And, they say that it's "just" a recession. Chaos decided to roost in Detroit, today, as the truly despressed and distressed came out in droves seeking housing and utility payment assistance from the City of Detroit:

The economic tsunami washing over metro Detroit swept its casualties to the doors of Cobo Center on Wednesday in the form of 35,000 people so desperate for help with mortgage and utility bills that threats were made, fights broke out and people were nearly trampled.

Some were treated by emergency medical workers on site.

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...- actually, all they are seeking to do is readjust it for temporary comfort - and the insurance industry freaks out.

The Democratic-led Michigan House has voted to toughen penalties for insurance companies that deny or delay valid claims.

But the legislation approved today probably will stall in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Supporters of the bills say Michigan is one of just four states without serious financial penalties when a court rules an insurer has not fairly settled a claim.

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Claiming it's losing money on individual policies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan was approved for a 22% rate hike on premiums a few days ago. In an example that shows how bizzare our health care system is in this nation, the rate hike was hailed as a victory by state officials since the company had originally requested hikes of 56 percent for nongroup rates and 41 percent for group-conversion rates.

Consumers who buy their own medical insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will see their monthly premiums rise in October by an average 22 percent.

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Well, it looks like union "leadership" is about to sell out its members (as they've been doing for most of this decade, BTW) by dropping their push for card checks:

WASHINGTON – Organized labor is nearing a deal to salvage legislation that could aid the union movement, but it had to drop "card check" — a key component of the original bill that would allow workers to form a union by signing cards instead of holding a secret ballot vote.

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Source: Chatham House findings:

For the survey published Sunday, researchers worked from the province-by-province breakdowns of the 2009 and 2005 results, released by the Iranian Ministry of Interior, and from the 2006 census as published by the official Statistical Center of Iran, Chatham House said.

The survey made four main observations:

# In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100 percent was recorded.

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Michigan is going green; greener than any of us wanted it to, in fact:

When it comes to Michigan's freeways, cost-cutting is in and grass-cutting is out.

To save as many greenbacks as possible, the Michigan Department of Transportation is making fewer trips to state roadways to mow the slopes, trim trees and pare bushes.

Grosse Pointe resident Suzi Padilla, who does most of her east-side driving on Interstate 94, understands the reason; she just doesn't like the results.

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It's looking like Napolean Nicolas Sarkozy Bonaparte wants to get his nation back in on the empire game:

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy opened France’s first military facilities in the Gulf on Tuesday, deepening the government’s alliance with the United Arab Emirates and highlighting its shifting foreign policy priorities.

Mr. Sarkozy attended a ceremony to open French naval, air and army facilities in Abu Dhabi. The bases are the first permanent French military installations to be built outside of French territory since the process of decolonization began more than half a century ago.

Just for some background, Delhi Township is a half-suburban/half-rural suburb of Lansing, Michigan's capital city. It looks like they are going to test using a combination of donkeys, ewes, and dogs to keep the grass short of two plots of land around their wastewater treatment plant and public services headquarters.

DELHI TWP. - Sandra Diorka was shopping for donkeys recently.

Diorka, the Delhi Township director of Public Services, was given the go ahead by township trustees to hire animals to help rescue the township budget.

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It appears the Obama administration is looking to rollback the rights of defendants. Why? Well, basically, because they can:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule longstanding law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant’s lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.

...

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An ordinance that requires that banks and mortgage companies be required to keep up their properties just like every other property owner? What a novel idea:

FARMINGTON, Mich. (AP) — Farmington officials have given notice to mortgage lenders that foreclose on homes: Maintain the properties or face fines.

Farmington has amended its nuisance ordinance to require banks and brokers that own abandoned homes to keep them up. The community of 10,400 is about 15 miles west-northwest of Detroit.

City Manager Vincent Pastue says Farmington has about 50 homes in foreclosure, and about 40 percent of them are abandoned.

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On the importance of taking current events and nascent winger movements more seriously:

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho – The Aryan Nations has returned to northern Idaho with what it is calling a "world headquarters" and a recruitment campaign.

Coeur d'Alene resident Jerald O'Brien, who has a large swastika tattoo on his scalp, is one of the leaders of the white supremacist group and said he expects membership to grow because of the election of President Barack Obama.

He told The Spokesman-Review newspaper that the president is the "greatest recruiting tool ever."

Our pets have become yet another victim of the poor economy. Though, a few are questioning whether some people are using the economy as an excuse:

Behind boarded doors of foreclosed homes, in Dumpsters and in parking lots are an unprecedented number of abandoned dogs and cats. Their owners, desperate and broke, have left the animals to die without food or water. Real estate agents and landlords are finding the once-beloved family pets in vacated houses all over Metro Detroit.

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It's even cooler when your fellow Michiganders dominate in the robotics part of it:

Metro Detroit students took home first place at a national robotics competition today in Atlanta.

Huron Valley Schools in Milford earned the top prize along with alliance members from Illinois and California. They edged out an all-Michigan alliance comprised of Utica Community Schools, Berkley High School and Oakland County Area Schools—showcasing southeastern Michigan’s impressive engineering skills—in the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship at the Georgia Dome.

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It's Heeeere:

LONDON (AFP) – Israel's military is preparing so it could launch major aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear sites if ordered to by the new government, a British newspaper said on Saturday, quoting Israeli defence and intelligence sources.

"Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light, they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours," an unnamed senior defence official told The Times.

"They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words."

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Another 15-year-old has died after being tasered by the Warren Police Department of Warren, Michigan. You'll remember that not even a fully month ago another 15-year-old boy died after a tasering in Bay City, Michigan.

Warren -- A Detroit teenager who police say fled a traffic stop Friday died after being subdued with a Taser. He is the second Michigan teen to die following a Taser stun in less than a month.

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Conservative Christianist wingnut Cal Thomas is always good and reliable for a crazy laugh when you need one...or two.

For a good two years, now, Time Magazine has been putting out meta puff pieces on Obama on a reliable, weekly basis. The one I'm going to discuss from last weeks edition by Michael Grunwald is not much different. But, this part caught my attention:

Michigan voters made it clear on November 4, 2008 that they wanted to allow the use of marijuana for patients with debilitating medical conditions. Quite a few local law enforcement authorities in the state haven't quite gotten the picture:

MADISON HEIGHTS -- Bob Redden thought he was doing the right thing when he went to a medical clinic in Southfield to get paperwork to qualify himself for medical marijuana.

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The bailed-out bankers are making it clear that Chrysler is worth more to them dead than alive:

NEW YORK -- Chrysler LLC's lenders are resisting efforts to convert most of the automaker's debt to equity, a conversion key to Chrysler's plan to restructure without filing for bankruptcy protection, according to a published report.

Banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley loaned Chrysler $6.8 billion in 2007 when Cerberus Capital Management LP acquired an 80.1 percent stake in the automaker. Former Treasury Secretary John W. Snow of Richmond is chairman of Cerberus.

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Is the West Michigan Dutch Mafia finally seeing the damage they've caused themselves by politicizing everything? I sure hope so:

HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) — Organizers of Holland's Tulip Time Festival have told Right to Life officials the anti-abortion group can't have a float in this year's parade.

The May 2-9 flower festival marks its 80th year this year in the western Michigan community.

Festival Director Tamra Bouman says Tulip Time long has had a policy against issue-oriented parade entries but didn't enforce it.

The Grand Rapids Press says the festival board decided to enforce the rule because it received a nonprofit tax status in December.

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Author Kurt Anderson penned a piece for Time, last week, essentially taking down Modern America since the Reagan Revolution. The piece is long, and goes all over the place, going between deep meta and more readily observable facts. Sometimes, its very much on point, and other times he goes way off in the reeds. In fact, that's the reason I skimmed it rather than reading through the whole thing, but one particular part caught my eye:

The reset button has been pushed. So what will be the protocols and look and feel of the America about to emerge?

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The War on Terror, of course.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is under the Department of Homeland Security, announced that they'd be using a $10.5 million Predator drone, yes, those predator drones, to survey the Michigan-Ontario border, yesterday:

In a further crackdown on the northern border, federal authorities are planning to use a drone-like, unmanned aircraft to police the United States-Canada boundary between Michigan and Ontario.

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The snowball looks to be headed down the hill:

GRENOBLE, France — For a second straight day, French workers facing steep layoffs at a Caterpillar factory held four of their bosses at the U.S. manufacturer’s plant in the Alps, union officials said.

The workers also made a direct appeal to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to save their jobs, said Nicolas Benoit, a representative of the CGT union at the Caterpillar plant in Grenoble.

“We expect a strong political response,” Benoit said. “The goal is to save jobs.”

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In a BusinessWeek ranking of America's 25 wealthiest towns, Mayor Caroline Bazzini of #1 ranked Brookville, New York on Long Island brags of her village:

And the town does its best to enforce that privacy. "There is no parking on any street in Brookville," said Mayor Caroline Bazzini. "So in order to come and be here in Brookville, you need to know the people."

Who says you need gates and walls to keep 'undesirables' out?

And, apparently, those same selected victors are already writing it for 2012:

The Democratic Party is launching a review of the nominating process that served Barack Obama so well last year, and given that those leading the process are all Obama loyalists, any revisions for 2012 almost certainly won't stand in the way of his renomination.

“This commission will focus on reform that improves the presidential nominating process to put voters first and ensure that as many people as possible can participate,” Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, Obama's pick to lead the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

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