We Are All Sub-Primates Now!

Sources now predict that the peak in housing foreclosures will peak somewhat later than first expected, coming sometime in 2011, instead of the last Q, 2010.

That's the good news. Calculated Risk collected the following from MBA:

On the MBA conference call concerning the "Q3 2009 National Delinquency Survey", MBA Chief Economist Jay Brinkmann said this morning:

The problem is moving to prime loans, including fixed rate prime loans, and also FHA loans. "We are seeing the first hit on the weaker prime fixed borrowers."

Remember the delinquency rate includes loans in modification (something to remember - especially for the 90 day delinquent loans).

MBA expects unemployment rate to peak in Q1 or Q2 2010, and delinquencies to peak sometime after the unemployment rate peaks.

Brinkmann expects foreclosures to possibly peak in 2011 (last quarter he said late 2010). He changed the forecast for two reasons: he expects unemployment to stay fairly high, and he thinks the prime borrowers will hang on before defaulting, and all the foreclosure moratoria will delay foreclosures - a longer trailing effect than usual.

Note: Many more questions this time!

He includes the requisite charts and graphs, on the suite, too

School Daze: A "News Value" Puzzle

Remember, in school, you'd get little puzzles: Which of these do NOT belong?

Below I've listed the five "teaser" heds for news stories on the Yahoo mail home page at no particular point in the day yesterday..

You're challenge today is to name which srory doesn't belong with the rest, and why, (in 250 words or less).

Begin now!

1) NC searchers find body of missing 5-year-old girl (AP)

2) 12 Afghans killed in attack on meeting with French (AP)

3) AP Poll: Americans fret over health overhaul costs (AP)

4) New advice: Skip mammograms in 40s, start at 50 (AP)

5) Millions will have to repay part of tax credit (AP)

So which one is NOT LIKE all the others? Why?

Extra credit: Follow the links. Discuss why the order in which the stories were presented could be significant, and what its significance could be? Lose points for banal, pedestrian mention of "If it bleeds, it leads.")

"thePrez" Sets The Woods Afire; Haircut Also Admired

And then there is this for the Green Obama.

Support Mike Stark, Progressive Reporter, Asking Tough Questions To The Powerful

What the "injured parties" thought:

Unflattering videos of senators trying to explain their votes have gone viral on the Internet, including one of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) swatting away a hand-held video camera held by a liberal blogger questioning his vote against the (Franken, anti-rape) amendment.…

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment.…

It has circulated a Web video that used a clip from Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show to target three senators who face reelection in 2010: Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Jim DeMint of South Carolina.…

“I think the whole purpose of that amendment in my opinion was to create a vote which they could use to attack Republicans,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was himself confronted by a liberal blogger with a video camera questioning his vote.

The clips in question are these, on Stark's blog:
Here's Cornyn, from Texas, natch...




I have only supplied the raw data. Go to Stark's site and help him get the hit that will get him the ads that will get him the cred to get into the faces of these fatuous fascists! You can help support him by signing this petition.

DOTOF™ to Digby for the linkee...

Dept. of We Are So Fucked: Are You Ready For Domestic Water Wars?

Only one percent of the Earth's entire store of water is potable. There's a 50/50 chance that, by 2017--merely 8 years--Lake Mead will become useless mud-puddle. Oh, and here, in the high Chihuahuan? The Rio Grande's down to a trickle, and the Ogalalla acquifer is receding at a record pace. Mebbe I can get along on whiskey? Gonna be damn hard on the dogs, though...

Via AlterNet:

California's Water Crisis Is Just the

Beginning for Water Woes in the U.S.

By Susan J. Marks, AlterNet. Posted November 13, 2009.

Legislators silenced some of the outcry over water in California last week with the passage of a sweeping water-reform bill.

But the thirst for water in California, and across the country, has only just begun.

Many Californians blame their water problems on drought, the Endangered Species Act (the "farmers vs. fish" debate) and inadequate infrastructure.

Others point to mismanagement, overallocated water rights and a lack of conservation. The reasons, though, behind the state's water crisis, and that which threatens the rest of the country and many places around the globe, go well beyond that.

Fresh water, once considered Earth's infinite, simply is not inexhaustible. Demand has soared, and supplies dwindled. Factor in climate change and drought, and the result is shortage and conflict over what's left.

The contentious battles plaguing California over the past year -- marches, protests, dried-up fields, demands for massive aid, and more -- will spread across the country. Sooner rather than later our once-abundant water taps could run dry, and the water battles to come will make the health care debate seem like a tea party.

Why such doom and gloom? Water is the new oil, only there is no alternative. Every living being on this planet needs water to survive. Each of us has a vested interest in this elixir of life.

Complicating the equation, no one wants to relinquish his or her share. California approved a controversial water reform, but stay tuned. Californians still thirst for diminishing supplies, as do other areas of the country.

Beyond drought, fish and canals, overpopulation exacerbates our water troubles. The U.S. population is up more than 70 percent in the last 50 years. With that boom comes huge demands for water, and not only to drink. It takes water to produce and deliver our energy, grow our food, manufacture our goods, mine our minerals, and even to deliver the water we drink.

Populations, too, have moved to where the water is not. Arid cities like Albuquerque, N.M.; Phoenix; Tucson, Ariz.; Dallas; Denver and Las Vegas have limited water supplies.

In a paper written in February 2008, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California predict a 50 percent chance that by 2017 Lake Mead, the primary water supply for Las Vegas, will hit "dead pool" status. That's when the lake's water level drops below the intakes for Hoover Dam, energy production ceases and no more water is released downstream. ("When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?" [PDF] by Tim Barnett, a research marine physicist, and David Pierce, a climate scientist.)

This is only part of the bad news. Read the rest at the site in the link above. And start saving your spit...

Dept. Of We Knew It All Along: The Raygunners Stole the '80 Election

That darn Robert Parry! Him and his gol-dang ConsortiumNews blog. They are such a cards. Playful folks, alright...

Why, just Imagine, the cheek!

Here they go a'tellin' us that what everybody knew about the '80 campaign but that nobody--except us 'unserious' people--dared to talk about, which was that the Raygunauts--led by the CIA, in the person of GHWBush and Bill Casey--met secretly in Paris with the Iranians holding US Embassy hostages in Tehran, and made a deal to trade guns for hostages when they were in power, that prevented Jimmy Carter's so-called "October Surprise" from perhaps turning the tied in the election by negotiating the hostages' release in time for the Nov. 1980, vote.

Until today, alleging the 'truth' to such allegations was widely regarded as akin to proudly donning a tin-foil helmet and a hobby horse to take on the dragons under the bed: Foolish, outrageous, childish, paranoid. It's been almost universally thought to be expressly "UNAMERICAN" to even harbor such a suspicion. "Serious" sentiment held, and will likelky cleave to the myth that "Americans" would never descend to gangsterism and thuggery merely to win the presidency. That "beacon of liberty to the world," the United States of America would NEVER have dimmed that blazing light while such blatant fraud, and acts that were 'technically' treason were committed in the furtherance of political ends.

Turns out that that is EXACTLY, PRECISELY what occurred. The evidence was gathered, witnesses were interviewed, and the story was there, but it was never told until now. Maximum Props to Robert Parry and his crew. Reagan and Casey have actualized their incipient putrescence already, but Big Daddy Bush is still among us, and it would do the country good to see a treacherous oligarch strapped to a gurney, on his way to the "big Sleep."

Over at Mark Crispin Miller's blog, he's got a link to the Parry/Consortium story, or you can link through directly from this link.

Obama Plan Portends "Net Neuter-alization"

My buddy, Uncle Smokes, on FB today pointed to this BoingBoing item, in which one will discern the outlines of a system which would completely silence the most effectively democratizing parts of the Web and render the Netz a safe, corpoRat preserve.

Both of my readers will attest that Y'r Ob'd't S'v't has been predicting for close onto 10 years that the Owners--who had spent the previous 150 years, countless lives, and billions upon billions of dollars diligently consolidating their monopolistic command over ALL "means of production" and distribution of information--would eventually devise a way to commodify and take over the Web.

This effort to geld the Web is a long-term, multi-pronged effort, abetted by an 'officialdom' made extremely uneasy by citizens who have means and opportunity to reply to and interrogate their 'betters'--their congressional representatives, as well as to the Owners of the whole enterprise--in a quasi-public forum where the Owners-qua-'subjects' do NOT control either the conditions of participation or the vocabulary. "Pornography" was the first stalking horse for internet content regulation, and the allied concern for "The Children," were the first wave. The attack on net neutrality was one front of the battle to silence dissent and democracy in communications. "Copyright" is yet another. And still in the wings is the prospect of requiring "libel" bonds, or other restrictive regulations on netizens, to interfere in the free exchange of ideas.

The Oligarchs will never cease to quiet and/or coopt the Nets. They will no more quit trying to impose discipline on the Web than the Israelis will quit trying to expel the Palestinians. Guaranteed!

From the official position on the treaty, the Obamanauts apparently are fully supportive of it, and willing to concede EVERYTHING to the WIPO..

This is bad. Very, Very Bad.

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Next: More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

BoingBoing has been in the lead reporting this story. Here's a partial record of their previous entries:

Previously:
New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and ...
Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty ...turns out to be codswallop. Gee. Nobody would ever have guessed
EFF sues Obama administration for promised access to secret ...
Petition to Obama government to disclose secret copyright treaty ...
Anti-counterfeiting treaty turns into maximum copyright free-for ...
Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of ...

It's fascinating to watch, through the heds on the pieces, the decay of the Obama regime's attitude from "Yay, democracy" to "Fuck democracy" in just a few months, innit?

And what is more, nobody could ever have predicted it...Oh, wait...