National Mortgage Settlement All But Inevitable As California, New York Join Deal [UPDATE]

I would really like to know what changed Harris and Schneiderm­an's minds? Ooooh, the banksters keep everything secret, never mind that it affects one state with 37 million people in it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

hmmm, this was in my email this morning from Courage Campaign:

"The sweetheart deal is no more, and we have Attorney General Kamala Harris and all of YOU to thank for that. Today AG Harris joined the 49-state settlement with the Big Banks, but only after it had been vastly improved by her steely negotiations on behalf of California's homeowners. There is still much work to be done. This was only Round 1 in a fearsome fight to make the Big Banks pay for the rampant fraud and abuse they perpetrated against homeowners across the country...

... The settlement includes up to $18 billion for California, a huge improvement over the $4 billion we were offered in September. A minimum of $12 billion will be spent on mortgage principal reductions, with strong enforcement provisions. $849 million is dedicated to refinancing the loans of 28,000 California homeowners who are current on their payments but underwater on their loans, and $279 million is dedicated to restitution for approximately 140,000 Californians foreclosed upon between 2008-11..."

Ron Paul Set to Speak to 'Sovereign Citizens'—Just As FBI Issues Warning About Them

February 08, 2012 11:00 AM
By David Neiwert
at Crooks and Liars

Shit, how am I going to get through to Papou on this loon?

Birkenstocks

Because even ugly feet deserve to be comfortable.

Yes these are my shoes and every pair is a different pair. My feet, I know, scary aint they? At least they don't stink, unless I wear the pair on the top right 2 days in a row because she used her own suede instead of a Birkenstock footbed liner when they were replaced.

Resole count - 6

Footbed liner replacement on pairs - 2

The absurd life of an Abercrombie & Fitch model

How did a regular guy like me stumble into a job of emaciated youths and anonymous six-packs? Funny you should ask
SATURDAY, FEB 4, 2012 12:00 PM PST
BY TERRY MCCOY

I'm reading this article, and Friday's Left Right and Center is only getting a small portion of my attention because I'm laughing so hard.

Maine Freezes While Washington Snoozes

"There is a profound lack in this administra­tion's understand­ing of the functionin­g of oil markets. "

There is a profound "guided" interest of ALL markets in this administra­tion.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

oooh, shiny pretty

My friend teases me that some women get mani-pedis and I get new Birks, but that is a relatively new development.

These are actually not a Birkenstock, but a brand licensed by Birkenstock. They are a

"

Papillio Womens Florida Pepe Bronze Leather "

and they are kicking my ass. They were not manufactured this year, so the leather was cracking and the stuff that makes them shiny/pretty also makes them stiff. A bit of mink oil on the inside of the straps did the trick. The last two pairs I bought were wool soft footbeds so the break in time was negligible.... er... nonexistent really. Breaking in leather Birks with a regular footbed sucks, and I haven't done it in years.

Stone Temple Pilots - Vasoline

Howl

"Howl

2010

R

84 minutes

James Franco steps into the shoes of famed Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in this star-studded biopic centered around Ginsberg's poem "Howl" -- and the widely publicized obscenity trial that followed its publication in 1957. Documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (The Times of Harvey Milk) direct, with an A-list ensemble cast that includes Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Jeff Daniels and Mary-Louise Parker."

So I'm trying to watch this thing and I must have drifted off to sleep and what wakes me up is "Holy, Holy Holy this Holy that..." and my first semi coherent thought is "Holy CRAP what the FUCK is that annoying noise?" as I struggle to focus on James Franco's form in the black and white moving image.

Hijole, some artists are soooooooo fucking pretentious. Bleh. It's one of the reasons I usually avoid watching any extras, or especially commentary on DVDs. I HATE listening to Hollyweird congratulate itself on how fucking brilliant it is. Who the fuck they trying to kid? Some of the dumbest movies ever made make lots of money, and some of the stuff that wins accolades is barely watchable and only won awards because of the political climate at the time.

Masters of the Universe - The Secret Birth of the Federal Reserve (Documentary).avi

Masters of the Universe - The Secret Birth of the Federal Reserve (Documentary).avi

Watching now. Most of the information so far has been covered in the three books that I have read on the Fed, but the footage of dissent from the depression is great, I've never seen it before. I'm enjoying the interviews also.

US Media Gobble Up US/Israel Case Against Iran

Published on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 by Common Dreams
Israeli President Peres: "No Option Should Be Ruled Out" for Dealing With Iran
- Common Dreams staff

Gawd this nonsense gets tedious.

Climate change? What climate change?

Update Feb 1, 2012
11th victim found days after deadly crash on I-75

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Highway Patrol says the body of an eleventh person has been found in a pickup truck days after a deadly pileup on Interstate 75.

Police: At least 9 dead in Florida in multiple crashes
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 29, 2012 -- Updated 1652 GMT (0052 HKT)

"(CNN) -- At least nine people were killed in a series of overnight accidents in northern Florida, blamed on poor visibility from smoke from a nearby brush fire, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office said..."

At least 9 dead from wrecks on I-75
Posted: Sunday, January 29, 2012 11:07 am | Updated: 11:59 am, Sun Jan 29, 2012.
By Emily Morrow, Alligator Staff Writer | 0 comments

"...Traffic is being diverted from I-75 to us U.S. 441, which reopened at 10 a.m. this morning after a brief overnight closure due to similar accidents."


Biodiversity and land Use principals/leads: Susan Cameron Devitt, Jennifer Ruth Seavey Contributors: Tom Hoctor, Reed Noss, Corrie Rainyn, Martin Main, Odemari Mbuya

"...Florida’s abundant and unique biological resources are at particularly high risk for climate change impacts because of its low topography, extensive coastline, and frequency of large storm events. Climate change is already making large sweeping changes to Florida’s land- scape, especially along the coasts. The drivers of this change are both physical and biological in nature. Changes in air and water tempera- ture, freshwater availability, salt water intrusion, ocean acidification, natural disturbance regime shifts (e.g. fire, storms, flood), and loss of land area have already been observed in Florida..."

State Of The Union Addresses Past: A Look Back At A History Of Forgotten Promises

In a pay to play system it's surprising that politician­s lie to their constituen­ts?

Bwaaahahah­ahahhaha
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I missed all but 2 minutes of the GOP debate last night.

Last Night's GOP Debate Was Like Bad 1950's-Style Science-Fiction
Richard (RJ) Eskow
Posted: 01/27/2012 1:00 am

"The GOP presidential candidates continue to play their parts in an implausible story of a world that could never exist, acting out nonexistent conflicts while delivering dialog that insults the intelligence. That's not because they're stupid. It's because they think you are..."

Dudn't look Iike I missed much.


update stolen from OB Rag on FB Jan 29 2012

bleh

I don't give a crap today.

Kappa Beta Phi ASSHOLES

Yup, us little monkeys look up into the tree and that's what we see are assholes. 
 (hat tip to Ted over at They gave us a republic) 

 JANUARY 20, 2012, 9:52 PM INVESTMENT BANKING | WALL STREET
  A Raucous Hazing at a Wall St. Fraternity 
BY KEVIN ROOSE 

"...The Occupy movement was fodder for several after-dinner skits. In one, a documentary filmed during the protests, James Lebenthal, a bond specialist, joked with a protester whose face was appeared to be tattooed. “Go home, wash that off your face, and get back to work,” Mr. Lebenthal told the protester. Reached through his daughter on Friday, Mr. Lebenthal declined to comment..."

I'm thinking these dickheads could learn something from Dr. Robert Sapolsky.

Moyers!!!!

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Sick of Romney

but this was interesting:
 FRIDAY, JAN 20, 2012 12:00 PM PST
  The roots of Bain Capital in El Salvador’s civil war
"Romney tapped El Salvador's wealthy families, including one linked to right-wing death squads..."

 For some reason every time I see an article that mentions El Salvador I'm reminded not only of the social structure of Latin America which is notoriously plagued by vast inequality (possibly leftover from it's European colonial past) but I'm also reminded of one of the nastiest gangs in the Americas:

 January 1st, 2008
  El Salvador: Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)
 "...Mara Salvatrucha, otherwise known as MS-13, formed in Los Angeles during the 1980s when refugees of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war settled in Southern California and fell into life on the streets...."

El Salvador Fears Ties Between Cartels, Street Gangs (part 3)
by JASON BEAUBIEN
Part 1  and  Part 2

 And even MS-13 are not as big as M18 or  Mara-18 or 18th St 
(different name, same shitheads) 

"..The 18th Street gang grew by expanding its membership to other nationalities and races, and it was among the first multiracial, multiethnic gangs in Los Angeles. It's considered to be the largest transnational criminal street gang in Los Angeles, California. .."

Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe the gangs? They terrorize and intimidate people here, especially newer immigrants from nations whose justice systems are grossly corrupt (mordida).

and finally, unrelated, but I like this:

FRIDAY, JAN 20, 2012 1:19 PM PST
  Reid bows to online protest
Protest against SOPA derails the Senate bill favored by the majority leader
 BY NANCY SCOLA

I'm trying to stay interested in politics

but I'm so disgusted that it's difficult. Lately, with everyone talking abbout the Republican (clown car) primaries, it's even less important. I"m worried about my loved ones surviving and I seriously doubt if a Republican throwing his hat in the ring for a prez run has been able to relate to that thought since WWII.

Funny, those blurbs

I haven't read a book straight through in a couple of years now, mostly because my first love of reading came with reading fiction and I have been reading non-fiction books about politics and the economy for the last ten years. I have a half dozen books going and I can't seem to finish any of them, but this morning I picked up Russ Baker's Family of Secrets and read the blurbs on the back. I never noticed this one: 

"(Baker) is a man on a mission, desperate to stop the methods of stealth and manipulation that...reflect a deeper ill: the American public's increasingly tenuous hold upon the levers of its own democracy." -- San Diego Union-Tribune


 Which frankly made me grin at the irony. 


First, the source of the blurb, the U-T, basically two Copely newspapers since 1928 merged in '92 then sold to an investment company in Beverly Hills in Feb '09 and resold to one of the biggest local developers in San Diego last year. I have never been able to read the Republican right-wing birdcage liner.


Second, the blurb itself, keyword "democracy."  Bwaaaaah hahaha, in San Diego?


It wasn't until 2006 that San Diego tried to wrest power away from the city manager by voting on the "strong mayor" initiative.  Uh huh, so the people think they are turning the power over to the Republican ex-chief of police Jerry Sanders.  Socially, there was a big deal over him talking about his gay daughter, taboo in a county that is basically one big military base. 


Fiscally, and in terms of transparency,  it's 
just
been
more
of the
same old shit.

 Yep, whenever I take a racing dive into the sewage fest that is San Diego politics and then try to 'splain it to others, this song comes to mind:

SOPA Blackout:

SOPA blackout Facebook, Amazon, Twitter Consider SOPA Protest By Stephanie Rabiner on January 11, 2012 5:49 AM | No TrackBacks "What would you do without Google? Or Facebook and Twitter? What if you couldn't rely on secondary sources like Wikipedia or buy things on eBay or Amazon? If you're predicting a personal Armageddon, you better think of a backup plan soon. Rumor has it the net's biggest companies are planning a full-blown SOPA blackout..."

Why is the Media Ignoring SOPA?

Margin Call

The movie. 

Oh... My..... God.... 


 Less than a half hour into the movie after this kid who can't be 30 spits out the line "Look at these people, wandering around with absolutely no idea of what's about to happen," I was up and screaming at the screen "You gotta be fucking kidding me! You arrogant little pricks have no idea who knew before 2008 that things were going to come crashing down around our ears!" Then I thought, Jeeeeezus, who wrote this fucking thing? 


So, after finishing the movie my thoughts were very different. I loved it, and the cast was outstanding. I still don't have any sympathy for traders, speculators and investment bankers on Wall Street though.  When it comes to "sympathy" for those assholes, the word is in between "shit" and "syphillis" in the dictionary.

"Redevelopment," just another word for greed

    So, I've been suspecting for a while now that the apartment complex that I live in would be razed and redeveloped. Part of the complex has already been redeveloped and the rent almost doubled, and although the new apartments have amenities like AC and washer/dryer hook ups, they are smaller and the landscaping is considerably uglier and the echo from the concrete is obnoxious, as is the traffic noise.


   There are disabled, fixed income and poor people here who have their rent subsidized by the government, many of them because this was a complex that ran on HUD subsidies for decades. There was an article in the piece of shit local paper that was basically an advertisement for the new places a few years ago, but they fucked up by putting numbers in it. New developments should have unit numbers at 10% for low income and the numbers in the article ran at 8.2%.  These greedy motherfuckers got rich being slum lords and sucking on the government tit.  Before they took a bath on the real estate bubble my rent went up 24% in 4 years, and that was after rents doubled in San Diego over a ten year period.   The housing market took a major shit, but MY rent did NOT go down.


   Well it probably won't be more than 2 years now that the grass and trees (that change color in the fall, rare in San Diego) will be gone and we just got a shitload of new rules to follow until they boot us out and raze our apartments.  Probably one building at a time, so whoopeee, we get to listen to construction noise, deal with the critters that come down the sewage lines when old buildings are razed and fight with overworked maintenance workers too!!!  I also want to know if we po peeples ovah heah can git us some water on the grass mo than once a month if we's able tah foller them new rules?


    And I wonder if the high priests of greed, deception, and corruption know who I am?


    My friend relocated to another state and in spite of the weather acclimation, I would need to do, it looks like survival would cost much less money there. Even though I was born and raised in this city I am surely more and more disgusted every day.


If you are curious at all, Paradise Plundered by Kogan, Erie, and Mackenzie and

And Under the Perfect Sun, by Mayhew, Miller, Davis can clue you in.

Update: I complained, and got approximately 1 minute of water, turned up full blast, so that now the windows need to be cleaned and the Christmas lights are not coming down today, they are all wet. So, I check the laundry room to see how crowded it is and it's too fucking filthy to use. Gawd I hate these fucking fucks.

Standing Up for Consumers

I was so hoping that Obama would do this. I know you will fight for ordinary Americans Mr. Cordray.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I could fkn care less what Iowans think

Iowa caucuses: GOP presidential hopefuls making final push before Tuesday vote By Karen Tumulty, Published: December 31, 2011

US politicians get richer despite recession As Americans continue to lose homes and jobs in a stagnant economy, politicians have gotten richer. Last Modified: 30 Dec 2011 21:33

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

Three myths about the detention bill

BY GLENN GREENWALD

http://www­.salon.com­/2011/12/1­6/three_my­ths_about_­the_detent­ion_bill/
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I have a headache.

I'm not prone to them and this one is going on 4 hours now.  

I've been reading a copy of TIME magazine's Year in Review 2011 this morning with it's 6 page spread on the killing of Osama binLaden and it's photograph of the 9/11 memorial waterfall. I can't even find a picture of the waterfall that is close to looking like the one in the magazine. Frankly, the picture looks like a big, square toilet bowl and as that thought pased through my mind so did another: 


 That looks like the big, square toilet bowl that Osama binLaden wanted this country flushed down and the fucker may be dead, but we are well on our way to making his dream come true.

It's also where most of the stories in this silly magazine and their lack of context, or sometimes misleading scenarios belong.  I watched this year happen and I read a lot.  I do not mindlessly eat up all that large corporate media feeds me, so I rolled my eyes a few times as I skimmed through this thing.


That is all, carry on, lol

Surrendering 2011: Rendition and Methane

This is not a fun article to read, but it NEEDS to be on the front page. It is sooooo much more important than the Bachmann, Gingrich, Snooki, whoever clown car parade we are overwhelme­d with on a daily basis.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Ron Paul

I wish I could get Granpa to investigate him further, but I don't think he will. Frankly, I am irritated with Granpa's bigotry, but I put up with it because he's old and stubborn and nothing I say is going to change his mind anyway. I still fight with him on it, it's who I am.


Here is Paul on abortion, on his website in his own words.


To which I would respond "Hey, you  myopic, crusty old fart, there are 7 billion fucking people on this planet and "3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease." 


And here he is on education . 
 Just read the responses. It's incomplete and vague enough to be interpreted many ways.  
Since I have a kid who just spent 16 years in the public education system it makes the alarm bells go off in my mind. 


 I don't much care for glibertarians, I find them narrow-minded, intellectually lazy and generally pretty selfish and self-centered people.

If ya don't like beans...

Ya aint never tasted mine.

Oil Trades Near Six-Week High on Iran Threat to Crude Transport

December 27, 2011, 9:40 PM EST "..Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- "Oil traded near the highest level in six weeks after Iran threatened to block crude transportation through the Strait of Hormuz, increasing concern that global supplies will be curbed amid shrinking U.S. stockpiles.
 ...Oil for February delivery was at $101.54 a barrel, up 20 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:12 a.m. Singapore time. It rose $1.66, or 1.7 percent, to $101.34 a barrel yesterday, the highest settlement since Nov. 16. Futures have climbed 11 percent this year after increasing 15 percent in 2010..."

  Sam's Exchange: The Irony of Iranian Sanctions
18:26 20/12/2011
Biweekly column by Sam Barden
 "...Of course the biggest loser out of sanctions on Iranian oil is Europe. Europe currently imports about 900,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil. Europe has not been able to agree a ban on oil imports, and is unlikely to. The biggest importers of Iranian oil in Europe is Spain, Italy Greece and Portugal. Any sanctions on Iranian oil would cripple these already struggling economies..."

  China’s Frustrated Iran Diplomacy
December 26, 2011
By Willem van Kemenade

 "...The next step was the publication in November of a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s “progress” toward a nuclear device, including computer modelling of a nuclear warhead, testing explosives in a large metal chamber and studying how to arm a Shahab 3 medium-range missile with an atomic warhead. However, the report was considered too weak by Russia and China to justify more sanction..." Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011 Medvedev: Test of much-heralded new missile done