Word of warning to the stoners at EMU; Pot is still illegal

Kind of amazing that this even needs to be said. The campus cops will arrest you for having and smoking that stuff.

Elections have consequences; except in Ann Arbor

The Ann Arbor Board of Education narrowly passed salary increases for top administrators it has been reported. Seven to ten percent increases too. When push comes to shove Ann Arbor's BOE comes down firmly on the side of the guys and gals who polish chairs with their asses all day and against the students, workforce, and taxpayers. How do they get elected, never mind re-elected? Go figure?

Never mind the ads; Just make the buses run on time, please.

That is my first impression of the ACLU lawsuit against the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority due to their refusal to run some anti-Israel political ads on the sides of their buses. Well that is the downside of taking on ads for pay isn't it? Sadly the extra revenue derived from such endeavors is likely to be completely eclipsed by the cost of defending this suit if it progresses. Myself,  I would settle for just having the buses keep to their schedules.

Another victory for the "free market": Michigan set to allow bigger, badder, more dangerous fireworks sales

Hey, why should Ohio get all the fireworks bidness, eh? So goes the thinking of the sponsors of this proposal. This is a bad idea I fear but what the hell? And dangerous toys are the most fun right?

Detroit Lions fan objects to Nickleback as Thanksgiving Day game half-time entertainment

The Lions are doing well right now (6-2 as this is written). But a new controversy has arisen! Some fan boy objects to Nickleback being the half-time entertainment at the annual Thanksgiving Day Lions home game at Ford Field.

"..[A]n online petition has emerged" reports Rolling Stone, "to protest this year's Lions Turkey Day game. Specifically, some fans are clamoring for the team to take back its offer to have Nickelback perform as the game's halftime entertainment. What, no Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Eminem, Aretha, Kid Rock?"

Well, yes we have those musically talented Detroiters and more. But still considering all Detroit's problems right now isn't this a silly kerfuffle? And what did the Roman sage Juvenal say about people being distracted from real issues by bread & circuses?  I can't remember and I don't speak Latin but as sci-fi writer and populist philosopher Robert Anson Heinlein is reputed to have said: "Once the monkeys learn they can vote themselves bananas, they'll never climb another tree." Now ain't that the truth.

Ann Arbor.com's commenters not big fans of pricely "public art"

Apparently many of these philistines would rather have decently maintained streets, smooth sidewalks, fully-manned firehouses and more cops. Go figure? What yokels. If times weren't so bad economy-wise  and if taxes weren't so high and the local elites weren't so goddam tone-deaf this wouldn't matter as much. In my opinion even an improving local economy isn't gonna convince a big chunk of the A2 tax-doners that the $750K water sculpture imported from Germany was a good use of tax money. Ann Arbor.com editorial board please note.

The upper-income McMansionvilles that surround Ann Arbor have their problems too

"Vandals" reports Ann Arbor.com, "struck two entryways at Saline Middle School between Sunday night and early Monday morning, uprooting plants, spray painting on doors and walls and throwing a rock through a window, according to a police report." [emphasis in original]

The only difference between the bad apples and punks in Ypsilanti, Willow Run, Lincoln and all the other schools districts that draw so much opprobrium and the ones who live in McMansion-ville-on-the-Raisin (Saline) is that the last named have more money.

ATF say medical marihuna users may not have guns or ammunition

No surprises here really. It's illegal under federal law [pdf] and that's the end of it as far as ATF is concerned. Furthermore in that the feds are the least accountable of the many layers of government we are afflicted with that is indeed that. Congress isn't going touch this issue with a ten foot pole and neither is the administration so unless ATF relents or some federal judge engages in some "judicial activism" this door is shut tight.

My advice to shooters that like to get high is this: Just grow your own, be discreet about it, and leave the feds the hell out of it. What this portends for local stoners with guns around here (especially those with Michigan-issued CPLs) is uncertain.  What is certain, at least to me, is that no amount of permits, licenses, and permissions slips from the bureaucracy is ever going make you free.

District of Columbia police arresting drivers for expired license tabs. It's not just the law it's the principle of the thing

The "principle" the DC cops want to make clear being: "We can stop you, arrest you, tow your vehicle, fine you, and put you in jail for even the smallest things. So get with the program." The true nature of government is now revealed but not for the first time, eh?

A peon's life in the imperial capitol

Becky Akers tells us what it's like to live in Manhattan the home of the United Nations this week. Her screed reminds me of living in metro-Detroit back in 1992 when it seemed like Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Al Gore, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Ross Perot were all coming here at least once a week each, with all that their visits entail.
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Why you shouldn't do a land war in Asia

"On the eve of the 10-year anniversary of Sept. 11, the Taliban have issued a defiant statement saying the US does not have the 'stamina' or the 'weapon of belief' to remain in the fight in Afghanistan. The Taliban also claimed that unlike the West, it possessed 'endless stamina for a long war.' " (h/t: Bill Roggio @ The Long War Journal)

As Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery (Lord Alamein)  noted in a 1962 speech before the English Parliament:

"The US has broken the second rule of war. That is, don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland of Asia. Rule One is don't march on Moscow. I developed these two rules myself." (Wikipedia) [emphasis added]

Pasadena cops: That's our job and you can't do it. Even if we won't.

A citizen is ticketed for directing traffic, clearing up a mile long road jam in Pasadena, California. "Oh hell no!" explains the chief of police.

"South Pasadena Police Chief Joe Payne said he did not have the man power needed to staff officers at Fair Oaks and Huntington Thursday and that is safer to allow traffic to back up." 

Safer for who? We live in frustrating times. To paraphrase Claire Wolfe: "It's too late to work within the system, but it's still too early to start shooting the bastards." Just barely though.

Sign of the times...cont'd. June 9, 2011

The much ballyhooed US Department of Education SWAT team raid on a California man's home earlier this week is both more and less than has been previously reported.