Bob Morris @ Dec 9th 2007 13:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
James Watson, the DNA pioneer who claimed Africans are less intelligent than whites, has been found to have 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.”This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African.”
Bob Morris @ Dec 9th 2007 10:34 - Category: Unfiled ;
(Yes, it’s the bane of blogdom, more impossibly cute photos of cats. But these kittens need a home.)
These four females are Maine Coon mixes, about four months old, and healthy. They were abandoned in a snowy field near a feral cat colony and rescued by the Humane Society. We are fostering them for the Humane Society and want to find homes for them. They are in the process of getting all needed shots, are FLV negative, and have certificates so they can be fixed.
Email me if interested,. We live near Hartford CT
Julia
Miss America (loves being groomed)
Dali (big whiskers, looks like moustache)
Twinkletoes (white toes on each foot.)
Bob Morris @ Dec 9th 2007 07:26 - Category: Unfiled ;
Key quote from their home page:
“Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down —Oscar Romero”
Jesus Radicals are “Christian Anarchists.”
Anarchism is a rich and powerful critique of modern society that Christians have at our fingertips. We do not wish to confuse Christianity with anarchism but we do believe that when Christianity is lived rightly it looks a lot like anarchism. The two are not the same thing but that does not mean they are mutually exclusive.
Bob Morris @ Dec 9th 2007 00:15 - Category: Credit crisis ;
Among the qualifications for the ARM rate freeze is that the homeowner must have a higher LTV than 97%. That’s more, not less. Thus only those who owe more than 97% of the value of their home can qualify. (And given some of the more exotic mortgages and dropping home prices, yes, you can owe more than 100%.)
The idea is to get people to keep making mortgage payments on a loan that is worth more than the collateral. A neat trick! If these “homeowners” really crunched the numbers, they would realize it’s better to walk away, and rent for less money, rather than to keep making the mortgage payment.
The plan is sold as helping homeowners. It is designed to help investors.
That would be those who bought CDOs and the like, bond-like products that contain thousands of mortgages. If enough of them default, then the CDO goes worthless and the bond insurance company has to pay up. Trouble is, many of those insurance companies are already wobbling badly. If one or more of them crater, then the effects on the financial system will be profound.
That’s the real aim of the plan, to postpone the inevitable collapse of billions of dollars worth of CDOs and SIVs. But if you bought your home in 2005 for $400,000 on a no-doc 1% down ARM loan and it is now valued at $350,000, you will be way underwater and indeed, it may be far more financially prudent to simply walk away from it.
However, not all investors are exactly thrilled with the plan
The only problem with the plan is that it may turn out that investors may try to refuse to be plundered.
And this appears to be only the opening scenes of Act 1. More carnage is coming, from “second mortgages, hybrid intermediate-term ARMS, and the soon-to-be infamous Pay Option ARM.”
P.S.
During the Paulson Q&A on Friday, he was asked: “Do you anticipate bank failures like England saw with Northern Rock?” Paulson gave a non-answer, and the reason is probably because there are several bank failures in the offing.
Bob Morris @ Dec 9th 2007 00:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
Stuart McNae has had to change his mobile phone ringtone five times – because his parrot Billy keeps copying them.The parrot waits until Stuart leaves the room, mimics the sound of a call – then laughs when he dashes back to answer.
Sue tells me that a parrot in a house nearby her when she was a child learned to mimic the mother calling for her kids - then laughed when the kids came running back into the house.
It should also be noted that there are wild parrots in Los Angeles who have learned to imitate car alarms.
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