Lake Express: Using the Government to Rub Out Your Competitors 101

[XLFD]

Yesterday, the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) came out with an investigative article that supports our editorial opinions here at the Ludington Torch.  Of course, the article was not originated or investigated by the monolithic, dinosaurian COLDNews, but by a magazine called the Outer Boundary.  This magazine has spent its spring debunking a lot of myths being spread by the "Sink the Badger" military industrial complex.  Here is Steve Begnoche's retelling of the story, now available in the Outer Boundary April issue, which unfortunately isn't available on-line.

 

If you can't afford Outer Boundary magazine, and it's definitely a better bargain than sinking $.75 into reading COLD news recycled for your consumption, check out their page on Facebook, which has a bit more about the campaign to discredit and run the SS Badger out of business. 

 

But before I give you a vicarious sampling of that information, one day before the public comment period is over, let me point out that the Mason County Press had already exposed a lot of the masterminding behind the EPA's assault on our country's last coal-fired ship last year, here was the first part of that fine piece of writing by a former COLDNews reporter who warmed up, and is viewable in full right here.  Looks like the COLDNews is only capable of having its editor reprint articles built with the foundations of stories by real journalists.  But at least his heart and mind is in the right place this time.

 

But let's check some extra diagrams of interest from the Outer Boundary Facebook site that may surprise you if you haven't been paying attention to the fuss.   

 

Shown below is the wintering hole for the Lake Express Carferry (shown in red).  Three guesses as to what all that black crap in the water is, leaching all those toxic materials into the water-- if you believe Dick Durbin and his cronies.

 

 

The next exhibit is the following ad campaign being used to taint the waters for the SS Badger, courtesy of our friends at Lake Express.  With Durbin and the EPA added, it looks like we may have one of those 'public-private partnerships' our own politicians and big businessmen love to crow about.  Doesn't seem fair when you're not the one benefitting from it, doesn't it?

 

Lastly we show this investigative report's flow chart, wherein they have put money to back up the links in the chain of the anti-Badger agenda.  Pretty sad.  I also found that they critique Durbin's numbers on his "Stop Badgering Our Lake" campaign, much like I did here earlier this month.  Be sure to make your position known.  Don't let them bugger the Badger.

 

[Willy]

Excellent work X. If they dig a little deeper I'm sure they would find a connection to Muskegon's officials as well since they have been singing the same song as Durbin and Lake Express.

[XLFD]

Thanks, Willy.  It does show the recurrent theme I have noted often here in the Torch.  Instead of having good old fashioned free market competition, that often works out best for all, government got involved.  When the government gets involved in a business venture, as they did when they made big loans to Lake Express, and it looks as they did by having the government goons going after their better alternative (the SS Badger) and change the rules on them, they show why public-private partnerships always wind up against the public and violate general fairness to other businesses.