WTF?

Where's the Shame?

Financial Times via Atrios:

“In the past, if a household in America experienced financial problems it tended to go delinquent on its credit cards, but kept on paying its mortgage,” says Malcolm Knight, head of the Bank for International Settlements, the central banks’ bank. “Now what seems to be happening is that people who have outstanding mortgages that are greater than the value of their home, or have negative amortisation mortgages, keep paying off their credit card balances but hand in the keys to their house . . . these reactions to financial stress are not taken into account in the credit scoring models that are used to value residential mortgage-backed securities.”



One possible explanation is that it has become culturally more acceptable this decade for people to abandon houses or stop paying in the hope of renegotiating their home loans. The shame that used to be associated with losing a house may, in other words, be ebbing away – particularly among homeowners who took out subprime loans in recent years, as underwriting standards were loosened. Consumers may also be rationally re-evaluating the costs that come with defaulting on different forms of debt, in the light of recent bankruptcy law reforms in America.

Dr. Strangelove Lives!!

Is this really the man you want with his finger on the button?

We Get Letters

Presidential politics as broken down by Floyd "Dick" Miller, who certainly has strong opinions but refuses to read my blog or post anywhere but my email Inbox:



THEY ALL SUCK. BLOWBAMA IS A FUCKING capitalist WHO DISCRIMINATES AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS AND ATTENDS A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. NICE TO HAVE SPEWLIANI OUT OF THE PICTURE, THOUGH. HELLARY CLINTON AND HER HUSBAND ARE CRIMINALS. BADWARDS WILL WIND UP AS SOMEBODY'S RUNNING MATE. I LIKE MITT AND HUCKABEE BECAUSE THEY HAVE CUTE NAMES. WE'RE DOOMED.

-DOUGMILLER

SILVER LAKE, CALIFORNIA


PS WHAT WAS THE AIRLINE YOU WERE FLYING? NEED TO KNOW SO I CAN COMMENCE THE BOYCOTT.

Mean Boys Suck

You know, I ran for student body president at El Descanso Elementary School, in Camarillo, California, when I was in 5th grade, and boy were the 6th graders pissed -- because I won, goddammit! But I sure wouldn't have wanted to go up against the 7th graders...

Sign of the Beast

Sometimes you have to wonder, is George Dubya Bush as poorly spoken in sign language as he is in real life?


"I am Satan."








"I love you!"

President Lefty?

I noted previously that Barack Obama is left-handed, and I noticed during last night's GOP debate that Senator John McCain is also a southpaw. That got me to thinking. I had read somewhere that an extraordinary number of U.S. presidents have been lefties. While this is a wonderfully intriguing factoid to this leftist, it's not entirely true. My research indicates that, in fact, only seven of our 43 American presidents have been left-handed. That's about 16%, or slightly more than the norm. It just so happens, however, that six lefty preznits served in the 20th century, including four of the most recent six. [We lefties are thankful that presidential uberfailure George W. Bush throws right. How gauche is that!?!]

John Edwards Steps Aside

Why I was for Edwards....

...we said, "We're better than this. And economic justice in America is our cause."


[...]


And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.



For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.



We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.

Full text here.


Watch it here:

Tough Times at Faux News

Sux to be them this campaign season.

Bottom line is that Fox News is in for a very rough 2008. And the umbrella reason for that is quite simple: Eight years ago the all-news cable channel went all-in on the presidency of George Bush and became a broadcast partner with the White House. Proof of that was on display Sunday night, January 27, during Fox News' prime-time, "Fighting to the Finish," an "historic documentary" on the final year of Bush's presidency. Filmed in HD and featuring "unprecedented access," according to the Fox News press release, the show was pure propaganda. (I must have missed Fox News' "Fighting to the Finish" special back in 2000, chronicling the conclusion of President Bill Clinton's second term and his "extraordinarily consequential tenure.")




The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.



Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, "Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they're having to lie in it and it's not too comfortable."

And Then There Were Two (Times Two)

My guy is out.


So, for all intents and purposes, it's down to this....

D -- Clinton v. Obama

R -- McCain v. Romney

WHAT ABOUT THE ANTHRAX?

"On the home front, we will continue to take every lawful and effective measure to protect our country. This is our most solemn duty. We are grateful that there has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11. This is not for the lack of desire or effort on the part of the enemy. In the past six years, we've stopped numerous attacks, including a plot to fly a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and another to blow up passenger jets bound for America over the Atlantic. Dedicated men and women in our government toil day and night to stop the terrorists from carrying out their plans. These good citizens are saving American lives, and everyone in this chamber owes them our thanks. (Applause.)"

--George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 01.28.08

House of Cards: The Mortgage Mess

60 Minutes offers a straightforward report on the nation's housing and mortgage financing crisis. Click the link to watch the report.

"Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben Bernanke, would say over and over that it's contained. The problem's contained. It turns out, it is contained only on planet Earth," Grant says, laughing. "That's it."

Inexplicable Price vs. Profit Conundrum

Could someone please explain why my gas is costing me $3.30/gallon?

ExxonMobil, the largest publicly traded oil company in the world, is set to announce their largest annual earnings ever. Which also means ExxonMobil will break their own record set last year as the most money ever made by a company in US history.


CNN Money is reporting that ExxonMobil will announce next week $10.37 billion in earnings for the fourth quarter - a paltry $111 million a day.


Expected annual earnings for ExxonMobil in 2007 are a whopping $39 billion - or about $106 million a day, $4.4 million an hour and $73,000 a second.

How much are they charging in your neck of the woods?

CA Props 94-97 -- Indian Gam[bl]ing

Propositions 94-97 -- Referendum on Indian Gaming Compacts


First of all, I wanna know who's the genius who figured out that it's much easier to sell the public on this vice if you call it gaming rather than gambling? That guy deserves a raise.




Once again the voters are faced with ballot initiatives that attempt to overturn policy measures already debated and decided upon by the legislature and the governor. I thought we elected them to make these decisions for us.




The bottom line here, it appears, is that the Indian tribes want to add 17,000 more slot machines to their already lucrative businesses. The reason there are four propositions is that the legislature reach amended agreements (allowing additional slots) with four tribes in particular. The four propositions are identical, but each pertains to one of the four tribes that negotiated the new deals.




[The tribes, by the way, are the Agua Caliente, the Sycuan, the Pechanga and the Morongo, so I guess if you harbor a particular dislike for the Morongos (for example) you could vote no on Prop 95 but yes on 94, 96 and 97. That'd totally screw things up fer them Injuns in particular. Most folks will likely vote the same way on all four measures. But you don't have to, fellow Culture Jammers!!]




Here's an interesting take from the California Progress Report:

Props 94-97 will increase [the number of slot machines] to 5,000 for Sycuan and Agua Caliente and 7,500 for Pechanga and Morongo. This would place the latter two on par with the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut, currently the world leader in slots with over 7,400. For comparison, the enormous MGM Grand in Las Vegas has only half that number at 3,700.

The $9 billion that proponents claim will flow into the General Fund over the lifetime of the compacts will have to come from someone. That “someone” is ordinary Californians, who must lose $60 billion to the slot machines authorized by these propositions if the promised government funding is to materialize.

That much money [is] the equivalent of $2,400 in gambling losses by every adult in the state...

These measures have also been roundly criticized because they don't provide any additional benefits for workers or allow them to unionize. The Indian tribes are notoriously anti-labor, an ironic position to be in for a newly rich/once-impoverished minority who were consistently marginalized and exploited by the establishment for centuries. Additionally, this whole notion of trying to solve the state's budgetary woes through gambling receipts just doesn't pass the sniff test. And FYI, the state lottery is a bogus deal for us regular folks, too.




I'm voting NO on Props 94, 95, 96 and 97.




UPDATE: Here's a link to a Pechanga Indian's blog. He was "disenrolled" from the tribe and has a few things to say about it, including, as per my example above, Vote NO on 94.

CA Prop 93 -- Terms Limits Laws Are a Joke

Proposition 93 -- Term Limits Reform


I guess I should tell you I come to the debate on term limits with an already fully-formed position: They are a joke.




First and foremost, I always thought we lived in a democracy. To my mind, that would mean that voters can elect whomever they wish for whatever office they wish for as long as they wish, even if it means we get Willie Brown for 35 straight years or Robert Byrd for 80. If people don't like the bum that's been keeping the chair warm, vote him out and put a different bum in there. Is that so hard?



Second, and perhaps a bit more nuanced of an idea, there's a certain degree of institutional memory that's necessary to run a state the likes of California. Apart from knowing where the bathroom is in the Capitol building, wouldn't it be nice if your state senator knew something about negotiating state water contracts and budgeting public works projects? As it stands, thanks to term limits, we've got rookies all over the place up there in Sacramento. The ineptitude is staggering. Fledgling legislators have barely learned where the pencil sharpener is and they are already looking toward the next campaign. This is no way to run the 6th largest economy (or whatever it is) in the world. Like it or not, career legislators have skills, knowledge and connections. If they don't use them the way you'd like, I'd suggest you vote the bastards out.



So, it should come as no surprise that Proposition 93 is yet another classic bamboozle. In effect, Prop 93 would reduce legisltators' maximum allowable time in office from 14 years to 12. The measure is strongly backed by California State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and California Senate President Don Perata, both of whom, coincidentally enough, will be termed out of office this fall unless the measure passes. Both men have put the screws on their supporters to donate to the Pro-93 cause, and the whole thing stinks like a power-grab and yet another wasteful misuse of the state's ballot initiative system. Promoted by incumbents, for incumbents.



Perhaps it's not the most reasonable means of deciding how to vote on an issue, but I'm sick of this kind of crap.


I'm voting NO on Proposition 93.

CA Prop 92 -- An Investment in Education

Proposition 92 -- Funding for Community Colleges

You sure hate to see budgetary decisions put straight to the voters, but with the system we've created for ourselves here in California, sometimes it's the only way. The state Constitution stipulates that it takes a two-thirds majority for the legislature to pass a tax increase, and given the anti-tax fervor of the Republicans and the craven inability of the Democrats to play political hardball, even funding for education can be hard to come by the old-fashioned way.

Prop 92 would increase funding for community colleges from 10% to 10.46% of the state's pool of education resources (derived primarily from property tax revenues), while at the same time decreasing student fees from $20 per unit to $15 per unit starting in Fall of 2008. As statistics show, the fee schedule does matter: When fees were previously raised from $11/unit to their current level, enrollment dropped by 300,000 students. Let's keep high school with ashtrays affordable for all.




I'm voting YES on Proposition 92.

CA Prop. 91: A Colossal Waste of Time

Proposition 91 -- Transportation Funds

See if you can follow me on this one:

Prior to 2002, sales taxes on gas and diesel fuel sales were simply deposited into the state's general fund, there was never any requirement that the money be used for transportation purposes.

In 2002, Proposition 42 was approved by voters to amend the state constitution and dedicate all fuel sales tax revenues expressly to the California Transportation Investment Fund (TIF), which provides money for improvements to highways, streets, roads and transit systems. Prop 42 had a loophole, however, which allowed the legislature to dip into the TIF for general fund expenses.

Some folks weren't to keen on that, so... Prop 1A was placed on the November 2006 ballot. In essence it closed the loophole by limiting the legislature's ability to raid the TIF funds. The measure passed with an overwhelming 77%-23% majority.

At the same time Prop 1A was passing, a different group was pushing to get Prop 91 on the ballot. The two measures are nearly identical. So much so that there is no one actively campaigning for passage of Prop 91 and proponents of Prop 1A acknowledge 91 is unnecessary and should be voted against.

Ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work: Prop 91 is a redundancy. Identical to a previous measure already passed by the voters, it appears on this ballot...WHY? To keep the voters equal parts confused and cynical, I presume.




I'm voting NO on 91.

And Larry Craig's wife is a beard.

Every Picture Tells a Story

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled “A Charge to Keep.” Bush was so taken by it, that he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography.

[...]

...in Bush’s view (or perhaps I should say, faith) the key figure, with whom he personally identifies, is a missionary spreading the word of the Methodist Christianity in the American West in the late nineteenth century.

Not. So. Fast.


"The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.” "

So Bush’s inspiring, prosyletizing Methodist is in fact a silver-tongued horse thief fleeing from a lynch mob.

String 'im up!

Breakfast Nugget

Les Dudek, the best guitar player you never heard of.

Election Day Cl*sterf*ck: Props 91-to-97

Let me say right now, the California ballot initiative system is WHACKED. And wait till you hear the explanation of Prop. 91 for Exhibit A .


That sed, I will offer my opinions on our state's cray-assed, bullshite Ballot Measures (#s91-thru-97) over the next few daze. As the Injun gamers might say, "It's a crapshoot; either way you're going to lose."

Same as it ever was....

Stop me if this political calculus sounds familiar:

"[Party leaders] knew their problems at home were primarily from the right and the center, that the left could be handled, indeed that it had nowhere else to go, and that it must accept [their] private statements of goodwill and bide its time for the good liberal things which might one day come. The latter attitude, the belief in the essential political weakness of the liberal left, encouraged...some of their harder-line activities. [...] They felt themselves under pressure to prove their worth to centrists and conservative Americans, and believed liberal-left Americans would simply have to accept that [these leaders] were by far the best they could hope for."


--David Halberstam, writing in "The Best and the Brightest" about the Kennedy administration, circa 1961.

We've compromised and capitulated for far too long. When was it exactly that the Democrats were going to end the war? When were they going to bring our troops home? When were they going to hold this administration to account for all its lies?




I'm still waiting....

...falling so long it's like gravity's gone...

Great Moments in Fianancial Disasters

About that plan to privatize Social Security....

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks plunged at the start of trading Tuesday, with investors ignoring the Federal Reserve's emergency rate cut to join the global selloff on recession fears.


The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 400 points. The Nasdaq composite index fell 5 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 3.5 percent.

[...]

Among stocks to watch, financial stocks are likely to take another hit after Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) both posted dismal results due to the mortgage and credit mess.


Bank of America's net income sank 95 percent to $268 million in the fourth quarter as the company took $5.3 billion in writedowns related to complex debt instruments. Wachovia's quarterly earnings sank 98 percent to $51 million, and the company took a $1.7 billion writedown.

About Sums It Up

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."


- Ernest Benn, publicist (1875 - 1954)

Keepin' it Old School

Jimmy Breslin profile in the New York Times.......

"...you can always find a story whenever someone fails. “Murray Kempton wrote the best column anybody ever wrote,” he said. “After Don Larsen’s perfect game, he went to interview the losing pitcher, Salvatore Maglie; he pitched the best game of his life, and still he lost. That’s what you did. You went to the loser’s locker room after the fight.”

Ein bier, bitte.

A Plan for Staying Alive in Iraq

Marine Corps Rules for Gunfights:


1. Have a plan.


2. Have a backup plan because the first plan won't work.


3. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.


4. Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Who's the Wingnut Now?

Lunch Break Deep Thought:


The Lord spoke to Moses through a burning bush and we regard him as a prophet and progenitor of two major religions; the same Lord spoke to Mitt Romney's great-great-...great-grandfather and we regard him as a crackpot and consider his whole faith to be a cult.

"We Don't Torture."

"The United States has been listed as a country where prisoners are at risk of torture in a training document produced by the Canadian foreign ministry.
It also classifies some US interrogation techniques as torture.



The manual - part of a training course on torture awareness for diplomats - also includes Israel, China, Iran and Afghanistan on its watch list.

[...]

The manual lists US interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and the blindfolding of prisoners under "definition of torture".



It also refers to the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held. Critics say it ridicules Ottawa's claims that Omar Khadr is not being mistreated.

[...]

The torture awareness course was introduced after Ottawa was strongly criticised for its handling of the case of a Canadian who was deported from the US to Syria in 2002.



Syrian-born Maher Arar - who was accused of being an al-Qaeda member - says he was tortured during his 10 months in a Damascus jail - a claim strongly denied by Syria.



A Canadian government inquiry exonerated Mr Arar of any links with terrorist groups. It also showed that Canadian diplomats had not had any formal training on how to detect whether detainees had been abused."

Giuliani: Italian for "Sinking like a stone"

(Click the pic for better view)




And here are the latest polls for South Carolina, scene of the next "all-important" presidential primary:
Democrats, Republicans.

Voters Remain Focused on Bullshit Issue

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

General Patreaus Lied

It was only a matter of time 'til details of this "little" fib came to light.

Highly promising figures that the administration cited to demonstrate economic progress in Iraq last fall, when Congress was considering whether to continue financing the war, cannot be substantiated by official Iraqi budget records, the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday.


As Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, prepared in September to report to Congress on the state of the war, the economic figures were a rare sign of progress within Iraq’s often dysfunctional government.


But in its report on Tuesday, the accountability office said official Iraqi Finance Ministry records showed that Iraq had spent only 4.4 percent of the reconstruction budget by August 2007. It also said that the rate of spending had substantially slowed from the previous year.

Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me... won't get fooled again!!

They Live Among Us.

A woman at work (who knows where my political affiliations lie, and whom I know to be a right-wing nutjob) came up to me today and asked if I was aware that Barack Obama is a "closet Muslim" who "went to school in a madrassa." She forgot to add that his middle name is Hussein. What a fucking idiot. She should have her right to vote taken away.




This leads us to yet another episode of "What Atrios Sez..."

Deep Thought of the Day


It would be wrong to discuss Mitt Romney's actual religious beliefs, but perfectly fine to discuss Barack Obama's fictitious ones.

You Can't Make This Shit Up

Chris Matthews is a complete and utter tool....

Suicide is Painless

The war is not over.




We haven't really gotten the job done in Afghanistan either.

Hillary Clinton is the Bomb.

People are still scratching their heads trying to sort out what happened in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Just how exactly did Hillary Clinton confound the experts to defeat Barack Obama?



Theories range from the silly (women flocked to Hillary in sympathy after her humanizing "crying" incident*) to the absurd (voters lied to pollsters, saying they supported Obama but pulling the lever for Clinton).



Lemmee bottom line this whole thing for you. While Obama is practiced at the art of soaring rhetoric, Hillary Clinton flat knows her shit. She was particularly effective in her recent “town hall meetings,” during which she came across as knowledgeable, empathetic, genuine, caring and funny; not at all the “Hildabeast” the press would have you believe she is. I've got news for you, she’s not shrill, she’s not condescending, and she’s not evil.



I'm still an Edwards man for the time being. But I'm proud to have folks these as my Democratic candidates. And still, as Doriana sez:

“Hillary Clinton is the bomb! She’s got balls of steel.”

Our National Shame

Let's take a break from primary season coverage to recall that our steaming pile of Preznit is off on a triumphal jaunt through the Middle East. He sure kept his promise, didn't he? Changed the world forever.



Adding...

What would Jeezuz do?

Three Words to the (Not So) Wise

You've really gotta hand it to the Bush lovin' Republicans for their bullheaded defenses of Dubya's shameful administration. Torture? Check. Domestic spying? Check. Extraordinary rendition? Check. Pre-emptive war? Check.


The list of President Bush's abuses is long and wrong, but there are three little words that will soon have law-and-order, extra-Constitutional Republicans singing a far different tune. And those three words are "President Hillary Clinton."

Hillary Campaign: Not Dead Yet

New Hampshire Dogfight

Looks like Hill and Barry are in a dogfight in New Hampshire...


13% reporting, Clinton -- 40%, Obama -- 36%, Edwards -- 17%, Field 7%


McCain is the projected winner on the Right at 37% to Romney's 29%.


I'd say those early Democratic returns are good news for the (once circling)[allegedly] Clinton campaign.

Obamian Rhetoric is Hard to Beat

EJ Dionne of the Washington Post sums up the difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:

[While] Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is
offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the
articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John
F. Kennedy's. "Do you remember," Stevenson said, "that in classical times
when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,'
but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us
march.' " At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes.

[emphasis mine.]

Earliest New Hampshire Voting Takes Place in...

Dixville Notch.

The small village of Dixville Notch has closed its polls after 100% of voters turned out, as is allowed under state law, and here are the results:



Democrats:

Obama 7

Edwards 2

Richardson 1



Republicans:

McCain 4

Romney 2

Giuliani 1



That's right, a total of 17 votes. The village has done this in every election since 1960.

Rudy's Risky Campaign Strategery

Rudy G. explains his plan to win the hearts and minds of voters.


"And then we apply the nipple clamps..."

Blogging is hard work.

Baseball Hall of Fame Voting Day

Jim Rice deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.




16 years: .298 BA, .502 SP, 2452 hits, 382 HRs, 1451 RBIs.


Quite simply, he was the most dominant AL hitter from 1975-1985.




Additionally, he was the first player to break a bat over his leg, a practice later popularized by Bo Jackson.




Here's a clip from the tail end of his career:

New Hampshire Predictions (and beyond)

Dems: Obama, Clinton, Edwards


Repugs: McCain, Romney, Noneoftheabove




Looking down the road a bit, I think McCain is going to end up with the GOP nomination, and I think an Obama/Edwards ticket would be virtually unbeatable. The Republicans are a train wreck, plain and simple. I like Hillary well enough, and could easily support her if she gets the nod, but at this point it looks like she's the odd woman out.

Men with Sticks

Perhaps now you understand why the Irish drink so much whiskey.

For What It's Worth

Barack Obama is left-handed.
I'm just sayin'.

Notes to Self

1) Mike Huckabee looks a helluva lot like Gomer Pyle.


2) Mike Huckabee believes the world is only 6000 years old.