The Effect The Rapture Would Have Had On Real Estate Values
There’s just something funny about someone spending time figuring this out.
The first problem with calculating the effect of a Rapture on real estate lies in determining how many people would actually disappear. Predictions range from 144,000 — about 0.0024% of the world’s population, to about half of us, the amount of people who were left behind in Tim LaHaye’s series. However, even if an average of 50% of Americans manage to stay around after Rapture, it seems likely that the post-Rapture numbers would vary wildly from region to region.
[...]
In New York City, for example, a 49% drop would reduce the city’s population to 1910 levels. In the short run, this would cause property values to plummet in the city, but the effects would quickly spread beyond mortgages and rents. [...] Effectively, he argues, this would turn the clock back 40 years or more, to an era in which low rents made it much easier for middle-class residents to choose neighborhoods based on preference, not price.Outside of urban centers, Schiller suggests, Rapture would likely be a final nail in the foreclosure coffin, as “People holding on by their fingernails would be more willing to let go of their houses.” [...] Municipalities, facing large stretches of empty houses, might be inclined to adopt the solution that Detroit and Youngstown, Ohio, are currently pursuing: “tearing down old homes and seeking adaptive uses for the land.”
This is assuming a post-Rapture world in which the political and economic systems would remain relatively stable — admittedly, a somewhat unrealistic expectation. For that matter, it seems likely that the remainder of humanity, having seen half of its number called into heaven, would be inclined to draw more closely together, further accelerating urbanization. However, even if everything else stays the same, one thing is clear: The Rapture would have an apocalyptic effect on real estate.
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Supreme Court Rules 30,000 CA Prisoners Must Be Released
Courtesy Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images By Permission
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Can they stay with you?
A bitterly divided Supreme Court today upheld a lower court ruling that California must reduce its prison population by at least 30,000 to alleviate overcrowding.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by the four liberal members of the court, acknowledged that the order is “unprecedented” in its “sweep and extent” but said that the crowded conditions amounted to violations of prisoners’ constitutional rights against cruel and unusual treatment and must be remedied.
Kennedy said that the state could ask for an extension of the original two-year deadline to five years, but that the state should begin to devise a system to select prisoners “least likely to jeopardize public safety.”
The four conservative justices issued two separate dissents. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, read his dissent from the bench, saying the majority’s decision, “affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” The order “ignores bedrock limitations on the power” of judges and “takes federal courts wildly beyond their institutional capacity.”
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The Constitution does not give federal judges the authority to run state penal systems.” Alito said that the three-judge order would lead to the premature release of criminals, the number of which is “equivalent of three Army divisions.”
The GAO put the number of illegal aliens in California state prisons at about 27,000 in 2008, or about 10% of the inmate population. The Feds don’t want them deported to stand trial. Those 27,000 would satisfy 90% of the Supreme’s ruling.
TSA Ordered to Monitor Prom Security in Santa Fe
Saturday night, a certified TSA official will be at the Santa Fe High School prom to oversee student searches.
This all comes after two Capital High School students, sisters, filed a lawsuit saying they were groped by a security agent at Capital High School’s prom last month. On Friday, the court ordered Santa Fe Public Schools and the security company ASI to provide at least one TSA certified person at the Santa Fe High School prom and the Capital High School graduation.
The restraining order also spells out the specific ways security can perform searches. It says a pat-down is only to be used if there are reasonable grounds and that pat-downs should not be used as a first approach for every student.
KOB Eyewitness News 4 talked to one of the sisters suing the district earlier this week. Candice Herrera said, “She grabbed my breast and shook the inner part of my bra and shook it and then picked up the front of my dress to mid thigh and she was patting down my bare legs.” Capital’s Principal told us she was standing right there when students were searched and doesn’t remember any students complaining about the pat downs.
Meanwhile, Santa Fe Public Schools says it’s happy to comply with the Federal Court’s decision, saying, student safety is a priority.
Gotta keep the slaves in line you know.
“It has been a really tough weekend”
douchebag |
I’m surprised he isn’t on an island beach somewhere with the $100 million+ he scammed from his followers.
The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda a day later, very much alive but not so well.
“It has been a really tough weekend,” said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.
[...]
“The issue is the Bible is mythology,” said Larry Hicok, state director of the American Atheists, bluntly laying out his case. Roughly 200 people attended the hastily scheduled conference to discuss the impact of organized religion on American culture.“Every ruler needs a religion,” Hicok said. “Everybody knows that’s the way you get power.”
Private Prisons No Money Saver
There have been cases of for-profit prisons pushing for legislation to criminalize more things to provide a steady flow of ‘clients,’ so this is a surprise? A three-strike law is like a windfall. Some things are better done by government.
The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
The state’s experience has particular relevance now, as many politicians have promised to ease budget problems by trimming state agencies. Florida and Ohio are planning major shifts toward private prisons, and Arizona is expected to sign deals doubling its private-inmate population.
The measures would be a shot in the arm for an industry that has struggled, in some places, to fill prison beds as the number of inmates nationwide has leveled off. But hopes of big taxpayer benefits might end in disappointment, independent experts say.
“There’s a perception that the private sector is always going to do it more efficiently and less costly,” said Russ Van Vleet, a former co-director of the University of Utah Criminal Justice Center. “But there really isn’t much out there that says that’s correct.”
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Disney Adds TSA-Style Security
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I’m thinking two, maybe three years before grocery stores have this too. On the other hand, Walmart grocery stores have added a ‘greeter’ to their entrances who check you over as they say “Hi.” Gotta protect the lettuce!
The second room of the queue is now a security check area, similar to a TSA checkpoint. The two G-series droids are still there, G2-9T scanning luggage and G2-4T scanning passengers. For those attraction junkies, you’ll remember that the G-series droids are so named because in the original Disneyland Park version of the ride, they were created by removing the “skins” from two of the goose animatronics from the soon-to-close America Sings attraction (Goose = “G” series). While we won’t tell you why, you’ll enjoy paying a lot of attention to what the scans of the luggage show is inside. When it’s your turn to go through the passenger scan (a thermal body scan), you may be verbally accosted by a security droid. Also, keep an eye out in the queue for an earlier version of RX-24 (“Captain Rex”) from the original Star Tours; he’s labeled “defective” and has some familiar dialogue.
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