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With the City of Flint under emergency management, the Flint Water Department rushed unprepared into full-time operation of the Flint Water Treatment Plant, drawing water from a highly corrosive source without the use of corrosion control Flint Water Advisory Task Force FINAL REPORT pg.15

That's pretty much what I said, the Emergency Manager didn't put Flint into receivership, the Emergency Manager didn't neglect to replace lead municipal water pipes for decades, the Emergency Manager didn't fail to train water treatment staff properly.

Detroit managed to keep high quality water flowing while going through bankruptcy, for decades the Detroit Water treatment system was the only city department without widespread problems with corruption and incompetence.

Flint's problem was self-inflicted, they quit buying water from Detroit and started sourcing from the Flint river, which is basically a cesspool and they didn't add the federally required phosphates to it.

Not certain of your point. But you are completely incorrect here. The "They" is not Flint The city of Flint Michigan was on the Detriot water system. The State appointed Emergency managers - not the local managers - made the determination to switch from the Detroit water system to the Flint River water system based on only financial considerations. According to the task force findings : "F-18. Emergency managers, not locally elected officials, made the decision to switch to the Flint River as Flint’s primary water supply source.

The problem as much as it can be boiled down is that under the emergency management, costs were considered, but not the quality of the water. Then when even the Governor's office suggested that the problem could be solved by switching back to Detroit water, the suggesstion was refused, again because of costs. This is probably bacause or incredible incompetence by appointing people who knew money, but absolutely nothing about health and welfare and environmental resources. Water supplies and quality is based upon engineering and chemistry, not bean counting.

Anyhow, here are the findings of the task force investigating the Flint Water problem - I'll warn you that it disagrees with your story.

http://www.michigan.gov/docume...

EV Taxes already exist! Michigan, for instance, charges EV owners an extra $135 for registration.

To claim that EV owners are not paying their fair share of road maintenance taxes is disingenuous, ill informed, or just fake news. To vote an inaccuracy up is just stupid.

Meet your next president.

I won't bother to look for NYC or Chicago, but Detroit has an income tax: http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/...

I think some of our great state's other shitty cities have them, too.

I am going to strait out accuse democrats of hacking, ie ballot stuffing in detroit. Considering in 2003 Detroit said it was basically impossible to double count,but this year they magically double, triple,10x counted at times https://www.michigan.gov/docum...
I don't believe for one second what the Detroit city auditor says this year,suddenly in this election tons of machines broke and everyone forgot how to use the machines.
http://www.detroitnews.com/sto...

The only evidence of significant voting machine abnormalities was in Detroit and surrounding suburbs, with > 90% voting Clinton , go figure. http://www.detroitnews.com/sto...
I don't believe for one second what the Detroit city auditor says this year,suddenly in this election tons of machines broke and everyone forgot how to use the machines. Considering in 2003 Detroit said it was basically impossible to double count,but this year they magically double, triple,10x counted at times https://www.michigan.gov/docum... BS.

Yes, you are a hazard. See page 15 of this study:

http://www.michigan.gov/docume...

Though, it looks like statistically, you're more a hazard to yourself than any other single driver.

Detroit had 37% of the precincts had more votes than ballots.One precincts had 351 votes with 50 ballots.Hillary got 95% of the vote in Detroit. Detroit is now lying about voting machines being broken, stated in 2003 "cannot over vote with optical scan". pg 24 . Majority of Detroit is newer optical machines. https://www.michigan.gov/docum...
Detroit News press article. http://www.detroitnews.com/sto...
Here is a breakdown of the irregularities in Detroit’s 662 precincts:

236 precincts in balance — equal numbers of voters counted by workers and machines
248 precincts with too many votes and no explanation (77 were 1 over; 62 were 2 over, 37 were 3 over, 20 were 4 over, 52 were 5 or more over).
144 precincts with too few votes and no explanation (81 were 1 under, 29 were 2 under; 19 were 3 under; 7 were 4 under; 8 were 5 or more under)
34 precincts out of balance but with an explanation
Let us call it what really happened in Detroit , massive voter fraud by ballot stuffing. No national liberal press outlets are really reporting it at all.

The real kicker, Michigan law prevents a recount if the vote total doesn't match ballot count. The law basically allows sweeping voter fraud under the rug.

Oh, we believe she prefers Hillary over Trump, no question about that. But that preference is the real motive for doing it, or she'd want an audit in states like NH, as well, which was won by just 2,732 votes. Of course, Hillary won that state, so we don't care if that result was fair or not, right? And MI that was recounted? They use nothing but paper ballots.

We know why she lost and it wasn't "hacking" as some of the #fakenews has been pushing lately -
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/demographics-not-hacking-explain-the-election-results/

In PA you need to show proof of it and what they provided was nothing close to be counted as proof.

Just like in PA where the claim of "massive" voter fraud has been tossed about for years despite not a single case being shown as proof. Yet apparently not providing proof was sufficient enough for the legislature to pass a law to prevent this "massive" voter fraud.

If no proof of "massive" voter fraud was sufficient to get the gears rolling then there's no reason not to recount the ballots despite the limited amount of evidence presented. You can't have it both ways.

Also, while Michigan may use paper ballots, it still uses a computer to record the votes. Straight from the Michigan Secretary of State web site:

All voters in Michigan use optical scan ballots. Optical scan voting requires voters to either darken an oval or connect the head and tail of an arrow next to each of their choices on their ballot. Completed ballots are fed into a tabulator, which scans and records the votes. (italics mine)

That right there is the rub. How does one know the electronic machine is correctly recording the votes? Just because a vote is registered does not mean it was registered correctly. Since Michigan has paper ballots, hand count them. It's the easiest way to see if there are any irregularities.

Michigan Voting Instructions

All voters in Michigan use optical scan ballots.

Sounds like electronic voting to me. Hope you're enjoying your fake news.
By the way, this is how you "cite" sources. Not some vague reference to something from yesteryear.

Ignorant geeks with at best 1-2 "econ" courses under their belt, combined with the common but still rabid libertarian rabble will deny the validity of your comments. However, imagined conspiracy and "upstart" philosophy doesn't change the reality of how things actually work. See here for information. The law is entirely designed to enforce standards. This lawsuit is just Musk pouting that his "upstart" position doesn't already work everywhere, and wanting to sell in MI subjects him to some regulations on the state of vehicles being sold.

The law can set standards for performance without dictating the business model used to meet those standards.

Ignorant geeks with at best 1-2 "econ" courses under their belt, combined with the common but still rabid libertarian rabble will deny the validity of your comments. However, imagined conspiracy and "upstart" philosophy doesn't change the reality of how things actually work. See here for information. The law is entirely designed to enforce standards. This lawsuit is just Musk pouting that his "upstart" position doesn't already work everywhere, and wanting to sell in MI subjects him to some regulations on the state of vehicles being sold.

There are US states with higher weight limits than national standard..

The maximum allowable gross vehicle weight on the heaviest "Michigan-weight-law MDOT Intermodal Policy Division truck" is 164,000 pounds,

https://www.michigan.gov/docum...

"Plenty of research has shown that the safest group of vehicles are traveling at or below the 85th to 90th percentiles. At the 85th to 90th percentiles we tend to find drivers with above average skill and competence, and this is why their crash risk is the lowest. Above the 90th percentile we tend to find drivers exceeding safe limits and their accident risk increases as a consequence. Note that the "average" driver at the 50% percentile has a greater crash risk than the 85th percentile driver. Below the 30th percentile crash risk is significantly increased and these speeds tend to be used by less skilled and competent drivers." http://www.michigan.gov/docume...

The people of Flint are poisoned because they habitually elect corrupt city officials, just like the people of Detroit.

In 1963, Flint moved to build a pipeline from Lake Huron to Flint, but a profiteering scandal derailed that pipeline. This led the city to sign a contract to purchase water for 30 years from the Detroit Water Department on June 6, 1964 ... March 2010, former pipeline supporter and former Genesee County Drain Commissioner Ken Hardin came out against the project, based on the City of Flint's poor financial condition. Instead, he recommended that the county seek a seat on a regional water board with Detroit. Karegnondi Water Authority

everything was fine when they were getting their water from DWSD

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is a sprawling network covering 1,079 square-miles,[1][2] servicing more than 40 percent of the U.S. state of Michigan's population,[1] and employing over 3,000 people.[3] DWSD is one of the most extensive and largest water and sewage systems in the United States.[1] Along with serving the entire city of Detroit, it also serves the counties of Genesee, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Wayne, St. Clair, Lapeer and Monroe.[1] In 2000, The network comprised 11,000 miles of water mains and a storage capacity of 363 million gallons.[4] Detroit Water and Sewerage Department

but

In March 2013, the Flint city council voted to switch their water supply from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) to the new $233 million Lake Huron-sourced Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA).[7] The switch was approved by the Flint emergency manager. ... State Treasurer Andy Dillon approved Flint joining KWA but gave DWSD the opportunity to make a final offer to convince Flint to stay on Detroit water.[11] Flint declined the final DWSD offer. Immediately after Flint declined the offer, DWSD gave Flint notice that their long-standing water agreement would terminate in twelve months.[12] This meant that Flint's water agreement with Detroit would end in April 2014 but construction of KWA was not expected to be completed until the end of 2016. Therefore, in April 2014 (when the water agreement terminated), Flint switched their water supply from DWSD to Flint's backup supply, the Flint River. The Flint river was expected to supply potable water until KWA construction was completed in 2016. Flint water crisis

So the set up was two cities in bankruptcy were fighting over money and turf. The coup de grâce was the idiots at the Flint water treatment plant who did add the extra phosphates to protect the lead pipes from the extra salt in the Flint River as required by law and the idiots at DEQ who didn't follow protocols when high lead levels were detected.

The only way to really fix the problem is to rip out the lead pipes, under the streets in the entire city of Flint, all of the household plumbing with lead based soldered joints and replace them. I also doubt the Karegnondi pipeline is going to be finished this year, they are barely working on the first pumping station by the lake inlet and the electrical substation hasn't got any equipment installed.

During the State of the State address last night, Snyder promised to publish all of the Emails regarding the Flint water crisis here. There is a lot of politics involved here.
Detroit built a Water line from Lake Huron north of Port Huron (about 50 miles north of Detriot) back in 1971.

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is a sprawling network covering 1,079 square-miles,[1][2] servicing more than 40 percent of the U.S. state of Michigan's population,[1] and employing over 3,000 people.[3] DWSD is one of the most extensive and largest water and sewage systems in the United States.[1] Along with serving the entire city of Detroit, it also serves the counties of Genesee, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Wayne, St. Clair, Lapeer and Monroe.[1] In 2000, The network comprised 11,000 miles of water mains and a storage capacity of 363 million gallons Detroit Water and Sewerage Department

After decades of typical Big City miss-management and cronyism, Kwame Kilpatrick took it to a new art form. Detroit pretty much decided that price gouging the "Hostile Suburbs" would solve their problems, but Flint had their own problems and really couldn't afford Detroit water and build their own pipe line.

This is absolutely false. This was true 10-years ago, but not anymore. In fact in Michigan, a large unionized state, teachers no longer enjoy tenure or seniority. Teachers keep their jobs based solely on performance, student achievement, and student growth on an annual high stakes standardized tests. This was enacted by the state legislature 2 years ago. Further Michigan is a right-to-work state for teachers, which means that teachers need pay union dues and schools districts do not need to autodeduct the dues. Only police have mandatory unions in Michigan.

The legislature is putting the beat down on teachers and unions. Soon there will be no teachers or teacher unions and we will live in a charter school utopia where schools are run like businesses and have CEO's instead of superintendents.

So join the bash-wagon. Attack teachers and primary care physicians. This makes total sense

This is absolutely false. This was true 10-years ago, but not anymore. In fact in Michigan, a large unionized state, teachers no longer enjoy tenure or seniority. Teachers keep their jobs based solely on performance, student achievement, and student growth on an annual high stakes standardized tests. This was enacted by the state legislature 2 years ago. Further Michigan is a right-to-work state for teachers, which means that teachers need pay union dues and schools districts do not need to autodeduct the dues. Only police have mandatory unions in Michigan.

The legislature is putting the beat down on teachers and unions. Soon there will be no teachers or teacher unions and we will live in a charter school utopia where schools are run like businesses and have CEO's instead of superintendents.

So join the bash-wagon. Attack teachers and primary care physicians. This makes total sense

Another source:

http://www.michigan.gov/som/0,...

An interesting quote:

"...Michigan joins the motor-vehicle agencies in five other states -- California, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico and Vermont -- who have also parted with HP after attempting similar computer modernization projects."

Yes, but why do you need one? CDL's are typically for driving freight bearing vehicles. I have a chauffeur licence, and it only required a small additional fee & another test, which was not too difficult. That should be sufficient for any driver carrying passengers.

Yes, but why do you need one? CDL's are typically for driving freight bearing vehicles. I have a chauffeur licence, and it only required a small additional fee & another test, which was not too difficult. That should be sufficient for any driver carrying passengers.

A judicial court in Italy has ordered the UberPop app to cease offering its services, as it constitutes "competition" again the taxi sector (taxi licenses in Italy are numbered, each can cost more than $ 100k to obtain)

FTFY. A government solution to a government created problem. Granting taxi companies an oligopoly (a monopoly for all intents and purposes), hurts consumers by limiting supply and artificially inflating prices. Get rid of the $100k numbered taxi licenses, and let the market set the price for getting rides. A glut of drivers would result in lower fares, which in turn would cause some drivers to drop out, allowing fares to rise to a reasonable level for both drivers & riders.

If there's concern for safe drivers, that can be handled with an additional test for drivers by their DMV. For instance, the State of Michigan allows drivers to take a chauffeur's test and get the license for an additional $35. This isn't a guarantee of safety, but neither is the $100k medallion system.

“This bill does not, as some have claimed, prevent auto manufacturers from selling automobiles directly to consumers at retail in Michigan – because this is already prohibited under Michigan law,” Snyder said in a letter to lawmakers that accompanies the signed bill.

I think it's stupid, but at least it sounds like existing stupidity rather than additional stupidity. For me, the Volt I just bought is a better fit (pure EV for common driving, but the ability to run off gasoline for longer trips), but I'd love to see Tesla gain popularity. I think it will spur innovation from multiple manufacturers and help get a better charging infrastructure built up (hopefully they standardize on a universal charger setup).

I just did some back of the envelope calculating on this. In a typical car with decent performance, you can accelerate at about 4 meters/sec sq (about 0-60 in a little under 7 sec). Working in meters because it's a lot easier: imagine this, an intersection with good visibility. At 40 mph approach speed, the earliest you can tell that the other driver is going to blow through the intersection (at right angles to you) will be 2 seconds. Before that he's still got time to stop. But let's say you're suspicious of the other driver so at 2 seconds out you are instantly ready to take action (and not taking action will result in the front corner of your car making the initial collision with the front corner of his car). Your cars are Ford Focus length, 4.5 meters long. You are both doing 40 mph (18 meters/sec).

So where are you at time = 2 if you decide to accelerate? The reference point is the leading edge of your car. The distance you travel will be determined by in this case the function d(t)=18t + 2t^2. At 2 seconds no part of your car must be between 36 meters and 37.8 meters from the position where you decided to hit the gas (so the leading edge of your car must not be at the position 36m to the position 37.8m + length of your car, which is 4.5m, so 42.3m). If you hit the gas the leading edge of your car would be at 44m, so you only just miss and you need to have a high performance car to do that (Focus ST or Focus RS). If you're in a more normal car, or an older car that's a little bit worn out, and have a 0-60 time of 9 seconds (3 m/s squared), the formula would be 18t + 1.5t^2, and the leading edge of your car will be at 42m, in other words the other vehicle will clip the rear of your vehicle and you will now have the additional speed to some how get rid of during the ensuing crash.

What about braking? A typical car will decelerate at 8.2m/s^2 if you slam on the brakes. ( http://www.michigan.gov/docume... ) So the distance formula for braking will be 18t - 4.1t^2. If you were to slam on the brakes, at the critical time the leading edge of your car would be 19.6m from your starting point - you'd miss the collision by a very comfortable 16.4 meters. Even if it were lashing with rain, and your braking performance were halved, you would miss the collision by almost 10 meters.

The conclusion here is that the margins are much much tighter (in the best case, you only get away with it by just over a meter) if you try to accelerate than if you try to brake (where you miss the collision in the worst case by better than 9m). Acceleration in reality would probably be worse than calculated if you're in an automatic transmission car because you won't really start accelerating much until the transmission sorts itself out. In a manual you'll only be better off if at the decision point you're already in the ideal gear for accelerating. Acceleration may be a valid path to take if you are in a Bugatti Veryron or a Lamborghini Countach or on a motorcycle, but even so the margins are going to be much more comfortable if you mash the brakes instead (given a super car has very good brakes, and a performance motorbike has sticky tires and very good brakes). And if the collision does occur, if you've braked there's a great deal less energy in the system so the outcome is likely to be much less severe.

(I thought this reply got posted, but it hasn't appeared after 15 minutes.)

The Kleargear.com address at 2885 Sanford Ave. SW in Grandville MI is really a mail forwarding/disguised address popular with companies doing horrible things to people, and is run by a company called Mailbox Forwarding, Inc.: The mail-forwarding service is not unfamiliar to the BBB. “Over the years, we’ve had many issues with businesses that use that address”

Here's another address for them, thanks to this press release through United Business Media's PRNewswire. If they try to retract it, here's a copy at The Sacramento Bee:

Christophe Monette, CEO of Kleargear parent Descoteaux Boutiques, has been pleasantly surprised...

Margaux Banet
2885 Sanford Ave SW #19886
Grandville, MI 49418
United States

Descoteaux Boutiques
ZAC Paris Rive Gauche
118-122 Avenue de France
75013 Paris
France

And this press release also says "Kleargear is donating 2% of net sales between November 17th and December 17th to The American Red Cross in support of our friends and neighbors affected by Sunday's devastating tornado outbreak across the Midwest." Who wants to bet any of their money gets to anyone who's ever seen a tornado? Best to check on the legitimacy of these charity solicitations of course. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has been making charity fraudsters one of this pet projects lately: See "A Michigan Crackdown On Charity Fraud". I'll bet Schuette's office would be more than happy to hear about any problems from companies that happen to officially give their state of residence as Michigan and claim to help Michigan tornado victims. The Michigan Attorney General has a specific phone number for Questions About Charities.

Of course, maybe the French address is fake too. They're a bit pickier about that in France though, I think. Anyone have the contact info for the corporation regulators or charity regulators in Paris?

Also: The BBB gave Kleargear.com an F rating, before Kleargear.com inserted this ruin-your-customers-lives clause in their terms and then faked the A+ rating on their website. For those of you who can't see popups on the BBB site: As of November 28, 2012, the BBB became aware that the company's website is displaying a BBB Accredited Business logo and BBB Rating A+; however, the company is not a BBB accredited business and the BBB rating is not A+. The BBB contacted the company regarding these issues and this matter is pending the company's response. As of November 28, 2012, the BBB discovered that some pages of the company's website display the BBB Accredited Business Logo and state "BBB Rating A+", when neither is true. The BBB contacted the company at the Michigan mail drop address instructing the company to immediately remove the incorrect BBB logo and reference from their site. This matter is currently pending.

The Kleargear.com address at 2885 Sanford Ave. SW in Grandville MI is really a mail forwarding/disguised address popular with companies doing horrible things to people, and is run by a company called Mailbox Forwarding, Inc.: The mail-forwarding service is not unfamiliar to the BBB. “Over the years, we’ve had many issues with businesses that use that address”

Here's another address for them, thanks to this press release through United Business Media's PRNewswire. If they try to retract it, here's a copy at The Sacramento Bee:

Christophe Monette, CEO of Kleargear parent Descoteaux Boutiques, has been pleasantly surprised...

Margaux Banet
2885 Sanford Ave SW #19886
Grandville, MI 49418
United States

Descoteaux Boutiques
ZAC Paris Rive Gauche
118-122 Avenue de France
75013 Paris
France

And this press release also says "Kleargear is donating 2% of net sales between November 17th and December 17th to The American Red Cross in support of our friends and neighbors affected by Sunday's devastating tornado outbreak across the Midwest." Who wants to bet any of their money gets to anyone who's ever seen a tornado? Best to check on the legitimacy of these charity solicitations of course. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has been making charity fraudsters one of this pet projects lately: See "A Michigan Crackdown On Charity Fraud". I'll bet Schuette's office would be more than happy to hear about any problems from companies that happen to officially give their state of residence as Michigan and claim to help Michigan tornado victims. The Michigan Attorney General has a specific phone number for Questions About Charities.

Of course, maybe the French address is fake too. They're a bit pickier about that in France though, I think. Anyone have the contact info for the corporation regulators or charity regulators in Paris?

Also: The BBB gave Kleargear.com an F rating, before Kleargear.com inserted this ruin-your-customers-lives clause in their terms and then faked the A+ rating on their website. For those of you who can't see popups on the BBB site: As of November 28, 2012, the BBB became aware that the company's website is displaying a BBB Accredited Business logo and BBB Rating A+; however, the company is not a BBB accredited business and the BBB rating is not A+. The BBB contacted the company regarding these issues and this matter is pending the company's response. As of November 28, 2012, the BBB discovered that some pages of the company's website display the BBB Accredited Business Logo and state "BBB Rating A+", when neither is true. The BBB contacted the company at the Michigan mail drop address instructing the company to immediately remove the incorrect BBB logo and reference from their site. This matter is currently pending.

You're talking about an individual student; I was talking about how the typical outcome expected for an entire school faces impacts the outcome for everyone. The motivated, involved parent is important. But they may not have the ability to elevate a student that far above the average outcome for the school they're attending. And those averages all depend heavily on the income of the parents.

Income, parent education, and parent involvement are not disconnected. Table 3 here tries to map how related they all are to each other. For any one parent, yes getting involved can be the most important thing to improve outcomes. But a child placed into a low income school will be surrounded with children of parents without much parent involvement or education. All of that drags down the whole school in a way that's tough to overcome.

There's some useful data from Michigan that shows the trend here. As usual there are people there who believe that "support from parents is the most important way to improve the schools". But when you look at test scores, the biggest correlation is with differences in family income and the corresponding education of the parents. The University of Michigan spelled it out quite clearly: More Money, Better Grades. That cites a Harvard study that breaks the phenomenon down into small parts.

It's not 6% of his income, it's 6% of an amount based on his income, which is between $4-70 or 0.08% of gross income if you make more than 100k/year.

Details can be found on the actual tax form on page 3.

If you bought more stuff from out of state that cost less than $1000 each purchase than the number in the table says, yes, it actually is cheaper.

Basically, its Wisconsin, but with a couple more feet of lake effect snow, and the eyesore / mindsore of Detroit.

Detroit proper has a population of just 700,000 people. Most people who say they are "from Detroit" don't actually live in the city itself. The Metro Detroit area is much larger (population 4 million) and actually is a nice place to live. Oakland County just to the north of Detroit has a AAA credit rating and is among the 10 wealthiest counties in the US. There is a huge amount of engineering talent in the state and the businesses that need it. (Hint, the auto industry uses a LOT of technology)

I believe Wisconsin has something like 10 lakes for every 1 lake in Michigan.

Wisconsin has about 15,000 while Michigan has over 11,000. The numbers are very similar. Please cease making up nonsense when two seconds on Google will prove you are making stuff up.

Should be, could be, isn't...

That's at least a part of the reason it can be argued that ID is an unacceptable burden for those in the lowest income bracket, especially if they're living in a rural area and have to travel to get ID AND to vote.

If I show up to the precinct where I'm registered, with or without an ID, and I know my registered name and address, and my signature matches the one on my card, then I HAVE reasonably authenticated myself.

That's why there are so few cases of voter fraud against individual voters. It's not worth the time, the effort or the risk to try to falsely register, show up at all the various locations and try to remember your various identities in order to carry cast a few fraudulent ballots.

It's far more likely that GOP staffers will try to game the system as they did recently in Michigan.

Gov. Snyder just revealed a plan similar to this for Michigan.

Are they in enclosed fixtures with no airflow? They might be overheating, reducing their lifetime.

http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3585_30068_30172-90219--,00.html

nor do I expect the state of Michigan to tax my purchase from a company outside of Michigan.

Well I don't know what you expect, but Michigan (like most other states) has been doing it for years:

http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,1607,7-238-43529-155460--,00.html

Use tax on tangible personal property is similar to sales tax, but applies to purchases when Michigan sales tax is not charged. Use tax of 6 percent must be paid on the total price (including shipping and handling charges) of all taxable items brought into Michigan or purchases by mail from out-of-state retailers. It applies to purchases made in foreign countries as well as other states.

The problem is that the states have almost no way to track and enforce payment of this tax, so California was making the retailers do so.

I tried to buy something once through a self-scanner, and it rang up a remarkably lower price than it should have. I completed the checkout, paid, and then went to customer service to explain the issue. The customer service clerk looked at me as if I had nine heads, especially after scanning the item and seeing that the barcode scan gave the same price that my receipt said I'd paid. She then said something like, "no, you paid for this", clearly not understanding my motivation for mentioning it, so I left.

I don't know about where you live, but where I do, once you've paid for the item, they can't change the price on you and insist you give them more money. However, they must fix it if they overcharged you (and give you extra money as well) due to the Michigan Pricing and Advertising of Consumer Items Act. Granted, said Act is being replaced with an updated version later this year to address automated systems like the one in question.

Heck, the retailers I worked for in the early 2000s, unless there was a huge error in the price, even if you pointed out the price was ringing up too low, we'd just give it to you for that price. We were required to fill out a form to give to management to fix it, though.

As a funny anecdote only tangentially related: As a cashier, I've seen an error where a can of baked beans rang up for $30,000+ before. I think it was an issue where the UPC was misread and prompted for the price on the screen, but instead accepted the next scanned item's UPC as the price, cutting off after 7 digits (12345.67). Strangely, scanning the item again after voiding came up with the correct price.

It's not the kind of open source we are used to either. What he meant was if one organization had a model of operation that was successful, then that model would be passed along to similar organizations in other jurisdictions so everybody wasn't trying to re-invent the wheel. I listened to the State of the State address and it sounded good, used a lot of buzz words, we'll see if the Naive New-Comer is any match for the Political Establishment. His State Dashboard is a pretty good first step in openness and transperency.

For what it's worth, Michigan does exactly what you describe (link is to PDF), at least with bottles and cans. I don't know why other states with deposits don't do the same, or for that matter why so few states have deposits.

It also depends what data is contained on the card. Suppose all that it held was a student number. Well, that's fine and dandy and I suppose you could create fake student IDs to get discount software, check out books at the library, and take advantage of other Uni perks. But - of course - that means you'd be committing identity theft.

For example, the State of Michigan started issuing enhanced drivers licenses with an RFID chip in them to allow passport-free travel between the US and other WHTI countries. Supposedly, the only thing on them is a unique key. So if you want to walk around Detroit with an RFID reader and "track" people, good luck: the only thing you're tracking is the unique keys. You'd need access to whatever database in order to tie that unique key to a specific person.

I'm not saying that identity theft wouldn't happen - it would - just that you'd have no idea who you were trying to impersonate and that spoofing a drivers license has a whole lot of potential for misuse than some college kid's ID.

However, speeding tickets are criminal charges - they simply aren't felony charges (unless the speeder is exceeding the limit by greater than 15 mph in most states)

Nice try, but you are completely wrong. Minor moving violations (including speeding below a certain threshold -- and, yes, 15-20 mph is pretty common here) are not criminal charges at all, they are civil infractions (usually, speeding above 15 mph over the limit and other major moving violations are mostly still not felonies, they are misdemeanors, though some -- some DUIs, lots of things involving injuries, and obviously vehicular homicides -- are felonies.)

See, for instance:
Maine courts
Michigan's ticket payment system

I'm guessing he meant a handgun. When was the last time you'd gone hunting with a glock pistol?

Actually a Glock over .35 caliber, even being semi-auto, can be legally used for deer hunting in Michigan in the appropriate portion of the season.

From: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10366_37141_37706-31578--,00.html

"A conventional (smokeless powder) handgun must be .35 caliber or larger and loaded with straight-walled cartridges and may be single- or multiple-shot but cannot exceed a maximum capacity of nine rounds in the barrel and magazine combined."

Much deer hunting in Michigan occurs at ranges less than 50 yards in dense, heavily-overgrown copses with thick underbrush that makes a pistol a better hunting tool. It's hard to swing a full-length rifle or shotgun around when you're in thick underbrush or in a small hunter's tree-stand, and the shorter range also makes a pistol a good hunting choice in those scenarios.

Strat

FYI, competition in health insurance does not exist. So, because competition and thus the capitalistic venture did not work out... someone had to do something.

But then what do I know, Im just a poor schmuck that got genetic diabetes and thus must suffer alone while people who are lucky enough not to get such lifetime diseases can live with their pockets lined with cash. AMIRITE?

In short, fuck you selfish prick.

Competition does exist between health insurers where more than one exist in a state. By the way, I happen to know of at least one non-profit insurer who will cover you. The insurer (in order to be a non-profit in Michigan) had to agree to a number of terms including having the state approve the monthly premium.
Citation

By the way, you may not know this, but insurance does depend on taking in more money from your premiums than they pay out to you in expenses.

In short, calm down chief. I feel bad for the fact you have type I diabetes... but don't be a jackass. And don't assume that because it's expensive that there's no competition.

I live in one of the 4 states where you can hunt and be legally blind. (They must be accompanied by someone who can see).

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10366_41825_51108-197553--,00.html

This doesn't scare me nearly as much. I'm guessing you are correct and he'll be hunting from a blind, but at least he isn't blind.

You raise an "interesting" train of thought in my mind.

Encoding in 720p x264 you get something like 45 minutes in 1.1 GB. This gives you 60,900 episodes per 4U unit or 609,000 episodes per 40U rack.

In 1080p x264 you get something like 45 minutes in about 2.5 GB. This is 27,000 episodes per 4U unit or 270,000 episodes per 40U rack.

Assuming 22 episodes per season and a five year average run time, you end up with 220 episodes per show (typical science fiction shows).
Assuming 5 shows per week, 40 weeks a year, 10 year run time, you end up with 2,000 episodes per show (typical soaps).

So you could easily store 100 full sci-fi shows and 100 full soaps on in one rack (that'd be 222,000 episodes), all stored in glorius 1080p.

IMDb lists the following statistics:

452,982 movies released theatrically.
792,565 TV episodes.
75,316 made for TV movies.
61,440 TV series.
77,624 direct to video movies.

Leaving out "TV series" (they average 12.9 episodes/series, which seems reasonable with the amount of cancelled series) I'll make the following assumptions about average run time:
Theatrical releases: 120 minutes
TV episodes: 35 minutes
TV movies: 90 minutes
Direct to video: 100 minutes

That's a total of 96,638,455 minutes. Encoding that in 720p would require 2,362,274 GB or 5,315,117 GB for 1080p.

What's my point? Well, for one thing you couldn't ever watch it, as it's 183 years, so no, that wasn't my point ;)

That it is entirely within the realm of feasibility to offer downloads of every single movie and tv-show on IMDb from a hardware point of view. One of the complaints I've heard from the production companies is that it would be impossible to set up the hardware needed for it. Even at Sun's prices, you'd "only" need to pay 10 million dollars to store everything in both 720p and 1080p quality. Set up redundant servers in 10 different locations, 5 in the US, 5 in Europe, and you're still only out 100 million dollars.

From a cultural point of view, think of all the things that are lost when the copyright holders let these things rot away on shelves, throw it out or it's lost in some kind of calamity. And this is just movies and tv-shows. Add in music and news and I suspect you could easily get hugely redundant back-ups of it all for 1 billion dollars. Even if you had to replace the storage arrays every 3 years, it's still really really cheap. Figure twice that for maintenance, and we have an annual cost of about a billion dollars - cheap when we're saving all knowledge for our successors. That's roughly the cost of building 125 miles of rural freeway in Michigan. It'd be cheap at 10x the price. And in ten years - we will probably still be using high bit rate encoding (1080p+), but will the cost of storage still be as high? I suspect it'll slowly fall, slightly faster than inflation.

Having to reencode everything from time to time, would obviously take a huge amount of time, but that is the price we pay for progress. On the other hand, even with 1:1 encoding time, it'd only take 183 computer-years to do it.

Imagine what it would be like if 25 years from now your kids could, at the touch of a button, gain access to every bit of entertainment and news as from the last 25 years. I don't mean going to Wikipedia and looking up The Terminator but actually watch the film, read all the news about it, as it looked at the time, five years on, seven years on after Terminator 2: Judgement Day had its effect on the new franchise etc.

Imagine them not having to settle for what history books said happened in the year 2010 or about specific events in that year, but be able to pull up every single news article and tv news report on the subject and make up their own mind, de

They could close all their government offices for... oh, say, 6 days to save money.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Mosquito&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3313_46123_24554-68318--,00.html

Instead of merely hoping that Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth finds out about it, why not let them know? If dishonesty was involved in the Michigan proceedings, they SHOULD know about it. Us geeks from Slashdot should write to them and POLITELY let them know about the aforementioned contradiction and why it is of importance. Look through their contacts page (link located at center top of Department of Labor and Economic Growth page) to find the office or person you believe is the best one to notify. In your correspondence, please be clear, concise, and polite.

Coming from Michigan's Department of Transportation :

"A mile of freeway through an urban area costs approximately $39 million, while a mile of freeway through a rural area costs approximately $8 million."

Highways are expensive.

Of course, CFL bulbs are not without a down-side, namely the mercury in side. Power companies are also stepping up to recycle those, but I bet most end up in the trash.

The mercury "downside" is usually overblown. When compared with the amount of mercury (or any other toxin) that would be released into the environment due to a standard incandescent's power requirements, the CFL actually comes out ahead. And for older folks, the mercury amount is magnitudes less than the amount in the old thermostats and thermometers. Did you call Hazmat when you broke a thermometer? I doubt it, even though we all knew about mercury poisoning.

Ask TreeHugger: Is Mercury from a Broken CFL Dangerous?
Urban Legends Reference Pages: CFL Mercury Light Bulbs
Why Use CFLs? Environment

Do handle light bulbs with care. However, clean-up procedures are fairly simple if one breaks. And bring old bulbs to a recycle center.

Also, don't forget to recycle all your appliances, electronics, and batteries. The chemicals and elements contained in those are just as hazardous to your health and to the environment, if not more so. The places that take these items also take the CFL bulbs.

The worst example of this is the law enacted in Michigan a couple years ago. Called the Driver Responsibility Fee, if you get any ticket that adds points to your license, on top of paying the fines, you also have to pay the State an additional fine, ranging from $125 to $1000 a year over two years. If you miss your payment, they suspend your license. Once your license is suspended, if you get a suspended license ticket, you have to pay $500 a year for two years plus $125 to get your license back. If you are poor and cannot afford to pay this, you continue driving on a suspended license. Get another ticket and all of a sudden you owe the State $3000 and they threaten to garnish your wages and bank accounts. For someone who is making a decent living, these fees are manageable. For someone already living paycheck to paycheck, these fees can become impossible to pay. I know a single young mother working two shitty hourly jobs to which there is no bus she can take who is trying to pay down $2500 in fines. She was making her monthly payments and was able to keep her license until she missed a payment one month at which point they suspended her license and are forcing her to pay the entire set of fines before she can legally drive again. The only way for her to pay these fines and take care of her baby is to keep driving to drive. Luckily she has been careful and hasn't been pulled over, but the ONLY thing this law does is keep people who are already struggling struggling more.