This Year's Model

Detroit is the BOMB

Bomb undiscovered for weeks at Detroit fed building: union chief

DETROIT (Reuters) – A package found by a security guard at a federal office building in Detroit sat three weeks before someone thought to screen it and found it was a bomb, an official who represents unionized guards said on Wednesday.
A private contract guard, since suspended, apparently found the package outside in late February, said David Wright, president of the union that represents Federal Protective Service guards but not contract guards.

The building in downtown Detroit houses offices for the FBI, U.S. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Social Security Administration and others.

The guard brought the package into the building and put it in "lost and found" without having it screened, Wright said. It sat until March 18, when someone decided to X-ray the package and found that it might contain a bomb, he said.
The guards then notified the Federal Protective Service and Detroit police and the package was moved outside the building, where the police bomb squad recovered it, he said.

Detroit police said they recovered a package on Friday from the federal building and detonated it.

The FBI is investigating the incident, Special Agent Sandra Berchtold said. Neither police nor the FBI commented further on details of the incident,
Wright said it was not clear whether the guard who found the package initially was the one who decided to have it screened for explosives. The package should not have been moved in either case except by explosives experts, he said.

(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Minneapolis Metrodome Roof Collapses

Ford Field will host two NFL games this weekend -- the Detroit Lions' regularly scheduled game today against the Green Bay Packers, and Monday's night's Minnesota Vikings-New York Giants game.

The Vikings-Giants game was postponed today due to heavy snowfall and forced to move when the roof collapsed. According to multiple reports, it will be played at 7:20 p.m. Monday at Ford Field.

"It's Detroit. Goodcall. Makes sense" Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay tweeted this morning.

The NFL also considered moving the game to Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium and to TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

The game will be the first ever regular-season Monday Night game at Ford Field.

Perfect. Part thre- not so fast

As Armando Galarraga squeezed the ball in his mitt, stepped on first base with his right foot and was ready to celebrate the first perfect game in Detroit Tigers' history.

What happened next will be the talk of baseball for the rest of this season and likely a lot longer.

Umpire Jim Joyce emphatically called Cleveland's Jason Donald safe and a chorus of groans and boos echoed in Comerica Park.

Then Joyce emphatically said he was wrong.

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."

"I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay," he said after the Tigers' 3-0 win.

It's rare for an umpire to acknowledge a mistake and, in a sport that still relies on the human eye more than any other sport, it's certain to prompt a push for Major League Baseball to use increased replays.

My suggestion? Vision tests to be required from this day forward for all Union MLB officiating crews.

Lowered Expectations

Walmart has been widely condemned for offering its employees only low-paying, dead end jobs. Remember when candidate Obama criticized Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign for having served on Walmart's board and stated that the firm ought to pay "a living wage?" I do.

Well, in good-old inner-city Detroit, where the unemployment rate is estimated at 50%, the prospect of a Walmart isn't taboo.

So, of course, four inner-city Detroit high schools have teamed up with the giant merchandiser to offer a for-credit class in job-readiness training that also includes entry-level after-school jobs

According to the Detroit Free Press, the principal at one of the schools optimistically suggested that "the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures -- since all of the stores are in the suburbs."

The announcement of the program outraged Donna Stern, the Midwest coordinator for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). "They’re going to train students to be subservient workers" she told the Free Press. "This is not why parents send them to school." Oh, REALLY? I guess why bother sending your youngsters to school at all?

While Detroit area schools have cooperated on projects with Walmart in the past, such as a letter-writing contest in which students could win classroom supplies, and at Christmas Walmart donated presents to needy students in a Detroit suburb, this new team-up isn't floating as high.

Apparently it's the preceived racial overtones as training inner-city students for a career as suburban Walmart store clerks that's not flying. No one's saying that Detroit's schools are now desperate enough to accept help wherever they can find it... reminds me of a movie where a corporation took over Detroit to run it... RoboCop!

Meanwhile, to paint the picture a little more for those of you not in the Detroit system, the school district has been running a 'tad' red, and though emergency financial manager Robert Bobb has already closed 29 schools as a cost-cutting measure, it was reported this week that "the 84,000-student Detroit Public Schools could face additional layoffs and about 40 more school closings."

Detroit's teachers have also been chafing at a contract accepted by their union that forces them to make involuntary long-term loans to the school district out of their paychecks. A Detroit Federation of Teachers union meeting on Thursday broke down in chaos after members tried to put the question of recalling the union president on the agenda.

Yeah, so, maybe the teachers are complaining because they'd have better job security as a greeter than trying to elevate their students out of complete and utter urban hell? Are they afraid of a little competition?