So if we are revealing names, who are Nelson and Fritz? Great name for a Vaudeville act.

This incident supports a thesis, which has percolated since McCain's loss to President Obama. Why can't people dance! What I mean; what appears quite obvious to an observer (See today's Ricochet postings about what Obama must do to win. And yet we all know The President will not alter course, run into the rocks and spend the rest of his life with what if's.) do something different!  Why are men so blind to the "lost opportunities" revealed in history to step differently, sway differently, or twirl away from the "conventional wisdom?" The greatest events in history are celebrated when men do the folly of follies and turn away from "conventional wisdom" - The Tea Party, Lexington and Concord, Washington attacking Trenton on Christmas morning, heck, how about the whole American Revolution.

When John McCain went to Washington DC and voted yea for the recovery he forever dispelled to the Independents that he was not the celebrated "Maverick" but just another Republican hack. He lost his title of "Maverick" and he lost the opportunity to say, "I am not another Bush."

Iran has no nuclear weapons, has a tin-pot third world nation military which farcically boasts claims of grandeur, has a economy and society decimated and hollowed by the Islamic revolution and the huge redirection of wealth from normal societal infrastructure into it's development of the atomic weapons program. I would also speculate on the quality of the "reinforced" structures "buried" deep underground. Israel does not have to destroy all of the parts of Iran's nuclear program they only have to destroy the part which is the most critical, deadly and most costly to permanently stop the process. Obviously the enrichment - disperse the already enriched material over a wide area, lethally contaminating the facility requiring a complete rebuild and reinvestment of billions of dollars. The financial collapse would be similar to that of the USSR, and surprise, surprise we would learn what we should already know - tin-pot dictators are all bombastic and never about substance. And democracies are about substance and never bombastic.

Oh come on, this is all horse hockey or is it horse puckie? Anyways -first Israel has the means to bring Iran to it's knees - destroy at will and in it's own time what it wants. Their nuclear weapons fall between "98" and "200" both numbers I have read via the internet (American intelligence at it's best). They have intercontinental missiles - which actually work -  to deliver them with impunity. They are the premiere military power in this area and I would say the second or third in the world. So securing Iran's air space and flying without impairment is within it's capability. Finally they have the guts, the fortitude and will -  "Never again."

     An idea for a solution:

Anyone can buy a foreclosed property with certain caveats:

     Must be a conventional loan - 20% down - no mortgage insurance.

     Must be a conventional loan from the mortgage company holding the foreclosure.

     Can either be a 15 year or 30 year mortgage.

     The mortgagee cannot bundle and sell the loan.

In return for the 20% conventional loan the Federal government will allow the buyer of said above foreclosed property a special capital gains timeline:

      If sold in the first year 100% capital gains is required.

     If sold in the second year 6/7 capital gains is required

     If sold the third year 5/7, fourth year 4/7, fifth year 3/7, sixth year 2/7, and finally the seventh year would require 1/7 the capital gains.

     The eighth year would require no capital gains if sold.

     Then the ninth through fifteenth year the capital gains would rise incrementally by 1/7 till the fifteenth year 100% capital gains would have to be paid.

So I have two more points the first a prediction  - warning, the second a solution to the current horde of toxic assets.

We have yet to see non-high risk homeowners abandoning their homes. These are families who still have great stable jobs, who are affluent and continue to pay their mortgage. But what they have is a monthly mortgage payment for a home worth $1.5 million but is now worth $600,000.00. They will come to realize they were scammed by the overvaluation of housing. They will realize they will never see their home rise back to $1.5 million (Since the valuation was a scam in the first place). The idea of walking into their mortgage company and asking for a refinance to a $600.000.00 level would be smiled up on or laughed at. So what to do - abandon their down payment from their previous house sale - stop paying their mortgage and save what they would have paid for a fairly substantial down payment, abandon their home - laughing at the mortgagee as they are left holding another useless home and bid their time till they can buy a correctly valued $600,000.00 home?

     Following my previous post; my solution, to move away from the post-war thinking of housing as an investment up-scaling at several intervals, retirees selling to extricate themselves from their mortgage, moving where housing is cheaper and buying a bigger better home, to housing as a pre-war model. A home is to be lived in, paid off in thirty years and sold with a modest gain. The first model requires inflation and necessitates rising wages leading to boom and bust cycles, less savings for retirement and college. My standard is young families. Young families will fuel the rise in housing prices (Demand) to a certain point, but when they feel too squeezed (They begin to see housing as cutting into their families well being) they will abandon the market and cause a bust or correction. The latter denotes long incremental valuation, modest homes, stable neighborhoods, life long neighbors, planned obsolescence school life cycle, substantial life long savings for retirement and college,  Now I know others are going to say post - war investments are in the home, however the miracle of compound interest is in time -  changing homes and up-scaling busts long term investments.

     Well if knowledge about value of property and housing is what has been lost then it might make sense to correct the "perception" of value of property and housing. It is what I call fake money. Property and housing was never worth what we were told, it was always based on inflated value based on supply and demand. Just because someone said the property was worth an amount and someone paid this amount and someone financed this amount does not make it so. So if we assume it was based on falsehoods and overinflated lies then we must assume the correct value is what it will fetch today. This is an unpleasant reality to those who claim they are experts on buying, selling, financing, brokering, predicting trends and policy on real estate since they were scammed more than most. This reminds me of the time I bought a used car and thought I had a great value, till the next day when I went to start the car to find the battery was junk and I needed to purchase a battery. Just because I believed it was valued at what I had agreed to pay did not make it so.

I say there are two influences pushing this rise in farmland prices. The first is the Ethanol subsidy by the government and the pressure to bring more land under production for corn. The other is speculation by investors gambling the government will continue it's (Crony politics - Archer Daniels Midland) mandate of increasing Ethanol production and farmers desire to lease or buy more land to continue to reap the profits of growing corn. Of course like the frenzy of the housing market in the first half of the decade when speculators were telling everyone who would listen "the market was never going down" and people should buy a home because they would not be able to afford one in the future... The frenzy of this market for farmland has the same disastrous consequence looming in the future when people discover, like all people before them, what the government can give it can take away at everyone's detriment. Expect some form of farm bailout in the future for this foolish government intrusion.

Nathaniel, actually it does apply to cell phones: Merriam-Webster dictionary for "effects" -" 6. Movable property: Goods <personal effects>." If there is anything we should be secure in it is a cell phone which all see as "movable property." Thank you for clarifying  "limiting" and enumerating. However enumerating just means listing of the powers. So by listing the powers the founding fathers were creating the limits to the Federal government i.e. limiting the powers of the Federal government.

My solution:

Understand the Constitution as a document directed at the governing class on the limits of their power to govern. Take the government out of airport security and turn the whole thing over to the airlines and suddenly the problem is no longer with the government but with private companies (It is no longer state sponsored). Then you can have the old: "We reserve the right to not fly you if we don't like you or we think you are going to cause harm." Which at this point most airlines, state governments and the federal government bestow upon the captain on the plane. The idea is when you purchase a ticket you are agreeing to the requirements to fly with the airline (EULA) and their private employees. You supposedly cannot sign such an agreement or agree to give up your Constitutional protections with the government. - as a civilian.

I would agree pat-downs by TSA agents by the strict constitutional sense are unconstitutional; secure in their persons - no one in an airport at this time is secure in their persons everyone has an expectation of being stopped by any official looking person and submit to questioning and search if requested; unreasonable search - find anyone who believes the extent of these searches are reasonable and finally probable cause - only suspects who might appear to have criminal intent would cause probable cause.
Yes we can do this it is called profiling and discriminating against certain individuals for their known behaviors or origins (Which is what the Constitution was laying out in the first place. The founders knew governments would indiscriminately search whole classes of people to diminish those peoples freedoms - so they laid out governments limit to only discriminate against individuals when they were suspect.). But at this time everyone flying is the probable cause to be searched.

Some more ideas:

Allowing the embarking and disembarking of planes through more than one doorway - a front and back entrance.
Clearly a solution to baggage being put below and not carried on board - a cash incentive (Free meal, drink, movie?) for passengers to actually check baggage and not drag them on-board.
Handicap seating like parking lots. At the doors, last to be put on - for comfort and loading expedience and last to leave again to expedite unloading.
Create high speed airline corridors, like high speed rail - only in the sky. Where these corridors are restricted to faster flights and are direct flights between popular destinations with a minimum number of miles between destinations. Create a altitude designated for these corridors where planes first have to climb at a regular pace to the altitude and then accelerate once in the corridor. I am not talking about super sonic, just faster than currently available.

I have several ideas:
Security pre-screening (Volantary) when you buy your ticket over the phone or via internet. 10 checks like: accurate credit card number, correct name attached to credit card, address, phone number and security code, U.S. citizen and accurate passport number (Passport which customers bring to the airport for identity - not a drivers license which can be gotten by anyone), round trip ticket, flying history with that airline and a domestic flight. The ticket is printed with a certain bar code which tells TSA when scanned, with passport as I.D., a rating a passenger achieved and the height of concern for more thorough screening, less screening or minimum screening (Metal detector).
Allow airlines to have more involvement with security - like giving immunity to airline employees to refuse to allow certain individuals on planes. Not only out of concern for safety, but concern for disorderly behaviors, inappropriate conduct, suspicious behavior etc.; understanding the airline has a stake in seeing majority of customers have a pleasant experience at the behest of having an unpleasant or downright frightening experience because someone did not say, "No not today."