What does that mean in plain English?  According to the Ivory Tower:

One official expected the move to lead to a substantial increase in the interest the city pays on its debt, which could affect how the city delivers services. The downgrade also enables investors with which the city engaged in so-called credit swap agreements to request a payout from the city totaling $400 million.

Either scenario would rob the city of money from its general fund at a time when it faces a $300-million deficit and by most accounts already is failing to deliver adequate services to residents...

Irvin Corley Jr., the City Council's fiscal analyst, said a $400-million payout could push the city into bankruptcy.

Stop the presses, Detroit might go bankrupt.  We're all shocked.  The really surprising thing is that it took this long to get this far.  While I'd normally be inclined to go along with the predominant line out of Motown... you know, it is all President Bush's fault... I can't help but notice that there hasn't been a Republican elected anywhere in Detroit City Government in two, three generations.  But I'm sure that's entirely unrelated and the staggering, long-term single party control of the once teaming metropolis has nothing to do with its government's inefficiency and chronic failure to keep her books in the black.

Though, as failures go, that one might just pale in comparison to the worries outlined in a report issued yesterday that found Michigan one of a handful of states that doesn't allow enough time for our men and women serving our country in the military to vote.  The Detroit News reports:

It found that Michigan would need to add 13 days to the voting calendar to ensure its residents serving abroad with the military have sufficient time to vote and make sure it's counted.

"We cannot allow the men and women who defend our country to be denied the ability to exercise this basic democratic right," Doug Chapin, who directed the study on the states for the Pew Center, said in a statement accompanying the release of the report.

The study suggested Michigan could better guarantee voting rights through some simple revisions. Among them: Send absentee ballots to those abroad earlier than Sept. 20, the current date; and allow state election officials to make blank ballots available by e-mail, fax or other electronic means rather than through the regular mail.

Elections officials were quick to respond that there haven't been any problems getting Michigan ballots overseas and getting them returned in time for counting and that they meet federal guidelines.  Better yet, the September 7 deadline is untenable, they argue, because the Michigan Democrats held a late nominating convention last year, on September 8.  (No one explains why the Democrats couldn't simply hold their convention a week earlier if it means allowing our soldiers the chance to vote, mind you, but I digress.)

All of that said, when troops head out on extended missions away from base, that extra time could prove invaluable.  There does, after all, seem to be something gumming up the works.  The article notes:

...in 2006, about two-thirds of the estimated 1 million ballots distributed to military and other overseas voters were not counted because they weren't returned, came back too late or had other problems, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission. Estimates are not available on how many in this group were deprived voting rights last year.

Call me an idealist but I don't buy for a second that only 33% of active duty soldiers are interested in voting.  We've got a problem when that's the number of ballots being counted.  The fact that bureaucratic snafus might be silencing the voice of those who literally offer their lives in service to this country... that's the worst news of all this morning.