I think that it is a good thing that the Maryland leg, and Governor O’Malley has signed into law, substantial changes in the time lines for foreclosures.
Basic gist of the bill is that the ender cannot file for foreclosure until at least 90 days after default, and there must be 45 days notice of foreclosure, with personal service, meaning a guy handing you papers.
It used to be theoretically possible to foreclose in 15 days.
I’ve been following this technology since the late 1970s, when it was called the ABC (Advancing Blade Concept) helicopter, and I’ve always found the concept interesting, so I’m kind of juiced about Sikorsky saying that the first flight of the X2 demonstrator is going to be relatively soon.
Yes, Donald Rumsfeld is set to publish his memoirs. It’s on my reading list, just after “Atlas Shrugged”, which is at some point colder than hell freezing over.
Courtesy of angryflower.com, click for full cartoon.
The dollar is tanking again, this time on inflation worries, and Oil is above $113/bbl driven by demand and by the falling dollar.
In real estate, foreclosures rise are up 57% over a year ago, 5% over February, and I don’t see that number leveling off any time soon.
Just in case you are wondering, the New York Times is looking at the Wave of Bankruptcies that are sweeping mid tier retailers.
Standard and Poors is warning that the GSEs are facing increasing risks as the housing crisis deepens, and so they might at some future time have to downgrade them.
Being the 2nd and 3rd largest borrowers in the world, they are firmly in the “too big to fail” camp, the regulators have reduced the reserve capital requirements for the GSEs (also here), and Congress making noise about increasing their lending limits*, I’m not particularly confident in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remaining particularly solvent.
*Shoot me now, I’m agreeing with some puke economist from the Heritage Foundation.
It looks like there are a couple of very prominent targets for law makers looking to pay for Iraq, the DDG-1000, and MPF-F.
The DDG-1000, aka the Zumwalt class destroyer, is a very large, about 14,500 tons displacement (the Arleigh Burkes in service are about 8,500 tons, and the Ticonderoga class cruisers are only about 10,000 tons). It’s also very expensive, and as a result, the proposed buy has been cut from 32 ships to 7.
It is very much a product of the US Navy’s big ship fixation. It now looks to cost about 5x as much as the Burkes, and prices are still rising, and the benefits of a larger ship are largely outweighed by the disadvantages of having fewer ships.
Simply put, you cover less area with fewer ships, though the Maine delegation will certainly fight hard for these, as will Mississippi, as they will likely be manufactured at Bath Iron Works in Maine and Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi.
The MPF-F (Maritime Prepositioning Force-Future) is basically an amphibious invasion fleet that will be standing ready around the clock:
But Democratic leaders of the House and Senate seapower subcommittees are discussing cutting their authorizations for the destroyer program to redirect funds elsewhere, and they have notably complained about shifting MPF-F definitions to a degree that they seem less enthusiastic about them than Littoral Combat Ships, for instance, which also have experienced programmatic troubles but appear to continue to enjoy congressional backing.
“I am concerned with the plans for the so called Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future) commonly known as the MPF(F),” House seapower chairman Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) said. “I am not convinced that the Navy and Marine Corps are in sync with the requirements for this force and I am not sure that the Navy has a reasonable plan to build these ships efficiently,” he said last month.
This is basically a way of saying that he does not think that the Navy has its sh%$ together on what it really needs from this.
My take is that the DDG-1000 is arguably inferior and more expensive solution to buying more Burkes, and I’m not sure that investing in “amphibious invasion fleets in a box” is something our current budget realities can support.
In this case, I’m referring to Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School in McLean, VA, who issued the edict because tag had become a game, “of intense aggression.”
One of the peculiarities of being a principal in the US, at least at public schools, is that you cannot work your way up through the ranks. You have to get a certification specific to being a principal.
Generally, this means that either you went in with the goal of being a principal, i.e. that you wanted to be “in education” but you did not want to teach, or you decided that you really didn’t like teaching that much.
So you get profoundly dysfunctional people like this, who think that any problem, and it appears that the tag was getting a bit rough can be solved with a mindless punitive over-reaction.
What’s more, they lack adult supervision, which is why teachers’ unions are the way they are. Would you want to work for someone like her?
In response to a collapsing population, Youngstown, Ohio has made the obvious, though politically audacious, decision to downsize the city.
They are demolishing abandoned homes, and in nearly deserted blocks, giving grants to move the last residents out, and then tearing up the streets and power lines, and converting them to green spaces.
It saves money on maintenance, street lights, etc.
It certainly makes a lot more sense than some of the schemes which have taxpayers paying well upwards of $100K/job to subsidize employers.
They are trying to force the Federal Elections Commision to take actions against John McCain for ignoring the campaign finance laws that he opted into in late 2007.
McCain and his campaign are engaging in a felony, and any thought of negotiations with him over public financing are premature until he stops breaking the law.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m involved in working in nuclear power, specifically the cleanup/decommissioning side (Yes, I am Homer Simpson).
Well, I’m on a new project now, and it’s a hot one.
Normally, when I’m on a hot project, it means time constrained. In this case, it also means that we are talking higher levels of radiation in the material to be processed. (My earlier project was intermediate level)
It’s hot in the normal way too. The firm, or at least my division, is doing quite nicely, so we are time challenged on most things, and ramping up resources to meet the business needs.
Paul Krugman notes that while France has a consistently higher unemployment rate than the US, its employment rate is virtually indistinguishable from that of the US.
The employment rate for men is used because it is not effected by the fairly large changes in female workforce participation over the past 20 years.
France measures unemployment differently, and IMNSHO a lot more accurately.
He knew that his advisers were discussing this, and he approved their activities:
“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”
He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail
Stephen Hadley, Bush’s National Security Clown Advisor, repeatedly confused Nepal and Tibet on Stephanopoulos’s show when discussing the Olympics.
My guess is that this was an honest Freudian slip, Nepal, Nipple, and it just naturally falls to the lips…..Or maybe he’s just a completely incompetent ninny.
About three weeks ago, I expressed admiration for Pope Benedict XVI for bitch slapping Condi Rice by refusing an audience, and now he’s bitch slapping George W. Bush and ODL by refusing to attend a dinner in his honor at the White House.
I think that there are a number of things involved here:
I think that he’s much savvier in the ways of the world than his predecessor.
After 10 years, my daughter (the 10 year old), and the cat (age 15 more or less) how they have finally come to an appreciation of each other.
It might be more accurate to say that Natalie has finally come to understand, and acquiesce, to Lavi being a cat.
Natalie has always been Lavi’s person, just as Charlie has always been Tudza’s person. (I’m the mommy, they imprinted on me)
However, Natalie has only recently come to internalize the fact that Lavi is not a doll.
I don’t mean that she did things like dress Lavi up in dresses, but rather that unlike an inanimate toy, you have to reach an accommodation with a cat.
Natalie has never been comfortable with the cat sleeping on her, or with sharing her pillow with her, but finally, Natalie has created a space on her bed, right next to her own pillow, which is Lavi’s.
The surprising thing was that she could find space on her bed for this. There are about 80 gazillion stuffed animals on it (Only a slight exaggeration. This Weekend she said that she was at 357).
So now Lavi has her space, and Natalie has her space, and I don’t have complaints that, “Lavi is sleeping on me.”
Works for me.
It appears that US and Iraqi negotiators have yet to resolve significant issues involved an occupation enabling agreement, in which Bush and His Evil Minions™ have been attempting an end run on the constitutional requirement that treaties require Senate approval to create an “Iraq forever” framework.
The sticking points appear to be:
If you look at these, these are questions of basic sovereignty, and the US wants nothing to do with real power to an Iraqi governing body.
This setback is a very good thing for the US and for Iraq. Neither benefits from continuing occupation.
Tom Engelhardt makes a very convincing case that US air power is making terrorism worse, not better.
His thesis is that, “U.S. air power has, in the last six and a half years, been an effective force in a war for terror, not against it.”
When one considers the nature of the United States’ use of air power, particularly on a strategic level, it has largely proved a failure.
In WWII, when the entire 8th air force was focused on bombing the German aircraft industry during the “big week”, aircraft production increased.
In Viet Nam, bombing increased the support of the Viet Cong in the south, and of the general citizenry in the north, as the North Vietnamese civil defense authorities have attested to repeatedly.
While strategic bombing is more often a failure than not, and is currently failing in both Iraq and Afghanistan because it is the strongest recruiting tool of Jihadists, but the military, including the Army and, to a lesser extent, the Marines, continue to call air strikes in rather than clearing buildings.
It is a fundamental error in doctrine that permeates the US military establishment.
Abu Gonzales cannot find anyone willing to hire him. He’s too toxic.
Yes, the author of the Harry Potter series is suing a small publisher over their publishing a Harry Potter encyclopedia.
It appears that Rowling , “feels like her words were stolen”.
Tough. Copyright is not ownership, and it was never intended to be ownership. It is a limited time exclusive license, and people are allowed to do things like create encyclopedias.
In fact, this was the sort of activity that was specifically intended under copyright.
Under your view of copyright, Shakespeare’s folios, from which the plays were published, would have been suppressed, which would make all of us poorer in a most profound way.
She “loves” the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site, but had to “draw the line” at his publishing a book based on this material.
Frankly, you have no right to do this. Literally, unless the person has fully appropriated large blocks of your text.
Names, relationships, a plot chart of the story line (assuming that author Steven Vander Ark developed himself), they aren’t your property.
Copyright was created to promote the useful sciences and arts, at least in the USA, the fact that someone is diagramming the finer points of your tale is none of your damn business, though I’m sure you can probably bankrupt the publisher.