One of those issues which is decidedly non-sexy and math-oriented that the public tunes out on.

Unfortunately giving the administration a free pass to further sock the taxpayer in the eternal cause of redistribution of wealth.

Happy New Year, readers, but before we get on with the debates of 2010, there's still some ugly 2009 business to report: To wit, the Treasury's Christmas Eve taxpayer massacre lifting the $400 billion cap on potential losses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the limits on what the failed companies can borrow.

The Treasury is hoping no one notices, and no wonder. Taxpayers are continuing to buy senior preferred stock in the two firms to cover their growing losses—a combined $111 billion so far. When Treasury first bailed them out in September 2008, Congress put a $200 billion limit ($100 billion each) on federal assistance. Last year, the Treasury raised the potential commitment to $400 billion. Now the limit on taxpayer exposure is, well, who knows?

The firms have made clear that they may only be able to pay the preferred dividends they owe taxpayers by borrowing still more money . . . from taxpayers....

The loss cap is being lifted because the government has directed both companies to pursue money-losing strategies by modifying mortgages to prevent foreclosures. Most of their losses are still coming from subprime and Alt-A mortgage bets made during the boom, but Fannie reported last quarter that loan modifications resulted in $7.7 billion in losses, up from $2.2 billion the previous quarter.

The government wants taxpayers to think that these are profit-seeking companies being nursed back to health, like AIG. But at least AIG is trying to make money. Fan and Fred are now designed to lose money, transferring wealth from renters and homeowners to overextended borrowers.

Even better for the political class, much of this is being done off the government books. The White House budget office still doesn't fully account for Fannie and Freddie's spending as federal outlays, though Washington controls the companies. Nor does it include as part of the national debt the $5 trillion in mortgages—half the market—that the companies either own or guarantee. The companies have become Washington's ultimate off-balance-sheet vehicles, the political equivalent of Citigroup's SIVs, that are being used to subsidize and nationalize mortgage finance.

...

That's why on Christmas Eve Treasury also rolled back a key requirement of the 2008 bailout—that Fan and Fred begin shrinking the portfolios of mortgages they own on their own account, which total a combined $1.5 trillion. Risk-taking will now increase, so that the government can once again follow Barney Frank's infamous advice that the companies "roll the dice" on subsidies for affordable housing.

There's important stuff I ...'d out, but I can't quote it all. Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Ace at 05:05 AM | Comments (66)
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The left's narrative on Bush was that he was a prisoner of his ideological bubble, and would allow no unpleasant facts inside it, and would permit no intrusion of basic reality. He was egotistically committed to his decisions because he was The Decider.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, is a supple, agile thinker always willing to revisit and remake old decisions.

[A] bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Obama White House not to go forward with plans to send a number of Yemeni terrorists now being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility back to their home country. But the Obama White House insists it will continue to send those Gitmo inmates to Yemen -- a country now recognized as a hotbed of terrorism so dangerous that the U.S. has decided to close its embassy there.

On Fox News Sunday, top White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said the administration "absolutely" intends to keep sending Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen. The administration has sent seven detainees to the country, Brennan said, with six of those sent in December. "Several of those detainees were put into Yemeni custody right away," Brennan said. He did not elaborate on how many is "several" or where the other Guantanamo inmates sent to Yemen might be today. But he said the U.S. has faith in Yemen to handle the situation. "We've had close dialogue with the Yemeni government about the expectations that we have as far as what they're supposed to do when these detainees go back," Brennan said.

Given that, host Chris Wallace asked, "You are going to consider on a case-by-case basis sending more Yemenis back to Yemen?"
"Absolutely," said Brennan.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Brennan explained that, "Of the recent batch that we sent back, about six, many of them are in custody within the Yemeni system right now." He did not elaborate on the meaning of "many."

Many.

Barack Obama has fulfilled many of his centrist campaign promises and has made many savvy moves to improve the economy.

I, too, am not elaborating on the word "many."

Posted by: Ace at 04:23 AM | Comments (50)
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Yep, I can see the problem where not all the comments show up and you need to reload, sometimes two or three times.

Not sure what it is yet, but I'll keep working on it.

Update: Looks like the virtual server running the New Comments Thingy needed some network parameters tweaked - it was running out of TCP buffers. I've tweaked what needed tweaking and rebooted the virtual server (which is great - it takes about three seconds) and things seem much better now.

Let me know if you still have problems.

Update: Okay, the cause of the cause of the problems was a spam flood. Blocked the spammers now, so things should be happy again.

If you still have problems, blame Canada China.

The spammers were using about 20x the resources that you actual readers are using this time of night.

Update: Do not cook the server hamsters!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:54 PM | Comments (46)
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Last call for the weekend - get those last few jollies in because Monday is coming so very soon.

2010 New YearÂ’s Resolutions According to Women (An Infographic)
I'm guessing the men's version would be the same except sex would be the #1 item in every category edging out chocolate and cell phones.

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:55 PM | Comments (558)
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Last game of the season and last game ever at Giants stadium. If the Jets win they are in the playoffs, if they lose the, um, Houston Texans get in.

As for the whole controversy over whether too many teams were not playing their starters after clinching playoff spots...yeah, that discussion is kind of over.

The scene in Houston didn't leave much hope. Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker sat in the back of a cart, a towel draped over his head, hiding the pain and frustration on his face. Clearly, Welker was hurting from the injury sustained to his left knee as he planted and cut in open space on the Patriots' third offensive play against the Texans.

He knew it was bad. And it is.

According to multiple sources, Welker has both a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee, meaning he'll miss the entire postseason.

I know Herm Edwards famously said, "you play to win the game" but that's not entirely true. You play to win the championship. The chances of the Patriots doing that plummeted today.

You can't protect everyone but protecting as many key players as possible.

BTW-How weird is it that the two first round of the NFC playoff games are rematches of Week 17 games (Green Bay at Arizona and Eagles at Cowboys)?

More Weird [ace]: And as everyone now knows, some bonus weirdness, as the Bengals and Jets will rematch next week.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:18 PM | Comments (93)
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Its still a bit early for an ONT, so I'll entertain you morons with this for a few hours.

Behold the Wattgate 381 "Audio Grade" Duplex Socket. To normal human eyes, it appears to be a rather ordinary, albeit decent quality, duplex power receptacle...one you might expect to pay a few bucks for rather than the $.49 crap in the big bin at Home Depot.

But, no - this beauty clocks in at just under $150/each...only about 100X more than a nice P&S CR-15 which I use everywhere and costs about a buck and a half at Lowes.

You really need to check out the customer reviews for this baby at that link and I think you'll see what a tremendous value it provides.

...It would be great to experience the unmatched audio-grade capabilities of this duplex socket on road trips or while jogging with an iPod. Looking forward to the next generation wireless model!...

...I bought the WATTGATE 381 AUDIO GRADE DUPLEX SOCKET to power the US Airforces Stargate at the Cheyenne in Colorado and WOW!!! We dialed out and made an instant connection the Pegasus Galaxy Stargate without even using a ZPM!...

I feel like such a fool for investing in all those cheap $1.50 CR-15's when I could have been getting $150 Wattgate 381's to plug my StarGate into..

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:44 PM | Comments (172)
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I guess news travels slow in Yemen

January 03, 2010

The U.S. Embassy in SanaÂ’a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to attack American interests in Yemen.

On December 31, the U.S. Embassy sent a warden message to Americans citizens in Yemen to remind them of the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against American citizens and interests throughout the world. The U.S. Embassy reminds U.S. citizens to maintain a high level of vigilance and to practice enhanced security awareness.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 12:51 PM | Comments (96)
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I suppose that, if you have to choose between information and retribution, information is more important.

But then, it's not really firmly established there has to be such a choice, is it?

The U.S. Government is offering the suspect charged with attempting to bomb an aircraft on Christmas Day, Omar Abdulmutallab, some kind of incentives to share what he knows about Al Qaeda, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Sunday.

Asked why Abdulmutallab should cooperate given his right, as criminal defendant, to remain silent, Brennan replied: "He doesn't have to but he knows there are certain things that are on the table... if he wants to engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways he can do that."

This is madness, but this is definitely not Sparta.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Was That Hacky? It was. A guy caught on American soil was never going to be waterboarded. Maybe things could have broken differently if the left and civil libertarians didn't scream so loud even about battlefield captures being warterboarded, but they broke the way they broke. Bush did the same with Richard Reid.

So I'm not sure what to say about that. Honestly, no, nothing much can be done very differently-- he's a criminal and gets the normal criminal treatment.

Still, I'm not really in the mood to be fair and reasonable. The left made up whatever crap it wanted for 8 years; no argument was too low for them.

Posted by: Ace at 10:10 AM | Comments (200)
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She said that on CNN's "State of the Union."

Ah. It's now unfair to take "potshots" at a president for failures in "the system."

Got it.

Pretty much everyone knew this guy was a jihadist interested in deadly Panty Raids.

And yet no one did anything, and he still got on a flight with no problem at all.

Unbelievable.

Obama claimed that Bush had become "distracted" and He (capital intended) would be the one to re-focus on terrorists and keep the country safe.

Campaign promise. Just words? Just words.

But let's not take "political" "pot shots." That sort of thing became traitorous on January 20, 2009.

Now watch this drive.

The System Still Worked: Captain Wonderful's Team of Rival Geniuses is still trying to sell us on everything having worked like gangbusters.

U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss a "smoking gun" that could have prevented an alleged attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Sunday.

White House aide John Brennan cited "lapses" and errors in the sharing of intelligence and clues about the Nigerian man accused in the foiled attempt.

"There is no smoking gun," Brennan said. "There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'"

Right.

No "smoking gun." Just, basically, three or eight foreign intelligence services with dossiers on this guy thicker than a Stephen King book all saying "hey, this guy says he wants to get on a plane wearing a bomb."

Oh -- and yeah, the guy's own father called up and said he's a dangerous jihadist.

But no smoking gun. I mean, not even Sherlock Holmes could put these paltry clues together.

Thanks to DanF.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 AM | Comments (155)
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At least people are speculating about a Brown win.

I don't get the sense this is truly competitive -- yet -- but it could happen. And Brown would be a crucial 41st vote against cloture.

This is still a Hail Mary. But sometimes that's the right play to call.

By the way, John McCain just endorsed him. I know, I know -- don't bother saying it. But the guy needs high-profile endorsements.

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (103)
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