Complaint re; C. Joseph Schwedler

The following document and exhibits was mailed to Michigan's
Judicial Tenure Commission on Friday, March 26, 2010. It is
my understanding that there are other complaints against this
judge. If you have such a complaint it behooves you to file it as
soon as possible. If you would like a copy of the entire document
on a CD in the pdf format, please contact me and I'll make sure
you get one. If you are out of the Iron County area, please send a
6" X 9" SASE (postage paid) envelope to PO Box 195, Stambaugh
MI and I'll put a CD in it and mail it back.

=========================================

State of Michigan
Judicial Tenure Commission
)
)
William J Vajk ) Iron County Trial Court Case
Plaintiff ) I08-3982-CZ
)
v. )
)
C. Joseph Schwedler )
Defendant )




Table of Contents



Complaint (this document, everything else listed below is attached)

Case I-08-3982-CA Defendant’s Motion for Summary Disposition Exhibit A

File I-08-3982-CZ Transcript dated February 26, 2009 Exhibit B

File I-08-3982-CZ ORDER dated April 30, 2009 Exhibit C

Case I-08-3982-CZ Plaintiff’s MCR 2.003 Post Denial Pleading Exhibit D

File I-08-3982-CZ Transcript dated June 5, 2009 Exhibit E

Act 442 of 1976 FOIA Exhibit F

Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct Exhibit G

Complaint

Now comes the Plaintiff William J. Vajk and complains of the defendant
C. Joseph Schwedler as follows:

1) Judge C. Joseph Schwedler allowed a political/social
relationship to influence judicial conduct. Schwedler
allowed his political connections to litigant Archocosky
to influence his judicial conduct.

In line 6 on page B3 of Exhibit B defendant Schwedler acknowledges
he knows John Archocosky on sight by deciding to wait, instead of
the proceeding as scheduled, for Archocosky’s arrival in the
courtroom. This is a small county with residency approximating
13,000 souls, and litigant, in the underlying case, Archocosky has
been a political figure in Iron County for a long period of time and
the two men have reason to know one another on that basis. While
this wait was, in Plaintiff’s opinion, ill advised, it serves only to
unequivocally demonstrate the two men know one another.

Litigant, in the above captioned case, John Archocosky, through
his attorney Susan MacGregor, made an admission on pages A19
(bottom of litigant’s boxed Exhibit near the middle of the page)
and again on page A25 (the penultimate line on the page) of
Exhibit A that John Archocosky sent email to plaintiff stating
his assumption of responsibility for city documents by stating,
“Please direct any future FOIA correspondence to me.” Please
see MCR 2.11 G (2).

Beginning with Line 25 on Page B11 through line 22 on Page B12,
during a hearing before Judge Schwedler on February 26, 2009,
Plaintiff alleged with great specificity litigant Archocosky’s
responsibility for asserting control over all documents requested
from the City of Iron River.

Later, defendant Schwedler, in line 23 of page B19 of Exhibit B,
states that “There is no allegation that Mr. Archocosky is the
person who was even in charge of these records.”

In light of the facts, as presented to the court with such abundant
clarity, C. Joseph Schwedler purposely and with thought aforehand
violated Canon 2C in rendering his verdict conflicting with the
evidence presented before and during the court hearing of
February 26, 2009 over which he presided.

2) Judge C. Joseph Schwedler failed to observe the law.
Schwedler substituted his personal opinion in place of
MCL 15.231 et seq.

In line 10 on page B3 of Exhibit B defendant Schwedler states,
“There’s no requirement to create a document….” as applies
to the statute, Act 442 of 1976 as amended, underlying the
lawsuit about which Schwedler was conducting a hearing. The
statute, in MCL 15.233 (4) clearly states that “This act does
not require a public body to make a compilation, summary,
or report of information except as required in section 11.”
Please see page F5 of Exhibit F, 15.241 (1) and (1)(c). For
further clarity I cite the following authorities regarding
interpretation of this statute:

“When interpreting a statute, we look first to the
language of the statute and give the words used
their plain and ordinary meaning.” DiBenedetto v
West Shore Hosp, 461 Mich 394, 402;
605 NW2d 300 (2000). “If the statutory language
is unambiguous, appellate courts presume that the
Legislature intended the meaning plainly expressed
and further judicial construction is neither permitted
nor required.” Atchison v Atchison, 256 Mich App 531,
535; 664 NW2d 249 (2003), citing DiBenedetto, supra.


The referenced MCL and its Section 11 were, at all pertinent
times, apposite in the matter being adjudged where
Schwedler held in opposition to established law.
C. Joseph Schwedler purposely and with thought
aforehand violated Canon 3A(1).

3) Judge C. Joseph Schwedler has failed to perform the
duties of office impartially and diligently. Schwedler
substituted his self-serving personal opinion in lieu of
observing MCR 2.003.

Plaintiff/litigant moved for a hearing, scheduled for May 13, 2009,
to vacate judgment and to disqualify Judge Schwedler. MCR 2.003
contains no restriction on when, during proceedings, that motion
may be brought. Exhibit C depicts the order issued by defendant
Schwedler canceling the hearing. C. Joseph Schwedler thereby
purposely and with thought aforehand violated MCR 2.003 and
Canon 3B(1)

Subsequently Plaintiff/litigant moved in a post denial pleading
scheduled for hearing June 5, 2009, that the court comply with
MCR 2.003(C)(3) as is shown in Exhibit D. On the appointed
date, C. Joseph Schwedler refused to hear the motion as he
stated as depicted in the transcript in Exhibit E. C. Joseph
Schwedler purposely and with thought aforehand violated
MCR 2.003(C)(3) and Canon 2(A) and Canon 3B(1).

Summation.

Plaintiff William J. Vajk understands the duty of the Judicial
Tenure Commission is not to retry the case which I did not
take to appeal because the monetary values involved are too
small when considering the costs of an appeal. Instead, the
undersigned maintains that C. Joseph Schwedler, during the
course of the case underlying this complaint, conducted
himself in violation of the laws of the State of Michigan,
of Michigan Court Rules, and the Judicial Canons of Conduct
as described above and in ways that the Judicial Tenure
Commission may discover for itself should the commission
decide to review the entire case. I add that there are many
additional possible causes for complaint in what is a small
case both in money and in scope, but I have limited my
participation in this process by formalizing only the elements
I personally consider most egregious. The entire purpose of
this complaint to the Judicial Tenure Commission is to seek
disciplinary proceedings against C. Joseph Schwedler with
the requested outcome being his removal from office as a
person not qualified to sit upon the judicial bench in a
Michigan Court.

Respectfully Submitted,

_______________________________
William J. Vajk

Why Aren't Iron County Roads Built Better?

Recently I took FFH16 to Phelps and found to my
dismay that the roadway is already failing
although it hasn't been that long since it was
rebuilt.

Other than the general bumpiness that indicates
to e that the road bed was poorly done, there
are two places marked with a sign that indicates
a "DIP."

Neither is actually a dip unless the road commission
means that the pavement is still there in a hole,
a condition that promises not to last very long.
Each of the spots, if driven over at the speed limit,
is definitely a jarring experience.

Here's a photo of the worse one.



The question is, why is any new road so poorly
built that it begins to fail within a few years
of use? We know what the weather in this part
of the world is like in the wintertime. Do we
not spend enough money on these roads to assure
that they are properly built? Is it not enough
money being spent, or is it carelessness that
allows substandard construction.

Bill Vajk

Upcoming Events for April 2010

These dates were forwarded to am and I'm republishing
them without further ado. They're mostly Tea Party and
or conservative events. For information about liberal,
progressive, or Democrat events, please visit Yahoo's
IronCountyVoice hosted by our associate editor Ben Smith.

These events will be updated as they are submitted.

======================================
4/8/2010 Tea Party Express III in Ironwood at 6:30 pm.
Not sure of site

4/9/2010 Tea Party Express III in Escanaba at noon.
Not sure of site

4/9/2010 Tea Party Express III in the Soo 5-8 pm
at Bud Weber Park, 600 Ashmun

4/11/2010 Chippewa County Reagan Day Dinner
Featuring Dan Benishek who is running for the
seat Bart Stupak is about to lose.

4/11/2010 Walker Cisler Center, LSSU, Sault S...

Chippewa County Reagan Day Dinner - UPDATED

Type: Party - Dinner Party

Date: Sunday, April 11, 2010

Time: 2:00pm - 6:00pm

Location: Walker Cisler Center - Lake Superior State
University

Description
The 12th Annual Chippewa County Reagan Day Dinner

FEATURED SPEAKER - Jim Jacobson, Former Reagan
Adviser (complete bio below)

April 11, 2010 - 2:00 PM

$25 per person


more info and details to follow.
______________________________________________
Confirmed Candidates:

Terri Lynn Land - Bouchard for Governor

Daniel Benishek - 1st District US Congress

Linda Goldthorp - 1st District US Congress

Tom Stillings - 1st District US Congress

Rep. Paul Scott - SOS Candidate

Howard Walker - 37th MI Senate

Frank Foster - 107th MI House

Michael Patrick - 107th MI House

Alex Strobehn - 107th MI House



______________________________________________
BIO Mr Jim Jacobson:

* Jim Jacobson, President and Founder of Christian
Freedom International, has assisted the persecuted
church in many restricted countries around the world.
He has faced personal danger to deliver Bibles to
underground churches in China, care packs to
families in the brickyards of Pakistan, and medical
aid to refugees in the war zones of Burma
.
* Mr. Jacobson has testified and conducted
briefings before Congress, the White House
and the State Department on behalf of
Christians who are persecuted for their
faith each year.

* At the invitation of First Lady Laura Bush,
Mr. Jacobson participated in The Dialogue
on Burma, a roundtable discussion conducted
during the September 2006 U.N. General
Assembly that allowed activists and
government officials to speak openly about
the severe humanitarian crisis that has
plagued Burma for decades.

* Before founding CFI, Mr. Jacobson served
as a policy analyst in the Reagan White House,
a political appointee in the George Herbert
Walker Bush administration, and was a senior
legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate. He is
also Vice-President and Co-Founder of the
National Right to Read Foundation, an
organization dedicated to phonics-based
reading instruction in elementary schools
throughout America.

* Mr. Jacobson has also been a frequent guest
on radio talk shows and has appeared on
numerous television programs, including 60
Minutes, Fox News, and The 700 Club.

* Mr. Jacobson is a graduate of the University
of Michigan. He and his wife Karen have 12
children, 8 of whom have been adopted from
Burma, and have been married for more than
20 years.

Central PLanning 101

Over the years I've touted the teachings of
F. A. Hayek and his discourse on central planning
in a book titled "The Road to Serfdom" that was
originally published in the US in 1944 although
it previously took him 3 years (1940-43) to write
it. Once ready for publication it was difficult
to find a US publisher, although once released it
found two additional homes, one as a serial in
the Reader's Digest and another as a comic strip
publication published by Look Magazine. Please
see mises.org/books/TRTS

An abridged version of the book is available online
at jim.com/hayek.htm

Hayek shared a Nobel prize in 1974 for his work
and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 1991, the year before he died.

Obviously Hayek was a strong critic of central
planning, the antithesis of free market capitalism.
In 1994 Milton Friedman wrote an introduction to
the edition released that year, and heavily quoted
his introduction to a 1971 German edition of
the same book.

Friedman discussed the time bound elements that
put a hard stop to the march towards collectivism
and central planning in the immediate post WW2
period in Germany, England, and the USA. The UK
had gotten so far as to have the government
assign people to occupations, an idea that found
no place in the post war period.

"Unfortunately, the check to collectivism did not
check the growth of government; rather it diverted
its growth to a different channel. The emphasis
shifted from governmentally administered activities
to indirect regulation of supposedly private enter-
prises and even more to governmental transfer
programs, involving extracting taxes from some in
order to make grants to others--all in the name of
equality and the eradication of poverty, but in
practice producing an erratic and contradictory
melange of subsidies to special interest groups.
As a result, the fraction of the national income
being spent by governments has continued to mount."

That brings us to the present day with the
congressional passage of Obamacare. All of Friedman's
step by step description of how the UK grew
government in the post WW2 period is now happening
in the USA at an advanced rate. In the end, it will
be wall to wall central planning and collectivism by
the US government if Obama et troupe aren't stopped
promptly.

"This is what change looks like." B. Obama 3/22/2010

Bill Vajk

The Selling of America

"LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European aerospace group
EADS said Friday that it may rejoin the competition
for the U.S. Air Force aerial-refueling tanker
contract after the Pentagon gave indications
that it would extend the time needed to submit
a bid.

"The European company, which lost its chance to
win the contract when its U.S. partner,
Northrop Grumman Corp. pulled out earlier this
month, called the development a "positive sign"
that the Defense Department is seeking competition.

"The Airbus parent said it is 'assessing' the
new situation to determine whether it can submit
a bid, though it reiterated its concern that the
program requirements still clearly favor 'a
smaller, less capable aircraft.'

"Northrop spokesman Randy Belote said the defense
company is not considering re-entering the bidding
contest.

"In a strange twist, United Aircraft, an aerospace
group formed by the Russian government in February
2006, plans to jump into the bidding. Citing a
U.S.-based lawyer for UAC, The Wall Street Journal
reported the aerospace firm plans to announce a
joint venture with a small U.S. defense contractor
on Monday."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pentagon-may-extend-tanker-dealine-2010-03-19?dist=afterbell

Perhaps the United States has forgotten the French
government's gigantic error after WWI when France
contracted with a German firm to design and build
the "Maginot Line." When the German decision was
made to invade France during WW2, Hitler summoned
the builders who showed up with not only the
plans, but also the specifications for cannons
required to breach the fortifications at various
points.

Similarly, Czechoslovakia copied the French
fortifications when building their own, so Hitler
had sufficient information for his purposes about
another border.

For these, and other more or less obvious reasons,
the USA needs to internalize all military
purchases. Given our unemployment picture, why
not give the project to Detroit based firms that
did such a great job during WW2?

Bill Vajk

Where Are They?

The question arose today, why is is that all those
people supposedly in favor of Obamacare have not
put on some demonstrations to drive their point
home?

The answer is obvious. There isn't anyone in that
camp that cares enough to make public statements
about their viewpoint let alone to put on a
public demonstration.

Get a clue, congress!

Bill Vajk

Michigan calls for a Constitutional Convention

As this year is one of the windows of opportunity
to revise the Michigan constitution, there are calls
to do just that.

Having read the existing document I feel that the
current version is well thought out and should not
only be left alone, but ought to be enforced.

Two examples spring to mind.

The Michigan Supreme Court has been violating the
existing constitution since the 1990's by appointing
(presently) six judges to positions to which they
have not been elected, in violation of Article VI, § 27:

"Sec. 27. The supreme court, the court of appeals, the
circuit court, or any justices or judges thereof, shall
not exercise any power of appointment to public office
except as provided in this constitution."

The Headlee Amendment to the constitution prohibits the
imposition of taxes that have not been approved by the
electorate. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula most of the
municipal governments providing water bill what is
euphemistically called a "readiness to serve" charge
to properties that have their water shut off by the
municipality for any number of reasons. They try to make
believe it is a legitimate fee, but no service is being
provided and in some cases disconnection from the the
municipal water system is prohibited by ordinance.

For details of what constitutes a legitimate fee I
recommend reading the Bolt v. City of Lansing. The
court there spells out the factors that distinguish
a legitimate fee from a tax. The readiness to serve
charge fails those tests.

There are many, in this day of financial difficulties,
who would strip all taxpayer protections from the
Michigan Constitution, or introduce such changes as
would make those protections presently in place
meaningless.

The constitution, as it presently stands, is much more
than good enough. What we need is much better
enforcement of its terms.

Bill Vajk

Regressive Eastern Block Mentality in Washington

I published this a few days ago at
www.world-discussion.blogspot.com
It needs to be considered a local issue as well.

=======================================================

How would you like to put down a 50% deposit for a new
car that the manufacturer promises to deliver to you in
3 years, then pay the balance at delivery? That's the
way business was done in the Eastern Block from 1950
through 1990.

Obamacare is a lot like that too. The administration
expects us to embrace a pay now and maybe take
delivery later scheme just like they used to do with
cars in the eastern block under the soviet system.

It is interesting to me that our government has taken
a page out of the soviet play book and wants to impose
it here in the USA. As I've written elsewhere, if you
want to understand Washington today, you have only to
look at European Communist political antics of the
20th century. It seems to me it is coming here because
the average US citizen has a poor understanding about
how government is supposed to work, and our modern
day communists and socialists have usurped the formerly
positive word "progress" that they misuse in the name
of their political movement that they call "progressive."

It isn't progressive at all, the real name should now be
regressive because they're attempting to resurrect
failed political imperatives. One definition states that
insanity is doing the same thing over again while
expecting a different outcome. That's been attributed
to Einstein, though whoever said it first was right.

Please don't get me wrong. I favor having the government
empowered to establish a fair and reasonable framework
of regulation within which business, inventiveness, and
entrepreneurship can flourish, but Obamacare has no place
in that scheme and must be rejected out of hand.

Please give this some thought. If we can only get 7 years
of coverage for 10 years of premiums then what of the
second 10 years? What gets cut then? Obamacare is a
downward spiral into an economic hell designed to
economically destroy the USA. Couple that with the cap
and trade that Obama and his regressives want to
impose and the overall scheme becomes a lot more
obvious.

Bill Vajk

--
Posted By Bill Vajk to World Discussion at 3/13/2010 09:08:00 AM
==================================================

Cult Of Personality; Issue Revisited

As you get on the highway to leave O'Hare Airport,
there's a large sign in the median that welcomes
you to Chicago, and has the current Mayor's name
in huge letters at the bottom. You're barely out
of the airport, and you've already come face to
face with one of the many manifestations of the
cult of personality that pervades that great
metropolis.

(When Gloria and I moved to Chicago in 1974 we
thought of it as a cow town, when compared to
the New Your metropolitan region.)

I saw the sign first when I arrived to Chicago
in 1974, and through all the mayors who ran the
city from then till 2003 when I moved to Iron
County permanently, the name always changed
within 24 hours after a new mayor took office.
Summer or winter, stormy weather or no, it,
and the City Hall stationery, were the first
things changed. The political culture in Chicago
thinks it that important.

This subject came up again as it relates to Iron
County because I had occasion to visit Marquette
Hospital's "Hospitality Suite" recently. I
noticed that the wall decor includes 14 road
maps of various counties and municipalities in
the region.

By far the largest map, possibly 6+ times as large
as the next largest, of course, is the one put
out by the Iron County Road Commission. The
Hospital thought enough of this decorative scheme
to frame the maps and put them behind a protective
layer of plastic.



As I looked at them all, the fact jumped out at me
that out of 14 maps on the walls, only six had the
names of the members of the political body in
charge of publication. Naturally Iron County was
one of those, the cult of personality is here and
doing well despite the continuing economic decline.



This, of course, is the poverty version of a cult of
personality because the name that appears at the top
of the list is John Archocosky who has not been on
the road commission for some time now. It is as
though the City of Chicago had decided to stop
putting new mayoral names on their O'Hare Airport
sign welcoming you to Chicago. I'm almost surprised
that a road commission worker wasn't dispatched to
Marquette General to replace the map once Archokosky
was no longer on the road commission. Perhaps they'll
do that now, since I have brought it to their attention.

Which brings up the next question, when will Iron
River place signs along US2 welcoming folks to Iron
River in the mayor's, or perhaps the city manager's,
name?

When any new areas are developed in the region, will
streets be named after the current crop of Iron County
politicos?

Bill Vajk

Finance Conditions Improving?

Yesterday I received an offer from one of
my credit card/banking providers that has
me wondering if there's a strong improvement
in the finance industry. It arrived in email.
I've removed the company name because I'm not
shilling for them.

"Want a quick and easy way to save? Transfer your
higher-rate balances to your XXXXXXX account,
and they'll stay at a low 0% APR for 12 months
after the first transfer posts to your account.
After that, your APR will be the same as your
purchase rate.

"Keep in mind, you'll pay a transaction fee of 2%
on each balance."

Recently Bank of America offered transfers at 4%
and low (1.9% and 4.9%) interest rates for 3 and
6 months, depending on the interest charged.

Then, this morning I received another offer, but
for banking, from the same company, if I opened
a banking account with them:

"*APY in effect as of March 4, 2010. 1.45% APY
applies to account balances of $2,500 or more.
0.00% APY applies to balances less than $2,500.
Rates are variable and may change at any time.
Minimum deposit required to open the account
is $2,500."

I have 2 data points so far, but they look
promising. I'll report if this becomes a trend,
with other companies following suit.

Bill Vajk

Constitutional Violations by Local Governments

It looks like I'll be writing a series, over a
longer time period, about how local governments
are violating the US Constitution as a matter
of routine, counting on the fact that individuals
will not group together to sue the governmental
body.

The present day case is that of Bates Township
and the decisions of their board not to allow
new hookups in some areas of the township where
water service already exists.

"Konoske’s demonstration followed a discussion
on the condition of the water lines at U.S. 2
near Andreski Plat Road. There are patches
upon patches, Township Supervisor Grant Helgemo
said, and the township needed to decide about
starting to abandon some of the water lines.

"'We should start thinking about giving notice
to the residents,' he said. Last month, the
board decided not to allow any new waterline
hookups on Bates-Amasa Road from the Perry
residence to the Paint River bridge, as well
as along U.S. 2 from Helgemo Road through the
half-mile of Krans Road."

The above is quoted from the Iron County Reporter
of 2/17/2010

"Because they can" our elected representatives have
been ignoring the US Constitution's Equal Protection
Clause which assures that citizens will all be treated
equally by government. Providing water service to some,
but not to others, within the territory administered
by a municipal government is a clear violation.

How would it be if people with some addresses in the
county received tickets for traffic violations, while
their neighbors got a pass from the police for the
same exact violations? Consider the simple case of
odd and even numbered addresses. Let's say all even
numbers get tickets, and odd numbers do not?

Let's say that one side of the street gets garbage
collection by the municipality, while the other does
not?

Bates township happens to be the municipality in the
news today. They're not alone. Similar things have
already been done by Iron River Township, with more
similar conduct looming on the horizon, and also by
Stambaugh Township. I've probably left out some in
the east end of the county, but I haven't been keeping
up with their activities.

Bear in mind that once a municipality determines they
will not, for whatever reasons they select, provide
water to some given address or another, the minimum
cost to the property owner these days runs from
$7000 (seven thousand dollars) upwards. There may
be some people in the US who consider that to be
chickenfeed, but not many.

Bill Vajk

Retail Products - eggs

Part of the fun of living is observing and figuring
out things that aren't quite so obvious. A few years
back, while living in Illinois, I bought and weighed
two dozen eggs, one large and one extra-large carton.

The weight difference at that time was 1 ounce for
the entire dozen, and I stopped then and there
buying the extra-large eggs.

A few weeks ago I weighed eggs from Angeli's Central
Market with the following results:

Extra-large dozen 26.4 oz
per egg 2.2 oz

Large dozen 24.4 oz
per egg 2.0 oz

Medium dozen 22.0 oz
per egg 1.8 oz

By weight of product, if medium eggs cost $ 1.00, then the
relative value for large eggs is $ 1.11 and for extra-large the
relative value is $ 1.20.

Looks like I'll be buying the medium labeled eggs, as the best
value, for a while.

Oh, I probably should mention that we are working on some
other political stories, they just aren't ripe for publication
as yet.

Bill Vajk

Iron River City Workers 2/24/2010

I was about town yesterday and noticed that the
city workers were taking down the Christmas, oops
in Iron River that's called Holiday, decorations that
they installed on the lamp posts last fall.

It all seemed normal enough to me, as I sat and
watched them for a short while, till they began
to move to the next position.

As you can see from the photo, the lead truck
is driving down the street with an employee
still in the bucket. This scene would make any
safety oriented supervisor soil his pants. Moving
a truck while a worker is in the bucket is among
the worse of the no-no's in private industry as
well as government departments.



The balance sheet shows that the city workers got
the installation of the banner across US2 right
after the cables were fixed some months ago after
a written complaint by Iron County Doings to the
city.



So the public works department placed the entire
city at risk through a dangerous practice on one
day, but properly earned their keep another. The
city needs to change that ratio to every day being
a 100% safe day.


Bill Vajk

What's Happening To Us At The State Level?

But first a note about the national level:

"To understand Washington today, we have only
to look at European Communist antics of the
20th century."

In my travels I have been led to discover a web site
www.michiganvotes.org , a site that lists legislation
that's in the works or recently proposed by our
repcritters. Mike Lahti's data is available at:

http://www.michiganvotes.org/SearchVotes.aspx?EntityID=10879&Keywords=&op=Search

Blogs are available there for your comments on
individual bills.

I'm impressed with Lahti's work overall, but I
don't have the time or energy to look at his
record where it comes to a bunch of state
pension issues for teachers and other employees.

A couple of years ago I briefly met with Mike
Lahti here in Iron River and I gave him a series
of written requests for legislation with the
caveat that I only asked him to consider the
requests, that is, to think about them.

Among the requests was one that's come to the
forefront nationwide, that is, how to define
a "job saved or created." It is now important
to all of us to understand what the expression
means. You'd think it would be an easy thing to
do at the state level IF government were honest.
I haven't been able to find any reference to
such a proposal in Mike Lahti's record. Instead
there's tons of anti-business legislation, one
example from Lahti's voting record page is quoted
below:

"Supported 2009 House Bill 4782 (Enforce RV
dealer "territories" ). Passed in the House
(98 to 5) on April 23, 2009, to impose state
regulation on the terms of commercial
relationships between recreational vehicle
manufacturers, wholesalers, warrantors, and
dealers. The terms of these relationships
are currently voluntary and are the product
of negotiations and contractual agreements
between the parties. The bill would authorize
the state to enforce certain exclusive dealer
'territories' and other commercial relationships,
in a manner similar to regulations which apply
under current law to new car dealers and
manufacturers."

It looks a lot like Mike Lahti and Michigan's House
of Representatives is against free trade, and still
Grandholm et troupe wonder why business avoid
this state like the plague? We need not wonder at
all. State treatment of business forces investors
to look elsewhere.

Here's a partial list of legislation brought to our
attention by the Mackinac Center for Public
Policy.

House Bill 4813 Give state employee benefit increase

Senate Bill 927 Authorize "pension obligation bonds"
for government retiree health benefits

Senate Bill 682 Authorize a bicentennial of the War
of 1812 specialty license plate

House Bill 4577 Increase school employee pensions

House Bill 5233 Allow some state employees to
collect pension check and state paycheck

House Bill 5197 Authorize enhances pension
"early out" for state employees

House Bill 5449 Give $40,000 to some state
employees who retire early

House Bill 4275 Cap government employee health
benefits at national average

Now just where is all this money for state employee
benefits coming from? Our state government can't
seem to get a handle on what it takes to manage a
budget, that is simply you can't spend more than
you take in.

At the same time the state is cutting back on
things like law enforcement and prisons, things
they think the average citizen isn't going to
notice.

The web page michiganvotes.org needs a workout
by the voters of this state.

Bill Vajk

Planning for the Future

Iron County looks like an area that hasn't had
anyone planning for the future in realistic terms.
The only growth here for the past several decades
has been in the negative direction. I've been
watching a series on TV History Channel called
"Life After People." In episode after episode
they demonstrate what will happen to the things
that humanity has built. Literally everything
collapses over time.

Looking around Iron River, such signs are on
us already, and it is happening in an inhabited
community.

In 2006, the City of Iron River participated in
what was then called the Cool Cities project. As
a result a report and plan was prepared by a
consulting firm, some 47 pages of data, information,
and four items on the primary wish list created
from information provided by the people who live
here. The report is available on line at
http://www.ironriver.org/government/cool-cities.htm

I attended one of the evening meetings at City Hall
where, in addition to the discussions, a sincere
sounding request was made for ideas to help the city
progress and grow.

In December 2006 I made my presentation to John
Archocosky for a trolley project that eventually
grew to two phases. The first was to provide public
transportation in the city but to duplicate, in terms
of a trolley system, a railway that resembles, in
operation, a main line railway.

The second phase would have instituted a school for
high school age children to experience railway
operations. Since then several rail accidents have
demonstrated the need for a railroad operations
school, another growth possibility for the proposed
Iron River Trolley.

In the end, the proposal failed because, in my
opinion, those who were the decision makers were
too afraid that their political power would probably
become diluted, and they would no longer enjoy the
prestige they currently held among their similarly
placed peers.

And that, dear reader, is why I have come to accept
the opinion first offered me by a lifetime resident,
that no progress can ever be made here that has even
a remote possibility of threatening the existing
power structure. In fact, it is this same threat that
leads to so many in this county being frightened of
increasing the tourism that is presently probably the
largest single contributor to the local economy. I
have heard it expressed as the fear of any change
(despite the fact the local population voted for a
President who offered nothing other than change.)

I have heard it expressed as a fear that more money
in the community will drive land prices, and thus
existing property taxes, up.

In discussing the problem with one public official
I asked the individual what they thought an improvement
in the local economy and property taxes might to
the income they were being paid by the county. They
hadn't thought about it, but the reality is that with
an overall increase in revenues in all aspects of
private business and local governments, the income of
all those employed by both would necessarily increase
as well.

Consider the fact that the US Government has begun a
railway improvement program in the USA.



http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0128/Obama-s-high-speed-rail-plan-Which-states-get-the-money

A recent article in the Iron Mountain Daily News
discusses the approval of the Madison-Milwaukee
line improvements by the Wisconsin Legislature.

Every region, like Iron County, has been unhappy about
the fact that rail lines have been ripped up and
are no longer available. In most of the civilized
world railways provide the bulk of transport of goods
to all parts of the country. And in some places the trolley
tracks connect to main line railroads and are used at
night to deliver freight cars to make deliveries in
cities and towns.

But this reporter's best guess is that we don't need
to worry about progress in our community because those
in power will see to it that their little fiefdoms
remain undisturbed, and the community can continue to
deteriorate around us so long as they retain their
pecking order among their peers. By all rights, if we
had a few "highly placed folks" wanting progress, we
should be close to having a trolley system in place,
the Middle School would become a Railroad Operations
School, and we could be looking forward to a bright
future for our community.

Bill Vajk

Comments about Page 1-Feb 10, 2009 issue

Looking at the most recent release of the misnamed
Iron County Reporter, I decided there's quite a
bit of content on page 1 that deserves comment.
The issue is Feb 10, 2010.

At the top left of the page is an article headlined
"Stambaugh Township Board OKs salary recommendations."
Sure enough, the board approved a 4% raise for
themselves for the upcoming year if those attending
the annual meeting set for March 3.

This is being done in the face of no senior citizen
in the US achieving any cost of living increase
for Social Security because, according to the
federal government, the US has not experienced a
cost of living increase.

Disgusting, isn't it?

Next comes the EDC's pet project to build a Disk
Golf course adjoining the RV park in Iron River.
Bruce Benkley, a physician assistant at NorthStar
has been appointed the chairman of the committee.
While I disagree that this should be a government
project in the first place and have written about
this issue before, how did the decision to name
Mr. Benkley the chairman come about? Why wasn't
there some public significant discussion about
the position in the first place?

We note that the photo of the group that attended
the meeting about Disk Golf consisted of 5 people,
one of which was Julie Melchiori, our county
Economic Developer, and another was Robert
Rafferty, the Iron County Mine Inspector who was
there because there are some mine shafts in the
immediate vicinity of the proposed course. While
Mrs. Melchiori's estimate of the materials cost
for the course is in the range of $15,000, we
have to wonder what the cost of protecting the
public from mine shafts in the area will run,
and who will pay for that!

We note that with 5 people attending the meeting,
two of them county officials, leaves the total
interest in this project some three individuals.
Considering a county population of 12,800 or
so individuals, the public interest level in
this project is 0.0023%. Even if we say that only
10% of those interested attended the meeting, we
would have am interest level of 0.023% of the
entire population of Iron County, say 30 people.

Is that sufficient reason for the county to expend
the funds and effort to build this facility?

Next is the discussion about the Habitat project
meeting invitation. The newspaper was first
available on Tuesday, February 9th, and the
meeting that's offered for as the public
informational meeting was scheduled for this
evening at 6 PM in Crystal Falls. Two days
notice for an informational meeting is, in
a word, inadequate!

But my real question is, why is any organization
interested in building new houses for the poor in
a community where there are so many vacant,
easily repairable, homes in the county? For
the cost of building one new home we could be
repairing 5, with five poor families reaping the
benefit and future eyesores being brought back
onto the tax rolls, a win win all the way around?

Someone needs to take a deeper look at why a new
home is going to be built in Iron County for
this purpose. If something seems too good to
be true, it usually is, and it would be good to
know in advance whose pockets are going to be
filled by this project. Even if high school
students in a construction trades program were
going to be involved, it seems that it would be
of greatest benefit to rehab several houses
instead of building one from scratch.

Finally, the Iron County Medical Facility is at
the beginning of expansion projects to increase
the number of beds available. We wonder is this
is going to become another construction project
like the NorthStar Hospital expansion that
employed very few people from Michigan, let
alone from Iron County. I am one of those who
believes we live and work in an economic
region that includes parts of Northern Wisconsin,
but it was clear that all the subcontractors
came from a goodly distance away in Wisconsin
because of the convenience of their having a
place in the general contractor's rolodex.

We certainly hope that this project will
represent a turning point in larger construction
projects by making a point of employing as many
local contractors as possible.

Please bear in mind that this entire article
discusses issues arising out of articles only
on the first page of the local weekly "newspaper."
In Iron County we have lots of issues, with no one
bothering to challenge how things are being run
locally. That needs to change. We really need
people to shake things up a bit.

Bill Vajk

Anyone Else?

I received this email from the Emily
Salvette at the Libertarian Party:

=====================================
Ms. Emily Salvette:

My name is Mitch Foster and I, along
with others are in the process of
trying to create a Northern Michigan
University chapter of the College
Libertarians that would also be open
to local community members to participate
in. Is there any way that you could send
me information about local Libertarians
so that I may contact them? Also, if you
could help us in our process that would
be wonderful!

Thank You

Mitch Foster
mifoster@nmu.edu

==========================================

Shall we start our own here in Iron County? I've
mailed the prior articles posted here to Iron
County's P. Ashcraft, county chair of the
Republican Party, and received exactly what I
expected, nothing!

Bill Vajk

Libertarian Party Responds!

Well the Libertarian Party has expressed an
interest in getting things moving here on the
UP. They seek volunteers and organizers. Please
contact them directly but also let me know if
you are undertaking work on behalf of the
Libertarian Party. If you have any problem in
establishing contact please email me.

The Republican party remains silent, as always.
We need conservatives to run for offices, the
more the merrier. Too bad the Republican Party
is intent on continuing the political failures
we're experiencing here in Michigan.


===============================================
Dear Mr. Vajk,

Bill Hall has forwarded your message to me. We
would love to have Libertarian organizations
going on in the UP. In fact, we really want to
find someone to run for State Rep up there! But
we need an organizer (or 20) in the UP...someone
with energy and enthusiasm who can set up
meetings, publicize and conduct them; someone
who is reliable and can build an organization
that will recruit candidates and do what's
necessary to get their names on the ballot.
Bob Black did a great job of this in the past.
Do you know someone like that I can contact?
Attached is our standard information about
starting a local LP group to give you background.
It's how we have to start...

As for working with the Wisconsin LP, the issue
there is if you live in the UP and want to run
for office, you need to run in Michigan and be
nominated through our procedures, which are
mandated by state law. Certainly participating
with the Wisconsin LP for educational and social
events is encouraged if that is more convenient.
I'm not sure where their active groups are, but
here is contact information for the WI state
chair, Ben Olson:

benolson3@gmail.com
chairman@lpwi.org
P.O. Box 20815
Greenfield, WI 53220
800-236-9236
608-963-2285 (cell)

I would be delighted to work with you and/or
others who would like to work for limited
government and greater personal responsibility
through the Libertarian Party. Please let me
know where we can start. Thanks.

Best regards,

Emily Salvette, State Chair
Libertarian Party of Michigan

A Few Points About Conservatism

Last night Sarah Palin's keynote address to the
first national Tea Party convention was aired.
It is a political party, it isn't a political
party, who knows for sure? Nobody knows how this
political movement will evolve. It could simply
embrace political conservatism that lives within
both our primary political parties that exist
today.

But the problem that conservatism has, about
small government, seems to spill over where
organizational skills are concerned.

Sarah Palin advised the Obama White House to
start listening. Unfortunately she failed to
warn the Republican Party, and the conservative
factions within the Democratic Party, to do the
same thing.

But this problem, in terms of Michigan's
conservatives at least, doesn't stop with those
two parties. We also have a Libertarian Party
that's somewhat active downstate, in Michigan's
lower peninsula.

I exchanged some email with Bill Hall, Political
Director of the Michigan Libertarian Party. They
don't seem very interested in the UP because of
the distances from their headquarters. That's the
same reason I won't go to their April 17 meeting
at Brighton, MI. One of the announced purposes of
the meeting is to encourage and assist individuals
who are willing to run for political office this
year.

I then suggested to Bill Hall that since we are in
a much closer proximity to a goodly number of
Wisconsin population centers, perhaps the Michigan
branch of the Libertarian Party should encourage
the organization and merger of UP chapters with
existing groups in Wisconsin. Brighton, Michigan,
is some 498 miles from Iron River. That's further
than Chicago and further than most, if not all,
population centers in Wisconsin.

My best guess is that despite Mr. Hall taking the
matter to the group in charge, I'll not hear back
from him on this matter.

So for all practical purposes, there is no one in
Michigan politics doing anything about conservatism
for the UP. The local Republicans are merely
placeholders, filling out their terms and doing
nothing. I've lived in this area since 2003 and
never have I seen or heard anything in the local
media about the Republican Party save a few people
who simply announced their affiliation when running
for office. The Iron River Township treasurer is an
excellent example.

There was a local meeting or two claiming some
connection to the Tea Party, but other than a few
speeches, (I mentioned one by Dan Stafford earlier)
nothing has been done and there's no continuity.

The dearth of organization in the entire conservative
movement is clear. I'm willing to participate if
we can develop either a Tea Party movement or a
Republican or Libertarian Party with some staying
power here in Iron County. How else can we hope to
vote out and replace those in office who are deadwood?
And it seems we have plenty of standardized yes
voting commissioners and councilmen to get rid of.

We're presently rid of conservative organizations,
and that's a situation that must be remedied if
we're to get out of the economic depression we're
experiencing in Iron County.

Bill Vajk

The Smoking Gun

We spend a lot of time looking for someone holding
the smoking gun that clearly proves guilt. This is
no less true in political circles where understanding
what's actually happening despite purposeful
misdirection by a political party is often very
important. Never in the history of the US has
understanding been more important than today.

Our children are being indoctrinated very much
like German children were during the Third Reich.

Recommended reading for children volunteering for
internship under the "Organizing for America"
program includes the following list:

Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky

The New Organizers, Zack Exley

Stir It Up: Lessons from Community Organizing and
Advocacy, Rinku Sen

Obama Field Organizers Plot a Miracle, Zack Exley,
Huffington Post

Dreams of My Father Chicago Chapters, Barack
Hussein Obama

Alinsky's rules include the following:

1."Power is not only what you have but what the
enemy thinks you have.
   2. "Never go outside the experience of your people.
   3. "Wherever possible go outside of the experience
of the enemy.
   4. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of
rules.
   5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
   6. "A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
   7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
   8. "Keep the pressure on.
   9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the
thing itself.
  10. "Major premise for tactics is development of
operations that will maintain constant pressure
upon the opposition.
  11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it
will break through into its counterside.
  12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive
alternative.
  13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and
polarize it.

Please click here for further information.

Any reasonable reading of Alinsky's rules demonstrates that
dishonesty and deception are acceptable.

"Organizing for America, the successor organization to
Obama for America, is building on the movement that
elected President Obama by empowering communities across
the country to bring about our agenda of change."

If you read Obama's web page by clicking

here

please take notice of the far bottom left corner of the page,
where it states that "Organizing for America is a project of
the Democratic National Committee" and that they're paying for
Obama's web page.

Now if that weren't enough, the National Educational
association jumps on the bandwagon and recommends Alinsky's
books.

www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

Obviously we've found a smoking gun, but who is willing to
do anything about it?

During my pursuit of this story I ran across another web
page that is worth reading.

http://faustasblog.com/

As a warning I need to add that once the radicals who
promote socialism/communism eventually need to get rid
of the very people who put them into power for fear that
activists will eventually turn against their new masters
once they're eventually offended, as they always are.
Typical of that genre was Béla Kuhn, a Hungarian communist,
came to power in 1919. The promises made were all too
familiar when compared to those we're hearing today:

"The Communists also promised equality and social justice."

"In terms of domestic policy, the Communist government
nationalized industrial and commercial enterprises,
socialized housing, transport, banking, medicine,
cultural institutions, and all landholdings of more
than 400,000 square metres."

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hungary

Soon driven out for his failures, Kuhn fled to Moscow
where he was initially welcomed as a hero "come home."
His popularity was short lived as he was soon
assassinated by the Russians. That's the reward
offered by socialists/communists who hold with
Alinsky's other rule, that the end justifies the
means.

Those who forget history are destined to relive it.

Bill Vajk

Progress, page 2

I received the following email in response to
yesterday's article "Progress?".

>Bill : Your going to be very unpopular with
>this kind of column. Have you noticed the
>number of pages in the local media lately?
>Even telephone time has suffered from late
>of participants, both sponsors and callers!

My response:

Popular but screwed is not where I want to be! If
real progress demands unpopularity, then so be it.

Obama said yesterday, in his State of the Union
address, that he's not content to have the US come
in second. How do we achieve as good as second
with a docile population? We'd be lucky to come
in behind all the members of the European Union!

Bill Vajk

Progress?

I received a flier from Congressman Bart Stupak.
It is the usual "I'm wonderful" sort of sheet
we're used to seeing once a year or at least at
election time. There are a few points I want to
comment about because they're so problematic.

"Since February the stimulus bill has created or
retained 1,950 jobs and committed $461 million for
Northern Michigan, according to the recovery.gov
web site."

Here's the problem: The web page has been debunked
by many because a lot of money went to congressional
districts that don't even exist and when pressed,
some of those making claims of "created or saved
jobs" had pulled numbers out of thin air. The
listings that follow are, in my opinion, bogus.

Not covered by the Stupak flier is the automated
weather station that, I believe, was funded by
stimulus money. The photo below shows the only thing
I've found so far attributed to stimulus money in
Iron County. It is located at the northwest corner
of the intersections between US2 and FFH16. Funny,
this has not been reported in the local newspapers
or WIKB, and it qualifies as "feel good news" that
Marian Volek of the Iron County Reporter prefers to
publish.



While on the topic, it seems that our local newsprint
media is, as Karl Marx called religion, "the opiate of
the people" way back in 1843.

It is just plain wrong for a newspaper to sew contentment
in a population that is living in a region where
government corruption is rampant because that only fuels
more corruption and misery. Of course Ms. Volek is only
repeating the "bucket filling" of joy and kindness that's
being presently taught to Stambaugh elementary students
who are in process of being taught to live happily in the
midst of the deceit and corruption that runs rampant in
this region.

Please note this well!

The only road to progress is through discontent.


The individual who is unhappy with working for
others, or on welfare in one of the many available
forms, opens his or her own business. Perhaps it
takes several attempts. I expect that eventually
Rex Angeli, for example, will once again start a
new business.

No, Ms. Volek, more of the same is unacceptable here
in Iron County. We need people, especially those
growing up here to be tomorrow's potential leadership,
to be discontent with how things are. Supporting a
program of "life is great in Iron County" is a
disservice to the community. Christianity teaches us
to love one another, and church or religious training
is where that sort of thing belongs. In the secular
realm, where a newspaper and schools belong, teaching
students to cast a critical eye on life in general
is the only legitimate lesson they should be learning.

Although "trust but verify" is generally attributed
to Ron Reagan, it was actually borrowed from a much
older Russian paradigm, "doveryay, no proveryay." I
think this is the idea that should be taught in Iron
County schools if we want a better life for the children.

Bill Vajk

Climate Change

Climate change and political understandings of it affect all
of us. There's a huge battle between those who, for whatever
reason, believe in what is called Global Warming and those
who are more appreciative of Climate Gate, the name given
to the apparent falsification of data at East Anglia
University that's been used as a basis by former VP Gore
and his followers.

It cost a few million dollars for the US to ship President
Obama to the climate talks recently, and the rest of the to
attend those talks as well as the earlier Kyoto conference
doubtless spent similar amounts and burned plenty of fuel to
get there in the fashion to which they're accustomed. Of
course they would be immune from any resulting energy taxes.
We would be the ones footing that bill.

The entire cap and trade legislation movement used the
falsified data from East Anglia as a foundation to "remake
America" by taxing the dickens out of all energy consumption.
I wonder how they intended to collect taxes on firewood here
in Iron County and many other places around the US? If that
tax were successful the USA would doubtless be denuded of
trees, much like Hati, in a few decades.

It looks like the information found on the NOAA web site,
US Government funded data, is accurate. It shows that while
there's a slight recent upturn in temperatures, those
numbers fall well below the high points during earlier times
when mankind was so sparse of population that our carbon
footprint was less than that of the naturally occurring
forest and meadow fires to say nothing of volcanic activity.

This is probably a good place to start your own investigation:

NOAA data4

Raw numbers going back a few thousand years, based on central
Greenland ice cores can be found at:

click here

The NOAA web page has lots of information for those eager to
understand our climate. I urge everyone to spend a lazy
afternoon perusing the topics available there.

Bill Vajk

For Want of a Nail

Page 1 of the January 16-17, 2010 Iron Mountain
Daily News has an article entitled "Community
colleges soar; Bay West no exception."

The article points out that, "One of the greatest
challenges is the graduation rates at Michigan
community colleges. This is primarily because
too many students arrive without basic math and
reading skills. Bay College is focused on this
and has received federal grant money to support
such areas."

I know this is an old problem, and a national
one, not purely a local UP problem. About 1973,
while I was still living on the east coast, I
undertook a job of teaching at Trenton Technical
Institute in Trenton, NJ, for a brief period. I
had a class of 8 students, primarily Vietnam
veterans who had an interest in bettering
themselves by learning what at that time was
about computers.

Please bear in mind that this was well before
the advent of small personal computers of the
sort you're undoubtedly using to read this text.
Computers, back then, were at the least in large
floor model cabinets called racks, and the
operator hadn't an inkling, usually, of what
was on all those punch cards they fed into the
infernal machine. Computer operator was a simple
clerical job. Programmer was separate, as it is
today. What these fellows in my class were there
to learn was how computers worked with an eye to
maintenance.

At the most elementary level, computers utilize
what is known as Boolean algebra, also known
as Boolean logic. The building blocks for that
are known in the computer biz as gates with names
like AND, OR, NAND, NOR. AND, for example, can
have 2 or more inputs of a high or low state. In
order to get a high state output from an AND gate,
all the inputs must be high.

What I discovered for my class was that not one of
them was able to perform 6th grade arithmetic out
of the workbook my daughter was using in school at
that time. Beyond that, the students weren't very
good at ordinary reading either. Never did any of
these students come to class carrying a newspaper,
or any reading materials other than those required
for class.

How was I supposed to teach these young men, all
in their 20's, to understand elementary electronics,
gates, and logic so they could have at least a
handshake acquaintance with the equipment they said
they wanted to work with? This stuff was nothing
like changing a tire on a car.

And that's the point. Not everyone is destined to
greatness. Not everyone should attend college, no
matter what the dreams and hopes of their parents.
Some people need to stick to changing tires. They're
good at it and it is an honorable job.

My father undertook to teach a neighbor elementary
algebra, something the adult man desired.

A=16 solve 3A=?

The neighbor, after several hours of effort, was
unable to solve this caliber of problem. He was a
perfectly nice man with a home, wife, one child,
and a good job. But he had achieved the highest
level to which he was destined and was unable in
his lifetime to achieve more. There's no dishonor
or disgrace in that. In fact he took pride in his
achievements, as well he should have.

That's the point of this discussion. If everyone
were able to be a rocket scientist we'd have plenty
of those around. There's a reason we don't.

So the trick is to explore one's limits, bump into
them, and do the absolute best one can with such
gifts as your creator has seen fit to bless you
with. Back to Bay College, my question is a simple
one. Why do we need federal grants so that
individuals can learn, in their 20's, how to do the
things we paid for in the 12 years of educational
opportunities already extended to everyone in this
country? If kids are blowing off opportunities for
12 years, why are we, in this time of massive
unemployment, paying for one more time around on
this issue?

We have, in the Iron River community, some individuals
who give their time freely to help those who haven't
learned to read, to read, if they possibly can. In my
experience, such volunteerism works much better than
any government funded initiative where the individual
can "fall through the cracks" again as they managed to
do for 12 years already. I applaud this charitable act
and suggest that if young people want to attend college,
community college or otherwise, that they be required
to come equipped to deal with the necessities. They
should be required to read, write, and do arithmetic,
on at least the 7th grade level before they're
admitted to any college level courses.

College should not be an extended High School. It is
a place for advanced studies, not a repeat of what
went before.

Bill Vajk

Heartless?

Our local Judge Schwedler is heartless when it comes to
imposing fines and penalties. In most jurisdictions in
the United Sates judges make sure that defendants who
owe the court money aren't financially destroyed by the
systems that most of us see as corrections rather than
punishment of the entire family for the father's misdeeds.

From the below referenced web page, Schwedler is quoted:

"It’s really quite simple," explains Administrative Chief
Judge C. Joseph Schwedler of the Iron County Trial Court.
"We expect those who know they will owe money to come to
the court prepared to pay. And we tell them that."

"I was skeptical at first, given the type of defendant
we deal with up here in the Upper Peninsula, where the
economy is not flourishing like it is in other parts of
the state."

(Well he's wrong on all counts in this.)

"Almost immediately, the clerks commented on how much
more traffic there was in their office, with defendants
wanting to satisfy their court debts. When you create
the expectation, the money rolls in."

courts.michigan.gov/scao/resources/standards/cl_section3.pdf

Is this necessary? The people paying the fines and
penalties generally have very little to begin with. Is
the court unnecessarily pushing them into asking for
charity or state support as a consequence? Yes, fines
and penalties must be paid, but does the court system
really need to be irrational about it?

And why wasn't this sort of information provided by the
local newsprint media when it is fresh?

Bill Vajk

Iron County Reporter

The Iron County Reporter has been getting smaller
ever since I've subscribed. Yesterday the renewal
notice came in the mail. The price would be $45
for a year, or $26 for 6 months.

Unfortunately "The Reporter" takes a very narrow
view of what they decide to report.

This academic description comes from the web
page referenced at the end of this posting.

"The Seattle Times asked its readers what they
think a newspaper is for. One reader responded,
'The purpose of the newspaper has always been
to keep people informed of events around the
world as well as those in our backyard...

"Events that directly and indirectly affect us
and the rest of humanity and our planet....The
best newspapers are diligent, unbiased, and serve
no one but their readers, the general public - not
always telling them what they want to know, but
what they NEED to know. If you do these things
wholeheartedly you will offer the reader something
the internet cannot: substance... Do not
underestimate the public.'"

In a nutshell, the local problem is defined.
The Reporter does not fill the unbiased news
reporting niche that the community so badly
needs. It has, instead, become an organ of
local government, a pure propaganda sheet
shilling for the local oligarchy. It is my
opinion that the "independent press" does
not exist in Iron County in the classic
newsprint media.

The Iron County Reporter, in my opinion, is
not worth the price. I'm not renewing a
subscription.

see:
http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2007/03/us_the_purpose_of_a_newspaper.php

Bill Vajk

Why Is Sarah Palin So Despised?

There are probably as many possible answers as there
are people, but a few things that generally don't make
the list are worthy of mention.

First and foremost, the American culture (and a few
European ones as well) doesn't deal very well with
high profile alpha women. The more attractive (and
perhaps Barbi-like) they are the more they're despised
for these characteristics alone.

Combined with the above, Sarah Palin represents a
few more ideals.

She hunts!

She is an active, hands on, participant in the family
fishing business.

She participates in outdoor activities with her snow
machine.

She's a mom, with a childbirth in her 40's.

She's an outspoken conservative.

She's proven an honest politician.

While any one of these factors would be sufficient to
garner a goodly following of jealousy, the confluence
of all of them has led to the response we can plainly
see. Plug the words Palin and despised into your
favorite search engine and you'll see the results for
yourself. I find it interesting that just about all those
outspoken against Sarah Palin focus on one point
or another. They've missed the larger picture that
would make a very interesting study in sociology.

Bill Vajk

How's Your Tolerance for Government Misbehavior?

About a year ago I found it necessary to sue the
City of Iron River for failure to justify a
Freedom of Information research fee of $38.46.
The City, instead of talking to me to in order
to find mutual grounds for settlement, relied
on the Michigan Municipal League to defend the
suit in court, with an eventual co-pay by the
city of $ 5000. The Municipal League's promise
“to make better cities” didn't happen, nor did
it do the taxpayers any good. So was the City
Council and the administration working for the
taxpayer in that case?

We taxpayers have at least three ongoing issues
with the city. Those are the grass mowing by the
city whenever they think your grass is ugly,
penalizing folks for not using water (the so
called readiness to serve charge), and the
10% per month compounded (that's an actual
rate of about 314% a year) penalty for being
tardy paying the water bill.

In December 2009 I notified each member of
Iron River's City Council and the administration
of my impending lawsuits to resolve these three
ongoing issues before they foreclose my property
in Iron River for my refusal to pay such ridiculous
and illegal charges. Once again they seem to believe
that the correct solution is in defending a lawsuit
they could easily avoid. Once again I have to ask,
who are they working for?

Spending more taxpayer money defending against a
lawsuit than the city gets as income from these
three petty draconian ordinances sure doesn't make
any sense to me. The purpose for writing this
article is to advise taxpayers how Iron River spends
their money. It seems that they're not doing it
to benefit you, the taxpayer. My personal
tolerance for government misbehavior is pretty
low.

How's yours?

Bill Vajk

Letter to Michael Steele

Sent 3 January 2010

Michael Steele
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington DC 20003

Dear Mr. Steele:

My wife and I have been lifelong Republicans but
have, since we moved here in retirement, been
excluded by the local, state, and national
committees.

All attempts in the past two years to contact
anyone and to establish rapport have failed. All
that ever happens is that we have been placed on
an email list that provided us with top down
“the Democrats are evil” newsletters. That
paradigm works well for religions and Saul
Alinsky clones but it has no place where a
political party is concerned. Each communication
I've received from the party had quite
specifically three requests for donation of money.
That paradigm, too, is appropriate for religion.

The Republican Party in this part of the state is
close to 100% inactive. If nothing else, the people
in any sort of official position have become space
holders.

In this region, the population at large is
conservative. In Iron and Dickinson counties in
Michigan, the conservatives vote for Democrats.
Across the border in Florence Co. Wisconsin, in
the region between Iron and Dickinson people of
the same mindset vote Republican. That being said,
this region is in serious need of a proper political
awakening with lots of attention from the Republican
party. Look at how the presidential election voting
went in this region despite the fact that McCain's
people very badly decided not to visit or pay any
attention to Michigan. How much of an effort would
it take to swing the state to the Republican Party?

Here's the bottom line. So long as the Republican
Party doesn't care about what goes on in my neck of
the woods I'll do nothing to support the Republican
Party, and that's too bad because I'm quiet active
in my relatively new (2003) community. Conservative
Republicans I talk to locally have a similar view. I
suppose we're waiting for “our political party” to
see the light, that this is a two way street, before
we get excited about attempting participation once
again.


Sincerely,






P.S. You're probably screwing up by failing to grasp
the advantage by adapting a motto like, “We are all
about jobs for everyone!”

====================================================================

Editor's comment: If you favor the Democrat points of
view, at this moment the Dems are no better. Nobody is
listening to you either. If you're a Dem, write your
own letters to the leadership. Please do it sooner
rather than later.

Bill Vajk

Local Changes from Federal Activities

National events have local repercussions. I think it time
to talk about some of them.

We can begin with the supplying of certain items NOW
considered by the federal government to be durable medical
goods. I am unabashedly a diabetic. I inherited a gene, or
several, that predisposed me to this medical condition. I
use an instrument called a glycometer several times a day
to find out what my blood sugar is and to inject insulin.
When I went to refill my prescription for the test strips
that are used with this instrument, Snyder Drugs sent me
over to the diabetes nurses next door where I was advised
of the full situation. Neither Snyder Drugs nor the Corner
Drug Store can actually afford to get the Durable Medical
Equipment (DME) provider certification that Medicare
insists they must have if they wish to continue to provide
this equipment to diabetics.

A couple of the large mail order firms, such as the one who
is constantly advertising on TV, Liberty, were recommended.

Understand please that this is a federal mandate, newly
made under the current administration that is supposedly
working to make medical care in the US easier, better,
cheaper, and available to everyone. What they've done in
this instance is to make it impossible for me to get
these supplies locally, and apparently gave their pals,
probably large contributors, something of an increase
in sales and profits at the expense of our local
businesses! What's going on? Why is the administration
making these things artificially more difficult? And why
are one use test strips considered “Durable” Medical
Equipment? Can it have anything to do with the money
going into a smaller number of pockets, in fact pockets
that will in future make political contributions to the
party that helped line them?

I haven't gotten into whatever the other items commonly
used have been affected. In my little world the damage
that the current administration has done with this one
petty bureaucratic decision is typical of all the others
that are to come. It sure isn't the “change you can
believe in” sort of improvement that Obama promised
while on the campaign trail.

I did find that the Walgreen's pharmacy in Eagle River,
as part of a huge nation wide chain, is certified. At
least I'll keep my little order out of the hands of those
mail order crooks.

While we're on this this topic of change once again, I
think it past time to point out the en masse multiple
personality disorder that Iron County seems to suffer
from. On the one hand I keep hearing, almost everywhere
in the county that those who are native (the majority
of the population) to this region are against change.
On the other hand, this community voted for Obama
whose main promise during his campaign was CHANGE.

The fact that a community that speaks out frequently
and regularly against CHANGE makes no sense at all
when they voted in favor of it.

While we're here, let's briefly address some of the
future change items now promised by the current congress
and administration.

Health Care – This bill has all sorts of features to assure
that more people will be covered, costs to those able
to pay will go up, and services will be more difficult
to get. Union members will be taxed on their “Cadillac”
Plan” coverage. Equipment like life saving pacemakers
will be taxed. Those who can least afford a pacemaker
will have to pay a tax on the device!

Cap & Trade – This bill is designed to tax all forms of
energy based on the size of the carbon footprint it
creates. It will reach into everyone's pocket in order
to, it is claimed, reduce the carbon footprint this
nation creates. The final effect is to drive all those
manufacturers remaining in the US overseas where
this tax does not exist.

Card Check – This bill is designed to require identification
accompany all unionization voting. So much for America's
secret ballots.

Let me know how these changes are going to work for you!

While you're at it, let your congressmen and senators know
how you feel about these issues.

Bill Vajk

Closing Out 2009

I gave some thought about what to write for
this transition from one year to the next. In
the end it is clear that nothing political
was resolved in 2009 that we could close the
book on. If anything, most issues remain
unresolved and a few new ones have arisen.

For example, in my family our Social Security
income will be about $34 less per month in 2010
than it was in 2009, and that's before currency
devaluation because of inflation which has
not disappeared. We'll have roughly $400 less
because of increases in Medicare costs to us
(not counting the Blue Cross supplemental
cost increases). I'm not looking forward to
whatever medical care difficulties will be
introduced by the new health care laws passed
by the federal government.

About the only thing(s) that can be closed out
in 2009 are the three (the say things come in
3's and it certainly seems true in this case)
deaths of people I have been close to in my
life. I won't bother with details about two
of the individuals that readers here won't
be familiar with, but the most recent death
was a person I've written about (August 17)
in this publication before.

Alex Zelchenko died on the morning of December
24th 2009 at age 95. It appears that the
cancer tumor in his lung became infected,
leading to multiple organ failure and after
some days of lingering unconscious, he expired.
Alex was a perfect example of "pulling the
plug on grandma" not only once, but in his
case twice.

The one major improvement that seems to be
underway is that the beginnings of a political
awakening are evident. People need to become
more directly involved with governments at
all levels, to become more confrontational,
and vote the bad players out of office. That's
most of the career politicians in office today.
Tea parties are one thing, but without
translation into direct action on election day,
things like not voting a party line,
we'll have the same graft and corruption ongoing
in this community, state, and nation. Simply showing
up and voting isn't enough. Each of you needs to
put thought into how you vote.

We wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Bill Vajk

Travelures Wind Turbines

Will Jim Dellies ever cease to amaze us?



Two new wind turbines have been installed.

Bill Vajk

Merry Christmas You!

Merry Christmas You!

While on the subject, this is a Christian
community. Crystal Falls had a public event
this season with the word Christmas playing
a predominant role, as did Caspian.

Iron River stands alone in taking the secular
progressive posture of involving government
funds and then removing the name of the
Christmas holy day from the original name
for the celebration of "Christmas in Lights"
as it was called the first year (because
Julie Melchiori was out of town at the
moment the ads were written and placed in
the paper and on the radio.)

Because of the flap over the name the second
year, I publicly offered $100 towards the
maximum of $1000 that Iron River's DDA
provides annually to fund the advertising.

Frankly, as news starved as our outlets are
for local news it seems to me that advertising
costs could be zero if the event were covered
as a local news item, something that's done all
the time by Iron Mountain and Iron River
newspapers as well as our radio station WIKB,
and WLUC-TV channel 6. Why involve government
money in the first place? It seems to me that
as much sponsorship as local businesses provide
for other events, they would step up and take
care of the small amounts of money actually
involved in a Christmas season parade.

But then I'm not one of the "in crowd" in Iron
County, and the way they do things I'm glad
not to be. The only reason our Christmas in
Lights parade is actually called Holiday in
Lights is because people in the community
don't step up and assert control over our
events. The community allows such things to
happen, leaving the same people in charge of
everything. Those who do stuff for the
community are at least willing to put forth
some effort.

What can be done to encourage and interest
others in taking the reins of their own
fate and interests? Can we spread this
around a bit? This is the season of giving,
the right time to think about giving back
to the community in the coming year.

Bill Vajk

Some Clarity

It has become clear that the government envisioned
by the founding fathers has been broken by the
dishonesty of our elected officials. The
difficulties can be boiled down to the simple
statement that our founding fathers relied heavily
on the honesty of elected officials to actually
represent the needs and wishes of those who
elected them to office.

We see now that the votes of two key US senators
on the undisclosed Senate health bill was bought
and paid for by $300 million and more in fixes
sent to their elected districts.

Cap and Trade, the other major piece of
legislation, will be similarly passed. These
two pieces of legislation essentially remake
the entire financial and political makeup of
the United States.

We elected a president in these United States
mainly with a wink and a smile and a promise
of undisclosed change. Carelessness by the
electorate is complicit in everything that's
happening. It has been said that in the US we
always get the government we deserve. It is a
harsh reality that so long as dishonesty is
as rampant as it presently is, I have to add
"and then some."

These elected and appointed people already have
a plan. Shortly before the next election,
scheduled for November 2010, the economic
situation will look rosy just past the election.
It is a larger version of what's going on in
Caspien, MI, the subject of an article just
a few days ago. As a city commissioner (Sabol)
said, "but this helps the residents."

Mr. Sabol, if you wanted to help the citizens
you'd lower local taxes, and the citizens would
help themselves in ways that are important to
them. For the most part they don't need indoor
tennis courts, and so forth.

Glenn Beck has been bringing to listener
attention to a small communist book/paper for
a while. It is called "The Coming Insurrection"
and while it can be purchased from Amazon it is
also available in several translations from the
original French on the world wide web. It is an
extremely difficult read.

What's telling about this work, near the end,
says, "The goal of any insurrection is to
become irreversible."

Clearly what we're seeing in the federal
government, and Caspien, is the makings of
irreversible change. The only excuse found for
Caspien's the ski chalet these days was to
move the functions of City Hall there. But
what of City Hall itself? That, in a sane
world, is what should have been fixed to
become more functional. The ski chalet should
never have been built, just as I predict that
the proposed new public buildings should not
be built.

On the federal level, economically similar
things, scaled up, are happening. The health
care plan being passed as this is written,
"card check" for union votes, cap and trade
for energy, are all designed to carry the US
into a socialism that the average citizen has
no familiarity. It will, much as European
socialist governments were, irreversible
without significant pain some decades
in the future.

It seems the only thing that can save the
America most of us know and love is the Tea
Party that isn't even a real political party.

You can find "The Coming Insurrection" at the
following locations:

http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11879

Bill Vajk

A Great Place to Live

Iron County is a great place to live. One needs only
to look at the good news that constantly pepper the
Iron Mountain Daily News, the Iron County Reporter,
and WIKB, our local radio station.

Looking at a story on the cover of the Reporter for
December 16, 2009, we see that the city of Caspian,
in the first line of the article, has decided to
reduce the staff. The article goes on to mention
the termination of (possibly) an equipment operator.

And with the expected retirement of police Chief
Soderbloom, a part time officer will be hired, with
an anticipated savings of some $30,000.

But there are a couple of upside factors later in
the article to make people feel good and make them
forget about the information in the first part.

Caspien is planning an indoor tennis court facility,
two tennis courts, two indoor golf batting cages,
and the tennis courts can also be used for volleyball
or soccer! And maybe some maple boccie courts?

They're also going to have a Christmas decorating
contest (did you get that? Christmas decorating
contest when Iron River is so secular progressive
and politically correct that the word Christmas is
banned and the name is "the Holiday in Lights
Parade.") with prizes of $75, $50, and $25.

I think that's pretty good going for a community
that's reducing their workforce because of budget
shortfalls.

But I guess that building new municipal public
facility and having a Christmas decorating contest
will get the commissioners votes in the next few
elections. And too, people tend to forget the bad
news over time, even when the city offices were
moved from the brick town hall building into a
wood structure called the ski chalet.

Bill Vajk

About that FOIA lawsuit earlier this year

I sued the City of Iron River over John Archocosky's
failure to respond to an FOIA request for justification
of the "research" fees the city wanted to charge me
for some information I requested.

The amount contested was $38.46.

The city, that is John Archocosky, failed to respond. I
provided several warnings of lawsuit to both John as well
as some members of the city council that I intended to
sue. Only after all alternatives were exhausted did I
actually bring lawsuit.

I won't discuss the details or outcome of the suit in this
article, but am bringing to everyone's attention that not
only did the Michigan Municipal League provide for the
defense of the city in the suit, but eventually the city
had to pay at least a portion of the costs for the legal
defense mounted, in the amount of $ 5000. Settling
with me at an early stage would have cost the taxpayers
a whole lot less.

A copy of the August 2009 Check Register Report is
available for the reader's review at

www.angelfire.com/planet/iron-river/payMML.pdf

Please see the underlined entry on page 2, check Number 23304.

With this recent history, has the city learned a lesson
or not? The near term future will let us know whether
or not the city's arrogance will lead us down the same
road again because once again I am being about to be
forced to bring suit against the city.

Bill Vajk