If you missed SNL’s sendup of Katie Couric’s recent interview with Governor Sarah Palin, here’s your chance to watch Tina Fey at her best. Forget serious politics for the next 7 minutes…This is funny!

If you receive an email with “Nude Photos of Sarah Palin” in the subject line, do not open it. It may contain a malicious virus.

If you receive an email with “Nude Photos of Hillary Clinton” in the subject line, do not open it. It may contain nude photos of Hillary Clinton.

HT: James

Feeling the financial pinch? Giving up on ever taking that European vacation? Dan Piraro suggests this budget alternative…

Yeah, I know, I’ve beaten this drum for quite a few posts now, but it’s important to understand. For those less inclined to slug through my more lengthy attempts at explaining where we are and how we got here, watch this Special Report with Bret Hume which offers a more “capsulized” version:

And for those of you that really want to understand what happened, why, and how our elected (and a few appointed) officials are dealing with it, listen to this audio presentation by Mark Levin at his best. It’s long — about an hour — but you’ll get “extra credit” in Economics 101 for investing the time.

The Presidential election was too close to call. Neither the Republican candidate nor the Democrat candidate had enough votes to win. There was much talk about ballot recounting and court challenges, but a week-long ice fishing competition  seemed the sportsmanlike way to settle things. The candidate that caught the most fish at the end of the week would win the election.

After much back and forth discussion, it was decided that the contest would take place on a remote frozen lake in northern Michigan. There were to be no observers present, and both men would be sent out separately on the isolated lake, returning at 5 P.M. with their catch for counting and verification by a team of neutral judges.

At the end of the first day, John McCain returned to the starting line with ten fish. Soon after, Obama returned with none. Everyone assumed he was just having a bad day and would do better the following day.

At the end of the second day, McCain returned with twenty fish and Obama once again returned empty handed. That evening, Harry Reid met secretly with Obama and said, “Barack, I think John McCain is a low-life, cheatin’ SOB. I want you to go out tomorrow and don’t even bother fishing. Just spy on him and find out how he’s cheating!”

The next night (after McCain had returned with another fifty fish), Reid met with Obama and asked, “So, tell me, how is the old snake cheating?”

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In their September 23 Wall Street Journal article, Charles Calomiris and Peter Wallison opined the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt that poisoned the global financial system was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) — and their sponsors in Washington — are largely to blame for our current mess.

Well, sure. But, as I wrote yesterday, Fannie and Freddie chose that path because they were pressured by the Clinton administration to loosen loan requirements for minorities and others unable to qualify for conventional financing. And, as Ben commented, Clinton relied on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), passed under Carter in 1977, for authority.

Didn’t anyone realize what was happening and sound the alarm? Sure, many. And in the wake of Freddie’s 2003 accounting scandal, even Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, calling for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their risky retained portfolios. But by presenting themselves to Congress as the champions of affordable housing, Fannie and Freddie retained the support of many in Congress, particularly Democrats, and they were allowed to continue unrestrained.

…Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass), for example, now the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, openly described the “arrangement” with the GSEs at a committee hearing on GSE reform in 2003: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping to make housing more affordable … a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing.” The hint to Fannie and Freddie was obvious: Concentrate on affordable housing and, despite your problems, your congressional support is secure.

Eventually, of course, the bubble burst just as Alan Greenspan and others had predicted. Now Congress is trying to get out from under the weight of responsibility by pointing at everyone else while the Bush Administration is working with the Fed to propose a way for Congress to repair the damage with the least negative impact on American taxpayers.

And what were our current presidential candidates doing while all this was going on?

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Normally I wouldn’t mention what looks to be an obvious email fabrication, but I’ve received several emails (you may have too) alleging that a high ranking DNC official (of course) leaked that Senator Joe Biden will cite health concerns, possibly related to an another aneurysm, as his reason for stepping down as the vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, to be replaced by Senator Hillary Clinton soon after the VP debate.

Such email rumors aren’t uncommon; remember the one in 2004 claiming Bush was about to dump Dick Cheney? And more recently, that McCain was about to replace Sarah Palin? In fact, there hasn’t been such a swap since McGovern did it in 1972 (with disastrous results).

I know, anything’s possible, but I wouldn’t put much stock in the idea. The Dems probably realize that whatever boost they might enjoy with a switch to Clinton could be offset by making Obama seem a weak, indecisive, vacillating presidential candidate.

While Democrats bluster about the nation’s financial meltdown and the President’s proposed bailout, remember that all their finger pointing is a desperate attempt to divert attention from their own responsibility at this crucial point in the election campaign. Where did all these sub-prime loans come from, anyway? Whose bright idea was that?

Frequent contributor Mike points to a September 30, 1999, New York Times article (Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending) that pinpoints the genesis of the current financial crisis and exposes why current Democratic finger pointing is aimed in the wrong direction:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration [emphasis added] to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub-prime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990’s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines [emphasis added*], Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”…

*As recently as August 2008, Raines was identified as an economic adviser to the Obama campaign. He’s apparently now been pushed into the shadows. Good decision, but not soon enough to go unnoticed.

To be continued…

Indeed. (Thanks Kelly!)

Michael provided these stunning HDR (high dynamic range) images. The first is of a people-mover system in Hong Kong, an example of HDR done right. The second HDR image was taken in Kuala Lampur and, although striking, I think it’s been over processed. Your thoughts?

I don’t know how we missed this Timothy Egan book in 2006 when it was first published, but after starting it last night, we’re hooked. The Worst Hard Time is the epic story of the dust storms that terrorized America’s High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression and the families who stayed and survived the choking dust of our nation’s greatest natural disaster, the “dirty thirties”. From the Introduction:

On those days when the wind stops blowing across the face of the southern plains, the land falls into a silence that scares people in the way that a big house can haunt after the lights go out and no one else is there. It scares them because the land is too much, too empty, claustrophobic in its immensity. It scares them because they feel lost, with nothing to cling to, disoriented. Not a tree, anywhere. Not a slice of shade. Not a river dancing away, life in its blood. Not a bump of high ground to break the horizon, give some perspective, spell the monotone of flatness. It scares them because they wonder what is next. It scared Coronado, looking for cities of gold in 1541. It scared the Anglo traders who cut a trail from Independence to Santa Fe, after they dared let go of the lifeline of the Cimarron River in hopes of shaving a few days off a seven-week trek. It even scared some of the Comanche as they chased bison over the grass. It scared the Germans from Russia and the Scots-Irish from Alabama — the Last Chancers, exiled twice over, looking to build a hovel from overturned sod, even if that dirt house was crawling with centipedes and snakes, and leaked mud on the children when thunderheads broke.

It still scares people driving cars named Expedition and Outlander. It scares them because of the forced intimacy with a place that gives nothing back to a stranger…

History, delivered as though in a novel you don’t want to put down. I find myself stopping to re-read paragraphs, to draw in a melodic phrase or colorful description, marveling at the perfect choice of words and hoping to remember how they were woven, all the while discovering how little I really knew about this part of our history and the very real people who lived it.

I don’t usually recommend a book before finishing it, but this may well be the exception.

Thanks James!

I’m a little late posting it, but here’s another political video mashup from Hugh Atkin…

As Hugh points out, it’s a bit of a “return to the well” after this one…

I saw a billboard yesterday that read:

Out of curiosity, I did.

A Mexican showed up with a tow truck.

I have a hard time understanding the success of MySpace. I know, it’s for “social networking”, I get it. But the personal sites I’ve visited are clunky, crowded, confusing conglomerations that have left me exhausted and wondering why MySpace doesn’t clean up its interface.

Someone once told me MySpace was originally designed for musicians to distribute samples of their music and book gigs. And the music window works great, although it would be a more pleasant experience without the surrounding clutter.

Anyway, kids soon discovered MySpace and the rest is history. Unfortunately, freaks and pervs discovered it too. If you have kids, especially tweens and teens, MySpace is not a safe place for them to hang out.