Judgments And Liens To Be Removed From Credit Reports By Government Order - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Yes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that rather rogue agency created by the Obama administration decided it didn't like that judgments and tax liens were being reported and negatively affecting peoples credit scores - poor and minorities hardest hit doncha' know?

The Detroit Free Press: Credit scores may jump this month thanks to new scoring rules enacted after CFPB study

Of course, while this will help the scofflaws with outstanding judgments and tax liens, will now be more likely to get credit they otherwise would not, but this will likely increase the cost of credit for everyone as lenders won't be able to factor the risk that the money they lend many not be able to be paid back by the borrower after the borrower is garnished or has their assets seized to satisfy the outstanding judgments and tax liens.

What could possibly go wrong with making sure subprime and deep subprime borrowers get even more access to credit and with lenders not able to know the full scope of the risk they are making lending to them?

Latest Addition To The Blogroll

Fresh off the blogspot press, The Counter Jockey Chronicles, a new blog by a good gun aficionado and fellow NRA Annual Meeting Attendee that I've met in person. A very nice guy indeed.

He just started his blog today, and I expect we'll be reading some excellent and interesting tales, opinions, and stories in no time.

Do check him out.

Stupid Criminal Tricks - Don't Wave A Gun Around In The Air

The Detroit News: Police: Boy, 16, pulls gun, gets shot at fight

A 16-year-old boy was shot in his leg after allegedly pulling a gun at a fight Monday night on Detroit's east side, police said.

The shooting took place at 7:30 p.m. on the 12100 block of Wayburn, which is south of Moross and east of Kelly.

The victim had been involved in a fight and held a gun in the air, said Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, a Detroit Police Department spokeswoman. But someone, possibly from across the street, fired a shot, striking the victim in his leg . . . .

Anyone want to place a bet that he acquired that gun legally? Anyone? Yeah, I didn't think so.

A quick tip: Don't get into fights, and if you're in a fight, don't brandish a gun around threateningly as some people may indeed become threatened and shoot you accordingly.

Flying - A Beautiful Flight To Hillsdale

The weather forecast for this morning was most promising: A nice high pressure area, clear visibility and mild winds. So it was to prove to be.

I had booked the plane from 9am-12pm to get a cross-country flight in. Flying Archer N3553M for the first time.

In addition to being in nice shape, N3553M recently received the Garmin electronic heading and attitude indicator upgrades, which were darn nice. Looks like they will be installing those throughout the DCT fleet.

They worked very nicely. Very easy to read at a glance, and they also provide airspeed and altitude information.

So after the preflight and run-up I took off from Runway 27R and headed southwest to Hillsdale.

On the way I passed over the Michigan international Speedway.

Moving along I flew over someone burning some brush to celebrate Earth Day. I was doing my part to celebrate Earth Day as well - burning 100 low-lead fuel at full rental power and enjoying the inventiveness of humankind while doing so.

I then arrived at the City of Hillsdale and overflew Hillsdale College.

Hillsdale College is a classical liberal institution. Receiving no Federal funding, it set its own agenda, which tends to be on the conservative and scholarly side. Very highly regarded its a definite gem of southern Michigan.

Then to Hillsdale Airport - right in sight of the college, the runway is 5,000 feet long and the winds were blowing nice and straight down the runway at 8 knots gusting to 15 on 010.

So I setup to enter the pattern for Runway 10.

The first landing was a tad firmer than I would have liked it, not bad, but a little hard pretty much a short field technique. So, I did the pattern again and had a much smoother and softer landing the second time around.

Then I headed back to Pontiac, deciding to fly a bit farther north rather than direct. This was good as the Garmin 430 for some reason lost its GPS fix for about 5 minutes after I took off from Hillsdale, but my iPad maintained its GPS without an issue. The 430W later went back to functioning properly, but it wasn't an issue as I had backups and paper charts available in any case.

I then flew near Livingston County Airport, a very enjoyable airport to fly. They were kinda busy so I stayed a good distance above and away.

Then I flew over the Chrysler Proving Grounds.

Then I did some IFR flying - IFR in this case meaning I Follow Roads - I flew above M-59 and headed east to Pontiac airport.

This set me up for a perfect approach to 9L, as the winds had picked up at Pontiac and were blowing from 090. I called Pontiac when I was 12 miles out and they instructed me to do a straight in approach.

From 5,500 feet it was easy to see the airport from quite a distance away, and you can see the airport in this picture ahead:

As I hit 5 miles out, they cleared me to land straight in, and I did a nice, smooth landing.

3 landings and 2.1 hours. I could not have asked for better conditions for this flight, simply perfect.

Stupid Criminal Tricks - Running From The Law Doesn't Workout Well.

Running from the law tends to go badly.

Three fine upstanding fellows decided to burglarize a gun store, and while making their getaway managed to crash and kill themselves while being pursued by the police. This is an overall savings to the justice system and does prevent recidivism rather nicely.

The Detroit Free Press: 3 die after police chase, crash following gun shop burglary

Now, maybe they ran because their crime took place on the west side of the state, where they take stealing firearms rather more seriously than in say, Wayne County (Detroit), here on the east side of the state.

After all, had then done it in Wayne County and stole say $30,000 worth of firearm from a gun shop, they would have gotten . . . . probation.

Yep, one of my clients had his gun store burglarized with 30k in firearms taken, one of which showed u in a murder in Florida a week later and the perpetrators, who while they hid their faces from the cameras inside the store missed the video camera and thus were identified as frequent guests of the Wayne County criminal justice system, were caught with some of the merchandise when arrested, and still ended up only getting probation. So much for Wayne County being tough on gun crime.

That Groundhog Saw His Shadow Yesterday

The same place where the picture of the groundhog was taken as seen today:

Roads are a mess, all iced over and slippery, and traffic is at a crawl.

How did we skip spring, summer and fall and head right back into Winter?

On the upside, power is restored, the house is now up from 58 degrees back to 68 degrees, and the sump pump is working under its own power so we don't need to bail by hand anymore.

Anyone have any opinions on whole-house generator systems?

Visitors Of An Animalian Kind

With the power out it has been pretty quiet around the area.

So quiet that the local wildlife have decided to take a closer look.

This baby deer came right up to the window to nibble on some shrubbery.

When she saw us watching her from the window she was a little surprised and backed up and then headed on her way.

Then we had a meterologically adept animal come by, and unfortunately he's been seeing his shadow quite a lot lately, especially considering it was snowing again today.

Yes, we had a groundhog perambulate around the backyard and come by the windows before he merrily wandered off into the woods . . . . and snow started falling yet again.

Temperatures are forecast to hit freezing again tonight, and we'll likely see snow in the morning.

That Was Not A Fun Way To Spend A Sunday

Last year the power was out for a week in March due to a windstorm.

Now it looks like we're going to be out for awhile as well due to yesterday's ice storm.

The Detroit News: Mich. Monday: Drizzly and 259K without power

The key difference between last year's outage and this one is rain.

Lots of rain.

Lots of rain and very sodden ground.

Yes, with no power, the sump pump pit was filling up at a ridiculous rate. We could only keep pace bailing it out by hand and we easily drained over 1,000 gallons (200 full 5 gallon buckets, and we did more than that) from the pit.

All day, and all night.

During the day the minions were helpful assistants while Tash was out working.

During the night, Tash and I did 2-hour shifts each bailing the pit and then getting a two hour nap and then up again.

It finally slowed down to where we could get ahead of the water coming in it at around 2 am this morning, and we were then only having to empty it every five minutes or so and it's now about a 10 minute fill time now.

More rain and even snow is in the forecast, along with possibly freezing temperatures tonight and no real estimate to when they will restore power yet but some people seem to think it will be back on by Tuesday at 8 pm.

This doth suck, and it sure was a lousy way to spend a day and night.

Ice, Ice, Baby

So, this 15th of April, we are allegedly well into spring.

It seems that nobody informed Winter of this seasonal change.

Ice and snow cover the ground, making it a slippery mess, freezing rain is falling as we speak.

Good thing I looked at the weather ahead of time and decided this weekend would not be a good time to fly.

If Winter would please go away, it would be appreciated as it has seriously worn out its welcome.

And we just lost power, likely due to trees covered in ice falling on power lines. Great.

Guess what doesn’t work without power? One hint - it’s raining heavily still. Yes, you guessed it, the sump pump. A battery backup unit for it just moved to the top of the list. When you’re bailing the sump pump pit constantly and having emptied over a 200 gallons worth of five gallon buckets and the water level is still not going down, you know it’s a whole lot of wet out. Today’s work out comes in a five gallon bucket.