June, 2011 archive
Vocabulary Lessons 0
TomDispatch looks at how words about war have been redefined.
Here’s a sampling. Follow the link for all nine of them and the reasoning underlying his definitions:
- Enemy: Any super-evil pipsqueak on whose back you can raise at least $1.2 trillion a year for the National Security Complex.
- Covert War: It used to mean secret war, a war “in the shadows” and so beyond the public’s gaze. Now, it means a conflict in the full glare of publicity that everybody knows about, but no one can do anything about. Think: in the news, but off the books.
- Withdrawal: We’re going, we’re going… Just not quite yet and stop pushing!
Via Asia Times.
Facebook Frolics 0
Special SWAT team edition.
TSA Security Theatre: Huggies and Hisses Dept. 0
My college freshman roommate took ROTC for a couple of years.
I remember his saying about some of the upperclass officers, “Give some people a flat hat and they think they rule the world.”
From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
It’s time to take away the TSA’s flat hats.
QOTD 0
Ambrose Bierce, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Koch Party 0
No doubt konservative kool-aid is on the menu.
The meetings are organized by two of the nation’s most powerful conservative political donors, Charles and David Koch of the privately held energy giant Koch Industries. Their brother, William Koch, who on Saturday paid $2 million at a Denver auction for a tintype image of Billy the Kid, also is a conservative political donor, but he does not participate in his brothers’ activities.
Weak Links 0
Crackers don’t have to be smart. They just have to be not quite so dumb.
Staff secretly dropped computer discs and USB thumb drives in the parking lots of government buildings and private contractors. Of those who picked them up, 60 percent plugged the devices into office computers, curious to see what they contained. If the drive or CD case had an official logo, 90 percent were installed.
“There’s no device known to mankind that will prevent people from being idiots,” said Mark Rasch, director of network security and privacy consulting for Falls Church, Virginia-based Computer Sciences Corp.(CSC)
Details and some guidelines for safe HEX at the link.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
How to keep foreclosures moving along:
It is quite simple, really. Tell persons they have to stop paying their mortgage so they can be considered for some type of mortgage relief. Then relieve them of their homes.
Both contacted the bank before even missing a payment to see what steps to take, because they’d taken a hit to their income. Both say Bank of America employees told them they’d have to fall at least three months behind to be considered for a modification (advice that is both inaccurate and frequently given). Reluctantly, both did so.
As a result of missing payments, both soon found themselves facing foreclosure. But at least the modification process had begun, too.
Of course, it went slowly. Like millions of other homeowners, they waited months and months for an answer on their modification applications and sent in the same documents over and over again. Despite sending in those documents, both were told at one point that they’d been denied because they hadn’t sent in the required documents (another extremely common problem).
Finally, last month, both had their homes sold at a foreclosure auction, despite the assurances of Bank of America employees that that wouldn’t happen until they’d received a final answer on their application for a modification.
“The next thing I know, a guy is knocking on my door saying his boss is at the courthouse buying our house,” said Peterson.
What makes foreclosure particularly unnecessary in both cases is that Pinkerton and Peterson had made a point of telling the bank they had the means to bring the loan current even if they didn’t get a modification. And unlike many Californians, both had the option of selling the home to pay off the mortgage because their homes are worth more than they owe on their mortgage.
Now that’s mortgage relief.
Afterthought:
The headline at the link refers to bank “errors.” But aren’t “errors” supposed to be infrequent, even in baseball?
Cantor’s Cant 0
It’s not just a vest.
It’s not just an interest.
It is a combination thereof. See the Richmonder for more.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Welcoming the zombiepocalyse, the polite way:
QOTD 0
William Robertson Smith:
The land of a god corresponds with the land of his worshipers.
(Citation added.)
Turtle Soup 0
Local scientists attempt to combat the invasion of the turtles:
What they expected to happen, overnight, was for a Chinese softshell turtle to follow its piglike nose into the net, proof positive that the invasive species had taken up residence in the Norfolk city reservoir.
He didn’t find one, but he found a bunch of other infiltrators.
Neat pictures at the link.
H/T Susan for calling the article to my attention.
Seen on the Street 1
I cashed in some rewards points for a new camera with a long lens.
Light Bloggery 0
Taking the day off.
