The joys of the season to you, Padraig

Are you naked? Have you painted yourself blue? Have you taken a wee nip to fortify yourself for a sunrise jig around the oak tree?

Me neither, and I suppose the Druidic recording angel has jotted down my apostasy. 

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(P.J. O'Rourke went to Ireland, thought about hitting the beaches, then decided, Naaaah, " No one wants to see an Irish girl in a bikini."  P.J. is rarely  full of it, but on this point he proves he never spent a couple of warm spring evenings in Galway City as the university colleens paraded.)

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A light dusting of snow comes with the solstice here. It will be gone shortly.  I again thank Al Gore for the localized global warming. By our usual northern-plains standards the winter has been tropical. It's pleasant, and I encourage one and all to continue venting fluorocarbons into the atmosphere.

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By the way, this solstice also begins 365-day countdown to the end of the world  according to the astronomical predictions of High Priest Kwaxaholemowthful. It mayant happen, but you still should double-check your bugout bag.

Gary Johnson, a good man done gone

Johnson has made it official.  He's going to join the Libertarian Party candidate zoo   -- Bob Barr, guys like that.  I wish you well, Gary, but it's a political mistake.

You 're a good man and young. You have time to submerge your ego just a bit, align yourself  with the liberty wing of the GOP, and shoot for 2016.  Quite a lot of us were hoping you would do just that.

I don't know what your political Plan B is, but I hope it's a good one. I'd really hate to see you making your living on satellite radio, feeding straight lines to Howard Stern.

More free money: Our morning giggle

The Federal Housing Administration to the rescue.

The victim is a fellow who signed up for a mortgage he couldn't afford, especially after his $400,000 house became a $200,000 house, the transmission fell out of his nothing-down Escalade, and his local taxing authorities decided hiking his property taxes was a sterling idea.

So he declares bankruptcy after the bank starts foreclosing on his house.  Enter the forces of virtue, led at this point in history by one Barack Obama and Benjamin Bernanke, screaming the battle cry of the early 21st Century: "Buck up Boy; we gawn hep y'all."

The FHA is directing this foray. Get a foreclosure notice on your underwater house, declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Uncle Washington will see that you get to keep living in your McMansion essentially free.

"The plan under review by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would call for the mortgage financing companies to allow bankrupt homeowners who owe more on their housing debt than their homes are worth to pay zero per cent interest for five years..."  


Zero per cent is a handsome deal for  these folks in the early years of  30- or 40-year mortgage when the interest eats up about 99 per cent of the monthly payment. You get to keep enjoying your travertine and water view for -- what? -- fifty bucks a month or so, whatever the payment allocation to principle happens to be. Plus property tax, of course.


This is utopia and we should all be for it. Only soreheads would remark that banks,  being what they are,  would demand someone replace five years of lost interest and that politicians would shout, "Yes. Too Big to Fail."  So the discount window at the Fed would open wider, shoveling money (so to speak) to  them and to Freddy and Fannie.




But, errrr, the Fed doesn't have any money, Mr. Sorehead observes. What a fool he is. Who in his right mind would Wiki-Wander through entries  such as "fractional reserve banking" and "high-speed printing presses" and "Wiemar,"  and so forth. Only subversive bastards, that's who.


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A qualification: This may be very slightly too harsh on Mr. Foreclosed Consumer. After all, he just did what his government and the great financiers told him he should, going back at least as far as the time of Monica Lewinsky and the Community Development Reinvestment Act. And continuing right down to the present day of  His Ineptness the President, John Corzine,  and  sidekick Ben. 


Mr. Consumer had,  just as you and I do, a complete, sincere, and child-like trust in the wisdom of his betters. 

The joy of bachelorhood

Wardrobe malfunctions plague me lately, so I got out my dainty sewing basket and went to work. All is well. I sewed the buttons on conventionally, but stitching the long tear in my favorite work shirt seamed* too tedious. The alternative solution is working fine so far. If it stands up to a few wash cycles I will enthusiastically endorse Gorilla tape for purposes of fashion.

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*Hush up. It' a gift.