Synergy Homes in the news

Synergy has a passion for homeownership. A well written articel about a concept that has gotten lost in the politics of elitism and open space. Do we need open space so the homeless have a place for their boxes?

Synergy Thoughts rant on where we are heading as a county.

Do we really want to raise the cost of a homesite in our county to $100 or even $150 thousand dollars and let the government make all the decisions for our private companies?

I didn't think so.

Did we fight for Sharia?

There may be more to this story, but here's how it looks on the surface. A man converts to Christianity while in a refugee camp in Pakistan 17 years ago. He returns home to Afganistan and lives under the rule of the Taliban, probably very secretly.

Fast forward, to 2001 and the Taliban backed Al-Queda drive planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. We get mad and find out that Clinton's administration dropped the ball and we need to disband the Taliban, overthrow the Afganistan government, and attack Al-Queda. We help the people of Afganistan create a democracy with freedoms and elections ... Or did we?

Now this guy is on trial, possibly for death, for being a Christian. What? Yes, his charge is conversion away from Islam. Is this freedom? Is this democracy? Is this what we fought to create in Afganistan?

Bloomberg on the constitutional mess, Islam is state religion but freedom of religion is supposed to be protected. A challenge for this new democracy and for nation building in general.

More articles

A view on Sudan

I haven't posted much since the Africa trip, sorry, but work took a little bit of time lately.

I did bounce into this article about Sudan, looks like Universities with investments in Sudan on in companies that do business with Sudan will be instructing their investment managers to divest. Kinda like the forced divestures that took place when the world began to condemn apartheid in the late 80's.

I am on the record that I think the boycott of Cuba is a waste of time. We should be encouraging people to travel there and to trade and email and create so much communication that Castro is laughed out by his own people.

But, there is something to be said for removing financial incentives to the Sudanese government. They should not be able to use any Western capital to continue to take advantage of their own people or these militias. The Southern Sudan government, which will some day become a county, should though have access to financial investment. They are much less militant than the north. This isn't to say they are Western, until you've been there you can't believe how different this specific part of Africa is. They have learned to expect bad government and oppression. It's sad.

So, I say kudos to anyone pulling financial incentives away from the Northern Sudanese government but push those same dollars to the Southern Sudanese entities. In downtown Karthoum they are building a horrific archiectural nightmare hotel that looks literally like an egg. Guess what, if a bank had any guts they would call that loan and get out! Who has that loan I wonder?

Roundup

Thai demonstrators are asking for the prime minister to step down. More of that orange wave from 2004?

Looks like the London Stock Exchange will be purchased by someone, maybe even an American Stock Exchange like NASDAQ or NYSE. Some interesting questions then should be asked. Should the British government pass laws outlawing this "gross globalization." Are the Americans taking away the British people's security by owning this asset?

Could Iranian women be the key to overthrowing the theocracy there? They seem to be the only ones willing to demonstrate against their government.













Interest rates are finally headed up, probably a good thing so that inflation can be held in check. I would personally like a cooling off period while we see what the affects will be. With rates going up, mortgages are getting more difficult to obtain. This is putting pressure on some lenders and realtors to be creative or even worse to break the rules. So, mortgage fraud is on the rise. Also, "credit repair" companies are abounding but so are complaints at abuse in this system. One common abuse is to add a person's name to a decent credit card to get a bump in credit score.

New book out "Getting America Right" looks favorable with some specific steps to take to reduce the size of government and return rights to states. I haven't read yet, but will and will post a review here.

Book recommended by Tom Peters "Preemption" deals with issues and decisions surrounding the invasion of Iraq.

The city that can or could

Little city down near Biloxi that has taken the challenge of Katrina and decided to make themselves better than they were before the storm.

What I love is the way the mayor and city council and business people are working together to re-create the entire downtown with a neo-traditional planner.

I thought I would start a series called why developers are the bad, or maybe why home builders have ruined America.

Some of you could post some thoughts on the real enemy of society, namely construction professionals who dare to make money building homes or hotels or parks or roads.

Part One: The American Dream was for your parents

I guess it is fair to say that you aren't really allowed to take part in the American Dream. No, that was for a former generation. A generation of people who believed they should have the chance to buy a home, to maintain that home, to make money on that home, and eventually to retire and use that home's value for retirement.

You aren't allowed to do that anymore. Face it, it's now considered anti-American to own a home of your dreams. What are you selfish? Freedoms don't matter any more, what matters is security for those that already have what they want and don't want to share.

Maybe your parents deserved the right to live on a cul-de-sac in middle America. But cul--de-sacs are also Anti-American now, how dare you want to live on a street that has slow moving traffic, that makes the city engineer crazy and the fire chief mad because they used to make fire trucks without reverse gears. Huh?????

Maybe you could own a home in Gary or Cleveland or New Orleans, but not here in Porter County. If we break down and let you, then "them people' might show up and really ruin the neighborhood. Some of us moved here from "them places" and we'd like to to keep them out.

Face it the American Dream is all washed up. It is no longer popular to let just any family live in Porter County, Indiana. I've got it, we could form a commission to rule on what people are allowed into the county and then can buy a home.

More to come

Valpo Parks need to raise $75,000 to buy a parcel for $100,000. First, it sounds like they are paying too much. Second, it sounds like the family has taken some nice tax breaks and now wants to cash in, if they were developers they'd be told to just donate it, or else. Third, how about the Parks use the funds from their parks impact fees ... isn't that why they started levying that "tax" fee in the first place.

How about this, they can keep their land and try and sell the lot for $100,000. The city can buy another lot for half that amount with funds from the park impact fee.


I've been asked a couple times for my opinion on the toll road. Frankly, I think the deal should go through as proposed by Mitch, no changes. This Republican Senator from downstate that is messing up the bill needs to go home. He didn't mess up the Colts stadium, how about he stays out of things here too. Let's take the $4 billion. Let's fund the RDA at the $10 million a year that was promised. Let's move into the 21st Century. Read the Times article today.

Bush signs historic pact with India. The nuclear crazies are hot. Why? The Indians already nukes, we just made friends with them. That's all.

We should do the same with Iran in return for real democracy. Take the venom away from the muslim fanatics.

Between Origami and reports that the company is devloping a search engine better Google's, 2006 could become quite a busy year for Microsoft.

Microsoft's going to revolutionize again?

Some animal rights wackos get in trouble for assaulting animal workers. About time the law caught up with the wackos.

NWI blogger suggests that Hammond's mayor has $7,500 for home owners in Hammond who want to send kids to school. Any chance he would support vouchers so they could choose where they go to high school too?

Someone took the time to rank our congressional office holders on a scale of liberal and conservative. Guess what Julia Carson is the most liberal ... time to go Julia!

Indiana’s Rep. Julia Carson (D) is among the most liberal of House members. She is more liberal than 84% of the House members, though she is far from the most liberal. Rep. Peter Visclosky, by comparison, is more liberal than 72% of his colleagues

Love this quote: Mother Earth doesn't require large reserves of oil left in the ground.

Update 10:19am: Just a little news update for everyone. The Shias have decided to continue supporting citing it as being their constitutional right. Well, good politics is compromise, and as I think the Shias are about to find out, it is the other group’s right to form an even larger umbrella, comprising 141 — or over half — the seats in order to block Jaafari and pick a different choice for prime minister. In our own history, the Second American Revolution was when power was first transferred peacefully from John Adams gave up power to Thomas Jefferson after the presidential election of 1800 effectively realigned the nation. Now, Iraq will have its own. Can the Shia give up power peacefully should it be challenged?…
Update 11:55am: In a preliminary investigation, Iran is being implicated in the bombing of the shrine. Go figure!

Democracy and Islam presentation at UW Law.