John Nampion
Divorced Dad of three. Collection A.V.P. by day, humor/political blogger after the evening dishes. Looking for hot/wealthy/uber-lifted Scottsdale Granny for hi-jinks, hiking, and Saturday-morning coffee. Is this e-harmony?
"Would it be possible to move to Baltimore?"
Although we Americans have the right to attend whatever Church, Synagogue, or Mosque we choose to, it isn’t so peachy in lots of other places.
The photo that accompanies this piece is of an Iranian woman who was flogged for having the temerity to worship as a Christian, for example.
The American Spectator’s December 11th analysis of the State Department’s 2009 Report On International Religious Freedom illustrates how really bad it is not only in Iran, but in at least 30 different countries. read more…
"I thought I was an Irish citizen!"
Although it is fashionable to deride and mock conservatives who fear the onset of a United Nations-style global government, a case currently being heard in the European Court of Human Rights shows exactly what can happen when a nation cedes much of its autonomy to an outside entity.
In the December 9th Bench Memos section of National Review Online, William Saunders details the power-grabbing strategy of the ECHR as it tries to overturn Irish laws that protect its unborn citizens. read more…
"Hoovervilles for everyone!"
To read part 1, click here:
To read part 2, click here:
As the economy continues to slip towards the cliff-edge, financial institutions are becoming ever-more skittish about their bottom lines. In the December 5 Naples (Fl) Daily News, an attorney who represents homeowners’ associations takes off the gloves and lists all the remedies available to creditors if you walk away from your mortgage. The sanctions aren’t really worth listing here. They are meaningless
“…sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
When someone has defaulted on a commitment, you can sue them all you want – but you still have to collect.
The statutes that regulate banks and other money-lenders are often so intrusive that there isn’t much available to them in the way of punishment anyway.
So they go after the most dependable among us:
The customers who pay on time. read more…
Carlos Santana performing at Woodstock.
Many people view the 1960s as the decade that started our nation’s descent into self-indulgence and balkanization.
The History Channel’s November 25th special Woodstock: Now And Then is instructive in this regard: What better way to document the lifestyle of that first generation of spoiled American children (they run our universities and government now, you know – they and their devotees) than to spend a couple of hours weaving our way through that most signature of music festivals?
So Fire up one of your fine smokeables, get naked, and take a swim in the pond of unadulterated hedonism that marked those few days in August, 1969. read more…
Editor’s Note: To read part 1 of this series, click here.
One thing I’ve learned after years in the collection industry is that once the Government gets involved in your business, it grows ever more intrusive.
And the bureaucrats that craft laws are also not above throwing in sanctions to force their dream on the rest of us.
The recent battle over Obamacare illustrates this belief. Take a look at this House session from C-Span: read more…
What happens when Islam comes up in the "No-Spin Zone"?
In what appears to be the latest socially acceptable way to condemn Islamo-Fascism while still appearing to be reasonable and inclusive, many commentators have taken to excoriating Terrorists while still reminding the rest of us that Muslims are “good people” who, when it comes right down to it, are “just like us,” with the same wants, goals, likes and dislikes.
Bill O’Reilly has been doing it a lot lately: In his November 11th Talking Points Memo he makes a reasonable case for why Nidal Malik Hasan should be called a “…Muslim terrorist, period. He killed out of blind hatred. He is a villain and there is no excuse for his rampage.”
All well and good.
But then Mr. O’Reilly takes great pains to make sure we comprehend what his central belief is: read more…
"Keep them dependent and we shall rule forever!"
News Real’s Managing Editor, David Swindle, has asked me to do a series on how collecting debts for a living has contributed to my conservative outlook.
He did the same kind of work himself in his wayward youth, and he has written to me of how it changed him in ways he couldn’t have foreseen.
The collection business is a microcosm of the foment that is currently taking place in this “United” States of America – the battle between those who want “protection” from their own potentially stupid decisions, and those who relish working without a safety net.
We all know what camp most Democrats are in, and if you viewed the House roll-call on Obamacare this past Saturday night, you saw who wants to keep us captive to a huge meddling bureaucracy, and who doesn’t. read more…
Meltdown is only the tip of the iceberg on media blindness toward Jihad.
I was all set to write about Sean Hannity’s Great American Panel segment of November 4th, where he discussed abortion with Ralph Reed, Steve Murphy, and (strangely) Alison Rosen, an entertainment writer.
Then I heard about the extermination in Texas.
Stay with me for a second on the Hannity telecast though, because the machinations of the Left all tie together.
As you might expect, Murphy and Rosen had a hard time explaining why THEY PERSONALLY found the process of vacuuming a fetus out of a woman’s uterus abhorrent, but thought it was only right that they defend someone else’s wish to do the very same thing if this “other person” thought it was OK. read more…
Although F. Swemson’s series on global warming (Lord Monckton Challenges Global Warming On Glenn Beck, Parts I and II) is pretty darn good, it is way too scholarly for this guy’s brain – I can’t organize or deduce anything that is even somewhat logical – it makes me want to drink heavily for at least 48 hours, work-week be damned.
For instance, the very nice graph in his story that talks about Cretaceous and 17c and warm and cold might as well be the cross-section of a radiator, or maybe it’s some sound waves – I just can’t get a handle on it.
In fact, after looking it for over five minutes, I began to feel a little unsettled, and decided to drive up to Prescott AZ to see my Uncle Bucky – maybe he could explain it all to me. read more…
Note To Banks: Be Careful Whom You Crawl Into Bed With, He Might Just Become Your Pimp
That's one strong pimp hand. And the banks are about to feel it. They only have themselves to blame.
Millions of consumers have found out the hard way that there is no such thing as a symbiotic relationship with a bank once you’re behind on your payments. The Financial Institution usually turns a deaf ear to the customer’s pleadings and simply rests on the contract: the interest rate gets jacked up, the late fees and over the limit fees snowball, the credit turns stinky, and negotiations are not even considered until the account is totally charged off and is turned over to me, your friendly neighborhood bill collector.
I’ll bet you a thousand defaulted customers have wailed a version of the following to me over the last umpteen years:
“They PROMISED me they wouldn’t do this! Why do I have to deal with you?!” read more…
Collector Conservatism: Pushing the Left to Pay Its Debt to America
I am definitely not a writer, at least according to Mrs. Stiftuk, who taught my eighth grade English class. I am, however, a veteran of almost 19 years in the collection business, and when you “dun” someone you are making a legal demand for the moola.
On October 28th in his Talking Points Memo, Bill O’Reilly dunned the pants off our President, telling Barack Obama that he must make a decision and either protect our troops by sending reinforcements to Afghanistan, or be ready to pay the price in more soldier bloodshed and American defeat.
Our dashing leader, in classic debtor fashion, has been pretending to be unaware of what is actually going on over in that part of the world. Just like the poor stiff who ran up $17,000 on his Visa bill over a 10-month time period and is now facing strident demands to pay, he has suddenly developed amnesia and wants to study documents and talk to his brain trust. He’s dawdling in coming to any sort of resolution. read more…
