The Housing "Crisis" And Other Stories

I wish I could get this housing bailout straight in my head. Back in Jimmeh Carter's day the government started making banks loan money to people who could not pay it back. This increased during Clinton's Presidency.

Almost all the way through the Bush years they made this work by continually lowering interest rates. These lower interest rates, along with a few other tricks, kept real estate prices going up, far past the actual value. Also, far past what many people who are serious about their household finances could actually afford.

So a LOT of people who could afford a reasonable house payment were priced out of the market, many others had to move way out of town. I understand that there are lots of folks in places like California commuting fifty to a hundred or so miles, one way.

Now this housing bubble could only last so long, it shouldn't have lasted at all. Rising housing prices don't help most homeowners. If I woke up tomorrow and discovered that my house and lot had quadrupled in price that would mean, what, exactly? Well, my taxes would increase. I'd just love that. Oh, but I could sell! And then live, where?

I understand that lots of people who could easily afford their house payments kept refinancing every time their house "value" increased, then took the extra money out out bought fancy cars or big screen TVs. And now we are supposed to feel sorry for them. So, now the paper "value" of their houses have dropped but they are stuck with big payments. Um, if every time they'd refinanced they'd applied that extra money to the principal amount they'd probably be fine. Now we are supposed to beggar the whole economy to rescue them.

So that is two classes we are supposed to rescue, those who should never have bought a house in the first place and those who wasted their opportunities to build their equity. There is a third class, those who bought houses as investments in order to sell them at a profit. Now I have read the Constitution. Nowhere in it is anything about how all investments must turn a profit, nor does it say anything about empowering the government to take money from a citizen who has not made a bad investment and giving that money to someone who has.

The reality of investing is that some investments make money, some lose. The people that sold before the dotcom bubble burst made money. Those that held on too long got burned. Such are bubbles. Oddly, the people who warned about this real estate bubble are blamed for it and the people who caused it are "fixing" it. This only makes sense because the mainstream media has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the political party that caused the bubble. The only good news is that this same media is losing money itself so it is questionable just how long this can continue.

Have you noticed that all of a sudden it's okay that we have prisoners in Afghanistan? Suddenly it's not a war crime to roam the skies of Pakistan with armed Predator drones potting the odd Jihadi? And nary a peep from the left? Now, don't get me wrong, I think potting Jihadis is something we need to do far more of. Thing is, there has been nothing by Congress, nor by the UN, authorizing this. So, shouldn't the left be weeping and wailing?

Does anyone at all plan on stopping Iran from flinging nukes all over? I don't think Israel has planes with the legs to hit Iran's nuke facilities. Seems to me that someone would listen to what this I'madinnerjacket is saying and decide it's kind of a Bad Idea to let this clown have a beebee gun, much less nukes. Just because the Izzies can't do anything nonnuclear about Iran doesn't mean that Iran won't be a bunch of radioactive craters a few minutes after Tel Aviv starts glowing in the dark. I'm told that Israel has a second line in their motto of "never again". That second line is "If again, not us alone." I would be very surprised if the cruise missiles on Israel's subs don't have nuclear warheads. I would be even more surprised if Israel has some hardened sites with cruise missiles aimed at not just Tehran but Damascus and several dozen other Muslim cities. Yet the whole damned world is just letting this happen. Yoo Hoo! World! There is a little something more important than Glow Bull Wurming.

But Congress wants to call up Karl Rove. Congress is dripping with lawyers but they cannot seem to understand that the President doesn't NEED a reason to fire U. S. Attorneys. They serve at the pleasure of the president. Congress can't seem to do anything about Dodd. Or Rangle. Or Jefferson. For God's sake, no one managed to notice that Obama got a sweetheart deal from a since-convicted felon to buy his mansion. But they're still talking about the Republican culture of corruption.

Hey, Holder!

So I read that the Attorney General of the United States says that America is a nation of cowards with regards to race. Actually, I'd say the cowards are people like Holder who do their best to keep people from talking about the true reasons that race is still a problem.

What happens when someone mentions that there is no small amount of trouble caused by some seventy-odd percent of black babies being born out of wedlock.. Hint: Damned few of those babies have white fathers.

I keep reading about hate crimes when the reality is if it were not for black and Hispanic murderers blacks would die of old age.

Sorry, Holder, there are cowards when it comes to talking about race in America, it starts with you. You, Holder, try to shout down anyone who tries to speak. That, sir, is the mark of cowardice.

Oh, and Holder...The Marc Rich pardon wasn't a scandal because of the Jews. The Rich pardon was a scandal because you and your boss were crooks.

Bones and Birdseed.

So there isn't much going on down here. I'm mainly hoping that by the time these Washington idiots are done I'm not trying to eat birdseed and kibble and can still afford the odd bone for the dogs.

I think watching what these clowns are doing in Washington would be easier to take if I could drink. Or maybe strong drugs. Or drink and strong drugs.

Oddly, the birds watch me, from the other trees, as I fill the bird feeders. Yet every time I step out there is a mad scramble to get away. The birds aren't much brighter than the crowd running Washington. The difference is, Washington is doing it's best to make sure that we can't feed them.

The dogs, of course, do not run away from bones. The only drawback is that instead of each dog eating the bone I give them, they go around trying to steal each other's bone. It wasn't too many months ago when Ming would bully C.A.P off her bone, those days are over. Bingo is still learning the rules of protecting a bone.


In other news I got a little piece of the stimulus package:
For necessary and unnecessary expenses related to the Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grant Programs established by section 6002 of division B of this Act, $2,825,000,000, of which $1,000,000,000 shall be for Wireless Deployment Grants and $1,825,000,000 shall be for Broadband Deployment Grants: Provided, That an additional $54,000,000,000.00 shall be paid directly to Peter Davis in the form of subsidized loans that do not require repayment. Provided Further, That the funds be used by Peter Davis to Building a black powder buckshot loading company. or for whatever. Provided Even Further, That Peter Davis will receive free Stewart-Hass Racing tickets for life. Provided Even Further Still, That Peter Davis shall be treated as a cabinet-level appointment for the purpose of income tax reporting, and therefore no taxes shall be paid on any of the aformentioned benefits. And one more thing: Jack Murtha is hereby expelled from Congress, effective immediately upon enactment.

So, I dunno what I'll do with all that money, it's too bad I couldn't really slip that into the bill. Considering that nobody really read the whole thing, it COULD be in there.

I've loaded some black powder buckshot shells in Mag Tech all brass cases. The shotgun is one of the only firearms where we don't lose velocity and powder with BP. The reason is simple enough, the allowable pressures in a shotgun can be easily reached with black powder. And the birdshot or buckshot is shaped to where it goes subsonic almost instantly so there is no real reason to try to up the velocity. Plus, with BP a feller could hide in the smoke after the first couple-three rounds. I have loaded 12 double aught buckshot pellets in the brass case. The only disadvantage, aside from the increased cost, is that the weight of the powder charge adds to the recoil.

I just got the February edition of Handloader Magazine. It had a long article on the new Federal .327 Magnum. This new cartridge is in a Ruger SP101 revolver. I have one of those in .357 Mag. Since they seem to have quit making the Remington Medium Velocity .357 round I've had to stoke my SP101 with either handloads or Plus P .38s. I used to be pretty tough but I never could managed full bore .357s in that light little gun. Now this new cartridge can spit out a 115 grain Speer Gold Dot hollowpoint out the three inch barrel at over 1300 fps. And the little SP101 holds six shots, instead of five as does my .357. So, when I get my 54 Billion I'll get a new shootin' iron.

So What Happened To Hollywood?

I watched another couple of old western movies this weekend. The movies starred Henry Fonda and Victor Mature, my Darling Clementine and Glen Ford in Heaven With A Gun. It wasn't very long ago that almost all of the male Hollywood stars were veterans, some with no small amount of heroism during their service. Jimmy Stewart flew B24s over Europe in WW2. Tyrone Powers flew transports for the Marine Corps in the Pacific, including hauling wounded from Iwo Jima.

Glen Ford Joined the Marines, his service was in publicity. Henry Fonda served on a destroyer in the Pacific war. Victor Mature flunked the eye test for the Navy, passed the test for the Coast Guard the same day, ended up a Chief Boatswain's Mate doing patrol duty in the Atlantic.

Pretty much everyone who wasn't too old wore the uniform and many who were too old, like Ronald Reagan wore the uniform anyway. Reagan may have been too old and had vision too poor for combat duty so he made training films. Other stars who couldn't serve in uniform worked USO tours, Bob Hope wasn't even born in the USA but logged USO tours from early in WW2 all the way to Gulf War One.

I really don't know what happened to Hollywood. It's not just that most of Hollywood is of the left, after all, Hank Fonda was a lifelong Democrat, once reported as having a fistfight with Jimmy Stewart over politics. They maintained their friendship by never speaking of politics again.

No, it's more than politics, or maybe politics has become more intense. One thing I do know, the stars of yesterday did not go out of their way to anger some forty-eight percent of the viewing public. Perhaps it's just that yesterday's stars were a little smarter than today's.

Check Between The Cushions

Well, it looks like they are passing the Generational Theft Act of 2009. I looked in the backyard, my money tree isn't showing green yet, it's still winter.

So I looked under and between the cushions on the couch, no trillion dollars there, either. I don't know where this money is going to come from, our kids are busy paying our social security and not very many other folks are having lots of grandkids so that's out.

So check your sofa, it ain't like Barney Frank is going after the twenty million dollars Jamie Gorelick looted from Fannie Mae.

Dear Barack

I don't think you know how hard the Congress worked to put the Military Tribunals together, you being too important to do your job in the Senate. The Military Tribunals are required because the United States Constitution, as interpreted by lawyers, says that the accused can call witnesses and see all the evidence. Since most of the scumbags in Gitmo are there because of the efforts of special forces troops or members of the clandestine services having them testify in open court is a non starter. You, as a teacher of constitutional law, should know that. Demanding that these men show up in open court is a death sentence for their families. Worse, sir, you know this.

Now I realize that you have never held a job before where you were responsible for anything, perhaps you might have thought of this before, but you are now responsible for the defense of the United States of America, and her citizens, some of whom were killed in the attack on the Cole. The wives, parents and brothers and sisters of those are watching you and will hold you responsible. So will the families of others killed in other attacks and, even more, the families of the next attacks. We ordinary Americans do not have Secret Service protecting our children. That does not mean we don't love them.

With your threats to close down missile defense while Iran is bragging about how soon they'll have nukes, and just after they put a satellite up so seem to have some kind of suicidal wish. Well, that's fine with me, I'm not really big on making people live when they don't want to. Thing is, Barack, you are not supposed to take my grandchildren with you.

I understand that you owe much to George Soros but you did take an oath, before God and the nation. There are a lot more of us than there is of Soros. We might just be a little rowdier when aroused, too.

Notice, sir, that I am not accusing you of being a secret Muslim. I am assuming that if you wanted to be the President of Scumbagistan you would have gone there and run. You might just consider what will happen if three hundred million angry Americans start chasing you down the streets.

Love, Peter.

Pulled Pork And Other Adventures

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I've been playing with a crock pot some lately and decided to try some pulled pork. So I sliced an onion up and put it in the bottom of the crock pot, rubbed liquid smoke all over a nice pork roast, made up some sweet BBQ sauce and poured it over everything, added a little water, turned on the crock pot and went about my business.

The next day I got out the two forks to pull the pork apart and discovered that I am a failure. I could not get the roast out of the crock pot, it just fell apart. Instead of pulling the pork I just stirred it around. Princess was in the back yard so Ming got the bone. Bingo doesn't like people food, what kind of a Pug is that?

Anyhow, it ain't pulled but it sure is tasty.

Linda Lou wanted me out from underfoot so Bingo and I went out wandering around today. I drove to Bass Pro Shops to check out some primers, they want five bucks a hundred. They are also out of their minds. I drove a little further, to Mesquite, TX to a place called Southwest Ammunition Supply. There I discovered some new deal of very limited numbers of primers being allowed in each truck shipment. Considering that I have never heard of huge holes in the freeways from ginormous primer explosions I am very suspicious. It looks like another end run around the Second Amendment. I managed to score a thousand Remington Large Pistol Primers but the clerk was telling me that they are having to ration rifle primers. They will only sell rifle primers one hundred at a time unless a customer is buying lots of bullets. If one buys five hundred bullets he can have five hundred primers. I reckon folks that cast their own bullets are going to be making lots of trips to the gun store. And the guys that shoot primer powered wax bullets are out of luck.

I shall look into this some more and see if I can get a handle on what's going on.

From there Bingo and I went to Pet Smart, I got him a blue bone shaped tag with his name and our address and phone number. Everybody loves Bingo. Then we went to a big box home improvement store and bought a new belt for the vacuume cleaner and a couple of wax toilet rings. I am just pan lubing my black powder bullets and I was driving myself crazy doing it. I'd put the bullets in the lube, melt it and then have to cut each bullet out with a homemade "cookie cutter", made out of a .45-70 case. If I just pulled them out

Then a pal up in Wisconsin told me about adding a wax toilet ring to the lube, it makes the lube sticky. So I added about half a ring to the lube I already had in the pan and it works just like I was told.

After the home improvement store we stopped by Wal Mart and got a fifty pound bag of dog food, a script for Linda Lou, some bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Then a quick stop at Sonic for Linda Lou's burger so she'd let me in the house and home we went.

Continuing Criminal Enterprise

Does Barack Obama even know someone who isn't a tax cheat or thug? His cabinet choices look like a crowd that doesn't quite have what it takes to get into the Mafia so they just hang around the edges.

I didn't much listen to Barky during the campaign, I like to use my increasing deafness as an excuse but truth is, I'm just tired of pencil necked punks telling me I'm not smart enough to manage my life so I pretend I can't hear them. Still, I seem to remember him complaining about the lack of ethics of the Bush Administration. Barky wouldn't know ethics if he was bit on the ass by an ethical alligator.

Two major appointments crash and burn in one day. How many waivers for his super-duper no lobbyist rule so far? Change we can believe in.

I Am Losing My Mind

Saturday was the Cowboy Action Shoot. The weather was supposed to be nice so I set my alarm and went to bed way earlier than normal. The alarm went off I got up, had a cup of coffee and started getting ready for the shoot. I gain two more pounds and I'm going to need new pants.

So, I got dressed and started gathering my gear, that when I discovered that I only had ninety rounds of black powder ammo loaded. Now I haven't been to a shoot since last spring. I load my own ammo. I have thirteen or fourteen pounds of BP left from my last shipment. With the Hazardous Material Fee at twenty dollars per shipment, whether that shipment is one pound or fifty, I buy my powder in large amounts.

So, with the exception of a couple of months when my arm was totally useless, I could have loaded up plenty of ammo, instead I looked at all those boxes and thought I had plenty of ammo. Idiot. So now I have to load up a few hundred rounds, and cast a few thousand bullets. Oh well, it gives me something to do while I listen to Rush. It's amazing how much ammo can be loaded or bullets cast, during a three hour radio show. What is more amazing is that in all these months I never counted my SASS legal ammo.

These problems, of course, are as nothing to what the folks in the Mid-America deep freeze are facing. I hope this warm weather we have had in the last couple-three days is heading that way. I might be concerned with mundane things but I am not serving hundred+ dollar a pound steak with my thermostat up high, either. It must be hard to be in the media. Reagan was savaged in the media for fancy food. Then George W. Bush ridiculed for his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Barky has a super bowl party and Bush was nearly lynched for having a slice of birthday cake during Katrina.

I guess I should look to see who won that game.