Hardly original, but I did say it

At lunch today: "I gave up dieting for Lent."

I hope it's not too sacrilegious. Of course, as a good Protestant, I don't believe in observing Lent anyway.

Picture trouble

Google is starting to integrate Google Apps domain accounts into its regular world of Google applications. I have the kypackrat.com domain as a Google Apps domain, and used to have this blog under a different Google account. When the opportunity arose to merge them, I started to do so (one less account to track).

Somehow, I'd managed to pop up a Google Voice account under the old Google domain. Google Voice doesn't like merging, so I had to delete the old Kentucky Packrat account. You can't tell the difference, or so I thought.

One thing it did do: it deleted the pictures associated with the account. I fixed the Dicecapades picture, and most were links to other sites.

If you see a bad link, feel free to Email me about it.

I can't resist passing this game on.

Milady was disgusted with me in Target Friday, since I was geeking out on the game eisle. But could I help it? Look at this:

I couldn't buy it, because I'm saving up for other toys, but it tweeked that "I need the dice, the bright shiny dice" habit I picked up playing Dungeons and Dragons.

The manufacturer's link isn't much better than Amazon's. Sorry.

I love this UK team, loss or no

Note to Calipari: you cannot take a team all the way with 6 people, and you can't take it all the way with no experience. You need to recruit one or two people who will stay 3 years.

Nonetheless, this team, and especially Josh Harrellson, overachieved. This loss hurts as much as the 92 loss, even if this team is nothing like that one.

NCAA insanity

Bruce Pearl has been fired. I played an extremely minor roll in the PR front here: Wikipedia's Bruce Pearl site got vandalized, and I rolled back the changes. No matter my opinion of Mr. Pearl, he didn't need to have that problem.

As for my opinion of him: he's a good coach with a mediocre personality. He needs to be punished for making such a blatant lie, but after a couple of years he needs to left alone. Somewhere far away from Kentucky.

As for real idiots, Texas Tech is hiring Billy Gillespie. They really are insane. Billy G. combines all of Bobby Knight's bad points (and there are a lot of them) with none of Bobby's coaching skills. They will regret it.

What about VCU? They are ruining my brackets. Good for them.

Three ACC in the 16, and Big East with 2. Very disturbing. Wish the SEC had not bombed so badly.

Fixing the barn doors after the cows are dead

The UN and Illustrious Leader have finally declared a No Fly Zone over Libya. Of course, the rebels are completely defeated and about to have to return home. Quack-A-Duck can declare a cease fire easily, since the rebels don't have the supplies to stay in the field much longer.

Yet another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

New favorite song -- Who sung it?

I need to figure out who really sang this, but for the moment, I don't care. (EDIT: it's Christian Mckibbin.)

This is the song of my life with Milady (except maybe the boats, but maybe eventually...), both what we have been and where we want to be...

The NCAA selection committee is on crack

I've been trying to calm down to comment on the NCAA selection committee's "work". I just couldn't. Now Ciprian Zisu has said most of my own opinions on it over at Larry Vaught's blog.

I think the committee made their choices three or four weeks ago. It's the only way to explain most of these rankings. UK wasn't the only victim: Texas and Alabama got it too.

Dare I say it: should there be a replacement for the NCAA?

I love the current UK team

This UK team is a joy to watch when they play well. They're unselfish, they want to win, and they know they need each other. More importantly, it's finally fun. They enjoyed playing Tennessee and winning on the road. They enjoyed the Mississippi State game. They absolutely obliterated an Alabama team that deserves more love than I think the NCAA will give them. Finally, they left poor Billy Donovan of Florida wondering where the fouls were. Sorry, Billy, they just weren't there.

Beware, bracketologists. I don't know where this team will end, but I do know 67 other teams that sure don't want UK in their bracket.

Bonus Round: who here would have picked Josh Harrellson as all-SEC tourney center, and meant it? Really?

An amazing story

(The link comes from Confederate Yankee.)

Ted Gundy was a World War 2 sniper who was honored by the Army Marksmanship Unit recently. If Mr. Gundy didn't practice with his new Springfield, then 3 shots on target cold is almost inconceivable. Three head shots at 1000' just shows how much skill the man has.

I actually like it

VW has released a concept van, the VW Bulli. It is supposedly the descendant of the original VW Microbus.

No, it's not. As Click and Clack said, the VW Microbus was a bed with wheels. Until they make a three-bench version, it's not a Microbus.

Even so, I like it. It tempts me like few cars have. I even dislike hybrids, but I could live with it for this one.

I support public collective bargaining, and the consequences

Much has been made of the fight in Wisconsin about collective bargaining, and the teacher's union. I don't agree with Wisconsin's laws that essentially require 100% membership, since they're not a right to work state.

I completely support their union's right to join together and collectively bargain. Let them get together and decide as a group whether they want to accept a pay offer. I personally consider unions the pinnacle of libertarian action; it's the people working together.

However, there is always the "or else". Unions say "pay us X or we all quit". Employers say "I'll pay you Y or you're locked out". The whole system works for most employers because the jobs are just skilled enough to be very expensive to replace, while not so skilled that you can never replace them.

My advise to Walker: make the Y offer, then fire them. There's a lot of replacement teachers floating around out there.

Rick Stansbury needs to chill

The coach of Mississippi State didn't do well in the game today. At the end of the first half, Brandon Knight knew that he was getting fouled, so he threw up a prayer. Unlike football, a shot is a shot even if there's no chance in you-know-where that it will hit. The foul was obvious, so Brandon gets 3 shots.

However, Mr. Stansbury couldn't calm down about it, and had to mouth the ref too much. Instant technical. That's 5 total shots. Knight makes 4 of 5 and Miss. State goes into the locker room only up 1.

Mr. Stansbury needs to learn to calm down a bit. And make his center run.

In case Spacebunny zaps me

Over at Vox Day, I posted this:

Good Will: 2/9/11 4:35 PM:
Therefore asking (good) questions (as you have) cannot be answered by any appeal to the Bible -- because those answers are not in the Bible!

---

I've noticed something important: people who tell me that the answer isn't in the Bible haven't bothered to read it. Of course they are. Christianity is a self-complete system. While Christians have built up a near-Talmudic system of theological interpretation over 2000 years, we have also viciously used the Bible as a sword to prune it regularly. The most debated subject is the Trinity, and that debate is internal to the Bible: God is one, yet there are at least 4 entities (God the Father, the Angel of the Lord, the Spirit, and Jesus) in it who are identified as referred to as God. The answer is that there are 3 (the Angel of the Lord IS Jesus), and yet still one.

LDS teaching cannot complete our knowledge of the Lord God of Israel because it conflicts with the knowledge of God given in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek text. Smith and the LDS leadership were woefully ignorant of the Bible of their time, much less of the advances in textual analysis in the last 150+ years.

Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel, is not a created being. He was the Beginning and the End, the uncaused cause. The god of the LDS is a created being with a wife. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the only begotten Son, not simply one child out of billions (i.e. Mormonism scoops out the arian/socinian heresies, and then turns the blender all the way to 11). The dragon, the devil of old, HaSatan, is a created being, an angel who was cast out of his place from his rebellion, not Jesus' brother. God most certainly did not have intercourse with Mary, no matter what Brigham Young tought.

The serpent tempted Eve, telling her, "You shall be like God". The LDS tempts us likewise, telling us that we shall be our own Gods in our own creation. We won't be like God, we will be God!

If Moroni even existed, he followed in the fine tradition of Jibril: He was a false angel, a demon sent out to misinform anyone vulnerable. Arabia of the seventh century was an intellectual wasteland, filled with rampant paganism and ignorant, heretical pseudo Christians and Jews. When Mohammed finally came across Jews and Christians of strong, orthodox faith, they rejected him as the heretic he was.

Smith was equally placed. The 1830s were full of disbelief and wild near-heresies (the Seventh Day Adventists, Shakers, etc.). Smith, a "converted" fraud and huckster, collected people out of groups with poor Christian doctrine, but generally failed to turn the Scripturally strong.

Read the Apostle's Creed. Every line in it can be directly traced back as a paraphrase of Bible versus. LDS teaching directly conflicts with at least 3 of the traditional articles, and redefines at least 3 more to something entirely different than what the Bible says they will be.

Islam and Mormonism both fail because they claim to fix a broken system. At least Islam has the honesty to attempt to claim that Hebrew and Christian scriptures have been corrupted (a laughable claim in light of scriptural preservation, but at least it's a claim). Mormonism is stuck claiming that the Christian leaders were falsely interpreting the Bible we have, but then filled the LDS with claims that violate the black letter text of the Bible.

Now, back to the Mormon politician issue. If Mormonism is not Godly, then the Mormon has (knowingly or not) committed to fighting against God. God can still use that person, just as He used Cyrus or the Caesars, but that doesn't mean we should choose that person over a Christian. Will I take an "honest" Mormon over a dishonest Christian? No. Sorry.

Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead

Keith Olbermann has parted ways with MSNBC. We still don't have cable, so I couldn't care less, but knowing that the sports geek has nights off is a definite comfort.

The Best Video Ever?

I've watched some good videos, and liked a lot of songs, but this is just about the best video ever.

Christopher Walken is an amazing dancer (and did most of the choreography), and is clearly relishing the roll of traveler wanting to fly but instead stuck in yet another hotel. (Wikipedia says he loved doing the video so much, Walken wanted to refuse his salary.) Since I absolutely hate traveling, this video really resonates with me.

Sorry for Google Video, but YouTube has embedding turned off.

There Ain't No Grave

The song isn't "Traditional", it's by Brother Claude Ely, a singer and preacher I had never heard about until this version of the song.

The video comes from The Johnny Cash Project. They have some really neat stuff going on over there.



(Remember Safari and YouTube5 let you bypass Flash everywhere.)

Obama Lectures Hu?

In HU'S NEXT, John of PowerLine says:

It is not just that Obama is the President of a debtor nation; he is a President whose plan is to borrow many trillions more--money that, in large part, can come only from China. There are a great many things that the Chinese could do with their money, but only one place where Obama can go to borrow the trillions he is determined to spend. So I suspect that any lectures delivered tomorrow will flow in the opposite direction.

My own take on what Hu's opinion will be (the video is TV-14, so you might want to read this transcript instead):



(sorry about the Flash.)

Justice in the Mortgage Market?

I like seeing Mish's analyses of the current market environment, but he is definitely pro-bank on the mortgage fraud. In the latest post, he is negative on a Utah procedure that lets the mortgagee legally disconnect the lien from the note.

He said, at the end,

Certain people will be cheering these developments. Unfortunately, there is nothing to cheer about here. No justice was served by these rulings.

Here is my comment, in whole, on the matter:

Why should we require that a company obey the law?

Why should we require that a company actually own a mortgage before forclosing?

I am not even being facetious. Wells Fargo has been caught forclosing on people who didn't even have a mortgage with them, and at least one that didn't even have a mortgage. Bank of America made a mistake, and sent a house securing team to the wrong address, breaking in on a woman a month or two ago.

MERS was established to commit tax fraud. States want a fee to record mortgage transfers, so that homeowners don't get ripped off (and to get their cut). MERS was designed solely to bypass state law. Now, the banks are getting caught, and paying for it. Boo hoo.

Moreover, the mortgage security trusts were a complete fraud. The banks were endorsing the notes in blank (which BTW, was more tax evasion, since that creates a bearer bond, which are taxable at punitive rates), and then never bothering to pass the physical document from entity to entity. In most states, this was a violation of the law. Often, the MBS hasn't even been given legal possession of the mortgage, as has been documented in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Sometimes the original is just languishing in a vault somewhere, and the lenders could try to fix the problem. Other times, the document was intentionally destroyed (again, a violation of the law).

At the end of the day, the borrower doesn't get off scot-free either. Even if he can prove that the banks violated the law with intent to defraud everyone in their path, all he does is break the lien. The promissory note, i.e. the debt, is still there. In some states, it'd even be converted from a no-recourse loan to a recourse loan in the process. Sure, this can be discharged in bankruptcy, but bankruptcy isn't a zero-cost action either.

Show me a party with clean hands, and I'll cry for justice. Now, I see banks crying because they got robbed of the money they stole fair and square.

Favorite Songs -- Stay Around A Little Bit Longer

This song is in nearly constant rotation on my iPod and iTunes.





(Remember, use Safari and YouTube5 to avoid Flash.)