Bridge Feed- Urban farm plan reels in cash, tilapia
- Ethnic media alliance pushes stories of success, provides community leadership
- Michigan goes hard after student loan defaulters
- State takes cautious approach to freight hub proposals
- Land O Links
- Guest column: Student loan debt is next big bubble
- Half the investment on colleges means a full measure of trouble for Michigan
- Report: Michigan’s license ‘burden’ is above average
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Author Archives: Derek Melot
Land O Links
“If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest” — Benjamin Franklin, who did a few things in the 18th century.
* Kurt Metzger and his team at Data Driven Detroit have been busy indeed with the wealth of [...]
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100,000 Michigan kids still lack health insurance
Imagine a city somewhere between the size of Lansing (114,000) and Sterling Heights (129,000). Imagine this city is populated only by children. Imagine every single one of these children lacks basic health insurance.
That’s the reality in Michigan, says a health expert engaged in a campaign to get tens of thousands of uninsured children signed up [...]
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Land O Links
“There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge” – British author and mathematician Bertrand Russell.
* Muskegon County looks for cuts in spending. “The proposed budget anticipates $42.9 million in revenues for 2012, the lowest in at least six years and $1.3 million less than the current projection for 2011.”:
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2011/08/muskegon_county_proposes_healt.html
* In Schoolcraft Co;unty in [...]
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Land O Links
“It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge” – atomic physicist Enrico Fermi.
* Our friend Kurt Metzger takes the positive approach to home values in Detroit — there are bargains aplenty for buyers:
http://detroitdataguru.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/metro-detroit-real-estate-great-deals-in-a-great-area/
* Another survey in Michigan, this of the general public, finds unhappiness with [...]
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Prison industries: plenty of staff, losses
A division of the state prison system designed to teach inmates trades — and produce everything from furniture to mops to, yes, license plates — continues to run annual deficits, owes the state general fund nearly $9 million and employs fewer prisoners — apparently due to consolidations in operations undertaken to cut costs and improve [...]
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Survey: Local government officials short on optimism
A new survey out of the University of Michigan found that only 32 percent of leaders of local governments in the state see Michigan heading in the right direction. Half, meanwhile, see the state on the wrong track.
“These views are strongly associated with partisan identification, with officials who identify themselves as Democrats more likely to [...]
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Land O Links
“Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used till they are seasoned” — 19th century American author Oliver Wendell Holmes.
* Grand Rapids is among the top 10 best places to relocate, according to an annual list compiled by RelocateAmerica. Ann Arbor also was noted among the top 100 places to relocate:
http://www.relocateamerica.com/top-100-cities/index.cfm
* The Michigan Campaign Finance Network [...]
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Land O Links
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them” — writer — and muttonchops lover — Isaac Asimov.
* MSN selects Kalamazoo-Portage as one of its “10 Best Places for Starting Over.” “MSN Real Estate and Local Market Monitor selected 10 midsize to large cities with the best job prospects [...]
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Where did that road sign come from?
In March, facing a $1.4 billion deficit for the coming budget year and an executive budget proposal that fundamentally altered state policy on business taxes, pension taxes and education funding, the Michigan Senate found time to state that, yes, Mark Ingram was a darn good running back — and student — for the University of [...]
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