Links and Minifeatures 2008 06 11 Wednesday

I'm very proud of my older daughter, who earned an Advanced Level Presidential Award at her school assembly!

Looks like even the professional appeasers in Foggy Bottom are getting tired of the Yemeni regime's antics:

The State Department Notes Distressing Trend

Ancient cave linked to early Christians in Jordan

From the early time when Christians were a persecuted minority (as opposed to now in sharia countries and leftist strongholds, both of which have their own state religion of intolerance).

Hussein said there was evidence that the underground cave was used as a church by 70 disciples of Jesus in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.

A win for the good guys, and property owners everywhere:

Nev. rancher awarded $4.2M for 'taken' water right

It took this case seventeen years to work its way through the courts, but it was resolved correctly in the end

(the judge), based in Washington D.C., said the cancellation of Hage's grazing permit because of overgrazing and trespassing did not violate the Fifth Amendment because a grazing permit is a license, not property.

However, (the judge) said, the taking occurred when the Forest Service made it impossible for Hage to maintain irrigation ditches, which deprived the ranch of water and made it unviable.

And there was much rejoicing!

This has a lot of implications for other government takings. Rent Control ordnances. Development restrictions and zoning downgrades. Anything that restricts the ability of a property owner to enjoy that property. If someone bought it with the restriction in place, I can accept that they're bound, but for the past thirty years, government at various levels has been arbitrarily imposing new restrictions that curtail economic and physical usefulness of property. Unconstitutionally, IMHO.

Thirty years past due and the lede was buried to make it appear a Democratic idea, but I'll take it:

Congress considering entitlement reform

At the centerpiece of that hearing will be a proposal, authored by Cooper and Republican Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, that would kick entitlement reform to a bipartisan commission like the one that has handled military base closings. The Cooper-Wolf panel would spend a year studying the nation's fiscal concerns before presenting Congress with a legislative package which it would be forced to vote on in its entirety.

and

The veteran Republican boiled over during a brief discussion about the mounting costs of these programs, scribbling pie charts on the back of a stray bill to demonstrate how the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are eating up a greater percentage of the federal budget each year. Wolf and others have grown increasingly frustrated with the partisan politics that have plagued previous reform efforts.

"We're waiting for Godot," Wolf said.

If people think it's a good idea to tax "windfall profits" of oil companies trying their best to keep a supply of oil flowing and stymied by congress, Scott Ott of Scrappleface has an idea you'll love.

America's Stupidest Criminals: This is fraud with malice aforethought, and these people should go to jail, along with the real estate agents and loan officers who help them

Some Buy a New Home to Bail on the Old

In some cases, homeowners are coached through the buy-and-bail process by real-estate agents and brokers who see nothing wrong with it. Some blame the phenomenon in part on lenders' unwillingness to cut deals or restructure loans made when home prices were inflated. "It's just a business decision," says Linda Caoili, a Sacramento real-estate agent who is working with Ms. Augustine and others who are considering walking away from their mortgages. "If you're upside-down $250,000, why would you keep it? It just doesn't make sense."

This isn't a matter of a marginal case. This is someone intentionally telling a falsehood on their mortgage application, and someone who knows different helping them cover it up. It doesn't get any more cut and dried than that. See also perjury, and I find it incredible that these people are admitting to these activities in interviews with national media.

Nor are the lenders sitting idle and waiting for it to happen. This is going to kill the ability to use rental income to justify a loan if we're not all careful. And that's not in anyone's best interest.

Thomas Sowell

Perhaps his greatest achievement has been running as a candidate with an image wholly incompatible with what he has actually been doing for decades. This man who is now supposedly going to "unite" us has for years worked hand in glove, and contributed both his own money and the taxpayers' money, to people who have sought to divide us in the most crude demagogic ways.

HT: Don Surber