The first search result for “why do borrowers pay pmi” on DuckDuckGo (fifth on Google) is this helpful page, which explains in as basic English as possible, why borrowers pay personal mortgage insurance and not the lender. The reason I searched for this is because 1) I have a mortgage, 2) I pay for PMI, … Why Borrowers Pay Mortgage Insurance
From an old old article in The Atlantic: “The Undertaker’s Racket“: Cemetery salesmen are also prone to confuse fact with fiction to their own advantage in discussing the law. Cemeteries derive a substantial income from the sale of vaults. The vault, a cement enclosure for the casket, is not only a money-maker; it facilitates upkeep … Funerals in America are Expensive and Weird
I don’t know much about Cody but I found him engaging, though I didn’t listen to any of the other parts of his presentation yet. Take note of the social contract as the “big other” theory he brings up. It’s a tool of what C.S. Lewis called “moral busybodies“—bureaucrats, activists, and other state-as-religion believers use … Invasion of the Moral Busybodies
Watch from 11:27 – 15:26. My takeaway is that 1) Enlightenment philosophical ideals aren’t as great as we dress them up to be, and 2) an abstraction (in this case, the state) with people as its primary engine cannot be trusted with the exclusive use of force. Bear in mind that Molyneux is very much … American Government is a Failed Enlightenment Experiment
As promised in a post almost a month ago, I’m happy to report back that I’ve remained flu-free. There were a few days, a few weekends ago, where I thought I was coming down with a bug, but nothing came of it. Sorry, Virus Men. Go pound sand and come back next year.
This is the level of political campaigning and discourse in Pennsylvania: video selfies, genuine or faux (probably the latter). Not that I care much since modern politics is really just like two guys with different tribal banners telling each other they are terrible people. And they’re both right but for the wrong reasons. It is … Katie McGinty’s Video Selfie
Yeah, you can depict things how you like in books or film, particularly animated ones, but the main motivation behind Millennium Actress illustrates a realistic bit of attraction psychology. Chiyoko spends her entire life chasing down a man with whom she spent only about a half a day, whose face she never fully saw, because … Millennium Actress – Full Movie
A few nights ago I Skyped with a good friend of many years who is struggling with severe under- and non-employment. He doesn’t have a steady job but does odd, mostly web-based projects that come along. I’ve been in that dodge, too, earlier in life. Sometimes it springs out of mistakes you’ve made in the … Waiting It Out
I decided to take out the jQuery I mentioned in my last design post and just the plain Okay theme with a few small UI changes in an external CSS file. I installed a plugin that will automatically add the Creative Commons footer to every blog post. I noticed that plenty of colophons on personal … Unnecessary Blog Design Update
I was going to do an original post on this but Wintery Knight did it sooner and better. Quoting J.W. Wartick: The depiction of the multiverse with little-to-no qualification was alarming, for there is much debate over whether there even is such a multiverse, and if there is, to what extent it may be called … Utterly Shocking: First Episode of Cosmos Reboot Contains Unscientific Propositions
I’m a softie for album art explanations; I’ve posts in the hundreds combined on Buzzgrinder and Noisecreep, et al., on album art design and the stories behind them. Former colleague and radio guy (radio-bro? bro-adio? brodio?) Sean Cannon interviewed Damien Jurado for his radio show, and Damien mentioned the cover of Brothers and Sisters of … The Story Behind Damien Jurado’s Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son Album Cover
Well, from what I can cobble together from scattered information online (here’s a good post on it), the word for “to be” or “am” in Japanese is “desu.” Sometimes it is shortened as “des” or “dess.” There is no “th” sound in Japanese, so an “s” sound is used as a substitute when porting loan … The Japanese Word for To Be/Death is Awesone