Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Kudos to Hillsdale College

It’s rare, nowadays, for an institution, a business, or other entity to not accept dollars redistributed by the state, which is a shame.  So I was pleased to read this yesterday evening.

Hillsdale College, a private liberal arts school in southern Michigan, announced Monday it will no longer accept state taxpayer money for student scholarships and financial aid.

The state money that students were scheduled to receive this academic year will be replaced by privately raised funds, college officials said. Hillsdale students got about $670,000 in state tuition aid and scholarships last year.

Hillsdale has not taken any federal taxpayer money since its founding in 1844. Now the college won’t take any state taxpayer money, either, likely making it one of only a handful of colleges across the nation to refuse all government money.

Good for Hillsdale College. If only such integrity and independence from government could spread across this nation.

Hillsdale College replaces state scholarship aid with private funds

Posted by John Venlet on 08/15 at 04:28 AM
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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Cry Me a River Victimhood

Most of us are aware of the Andy Warholism regarding 15 minutes of fame. Here’s the description provided at Wikipedia, as linked above.

It refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that attaches to an object of media attention, then passes to some new object as soon as the public’s attention span is exhausted. It is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry and other areas of popular culture.

Shannon Love, at the Chicago Boyz blog, noting a comment in response to an Ann Althouse post which skewers a New York Times puff piece on whiny working moms, suggests a modification to the above Warholsim which would be known as Patca’s Law.

The comment from Althouse’s post.

In today’s world, everyone will get their “15 minutes” of victimhood…

Shannon Love’s suggestion.

I vote we christen this Patca’s Law (suggested pronunciation pat-ka).

You know you’re living in a wealthy and compassionate society when people compete over who gets to claim the most victimization.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/14 at 04:52 AM
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Friday, August 10, 2007

Headed North for the Perseids

It’s the weekend to get away from city lights and view the Perseids, though I will also be taking my fly rod to hand.

Peak viewing should by in the early A.M. hours Sunday morning, but since the Earth is already in the dust field of comet Swift-Tuttle, if you’re sitting out in the dark this weekend there’s a good chance you’ll catch a few even at none peak times, so be sure to cast your eyes to the heavens for a possible show.

Back Monday.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/10 at 05:05 AM
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Thursday, August 09, 2007

Segway Hype Update

Most of us are familiar with the Segway scooter. This Dean Kamen invention was going to “revolutionize” personal transportation.  On February 25, 2003, I posted a piece regarding the Segway and Dean Kamen titled Talking Out of Both Sides of Their Mouth, wherein I noted Mr. Kamen’s first eschewing government intervention, and then lobbying for government intervention through one of his VP mouthpieces. On July 30, 2003, in a post I titled Novelty Item, I also mentioned the Segway scooter, noting that it was, a novelty item.  I also mentioned goings on about the Segway here in February 2004, and here in September 2006.

Today, I read this.

The device that was supposed to revolutionize urban transportation seems unable to even hold on to a proper fan club.

The Segway Enthusiasts Group of America is disbanding because of inactivity and an absence of candidates for its board of directors, said the group’s treasurer, Fred Kaplan.

The Segway, from the beginning, was all hype, and it will end that way also.

Segway Fan Club Disbands Due to Lack of Interest

Via the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 12:26 PM
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Trapped Utah Miners and the Police

The six miners trapped deep underground in the Crandall Canyon mine are much in the news, and I can understand why this is so.

What I cannot understand, is why the rescue effort requires the services of the Emery County Sherrif’s Office and the Utah Highway Patrol.

Take a look at photos #10, #12, and #13 at this link.

Note the sherrif’s trailer in photo #10, and in photos #12 and #13 the highway patrolman and sherrif’s office Sgt. standing around supposedly “guarding” the entrance to the mine.  Why, exactly, are Utah individuals’ tax dollars being spent here?  There has been no crime committed, nor, I would assume, are either the sherrif’s office or Utah Highway Patrol qualified to actually provide any meaningful rescue assistance.

I can guarantee, though, that both the Emery County Sherrif’s Office and the Utah Highway Patrol will be submitting large bills for services rendered in the rescue effort, though they will have done nothing.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 09:48 AM
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Headline Laugh of the Day

Madison police capture wanted monkey

Sounds like a classic Keystone Kops episode.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 06:52 AM
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Hillary "Der Rodham" Clinton and the New Amerikan Komsomol

I wonder if Hillary’s suggestion to create ”...a national training “academy” for bureaubots”., as Billy Beck noted and stated in post titled Formally: American Apparachiki, and Paul Weyrich also notes at Townhall.com in a piece titled A Dangerous Proposal: Government Academies for Public Service, will be modeled along the indoctrinating lines of Russia’s Nashi which was reported on by the New York Times here and by the Daily Mail here.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 06:30 AM
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Subprime Meltdown Understatement of the Day

Here’s Jack Malvey, the chief global fixed income strategist for Lehman Brothers, commenting on the subprime mortgage market meltdown, as quoted in a New York Times piece titled The Loan Comes Due.

“The magnitude of risk was significantly underappreciated.”

Ya think?  Brilliant, just brilliant.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 04:58 AM
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That's Brutal, Dude

I don’t watch alot of teevee, and only receive five channels, but I often hear it in the background when other individuals in the house tune in this or that show.  Mostly I overhear commercials, for some reason, and the Alltel commercial I overheard, for the second time last night, surprises me.

I cannot find the actual commercial I overheard on YouTube, but it follows the format of this Alltel van commercial, where four competing cell phone carrier dorks kidnap the Alltel dork and confront him in a van.

In the commercial, the four competing carrier dorks want the Alltel dork to stop offering some service and threaten to “do something bad” to the Alltel dork if the offending service is not stopped.

In previous versions I’ve seen of this Alltel commercial, which is linked above, the “something bad” was pinching the Alltel dork, which is no big deal and actually quite stupid, but in the version I overheard last night, when the four dorks threaten to “do something bad” to the Alltel dork, the Alltel dork says “Like what?”, and one of the four dorks replies “We’ll beat you with a tubesock full of wood screws.”

Initially, I thought that the line was kinda funny, but actually, it’s just plain brutal, and I’m wondering how, in this day and age, it even made it on the air.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/09 at 04:19 AM
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Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Ellsworth Toohey and Catherine Halsey Mirrored by Hillary Clinton and Saul D. Alinsky

Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead, which I should pick from my shelf and read once again, provides readers with a list of characters whom can be seen in the world around us today.  I’m not talking about the Howard Roark type of character, but rather the more craven sort such as Ellsworth Toohey.

Edward Cline has noted this in a piece posted at The Rule of Reason titled Hillary Clinton’s Uncle Ellsworth, which is worth a read.  From Cline’s piece.

Compare that with Hillary’s quest for the meaning of her life in her letters to Peavoy. One letter to him she signs “Me,” parenthetically adding “the world’s saddest word.” That one brief signature can stand to represent the self-deprecatory remarks in all her other letters discussed by the Times. I do not think Hillary suffered from a crisis of self-respect, as Catherine Halsey did; I do not think she ever had a self to respect. She would have agreed with everything Toohey told Catherine, without Toohey having to exert much effort to convince her or having to resort to vicious put-downs.

UPDATE: Edward Cline posts a correction and a postscript to Hillary Clinton’s Uncle Ellsworth.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/08 at 10:23 AM
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Up and Down

When the price of gasoline goes up, the press coverage of gasoline price increases also seems to rise proportionally.  But when the price of gasoline goes down, it garners little attention or press.

Gas prices continue to drop

Posted by John Venlet on 08/08 at 05:45 AM
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Nine Out of 10 Would Be Wrong

Here’s the headline as posted by Yahoo! News: Nine in 10 Americans say ban texting while driving

There is no doubt in my mind that if an individual is behind the wheel of a car they should not be fussing around texting messages via their cell phone or other electronic device, because they’re not paying attention to the road.  You see individuals doing this all the time, though, and their texting typically interferes with smooth traffic flow as they tap, tap, tap away at their cell phones and such and neglect the accelerator or drift over into another lane or off the shoulder of the road.  Idiots.

Even though these texting individuals are idiots, and a nuisance and a hazard, a law restricting texting would simply be a window dressing hastily installed to appeal to the just as idiotic nine out of 10 clamoring Americans who appeal to the state for every little thing.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/07 at 07:27 AM
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Monday, August 06, 2007

The Root of Subprime Woes

The weeping and gnashing of teeth, over the woes of the subprime lending market, and its negative effect on Wall Street, have not abated over the past week while I ignored newspapers, teevee, and all other media in favor of days spent on the west coast of Michigan soaking up the sun and enjoying the company of my extended family and friends.

As I read the many articles on this subject, I find myriads of supposed solutions bandied about.  These include blurbs which inform us that lenders are no longer offering 2/28 subprime ARMs, which is no big deal, as subprime lenders will still be offering 3/27 subprime ARMs.  Additionally, one can read headlines which announce No money down vanishing as mortgage option, which is just another illusory subprime woe solution waved before your eyes like a magic wand.

Plenty of blame is being cast about, also.  It’s Wall Street’s fault, it’s the subprime lender’s fault, it’s a decline in real estate values fault, and on and on.  But the actual root of the subprime market meltdown is the individual mortgage made to the high risk borrower, and the riskiness of each individual subprime mortgage has been ignored as thoroughly as the emperor strolling down the street in his new clothes.

You see the game cannot be played until one individual high risk borrower is approved for a loan, and then another, and another, and another is approved until enough high risk loans are pooled together to sell as a security.  The root of the subprime lending market’s woes is the individual mortgage, and here is why this is so.

Subprime mortgage lending standards are simply too loose, and all the players in the subprime market, from the borrower, to the subprime lender, to Wall Street have ignored this.

Consider, a borrower approaches a subprime lender, drawn in via subprime lending advertisements promising debt relief, easy cash, and a blind eye cast on poor payment histories and credit over extension.

The high risk borrower applies for a subprime mortgage and is approved.  This is a good thing.  What is not a good thing is pretending that the qualification criteria for the subprime loan are sound.

For example, subprime lending standards allow a borrower to spend up to fifty-five percent (55%) of their gross monthly income on their house payment and other outstanding monthly debts combined, whereas on “A” paper loans made to financially sound borrowers, the maximum allowable is typically thirty-eight percent (38%).

Perhaps more importantly, a subprime borrower’s current bad debts and collections are not, in the majority of cases, required to be paid off or brought current, but are simply allowed to continue festering, which of course results in the subprime borrower remaining a subprime borrower in the future.  Certainly there is no doubt that a subprime mortgage helps the subprime borrower out of their current financial jam, but the fix is a temporary fix, and the salve of the subprime mortgage soon wears away, and the subprime borrower ends up, in most cases, in worse financial straits than prior to their applying and being approved for a subprime loan.

Subprime lending’s woes begin, and can end, with the qualification and approval process of the individual loan.  This does not take state intervention through additional regulation of the industry.  The problem can be solved by the subprime lending industry players themselves, through an open eyed assessment of the risks involved in lending to subprime borrowers and, more importantly, not ignoring the risks.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/06 at 05:13 AM
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Get A Life

Arriving home from vacation, one should not have to read this.

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

What’s even worse, is an individual, specifically Susie Madrak who runs the blog Suburban Guerilla, evidently a Che Guevara wanna be, spouting out this nonsense.

"I think people have just gotten to the point where people outside the blogosphere understand the value of what it is that we do on the progressive side,” said Susie Madrak, the author of Suburban Guerilla blog, who is active in the union campaign. “And I think they feel a little more entitled to ask for something now."

Listen, little Susie, you’re not entitled to anything, you have to earn it.

Bloggers Consider Forming Labor Union

Posted by John Venlet on 08/06 at 03:45 AM
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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Psychotic Lancet Pot Smoking Analysis

I wonder if Lancet’s Smoking just one cannabis joint raises danger of mental illness by 40% study is as, ahem, rigourous as their study of number of Iraqi deaths?

Posted by John Venlet on 07/28 at 06:43 AM
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