House of the rising Moonglum

I seem to be pimping for Obama this week.

In any case, a rather important bill just avoided having some ammendments added. The bill gives the president the ability to decide what is and is not in the Geneva Conventions, not to mention removing the protection of Habeas Corpus from select individuals. Obama commented on an amendment that would have helped reduce some of the most glaring deficiencies in this bill (Sponsored for what it’s worth, by a Republican). Those amendments are now rejected.

A quote from his statement:

A few years ago, I gave a speech in Boston that people talk about from time to time. In that speech, I spoke about why I love this country, why I love America, and what I believe sets this country apart from so many other nations in so many areas. I said:

That is the true genius of America–a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. …..

Without hearing a sudden knock on the door. I bring this up because what is at stake in this bill, and in the amendment that is currently being debated, is the right, in some sense, for people who hear that knock on the door and are placed in detention because the Government suspects them of terrorist activity to effectively challenge their detention by our Government.

The speech might be seen as partisan, and it is certainly attacking the president, however I feel that these thoughts are important and need to be heard. Just remember, sometimes even governments make mistakes. The right to appeal to a court when you feel a mistake has been made is one of the oldest parts of English Common Law. It seems like a bad idea to eliminate that.

There are many problems with how the government is running right now, and many of my friends talk about a lot of different ways of getting around that. From going to third parties to fleeing elections all-together (though I do my best to convince them to vote anyway). People sometimes blast me for my political views, in particular my support of certain politicians. Occasionally I find something to point to however, that really shows what I like in a politician. Obama has often been quoted as distrustful of the way government currently works, however being part of it he needs to tread a careful line. He speaks of this issue at length in a recent podcast about what drives politicians to make decisions that might not agree with what they believe. It comes down to fear:

The danger for politicians is that you take so much satisfaction from being in a particular office and being called Senator and seeing you name in the paper: the status of office, that it creates an enormous fear about losing that status. I would say that a good 50% of what is wrong with Washington has to do with fear. It has to do with people being so afraid that this might cost them an election or put them at a disadvantage or cause some aggravation with the public that they don’t want to take any risks. And so they play it safe either by using the usual ideological models to solve problems or they run negative campaigns that they don’t feel real good about “but my consultants are telling me that if I don’t run this nasty ad I might lose” or they don’t vote on an issue they way they think they should because they think an interest group might jump down their throats. I just constantly try to remind myself that if I am here just to be here then it’s not worth the aggravation. I am here because I want to get things done and if I can’t get those things done I’d rather be home every night, and I’ll figure out another way to do it.

The thing I love about this is that he acknowledges what the problem is, the source of the problem, and the fact that he is not immune to it. If he s actually able to live by that, he will be one of the best senators ever. On the negative side, he will probably also not be in office that long, after having made too many political enemies. He speaks a little about that process including upsetting others in your own party, but also points out finding people regardless of party background to you can work on with specific issues. (This bill is for allowing the public to discover how Federal Funds are spent, IMO an excellent idea.)

1990 Dodge Omni RUNS! CHEAP! – SOLD!!

Date: 2006-09-25, 1:50PM CDT

For $500 you get a 2.2L 1990 Dodge Omni. It has 100,000 miles on it, and is quite dependable. It has never died on me in the entire time I have owned it.

Why do you want it? A solid body car, easy to work on engine, with great bumpers and a driver’s side airbag, for only $500! This car spent most of its life in CA, so doesn’t have the undercarriage rusting you would expect if it was in Chicago for 16 years. 4 doors, hatchback. The hatchback area has a good amount of storage, and if you fold down the back seats, you can do some light hauling with it. (I just used it to move an entire office recently.)

Why only $500? Much though I love this car, it failed the most recent smog check, and I have neither the time nor the energy to bring it into compliance.

So, you want a car that runs, but needs some work for $500? This car is for you. You want a car that wins a beauty contest? Not for you. Also, I have the Chilton’s for the 1989 model which I will throw in.

*sniff* At least it is getting a good home.

There is a lot of optimism in the housing sector. Ask any realtor about buying a house and they will tell you that it is the best thing that you can do with your money. “Oh, it will always pay you back.” “You can easily afford to pay half your income to housing.” “Arms lower your costs, and you can refinance in a few years when your house has appreciated.” Deciding whether to rent or buy has always been tricky business. The problem is that right now the people who ostensibly are there to help you, Mortgage Brokers and Sellers Realtors, are really only interested in making a sale. It used to be (especially after the depression) that banks had a fiduciary responsibility to their customers to only give them loans that they could actually pay back. Not so anymore, now they just want to make the sale. And thanks to the performance of the market in the last ten years Realtors are terminally optimistic.

Having recently purchased a condo (which I might add I am very happy with) I have heard all these stories. The particular one that I keep hearing over and over is what a good investment a home is. Bull. A home is a good place to live. If it happens to pay off great, but if you go into home buying as investment, I think you are setting yourself up for defeat. Want proof? How about the fact that condo developers are selling their properties off, undeveloped to rental agencies? Not good enough? How about the fact that house prices are dropping all over the county.

There is one spot of light in all this though, and it is that in the midwest the market has been historically slow. That should be good news for any eventual crash in the market. If it goes up slowly it should let down slowly as well. Even so, I have one more thing I want to say to the realtors. I have been told on a number of occasion that housing prices “always go up in the long term”. Ever hear of the bubble in the 1880’s? You want ARMs? 40 year mortgages? Appreciating mortgages? The housing bubble in the mid to late 1880s had them all. And you know what happened then? “If the definition of a bubble is a rise in prices so extreme that it blights the affected asset class for not just a few years but a generation or more, Kansas property was a double bubble. A peak price of $200 an acre in 1887 would translate into $4,400 in today’s purchasing power. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kansas farmland today fetches an average price of $800 an acre. Not even the Bernanke Fed will find it easy to return the Jayhawk property market to its Cleveland-era heights.”

Lets just hope that the paper currency and interventionist Fed we have now is able to let us down easier than the gold standard, uncontrolled system back then did.

While we are on the topic of spam, I just shredded 26 documents. Each of them had the name of my lending institution and the amount of my mortgage on them. None of them were actually from my bank. They way the letters were formatted however they really wanted to appear to be from my bank. I have only had this house for one month. Apparently they want to sell me “mortgage insurance” in case, you know, “something” happens to me. I actually find the letters humorously threatening, if just because of volume. I assume these will taper off at some point?

I’ve gotten junk phone calls before, but this number called me about four times today. When I answer I am hung up on. This was really starting to piss me off, so I did a google search on (866) 463-3020. I can’t believe how many people are complaining about this! They have entire web sites set up about that number. Man, that makes me almost want to switch phone companies…

I haven’t done a good space post in a while. As you may or may not know, the first major piece of the space station to be taken up in three years is being installed right now. The schedule for bringing pieces to the station has of course had to be drastically adjusted, however, even under the new schedule, most of the original experiments will end up being run, just much much later than expected. One thing I haven’t seen before is that NASA TV is running live video of the space walk. Astronaut cam footage of Dan Burbank Canadian Steve MacLean climbing around on the truss gives you a good sense of just how huge this thing is. Also lets you appreciate how hard it is to do construction work when your tools have a tendency to float away. If you don’t have access to a viewer, you can still get live text updates.

The five year anniversary of 9/11 is Monday. There are TV shows, movies, all manner of people making money. Or furthering their political agenda. Or whatever. The latest item I saw was the banner atop CNN: CNN Pipeline presents CNN’s original TV coverage of 9/11/2001 free, in real time. Starting @ 8:30AM. Watch Monday

I remember that coverage from five years ago like it was yesterday. I really don’t need that again. I just don’t think it has been enough time for the media blitz we are getting.

There have been a bunch of posts that I have wanted to make in the past couple weeks, but work has been doing me in so in the words of Short Round: no time for posts, Dr. Jones!

*ahem*

In any case, I am forcing myself to take a few minutes of peace and quiet, so I will not a few items.

P&S Restaurant, corner of Touhy and Western. Awesome food, awesome people. I love people watching, and this seems to be a place where everyone knows everyone, so it is really fun.

Ben Tre, Vietnamese corner of Kedzie and Touhy. Good, cheap food, nice decor. It’s no New Saigon, but if you don’t want Tony giving you his latest spiel, this is a good alternative. Also they are planning on starting up delivery soon. Most importantly, makes me feel like I am home again.

Buying a car. I’d like a Versa, Fit or Yaris but none of the dealers will even let me see one. The Yaris was last on my list, but after dealing with the Honda and Nissan people, the good people at Grossinger made me feel a lot better about the Yaris. And they let me drive a Scion xA which is very similar. It looks like there is no way I am going to be able to get one of those any time in the near future, so no I have backed out to a used Golf (maybe a rabbit, but that is a bit out of my price range), Vibe (Matrix) or even Impreza. Thoughts?

We must also keep in our prayers the young victims of one of the worst fires in Chicago in decades. Of course the local blogs all got their say in, some with eloquent words and reporting and some with evocative pictures. Of course everyone pointed out a number of places to send donations, but there was also plenty of finger pointing. I’ve been called a wussy liberal before, but it just seems to me like decorum calls for a certain amount of time, before the rhetoric kicks in. For now, we just do what we can to help and hold the families in our thoughts and prayers.

I occasionally use Microsoft Word, and like to see how the grammar checker does. It is generally pretty good and, if you follow all of its rules, you will have correct grammar. You will also sound like a middle school student. It tends to be a little aggressive in removing interesting sentence structure. However it is seldom wrong in what it suggests. Earlier today I used the word effect, and it marked it as incorrect. So, I asked it what it was thinking about, and it said that sometimes affect and effect are confused, and that I should consider using affect. Ummm…… Wow. I guess you just aren’t allowed to bring something into existence, you are only allowed to influence it.