Town Lays Off Police Dog

There will be ten fewer feet on the beat in Jeanette Pennsylvania. The small Westmoreland County town just laid off three police officers and a drug-sniffing police dog. The police department also lost three meter maids and a secretary.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Fast Foreclosures

J.P. Morgan Chase acknowledged that employees signed off on thousands of foreclosure documents without really reading them. This was in response to a sworn statement by a Chase employee that her team signed off on 18,000 foreclosures a month without proper document review. The firm just froze the foreclosure of 56,000 homes until their documents are re-examined. 

Chase is not alone. An Ally Financial document processor admitted signing off on 10,000 foreclosures a month without reading the paperwork. “That’s barely a minute per case,” notes the Washington Post‘s Brady Dennis, “assuming he works a normal eight-hour day.”

Instead of oversight, banks have “robo-signers.” Still believe that financial institutions can regulate themselves?

 Update: “Robo-Signing: Documents Show Citi and Wells Also Committed Foreclosure Fraud,” Abigail Field, AOL Daily Finance.

 

Image (“American Dream, after Grant Wood”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Tea Party

“A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can’t imagine it.”

More:

“Tea & Crackers,” Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone (long and well worth reading).

“Proof that the Tea Party and GOP base are the same thing,” Steve Kornacki, Salon.

Image (“Sarah’s Tea Party, after Sir John Tenniel”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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White House Soup

 

The White House Soup of the Day for September 29, 2010, via  MSNBC and Fishbowl DC:

Mushroom Florentine.

 

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Bio Optical Organized Knowledge device

Forget the Kindle™, Nook™,  Kobo™, and Sony Reader.™ A new technology writes the final chapter in solid-state reading devices.

Pentagon Observes Banned Books Week?

In recognition of Banned Book Week, the Defense Department bought up nearly 10,000 copies of a memoir and destroyed them. The book, Operation Dark Heart, was written by former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Anthony A. Shaffer and covers his special operations experience in Afghanistan.

The Cult of Kindle

“What bothers me … is not the Kindle’s functionality, or the decommissioning of the physical book (to the sound of Taps) that will inevitably result, but the outlandish, and at times outrageous rhetoric surrounding a machine that displays a fraction of available texts for a minority of people who can afford yet another endlessly upgradeable technology.”

 – “The Cult of Kindle and the Myth of Digital Utopia,” Kelly Roberts, PopMatters.

 

A more recent iteration of this article is at Slow Pendulums.

 Image (“Mrs. Duffee Seated on a Striped Sofa, Reading Her Kindle, After Mary Cassatt”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Banned Books Week

Celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, September 25−October 2, 2010, the twenty-ninth annual celebration of free access to thought through the printed word. Many libraries and  bookstores sponsor readings of frequently challenged books (last year’s include To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier). Find an event near you

 

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Sharron Shills on Fox News

 

Sharron Angle at a recent party:

“… here’s the deal: when I get a friendly press outlet — not so much the guy that’s interviewing me — it’s their audience that I’m trying to reach. So, if I can get on Rush Limbaugh, and I can say, “Harry Reid needs $25 million. I need a million people to send twenty five dollars to SharronAngle.com.” The day I was able to say that [even], he made $236,000 dollars. That’s why it’s so important. Somebody … I’m going on Bill O’Reilly the 16th. They say, “Bill O’Reilly, you better watch out for that guy, he’s not necessarily a friendly” … Doesn’t matter, his audience is friendly, and if I can get an opportunity to say that at least once on his show — when I said it on Sean Hannity’s television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York.”

Alex Pareene:

“So, again, Fox News is the communications arm of the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. The fun part is that even when Bill O’Reilly does his “I’m just an independent” thing and actually questions a Republican, all his viewers hear and see is ‘send this woman money.’”

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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National Book Festival 2010

The 10th National Book Festival is this Saturday, September 25, 2910 on the National Mall. The event is produced by the Library of Congress and the honorary chairpersons are two local authors, Barack and Michelle Obama.

There will also be other giants of literature like Spike Mendelson, who will travel all the way from Capitol Hill. Sounds like a literary feast. On a bun.

The 2010 National Book Festival. It’s free.
Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010, 10 AM to 5:30 PM
The National Mall in Washington, DC, between 3rd and 7th streets NW

 Schedule.

Image (“National eBook Festival, after Peter Ferguson“) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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