Where did I park the car?

Some people will put a tennis ball on the antenna of their car to more easily find their car in a crammed parking lot. Others will put a flower or a doll on the antenna. The main objective is to easily find your car. Then again, I still forget where I park the damn thing from time to time...

'37 Bugatti worth estimated $4.3 million found in English garage
By GREGORY KATZ Associated Press
Jan. 2, 2009, 9:33AM

LONDON — It was the equivalent of finding an old Picasso or an unknown Beatles tape hidden away in your uncle's attic.

Relatives of Dr. Harold Carr found an extremely rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante — a Holy Grail for car collectors — as they were going through his belongings after his death.

The dusty two-seater, unused since 1960, didn't look like much in the garage in Gosforth, near Newcastle in northern England.

But only 17 were ever made, and when it's cleaned up and auctioned in Paris next month, experts believe it will fetch at least 3 million pounds ($4.3 million) and possibly much more.
Bugatti once represented the height of motoring achievement. The supercar was so ahead of its time it could go up to 130 mph (209 kph) when most other cars topped out about 50 mph (80 kph).

This particular car is even more valuable because it was originally owned by Earl Howe, a prominent British race car driver, and because its original equipment is intact, so it can restored without relying on replacement parts. - Houston Chronicle

Wouldn't that be a nice find? Check out the Chronicle for the picture of the car and the condition it is in courtesy of the AP. Sweet!

Papamoka

Mortgage Broker Bail Out!

Picture courtesy of FHA

Years ago you actually had to qualify for a mortgage and you had better have more than zero down to get a mortgage. The mortgage industry is corrupt and the loans they are qualifying people for are a sham from the start. Federal mortgage insurance is letting them screw over the American people by telling someone that works part time that that person can qualify for a $180,000 mortgage with nothing down. Teaser rates and low entry mortgage payments is no better than stealing candy from every American Baby!

This issue has my blood boiling because my family and I were in fact victims of this crisis. Even though I work full time at a good job and at a decent wage, the wife works part time at a more than decent union wage, we lost our home to the criminals in the mortgage industry. We lost our credit, we lost our pride. We lost our home. Other extenuating circumstances contributed to our situation but the game plan was the same during a refinance of our existing home loan. I take full blame for my own financial stupidity and trusting the people that were supposed to help my family but in the end just buried us.

Over at the Houston Chronicle they have this to say about today’s government bailout created by the used car salesman of the housing industry…

House moves to help struggling homeowners
By MARCY GORDON
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The House today approved a plan to expand federal backing of mortgages in hopes of helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
The bill, which passed the House, 348-72, would allow the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages for low- and middle-income borrowers, to back refinanced loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who are delinquent on payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low initial "teaser" levels.

The measure, which exceeds limits favored by the Bush administration, is Congress' first stand-alone bill in response to the mortgage-market tumult of the summer, which came amid a rising tide of defaults and foreclosures. The Senate last week passed spending legislation that includes $200 million to provide aid to nonprofits and other groups that offer counseling and information to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

House Republicans sharply objected to a $300 million-a-year fund for grants for affordable rental housing and homeownership assistance for low-income families, which would be financed from FHA revenues — a plan also opposed by the Bush administration. But House Republicans mostly were swept along in the vote for the bill, whose overall thrust they endorsed in the face of the mortgage crisis. - Houston Chronicle

Even with the Fed cutting the interest rates one half point it is not going to fix the problems that were created over the last ten plus years by the mortgage brokers of America. All of the schemes and plans to access the lucrative market of housing lending have been played out and for the next three to five years the foreclosures will continue.

I’m sure you know of someone that you can’t believe that they qualified for a mortgage. Maybe a child, a brother or sister, your best friend and the list goes on. What qualified them for the loan was the closing costs that were paid to the people that wrote the loan and sold that same loan within weeks of the closing. Once the loan is sold it is no longer the brokers problem and the commissions made to close the loans are huge!

First they make the kill by luring people in search of the American dream and owning a home. “I can get you into this house and if we have to fudge the numbers a little to get it done, we do what we have to do.” All the potential home owner really heard was “I can get you the loan.” Having the keys to that house is the dream and in that dream comes the people out of the woodwork of that home to make more than a few thousand dollars per loan that they close.

With all the deals that they have they can qualify anyone for a loan and the result is what we are seeing everywhere across America. Bogus adjustable mortgages that reel you in to thinking that you can afford the house payment. No principal payment for X amount of years and the list goes on and on. Everyone qualifies! Or do they? Over at Newsvine.com they have this to say about it…

U.S. Home Foreclosures Soar in August
Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:13 AM EDT

LOS ANGELES — The number of foreclosure filings reported in the U.S. last month more than doubled versus August 2006 and jumped 36 percent from July, a trend that signals many homeowners are increasingly unable to make timely payments on their mortgages or sell their homes amid a national housing slump.

A total of 243,947 foreclosure filings were reported in August, up 115 percent from 113,300 in the same month a year ago, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said Tuesday.
There were 179,599 foreclosure filings reported in July.

The filings include default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Some properties might have received more than one notice if the owners have multiple mortgages.

August's total represents the highest number of foreclosure filings reported in a single month since the company began tracking monthly filings two years ago. - Newsvine.com

Getting to the point of my post… Who the hell is screaming for the heads of the Mortgage Corporation’s across America on Capitol Hill? Anyone home? Somebody should call an exterminator for the Congress because there seems to be an infestation of crickets when it comes to the lending industry. I wonder why? Democrat’s and Republican’s both own this mess one hundred and ten percent but the ones that really own this self created crisis is the lending industry. As they walk away from it laughing all the way to their own bank the Congress will spin this as a crisisproblem for the American family. In the end the American tax payer that still has a job and a home will pay for the thievery of gentleman and woman disguised as a mortgage broker in wolf’s clothing.

These predatory lending practices should have been stomped on by the government years ago but they chose to look the other way. Millions of Americans have already lost the American dream and millions more will follow in their footsteps because they never saw the used car salesman standing in front of their future home and dream.

Watch the political spin. It should be pointed at the lending industry but that will never happen because that would point to the people that are supposed to pass the laws to not let this sort of thing happen.

Papamoka

Cross posted at Bring It On!

*****HT Schoem Mortgage has linked to this original post via Bring it On!

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Adding to Death and Taxes Certainties of Life

Picture courtesy of Bennett Funeral Coaches

Benjamin Franklin didn't have it covered when he said that the only certain things in life were Death and Taxes.

In the funeral industry there is a private code of ethics when it comes to caring for the deceased of any family. Respect and dignity is the goal of every funeral home and many families benefit from this service during a very difficult time in their lives. Loosing a child is tragic, it rips the families heart and soul out to bury a child. Love of the child is overpowering to the parent and providing a descent burial is foremost the parents only concern.

That being said, you have the Papamoka Scum Bag Award winner in Springville, Utah. How would you like to show up at your teen age sons grave and find the headstone gone? Words on a stone to some are just that but your child’s name over a grave is just one of the steps in the grief process. To find it was repossessed is just disgusting in my opinion.

Over at the Houston Chronicle they have this piece on head stone repo’s…

Teen crash victim's headstone repossessed over unpaid bill
Associated Press

SPRINGVILLE, Utah — The cemetery headstone for a teenager who died in a car wreck was repossessed after a $750 bill went unpaid.

"That's just business," said Linda Anderson of Memorial Art Monument. "If we give every stone to everybody, we'd be out of business. They'd repossess your car if you didn't make payments."

Brady Conger, 17, and two friends died when their car smashed into a sport utility vehicle a year ago Thursday.

Memorial Art said bills sent to one address were returned, and the business couldn't reach Brady's mother, who apparently had agreed last year to pay the balance. "The end result was that there was absolutely no one who I could talk to about this," owner Mike Anderson said.

Brady's classmates raised money to pay the bill, and the headstone will be installed again this week. - Houston Chronicle

I understand that any business needs to get paid for the services they provide but maybe these folks stepped over the line. This particular industry has no room for mistakes and if the business owner did not do his homework on the customers credit history then the stone should have staid where it should have rested for eternity.

This business owner could have reached out to the church the child was buried under or contacted local charitable organizations if the bill was unpaid. There are far too many avenues of restitution that his headstone company overlooked to even justify yanking the grave marker off of this child’s grave. Churches are not just for worship, they are their to help the people in their congregation. Would you as a parishioner not thrown ten bucks or twenty bucks in a basket if you knew the head stone for a seventeen year old kid was in jeopardy? My personal thanks to his classmates that did the right thing. They are wiser at their age than people give them credit for and I absolutely adore them for paying the bill.

Which brings me to the point of my post. Death and taxes are a given fact of life in these here United States of America but so is the right of a respectful burial no matter your lot in life in these United States of America. Being a Catholic, I know that once a grave is established the consecrated ground can not be disturbed.

Some folks like to bash us Catholics for our belief but I know that my church will not allow any debtors to yank me up out of the ground if my widow and five daughters can’t make the payments on my casket. Stories like this make me proud of my choice of faith.

Papamoka

MySpace Vs ThemPerv’s

Educate your kids by clicking here Kids.gov

As the father of five very young daughters I first let out a cheer upon reading this piece that was in the Houston Chronicle today. If there is one type of American that I have no tolerance for it is sexual predators of our children. This kind of crime against children makes me sick to my stomach because most of the time the crime committed against the child is committed by someone that the child is related to or knows very closely.

Contrary to my mostly liberal mentality I firmly believe that castration or imprisonment for life is the only cure for this sick behavior on our nation’s children. You can call me a bad liberal but all it would take is one of these perverts to touch even one of my girls and I would be the parent in the courtroom going nuts when the guy walks away with a two year sentence for destroying my daughter’s life forever. Film at eleven and all the networks would cover it.
Here is what the Houston Chronicle had to say on this…

May 14, 2007, 12:40PM
MySpace asked to reveal sex offender information
By SAMUEL SPIES
Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. — Top law enforcement officers from seven states issued a letter to MySpace.com today, asking the social networking site to turn over the names of registered sex offenders who use the service.

The letter asks MySpace to provide information on how many registered sex offenders are using the site, and where they live. Attorneys general from North Carolina, Connecticut, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania signed the letter.

Law enforcement agencies have identified more than 200 cases nationwide of children "lured out of their home by predators they met on MySpace," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said a written statement Monday.

In their letter, the attorneys general also asked that MySpace describe the steps it has taken to warn users about sex offenders and remove their profiles.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called the site a "virtual playground" for predators.

"That combination of sex offenders and children is a recipe for tragedy," Blumenthal said. -Houston Chronicle

I’ve had some time to think about the article and had a few thoughts as to where this also could lead. What avenues of interpretation does this type of request open up that can be abused by our internet providers at the request of so called defenders of the people from our government leaders? What is the Constitutional basis that would throw the request out of court? Is it your personal privacy that is being invaded if you have a MySpace account? How is MySpace to know who is a pervert and who is just a kid other than the “honesty” policy of reporting your age that is required by the site?

It makes me sick to say it but this is ultimately an invasion of personal privacy that can lead to further actions that will eventually lead to abuse of all internet users to make sure that everyone is a good worker bee. Credit rating to risky, banned from site x, y, and z. Employment history not up to snuff, banned from sites A, B, and C. Filed bankruptcy in the last ten years and you could possibly be banned from L, M, N, O and P web sites. If you have ever been charged with shop lifting then you can forget about buying jack on Amazon or Best Buy or any online vendor.

This whole scenario could be solved by parents knowing that the twelve year old in the house has a MySpace account and the parents have full access to it. One item that was lacking in the story in the Houston Chronicle was the question of where the hell were the parents of these 200 kids when they were lured out of their homes. MySpace needs parental control for children under the age of eighteen and the kids need to have their parent’s permission to have the right to log onto it. Knowing that Mom or Dad will be monitoring it and aware of contact to their children’s account with a simple automatic email to Mom or Dad’s personal email is just one fix.
The world of information is changing so fast and so many avenues open up every single day that our children can be abused or singled out as pray for a sick deviant and we need to make the system accountable in a logical way other than setting a precedent that will uphold in a court of law that can be sighted for more big brother watching over our shoulders. MySpace needs to clean up its own act to protect the kids using their software and parents need to be actively responsive to what programs their children are using on the family or personal computer.

As for perverts and pedophiles I’m still however in favor of Castration. That form of treatment seems logical and sends a message that is loud and clear to perverts and deviants everywhere. Pass a law saying that that will happen to convicted people concerning sexual crimes against children and the percentage of sexual crimes against children will drop over night!

Papamoka

This piece is cross posted at Bring It ON!

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