Zee Links and Minifeatures: June 2006 Archives

A little over one year ago, the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Kelo, which held that the city of New London could condemn land to sell it to private developers in order to increase the tax base.



At the time, it generated huge amounts of outrage - the formation of Life Liberty Property, a group of about 100 websites being only one manifestation. Bills found their ways into various state legislatures whose stated purpose was stopping eminent domain abuse. A couple have passed, one or two have been rejected, most languished. Nor are any of the ones that have passed aimed at the root causes of eminent domain abuse.



Let's take a step back and look at the situation, which will tell us what the real problem is. Suppose there was no right of eminent domain? I realize such a question is rhetorical at best; for all the abuse and potential for abuse, eminent domain is an occasionally necessary power of the state. But let us consider, for a moment, what the situation would have been if there was no right of eminent domain.



Well, they New London Development Corporation or the developer they represent would have had two options. Either do without Suzette Kelo's property, or offer her a price so good she takes it. The price to change her mind might have been one million dollars, or it might have been ten million. Pretty much everybody has a price at which they will willingly sell.



Such an option would be extremely expensive, as is the other option, of doing without that particular property. Not only do they have to redesign everything, but now Suzette Kelo may have the grounds for a lawsuit. That factory wasn't there when she bought her property, and now it's making all kinds of noise at all hours of the night, generating excessive traffic, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It could very well be that the development hampers her enjoyment of her property, I'm pretty certain it would hamper enjoyment of mine in similar circumstances. Keep in mind that it's our tax dollars at work and at risk here.



The central issue, therefore, is money, our private property, not liberty. There is certainly a component of liberty in that we would love to be free not to sell so we could extort huge prices for a property that government or developer basically has to have. Furthermore, there is a little bit of pure greedy unfettered capitalist in the back of my mind asking why being able to extort the state is a bad thing? Cha-ching! But there we go, back to money.



In fact, the central issue of eminent domain is that the condemning agency does not want to offer an appropriate price that compensates the owner not merely for the expense of acquiring a comparable property, but the effort and expense of moving. Unless the property is already on the market, moving is not something the owner wants to do. It isn't cheap to move, and it isn't easy, never mind that if they're running a business there are all kinds of issues involved to make certain you don't lose clients when you move. Therefore, in order to motivate someone who wasn't planning on moving, a price above the market is appropriate.



Furthermore, the fact that condemnation is involuntary merits some compensation on its own. If you do not want to sell (for whatever reason) but are being legally forced to sell, the state should compensate you for the fact that your investment has been aborted.



Now, by way of contrast, real estate is expensive. Expensive enouth that any money the state and developers spend trying to play games with your evaluation will likely be money well spent. A while ago I wrote about a man whose family homestead - 105 acres that had been in his family over a century - was condemned for a new port terminal building in Houston. Initially, he got $1.9 million, reduced on the condemning agency's appear to one dollar. By contrast, for the new port down in Baja California, they are paying around $10 per square foot, and that's not in an urban area. At $10 per square foot, 105 acres would be $45 million dollars plus, and I suspect suburban property in the United States is far more expensive. Especially if it's got a commercial zoning.



Even for residential lots, the games are worth playing for the developer. Appraisals are highly subjective, and they can not only afford the appraisal, they can afford top notch legal help, and if they spend $20,000 but deflate the price $100,000, they come out well ahead. This is the sort of math they do, Their responsibility is to the taxpayers and shareholders, not the current owner of a property they want.



This is why I believe that the condemning agency should pay the legal fees and evaluation fees incurred by the victim of a condemnation suit. This can get to be some real money, money that not everyone has lying around, not to mention the fact that if the idea is to resist the suit, it doesn't seem important to conduct an evaluation. The victim of the suit didn't ask for their land to be condemned; if they had I strongly suspect they would be willing to sell.



Indeed, the point of this is to make it worthwhile for the condemning agency (or developer) to offer a good price for a voluntary sale. If they're paying legal and evaluation expenses for both sides, not to mention employee time tracking and coordinating and documenting the necessity, and because of this, the suit's victim can stop them from getting the property on the cheap, it becomes the most cost effective thing to do to offer a price where the owner will want to sell - voluntarily - in the first place.

Carnival of Liberty Recommended: Liberty Papers (contrasting EU and US Constitutions)

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Israel masses forces near Gaza



The only thing I have to say is "What took them so long?"



LATER: Israeli troops enter Gaza



Maybe the Paleosimians will get the message the Israel's patience is not unlimited.



Captain's Quarters has some good information on the happenings.



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Hallelujah! I have no desire to infringe upon smoker's freedoms, so long as they don't infringe mine. Unfortunately for those smokers out there who are considerate, it only takes one "You can't stop me from smoking" nitwit to ruin the environment for everybody.



Unsurprisingly, to anyone who has followed this issue:

The report says the tobacco industry has sought to cover up scientific findings on environmental tobacco smoke.



"The industry has funded or carried out research that has been judged to be biased, supported scientists to generate letters to editors that criticized research publications, attempted to undermine the findings of key studies, assisted in establishing a scientific society with a journal, and attempted to sustain controversy even as the scientific community reached consensus," it said.

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Iran says will not benefit from talks with US



I'm not certain that this is the official response from the regime in Tehran. Khameini does have the real power, but he is not the President. Official or not, though, it does not bode well.



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I can hear the moonbats now: Rush Limbaugh under new investigation Arrested for having Viagra, evidently prescribed by a doctor but in someone else's name for privacy reasons.



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Honor the Threat



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The most rational thing I've seen on the New York Times blowing national security wide open. I'm very interested in the identities of the people who leaked to the Times. Isn't that covered by the public's right to know, which they seem to hold above all other principles? These officials need to be relieved, and they probably need to spend the rest of their lives in jail if not have that life artificially shortened. This is treason, treason that stands to cost us any number of lives you would care to name, treason willfully and intentionally committed. I can't really see charging the Times for treason. They have signed no loyalty oaths, they have pledged no secrecy, and it is their job to sell newspapers, not to protect the country. But the people who told the Times about it have no such excuse. Nor does this mean we can't all simply decide to ignore the Times - stop buying it, stop supporting it, stop linking it. Stop supporting treason.



Michael Barone asks "Why do they hate us?"



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I've also added a Google Search function to the site. This has two purposes. First off, you can of course use it for your searches, potentially generating me ad revenue if the stuff you pick is sponsored. Please use it only for stuff you are really interested in, though. I don't need $0.12 so badly that I need to cheat, or want you to cheat on my behalf. Secondly, it gives my visitors a way to search my sites specifically for a topic you may be having difficulty finding. If you can't find an answer to your question, please consider asking me directly via email. If I use it in an article, I will either keep you anonymous or link your site, as you choose. The search function is supposedly sanitized against adult content, and the results are supposed to open in a new window. They worked when I tried it. Let me know if there are difficulties.

Carnival of Personal Finance



Carnival of the Capitalists Recommended: Econbrowser (local fuel regulations boosting price), The Coyote Within (the importance of mindset)

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Since I learned about telomers, I've suspected this, but it's now scientifically linked: Key to long life may be mom's age at birth



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The tip jar isn't paying for bandwidth, so in hopes of mollifying the World's Only Perfect Woman with the time and effort and money I put into the site, I've installed Adsense. Of course, the usual Caveat Emptor applies. I imagine quite a few of them are going to be exactly what I'm warning you against. Please let me know if there are difficulties.

Navy Missile Intercept Test Successful Good. Looks like we need it more than ever. Japan evidently agrees.

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The real agenda slips out: No Iran nuclear suspension even after talks: official. In short, they are not willing to suspend enrichment. The long delay in responding to the request for negotiations is simple more Fabian tactics.



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Killing scares media away from Waziristan. He had reported something contrary to government pravda, that a US missile had blown up a terrorist rather than the official truth that said terrorist blew himself up. So the Pakistani government wants it kept quiet that there's mutual support between them and the US. I understand why. It's difficult politically for the Pakistani government, factions of which are working with Al Qaeda.



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An expansion of automated appraisals? Lenders set to launch the 'five-minute mortgage' If you read the article with a professionals eye, you learn that's all it is. Unsurprising, and yet appraisals catch a lot of fraud. On the other hand, appraisers are a significant source of fraud themselves. Nonetheless, the incentives for appraisers that want to stay in business are all solidly on the correct side of the equation. Electronic evaluation services are pretty much worthless; I haven't found one where they are reliably close to real market evidence (by which I mean actual sales and failures to sell). The best you'll get is recent sales and current market prices supplemented by someone familiar with the market. In other words, an agent who looks at what has sold and what's out there on the market and makes a professional estimate. Even that is subject to the possibility of an ulterior motive. Today they say "list with me and I can get $40,000 more than anyone else." They lock up your business for six months, and six weeks from now they are pressuring you to reduce the price by $50,000. Ask people who make such claims to back them up with solid evidence of their success: properties that sold for full original listing price. Original listing contract and final escrow statement for each property they so claim. Hint: They don't have these documents, because such claims aren't real. Look for they agent that's going to market in such a way as to find the buyer who is looking for your property, not the person looking in the MLS for the below market property they can flip for a profit. A monkey can make that sale, and many monkeys want to.



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"what happens at foreclosure if the appraisal is wrong" was a search I got today. The answer to this is short and sweet. The appraisals lenders get are intentionally conservative. They want the property to sell; they don't want to own it. Since the minimum foreclosure sales price in California is 90 percent of the appraisal, they want that minimum bid low. It costs them more to take over the property and sell it normally. This is one of the reasons you don't want to go into default if you can help it. See

What Happens When You Can't Make Your Real Estate Loan Payment?



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President Bush has come out on the correct side of eminent domain, albeit in limited fashion. Now if he only he'd put a stop to the money side of the abuse, I'd believe he was serious.



Volokh Conspiracy details the shortcomings of the administration plan. It's a "look like you're doing something" thing.



I proposed a solution in this article that I believe would stop abuse dead. Of course, since big business and wealthy individuals who are likely to benefit from abuse contribute to political campaigns, nobody has yet taken it up.



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Bernanke, US Fed face conundrum on rates. Kill the loan market if they raise rates, watch inflation fester if they don't. This is why I think they should make haste slowly. They shouldn't have gone as low as they did, and now they shouldn't be as high as they are on the overnight rates. Hint: Bernanke et al are bankers first, economists second, and a bankers worst nightmare is inflation. They'll raise the overnight rates some more.



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Dr. Sanity contrasts the reports of WMD discoveries that the administration has downplayed to its considerable political disadvantage because it meant fewer problems winning the War on Terrorism. Fewer casualties. More informants. How mature of them, especially in contrast to their political opposition.



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Hugh Hewitt has a letter to the editor of the New York Times from a servicement in Iraq. I cannot agree that the reporters or editors of the New York Times deserve to be in jail - unless they refuse to name their sources. It's those sources who need to be out of government employ and into jail and sued for every penny they have.



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Volokh Conspiracy notes that the Department of Justice has requested a court hold the ABA in contempt for its accreditation procedure and the fact that said procedure is basically illegal.



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Captain's Quarters notes that the amnesty offer for terrorists in Iraq is essentially dead, having been rejected by various groups. I thought is was likely a political play, removing all possible sympathy and sympathizers from the enemy before handing them their heads. Why fight them when you can co-opt them? Now that the offer has been made and rejected, there is no longer any pretense possible. Anyone who is fighting the government of Iraq now has shown themselves to be not interested in the political process.



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Family went to Nighttime Zoo today. Got some good pictures and I'll try and share them tomorrow (later today).



Be sure to stop back on Monday when I have RINO Sightings again. This will be the Georges Santayana edition.



Tomorrow will have a new article, but Monday will be for RINO Sightings.

Carnival of Investing

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On this day in history: Kofi Annan gets one right. It is an appropriate metaphor, as more and more countries move towards acquisition of nuclear weapons, the controls on them getting into the hands of terrorists and revolutionaries rises. Nothing scares me like the thought of some terrorist or "champion of the people" getting their hands on ABC weaponry (particularly Atomic or Biological). A state actor, no matter how tyrannical, has controls and limitations and reasons not to use such weapons (The chief of which for most, I might add, is that the larger nuclear powers would open the entire six-pack of "Whup-***" in response). A non-state actor has fewer constraints, and nothing to lose. You can't respond to a nuke from such a source with another nuke. If Al-Qaeda nuked one of our cities, it would do us less than zero good to respond in kind. This is one of the reasons I don't want Iran to get nukes while the mullahs are in power. It is entirely within their stated beliefs to hand one over to Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda with the intent of detonating it somewhere in the heartlands of the countries they consider to be their natural enemies.



Which is why this is important, and a good idea for the US and other industrialized countries, as it binds India with more incentives to be responsible about its nuclear materials. US Congress moving toward action on US-India deal



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I see that the trend towards hiring hackers to find computer security weaknesses is continuing. Want to outwit hackers? Hire an ethical one. Other than just not allowing remote access, it really is the only way.



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Expect to see more and more of this Police launch eye-in-the-sky technology above Los Angeles. Expect it to get more and more automated, as the price for such things plummets and people get more expensive. They're going to be on streetlamps, and centrally coordinated, before too long. Private entities are going to put them up, also. Outlawing it would just drive it underground, and make the bugs harder to find, and the people using them harder to trace. But if we enact controls aimed at allowing us to know they're around and who is using them, and giving us the ability to monitor those users, they will be a beneficial technology.



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Angry in the Great White North has a good article about the prospect of the North Korean missile test.



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OK So I'm Not Really A Cowboy has a good article on affirmative action.



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Expensing lap dances is over the top, but Unrepentant Individual shows he understands the importance of the sales department.



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Q and O has an excellent article about the Iraqis moving towards force withdrawal.



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Regarding the death by torture of two american servicemen, Argghhh! has it right. The Germans and Japanese were into reprisal killings. It did them no good. They will do us no good. They are no deader than any of the others who have shed their blood in our cause. If the perpetrators are captured, by all means put them on trial and shoot them if convicted. But it does not do honor to the memory of those men to talk of reprisal killings. That is not what this country is about. If it were, I'd move elsewhere and start rooting for her enemies.



I was thinking of a different piece of fiction than John was, however. The Gordon R. Dickson story "Brothers" is an infinitely better description of the American soldier, science fiction or no. If you haven't read it, you should. It's part of his very popular Childe cycle ("The Dorsai books"), so it's pretty easy to find one of the collections it's in. As I remember, it is usually packaged with "Amanda Morgan," a tale of the difference between free people and the tyrants who would rule over them. Those who would be slaves will never get it, but I wouldn't expect them to.



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Here's the source of the allegations that Daily Kos is the subject of pay for play. NRO:'s The Plank.



Okay, pop some popcorn. But I can't really take the NutRoots™ seriously. Even for this, to grant it relevance is to concede the NutRoots™ more than they are due.



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Stop the ACLU notes that the Pentagon is going to charge 8 servicemen (7 marines and one navy corpsman) with murder, and describes the interrogation techniques used. We can't do this stuff to civilian felons or terrorists. Why can we do it to Marines? Because they're better men than terrorists?



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via LGF, Document Details WMD Recovered In Iraq, Santorum Says. Now Rick Santorum is in a world of hurt, politically. He is the least popular member of the senate with the home state voters. So he has a motivation to invent things like this. Nonetheless, this looks credible. Over 500 Sarin filled shells. It is also consistent with other things I have linked here.



Now, should the weapons be verified, we know that the leftist chants of "Bush Lied" will stop, right?



They say everyone needs one good laugh per day. I try to help.



Captain's Quarters has more. It's starting to look solid.

Carnival of Personal Finance



Carnival of the Capitalists Recommended: Liberty Papers (changing business climate brought on by the internet) Insureblog (going foreign for medical treatments), Stingray (Some inconvenient facts about global warming) Jon Swift (Some humor about Mr. Gates' impending retirement)



RINO Sightings (Afraid I haven't had the chance to go through it yet)

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There's a bit too much gloom and doom in this article: Foreclosures may jump as ARMs reset, but it does raise some valid concerns. I'm a big fan of hybrid ARMs that are fixed for three, five, or seven years prior to adjusting. Right now, due to the yield curve being inverted, there is essentially no difference in rates between a thirty year fixed rate loan and a 5/1 ARMs, but over the last fifteen years, I've used them to save myself and my clients thousands of dollars each. But you need to have enough equity in your home in order to refinance, and you shouldn't stretch too far to buy your dream home, lest it all come tumbling down in the first bad event that happens to you. I've talkied about this before, most recently in this article.

"I was a first-time buyer. I was blind. I didn't know what questions to ask," she said. "And the mortgage brokers are there telling you what you want to hear just to get you in the mortgage."

Questions You Should Ask Prospective Loan Providers



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Army Charges 3 GIs With Murder in Iraq. This does not appear to be the Haditha incident, but rather a separate occurrence, and brought on by the Army's own investigators. Keep in mind that they are only charged, and have not yet had an Article 32 hearing, but if they are found guilty, I do hope they are hung or shot.



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Bush: Iran must stop uranium enrichment



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Argghhh! has a bit worth reading on deserters.



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Well, today marks the official one year of this site. Thanks to all who drop by.

Not interested? Most people aren't when it's talking about how they got taken advantage of in the past. First off, it's in the past so it is over and done with, and there's no use dwelling on it, right? Second, there's the ego thing. Nobody who's been bragging about what a great deal they got likes to find out they've been had. Taken for a ride. Conned. Big time.



Anyone reading this who isn't interested in improving what happens next time can tune out now, because that's what the rest of this article is about: educating you in how to shop for a loan and what the tricks are, and if you've never had a real estate loan but want one someday, chances are you'll benefit from reading it to. If you're the sort of person who isn't interested in improving your future loan, chances are you're not a regular reader because helping folks understand their financial options for next time is the most consistent thing I do here.



On a very regular basis people tell me how they got taken advantage of by a loan provider. Actually, a lot of them think they're bragging about what a great deal they think they got, when in their situation, I wouldn't take that loan if the bank paid me. High points charges that stick around in the balance essentially forever. Points on hybrid ARM loans (3/1, 5/1 and 2/28 are the most common). Prepayment penalties, especially needless prepayment penalties, or prepayment penalties that last longer than the period of fixed interest rate. Fixed rate loans where hybrid ARMS are more appropriate. Long terms where a shorter term would be more in your best interest. Most loan officers are looking for an easy sale, and no loan officer ever complains that a sale was too easy to make. Failing an easy sale, they'll look for any sale. If they don't get you signed up for any loan, they don't make any money. They are not responsible for your best interest, they are responsible for making money and not stepping over legal limits which are very different (in the sense of being less restrictive to loan officers) than most members of the public believe. If ever a loan officer tells you that in your circumstances, they wouldn't refinance, make sure you get their contact information and put it someplace you will be able to find it when you go looking for your next loan.



First off, if your credit score is above about 660 and you have a prepayment penalty, chances are excellent that you were taken for a ride. People with credit scores above 660 should usually be A paper, not subprime. A paper does not need a prepayment penalty except when the loan officer wants to get paid more. A 2 year prepayment penalty is worth a good chunk of change on the secondary bond market - usually about 4% of the loan amount. This means that if you have the $270,000 loan I use as the default here, they made almost $10,000 over and above the normal price spread when they sold your loan. And even when they retain servicing rights, lenders sell loans over 95 percent of the time. At the very least, you should get some kind of benefit for accepting a prepayment penalty A paper. A current "maximum conforming" loan of $417,000 would be worth almost $17,000 more to the lender with a prepayment penalty than without. This, all by itself, is often a reason they stick folks in subprime situations. If you think you're A paper, make them show you the turn-down from the automated loan underwriting program before you even consider a subprime loan.



If your credit score is below 620, you're almost certainly stuck with a loan where you have a prepayment penalty by default. Buying it off is usually a good idea, but buying them off isn't free. Between 620 and 659, there's some wiggle room as to whether you will get an A paper loan.



But most people never undertake the three most important steps they can to get a better loan. They don't shop multiple lenders. They don't ask for a guaranteed quote. And they certainly don't sign up for a back up loan.



I've been looking for a new place to hang my license, and the one thing (other than looking for loan officers who don't understand the way the business works) that most of the firms have in common is that they don't want to compete on price. They know they may have to the first time, but they want the client that just automatically comes back to them that they can soak for two or three points on every loan, in addition to whatever they earn for the prepayment penalty. I understand this yearning very well; it's a normal human desire to want to make more for the same amount of work, and also to lock up the customer for the future. If all you think about is how easy the loan is to get, you are these firms' favorite type of client. Guess what? You may not see their extra $10,000 or $15,000 as a separate charge on any of your paperwork, but it is there and you are paying it, and someone who knows what they are looking for can find it. Most folks would never dream of paying $50 for the same toaster that everyone else is buying for $13.99 at Target, but the way loans are priced is confusing at first sight, and people don't want to sort it out. It's pretty easy, actually. Figure out what kind of loan you want and qualify for, then price the rate/cost trade-offs of that loan type amongst the various loan providers. Figure break-evens on the extra cost of the lower rate. One rule I have never encountered an exception to is that if a loan provider pushes a low payment to sell a loan, they are a crook. If they sell by interest rate, they may be worth talking to, providing the loan type is what you're looking for. If they sell by the Tradeoff between rate and cost, they're definitely worth talking to. And if someone suggests a different type, hear them out but make certain they tell you all of the details. There is always a reason why one loan is significantly cheaper than another loan



Another very common tactic used to induce your business is advertising. Remember the loan ads that went "Lost another one to (mega corporation which shall remain nameless)"? That particular mega corporation is not competitive rate-wise or underwriting wise with others. Joe ShadyBroker who earns six points on every loan can often deliver better rates than they can. What they were trying to via their advertising is create the illusion of low prices by telling you they have low prices. Then, when you call and they quote the superficially low payment due to a rate where you have to pay three points to get it, they've got the average potential client suckered. Because their payment on a 2/28 loan with a 3 year prepayment penalty where you have to pay three points to get the rate is lower than mine on a thirty year fixed with zero points, people will sign up. Why? Because it looks more attractive to them at first glance. Get the calculator and the checklist of questions and ask the questions and do the math. Nobody can take advantage of you without your consent, but those who allow themselves to be intimidated by numbers are giving their consent. Actually, with most places, it's like begging, "Oh, please, I want to pay thousands of dollars more to get a higher interest rate!"



If someone doesn't ask questions like "how long are you planning to keep it?" or "how long do you usually keep real estate loans?", especially if they just launch right in to a spiel based upon a low payment, they are a cash-sucking Vampire. They may be an intelligent vampire doing what they are doing in full cognizance of what it does to you, or they may be an innocent vampire who doesn't really understand the business and who is being controlled by a green-blooded master cash-sucking vampire, but in either case you don't want to do business with them. Yes, these are sales questions. Yes, they get you talking to a salesperson, who then has a possible opening to talk you into something that may not be in your best interest. If they don't ask the questions, I guarantee that they're trying to push you into something that isn't in your best interest. Which is better: Not talking to a salesperson and being certain of being messed with, or talking to a salesperson and possibly being messed with? Note that there is no option that says "Don't talk to a salesperson and not get messed with." If their people don't know enough to help you from their own knowledge, those salesfolk were probably intentionally hired because they didn't know any better. It is not a crime to make money. They are looking to make money, I am looking to make money, everybody in every line of business is looking to make money, including your employer - that's how they pay you. If I were independently wealthy and never needed or wanted to make money again, I certainly wouldn't be doing real estate loans, and neither would anyone else. You can take the attitude that you're going to pay a reasonable amount, and while you can take steps to hold that amount down and make certain it doesn't get outrageous, you know you're going to pay what it costs, or you can take the attitude that a cheaper quote means you'll actually get that rate at that cost when the overwhelming probability is that they're lying to get you to sign up. You need to look gift horses in the mouth. If someone's quoted fees are lower or higher than everyone else's, there is a reason. If they're too low, it's probably because they're pretending that a large percentage of what you are going to pay doesn't exist, because that gets people to sign up. Ask them if they will guarantee their total fees and the rate in writing. If the answer is no, they are lying. Actually, most of the liars won't tell you "no" in response to that question. They'll tell you some line about how they're a major corporation or how they honor their commitments or any of several other lines that mean absolutely nothing. The MLDS and Good Faith Estimate are not commitments. Major corporations pull the same games as everyone else. In fact, they usually get away with playing even worse ones than Joe ShadyBroker because of their "name recognition".



So shop around. Ask every single prospective loan provider every single question in this article. Pull out the calculator to see if it's believable, to see if the numbers work. Ask them if they'll guarantee the quote, subject to underwriting. And then go out and apply for a back-up loan as well, because even if you've got a guarantee, it's difficult to enforce, and impossible within the time frames most folks need the loan to be done.



The typical savings of being a savvy consumer is literally thousands of dollars every time you get a real estate loan. You may not see the savings directly on the HUD-1 at closing, but they will be present nonetheless. If you don't accept a prepayment penalty, that's thousands of dollars you've saved yourself down the line when you've been transferred and need to sell. If you get a rate that's a quarter of a percent lower on a $270,000 loan, that's $675 interest you are saving per year. That's a couple of car payments; perhaps enough to let you buy for cash next time you need a car. If you invest the difference over the potential lifetime of your mortgage, a difference of over $127,000! If you save yourself the two extra points of origination that they were going to charge you, that's over $5500 that either is in your pocket, and that you can invest or spend on other things, or $5500 that isn't in your mortgage balance, where you're going to pay hundreds of dollars in interest on it per year ($357.50 per year at 6.5% interest), in addition to owing the base sum.



My point is this, folks. If I were a financial advisor trying to score an extra quarter percent commission off of you, most of you would be upset. Many people are so upset by 0.25% 12b1 fees in mutual funds that they won't pay the advisor who would save them a lot more money than the 0.25% per year simply by simply reminding them of sound investment principles. If I were a car salesperson trying to pad the cost of the car you were interested in by $5500, a large percentage of the population would most likely slug me. But because real estate transactions are complex and people don't want to take the time to understand them, they unwittingly walk into situations like this, and many people do so repeatedly throughout their lives, making the same mistakes every two years. The dollar amounts are large enough that even small differences are thousands of dollars. If you're not going to guard your pocketbook, most loan providers will pick it.



Now the workman is worthy of his or her hire. The person who gets you the loan is entitled to be paid. Judge the loans on the bottom line to you; how much it costs and what you will get. The proof that they got you a better deal was that they delivered a better loan, not that they made less money. And if the person who does your loan can make an extra half-point while actually delivering you a loan that is the same rate on the same loan at less cost than the other provider, haven't they earned that money? You came out ahead because of their work - had you gone with any other loan, you would have paid more or had a higher rate. They made more. Definition of win-win. There is a loser here, by the way, but you'll never know who it was. It is the lender that the broker you didn't sign up with would have put you with. But by finding you a program you fit better, the loan officer you did sign up with got you a better deal and made more money. It happens every day, if you make the effort to look for it, and go about it in the right fashion.



Caveat Emptor

UPDATED here

My wife is a genius about household projects. Instead of carping at me to do this or that project, where there is the possibility I might disagree with her as to that project's necessity or utility, she just tells me she's going to do them herself. Now in all fairness, she may be willing to do them herself. We'll probably never know, because thanks to my upbringing, my ability to stand by and allow her to do it all herself is non-existent. So by doing it this way, she gets the project done without debate. And if I ever argue against one on that basis, she can take the point of view that I'm free to just let her do it.



Which is how I spent Father's Day weekend replacing the floor in the kitchen and dining room. And why every muscle below the neckline hurts right now.

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Good News! Eject! Eject! Eject! not only has a wonderful new essay, he's saying he'll probably have another entire book worth of material for us by September.



If you don't make a regular habit of checking him out, you really should. He writes the essays I wish I could. His latest deals with the theme of whether our perceptions are the map or the territory.



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Armies of Liberation notes that the Yemeni regime broke up a meeting of its opposition with water cannons, using the excuse that said opposition didn't have its meeting approved by the state security apparatus.



Can anyone think of any countries that have used these sorts of tactics in the last hundred years? What have those countries all had in common?

For those who follow politics, a parody. Ms American Spy

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House rejects Iraq pullout deadline



1. Murtha is not a hawk, but the left wing calls him one because they think it makes him look more credible



2. 153 voted for it, "largely on party lines". The Nutroots™ really has taken over the Donkeys. Assuming that all 153 were Donkeys, that makes 3/4 of the ones in Congress. Not to mention 24 Congresscritters of both parties who didn't vote. Via Gateway Pundit, here's the Roll Call. I notice some interesting names in the not voting column.



3. This is just as stupid as the last time it came up. Once you mandate a pullout as of a certain date, you give your opponents a goal. No matter what happens, we're leaving on thus and such a date. That tells them they don't have to win before then, they just have to keep fighting one more day and they win by default.



If I got my news on the war from the papers, I'd likely think we were in trouble, too. But many thanks to the Milbloggers who have eyewitness accounts of what's really going on for us.



On the other hand, the good news is starting to filter into the media: Picture of a weakened Iraqi insurgency



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Probe in possible Haditha cover up complete. And the results are...?



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Gates to drop to part time at Microsoft.



Well, he built it into a huge, successful company. However, the writing is on the wall for those who know how to read it. They'll be big and important for a long time, just like IBM. But their era of controlling the market is over. Linux opened the door to other operating systems, and Open Office has put paid to their unconditional dominance of the Office Productivity Suite. They are losing market share in both. Why should someone pay $120 to $200 for Microsift Office when Open Office is free? This is the same problem Netscape had ten years ago, except that Netscape Suite was only $30.



Windows is a big agglomeration the interaction of the various parts of which are poorly understood, even by Microsoft. Too many things about Internet Explorer violate agreed upon web standards, and cannot be used properly. Both have way too many known vulnerabilities, and when they patch one, disturbingly often they open another.



Scrappleface has the real (funny) story.



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Rat study shows dirty better than clean In other words, you can worry about dirt and germs too much.



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Frist pushes for move on estate taxes.



Estate tax is not anywhere near my list of most important or immediate tax issue facing the country today. I'd like it gone, but I'd rather have AMT indexing, especially since AMT is pretty ironclad and there are so many ways to get out of estate tax that it is essentially voluntary. The current law is set to expire in 2010, at which point we go back to the pre-2001 scenario, which actually wasn't that bad.



Nonetheless, if we don't do something about the sunset provisions, I predict that a much larger number of well off elderly are going to kick off in 2010, especially the latter parts of it. This sample will be far larger than is explainable by the mortality statistics. Mom kicks off in December 2010, the kids get $10 million. Mom kicks off in January 2011, the kids get $1 million. Doesn't take a genius to see that some folks are going to make certain mom kicks off in time to get them more money, particularly if mom is one of those that refuses to do the necessary planning.



Will we as a society be culpable for those deaths? Not really. But for those keeping track of the moral scoreboard, do chalk it up as an assist. We set the conditions for them to happen.



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Finally. House removes Jefferson from committee They've got him on folm taking a $100k bribe. They found $90k in his freezer. They persuaded a federal judge to issue a warrant for his Congressional office. And now, nearly a year after the beginning, they've removed him from the committee with the most influence over the budget.



Looks like I spoke too soon and didn't read carefully enough. Rhymes with Right notes the Washington Post saying

If he refuses to step aside from the Ways and Means Committee, as urged by the Democratic Caucus, the next step would be a vote on the House floor to remove him from the prestigious committee. Even his allies want to avoid that.

In other words, his fellow Democrats merely asked him to resign, to avoid handing an election year freebie to the Elephants.



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The wave of the future: Delta to request end to pilots' pensions. Defined benefit plans are going to go the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo. Corporations always have better things to do with the money than fund the pension, and there is a distressing tendency to play games with the Assumed Rate of Return. Due to the amounts of money typically involved, by the time they get serious about the problem, the shortfall kills the company. Defined contribution plans (e.g. 401k) are much simpler, with fewer games available to the company. Not to mention that when they agree to defined benefit pensions, the company often has no idea how expensive they will turn out to be.



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If you haven't yet read Michael Barone's Vietnam, Watergate, and Rove over at Opinion Journal, you should.

Carnival of Liberty



Carnival of The Vanities

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Googlebomb for Alaa Egypt



Goes to the free Alaa website



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Home prices too high in 71 cities



The attached chart shows San Diego overvalued by 38.6 percent. That may be a little high; or my rules of thumb computations which say "approximately 30 percent, given an interest rate of 7%" could be a little low. I can do "no points loans at lower rates than that, but for how long is anyone's guess, given that inflation kicked up to about 5% annualized. Given taxes, at 7 percent the bank is just about breaking even in real terms on a loan if inflation is 5%.



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"Glass carbon" is a world first. I don't know if there's anything potentially useful, but getting a glass from Carbon Dioxide is cool.



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Don Surber hits the nail on the head as to when we should leave Iraq. When a freely elected Iraqi govenment asks us to. Not before. They want to create a situation where they can ask us to leave without the minions of Al-Qaeda moving into the Baghdad version of the White House and dispatching the current occupants with prejudice. I think we can safely project that they'll ask us to go as soon as they feel able to stand on their own.



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Environmental Republican has a round up of the "no indictment for Rove" and the reactions of the tinfoil hat brigade.



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This is revolting. Michelle Malkin has the story of seven Marines and one Navy Corpsman kept in close confinement confined to an 8x8 cell , shackled every time they leave the cell, and not allowed to so much as talk to their family except on the opposite side of a thick glass wall. They aren't even charged with anything. Where is the ACLU on this one? Can you imagine the screams of outrage if prisoners anywhere in any of our justice systems were subjected to this, especially prior to being charged with anything? They may be under investigation for suspicion of murder, but if the evidence is this strong, why haven't they been charged?



To turn a phrase to much better use than the original, No. Not in my name.



I'm in San Diego. If there's something we can do, let us know. Meanwhile, here are the links to the families' web sites:



no name

Jodka

no name



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I had to do almost this whole thing on my laptop. I hate laptops, for reasons varying from the keyboard to the fact that I just don't like this ******* touchpad pointing device, not to mention the fact it only has two buttons. Nonetheless, I suspect I'm going to be doing more on the laptop from now on. Anybody got any suggestions for a alternative pointing device? I'm biased in favor of trackballs, other things being equal. I can live with the keyboard if I have to, but this touchpad will lose me my few remaining sanity points.



This morning I finished a post titled "The Pin That Pops The Housing Bubble?". It'll post Sunday, giving me a day up on next weeks four money articles. You might want to check back then.



Finally, today is the ninth anniversary of marrying The World's Only Perfect Woman. We still can't decide whether we should go to dinner tonight or wait until the weekend, but tonight's agenda is spending time with her and the girls.

Carnival of Investing Recommended: Seeking Alpha (profiting from mob investment psychology)



Carnival of Debt Reduction



RINO Sightings Recommended: Politburo Diktat



Carnival of Personal Finance

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Students Find Ring Tone Adults Can't Hear



Ironically enough, it was originally developed as a loitering teenager dispersal agent.



May be time to let these folks have their way.



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Philadelphia 'English-only' eatery to face probe.

The sign may violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance, which bans businesses from discriminating on the basis of nationality or ethnicity, Lawton said.



"The complaint will say that the sign discourages patronage by non-English speakers because of their national origin and/or ancestry," said Lawton, whose agency enforces the city's anti-discrimination laws.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this has zero to do with racism, at least on the face of it. It has to do with refusing to speak the language of the country. It has to do with refusing to become part of the overall society. Yes, I suspect that a larger proportion of hispanics are going to have trouble with an english requirement because they've been resisting it, and their "leaders" (mostly self-appointed, and with a vested interest in keeping their "flock" apart from overall society) have done everything they can over the past forty years to make it difficult. Kind of like killing your parents and asking for pity from the court because you're an orphan. It has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with the attitude of the person who refuses to speak the same language as everyone else. I recently read a a book that discussed, among other things, the attitudes of the greek speaking cities of Italy prior to the rise of Rome, and was struck by the similarities in attitude between those people 2500 years ago and those who refuse to learn english in the US today. They're not immigrants, looking to join our society; they are colonists, looking to supplant it. They're welcome to join us, but pardon me if I refuse to cooperate in the colonizing of the United States.



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How come when you get an earworm it's always some annoying commercial or saccharine kids song, never something you would actually want to listen to?



My 6 year old gave me one. It's a popular ride (with kids) at Disneyland. No, not that! Anything but that!

Washington Post has an article giving the story (as told by the Post) of the Marine squad leader and others at Haditha. I do not know whether the Iraqi account of an atrocity or this account is closer to being correct, but it's a long way from settled as to whether anything untoward happened there.



The Marines' lawyers say that their accounts are consistent, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything, the lawyers having a primary responsibility to their clients.



I know which I'm inclined to believe in the absence of further evidence, but the investigation is ongoing, and soon enough we will all have more in the way of answers. If the Marines involved are guilty, they should be punished to whatever degree they are individually culpable. If they are not, they deserve an apology, to be made whole for what they have been put through, and their accusers need to be investigated for the making of false accusations.



Mudville Gazette has more.



Blue Star Chronicles comes up with some interesting information.

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Jack the cat chases black bear up tree



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Manatees off Fla. endangered species list Mind you, it's a state list and has no effects on their federal status. But this is a good thing, denoting the fact that there are more of them than there used to be. Why, then, are the environmental groups, who should be jumping for joy, doing this?

"As species like the manatee are reclassified to a less imperiled status before their populations have actually recovered, state funding for research, management and law enforcement will likely be directed elsewhere," said attorney Martha Collins.



Collins represents 17 environmental groups who last week filed a petition with the state seeking to have the entire protection classification system revamped.

aka moving the goalposts? The idea of conservation is to have the populations actually recover to stable levels, not to be perpetually endangered. Of course, if the population has recovered, there really isn't any need to keep working quite so hard and spending so much money on it, is there? We're talking unemployed conservationists! Only I don't see why they should be any more insulated from economic reality than anyone else is.



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Iowahawk has the afterlife report from Zarqawi.



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Negotiator: Iran Wants Unconditional Talks



Yeah, they'll take all the carrots they can get. But they want this talk of sticks gone. The best way to do that? Marginalize the one country with the fortitude to make them happen.



"...told reporters that Iran would not accept the proposal if it contains any threats of punishment in case of rejection"



If I have no intention of committing a certain act, I'm probably not interested in the consequences of that act. But if I'm intending to do something like , for example, build nuclear weapons, I'd be real concerned if the world was willing to do something to stop me from having them.



Reuters has a few more details, most notably that Iran is refusing to give up what it sees as its "rights".



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enrevanche installed the latest betas of the new MS OS. He's not impressed, although I'm not certain you're allowed to short shares for as long as he's talking about.



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Thanks to Ramona going to visit her folks for the day, I've got four articles for the week ready to go. I think that the Wednesday and especially Thursday articles are particularly worth reading. I'll try to stay a little bit ahead of the game for a week or two.



By the way, Chris at Powerblogs told me not to edit or add any more articles to the main real estate chain until he fixes his software. Since he hasn't gotten back to me on my question as to whether it would help to pull out the real estate articles out from the mortgage ones, I'm just starting a new chain for the time being.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Killed in Air Raid Confirmed by face and fingerprint. Al-Qaeda also confirmed the information, while vowing to continue their terrorism. Several aides, including Rahman, his spiritual advisor, also dead.



Now this doesn't mean that al-Qaeda in Iraq is dead, anymore than removing bin Laden will end the war. It is very possible that we've cleared the way for a more capable subordinate to take charge (Think killing McClellan so that Grant could take charge of the Civil War earlier, or if Montgomery had been killed so Eisenhower could give the resources he wasted to capable generals).



Nonetheless, it is a significant blow organizationally against al-Qaeda, and unless a more capable subordinate does take charge, they've been hurt by this. Expect them to try something big soon, both for vengeance and for propaganda purposes.



Of course, the domestic political fallout will help the president, at least in the short term.



I'd rather have captured the small-minded weasel so that the Iraqis could put him on trial. Decency says that one should never feel gladdened by death, no matter how necessary, but I'm finding it difficult to be saddened by his. Okay, I'm finding it impossible, and my path to final enlightenment is doubtless somehow impeded, but that's existence. I'm very glad the troops got him, one way or the other, and I really hope it makes their lives easier and safer. It won't end the war, but it is likely to be a noteworthy milestone. Good job.



ROFASix has a nice summary, and links to the video of the airstrike.



via INDC Journal, some homegrown Iraqi reactions (severe language advisory). money quote:"Zarqawi would not listen to ballots, today there is no mistaking that he listened to the bombs."



Dean's World has more Iraqi reactions.



Gateway Pundit notes the reactions of that party that uses the stubborn animal for a symbol.



Captain's Quarters notes some other raids - 17 in all - now that Zarqawi is dead. Evidently a lot of intelligence was ready, waiting for the right time to strike, and now we've captured a lot of useful information.



Alright. I just can't resist a variation on an old joke.

Q: What was the last thing that went through Zarqawi's mind?

A: Shrapnel and the concussion wave.



Maybe he really will end up with 72 virgins. All of them named "Bubba."

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Daily Kos DeLay Says Goodbye To Congress He Corrupted



Leave it to them to pretend people like Thomas Foley and dozens of ex congresscritters had nothing to do with. William Jefferson must be just weak and corrupted by DeLay's bad example, right? There never was an Adscam scandal, right?



Don't get me wrong, Abramoff is a crook and it's possible DeLay is as well. The trial will settle that. But to pretend he was responsible for institutional trends that started before his father was born is just a little too hyperbolic to let pass.



I'm pretty certain that not many people could withstand the sort of attention that's been focused on Tom DeLay. Where Jefferson has so far received basically a free pass from everyone for blantant illegal actions, there's been a partisan DA after him with three grand juries until he found one willing to indict on some pretty technical charges, and there's evidence the DA lied to them. No excuses for DeLay, and I want him to face trial, but I want Jefferson et al out of Congress and into jail as well.



UPDATE: Presumption of innocence for me but not for thee. Congresssional Black Caucus (essentially a Democratic Interest Group) opposes removing Jefferson from leadership post. Didn't DeLay step down once indicted? Wasn't that a big fight about "ethics"? Culture of corruption indeed.



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Asymmetrical Information on abolishing the estate tax and the failed vote in the senate today.



I would like the estate tax gone, but it is so avoidable as to be, for all intents and purposes, a voluntary tax on stupidity and denial. Furthermore, charity benefits one heck of a lot from the planning done. All things considered, I'd rather they indexed AMT to inflation, or any number of other things. On the classic 10 scale of importance, abolishing estate tax might be as high as a 3.

Carnival of The Vanities Recommended: Soccer Dad (saving the lives of children with defects)

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The Carnival of The Vanities Host said of my submission

I should warn you that Dan might tell you something you don't want to hear. While it's possible the person selling the property you want is being unreasonable by rejecting your offer, it may also be you who is offering less than the property is worth. And of course, the third possibility is that you're being yanked around by a buyer's agent who's just looking for lots of money and won't guide you toward making a reasonable offer on a property you can really afford.

Well, yes I say things some people don't want to hear. Perfect situations are rare, and they don't need expert help. Anybody can work in perfect conditions. But since most situations aren't perfect, indeed, are not anywhere close to perfect, and that's where an expert is worth his (in my case) hire. Somebody who is really looking to help - educate, advise, whatever, has to put their finger on where the problem area or areas are. It doesn't usually need to be offensive, but it does need to be on-target, and it does have to be in such terms as to leave no doubt where the problem areas are and how to fix them. "Experts" who won't do this, who do not consistently make it a habit to do this, are not worth the time of day.



Of course, when some experts solve a problem, it means they are unemployed. As long as people need real estate or real estate loans, there is a market for my services. Indeed, me plying my trade well is grounds for more business, more often, from the same clients. They make more money, I make more money. Everybody I'm concerned with is happy. And if my competition has a client who is unhappy, well, maybe next time they'll sign up with me.



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Looks like Bilbray beat Busey in the 50th district. From where I sit, this looks like a tactical victory and a strategic defeat for the Republicans, vice versa for the Democrats. Despite Cunningham's problems, that district is very solidly Republican. Busby shot herself in the foot with her comments on how "you don't need papers to vote," which all the radio stations were running NRCC commercials about yesterday. If Busby hadn't simultaneously won the Democratic primary for the new term (while losing the runoff for the current congressional term), I'd say that district was likely to go Democratic in November. Get someone who hasn't ticked off quite so many citizen voters, and the Democrats might have a shot.



It is also noteworthy that Bilbray ran a pretty hard line on immigration.



The Moderate Voice has a lot more, including a roundup.



Via RCP, Slate has some more worthwhile thoughts.



Michael Barone's thoughts are more detailed, but seem mostly in alignment with mine.



Instapundit notes that Kos crowd actually won one yesterday, in Montana where a Kos backed candidate beat a DNC machine candidate in the Democratic Primary.



Except that, as everyone except Michael Barone seems to forget, the dynamics of party primaries are very different from general elections, otherwise Richard Riordan would likely have been governor of California. Gray Davis spent millions skewing the Republican primary to the right, so that he'd face a farther right candidate he knew he could beat in the general election.



In this instance, Kos seems to have saved Conrad Burns (Montana's Senator who faces almost certain re-election because of this) some big bucks.



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lawyers ordered to play rock paper scissors to resolve dispute.



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Don Surber makes a point worth making about how the attitude of the reporter makes a difference to the story.



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Llama Butchers has a video for true econ geeks.



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Gateway Pundit has some good information on the situation in Ethiopia.



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Michael Yon has some good perspective on things that happen in war.



Real Clear Politics has a good essay on the media's lack of reasonable perspective.



Scrappleface has the "if only"



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via Argghhh!, a fellow dachshund owner's description of the bathing process.



Other than the fact that Mellon will baptize the carpet every time and the fact I substitute chocolate for wine, that's pretty much the scene here.



Oh, and I use the tub so I can do both of them at once.



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Those who think Lt. Watada is a patriot should read John's take over at Argghhh!



I don't want the military defying the legitimate orders of the civilian government any more than John does. The military is not allowed to pick and choose which orders it obeys, except when those orders are in fact, illegal, and they place their careers at a minimum, and often their lives, on the line to stand up and say no. If those orders are legal, and I haven't seen anybody making a legal case that they weren't that would pass muster anywhere outside a "Dedicated enemies of the american public" convention, expect the court martial to be brief and to the point.



Unlike Haditha, the facts are not in dispute, only the law. Except in the unlikely event these orders are found to be illegal (which, as Argghhh! points out, would require the en masse indictment of everyone who has served in Iraq), the needs of the service are such that the penalty is going to be at its maximum. This guy accepted a commission knowing he would likely be ordered to Iraq. There is absolutely no wiggle room in the circumstances, and the claim is going to turn upon points of law which do not appear to be in his favor.



In short, looks like the "let's quit before we win!" crowd is going to get the type of martyr they've been seeking for three years.

Carnival of The Capitalists Recommended: Econbrowser (M3 vs M2), Jim Logan (billable hours versus solving the customer's problem), Paul's Tips (The easiest way to fool smart people), Free Money Finance (money handling), Casey Software (non-disclosure agreements)



Carnival of Personal Finance

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Dr. Sanity predicted several days ago that Iran would feel the need to do something about Condi Rice outthinking Ahmadinejad. Looks like they've done it. Iran warns U.S. on oil shipments:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iran's supreme leader, has warned the United States that any "misbehavior" directed at Iran would serve to disrupt Gulf energy shipments.



"In order to threaten Iran, you say that you can guarantee movements of oil through this region," he said Sunday, referring to shipments that pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz near Iran and other countries.



The United States "should know that the slightest misbehavior on your part would endanger the region's energy security," he said. "You are not capable of guaranteeing energy security in this region."



Khameni did not specify what he meant by disruption or misbehavior.

I'll translate, for the realpolitik impaired. Something over half of the world's oil supply goes through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran owns one shore of those straits. They are saying that if we do anything to upset them, they'll destroy the oil going through there. Except that "Who can destroy a thing, controls a thing," (from Dune) may be a seductive thought for those who wish more power than they have, but it is not quite true. It requires that you be able to answer the full might of your enemies more or less equally, which the Iranians cannot. Indeed, the Iranians, by such actions, may very well force the United States to swat them down harder than they otherwise would need to be swatted. It is one thing to treat a lesser power somewhat delicately if you have the latitude. When that lesser power is threatening the economic lifeblood of the entire world, that is quite a different matter. Of course, being from a masculine shame-driven culture, they see this threat as redeeming their manhood.



They are further gone in Denial than the Japanese even thought about being prior to World War II. Yes, they could hurt us badly enough that neither country would come out ahead. I do not want a confrontation with Iran. If it can be avoided without worse consequences, I'll suggest biting our tongue and biding our time - the Iraqi and Afghan governments on both sides are going to kill the current Iranian regime, given only time for the ideas to bleed across the borders. But although they can hurt us, we can destroy them, and everybody knows it. It's kind of like being hit by a .22 versus being hit by dozens of slugs of much higher caliber, not to mention multiple other ordnance, and that's without using our biggest weapons, which would damage our allied countries in the region.

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Matthew Yglesias makes a good point about third parties.



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The big brouhaha today is due to a report from those "anonymous sources" that the army is going to modify one of their manuals regarding the Geneva Convention. Protein Wisdom has the most rational take I've seen.



Assuming it's true, and not another case like flushing the Koran.



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Armies of Liberation talks about electoral corruption in Yemen.



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Captain's Quarters notes that Iranians have moved the equivalent of $200 billion out of the country is recent months. If their president gets them into a violent confrontation with the US, the idea being they'd be in a position to recover personally.



The real bad news for Iran, of course, is that much money leaving puts a serious crimp in the Iranian economy, which doesn't exactly help stabilize the mullah's regime.



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Free speech for Me but not for thee: Michelle Malkin covers the differing treatments of those student who were against one specific piece of legislation as opposed to one person who tried to support it.

Woohoo! After several months of ups and downs but staying about where it was, traffic really took off set a new site record for visitors in May. 63,982 visits completely destroys the old record of about 48,500! 170,712 page views. I also had my single busiest day ever in May, with 3178 visits. Running totals: 383,153 visits, 1,217,295 page views since I started this thing last June 19th.



Thank you all for stopping by.

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Via TuCents comes this story about the California Supreme Court ruling that police can enter a residence without warrant to arrest a DUI. I'm a big advocate of transparency, but here I draw the line. This is too permissive of fishing expeditions. Let's say I come home from work on Friday afternoon and walk into my home. A police officer waiting sees me get out of my car and says he suspects I was driving under the influence. As some readers may be aware, I don't drink alcoholic beverages but that is irrelevant and unknown to said officer. I walk into my home, they having made absolutely no attempt to detain me prior to doing so, and now the whole property is fair game for a search. They also have the opportunity to plant whatever they want, evidencewise, although they can also do so on a search warrant. They have the opportunity to do so, and never mind that the original charge never worked out. Even if no criminal charges come out of it, what happens to your reputation in the community when the information is "accidentally" released that they discovered fifty or a hundred weapons, several gig of porn with a particular kink on your hard drive, drug paraphernalia, or any number of other legal things that are nonetheless less than savory by the standards of the community, tolerated when nobody knows or has their face rubbed in it, but grounds for ostracism from many people when the community finds out about it? When there is something going on outside the home, or reaching out to touch the rest of the world (as phone calls do), that much is fair game. Something within the home that touches no one else is not. The California Supreme Court has just handed law enforcement yet another ticket to attack normal citizens at will.



I have two words for our state Supreme Court: Rose Bird



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Well the Donkeys have told voters where they stand in no uncertain terms. Should they take office in November, all of their prospective committee chairs are from the liberal wing of the party. Admittedly, it's hard to find moderates in the House, but they had to work to find people this "progressive". To quote, "Only two of 20 earned grades of less than 90 percent on last year's voting records from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action interest group. Half had perfect scores of 100 from the ADA - or would have had it not been for missed votes." Dingell for Energy and Commerce. Rangel, or all the possible alternatives, who fought every rational step to get the budget under control, for Ways and Means, of all places. Miller (prospective Education and Workforce) I don't know much about despite him bieng a Californian, but the fact that he is a Californian, as socialist as our politics have become, is not a good omen. Conyers, a congenital idiot, who will believe anything any member of Greeenpeace, the ACLU, or the communist party tell him, for Judiciary. Yeah, sure the Donkeys don't intend to impeach the President as soon as the house is in session if they win. Now pull the other one. Conyers has been trying already, and they tag him with Judiciary. Alcee Hastings (prospective chair of intelligence) was convicted in 1989 and removed from a judgeship for fabricating evidence that secured his acquittal on other charges.



Not to mention Pelosi.



Actually, the Donkeys are neither progressive nor liberal in the classic sense. Their leadership has not modified their politics in forty years, no matter how convincing the evidence is to the rest of the world.



Okay, they've given any rational person all the evidence they should need to vote Elephant in the fall, however lacking the current crop is. (the representative for the district I live in, Filner, is a Donkey, and so is Feinstein, our senator whose term expires this year, so I get to both vote Elephant and turn the rascals out.)



Captain's Quarters has more committee assignments, including ******* Henry "Numbskull" Waxman, who coincidentally, I talked about just his morning as the idiot behind stopping the Partnerships for Long Term Care (second to last paragraph here, for a quick easy lesson in how to do something stupidly destructive through class warfare, and they want to give this clown the Government Reform Committee?)



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via Strata-Sphere, a four part Thomas Sowell column on mythology of liberals versus reality. Part I Part II Part III Part IV



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via Boxing Alcibiades, the best sign I've seen that the war on Islamism is winnable.



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Looks like a low life publisher has infringed Michael Yon's copyright.



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In case you missed it, Canada has arrested seventeen allged would-be terrorists. They planned a bomb using three tonnes of ammonium nitrate



Via Wizbang, they planned to target the Canadian CSIS Toronto office, among other targets.



LGF notes that the whining has already begun about how they were framed because of their ethnicity, are being abused, etcetera.



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Mudville Gazette has caught the press exaggerating what the military has said about the Haditha incident.



I have no idea and no qualifications to judge. For all the studying of military history I've done, I've never been in combat, never learned the rules of engagement that our military operates under, and have no experience to judge whether a violation has occurred. I will have to accept the verdict of whatever military investigations and trials there are. But it does seem plain to me that this has little in common with My Lai, or any number of other atrocities that have happened in war. At most, the response was beyond what such response should have been given the provocation, for which the commanders who failed to control the troops should quite properly be hit with the heaviest consequences in the book, if guilty. But it's not like it was planned, orchestrated, or even specifically ordered. People get a little emotional in a combat zone when their lives are on the line and their friends are killed. I understand this, even though I agree with the necessity for punishing it.



It also bears examining that the Iraqi relatives alleging the slaughter are refusing to allow the corpses to be disinterred for examination. Were this the United States, they would not be offered the opportunity of refusing. They are accusing these Marines of a felony level action, and refusing to cooperate in the gathering of evidence? Doesn't look good for the prosecution, whether it's downtown Houston or Haditha, the defense should make a strong point that it is his clients contention that this evidence which has been refused would clear them of wrongdoing.



Except, of course, that what those promoting the story are after trial by bad publicity of our civilian leadership, and those Marines are completely unimportant to them, excepting as how they are likely Bush supporters.



Two last questions: 1) Why are the same suspects whining about the treatment of the alleged terrorists not also whining about how these Marines are being treated? 2) Why are not the perpetrators of any number of atrocities on the other side not being brought to the same sort of justice?



LATER: Michelle Malkin notes some similarities between a photo the UK Times claims is of Haditha and a Newsweek photo that accompanied a report of terrorist executions. I'm still waiting upon the final resolution of the investigations and/or court martials, but this is starting to smell. Both badly and strongly.

Took off yesterday to help my elder daughter's kindergarten class go to the zoo. She always enjoys the zoo. No pictures worth showing, though, as you'll realize if ever you've pulled the same duty.

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Carnival of Debt Reduction



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Pakistani Taliban take control of wild Waziristan. This is an area of Pakistan that the British never did completely pacify. Between it and adjacent provinces, there never was a five year period of no rebellion. Periods longer than 18 months were rare. The Pakistani government hasn't got anything like the willpower of the British Army, and I see a certain amount of evidence for collaboration with the Taliban covered by plausible deniability.



Looks like we may not have to wait for the Iranians to get nukes to face a hostile nuclear power.



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Don Surber notes that there was a CNN reporter embedded with the Haditha Marines, and the report she filed may just save them.



this link is a little more coherent



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I feel like I'm watching an old Hollywood movie where the villain takes his best shot at the hero, and then gets his comeuppance due to the nature of what he tried to do to the hero. Even better if it comes at the hands of another hero. Michael Moore Sued by Iraq War Vet. Oh, the poetic justice!



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US company transforms Boeing 747 into aerial firefighter Okay, large capacity. But I've seen them fight fires with tanker drops. Those pilots are crazy, and most often are working in rugged, inaccessible terrain. Instead of flying along ridgelines, they dip down between at right angles and pull up so they fly directly up towards the ridgeline. I suspect the wings would fall off the 747 if they tried the same sorts of things. Either that, or it'll have an impact. The P3s and other stuff they use now were mostly designed with military uses in mind. They are designed for flying in rugged conditions, and sudden stresses and the like. A 747 is designed to be a reliable long distance carrier of lots of people in more of less smooth conditions. Mind you, if you're looking to blanket the area from altitude, a 747 would be most impressive. A C5A or C17 would probably be better operationally, if higher maintenance.



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Looks like Google isn't the only one: Ask.com Adds New Search Tools for Blogs



This could go a long way towards boosting Ask.com's search engine share.



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Just a little judicial arrogance. Different River caught a link on Reuters saying that a Georgia judge has declared an emendment to the state constition to be (you guessed it) unconstitutional.



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via Buzz Machine, an explain-it-to-the-stupid-loan-officer article on net neutrality.



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Armies of Liberation has more on the corruption in Yemen. Actually, I'd suggest going over to read her entire front page on a regular basis. It lends an understanding to the problems faced not only by Yemen, but a host of other countries in similar situations.



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I know it's three days late for Memorial Day. Scrappleface has a non-satire post you should read anyway.



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As you might guess, MEChA has no soft spot in my heart. Michelle Malkin notes some of their tactics.



You're here. You're Americans. If you don't want to be, Mexico lies a very short distance that way. Other countries aren't exactly inaccessible, if that's what you prefer. I have zero tolerance for separatists or supremacists of any stripe.