They say the best way to protect something is to personalize it.  So please, meet the Great Lakes…

The environment of the Great Lakes region is blessed with huge forests and wilderness areas, rich agricultural land, hundreds of tributaries and thousands of smaller lakes, and extensive mineral deposits. The region’s glacial history and the tremendous influence of the lakes themselves create unique conditions that support a wealth of biological diversity, including more than 130 rare species and ecosystems.

The environment supports a world-class fishery and a variety of wildlife, such as white-tailed deer, beaver, muskrat, weasel, fox, black bear, bobcat, moose and other furbearing animals. Bird populations thrive on the various terrains, some migrating south in the winter, others making permanent homes. An estimated 180 species of fish are native to the Great Lakes, including small- and large-mouth bass, muskellunge, northern pike, lake herring, whitefish, walleye and lake trout. Rare species making their home in the Great Lakes region include the world’s last known population of the white catspaw pearly mussel, the copper redhorse fish and the Kirtland’s warbler.

The region’s sand dunes, coastal marshes, rocky shorelines, lakeplain prairies, savannas, forests, fens, wetlands and other landscapes contain features that are either unique or best represented withink the Great Lakes basin. For example, the world’s largest freshwater dunes line the shores of Lake Michigan.

Over the course of history, many types of pollution have inflicted and been reduced in the region, yet significant challenges remain. These range from threats to divert water out of the Great Lakes basin to the introduction of nonindigenous invasive species and airborne toxics into the basin. Protection of water quality and sustainable development remain long-term goals.  Link

Unless otherwise specified, all pictures are courtesy of: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/FSFC, and GeoEye

MI is still the home of the auto industry and dependent on them for its economic well being.  From Gov. Granholm’s state of the state:

… we will not concede the automotive industry to any other state or nation.

We are the state that put America on wheels – the state that put the “car” in NASCAR. There is no vision for Michigan’s new economy that does not include cars designed, engineered, and made in Michigan. The industry’s changing – but we in Michigan cannot – will not – abandon it. And we should not allow our government in Washington to abandon it either.

Because of MI sustained efforts to keep and attract automotive research and development companies,

Michigan has more employees and investments in that growing part of our economy than all of the other 49 states, plus Canada, plus Mexico combined.

If you are anything like me, you vacillate between: Yes, we can, I hope we can, and who the hell are we kidding.  

While I’ve always “sort of” been interested in politics, I fell in love with the good rebel, Dr. Dean in 04.  It was the first time in my life that I felt “we the people” had any power, let alone “the power”.   After all, who can ever forget the What I Want to Know speech by our internet interloper.

Like Obama today for so many, Dean lead me to dailykos, activism, and the belief that we could make a difference; and then, he/we lost with the help of the corporate media and our very own Democratic Party.  With that loss, Kerry’s 04 capitulation, and the on-going dismal performance of the minority and majority Dems in the House and Senate, I really began to doubt that we had any power at all.

So, you ask, what the hell does any of this have to do with health care?  The simple answer is sometimes we can make a difference.  (more)

Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent on 26th July 1943. When he was 4 he met Keith Richards until they went into secondary schools and lost touch. But one day in 1960 they accidentally met on the Dartford train line and both realised that they had an interest in rock n roll combined with blues. Between 1960-1962 The Rolling Stones formed. It comprised of Mick on lead vocal and harmonica, Keith Richards on guitar, Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums and Brian Jones on guitar.  Link

Join me below as the UK commemorates this grand event……