Before I go there, I want to remind you that it is not (yet) politically incorrect to hate the Stupid, thus branding me a stupidist.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
So Rick Perry, the Texas governor, has received divine advice urging him to run for president. In other words, this politician has had a break with sanity, wherein he heard voices telling him to run for the highest office in the land. I'm willing to bet that with his health insurance, he can be treated in any clinic in the country, including the private, exclusive ones.
Every time my wife had to go into the hospital, they asked her if she heard voices. I understand the medicines have come a long way toward quieting them down.
I have no idea how many of Perry's ilk will cop to hearing voices, but I'd suggest starting as far right as possible and working your way left for maximum efficiency. Hint: Cain and Bachmann have also admitted divine calling.
Strange Bedfellows?
A coalition including New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms and a rabbi filed a lawsuit Monday in an attempt to overturn New York's gay-marriage law.
How much hate do you need in your heart to be part of this?
Before you answer, I'm not one of those people who refer to disagreement or dislike as hate. This is simply a case of sheer black-heartedness in the Grinchian sense. Unlike the Grinch, though, these people will not relent. They will not discover the remains of a blood pumping organ buried way down inside their sternums. They will persevere, Cheney-like, in their singular mission of forming a theocracy.
I am against gay marriage. I am also against heterosexual marriage. But I figure why shouldn't the homos should suffer just like the rest of us?
I am particularly horrified that there is a rabbi involved in this. I have met a few rabbis. I am related to Jews. Never have I come across this level of malignancy.
Owing Great Debt
The news is full of President Giveaway and Boehner stomping about and chest-thumping over a budget. This is pure theater.
The fact of the matter is that they're going to raise the debt limit and raise taxes, in direct opposition to their words. This does not fall exactly along the lines of Stupid so much as greed and rampant ass-covering.
A recent news story alerted a few of us to $34 billion misspent on military contractors. With that story out, plus the trillions acknowledged missing on 9-10-2001, explain again to me why we need to raise the debt limit and taxes.
I maintain that once the government discovers it can reach into your pocket, it never stops. Reality has shown this to be correct. The time limit on the debt limit is no surprise. Again, it's theater.
How do you suppose the debt got that high? Congress voted to spend it.
Let Congress fix it.
Until government cuts itself by about eighty percent, we should not have to pay one penny additional. In fact, we should be paying over eighty percent less or thereabouts. Yes, those wacky libertarians do have some good ideas sometimes, don't they?
Right now we are a country ridiculously in debt to a private consortium with a public name (the Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve - discuss). Nothing the joke called Congress does will do anything to fix the situation. The criminals need to be put where the rest of the criminals are put.
I am responsible for my debts. I didn't agree to put my country in debt.
The Greatest Football Season Ever in Jeopardy
The NFL has ended the lockout, which means that there could be a football season this year. I am horribly disappointed. This season had such potential.....
Feel More of the Love
Afghan militants have hung an eight year old boy because his father refused to give them a police car.
Personally I would have held out for a fire engine.
Do you still wonder why I'm a stupidist? Wouldn't you like to be a stupidist too?
Really? You left out Glenn Beck? The hero who compared Norway victims to "Hitler Youth".
ReplyDeleteBelieving anything the government has to say?
15 years ago, a neighbor purchased a house down the street and paid $160K for it. Today, they are listing the house for $440K. I inspected the house during the realtors' open houses both 15 years ago and today. While the house is presently in good condition, during the last 15 years, the owners have done nothing to the house to improve it or update it. Ok, they had the driveway sealed recently. Everything else is the same, exactly the same, down to the paint on the kitchen cabinets.
If a prospective buyer offered 90% of the asking price, after closing the seller would have about $360K which would place the inflation rate at 5.6% from the seller's viewpoint.
They can reasonably expect to sell the house (maybe) for $320K, considering recent purchases in the neighborhood and their location on the street, although they are not the only people to come up with ridiculously high asking prices.
Compare that to the government calculated rates of inflation for those years and you would expect that the house is worth, today, a mere $226K to $230K (depending on what idiotic claims you are willing to accept.) ...and remember, the housing market is, right now, supposedly "soft." When my spouse told me it was for sale, I said it might be worth $225K.
If they get their asking price, that would be a 7% return before closing costs and a kick-in-the-pants for both the buyer and those in the government who calculate inflation. If they get lucky and sell to some sucker for what I think they might possibly get, that would peg inflation for that period (the last 15 years) at 5%. Meanwhile, the government tells me that inflation for that period was a tad less than 3%. Actually, there were only three years in which inflation was reported as being over 3% though less than 4%.
On the other hand, the last house to sell, on the street, first listed at $380K and sold for $260K, and the owner had to refurbish the septic system at a cost of $15K before the sale went through. From that take the closing costs, and the seller failed to beat even the government's idea of what inflation might be.
I first considered buying a house in 1975 and one of the houses I looked at was priced at $35K. Today, that house, in a depressed housing market, will probably sell for $230K, and it is listed for $280K. If I use government inflation statistics, that house should sell for $147K.
Buffalo
Carp! 3rd party cookies must be enabled in order to reply here. Damn the Establishment!
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Anywho... I was just ranting about some of this myself recently, Lefty. However, you rant ever-so-much more eloquently than I. ;)