Smack! Ran out of space on the desktop again. It's the baseball pictures that does it every time, but we don't have to worry about that anymore this year, do we now...
Ahh well, it was a beautiful weekend to finish up the season, so glad I could be there. I'm really going to miss my friends at the stadium, always so nice, always so far removed from the battles of everyday life. You forget all your troubles when you walk through the gate. Thanks for another great year guys, I'll see ya on the flip-side of winter.
Just a few links of interest while I make some room on the HD:
The DNC comes out with a pre-emptive strike on tonight's Tea Party debate, showing that a balanced budget amendment would cost America 9.5 million jobs, 247,000 in Michigan alone. Yes, it's a really, really bad idea. (See California for details.)
Sparta schools (right outside GR) privatized bus service over the summer. The first day was a total disaster, with kids on the wrong bus, getting home hours late, and angry and scared parents descended on transportation headquarters to complain about it all. Just wait until they hear the story about how privatizing bus service ended up costing taxpayers more money in South Carolina. It's the part of privatization the Mac Center loves to leave out in their quest to bust unions, and we are going to find that out the hard way.
The new Michigan pension tax. Is it constitutional? My guess is no, in more ways than one, but the court is stacked in favor of the Republicans on this, as you probably already know. Peter Luke breaks downs the argument here.
Governor Snyder's War on the Poor makes the New York Times. Jack Lessenberry totally rips Republican policy on that issue in this great Metro Times piece, which oddly enough made it into the conservative Traverse City Record Eagle. Strange days indeed.
Dan Mulhern takes a look at "overemployment" for the Daily Beast in a column that really struck home with me: At my last punch-a-clock job, the recession after 9/11 caused my company to lay-off people and increase my workload, as well as cut my pay and benefits. When I finally burned out from stress, it took three people to replace me. Dumping more and more work on people in the name of saving payroll can cost you in the long run - something that companies are starting to slowly figure out. I hope.
A partial victory in the Belding clock tower saga: A judge ruled that the city did have the right to put a moratorium on demolition at the property, but the battle is far from over. The city expects to pass the Historic District status on Sept. 20th, but look for Electrolux to keep appealing the decision up the food chain until they get what they want.
That's it for now....