Mississippi Pols Seek To Ban Fats - February 1, 2008
This bill would prohibit restaurants from serving obese people. This nanny-state proposal is enough to turn a Marxist into a libertarian.

U.S. 10-city home price drop a record in Nov: S&P | Reuters: "NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices in 10 major metropolitan areas fell a record 8.4 percent in the year through November, suggesting the housing slump is worsening, according to a Standard & Poor index released on Tuesday."

Midwest Conservative Journal: "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for new laws to protect religious sensibilities that would punish “thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking."

If you think civil liberties are threatened in the US, take a look at Great Britain. They are seriously considering banning possession of knives. They have laws against blasphemy. People get prosecuted for defending themselves against robbers and burglars. And this bonehead proposal might even get taken seriously by some MP.

How toilet-to-tap programs could help preserve our water supply. - By Eilene Zimmerman - Slate Magazine: "Officials in Orange County, Calif., will attend opening ceremonies today for the world's largest water-purification project, among the first 'toilet-to-tap' systems in America. The Groundwater Replenishment System is designed to take sewage water straight from bathrooms in places like Costa Mesa, Fullerton, and Newport Beach and—after an initial cleansing treatment—send it through $490 million worth of pipes, filters, and tanks for purification. The water then flows into lakes in nearby Anaheim, where it seeps through clay, sand, and rock into aquifers in the groundwater basin. Months later, it will travel back into the homes of half a million Orange County residents, through their kitchen taps and showerheads."

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Don't the dogs of Orange County have a say in this policy? They would seem to be interested parties.

Great Britain: Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors - Telegraph: "Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives. Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone."
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Lovely. And we here in the nasty old US are supposed to get warmed up for Hillary-care redux?

US blacks see 'financial apartheid' in subprime crisis: "People of color are more than three times more likely to have subprime loans,' concluded the organization United for a Fair Economy in a recent report which estimated that minorities have seen between 163 billion and 278 billion dollars of their equity go up in smoke since 2000.
With its weakened economy and a large black population more used to renting, Cleveland has become a poster child of the subprime crisis in a country where some 2.1 million borrowers are behind on their mortgage payments.
City officials estimate that foreclosures have swallowed some 70,000 homes and turned entire neighborhoods into ghost towns."

US mortgage crisis creates ghost town: "The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.
This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.
Faded 'for sale' signs sit in front of deserted houses. The residents are gone, either in search of new jobs after the factories shut down, or in shame after being evicted for missing their mortgage payments"

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This is amazing. Shaker Heights is one of the few suburbs that has maintained stable racial integration since the 1960s. It has always been a nice middle class suburb. If this can happen in Shaker Heights...

San Jose Mercury News - Newport Beach homeowners association battling artificial lawns: "NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.—There's a turf war in Newport Beach.

Artificial lawns are in the cross hairs of the Newport Hills Community Association, which is threatening steep fines and court action if residents don't rip out the pseudo grass.

Connie Hollstein and two other homeowners paid $10,000 each for fake grass, which is becoming an increasingly popular method for saving water and avoiding the upkeep of maintaining natural sod.

Water officials say synthetic turf can save a homeowner more than 20,000 gallons of water each year.

Resident Al Presnell got an association letter saying the synthetic turf 'detracts from the beauty and attractiveness of the surrounding area.'"

Unhappy home buyer, feeling misled on price, sues agent: "CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Marty Ummel believes she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom. What makes Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault."


Maybe next somebody will sue for not telling them their HOA was dysfunctional. Hey, what happened to caveat emptor?

Goat Wandering Loose Around Condo Complex - New Hampshire News Story - WMUR Manchester
Does he pay his assessments?

Wealthy may be next in line in U.S. home crisis | Reuters: "'The next wave of problems will come from prime borrowers who bought too much house or borrowed too much against it,' said Michael van Zalingen, director of home ownership services at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago. A 'prime' borrower is one with good credit. Real estate agents warn that some high-income borrowers have already been forced to sell or leave their homes and more will follow. Especially those who used their homes as ATMs, withdrawing cash via home equity loans."

The good news just keeps rolling in from the housing market. I guess this is the risk you take when your ATM is also an ARM.

Court revives lease-to-fee efforts of 36 condo owners - The Honolulu Advertiser: "A federal appellate court yesterday reinstated a lawsuit that may allow 36 current or former owner-occupants in Waikiki's Discovery Bay condominium to buy the fee in their leasehold units or collect damages from the city."

California wants to control home thermostats - International Herald Tribune: "Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages."

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I guess conversations about your home being your castle are pretty much outmoded in the Golden State. The Greater Good is what counts, and government knows best, even when it comes to setting your thermostat.

Obama, Bloomberg, and the press get stinking drunk on bipartisanship. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine: "When we devote ourselves to working together in the name of national unity rather than obsessing on our differences, injustice loves to strike. Writing slavery into the Constitution was perhaps the greatest triumph of nonpartisan compromise in U.S. history. The denial of suffrage to non-property owners and women ranks up there, as do prohibition, the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and the so-called war on drugs, declared by President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s and waged bipartisanly by every president—Republican and Democrat—since."

Lakota Oyate: Free and Independent Lakota Nation
The Lakota Sioux have seceded, and they don't even have their HOA set up yet. But they do have a nice map.

Advanced Russian civilization found-Health/Science-The Times of India: "MOSCOW: Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 2500-year-old advanced civilization at the bottom of Lake Issyk Kul in the Kyrgyz Mountains in Russia."

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I hope they dig deep enough to find some vowels.

NPR : Nevadans Air Housing Worries in Primary Season: "The Las Vegas real estate market has turned from boom to bust in short order; Nevada now has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation."

Problem Solver helps a cancer patient avoid condo-association penalty -- chicagotribune.com
In which we read about a condo association that raised meanness and stupidity to an art form and then backed down in the glare of publicity.

Politics - Big prisoner release plan - sacbee.com: "In what may be the largest early release of inmates in U.S. history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is proposing to open the prison gates next year for some 22,000 low-risk offenders."

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It seems to me that "follow the money" should be the first instruction given to anybody who wants to understand state and local government these days. This shows the limits of political mandates, even ones that come directly from "the people." In 1978 Prop. 13 passed overwhelmingly, cutting property taxes radically. But during the 1980s and early 1990s the voters and the state legislature created all sorts of new "go to prison" mandates, which happens to be hugely expensive because it costs a good $30K per year per inmate. Then Governor Terminator came along with new and expensive educational policies, and the Democrats took over the state legislature and had some great new expensive pro-social welfare and anti-business ideas. The middle class began fleeing the state for low-tax states like Nevada, as large numbers of poor people entered the state from Central America and elsewhere.

Net result: a $14 billion budget deficit. And now it is time to release 22,000 people from prison. But the service cuts won't stop there.

Rand Corporation predicted massive fiscal consequences from the mandatory minimums a long time ago. It isn't hard to do. But for some reason, you just can't get people to listen until it is too late.

FOXNews.com - Lakota Indians Withdraw Treaties Signed With U.S. 150 Years Ago -
People in gated communities are accused of secessionist views, but here is secession on a more dramatic scale.

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.