You Don’t Really Believe This Do You?

Bush to Outline Aid to Mortgage Holders

Offering federal aid for strapped mortgage holders, President Bush is proposing to help hundreds of thousands of borrowers hard hit by the housing slump.

Let me rephrase this headline so that it has a glimmer of truth to it:

President Bush Wants to Make Sure Banks Get Paid On Stupid Loans They Made To People Who Could Not Afford To Pay

Of course, no one would ever throw their support behind bailing out large corporations who make bad decisions. The solution? Make it all about the little guy. That way everybody wins–Democrats and Republicans alike. That is everybody, right?

Well, everybody except for people who pay federal taxes and don’t overextend themselves. These are people whose financial role models are their grandparents, reasonable people who don’t buy what they can’t afford, not the federal government who spends as if it can just print more money any time it…

Oh, wait.

Nod to Rogel for alerting me to this!

More To Love About Living In The United States

I love the anti-John Edwards post by Glen Dean.

Perhaps Edwards should promise to provide all “poor” households with Tivo or DVR. Maybe he could promise every poor family a $50 gift card to Applebees. It really must be difficult to be a poverty pimping populist these days.

I have to agree. This is the only country in the world where it is completely reasonable to expect that the day of a poor person can include all of the following activities:

1. Jumping into his car to go grab a pack of cigarettes and some cold beer
2. Stopping on the way home for a super value meal, complete with 32 ounces of sugar water (with free refills), a quarter pound (pre-cooked weight) of beef topped with fresh vegetables and a serving of potatoes that contains more calories than is needed for an entire day.
3. Placing the cold beer into his refrigerator so it will stay cold
4. Cracking open one of said cold beers and channel surfing three different football games on cable TV
5. Complaining between puffs on cigarettes that health care is too expensive and that the gov’ment should do something about it.

Let’s not forget this either:

Having said all of that, it is important to note that there are some people in this country who really are poor. Those are the ones we should all help out with our own private contributions and time spent volunteering.

Absolutely correct, and I think the average American would be much more likely to do so if they didn’t feel like they’d abdicated this responsibility (because that’s what it is) to the gov’ment by paying their taxes. Do I have too much faith in people?

Beer Drinking Terrorists On The Run

Yet another story that would be hilarious if it wasn’t true by way of TheLibertyPapers–this one about a group of hashers (runners/beer drinkers) who were suspected of terrorism after mapping out a course using colored flour in an IKEA parking lot. The full story on these felons was posted on MSNBC. Jack Bauer would be proud of this great example of government at its best.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

That’s a great policy. Any time you see something even remotely odd, go ahead and assume that it is a terrorist at work and evacuate the entire area immediately. If you’re wrong (or, ahem, just ignorant), it is pretty safe to assume that someone else is responsible and should pay.

Ron Paul Gets a Freebie From a Former Stripper

Strippers for Ron Paul. Michelle does a great job of explaining why anyone who cares about freedom (not only theirs, but other people’s as well) should have their interest peaked by the Paul campaign.

All seriousness aside, it would have been interesting to hear her opinion on the idea of eliminating the Federal Reserve and changing back to the gold standard. Dolla bill yo!

Democrat Has Some Great Advice For Republicans

Sharon Cobb offers some free advice that should be obvious to any thinking person, but obviously isn’t obvious to the GOP.

Y’all have got to get back to being Barry Goldwater Republicans and stay out of personal lives of consenting adults instead of trying to make what consenting adults do a political issue for you. It’s shortsighted.

Yep. You’d better believe that the GOP is missing out on a lot of folks in the late 20s and early 30s who would prefer to have the gov’ment out of our lives. Some are naive enough to opt for the liberal alternative to what is now being called conservative (although I don’t see the difference anymore) and giving up an equally important freedom by letting the gov’ment into their wallets. Big mistake.

Others, like me, are turned off by the whole situation and pushed into supporting third parties that have no chance of winning on principle.

Ron Paul has given me hope that the Republicans can actually turn this thing around and get back to basics. The longer he stays in the race, the more people will hear his message, and the further the Republicans will be pushed towards staying out of people’s lives. At the very least, they could finally have something to actually debate about when they face the Democrats. Hell, I may even finally vote for one.

Thanks to Michael Silence for pointing this one out.

** UPDATE **
A related comment in an unrelated post at TheLibertyPapers

They both believe in big government, they simply piss our money away on different issues. Both groups’ policies will eventually lead to economic disaster.

Well put by UCrawford

Two More Things I Love About This Country

Randy Couture1. We still produce men as tough as Randy Couture, the UFC Heavyweight Champion

Couture, 44, who defeated contender Gabriel Gonzaga by technical knockout in the third round, broke an ulna bone in his left forearm during the third round, said his assistant Valerie Haney.

“It happened on [Gonzaga’s] high leg kick at Randy’s head,” Haney said. “Randy blocked the kick with his left arm.”

Gabriel Gonzaga2. We don’t have to pay for health care for people who choose to smoke cigarettes, eat gravy as a side dish for every meal, or willingly put themselves in danger of being kicked in the head by cavemen like Gonzaga, who by the way was suffering from a shattered nose for the majority of the fight.

The Brazilians are still breeding some pretty tough dudes themselves.

Big Hole in the Universe

From Space.com

The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it’s also strangely empty of the mysterious “dark matter” that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

1. What human behavior caused this?
2. How long has Bush been covering it up?
3. How much money have the oil companies made exploiting it?
4. What is Hillary’s (Obama’s, Romney’s, Rudy’s, etc) plan to save us from it while still keeping taxes low for hard working American families?

Are the Dems Cracking Up?

I can’t help but cheer for controversy like this:

With other states rushing to set early nominating contests, Florida offers the first test of the DNC’s resolve to restore order to the schedule it set last year. Michigan and New Hampshire also are considering moving up their voting, in violation of the party rules.

But the DNC has threatened to penalize candidates who campaign in states that violate the rules.

Relax, I’d be just as happy to see it happen to the Republicans. Besides, it’s only natural–these things happen when any organization/company/government gets too big.

It never ceases to amaze me that over 200 years ago a few men were smart enough to realize that the only way to make one size fit all is to limit the size. Let’s not forget that simple truth.

Signing the Constitution

10,000 Reasons Not To Have More Money

I came upon this story by way of Reason. I’m no fan of the ACLU, mostly because they are very selective about which civil liberties they choose to defend, but I have to be cheering for them in this case, where a truck driver was forced to turn over $23,700 for no other reason than he had an amount of cash greater than $10,000. No drugs, no drug paraphernalia, no probable cause.

DEA agents told Prieto he would receive a notice of federal proceedings to permanently forfeit the money within 30 days and that to get it back, he’d have to prove it was his and did not come from illegal drug sales.

Wasn’t the whole issue of search and seizure addressed a while back? At least that’s what I remember from my learnin’ in public schools.

The lawsuit said Prieto does not like banks and customarily carries his savings as cash.

That’s great and all, but the fact is, he doesn’t have to explain it. According to the Houston Chronicle article, he was actually nice enough to tell the police that he had the money and give them permission to search his vehicle. He could just as easily refused to allow them to search without any probable cause. That’s what I would do.

“The government took Mr. Prieto’s money as surely as if he had been robbed on a street corner at night,” Simonson said. “In fact, being robbed might have been better. At least then the police would have treated him as the victim of a crime instead of as a perpetrator.”

The scary part is, I’ve transported over $10k in cash (obtained legally, btw) on at least two occasions. Good thing I didn’t have a break light out. I’ll definitely be watching my back if my dreams of winning a big poker tournament ever come to fruition. It would suck to have it confiscated before I was able to pay the outrageous taxes on my winnings.

He Plays, err, Blogs the Right Way

All the recent talk locally about proper link attribution prompted me to finish a post I started a while back about blogging and baseball. “Everything I need to know about blogging I learned from watching baseball”? Eh, don’t really like that title too much. Plus it sounds like link bait, and I’d never do that. 😉

But I do like the notion of “playing the game the right way”. To me, that’s just about the highest honor you can give a baseball player. In a lot of ways, the same things relate to blogging:

Persistence pays off–show up every day

Cal RipkenIf you go by the numbers, Cal Ripken Jr may not look like a Hall of Famer. His batting average isn’t spectacular(.276), he didn’t hit an incredible amount of home runs (431) given the number of games he played (3001). Ripken instead sealed his legacy by being a great shortstop and showing up to play every day for a very long time (2131 consecutive games). Some days it was miserably cold, and he played. Some days it was miserably hot, and he played. Some days he was injured, and he played. A lot of days he was just plain old, and he played. While Cal’s numbers may not be all that impressive, the fact that he was so reliable is.

Be consistent and reliable for your readers. Show up every day (or week, or whatever your posting frequency is), and bring the best game you’ve got. You may only be able to outsmart, outwrite, and out search engine optimize half of the bloggers out there. The other half you will have to outwork!

Try to be the best at what you do, and the rest will take care of itself

The Wizard of OzzieFor position players, Hall of Fame credentials are usually decided by offensive numbers. Ozzie Smith is a rare exception. Why? Because his defense (13 Gold Gloves) was exceptional. With his unreal abilities at the shortstop position, there’s no telling how many runs Ozzie was able to save for his team on defense. The fact that he wasn’t always an exceptional producer on offense is overshadowed by the fact that he is the all time best on defense.

Very few bloggers are good at all aspects of the game. Concentrate on what you do best. If you are a great writer, write. If you are a great layout designer, design. If you are a great programmer, program. If you are even average at your deficiencies you can be successful. If you are excellent at your strengths, you’ll have no problem finding experts in other fields who recognize your greatness and want to be associated with you.

Cheating may get you there, but there’s a price to pay in the long run

Bonds CheaterHe-who’s-name-will-not-be-mentioned-here hit an awful lot of home runs. Very few people I know think his record is legitimate. Even fewer think very highly of him as a person. He’s basically ruined his own legacy by cheating to create it.

Don’t cheat. Learn the ropes. Hell, even learn a few tricks. But don’t cheat. Any short term gains you get won’t be worth the price you’ll have to pay in the long run. As a blogger, you need to be trusted, even if “trusted” means that people know for certain they will find nothing at your blog but a hilarious curse word laced story. Don’t spam for links. Don’t promise something that you can’t deliver. And by all means don’t steal content.

When it’s not working out, you have options

Rick AnkielI can’t tell Rick Ankiel’s story better than John Hutcheson. Short story–Rick Ankiel was a big league pitcher. He lost his stuff. He tried to get it back. He failed. Repeatedly. He went back to the minors and learned to play the outfield. He returned to the big leagues in 2007 as a Cardinals outfielder.

When something isn’t working out for you as a blogger, don’t be afraid to try something new. You’ll have to work at it, and you’ll have to learn something new. But since when are those bad things? And you’ll still be in the game.

By the way, Ankiel hit a three run homer in his first game as an outfielder.

When the someone comes after you, be ready!

In 1980, Dave Winfield charged the mound on Nolan Ryan and gave him a beat down. No one tested Ryan’s skills at the sweet science again until 1993. There was no reason to–the guy throws 100 mph. If he wanted to hurt you, you’d already be hurt. But in Nolan Ryan’s final season, he hit Robin Ventura in the arm, and Ventura came after him. This time, Ryan was ready, and the insuing butt-kicking Ventura received let everyone know that Nolan Ryan is not a guy you want to mess with.

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If you establish any kind of success as a blogger, someone is bound to come after you. While you can’t get them in a headlock and pummel them six times until Pudge Rodriguez comes out to rescue them, if you pay for hosting for you own domain, you need to make sure that your site is secure and your data is backed up from day one. Also, monitor your incoming links to make sure they are on the up and up. Don’t let someone else make you look spammy.

By the way, Ventura was ejected and Nolan Ryan completed the game without giving up another hit.

Conditions will change, and fame can come from anywhere

In 1922, the St. Louis Cardinals traded Cliff Heathcote to the Chicago Cubs in between games of a double header with the Cubs! If not for this fact, who would ever remember Heathcote?

Things change very quickly online. Who knew anything about social networking three years ago and the way it would change things? If you’ve produced quality content before the change, the same content will be just as valuable after the change. Keep doing what you do and continue to learn about how that fits in with the current environment. You’ll be surprised to find that some of what you consider to be your most unremarkable stuff is what people end up knowing you for.

By the way, Heathcote went 2-4 in the second game.

Last but not least…

Give credit to your teammates

In post game interviews with pitchers who have just thrown a perfect games or no-hitters, they generally thank two people–“God and my teammates”. This isn’t just lip service. These guys know they would not have been able to reach this achievement without a lot of support from other people (and elsewhere). The best even call out their teammates by name. Even that guy-who’s-name-I-won’t-type was big enough to thank the teammates he’d had throughout the years, and this was the closest he’s come to speaking to some of them.

Make sure you site your resources. Most of the time they will be people just like you scraping to get their blog seen and read. Know that you can help them most by giving them relevant anchor text in the link.

Can you tell I am was a Cardinals fan?