Wolverines

The way I heard it was that the Ohio guys gave the Michigan guys the name "Wolverines" during the Toledo War. One version is that it was because they fought so fiercely, but that's not likely because their wasn't a lot of actual fighting during the Toledo War, it was mostly bluff and bluster. The other version, which is more likely, is because the Wolverine is an obnoxious animal. When a Wolverine makes a kill or scavenges any food source, it will eat till it pukes and then eat some more. When it finally gets to the point that it just can't eat any more, it will piss on the remaining food with a skunky musk, which ruins it so that nobody can eat it, not even the wolverine itself. I don't think that Michiganders and Ohioans still hate each other, except once a year when one of our universities plays one of their universities in a grudge football game. I don't think that Michiganders and Wisconsinites ever hated each other, but I could be wrong about that.

I haven't heard Michigan called "Winter Wonderland" in a long time. I seem to remember that it used to say "Water-Winter Wonderland" on our license plates, but now all it says is "wwwMichigan.gov". Why do people still put that "www" in their URL when the internet stopped using it about 15 years ago? I guess it doesn't hurt anything if you type it in, but it's unnecessary. What is necessary is the "http://", but few people put that in their URL. Now many of the sites use "https://", which has something to do with security, but I don't think it matters if you leave the "s" out when you type the URL in your address bar.

I read somewhere once that Illinois got its "Sucker" nickname because early settlers used to stick  hollow reeds down crayfish holes and suck out the water when they needed a drink out in the prairie. I remember when "Land of Lincoln" used to be on Illinois license plates, but I don't know if it still is. Lincoln was actually born in Kentucky, but he lived part of his life in both Indiana and Illinois.
"We'll vote for the son of Kentucky, the hero of Hoosier come true,
The pride of the Sucker so lucky, for Lincoln and liberty too." - from the campaign song "Lincoln and Liberty". Why don't the candidates have campaign songs anymore, did somebody decide that it wasn't cool? That sucks!

I remember voting for those Illinois judges once, the first time I voted on an absentee ballot while I was still in the army. As I remember it, there were a whole lot of them, maybe a hundred. It wasn't an "either or" proposition, those guys were already judges and you voted to either retain them or dump them. We only vote on a dozen or two judges in Michigan, and not all of them in the same year. There might be five or six of them listed, and the instructions tell you to only vote for one,  two or three of them. They tell you which ones are incumbents, but they don't tell you which party they are.

Michigan passed term limits for their state legislators some time ago. I voted against it, but they passed it anyway. We don't have term limits for congressmen, I suppose because that's federal, and it would take a constitutional amendment to change it. Dr. Dan just said that he would limit himself to two terms, but he didn't.

I'm surprised that you get to see third party candidates on TV, but then you watch more of it than I do. The Libertarians used to cry about their "news blackout", but I think it's just because they don't get enough votes to be considered newsworthy, or maybe it's because they aren't goofy enough. I seem to remember that Ross Perot got all kinds of coverage when he ran third party.