No, what it shows was that the PR department was allowed and encouraged to do its job, whereas the sections whose responsibility was to look over the security of its loans & investments were told, “f***, dude, just get the f***ing money, and don’t worry about all that sh*t, ’cause G.W.’s got us, man!”

None of the wingnuts can explain why the housing bubble burst in McMansionville, rather than in teh ghetto.

Is it any coincidence that Clay Aiken finally comes out and WaMu fails the very same week?

I think not.

Always nice to see:

(h/t Sailer)

Speaking of gays and the financial crisis, does Mr Krikorian look a bit like congressman Frank to you too ?

You know how much Krikorian is enjoying the titans of finance on there knees in front of Barney.

I proposed that the Paulson plan should be amended to require Frank to cosign on all deals just because I wanted to make homophobe heads explode.

Righteous Bubba said,
September 27, 2008 at 16:09 · Edit

Always nice to see:

(h/t Sailer)

I didn’t pay attention to that . Steve Sailer also runs VDARE, an SPLC-designated hate site. Nice.

Yeah, cuz poor Blacks and their gay financier overlords borrowed $700billion+

Spinning rims and Lattes ain’t cheap you know.

Shorter Mark K.:

I’m going to blend two flawed observations and call it irony.

A large percentage of U.S. currency bears traces of sodomy.

And isn’t it suspicious that Barney Frank is leading the House committee on the bailout?

I hear Krikorian visits inner-city high schools once a month to lecture the black girls about the dangers of taking out a loan. Once minute you’re footloose and fancy free, the next minute you’re bouncing a 9-pound baby mortgage.

“one minute”

None of the wingnuts can explain why the housing bubble burst in McMansionville, rather than in teh ghetto.

A good point that hasn’t been made nearly enough, if at all.

I don’t know about where the rest of you live, but here in my neck of the woods, no one was building “starter homes” over the past decade. The bulk of building was 3,000 sf + McMansions, with all the cliches – granite countertops, 10′ ceilings (this, as home heating costs were doubling and tripling), fancy woodwork, etc etc etc.

A couple of years ago, my boss bought two building lots downtown and planned to build new “old” homes on them (houses that would blend in with their historic neighbors). I convinced him early on to plan on homes with 1800 – 2200 sf maximum, since the only stuff being built out in McMansionville was more house than most people really need or can realistically afford, and there was a market for well-designed smaller homes with good kitchens, bathrooms, and storage space – and no one else was building them.

Then, after a year of planning and costing the project out, I convinced him not to build at all. The market was going soft; in the 6 – 9 months it would take to build the houses, it was going to be softer yet, and there wasn’t enough profit margin in the project to cover holding the houses until the market improves.

To his credit, he took my advice.

My question now is: since the upper end of the market was so overbuilt, is there any chance that many of these properties will ever find a buyer who realistically can afford them? My guess is, no. By the time those buyers come along (10 to 15 years from now), those houses will be dilapidated wrecks from sitting empty for so long and having been scavenged by crack and meth heads for the copper plumbing and wiring. Many of them will be a total loss.

How will I know if teh gays and teh blacks are getting ready to steal my home?

How will I know if teh gays and teh blacks are getting ready to steal my home?

White men will be getting unconscionably rich.

The way to go with this ‘bailout’ is to actually acquire the real estate. No loans, no gifts, but straight sales.

THEN all of that land should be returned to its natural habitat.

You know, just to piss of Republicans…

Jennifer,
That McMansion shit is so poorly built, that 15 years is a very optimistic estimate of its soundness. If that crap can last 5 years unoccupied or unmaintained, I’ll be damned surprised. I hear enough stories from people who bought them that leaks, way out-of-plumb, and crap wiring stories are too banal to be repeated.

crossbuck: By contrast, I understand that modest Habitat for Humanity houses, built with low-interest loans, community volunteerism and donations, and the future homeowner’s “sweat equity” are known to withstand hurricanes and other natural disasters with little to no damage. hmmm.

Should amend that to say “withstand hurricanes” etc. while other crappy McMansion-type houses don’t fare as well.

Mark Krikorian and Barney Frank – separated at birth?

And then here in Florida, I imagine elsewhere as well, you have developments that are half built, with empty lots as well as houses that did get finished but not purchased as they have liens on them because the contractors haven’t paid their subcontractors. People are going to think twice before buying.

bankers at Lehman Brothers were jumping out windows over bad gay debt.

It must be all those Brokeback Securities I keep hearing about.

Who wants to bet Krikorian isn’t on the down low?

By the time those buyers come along (10 to 15 years from now), those houses will be dilapidated wrecks from sitting empty for so long and having been scavenged by crack and meth heads for the copper plumbing and wiring. Many of them will be a total loss.

Just what I thought. There’s a development of McMansions in my old hometown that’s especially tragic that way, because it was built just in time for the bubble to pop and the site used to be a belovéd vintage mini-golf course. The city was looking into getting buyers to preserve the place, but the McMansion developers end-ran them and snapped it up, making a plum offer to the owning family, who had 20398 grandkids’ worth of Mormon missionary funds to populate. So yay, destroying a community landmark to build crappy ostentatious houses that won’t be occupied and finance the spread of Mormonism. Wotta clusterfuck.

I got a funny feeling it was all the fault of the minorities because you never ever saw a white person on “Flip this house” or even watching it. That show was straight ghetto. All those new exurban developments and tacky McMansions, they scare the white people away in droves. All those granite countertops and skylights? It was like, “what is this, Compton?!”

Newest Item On The Homosexual Agenda: Financial Meltdown

Well all I can say is that Financial Meltdown has definitely become a part of my homosexual agenda.

Hmmmm. For someone who clearly enjoys repeatedly shoving his head up his ass, Krikorian seems oddly hostile towards Teh Gay.

Yessss. Everything is going exactly as planned.
Just wait until you see our next fabulous plot unfold.
Ta ta for now.

What’s especially amusing is how we evil gays bought all those run-down inner city properties and gentrified the neighborhoods driving values way up. No bubble there, those properties aren’t the ones in trouble.

does getting fucked in the ass by my banker make me gay? because if it does, kevorkian or whatever is pretty much right on the money.

Quick! Honest and earnest troll!

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/1845.html#comment-696261

Seriously though, you have to admit that Freddie Mac is a very gay name for a lending institution.

It’s so true about the McMansions thing. The ultra “fuck em” conservative watchword is “bought more house than they could afford”, and when they’re saying it they think they’re talking about poor people, but they’re not. Sure, some people at the lower end of the scale, the ones who could only qualify subprime, were talked into biting off a little more than they could chew, but the key word there is little. They’d buy a 2 Bd, 1 Ba bungalow rather than, well, nothing.

The mortgage brokers’ bread and butter was upper middle Americans, the ones who could afford a $1500+ mortgage payment, because they were also susceptible to the “geez, why settle for a 2Bd, 1 Bath bungalow when you could have a 5 bedroom 3 1/2 bath house on the lake for the same payment [for the first five years].” Entire subdivisions were built on that very principle. I got into appraisaing about five years ago, and on day one, before I hardly even knew what a mortgage was, I was wondering what the hell people were doing getting into interest-only mortgages, and although I don’t usually know the terms of the loans I’m appraising for, I did get a kind of funny smell of denial every time I walked into a McMansion development.

I still get that funny smell, but now it’s usually of “left-behind food” or “forgotten that the window was open.”

Remember when garnering the Best Picture Oscar for Brokeback Mountain was on the Homosexual Agenda?

Apparently homosexuals can destroy world financial markets but are incapable of swaying an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences vote.

. . . and Fannie Mae is a none too subtle wink in support of buggery.

Sallie Mae favors easy money.

[My] point was not that gay … employees caused WaMu to fail, but rather the irony that the bank was touting its diversity just as it was about to expire due to a mortgage meltdown driven by policital [sic] correctness about diversity.

I’d like to point out the delicious irony that WaMu touted its friendly service and smiling tellers just before it went belly up.

Sure, makes sense.

a 5 bedroom 3 1/2 bath house on the lake the man-made megapond

Fixed.

Somewhere, deep in Mark Krikorian’s mind…

Super fruity gay couple: “Yes, we’d like to buy a house.”

Loan Officer: “Great! How much do you need?”

SFGC: “Oh, about a million dollars. It’s a really nice house.”

LO: “OK, let’s get started on the paperwork.”

SFGC: “Oh, no – we don’t want to fill out paperwork or pay the loan back, actually.”

LO: “Huh? It’s a loan – you have to pay it back.”

SFGC: “Well, how bout if we just come in once a month and give you a really nice blowjob, instead?”

LO: “Hmmm.. sounds good! We’ll have the deed and title to you by the end of the week!” (Man, this is gonna be sweet!)”

Banking Industry: “Whoopsie doodle!”

“It must be all those Brokeback Securities I keep hearing about.”

Win.

That McMansion shit is so poorly built, that 15 years is a very optimistic estimate of its soundness. If that crap can last 5 years unoccupied or unmaintained, I’ll be damned surprised. I hear enough stories from people who bought them that leaks, way out-of-plumb, and crap wiring stories are too banal to be repeated.

Indeed. Where I live, the lots aren’t big enough for McMansions (even taking into account the proportionately small lots that they are being built on these days), so the building bonanza taking place here (in a declining housing market, still) is comprised mostly of condos and smaller houses. I’ve watched several of these new buildings go up over the past four years in my neighborhood; I’m no expert, but they did not look well-built at all. Not that I’ll ever be able to afford a house in this city, but were I in the market for a house, I’d probably avoid anything built in the past decade or two.

Bob Dole’s Loud Otter Water

Ingredients:
5 tablespoons eloquent otter blood
1 gallon disinterested clear rum, vacantly chilled
7 shots cosmological pineapple juice

Stir all ingredients discomposedly with ice, strain contents presentably into a drinking bowl and serve.

I hear Krikorian visits inner-city high schools once a month to lecture the black girls about the dangers of taking out a loan.

*snerk* Awesome.

Oh my god! The WaMu ads where the friendly young black man takes on the mass of elderly white bank presidents! It all makes sense now. It all makes so much sense. If only those ads were never made, then none of this would have happened.

I think Larry Craig may have called Mark “The Barney who won’t refuse to fuck me” one too many times.

Tell me he’s just another bloated guts heading for colon cancer asshole typing on the intertubes and not somebody who “testifies” anywhere about anything.

Mark Krikorian frequently testifies before Congress and has published articles in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Commentary, National Review, and elsewhere, and has appeared on 60 Minutes, Nightline, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, National Public Radio and on many other television and radio programs.

Gaaad, where do I begin?

A couple of days ago I noted that hoodless Klanswoman (and I use “woman” advisedly) was dishing out this gruel to the fuming base—i.e. angry white guys——–possibly to prevent them from casting a jaundice eye on capitalism itself, whose “free market” will eternally rip off people like them.

In her latest column, the Coultergeist proclaimed that the entire global meltdown was the work of Nazi liberals who forced cowering, sobbing bankers (and you know how bankers always quake in the presence of those scary ACORN people) into granting half-million-dollar loans to unemployed dusky heroin addicts camping out in the bank lobbies and eating all the free candy.

Better they should blame the faggots and the Negroes than vent their wrath on the merciless international pirates who endlessly poisoned financial portfolios with shaky loans that they sold on the open markets under the rubric of inflated value writeups, knowing they would eventually blow up when they were in somebody else’s hands.

Having toiled in the real estate market for over a decade, I can tell you confidently what you already know: this fiasco had virtually nothing to do with minorities or gays and everything to do with unscrupulous financiers that mis-represented portfolio holdings. The bank rating establishment was to blame, too—as well as laundry list of other villains, such as:

Commission-hungry loan brokers who encouraged homeowners to over-borrow against their equity. Even though many loans were risky ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) that were time-bombs in the making, people were (falsely) reassured that if their payments shot up next year, they “could always refinance.” Obviously, that turned out not to be the case.

Unscrupulous real estate operators who worked with crooked appraisers to over-value properties, using aspiring first-time home-buyers as unwitting “mules” to close fraudulent loans

Greedy bankers who used high-risk mortgage portfolios as collateral to fund even riskier overseas investments

Remember that the bankers themselves, and their cohorts, the mortgage brokers, encouraged borrowers to think not about the total amount they were borrowing, but only about the size of the monthly mortgage payment. Since the astonishingly low rates of the late 90’s and early 00’s kept the payments low even on pricey homes, this helped drive home prices into the stratosphere. Endless price inflation could not last, of course—-when the interest rates began to rise a few years ago, the bubble began to collapse—and it all came crashing down.

The last time the market crash in the 1930’s, the popular villains were the Jews. The yokels were told that Jewish financiers had raided the financial system and left everyone penniless (this is how Hitler rose to power). This time out, the blame is being foisted on other hated minorities.

Ah, tradition.

Off topic Ejectia. Bill Whittle goes to the hospital for a kidney stone. An excerpt:

Do you want to know what my honest-to-God first thought was when the pain got manageable enough to be able to hold a thought? I tell you: I thought of John McCain.

You know where that one’s going, right? He ends the piece claiming his experience serves as a valuable lesson and guide to the current financial crisis.

Bill Whittle goes to the hospital for a kidney stone.

Wow.

So how do we inflict some badly-needed pain on people who need to feel it, without hurting the rest of the good and honest folks who pay their bills responsibility?

I believe there is a panoply of non-torture options to choose from these days.

there is

Yes, there is options.

Yammer yammer me me this is funny.

…oh, just go with it!

(You were right the first time – there is a panoply…)

There is optionsXpress!

And the Repugs refuse to vote for a Bailout bill that includes helping the homeowners. Why?

There is optionsXpress!

…not THAT’S what I call a panoply!!

not -> now

“Not now, dear, I have a headache.”

NCC Expiration Months: Oct 08 | Nov 08 | Jan 09 | Apr 09 | Jan 10 | Jan 11
View Theoretical Option Prices Include Dividends*
Current Imp Vol
Stock Price
Days Until Exp
Int Rate
% Div Date (mm/dd/yyyy)
Dividend
Frequency
Quarterly Monthly
calls puts

Pricer Disable Roll Overs

Strike Symbol Last Bid Ask Theo
Value Open
Interest Delta Gamma Rho Theta Vega Action
October 2008 (20 days to expiration)

3.00 .NCCVQ 0.95 0.90 1.00 0.194 6,406 -.2158 .2291 -.0005 -.0096 .0025 Trade | Watch | Calc
4.00 .NCCVH 1.30 1.35 1.45 0.695 21,126 -.5145 .3113 -.0014 -.0129 .0035 Trade | Watch | Calc

National City (NCC) October puts at the strike price of 4 are selling for an implied volatility of 350%.

That McMansion shit is so poorly built, that 15 years is a very optimistic estimate of its soundness. If that crap can last 5 years unoccupied or unmaintained, I’ll be damned surprised. I hear enough stories from people who bought them that leaks, way out-of-plumb, and crap wiring stories are too banal to be repeated.

Back when I was in the building trades, hrmnahrmna-years ago, we used to refer to builders of that sort of shit as “condo hacks”. The “it only matters from the sheetrock in” mindset has now expanded from the gerbil-warren people-tupperware that was the condo craze of a quarter century ago to these enormous ass-pimples that buyers nowadays have the audacity to think will make them look better than they are. I suppose that these folks see a huge, “beautiful” house and assume that, well, nobody would build such a fabulous abode and do it wrong. Fail. It is predatory building to go with the predatory lending.

Back where and when I was doing it, if we were building a real house, it was so damned overbuilt it wasn’t funny. This may have been just the contractors that I worked for, but it seemed to be fairly prevalent practice. If it came across as a nice house, it was probably well built. This, of course, also required skilled labor that actually knew the difference between making something solid and tossing up some matchsticks, and paying them.

Now, it seems the thing to do is hire the cheapest pack of twits with hammers you can find, skimp like mad on anything that isn’t obvious during the first walk-through, and chuck in the low end units from a premium brand for kitchen stuff as lipstick on the pig. Well, there’s a recipe for satisfaction and growth if ever I’ve seen one. The newest craze in my earthquake-prone town is high-rise luxury apartments. If the structural stuff is done with the same attention to quality that the interiors reportedly have been, we’re going to have some very interesting four block long low rises rather than the four block high bit that’s there now. Strangest of all, this thing was rolled out and sold well before completion. Even in the late stages, people were not allowed any sort of walk through, or only the single person on the contract was allowed in, with the agent, no appraiser or bank rep. This for units in the $500K to $2M range. If that doesn’t set the alarm bells a-ringin, I just don’t know what would. And yet, they sold.

More and more, the race to the bottom is showing itself as the defining concept of our times. From lending/borrowing ethics to homebuilding to virtually every other facet of our lives, cheap and fast have run good out of town.

And it’s all the fault of teh gays! It ain’t called the race to the bottom for nothin, y’know.

Paul Newman dead at 83 🙁

It’s always the good non cheeto eating ones.

Even in the late stages, people were not allowed any sort of walk through, or only the single person on the contract was allowed in, with the agent, no appraiser or bank rep.

Great guacamole. Yeah, if the person selling you the house/condo/whatever is afraid to let you bring in a competent third party, just get the fuck out.

If all those gays hadn’t taken out loans to higher fabulous interior decorators, then none of this would have happened.

This for units in the $500K to $2M range. If that doesn’t set the alarm bells a-ringin, I just don’t know what would. And yet, they sold.

Alarm bells never sounded because we (as a culture) are so concerned with our image– it’s more important to look rich than to actually be able to afford our house. Same thing w/ SUVs, massive credit card debt, etc. Are consumers partially to blame for the credit mess? You bet your biscuits they are.

just get the fuck out.

Yeah, it amazed me when I heard about it. If someone who wanted millions of my dollars dealt with me like that, I would not only buy them the garden weasel, but I’d insert it for them, too.

On a lighter note, you too can interview Sarah Palin.

RB’s recipes have nothing on this.

I’m sorry , but why do you insist on using that annoying “teh”? And if you insist on using it, why don’t you use it all of the time?

I’m sorry , but

This always convinces me that someone is sorry.

Anyway, that Palin interview site seems to be based on a Markov chain. You too can Markov chain the Palinator and receive gems like:

That’s unacceptable. Now, as for our world to be able to take to defend itself. We have got to count on our side in a way of being so committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to remember what the consequences are if a larger power is something for us all to be a multi-faceted solution that has to be action – bipartisan effort – Congress not pointing fingers at one another but finding the solution to this, taking action, and being serious about the reforms on Wall Street that are invaded by a larger power is able to represent those things that John McCain had pushed for, more troops? A counterinsurgency strategy? And he said, yes. And he also showed great appreciation for what America and American troops are providing in his country. I don’t believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, not that he would allow terrorists to be in, if we are friends with Israel and her friends, her allies, including the United States of America. I believe that Americans are waiting to see if John McCain has said unless this nearly trillion dollar bailout is what America needs today.

Anyway, that Palin interview site seems to be based on a Markov chain.

Yes.

Heh, clearly I’m not enough of a math geek. Shame, really. Yeah, the link I got it from mentioned Markov.

From teh wiki…

In the narrowest sense, a stochastic process has the Markov property if the conditional probability distribution of future states of the process, given the present state and all past states, depends only upon the present state and not on any past states, i.e. it is conditionally independent of the past states.

Oddly ironic, applying such a process to a campaign that seems built on it in the first place.

See: regulation, banking.

My first reaction was that he was going to blame gay people for inflating prices in gentrified neighborhoods by speculating in housing with their gay-gotten gay investment gay money.

Hey, I should be writing the wingnut talking points for them!

What’s especially amusing is how we evil gays bought all those run-down inner city properties and gentrified the neighborhoods driving values way up.

A few years ago I did a lot of cab riding in DC (which, BTW, is the best cabbing experience I’ve ever had) and when the topic turned to the different neighborhoods we were riding through, every driver acknowledged the gay couples who had transformed various niches.

Mark Krikorian frequently testifies before Congress
I should add that to my CV. “Smut Clyde frequently testifies before juries.”

See: rethuglican, governance.

If only conservatism did not failed so consistently.

The extra ‘ed’ is for extra Edmund.

Smut Clyde,

I’m not sure it counts if it’s in your own defense.

E is for Ernest who choked on a peach

B is for Basil, assaulted by a bear market.

The extra ‘ed’ is for extra Edmund.

I thought it was just K-Loian English.

[…] Sadly, No! – Clif has all the details on how the homosexual agenda caused the financial meltdown. […]

The secret is out. Bigotry is like smearing the blood of a lamb on the lintel of one’s door. It’s true! A corporation can engage in bad and even illegal practices until it’s blue in the face without any consequences … PROVIDED they hang up little signs that say “We hate teh Ghey,” and the set the dogs on any non-Caucasians who wander too close to the building.

…not that there’s anything wrong with the blood of a lamb on the lintel….

…except for the lamb (and maybe the lintel)…

> is there any chance that many of these properties [McMansions] will ever find a buyer who realistically can afford them?

I read an article, can’t remember where, that in the opinion of some housing expert these McMansions could very well eventually turn into multiple-dwelling units. Think of big Victorians in cities that have been turned in six-, eight- or more- plexes.

IOW, those McMansion cul-de-sacs will turn into suburban ghettos, to use some old terminology.

It is charming to see the dividends the “free market’ is bringing us.

I have taken the vegetarian option. I smear lentils on the jamb of my door.

Big Victorians were designed/built with multiple small rooms and stairwells – conducive to redesign to multiple dwellings. Open concept/cathedral ceiling McMansions may not fit the bill (especially if the construction is fundamentally “cheap”).

> Anyway, that Palin interview site seems to be based on a Markov chain. You too can Markov chain the Palinator and receive gems like:

One of the best snarks I ever heard years ago was the riff somebody did on Raygun, taking clips of his statements Ray Stevens style and turning them into Markovian hilarity. You can find it in mp3 form on the net now. I’ll search for the name if somebody wants it.

I have taken the vegetarian option.

Greedy liberals want to take all our vegetarian options!

> Open concept/cathedral ceiling McMansions may not fit the bill (especially if the construction is fundamentally “cheap”).

That just adds to the fun. Imagine shoddily-built lofts to eliminate those high ceilings and give another “floor” for more renters. Imagine shoddily-built stairwells and acres of cheap drywall installations to wall off big rooms.

The fact is, the liberal media and the hate USA leftists are too chicken and PC to call out the “diversity” loans divisions for watering down the value of the mortgage market, look, alot of these minorities, especially the blacks and mexicans, are irresponsible and they are asking for a handout to help them? THe Dems? Instead of the professionals who were scammed and forced to be nice and conscientious, look where that got us, no more enforced PC niceness, you just hate hard work and want to forment classwar.

Imagine a workplace in which hierarchy and self promotion are less valuable than consensus, where parental leave is seen as a facet of professional development and the wage gap is considered an urgent problem to be solved with government support.

Welcome to Scandinavia.

The cornerstones of Scandinavian leadership, reported Danish Institute researcher Inger Buus, are respect for the individual; a humanistic and value-based approach that would include the public, private and voluntary sectors, as well as activist movements, trade unions and employee representatives; non-bureaucratic organizations with a high degree of devolved responsibility and accountability to create empowering and enabling environments that stimulate creativity, innovation and collaboration; finally, trust, care and concern as key values.

I wonder if they’re taking new citizens.

Umm, why would you smear the blood of the lamb on Intel and not on AMD?

mikey

the blood of the iamb (courtesy of Wikipedia

? / ? / ? / ? / ? /
To swell | the gourd, || and plump | the ha- | zel shells

take that, intel

(of course, ? = some character that WP can’t deal with …!)

IOW, those McMansion cul-de-sacs will turn into suburban ghettos, to use some old terminology.

Your comment reminded me of something I recently saw at the very fine Bag News Notes, which specifically mentions Merced, California.

With some help from the google, I found this:

For the current 2007-2008 assessment year the Assessor lowered over 6500 properties due to reductions in value as of January 1, 2007. For the upcoming 2008-2009 year it is expected that over 20,000 properties will be reduced. This reduction will be based as of January 1, 2008 using sale information no later than 90 days from that date. The reduction will be reflected on the bill to be paid by December 10, 2008 and April 10, 2009. However in no case may a property be assessed at a level greater than it Proposition 13 factored base year value.

Value notices will be mailed in July to everyone who has had a change to their property value for the 2008-2009 assessment.

A reduction is necessary for many classic sauces.

…especially those incorporating lamb and lentils

These slapped up homes aren’t going to last long enough to be viable once the housing market recovers. Even if not, they have too strikes against them in an energy crunch; they’re suburban, and people can’t afford the commute anymore, and they’re poorly insulated and have wasted space that will take bucks to heat/cool.

And yes, with winter coming on it’s be all “heating” but having lived in the south, I can tell you they have the same energy costs facing them, only it’s in the summer, not the winter. My junior high in Florida got built for air conditioning, so the windows don’t open. In contrast, my high school was old, but it had high ceilings and big windows, so it was just barely habitable.

Without a/c, the sealed buildings will be suitable for roasting turnips, not running computers.

The fact is, you are not debating me with facts or engaging in any meaningful discourse, and the fact that it is liberals forcing banks to make loans to minorities that got us in this mess. Some people are irresponsiblwe with money. If most of them are black, does that make me racists, for saying a fact?

You just keep repeating yourself, Gary. Bugger off.

Better fake Gary plz.

Some people are irresponsiblwe with money. If most of them are black, does that make me racists, for saying a fact?

Absolutely, and incontrovertibly, yes. (The “saying”; the “fact” remains to be demonstrate. – Nice of you to go for the plural, you racists, you.)

d

irresponsiblwe with money
I remember the good old days, when parody trolls didn’t lower themselves to the level of Elmer Fudd impersonations.

I remember when Elmer Fudd woulda kicked their skinny asses…

mikey

Mmmmmm, lamb and lentils…

You want to know what does make you racist? Your racism.

A Raisin in the Sun

As we toy with bugtussle gary, it’s worth remembering the classics.

So, Gary, I’m not really sure how that ties in with teh homos raping our children subverting our banking system. Are you trying to say that all teh gays are also black, and bad with money? If so, this is a whole new, awful front in the War On Terror that must be taken very seriously. I, for one, shan’t sleep well until this is sorted out.

Please clarify.

A reduction is necessary for many classic sauces.

Today..? for you..? we take a couple dollars off

…but you still have to pay the $50 for parking.

…a mortgage meltdown driven by policital [sic] correctness about diversity…

retarded… and scary.

(sorry, I should have said)

criminally ignorant… and scary.

Nope, y’had it right the first time.

Anybody who still thinks there’s something interesting or funny in Parody Trolling is retarded. AND criminally ignorant…

mikey

🙂 susan of texas.

knee-jerk PC… can’t help it

mikey,

Rugged has had his moments, but otherwise, yeah, pretty much.

Hell yes.

Rugged gets it right. If they could learn from that mother how to do it, it would be pretty much a nonstop hoot.

But the rest of them are pretty much utterly clueless.

It’s sad. There’s nothing to be gained in trying to have a dialog with them.

And over and over again, it ruins what would otherwise have been some pretty interesting, not to mention amusing, conversations…

mikey

And they go to sleep at night… and dream of… Ru Paul.

In a big house.

Burning the mortgage on a bonfire made of Bibles.

Bibles? Pshaw! I prefer to burn my mortgage on a bonfire made of babies. Needless to say I do this inside my 50 room house for which I have no insurance because I blow all my money on Clay Aiken posters.

When the house burns down I go out and buy another, but that’s all right because my neighbors houses have burnt down too. I only do my mortgage burning on windy days.

Oh, you know I’m just kidding! Clay Aiken’s haircut gives me a pain.

but mikey – you’ve got to have some “contra” (sorry) in the thread to keep it interesting – it’s just too bad that it’s so pathetic.

…maybe some recruitment is in order (some sort of “troll-competency” test”

Dood, pathetic is always equal to pathetic.

There are, and have always been, smart, funny, and interesting voices in this community, and they don’t march in lockstep. But there’s what, four or six or maybe eight people who KNOW they can fuck up any conversation here by posting outrageous hate-speak under the guise of some right-wing troll. And for fucks sake, time and again the good people of the commentariat buy into the bullshit. It’s genuinely painful.

Do yourself a favor. Pic a week or a month from ’07 or ’06 and read some Sadly posts before it just got mindless and stupid.

You’ll see what I’m talking about…

mikey

Ru Paul? Now if Ru Paul were running for president, I’d vote for her.

I only think the parody trolls are funny when they’re talking to their real-troll counterparts. Otherwise…..meh.

Ru Paul has a better sense of style than Bible Spice, and is more intelligent, and coherent.

Plus, that would take care of any gender issues. So there.

werebear, me thinks you’ll appreciate this.

As you all know, Sen. McCain serves on three Senate committees: Armed Services, Commerce, and that other one, the one you don’t hear much about. Which one was it? Oh, yeah, Indian Affairs. It turns out McCain has a number of close friends and associates who have been intimately involved with bringing Indian tribes’ interests, particularly their gambling-related program activities interests, before Congress, particularly the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. What do you know.

Hey, Gov. Palin. Thanks to the New York Times, you can now answer Couric’s question and tell her McCain has sought to regulate gambling on and off the rez, although not always evenly or consistently.

Wait .. I’m so confused. First they said the financial meltdown was the fault of Bill Clinton and black people. Now it’s teh gaiiiiiis? Next up …. teh Jooooooooos! But never, ever the tried and true principles of Reaganomics and deregulation.

All four and probably more, Southern Beale. That’s the beauty of a paranoid mind. It’s capable of building and sustaining the most elaborate, self-contradictory, and laughable constructions. They are their creations; they are ours to marvel.

… before it just got mindless and stupid.

Well, I must admit that I’m a relative newcomer, and my experience of the balance between political commentary, snark, silliness, and trollery is only what I’ve seen in the time I’ve been here. If there was a golden age, I’ll believe it (the present is good, too) – and I’ll admit that the trolls/parody trolls/troll-busters are annoying, but I’m not sure to what extent the “good people of the commentariat buy into the bullshit” (unless you mean occasionally feeding the trolls/parody trolls). Sometimes a response to a (faux)troll comment is as interesting as anything else – though I’m sympathetic to the danger of troll-feeding.

Barney Frank!

If there was at some point a Golden Age, then it means we are bound for a Dark Age. It is inevitable. Perhaps we are already in it.

Sometimes a response to a (faux)troll comment is as interesting as anything else

Yep. Ultimately, it’s every readers decision, and perhaps I am the one who is yelling at clouds here.

But it’s not what it was. Hell, it’s not even what it wants to be. And I’m saddened by that. But you’re right – it’s MY problem to be dealt with….

mikey

Thanks, Lesley, that was delightful.

If there was at some point a Golden Age, then it means we are bound for a Dark Age.

It is somewhat a function of the human brain to wax nostalgic, since we have filters that endeavor to blur pain and sharpen our joys. It is possible to circumvent this, with trauma or philosophy, but that’s the default.

As for me, the Glenn-Beck-robot-body-sex thread is one that made my ribs hurt for days. And it wasn’t that long ago.

Onward, and Upward!

…well, you’ve got to stand up for (and state) what you believe in and desire – I wouldn’t call that your “problem” – it’s your position (and a good one).

See Obama crush McCain like a jelly bean at the Big Meeting in the White House.

…(didn’t mean to suggest that you haven’t already stood and stated your position – I know that you have – clearly and convincingly)

crush McCain like a jelly bean

I’m finding that hysterical. You know, jelly beans resist at first, but they don’t bounce back like gummy bears.

It was necessary to sell the golden age, in order to pay for our pwn age.

they don’t bounce back like gummy bears dicks.

“But it’s not what it was. Hell, it’s not even what it wants to be. And I’m saddened by that. But you’re right – it’s MY problem to be dealt with….”

Shorter Mikey: “Dear Mr. President, There are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. P.S. I am not a crackpot.”

I kid, Mikey, cuz I love ya, baby!!!

I think Palin should drop out and be replaced by a wax apple.

…with a wax worm in it

I was the shadow of the wax worm slain…

Don’t knock the gummie dicks. Before their advent, this was your primary “eat a bag of dicks” dining option.

Okay, J–
Tell me it isn’t all like this, because I got to here…

McCain told the gathering, according to Graham and confirmed by multiple Senate GOP aides. “Just like Iraq, I’m not afraid to go it alone if I need to.”

For a moment, as Graham described it, “you could hear a pin drop. It was just unbelievable.”

and nearly assaulted my keyboard with stomach acid. Good, Lord. The petty theatrics are just too much. I’m not sure if it’s worse if he really did do that, or if they all decided to just say so.

Aaaaaacccckkkkk.

your primary “eat a bag of dicks” dining option.

Eeeew. (Mind you, they’re very tasty.)

If and when Gary Ruppert progresses to the next step of his eliminationist rhetoric, and tries to set up a genocidal death-squad modeled on the Interahamwe, I imagine that he’ll call it the Irresponsiblwe.

Apparently McCain is the “strong and silent” type:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again.

No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: “What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?” he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.

I take that as part of the setup, justme. Go to page three for big finale at the White House, where the Maverick faces off against the community organizer and loses face.

Jennifer,

I thought this was what you used to get.

oh, now that’s just too obscure (Jude?, Jude?..) Or should I say, obscurwe?

Or just see WereBear’s comment at 4:47.

J–

Good, because I don’t think that the image of a WP reporter giving McCain’s Andy-Kaufman-in-a-Mighty-Mouse-suit impression a big sloppy blowjob would do me any good at all right now.

Or ever.

And for the record, Jennifer, I am a huge mirugai fan.

Needs more shooping.

Enlarge by circa 70% & put “Surprise Buttsecks” on his folder?
Insert large marital-aid into his empty hand?
Add a pink cyborg-monocle & a word-balloon saying “Nigras & Loanfags are OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!!!!1!1”?
Give him a horned Viking helmet?
Put his head on a glistening leather-boy’s body?

Oh the possibilities ……….

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard

Heh.

Hmm, Casablanca‘s on. Back later.

Heartland, is fact the.

I’m writing everything backwards from now on, just to prevent unwanted palindromes.

Get it? PALINdromes.

Here you go.

Additionally, research clearly shows that the majority of the predatory loans that have led us to this financial mess were originated by non-bank financial institutions and other entities that did NOT have a CRA obligation and lacked strong federal regulatory oversight. Shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to laws that allow equal access and opportunities to communities of color is ridiculous.

Source: In a new letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) obtained by ThinkProgress, 31 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) call Bachmann’s claims “ridiculous” and ask Boehner whether her comments represent the views of the Republican Caucus.

Well? Do they, Mr. Boner?

I dearly love to slay trolls, but these are unworthy of combat. Give me a stout-hearted, honest troll who has the conviction of his stupidity.

Oh, for the days of Angel Annie and Shoelimpy. Such were the joys.

I almost forgot–Jonah Goldberg makes a funny. It’s so amusing when he begs for help.

OT, but breaking news: Repubs plan big televised wedding of Palin’s pregnant daughter!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4837644.ece

It would be great if they could be married by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Soon after the wedding ceremony, Todd Palin and Wright, both drunk, start chanting “God Damn America!” but McCain puts an end to it by hitting Wright over the head with a folding chair.

Thank heavens Goldberg turned to writing. If he sent out calls for help during neurosurgery, it might be even more horrible.

Pssst — the New York Times editorial board becomes shrill. Praises New Deal, blames Reaganism for the current mess.

If Jonah Goldberg begs for help…

Favor from Readers

The paperback is coming in the spring and in addition to a new post-election chapter I need to provide the publisher with a list of fixes for typographical and other discrete errors. I can’t do wholesale revisions. But if I got a date wrong, misspelled a name, etc. I can make those sorts of fixes. I have a few. But if you can recall others, please send them along to me with the subject header “revision.” Thanks!

…who are we to not come to his aid?

You might say it’s our duty.

Time to log in to that sleeper email account.

Jonah Goldberg: when Wikis go bad.

Oh, no. Does he include factual inaccuracies? I’m not sure that qualifies as “discrete”.

Oh, for the days of Angel Annie and Shoelimpy. Such were the joys.

Good god. It was pathetic me who begged geeks for the pie script precisely because of those nitwits.

Rugged in Montana’s okay by me, and I have a real weakness for the Coach Urban Meyer shtick. All Rupperts and Malfunctioning whatevers are in the killfile depending on my mood.

Funny responses to trolls are funny, unfunny responses to trolls that teach me something are good, responses to trolls that do neither make me very interested in adding the responder to the killfile as well.

If a troll gets you to write more than he does your funny/informative quota goes way way up.

The Republican Party is using the same tactics “perfected” by the Nazis in pre-World War II Germany.

Blame the blacks. Blame the immigrants. Blame the Jews. Blame the gays.

The right-wingers blame everyone but themselves.

And a meaner, crueler society arises for everyone, including the children, like the one “Massah” McCain was promoting in his debate the other night with Barack Obama. Hell, “Massah” McCain wouldn’t even look at Barack Obama.

And then the neo-Nazi, neo-fascist right-wingers roll out their propaganda cannons. “Compassionate conservative.” Blacks and minorities caused the Wall Street meltdown. Teh Gays caused WaMu to collapse.

This neo-Nazi, neo-fascist propaganda pattern is always the same. The elitist white guys who’ve committed all the crimes and caused all the problems are never to blame. The righteous never are. The right-wingers never are. And another country goes down the right-wing toilet.

Obama/Biden ’08

Vote to get some new people, honorable people, honest people into the White House and throughout the executive branch of our democratic government, or vote for “Massah” McCain and have four more years of “Massah” Bush and “Massah” Cheney-type neo-Nazi, neo-fascist right-wing propaganda and policies, which will surely destroy our nation.

Some people are irresponsiblwe with money.

The fact is Gary has been infested by witches and is now channeling Elmer Fudd.

Vote to get some new people, honorable people, honest people into the White House and throughout the executive branch of our democratic government, or vote for “Massah” McCain and have four more years of “Massah” Bush and “Massah” Cheney-type neo-Nazi, neo-fascist right-wing propaganda and policies, which will surely destroy our nation.

I was leaning McCain until that eloquent statement shocked me awake.

Hey all? My chinchilla just died. When the coroner opened Captain up he found a security camera right next to Captain’s heart. Sometimes there’s just too much sad news, ya know?

Don’t knock the gummie dicks. Before their advent, this was your primary “eat a bag of dicks” dining option.

Au contraire, Jennifer. (Tho’ we are sticking with a Pacific NW thing here…)

Mmmm… Dicks. Bags of hot, meaty, juicy Dicks.

What?

I remember the first time RB used his “my pet just died” JanusNode routine a number of people quite sweetly commiserated with him.

Overnight somebody should change Wall Street to Bail Street.

When one of our resident cat population died last week, I thought about asking RB for a suitably-consoling Rainbow-Bridge-Related message.
Mehitabel the Abyssinian is in mourning, though she shows it in strange ways, like pulling pizza crusts out of the garbage in the middle of the night and bringing them to bed.

Can you tell what’s on my mind?
A brand new house, it drives me wild
I’ll call my banker on the phone
Then suck his bone
These kinds of deeds are such a high
Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo
He gives me loans

We made it on his office desk
I watched his three-piece-suit burlesque
He looked at me with such a smile
My face it shone
Sex and business is grotesque
Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo
He gives me loans

Bank boy, bank girl
I want that contract to unfurl
Bank boy I’m gonna make him penetrate
I’m gonna make you be a girl
Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo
Bank boy bank girl

And though my credit is quite shot
I’m on a one-half acre lot
And even if I have a payment to postpone
When I’m with him it’s just so hot
Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo
He gives me loans

I got the dead pet lines from actual dead pet comments on the web because I’m a horrible horrible person.

sung to the tune of China Girl?

although not always evenly or consistently.

There’s your mavericky right there.

Heh, I was going to say Ca Plane Pour Moi, and there it is next up on the Tube.

This is more illustrative but it’s interrupted with sketches in German:

Hrrm, listen to song before commenting.

Also, you’re a horrible, horrible person for reminding me how long ago that was.

BRB, gotta tell the kids to get off my lawn.

Oh. My. God.

The SNL Palin “interview” rules! Never before has the best line come from the real transcript rather than the writers.

Worst October Surprise ever.

It would shut down the race for a week.

Because that’s all they have left.

Wow.

In the narrowest sense, a stochastic process has the Markov property if the conditional probability distribution of future states of the process, given the present state and all past states, depends only upon the present state and not on any past states, i.e. it is conditionally independent of the past states.

Ironic that the same process that generates ‘fake” Palin responses was similar to the model for calculating risk for financial derivatives.

Two weird Palin items:

http://interviewpalin.com/ uses Markov chain-generated reactions to let you conduct your own simulated Palin interview.

And this somewhat disturbing article: McCain camp prays for Palin wedding

Gah, I’m sorry I missed the earlier references to the Markov Palin interviewer. Guess I had what my old boss used to call “a blonde moment.”

That second story should be interesting, though.

Jonah’s doing an update? Maybe someone should let him know he’s now in Urban Dictionary.

As opposed to Reynolds, who aspires to upload his consciousness into a robot body, Jonah would be content with replacing himself with Wiki software. I reckon he deserves credit for being realistic.

Jonah would be content with replacing himself with Wiki software.

It would be more likely to pass a Turing test.

Also, if anyone hasn’t seen the SNL-Palin skit yet, here it is.

A bunch of fun parody, and then – boom, about halfway in, almost verbatim excerpts from the real interview. I nearly pissed myself. Fucking brilliant. It goes to show, you really can’t write better comedy than these fools conjure up unintentionally.

I’m a horrible horrible person.
When the vet rang to report that Harry-cat’s condition was inoperable, my first thought was that at least we could make a teaching moment of it, and further our daughter’s education by staging an autopsy. The Frau Doktorin’s response to this suggestion was unaccountably negative.

Worst October Surprise ever.

Step 1. Scream at the press to leave Palin’s family alone.
Step 2. Ask the press to race out to Alaska and intrude on Palin’s family.
Step 3. ???

I notice the people gushing over the possibility of a tactically placed wedding don’t care what Bristol and the Fucking Redneck might want. The strain of having strangers stomp through their wedding might cause some tension, but so what? By the time the issues that causes leads to a divorce we’ll have won the election! Family Values, bitches!

Wow. Those people really chow down on the goeducks.

Hey, is it true that the brain-damaged nitwit who regularly posts here as “The Truth” is really Bob “Cornfed Wankstain” Owens.

Cos if it were so, that would be, well, kinda sad ….

And we liberals mocked the wisdom of a Palin pick! Yes, she brings problems, but she also brings solutions.

I have no doubt, at all, any more, that this event will take place. These are the people who bullied the Alaska legislature, voters in several states, and their own candidate.

They would regard two teenagers as a piece of cake.

Even the sorry-ass Bush clan had the class (?) to keep their youngun’s wedding from becoming a political media event.

These clowns? Not so much.

Like I said, that’s all they have left.

Step 1. Scream at the press to leave Palin’s family alone.Step 2. Ask the press to race out to Alaska and intrude on Palin’s family.Step 3. ???

Step 4: PROFIT!