Uh oh! Manifesto!

John Schneider is asking if I could pick anyone I want for gov who would it be?  Well, Id pick me! How else can I get my agenda through.  My platform consists of continuing and expanding the film credits to anything that involves a camera including porn.  Double the gas, cigarette, and alcohol taxes and add a new tax on soda pop and other junk food.  The revenue from that will go to better roads, mass transit, and universal health care for all MI citizens.  Free birth control to anyone that wants it including abortions without any parental consent if a minor.  More electric mass transit and we build the buses and trains HERE or it doesn't happen.  Wind mills up and down the entire coast of Lake Michigan and we build them HERE or it doesn't happen.  Doubling the minimum wage and an income CAP for anyone making over $500,000 a year.  The rest goes to the state.  NO ONE needs more money than that and don't give me the argument of "what's going to motivate entrepreneurs?"  I'd be HELLA motivated if I was making 500K so shut the hell up!  A 90% estate tax.  Removal of ANY tax break for having even one kid.  You had it, it was your choice, you had options, you deal with paying for it.  Anyone on unemployment more than 3 months has to start taking full time classes at a community college or, if eligible, a university or other school.  An audit of ALL our state funded higher education will be done first.  Any waste or duplication will be removed and that state money will now pay for the education of those unemployed that are taking classes.  Also anyone graduating from a program paid for by this unemployment benefit has to agree to stay in Michigan for at least two full years after graduation and eventually pay back the state for their education or loose their tax refunds.  Bring back the promise scholarship and a requirement to stay in Michigan for five years or be forced to pay it all back.  A part time legislature and an immediate halving of all legislative salaries.  Legalization and high taxes imposed on all "illegal" drugs and use the tax revenue for more social services and education.  New open carry pistol law.  Any where at any time for all that can prove safe use and proficiency. A fee of $100 per year will be imposed and that revenue will go toward more PUBLICLY VIEWABLE cop cams in neighborhoods with a history of gun violence.  Remove any and all laws that make companies immune from legal action.  Higher education standards and teachers that get PAID FOR PERFORMANCE.  Dismantle the MEA and replace it with a strong department of education that can fire teachers and take control of boards that are ineffective.  Start demolishing ANY house that has been standing unoccupied for over a year and begin the shrinking of our sprawling unmanageable cities.  NO NEW HOUSING of any kind until values get BACK to before the whole financial meltdown occurred. Supply and demand people, its not rocket science.  Anyone that owns a house can rent that house if they live in the same city for at least 9 months of the year.  NO CITY or BS "Neighborhood Association"  will be able to dictate otherwise what a person can do with HIS property as far as rentals go.  Listening East Lansing!!?  More tax breaks and a streamlined regulation process for anyone that wants to get their house off the grid or more energy efficient.  I want a windmill in my back yard and I don't want my neighbors to be able to complain about the "noise" or it killed a damn chickadee.  You live in a CITY, there's going to be noise and I like chickadees but .  . . well  . . . there's plenty of em'.  I wonder how many die flying through coal smoke stack plumes?  ONLY give tax breaks for business that remodel or add on to existing structures instead of building new ones.  Any religious organization or head of a church found promoting any political stance will be TAXED like any other business or person. Weekend voting from Friday to Saturday night.  People have to work you know!!?  Net neutrality for all data transmissions.  Part of PEG fees go toward broadcasts on the strongest local TV stations on their secondary digital channels.  Tax the hell out of out of state garbage being imported here and anyone that wants to mine anything or take any natural resource out of state.  Oppose any new rights of way for any thing toxic i.e. pipelines containing stuff that will kill us or used nukes on our roads.  A law making INSURANCE companies having to prove you don't deserve health benefits NOT the other way around.  You make a claim, you get paid, its their problem to try and get it back from you later.  Make animal cruelty a felony and subject to 5 years with no parole.  End dog and cat breeding of any kind.  Go to a shelter and get one!  And last but not least we start building HUGE water reservoirs so that NO ONE out side Michigan can get to OUR water!  Its our state's most precious resource.  Its the stuff of LIFE and we are squandering it.  Ok, did I miss anything?  Probably.  But I'll get to it . . .

Political ads, or why Republicans still don't get it.

I'm going to be short and sweet this week.  Pete Hokestra looks like an angry tea party moron in this spot.



See the spot.


I also love jackasses like Rick Snyder that keep talking about "silly regulations" and too much government. 

See the Spot.


Yeah ok, like the "silly regulations" that WOULD have kept us out of this economic mess but were DEREGULATED under the last four presidents? Or the corruption that allowed "big government" to look away and left the oil companies with no plan in case their wells explode? THOSE SILLY REGULATIONS!? THAT BIG GOVERNMENT!? Government is NEEDED to counter rampant greed, end of story. At every turn we see corporations either stealing our money, raping our environment or poisoning our bodies with dangerous pharmaceuticals.  Not to mention tax break after tax break even when they ship all the jobs to some other country.  Regulations keep these people in check.  How stupid is the public to fall for this fear mongering snatch and grab mentality anymore?  Capitalism, as these guys know it, is dead for now, but they also know that fear and ignorance can resuscitate any bull shit they want.  

So fleeting.

Someone died.  Someone I didn't even know but has nonetheless effected my life.  Not me personally but someone who is very important to me.  He was my girlfriend's ex husband, Kevin.  From what I've heard he led a tortured life.  Among other things, he had epilepsy.  Last night he had a seizure, hit his head and died, alone.  My girlfriend just called me and let me know.  She was upset even though it had been years since she talked to him.  I never know what to say so I just listened and silently damned myself for having a retarded emotional intelligence.

 

News like this always makes me think how fleeting this existence is.  I often do anyways.  I'm an atheist so when you're gone, I believe, you're gone.  At best the energy in your body just slips away and whatever made you you is now unrecognizable.  Without a brain there is no soul.  So what solace do I have?  How do I go on knowing that everything is pretty much meaningless?  I don't know.  Its probably more instinct than intellect anymore and the fact that leaving anytime soon would probably hurt the ones around me.  There was a time when I was more optimistic.  I looked forward to a time, maybe even within our generation that the disease of aging will have a cure and possibly be reversed.  But to what end is that even a remarkable goal?  To live forever?  The universe loves entropy and seems to want nothing but nothing in the trillions of years it has left as solid matter.  The quest for eternal life, be it a soul in heaven or a body made perfect, will always be a distraction for us.  A distraction from the only thing that matters.  Now.  Now is all that matters.  The end of suffering here and now should be the only goal.  Quality, not quantity, of life is all that matters.  That quantity, not just represented in longevity but in the sheer amount of life.  In other words more lives makes more suffering.  To create another life at all is just creating more inevitable suffering.  The energy that makes all of us is finite.  To think otherwise is to believe in some kind of infinite magic. Death is the ultimate end of our suffering and when its time is due we should all look forward to it thankfully.  There should be no sorrow when it happens as other life now has a chance to grow stronger.  At least for a while.  Try to live well while you can.

Independence day?

Why the question mark after "Independence day" you ask?  Well, thanks for asking.  Because very little about this country seems to be about independence any more.  The most obvious dependency we have is energy.  We are still dependent on dirty fossil fuels that either we dig up as coal and ruin million year old mountaintops or OH YEAH that thing in the gulf is still happening.  Not to mention we don't even churn up enough to support ourselves.  We have to buy it from other countries that at the same time use the money to fight against us in wars.  And if you think that "drill baby drill" was EVER a good idea, know this, "Since oil is a global market, the relevant measure for that vulnerability is not U.S. dependence, but world dependence on Middle East oil -- and that has not shrunk."  (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/trade_text.htm#Import Dependency)  ITS A WORLD MARKET!  That's the thing the Redumblican "Earth Pokers" don't fill you in on.  ANY oil drilled ANYWHERE goes into a giant exchange "vat" that everyone gets to bid on.  And what's WORSE, because we are one of the few nations that has not nationalized our mineral production companies, private industry has ZERO incentive to sell what they produce here.  The highest bidder gets it and lately that's probably China as they are the only ones with money because they actually make things people want.

The unavoidable and truly depressing fact is that the world's entire economy is based on oil.  Just switching to something else would most likely collapse the whole economic system as oil is the only tangible thing that our money is based on.  We once had a gold standard.  Every dollar actually was backed up with a dollar's worth of gold.  There was a time when you could bring your "gold certificates" to a bank and get some gold.  Now, there is no gold, silver or large rock doughnuts to make a "standard" to back up anything.  At least with gold, you KEPT the gold around.  Oil we just keep burning up until eventually it will be gone.   Ok, ok ok, we get it, Ken.  But do you have an alternative?  What are we supposed to do?  I DON'T KNOW!  If anyone has an idea I'd love to take it and win a Nobel for Economics.  Ill pay you in the only thing left that has value.  Pop rocks.  Or my slice of the Jesus cross.  I got a certificate and everything!  Happy "Dependence" day!  Ill be drunk and passed out in a kiddie pool soon, hopefully, waving my "flag."

If PEG is a "dinosaur" then its a fricken Velociraptor, biotch!

"An LSJ editorial" so anonymously authored probably due to its complete disregard for the facts titled "Public access TV is a policy dinosaur" has been the inspiration for my profound ire today. Who wrote this crap? The LSJ doesn't even seem to have full grasp of how this all works. I've worked in Public Access TV for over 10 years and Chaired the Lansing Cable Board for about a year before I resigned. (Ugh, long story, maybe later.) PEG, Public, Educational and Government channels are all funded by YOUR cable bill and its around 2 or 3 dollars a month. I don't have cable anymore, (another long story) but you can look it up on your bill as "PEG fees." Basicly, its not tax money at all that funds PEG. Even if the city wanted the money to fill in "pot holes", as this article ridiculously proposes, they can't have it. Its the law and its a good one that protects free speech. I'm glad to see a revitalization of PEG after Comcast's strong and failed attempts to squash it and the City's heel dragging delays.

Here's why its a good and CRITICAL thing for the preservation of free speech. Sure, you can post stuff on Youtube. But good luck really getting anyone to watch. The net is great but only if you KNOW what you're looking for. You have to ACTIVELY look for things of interest. And so how do you promote it? With flyers? Sky writing? An expensive and mostly worthless print add in the Lansing State Journal? NO! PEG TV promotes itself! Its a critical voice that is PASSIVELY heard among the louder voices of countless commercial media outlets. PEG are just a few of the many channels you can surf on by, and maybe land on because you caught an image of something familiar, something LOCAL. PEG is there to inform about local issues you may not have even been aware of. Not to mention it can be damn entertaining! Ill take a "pot hole" or two if it means that I can be assured that all the voices in OUR community have full access to mass media. Free speech and an informed electorate is the whole point to me. You really can't put a price on making cracks in the foundation of what we still like to call a democracy. THOSE are the "pot holes" we NEED to be filling, LSJ.