Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

 Rick Snyder is running for governor of Michigan. Here is some of his campaign rhetoric from his website: "It's time we reinvent state government so that it runs efficiently and serves its citizens as customers. Rick wants to restore ethics, accountability and transparency to state and local government. Rick believes we need a new approach to governing that is not politically motivated , but solution oriented. Rick wants to replace an antiquated bureaucracy with a government that gives taxpayers results for their tax dollars." We are supposed to believe Rick ain't politically motivated, right? How can I possibly believe that someone who spent 6 MILLION of his personal fortune in the PRIMARY election for a job that pays $177,000.00 plus expenses a year? He spent 33.89 times his potential annual salary on the primary election - does that make any BUSINESS sense to anyone? Does that make any common sense to anyone? Does that make any fiscal sense to anyone? Nope...

For the last three years our HS football team has been a catalyst for fighting cancer on a local level. For one day the Lowell Red Arrows become Pink Arrows. The seed planted by Coach Dean has grown into a community wide fund raising extravaganza. http://www.pinkarrowpride.org/index.html All manner of fund raising takes place from gas stations to coffe shops. Thousands of Pink Arrow t-shirts are sold and the community rallies. The cool part is that some 60-65% of the money raised stays right here to help local families with members who are battling cancer. This video done by staff members at the high school is a good indication of the support for this effort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c9ODFloTL0 This kind of thing is why we encouraged our son and daughter in law to move out here and why we helped our daughter to start a coffee shop in Lowell. It is a great community.

Is there no end to the political divide in this country? Does everything have to have a spin doctored by whomever is making or refuting a point by filtering information through their political agenda? Glenn Beck had a rally a few days ago and claimed hundreds of thousands of attendees. Beck claimed a minimum of 300,00 to maybe as high as 650,000. Michelle Bachmann chimed in with certainty that there were over a million people there based on the fact the she was there. NBC news used the number 300,000 citing "an unnamed Park Service person" and the New York Times just ran with the NBC number. NPR took the "safe" route and went with "tens of thousands". (Don't you love it when the media giants cite each other as sources - saves all that pesky research!) CBS News hired two experts to analyze airial photos taken by cameras on tethered balloons.One came up with 80,000 and another with 87,000 people with a plus or minus factor of 9,000 - so there could hav...