And the grand total is

28.. 28 Trick or Treaters.. that's sad. Two were our grandkid. One was a niece. One was the neighbors granddaughter.

We had more adults here than kids.

Oh well, there's always next year.

Halloween

The weatherman has prediced a very nice evening for the Trick or Treaters. The kids should be out in record numbers unless everyone is in Crystal Falls at the football game.

We had a high today of 69, it was beautiful but a little windy. It was a day to air out the house before winter sets in. Open those window and let the sun shine in.

Maybe I should go out and buy more candy! How many trick or treaters do you usually get at our house. We average 30. I'll let you know what this year brings.

Vikings make the playoffs

The 6-3 Baraga Vikings will play the Crystal Falls forest Park Trojans in the first round game of the Division 8 High School Football playoffs.

The game will be in Crystal Falls on Friday night.. Halloween night. Crystal Falls has a 9-0 record.

Crystal Falls is always tough but Baraga came close to a win on October 10. The game was tied when Crystal Falls ened a 91 yard drive with a touch down in the last 37 seconds.

You can ride the fan bus from Baraga for $5.00. Contact the High School Office.

No, no, it's not time!

Winter Storm Warnings, wind gusts to 50 miles an hour and, you guessed it, snow. The temperatures for Monday and Tuesday are expected to reach a high in the 30's. Monday has a rain snow mix in the forecast, Tuesday is snow only.

Do you want pictures if it snow? I can only hope the is no snow to take pictures of.

Do you plan to vote in this year’s election?

TV6 has a web poll, "Do you plan to vote in this years election?". After the poll you can leave a comment. You may find the comments as interesting as I did. I often wonder why people make the choices they do, how do they see things differently than me, or why do they see them closer to my views.

http://www.wluctv6.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=211919

After the color

Why here?

Gladstone will be on CNBC's "Mike on America". Mike Hegedus is focusing on the "real" economy as compared to Wall Street. He visited Bay de Noc Lures, home of the Swedish Pimple- Marble Arms and Hoegh Pet Industries.

Mike is originally from Michigan. He travels across the nation, focusing on small and medium businesses which are mainstream, main street businesses. Mike sees the real economy as everything between New York and Los Angles. Small business drives the economy.

The owner of Marble Arms, said being featured on "Mike in America" would increase the company's exposure nationwide. Marble Arms has been in business for 116 years. They have recently reduced their workforce from 58 to 14 employees due to automation. They are exporting goods to around the world.


The segments featuring the Gladstone businesses will be spread out over a period of time, with the first segment tentatively scheduled to appear on CNBC the week of Nov. 15.

"Mike in America" can be seen Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on CNBC. If you see the feature, stop back here and leave a comment!

It does happen here.

Two Detroit-area men were sentenced to prison as part of a multi-year investigation into cocaine distribution in Marquette County.

Charles Abercrombie, and Fredrick Abercrombie, both from the Detroit area, were sentenced on charges of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute both powdered and crack cocaine. The case was investigated by the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team.

C. Abercrombie was sentenced to eight years and F Abercrombie was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Police said both were involved in distributing multiple kilograms of powdered and crack cocaine in Marquette County from 2004 to 2007.

Two area residents were sentenced from the same investigation in 2007. Jessica Kendall of Ishpeming received a four and a half year sentence and Steven Ray Puckett, of Gwinn, a seven year sentence.

Lake Superior Performance Rally

We missed it and I missed reminding you. I forgot all about the Rally.

Ken Block of Encinitas, Calif., was the winner. Mr. Block and co-driver Alessandro Gelsomino of Los Angeles were far ahead of the field in stage four at Passmore Road near Sidnaw Friday night. Those in the back of the pack were slowed by poor visibility on dusty roads. Block's final victory margin was 63.5 seconds.

The Brockway stage of the race is the fastest, scariest and most dangerous stage in the series. One false move at Brockway would result in disaster.

Kyle Sarasin, a Marquette native made his rally debut here three years ago is very hopeful for the future. Sarasin struggled late Friday due to a a failing alternator. Sarasin set a record for Brockway on the second of two stages up the mountain. Block won the first run.

Rally America will return to the Keweenaw Peninsula for the LSPR Oct. 16-17, 2009, the last event of a nine-round national championship.

UP Winery

Are you into buying Michigan products? You will find the Mackinaw Trail Winery in Manistique. The wines are made from blackberries, cranberries, raspberries, Traverse City cherries and grapes from Michigan vineyards.

The names of the wines also reflect Michigan. North Shore White, named for the lake shores, White Ibis, named after a Michigan bird, a Riesling made from one of Michigan's most famous grapes, and a cherry port made from Traverse City's famous cherries.


The winery is located on Lake Shore next to the marina on US 41. It has an outdoor patio allowing customers to enjoy a glass of wine right on the water. Customers can look at the wine listing and can tasting as many wines as they want to try. Wines range from whites, reds, fruit wines, and dessert wines. They can purchase a glass of wine to enjoy indoors or outdoors. They can also buy bottles to take home. Prices per bottle range from $8-$50.

If you plan to visit, you'd better hurry. They are open May 15th to October 31st.


For more information on "Mackinaw Trail Winery" visit http://www.mackinawtrailwinery.com.

Lost Sheep

No, it's not a typo.. did you lose a black sheep?

The Houghton Police Department had complaints of a black sheep wandering in the city on Sharon Avenue near Bresnan Estates. Officers borrowed a tranquilizer gun from the Sheriff's Department and used it on the sheep. The animal was then taken into custody without incident and taken to the Sturgeon River Kennels.

If you are missing a black sheep contact the kennel at 523-4038 and no singing, "Bah, bah, black sheep.."

Rainbow

This rainbow looks like you can reach out and touch it. The picture is the first one taken with my new camera with a 10x optical zoom. Click on the picture and see how clear it is when enlarge. I think I'm going to like this camera.

Land of Trick or Treat

We don't get many trick or treating kids. We decorate and turn the light on but 30 kids is all we get on a good night. Dave got ready early this year. Mom donated pumpkins, Roland forgot the corn stalks, I just praised a job well done. Ya gotta do that if you want someone else to do the work.

Fall Fades

It's always rather sad when the leaves fall and the trees are left bare. Only a few trees have held on to their leaves and those will soon be gone. There is beauty in a tree when you can see all the branches, it just isn't colorful.

The days seem very short. It doesn't get light out until 8 AM and it begins to get dark by 6 PM. Not much time to get outside chores finished unless you are not a 9-5 working person.

So far, no snow. That's the way it usually is, after all this is still October.
Visit my Haunted House. The pages were created several years ago but they are still fun.

The Right Answer

545 PEOPLE By Charlie Reese
(Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.)


Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don ' t propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don ' t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.
The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices, 545 human beings out of the 300 million aredirectly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domesticproblems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated itsConstitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered,but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes. Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of theHouse? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose giftsand advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power toregulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.

1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope they do something about it.
2. You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years. NOTE: I don't agree that there are NO good people in office. It is just that there are so many who are just there to feather their own nests. As voters, we have a chance to weed out the bad ones.

3. You can decide to run for office yourself and agree to do the job properly.

4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.

What Caused the Loan Crisis

This is interesting no matter what your Politics. Don't like to read stuff like this? Click on the links below and watch the videos, they are great. You'll also see that there are a lot of other videos out there on the topic.

The following is a condensation of a series from the Investor's Business Daily explaining "What Caused the Loan Crisis":

1977: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the Community Reinvestment Act into Law. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify. The Premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.

Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

Question: How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?

Answer: See below to find out who is covering up their guilt !

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stockholding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi-nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican, Clinton orders Robert Rubin's Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robt. Rubin's Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks. Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often "no doc", "no income", requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion, most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.

Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie's excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the "special status". Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO's who knew how to reward and punish. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets" Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: "We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk".

Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "If congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole".

Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership" The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in '07, sub prime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on, though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!

Bush urged reform 17 times.If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to your lawmakers own words. They are condemning!

If a click does not bring you there, copy the address and paste it in your browser address box.

The Real Story Behind The Economic Crisis


The origins of the 2008 financial crisis

Community Reinvestment Act and ACORN to destroy the American financial system.


Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/ Freddie's slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their activities for several years.

Please share this with everyone you know. Send it. Print it. Talk about it. America needs to know!!!

In small towns and rural areas we have never seen ACORN. Until a few weeks ago I hadn't even heard of ACORN. I find it hard to believe that anyone would be given a mortgage loan without some down payment and proof of income. Are we doing anyone a favor giving them a loan that they can't pay for?

Gas Prices

The Pines has gas a $2.95 per gallon. The Pines in located on US41 just north of Baraga. It is owned by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. They almost always have the losest price in the UP. You often have to wait for a spot at a pump.

The price of gas at the Pines is a topic of conversation for the Copper Country. "What was the price at the Pines when you drove past?" "Was that place packed!" "How long did you wait?" "It took forever in line to pay." The last statement is from those who don't use their credit card at the pump.

How low will it go?

Some of you aren't going to like this but..

..here is is anyway.

This is from a column by the Editor of the L'Anse Sentinel. I won't retype the entire article, click on the Title of todays blog to read the entire thing.

"Would you hire the fox to guard the chicken house? Then why would you hire one of the men directly responsible for our financial crisis to cure the same disaster?"

"During his short term in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has consistently sided with legislators who blocked attempts to halt the corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Senator Obama helped stop the movement attempting to reinstate sound fiscal policies into our banking system by putting a cessation to risky home mortgage loans to those who cannot afford either a standard down payment or the monthly payments."

"Obama worked closely with ACORN, a left-wing consortium of community action organizations that is the best known of these groups forcing financial institutions to meet the fiscally unsound home-mortgage guidelines imposed by CRA. Obama trained ACORN workers in the coercion tactics they employ to secure home loans for those who would struggle paying for them."

Please read the entire article from the L'Anse Sentinel.

Yes,,, you are all tired of the politics, me too. My God Bless the United States of America, those we elect, and all of us.

Place your Happy Ad Here!

Let's have some good news!

The price of gas is going down! It's under $3.00 a gallon at the Pines in Baraga. Did you ever think gas at $3.00 a gallon would be a deal.



Post a comment telling us something good!

Wolves

They are back on the endangered list. They were taken off the endangered list in 2007. It is estimated that there are 4,000 grey wolves in the Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota area. This would include approximately 520 in the UP.

I don't agree with the estimates. Almost every local has a wolf story. They seen a wolf, they seen several wolves. Farmers, dog owners and others have seen increasing conflict and predation by wolves. Hunters and sportsmen believe the wold numbers are impacting the whitetail deer herd.

The 520 wolf count for the UP cam from a count taken last winter. The population is estimated to grow by 10% a year. The DNR is working on applying for a special permit from the Federal Government that would give the DNR the option to kill wolves in limited situations. The DNR has had permits in the past and has killed some wolves causing problems in the Baraga-Pelkie farm county. That explains why we have so many wolf stories! It appears that the majority of the 520 wolves live in and around Baraga County. I wonder, do the wolves stand in line to be counted?

Temperature

How about that weather? Over the last 7 days we had a high of 61 with about an inch of rain. Our low high was 45, a day to wear a warmer jacket but we aren't ready for mittens yet.

Low temperatures are in the low 40's with one day at 32. That means frost but I haven't seen any frost in my yard. I still have some nice flowers.

No snow so far, not even a flake. It's good weather for the bird and bear hunters.
I've heard there are a lot of bear. Fourteen year old Derek of Aura got a 240 pound bear in the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness area. Click here to see the picture from the L'Anse Sentinel.

Fall Pictures

Color

Yes, we have color. Come to the Copper country and see for yourself.