By Staff
President George W. Bush asked Congress Oct. 22 for another $46 billion to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – more than Michigan spends to operate for a year. The state's 2007-08 budget is $40 billion.
The $46 billion brings to $196.4 billion the total requested by the administration for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
To date, Congress has provided more than $455 billion for the Iraq war.
Military operations cost about $10 billion a month and have claimed the lives of more than 3,830 U.S. military members.
The administration originally claimed a $50 billion cost Iraq could bear from its oil proceeds. That was a ton of speculation.
According to this analysis, the U.S. has spent $604 billion on the wars, including $39 billion in diplomatic operations and foreign aid.
Awkward: Blackwater guards the FBI agents in Iraq investigating Blackwater.
A two-parter in the Detroit Free Press asks whether health systems provide the level of charity care they should to deserve $12.6 billion in tax exemptions nationwide each year.
Michigan hospitals receive at least $600 million in breaks.
All of Michigan's 146 acute care facilities are non-profit.
The seven metro Detroit non-profit hospital systems paid their chief executive officers in 2005 in salary, benefits and expenses $647,347 to $2,391,269.
Elsewhere in health care: "Concierge services" join benefits packages, The Associated Press reports. In Florida, Memorial Healthcare System employees can get an oil change and clothes dry cleaned without leaving work. Hospitals, competing for nurses in a tight labor market, are new to this game.
Memorial Healthcare, which employs more than 10,500 people, pays $399,500 annually for the service so admissions director Jean Romano-Clark can get her Honda Pilot washed.
She also buys gift cards, develops photos and gets her watch fixed while working, leaving her more time to spend with her daughter, 11, and son, 8.
"Instead of doing (errands) on Saturday, I can go with them to a football game or soccer game," Romano-Clark told the AP. "It's hard to balance work and children, and this has helped put balance back."
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "(Magic) is about living in a time when anything that is true can be made to seem like a lie, and anything that is a lie can be made to seem true. There are people that have taken that as their credo. The classic quote was from one of the Bushies in The New York Times: 'We make our own reality. You guys report it, we make it.' I may loathe that statement – the unbelievable stupidity and arrogance of it – more than I loathe 'Bring it on' and 'Mission accomplished.' … You can't kill your way to security and you can't lead through scaring people … it's not a tactic that's going to provide the kind of moral authority and leadership that it's going to take to communicate in the world. It's the coward's way out … on the most credible channels, there's an endless parade of nonsense on a daily basis. Jon Stewart is such an important and lonely force on television. He's in the business of assisting people to interpret the modern media world. There's so much sheer noise. Every night he comes in and pulls the veil down, and you get a shot at what things really look like. That's why people have gravitated to him and have faith in him."
– Bruce Springsteen, 30 years after "Born to Run," which didn't make Rolling Stone's cover. The Boss, 58, makes his 15th cover appearance since 1978, tying him with Bob Dylan and George Harrison. The all-time leaders are Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney (22 each) and John Lennon (20, including group appearances with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles).
Anniversaries: Detroit Pistons, 50, born in a YMCA league in Ft. Wayne, Ind.; "Tuesdays with Morrie," 10. Did you know Mitch Albom's tribute to dying professor Morrie Schwartz became the biggest-selling memoir of all time, with 14 million copies in print worldwide?
General Motors rebounds in the third quarter to regain No. 1 from Toyota Motor Corp., its reputation for quality questioned by Consumer Reports magazine.
Radiohead cuts out record label middlemen by releasing "In Rainbows" on a Web site, inrainbows.com, where fans pay whatever they want to download the album at less-than-CD sound quality. "It's arrogant," said Lily Allen. "You don't choose how much to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?" Many in the business say Radiohead hardly provides a model for the rest of the industry because there aren't many unsigned acts who make enough touring to afford such a risk.
The Stones, by the way, grossed $558,255,524 with Bigger Bang, eclipsing the tour record of $389 million U2 set with Vertigo in 2005-06.
The Stones sold 4.68 million tickets for 144 concerts on five continents from Aug. 21, 2005, to Aug. 26, 2007.
"Shine a Light," Martin Scorsese's documentary, hits theaters in the spring.
Seven confirmed: Andrew Cooper, Savannah Eby, Gregory Nelson Sr., Gregory Nelson Jr., Brent O'Brien, Alexandrea Schuster and Erika Taylor Oct. 28 at Holy Maternity of Mary Catholic Church in Dowagiac bring Bishop James Murray's total to 13,340 in 10 years in his nine-county diocese.
Married: Laurie Overton and Chris Silvia Oct. 27 at Holy Family Catholic Church in Decatur.
Their reception took place at Lawton Community Center, a former winery.