Freedom Of Association

An apartment complex in San Antonio, TX has a policy barring people with piercings and tattoos from renting an apartment. Good for them.

Some people are upset about it but so what? It's private property and they should be able to rent to whomever they want. As far as I'm concerned, people should be able to discriminate over anything they want to.

If a property owner only wants to rent to blacks, whites, Jews, women, homosexuals or whatever, that should be their prerogative. That's part of what PRIVATE PROPERTY means. It means that on my property I can do whatever I want. No one has any inherent right to force me to surrender all or part of my property to anyone I consider undesirable.

The same principal applies to employment. No one has an inherent right to a job at my place of business. If I find any reason that I don't want someone working for me then I should be allowed to exclude them from my business.

I don't encourage discrimination. Sometimes, it's monumentally stupid to discriminate based on certain things but there shouldn't be any laws protecting people from their own stupidity.

Why were the Jim Crow laws passed in the South? It's because employers were acting in their own best interest and giving jobs to black people and encouraging them to patronize their businesses. Those laws were an attempt to force people to be racist. Anti-discrimination laws are no better. Why should we be forced to put our private property to a use which we find objectionable?

In case you're not already aware of it, you discriminate every day. When you make any choice you discriminate.

Miscellany

Brave Little Dif - Took Little Dif to the Los Angeles County Fair on Friday and she proved her bravery once more.

Ron Pauloween - Make a bunch of Ron Paul DVD's and pass them out with your Halloween candy this year. There are certain people that think I'm crazy for not supporting on of the so-called major candidates for the Republican Party but I know that they are the one's that are misguided, not me. Dr. Paul is gaining ground every day.

A Good Day To Die - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now in our country. He's a terrorist, he should not have been allowed in. His visit to Ground Zero in New York City was denied. Perhaps the appropriate thing to do would have been to permit his visit there and then surprise him with a summary execution (after dousing him in pig blood of course).

Fire Them All - The United Auto Workers Union went on strike today, the first time since 1976. Apparently this is about job security? You've got to wonder about the mentality of people who think that a business should continue to employ them even if their position becomes obsolete. The Unions are completely again technology that will eliminate job despite the fact that it would lower prices for the rest of us through efficiency. Fire them all, kick out the Union and offer to hire anyone back that pledges not to join a Union. Yes, that's illegal but the laws that compel a business to negotiate with Unions are ludicrous to begin with. Have I ever mentioned that I HATE unions?

Missing Money - Find out if you have money owed to you by your state. Not every state is on this list but a Google search for "unclaimed property" and your state should turn up the site you need. NEVER pay anyone to recover money owed to you by the state. You can always contact the Unclaimed Property division of your state Controller office and claim it for free.

Back Up Your Blog - What happens if your blog provider goes down? What would happen to all the brilliant/moronic/insightful/boring things you've written? Well, now you can back up your entire blog. Use HTTRACK. It's fairly easy to use to back up any website.

What? No Tears?

Thousands upon thousands of people are out of work due to the implosion of the mortgage industry. As of this writing 157 mortgage lenders have either gone out of business entirely or severely restricted operations.

Countrywide alone is laying off or has laid off 12,000 employees in just one round of cuts. In previous cuts it's laid of hundreds of others.

Washington Mutual is cutting about 1000 jobs nation wide.

BNC recently laid off 1200 employees.

I haven't done any sort of official count but I would guess there have been at least 100,000 mortgage jobs lost between lenders, brokers, loan originators, processors, title and escrow employees, etc. There are also an awful lot of real estate agents with a ton of listings on their books but no buyers. Lots of people in this industry are starving.

Usually when there are massive layoffs, there's a huge outcry about jobs being lost, etc., etc., blah, blah, boo-freaking-hoo! There's nary a peep about the mortgage jobs being lost by the thousands right now. Where are the usual voices crying out for help for these poor unfortunates that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own?

No one cares that mortgage people are now wandering the streets babbling to non-existent borrowers while pretending they still own a Blackberry and Bluetooth headset. Where's the love? Where's the compassion? More importantly, where are the Federal assistance programs?

The point is, these people will find other jobs. Unemployment is still low and the job market will adjust to absorb these additional workers. Some will move up, some will move down and some will find comparable wages. Some will start their own businesses and some just might end up homeless. How could our behemoth of a Federal government possibly be flexible enough to account for the different variables that go in to controlling the employment fallout from this or any other industry? Make-work jobs? That provides the wrong incentive. Cash payouts? Some would-be entrepreneurs might just cash those checks instead of creating businesses or go back to school for a different career or apply for more challenging jobs. And frankly, some of these people simply belong in lower paying, lower skilled jobs (**Full Disclosure** I work in the mortgage industry).

There could be another 100,000 jobs lost in this business before the bleeding stops and that's just fine. When the dot-com bubble burst lots of people that had no business in the IT world lost their jobs to attrition and overseas workers yet unemployment remained low. Those workers were absorbed back in to the labor demand pool then and the mortgage workers will get absorbed now. Next time you hear someone griping about layoffs, remind them of the IT and mortgage industry layoffs.

Pork You!

On this day of solemn remembrance where many in our nation are observing moments of silence, mourning of the dead, or just spending a few extra minutes contemplating the terrorist attack that took place on September 11, 2001 I wanted to take a few extra minutes just to let all the Jihadi's out there know that if I were in charge of security for this country and you were caught conspiring against us that I would sentence you to hard labor on a pig farm. You would spend your day, feeding, caring for and ultimately slaughtering pigs 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, 48 weeks of the year.

Why 48 weeks? For one month out of every year you'd be put on a bus (shackled down of course) and driven around the country. You'd be driven through rural and suburban neighborhoods, past shopping malls, farms, and businesses. You'd witness first hand the freedom that we get to enjoy every day while being denied yours. You'd go through town after town, city after city, street after street and see the men women and children of this country living their lives in a manner contrary to the desperate authoritarianism they would be subjected to under your rule.

On this tour, one of you would be publicly executed for your crimes each day. You would be sprayed with pigs blood and hung from the neck until you were dead. You would not be a martyr, you will not see Paradise, you will not get your virgins.

Stay out of my country and away from my people. We will not bow to Islam and no campaign of terrorism will bring that about.

This is my memorial; my dedication to those that died on September 11, 2001.

I Should Be Ashamed

I did something today that I'm not terribly proud of but I had to do it. I will understand my dear readers if you decide to abandon me for what I have done. But before you go, try to see my side of the story.

Today, I registered to vote as a Republican. There, I said it! I'm not proud of it.

But I have a reason. Registering as a Rethuglican is the only way that I can vote for Ron Paul in the primary in February.

I assure you dear readers that after the primary I will be changing my party status back to "Decline To State." So please, forgive me for what I've done today, it was the only way.

Your loyal servant of Liberty,

Difster

Up A Creek...

...without a trout.

Efforts at reinvigorating the population of greenback cutthroat trout have been seriously hampered because they restocked the population with the WRONG FISH.

Rather than cultivate the population of greenback cutthroats, they accidentally stocked with Colorado River cutthroat trout.

Apparently the difference in appearance between the two is so slight that it required sequencing and analyzing mitochondrial and nuclear DNA in order to identify the correct species.

Are we really at the point that we find each specific DNA pattern so paramount to the cycle of life that we're willing to spend loads of time and money trying to save a fish that we can't identify properly except through extraordinary means?

The greenback cutthroat was declared extinct at one point then rediscovered. Supposedly it nearly went extinct because of mining operations.

Here's the thing.... The environmentalists are primarily atheist and agnostic and tend to be major proponents of evolution. If species are dying off for any reason it must mean that they don't have the capacity to survive on their own and therefore should just be left to drown in the gene pool. If man, who supposedly evolved is killing off other species then that's just natural selection at work and conservation is not only unnecessary, it's impeding the natural course of evolution which should be sacrosanct to these people.

These people need to get their story straight.

Out Of Control Prosecuters

A man has been charged with murder for shooting a rookie cop more than 40 years ago. No, they didn't just catch the guy, it's just that the man finally died of his injuries so they ruled it a homicide.

Just so you're clear, let's go over it again. William Barnes shot officer Walter Barclay on November 27, 1966. Barclay died on August 19, 2007 from an infection stemming from the gunshot wound 40 years earlier.

Yes, Barnes deserved the time he spent in jail for attempted murder. Yes, Barclay suffered for the rest of his life because of what Barnes did. However dying 40 years later from complications does not, in any twisted sense of reason constitute murder.

This prosecutor should have better things to do in a city like Philadelphia where there's plenty of crime to go around.

Of course all of this begs the question, what should be the limit on how quickly someone would have to die after an attempted murder in order for a murder charge to stick? And the question probably isn't that simple, what are the other mitigating factors that should be considered? It seems reasonable to me that 1 to 5 years depending on the circumstances would seem appropriate.