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Money For Nothin'

As Leno used to say back when he was hawking Cheetos: "We'll just make more!"

For the roughly four million homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, the federal government is offering yet another remedy: free money to catch up on their loans.

Yes, you read that right: it never has to be repaid! Is this a great country, or what? But you'll have to act fast! This is a limited-time offer. So pick up the phone aand dial right now! That number is 1-888-UPY-OURS.

http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/real-estate/more-money-for-struggling-homeowners-1309312646029/

Forget The Fourth

The crack crew at Hahvahd has it all figured out: July 4 is basically a vast, right-wing conspiracy. Throw another dog on the barbie!

A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/30/harvard-july-4th-parades-are-right-wing

Nope, No Hate Crime.

According to WIST tv, the  solicitor in Columbia,SC says that the fact that eight black teens attacked a white kid, dragged him a couple of blocks down the road, beat him and left him for dead doesn't necessarily mean it was a hate crime.

He says "no evidence suggests the beating was racially motivated other than the race of the people involved."

Glad that's all cleared up.

http://www.wistv.com/story/14993157/solicitor-no-evidence-that-five-points-beating-was-racially-motivated

 

Beautiful!

Although Revolver's globe swears we're in Eugene, we're actually in Yachats, on the central Oregon coast. Yesterday was shrouded in drizzle (but at least no wind). Today, however, is t-shirt weather - sunny, light breeze, perfect for wading and tidepooling.  We're back from a 3-hour hike down the 804 trail and plugged into WiFi on a little ASUS Eee notebook, running Linux and Mozilla. It doesn't like to embed links for some reason - probably needs an udate, but hey. Relaxation's the name of the game, here, and it has been that. We'll hit the road back to the land of guns and gangs just about the time the roads begin to clot up with lemmings headed out for the 4th.

Quick! To The Nobel-Mobile!

So, according to the Washington Post, Barry's now drone-bombing Somalia, which means we now have six wars going - not counting the occasional foray into  Pakistan. Is the Nobel Peace Prize, by any chance,printed on toilet paper? At least then it would potentially be of some value.

www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/us-drones-target-two-leaders-of-somali-group-allied-with-al-qaeda/2011/06/29/AGJFxZrH_story.html?hpid=z1

Bad News For Barry

A unanimous Senate has asked Obama to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority should they pursue a U.N. declaration of statehood in the absence of an agreement with Israel.

Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf has called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to investigate whether the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) illegally received or solicited funds from foreign governments or agents.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/29/congressman-calls-for-irs-investigation-of-cair/

Crime Train To The 'Couv!

Vancouver city council's officially on board. Of course, that was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

When Hammers Are Outlawed

Only outlaws will have hammers.

CLACKAMAS -- Police are crediting decisive action by a Happy Valley man for stopping a smiling, hammer-wielding man's unprovoked attack on a Wal-Mart shopper Monday. 

Detective Jim Strovink, Clackamas County Sheriff's Office spokesman, said a man armed with a hammer approached Harry Anderson, 59, of Milwaukie in the Wal-Mart parking lot, 10000 S.E. 82nd Ave., shortly after he left the store around 5:35 p.m. As Anderson approached his vehicle, he was hit on the back of the head. 

The man then moved to face Anderson and hit him again, on the forehead. Anderson was able to block the next blow and pushed his attacker -- who was smiling -- away. 

Portland's weird little "mayor", Sam Adams, yaps on and on about "gun crime", but it's pretty clear that decisive action needs to be taken to ban hammers, as well. Sam probably won't go that far - but he'd love to ban Wal-Mart.

Scanners

Image via Wikipedia

You know those back-scatter full-body scanners that the TSA started mounting in airports a couple of years back? They're totally safe. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the folks at Johns Hopkins vouched for that. Yeah, well, about that...upon further reflection (and documents obtained in a FOIA by the Electronic Privacy Information Center), it appears that our government may have slightly exaggerated.

Who'd have guessed? Apparently, some TSA workers have developed concerns, along with other stuff that begins with the letter "C": Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

In erroneously citing both NIST and the Johns Hopkins school of medicine to claim that the body scanners are safe, the TSA has also deliberately misled the public on the dangers posed by the devices.

Documents obtained by EPIC show that, far from affirming their safety, NIST warned that airport screeners should avoid standing next to full body scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”

Obviously, it's just a simple misunderstanding.

 

If I Had A Billion Dollars...

Image via Wikipedia

Apologies to Bare Naked Ladies; it just seemed to fit: the feds are sitting on a billion dollars worth of one-dollar coins that nobody much uses, and the mints keep making more of them. 

Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007.

And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate.

For some unknown reason, Congress wanted people to stop using dollar bills and transition to dollar coins, sort of like the Canadian Loonie. But most vending machines don't take them, and a lot of folks prefer the light-weight "paper" bills. Hey, does this $100 in coins make my butt look fat?

But, it's a government program, and so it continues. It's only cost around $300 million to produce truckloads of coins that nobody uses, but hey that'll double by the time the program's run ends, five years from now. But $600 million's really chump change to the feds.

Related articles

• $1 Billion That Nobody Wants (neatorama.com)
• How To Waste $600 Million (gregmankiw.blogspot.com)