Archive for the ‘Michigan’ Category

This beauty hangs in the Public Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Driggs Skylark Biplane, Public Museum, Grand Rapids, MI

The Driggs Aircraft Company of Lansing, Michigan, built only twenty-one Skylark biplanes between 1929 and 1931. Most of them were used in Western Michigan and Northern Indiana for training pilots, stunts in airshows, or carrying passengers on short business and pleasure trips. The Skylark was the favored aircraft of Northern Air Service, Central Air Service, and the Kent and Impala Flying Clubs, all based at the old Kent County Airport.

Even though its economic success was cut short by the Great Depression, the Skylark represented a leap forward in light aircraft technology. The lightweight canvas over frame design (less than 1,000 pounds with the engine) and more powerful engines were stable in the air, and allowed them to become airborne with shorter takeoff distances.

This is the only surviving production Skylark. It had a 96 h.p. engine that gave a top speed of 100 mph and a cruising range of 300 miles.

Murdoc took this photo this past weekend. A couple of more views below:
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Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan (via Instapundit)

President Barack Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation’s heartland — particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

Now, there is a lot wrong with Michigan. But if auto manufacturing is worth bailing out, why turn around and torpedo it with something like this? The only way that makes sense is if the bail-out money isn’t really about saving the auto makers as much as it’s about giving money to the right people.

One of the coolest things around is GasBuddy.com. Here’s their current US price temperature map:

By way of comparison, here’s a map from the AP showing state-by-state gasoline tax (including federal tax):

There is some noticeable correlation between the two maps. The red (higher tax) states on the tax map tend to be orange or yellow (higher price) on the price map. Blue states (lower tax) on the tax map tend to be green states (lower price) on the price map. But it isn’t absolute. For instance, Arizona and New Mexico have lower taxes but higher relative prices. The same goes for Vermont and New Hampshire. On the flip side, Michigan seems to be the only state with higher taxes and lower prices right now. For which Murdoc is thankful.

Compare this price map to two previous versions posted on MO, one from June 2007 and one from November 2006. Note that the price range varies over time and green in 2006 is not the same as green in 2008.

Meanwhile: Venezuela’s Chavez calls for fix oil price

CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 25 (UPI) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said crude oil prices should be set at a fixed price in the wake of recent oil price decreases.

Chavez said that prices should be set between $80 and $100 a barrel, El Universal reported Tuesday. Prices closed Monday at less than $54 a barrel.

Chavez said that price fixing would stabilize the market and prevent the sharp spikes and declines in the petroleum market that marked the last year.

Especially the declines is what he’s thinking, I’d guess. Oil is currently uner $51, and the head of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation thinks it will go down to $40.

I would have never guessed it would drop this far. I doubt it’s going to stay for long.

I wonder if we’ll see an effort to push through gas tax increases while prices are down in an effort to get rate hikes in while they don’t seem so bad.

I’ve not jumped on the “stock market crash due to Obama” bandwagon even though it seems a bit suspicious that the huge rally occurred while McCain’s poll numbers improved and then the latest big dive began the day after Obama won.

But this cannot possibly make investors or business owners optimistic:

Obama taps Granholm, Bonior
Michigan governor and former congressman will serve on economic transition team

Gov. Jennifer Granholm was named to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team on the economy Thursday, and will meet with him and 16 other advisers today in Chicago…Bonior, a longtime supporter of organized labor, said his position on the transition committee is an opportunity to press for labor-friendly policies and for aid to the domestic auto industry. He said his appointment and that of Granholm signal Obama’s concern about Michigan’s economy and the carmakers.

Michigan’s economy makes the rest of the nation look rosy. And the heavily-unionized eastern parts of Michigan make the rest of Michigan look rosy. Not only are things really, really bad, but there seems to be no optimism that anything can be done about it.

So let’s put some of the leaders in charge of the place on the big all-star economic team. What’s next, Detroit Lions quarterback Dan Orlovsky going to the Pro Bowl?

Folks, look at what Michigan has done for the past 30-50 years. Then do the opposite.

The lines were a bit long, but not too bad.

I think this is the first time I’ve voted in the morning rather than after work, though, so I can’t really compare it to previous turnouts.

Checked my ID. Paper and pen ballot. Optical scan tabulator.

The way things ought to be.

As a Michigan resident since 1993, Murdoc wonders the same thing. In Cicago Boyz:

In 1950, America produced 51% of the GNP for the entire world. Of that production, roughly 70% took place in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The productive capability of this small area of earth staggers the imagination. Virtually everything that rebuilt the industrial bases of Europe and Japan came from those eight states. Cars, planes, electronics, machine tools, consumer goods, generators, concrete – any conceivable item manufactured by industrial humanity poured out this tiny region and enriched the world. The region shone with widespread prosperity. People migrated from the South and West to work in these Herculean engines of industry.

The wealth, power and economic dominance of the region at the time cannot be overstated. Nothing like it has existed in human history.

Yet, a mere 30 years later, by 1980, we called that area the “rustbelt” and it became synonymous with joblessness, collapsing cities, high crime, failing schools and general hopelessness.

What the hell happened?

The main thrust of the article, of course, is that overly-powerful unions and economic policies like those espoused by Barack Obama spell unmitigated disaster, even for situations that appear to be unbeatable.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting the Motor City, let me just tell you that it’s a pit. It is easily the dirtiest, dingiest, most depressing US city I’ve ever visited. And it’s not just the heart of the old downtown area that’s run down. It isn’t just a few old, poor neighborhoods that suffer. The bad times are virtually everywhere.

Also, Detroit barely noticed the economic heady days of the mid-90s and the decent days this decade. Even when gas was cheap and SUVs sold like hotcakes, even when the stock market was way, way up and the national unemployment rate was way, way down, Detroit remained a discouraging, despairing pit. And no one looked at SUVs and said “Wow, the Big Three are really making a comeback.”

Sure, it’s not all the fault of Democrats. I’ve said a number of times that I sure wish I could blame Michigan’s economic woes solely on Jennifer Granholm, but I don’t think anyone could fix Detroit. No one. Michigan’s economy has probably been hit as hard or harder than any other state’s by NAFTA-type business decisions, though moving jobs to Mexico makes as much sense as it does in part because of the onerous unions.

If things had been done a little differently in the 1960s and 1970s, I doubt that GM would be looking for (and failing to get) government help to merge with Chrysler.

The Detroit area votes overwhelmingly Democratic in every election. So overwhelmingly that, like in many other states, a few urban counties can solely determine which presidential candidate the state goes to or which senator goes to Capitol Hill. Detroit-area state politicians are almost always strong Democrats/Liberals and I doubt that many locals are what would be considered strongly Conservative.

Yet here an injured Michigan sits, with Detroit amounting to a festering wound that just won’t heal. And, as far as I can tell, we’re going to do it again.

Why isn’t Detroit a paradise? Because voters don’t want it to be. Look around. Michigan voters insist that things keep on keeping on. (via Instapundit)

And it’s NOT in Detroit!

Grand Rapids pair charged with voter registration fraud

Two Grand Rapids residents are facing more than a dozen years in prison for voter registration fraud.

Robin Anderson and Patty Beth Wallace face at least 14 years behind bars for felony forgery charges as they tried to meet voter registration quota for their employer.

They’ve admitted to a small number of false registrations submitted to meet quotas for the Community Voters Project, an ostensibly non-partisan organization working to register more black voters. In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, dozens of CVP workers are suspected of election fraud, at least some of them because they’re ineligible to serve as a registrar because they’ve been convicted of a felony.

Oh. look at the pair in Grand Rapids:

Both Anderson and Wallace have criminal histories that could land them more time behind bars. In 2006 Anderson was convicted of delivery/manufacture of a controlled substance.

Wallace was convicted in 2005 of unemployment compensation fraud in Florida.

Here’s a bit of conversation with Anderson:

When asked if he had in fact registered a dead person, Anderson was evasive.

“You did not register a dead person?” Newschannel 3 asked.

“No, I am not going to say I didn’t until we can try to figure out what’s going on here,” Anderson said.

Actually, what they’re trying to figure out is if you registered a dead person, pal.

Also, here’s a video of a 15-year-old boy in Lansing who received a voter ID card in the mail. He claims that a registrar stopped him and collected his information, including his correct date of birth. When the paperwork was turned in, the DOB had been changed. There’s no record of the organization that signed him up.

It was probably John McCain himself that did it, that cheating crook.

A federal judge upheld the ban on campaign T-shirts and buttons in Michigan polling locations or within 100 feet of an entrance. I happen to agree with this policy.

How about other states? Are similar laws common elsewhere? What do you guys think of this sort of restriction?

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that the use of cameras is also banned:

Voters are being urged by the Video Your Vote project to take photos at polling places, but that’s not allowed in Michigan.

Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land reminded voters Wednesday that those who try to do so risk having their ballots taken away and their votes declared invalid.

I’m not quite so sure about this one.

I don’t know what the laws are in other states, but in Michigan candidates and campaign material can’t be at closer than 100 feet from any entrance to a polling place. This includes clothing, hats, and buttons. That law is being challenged.

A federal judge has promised to rule within two days on whether Michigan’s ban on wearing campaign T-shirts and buttons inside polling places should be upheld.

U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan heard oral arguments in the case on Monday. The lawsuit was brought this month by Council 25 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees against Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land and state elections director Chris Thomas.

AFSCME attorney Herbert Sanders said the ban oppresses voters’ right to freedom of expression and abridges their right to vote free from intimidation.

“This is going to create a significant disruption in one of the largest elections ever in the history of the country,” he told the judge.

Sanders also called it a “pretext for discrimination,” arguing election officials will arbitrarily enforce the law, which he said has historically led to unequal treatment of minorities.

I’m not sure how not allowing any political T-shirts hurts freedom from intimidation. I think that allowing political t-shirts may threaten freedom from intimidation, not the other way around.

And I guess I’d have to see some evidence that minorities have been treated unfairly over this. Even if they have been, the answer is not to abolish the rule but to enforce it equally.

I recall a comment threat on with one-time MO reader MarinesGirl who lived in the Detroit area and was telling how she was dressing her son up in all sorts of John Kerry stuff to go down and hang out at the polling station on election day, 2004. I emailed her to remind her not to get closer than 100 feet lest they get in trouble. She responded that it was sweet of me to worry, but they had no problem hanging out there for hours talking with people in line about Kerry and how much George Bush sucked and telling jokes and stuff inside the polling station and that no one cared or minded.

Detroit.

Following up an earlier post about a news story that Amtrak routes from Michigan to Chicago had seen significant jumps in paying customers.

I saw the train again this morning and there appeared to be less than 10 passengers aboard the three cars.

As I noted in the earlier post, it’s likely that more riders get on a bit closer to Chicago than where I see it (near Grand Rapids) but three passenger cars and a second engine is a lot of train to move from Grand Rapids to St. Joseph for a dozen people.