EV Silverado Fire

An electric Silverado that hadn't been driven or charged in two weeks, because the family that owned it was away from home, caught fire spontaneously.

This incident took place on 12 July 2026 in Troy, Michigan, which is about 15 miles north of downtown Detroit.

The family in question had enough sense to park the vehicle far enough away from the house, that there was only minimal damage to the structure.

This is the StacheD Training video Electric Silverado Catches Fire After Sitting for Two Weeks

Troy is the largest volunteer department in Michigan. We have six stations.

Pat, at StacheD is a firefighter, and an engineer. He usually tries to explain what is going on with the technology, and not just show photos, or video of fires. I appreciate the information he provides. In this case he details the construction of the battery pack. It was a 205 kilowatt battery, weighing in at about 3000 pounds. He has a diagram, that he uses to explain why fighting the fire was so difficult.

Once the battery is in thermal runaway, there's really no way to stop it, especially with pouch style cells.

It took about 4 hours to get the temperature down to where the vehicle could be transported to a junk yard. A firetruck had to follow the flat bed to the yard. The video is 8 minutes.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Michigan

And for once the prosecutors seem on board with that. 2 involved in Fairlane mall shooting acted in self-defense: prosecutors

Fairlane Town Center mall is in Dearborn, a city in Wayne County, Michigan, which is located about 7 miles west of downtown Detroit.

Three people were shot, two fatally, at 1:25 p.m. Friday, July 3, inside the shopping center on Michigan Avenue. Cameron Watkins and Keonte Seaborn, both 19 and of Detroit, were killed.

The person is charged, if I'm reading this correctly, with unlawful carry of a concealed firearm. So the prosecutors had to go for something.

And then there is this:

Dearborn police Detective Benjamin Harless said the shooting was "most likely a gang-related incident."

Color me shocked.

The Dam Collapse that Didn't Happen

Since there was no catastrophe, this story didn't make much news, or I didn't see much about it, in the news. From Madalyn Buursma at WLNS Lansing: Water levels at Cheboygan dam stabilized

This was a story that was all too similar to the Edenville Dam collapse on 19 May 2020.

A series of storms dumping a lot of rain upstream of the dam. The spillways not in the best shape. The powerhouse not able to pass water through the turbines. The water got withing a few inches (5?) of overtopping the dam. Emergency crews brought in pumps to aid in getting water out of the reservoir.

The power house, which could pass a lot of water through the turbine, had been closed since 2023 when a fire in a nearby factor had caused the powerhouse to be shutdown. In what has to be a product of "lessons learned" from Edenville and Sanford dams, an emergency effort was undertaken, to get the equipment tested, the generators reconnected to the electrical grid, and the powerhouse back on line.

The result: Crews restart hydroelectric turbine at Cheboygan Dam

The hydro dam at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex is officially online and river water levels are dropping, according to Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division.

The announcement comes after Department of Natural Resources officials worked with Consumers Energy, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to restore a former hydro dam powerhouse. The turbine hadn’t operated since a 2023 fire.

Using the turbine to generate power allows the people managing the dam to increase water flow by 30%. Taking that amount of control away from the dam operators was never a good idea. And while low-head hydroelectric power is deemed to be to expensive today, clearly that installation is capable of generating power, which since the infrastructure is in place is clean energy. While you might not build it from scratch today, why not use it for the rest of its lifespan?

Cheboygan, Michigan is on the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula. It is on the shore of Lake Huron, at the mouth of the Cheboygan River. It is about 19 miles southeast of Mackinaw City, Michigan, or about a 285 mile drive north of Detroit. The dam is right in the middle of the city, about 1½ miles from Lake Huron.

With the extra effort, and some dry weather, the situation came back under control, with the water levels falling.

Six Years to Replace Infrastructure

On May 19th, 2020, during a storm, the Edenville dam in Michigan failed. It was a Tuesday evening. The flood waters caused the Sanford Dam to fail on the 20th.

After a lot of finger pointing, and at least one lawsuit, it was decided to rebuild those 2 dams, and repair/upgrade two more that were also impacted by the storm but did not fail.

Refilling of Sanford lake began on April 15th.

This is Jordan Mowbray's video Final Test COMPLETE… Sanford Lake Refill Starts in DAYS! - Drone -Dam Collapse

When the plans were first announced to rebuild the dams, I was disappointed that they would not be hydroelectric generators, but that would have made permitting more complicated. They are only for flood control, and creating recreational lakes.

Drugs and Alcohol Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

They can cause you to do things that end in you getting shot. Deputies: Homeowner shoots, kills suspect during home invasion

Initial calls indicated a man who appeared to be under the influence was banging on the window of an apartment attached to the house. He then broke into the apartment and assaulted the tenant, according to Lt. Austin Aamodt with the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Department.

After that, he tried to break into the main part of the home. The homeowner shot him.

Michigan’s Castle Doctrine law states a person can use deadly force if someone “is in the process of breaking and entering a dwelling or business premises or committing home invasion or has broken and entered a dwelling or business premises or committed home invasion and is still present in the dwelling or business premises, or is unlawfully attempting to remove another individual from a dwelling, business premises, or occupied vehicle against his or her will.”

Muskegon County, Michigan, is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Egelston Township is about 20 miles northwest of Grand Rapids, or about 5 miles east of downtown Muskegon.

The investigation is just beginning, but the cops did not arrest anyone, and even assistant professors at the local university are talking about legal self-defense. I have no idea how the DA in that part of Michigan has acted in the past.

Self-defense is a human right, and Michigan has developed a fairly clear respect for the legal right, at least since they legalized concealed carry. I don't know how they were much before that.

Michigan Terrorist

From The Other McCain we get the following: The Terrorist and the 12th District

Two decades ago, the phrase “Dearbornistan” became common among conservative bloggers during the Global War on Terror, because of the notorious cluster of Islamic radicals in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn.

As soon as I heard about Thursday’s attack on a synagogue in West Bloomfield — before anything had been reported about the suspect’s identity — I checked to see how far the synagogue was from Dearborn.

Click thru for some info on Dearborn, the 12th District, and politics.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Michigan

And DAs HATE that. Apparently. Man acquitted of murder in Grand Rapids shooting after self-defense claim

A man has been acquitted of murder for a confrontation that ended in a deadly shooting outside a Grand Rapids bar.

Now the defendant in the case is prohibited person, so he faces some weapons charges, which may explain why the DA thought he could win.

It started as bar fight between two groups. One group had been escorted to the exit by bar security. When the other group left the bar, the defendant had been punched in the head, leading to a self-defense shooting. There was video of the shooting.

Now it isn't self-defense because the shooter says it is. Perhaps the DA felt there were gray areas that a trial was justified, and perhaps the DA hates self-defense, thought he could "win" against a defendant with a prior conviction. DAs mostly don't like self-defense, though to be fair, I have no knowledge of Grand Rapids or what the DA is like.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Michigan

I thought it was, but one can never be sure. Prosecutors rule security guard acted in self-defense in shooting that killed woman outside Southfield bar

Investigators said a woman pulled a gun on the security guard outside of Bloom Southfield after an earlier fight involving her sister and brother-in-law.

The guard fired six shots, killing 33-year-old Alexandra Fields and accidentally hitting another person in the leg.

The security guards were giving aid to the sister, who was injured, when the soon-to-be-dead woman came back, armed with both a wrench and a gun. When she pointed the gun,

As far as I can tell, this incident took place on January 10th. That means that the Oakland County DA's office moved at warp speed to get this decision in under 2 weeks. Oakland County, Michigan is home to Pontiac (the county seat), and Southfield.

Southfield, Michigan is roughly 15 miles northwest of downtown Detroit.

Self-defense is really becoming a thing in Michigan.

Not a Nice Way to Celebrate Christmas

Also, people need to come to terms with the fact that relationships end. Fowlerville homeowner reportedly shoots, kills armed intruder

An armed guy broke into a home. Both the homeowner and the intruder were shot. While the homeowner had non-life-threatening injured, the intruder didn't survive his wounds.

The intruder was the estranged husband of a woman who was visiting the homeowner at the time of the incident, the sheriff's office said. The ex-husband entered the residence and fired multiple shots at the homeowner, striking him twice, police said. The homeowner returned fire, ultimately striking and killing the shooter.

Fowlerville, in Livingston County, Michigan, is about 22 miles east of Lansing, and about 50 mile northwest of Detroit.

This was not a spur of the moment type of thing, since the shooter had to drive 95 or 100 miles from Lake Orion, near Pontiac, Michigan, to reach Fowlerville.

While the investigation is ongoing, the facts as reported seem to indicate this was self-defense, which is a human right. Self-defense has also been shown to be your legal right in Michigan.

Infrastructure Rebuild in Michigan

When we build infrastructure, we don't do too bad as a technology-using species. We shouldn't wait for a disaster to fix things, but it often seems like that is all we do.

On 19 May 2020 at 17:46 EDT following a heavy rain storm, the earthen embankment of the Edenville Dam failed by way of static liquefaction. (See this excerpt from a video by Practical Engineering on static liquefaction; it is queued up to the relevant portion of the video.) The dam failure released enough water to overtop the Sanford Dam 16 kilometers downstream. While that dam was damaged it did not breach.

After some legal wrangling, bureaucratic finger pointing, and other nonsense, plans were put in place to replace the Edenville Dam, the Sanford Dam, the Smallwood Dam, and the Tobacco River Dam. A couple were damaged, all had been rated as being in very bad shape before the disaster, but politicians don't like to deal with infrastructure. It isn't flashy, and doesn't really help them buy votes from anyone. And so it is all too often replaced or repaired only after a disaster.

It is too complicated to relate the entire history of these dams, but the full video from Practical Engineering, not just the portion highlighted above, isn't a bad place to start.

This is Jordan Mowbray's video Edenville Dam Emergency Spillway Work Rapid Progress- Earthen Embankment - Dam Drone - Dam Collapse. Shows some of the current state of the rebuild of the dam.

Don't Bring a Snow Shovel to a Gunfight

Don't assume your intended victim is unarmed in 2025. Michigan man who shot shovel-wielding man acted in self-defense, police say - CBS Detroit

A 60-year-old Michigan man who shot another man who attacked him with a shovel acted in self-defense, authorities said.

Reasonable fear of imminent death, or grave bodily injury goes without saying, if your assailant is armed with a shovel.

The 49-year-old told the 60-year-old to leave, and then he shoved him, and hit him with the shovel. The 60-year-old shot him twice, and called police.

The man who was shot was taken to an area hospital, where he is in stable condition, police said.

There is even video evidence from somewhere, but they do not elaborate.

Kalamazoo, Michigan is about a 140 mile drive west of Detroit. It is about 35 miles east of Lake Michigan.

Self-defense is a human right, and it has been gaining traction as a legal right in Michigan the past several years.

All he wanted to do was return a borrowed stepladder. And he gets attacked. (Hat tip to KABA)

Self-Defense Is Legal in Michigan

DAs are most affected. Not guilty: Jurors find man acted in self-defense during fatal shootout in Jackson

It took the jury 3 hours of deliberation to decide the case. What is the minimum amount of time that it would take a jury to deliberate? What is the minimum amount of time they would deliberate and still get lunch? (Though I don't know that they got lunch.)

The guy who got shot had a gun. There were bullets missing from the gun. This would imply that the defendant did have a fear of death or grave bodily injury.

And still the DA had to prosecute.

Jackson, Michigan is about a 35 mile drive west of Ann Arbor, or about a 75 mile drive west of Detroit.

Self-defense is a human right, and it seems to be your legal right in Michigan, depending on what the DA feels like.

This Is What Evil Looks Like

He should spend a very long time in prison. From MLive Media: Man enters plea for stabbing 11-year-old girl during Rockford home invasion

Video surveillance obtained by Kent County sheriff’s deputies showed Castillo enter the home and undressed to only his underwear and T-shirt. Castillo then grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer and walked upstairs, police wrote in an affidavit.

Castillo opened the door to the master bedroom and noticed a husband and wife asleep. He shut the door and “went to look for an easier target,” police said.

So he went into a room where two girls were sleeping, stripped, climbed on top of one, and started stabbing her.

The girl’s screams awoke the homeowner, who called 911 and informed dispatchers that he was holding Castillo at gunpoint until police arrived. The girl was stabbed multiple times in her arm and shoulder, requiring surgery.

I'm not sure whether or not I would have had enough mercy to "hold him at gun point." Maybe the homeowner didn't have a clear shot. Maybe.

Kent County, Michigan, is in the western part of the The Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It is about 20 miles east of Lake Michigan, and includes the city of Grand Rapids.

He pleaded no contest to attempted murder, first-degree home invasion and an added charge of assault with intent to commit second-degree sexual conduct.

He didn't know the family or the girl he had attacked. He said his plan was to kill an entire family.

This is evil.

Michigan Democrats $5 Billion Fraud Scheme

Gregory Lyakhov at The Gateway Pundit: Michigan Democrats Caught in $5 Billion Fraud Scheme

House Republicans say their review of the state budget revealed more than $5 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse, hidden through the creation of 4,277 “phantom jobs.”

These positions do not exist in reality but were used to justify line items that allowed Democrats to funnel money toward radical priorities rather than essential services.

Click thru for all the details, but I will leave you with this one.

Under complete Democrat control, Lansing has allowed the budget to balloon to over $82 billion—the largest in state history.

I'm shocked that there is corruption in politics. Or maybe not all that shocked.

Rebuilding Infrastructure

After the failure of the Edenville and Sanford dams in Michigan in May of 2020, Jordan Mowbray took a page out of Juan Browne's book and started documenting the rebuilding efforts.

Secord Dam was determined to be at risk of the same kind of failure, and so a lot of rebuilding was required. The work on the Secord dam was halted in 2024, after completion of the emergency spillway, because of a lawsuit filed against Four Lakes Task Force, the organization created to own the 4 dams after the disaster. (2 dams failed, 2 were either damaged or deemed to be in need of repair. There may be more dams in the mix.) That lawsuit was completed, and the work on rebuilding the main spillway was restarted.

This is Jordan Mowbray's video Secord Dam WORK has RESTARTED! HUGE Progress! - Drone - Dam Collapse

Here are a few links to prior posts on the whole situation.

• The Failure of Edenville Dam and the Cascade Failure of Sanford Dam
• 2020 Michigan Dam Failures: Forensic Report
• We Do a Fair Job With Infrastructure When We Don't Ignore It

More on the Walmart Stabbing

The Other McCain reminds us that Crazy People Are Dangerous

Say hello to Brandon Gille and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because he will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars. Gille went on a stabbing spree at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan, on Saturday. All 11 of his victims survived the attack and, for once, the “Ann Coulter Rule” turned out to be wrong in this case. Police were for some reason unwilling to identify the suspect in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s attack, even though they had the guy in custody.

What is the Ann Coulter Rule? (I didn't know, or if I did know at one point I'd forgotten.)

The Ann Coulter Rule specifies that, the longer the police delay identifying the perp, the greater the likelihood that it’s not a white guy. So everybody was speculating that the Traverse City stabber must be a Muslim or perhaps an illegal immigrant, but it turned out to be a crazy white guy.

Click thru for the details, including a bit on Derrick Perry, the armed bystander who put an end to the incident.

Going to guess that this delusional guy with a history of drug abuse was homeless.

Go on. Click thru.

My earlier post on this incident is Armed Citizen Stops Mass Stabbing

Armed Citizen Stops Mass Stabbing

Most of the media, apparently, doesn't want to recognize that this maniac was stopped by a good guy with a gun, who was not a cop.

The New York Post is open to the facts. At least 11 stabbed at Traverse City Walmart in terrifying scene before armed shopper helped detain knife-wielding madman

At least 11 people were stabbed in a bloody scene inside a Michigan Walmart Saturday night — causing terrified shoppers and employees to flee — before a brave armed citizen helped detain the knife-wielding maniac, according to police, witnesses and harrowing video.

The terror unfolded around 5 p.m. when the alleged 42-year-old male attacker began randomly stabbing shoppers with a “standard” folding knife in various sections of the big-box chain store in Traverse City, about 255 miles northwest of Detroit, Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael Shea said.

Why don't the media as a whole want to recognize the role that legal concealed carry played in this incident? Because they hate guns, and gun owners, and they only want to push the narrative that guns make everyone unsafe. A law abiding gun owner stops a maniac with a knife. How does that promote the narrative?

Thankfully there are a few outlets like the NY Post where they don't let their bias dictate coverage.

The knife-wielding monster was ultimately taken down by a pair of brave shoppers, including one who was armed, before authorities arrived and took him into custody, according to police and witnesses.

This is Colion Noir's video Caught On Camera Armed Citizen Stops Walmart Mass Stabbing Of 11 People.

A man with a folding knife went full Michael Myers and Traverse City, Michigan, stabbing not one, not two, but 11 people in a Walmart before someone finally said, "Nah, not today," and stopped him. The only way you stop a psychopath with a knife, with a gun. But you wouldn't know that if you watch most of the news coverage. They're allergic to saying the word "gun," unless it's in the same sentence as "ban."

The video is just over 9 minutes, but worth the time. It includes a news story from a local station.

Churches Need to Address Security

This isn't going to get better. Churches increase security training after CrossPointe shooting incident

Days before a gunman showed up at CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, members of that church and its volunteer security team were learning how to protect their house of worship.

"If it isn't the norm for your church, it's probably the time to start thinking about it," said Matt Balla from Peacemakers Gun Range in Howell.

It is a sad commentary on the state of the society, but it is what it is.

This brings to mind Hobbes' Leviathan. The idea that security is required for civilization to endure is not new. Hobbes published Leviathan in 1651. In that book he describes the State of War that ensues when law and order break down.

Western Civilization is built on a foundation of law and order. Without law and order, you can't have nice things. You can't have anything really. Or as Hobbes stated it, when there is no force-of-law to keep people in check, things break down. We are left with only the security we can provide for ourselves.

Evil Cannot Create, It Can Only Destroy

The title to this post isn't a quote from Tolkien, because I can't remember it, and don't feel like looking it up. Thousands of peonies destroyed at popular University of Michigan garden

Thousands of blooming peony plants were destroyed overnight at the University of Michigan’s W.E. Upjohn Peony Garden.

Tony Kolenic, director of Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, shared the news in a video Sunday, June 1, on social media.

“These peonies are not just plants, they are living beings,” Kolenic said in a Facebook post. “They’ve been nurtured over generations and bring joy, community, and connection to the natural world for so many people every season.”

Why? Because "Free Palestine," or some other BS. You should destroy stuff to show what a great person you are.

I miss living in a civilized society.

Professional Journalists and Their Misleading Headlines

It's a tragedy, or so they would have you believe. 15-year-old girl shot during alleged break-in at Summit Township home

It should read, "15-year-old criminal shot attempting to break into an occupied home," which should qualify as felony stupidity, but sadly does not.

As for the misleading headline, it couldn't be that Professional Journalists hate guns and gun owners, could it? Could they be letting their personal bias impact the way the report a news story? Professional Journalists would never do that, would they? </sarcasm>

Deputies said the homeowner told them that he shot at the people who were trying to break into his home. According to the sheriff's office, a 15-year-old girl from Jackson was shot and is in the hospital; she is expected to survive.

She wasn't alone.

The sheriff's office said three people are believed to be involved in the alleged breaking and entering. They have been found, detained, and interviewed.

No one was arrested, which makes me believe that all were juveniles.

Summit Township, in Jackson County, Michigan, is about an 85 mile drive west of Detroit, in the central part of the state.

So what were you doing at the age of 15? I'm guessing felony breaking and entering wasn't on the menu.

The DA will determine if anyone is charged with anything. As for the homeowner, self-defense is a human-right, and mostly your legal right in Michigan.