Movies

1) I just saw Deliver Us from Evil (a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes). A must-see. The Catholic Church is still not coming clean about covering up and facilitating child molesters.

2) Mr. Brooks looks good. I haven't seen any reviews yet, but the previews are very promising.

Countrywide ad campaign

Did you hear CFC is getting ZZ Top to do their new ad jingle?


I'm Bad, I'm Countrywide

Well I was rollin' down the road in some cold blue steel,
I had a no-doc in the back, and an option ARM at the wheel.
We're going downtown in the middle of the night
We was laughing and I'm jokin' and we feelin' alright.
Oh I'm bad, I'm Countrywide.
Yes I'm bad, I'm Countrywide.

Easin' down the highway in a new Cadillac,
My borrowers' stated income, it must be a fact.
They're buying those McMansions with no money down,
Everyone gettin' rich all over town.
Welcome back, we're Countrywide.
Yeah we bad, we're Countrywide.

Well I was movin' down the road in my V-8 Ford,
Loanin' dough to Casey Serin 'cause he seems above board.
This game can last forever 'cause prices can't go down,
Lereah told me so and that guy ain't no clown.
I'm bad, I'm Countrywide.
Girl I'm bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, I'm Countrywide.

Everything you need to know about Bay Area real estate

Boarded-up crack house on tiny lot in horrible neighborhood: $349,900.

We're #4!

... in the nation's most overpriced housing markets.

And we're #1 in most asinine home-price-to-rent ratio: over 50!

Still pimpin'

Months after newspapers, magazines, and TV programs across the country exposed the idiocy of pay-option ARMs, Countrywide is still pushing them.


This morning at the Countrywide office in the Civic Center.

I shorted CFC again today. It's back above $41, right back where it was before the subprime meltdown. It's the pig that keeps on giving.

Your Bush Administration open-borders policy at work

At least one of the Fort Dix illegal alien terrorists had been arrested by police before:

In 2002, township police twice arrested one of the men charged this week with plotting to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix, but let him go despite the fact he was illegally in this country.

Police records show Eljvir Duka, 23, of Cherry Hill, got stopped by township officers on Feb. 8 and May 21, 2002, and taken into custody on outstanding warrants for traffic offenses from the New Jersey State Police.

...

Police Chief Rafael Muniz said his officers are trained to confirm the identity of an individual taken into custody before he or she is released.

Although not familiar with Duka's past run-ins with township police, Muniz said that if a red flag pops up showing an individual might be in the country illegally, federal Immigration and Customer Enforcement officials are immediately notified.

That does not mean, however, that the individual will be picked up, Muniz said.

"If (ICE) or nobody wants them or are not interested in picking them up, we would have to release them," Muniz said. "Usually, what I've found is they only pick up the individuals if they are charged with an indictable crime. We're limited in what we can do. We would have to find out who they are before releasing them."

Either the cops didn't notify ICE, or ICE didn't care. Either case is entirely possible as the Bush Administration refuses to make interior enforcement a priority.

U.N. plagiarizes W.C. Varones

Two months ago, we wrote that ethanol will destroy the environment:

Ethanol is terrible for the environment. It’s driven up corn prices, not just in the U.S., but in Mexico and Central America. This will immediately cause the clear-cutting of remaining rainforest to plant the now immensely profitable corn crop.

I’ve traveled through Central America. It was bad enough seeing subsistence farmers cutting down the rainforest to clear land to feed their families. Ethanol demand in the U.S. will make the clear-cutting much faster and more far-reaching.

What about using Brazilian cane sugar instead? Perfect. They’ll clear-cut the Amazon rainforest.

You think burning gasoline causes CO2 levels to increase? That’s nothing compared to what chopping down the Amazon will do.

Law of unintended consequences. Learn it.

Now comes the U.N., never content to let five concise and complete paragraphs stand, to say the same thing in a 60-page paper.

The Guardian summarizes:

The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the most comprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.

"Unless carefully managed" means we need to hire armies of new U.N. bureaucrats to micromanage biofuel development, I presume.