Heights hires new DDA chief

Heights hires new DDA chief
"A longtime Muskegon-area economic development official -- Norm Cunningham -- has been picked as the new director of Muskegon Heights' Downtown Development Authority.
Cunningham, 57, was selected by the city's DDA board last month. He started his new job last week. His $40,000 salary will be paid for through DDA funds.
'I'm excited about working with the DDA and city of Muskegon Heights,' Cunningham said. 'The potential here is unlimited."

Norton taxpayers to foot bill for Henry St. bridge

Norton taxpayers to foot bill for Henry St. bridge"Norton Shores will not be getting help paying for repairs to a portion of Henry Street that eroded earlier this year after a storm drain burst and forced closure of a portion of the Merrill S. Bailey Bridge."

Gordo has a few questions:
1. This potential problem must have been foreseen. Who is/was responsible to check, occasionally, to see if the drain was free from debris?

2. Was there a policy in place to check drains and culverts for blockage?

3. Is there now a policy to check for drain/culvert blockage?

4. Who is now responsible for guaranteeing that this type of disaster will not reoccur?

$1 million grant focuses on patient care

$1 million grant focuses on patient care
"If you're black and live in West Michigan, your risk of losing a leg to diabetes is five times greater than for white residents.
That statistic, released today, points out a glaring inequity in the area's medical system, a gap a national foundation and local leaders hope to fill with a new program aimed at improving health care for all area residents."

Construction decline hits municipalities

Construction decline hits municipalities
"Whitehall Township Supervisor Dennis Babcock said he wonders if the department needs to cut back on some of its costs, since the downturn is becoming a trend. He doesn't want this to become an annual payment."

What a concept!

County to hire coordinator to cut jail crowds

County to hire coordinator to cut jail crowds
"Muskegon County commissioners kicked off a major effort to reduce chronic jail overcrowding Tuesday when they agreed to allow the county sheriff to create the position of 'jail population coordinator.'
And more help in the same area could be on its way soon, when the federal government releases more than $300,000 for the county to hire a special inmate screening staff that will work with the new coordinator to determine who belongs in jail and who doesn't."

Stupid Gordo!
I thought judges and juries made that decision.....

Standing Tall

Standing Tall
"'We are in a time, in Muskegon, of creating new things that will last for the ages,' said Chris McGuigan, president of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County. 'We know today we are likely dedicating Muskegon's iconic structure, what the arch is to St. Louis or the Calder is to Grand Rapids.'"

The people who are spending Muskegon into bankruptcy are delusional!

City bypasses bidding policy on road work

City bypasses bidding policy on road work
"The Muskegon City Commission this week bypassed its bidding policy, rejecting the lowest bidder -- and even the second-lowest bidder -- to give a street-paving project to Muskegon-based Jackson-Merkey Contractors."

The fix is in!

County buying land for man-made marsh

County buying land for man-made marsh
"The county is buying the property for $87,000 from David and Angela Eklund, who are expected to remain on the land for the next year, according to John Warner, the county's deputy director of public works.
It was the seventh parcel along the 8500, 8600 and 8700 blocks of Apple to be bought by the county for the wetland project. All the parcels have houses on them. Some will be demolished, while others will be sold and moved to other sites, Warner said.
The county has spent approximately $722,000 on land for the marsh thus far, and several more parcels will be needed, according to Warner. The money for the land is coming from the county's solid waste fund, he said."

The county is broke..... they say we need more taxes...... they tell us the budget is too lean for any more cuts......

Multiple sites offer free meals for kids

Multiple sites offer free meals for kids
"There are no income guidelines for meal recipients of the Summer Feeding Program. Free breakfast and lunch are available to children 18 and under, or persons up to age 26 who are determined by the state or a local public agency to be mentally or physically handicapped."

Take a look at the enormous list of free food sites.
Why aren't we providing free dinners for the tots?
gimmee a break.....

Montague school board to weigh proposed budget cuts

Montague school board to weigh proposed budget cuts
"Sipka is expected to recommend to the school board today some $420,000 in budget cuts, including teacher and paraprofessional positions. The proposed cuts are part of administrators' plan to eliminate a $750,000 shortfall from the 2006-07 budget."

Why are automatic increases in teacher pay and benefits not even discussed?

GH council supports study of transit system linking West Michigan cities

GH council supports study of transit system linking West Michigan cities
"The Grand Haven City Council is on board with a study of a regional transit system that would link Grand Haven, Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Holland.
The $110,000 West Michigan Transit Linkage Study, which will be paid through a Michigan Department of Transportation grant, is expected to begin this summer and be completed by fall."

Our state is broke....... and "studies" like this are a major reason.

A U.N. Khan Job

A U.N. Khan Job: "Blueprints for a nuclear weapon compatible with the ballistic missiles of Iran, North Korea and other rogue states were found on computers of the notorious Khan smuggling ring. Will a complacent world wake up?"

Culpable Congress

Culpable Congress
"Prices: The big jump in the consumer price index on Friday scared a lot of people. But the sad fact is, much of inflation's recent rise is due to the upward spiral of energy prices. And guess whose fault that is?"

Pre-war memory lapse.....

Instapundit.com -: "If Democrats wish to contend they were 'misled' into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.
In 2003, top Senate Democrats -- not just Rockefeller but also Carl Levin, Clinton, Kerry and others -- sounded just as alarmist."

click to see the video facts.

John Coleman vs Al Gore

John Coleman vs Al Gore
"Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming."

American Murder Mystery

American Murder Mystery: "Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades"

WaterMark plans film, TV studio

WaterMark plans film, TV studio
"The new Michigan financial incentives for filmmakers in the form of 42-percent refundable tax credits for film production costs is expected to bring the state $400 million in economic activity, WaterMark Studio officials said."

Something smells here.
Too bad The Chronicle has no curiosity about the "refundable" part of our tax credit offer.

MSU hikes tuition nearly 7 percent

MSU hikes tuition nearly 7 percent
"Michigan State University's Board of Trustees has approved a 6.8 percent tuition increase for the 2008-09 school year.
The increase approved Friday will add $639 to tuition for in-state freshmen and sophomores. Tuition for out-of-state students will increase by 7.1 percent.
Freshmen taking a total of 30 credits and living in dorms will pay about $17,240 for the year.
Tuition and fees increased by 9.6 percent at Michigan State last fall when the average tuition increase at a Michigan public university was more than 10 percent."

Doesn't anyone wonder where all that money is going?
Isn't it time to take a close look at how our tax dollars are being spent?

Robert Mugabe Militia Hacks, Burns Alive Opposition Leader's Wife

Robert Mugabe Militia Hacks, Burns Alive Opposition Leader's Wife
"The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.
An hour later they were back. They grabbed Dadirai Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window."

And the UN focuses on Guantanamo?

House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration

House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration
A House subcommittee on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led effort to open up more U.S. coastal waters to oil exploration.
Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., spearheaded the effort. His proposal would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone.
But the plan failed Wednesday on a 9-6, party-line vote in a House appropriations subcommittee, which was considering the proposal as part of an Interior Department spending package."

Will Media Ask Questions on Obama's Pledge To Prosecute War Criminals? | NewsBusters.org

Will Media Ask Questions on Obama's Pledge To Prosecute War Criminals? NewsBusters.org
This is pretty serious stuff that the American public surely would like more details on. Can we expect the MSM to follow up on this with some questions? Probably not, but they need to.
Marc Ambinder notes how the Democratic Justice Department will be interested in making a case against senior Bush adminstration officials in the future.
Thomas Lifson reminds us of Obama’s take on this:
Barack Obama’s plan for imposing unity on the nation after he takes office apparently entails a close look at war crimes trials for Bush administration officials. He has even said so in an interview with Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News.
This kind of change — putting your predecessors on trial for their conduct of policy — may not be what most Americans really want or expect from someone with Obama’s gauzy rhetoric of unity. But unity has a dark side in the hands of people who regard their opponents as criminals. America has two centuries-plus of history lacking the totalitarian practice of jailing the predecessors when a new president takes office.
This is the sort of proposal one might expect from a man steeped in Marxism at his church, from his friends like Ayers, and as a member of the Alinsky Left. But I am surprised he let this slip.
Obama:
Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to “immediately review the information that’s already there” and determine if an inquiry is warranted — but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as “a partisan witch hunt.” However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because “nobody is above the law.”

Cocky Ignorance::By Thomas Sowell

Cocky Ignorance::By Thomas Sowell
"All this sounds very plausible, as so many other things that Senator Obama says sound plausible. But, like so many of those other things, it will not stand up under scrutiny.
What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians."

JunkScience.com -- Steven Milloy, Publisher

JunkScience.com -- Steven Milloy, Publisher
"Let's consider a few facts.
CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas in the atmosphere that is measured in parts per million, or ppm. The vast majority of CO2 emissions, about 97 percent, comes from Mother Nature.
CO2 is nowhere near the most important greenhouse gas; water vapor holds that distinction. An astounding 99.9 percent of Earth's greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with manmade CO2 emissions.
If that's not enough, we can look at graphs of the historical relationship between carbon dioxide and global temperature. Ice core data going back 650,000 years show that global temperatures increase before CO2 levels. Data from the 20th century indicate no particular relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature.
Finally, there is no scientific proof that the current level of atmospheric CO2 or that levels projected by the United Nations -- about 700 ppm by 2095 if no greenhouse gas regulations are put in place -- has or will cause any harm to the environment."

YouTube - Obama campaign rep STUMPED on legislative accomplishments

YouTube - Obama campaign rep STUMPED on legislative accomplishments

Mean To Teens

Mean To Teens: "When Democrats in Congress finagled a jump in the minimum wage last year, they crowed about their victory. Now Americans are finding out what it cost as the unemployment rate shoots up."

Bernanke: Danger of downturn appears to have faded

Bernanke: Danger of downturn appears to have faded:
"Despite a recent spike in the nation's unemployment rate, the danger that the economy has fallen into a 'substantial downturn' appears to have waned, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday."

'GMA' Features Professor Who Blames Greenhouse Gases for Current Heat Wave

'GMA' Features Professor Who Blames Greenhouse Gases for Current Heat Wave
"Ironically, in 1971, Schneider co-authored a research article that explored both warming and cooling of the Earth, warning that a certain level of aerosols entering the atmosphere could trigger an ice age."

FOX News Documentary Shows Congressmen Sent Millions in Earmarks to Their Own Families

FOX News Documentary Shows Congressmen Sent Millions in Earmarks to Their Own Families
"A number of U.S. congressmen and their families — including former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert — have personally profited from congressional earmarks they slipped into federal legislation, a FOX News documentary reveals.
The documentary, “Porked: Earmarks"

Fred Hiatt - 'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple. - washingtonpost.com

Fred Hiatt - 'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple. - washingtonpost.com: "On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements 'were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.'
On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements 'were substantiated by intelligence information.'
On chemical weapons, then? 'Substantiated by intelligence information.'
On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? 'Generally substantiated by intelligence information.' Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? 'Generally substantiated by available intelligence.' Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? 'Generally substantiated by intelligence information.'"

lgf: At the Official Obama Site: 'How the Jewish Lobby Works'

lgf: At the Official Obama Site: 'How the Jewish Lobby Works': "Here’s yet another disgusting antisemitic page at the official Barack Obama campaign web site, by a group calling itself “Socialists for Obama.” This group of Jew-haters has apparently been at his site since April, and there are numerous comments from Obama supporters that are indistinguishable from the hate speech you’ll find at neo-Nazi sites: Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In Socialists for Obama: How the jewish lobby works.
There’s something deeply wrong with a presidential candidate who attracts so many of these hateful psychotics. Read the comments; you just won’t believe what is allowed to be posted at Barack Obama’s web site."