Confederacy and States' Rights

I'm a proponent of some states' rights, but one thing that has always gotten on my nerve is that a lot of people who are for states' rights wave the Confederate Battle Flag in some kind of historical lovefest.

Reading this makes me feel a bit better, seems that the CSA was not much of a "limited government" and was actually worse than the North when it comes to liberty (though this should be pretty obvious since they enslaved over half their population).

Interesting ruling from the courts

Apparently you cannot be sued for accessing internal company data with the intent to start your own business. Seems very strange, and given that we have 2 appeals courts who conflict with each other I bet SCOTUS will take a look.

Hot Sauces

It is no secret I am a big fan of hot sauces. I pile on Tabasco, Sriracha, and others. Even the Tabasco habenero sauce is not too much for me to pile on food.

I just had a sauce that even I think is a bit extreme. I went to Firehouse subs today, and they have a range of hot sauces. I grabbed the one in the highest possible category. It is called 357 Mad Dog and you better believe it is the hottest stuff I've had. For about 20 minutes after I ate it, it kept coming back in waves, burning my throat and making me feel like I was going to vomit.

My stomach still hurts 4 hours later.

I'll probably try it again.

What will happen when the housing credit expires?

Today fed chairman Ben Bernanke said that the recession is over.  That's likely true for most production work, and I'd bet that employment will start going up within a few months.  However, the second wave of the housing crises will probably be in full swing by early next year.

For those of you who are not aware, there is currently an $8,000 no strings attached credit for new buyers of homes.  The credit is available to any buyer within 6-8 weeks of the purchase.  While we can leave the short term merits of this policy to another discussion, one thing is for sure: it is likely that a good deal of houses being bought now are partially financed by this credit.  Using this credit as a down payment of sorts, someone's monthly payments will probably only go down by a hundred bucks, if that.  However most buyers likely using this credit to furnish a new house, or just blow it on other things.  Regardless, it is one thing that definitely motivates people to buy a house.  I know this, because I planned on using it before I abandoned my home search several months ago.

The housing credit is set to expire on Dec 1.  If this is not renewed, it means that people will need to be under contract by mid-October to safely get it (all contract contingencies aside).  

So what happens if this credit is allowed to expire (which I think it should)?  For most buyers, it will mean that they will either stop looking, or start looking at cheaper houses.  For sellers, it means that their house is at least priced about $8,000 too much, but likely much more, since buyers are probably not using this credit as a down payment.  At any rate, there is going to be a rush to buy every house on the market within the next month, and then housing activity is likely to drop substantially.  Will this induce congress to introduce an even larger tax credit next year?  Maybe $15,000?  We shall see.

Lions first loss of 2009

Coming off the first 0-16 season in NFL history, in their first game of 2009 the Lions allow the opposing QB to set a franchise record for TD's in a game. Nice.