This giant step to toward an American SSR can be considered with only a little attention to the snake ball of immigration politics.
Fremont, Nebraska, citizens are angry at and/or fearful of a parade of Hispanics coming to town to work for Hormel and Fremont beef. They're voting today on a law to require a license to rent a place to live.
In Fremont-on-Volga you will go to city hall and fill out a form. Commissars will check to see if you're a legal U.S. resident. If they like your record, you give them a fee for the license and they give you a chit granting official permission to live inside, out of the rain. Otherwise, hasta la vista, bambino. Pitch a tent in the Sand Hills.
The wrongness of this is so appallingly clear I'm wondering how my friends and acquaintances in level-headed Nebraska came to lose their senses. Perhaps only an unreasoning fear can explain it.
Among other things, I have seen numerous comments that this will be a great way to screen all would-be Fremont dwellers for various sins which might make them undesirable. Warrants. Arrests. Convictions. Slowly paid bills. Firearms ownership. Even maybe one of those dastardly library cards.
Little Midwest towns -- like admirable southwest states -- don't do this sort of thing unless they have been badly screwed by a Higher Authority which is so frightened of irritating one constituency or another that it has found a way to live for years pretending its head is a colonoscopy camera.
Jun 20, 2010
The Estwing Hatchet
The good people of Estwing still make this tool, and they make it in Illinois, which is the next best thing to making it in America.
It is a wonderful tool and you should buy one. I was reminded of this as I sharpened my ancient example this morning and wondered if anything so good could still be on the market.
(It will break auto safety glass. I mean, just in case you go motoring with Massachusetts politicians.)
It is a wonderful tool and you should buy one. I was reminded of this as I sharpened my ancient example this morning and wondered if anything so good could still be on the market.
(It will break auto safety glass. I mean, just in case you go motoring with Massachusetts politicians.)
You be Peter; It's my Turn to be Paul
We're hearing from His Obamaness and the Unicorns about the housing market recovery. Which turns out to have been a non-recovery.
Instead it was another exercise in extorting money from the frugal and productive and transferring it to the politically lucky. Yep -- the "tax credits," federal handouts for people fortunate enough to be in the market during that brief period when the government decided to deck the GDP with boughs of folly.
A slice of the evidence is reported in an article on the "recovery" as it exists in Corn Country's Golden Circle.
The lesson is that there's plenty of demand for houses by people who can get their neighbors to pay a hefty share of the cost. It isn't as though the neighbors really want to, of course. It's that if they refuse, His Obamaness will send the IRS around to confiscate their houses.
---
If you have little else to do, you might care to spend a few minutes pondering the headline. :)
Economy has life, but it waits for consumers.
.
Instead it was another exercise in extorting money from the frugal and productive and transferring it to the politically lucky. Yep -- the "tax credits," federal handouts for people fortunate enough to be in the market during that brief period when the government decided to deck the GDP with boughs of folly.
A slice of the evidence is reported in an article on the "recovery" as it exists in Corn Country's Golden Circle.
Stimulus spending, credits spurs building
...Rick Tollakson, chief executive of Hubbell Homes, said the West Des Moines developer is waiting to see how the market rebounds after the tax-credit falloff. The market "hasn't just died," but it has slowed.The lesson is that there's plenty of demand for houses by people who can get their neighbors to pay a hefty share of the cost. It isn't as though the neighbors really want to, of course. It's that if they refuse, His Obamaness will send the IRS around to confiscate their houses.
---
If you have little else to do, you might care to spend a few minutes pondering the headline. :)
Economy has life, but it waits for consumers.
.
Jun 19, 2010
You may or may not have noticed that I seldom, if ever, predict, apologize for, justify, explain, or otherwise mention whether my blogging will be light or heavy or whatever. I'm pretty sure no one gives a great damn. Not to mention that it is a security violation to announce plans.
I make an exception here. Posting pinups is a cheap and sightly route to fresh content. The first one was more or less an accident, a whim after I saw the shot on an internet wander. The others were quick fillers when I took breaks as I mowed and chopped and split and trimmed and planted and built.
What I mean to say is this damned place looks about as good as it ever does.
I might mount up again this evening and help y'all ridicule Obama, His Unicorns, and J. Edgar Hoplophobe. Then again, I might not. It depends on whether I get tired of sitting on the deck, sipping, admiring the fruits of honest labor, and reminding myself of what a sterling character I possess.
I make an exception here. Posting pinups is a cheap and sightly route to fresh content. The first one was more or less an accident, a whim after I saw the shot on an internet wander. The others were quick fillers when I took breaks as I mowed and chopped and split and trimmed and planted and built.
What I mean to say is this damned place looks about as good as it ever does.
I might mount up again this evening and help y'all ridicule Obama, His Unicorns, and J. Edgar Hoplophobe. Then again, I might not. It depends on whether I get tired of sitting on the deck, sipping, admiring the fruits of honest labor, and reminding myself of what a sterling character I possess.
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