RANT: Michigan Republican Party wants to bar Ron Paul from debates

Thursday, May 17, 2007

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/
base/news-44/117935695635230.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

http://tinyurl.com/2fou7e

Michigan GOP leader wants Paul barred from future debates
5/16/2007, 7:07 p.m. EDT
By JIM DAVENPORT The Associated Press

*** begin quote ***

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday that he will try to bar Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.

*** end quote ***

Sure, because he differentiated himself from the other 9 clowns.

Does the chairman think that by bombing Iraq we have won friends over there?

Every killing, casualty, or “collateral damage” drafts more people into the “hate america” movement.

The dead old white guys didn’t want an aggressive foreign policy. That’s why the Constitution only permits an army for TWO YEARS. Drag out you Constitution if you have one and take a gander at it.

We should be like Switzerland. A porcupine; not an ass. MYOB. Respect the rights of others.

Heck, we don’t even respect the rights of our fellow americans!

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Posted by reinkefj

PRODUCTIVITY: Anything that expires should be an appointment in your Outlook

Thursday, May 17, 2007

When I notarize stuff for people (mostly my Colleagues at work), I put their DL expiration in my Outlook calendar (minus one month). When it triggers, I send them an email. You can’t imagine how many people don’t know that. Surprised, they quick go renew. Just another value added service from your local nj notary. So don’t feel bad, lot’s of people do it. BTW I put my DL and Frau’s dates in my Outlook calendar as well. Passport dates, or anything that has an expiration.

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: Bigger isn’t better for representative purposes

Thursday, May 17, 2007

http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007705150371

Bill Zapcic
It’s time for long-dead towns to find a buddy and reincorporate
Home News Tribune Online 05/15/07

***Begin Quote***

So how many municipal units should New Jersey have? We cram 8,724,560 people onto 7,417.34 square miles. (That’s about a half-acre for each of us, as long as you don’t mind being the person standing in the meadowlands or on the white stripe near Interchange 11 of the Turnpike.) Take out the biggest cities’ combined 700,000 people, and that leaves 8 million. Some of our more efficient municipalities, and those with lower property taxes than the state average, have 80,000 people. That’s a nice number.

***End Quote***

Oh yeah, “big” municipalities have worked out so well for the taxpayers of Nu Jerzee. Try and vote out some one in Newark or Camden. It ain’t gonna happen in your lifetime. Smaller is better. I’d like to break everything down into smaller granules. Even South Brunswick is too big to influence.

If we had smaller administrative units, then we could be “heard”. Certainly my neighbors are better served by a block representative than the South Brunswick – Middlesex County – Trenton -WashingtonDC paradigm.

When the revolution comes, it will be small units that will win because the politicians won’t be able to “escape” from their neighbors.

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Posted by reinkefj

PRODUCTIVITY: Using Gmail as your spam filter

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=512

Using Gmail as your spam filter
Gmail has a good spam filter, you can use it for your own email accounts.

Office Watch’s Email Essentials has picked up “my” tip on using GMail as a spam filter. Of course, they explain it much better than I do. I like to use TWO gmail ids.

ISP Id#1 -> Gmail#1 -> Gmail#2

ISP Id#2 -> Gmail#3 -> Gmail#2

But they explain it much better.

# # # # #

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Posted by reinkefj

YAHOO ANSWER: Credit unions good for car loans? Not good; great!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

*** begin quote ***

Credit unions good for car loans?

I am looking to buy a used car that is $16000. a 72 month loan seems to be getting me an apr of about 11% no matter who i go through – would a credit unio be able to give me a lower rate – and are there any downsides to being a credit union member?

*** end quote ***

I just checked my credit union and you can get 48 months for 6%.

So they have good deals. I’ve blogged on how to bootstrap your way out of repeated car loans. Basically buy a car, finance it for three, but pay for six. The second three becomes savings for the next down payment.

I can’t give you a downside for a credit union loan, but I can give you a giant upside.

Most, if not all, credit unions don’t use the rule of 72 on your car payments. Most everyone else makes you pay the interest first and principal later. If you prepay the loan, then you’ve paid a higher rate for your money. CUs use a simple interest formula. Prepay early and you save interest expense. That prepayment also happens unexpectedly when the car gets totaled. So two good reasons to use the Credit Union. And, the CU usually has free credit life insurance thrown in.

So do your homework, it can save you big bucks.

Downside, you may have to bring a check from the credit union to the dealer, so you won’t have instant gratification of signing papers and driving away. So, I did think of a downside. But that dealer financing can be very “expensive” if you don’t really examine the details, which most people don’t.

Good luck,
Let us know how you make out.

# # # # #

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: Learn skills that can’t be defeated by foreign competition

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/31830

http://tinyurl.com/2ueyjq

A Few Lessons from the Road
by Ben Stein
Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007, 12:00AM

***Begin Quote***

What’s the lesson here? Learn skills that can’t be defeated by foreign competition. The doctors in Detroit still make money. The finance people who manage the doctors’ offices still make money. And the people there who have substantial savings invested all over the world are doing fine, too.

More brutal than that lesson is that capitalism requires flexibility. Autoworkers who were being paid $50 an hour are getting laid off, it’s true. But in Indian Wells and Palm Desert, Calif., men and women who can lay tile or install plantation shutters or plumb toilets are getting $50 an hour and can’t keep up with demand.

***End Quote***

Remember the four part strategy: ruthless financial discipline, white collar job, blue collar skill, and a web biz.

Capitalism may require flexibility according to Senor Stein. But, the seeker “fighting” under today’s rules of engagement better have their own version of “flexibility” in mind.

Use your spare time wisely. Learn a language. There are things that are timeless and competition-proof. I’ve never met a poor plumber!

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: Dona nobis pacem.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer155.html

Memorial Day Alternative
by Butler Shaffer

***Begin Quote***

Paths of Glory – A Kirk Douglas film. A general sends his men on a suicide mission. When the mission fails, a few soldiers are arbitrarily selected to be tried – and executed – for cowardice.

***End Quote***

In my younger days, I loved war movies. I think it was Paths of Glory or perhaps it was The Execution of Private Slovik that killed that illusion.

Now I see and regret the error of my ways.

Maybe it was the anti-war folk songs of the Sixties. Maybe it was reading about countless kids coming home to their parents in body bags over the decades. Maybe it was the anti-war Socialist Left harping on the issue (to advance their own agenda). Maybe it was the MASH tv series.

Maybe it was just growing up.

I’ve since “learned” of the horror. The Japanese Internment, Dresden bombing, and A bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I “learned” it in school, but I was too stupid to really “learn” it.

I’ve since learned that venial leaders like Lincoln were pursuing their own agenda (i.e., that of the Northern mercantilists). Some were just lying like Wilson who campaigned on an anti-war platform and proceeded immediately to get us into WW1. Some were seeking to get out of economic trouble like FDR staging Pearl Harbor (see Stennent’s book). Some were silver-spoon sex-crazed drugged egotists like Kennedy, who knows what their motivation was (I’d have expected better of a vet who was almost killed). It seems we the people only find out the truth long after the bodies are buried. Our friends and family members bodies that is. We are led by a political class that has a positive motivation to put us more under their thumb. Hitler was an amateur. He should have had the income tax and inflation. That makes everyone a slave. Then you can kill them at your leisure.

“For the people, wars do not pay. The only cause of armed conflict is the greed of autocrats.” ~ Ludwig von Mises
“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” ~ Jeannette Rankin
“War is the health of the State” Randolph Bourne

All drive home the point. We all lose in ANY war.

You can talk to me about war, when someone is landing troops on the Jersey shore.

Dona nobis pacem.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Jury Duty

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

AS EXPECTED

I’m going to have a lot to say about Jury Duty, but a quick note. Zenger! They keep repeating that the jury members have to apply the law as the judges give it to you. But, the Fully Informed Jury Association says differently. Jurys judge the law as well. Freedom of the press was established by the Zenger trial. Prohibition was effectively ended years before the Repeal by jurys refusing to convict violators. No mention of that. And, those who attend the gooferment skoolz probably never heard of it.

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Posted by reinkefj

JOBSEARCH: Always frame problems

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

interbiznet presents The Bugler
May 15, 2007

 

***Begin Quote***

Gurutosis

The three most powerful words anyone can use are “I don’t know.” In an instant, the playing field gets leveled and the problem can be addressed without agenda. Center stage attention shifts and leaves an opening for the best local expertise to emerge. The very essence of leadership is knowing what to do when you don’t know.

***End Quote***

A well said piece of advice for seekers being interviewed. When candidates I was interviewing tried to bluff their way thru on a point, I’d hit the ‘eject button”.

No one knows everything, not even me!

It’s what you do when you can or can’t see the boundary. It’s how you test if there’s a hidden boundary there. It’s about your system for protecting against runaways, under runs, and stoppages.

It’s realizing that, you don’t know, what you don’t know.

The toughest boss I ever had used to asks for results, and then would ask how he was supposed to know that the results were true. At the time, I didn’t understand. But what he was asking was not just the answer to a problem, but to see the work that got to the answer. He wanted evidence and confidence. Just like in school.

So in your interview prep, be sure you have a legend (i.e., an elevator speech about something that you can pop out when needed) that presents a situation where either you couldn’t know the answer or you were wrong. In your legend, show how you always set up a “frame” so that you can never spin endless away. Visualize the spaceman’s wrench spinning off into deep space, until it reaches the end of the tether rope, and gets reeled back in. That’s the frame. Your frame can be time (i.e., I set a kitchen time, worked on the problem for an hour, and then I asked for help), feedback (i.e., a Colleague always checks my project plan for over commitments because I like to please people), or milestones (if.eat., I always have a project plan for anything I promise that has many moving parts).

Always demonstrate your framing!

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Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: There is no retirement fairy.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north529.html

Debt: An Inescapable Concept
Part 2: Personal Debt
by Gary North

***Begin Quote***

There is no tooth fairy. There is no retirement fairy. There will be no streams of income for the vast majority of old Americans. There will probably be monthly checks. They will not buy much.

***End Quote***

Medical costs will destroy us. The unfunded promises of the Medicare and drug benefits will bankrupt the country. When the politicians make promises, they leave the bill for the future taxpayers to pick up the tab. When the bill comes due, it’ll be devastating.

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Posted by reinkefj

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