acknowledges that it will be hard to push his agenda with the Democrats controlling both houses, but he says that won't stop him.

This man will work against everything The Democrats try to do. I don't just see him voting against any bill the Dems try to past, but actively working against them. I can't waite to get rid of him.

http://battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061118/NEWS01/611180309/1002

Way to go Corporate America

2006-11-17T10:59:00.000-05:00

What is this world coming to? Eaton Corp is planning on cutting up to 190 jobs in the Jackson Michigan area and sending them to Mexico. The important thing to realize about this is that Eaton Corp is a defense contractor and makes much needed parts for our military. In order to work at either of the two Jackson area plants, one must under go a background check and be given a security clearance. Each part that is made is stamped with a number that tells exactly who made the part and who inspected the part (my understanding, and I could be wrong, is that the Government can hold those people accountable if the part fails in combat use).

So now this company wants to close one of it's plants in Jackson and send those lines to Mexico, even after Eaton Corp's third quarter profits rose 25%. It's it great that we can send jobs, making important parts for the US Military, to Mexico.

How isn't this a National Security issue?

http://www.mlive.com/news/jacitpat/index.ssf?/base/news-19/116360851374430.xml&coll=3&thispage=2

Solar Power to the rescue, maybe

2006-11-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

I watched Who Killed the Electric Car today, it's good movie that you should all check out. It highlighted one part of what got GM into trouble, their inability to have any foresight, but it also highlighted something that be a huge help to Michigan- solar energy. There is a plant right here in Michigan that make thin film solar panels.

What needs to be done now is Michigan needs to start giving tax brakes to businesses and home owners that use these solar panels (and those tax breaks need to be widely known in the state). Michigan needs to start driving the demand for a product that is made right here in our own state! We need to show the rest of the country how it is done so they too will start to buy solar panels made right here in Michigan. As a state we need to stand up and start yelling from the roof tops that the country, and the world, needs to embrace solar energy; and oh by the way we know some really good solar panels you should look into. Once the demand goes up there will be a need for higher production rates and more workers. We can help solve the country's energy problems, and build the Michigan economy.

Get talking about health care

2006-11-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

There is a great discussion going on over at Michigan Liberal about a state health care plan. Head over there now and participate. A buddy of mine who is in med-school right now told me that universal health care was most likely to start at the state level (I believe he got that info from the American Medical Association).

Get over there and talk about it! The only way to get the ball rolling is to get people talking about this issue.

http://www.michiganliberal.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7559

Dear Dr. Dean and Mr. Brewer

2006-11-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Dr. Dean and Mr. Brewer,
I am writing to you in hopes that you can help my district. I live in Tecumseh Michigan, which is part of Michigan's 7th congressional district. Last week our district was dealt a hard blow, ultra right-winger Tim Walberg was elected as our US Representative. Tim Walberg unseated a moderate Republican, Joe Schwarz who lost The Republican primary.

My plea to you is to make an example of our district in the next election circuit, make a red part of a blue state blue. Part of the problem this time is that some people felt that the Democratic candidate, Sharon Renier, wasn't a strong candidate. My plea to you is help us to find a strong candidate, someone the people of this district can take seriously. This year our district became purple, and many of us here would like to see it become blue, please help.

This district is a middle class district of hard working Americans. We have seen a lot of our high paying manufacturing jobs disappear to be replaced with lower paying, less attractive jobs. We want someone to work for us; we don't expect miracles, just someone who will look out for us. Michigan has gone through some hard times these last few years and we want someone to help change that. We want someone who is going to help us afford health care. We want someone who can help the economy grow strong enough so it doesn't just help those at the top.

This year Tim Walberg heavily out spent Renier. A few weeks before the election he was was out spending her 45 to 1, and while she started to close that gap a little in the week before the election, it wasn't enough. I don't think it would take a large sum of money if we had a strong candidate. This has been a district the GOP has taken for granted in the past, but this year they had to put it on their last push list.

I have heard you, Dr. Dean, say that it is a sign of respect to ask for the electorate's vote, well, ask for our vote. Our district isn't as conservative as Walberg is and we want a strong Democratic candidate to vote for next election cycle. Please ask for our vote.

Thank you both for your hard work.

Education in America

2006-11-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

Well since prop 5 didn't pass in Michigan last week (somehow I knew it wouldn't), it makes me wonder what Americans really think of public schools. Now I know that just because this prop didn't pass doesn't mean that American's don't want to fund public schools, but what do people think public schools role is in society, and how do they think they schools should be funded?

To me it is always interesting how politicians always talk about wanting a better eduction system in this country, but seldom do anything to help it that matters. Instead, they come up with all sorts of tests for students and if the students do poorly on those tests, the schools don't get any additional funding to help better those test scores. Politicians come up with all sorts of rules regarding the degrees teachers have to have to become teachers, making it harder to become one and more costly.

Education is still in the stone age in this country. Technology, science, and the world in general change at a very rapid pace and schools are not able to keep up. I graduated college fairly recently and I feel like I got riped off (I'm sure I will have more about this in future posts). It's not the school's fault, or the professors I had fault. I blame the system. I blame the politicians who raised our tuition every year by cutting our funding every single year I was in college. I blame the system that didn't give the school enough money to buy enough equipment. I blame the system that has a backwards idea of what a college eduction should be.

I think that the classes that I did have that had to do with my chosen concentration were quite good. My problem is all the other classes I had to take, and the classes that didn't, but should have existed in my program area. A few of us in one of my classes even asked once about why there weren't more classes in our area of study; we were told the professors wanted a lot more classes to be offered, but the school didn't have the money for the teachers or the equipment. How bad is that when the teachers and the students both want more classes, but the school can't give it to them for budgetary reasons.

I'm out of school now, so why should I care about the quality of schools? I care because some time down the road someone in school right now is going to impact my life in the future. I care because someone who is in school 10 years from now is going to change the world. I care because it is in this country's best interest to have the best education system. I care because I am an American.

If you want to be selfish and do something that you are going to befit from, demand a better education system. It won't pay off right away but it will pay off, it will make your life better in some way.

We need to fix the economy

2006-11-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

Whether this President wants to admit it or not, the economy is in trouble. There are article swirling all over the net with titles like “Bush's Chernobyl Economy; hard times are on the way” and “Can Anyone Steer This Economy?” Just saying the economy is great doesn't make it so; the US has to find a way to better compete in a global market place.

The thing I have been advocating for a while is an over haul of our health care system and installing some sort of universal health care system. The whole universal health care system debate should not be whether it is a human right, but rather it should be that this is a huge economic issue. Health care is crippling this country in the world market.

From Business Week:

"Politicians and economists have mainly thought of health care as a cost that is dragging down competitiveness. Health-care spending is the main source of long-term federal, state, and local budget deficits, the prime gobbler of national savings, and one of the biggest tax distortions, in the form of the tax exemption for company-provided health insurance."

Health coverage for every American wouldn't help just those with out insurance. If every American were covered it would left a huge cost off the backs of American employers. It would effectively give more money schools (everybody says better education leads to a better economy) again by lifting a huge cost of the backs of schools.

I love the idea that Howard Dean has to give everyone under the age of 25 health care (even though it doesn't help me). That would be a huge step in the correct direction, even though The President would probably veto it. Another idea that has been kicked around is national emergency health care coverage, meaning that the national coverage would only kick in after medical costs reach a certain amount. Again I think that is a great idea, it would help ease the transition. Maybe each year the amount that it kicks in could lower a bit.

There are a lot of smart people in this country, some of them should be able to figure this out. Start brainstorming on how to get this ball rolling!

Here is the Business Week article called “Can Anyone Steer This Economy?”

Detroit News and the Auto Industry

2006-11-13T10:26:00.000-05:00

Every once and a while, I have to question if the Detroit News is the print edition of Fox News. They are clearly very conservative and don't have a problem letting people know that.

In an article this Sunday titled “Michigan Democrats must protect autos,” the News states that with Democrats in control of Congress, Michigan's auto industry could be in danger. The article states that it is up to the Democratic representatives from Michigan to “rein in the ultraliberal Democrats who are beholden to environmentalists, unions and other special interest groups that promote their agendas without consideration of cost or common sense.” Is the Detroit News saying that Unions are bad? And if they are, they are saying in MICHIGAN?

“[Michigan Democrats will] have to work from the top. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has supported anti-automotive proposals at every opportunity. She has lobbied for plans that would force stricter fuel economy standards for her home state of California, and she's supported lawsuits by environmentalists that blame the automakers for contributing to environmental damage and global warming...Fortunately, at least for now, parties on all sides are promising to get along and set aside impractical legislation that could force the automakers -- and heavy manufacturers in general -- to adhere to unrealistic environmental or safety standards.”

Damn those Democrats trying to make a safe working environment. Damn them for trying to save the American people money by raising fuel economy standards. Damn them for looking to the future and trying to stop the globe from turning into an oven. What are these Democrats thinking?

Come on News get with the program here. Do you really think Democrats want to kill manufacturing in America? It seems to me that they are the ones fighting for fair trade agreements so all the manufacturing jobs don't get shipped over seas. It seams to me that they are the ones fighting for wages so the American people can afford to buy the things that they themselves manufacture.

Are you really saying that better fuel economy is a bad thing? I know I think it is. I love going to war for oil. I love not having enough money for other things because I have to spend it all on gas. And man-oh-man am I thankful that the oil companies are making record profits at my expense. I think it is great that everything is shipped now days because that means the cost of goods will go up when the cost of gas raises. Thank God someone isn't trying to raise fuel economy standards!

Yes it is true, Michigan's automakers need help (and I doubt they will get any from their meeting with Bush), but that is not to say they should be allowed to do whatever they want. What they need is to be able to better compete in the global economy. They need to be pushed to better themselves. They need huge help when it comes to health care costs.

Here is the article:
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061112/OPINION01/611120310/1008

Now is our chance

2006-11-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

Well, a couple of days have pasted since the election, the time for celebration is over. Now it's time to get to work. The Democrats in congress will have to fight an uphill battle for the next two years. They have to over come the distrust of public officials that has been brewing, partisan fighting that has taken place, and oh yeah, a President that will probably veto a good number of bills they pass.

Also a very important thing for The Democrats to remember when they start this new congress is that this election wasn't a huge win for them, but rather a big defeat for The Republicans. The Dems did not win by a landslide in the individual elections, most were very close. There was a large amount of the electorate that did not vote for us, but simply voted against them. When The Dems take over, they have to prove themselves, they have to show the people that it is ok to vote for a Democrat because he is a Democrat and not just because of what he is not. This is our chance to prove ourselves. We have to show that we are not going to go to the far left as The Republicans have warned, but instead we are going to try and make the government more in line with the American people.

If the Democrats truly want to have a Democrat win the White House in 2008, then they not only have to nominate the correct candidate, they have to prove that they know how to get things done. They have to put pressure on The President to figure out Iraq and get us out of there as soon as possible and without leaving the place a mess. They have to make strides to lower health care costs, they have to work to make the lives of every American better, not just the super rich.

I think right now most of the country wants what the Democrats have to offer. People want a better foreign policy, they want better and cheaper health care, they want an American economy that is more competitive globally; I don't think that is the problem. Right now however, The Democrats still have a bit of a P.R. Problem. They need to inform the public about what these issues really mean, not just what the right says they mean. Right now people still aren't sure what stem cell research is about. These people aren't stupid, far from it, it's just that nobody has ever told them what it really is; the only thing they hear are from the ultra right-wing talk show hosts spewing misinformation about it.

Right now The Democrats have a lot working against them, a lot of the States in the country are still red states. It is sometimes a stigma to be be a Democrat in certain areas. They have huge hurdles to over come in these areas, hurdles that have to be over come if they want to bring this country together and move forward. The next couple of years are going to be very important for the Democrats.

I know this is nothing new, but for some reason I still felt I had to write something on this subject.

Campaigning at the poling place

2006-11-07T19:04:00.000-05:00

When I went to go vote today at about 4:30 there was quite a few people there, more than the last election. When we pulled into the parking lot however, there was a lady there handing out “right to life ballots.” When we walked in, an election official came in right after us. I over heard her tell the poll workers that there was a complaint about the women out there passing out those fliers, and while she was far enough away to be legal, the poll workers were told to keep an eye on her and that she could not tell people they were ballots. The woman handing out the fliers told the election official when she drove in (the woman must not have known she was an elections official) that she was with a non-partisan group. When the official was talking to the poll workers she told them that she did not consider the fliers she was handing out to be non-partisan (all the “suggestions” were for Republicans). Apparently someone went out to talk to her because by the time I was leaving the woman was leaving as well.

Cross-posted at Michigan Liberal.

By the way, so far we have gotten 3 different robo calls for DeVos today.

DeVos's robo calls

2006-11-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

I just got a robo call from DeVos's daughter, asking for me to vote for her dad. It's a really bad robo call too. It sounded like the tape got played to many times or the computer file got corrupted because there were dropouts in it. I will be very happy when the robo calls finally stop.

More on Proposal 5

2006-11-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

I gotta say I am a little surprised about people's reaction to Prop 5. Over at Michigan Liberal, matt lays out how he plans on voting on the ballot proposals, including voting down prop 5. In the commits section there are both people for the prop and against it. The part that surprises me, is that I thought funding schools is one of the things that liberals are all about. This has always been a mainstay of the Dems platform, which is why I am just a little confused why Dems would be against this proposal. The main goal of this proposal is to keep funding for school on par with inflation.

Granted this prop isn't the best ever drafted, it has it flaws (such as stating how it will be funded), but it is a huge step in the correct direction. Funding schools isn't just good for schools, it's good for the whole state!

Now don't get me wrong, everybody is entitled to their opinion. I find it very, VERY hard to believe that people would think that this could take funding away from emergency services. That just would not happen, and besides try getting elected after you cut funding for police and fire/rescue operations.

I dunno, this just seems like it is an odd post to be making in response to a post on a self proclaimed liberal site.

For full discloser, my mom is a teacher at an under-funded public school.

Cross posted at Michigan Liberal.

More Robo calls

2006-11-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday it was Rush Limbaugh, today the GOP is calling bitching about Kerry! Give it up!

Rush Limbaugh robo call

2006-11-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

Got a funny robo call today from Rush Limbaugh. HA! The call basically said the good old Republican line, “Liberals” are weak on terror. He states “Thank God the liberals aren't in control and only you can keep it that way.” What a tool!

I hope the Republicans keep spending their money on people who aren't going to vote for them!

Tim Walberg is feeling the heat.

2006-11-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

Timmy Walberg is feeling the heat!! Haha, this is good news! So I guess the GOP is a little worried about Mr. Walberg where before they thought that it was a sure seat. It seems like the whole possible illegal campaign funds and volunteer coordinator beating his foster-son thing made the GOP do a double-take at Michigan's 7th district, and put Timmy boy on their “Final Push List” which targets 33 national seats across the country.

I also found an article saying the reason that Laura Bush's visit to Michigan in support of Mike Bouchard (BOOO, HISSS) was moved from Lansing to Battle creak because they wanted to give support to Walberg as well.

I think this is pretty funny.

http://noise.typepad.com/election_countdown/2006/11/gop_brings_big_.html

By the way, we got a thing in the mail today saying vote for Tim Walberg, HA. I wish they would have sent more stuff here and waste their money on people who will NEVER vote for them. This is pretty funny to, they sent a mailer to my mom today saying vote Republican, the funny thing is my mom is a teacher (they had to know this because on the address thing it send her name and MEA by it which is the Teacher's union). Why would they think a teacher would vote Republican? Republicans are the ones that want to take all sorts of money away frm schools. I thought these Republican people are supposed to be great at digging out the people most likely to vote Republican and go after them. These guys aren't so smart.

Spin

2006-11-03T10:14:00.000-05:00

I gotta say, I'm glad that the elections are just around the corner, and not just because we are going to kick out a lot of Republicans. I'm happy it's coming up because I'm getting tried of all of it. I am getting tried of all the attack ads, I am getting tried of the lies, the spin, all of it.

Elections aren't about trying to get elected any more, they are about trying to stop the other guy from being elected. That's not the way the system is supposed to work! Facts don't matter any more, only what you can make (Force) those facts to say for your cause. Spin is king.

Things can get so out of control these days. People start to spin the facts, that spin gets spun again, and once again that spin gets spun and finally instead of reporting on the facts, the spin gets reported on as fact. We have gotten so used to it that sometimes it is hard to tell fact from spin. They are able to make facts say anything, ANYTHING, they want to to say; even the exact opposite of what those facts mean.

Spin happens on both sides of the spectrum but one side seems to take it a little farther; guess which side I'm talking about. This side is deeply versed in the art of the spin. They even have a spin-master that is a chief adviser to The President. Someone that is advising The President is doing so with spun information, information that has been filtered, polished, and of course tailored to their agenda. Even if congress was trying to make informed oversight, and they aren't, they would be doing so with the pre-spun information that the administration is giving them.

It is one thing to spin, and quite another to lie. These people may start out with spin, but it gets spun so far that the truth gets trampled over again and again. Sometimes you even have to wonder if they realize that they are flat out lying, or if they have just gotten so lost in their web of spin that they forgot what the truth really was. Even when they are confronted with the truth, they don't recognize it any more since they have been living in their own world of mis-facts and spin.

Laws are getting passed on these mis-facts and spin as if it were truth, and that is beyond dangerous.

Ann Coulter, is there jail time in her future?

2006-11-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

I don't care if this is news, I don't care what it is; I just think it is great that Ann Coulter might go to jail. In case you haven't heard Ann is under investigation to see if see voted at the wrong precinct and could face up to 5 years in prison if found guilty.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/01/america/NA_GEN_US_Coulter_Voting_Investigation.php

Republicans are still Republicans even at the state level

2006-10-31T16:24:00.000-05:00

Michigan House Speaker Craig M. DeRoche recently spoke out about proposal 5 on the Michigan Ballot. He says it is unfair and that it will take money away from his and other townships. He said this proposal is wrong for education because schools would get funding even if they have poor test scores. This guy truly has no idea what the hell he is talking about, the reason most schools have poor test scores is that they are under funded. DeRoche states “I'm for education and I'm for the children." Sure doesn't sound like it. DeRoche, "We could no longer ask about student achievement. They would get the money anyway. We wouldn't be able to ask what we are getting for our tax dollars." What a douche!

http://www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-20/116195533332120.xml&coll=9

Something must be done about Health Care

2006-10-31T11:10:00.000-05:00

Check out what the New York Times has to say about health care costs:

“Since 2000, the cost of family coverage has risen 87 percent while consumer prices are up 18 percent and the pay of workers has increased 20 percent, the survey noted. That is without counting the cost of deductibles and other out-of-pocket payments, which have also been rising.”

Costs have risen 87%! That is insane! Why don't people march in the streets over this? (Oh yeah I forgot, they are all to sick to do that since they can't afford medical care.)

I just don't eve know what to say. We pay a huge amount of money and what do we get for it? There are millions of people with out health insurance, millions more that have it but still have to pay a large sum of money out of their pocket when they get sick, and we still don't have a stroke medication that doesn't have a 10% chance of killing you if you take it.

NY Times Article (requires you to sign up for free)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/27insure.html?ex=1162443600&en=0748d57f90a758b9&ei=5070

Chaney is staying the course in his message

2006-10-30T21:25:00.000-05:00

In a Fox "News" interview Dicky Chaney states that the insurgents are doing their damnest (they are even watching the polls) to make The Democrats win this Nov. He said they are very sophisticated users of the Internet and use it to stay informed of the election coverage. Oh did I mention that he said “we're on the right course,” in Iraq?

He goes on to say "I think the economy is in great shape." The reason the economy is in such great shape he states, is that it is because of the policies the administration has put into place and The President's Tax Cuts.

Yes, Fox "News" is once again showing off their stellar interviewing skills. All these interviews really are is a long commercial for the GOP. Fox “News” never asks any kind of hard questions of The Republicans. Bah, it's all very annoying.

Sorry, I don't have a link to the video, go to Foxnews.com it's there somewhere.

Fox "News"

2006-10-30T21:17:00.000-05:00

So Hannity and Colmes has an interview on right now as I write this with The President. It's just more of the same, Hannity throws Bush a softball and he bashes the Democrats with it. How can this be considered reporting? All he is doing is setting up The President so he can bad mouth The Dems.

Did Tim Walberg receive illegal campaign contributions?

2006-10-29T12:33:00.001-05:00

Timmy Walberg may have illegally accepted campaign donations. Oooops. Joe Schwarz, Michigan's 7th district representative (at least for now), filed a Federal Election Commission claim that the Club for Growth donated over the maximum amount allowed by law to Tim Walberg's Campaign, and his campaign accepted it, knowing it was over the allowed amount.

Yep, this guy sounds like a modern Republican.

We shall see what the FEC says.

http://www.renier4rep.com/downloads/fecComplaint.pdf

Daily Telegram Backs DeVos

2006-10-29T10:07:00.000-05:00

And people wonder why I don't read the Telegram. Their reasoning being that Granholm did not do enough to the economy, even while admitting that there was little to nothing that she could do.

By the way, they also came out against Proposal 5.

Sorry no link to the article, the Daily Telegram isn't exactly on top of technology.

GOP: Granholm Responsible for Crime Spree

2006-10-28T10:56:00.000-04:00

I've talked a lot about my dislike of Tim Walberg a lot here, but I also don't like the Republicans' candidate for our Governor either (I read that he already owns DeVosforpresident.com, yikes).

The Republicans are sending out a mailing in the Mitten state claiming that our Democratic Gov., Jennifer Granholm, is ultimately responsible for the deaths of three people. Patrick Selepak was mistakenly paroled because proper protocols were not followed. Granholm order an investigation; parole workers were fired, rules were clarified, and the Corrections Department has started a reorganization.

The GOP's reasoning for blaming Granholm is that it happened while she was in office? At least that is what I get out of this article. Anyways this sounds like the Republicans are getting desperate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061026/ap_on_el_gu/michigan_governor

Big Surprise, Drug Cos and Big Oil give more to Republicans

2006-10-27T23:39:00.000-04:00

File this one under DUH. Of the money that Drug companies, Oil Companies, and Electric utilities, donate to political candidates, most of the money goes to Republicans.

Check out what Ken Johnson, a senior VP of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said: "All elections are important, but this one is probably more important than most, because of the threats to the Medicare drug benefit"

Poor drug companies, they wouldn't be able to rip off the US government if the Democrats take over congress.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articleArchive/oct2006/drugmakerselection.php

Michigan's Proposal 5

2006-10-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

Proposal 5 on the Michigan ballot will increase funding for schools by about $565 million a year. It calls for annual school funding to increase equal to the rate of inflation. It is designed to help not only k-12 schools, but also public universities and even community colleges. Not only that but it states that school districts only have to pay so much into it's employees (not just teachers) pension funds, where the rest would be covered by the state. All in All this sounds like a big step in the correct direction. It would help to equalize the amount of money each school gets per kid (right now some school may only be getting something like $1300 per student while other schools could get $3000).

Right now I am wondering where this so called liberal media is because The Daily Telegram (Adrian's paper), The Detroit Free Press, The Lansing State Journal, The Michigan Catholic Conference, The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and I'm sure a bunch more entities are opposing this bill. Google it, there are all sorts of articles in papers and newsletters against it.

There arguments against it are all over the place, most of them you can tell come from people who have spent very little time in public schools. The biggest argument seems to be that no where in the proposal does it come out and say that this will help education (That must mean it will be BAD for schools right?). Another argument is that the teachers are just trying to pad their accounts. Do any of these people know any teachers? Teachers get paid so little money it's not funny. Get this, they say that since there is no mention of improving test scores it won't make schools better. Oh yeah, they said this bill will take money away from emergency services. And this one just has to make you laugh, they say schools are over funded as they are. Clearly the people making these arguments are education experts to be able to make the case that funding schools is bad for education.

By the way, the school I went to college at, Michigan State University, gets so little money, it can hardly be called a public school. It got lessthan 30% of it's funding through state funds; and that was while I was there 2 years ago, before funding for schools has been cut more.

Here is a link to the Daily Telegram article, I couldn't get any of the other newspapers sites to work.

http://lenconnect.com/articles/2006/10/26/news/news09.txt

How health care can help

2006-10-26T15:54:00.000-04:00

I think would of the best ways to assure a Democrat winning The Presidency in 2008 is for the Democrats make some real progress on health care when they take control of congress after the election. If the Dems pass a bill reducing the cost of health care, or giving health care to any one (on Al Franken today, Howard Dean suggested giving health care to every one under 25) with little increase in taxes for most Americans in congress, it will be huge. Now of course The President can still veto the bill, even this would be great for Dems. If that happens they can campaign on the fact that the Dems tried to make the health care situation better for America and the Republican President vetoed it. I really think if the Democrats really want to make it into office in 2008 they need to make a big push on fixing health care in the US.

Where have all the moderate Republican's gone?

2006-10-26T13:14:00.000-04:00

I came across an interesting opinion article in the Washington Post. In it, Joe Schwarz talks about being voted off the Ballot in my home district, Michigan's 7th congressional district. He talks about how he feels his party is moving to far to the right, much farther than most of American is. He looks at this district as somewhat of a microcosm of American politics as a whole in this regard. He talks about how different, some times polar opposite, than he is of the candidate his party replaced him with on this year's ballot. This is not good for the country that a reasonable man like Schwarz is discarded by his party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091500984.html

We must stop Walberg

2006-10-25T10:52:00.000-04:00

Does any one notice a pattern in some of my posts? I really don't like Tim Walberg!

Here are just a few of the great quotes Walberg made at the Michigan 7th district debates.

Question: In order to combat the debt, what would you do and what programs might you defund?
“Eliminate the Dept. of Education”
Question: Do Americans have a right to universal health care?
"Absolutely not. It's not a right, it's an opportunity we have."
Question: Do you support a withdrawal from Iraq? If not, what future course do you see?"We too easily forget 9/11" [Audience begins booing], "We too easily forget the bombing of the USS Cole"

This guy still believes that Iraq has been linked to 9/11? This guy doesn't even keep up with the news, even The President has admitted that there is no link. See, this is why it is important for Democrats to win not only the most seats they can, but the correct seats.

Check out this great blog I just found out about and where I got the Quotes from the Debate.
http://walbergwatch.blogspot.com/

Beyond the All district strategy

2006-10-25T10:45:00.000-04:00

This entry is building on ideas put forth in my Beyond the All State Strategy: The All District Strategy which you can check out here.

I think it is important for the Democrats to win as many seats as they can in congress, but I also think it is important what seats they win. The Democrats not only need to focus on seats they think they have the best chances of winning, but also the seats that pose the most threat to the Democrats. Meaning they need to focus on winning the seats where the Republican candidate will actively work against them if elected over the Democrat. There are some candidates that are so against certain issues they will work against letting them pass.

Let's take Tim Walberg, the Republican candidate in my district. He is ahead in the polls and is heavily out spending his opponent Sharon Renier. Walberg is an uber right-winger. He is against abortion, anti gay marriage, for private school vouchers (meaning that money would be taken away from public schools and given to people who choose to go to private schools), anti stem-cell research (not just federal funding of stem-cell research, all stem-cell research), anti-gun control, and I'm sure anti a lot of other things that make a lot of sense. This guy isn't just anti any of those things, he is VERY AGAINST those things. He is for school vouchers because his children were home schooled (so therefore he wants to take money away from public schools). Do you really think this guy would work with Democrats?

A moderate Republican getting elected is much better than a candidate that is far right. A district like mine it seems would be very important to win. The representative we have now is John Schwarz, a moderate Republican, but he got replaced on the ballet by Walberg. So if the Democrats lose this seat they will be replacing a moderate with a uber right-winger, a move in wrong direction.

Politics in the country has moved way to far left, and The Democrats need to focus on winning seats that will help at least move the country more to the center if not tip the scales a little the opposite way. Letting super-righties win will not help.

Walberg hasn't won yet, so I am still very hopeful!

Midterm Election spending to hit 2.6 billion dollars

2006-10-25T09:20:00.000-04:00

This midterm election race will be the most expensive on the books in American History, with a conservative estimated cost of $2.6 billion. This really tells you how screwed up our system is. Think of what could be done with that money. Think of all the medicine that could have been bought for those that can't afford it. Think of how many jobs that represents that are no longer there. Two point six BILLION dollars! That is a lot of money!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061024/ts_alt_afp/usvotemoney_061024152622

Bushes mad at former Chief of staff for telling the truth

2006-10-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

What does this tell you about the White House? President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush are both mad at Andrew Card for telling the truth to Bob Woodward in his book State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III. How sad is this, that when someone in The Administration tells the truth, The President gets mad at them?

In Woodward's book, Card states he resigned because he was concerned that Iraq would be seen as another Vietnam. He goes on to say that he twice tried to get The President to dismiss Donald Rumsfeld, the second time with the help of First Lady Laura Bush. Damn that Andrew Card for telling the truth, damn him to hell!

It is just so sad that nobody is allowed to disagree with The President, or even tell the truth anymore. This is truly a sad time for our country. I often wonder how history will view this span of time from 2001 through 2008.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/15/nbcs-mitchell-george-an_n_31738.html

Believers are a bit more liberal than most seem to think

2006-10-24T19:50:00.000-04:00

Here's some interesting stats that come from a new Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion survey:

31% of Americans believe that God is deeply involved in our daily lives and world events and that God is angry and can punish the unfaithful or ungodly.
Of those Americans:
23% believe abortion is always wrong
76% believe that the Government should protect the Environment better
57% believe that the Government should redistribute wealth more evenly
32% trust President Bush “a lot”

23% of Americans believe God is deeply involved in our daily lives and world events and is mainly positive and less-willing to punish
Of those Americans:
17% believe abortion is always wrong
81% believe that the Government should protect the Environment better
53% believe that the Government should redistribute wealth more evenly
23% trust President Bush “a lot”

16% of Americans believe God is not very active in the day-to-day world but is unhappy with the current state of the world
Of those Americans:
5% believe abortion is always wrong
89% believe that the Government should protect the Environment better
59% believe that the Government should redistribute wealth more evenly
12% trust President Bush “a lot”

24% of Americans believe God is not very active in the day-to-day world and is not angry and that God is a cosmic force that sets the laws of nature in motion
Of those Americans:
1.5% believe abortion is always wrong
87% believe that the Government should protect the Environment better
63% believe that the Government should redistribute wealth more evenly
9.3% trust President Bush “a lot”

Hmm these are some pretty interesting stats. It when you look at just these numbers it seems that even the people that the Republicans think they have a reading on are pretty liberal when it comes to abortion, the environment, and the distribution of wealth.

There are more issues that the survey looks at such as prayer in school and the justification of the Iraq war that not surprisingly the Republicans seem to fair a little better.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/20061030/what_we_believe/

Free Press? What's that?

2006-10-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

According to a new international index, the US is 53rd in the world for having a free press. It is tied for that spot with Croatia, Botswana and Tonga. In 2002 the US was 17th, but since the Bush administration has has made it unpatriotic to disagree with them, the US has been steadily declining.

http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=9046

Democrat's to raise Federal minimum wage, trys to catch up to Michigan's

2006-10-24T11:05:00.000-04:00

I know this isn't new news, but I found an article that says that one of the first things a Democratic congress would do is raise the minimum wage. That isn't the interesting part, the interesting part is what they would raise it to, $7.25 an hour. I know what you are saying, that's a pretty good, $2.10 more an hour. But the interesting thing is that Michigan has already passed a bill that raises our minimum wage over a two year period to $7.40, fifteen cents more than the proposed fedreal minimum wage. The first leg of the minimum wage has already gone into effect, making the minimum wage $6.95 at the time of this writing. This time, good for Michigan.

Federal:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15390733/
Michigan:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE7DB1530F93AA15750C0A9609C8B63

Remember Net Neutrality?

2006-10-23T23:41:00.000-04:00

Remember Net Neutrality? Well it those who are opposed to it (AT&T and the Bells, and Comcast, and the other cablies) may have a harder fight when (I guess I should say if too, but really...) The Democrats take both houses of congress.

Also the Dems need to pass some laws stating if these companies are going to have services (High Speed Internet, HD television, etc) in some ares they have to have them in all areas. Right now smaller towns (like where I live) don't get the same service that towns just a few miles away.

There also needs to be laws getting rid of the monopolies these companies have over service. When I complain to Comcast right now they know I can't go anywhere else. They are the only game in town for true high speed Internet, they know we can not get AT&T's video service over the phone lines like bigger cities can. So when I complain, even to supervisors I get an assurance that my problem will be handled, but it never is. I have been told on two occasions that we would be getting free pay-per-view coupons in the mail since our digital cable isn't what we signed up for (it isn't even digital; it is the same channels, the same picture quality the same everything only now we have a box that sits there and does nothing), and they said that the service would work as advertised with in two weeks. The service still has yet to work, and we have never gotten our coupons. We have called many many times, and emailed about these issues almost as many times and still nothing has been done. We have called the 1-800 numbers, talked to the local representatives, talked to district representatives and representatives from the main office about the issue. It has been over two months and it still does not work as we have be told it would. They keep telling us that we are still in our free trial period so we shouldn't worry about not having the service they told us we would have. They also told us that the time that we do not have the service still counts toward the free trial period even though we have nothing to try. They say the service will start anytime now. I'll still waiting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061023/ap_on_go_co/internet_equality;_ylt=AhrM2DWSJve5jcuzTskqlTbMWM0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

More good news for Michigan

2006-10-23T19:02:00.000-04:00

Ford is losing all sorts of money and will not make a profit untill 2009, and that's only if things go as planned. Ford lost $5.8 billion in the third quarter.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15384829/

Health care is making me sick

2006-10-23T18:16:00.000-04:00

It's 2006 and I swear sometimes it feels like we are still in the 1930s (not that I would personally know what it was like in 1930, but you get my point). Check out these stats:

Total US health care spending in 2004 was 1.9 trillion dollars or 16% of the GDP!
Employer health insurance premiums in 2005 increased by 9.2 %, almost three times the rate of inflation for the fifth year in a row.
Average 2005 employer cost for a single employee was $4000.
Average 2005 employer cost for a family of 4 was almost $11,000.
We spend 4.3 times the amount we spend on national defense for health care.
Health care costs are a leading contributor to bankruptcy
The percentage of people who have employer sponsored health insurance fell from 65 to 61 percent in the years 2001-2004, or about 5 million fewer jobs have health care coverage.
The number of people paying a quarter of their income or more rose from 11.6 million in 2000 to 14.3 million in 2004.
Still no cure for cancer, AIDs, Parkinson's, and numerous other diseases.

What the hell are we paying all this money for? To many people don't have health insurance. Many who do have high deductibles and co-pays. Others have their claims denied when they need them the most.

This is a crime.

More info:
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9447-2005Feb8.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55301-2004Sep27.html

Hannity says Dems shouldn't vote

2006-10-22T13:35:00.000-04:00

Get this, Sean Hannity thinks that Democrats should stay home on Nov. 7. He says that Democrats should not vote because they are uninformed, and that Republicans are informed; he goes on to say Democrat's vote makes no difference. He states "After all, your vote won't change who occupies the White House," and therefore "your vote doesn't matter anyway."

"Your candidates have absolutely no ideas how to win the war on terrorism... Your candidates have no idea how to keep this economy strong... They have no ideas except more tax-and-spend policies and rescinding the tax cuts that every American family has benefited from. They have no idea how to protect the border -- only solution they have there is to give us amnesty. They support open borders."

Wow.
Here's a transcript and a recording of his his radio show where he made the commits.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200610200001

What a clean campaign this has been

2006-10-20T18:16:00.000-04:00

The Republicans should start their own ad agency, they clearly know how to make a good ad. In one ad a group called America's PAC says that Democrats don't like black babies. What the hell does that mean? They say that Dems support abortion laws that are recriminating against African Americans. In another ad, the same group tries to link Dems to a white supremacist! It's not over yet, another includes the following

Man 1: "If you make a little mistake with one of your ‘hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked."
Man 2: "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed."
Man 1: "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."

These guys really know what it's like to be African American don't they?

Then there is there is the congressional candidate that that sent out letters to Hispanics saying that immigrants, even legal ones, could go to jail if they vote in next month's elections.

I tell you, these guys really know how to campaign don't they?

Sources:
http://www.nysun.com/article/41648?page_no=1
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003309033_webimmigrants17.html?syndication=rss
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15329781/

Broken

2006-10-19T21:52:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I don't get why Americans don't revolt and protest like citizens of other countries. They take to the streets, loot, and burn cars, when their leader admits that he lied to them. Americans get lied to over and over and over again in the same day by their leaders. Where's the outrage?

The problem in the US is that we have given up. We have lost all hope in the system. As Americans we get the impression that even when we do speak out and protest, no one listens. We make protest movies, write books, march in the streets but nothing changes. When we do get to confront those in power, we don't get straight answers. So really what is the point of taking to the streets? No one will hear us and now if we speak out against the President, he can declare us an illegal enemy combatant and throw us into jail for the rest of our lives with out a trial.

Politicians go out and promise all sorts of things, but when they get into office what happens to all the things they promised us? The American people have gotten accustomed to to being let down by those in the government.

It really is no wonder voter turn out is so low. How may times have you heard the phrase lesser of two evils when it comes to voting? I don't know about you, but I hear it just about every two years. Politicians get so wrapped up in running for the job, then when they get it they don't know how to do it.

Our systems is broken and even though those of us who realize it are calling for change, little seems to be getting better.

When the Democrats take control of Congress

2006-10-17T14:42:00.000-04:00

When the Democrats take control of Congress, they must start to lay the way for a Democratic President in 2008. So how do they do that?

One of the most important things they must do is to make the Administration come up with an acceptable plan to get us out of Iraq. I don't what to go into detail about this, it just must be done.

The most important thing that must be done domestically is they need to work to lower health care costs and lay the ground work for some sort of universal health care. Why is this issue so important? If health care costs are lowered it will help to get the ball rolling on fixing many more issues. It will help American manufacturers be more competitive in a global marketplace. It will help many many employers to lower their costs, make a profit, and stay in business. This would largely help the American economy which needs all the help it can get right now. This would also greatly help education. By lowering health care costs, you are effectively giving more money to schools. Which again would help the economy by providing more qualified workers and giving schools more money to spend on other things. Once the health care problem is addressed then I think we can really start to work on some of the other issues this country is facing.

If the Democrats work and work hard on these issues and stay out for trouble this will help to get a Democrat into the White House next election.

Labor in China Vs. US Companies

2006-10-17T12:33:00.000-04:00

Here are a few interesting tidbits I found out. China is trying to pass laws that allow unions to have more power and to improve working conditions in China. Sounds great doesn't it? But guess what? American companies are opposing it.

Also Wal-Mart, is unionized in China. Wal-Mart allows unions in China, but not the US. Hmmmmm.

Check out the links
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/business/worldbusiness/13sweat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
(NY times requires a free registration)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23725-2004Nov30.html

Beyond the 50 State Strategy: All District Strategy

2006-10-15T17:28:00.000-04:00

I think it is great the the Democrats finally are going to take on a 50 state strategy, but what I really wish they would take on is an all district strategy. For some reason a lot of rural areas and smaller towns tend to be Republican, and it seems like the Democrats are just fine with that.

Let's take my congressional district. The two candidates on the ballot for the House are: ultra right-winger Tim Walberg, a former (and very horrible) Congressmen at the state level, and Sharon Renier, a paralegal and organic farmer. I haven't seen a single sign anywhere in the district with Sharon's name on it. Nobody has come to the door saying anything about her. On the other hand there are signs all over about Walberg (with his backwards campaign slogan “Commonsense Conservative” on them). Someone has also came to our front door handing out literature on him. Oh yeah, there is a TV commercial for him too. It's not that Tim Walberg is the favorite here, his campaign is just out spending the Democrats' by an insane margin, 45 to 1. In a recent article Sharon's campaign states that they will be doing all of these things in the weeks heading up to the election, but every poll right now has Walberg ahead by a comfortable margin.

It is not a good thing that Joe Schwarz, a moderate Republican (he believes in stem cell research and lower health care costs) who is our district's representative, got voted off the ballet in the primary for this uber right-winger Walberg (against stem cell research, very pro-life, anti-gay rights, I could go on and on).

Come on Democrats, you can not just concede these areas. A lot of times these are the areas that need help the most.

The Great American Scapegoat

2006-10-13T18:54:00.000-04:00

I think it is very interesting that Bill Clinton is getting so much attention lately. If you listen to what the Republican spin machine is spitting out, Bill Clinton must be the devil himself. He has been blamed for both 9/11 and now North Korea. And now the Republican congress is calling for in investigation of Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger about a case that been over for almost a year and a half.

Why this sudden interest in Clinton? Was is because of his appearance on Fox News? That might be part of it, but I think a very very small part. So what could it be then? The reason seams pretty clear to me, the Republicans need to get the attention away from them since it seems like everything that have touched in the last six years has went wrong.

This isn't just about the need for a scapegoat. American politics have made a move to the right since Mr. W. Bush has come to office. Most American's though aren't as right leaning as Carl Rove has thought that they were. So when it comes to the important issues they know that they aren't in line the way that most American's think. So they have to skirt the issues. They have to bring the conversation back to the things the that Republicans think they have the upper hand in, morals and the war on terror (goes to should how truly out of touch they are with the American people that think they have the upper hand in those areas).

And why not Clinton? He was a president that was well liked by most people, the economy booming, we had a surplus instead of massive debt; times were good when he was the president. I mean come on isn't it just easier to blame the last guy for everything?

Really, though why should this surprise anyone? The executive branch hasn't even come clean when they were caught in the act. Man up, admit that you have been wrong in the past and that things need to change Mr. President. If you do, people will respect you more; your approval ratings won't go up, but you'll be a bigger man for it.

Wal-Mart says go out and vote

2006-10-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

I read a few interesting articles today, they aren't new but they are worth mentioning. It seems that Wal-Mart now is interested in if their employees vote. It has started a campaign to get it's 1.3 million employees to vote. I think this is a great thing, because according to the numbers, the demographics that work at Wal-Mart are largely Democrat voters. It sorta seems odd that a company that has donated about $710,000 so far this cycle to the Republicans and only about $290,000 to the Democrats. It seems that Wal-Mart is hedging it's bets a bit, but it looks clear by these numbers alone what side they are on.

Check out these two articles.
http://www.slate.com/id/2151043/
This one is about the 2004 election, but it is an interesting article about how Wal-Mart differs from even other discount stores.
http://www.slate.com/id/2104988/
Also check this out, a really good show from Frontline entitled Is Wal-Mart good for America? You can actaully watch the whole episode online.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/

Michigan's Economy

2006-10-10T13:13:00.000-04:00

The Michigan Economy.

Right now Michigan does not have a very good economy, and that affects me directly since I live and work here. The Economy as a whole in the good ol' USA isn't perfect but it's actually not that bad right now considering........ Well, considering a lot of things. (The war machine right now just might be propping up the economy right now.) The thing is though the the Michigan Economy is worst off than a lot of states. Michigan's unemployment rate went up, and we lost 17,000 pay roll jobs this year. Payroll jobs, we aren't even counting hourly jobs. The state's unemployment rate is seven percent, while the national unemployment rate is only at four point eight percent.

Detroit isn't called the motor city for nothin'. Michigan is heavily dependent on the auto industry. There are a lot of people in Michigan that directly work for one of the big three auto makers. As many people or more work for suppliers to the big 3, and even more that work in an industry that is somehow related to the auto industry in ways that most people wouldn't think have anything to do with cars. All in all if the bottom falls out of the big three even a little, Michigan suffers.

So I know what you are saying, this sounds like a Michigan problem and therefore the governor should handle it. Well unfortunately there is only so much the Governor can do. You see the auto industry is't just in the state that looks like a mitten, it's all over the country. So therefore even if Michigan was perfect, and it far from is, that wouldn't solve the whole problem. Therefore at least some of these issues need to be addressed nationally. Hmmm, that might be a problem. Even since the a certain fateful day in September 2001 the only thing that is discussed nationally is how we are going to get attacked again and that the Democrats are not able to stop it. Every time some one tries to talk about what is happening on the home front (there was one time the Executive Branch tried to talk about something that will happen here in the year 2018, but that didn't go to well), those in power somehow are able to steer the conversation back to how there are bad people trying to get us.

Well then, maybe someone in Detroit should ask the President to come on down and have a little chit chat to see if anything can be done. Hey, guess what someone did ask him. Well then this issue should be taken care of right away then. And guess what, we got a date to sit down and have talks, this is fantastic! Waite a minute just got a call. Well it seems like The President needs to postpone our meeting. Ok, no problem he said postpone not cancel and he set a new date, so this will get taken care of. Oh wait just a second, got another call. It seems he has to postpone again. Well, can we just set a time pretty soon? After the midterm elections? What should that matter? Let's just get this issue done and out of the way with; can't we?

"General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and other auto manufacturers were once the symbol of American prosperity; in recent years, they have become representative of the challenges posed by the global economy. It is in everyone's best interest to develop new partnerships and a strategy for success in the global economy. This must be a priority."

Holy crap that's interesting, I wonder where that came from? A Senator from Indiana? Damn this must be more important than just Michigan. Well those are the words that came from Senator Evan Bayh (D). He lost almost 100,000 manufacturing jobs in his home state over the past five years, and I don't even remember a motor city in Indiana. Crap! This sorta seems like a major issue.

I can't be the only one who has heard of these issues can I? Ah, thankfully no. But when Mr. President was asked about the issue he said the way to fix is was for American automakers to make “a product that's relevant.” What the hell does that mean? Is he putting down American cars? Well damn that sounds like a pretty bold statement if I've ever heard one. It also sounds like he is saying he doesn't really care about the automakers' problems, and if they do have a problem it's theirs and their's alone.

So what is the problem with the auto industry? Well to name one, health care. The cost of health care is over $1,500 per vehicle, GM spent an insanely high $5.6billion last year total! Five point six million dollars for only 1.1 million people? Good god, no wonder they are in trouble. Check this out GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, said, "When I joined GM 28 years ago, I did it because I love cars and trucks. I had no idea I'd wind up working as a health care administrator." What does that tell you about GM's outrageous health care costs? So what does this mean then? Well it means that GM has some huge costs to cover before it can ever make a profit or even break even. That mean GM has to sell more cars to make up those costs. Ahh there in lies one of the great quagmires of this whole health care thing, since the costs per vehicle for just health care is so high, that means the cost of a new car has to be high. Since the cost of a car is so high fewer people are buying American cars. In Michigan, sales rates fell four point six percent so far this year.

You see other car manufacturers don't have this issue, workers that make cars in Japan get their health care paid for by the government. Even non Big 3 cars that are assembled in the US have large portions of them made in that company's country of origin, where again, the cost of health care is paid for by a party other than the company.

So this is just a GM thing right? WRONG! Ford has major health care issues as well, and to a lesser extent so does Chrysler (although it has the added befit of Daimler helping it to stay dry).

Ok, so health care is a big problem for American Automakers, what else? Well oddly enough, the high price of gas is causing people to buy fewer cars and the cars that they do by have a much lower profit margin then the cars the people were buying even a year ago. You see people are spending more and more on gas (even though right now gas prices are lower than they were a month ago don't be surprised if and when they go back up) and so they are spending less money and saving less money. I know what you are saying to yourself right now, if gas prices are so high people should buy more new fuel efficient cars not less. Well that would seem logical, but if some one is spending what it would cost for payment on a new car in gas to get to work, they don't have that money for a payment any more. It's not like they can drive less, they have to drive to get to work. Not to mention the cost of insuring a new car.

Well crap, right now the US Automakers have got a few pretty big hurtles in their way. But not every thing in Michigan has to do with the auto industry does it? Well, no not directly, but indirectly, that's a different story. Let me give you a few examples.

Let's take what I do for a living, I make commercials, promotional videos, all sorts of other random videos for companies. I work both for myself and as freelancer working for other production companies that need my help. Well the major company that I freelance for used to do a lot of work for GM dealerships, not any more. It used to do the Ford President's Awards every year, well guess what? Ford stopped doing that this year. It also used to do all the videos for the Ford 100, again another program axed.

What about a restaurant across for a Visteon plant that just cut back it's workforce. This little restaurant used to make a lot of money serving lunch to the workers of that plant. Now there is fewer workers, what does that mean for the restaurant? Now maybe you can see how this affects the whole state, and really the whole country.

Ok, so what else seems to be the problem in Michigan? Well this might sound familiar, but health care once again. One third of the money the state spends is on health care for state employees and Medicare. I wonder if there is a pattern here? I see another problem with this picture, remember how I said that unemployment went up in Michigan? Well that means the money coming in form income taxes went down. Hmm now let's think about this. My guess is that the cost of health care isn't going to be going down anytime soon, in fact it seems to go up every year. And if Michigan getting less money on income taxes, yet the state has to spend more money on health care....

So what the state has to pay health care how does that effect the economy? Well it's actually pretty simple economics, if the state has to spend more money on health care it is spending less money on something else. Right now I have a friend that is trying to get job as a teacher in Michigan, and guess what, it isn't easy. The roads in Michigan are notoriously bad, but since the state has to spend more money on health care, it doesn't have all the money it needs to keep the roads up. If it could spend more money on the roads it would mean more people would be needed, and there fore more jobs.

Now here is something else interesting I found out. More college-educated young adults are leaving the state each year than are coming in. So, even if Michigan's economy wasn't in the toilet the perception sure seems to be there.

There is a lot more that I could say about the Michigan economy, but quiet frankly it's all starting to depress me. I'm sorry I didn't back up all of my claims as well as I could/should have, but like I said this isn't the most happy subject to be writing about. Some day I will try to come back and revisit this topic.

Sources:
Michigan Department of Labor & Economy Growth
http://www.milmi.org/
University of Michigan
http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0506/Mar20_06/01.shtml
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901385.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15828-2005Feb10.html
Michigan Economic Update
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/July_2006_171299_7.pdf#search=%22Michigan%202006%20Unemployment%22
Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2005/06/16/gms_healthcare_dilemma/
Senator Evan Bayh Press Release
http://bayh.senate.gov/releases/2006/06/14SEPT06PR.htm

Random First Post

2006-10-06T16:31:00.000-04:00

I decided to start a blog for a few reasons. First one, I need a place to vent when stuff pisses me off. Secondly, I need to get my creative juices flowing again. I am a filmmaker who right now is making his way by doing industrial videos, commercials, training videos, and various other videos that creatively are not very exciting. I need to flex my creative muscles because like any other muscle if they are not given a good work out they begin to weaken.

Ok, so as for the things that piss me off, I will try to keep it to my political ramblings that affect more people than just myself, because really how many people really care what I had for lunch or what TV show I watched last night? My guess is that more people care about what is going on in this country than any of my personal crap. I am not saying that my opinion is any more important than any one else's, like I said before I just needed a place to vent.

Now I know that right now it is not politically correct to speak out about the government (this is becoming less of an issue right now, thankfully, since the approval ratings for most of those in the government is way down right now), but I felt I had to do it even if nobody reads or agrees with it. This country is the greatest country on earth and it is time it started acting like it.

When I sat down to write this I struggled to figure out what the first thing I should write about would be. I thought about writing about my thoughts on the war, or maybe my thoughts on how the rest of the world views the United States right now. I thought about writing about how the country could be one of the greatest sources of good in the world but how our leadership repeatedly lead us in the other direction. I almost wrote on the state of education in this country.

I guess I will write about this whole Mark Foley deal. What an ugly situation all around, but that seems to be what is dominating the news right now so.... I doubt I will be able to bring anything new to the table but here goes. It's not cool to take advantage of someone who works for you. It's not cool to cover something up for political gain. It's not cool to try and make this a gay issue. It is not cool to try and blame this on someone else. Let's tackle this issues one by one.

1.It's not cool to take advantage of someone who works for you. Now I know people are going to say “that's exactly what Clinton did.” Not really, but it is a more valid argument than most of the other arguments out there. Clinton was with a consenting adult. The important differences here are the CONSENTING and the ADULT parts. Both parties knew what they were doing and were both willing participants when Monica and Bill were goin' at it. Not so with the Foley case. One of the pages said they were freaked out (or something to that matter, I am to lazy to go and look up the exact words) about the emails. Secondly both were adults in the case of Monica and Billy boy.

2.It's not cool to cover something up for political gain. There were people that knew this was going on and that the pages didn't like it, yet the only thing that was done, is that he was told to stop. Now I realize that this was not the first thing covered up for political gain, in fact I can think of a lot of things just in the last 5 or so years. I know that it will happen again, but come on, can these guys just cut back at least?

3.It's not cool to try and make this a gay issue. Those silly right-wingers are trying to make is sound like the Democrats are gay bashing. I don't even know what to say here, but thanks spin doctors.

4.It's not cool to try and blame this on some one else. The guy screwed up live with it. The people who knew about it and did nothing screwed up deal with it. Trying to say that the democrats somehow masterminded this thing is wrong and giving the Democrats a whole lot of credit. I also think it's pretty funny that Bill O'Reilly said that Foley was a Democrat in a lower third on his show. It case you haven't seen the screen cap you can check it out here.

That's all I have to say about that subject. I really don't want to revisit the issue even though I am sure that this will most likely dominate the air waves until Nov 2. If this turns out that it was more than emails and IMs then this is a very serious issue, but right now I just don't want to hear about it any more until they actually come up with some more facts. I only bring it up as an example of how in need of repair the system is.

So there we go, my first blog entry. I guess it went pretty well. I don't know how often I will update this or when I will or well really anything about what will happen to this blog past this posting, so umm yeah. Any way some time I will explain the name of the blog and I'll tell you a little more about the motivations behind it. Where my political beliefs fall and probably a few other things to put my random ramblings into context.

Until next time,
InterrupT

Oh, and by the way, I am a horrible speller and I try to get the grammar right but some times I don't always hit the mark. So when you see miss spellings and bad grammar I am sorry I try my best.