SOTD: the whitest boy alive - burning

How Many More US Soldiers Must Die Defending Iraqi Shiite Muslim Shrines?

Then:

"Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions." - GW Bush, October 2006.

Now:

Iraqi and American forces killed several hundred gunmen apparently planning to attack a Shiite Muslim shrine Sunday, fighting a daylong battle in which a U.S. helicopter crashed, killing two U.S. troops, Iraqi security officials said.
....
Iraqi security officials offered conflicting accounts of the identity and motives of the heavily armed fighters outside Najaf, variously describing them as foreign fighters, Sunni Muslim nationalists, loyalists of executed former dictator Saddam Hussein or followers of a messianic Shiite death cult. Some witnesses reported that the attackers wore colorful Afghan tribal robes.

Good thing our troops are not "taking sides" or "standing in the crossfire between rival factions".

Bush Countdown Clock

SOTD: Emiliana Torrini - To Be Free

SOTD: Portishead - All Mine

Credit Bubble

Mish has another great piece on the inflation of the past 35+ years, which explains, among other things, why a house that cost $17,000 in 1963 goes for $617,000 today.

Jim Webb's Response to Shrub

This guy is gonna be President someday...

Real Estate Bubble End Game

Housing Panic sums up the real estate situation depressingly well...

So how will it all end?

• Millions of unwanted homes will continue to flood the market, sold by regular folks, people in foreclosure, investors, flippers, homebuilders and liquidating banks.
• Sales volume will continue to plummet, as people know for certain a home will be worth less, significantly less, the longer they wait
• Millions of REIC-connected individuals will lose their jobs - real estate clerks, appraisers, mortgage brokers, builders, Home Depot salesmen, etc.
• The overvalued loan bag-holders (China, hedge funds, Fannie, Freddie, Countrywide, etc) will be devastated
• The cash-back, cash-out-refi based US economy will suffer a great blow, with effects felt worldwide
• The House and Senate will launch investigations in 2008 to soothe housing-crash-victim voters. Significant new regulations and oversight will be created, mistakes and fraud will be addressed, and the REIC will be brought to heel
• And finally, years later, homes will again be places people live, not get-rich-quick schemes and lottery tickets

SOTD: Broken Family Band - You're Like A Woman

SOTD: Late Night Alumni - I Knew You When

Found Magazine

Fascinating.

SOTD: Ivy - Edge of the Ocean

SOTD: El Columpio Asesino - Ye Ye Yes....

Countries GDP as US States

Bush's War Without End, Amen

Sen. Chuck Hagel , a Republican, summed it up pretty well in his comments to robotic Secretary of State pod-person Condi Rice...

SEN. HAGEL: I want to comment briefly on the president's speech last night, as he presented to America and the world his new strategy for Iraq, and then I want to ask you a couple of questions.

I'm going to note one of the points that the president made last night at the conclusion of his speech. When he said, quote, "We mourn the loss of every fallen American, and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice" -- and I don't think there is a question that we all in this country agree with that -- but I would even begin with this evaluation; that we owe the military and their families a policy, a policy worthy of their sacrifices, and I don't believe, Dr. Rice, we have that policy today.

I think what the president said last night -- and I listened carefully and read through it again this morning -- is all about a broadened American involvement, escalation in Iraq and the Middle East. I do not agree with that escalation, and I would further note that when you say, as you have here this morning, that we need to address and help the Iraqis and pay attention to the fact that Iraqis are being killed, Madame Secretary, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control -- Iraqi on Iraqi. Worse, it is inter-sectarian violence -- Shi'a killing Shi'a.

To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives, to be put in the middle of a civil war is wrong. It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong. We will not win a war of attrition in the Middle East.

And I further note that you talk about skepticism and pessimism of the American people and some in Congress. That is not some kind of a subjective analysis, that is because, Madame Secretary, we've been there almost four years, and there's a reason for that skepticism and pessimism, and that is based on the facts on the ground, the reality of the dynamics.

And so I have been one, as you know, who have believed that the appropriate focus is not to escalate, but to try to find a broader incorporation of a framework. And it will have to be, certainly, regional, as many of us have been saying for a long time. That should not be new to anyone. But it has to be more than regional, it is going to have to be internally sponsored, and that's going to include Iran and Syria.

When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue, on the specific question -- will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what the president said last night -- you cannot sit here today -- not because you're dishonest or you don't understand, but no one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border.

Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when our government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.

So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. Matter of fact, I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it.

Well said.

The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter

Top 25 Subprime Lender list, demised lenders in red,
(as of Q2 2006; from the Mortgage Banker's Assoc.):

1. Wells Fargo
2. HSBC Household Finance [rumored to be up for sale]
3. New Century
4. Countrywide
5. Fremont
6. Option One [H&R Block; up for sale]
7. Ameriquest [owned by Argent; in major lawsuits]
8. WMC [subsidiary of GE Money]
9. Washington Mutual [shuttered 80 branches in late 2006]
10. CitiFinancial
11. First Franklin [acquired by Merrill Lynch from National City for $1.3bln]
12. GMAC
13. Accredited Home
14. BNC [Lehman bros. subsidiary]
15. ChaseHome Finance
16. Novastar
17. OwnIt, 2006-12-07 [partially-owned by BofA]
18. Aegis [just closed two subprime operations centers]
19. MLN, 2006-12-29
20. EMC
21. ResMae
22. FirstNLC
23. Decision One [owned by HSBC; rumored to be up for sale]
24. Encore [being acquired by Bear-Stearns]
25. Fieldstone [closing 7 of 16 ops centers, debt renegotiated through 2007-01-31]

SOTD: Emilie Simon - Alicia

Scarborough blasts O'Reilly for being GOP "suck-up"

Hey, a Republican with some principles.

On the January 4 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough responded to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's attacks on NBC and MSNBC by asserting that O'Reilly was "way off base on MSNBC, on NBC, and certainly on me. And I challenge you to debate me anytime, anyplace, anywhere." Scarborough further challenged O'Reilly to "find one thing I have said on this program over the past year that is not consistent with the conservative congressman who was against military adventurism when I was in Congress, that was against exploding deficits, that was against reckless spending, and was against turning Congress into the type of swamp that we Republicans have turned it into over the past six years."

Concluding, Scarborough stated, "That doesn't make me liberal, that makes me conservative. That may make you, though, a suck-up, if you defend the Republicans that have done that to this country and to our party over the past six years."

More at Media Matters

SOTD: Madrugada - Majesty

VOTD: Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.

Instead of Dwight D. Eisenhower we get George W. Bush. What a disaster.

Gasoline On The Fire

Saddam was a bad guy who deserved to die, OK? So is the King of Saudi Arabia, the runt running North Korea, whoever runs Sudan, and the guy who designed the Time Warner customer service phone system.

However, the unbelievably amateurish manner in which Bush's Shiite puppet government carried out the execution will cause more harm to the U.S. in the long run than Saddam ever did.

How many more 18-year olds have to die for these wretched people? Pull out our troops NOW and let the barbarians continue their 1400-year-old religious war. We can all sit back and root for the Kurds.

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was carried out in such a thuggish, barbaric, and chaotic manner that it defies belief. It seemed like an improvised lynching, not a state execution.

A cell phone video shows the execution to be a Shiite affair, complete with chants of "Muqtada, Muqtada." Saddam is the most dignified guy in the room, and the manner of his execution is sure to make him a martyr in the eyes of some.

Go to Past Peak for more depressing news from the land where freedom is on the march.

Nice Golden Parachute

Here's another Corporate CEO, Bob Nardelli of Home Depot, leaving with a $210 million severance package for doing a great job driving Home Depot's stock into the ground. He's another former GE six-sigma cult moron.

Nardelli is walking away with a chunk of change he'd otherwise have to rob the Bellagio to get. He'll get $20 million in cash, the acceleration of unvested stock options to the tune of $77 million, the payment of previously earned and vested deferred shares worth nearly $44 million and retirement benefits worth about $32 million. Throw in other benefits and payments, and the company is cutting a check for $210 million. Nice work, if you can get it.

SOTD: nine inch nails - something...