#1
The article is mostly about a proposal to require all homes sold to be inspected and meet some arbitrary standard of energy conservation. When I check for energy conserving windows for my old shack, they cost $1,000 each, and I would need to replace 9! That's just for the windows. The proposal doesn't pass the laugh test. Most likely it was inserted by a legislator influenced by a home renovation lobbyist.
Home prices are artificially inflated and unrealistic in most of the country, in any case. Those prices NEED to fall. However, C&T will generally depress the economy even further than it already is.
#2
Most of the price of a home is the inflated price of Land (as the cost of building as remained static).
High land prices (relative to wages) are not a public good. Inflation in Land prices and thus a fall in land affordability is not economically beneficial either.
#3
I recently talked to a builder about building on my own land, a nice professional (A real on) and he told me just a slab would cost 15 grand.
I thanked him and said No thanks.
My Grandmother's old (Improved) Home was a two room and a dog trot , build date unknown but likely civil war, it was on Brick piers about 4 feet off the ground and still stands today (Tumbled in because my uncle waned the 12 inch wide heart pine floors and cut them out)
Now THAT"S longevity.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2009 16:32 Comments ||
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#2
Oh goody then I can I can drop a flaming bag of dog poop on his front door. All in good fun.
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2009 6:31 Comments ||
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#3
When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons.
And not just about energy, either. But they'll start them young -
The Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on real children. Partnering with the Parent Teacher Organization, the agency earlier this month launched a cross-country tour of 6,000 schools to teach students about climate change and energy efficiency.
Were showing people across the country how energy efficiency can be part of what they do every day, said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Confronting climate change, saving money on our utility bills, and reducing our use of heavily-polluting energy can be as easy as making a few small changes.
Show us how it's done, Lisa! The article links to a DOE audit showing the DOE wastes $11 million of our money every year by not changing thermostats evenings and weekends.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2009 6:51 Comments ||
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#4
Steven Chu: Americans Are Like 'Teenage Kids' When It Comes to Energy
The governing caste talking down to the serfs governed.
The contract is broken. The one that began "We the People..."
#6
Nag, nag, nag. Just like my mother was. Partially right, annoyingly wrong and just a real pain.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2009 10:15 Comments ||
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#7
Secretary Chu said he didnt think that the public would throw the same political temper tantrum over climate legislation has has happened with the healthcare debate.
No, Chu, the public outrage over climate legislation would be an order of magnitude greater than what has happened over healthcare. Is every single member of Obama's utterly clueless about economics and its relations to energy costs?
#8
Chu said he didn't think that the public would throw the same political temper tantrum over climate legislation has has happened with the healthcare debate.
Temper tantrum you say. What friggin arrogance. These people really don't get it. As is said stupidity can't be fixed. Chu and the rest of you arrogant elitists will most likely see the beginning of a real revolution in the spirit of the founding fathers come the next congressional election. We need to begin anew.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Tuesday circulated a memo to fellow Democrats that outlines strong support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency and included a series of legislative changes designed to win over wary lawmakers.
Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is a strong backer of President Barack Obama's proposal for a new agency. It would have broad authority over products such as home loans and credit cards.
"These changes are largely responding to member concerns," said Steve Adamske, the committee's spokesman. Frank, before the August recess, postponed a mark up hearing on the agency proposal amid broad opposition from Republicans and the financial industry, as well as concerns from fellow Democrats.
"What we're going to accomplish now is refining the language," Adamske said. "It was very broad from Treasury. We're putting definitions on it. We're putting some meat on the bones."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
We can never get enough of what we don't need. I wish Barney Frank would go tweak something else.
David Horowitz commented on The Ones sellout speech to the UN this morning. Sometimes one stray fact is enough to tell a whole story: The biggest applause lines by far were his declaration that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements and his pledge to end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. The chamber erupted at the words, and the applause lasted longer than any other interruption.
The following section of his speech describing U.S. actions to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, H1N1, and global economic squalor received no applause whatsoever:
America will continue our historic effort to help people feed themselves. We have set aside $63 billion to carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS, to end deaths from tuberculosis and malaria, to eradicate polio, and to strengthen public health systems.
We are joining with other countries to contribute H1N1 vaccines to the World Health Organization. We will integrate more economies into a system of global trade. We will support the Millennium Development Goals and approach next years summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.
Clearly, the audience is more motivated by death of the modern Israeli state than the deaths of the worlds poor.
#2
Sad thing is if H1N1 is as bad as some are predicting the only nation in the middle east that will be able to protect itself is Israel (and Iraq because of the large US presence).
Can't vaccinate a population with hate and money diverted from hospitals into weapons and terror support.
Jarrett lobbied Obama to create the office of Chief Diversity Officer within the FCC, a position filled by Mark Lloyd, an Alinskyite and former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who appears fixated on silencing conservative talk radio. Her intent, according to some, was to change policy by altering the structure of the FCC. Jarrett also helped recruit Cass Sunstein, who believes in the Fairness Doctrine, has argued we should celebrate tax day, and believes animals should have legal standing to sue humans. (This is a growing movement on the Green Left. As I note in chapter seven of my book Teresa Heinz Kerrys Radical Gifts, the Heinz Endowments gave $25,000 to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which complains that trees and forests and streams and cougars and bears they have no rights under our structure of governance.) As David Horowitz has noted, Saul Alinsky wrote, From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Part of that motion involves burrowing into existing structures and changing them from the inside out as has been done in academia, the major tax-exempt foundations, the Democratic Party, and now the U.S. government.
#7
Absolutely nothing new here, unless you've been sleeping beneath a tree for the past 40 years. The only difference now is these thugs have a legitimte political forum and can speak freely.
A BBC programme is to feature a call for the age of consent to be lowered. "Younger than seven, next thing to heaven!"
Law professor John Spencer will argue that the current age of consent, fixed at 16, criminalises 'half the population'. That'd be the half the population that's over the age of consent that wants to get into the drawers of the half of the population that's under age of consent? I hadn't realized the division was quite that 50-50.
His controversial views will be debated on the BBC Radio 4 programme Iconoclasts tomorrow evening. Doesn't even matter if they're close relatives with birth control, does it?
In a preview of the live programme, BBC programme makers said that the Cambridge academic will argue that it should be 'legal for young teenagers to have sex. "How young?"
"Well, we usually like to wait until they're outta diapers..."
He says the age of consent, fixed at 16 by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, makes criminals of half the population'. Lotsa societies don't have an age of consent. They're the ones where everybody wants to live, aren't they?
Last night MPs said it was 'ludicrous' to consider lowering the age of consent at a time when teenage pregnancy rates are still soaring. "It ain't the pregners whut bothers us! It's the jail time!"
The latest figures show that 42,900 under-18s and 8,200 under16s became pregnant in England and Wales in 2007, with most of the pregnancies ending in abortion. The Government's controversial teenage pregnancy strategy, which has cost taxpayers more than £300million, was meant to halve the number of conceptions among girls under 18 in England between 1998 and 2010, but teenage pregnancy rates are now higher than they were in 1995. Ending pregnancies doesn't cut the number of conceptions. Y'gotta look around for some cause that's related to the effect. Now, what could it be? Of course! If you just let more dirty old men diddle them whilst they're still maidens that'll surely cut the number of conceptions! Stands to reason!
Professor Spencer, who will set out his views before being challenged by a panel of experts, was unavailable last night. Had a date with a hot 12-year-old?
But he has previously argued that the current laws surrounding the age of consent are 'deeply unsatisfactory'. "Yasss. There's a 10-year-old lives on my block. She's a tasty lass, but in a year or two she'll be past her prime..."
He is expected to argue that laws are heavy-handed and unenforceable with severe penalties for 'minor offences'. If she's a child she can't give consent. That makes it rape, if only statutory. Rape used to be a capital offense. A bit heavy-handed, I'll admit, but it did cause the lechers to wait until the girlies at least grew bosoms in most cases, and it thinned the herd of the ones that couldn't wait..
Tory MP David Davies said: 'It is vital that the law protects vulnerable young people from exploitation by adults. You'd think that was what the law was all about unless you were a professor or a lawyer.
'There are already far too many young people having underage sex and we have a terrible record for teenage pregnancies.' Perhaps we as a society should do something about it other than make it easier for olde farts to legally grope the little things?
Fellow Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe said: 'The proposition that the age of consent should be lowered is absolutely appalling. The situation is bad enough at the moment with high rates of teenage pregnancies and sexual diseases. "Yeah, but it's so much easier to get them into the bunk when they haven't heard it all before..."
'I don't detect a great deal of public support for this. If there was, I would argue that it should be debated. I can only assume the BBC is trying to create the debate.' Only because the populace doesn't regularly descend on BBC offices with torches and pitchforks...
Senior police officers have also sparked controversy by calling for the age of consent to be reduced to as young as 13. Two years ago, Chief Superintendent Clive Murray argued that the law does not distinguish between sexual abuse and 'youthful natural instinct'. Perhaps it should? How hard is it to conceive of a law that recognizes that young 'uns occasionally play doctor or even hide the baloney but that prescribes the gallows for Chester the Molester? Perhaps if there was a government worth the powder it'd take to blow it away it would? Guy Fawkes to the White Courtesy Phone!
In 2006 Terry Grange, former chief constable of Dyfed-Powys Police, claimed that men as old as 30 who have sex with underage girls should not necessarily be classed as paedophiles. Sounds like the former Chief Constable was having a hard time with the concept of Look but Don't Touch as he walked his former beat.
European countries including Austria, Bulgaria and Croatia set the age of consent at 14. It is 13 in Spain. And what higher goal could the Land of Hope and Glory aspire to than to be just like Bulgaria and Spain?
A BBC spokesman defended the decision to broadcast Professor Spencer's views and insisted the topic would be dealt with in a 'sensitive manner'. "... so then I grabs her little bubbies an' I sez..."
He said: 'Iconoclasts is a live discussion programme, in which a controversial viewpoint from an individual who has professional credibility in his or her field is discussed, explored in detail and robustly challenged by panellists. 'The programme does not advocate the issue, but is a platform for an individual viewpoint and a starting point for serious debate.' Then why's the live audience relieved of its rotted fruit and dog turds before being allowed to take its seats?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
I believe the old social remedies work best. A beating, tar and feathers and a rail out of town plane to Riyadh.
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2009 6:35 Comments ||
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#3
It sounds like the police just don't want to enforce the law on the lower classes, when they could be more profitably going after good citizens defending themselves against burglars.
#4
There's a deep hatred and contempt bred into the left & academics for the bourgeois, i.e. the middle class, with its stable social manners and lifestyle. They much prefer the decadence of the aristocrats and the poverty and lack of social and economic roots of an underclass.
For it is the middle class that stands in the way of their power and control. Marx saw that clearly, which is why his ideology and strategies focused on destroying the middle class.
You can do that by violent revolution but, as Gramsces noted, you can do it more slowly by eroding in every way the pillars of social stability: religion, family structures, economic self-responsibility etc.
Above all it is necessary to destroy, ridicule and undercut common sense. Once people rely on common sense instead of nominalized ideological cant, it's much harder to overthrow them. Most civilizations fall due to rot within ... external aggression is merely the final push.
#5
Sounds like some crazy-ass Jack Chick comic... you know the one where Satanists take over America and try to turn it into Sodom and Gomorrah or some such.
#6
The dirty little secret that no one talks about is that virgins aren't very good at it. Good sex is an aquired skill. Chastity before marriage made perfect sense when marriage meant something, but it's hard in a modern secular society to make a strong case for holding back on our sexual impulses. That leaves us with no clear guidelines to give to and to enforce with our teenage budding adults. At what age or under what criteria should a person be held accountable for their sexual activity? It's easy to give a shallow answer but very difficult to for an answer with depth. I don't know, but I am uncomfortable with the way things stand now. Now, someone can have consensual sex with virtually anyone within their age bracket, but a great crime has been committed if they stray even one day outside their allowed sexual age window. The law hates ambiguity, but life is naturally ambigious. I'd like to see some sort of gradient of responsibility for our youth that parallels their growth and development in maturity in other aspects of their lives. Alas, it wont happen. Ambiguity is just too threatening a concept for our institutions to permit.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2009 10:11 Comments ||
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#7
I think the real thrust of this debate (excuse the bad pun) is that the Moslem faith seems to condone sex with minors that borders on pedophilia.
I get the feeling that the BBC is advocating legalizing pedophilia and other assorted sexual abuse and exploitation of the young.
Posted by: James Carville ||
09/23/2009 11:50 Comments ||
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#8
I think the real thrust of this debate (excuse the bad pun) is that the Moslem faith seems to condone sex with minors that borders on pedophilia.
I agree with Mr. Carville: let's not overlook the influence of the "asian" constituency that punches way above its weight class in UK politics.
#9
I suspect that a mid-teen age of consent is primarily a recent (last 100 years or so) western more. It was only in the past few years that Hawai'i raised it's legal age of consent up to 16 (from 14, I think). It was vigorously fought because it was contrary to the customs of a large part of the population, including native Hawai'ians and those of asian descent.
Still have a similar cultural dissonance problem with cockfighting (yes this is a totally different subject, not a variation on the first).
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Tuesday circulated a memo to fellow Democrats that outlines strong support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency and included a series of legislative changes designed to win over wary lawmakers.
A BBC programme is to feature a call for the age of consent to be lowered.
