It's OK to Walk Away From Your Home - WSJ.com

Is he right?  This from the Wall Street Journal:

Millions of Americans are now deeply underwater on their mortgage. If you're among them, you need to stop living in a dream world and give serious thought to walking away from the debt.

No, you shouldn't feel bad about it, and you shouldn't feel guilty. The lenders would do the same to you—in a heartbeat. You need to put yourself and your family's finances first.

ROI: When It's OK to Walk Away From Your Home - WSJ.com

Enabling law on agenda tonight

There’s an odd item on the “consent” calendar at tonight meeting of the Manteca City Council called Administrative Enforcement Provisions.  (Consent Item 12 CC)

Only the introductory remarks are on the city’s website.  The PDF file doesn’t include the actual language of the new law.  But after obtaining the actual text, a couple things got my attention:

• The law involves “code enforcement” and claims to be needed to protect the “health and safety” of the people of Manteca.
• Section 1.10.040 – Authority to inspect.  Grants just about any city employee the authority to enter upon any property or premises within the city to ascertain whether … this code, … uniform codes, or … state codes are being obeyed.
• In other words, the code enforcer doesn’t even need a reason or any suspicion of any violations.  He can simply demand entry to any home or business in Manteca at any time?
• The code enforcer is permitted to set up scientific equipment and take photographs and to take “samples.”  In other words, he can enter your home, take pictures, and if he sees anything interesting, he can simply take it?
• If you refuse to permit entry, they can attempt to get an “administrative inspection warrant” and then charge you a fee for their trouble.
• The procedure for administrative hearings ends with failing to comply with the administrators decision is a misdemeanor.
• Further, a companion ordinance will establish a $100, $200, and $500 fine for every citation.  In the definitions a citation is a document issued by an enforcement officer … for violating … this code or … state code.  You don’t get a hearing, you don’t get to plead your case to a judge, the “officer” can simply look at you or look at your home, and issue you a fine. 

I don’t usually write things before the meeting but this law is so outlandish, I don’t even know what else to say about it it’s shocking.  Has the constitution been repealed and I wasn’t notified?  I’m still reading.  I urge you to find out about this regulation and tell the council what you think.

The trick to “hide the decline.”

I thought this was an interesting development.  Some “hackers” (or more likely some insider) exposed the files and emails from some preeminent scientific institution being funded to “find evidence of Global Warming®.”

I wonder if the whole thing could be the greatest scandal of modern science. 

I note that in a Manteca city council meeting the state forced us to comply with some sort of measures in our “housing element” that would “reduce greenhouse gases.”  Whatever they are.

But you know, the great minds in the State of California often want to be “the first” – to lead the world.  And in the process they tell us what kind of houses we can build and where and what sort of roads to have and were the bus routes should go.  No matter what this does to our economy. 

So while the rest of the world cancels the Copenhagen summit and is glad they didn’t fall for this Global Warming® thing, we in California rushed to saddle ourselves with regulation that will help make us poor poorer and won’t do a thing for “the earth.”  But we’re leading the way!

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’? – Telegraph Blogs