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All the politicians that helped me cut my social teeth are passing.

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Chelsea city council decided at their meeting on the 14th of this month to shut down one of their reverse osmosis water softeners in an effort to placate Chelsea Investment Group, LLC in their lawsuit against the City and the City Manager. The full story in the Chelsea Standard explains the reasoning for this in detail, but I’ll rehash a bit.

The reverse osmosis process of softening the water has a byproduct that must be disposed. In 2002-2003, the City took a short-cut to comply with Michigan Department of Environmental Quality rules and ran the discharge into the Chelsea Wastewater Treatment Plant and keep the money from the Drinking Water Revolving Fund, which was tied to a schedule. Which was great when the projection for waste to be disposed was a max of 125,000 gallons, but the City is actually pumping out 414,000 gallons at peak, with an average of 250,000 gallons per day. Tied to the Library issue from earlier this year, you’d think the City needs a math tutor. But, I digress.

The net-net of this is that at peak times (or any time the treatment plant can’t handle the output), the City will be delivering hard water to residents who paid for soft water. Just to point out what’s got me in a huff, they’re going to deliver hard water to me when I paid for softened water. I’m not really that upset with it being hard water; I grew up on well water so I know it’s not going to kill me. What I do resent is paying for something I’m not getting. I also resent the fact that the City has once again taken what seems like hasty action. The move is obviously an attempt to make the lawsuit go away, but, unless the paper is leaving something out, they didn’t even check to make sure the Investment Group would accept the conciliation.

Robert Ponte, a lawyer here in Chelsea, wrote in his Letter to the Editor in the 23 March edition of the Chelsea Standard:

Doing the expedient act got is into this mess. There is no reason to believe that doing the next expedient act will get us out of anything except the developer’s lawsuit. My question is, who does the quick fix serve? Does it serve anyone but the developer?

Despite their rhetorical nature, the questions deserve honest answers. I have a hard time believing that the City truly has anything in mind except getting rid of the lawsuit. This move serves no one in the City except those who belong to the lawsuit, who bullied their way into the development in the first place.

Robert has called for residents to support (either financially or in spirit) hiring a qualified professional to look at “getting out of this mess” but emailing him at rponteesq@sbcglobal.net. Sounds like a good suggestion and I would encourage all Chelsea residents to get in touch with Mr. Ponte.

So, dear readers (there are more than one of you, right?), I need an opinion.

We have three pets, two of whom shed hair like limbs at a leper convention. The house is, understandably, a little on the hairy side. It’s getting much worse than we can take and the vacuum we have just isn’t cutting it anymore.

So, we’ve obviously heard about the Dyson Animal Upright and started doing some reasearch. Amazon has over 200 reviews with a cumulative 4 star rating. J– found an 8 page review by someone claiming to be a former Rainbow salesman that sounded like it could’ve been written by a well-compensated advertiser (not saying it was, just was a glowing, well-written review). Aside from the outliers who likely wouldn’t have been happy is Mr. Dyson had made a machine that performed certain acts as you vacuum, the machine sounds like the perfect buy.

Except it’s a $500+ vacuum. I’ve paid less, recently, for a computer with a monitor. As much as I want to have something that works, I have a real hard time parting with 500 actual dollars for a vacuum.

So, I turn to you, my loyal 8 readers (according to Bloglines) and ask: does anyone own one of these things? Do you know someone who has one? Do you or they like it? Was it worth the money?

Any and all comments are welcome.

Miss Pinky and the Brain? Love F Troop? Need to welcome Kotter back one more time? Check out AOL TV; all kinds of classic (and newer) shows available for your viewing pleasure. IE only, however (kind of lame).

AOL Television: In2TV [via TWiT]

Ah, the wonderful world of Engadget. I always forget how unbelievably pretentious Engadget is until they decide to step in it publically. Like today when they got called out for ripping off content from another site (one which they’ve apparently had a spat with).

Until one of those sites breaks a story. This one is the Ubiquitous Multimedia Informator, aka Brick. DapReview.net got their hands on a unit and broke the story. Engadget originally posted the picture DapReview.net had used and linked to the site. Then, someone got a hold of the post and changed it, cropping the photo to remove the link to DapReview and no link to the original story. DapReview has some pretty damning screenshots.

Digg picked this up and the comments are off and running. Ryan Block, Peter Rojas, and Jason Calacanis all have (apparently) weighed in on the subject but all seem to be missing the point. They’re saying this is a “mistake”. How exactly did a posted article get revised to carefully remove all reference to the originated article. Mistake indeed.

Others claim Weblogs Inc. has done the same thing in the past (check the comments).

Seems like Jason and Co. are getting pretty good at apologizing.

Update: I didn’t know how prescient the previous statement was. Jason and Ryan Block stopped by; check out the comments. Links updated.

Take a second, customize this letter, and send it to your Congresscritter. The DMCA is the worst piece of legislation this side of the PATRIOT Act. HR 1201 aims to reform some of that awful legislation by removing and clarifying what is and is not infringing (the current lawsuit-initiator du jour).

EFF Action Center

They have Lemmings for the PSP! Man I love that game.

Lemmings Plunge Onto the PSP – Kotaku

Voltaire said, “If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.” He was right, and both extremes in the abortion controversy demonstrate that. But the ‘pro-life’ side has a worse case of absurdity than the pro-choicers, and that won’t change until (at a minimum) they face up to what they really want.

Say what you want about Eric S. Raymond, and many have, the man makes compelling arguments. I highly recommend reading the entire article; I guarentee pro-abortion activists will remember this one.

Armed and Dangerous – Blog Archive – The Rape Exception

Today is Purim, the Jewish holiday commemorating the story of Esther (full back story here). Why should us goyims care?

We are also commanded to eat, drink and be merry. According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai,” though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is.

….

It is customary to hold carnival-like celebrations on Purim, to perform plays and parodies, and to hold beauty contests. I have heard that the usual prohibitions against cross-dressing are lifted during this holiday, but I am not certain about that. Americans sometimes refer to Purim as the Jewish Mardi Gras.

Aw yeah. And it’s good prep for St. Patty’s. See, Irish Catholics, you have lots in common with other religions. Note to Protestants: Seriously, you left the best parts behind, didn’t you? No wonder this country is going to hell; all the cool people stayed on the other side of the ocean.

Happy Purim 5766!

So, Frank Turner is a little, uh, touched, which is something I didn’t know. Not “stab you on the subway” touched (we don’t have a subway… sheesh), but “God has told me to do this really, really silly thing” touched. Frank wants to host a radio show on 1340 WEXL-AM (AM?) and needs the prayers of all Detroiters to do it, something about contracts. DetroitWonk says:

Well, I’m fairly certain Channel 7 may allow him to have all of the time he needs, because the attorneys are most likely working round-the-clock to get him off of their payroll as quickly as possible.

After seeing Frank’s website, I believe that’s the most accurate statement of the week. Just how bad is Frank’s situation with regard to his contract with Channel 7? If you believe Frank, it’s downright Biblical.

Didn’t our Apostle Paul suffer threatening, jailing, beatings, near-drowning, false accusations, scorn and ridicule to build the Lord’s first congregations of believers and boldly preach the gospel of salvation even under the most hostile situations? [source]

Scorn and beatings, Frank? Been going to a few too many City Council meetings lately?

Thanks to DetroitWonk for the tip-in