Average Teacher Salaries Climb

Average Teacher Salaries Climb [Michigan Capitol Confidential]:
"New data released by the Michigan Department of Education shows that the average public school teacher salary in Michigan increased slightly for the 2011-2012 school year to $62,631.
This was up 1.7 percent from 2010-2011 year, but 0.6 percent less than the all-time high of $63,024 reported by the MDE for 2009-2010.
These figures include both conventional school districts and public charter schools, but the difference between these two types of schools was large, according to the data.
The average salary for charter school teachers was $42,864,[1] while the average for just conventional school teachers was $63,094.
Below are the 20 districts (with more than 100 pupils) that had the highest average teacher salaries in the state:"

VA disability claims for sleep apnea reach $1.2 billion per year

VA disability claims for sleep apnea reach $1.2 billion per year | The Daily Caller

Steyn wrong about the root of terror attacks | Full Comment

Steyn wrong about the root of terror attacks | Full Comment | National Post:
Incredible comments-read 'em.

Ex-DMC CEO Porter was visiting Panama on business, colleague says

Ex-DMC CEO Porter was visiting Panama on business, colleague ays | Crain's Detroit Business:
"Former Detroit Medical Center CEO Arthur Porter had both legitimate business reasons to visit Panama, and health concerns that could prevent him from making a similar trip to Montreal, where he awaits prosecution on corruption charges, some of his colleagues told Crain's this week."

Jefferson County, Ala., Reaches Bankruptcy Deal

Jefferson County, Ala., Reaches Bankruptcy Deal - NYTimes.com:
"The refinancing agreement covers debt held by creditors that include JPMorgan Chase, which holds about $1.22 billion of the sewer debt, the biggest block; three bond insurers; and seven hedge funds, according to a term sheet circulated in a meeting of the county commission on Tuesday.
The terms call for these creditors to receive about $1.84 billion for the $2.4 billion of debt they now hold. The concessions were weighted most heavily toward JPMorgan, the term sheet said, “to increase the recovery of other sewer creditors.”
The bank is giving up $842 million, or about 70 percent, of the face value of its debt, according to people briefed on the negotiations. "

Tax credit bonanza for illegal immigrants?

Tax credit bonanza for illegal immigrants? | The Daily Caller:

It pays to get Schumerized! Did you know that previously illegal immigrants who are legalized–like the 11 million immigrants granted Registered Provisional status by the Schumer-Rubio Gang of 8 bill–not only qualify for the Earned Income Tax credit (EITC) when they go to work (which seems reasonable enough to me) but may also get to apply for retroactive credits for previous years in which they were working illegally? Lawprofessor Jan Ting of  Temple University has the story.  … Meanwhile, the Gang of 8 seems to have abandoned the idea of actually collecting back taxes from the vast majority of newly legalized (despite all the talk about how legalization isn’t “amnesty” because there are penalties etc,). But, hey, that doesn’t mean the IRS can’t send them back refunds!

A visit to the IRS could actually be quite lucrative for many of newly Schumerized “provisionals.” The maximum annual EITC refund is a little over $5,000 per year for a person with two children who earns between about $13,000 and $17,000. You can can get $6,000 per year if you have three or more children. That means a potential refund check in the $15,000 range for three years of illegal, pre-amnesty work.

‘Muskegon Bike Time’ Potentially in Danger, Organizers Say

‘Muskegon Bike Time’ Potentially in Danger, Organizers Say | FOX17online.com:

If the new farmer’s market moved in, it would be at the heart of the 10 block ‘Bike Time’ route.  David Burlingame, the Vice Chair of ‘Bike Time,’ said the board is trying to keep both.

“We’re working to resolve how the farmer’s market and ‘Bike Time’ can operate on the same Saturday of the year,” he said.

According to Warmington, he said they started talking with the city three weeks ago about how they can make it work for next year but, “they have indicated to us that they won’t be closing Western Ave.” and will not be making the farmer’s market available.

During that weekend, parking is already at a premium without the farmer’s market. Organizers say it’s crucial to keep Western Ave. open to allow that loop of motorcycles to flow around downtown.

On Monday, Muskegon Mayor Stephen Gawron said he is working on getting a meeting together to figure out a plan to have both events.

“We’ll be laying out some different possibilities with the ‘Bike Time’ festival and again I think we will allot many of their concerns,” he said.

Organizers say it needs to happen sooner rather than later, though.

“We have sponsors whose contracts are up and we have vendors who are coming here for seven years and we want to assure them that everything is going to remain the same,” Warmington said.  “Even though city hall doesn’t think so,  timing is of the essence, we need to have this put into place.”

This Is the Perfect Pinterest Picture, According to Science

This Is the Perfect Pinterest Picture, According to Science | Wired Business | Wired.com:
"Curalate, which helps companies optimize and monitor the images they post to Pinterest and Instagram, has a vested interesting in figuring out what Pinterest users like.
Their research found that the following characteristics were common among popular images — and all over Aunt Peggy’s salad."

This picture, attached to Paula Deen’s recipe for cucumber, tomato, and onion salad, embodies the chracteristics of the ideal popular Pinterest image. It has been repinned 307,000 times. 
Photo: PaulaDeen.com

Vancouver's Free Heroin Clinic

SALOME: Vancouver's Free Heroin Clinic:
"Every day, Randy McKinley walks into a nondescript building located in downtown Vancouver to shoot up. For no cost at all, an examiner provides him with a sterilized syringe and pure narcotic, which he then injects into his blood stream.
After about 20 minutes or so, McKinley gets up and leaves, only to return two more times before the day is over."

Census Bureau Refutes “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” Mantra—Obama Won Because Of Old Black Ladies (And Turned-Off Whites)

Census Bureau Refutes “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” Mantra—Obama Won Because Of Old Black Ladies (And Turned-Off Whites) | VDARE.com:
"In contrast to the fervent black effort to re-elect Obama, whites were strikingly unmotivated by Romney. The total white vote dropped from 100 million in 2008 to 98 million in 2012 (down two percent). Only 64.1 percent of eligible whites voted in 2012, down from 66.1 percent in 2008 and 67.2 percent in the recent high-water mark year of 2004. This was the first time in the history of the Census survey that whites were not the highest-ranking group in terms of their rate of voting.

Among Hispanics eligible to vote, gross numbers continued to rise—but the rate of those taking the trouble to vote dropped from 49.9 to 48.0 percent. The number of Hispanics who claimed to be eligible but didn’t bother to get to the polls soared from 9.8 million to12.1 million."

DOJ on ‘gays’: ‘Silence will be interpreted as disapproval’

DOJ on ‘gays’: ‘Silence will be interpreted as disapproval’:
"The document is chilling.
It’s riddled with directives that grossly violate – prima facie –employees’ First Amendment liberties.
Following are excerpts from the “DOJ Pride” decree.
When it comes to “LGBT pride,” employees are ordered:
“DON’T judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.” (Italics mine)
That’s a threat.
And not even a subtle one."

A Veteran’s Tale

A Veteran’s Tale

Reasons to Mute Talk of Housing Recovery

Reasons to Mute Talk of Housing Recovery | Heartlander Magazine:
"The Case-Shiller index has never measured a 15.4 percent increase as seen in new home prices in a single month. It increased only 1.1 percent in March.
It would be uncanny if the April numbers showed a larger spike.
In contrast, the new home sales average price published by the U.S. Census Bureau has been extremely volatile since the housing downturn began.
Just in March, it had experienced an 8.8 percent drop in the average price for a new home"

Student Hilariously Redeems Himself After Failing With the Cymbals During the National Anthem

Student Hilariously Redeems Himself After Failing With the Cymbals During the National Anthem | Video | TheBlaze.com:
"One might think that not much could go wrong for the band member charged with playing the cymbals.
But for an Illinois junior high student playing the clashing instrument during a school’s concert, something did go wrong, and he reacted in the only way he felt appropriate for the time."
I wouldn't call this "hilarious", just wonderful.
Watch the video and be proud of this young man.

Aircraft Carriers In The Great Lakes?

Aircraft Carriers In The Great Lakes? — Military Forum | Airliners.net
"I'm amazed that I had never heard about this before ! How many knew that at one point, the U.S. Navy operated aircraft carriers in the Great Lakes ? I just recently heard about this in an email from a friend.

Either shortly before or shortly after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy realized that they were going to need a lot of carrier qualified pilots as quickly as possible, and Commander Richard Francis Whitehead came up with the brilliant idea to train them aboard two aircraft carriers in the Great Lakes.

The decision was made to take two old excursion steamships, the "Greater Buffalo", and the "Seeandbee" and convert them into aircraft carrier training ships. The Greater Buffalo became the U.S.S. Sable, and the Seeandbee became the U.S.S. Wolverine.

There were several reasons that two carriers were specially built for carrier pilot training on the Great Lakes. First, aircraft carriers were at a premium with none that could be spared for pilot training. Second, by having two carriers on the Great Lakes the Navy would not have to provide escort ships for their security. There would also be no need for armor or armament. This idea was the brainchild of Commander Richard Francis Whitehead (later Vice Admiral), aviation aid to the commandant, Ninth Naval District. The Chicago area was ideal for supporting such a carrier training program with the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Naval Air Station, Glenview, and Naval Aviation Mechanics' School on the Navy Pier.

One of the new pilots who trained on the U.S.S. Sable was former President George H.W. Bush."

Peer-Reviewed Study Finds CO2 Not Responsible for Recent Warming

Peer-Reviewed Study Finds CO2 Not Responsible for Recent Warming | Heartlander Magazine:
"Conventional thinking says that the emission of human-made non-CFC gases such as carbon dioxide has mainly contributed to global warming.
But we have observed data going back to the Industrial Revolution that convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong," said Lu in a press release accompanying his study."

Glacial Retreat Shows Warmer Temps 400-600 Years Ago

Glacial Retreat Shows Warmer Temps 400-600 Years Ago | Heartlander Magazine:
"A retreat of glaciers in the Canadian Arctic shows temperatures were at least as warm as today 400-to-600 years ago.
Scientists carbon-dated plant life exposed by glacial retreat in the Canadian Arctic and found the plants were between 400 and 600 years old. Meteorologist Anthony Watts explained how the carbon dating shows temperatures 400 to 600 years ago must have been at least as warm as today:
“[T]hese plants had to have a warm environment to grow in first, then they were covered by ice, emerging again after the LIA [Little Ice Age] ended."

The Absolute Worst States for Job Hunting Law School Grads

The Absolute Worst States for Job Hunting Law School Grads - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic:
"New research shows which corners of the country have the biggest oversupply of young lawyers."
We're #1 again!
Oversupply of law school graduates by state. The darker the shade of red, the worse the surplus. Nevada, Wyoming, and Alaska technically have an under-supply. 

Torching Utopia-Sweden’s problem is not Islam, it’s multiculturalism.

Torching Utopia | National Review Online:
"The extent of the material damage was some 200 cars set on fire, in addition to a number of burned schools (including a nursery) and cultural centers.
 This toll does not include the psychological cost of a bruised Swedish self-image."

America’s Cup Sailing Race Faces Challenges in San Francisco

America’s Cup Sailing Race Faces Challenges in San Francisco - NYTimes.com:
"Only four teams have signed up because of the costs, the smallest contingent in the race’s modern history and far fewer than the 15 organizers had predicted in selling the event to city officials hungry for its economic benefits."

John Kelly's Speech About Marines In Ramadi

MUST READ!
John Kelly's Speech About Marines In Ramadi - Business Insider:

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their
heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “… let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”

The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing
non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have know they were safe…because to 11 Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.

The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread should width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. 
Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty…into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/john-kellys-speech-about-marines-in-ramadi-2013-6#ixzz2VG1kSThS

CAIR Demands School Accommodate Muslim Prayers, Attacks Voluntary Bible Lesson…

CAIR Demands School Accommodate Muslim Prayers, Attacks Voluntary Bible Lesson… | Weasel Zippers:
"How is the radical Council on American-Islamic Relations bending public school policy to its will?
Two stories from Michigan tell the tale."

Monsanto modified wheat mystery deepens in Oregon

Monsanto modified wheat mystery deepens in Oregon - environment - 03 June 2013 - New Scientist:
"Investigations continued this week into how unauthorised genetically modified wheat ended up on a farm in Oregon.
No varieties of GM wheat have been cleared for commercial use anywhere in the world.
The wheat plants in question are believed to be the legacy of a research programme that was abandoned nine years ago.
How and why they have resurfaced is unclear.
...The GM wheat was developed by Monsanto, an agricultural biotech giant based in St Louis, Missouri. Like many of Monsanto's plants, the wheat was developed to be resistant to the company's broad-spectrum weed-killer glyphosate, marketed as Roundup. 
The wheat was cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2004 as safe for human consumption, but Monsanto abandoned commercial development the same year, citing a drop in demand."

Fighting education fanatics

Fighting education fanatics: Column:
"The people running these schools are providing considerable evidence that they are not especially bright.
Or, at any rate, that they have little respect for American culture.
And the way they back down when these cases comes to light indicates that they know they're out of step with the public.
Which raises the question: 
Why are we giving them so much money? 
If public schools are places where kids can be persecuted for being kids -- especially if, gasp, they're boys acting like boys -- what's their claim on our support?
Increasingly, parents are exiting public schools for private schools, charter schools, online schools or homeschooling. (Hey, the guy who sold Tumblr to Yahoo for a billion dollars was homeschooled.)
This steady stream of stories involving what can only be called institutional child abuse can only speed that trend along.
And once large numbers of parents are no longer sending their kids to public schools, how long will the tax money keep coming?
That's the question I'd be asking myself, if I were running public schools. 
The people who actually are running them, however, seem to be oblivious. 
Fanatics usually are."

5 topics to track at Michigan's Capitol this week -- including state budget, Medicaid, education

5 topics to track at Michigan's Capitol this week -- including state budget, Medicaid, education | MLive.com:
"Detroit Institute of Arts: Senate Bill 401 aims to try and protect assets of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which could become an issue if the city of Detroit were to end up in a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy.
The DIA-related legislation is up for a hearing Tuesday in the Senate Government Operations Committee.
It's not clear how a state law on this topic might play out in a federal bankruptcy court."

Report shows Michigan schools only graduating 52 percent of special education students

Report shows Michigan schools only graduating 52 percent of special education students | MLive.com:
"An annual report of special education performance in Michigan shows that only about 52 percent of special-needs students are graduating with high school diplomas."

25 Facts That Make Chicago The Most Depressing Big City In America

Chicago Is The Worst American City - Business Insider

Michigan Republicans About to Raise Your Taxes? Yes, They Are Unless You Stop Them

Michigan Republicans About to Raise Your Taxes? Yes, They Are Unless You Stop Them:
"They could be voted out to the floor Wednesday. Please contact Representatives Kowall and VerHeulen and tell them to reconsider their legislation.
Let them know you do not favor this additional burden on thousands of small business owners and consumers in this state."

'Whites need not apply' at D.C. labor board?

Op-Ed: 'Whites need not apply' at D.C. labor board? | WashingtonExaminer.com:
"Harris said he was "rebuked" by Wasserman for hiring white male employees despite the fact that no challenge was ever made by the board members to their professional "qualifications, competency, or efficiency."
In fact, Wasserman told Harris to "refrain from hiring white men" in the future to fill open attorney slots, according to Harris."

Social Security Faces $9.6T in Unfunded Liabilities--$83,894 Per Household

Social Security Faces $9.6T in Unfunded Liabilities--$83,894 Per Household | CNS News:
"The Social Security program faces $9.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years, which is up $1 trillion from last year’s projection of $8.6 trillion, according to the latest report from Social Security’s board of trustees."