2012 archive
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Buy cheap, rent high: Bloomberg reports that foreclosures are the new tulips (emphasis added).
Investors bought about 66,780 homes in August, the highest since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis, according to Bloomberg calculations based on National Association of Realtors data. Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg
“It’s an income stream for us, and when it’s time, we’ll sell it and make more money than we could from our 401K,” said Haisley, 49, who rents out the property for $900 a month for an annual return of more than 20 percent, excluding appreciation. “There’s nowhere for prices to go but up, so it seemed like a pretty safe bet.”
“Nowhere for prices to go but up . . . .”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Treat your playmates with courtesy:
Endorsements 0
If you wonder which newspapers have endorsed which Presidential candidate, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has been maintaining a running list.
I am curious about endorsements and the reasons papers give for favoring one candidate over another. Nevertheless, I think they carry little weight, if, indeed, they ever did (perhaps they did when newspapers and wire services were the only sources of news, but, even then, each town or county often had multiple papers; folks would read the one they preferred).
Those Who Ignore the Future Are Condemned To Repeat It 0
Robert I. Field reminds us that there is no reason to be surprised by Hurricane Sandy:
“[T]he slow rise in sea level will start to affect cities like New York during big storms. One year, high waves will wash up on the roads bordering the harbor, forcing the police to close them for a day or two. As time passes, this will get to be a more common phenomenon, and the strength of the storm needed to trigger it will become less.” (See James Trefil, A Scientist in the City, Anchor Books, 1994, p.247-248)
Then, we’ll get the big wake-up call:
“[P]erhaps during one of those hurricanes that occasionally make their way up the East Coast, a big storm surge will send water into the streets of lower Manhattan. It will be a big news item, of course, but it will take some time before people realize that there’s a problem to be dealt with.”
Read the rest to see how other portions of Trefil’s prediction are coming true.
You Are Not Alone 0
The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell is also longing for the end of the campaign.
Facebook isn’t safe anymore either.
In the old days, I’d roll my eyes when people rushed to post pictures of their breakfast: a freshly poured glass of orange juice with a witty cutline like: “juice. yummy.”
Now, OJ seems downright nostalgic compared with the woman bragging about how she stiffed her waitress out of a tip simply because the waitress was wearing an Obama button — and the customer wanted to teach her a lesson about wealth redistribution. (More depressing was the gleeful chorus of “likes” from those pleased about her sticking it to the minimum-wage worker who dared to have a different opinion.)
About the only persons who don’t want it to end are the punditocracy, who will have to come up with their own ideas once more, at least for a while.
In this house, we have not answered the telephone without checking the caller ID for weeks.
We check the caller ID and then don’t answer the phone.
Anyone who cares to can leave a message, which we then delete.
The Disloyal Opposition 2
Michael Smerconish is a conservative talker and columnist who dares to think for himself and deviate from the Fox Party line. I seldom agree with him, but I do applaud his attempts to be reasonable and fair-minded.
In today’s column, he looks over President Obama’s term and the disloyal opposition. A nugget (emphasis added).
I objected when George W. Bush was the subject of undeserved hyperbolic criticism, but the baseless scorn heaped upon President Obama makes Bush’s detractors look diplomatic. The president, the office, and our nation deserve better.
It’s been unrelenting. The day after Obama took office, Rush Limbaugh told Sean Hannity he wanted him to “fail.” Later, Glenn Beck called the president a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred of white people.” Donald Trump’s birtherism took hold while words like socialist were uttered with increased frequency. And a prairie fire of falsehoods spread through the Internet suggesting, among other things, that Obama is a Muslim or refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, paving the way for Dinesh D’Souza’s fictionalized “documentary” 2016, which characterized Obama as fulfilling the anticolonial agenda of his father – a man he literally knew for just one weekend!
Leonard Pitts, Jr., offers a parallel retrospective:
Far from putting the ’60s to rest, we have seen a fresh assault on what had previously been considered the settled gains of that era. I mean, who could have predicted this election season would see debates on women’s reproductive health? Or, that we’d have to defend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Or that the state of Arizona would ban ethnic studies classes? Or that there would be a new attack on the right of public workers to unionize? And that’s not to mention the new onslaught of coded racial slurs. They still say Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.A. Just the other day, Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu, honest to God, called him “lazy.”
And we know what’s behind most, if not all, of the right-wing venom. Chauncey Devega explains:
I’m a Southern boy. I can decode the damned coded.
Devega is correct. Racism in America’s Original Sin and its stain persists deep into the polity.
Follow the link to listen to a portion of Devega’s appearance in the third hour of yesterday’s Ring of Fire show. It’s worth it.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Jay Bookman tells the story of yet another American citizen denied the right to vote by Republican machinations.
Lost in Translation 0
My old staple gun did not make the move to Virginia Beach. Now, a staple gun is one of those tools that you don’t use often, but, when you need one, nothing else will quite do.
I recently ordered a new staple gun from Publisher’s Clearing House.
Shopping from PCH flyers is like shopping at an outlet mall. “Outlet” on the sign doesn’t promise bargains in the shop. If you know your stuff, you can find good deals; otherwise, otherwise.
I was pleasantly impressed when the staple gun arrived. The tool itself is quite sturdy and solid, is easily powerful enough for home use, and has some features that my old one did not have–definitely good value for the money.
The directions, though, well, can you splet “Giggle Translate.” (I edited the scan to remove the illustrations.)
Extra Special Bonus QOTD 0
Congressman Bobby Scott:
H/T Susan for the catch.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dan Simpson cites the voter fraud fraud as one of the five principle reasons he’s voting for President Obama (emphasis added).
I have lived in many countries overseas — in Africa, Europe and the Middle East — and I have never seen politicians try to roll history backward in this way, as Republicans would take us back almost to the Civil War with 2012 versions of Southern poll taxes, literacy tests and other barriers to voting so as to improve their electoral prospects. Even the most corrupt governments normally take the public position that they want to increase participation in their elections, not decrease it by erecting barriers to voting. I keep listening for Mr. Romney to criticize these Republican efforts.
Follow the link for his other four reasons.
Plus ca Change 2
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Victor R. Balest tells what happened to his father in the 1930’s when he told his bosses in the coal mine that, despite their instruction to vote Republican, he was planning to vote Democratic.
Read the rest. It’s the motto of the One Percent once more all over again redundantly:
-
All for one! (And I’m the one.)