March 2011 – Shortwoman.com

Shorties Highway

A few things about the Economy: Standard of Living; broke; working for nothing.

Wonder Wonder, Wonder Woman!: The History of the Universe as told by Wonder Woman.

Is it time to stop?: I don’t know.

Um, Yeah: Stock photos.

A sign of the Catpocalypse: Hello Kitty Hell tells you to buy Hello Kitty stuff by the 31st to support earthquake and tsunami relief.

A few things about Politics: Dems, Ur Doin It Wrong; Budget; Tax the Super Rich or Face a Revolution; Tom Hartmann.

Springtime in Vegas: Mojave Max says so.

Adapting: Sake.

And now for something cute: Smokey the Purring Cat. I bet that will wake you in the middle of the night!

Geraldine Ferraro, and the One Thing I Remember About Her

The very first news item I encountered this morning as I opened my computer was the death of Geraldine Ferraro. By many standards, she did enjoy a good life: former member of Congress; Vice Presidential candidate (the first female one in the United States — there wouldn’t be another for over 2 decades); TV host; she had a loving husband (that’s one!) and 3 grown children. Yet none of this is what I remember most about Ms. Ferraro.

I remember the 1984 Vice Presidential Debate.

But let’s step back.

The first Presidential Election I have any recollection of was the 1976 contest between Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter. However, the first debate I can recall sitting through was in 1980 between Carter and Ronald Reagan. That’s the one with the famous Reagan catchphrase “There you go again.”

In those days, the debates were run by the League of Women Voters.

By 1984 we had — heaven help us all!!! — a woman candidate for Vice President. How could this be? Can she possibly be qualified?? Quick! Somebody set up a debate between Geraldine Ferraro and the Republican candidate, George H.W. Bush (later known as “President Bush” or “Bush 41”). It wasn’t the first Vice Presidential debate, but it is the first one Generation X is likely to remember.

The woman, who normally wore sharp little suits like this, showed up in a rather unflattering grey sweater. Even to a child it seemed like a thinly disguised attempt by some patriarchal campaign handlers to make her seem “friendly,” “feminine,” and god help her “momlike.” She stood there, next to a former CIA director, former Ambassador, former RNC Chairman in his blue wool suit with the red silk tie, and looked like she was ready to take the class on a field trip. I can’t recall a word of what was said. From where I sat, this moment lost the election for Mr. Mondale.

But onward to 1988, when Dan Quayle was the Vice Presidential candidate. The poor man is right that he took a lot of heat for statements that wouldn’t have gotten a second glance had they come out of the mouth of his running mate’s son. Again, a debate, but now under the auspices of the Commission on Presidential Debates — a wholly owned subsidiary of the two major political parties.

I’ll skip such fine moments as “Gridlock!” and “Oh no say it ain’t so Joe!” and move on. In 1992 they were honest enough to include a third candidate in the debates, the popular if mercurial Ross Perot and his running mate. This would be the last time the CPD would include any “undesirables.”

The Republican field is already starting to populate with Presidential candidates and wanna-be candidates. Before the year is out, we will be subjected to various debates between them where the only thing they actually agree on is that President Obama stinks, is too liberal, might be a socialist, might be a communist, might be a Muslim, might be the anti-Christ, might be Kenyan. In short, they will call him everything except a nice Blank man. By this time next year, the running will be between a short list of 2-5 players. By 18 months from now, we will have had a couple of Presidential Debates and maybe a Vice Presidential one or two.

What will be missing from this picture is all the third party candidates. And this brings me to a proposal.

Let’s have a big, televised debate next spring or summer with all the “other” candidates. And I do mean all of them! Everybody who can get his or her name on the ballot is welcome to come on (at their own expense), answer questions, and talk about their views.

I predict that two things will happen. Most of the candidates will come across as having serious holes in their platforms — if not being completely loony. Some of the candidates will actually have a good idea or two, and perhaps some of these ideas will either create a credible third party or get co-opted by one of the mainstream parties. Either way, this is a win for both the candidate and the country.

In closing: a job fit for a dog; more like this please; insanity; interesting but not happening; way down; when did Jim Bakker start talking sense?; a lousy graph; the good old days?; dangerous; sakura; and even Time thinks it’s odd.

Slight Overreaction

I’m having trouble figuring out where to begin on this one.

So Steven Seagal is now filming his little cop-show in Arizona, with Everyone’s Least Favorite Sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Mr. Seagal just happened to be along on a little raid of a suspected cock-fighting operation. Rather than do something rational like knock on the door yelling “THIS IS THE POLICE AND WE HAVE A WARRANT!”, somebody decided that the most prudent way to conduct this operation was to have “armored vehicles, including a tank” come through the neighborhood and knock one wall of the suspect’s home down. Neighbors panicked and called 911. It turns out that the suspect was alone and unarmed in the home. In the end, “Thousands of dollars in damages were made to the property and 115 birds were euthanized on the spot.”

Now, I’m going to ignore the nagging suspicion that maybe the chickens were in fact run over by the tank.

I’m even going to ignore the fact that the suspect in this case is still a suspect — innocent until proven guilty and all — who has just had his home made uninhabitable and un-securable. Nor will he be able to make arrangements for repairs to make his home secure until he can post bail or be found innocent. In other words, he’d better plan on never seeing any of his possessions again.

I’ll even ignore the undue fear created by police officers in the community, the role of the TV cameras, and all the controversy that curls around Sheriff Arpaio like Rapunzel’s hair.

Here’s my question: in a day and age of budget cuts everywhere, how and why does any civilian law enforcement agency own and maintain a TANK?

Seriously, with cash-strapped state and local governments everywhere you look, don’t you think that just maybe the tanks and other armored vehicles should be the first thing to go? Is it really that important to be able to knock down the occasional wall? And if so, wouldn’t it be more cost effective to rent an tank team from the local National Guard unit for the afternoon?

Not even Radley Balko knew what to say about this one. What a shame he’s moving to HuffPo.

In closing: HowTo; Sahara; Democrats don’t do P90X?; zombie nuclear dump; flipflop; Thorium; who could have thought that “metabolic abnormalities in obese teens may relate to poor diets”??; Busted has a point; shirt; uncertainty; and that’s it for the day.

Tokyo does not have 3 syllables

This morning, after listening to a newsman mangle the pronunciation of the current Prime Minister of Japan’s name, I thought it might be polite to give readers a brief guide to how to pronounce all those words you might see in print regarding the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant issues.

Thankfully, you don’t need to read any of the three sets of characters used to read and write Japanese; it’s come to you already in “roman” characters called “romanji” or “roomaji” in Japanese. Better yet, every letter always makes the same sound, which is more than you can say for English! So here’s how the vowels work:

“a” always makes an “ah” sound, as in “father” or “want”
“e” always makes an “eh” sound, as in “lend” or “get”
“i” always makes an “eee” sound — just like it does in Italian or Latin. Think “Italiano”. Sometimes, if it would cause emphasis to be given to a syllable, it is almost silent as in “Hiroshima”.
“o” always makes an “oh” sound, like in “slow” or “tempo”
“u” always makes an “oo” sound, like in “tune” or “rule”. Like “i”, sometimes it is almost silent as in “sukiyaki” or “desu” (which means “is”)
Vowels can be doubled up, which results in it being held longer. The most obvious example of this is “Tokyo,” which would be spelled out in Hiragana as something more like “Toukyou”.

And there are a few consonants that seem to give people trouble:

“g” is always hard, as in “get” or “give” or “gen mai cha”
“j” always makes a j sound, like in “jet” or “jive”
“tsu” is said just like it’s written; the t is not silent
sometimes an “n” at the end of a syllable has a sound somewhere between an n and an m (in Japanese, it gets its own character when this happens)
“y” is a consonant, and in words like Tokyo and Kyoto, it is part of one syllable (written with two characters — it gets complicated)

Sorry if this seems a little pedantic. Now you’ll be able to read all those place names in the news and the items on your local sushi/teppanyaki place like a champ.

Now for a special what the??? edition of In Closing: Etsy child abuse; save the Northwest Tree Octopus (you’ve never seen one because they’re endangered!); secret cat haven; an unlikely charitable organization; duh; war on undesirables drugs; historically hardcore; capture the what??; actually it was a little longer than one decade; complaints; can you pass?; the Gentleman from Ohio; time for some realistic time management (including the use of the word NO); remember; vorpal bunnies in Spain; stupid; not really; worried; poor babies; fear; time poverty; the cat and the crickets; yes, this is real; Mrs. God; and find the unnecessary word in this comic:

Shark Jumping

Yes, that’s right. I’ve got another bad case of outrage fatigue. Hopefully I’ll be recovered in time for Blog Against Theocracy Weekend in April!

CSI — the original, the one in Vegas — has officially jumped the shark. It jumped the shark mere minutes after killing Justin Bieber! But no, one serial killer is dead, and another escapes prison immediately. Because everybody knows we need a good serial killer. To boost ratings, or make Vegas seem more dangerous than it is, or because some idiot in Los Angeles is too unimaginative to read the Review-Journal and the Sun now and again. Heck, they’re too lazy to watch the actual newscast that follows CSI in Vegas.

If they actually paid attention to Vegas news, you have stories and potential episode plots like these:

A cabbie was murdered last week.
Yesterday, a man lost control of his car, hit his head on a pole — which killed him instantly. His car continued moving and hit somebody on a bike. If that’s not a good CSI story, then I must have been watching a different show.
Gotta have a freaking serial killer? How about the person or people who are shooting people in their garages?
Like bombs? Still like garages? How about the guy who was killed by a bomb in a casino parking garage?
Earlier this month, we started hearing about results in an FBI investigation of local homeowner associations. It turns out this case has multiple attempted murders associated with it (according to an expert I talked to yesterday).
They could even make an interesting episode out of something “normal,” like a the death of a high profile doctor who practices cutting edge medicine.
There’s plenty of history to plumb as well. Perhaps a modern day Hole In the Wall Gang.
As many foreclosures as we have, and as many cases of “oops foreclosed on the wrong house” as there have been, what about a John Doe who turns out to have gone to change the locks on the wrong address?

So in less than an hour, I’ve got source material for a good solid half dozen episode ideas. I haven’t even needed that darned imagination of mine. What’s their excuse for bringing us little more than a stream of warmed-over sociopaths?

In closing: must be nice to be a bank executive; Germany makes money the old fashioned way, by making stuff; mind = boggled; more than just a few words about Japan; Chernobyl; it’s gonna be a long road to 2012; no job is better than a crappy job; duh; heh; truth; painted into a corner; sad; and, um, yeah Ezra.

The T Is Not Silent

If you watch a Japanese news broadcast about the tsunami, every time you hear a word that ends in “ken,” they are talking about a prefecture. That’s kind of like a state or province.

Fukushima — where they are having the nuclear issue — is the Capitol of Fukushima Prefecture, number 7 on that map. For reference, Tokyo Prefecture is number 13. Thanks to Jill, we now know that if the reactor does blow the fallout will reach all the way to Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico: Update: there seems to be a lot of debate over this map. It’s true that I should have said fallout may reach, rather than will reach. As someone who lives in the yellow zone, it is still my duty to prepare myself and my family for the worst but hope for the best.

Speaking of which, I don’t know how anybody with any understanding of geology can look at the mountains just west of Vegas and possibly think Yucca Mountain is a good idea.

If you were to lay Japan down next to the East Coast of the United States, it would look something like this:

As you can see, Hokkaido is as far north as Maine, but Kyuushu is as far south as Florida. Okinawa extends quite a bit further south. The tsunami was by any standard a big deal.

Speaking of the United States, thanks to TYWKIWDI for pointing out this graphic:

For the record, that’s 12 events in the 80s, and 38 events in the 90s, 47 from 2000 to 2009, and an additional 3 events in 2010. I think I’ve said before that actuaries believe in global warming.

First hand accounts of the quake are starting to be heard. For those of you trying to contact someone in Japan to make sure they are safe, the State Department says “We understand also that some telephone landlines there are disrupted. We are recommending that people try contacting loved ones in Japan by email, text, SMS message, or social media.”

I posted this picture 4 years ago. It’s a sign warning people of tsunami risk. Of course, the current crop of Republicans thinks that tsunami warnings — and other weather warnings — are a waste of time. I’ve got news for you, that’s not going to play well in Iowa.

Susie Madrak had this up, and I think it’s a good sentiment:

In Closing: leave your laptop home; old fashioned boycott causes old fashioned bank run; Bill Maher; on oil; No Depositor Left Behind; long but interesting; and after all that I sure do need a good laugh.

Canibal Shorties

Pesky Government Regulations: Saved lives.

A question of scale: Nope, not toys. It does make you wonder how big a quake caused this.

Tell me why we do this every Spring and Fall again: Not even cows like Daylight Savings Time.

They say they want to save money, then they prevent us from doing it: comparative effectiveness review and Medicare.

Doin It Live!: Public database for safety complaints.

Seriously?: Apparently I live in a dangerous Spring Break destination. Sorry, I’m not feeling it. Oh, I should probably say something about the Sahara closing down in a couple of months, but I’ll let Steve do it.

I love seeing a genuine economist say this: “Ayn Rand Is Full of Crap.” He has to point out that she wrote fiction.

That’s a real diet buster: It’s easier than you might think to eat a 2000 calorie meal at In-N-Out.

We’re off to a great start: 31 Most Ridiculous Quotes of 2011 So Far.

A New Political Party?: The People‘s Party.

Granny’s gonna live longer anyway: on the demographics of the employed and unemployed.

So Be It?: We may have added 222,000 private sector jobs last month, but massive government budget cutting may delete 710,000 old jobs. Can we afford that kind of budget cutting?

Wasn’t Universal Failure the Goal?: 82% of public schools may eventually be “failing,” even ones that by every other measure perform well. That’s what happens when “better” is your only goal.

A Nobel Winning Economist Isn’t Good Enough: for the Federal Reserve.

Flashbang: Potentially deadly against cops, deadly against suspects, deadly against the innocent.

She’s baaaaaack!: Sharron Angle.

Confused: If terraists can allegedly turn the oxygen masks in a plane into a weapon, why can’t terraists do it from their seats?

Only in Vegas: Ladies and gentlemen, the Chip Monk.

International Women’s Day

Maybe I’m not the world’s best feminist. I believe that if I do the same work as a man to the same quality, there’s no way in hell I should earn less money than he does. I believe I should have the right to go where I please, do things that are legal, and manage my life without requiring the input or protection of a man. There are differences between men and women, and that doesn’t make either one superior. Nevertheless — despite my failure to stop shaving or do any other stereotypical radical feminist things — I couldn’t very well let the 100th International Women’s Day go by without any comment whatsoever. President Obama celebrated by making March Women’s History Month.

We’ve still got no woman President — nor even really a candidate I can vote for without serious reservations. This is despite the fact that many other developed nations have managed to have female rulers. Maybe next generation.

We’re still fighting and re-fighting very basic battles on women’s issues — and family issues! — as if the last 50 years never happened. Women‘s and worker‘s rights are being pushed back in some cases 100 years. All the things both men and women cherish — safe workplaces with sane hours, voting, control over our own persons, control over our finances — are under fire. Women may catch the worst of it, but men and women need to work together to overcome the class warfare that is actively trying to turn our nation into a haves and have nots society.

At least we can say women have it better here in the United States than in Afghanistan or Egypt.

In closing: ayatori; 4 Wall Street time bombs; Romneycare doesn’t work; probe Scott Walker good; bait and switch; if the Federal Budget is such a mess, start by defunding this crap!; resveratrol; and a delightful Chinese prospective on Charlie Sheen, reminding us that his father used to be the President. On TV, anyhow.

Connecting the Dots

Today, the SEC announced fraud charges against a third banker for selling worthless and non-existent mortgages to Colonial Bank, leading to its collapse. This is on the heels said executive confessing to conspiracy and being sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Most reporting on “mortgage fraud” centers on one of two themes: Joe Average knew perfectly well he couldn’t afford the house and lied to get the mortgage in the first place; or robosigning was a just an unfortunate oversight caused by the sheer volume of foreclosures and nobody could reasonably predicted a problem. Both infuriate me. The first was only a small fraction of the foreclosures we have, and the second is merely a cover-up for the real mortgage fraud.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The buyer is told by an unscrupulous mortgage broker that he indeed does qualify for a mortgage, even though the mortgage broker knows that within 3 to 5 years, this buyer will have to refinance or go into foreclosure.
Some buyers — mostly minorities — are pushed into sub-prime mortgages despite the fact that they qualify for a better deal. They are at higher risk of foreclosure from day one and the mortgage broker knows it.
In some cases, a bait-and-switch occurs at the closing table. Either the documents presented are not what was promised, or only the first few pages reflect what the buyer was promised. The rest of the huge stack of paper the buyer must sign is at a higher rate or with worse terms.
The mortgages are sold to trusts, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, investment firms, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They have been fraudulently represented as “performing” — that is, paying every month and likely to continue. Sometimes, these loans change hands multiple times. This is particularly true in an environment where some financial institutions have failed.
The original bank is now just the servicer, and they have every incentive to add fees, post payments late, deny short sales, deny mortgage modifications, and push the homeowner into foreclosure.
Meanwhile, in violation of the laws of every state in the union, they have failed to report the new mortgage holder at the county recorder’s office. After all, that costs money. Instead, they put together a private company to keep track of who owns what: MERS stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration System. The banking industry insists that this is fine, the law is quaint, this is the way everybody does things now, so the courts need to just accept it. Courts in several states have disagreed. Just because everybody goes above the speed limit doesn’t mean you won’t get a ticket.
The homeowner knows he is in trouble. He calls to ask about a mortgage modification. He is fraudulently told that they won’t even consider it unless he stops paying for 3 months. When the 3 month mark comes, the homeowner is in default and the foreclosure process is begun; it’s a race to see whether the modification or the foreclosure finishes first.
Default is where the robosigners finally come in to play. They have stacks and stacks of documents, some of which need to be fabricated because originals were shredded to hide fraud.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that in some cases, banks are foreclosing illegally: they foreclose on the wrong home, they foreclose without legal standing to do so, they foreclose in violation of a bankruptcy order, they foreclose on a member of our military who is serving overseas.
In the fallout, some financial institutions fail.
The banks turn around and sell the properties at absurdly low prices, sinking property values. In any other industry, they would face charges of dumping.

And there you have it. Robosigners and “people who should have known better” are only a very small part of the mess we now face.

Cross-posted at The Moderate Voice.

In closing: the center is further left; “don’t expose our law breaking trade secrets!”; odd recall; on austerity; women‘s issues; tied hands; seriously??; Pac-Man was supposed to be for girls; I’ve got a soft spot for VW, but this is not likely to be my next car; glad they can agree on something; Superman‘s citizenship and other issues; what are we hiding?; fix it; Matt Damon; and a picture:

The Post on the Host

It seems that March’s second day
is a special birthing day,
for Dr. Seuss of children’s lore
joined our world in Nineteen Four!

Should I, could I make a cake?
That’s fattening, for goodness sake!
Maybe I should write a poem
Though, truth is, I didn’t know him.

You could go to a memorial,
or to a library for a tutorial.
Perhaps Seussville seems like fun
(think so? You’re not the only one!)

Perhaps we could slice up some rare, Who roast beast,
with Green Eggs and Ham for a tasty feast!
Could wacky Wikis be your speed?
Or should we just sit down… and read?

In closing: Canadians prefer their news be made of truth; on taxes; uh, bad idea; so be it; which version do you like better?; ok, that sounds like a spending cut I can support; Timmy stamps his foot; right to work; too much sugar still isn’t good for you; unclear on how the government gets revenue; I saw the news today, oh boy; we’re doin it wrong; and time warp.