Author's posts

Oct 13 2010

Prime Time

Goodbye Bobby Cox.  What has made the Atlanta Braves the most consistent team (in terms of post season appearences) over the last 2 decades is the same thing that has made the Yankees (in terms of world championships) consistent.

Ownership that was unafraid to spend what it took to field a competitive team and insisted on winning.

Ted Turner, the genius behind the Braves, gets maybe a little less credit than he should, because he took a struggling team and built a media empire around it.  Back in the days of early cable TBS was the Braves and WGN was the Cubs.  Is YES network on your cable today?

The Yankees have natural advantages based on their local market and nationally they’re the team everyone loves to hate so they sell the eyeballs where ever they go and get the most attention, but the Braves have a record too.

Tonight the Rangers have a chance to choke against the Rays.  Ah well, be careful what you wish for.

Premiers across the board on broadcast, you know who you are.

Later-

Dave hosts Matt Damon and My Morning Jacket.  Jon has Eric Cantor (expect one of those extended web interviews), Stephen- Brendan Steinhauser, Freedomworks (no link for you).  No Alton.

Boondocks– The Story of Gangstalicious

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Oct 12 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Record protests hit France in pensions showdown

by Roland Lloyd Parry, AFP

42 mins ago

PARIS (AFP) – More than a million French workers marched Tuesday in the biggest protest yet against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pensions reform, threatening to extend strikes disrupting trains, planes and refineries.

Students and school pupils joined the movement for the first time and staff in several sectors threatened to make the strikes open-ended, escalating the toughest battle of Sarkozy’s presidency, as the government dug in its heels.

“Sarko, you’re screwed, the young are on the streets,” chanted students as they marched beside trade unionists and their supporters on the fourth major nationwide demonstration against pension reform in just over a month.

Oct 12 2010

Another Opportunity for FAIL

BREAKING: Federal judge orders Obama admin. to stop DADT discharges immediately. Will Obama comply, or side with the bigots?

Posted by John Aravosis (DC) at 10/12/2010 02:49:00 PM

The President, who is himself a constitutional scholar, has been handed the golden opportunity to end DADT once and for all. A federal judge has now ruled that the gay ban is unconstitutional, and he has ordered the federal government to stop the discharges immediately. The President now has the power – given to him by a federal judge – to do the right thing, to do what he promised, to side with the civil rights community. All he has to do is not appeal, and DADT is over.

It’s a no-brainer. Even for this administration that is loathe to do anything bold, loathe to be seen as responsible for anything even slightly “controversial.” Well, now they have their out. It’s the judge’s fault. President Obama can simply choose not to appeal the case, to respect the judge’s decision, and DADT is over. It’s history.

Or the President can direct his Department of Justice to oppose the judge’s order, to appeal the case, and to defend DADT – to defend bigotry, to go down in history on the same side as those who chose to defend discrimination against another class of Americans earlier in the 20th century. It’s no longer up to Congress, it’s not longer “out of the President’s hands.”  It’s in Barack Obama’s hands. Will America’s first African-American president side with the bigots, or will he side with civil rights.  Will he act boldly, or will he choose the way of the coward?

Oct 12 2010

Not Just Foreclosures!

Do you want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?

Special today just for you.

If there is one single simple message I want you to take away from my writing about this issue, IT’S NOT JUST FORECLOSURES!

Every transfer of real estate from a seller to a buyer involves a title search which includes little things like just what are the boundaries of the property AND WHO OWNS IT!

If you pay cash, who owns “your” property is perfectly clear (usually) but we don’t customarily hand over wheel barrows of bills or even cut a check.

Usually you purchase by financing and share your title with a bank which has the right to seize your property if you don’t make the payments specified in your contract.  You’ll also be expected to pay for “title insurance”.  This protects the bank’s investment if it is later discovered that the person who sold it to to you has about as much right to sell it as I have to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge (you set a hard bargain, how about just what you have in your pocket right now?).  You, on the other hand, won’t get much satisfaction from it.

Now if you don’t pay the bank they take your property and sell it.  That’s foreclosure.  But what if you are paying the bank and have a better offer come along?

Well, normally you could just pay the bank what you owe (including the penalties in the fine print that they use to make this difficult and expensive for you and profitable for them) and accept the money from the new purchaser and transfer the title.

You found a sucker who’s willing to buy the Brooklyn Bridge for more than you paid me?  Congratulations Gordon Gekko.  Greed is good.

On the other hand, what has happened if you have financed or re-financed in the last 10 years is that your title (even supposing I had a legitimate claim to the Brooklyn Bridge because it was built on and with the bones of my Viking Ancestors) has been sliced and diced into so many pieces that the banks can’t track it anymore.

You can’t sell your property because you don’t have clear title.

Anyone who buys property at the moment is no better than a rube who’d buy the Brooklyn Bridge if the price was right, and this is ALL property.  That there is a market at all is a testimony to how many rubes are born every minute.

Now me, I have the $6.45 you had in your pocket which I’ve already invested in a bottle of Night Train so I can sleep under my bridge.

Your government, Barack Hussein Obama and all his Washington Wall Street Wizard Advisors, think that if they can just keep you from peeking at that man behind the curtain you’ll always find a sucker to sell to, but the title insurance companies aren’t buying it.

Nor should you.

Oct 12 2010

Barack Hussein Obama: Fierce Advocate!

Miami Thrice: DCCC to Gay Iraq Vet, "Your Money’s No Good Here"

By: Teddy Partridge Monday October 11, 2010 4:55 pm

Your money’s no good here, sir: seems to cover it. Anthony Woods was good enough to get sent to Harvard by the military, good enough to lead men in battle in Iraq, and good enough to admit to West Point. But his money’s no good to the Democrats who won’t repeal DADT. And the President who won’t issue a stop/loss order to suspend DADT discharges can’t even face Anthony Woods man-to-man.

Or perhaps this black gay man was unwelcome in NBA superstar Alonzo Mourning’s home.

Well, then – my money is no good either. I’ll give when I get Equal, too.

More posts by Teddy about today’s protests at the Barack Obama/Alonzo Mourning Miami Fundraiser.

Coverage from Americablog Gay-

Oct 12 2010

Prime Time

Mostly premiers on broadcast.  Let’s check our brackets shall we?  Yankees and Phillies sweep.  The Braves’ third string 2nd baseman has error problems and will sit, which is probably the best thing for both him and the team.  He’s not really the problem anyway, it’s that the Braves’ offense has sucked.  The Rangers can’t possibly prove what great choke artists they are tonight since they’re not playing until tomorrow.  The Braves could lose it all though on TBS.  Should the Rays and the Giants win against my expectations I just don’t think they pose any problems the Yankees and Phillies can’t solve in a 7 game series.

But it’s only sports folks, a diversion from the fact that the title to your house is fraudulent and all those Collateralized Mortgage Obligations and derivatives the banks are basing their balance sheets on worthless.

It’s not just foreclosures, it’s every piece of property in the United States and collectively they are the single largest asset in the entire world financial system.

Still, while we’re waiting for Armageddon at least we have 3rd rate entertainment to divert us from our imminent destruction.

Later-

Dave hosts Jim Parsons, Geoffrey Canada, Mark Ronson and the Business Intl. with Q-Tip and MNDR.  Jon has Johnny Knoxville (idiot), Stephen Robert Reich (which might be interesting, but he’s basically pitching his book).  Double down Alton, Tempura fry and Chicken fry.

Boondocks– A Date With the Health Inspector.

Anyone getting Hub Network?  They’re featuring Laverne & Shirley and Adam West, Burt Ward Batman.

I don’t like your manners.

And I’m not crazy about yours. I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners, I don’t like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don’t mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don’t waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.

I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.

Oct 12 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 British hostage may have been killed by US grenade: Cameron

by Danny Kemp, AFP

29 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – A British aid worker who died in an attempt to rescue her from her Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan may have been killed by a grenade detonated by US troops, Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday.

Linda Norgrove, 36, was abducted on September 26 in eastern Afghanistan and killed in the failed US-led operation on Friday. British officials had earlier said she died when one of her captors blew up a suicide vest.

Cameron said an immediate investigation had been launched into Norgrove’s death but he defended the attempt to rescue her, saying that she had been in “grave danger” from the moment she was captured.

Oct 11 2010

Another Crisis Obama Ignored

Monday Business Edition

As much as I would like it to be, the chief problem with Barack Hussein Obama is not Civil Liberties on which he is in fact objectively worse than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Nope.

It’s that he’s a coward economically.

We KNOW! what works and policymakers have willfully choosen to avoid it for the sake of academic reputation and neo-liberal policy purity.

The latest symptom in our economic fever is Title Fraud.  If you’ve financed or re-financed your home in the last 10 years (and who wouldn’t with the interest rates so low?) your title is now in doubt.

Not that this is a problem for you personally or, it shouldn’t be. You’ve maintained your good faith payments to your servicing company which they’ve presumably used in a rational manner to keep that 2nd derivative universe (of which they are Masters ‘Elanie‘ O’Donnell) cranking around.

In translation masturbatory fantasies of value created by leverage.

My ancient Economics 101 Perfesser (twisted and wizend from long years surviving an actual Depression) told me- “It’s only paper profits until you sell it.”

Your good old mortgage should protect your serfdom to your property, but the people who’ve placed their bets on black are going to be exceedingly disappointed when the wheel stops on double zero.  This market has a long way to crash.

And we’ve done nothing at all about it and the economic team (with the exception of Geither) jumped ship to avoid accepting responsibility for this disaster.

Except of course the buck stops at that Oval Office desk Obama occupies.

Government had been warned for months about troubles in mortgage servicer industry

By Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, October 9, 2010; 10:11 PM

Consumer advocates and lawyers warned federal officials in recent years that the U.S. foreclosure system was designed to seize people’s homes as fast as possible, often without regard to the rights of homeowners.

In recent days, amid reports that major lenders have used improper procedures and fraudulent paperwork to seize properties, some Obama administration officials have acknowledged they had been aware of flaws in how the mortgage industry pursues foreclosures.

…

Housing advocates and government reports gave several reasons why servicers try to foreclose so quickly.

In general, servicers make more money when they foreclose on a loan than when they find a better arrangement for the borrower. That’s because the payments to the servicer decline when a loan is modified. But if instead the borrower is in default, the servicer adds fees on the account and can collect when the house is sold, even at foreclosure.

In addition, servicers are under pressure to continue to transfer the money paid by the borrower to the investor in the loan. When a borrower isn’t paying the loan, the servicer has to cover the difference.

Moreover, servicers can expect to charge more if they receive higher ratings from credit rating agencies. And the faster a servicer forecloses when loans are in default, the higher the rating they stand to receive.

Business News below.

Oct 11 2010

Prime Time

Broadcast premiers.  The Amazing Race.  Sunday Night Throwball, Iggles @ 9ers.  You’d think Twins/Yankees on TBS, but the Yankees already closed out in 3 so you’ll have to settle for Phillies @ Reds on TNT.  No idea what TBS will fill with.

And how are our brackets doing?  Rays even up, told you the Rangers were not that good.  Braves even up against the Giants (pending this afternoon’s results, Giants 1 – 0 in the 7th as I write).  Phillies can close out.

Later-

Childrens Hospital, Metalocalypse (premiers).  New Venture Brothers (last week’s episode Everybody Comes to Hank’s

Prepare every vessel that floats.  At dawn we go to war.

Oct 10 2010

Evening Edition

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Rioters attack Serb police, ruling party HQ at Gay Pride

by Aleksandra Niksic, AFP

1 hr 6 mins ago

BELGRADE (AFP) – Right-wing extremists hurled petrol bombs at Serb police, torched the ruling party’s offices and stoned the headquarters of state television Sunday in pitch battles on the sidelines of a Gay Pride march.

Scores of people were injured in the violence as protestors, dressed mainly in black and with hooded tops, hurled rocks and molotov cocktails at security forces trying to ensure Belgrade’s second ever Gay Pride event could go ahead.

Rioters also managed to set fire to the headquarters of President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS) to protest his support for the march. The flames were quickly put out and no one was hurt.

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