DISQUS

What originally happened in Lake City when that home was built is a prime example of how charity and goodwill should work — through the actions of private organizations and individuals. I'm sure many of the recipients are well deserving of the help. How they handle it afterwards is up to them. These particular individuals betrayed their neighbors' trust and goodwill.

As for Fannie & Freddie — they need to be reigned in and, in time, abolished. This is what happens when government plays in the arena of charity and goodwill. It becomes abused and leaves the taxpayer holding the bag. Other examples abound. Just look at the idiots that build on the coast and have their houses (usually a seond home) destroyed in a storm. They rebuild in the same location thanks to government largesse (flood insurance) which the taxpayer underwrites. Get the government out of the flood insurance business and let people stupid enough to build on the coast or in flood plains pay private insurance premiums that reflect the true cost of their idiocy. Maybe then, when someone has to pay sky high premiums, they'll start to make sensible choices and quite screwing taxpers.

Once upon a time, lenders had standards as to who qualified for mortgages. But these practices were decried by certain politicians as discriminatory. Rather than face more regulation in their lending practices, major lenders caved in to this pressure tactic and began giving out loans that were weak. Knowing that these were weak, they then began the practice of selling off these dubious loans to other institutions and a new government created 'market' came into being. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, these same politicians are blaming the lending institutions for doing what they were forced to do. Let's see some payback at the polls!

Resign? Yes, and let her take her evil twin, Senator Boxer, with her and return from whence they came.

A sad loss indeed and while so youthful at that. It's a pity that during his tenure at the White House he was in such a one-sided contest of intellect with the Washington Press Corps. Might have been more stimulating for him if they put a few independent real journalists to even things up, rather than that lock-step herd of communications majors. Here's to you, Mr. Snow.

On the other hand, Steve Milloy over at JunkScience.com throws some cold water on the media blitz for wind power and raises the possibility that this is more about helping to keep alive taxpayer subsidies to wind generated power facilities:

http://junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20080710.html

As long as he's putting his money where his mouth is, then best of luck to his project. The problem with wind power is that you still need the fossil fuel-fired power plants continuing to operate, ready to take up the slack when the wind isn't providing enough force to turn the blades at high enough speed to maximize their power. And how many people will welcome acre upon acre of windwills across the landscape? And of course there's the bird faction in the environmental movement that'll oppose such massive farms in areas of bird migration. If he can surmount all these obstacles as well as provide an economically competitive alternative then perhaps he can engineer a paradigm shift. Only time will tell.

From your post on Ingrid I drew the conclusion that you were in IT receiving training from IT honchos from Germany. Perhaps a bit much of an assumption? Although, from the quality of your blog, it seemed a reasonable assumption.

As to the other question, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is definately not Big Brown.

An interesting exposition using yourself as an object lesson as you threw a hissy fit over electrical service interruption. Well made point though in how so many people have been suckered into accepting manufactured rights. Statists just love to proclaim everyone's rights to everything, except the real fundamental rights — life, liberty, and property {I prefer the original formulation}.

BTW, how is it that a professional IT person was without a UPS to prevent such a problem with the computer? Tsk, tsk. After having been forced by circumstances to leave the Atlanta area and return to my birthplace near Buffalo, NY, I found it to be like moving from an advanced civilized country to a third-world country. Had to get my own UPS to protect from the regular power outages here — and there usually aren't severe thunderstorms on which to blame the outages. The power just goes out from 2-4 hours every few months.

As retired military, thank you for a fine tribute and for speaking your mind so eloquently. In an era when bashing America is so fashionable, it's great to be reminded of the true wonder that is our country. Unstated in your exposition is one of the least appreciated rights that we recognize, that of free speech. While multiculturalism rules so much of the world's thoughts and limits speech in much of the West, we are still able to express openly such thoughts as recognizing the nature of Islam {although I'd go a bit further than just speaking of its attacks on the West but of its unrelenting attacks on all of civilization}. Again, thanks for such direct eloquence.