Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Family losing home because of seven-cent mistake:

A Michigan family is losing its home because it underpaid the mortgage by 7 cents in January, a legal aid group says.

The statement is presented as straight fact in the lead. However:

Rooks said [redacted] of Deckerville, in the Thumb, inadvertently underpaid their mortgage because a postal clerk issued a money order for $440 rather than $440.07. The couple didn’t catch the mistake and they were four weeks late making February’s payment of $690.07. She said they had been late before.

Though the Bergers caught up by mid-April, Rooks said, Countrywide Financial and its new owner, Bank of America, rejected the couple’s payments. Bank of America countered that it and earlier loan servicers bent over backward to accommodate [redacted], who has been repeatedly delinquent since purchasing the modest four-bedroom frame bungalow for $38,650 in 1997. It said [redacted] rejected a reasonable offer last week to get reinstated.

Those allegations by the people who know and who own the paper mean nothing; the paper and its wire service have their hook and story. It was the seven cents, and that illustrates how capricious and darewesay evil companies are. Only the benevolent government and its press corps can save the people.

Man wins a gunfight with a knife:

Normally you lose when you bring a knife to a gunfight, but not Ramiro Silva.

. . . .
The gunman stuffed the shotgun into a bag and ran into the woods and Mr. Silva grabbed his machete, a fearsome looking blade, and went in after him.

. . . .
Silva wacked the suspect with the sword, using the face not the blade.

Knife, machete, sword…. All the same to the kids writing news these days.

I suppose we should just be glad that it wasn’t called an assault blade.

Two disparate headlines indicating that state-run health care does death better than health:

• Health plan covers assisted suicide but not new cancer treatment
• Gov’t insurance would allow coverage for abortion

Dying is cost-effective when you’re just a number in parentheses on the government ledger.

So, if you’re a reporter, is every single discharge of a firearm “gunning down” now?

A 51-year-old man who gunned down at least three squirrels from inside his home near N. Teutonia and W. Custer avenues Sunday surrendered to officers after the Milwaukee Police Department’s tactical squad was called to the scene.

When I was a young man, this was called feeding your poor family.

I wonder why the reporters didn’t bother calling the .22 an assault weapon.

Driver tells Conn. police snakes led to SUV crash:

Police say a driver blamed a car crash in Hartford, Conn., on two pet baby snakes that he said escaped from his pants pockets as he was driving.

Fortunately, no one aside from the driver was injured, so I don’t feel as ghoulish when I laugh.

Conservative merchandise not available for sale at Concord Mills mall in North Carolina:

“Impeach Obama.”

“Al Qaeda’s favorite days: 9/11/01 and 11/04/08.”

“Work Harder. Obama needs the money.”

The bumper stickers and posters sold at “Free Market Warrior” at Concord Mills are meant to be “biting,” the kiosk’s owner Loren Spivack said.

At least one passer-by found them racist and bigoted, and took time to tell the mall in a letter and a letter to the editor of the Charlotte Observer.

Whatever your opinion, the fact is this: At the end of July, “Free Market Warrior” will not be allowed at Concord Mills Mall. The kiosk chain’s owner shared e-mail correspondence with Newschannel 36 that explains that the mall management has decided that the items sold are not “neutral” enough. The lease will be allowed to expire July 31, 2009 without an option to renew.

Meanwhile, Che shirts are probably still on sale at several of the trendy shops along with campaign merchandise from the current administration.

No word on whether the B. Dalton’s will have to remove Atlas Shrugged and The Road to Serfdom because they’re not neutral enough.

HR 3200, Health Care Reform.

Claire McCaskill’s office responds to protestors reprehensibly:

McCaskill’s office manager locked the doors, pull down the blinds, called the cops and forced the protesters across the street.

Senator McCaskill explains:

There was only one male staffer at the office on Friday, and I knew he wouldn’t do that. He is an Iraq veteran, who handles almost all of our case work for our veterans. He is soft spoken and hard working and just not the type to lose his cool.

Mystery solved. Our office only occupies the first floor, and a marketing and advertising firm has the office space above us on the second floor. They acknowledged that one of the men that works in their offices made the gesture and they closed their blinds.(On the first floor our blinds are always closed). It’s confusing because the signage makes it look like we occupy both floors.

However, previously, she said:

On Friday, our office was short staffed(four were attending community events and meeting with people in the St Louis area), and the protestors were frustrated with our inability to meet with them when they arrived. They began banging on windows and doors and ringing the buzzer, so that the two staffers in the office could not focus on the phones, that were ringing constantly. They asked the police to help calm the situation, and when one of our staff got back to the office at around noon she met with representatives of the group, and we have scheduled another meeting with the group.

Claire McCaskill and her staffers seems to have a bit of trouble accounting for the number of workers in the office at the time. And that’s a small office. Now, project that to the entirety of the Federal government. I think it’s a good instance of how management skills scale.

(Link courtesy of Instapundit.)