They started hunting gray wolves in the high reaches of the Rocky Mountains on Tuesday, the first time in years that people have been allowed to shoot for sport this genetic cousin of man’s best friend.
For those who hate wolves and long for the era when they were wiped off the map, and for those who welcomed back this call of the wild, the last few days have revealed some dark feelings in the changing West — and some strength of character as well.
A Republican candidate for governor of Idaho, Rex Rammell, was at a political barbecue last week when somebody brought up the tags used by wolf hunters, and then made a reference to killing the president of the United States.
“Obama tags?” Rammell replied, to laughter, according to an account in The Times-News of Twin Falls. “We’d buy some of those.”
In the Idaho of the past, jokes about shooting a president could sometimes be dismissed without consequence. Indeed, the comment was buried in an initial news story about the gathering, and Rammell sloughed it off later, saying on his Web site that “Obama hunting tags was just a joke! Everyone knows Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue tags in Washington, D.C.”
Ha-ha. What a knee-slapper, these assassination jokes. And besides, he couldn’t hunt down Obama with out-of-state tags. Get it?
This episode was not unlike a town hall meeting last month in the northern California district of Wally Herger, a Republican congressman. When people show up at an event that is supposed to be about health care, and get their applause by proclaiming themselves to be “a proud, right-wing terrorist,” as one man did in front of an approving Herger, you know they could care less about defined insurance benefits.
As with wolves, the fear has many faces, and the true source of it is seldom clear.
But what followed in Idaho was rare in a year of endangered civility. The Idaho Republican establishment came down hard on Rammell, condemning the comments of a fringe candidate who channels voices that have found a wide airing in the YouTube age.
Of course, the reaction could be driven by self-interest. For years, Idaho officials have been trying to convince businesses that their state is not a hotbed of hate-filled rubes, gun-toting racists and assorted nut jobs getting their information from Glenn Beck. Tech companies that thrive in the New West metro area of Boise and the outdoor paradise of the north say the state’s reputation has severely hurt efforts to recruit ethnic minorities.
But this is a changed state in a quick-stirring part of the country — not necessarily less Republican, but certainly less tolerant of the kind of hate speech that used to flow with warm beer on late nights at the wacko corral. Obama, the candidate, drew about 14,000 people in his appearance in Boise last year — putting it among the largest political gatherings in state history. He got just under 47 percent of the vote in Ada County, the state’s most populous.
The wolf hunt has brought out feelings that have less to do with Canis lupus than with something more deep-seated. Gray wolves were exterminated long ago in most Western states, a campaign of blood lust, terror and bounty kills. In some counties it was against the law not to put wolf poison on the fence post. Their return by federal wildlife officials has been such a success that two states, Montana and Idaho, have authorized hunting to keep the numbers in check.
Whether the reintroduced wolf packs — which feast on elk, deer and occasional domestic livestock — can still flourish even with the hunt is an issue now before the courts. But this call to arms against an animal that has been historically misunderstood by most anyone whose name is not St. Francis of Assisi is in part a fear of letting the wild back into Western lands.
Rammell himself is a prime exhibit of a nature-phobe. Until 2007, he made his living in elk ranching, which he calls “a novel agricultural enterprise.” Imagine this majestic creature at dawn in a high mountain meadow, in all its glory. Now imagine it inside a fenced-off plot while someone tries to domesticate it into stupidity. That’s elk ranching.
As for wolves, Rammell wants them all dead, dead, dead. “I believe wolves need to be eliminated,” he says on his Web site. Does it matter to him that they roamed every Western state long before Rex Rammell starting tossing one-liners to red-faced Republicans blowing on their soup at the diner?
Probably not. But judging by the success of tourism built around wolf sightings, the four-legged hunter is back in the West to stay. Still, it would help all concerned if what we talk about when talking about wolves was just that."
I'll tell you what Ash is. He's an asshole that doesn't have what it takes to make it through Medical School. He is an asshole that doesn't have what it takes to make it through Law School. He doesn't have what it takes to farm for decades like I had done.
Ash is an incompetent asshole.
A smart ass, whose pappa is some kind of proferror.
"this genetic cousin of man’s best friend." --- Indeed a "hybrid" from Hell: Knowing two World's, enjoying greens/commies throwing mankind to the wolves.
...like having a Muslim Jihadist with the brains of a Joo!
Ash said... "yes, yes, yes, let's stop bullying, cyberbullying 'cause the POTUS is using his bully pulpit to pollute our clean pure children minds." --- A_h, of course, would have NO Problem with lesson plans for kiddies instructing them to come up with plans for how they can Help President George W Bush. My A_s!
For the second time, Mr. A_h, 49, of Maine, was arrested over Memorial Day weekend for climbing into a pit toilet in the White Mountain National Forest, in the same location where he was arrested for the same crime in 2005.
According to The Smoking Gun, a young boy was alarmed when he went to the outhouse and saw that the toilet had been moved. What was even more alarming was the head of A_h peering out of it. He reportedly told the boy, "man, sorry about that, I was getting my shirt."
He was later seen leaving the scene, soaking wet (ewww).
Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites
By Ken Boehm Created 08/31/2009 - 19:07 NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”
In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation # WHO-S-09-0003, it is posted [1] at FedBizzOps.com.
While the solicitation specifies a 12-month contract, it allows for seven one-year extensions. It specifies no dollar cap. Other troubling issues include:
extremely broad secrecy terms preventing the vendor from disclosing to the public or the media what information is being captured and archived (page 7, “Restriction Against Disclosure”)
wholesale capturing of comments by non-White House staff on publicly accessible sites
capturing of content of any type (text, graphics, audio, or video)
capturing of comments by both Obama critics and supporters, with no restriction as to how the White House would use the information.
This is the third controversy involving the White House internet operations in less than a month. First, Obama’s New Media operation asked supporters to send information about critics of the White House health care effort to a White House email. This provoked a storm of criticism and the White House retreated. Then large number of people complained of getting email spam from the White House supporting the President’s health care position. Again the White House was forced to back down.
Now the same people at the White House are at it again with an ambitious plan to harvest huge amounts of information from the web and specifically social networking sites.
Given the White House’s recent abuse of its New Media operations, this huge, new secretive program is yet another sign that this Administration is at best indifferent to privacy rights and at worst prepared to violate civil liberties for political purposes.
Perhaps anticipating negative reaction to the invasiveness of the plan, a justification is provided in a Q&A. section of the solicitation. Question #9 reads:
The Presidential Records Act does not require the storage or archiving of non-EOP content, as such is there a specific reason as to why the content provided on EOP related websites in the form of comments is included in these archiving procedures?
Answer: The PRA includes in its definition of presidential records content ―received by PRA components and personnel. Out of an abundance of caution, we are treating comments made by non-PRA personnel on sites on which a PRA component has a presence as presidential records, requiring them to be captured or sampled.
Of course, this interpretation of the Presidential Records Act is so expansive that virtually any communication mentioning the president or the Administration could become subject to collection and archiving under the Act. This is not out of an “abundance of caution,” but out of an over-abundance of power. President Obama should make sure that this plan goes no further.
Iain Armstrong, analyst at Brewin Dolphin, said the discovery may have implications for long-term oil prices.
"It will ease concerns about peak oil because it shows there is life left in these mature areas," he said, adding that it could be the second half of the next decade before the find is producing.
To keep hitting home runs in the gulf, BP needs to find more challenging plays. Its explorers have been locking up positions in even more difficult areas west of Thunder Horse. In August, BP led the bidding at the biannual lease auctions held by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Dept. in New Orleans. BP bid about $50 million of the $145 million total for about 40 tracts in the western gulf.
Two other huge deepwater Gulf of Mexico fields, BP's Atlantis and Mad Dog, have also come onstream in recent years. BP is now the lead producer in the gulf, and projects such as Thunder Horse have added about 1.2 million barrels per day to total U.S. output, arresting a long decline in American production and decreasing dependence on imported energy. The deepwater gulf is "one of the few bright spots in global oil production," says Bob MacKnight, an analyst at consultants PFC Energy in Washington. BP now reckons an additional 22 billion to 40 billion barrels of reserves are to be found there.
Easy to imagine that MOST oil fields closed down in the early days would have additional yield when exploited by modern technology funded by higher prices.
ABC News - Lindsey Ellerson - 1 hour ago Former Ohio Democratic Rep. Jim Traficant, left, leaves a federal prison to a waiting cab this morning after serving seven years for bribery, racketeering and fraud.
The cubs outnumbered the cougars by 5 to 1, and while each cougar had her share of suitors and dance partners, the remaining cubs, growing more drunk and desperate with each passing moment, began to revert to a sort of fraternity house/Lord of the Flies mentality. One gentleman grew so angry with my polite refusals to dance with him, he started calling me a bitch. His name was Scott and towards the end of the night, Scott removed his suit jacket and dress shirt but not his tie, which he left dangling over his undershirt like a noose. Every half hour or so, Scott would come by and ask me why I was being such a "little f---ing bitch."
If you've ever been to a Freshman Prom, you've basically been to the Cougar Convention. It was hot, only the popular people were having a good time and the whole time, there was this underlying vibe of sexual frustration, like an advertisement somewhere had promised attendees they'd get laid. A few cougars and cubs were making out in not-so-dark corners, but for the most part, women on the dance floor seemed slightly horrified to find their partners dry-humping their leg.
I don't know what these cougars were expecting. They're 22 year old guys at a Polynesian-themed hotel in Palo Alto, for chrissakes. This was a Cougar Convention, not a Mensa Convention. A_hholes abounded.
Makena Resort and its hotel, the Maui Prince, are now a toxic asset with creditors including the Swiss government.
UBS, the Swiss banking giant, put together the financing for the eye-popping sale of the resort for $575 million in 2007, using the commercial real estate version of the mortgage-backed residential real estate securities that caused so much grief in the housing market.
Only in this case, according to Barry Sullivan, the Honolulu attorney handling the foreclosure, there was no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to purchase the bonds created to fund the deal.
In this case, the lenders foreclose, the court appoints a receiver and eventually the receiver will hold an auction. If anybody bids, then the lenders get back some or all of their money.
Only, like houses in Phoenix, buyers are likely to be scarce. Probably only people willing and able to pay cash would be interested. The people who used to lend on CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) paper have disappeared.
A market that hardly existed 10 years ago, but which funneled billions of dollars a year into commercial real estate by 2007, doesn't exist anymore. Not a single CMBS deal has been reported this year. And, Sullivan said, the biggest hotel loan in the past year was a mere $10 million. --- Apparently, the Makena owners saw no hope of restructuring or of finding new lenders. So they appear to have lost something like $477 million in equity, now worthless mezzanine investments and another $75 million or more in projects undertaken at the resort.
New York Times - 49 minutes ago Curt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox pitcher who helped lead the team to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, indicated on Wednesday that he was considering running for the Senate seat in Massachusetts formerly held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.
In all, more than 70 names have been retired for the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico region, Feltgen said, and the process of devising new names is usually a low key process that attracts little attention.
But in 2001, the Hurricane Committee found it had created an uproar by adding, among others, the names "Israel" and "Adolph" to the Eastern North Pacific storm list.
Jewish leaders expressed outrage at the decision, and though officials noted that Israel and Adolph, spelled with a "ph" unlike Adolf Hitler, were common boy's names, they retired the names at the end of the season.
The yield on the No. 303, 1.4 percent issue, a key indicator of long- term interest rates, ended morning interdealer trading down 0.005 percentage point from Wednesday's close to 1.300 percent.
Traders said the drop in yield was limited as investors grew cautious about bonds becoming overpriced.
The price of the key September futures contract for 10-year bonds remained unchanged at 139.44 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
"Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it."
...for trish and whit...
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves"
...for all...
"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning."
congrts!!!!
ReplyDeletemazel tov!!
Welcome Aboard Allen.
ReplyDeleteA good day all around.
Here boobie, just for you:
ReplyDelete"Hunting Wolves, and Men
They started hunting gray wolves in the high reaches of the Rocky Mountains on Tuesday, the first time in years that people have been allowed to shoot for sport this genetic cousin of man’s best friend.
For those who hate wolves and long for the era when they were wiped off the map, and for those who welcomed back this call of the wild, the last few days have revealed some dark feelings in the changing West — and some strength of character as well.
A Republican candidate for governor of Idaho, Rex Rammell, was at a political barbecue last week when somebody brought up the tags used by wolf hunters, and then made a reference to killing the president of the United States.
“Obama tags?” Rammell replied, to laughter, according to an account in The Times-News of Twin Falls. “We’d buy some of those.”
In the Idaho of the past, jokes about shooting a president could sometimes be dismissed without consequence. Indeed, the comment was buried in an initial news story about the gathering, and Rammell sloughed it off later, saying on his Web site that “Obama hunting tags was just a joke! Everyone knows Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue tags in Washington, D.C.”
Ha-ha. What a knee-slapper, these assassination jokes. And besides, he couldn’t hunt down Obama with out-of-state tags. Get it?
This episode was not unlike a town hall meeting last month in the northern California district of Wally Herger, a Republican congressman. When people show up at an event that is supposed to be about health care, and get their applause by proclaiming themselves to be “a proud, right-wing terrorist,” as one man did in front of an approving Herger, you know they could care less about defined insurance benefits.
As with wolves, the fear has many faces, and the true source of it is seldom clear.
But what followed in Idaho was rare in a year of endangered civility. The Idaho Republican establishment came down hard on Rammell, condemning the comments of a fringe candidate who channels voices that have found a wide airing in the YouTube age.
Of course, the reaction could be driven by self-interest. For years, Idaho officials have been trying to convince businesses that their state is not a hotbed of hate-filled rubes, gun-toting racists and assorted nut jobs getting their information from Glenn Beck. Tech companies that thrive in the New West metro area of Boise and the outdoor paradise of the north say the state’s reputation has severely hurt efforts to recruit ethnic minorities.
But this is a changed state in a quick-stirring part of the country — not necessarily less Republican, but certainly less tolerant of the kind of hate speech that used to flow with warm beer on late nights at the wacko corral. Obama, the candidate, drew about 14,000 people in his appearance in Boise last year — putting it among the largest political gatherings in state history. He got just under 47 percent of the vote in Ada County, the state’s most populous.
The wolf hunt has brought out feelings that have less to do with Canis lupus than with something more deep-seated. Gray wolves were exterminated long ago in most Western states, a campaign of blood lust, terror and bounty kills. In some counties it was against the law not to put wolf poison on the fence post. Their return by federal wildlife officials has been such a success that two states, Montana and Idaho, have authorized hunting to keep the numbers in check.
ReplyDeleteWhether the reintroduced wolf packs — which feast on elk, deer and occasional domestic livestock — can still flourish even with the hunt is an issue now before the courts. But this call to arms against an animal that has been historically misunderstood by most anyone whose name is not St. Francis of Assisi is in part a fear of letting the wild back into Western lands.
Rammell himself is a prime exhibit of a nature-phobe. Until 2007, he made his living in elk ranching, which he calls “a novel agricultural enterprise.” Imagine this majestic creature at dawn in a high mountain meadow, in all its glory. Now imagine it inside a fenced-off plot while someone tries to domesticate it into stupidity. That’s elk ranching.
As for wolves, Rammell wants them all dead, dead, dead. “I believe wolves need to be eliminated,” he says on his Web site. Does it matter to him that they roamed every Western state long before Rex Rammell starting tossing one-liners to red-faced Republicans blowing on their soup at the diner?
Probably not. But judging by the success of tourism built around wolf sightings, the four-legged hunter is back in the West to stay. Still, it would help all concerned if what we talk about when talking about wolves was just that."
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/hunting-wolves-and-men/
A shit
ReplyDeletea turd
plops
just in the lettice
not the
correct hole
(he doesn't know where that is)
when
we
were
Celebrating
For God's sake Ash, can't you just leave us to have a day of our own?
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you what Ash is. He's an asshole that doesn't have what it takes to make it through Medical
ReplyDeleteSchool. He is an asshole that doesn't have what it takes to make it through Law School. He doesn't have what it takes to farm for decades like I had done.
Ash is an incompetent asshole.
A smart ass, whose pappa is some kind of proferror.
Ash is an asshole.
WiO
ReplyDeleteBack at ya, Mate! ;-)
That last should have said professor, and, angry as I was, I fucked up.
ReplyDeleteהתגעגעתי אליך
ReplyDeleteWhat does this mean?
Mat told me I could learn Hebrew, but I told him, I'm just too old.
Help!
Why, o why, do you have to take a really dirty shit right in front of the party, under the graceful elm trees, when we are all getting along, Ash?
ReplyDeleteIt is truly disgraceful.
It is disgusting.
ReplyDeleteHere we had a pleasant day, and Ash took a good big crap right in the middle of it.
It is very disgusting.
You, Ash, are disgusting.
A disgusting fool.
"this genetic cousin of man’s best friend."
ReplyDelete---
Indeed a "hybrid" from Hell:
Knowing two World's, enjoying greens/commies throwing mankind to the wolves.
...like having a Muslim Jihadist with the brains of a Joo!
Ash said...
ReplyDelete"yes, yes, yes, let's stop bullying, cyberbullying 'cause the POTUS is using his bully pulpit to pollute our clean pure children minds."
---
A_h, of course, would have NO Problem with lesson plans for kiddies instructing them to come up with plans for how they can Help President George W Bush.
My A_s!
Pit Toilet Peeper Strikes Again!
ReplyDeleteFor the second time, Mr. A_h, 49, of Maine, was arrested over Memorial Day weekend for climbing into a pit toilet in the White Mountain National Forest, in the same location where he was arrested for the same crime in 2005.
According to The Smoking Gun, a young boy was alarmed when he went to the outhouse and saw that the toilet had been moved. What was even more alarming was the head of A_h peering out of it.
He reportedly told the boy, "man, sorry about that, I was getting my shirt."
He was later seen leaving the scene, soaking wet (ewww).
Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites
ReplyDeleteBy Ken Boehm
Created 08/31/2009 - 19:07
NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”
In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation # WHO-S-09-0003, it is posted [1] at FedBizzOps.com.
While the solicitation specifies a 12-month contract, it allows for seven one-year extensions. It specifies no dollar cap. Other troubling issues include:
extremely broad secrecy terms preventing the vendor from disclosing to the public or the media what information is being captured and archived (page 7, “Restriction Against Disclosure”)
wholesale capturing of comments by non-White House staff on publicly accessible sites
capturing of content of any type (text, graphics, audio, or video)
capturing of comments by both Obama critics and supporters, with no restriction as to how the White House would use the information.
This is the third controversy involving the White House internet operations in less than a month. First, Obama’s New Media operation asked supporters to send information about critics of the White House health care effort to a White House email. This provoked a storm of criticism and the White House retreated. Then large number of people complained of getting email spam from the White House supporting the President’s health care position. Again the White House was forced to back down.
Now the same people at the White House are at it again with an ambitious plan to harvest huge amounts of information from the web and specifically social networking sites.
Given the White House’s recent abuse of its New Media operations, this huge, new secretive program is yet another sign that this Administration is at best indifferent to privacy rights and at worst prepared to violate civil liberties for political purposes.
Perhaps anticipating negative reaction to the invasiveness of the plan, a justification is provided in a Q&A. section of the solicitation. Question #9 reads:
The Presidential Records Act does not require the storage or archiving of non-EOP content, as such is there a specific reason as to why the content provided on EOP related websites in the form of comments is included in these archiving procedures?
Answer: The PRA includes in its definition of presidential records content ―received by PRA components and personnel. Out of an abundance of caution, we are treating comments made by non-PRA personnel on sites on which a PRA component has a presence as presidential records, requiring them to be captured or sampled.
Of course, this interpretation of the Presidential Records Act is so expansive that virtually any communication mentioning the president or the Administration could become subject to collection and archiving under the Act. This is not out of an “abundance of caution,” but out of an over-abundance of power. President Obama should make sure that this plan goes no further.
http://nlpc.org/print/2508
...like having a Muslim Jihadist with the brains of a Joo!
ReplyDeletegood one...
but true....
If the Jew had the lack of a soul like the jihadists?
there would be no argument about middle east peace...
there would be no arabs anymore..
...like having a Muslim Jihadist with the brains of a Joo!
ReplyDeletegood one...
but true....
If the Jew had the lack of a soul like the jihadists?
there would be no argument about middle east peace...
there would be no arabs anymore..
BP's oil find in the Keathley Canyon block 102 is being reported as about 250 miles SE of Houston. I believe that puts it in US waters.
ReplyDeleteIain Armstrong, analyst at Brewin Dolphin, said the discovery may have implications for long-term oil prices.
ReplyDelete"It will ease concerns about peak oil because it shows there is life left in these mature areas," he said, adding that it could be the second half of the next decade before the find is producing.
BTW - Welcome aboard, Allen and try to heed Trish's advice.
ReplyDeleteTo keep hitting home runs in the gulf, BP needs to find more challenging plays. Its explorers have been locking up positions in even more difficult areas west of Thunder Horse. In August, BP led the bidding at the biannual lease auctions held by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Dept. in New Orleans. BP bid about $50 million of the $145 million total for about 40 tracts in the western gulf.
ReplyDeleteTwo other huge deepwater Gulf of Mexico fields, BP's Atlantis and Mad Dog, have also come onstream in recent years. BP is now the lead producer in the gulf, and projects such as Thunder Horse have added about 1.2 million barrels per day to total U.S. output, arresting a long decline in American production and decreasing dependence on imported energy. The deepwater gulf is "one of the few bright spots in global oil production," says Bob MacKnight, an analyst at consultants PFC Energy in Washington. BP now reckons an additional 22 billion to 40 billion barrels of reserves are to be found there.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much oil is really out there...
ReplyDeleteit was in the news just a day ago about a west texas oil guy figuring out that the industry drain area for a well was between 30-40 acres?
This guy is dropping wells in old fields in between the old holes and figuring a drain area of about 10 acres...
if that logic is sound then as demand grows for oil, (as does the price) these more precise drillings could have hugh impact...
Easy to imagine that MOST oil fields closed down in the early days would have additional yield when exploited by modern technology funded by higher prices.
ReplyDeleteABC News - Lindsey Ellerson - 1 hour ago
ReplyDeleteFormer Ohio Democratic Rep. Jim Traficant, left, leaves a federal prison to a waiting cab this morning after serving seven years for bribery, racketeering and fraud.
Time flies, on the outside.
Palo Alto IS Cougar Town...
ReplyDeleteThe cubs outnumbered the cougars by 5 to 1, and while each cougar had her share of suitors and dance partners, the remaining cubs, growing more drunk and desperate with each passing moment, began to revert to a sort of fraternity house/Lord of the Flies mentality. One gentleman grew so angry with my polite refusals to dance with him, he started calling me a bitch. His name was Scott and towards the end of the night, Scott removed his suit jacket and dress shirt but not his tie, which he left dangling over his undershirt like a noose. Every half hour or so, Scott would come by and ask me why I was being such a "little f---ing bitch."
If you've ever been to a Freshman Prom, you've basically been to the Cougar Convention. It was hot, only the popular people were having a good time and the whole time, there was this underlying vibe of sexual frustration, like an advertisement somewhere had promised attendees they'd get laid.
A few cougars and cubs were making out in not-so-dark corners, but for the most part, women on the dance floor seemed slightly horrified to find their partners dry-humping their leg.
I don't know what these cougars were expecting. They're 22 year old guys at a Polynesian-themed hotel in Palo Alto, for chrissakes. This was a Cougar Convention, not a Mensa Convention.
A_hholes abounded.
I heard Spitzer is gonna make a political comeback. (Steyn on Rush)
ReplyDeleteTraficant gave great speech.
ReplyDeleteFHA Backed Loans and No Money Down Government Financed Mortgages with Seller Funded Down Payment Assistance: $8,000 Tax Credit Costing $45,000 for Each Additional Home Sale.
ReplyDeleteMakena Resort, its Prince hotel now toxic asset
ReplyDeleteMakena Resort and its hotel, the Maui Prince, are now a toxic asset with creditors including the Swiss government.
UBS, the Swiss banking giant, put together the financing for the eye-popping sale of the resort for $575 million in 2007, using the commercial real estate version of the mortgage-backed residential real estate securities that caused so much grief in the housing market.
Only in this case, according to Barry Sullivan, the Honolulu attorney handling the foreclosure, there was no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to purchase the bonds created to fund the deal.
In this case, the lenders foreclose, the court appoints a receiver and eventually the receiver will hold an auction. If anybody bids, then the lenders get back some or all of their money.
Only, like houses in Phoenix, buyers are likely to be scarce. Probably only people willing and able to pay cash would be interested. The people who used to lend on CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) paper have disappeared.
A market that hardly existed 10 years ago, but which funneled billions of dollars a year into commercial real estate by 2007, doesn't exist anymore. Not a single CMBS deal has been reported this year.
And, Sullivan said, the biggest hotel loan in the past year was a mere $10 million.
---
Apparently, the Makena owners saw no hope of restructuring or of finding new lenders. So they appear to have lost something like $477 million in equity, now worthless mezzanine investments and another $75 million or more in projects undertaken at the resort.
Maui Prince lenders seek receiver HonoluluAdvertiser.com The Honolulu Advertiser
New York Times - 49 minutes ago
ReplyDeleteCurt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox pitcher who helped lead the team to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, indicated on Wednesday that he was considering running for the Senate seat in Massachusetts formerly held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.
In all, more than 70 names have been retired for the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico region, Feltgen said, and the process of devising new names is usually a low key process that attracts little attention.
ReplyDeleteBut in 2001, the Hurricane Committee found it had created an uproar by adding, among others, the names "Israel" and "Adolph" to the Eastern North Pacific storm list.
Jewish leaders expressed outrage at the decision, and though officials noted that Israel and Adolph, spelled with a "ph" unlike Adolf Hitler, were common boy's names, they retired the names at the end of the season.
What's In a Name?
The yield on the No. 303, 1.4 percent issue, a key indicator of long- term interest rates, ended morning interdealer trading down 0.005 percentage point from Wednesday's close to 1.300 percent.
ReplyDeleteTraders said the drop in yield was limited as investors grew cautious about bonds becoming overpriced.
The price of the key September futures contract for 10-year bonds remained unchanged at 139.44 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Stock Losses
You know, I've been sitting here for quite some time, gazing into the face that deuce has put up.
ReplyDeleteAnd I wonder, what is in a face?
And then I begin to wonder about all the faces, all the faces that I have known, and what it really might mean, all those faces.
And I wonder about my own face, just another face in the crowd.
Then I start to think about our national poet, good Whitman, and his lines about O some many uttering tongues.
Then I begin to be overcome.
Then I think, there may be as many destinies as there are faces.
Then I begin to think... what I don't know overwhelmes what I know.
Then I think, the definition of
God must be creativity....
Then I let it rest, for now, not knowing where to go....
Go to Priest Lake.
ReplyDeleteBy yourself.
Find some out of the way place in the woods. Near the water.
Take your fishing pole.
Stay a weekend.
Build a fire.
Stare at the stars.
And wonder.
You can find a few answers there, at Priest, if you look hard enough.
Thanks, Sam.
ReplyDeleteI needed that.
But after I sign a deed tomorrow, we are on our way to Ohio.
You keep yourself safe there, on the ocean, or ol'bob will pissed.
Roger that.
ReplyDeletebob,
ReplyDelete...from another good man...
"Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it."
...for trish and whit...
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves"
...for all...
"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning."
___Viktor Frankl