INTERESTING: Impact Lab cites Baptists Turn From Public Schools

Monday, August 27, 2007

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12878

***Begin Quote***

Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum.

Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation’s largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members.

***End Quote***

Bout time the realized the true nature of gooferment skoolz!

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RANT: If the gooferment pays you off for a loss

Monday, August 27, 2007

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070827/D8R91P5O1.html

Storm Cleanup Begins in Soggy Midwest
Aug 26, 8:34 PM (ET)
By EMILY ZEUGNER

*** begin quote ***

The disaster declaration means residents can apply for assistance, including grants for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses.

*** end quote ***

I am truly sorrow for the trouble these folks are having.

But, I have to rant about “federal flood insurance” and the strategy of rebuilding. I’ve often called Federal Flood Insurance as a boondoggle to allow rich folks to rebuild in risky places.

Sorry, but perhaps we need to change the strategy here. If I, meaning the Federal Gooferment, pay for for your loss, then you don’t get to rebuild in the same place. That plot is forever “uninsurable”. You, or anyone, builds there at their own risk. No second bites of the apple. We have properties here in New Jersey that have been flooded out twice in the same year. Never mind the hundred year flood plain.

So there is my idea: If the gooferment pays you off for a loss, the site is now a green space.

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FABLES: You’re a Congressman (Consultant!)

Monday, August 27, 2007

FROM MY FAVORITE LUDDITE:

I have seen this recycled a few times, mostly as a ‘consultant’, but I like this version better. :-)
———————————————————————————————————
A Montana cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many animals you have in your herd, will you give Me a calf?”

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA Satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high- resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says: “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.” “That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man; “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

You’re a Congressman for the U .S. Government”, says the cowboy.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows…this is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog “.

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ROFL~

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MONEY: gooferment created the real estate problem

Monday, August 27, 2007

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSN2040778220070827?feedType=RSS&feedName=inDepthNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Flips, scams blamed in California housing decline
Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:08AM EDT
By Christelyn Karazin

***Begin Quote***

The Inland Empire, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, was a latecomer to the housing boom in California as buyers squeezed out of high-price coastal Los Angeles and Orange counties found large homes going up on the region’s vast supply of vacant land.

And it has been one of the most hard hit by foreclosures.

The Inland Empire’s combined Riverside and San Bernardino counties reported the fourth highest number of foreclosure filings of any of the nation’s 229 largest metro areas in July, behind Atlanta, Los Angeles and Detroit, according to market tracker RealtyTrac.

OWNERS GO ‘UPSIDE DOWN’

Survivors of Towne Square find themselves not only with unsightly, empty properties next door, but also with home values plummeting amid the fire sales on foreclosed homes.

So selling and moving to a better neighborhood is not much of an option because many owe more on their mortgage than they would get for the sale — what the industry calls “upside down.”

And real estate agents note that California’s market is likely to rebound as it has in the past, underpinned by high population growth.

***End Quote***

OK, the gooferment created the real estate problem with fiat currency that allowed artificially low interest rates to start with and followed it up by being up to its collective nose with “regulation” and interference the market.

Solution. The gooferment should exit stage left.

Tough, yes. But giving them a role in fixing it will bring even more “unanticipated consequences”. Some time it’s tough to take the right medicine but it’s better for us in the long run.

We know that the “tough love” solution isn’t going to work so what should we do?

* If you have an ARM, refi before you get ARM-twisted (i.e., have to refi when rates are “bad”).

* If you have property, consider refi in terms of your long term financial strategy. Rick Edelman makes a good case for having your estate pay of your mortgage so you have flexibility. Dave Ramsey makes a good case for being debt free. I won’t quibble with either one.

* If you are renting, look for “fire sale” bargains.

* If you are investor, look for absolute value bargains.

* Anticipate low rates for a while with tightening credit standards.

* Anticipate recession and declines in various markets.

imho

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RANT: The marketplace is Lady Liberty’s friend

Sunday, August 26, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/26/casinos_and_the_american_way/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+–+Jeff+Jacoby+columns

Casinos and the American way
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | August 26, 2007

*** begin quote ***

So it goes, year after year, in state after state: Entrepreneurs and investors who ought to have the same freedom to operate a casino as they would to open a shoe store or start a newspaper are forced instead to run an exhausting and expensive political gauntlet, often with no guarantee that casino gambling will even be permitted, let alone that they’ll win a license to build one. How many other peaceful businesses offering a popular form of entertainment face such formidable legal and political barriers to entry?

*** end quote ***

It’s that the politician want more “slush money”. Usually Jeff is more perceptive about motivations. Motivations of politicians are very transparent — more. More control of the people. More money to “do good”. Of course, if along the way a little change falls into the pockets of their friends, family, and themselves, so much the better.

Argh!

The marketplace is Lady Liberty’s friend. It makes everything transparent. If we had truly free markets in gambling, then the politicians would be able to steal from either your losings or your winnings. If we had a free market in drugs, there’d be no collateral damage. If we had a free market in products, everything would be cheaper. If we had a free market in money, there’d be no inflation tax. And on and on and on.

See the free market is like a global election with every small purchase. If we had free markets, how would politicians “save” us? They’d have to go find honest work!

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INTERESTING: Open Door During Flight

Sunday, August 26, 2007

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294632,00.html

Passenger Arrested After Trying to Open Door During Flight
Sunday, August 26, 2007

***Begin Quote***

DENVER — A passenger tried to open a plane door during a Frontier Airlines flight on Saturday morning but was subdued by airline staff and passengers, an airline spokesman said.

***End Quote***

Duct tape to the rescue

We need Homeland security? No one is ever hijacking a plane again.

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MONEY: The Inflation Tax

Sunday, August 26, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/014893.html

August 26, 2007
Top 8 Ways Hard Money Would Change Your Life
Posted by Chris Brunner at August 26, 2007 12:57 AM

***Begin Quote***

2. No more Inflation Tax for the poor

Inflation occurs when the Federal Reserve expands the money supply by creating more money. Each time this happens, and lately it’s been happening at a frighteningly rapid pace, the money that already exists – that is, the paper in our wallets and bank accounts – loses its value. This is why prices increase. Each time your money loses its value, it takes more and more of it to purchase the same goods. These guys literally make a living stealing our wealth and giving it to others. However, unlike Robin Hood, the recipients of this wealth tend to be people who are already wealthy, and the people who are hurt the most are arguably the poor. That is, the people who get screwed the most are the poor who can’t afford the rising prices – those on with minimum wage jobs or fixed-incomes. A hard money policy would put a stop to this by cutting off the Fed’s ability to inflate, or abolishing the Fed entirely.

***End Quote***

Never mind just the poor. What about me!

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TECH SERVICE: FACEBOOK has flaws

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Interesting that it would let you look up just one email address. You have to create a file that it can import and check. And, it doesn’t always do that correctly!

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MONEY: treat the USD as a depreciating asset

Saturday, August 25, 2007

http://thelibertarianforum.com/Videos/Ron-Paul-Federal-Reserve.html

Video: Ron Paul on the Federal Reserve – TheLibertarianForum
(Source: thelibertarianforum.com)
Ron Paul on the federal reserve bank.

Money is not a store as value as it is supposed to be. Ron give “Helicopter Ben” a rudimentary lesson in what is wrong with the current system.

* Congress unConstitutionally created a central bank and ceded all oversight of that bank to a private cartel to the detriment of the American people.

* The dollar is inflated year after year. This results in a 96% loss in purchasing power (Ron Paul’s number) since 1913. (Other statisticians say it’s 95% from 1970 to 2000). Regardless of whose numbers you believe the purchasing power of the dollar erodes dramatically impacting everyone , but especially the people least able to cope.

* Inflation is a tax. Hidden. Silent. This permits the Congress to spend without limit.

All financial planning must treat the USD as a depreciating asset. YMMV!

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RANT: Docs are not “gods among men”; just people who have seen a lot!

Saturday, August 25, 2007

FROM A POSTING:

*** begin quote ***

I am really, really skeptical and as of right now, I am scheduled to get vaccinated tomorrow. Honestly, I’m a little worried and I still think this may have been a screw-up. I’d prefer that they do the blood test again but I don’t want to seem like an asshole. I’m also not sure if that’s even an option.

*** end quote ***

Dear XXXX,

Please don’t worry about being an a double q!

(Us old fogeys are uncomfortable using rough language around ladies; any minute we expect the sky to open and one of the good Nuns or Brothers of our past to administer an “reminder” painfully somewhere on our anatomy!)

Ever hear of the fable of the pig and the chicken? No! In a ham and egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, while the pig is committed. In this case, the doc is the proverbial chicken. Guess your role?

If you are in doubt, stop. It’s the Universe and your gut warning you that something is wrong. Humans didn’t survive long in the wild by not listening to your instincts.

You have every right to determine what gets done with your tush!

If you want a repeat blood test before proceeding, demand it! If the insurance doesn’t want to pay, pay for it yourself and fight with them later.

Get a second, independent opinion! Open the phone book, look up the nearest teaching hospital, call them, and get an appointment with the head chickenpox guy or the youngest girl doc in the department tomorrow! Don’t take the “barbara streisand” that there are no openings. I use the line “if your Mom was sick would he have an opening. Yes! Good news, your Mom’s not sick. Give me her slot!” :-) (It works once in each office!)

I’ve been thru a ton of stuff with my wife over the years. Docs are nothing more than “good guessers”. 95% of the time they are running fixed plays right out of the playbook. UofK, UCLA, Joslin, and Mayo even have their handy dandy diagnosis decision trees in pdfs on their website. When my wife was in real trouble, I printed the cardiology one from Duke and stuck it under her cardiologist’s nose and made him explain every thing again in little words. While not pleased, he did it. (She’s snoozing on the couch now rather than in a coffin!)

Please do what you need to assure yourself that your getting the correct treatment. If the doc kills you, or worse disables you (i.e., there are real horror stories about medical blunders), the doc will say “Ooops! Next patient!”. You’ll be cleaning up his mess forever.

I can NOT afford to lose any fellow XXXXX that know how to blog!

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