No! Michigan

Going back to my previous bout of disgust with the unemployment rate in Michigan (the worst in the nation for several years running) and the idiocy of our "governor" wanting to change the way gas taxes are computed (so as to suck more out of the residents left here), we now find that the unemployment rate here indeed has increased:

As of February 2009, the unemployment rate in Michigan has reached a staggering 12.0% - a +4.6% change over the past year.

Granholm does not need to change the gas tax to collect more money for improvements in infrastructure. She only needs to collect enough to improve I-75....

The route many Michigan residents are traversing to flee this shit hole she has created.

Yes, Michigan!

I remember an old theme song from my youth, "Yes, Michigan! The feeling's forever." God's Country, I call it, for the riveting beauty that is (in particular) Michigan's upper and northern lower peninsulas. Mountains, waterfalls, rock formations, vast tracts of forests and picturesque lakes and rivers, each sight and scene is breathtakingly beautiful. I have lived here my entire life, and here I shall remain until I pass from this existence. If someone wants me out of here, they will have to drag my cold, dead carcass out with a John Deere tractor.

Unfortunately, lately it seems a lot has been sucked out of the place.

Continuing the trend of the past several years, Michigan leads the nation in one statistic that carries no pride of ownership: The highest unemployment rate in the nation. As of December 2008, Michigan has toppled the scale at an astounding 10.6% statewide, 11.1% in the Detroit/Livonia area. You know Detroit - home of The Big Three. Just over a year ago in November 2007, our statewide unemployment rate was 7.7% - a 2.9% increase in 13 months' time. Our "governor" projects that the February data will be worse. Historically, the state's highest unemployment rate in November 1982 at 16.9% comes in second only to West Virginia's March 1983 18.2% (table does not indicate date range of data collected). I was but 10 years old and really do not remember much from back then, other than my dad being laid off for a really long time.

Of late, we have been blazing trails through the history books. Being the laughingstock of the nation during the Presidential primary elections was not enough humiliation for this state's residents to endure. Shortly after that spectacle arising out of gross stupidity, we were treated to Congressman John Dingell pushing for an additional 50-cent tax hike per gallon of gas - at a time when most of us already could not afford to fill up our vehicles. Last summer, I asked what was next, after an expanded state sales tax and a retroactive increase in state income tax. I did not have to wait long to find out the answer to a question I knew better than to ask.

Now, our governor wants to change the state gas tax. In addition to the 6% state sales tax, she wishes to implement a (likely) 16% tax per gallon instead of the flat 19-cents-per-gallon tax we pay currently. However, Governor Granholm "insists that the plan is not a tax hike." Looking at the comments left on the article, I found this and was rather stunned:

Today = .19 per gallon flat At the 16%, $2 per gallon = .32 per gallon added on... Last year, $4.50 per gallon = .72 per gallon. so if gas prices rise back to 4.50, like they did in the fall of 2008, we will actually pay $5.22 per gallon when we actually did pay $4.69 per gallon. On an average 18 gallon tank, that difference would be $9.54 more per fill-up. How is that not a tax hike. The only time her plan makes sense and is in our favor is when the price drops below $1.20 per gallon. When is the last time that has happened? This will KILL the already smothered Michigan economy. Jenny, YOU are the weakest link...

Late last September, we took an overnight camping trip down to southwest lower Michigan to take the kids trick-or-treating at one of the state parks. We stopped for gas on the way home, and this was what the pump read when the guy who filled up before us pulled out - and this was even before gas hit almost $5 a gallon:


Using this example, this man's 24.685 gallons of gas cost him $92.85 (yeah, I know the numbers are blurry - sorry): $3.76 per gallon. Had the tax been 16% rather than the flat $0.19 per gallon, his tank of gas would have cost $102.20 - a difference of $9.35.

Surely there is no tax hike there, right Jenny?

On top of that, despite President Obama's recent "challenge" with regards to higher education, Granholm "proposes to cut need-based funding," which helps students pay college tuition - while asking colleges and universities to freeze tuition rates. Along with a 5.8% funding cut ($18.8 million), more students would be able to participate in these programs - more students competing for fewer funds. I fail to see the logic in that move; as more students become unable to pay their tuition bills with fewer dollars available, does it not seem likely more would end up dropping out due to inability to pay - especially when considered in conjunction with the unemployment rate and those students, therefore, unable to work their way through school?

Barack Obama has it right - while Granholm truly is proving herself to be "the weakest link": (emphasis mine)

"Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma," Obama said. "And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish."

"This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education—from the day they are born to the day they begin a career."

Perhaps even scarier is the realization that our education system's decline has worsened since 2003 - the year she entered office: (emphasis mine)

University officials lay much of the blame for higher prices on the penny-wise, pound-foolish attitude in Lansing — with good reason. Michigan has the dubious distinction of being the only state in the country to spend less on higher education in 2008 than it did in 2003, a per-student cut of $2,852, according to state universities. That says a lot to us about the priorities and the foresight of Michigan’s political leaders.

The cherry on top is Obama C&T, which will have the effect of "sinking" Michigan. I fear it will not be long before we suffer what I had expressed concern about previously:

The future of Michigan is a large question mark. With few jobs, sky-high unemployment rate, increases in state income and sales tax this past year, and state leaders pointing fingers at the Bush administration while taking no responsibility for ANYTHING, she has entered dark times. An Obama Presidency would surely push us into crisis, our economy beyond salvage. What happens to an unsalvageable limb compromising the overall health of the body? It is amputated, sacrificed to save the life. Sit here in my seat for a moment, and imagine the terror felt at the image of a financial or political "amputation" of the Great Lakes State.

I am afraid. Very afraid.

Upper Tahquamenon Falls - Michigan's upper peninsula

If There's a Way to Screw You

Some overpaid and otherwise completely useless dickwad in The Michigan Government is gonna find and exploit it, and probably thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Want a job? Too bad, move to another state (or the country to which your last job was outsourced). I've already ranted about the atrocious unemployment rate here in Michigan (highest in the nation and far above the national average since like 2001, I believe), and companies continue to flee. We hear "It's okay, we don't need industry/manufacturing. We have TOURISM." (Support 10 million people on tourism? In someone's overworked imagination that might work, if tourists are only non-residents willing to throw money at us, but there's a bit of a problem when the tourists are RESIDENTS [think trickle-down here]. Does that mean you have no business enjoying your own state since it won't generate external revenues, so FUCK OFF and stay home?) Dandy. Then the other day someone was telling me about new "tourism taxes" going to go into effect (surcharges on motel rooms, etc.). Now that we've driven off industry with the Mighty Upraised Middle Finger, it's time to turn it on tourism, too.

But I digress. Besides taxing us more here on things like gasoline and cigarettes, etc., than our surrounding states' residents pay, the bullshit has now extended to our CELL PHONE SERVICE. Forever, my Alltel bill was about $56 a month. This month it's over $58.

??????????

On the last page of the bill (in itty-bitty letters, of course): ATTENTION MICHIGAN RESIDENTS. A surcharge for E-911 (which I could have sworn I was already paying for, so now I gotta root through a stack of papers dating back to 2004 when I got the stupid thing) is being assessed on our monthly bill, varying by county. Of course, MY county happens to charge the second-highest rate: $2.12 per month.

I don't use my cell phone for 911. I use my REGULAR PHONE, on which I also pay for E-911, so now I get double-poked and for something I don't even use?

They raised our state income taxes, expanded the sales tax, and done other shit I'm not even gonna touch on cuz it would probably give me a brain aneurysm, so I have to ask, WHAT'S NEXT?

On the high side, I did happen to exploit that "tourism" factor a bit last week, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and in the Lower Peninsula's northern wonderlands. I have TONS of great pictures, as soon as I get off my ass and get them downloaded from my camera. . .

OMFG

I was disgusted before, but now I'm just pissed right the fuck off.

Here we have in one article parents not only defending but taking legal action to allow the school to continue to use shock therapy on their children for behavior modification, claiming it teaches them to avoid prohibited behaviors (including assaulting others, according to the article). Then in another article, we read that this same school administered shock therapies to two boys on the telephone order of a former student posing as a school administrator.

• One boy suffered suffered first-degree burns.
• One boy was given 77 shocks and the other 29.
• The boys were awakened from sleep and punished for an infraction that supposedly happened hours before.
• The boys' arms and legs were BOUND during the shocking.
  
• Neither boy had been observed by staff to have been misbehaving.
• Some of the other students apparently informed staff that it was a hoax but they proceeded anyhow.
• The order to administer this severe punishment came via telephone and no one bothered to verify its source with the central office and no one bothered to verify if it was appropriate punishment for each of these boys.
  

Now, my argument as to why this shit DOES NOT work: The former student who did this probably received this same therapy during his residence at the school, yet he carried out a "prohibited" behavior (assault seems pretty socially unacceptable to me) by ordering the abuse of another student. If this type of therapy worked, this incident would never have occurred because he would have already "learned the lesson" in the past. I'm thinking about Pavlov's dogs and the bell-ringing shit here, folks. If he'd been truly deterred from unacceptable or prohibited behavior, he'd have been salivating instead of assaulting other people.

Oh, and this makes a lot of fucking sense: Police are looking into filing criminal charges against this individual, someone who is probably disturbed in the first place (else why was he a student at that school?), but NO ONE IS PRESSING CHARGES AGAINST THE STAFF WHO CARRIED IT OUT. They have merely been dismissed. They failed in their duties miserably, not only as staff at the facility but as HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS, did not do their jobs appropriately until AFTER the damage was done, and they physically and emotionally harmed another person, yet they are only "dismissed"? Where are the criminal charges against them?

This school needs to be closed down, the staff members who committed this atrocity need to be held accountable and charged criminally, and every asshole associated with implementing and perpetuating this behavior all the way from the legislature and Department of Education to the sick-fuck parents who ask for it and the judges who sign the orders approving it need to be charged, jailed, and hooked up with their own fucking backpacks. Where the fuck is the accountability here? Where the fuck is the social responsibility?

To me, this violates the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights declaration
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. the Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons, and Declaration on the Rights of the Child.

Becoming an Illegal Alien

I got this in my email a while back, and I found it very. . . interesting. Time to take back the USA, folks.


The Honorable Tom Harkin
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Phone (202) 224 3254
Washington DC , 20510

Dear Senator Harkin,

As a native Iowan and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My primary reason for wishing to change my status from US. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.

Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.

Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year.

Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as "in-state" tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.

Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver' s license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me given that I still have college age children driving my car.

If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative. Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,
Donald Ruppert
Burlington, IA

Get your Forms (NOW)!! Call your Internal Revenue Service 1-800-289-1040.

Please pass this onto your friends so they can save on this great offer!!!!

Second Civil War

Oh, this is a good flick. If you've not seen it, I highly recommend it. Besides a stellar cast including James Earl Jones (who is, like, the AWESOMEST actor in the history of the universe), it has a story line that just does not quit - making you think about the future of America and whether we are headed for a Second Civil War. (FYI: If you've never heard of it, this is an HBO original movie.)

I fear that is exactly where we are heading, with a number of political and social avenues merging to a central core and ultimately bringing the citizens of this country to insurrection. While I believe our form of government as envisioned by our Founding Fathers is superior, it has become bastardized and bears no semblance whatsoever to that vision.

I read this article earlier today and it brought me full circle in my thinking. Although this article, on the surface, targets healthcare reform and the FDA, it also takes a deeper poke at the corruption and abuse of power on multiple levels of government: (Emphasis mine)

“FDA reform legislation is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s about the wealthy elite vs. the People. Not surprisingly, the People have once again been screwed by the representatives they foolishly voted into office. If anything, this event proves that U.S. lawmakers have no interest in protecting America’s future. They are only interested in the next election, the next career move or the next power play. In a nation devastated by degenerative disease and intoxicated by the chemicals being pushed to manage those diseases, there is no longer anyone left in power with enough sanity to reason with. The President is clinically insane, the FDA is criminally insane, and the Congress is for sale, cheap! The country has become an absurdity, where lawmakers actually bicker about how much bribery and corruption should be allowed in the FDA drug approval decision process rather than simply agreeing to ban all bribery and conflicts of interest, which is what sane lawmakers would do.

Stand back and watch the bonfire

Over the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth attempting to stop American’s self-destruction at the hands of Big Pharma, corrupt politicians and greedy fractional reserve bankers. America is destroying itself, and there is no one left who’s willing to stand up and try to stop it (except, perhaps, for a few individuals like Rep. Ron Paul, but he’s effectively censored by the powers that be).

My advice to readers is to start thinking very seriously about getting out of America. What’s coming over the next 5 - 25 years will not be pretty, and I now believe the collapse of America as we know it today is inevitable. The 2008 elections will change nothing, as either party will only deliver a different form of tyranny in the end. America has devolved into a modern mirror image of the Roman Empire in its last dying days — steeped in corruption, abandoning its citizens, arrogant beyond all reason, oblivious to the world around it and wholly committed to destroying itself from within.

Congress has become a circus, and the U.S. government, through agencies like the FDA, has become the leading threat to its own people. The nation is steeped in irreversible debt, diseased, terrified, bankrupt and addicted to oil that’s running out. On top of that, thanks to Bush-contrived military imperialism, it has alienated every other nation in the world and has now become the most-hated nation on the planet. (If you don’t believe me, just travel outside the U.S. and ask practically anybody you meet. Everybody hates the U.S.) It is now only a question of how long the current crippled facade of political power will last.

The passage of this FDA reform law is merely one more sign of how thoroughly committed the U.S. Congress is to creating a future of death, disease and bankruptcy for the American people. You gotta give ‘em kudos on consistency, however. At least the lawmakers are predictable.

Welcome to the United States of Big Pharma.”

To this I would add, United States of Big Pharma, Big Banking, Big Industry, and Big Pork-Barrel Spending Without Accountability. Just imagine our tots learning to spell THAT one in school.

The embers are being stirred and it’s only a matter of time before the fires begin to rage. No matter what term you prefer, whether it be uprising, revolt, insurrection, or revolution, we can see the smoke and we all know that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

How Long Are We Safe?

Sometimes you just have to stop and wonder.

Verichip

This remarkable device appears to have its origins in providing health care professionals a means of accessing a patient's medical information in a manner that was never before possible. For example: You are in a horrible accident and unconscious, transported to the emergency room for attention - unable to communicate to staff the fact that you have an allergy to a certain medication or that you have a particularly noteworthy bit of medical history that may alter the course of treatment you would receive. VIOLA! Verichip technology allows the staff to scan you and bring up that information, no matter what hospital in what city in what state you happen to be. They treat you accordingly and you make a speedy recovery and do not die because they gave you something you should not have been given.

There are financial institutions interested in this technology as well. Store your bank account information in a handy-dandy chip in your hand, swipe your hand on the scanner, and it deducts your purchases directly from your account. You never have worry about someone stealing your purse or wallet again (just that they might cut off your fucking hand and steal that). You can shop anywhere Verichip is accepted, just look for the logo.

HOWEVER, as with any new and wonderful technology, someone has to come along and tamper with it, try to figure out a way to 1) Turn a huge profit from it, and 2) Use it as a means to monitor the public: Where you go, what you do, where you shop, what restaurants you eat at, and all manner of customer preference data - you name it, they will track it.

THEN THE GOVERNMENT STEPS IN AND TAKES OVER, claiming they need it as an anti-terrorism measure, a way to track and prevent terrorist activities. You can bet every person in America will be implanted and they will be snooping on everyone implanted, and implantation will be a requirement from birth. Privacy will become a thing of the past, and Democracy and Justice will evolve to have ever more ominous meanings. There will be no protection from those pretending to be acting in our best interests when they are truly acting in their own - the political "elite." It will be a grasping effort made by a failing bastardization of our system of government that wants absolute power over and total control of its citizenry, ready to penalize activities that may in reality be benign but twisted so as to appear to be evil. Again, it will be required to be implanted and will, of course, be provided to us at our own expense, under the guise of being "for our own good."

I have a hard time making the stretch some religious folks are making, the mark of the Devil and all that, but I do not know everything (yet).

There are other ways to keep an eye on what people are doing and/or curtailing privacy, some of which many people do not even know about, like the fact that RFID tags in New US notes explode when you try to microwave them and that there are RFID tags on electronic equipment.

Maybe it is just me, but this seems like a huge step in the direction of living in a police state, a step towards undermining the Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights, a means to the end of society as we know it (it will take a while to do that, but we are already well on our way to fucking it up royally).

I Don't Know Dick

See, you DO have your mind in the gutter!

Seriously, I keep getting these emails from Dick DeVos, whom I can honestly say I know nothing about (until today). Usually I just hit delete and move on, not even bothering to read them. Maybe I should have been reading them, though. Come to find out, this dude ran in the Michigan gubernatorial election in 2006 against our current sorry-excuse-for-a-governor Granholm (who is not only NOT from this state but not even from this COUNTRY, a Canadian transplant).

The situation in Michigan seems to be really crappy, everywhere you look. Jobs have fled the state and we have a massive unemployment rate, apparently we still do not have a budget in place and it is already almost June, gas prices rocketed over 30 cents a gallon the other day and it now costs your firstborn to get a tankful, cigarettes will cost you your secondborn, and the list just goes on and on and on. She says it is not HER fault, it is John Engler's fault; but he has been out of office for 5 years, so how is it still his fault? Five years into it, and she still cannot get shit together?

I was never a Dummycrap, but I am not really a Republicon, either. I tend to swim around in the political cesspool grasping at whatever independent floater happens by. I gotta tell ya, though, I have yet to see a single one of them that is worth a hill of beans. I think it is time to create my own little nation of Angie-land. No taxes, no con-artists in office, no bullshit laws, and the Constitution of the United States will be brought back in its original form, when it actually had some MEANING.

How Much More. . .

Must we take, as American citizens, with businesses packing up and fleeing the country, leaving us with no jobs by which to support an ever-increasing tax load and national debt, let alone a means to survive?

How long before politicians realize that, through continued pushing of companies leading them to relocate to other nations, eventually there will be no one left to pay taxes and, in turn, THEIR paychecks? They have already decimated our capacity to support ourselves through manufacturing, ensured our children a future of involuntary servitude, and given away the mineral rights to huge sections of American soil to foreign interests to cover our debts.

Yet another company leaves the country: Hershey is leaving Oakdale.

The Gross National Debt

I take great interest in this subject, as a taxpayer and as a parent whose children will pay the price for a government that forces its citizens to operate within a balanced budget but cannot do the same for itself.

For more information, check out Is the U.S. Already Bankrupt?

I think it is high time we start putting out foot down where our pols are concerned, force them to preserve the best interests of their constituents and this country rather than their own or Big Business'. Without us, they have no hope for maintaining their status quo.