Michigan's Stimulus Package

Link to official document for President's approval forthcoming.
(semi-related: http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/deal_near_on_economic_stimulus.html)

In case you're interested in seeing (in a very general, not very helpful way) where our stimulus money is going, I've attached the plan our Senators (MI) sent to our president today, in the hopes that he'd grace the bill with his mighty pen and let the floodgates open--COME, GREEN!

I wonder if the descriptions listed indicate the level of thought and planning that went into the actual project proposals. If so (which is my suspicion) 'might help explain why money's not used very efficiently in this country, especially on the governmental level. On that note:

You'll be delighted to learn that the Upper Peninsula interoperability radio communications consortium--the Midwest's front line of defense against northern aggressors--is getting $500,000 from the Michigan stimulus package.

Inside sources say the old radio system picked up whispered messages from a snow bunker in a 200-year-old white pine forest in Canada about an upcoming invasion, but the UP antenna was so bent that our dutiful American protectors (Michigan Militia, Communications Unit?) were unable to hear when this invasion from the Great White North was to take place, even after holding a large conch shell to the speakers.

Mike Mahoney said, "I couldn't hear nothing but quail-calls, clinking beer bottles, and the faraway sound of a grizzly, a coyote, a narwhal, and a moose, all serenading the moon in harmony as they practiced for the Great White North Animal A Capella Competition. [Tomorrow at noon p.m. central eastern western time on GreatWhiteNorthLocalAccess.] Mahoney added: "Oh. And the ocean. I could hear the ocean too."

Just hours after giving this interview, Mr. Mahoney was found dead in a lodge in Houghton, UP, his head severely dented by what appear to be hoof prints, "Likely caribou," says animal-crime forensics expert, Dirk Disraeli.

If you fear Canada as much as I do (i.e. almost as much as I fear Gandalf after one of his 3-day benders--crazy wizard!), you know just how important this new system is. Think of the children for crissakes!


Meanwhile, at a press conference with democratic Michigan Senator, Senator Shingle, we learn:

Sustainable agriculture--a backwards concept if there ever was one--gets zilch. "Sustainable?" you ask. 'Sounds scary. Shingle thinks so too:

"If we're sustainable, what excuses will we have to ask for millions in cleanup projects that we give to our contracting buddies? How could we continue to fellate our benefactors in industrial agriculture," wonders Senator Shingle (D-Michigan).

"Hundreds of thousands of vegetable consumers would suddenly stop ingesting inorganic compounds that industrial agriculture pumps into produce, and these consumers might develop fewer health problems--what of the field of medicine?"

"Thousands of pharmaceutical jobs could be lost!" Shingle asserts, pounding his fists on the podium. :Research jobs employing hundreds in the interests of finding solutions to preventable problems will fall away like so many lice off a drowning dog."

"And if sustainable practices were to become the norm," Senator Shingle continues, in his rhetorical quest for the truth, "we might stop thinking of nature as the enemy! But obviously, if we're to be a unified state (and the best country in the universe), we need to have a common villain, and who better than that bitch, Nature?

"And anyway, who farms these days?" Shingle asks. "Why would anybody want to when we all know that food automatically grows in the grocery store [that's why it's called the GROcery store--duh!])"

So why is all of this important?

I answer you thus: For the above-mentioned reasons (which Senator Shingle has so astutely pointed out to the public), and so many more, the entire state of Michigan will receive a whopping $266,000 to go toward the development of sustainable agriculture. This money has already been assigned to cover the costs associated with the creation of a few upscale parks in northern Oakland County. The parks will be equipped with solar-panel-powered lighting and one tomato plant each. Nice, Michigan. Way to be.


Love to all,

Aaron

P.S. This message was supported by Lucky's Kitchen, a quaint little restaurant dedicated to providing cheep, mysteriously addictive "Chinese Food" to hungry college students and construction workers all over the Ann Arbor metropolitan area (read: within a 5 block radius of the Diag). Without Lucky's, I wouldn't feel nearly as lucky as I do right now.

P.P.S For more information on the UP interoperatbility radio communications consortium (which isn't even what it's called), go here.