May, 2008 archive
No Credit Where Credit Is Due 0
What Duncan calls the “Big Shitpile” continues to spread:
It warned borrowers that its new deals would be more expensive.
C&G said: “From close of business today, Monday May 19, we will be withdrawing and replacing our entire range of mortgage products. Most rates will increase by 0.25% following last week’s rise in the cost of funds.”
Meanwhile, back at home:
“For squatters, foreclosed homes like this are like a camp-ground with free camping,” says real-estate broker Marc Charney, a foreclosure specialist, as he enters the home in Brockton, Massachusetts, and shines a flash-light at a mattress where homeless people have been sleeping each night.
Squatting is on the rise across the United States as foreclosures surge, eviction notices mount and homes go unsold for months, complicating the worst U.S. housing slump in a quarter century and forcing real-estate brokers to enlist the help of law enforcement and courts to sell empty houses.
Legacy of Failure 0
The Nation (emphasis added), on what happened when the Republicans had all the marbles. They lost them.
(snip)
For forty years, the most important trait of conservatives of all stripes has been their unshakable conviction that their vision and their ideas are right. Moral permissiveness, a feckless foreign policy, a welfare-dependent underclass: all the viruses that had infected the body politic under the stewardship of liberals would be cured if only conservatives were given a chance. The right was united above all in its belief that a new Eden would dawn when Americans were liberated from the tyranny of government, whose intrusive hands reached unwarrantedly into every aspect of citizens’ lives (save, of course, the bedroom, where those hands were needed to prevent overly liberated citizens from indulging the wrong impulses). When Bill Clinton ended welfare and declared that the era of big government was over, the argument seemed to have been cinched: at long last, even Democrats had come to realize the folly of their ways. But something funny happened on the way to making the revolution complete: when Republicans were finally given the opportunity to free the citizenry from the chains of the Leviathan state, the result was crony capitalism, fiscal recklessness and bumbling incompetence on an unprecedented scale. The opportunity to govern without interference from liberals came, and the consequences–in New Orleans, in Baghdad, in neighborhoods ravaged by housing foreclosures, in levels of inequality unmatched since the Gilded Age–have been calamitous.
Drumbeats 0
The Current Federal Administration claimed that arms found in Iraq came from Iran.
They didn’t. See ASZ for the scoop.
Another example of Bushie wishful thinking a lie. This surprises you how?
A Farewell 0
Several years ago, our dog Beau, a black lab, died.
He lay down on the back porch and didn’t move for days. When we took him to the vet, he didn’t make it.
Animals, unlike most people, know when their time has come. Also unlike people, they know that death is not an unnatural occurrence.
One of the most power lines I have ever read was in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes. Now, Burroughs was pretty much the pre-eminent hack writer of his time. I have read most of his stuff. It’s about as profound as a hotdog, and, frankly, just as much fun to read as a hotdog is to eat at a summer barbecue.
But in that one book, he wrote this line: “Tarzan considered death to be something to avoided, but not feared.”
We could all be guided by that.
Why all this drivel?
In today’s local rag, Lisa Scottolini wrote of the death of her dog.
For Windows Users–Alternatives to Badware 0
On my Windows box, I recently tested two pieces of software.
- FoxIt Reader, a PDF reader that is blazing fast and very small, without the bloat of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Real Alternative, which reads Real Media files without either the bloat or the spyware or RealPlayer.
If you use Windows, I hearted recommend both of them. They both taste great and are less filling (of your hard drive, that is).
Killed Post 0
I killed a post that I made earlier today, primarily to link to this video.
I killed it because there was something it the video embed that made everything following it–including all previous posts–become centered and consequently toasted the formatting of my theme. I parsed the xml as closely as I could and I’ll be damned if I have a clue what went so screwy.
Just go watch the video, and consider what a flip-flopper really looks like.
Nagging Question 0
Coincidence?
Or tradition?
The Democratic and Republic Parties are pretty much tied in terms of administrations that are remembered for ineptitude. Indeed, many historians believe that a Democrat, James Buchanan, is the current leader in ineptitude for his failure to do anything to avert the civil war, despite his having one of the most impressive resumes of anyone to serve in the office. (Interestingly enough, his successor, who had almost no experience in public service, is generally considered to have been one of the two or three best, if not the best, President.)
But why is that all the administrations that are remembered primarily for their corruption:
- Grant
- Harding
- Nixon
- Reagan (remember, more Reagan functionaries went to jail than did Nixon functionaries), and, in years to come,
- Bush the Minor
have been Republican?
Coincidence?
Or Tradition?
Or the inherent outcome of a bankrupt ideology?
Who Says There’s Nothing but Bad News? 4
McClatchy:
(snip)
“A large segment of the American public doesn’t have confidence in the Republican Party,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the party’s chief political operative for House races.
Golly gosh gee, Mr. Cole, I wonder why “A large segment of the American public doesn’t have confidence in the Republican Party.”
Could it have something to to with its being dedicated to making the rich richer and the poor poorer, with sending our young to die for a lie, with undermining the Constitution of the United States of America, with selling out the nation to the highest bidder, and with having a deficit of moral principles that would have embarrassed Little Nicky Scarfo?
Hmmmmm.
Ya think?
Dogs and Flowers 0
It was time to do the window boxes today:
While the windows were out, the neighbor brought home his new Chesapeake puppy.
The dogs were very interested in him.
In other news, the roses are coming in, starting with the minnies.
And the poppies are taking over.
What Are They Afraid Of? 2
NRA bans guns at their convention:
“Firearms WILL NOT be allowed in Hall A during the Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum.”
So what if St. John McCrap was there? He’s already proclaimed himself as gun lover.
After all, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Just ask all the dead folks. They will tell you that they are just as dead as if someone rapped them in the head with a sap.
What’s a few AK-47s between friends, anyway?
Now, personally, I got no problems with guns.
Apparently, though, the Secret Service doesn’t really buy the whole NRA gun nut “guns don’t kill people” propaganda line.
Hmmmmm. Wonder why that is? Maybe, could be, that they realize that a person with a gun is somewhat more dangerous than a person with a bow and arrow?
I just have a problem, a big problem, with
Hypocrites.
The whole damned lot of them, McCrap included.
Drano in the Fishtanks 0
Jeez, even I know that when the label says, “This is a poison,” the product is probably a poison.
Hagee-ography 1
ASZ links to Terry Gross’s interview with John Hagee (no, I am not going to link to his place). NPR’s Fresh Air replayed the interview yesterday because so many MSM outlets have been playing excerpts of it during the past couple of weeks.
My girlfriend couldn’t believe that he said what he said, that he would attribute the destruction of New Orleans, and the wasting of the lives of so many innocent persons, to the plans of a small number of persons to have a gay pride parade.
Frankly, nothing he said surprised me.
But she had never been exposed to this type of self-righteous Pharisaical Protestant nutcase before.
She couldn’t believe the hatred, the vengefulness, the vindictiveness that he somehow managed to find in what is supposed to be a Gospel of Love, and was able to express in the dulcet, gentle tones of a nurse singing a baby to sleep.
I don’t know how he finds hatred in love either. Perhaps he’s read too much Leviticus and not enough John.
Oh, yeah, and has deep-seated psychological needs I’m not qualified to diagnose, but that’s just a guess
It’s just that I’ve met his sort before.
So I wasn’t surprised.
Just disgusted.
And Now for Something Completely Different 3
Free audio books.
A while ago, I posted a link to a site offering free audio-books. Opie worried that they might be computer generated and his worries were right on target. I tried one out, and it had all the life of last year’s cornstalk.
Today, I was nosing around Project Gutenberg and discovered that they have added audio-books to their choices. Some of them are computer-generated, but almost 500 were done by people.
Even better, their Advanced Search feature allows you to specify which type you are interested in (as well as a number of other criteria). The couple that I looked at were available in Ogg Vorbis, Apple iTunes, mp3, and speex (whatever that is) formats.
Much of the work for Project Gutenberg is done by volunteers, so it is probably unreasonable to expect professional-quality narration.
I downloaded several Project Gutenberg text files and ran out (cyberly speaking) to get myself a reader for my cell phone.
A note about Project Gutenberg:
It rocks. But remember that every book there is in the public domain, that is, the copyright has expired. Don’t look there for the latest John Grisham thriller; you’ll have to find some other place to infringe on that copyright (try newsgroups). Nevertheless, it has thousands of titles, ranging from Mark Twain to Shakespeare to Sigmund Freud to Edward Hobbes to even Victor Appleton (pen name of the author of the Tom Swift books).
Demographics 2
DelawareLiberal looks at the numbers.
McBush 0
Dick Polman translates St. John speak.
Support the Troops, Bushie Style (Updated) 0
Follow the link, listen to the story, then ponder the empty heads and hearts who think that pasting magnetic yellow ribbons on the back of their vehicles or wearing flag pins is what patriotism or what supporting the troops, who serve honorably, even when serving dishonorable leaders, is all about.
Fair weather patriots, who care not that good men and women are asked to die for a lie, then cast off upon their return, like the little green army men I sometimes find left over from my sons’ youth in the back yard.
It’s less than 10 minutes. Not much for you to give when they give their health, their sanity, and their lives.
Go listen to it.
So when Tammie LeCompte saw that the Army was not giving her husband intensive treatment — and, worse, his commanders were punishing him for not doing his job — she launched a campaign against the Army that eventually caught the ear of Congress. Today, doctors say that Tammie LeCompte’s battle may have saved her husband’s life.
Addendum, Later that Same Evening:
Bushie Antics . . . 0
Seen and called.
Declining Property Values 0
I had to run out to a local shopping center today to make a deposit for my church.
I noticed that the space vacated by the independent dollar store had been filled.
By the Brandywine Republicans.
(For those of you not from these parts, this area of Delaware is known as Brandywine Hundred. It’s named after the Brandywine Creek, notable for having given is name to yet another battle that George Washington lost during the Revolutionary War–he only won two battles, the Battle of Trenton and the Battle of Yorktown, and he wouldn’t have won the latter without the help of the French, but that’s another story).
Here’s the funky part.
When I followed the link to the Brandywine Republican website, there was nothing there but a splash page. Sort of a metaphor for the Republicanism, ain’t it.
Guess I have to start looking for a new shopping center. This one has lost its cachet.
