Interesting choice of words

Michigan is considering a bill that would make it harder (although not very hard) on people who own abandoned property and do nothing about it. Well and good and not especially fascinating except for this quote from Sen. Virgil Smith, D-Detroit, who introduced the bill:

"The banks have been proactive working with us. They don't want to sit on property. It hurts their bottom line."

I bet it does.

Many years ago, we took on a small data processing contract from the Girl Scouts. Basically a matter of doing the data entry and some cross-tabs for a member-satisfaction survey. Besides scalar responses, there was a lot of free text, and we read all of it in an effort to reduce it to something the Council could act on. One pair of questions was something like this: "Which activity do you like least?" and "Why?"

One of the younger respondents answered, "Sitting on the floor" and "Hurts my butt." Somehow, the quote above about the banks brought that to mind.

Dog fighting station wagons?

Video here of some idiots shooting paintballs at each other while flailing around in a couple of overweight Audis. The still above is circa 1972, with me driving and a gentleman who shall remain nameless on the roof rack.

Catching up

So I got the pins out of my wrist, and I feel better. Better enough that I'm actually typing this with my left hand and at least three fingers of the right. That's a distinct improvement. Meanwhile:

• Kwame Kilpatric's trial goes to jury
  
• He pays his last two months' worth of restitution with money from his mother
  
• The state gov't discovers what I've known for years: L. Brooks Patterson is a looney
  
• Ann Arbor acknowledges that its public art program might need a bit of tweaking
  
• Press got its knickers twisted over "access" to the President playing ... golf? As in, they actually wanted to watch golf?
  
• The pope finally took my advice and resigned
  

Back in the snow

Alert readers of this blog (all two of you) may perhaps have noted a distinct lack of content for the last, oh, two weeks. That would be because the last, oh, two weeks, we've been away. We're back now, and once we shake the sand out of our socks, we'll catch up on the crucial news of Southeastern Michigan, things like the Kwame Kilpatrick trial, the apparently appalling weather you've been having while we were gone, and the ever present question, "is Rick Snyder a Republican or what?"

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a new friend we met.

Local news

As is their wont, various media continue to compile their best and worst lists of things. (I wonder, actually, if anyone's thought of compiling a list of the best and worst lists of the best and worst things?)

Anyway, Detroit has recently been named the fourth worst managed city in the country, behind Stockton, California; Miami; and San Bernardino, California. The article, which I did not bother to read in detail because it's too damned depressing, was a touch vague about the criteria they used, and I think they did Detroit a great injustice, knocking them back down to fourth place. All the hard work that's been done in the last 15 years to turn it into the worst managed city, bar none, deserves greater recognition than this.

Needless to say, Ann Arbor doesn't even make the list. But it's not to say we don't try. Paula Gardner, of Ann Arbor.com, even dared to use the "CC" words in this article. No, ye of short memory, I don't mean cubic centimeters, I mean convention center! Here we go again.

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Update: Snyder is about to name an Emergency Manager for Detroit.

Wrist pins

No, not like this:

More like this:

I've been skeptical of alternative medicine for a long time, but this tears it. I'm not falling for those door-to-door acupuncture guys again.

Probably a hoax

Amazing. Lends a whole new meaning the term "gated community."

I found this just weird enough that I sent it to Snopes.com for their attention.

Leave the wolves alone

Please consider supporting, donating to or otherwise cheerleading for the following group keep Michigan wolves protected. I've been a hunter in the past, and if I Weren't so consistently unhealthy, crippled up, and generally confined to quarters, I would probably still go out and shoot a bird or even a deer, given the chance. But especially in a state like Michigan, where almost none of our employment, agriculture, or state revenue is threatened in any way by large mammalian carnivores (Except us), instituting a wolf hunt is bloodthirsty and just plain dumb. Plus it would be nice to have a proposition on the ballot that you could actually vote for with a clear conscience.

Stay classy

I'm not completely sure I have this right, but here's what I think the newspaper story was trying to tell me:

One of the strictures under which Kwame Kilpatrick is attempting to exist at the moment is that he has to report all income to the court, since he has a restitution order to pay off. He stated on that report for December that he had no income.

Somebody somehow managed to get him a bunch of money, something on the order of $2000, and they wired it to it him. And he went to pick it up at Walmart or something like that. And a Fox news reporter spotted him doing so on the Walmart's security camera. So now he's in a bunch more trouble.

I'm just not going to say a word about the emergency manager laws. Not a word.

McLuggage survives second assassination attempt

For the second time in two years, Josev McLuggage, the beloved leader of the small breakaway republic in southeastern Ann Arbor, has escaped death at the hands of unknown enemies. While McLuggage has always been quick to blame such incidents on external forces, aides were not speculating on the sources of Thursday's attack. McLuggage, however, was in no doubt. "That goddam porch, she's a tryin' to kill me!"

Anxious to show other nations, potential foes, and of course, the wretched peasantry that he was recovering and in charge, McLuggage met with US Deputy Secretary of State, William J. Burns to discuss "the usual," as Burns described it. "You know: arms, money, drugs, money, and arms."