February 7, 2011 archive

Housing is About to Roll Over … Again.

According to Bloomberg today, US homeowners in the foreclosure process were an average of 507 days late on payments in 2010 compared to last years record of 406 days late in 2009 (a 25% increase).

According to Realty Trac a record 2.87 million properties received a notice of default last year, despite a 30 month low in December caused by the robo-signing scandal, and that number is expected to climb this year.

A record 1 million homes were foreclosed upon and nearly 7 million mortgages are at least 30 days in arrears, but FNM expects home prices to rise in 2011.

Foreclosures have weighed down U.S. housing prices as the nation’s unemployment rate is stuck at more than 9 percent. Home values may rise 0.6 percent for the year, the first annual jump since 2006, according to Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage buyer.

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Our regular featured content-

And these articles-

Along with Translator’s weekly feature Pique the Geek: and mine- Monday Business Edition.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Candidate Forum, Special Election for DC’s At-Large City Council

cross-posted from Sum of Change

Last week, we attended a candidate forum for candidates in the special election for Washington, DC’s At-Large City Council. We were hosted by DC for Democracy, Greater Greater Washington, and the DC Environmental Network. This event was streamed live and you can watch the entire recording of that livefeed here. Below, you will find videos broken out by question. We have posted every question that was asked, in the order it was asked. Enjoy!

CCR: Bush Torture Indictment

The Center for Constitutional Rights has released the Torture Indictment against former President George W. Bush!

Done In Our Names

The blowback will be felt for the coming decades, he on the other hand just wants to sell his book and reap more wealth from speaking, if one can call what he does when mouth opens speaking!

Those Who Can Teach; Life Lessons Learned



ThsWhCnTch

copyright © 2011 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches

~ George Bernard Shaw [Man and Superman, 1903]

“A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

I heard the words for as long as I recall. The meaning was intricately  woven into my mind. I, as all little children since George Bernard Shaw scribed his belief, “He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches,” was taught to believe that Teachers could choose no other career.  Educators, entrusted with children’s lives were indeed, incapable beings.  These individuals had tried and failed to perform well in professions that required intellect and, or dexterity.  Because the incompetent were inept, they fled to schools and identified themselves as “Teachers.”  In classrooms, less than sage scholars could teach with little authentic expertise.  Today, as a culture, Americans choose to prove this erroneous truth.  Grading the Teachers: Value-Added Analysis.

Super Bowl Ads: One Small Step for Man

Last year’s slue of Super Bowl commercials put a new spin on tired traditions.  Hyper-masculinity was predictably glorified and exaggerated, women were shown to be little more than sexual objects, and blatant homophobia was present in a variety of ads.  Each catered to an overarching idea that traditional masculinity was under attack from women, homosexuality, and femininity.  The derisive phrase “the year of anxious masculinity” rightfully summarized the general feel and content of much of what aired.  That particular slate of advertisements was nothing terribly novel in and of itself, but it did hearken back even farther than recent memory.  The antecedent for each was, in part, one pervasive story.

HuffPo Bought By AOL

This morning’s news says that beleaguered, dinosaur of dial up AOL has bought Huffington Post and made the doyenne of digital, Arianna, an executive.  Here’s the news from the New York Times:


The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.

The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline.

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

Six In The Morning

For Some Reason They Don’t Trust Or Believe You  



Egyptian government offers concessions as street protests continue

The Egyptian government yesterday began to offer possible political concessions in an effort to control the crisis still engulfing the country, as tens of thousands of determined protesters rallied for a 13th day to demand the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

The new promises of political reform were treated with caution by the opposition groups as they held the first of a series of meetings – including the first between the hitherto outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and the regime – to discuss their demands with Mr Mubarak’s deputy, Omar Suleiman.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

–Ivan Turgenev



Chains

Typical Products of Afghanistan and the USA

Typical Products

Judging from the archaeological evidence, we can only conclude that Afghanistan was invaded by primitive “beer-tribes” from beyond the sea.

On Getting A Warning, Or, For Just One Day, I’ll Be The CIA

We are in day whatever it is of the Crisis In Egypt, and we have now reached the part where, in the USA, we begin pointing fingers and ducking and dodging as we begin to address the question of why no one saw this coming.

Now, as Thomas Barnett would say, the race will be on inside the Pentagon and around the intelligence community to have the best explanation-and to turn that explanation into the greatest PowerPoint slide the world has ever seen.

And we all know it’s going to be the same old story: “Nobody could have anticipated this event…but if you would just give us a few billion more to develop some program or another, we, along with our contractor partners, will get a handle on this.”

Well I’m here today to break that cycle: with no PowerPoint, no contractor partners…and no fat consulting fee required…I will give the US Government all the forseeing they could ever need; that way, when the next uprising happens, no one can say “we never saw it coming.”

from firefly-dreaming 6.2.11

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Essays Featured Sunday, February 6th:

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