The Deer Are Everywhere...

In the UP, they stop and stare at your car.

Not a lot of time for this today, but here are a few tidbits from the morning papers...

Drunks with guns, out in the woods. Oh boy. Be careful out there. The Freep tells us that the deer are on the move to places where people can't hunt, like the cities, or your backyard, and it's becoming a huge problem. With a population of almost 900,000 deer in the bottom third of the state, efforts need to be made to start to cull the herd - or we need to open more car body shops, one or the other.

Governor Granholm has an editorial in the Freep today about the need to educate our kids...

Michigan is undergoing an unprecedented, historic economic transformation. The global manufacturing economy has shifted, and Michigan must accept the change and adapt. There's no time for denial, blame or finger-pointing; we must face this new reality head-on. What is the fundamental strategy for success in overcoming this challenge? Education, education, education.

Go get' em, governor. The Freep board calls for a new tax structure to fund the essentials of government, complete with some great charts the show how our revenue has fallen over the years.

The times have changed, but Michigan's tax format hasn't. So revenues are falling. Services are shriveling and infrastructure is disintegrating. Meanwhile, the overall tax burden on the state's residents is also dropping, even as wealth has become concentrated in a smaller, and richer, segment of the population.

Without significant changes to Michigan's tax code, the choices -- between prisons and universities, health care and schools, children and seniors -- will get even tougher.

Both are must reads.

Meanwhile, the Detroit News keeps up with its Teabagger/FOX editorial policy today, complaining about everything, and offering zero in the way of solutions - not even worth a good old-fashioned Finley smackdown. Seriously bored with the Party of No, and I could tell by the front page that offers the first paragraph it would be "more of the same". Without reading the whole thing, I'm betting that we could solve ALL of Michigan's problems if we just get rid of the MEA and all the unions, right? Yeah. What short-sighted, redundant bullshit. And then oddly enough, there is also an editorial with the title, "Let governors govern", concerning the Senate's attempt to scuttle the merger of the DNR and DEQ. Talk about your mixed messages.

Stick with the Freep if you want solid, reality-based news, and editorials with meaning.

Peter Luke takes a look at the controversy surrounding Mike Cox and the Manoogian cover-up; a story that grows more suspicious by the day. Rumors are swirling this might knock Cox out of the race for governor, as Republicans are starting to doubt his viability. Fiscally sane people doubted his viability long ago; anyone that calls for enormous tax cuts on top of the revenue we have already lost is not a responsible "leader" in any way, shape or form. But you knew that already.