Fear No Weevil

One of my fondest memories of childhood involved the summertime collection of monarch butterfly caterpillars and observing them as they grew, turned into chrysalises, and then later hatched. It was a mesmerizing experience watching each stately monarch break free of its pupae prison and slowly stretch out to become one of the world's most beautiful and colorful insects.

In the world of creepy crawlers a monarch butterfly could easily counterbalance the existence any ugly spider or odoriferous stink bug.

During the past several weeks I've been revisiting this childhood joy. I've been watching a half dozen milkweeds near my yard in hopes of spotting an early monarch caterpillar. I was thrilled when about ten days ago I noticed several of the gluttonous caterpillars.

Nearly every day since then I've walked to the milkweed patch to witness the caterpillars' progress. I found several more smaller ones during my subsequent visits that were almost impossible to detect--meanwhile, the original ones grew longer and fatter.

That was until yesterday. Before church I sauntered over to the driveway to visit my new friends. Every single one of the caterpillars had either disappeared altogether or was laying there dead.

Attached to two of the caterpillar corpses were several weevils who had punctured the caterpillar hides with their long ooze-sucking snouts. The caterpillars were deader than doornails and turning black.

I had always thought that monarch caterpillars were more or less protected from predators. By eating almost exclusively milkweed they bloated themselves on the white sap of the weed which is bitter, sticky and poisonous. This might come as a shock to Rougblog readers, but I had thought wrong.

There were at least two different types of weevils burrowed into the bodies of the caterpillars. Being a Christian, and this being a Sunday, I crushed the little bastards with a rock.

The next time I find healthy caterpillars near my house I'm going to collect them and put them in glass jars like I did when I was young. When they safely hatch they can fly free to lay eggs on milkweeds hopefully not infested with weevils.

I did some quick research on monarch predators and found that they are often the prey of wasps and birds. I did not find any accounts of weevils being the culprits.

I wonder if anyone else has any experience with these evil weevils.

The Enabler In Chief

Who was really shocked at our President's endorsement of the proposed 9-11 mosque and community center near Ground Zero? The proposed structure is to be called Cordoba in recognition of an historical Islamic conquest.

"We must all recognise and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan, Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear, as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as anyone else in this country.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are."

He told the group of US Congressmen, government officials and foreign dignitaries that America's tradition of religious tolerance distinguishes it from "our enemies".

"Al-Qaeda's cause is not Islam," he said, "it is a gross distortion of Islam".

In one respect I agree with Obama. I believe that the organization behind the mosque's construction has the legal right to build their monument to religious conquest on the same ground where the ashes of 9-11 victims settled.

But, should they do it, and more importantly, should we allow it to take place without loudly pronouncing that we understand completely what this project is ultimately all about and without lodging a strong moral protest against it?

Apparently Mr. Obama thinks so. We are not to say that "true" Muslims should erect their new mosque at a different location in the city. We are not to say out loud that the leadership behind the mosque's erection are being totally insensitive to the families of those who were murdered and to all American citizens who saw their country attacked for no reason other than Islam has failed through the centuries to purge itself of ravenous dickheads dedicated to murdering all of those who believe differently than they do--be they Christian, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, westerner, easterner, atheist, agnostic, homosexual, infidel, Sufi, Shiite, Sunni, Virgo or Gemini.

I do not believe that we can legally keep worshipers of Allah from building this mosque in NYC. I do, however, believe that we should do everything that we possibly can to convince the Muslim supporters of the project that they should not go forward.

Obama's mewling does nothing to send this message.

No politician should support the building of the mosque. No bureaucrat should grease the skids. No construction worker should agree to work on its foundation. No citizen should stand idly by as the walls go up.

Muslims celebrated in dozens of countries around the world as the towers fell, and those same ones will be giddy with delight if this mosque is ever built.

Robert Spenser says:

This is not a religious freedom issue. No one has ever understood the freedom of religion as granting an untrammeled license to build any structure anywhere, as long as it's religious. If the KKK announced plans to build a shrine at the site of the 16th Street Baptist Church, would Obama be talking about religious freedom?

If I were forced to hazard a guess I would say that this will never occur. I think that the project will ultimately prove to be too difficult for the planners to pull off. Being sensitive to the religions of others does not mean that we have to be patsies. We do not have to cower in front of those who want to subjugate us.

I wish the President realized this.

Nanny-State in a Box

Just the latest in the never ending performance of crackpot progressives doing their best to control the lives of those whom they wish to rule.

God lets me eat what I want. Rajiv Bhatia, not so much.

Intenet Absence Creates Windfall

In an effort to trim back my personal finances amid the ruins of Michigan's Granholm depression, I made the difficult decision of canceling my internet account. I wisely discerned that I still had internet access at my on-again off-again employer and since I was already spending too much time jabbering about control freak socialists wanting to control my every movement for the purpose of making my life more healthy and enjoyable, I could afford some time away.

Alas, I have finally come to what should have been an obvious conclusion six weeks ago when I made that move of pure genius--that conducting a job search without internet access is next to impossible.

I suppose I should be thankful to progressive visionaries such as Al Gore who were so instrumental in developing our world wide web. At least with the 'tubes we victims of the economy that the likes of Gore worked so hard to create and sustain (Go Cap and Trade!) are able to seek out work in locations far away from the children we love, raised, and are loathe to leave.

In other excellent news, in the six weeks I was separated from my dial up account I saved about $18. To get reconnected to the internet I had to pay a reconnect fee of $15.

Three bucks saved.

Cha-ching!

Checking In

My reader has probably noticed that Rougblog entries of late have been sparse.

This lull in the action began as I prepared for the graduation of my daughter from high school, persisted through the planning and execution of the graduation party, and then continued as the job search heated up and I was called out of town for several, at the time, encouraging prospects. Alas, these prospects have produced bupkis for me and as a result I have decided to pare back some home expenses until I can get some regular dollars into my bank account.

Thus, I am currently without internet service at my house. If things get bad enough I might even have to stay out of the casino, cut back on the vodka, and start to avoid the strip clubs. But seriously, first things first.

Too much is going on politically in this country and state for me to stay silent too long. There are oil giants to punish into oblivion, union favors to curry, industries to bring into the fold, citizens to be forced into state favored behaviors, an ever-present cloven hoof to be pried out of the vice president's mouth, and yesteryear's villains to blame it all on.

Who could possibly want to miss all that?

Cher, Sting, Madonna, Pele and Now....Rory?

Harry Reid possesses anti-coattails. So toxic are Reid's political fortunes that even his own son, Rory, is tiptoeing around his surname.

A Michigan Smoking Ban Protest

I did something on Monday night that I have not done in probably close to two years; I went down to the corner bar, sat on a stool, and ordered a beer. That night I also did something for the first time in my entire life; I went down to the corner bar, sat on a stool, ordered a beer, and breathed smoke free air.

It has been over six weeks since Michigan's ban on smoking in most bars and restaurants took effect, and I have to admit it was nice sitting there without the smoke entering my lungs and permeating my clothing.

It was not so nice for the cook or the bartender, who can no longer smoke on the job, or for the business owner whose revenues are off about twenty percent since the ban started.

To compensate, some employees' work hours have been scaled back. The cook and bartender, who depend on tips to supplement their already less than attractive wages, are finding that both their paychecks and the tip jar are a bit lighter.

It isn't that crowds of people are avoiding the bar now that the ban is in effect, though some people certainly do that. The problem for the owner and employees is that shortly after patrons come into the bar and order a drink, that familiar craving for a cigarette starts to kick in. Shortly after that the patron gets up and goes home--taking his nearly full wallet with him.

Oddly, benevolent proponents of the legislation have not been frequenting taverns often enough to make up for the losses even though their squawking prior to law's enactment made it sound like the only reason they weren't down there cutting a rug or playing pool 24/7 was those damn Camels.

Its almost as if our dear overlords were making a law aimed primarily at controlling the legal behavior of other people in a private establishment. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't until after the smoking ban took affect that they discovered most bars use paper napkins and blare George Jones on the jukebox.

From a comfort standpoint, I like the ban. From the standpoint of freedom, I think that our overlords in Lansing are engaging in a tyrannical power grab and sticking their bulbous noses where they do not belong.

I am not here today to rehash my arguments against the ban, I've done that enough times that even Mom is bored with it. What I am posting about today is a response that many bar owners affected by the ban are undertaking--a boycott of Michigan Lotto for one business day.

That day would be today.

Of course government lottery officials are arrogantly sticking their noses in the air over such short-sighted protests. The businesses are "only hurting themselves" they say flippantly while reaching, pinkie in air, for the Almas.

However, what else should Lansing expect from taxpaying private business owners and their taxpaying employees who have had their incomes slashed by government for no other reason than George Washington isn't around today to kick our legislators' asses?

While government officials mock restaurants and bars for their resistance, businesses that operate on low margins might have only one other recourse left, and that might be to shut the doors once and for all. Which, come to think of it, might suit the state just fine. Out of business taverns are also smoke free.

Ah...Frugal Government Strikes Again

Okay, I know, with a national debt laying comfortably above the $13 trillion mark and with additional unfunded government obligations hurtling well past the $100 trillion threshold, it is almost petty to point out individual situations that help to turn small government projects into larger ones.

A local Oscoda County project is just one minute example of how small becomes bigger and, by projection, how large can become gargantuan.

Residents of Perry Lake in Comins Township are being subjected to a $400,000 special tax assessment for the construction of a $98,000 dam project to help regulate water levels. The difference between the $98,000 and the $400,000 is, you guessed it, fees, permits, and engineering.

I'm not the kind of guy that wants some other guy with a shovel and a third grade education out there building a dam in sensitive wetlands without any direction, and I don't want some rabid homeowner taking out this sort of project on his own either. However, to get to the point where a three week long, $98,000 project ends up taking seven years and $400,000 to even get started strikes me as being government at its most typical.

Hope and Change: Milk Police Edition

The EPA desires to regulate the very gas we exhale as a pollutant. By classifying CO2 as a greenhouse gas it would grant our federal government unprecedented powers to regulate business, commerce and individuals to an extent that would get EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's ass kicked by any one of the Founding Fathers had she the misfortune of making her case in the 1700s.

It appears as if Washington, Franklin, Hancock and Adams would have yet another reason to bruise the backsides of today's purveyors of the nannystate as the EPA makes strides toward classifying milk as a hazardous waste.

Believe it or not, according to Obama's legions in Washington, Elsie is spewing toxins out her udders. The Earth may never recover.

Words Versus Action: A Presidential Primer

What day is it now? Day 45, 50, 55?

Regardless, as we near the end of the second month since the US's most destructive ecological disaster in history began, our President has not spoken to BP's CEO, the man in charge of the company responsible not only for the initial disaster, but the company also spearheading efforts to stop the oil leak, and the company being held responsible for paying for the clean up.

Nearly two months after the explosion on and collapse of the Deep Well Horizon, our Ass Kicker in Chief still has not figured out that speaking to BP's CEO might be a good thing.

President Obama, have you spoken with the CEO of BP to discuss the oil spill in the Gulf?

“No… when you talk to a guy like the BP CEO, he’s going to say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.”

Those are mighty good sounding words there, Mr. President. Now, how about you actually do something and speak to the man?

A Retirement Seventy Years Too Late

Helen Thomas has retired after controversial comments she made over the weekend concerning Israel and her beloved Jews.

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine."

"Remember these people are occupied and it's their land, not Germany and not Poland.

"They can go home, Poland, Germany, and America and everywhere else."

That this gargoyle of a woman could hold down such an esteemed job for so many years is a testament to the acceptance of progressive ideology among journalists.

Detroit's Image

Detroit's image is a concern to anyone hoping that the state of Michigan ever makes a significant economic comeback. Much of the city stands knee deep amid the crumbling structures that housed the manufacturing and manufacturers of the Motor City.

The city government is millions in debt, its schools system is recognized as being among the worst, if not the worst, in the whole country, its halls of politics have been greased with corruption for generations, and its history of crime and poor race relations stain its blemished skin like a botched $13 tattoo.

Dave Bing has a lot of ground to make up.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing knows he has a long road ahead as he attempts to attract new businesses and residents to his struggling city.

"We need to work hard as hell to change our image," he said Friday at the Detroit Regional Chamber's 2010 Mackinac Policy Conference.

And yet, when asked point blank by Paul W. Smith whether or not he would support making Michigan into a Right to Work state, Bing tosses out a simple and unhesitating "no."

Businesses locate to an area for many reasons, but the most important reason for any business to move to another location is because of the potential profitability in the new area. That's it.

Grand libraries and a well trained work force are great, and they might even be the deciding factor in a business choosing one city over another if potential profit margins are more or less equal among competitors, but secondary factors are nothing more than secondary factors.

What Detroit's political leaders do not currently understand will haunt that once great city for future generations.

Defining Michigan's Failure in One Sentence: Volume 8

From today's Detroit News:

Despite multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls in school districts across Metro Detroit, teachers continue to enjoy generous benefits that range from free health care to longevity pay, an analysis of teacher contracts in 10 of the area's largest school districts shows.

Freedom Flotilla Blah Blah

Israel perhaps should have waited until the "Freedom Flotilla" exited international waters before they boarded the six vessels. This, however, would not have changed anything other than to deny fawning pro-terrorist factions the only thread of legitimate outrage it is now entitled to.

The second that the Mavi Marmara hit Israeli the IDF should have boarded the vessel brandishing more than paint balls. Film clips of the boarding clearly show flotilla peace activists wielding clubs and beating the boarding soldiers. Many of the activists are thought to have ties to pro-Islamic terrorist groups.

The reaction across the world is not surprising because, it seems, there is a vast majority of dopes on this Earth. Governments in Turkey, Spain, Britain, and elsewhere were quick to condemn Israel for its brutal tactics; tactics that included advance warnings, the soldiers boarding the ships with insufficient weaponry to protect themselves, and an offer by the government to transport the aid itself if the ships would offload their cargoes at the Israeli port of Ashdod.

But had the activists accepted such maneuverings they would have had difficulty creating the public relations coup that pro Palestinian propagandists desire and that self-loathing Jews and other international Jew-haters habitually swallow. If this was not the case, why didn't the flotilla try and deliver the aid through Egyptian authorities who also have put strict rules of passage onto the terrorist state in Gaza?

Quickly stepping to the condemnation plate was the Christian Peacemaker Teams website where an activist opined that

The only difference between this tragedy and a terrorist attack is that this was committed by a government that is politically and financially supported by the victims' own countries.

Hogwash.

Even in the US it is more than expected by travelers to have luggage rummaged through at the border. This is routinely done to limit contraband into the country. Why should terrorist sympathizers be held to a lower standard than the US holds white haired grandmas traveling from Kitchener to Detroit?

This was pure and simply a public relations stunt seeking to stir up anti-Israel attitudes among people that already hold Israel in contempt. Only after the Jewish state ceases to exist in toto will there be lasting peace in Palestine. Well, that and after the whole Sunni-Shiite score is settled. Oh, and lets not forget that distasteful infidel thing.

Then we can all sit back and relax peacefully while scores are settled in Kashmir, Sumatra, Egypt, Thailand, Chechnya, Nepal, China, Spain, India, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Paris, London, and at Fort Hood.

Inalienable and Self Evident

to all, except, it seems, to certain members of the political class in Michigan who would deem it necessary for a state licensing bureau to determine who should be able to practice free expression with a glossy Michigan seal of approval.

“What’s the definition of a reporter? I haven’t been able to find out? What’s a reporter? What’s a journalist?” [State Sen. Bruce] Patterson said. “I thought you had to have a degree in journalism but apparently not. I could retire and be a journalist.”

Patterson acknowledged the legislation is unlikely to pass -- it has no co-sponsors and was referred to committee last month -- but said he hoped to start a conversation that would continue beyond his time in office. His interview with FoxNews.com appears to have had that effect, as voices in traditional and new media have expressed opposition.

Hey, dipstick, the whole point behind our Founding Fathers recognizing individual rights as inalienable and self-evident was so that future high falootin' wannabe tyrants such as yourself would not even entertain the notion of regulating or limiting them. Maybe the next time you have too much time on your hands you could better spend it trying to regulate gravity or the tides or static electricity.

PS. Bruce, I have that journalism degree. So, seriously, you can kiss my butt--I'm requesting it on the up-and-up.

A Nest Almost Empty

This week will end with the graduation of my youngest daughter from high school.

It is, of course, a time to taste the bittersweets of life. For the time being I'm more than content to let blogging sit on some obscure list outside my priorities. I expect to start blogging again in a week or so when the parties have ended and most of the tears have dried.

Fallow Fields of Education

How badly akilter must things be in Michigan for the state to even consider encouraging otherwise productive employees to become unproductive? However bad it must be, we have arrived.

The short term benefit in luring employed teachers into the ranks of the retired is being estimated at $700 million. That is a huge chunk of money that would go a long way toward closing the state's looming budget deficit.

The teachers are being lured with a small retirement bonus while those staying behind will be subject to paying higher employee contributions for benefits packages. Most of the remainder of the estimated savings will be garnered with new replacement teachers being hired at lower wages and reduced benefits.

The opportunity to shave huge annual amounts from today's budgets sounds like a good deal for taxpayers. However, in twenty years, after most of these newly retired teachers have collected two decades worth of state provided retirement and with legions of new teachers in the system who replaced those retired, is the benefit to the state as spectacular as it is being projected?

I profess ignorance in the plan's total impact as I have not studied it. Fiscal reality would have to suggest that higher teacher contributions is a good thing regardless of whether the early retirements were incentivized or not. Fiscal reality would also suggest other items that are not being seriously looked at.

A person that reaches the labor market at age 25 (late for most of us) would have to put in 40 years before reaching Social Security's magic number of 65 years (early for many more.) Yet we have many thousands of teachers each year reaching an early retirement age long before either that magic 40 year threshold or the age of 65 have been reached.

While luring many teachers into the retirement ranks early will help in the short term (and indeed might even help over the long term,) an ultimate solution to the problem will not be achieved until a systemic change is enacted--a change that resolves to put Michigan's teachers pay and benefits more closely into line with that of the national average.

It is a solution that the unions will not like and it is a solution that politicians might find difficult to enact. Until then, I suppose, paying productive people to become unproductive is the best solution.

Picking Sides in the Detroit Public Schools' Fight

I commented on this article on Mlive where people in the comments were very quick to defend the education establishment.

About a dozen protesters opposed to the actions of Detroit Public Schools' emergency financial manager Robert Bobb were led away in handcuffs after staging a sit-in inside the state Capitol on Wednesday.

The protest was organized by a group called By Any Means Necessary. More than two dozen protesters came to the Capitol to ask Gov. Jennifer Granholm to get rid of Bobb, her appointee. They also wanted the governor to attend a Detroit school board meeting this month and stop the school closings Bobb has planned in the cash-strapped district.

Robert Bobb is not charged with an easy task; picking up the pieces after an entire generation of educational neglect and fiscal abuse. It should not be surprising, however, that he is not a popular person among those who benefited the most during that lost generation. Commenter jesssed said

seriously study after study proves students learn best with small class sizes. to limit class size you need more teachers, it is that simple. The problem is everyone wants quality education and some of you don't want to pay for it...

And mdewey chimed in

First - education is not a business. Students are not car parts. But thanks for the apples to shotguns analogy - it was funny in a tea party ignoramus sort of way.
Second - The Detroit teachers do not belong to the MEA/NEA. They are AFT. American Federation of Teachers for the acronym challenged. If you're going to throw mud and make unfounded accusations try to at least get within the realm of reality.
Third - If ... ah the heck with it... keep foaming at the mouth, goofball, you make the case for your supposed opposition better than you could ever conceive.

To which I replied:

Actually, education is a business and even more, it is a trillion dollar industry. The point is not that a student is a car part or a widget but rather that an education, whether of good or poor quality, is a product.

In addition to that, we see that money is not a solve all to our educational deficiencies. Numerous studies have borne that out. In Michigan we find that educators are compensated at many thousands more per year than their counterparts in other states--many of which produce higher quality students. In fact, nearly half of our state's budget woes would be solved if Michigan educators were simply compensated at the national average. While more money to the school districts always sounds like a great idea, FOR THE CHILDREN!, the truth is that most of that additional money is simply slathered onto the same teachers and administrators.

It is also not true that small class sizes automatically achieve superior results. Japan, with an educational system much more successful than our own, has class sizes much larger than those in America. This is true through much of the industrialized world.

It has been pointed out (and accurately) that Michigan school districts are forced to educate students that probably do not belong in the classroom. Yet, the teacher's unions support the inclusion of all children, not because it makes their classrooms more effective (the opposite is true) but because it creates a need for teachers' services. The teacher's unions also will stand behind teachers who are proven to be ineffective. Teachers unions are not in the business of educating, they are in the business of representing what they feel is in the best interest of their members. That boils down to job security, better pay and better benefits. Anything else is simply window dressing and far down the list of priorities.

Who is satisfied with the Detroit school system other than those who for years have bellied up to the taxpayer buffet? Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, lowest test scores in the nation, lowest graduation rates in the country, crumbling schools, graft, dead employees on the payroll, and a school board more interested in protecting the status quo than in providing any substantive improvement.

I don't expect everyone to be a fan of Robert Bobb, nor do I expect the man to operate without any mistakes. However, given the choice between Bobb and the education establishment in Detroit I'll take Robert Bobb any day of the week. His heart is in the right place and he wants to put quality education first.

A UAW Promise

United Auto Workers members made tough sacrifices to help keep the domestic auto industry alive and union workers should expect to be rewarded when it bounces back, UAW Vice President Bob King said today.

In other words, Michigan, we've taken this industry to the brink once and we're not afraid to do it again. In fact, we promise to.

Blogging Vacation

continues...