A couple things that threaten to punch a hole in the fabric of space-time.

First, Hitler reacts to the Hitler parodies being taken off YouTube:

I agree with Hitler. No, not that Hitler.

Second, after Jake Tapper made a Keyser Söze joke following President Obama's appointment of a judge named Kobayashi to the bench, he lamented that he'd been out-nerded by followers making Kobayashi Maru jokes. At which point Kirstie Alley out of the blue offered to give Jake advice on the Kobayashi Maru.

My head asplode.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:41 PM | Comments (161)
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So...if I stopped paying my mortgage today, and wouldn't get tossed in the street for another two years, I can buy more shiny shit, right?

The average number of days from when a borrower stops paying on his/her mortgage to when the bank sends out the first foreclosure notice is 417, Zelman notes, and the final foreclosure can take up to a year more.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:02 PM | Comments (125)
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The Fordham Flip.

It's pretty much over after the leap, the rest is just cheering and arguing.

You know, the usual baseball stuff.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:21 PM | Comments (31)
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So chanted thousands of bused-in ACFSME union "grassroots" agitators to Illinois state congressmen, urging them to "raise [our] taxes!" so that their salaries and benefits wouldn't be cut.

But that sort of indicates right there that their taxes aren't really being raised, doesn't it? Their employer is the government. If the government raises their taxes a bit but continues hiking their salaries, they are net-ahead as far as the government. They're paid out of taxes, of course. They are in the unique position of actually seeing their net income go up whenever taxes are raised.

The rest of the public is finally starting to notice that, and that the public -- 20% of whom are out of a job or working part-time when they want a full-time job -- is basically paying their employees more than they themselves receive in salary, and with far better benefits and job-security, too.

I think the public is finally starting to wake up to that. People have this asinine "let's not be mean" thing going with public-employees unions. They don't like being a cheap boss who won't give a big raise every year.

But they're finally starting to understand that they are, ultimately, the boss, and all these 4%-per-year raises and ridiculously huge pension plans are coming out of their own hide.

I don't think the unions understand this. They are getting more aggressive and obnoxious about their undeservedly high salaries and pension plans rather than being conciliatory about it. They are continuing to demand salaries and benefits that most of the rest of the country could only dram of without even offering even the slightest apologies to the strapped taxpayers whose incomes they are reducing in order to increase their own.

Ever since I was a kid, I've heard it said twenty times at every singe Democratic National Convention that it was absolutely imperative we pay our teachers as if they're doctors or lawyers (!), and everyone dutifully applauds, because it's just the sort of sentiment that you're supposed to agree with.

I don't think that's going to play well in 2012. I don't think these guys are understanding that things have changed, and that the public is no longer willing to uncritically bless 4%-a-year-regular-as-clockwork raises when their salaries have been more or less flat for a good long time.

Posted by: Ace at 03:14 PM | Comments (164)
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Heh.

Three guys -- suspected, I guess, of being non-gay ringers -- competed on a team in the gay softball world series (or something). After a lot of "intrusive questioning," they were deemed not fully gay and the team was stripped of its silver medal and the men banned for a year.

I guess a year, because they can practice being totally gay for 12 months, and then see if they pass the test.

Paulie Carbone just put out a press release stating he feels "completely vindicated."

Thanks to Andrew's Dad.

Posted by: Ace at 03:01 PM | Comments (88)
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He snowboards and body-boards, too.

More here: "He's an adrenaline junkie."

Posted by: Ace at 02:44 PM | Comments (31)
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It's not quite "I'm too dedicated too my work and too detail-oriented," but it'll do:

Asked about his shortcomings, Obama said he needs to better explain to the American people why he makes the decisions he does.

You know the only way he can correct that single defect, right? You got it: More speeches, more professorial condescension, and more urging his supporters to "get in the faces" of those who don't fully appreciate how awesome Captain Wonderful is.

It hardly needs stating at this point that this is the only flaw a liberal will ever confess: An inability to properly deliver his message. Not the policy itself; just a lack of crafty messaging. (The GOP, on the other hand, succeeds not because its policies are popular or good, but only because of savvy (hate-filled, racial-code-worded) messaging.)

A liberal's only flaw is an inability to toggle down their brainpower to the level of the common man in order to engage him in the grunt-filled, primitive proto-language he's capable of comprehending.

Thanks to Slublog and the cobloggers.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (221)
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Its looking pretty fracking big. This 3/2 joint is pretty representative of thousands of houses in the Palm Beach area that are in mortgage trouble.

That place sold in 1999 for $82,000 (which is approx what it would have sold for when built in 1985), then resold in 2005 for $140,000, now some bank is trying to unload it today 25 years later for $80,000. Given the ~100% inflation since 1985, the bank only wants $40,000 in 1985 dollars for it.

Between 2005 and now, there wouldn't have been much principle worked down, maybe a few thousand dollars at best on a 30 year loan, maybe nothing on a no-money-down IO "creative financing" loan. Let's say (very optimistically), they paid down $5K.

That means the bank is getting clipped to the tune of $55,000 on a joint that is admittedly trashed and needs a lot of work being advertised as a "handyman special".

The next few quarters are going to hammer the crap out of bank balance sheets with write downs as the hammer drops on the ~million foreclosures they got cued up falls...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 12:23 PM | Comments (238)
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Retard Strength, Activated!

I see him as a sort of mentally-challenged Popeye, who gains incredible strength from eating snack-cups of tapioca.

Thanks to Drew for the pic and JackM. for the joke.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (168)
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Damned either way?

It's his fall with Republicans that gets all the attention, but Charlie Crist's poll numbers have declined almost as badly with Democrats and independents over the last year as they have within his own party. And that makes me doubt he would be successful in an independent Senate bid even if he did decide to make a run for it.

Comparing Quinnipiac's April 2009 poll to its poll this month Crist's approval rating has dropped 19 points with Republicans, from 68% to 49%. But it's also dropped by 18 points with independents from 68% to 50% and by 14 points with Democrats from 66% to 52%.

Right now Crist gets 30% of the Republican vote and 27% of the Democratic vote if he runs as an independent. But it's important to keep in mind that 61% of Democrats don't know enough about Kendrick Meek to have formed an opinion of him yet- are Democrats who like Crist and don't know Meek today still going to vote for Crist this fall once they know Meek? Given the downward trend in his poll numbers among Democrats it seems like he would lose a lot of that support.

PPP says it's too early to write him off but his victory is "unlikely."

Someone wrote Crist's best polling day will be the day before he announces his switch. There's just no way to build a narrative that he's doing this "out of principle." Oh, he'll try that, but it's pretty obvious that no principle compelled him to leave the GOP when he was leading in party polls. It's only after the party rejects him that his independence and integrity compel him to reject the party in return.

Crist's switch will only reinforce the distaste voters have for him. It seems now he has no convictions or interesting political thinking, and is willing to do or say anything to goose his poll numbers a bit. Suddenly deciding he has to change parties -- and recast his positions to appeal to a different voter profile -- is going to turn that apprehension about him up to 11.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (50)
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