gdp's Comments

WOODTV.com : 6 charged for scamming their relatives | WOOD TV8

Sat, 1 May 2010 14:31:28 +0000

Most people grudgingly put up with the evil relatives rather than fight them. They put up with the secretly drawn up wills, the secretly changed beneficiary names on life insurance policies and certificates of deposit, the attempts to hijack memorial proceedings, the disappearance of personal property, and the fights over family photos, the control over ones heritage. People should not put up with it. They should speak up and fight. They should be very careful who is appointed guardian and conserva.tor to their parent's estate. Elder-on-elder abuse is some of the ugliest and pathetic abuse one can witness. I find it is just as likely the Greatest Generation is doing the victimizing as well as being the victim.

WOODTV.com : Tax Day means Tea Parties | WOOD TV8

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:47:36 +0000

Tea-rrorist Party or Naz-Tea Party is more like it. They could careless about democracy or the will of the people. All I heard during the healthcare debate from them were threatening code words for violence and death. They should fade into history.

WOODTV.com : Fights force carnival to end early | WOOD TV8

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:59:52 +0000

Round up everyone with a ferris wheel tat. What lamo gangs.

WOODTV.com : Video prompts prison guard charges | WOOD TV8

Thu, 1 Apr 2010 00:50:44 +0000

Mr. Schafer is right to prosecute Ms. Brown. She took it too far and crossed the line. I'm sure Mr. Schafer's record for prosecuting violent prisoners is exceptional. He's probably stood up for every prison guard who has been attacked in Ionia. When one of their own goes rogue on a handcuffed prisoner, it's sad to see the knee-jerk reaction. The issue is simple. Reverse the roles. Say a prisoner handcuffs a guard and viciously beats them with another pair of handcuffs for 60 seconds. We can agree there's universal condemnation for that, and you bet they'd be prosecuted. The county prosecutor has to be impartial. If the county prosecutor looked the other way, it would just invite the federal prosecutor to stick their nose into MDOC's affairs. So who would you rather perform the investigation and prosecution? Stop sticking up for poorly trained guards who can't control themselves around handcuffed prisoners.

WOODTV.com : Michigans Feb jobless rate dips again | WOOD TV8

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:56:45 +0000

Hey! People who are jobless beyond their last emergency unemployment extension ARE COUNTED as unemployed! In Michigan, unemployment stats are determined by a phone survey. If you are looking for work, they count you; if not, they don't. WOODTV did a good piece about it last March. Search the website and you'll find it.

WOODTV.com : Senate plan may cut college funding 3% | WOOD TV8

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:37:49 +0000

I disagree with across-the-board cuts to colleges and universities. They don't make across-the-board cuts in the Corrections Department budget; they pick and choose and close facilities. It's time to cut the flow of public funding for some of these institutions; it's time to fully privatize the already semi-private University of Michigan and conserve the remaining funding for those institutions which perform well and show they can maximize the use of additional funding.

WOODTV.com : Car drives into Burger King | WOOD TV8

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:36:31 +0000

I smell some fried green tomatoes on that whopper. Good for you grrl!

WOODTV.com : Will unemployment benefits be extended | WOOD TV8

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:08:07 +0000

All those Teabaggers who think Michigan's unemployed would have better job prospects by moving out of the state only reveal their narrow-mindedness and inability to see the problem. It doesn't matter if other states have lower unemployment rates; what matters is if they have job growth. They do not. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its latest regional and state jobs report, "In December, 13 states experienced statistically significant over-the-month changes in employment, all of which were decreases," and "over the year, 44 states experienced statistically significant changes in employment, all of which were decreases." There is no job growth anywhere in the country yet. It takes more time and all those hard working folks who got thrown out of work thro' no fault of their own deserve to be carried over these troubled waters until the economy begins to pick back up.

WOODTV.com : Granholm readies budget proposal | WOOD TV8

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:56:18 +0000

The University of Michigan should be fully privatised. Percentage-wise it gets the least amount of state funding and is mostly funded by endowments and tuition. It is the public university in the best position to be spun off. Why should Michigan taxpayers subsidize the education of other states' workers? We should not.

WOODTV.com : Bicyclist tries to steal car wash coins | WOOD TV8

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 16:25:05 +0000

Must have made their retreat up the White Pine Trail, which runs right behind the car wash, on a mountain bike with fat tires to ride the panked down snowmobile tracks. Headed to Hersey, perhaps. I'm assuming the car wash made a more lucrative target than the Paris State Bank & Hair Salon.

WOODTV.com : Granholm to address reform direction | WOOD TV8

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 04:11:51 +0000

You don't know what the heck you are talking about! Granholm doesn't have any say over the vast majority of those 637,000 government workers - most of them are local government workers, principally, local teachers, whom your locally elected school board are responsible for. And of the ones that are state employees all the growth has been in the public universities and hospitals which are autonomously governed as well, you oaf! The core state bureaucracy has shrunk for years over Granholm's administration! Get informed and stop relying on the lies printed by out-of-state, carpetbagging newspapers who certainly don't have a clue.

WOODTV.com : 1/2% growth in W MI employment in 2010 | WOOD TV8

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:23:30 +0000

Actually, your statistics are off. The total population of the four county area is about 1 million, according to the Census Bureau, but the number of employed people is about half that, 513,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Therefore, a 0.5% rise in employment is equivalent to just 2,570 jobs. This assumes Professor Singh's survey projections are accurate. They are not. A year ago, he forecasted an employment decline of 0.94% and claims in his 2010 survey that the actual result for 2009 was "quite close to last year's expectation." Actual employment in the four counties over 2009 is down 5%, according to the BLS. Comparatively, that's the difference between 1 in 100 jobs being lost and 1 in 20 being lost. His prediction was not close in my opinion. So placing too much faith in the accuracy of a 0.5% uptick is rather not warranted. It could be much more or much less.

WOODTV.com : GR gets part of 223m for neighborhoods | WOOD TV8

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:29:59 +0000

It really behooves the federal government to announce giving Michigan $223 million to tear down houses on the same day they announce giving Haiti a mere $100 million to rebuild houses and buildings. It takes very little creative thought to propose: Temporarily move a significant portion of the Island of Haiti's population to Detroit, Flint, & Grand Rapids to live in abandoned houses this winter on a stipend; and in the Spring, pay them to dismantle the houses and load salvaged material into shipping containers for transport to Haiti.

WOODTV.com : A list of roads with most winter wrecks | WOOD TV8

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 03:51:01 +0000

It would be nice if Joe had written a little more about his source. I do not seem to be able to get the high figures he did when entering icy, snowy, & slushy road conditions into michigantrafficcrashfacts.org's database for the number of years he indicated and locations.

WOODTV.com : A list of roads with most winter wrecks | WOOD TV8

Thu, 7 Jan 2010 23:27:12 +0000

"All weather" tires are for all the weather Florida experiences.

WOODTV.com : Tax credit deadline approaches | WOOD TV8

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:53:36 +0000

The link above for the "Energy Star Web site" is wrong. It should point to Energystar.gov, not Energystar.com. Try this link instead: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=tax_credits...

WOODTV.com : Michigan unemployment rate drops again | WOOD TV8

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:46:55 +0000

WOODTV did a nice expose back in March about how the unemployment rate is arrived at and who it counts and does not count. http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/economy/Target_8_t...

WOODTV.com : Rollover crash at M-6 closes EB I-96 | WOOD TV8

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:15:21 +0000

Rarely is there a fatal accident around that area on I-96 or anywhere along the M6, according to Michigan Traffic Crash Facts website. That said, there are an inordinate number of slide offs during the winter because of the curves and people speeding thro' the interchange at M6 and I-96 and along the curves around the Thornapple River.

WOODTV.com : About 90 jobs cut at Uni-Solar on Tues. | WOOD TV8

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:51:55 +0000

Workers who got laid off should not wait until after the end of the year to call the unemployment office and file their claim because if they wait, they may get less benefits. The unemployment office looks back at how much you made during the last five full quarters and sets benefits based on the highest quarterly earnings among those five. If you file before Jan. 1st, they look back to the third quarter of 2008; if you file after Jan. 1st, they only look back to the fourth quarter of 2008. Obviously there is no point at including the fourth quarter of 2009 if folks are already working reduced hours. There is a possibility that the third quarter of 2008 may represent the highest earning quarter. You can file, get the benefit level set, then wait until after your severance benefits take you into next year to make your first Marvin call and begin collecting benefits. It's worth a look.

WOODTV.com : Early lines for Palin at Woodland Mall

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Maybe the folks laughing are the three people who already have their GR signed copies of Going Rogue up for bids on Ebay for $60-$250. Now that's capitalism I can tip my hat to!