Good morning, HAers! We hope you had a great weekend fighting the crowds in the malls. Funny thing…people tell me it snowed here. I ran some errands Saturday, came home feeling a little flu coming on and took a nap. Next thing I know it’s Sunday morning and wet and rainy outside. Snow you say? Yeah, right…
I am aware, however, that it is the last month of 2007, entering the thick of the holiday season, which means a lot of snow news days, make that slow news days, are on the way. Not that no news is actually happening. It’s just that the real news, the bare hungry sniffin’ truth, is not likely to be covered during this or any holiday season. There are two reasons for this: First, the real truth is kinda depressing and might serve up a real downer during a season to be jolly. Second, reporting real news would usurp space reserved for contest entries. The Seattle Times is particularly aggressive with prize-based, multi-part series this time of year. After all, the many prizes the industry awards to itself (no one else volunteering for the privilege) translate into respect, leadership and the current booming circulation rates that newspapers enjoy.
So yesterday’s and today’s Times are dominated by a series on old people being victimized by mortgage lenders (the headline says “Seniors prime targets…” shouldn’t that be subprime?), focusing on the trials of 96-year-old Frances Taylor, who lost $2 million in a sort of Ponzi scheme of refinancing during the housing boom. Anyone who owns a house, of course, is aware of the lending vultures eager to separate the gullible or defenseless from their life investments, and one wouldn’t wish Taylor’s experience on even the greediest of homeowners. But cynics like me (who was told repeatedly from 1999 on to refinance my home because equity is “dead money”) scoured the news media rabidly during the boom years for even a hint, a shred, a scintilla of skepticism arguing against leveraging equity. Perhaps The Times and other news media would have better served Frances Taylor and the rest of their reading public with a series on the dangers of the lending market in time to save people their homes. Granted, such unpleasantness might have discomfited the real-estate advertising community and probably not won any awards. But it would have saved a lot of readers a lot of grief.
So hark, the herald angels sing: It’s not too late to report today’s news today! Here’s an idea: How about a three-part series, or let’s not be greedy, just one good, hard-hitting story on the overbuilding crisis (all those condos and townhouses still being built while the ones already in place aren’t selling). Or here’s one: Somewhere there must be someone who is dying or already dead because they could not afford medical insurance. Or their insurance company did not cover what they should have. Or because their insurance company did not pay, they lost their house to predatory lenders. And how about Seattle’s war on the homeless, led by our curiously unreproachable mayor — a story rife with political and societal overtones. Oh drat, it’s the holidays. Let’s do a roundup instead of where the homeless can get turkey dinners. Or how about the huge giveaways to Paul Allen’s Vulcan, millions for a useless streetcar serving the rich while affordable housing goes wanting. Oh wait, the Beacon Hill News and The Stranger have that covered. So instead we have the P-I airing the kvetches of the privileged and wealthy, who are squabbling over downtown condos blocking each other’s views. “What Do You Think?” the P-I Web site asks. Um, er, can’t those guys afford lawyers?
Perhaps in this season of glad tidings we should adapt the cheerful admonition of suspected war criminal Donald Rumsfeld: You read the morning headlines you have, not the ones you might want or wish for. So for now anyway we’re stuck with 8 guys saying they had sexual associations with Larry Craig. That’s 7 more than got Clinton impeached, and Craig is still walking tall, with a spring in his wide stance. If only Monica Lewinsky had been male. We wait breathlessly for Matt Lauer’s call-back to Craig (with special guests!).
Or here’s something: Obama leading Clinton in Iowa? If I could do it, I would make that little Chris Berman “Wha….????” squeak. And what about Kucinich teaming up with Ron Paul? Hey, they could have their own debate, networks be damned. Ah but that would be the news we wish for, not the news we have.
first
Paul,
You missed something: GasBaghdad Rep. Jim McDermott is toast.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sun.....00854.html
SCOTUS said no to a review of the judgment against McDermott, so now he’s going to have to pony up $700K in damages. Smooth move, Ex Lax!
Query? Will Goldy do a fundraiser for him? For an unethical member of Congress who traffics in unlawfully intercepted telephone conversations?
If he does, maybe The Darcy can offer fashion commentary! It, like, would, like, be, like, abfab…like.
The Piper
$700k to show what the GOP really is?
Worth it.
I’m sending some $$$ as soon as I can. JMcD did this country a great service exposing that insufferable weasel Gingrich.
Too bad it’s going into that other weasel’s pocket, Boehner.
Some things you just got to grin and bear.
@3…Aaron…
And how much of the $700K are you down for?
Remember…it was McDermott who was found to be the unethical one in this matter.
The Piper
@4…YLB…
Methinks the D.C. federal courts did the country a service in exposing McDermott to be the unethical weasal he is.
Typical of the breed.
The Piper
Remember everybody, a lot of rich a-holes bailed Scooter Libby out of his fines. Libby didn’t have to give up a dime even though he’s a rich man.
Spare a few bucks for Sunny Jim.
@2 Hey Piper, give a poor newsie a break! The McDermott story didn’t even get transmitted till after I’d finished composing the morning notes. If you send me links to stories before they happen, I will make every effort to include them in the roundup, and together we will make HA the No. 1 news site on the Web!
Hey Pooper,
I sure love how democracy is breaking out in Iraq.
Love how that surge has worked out for those people.
@8…PA…
Since I, too, am a “working journalist” (See HA Happy Hooligans wretch and gag…But it’s true; I have a column in a local weekly),it’s fun for me to break the story. But I must give credit to Postman over at the Times who had it on his site at 0:dark-30 this morning.
But how much “news” value is there in a story that immediately results in the headline: HA’ers express outrage! Of course, HA’ers express outrage at everything, from the weather to the fact someone, somewhere disagrees with conventional HA wisdom.
But I’ll tell you what…If I get any really juicy tips, I’ll slip ’em your way…as long as I get equal byline! Or…maybe I could convince Goldy to let me post stuff of my own…Sort of an “equal time” thing.
Were that to happen, Seattle-area florists would do land-office business what with all the Happy Hooligan funerals after so many pop a vein upon hearing the news. Would be reminiscent of what the old coxswain said: Stroke, stroke, stroke…
Bet ol’ Rabbit would like them apples!
The Piper
@9…YLB…
What’s your point? To expose how Christians are persecuted by fanatical Muslim extremists? How they’re murdered by insurgent terrorists? How blood-thirsty elements in Iraq want to subject women to middle-ages-levels of terror and domination?
Sounds like all the more reason to defeat insurgents, not cut and run.
The Piper
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Pooper, the gullible, the swallower of neo-con nonsense and fear-mongering.
Wake up to your nightmare: Iran is NOT a threat!
Get on the phone to Bolton right now Pooper. Have him calm your nerves. Krauthammer will for sure be in on the call.
@2 Crackpiper, you’re exactly the kind of person I would expect to applaud this fleecing of a patriot who (mistakenly) relied on the free speech clause of the Constitution in believing he could expect the criminal conduct of the party you so eagerly support without being financially destroyed. Fuck you, gasbag! You’re just as big a slimeball as the crooks you assiduously defend.
expose not expect
@5 Found to be unethical by who? A House ethics committee run by partisan extremists who believe in railroading their opponents while failing to find any fault with a dozen of their own members who are now decorating prison cells? Not exactly what I would call an impartial fact finding process. I sure am glad you’re not a lawyer anymore, crackpiper. My profession doesn’t need people of your ethical vacuity.
11 – The surge is working right? Working so well, “Mr. Higher Father” can’t even help the Christians of Iraq.
Most of them have had to flee to that other country your gang wants to invade: Syria. Yeah, that bastion of Islamist intolerance.
But for the moment let’s say the surge IS working. That means we can bring our troops home right?
The sooner the better so me, my kids and my grandkids can all start paying off this 2 trillion dollar plus disaster.
@12…YLB…
Not a threat? Read http://www.worldtribune.com/wo.....55554.html and http://abcnews.go.com/Internat.....id=3640584
Most certainly Iran is a threat.
The Piper
17 – War can be a profitable enterprise. A lot of “cosmopolitan” contractors with “red state tastes” ought to know.
I hope the surge-enabled “democracy” that’s breaking out in Iraq can address this.
By the way, crackpiper, have you kept up with follies of the fabulist at NRO? Are you a fan of his fables?
Read all about it.
And the World Tribune? Stinks to high heaven of right-wing drek.
@19…YLB…
For someone who cites Huffington Post for anything other than the lie of the month, accusing any other publication of bias is laughable.
Pretty soon you’ll be using Executive Intelligence Review as one of your primary sources.
The Piper
Executive Intelligence Review
You’re compaing EIR to HuffPO? You’ve lost it. Symptoms of an impending breakdown.
And you’re saying “World Tribune” is comparable in credibility to ABC News?
Yep, no hope for you crackpiper.
Oh and crackpiper here’s the bio of the HuffPO writer:
Thomas B. Edsall is the political editor of the Huffington Post. He is also Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. From 1981 to 2006, he was a political reporter at the Washington Post. He is the author of Chain Reaction and Building Red America.
Yeah, this guy certainly is LaRouche material.
Can you offer a similar background from a minion of “World Tribune”?
17/20 PS
Is Iran a threat? Is the government of Iran a threat? Is the US military credible as a source of allegations about Iran?
Or are the people inside of Iraq who take some of the $9 billion we somehow “misplaced” there and buy weapons from some unscrupulous Iranians a “threat?”
And to address the US government’s credibility, how come we now know from the latest NIE (http://www.dni.gov/press_relea.....elease.pdf) that to the best knowledge of the top intelligence professionals in our country, the primary and most trusted source of knowledge about that nation that our leaders have, Iran has not had a nuclear weapons program from 2003 TO DATE and yet the administration has been telling us at the top of their lungs about Iran’s programs being used for nuclear weapons?
Yeah, real credible.
It’s crumbling crackpiper. The whole rotten neo-con belief system of lies and myths.
I just thought of something! I wonder what Rompin’ Rudy’s prized adviser, Norman Podhoretz, has to say about all this?
fumfahfum..fum…
LMAO!!!
The upshot of the revelations of our new NIE is that we can now assume that whatever the administration and their extensions, the military chain of command (as corrupted by them as it has become) say ANYTHING, we can assume not only that it is false but that reality is the OPPOSITE of what they claim.
opinion stolen from http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/060142.php
we can assume not only that it is false but that reality is the OPPOSITE of what they claim.
Yeah, we can start with their claims of “success” for that phony surge.
YLB – The Clueless One said: “Iran is NOT a threat”
He still hasn’t answered my question on how Hezbollah received the armaments to kill Israeli tanks July 2007?
Why? he can’t and be true to his “beliefs”!
Oops… those facts make him an idiot.
Wait… he already is an idiot!
Hezbollah received the armaments to kill Israeli tanks July 2007?
I don’t know. Like I said earlier, war can be a profitable enterprise. If there’s a great enough need measured in $$$$, then someone rushes to meet that need to get the business
What kind of a capitalist are you? An moronic capitalist apparently.
Darth Cheney was fear-mongering PWhacko. Norman Podhoretz was fear-mongering and you swallowed that right wing bullshit right on cue.
You lose again PWhacks!
YLB – The Clueless One – @28 You better check with your Israeli buds!
I realize you can’t admit it. It would hurt your puny mind!
YLB – The Clueless One – How do I lose. You change the topic when you are caught toe-tapping in the bathroom stall.
YLB @ 28
You just don’t understand. Hizb’u’llah are mere moments away from cobbling together enough Katyusha rockets to almost reach Crete. It’s just a matter of time before they threaten our shores. They must be dealt with now!
Terrorist @ 27
Before you accuse me of down-playing the threat, I had friends camped out in bomb shelters in Haifa during the summer of 2006. One of my co-workers is from Haifa, and the first salvo of Katyusha rockets landed just a few blocks from her parents’ apartment in the Stella Maris neighborhood.
To put this in perspective, during the month preceding the 2006 conflict, more people in the Haifa area died in automobile accidents than were killed by Katyusha rockets during the entire 2006 conflict with Hizb’u’llah.
So, take your “Iran is a threat” bullshit, and shove it right up your ass.
How do I lose.
You lose when you swallow right wing bullshit. There is no near-term threat from Iran obtaining nukes. Darth Cheney is full of shit. Norman Podhoretz is full of shit. If you believed either of those two bullshit artists, you are full of shit and a loser.
They peddle fear, you buy it. Like DL said, a rational person would take anything they say and conclude the exact opposite is true.
verwolf130678