How Do You Feel About Self-Funded Law Enforcement?

Forfeiture laws ripe for reform - Commentary | The Columbia Daily Tribune - Columbia, Missouri
If you're not sure, then imagine the police having the authority to seize your property once they've accused you of a crime - accused, not convicted you - selling it on the open market and keeping the profits.
Welcome to "Funding the Police, Missouri Style".

Visualizing Obama

Here's a killer video helping us to understand how utterly irrelevant the President and his team of budget-cutters really are.

(Old but cool.)

Are we truly one nation, indivisible? Secession essay in July 4 Arizona Republic

Are we truly one nation, indivisible? Secession essay in July 4 Arizona Republic

The Best Resistance is Meticulous Compliance

Gary North explains that the very best way to deal with an out-of-control government is to drown them in the very paperwork they have demanded from us.

Brilliant!

Why Greece Matters to You - The American Taxpayer

New post at my personal blog, jackheald.com.

Should You Walk Away?

Here's the money quote from a scholarly article by University of Arizona professor Brent T White. regarding the economic impact of walking away from your mortgage:

Norms governing homeowner behavior stand in sharp contrast to norms governing lenders, who seek to maximize profits or minimize losses irrespective of concerns of morality or social responsibility. This norm asymmetry leads to distributional inequalities in which individual homeowners shoulder a disproportionate burden from the housing collapse. (My emphasis)

Friends, the big banks are utterly immoral. Walking away from a mortgage that is no longer a good deal for you is NOT immoral. If you're having trouble with your mortgage, you need to read this.

"The Big Bankers Never Lose"

Ron Paul made this cogent observation - not in 2008 but in 1988.

"No matter which party is in power, they will appoint to the major offices members of these two committees, (Trilateral Commission and Council of Foreign Relations), so that Wall Streeters and the Big Bankers always have inside information as to what is going on."

See the entire video here.

Jack's Weekly Apocalypse Watch

Yeah, I renamed it. "Weekly Update" was just a little boring. Or "snorey", if you will. (Inside joke.)

Here's the news I found amusing this week.

Government No Longer Pretends To Be Anything Other Than an ATM for Bankers
In an utterly unsurprising development, the government has said it will guarantee unlimited number of losses at Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac for the next 3 years. You remember Fannie & Freddie, right? They were private companies that bought mortgages. This was their business model up till July 2008:

Step 1. Buy mortgages from banks that don't want to carry them because the mortgagees are bad credit risks.
Step 2. Lose trillions of dollars when those people who were bad credit risks quit paying.
Step 3. Pay their executive Big Bucks for doing a such a stellar job.

Then in July 2008, they couldn't pretend this was a viable business model anymore, so they called in their political debts and Congress handed them $700 billion dollars so they wouldn't have to officially declare themselves both Bankrupt and Insolvent. Congress assured us ignorant rubes that this was in our best interest, and that Things Would Be Better Now. Of course they were lying and of course we knew it. Fannie & Freddie are now even more broke, more insolvent and deeper in debt, so Congress - rather than writing a big check - just gave them a credit card with no limit.

Ain't it great to be a banker?

Never One To Miss an Opportunity To Look Idiotic, the TSA Outlaws Pooping and Peeing the Last Hour of a Flight
Unless you do it in your seat. Then it's okay. This in response to the guy who lit his underwear on fire. They also prohibited using electronics in the last hour and keeping anything in your lap the last hour.

Of course, a really CLEVER terrorist will find a way to make his poop and pee explosive, and then "detonate" it when they strap him into his seat.

I don't know why they don't just prohibit flying. Oh wait, yes I do. Where would all those mouth-breathers currently employed by the TSA go, the Post Office?

UPDATE: They caved on their stupid new rules.

James Cameron is in fact The King of Hollywood
We just got back from seeing Avatar, the latest movie from Titanic/Terminator creator/director James Cameron. It seems like every two months another movie is being touted as "ground-breaking-this" or "never-before-done-that" and invariably they all fail to live up to the hype. Avatar, however, exceeds the hype. I was blown away. It is a game changer. From now on, all movies will be either "Before Avatar" or "After Avatar". It really is that good. Go see it. You'll thank me.