TampaYankee

I don't know but I think it escaped from the SYFY Channel.

Very nice, very hot! Thanks for sharing.

Oz is in charge of the bunny rabbits but I doubt even he can get them to lay an egg. So maybe it is best if you can pull an egg out of your bunny. Whoever thought of handball Easter Egg hunt.

I've seen a number of the photos on various & sundry photo sharing sites on the net which leads me to wonder if these are real submissions versus some enterprising soul just harvesting photos from wide and far and charging for access. I guess it could be both. Very odd pricing options as there seems to be seeveral different prices for the same 30 day recurring option. Am I missing something?

And we are told that we must leave Wall St Banks unregulated so that they can restore the economy they knowingly abused and ultimately crippled like we haven't seen since the Great Depression. What are those people thinking? What are they smoking? Or do they feel that Wall St and its investors have not yet raped and stolen enough to satisfy their greed? I'd just like to know. This was no unintentional accident or an Act of God. It was an intentional act of man, many men - a defacto conspriacy. People ought to go to jail for grand larceny for serious time. This was a massive con, plain and simple. Yet the monied influential always manage to buy themselves out. It is simple institutional corruption with Wall St at the heart of it and Congress a willing accomplice -- pick your party.

New Proof Wall Street Knew Its Mortgage Securities Were Subpar: Clayton Execs Testify First Posted: 09-25-10 06:56 PM | Updated: 09-25-10 09:46 PM Shahien Nasiripour shahien@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting During a little-noticed hearing this week in Sacramento, Calif., a firm hired by Wall Street to analyze mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit, which were then packaged and sold to investors during the boom years, revealed that as much as 28 percent of those loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards -- and Wall Street knew all along. ... The full article is found in Lucky's Place, thus not reproduced here. http://www.maleescortreview.com/forum/index.php?/topic/5204-new-proof-that-wall-street-knew-its-sold-lead-for-gold/ This incarnation of the topic is for those wishing to express opinationed responses while keeping the forum Lucky's Place from hosting any potential extended political discussions. I was moved to offer an opinionated response below.

Although the above report is fair news, I have made an opinionated post in the Politics forum. I thought it only appropriate to move opinion to that forum.

New Proof Wall Street Knew Its Mortgage Securities Were Subpar: Clayton Execs Testify First Posted: 09-25-10 06:56 PM | Updated: 09-25-10 09:46 PM Shahien Nasiripour shahien@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting During a little-noticed hearing this week in Sacramento, Calif., a firm hired by Wall Street to analyze mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit, which were then packaged and sold to investors during the boom years, revealed that as much as 28 percent of those loans failed to meet basic underwriting standards -- and Wall Street knew all along. Worse, when the firm flagged those loans for potential issues, Wall Street banks ignored its recommendation nearly half the time and likely purchased those loans anyway -- selling them to unwitting investors who were never told that the biggest home loan due diligence firm in the country had found potential defects in these mortgages. The revelations give a better picture of what many have likely known for years: Wall Street firms knew they were buying lead yet passed it off as gold to investors who had no knowledge of the alchemy behind the scenes. But it also has real-world implications: the data released Thursday could bolster pension funds and other investors in their pursuit to force Wall Street banks to take back the bogus mortgages they peddled. An untold number of lawsuits have been filed in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent housing market collapse. Thus far, Wall Street has been winning that battle. Clayton Holdings, a Connecticut-based firm that analyzes home mortgages for banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and government agencies, provided its data Thursday to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan panel created by Congress to investigate the roots of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The FCIC held its last public hearing in Sacramento, the home of the panel's chairman, where two current and former top Clayton executives testified under oath about the firm's role in the mortgage securitization chain. During the height of the boom in 2006 and the period prior to its immediate end during the first six months of 2007, Clayton inspected home loans for Wall Street firms and government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Clayton looked at loans that the companies wanted to purchase from mortgage originators like New Century Financial, Countrywide Financial, and Fremont Investment & Loan. The company examined 911,039 mortgages, documents show. Clients included Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, the nation's two biggest banks by assets which together have about $4.4 trillion; Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Clayton controlled about 50 to 70 percent of the market, Keith Johnson, the firm's former president, told the crisis panel. Clayton, though, typically looked at roughly 10 percent of the pool of mortgages available for purchase, Vicki Beal, a senior vice president at the firm, said in response to a question by panel chairman Phil Angelides. But during the frenzied last months of the boom, when lenders and securitizers were trying to sell off as much as they could before the market collapsed, that figure reached as low as 5 percent. Of the 911,000 loans that Clayton scrutinized, 72 percent either met the mortgage seller's standards and other guidelines set by the buyer of the mortgages, typically Wall Street firms, or they had off-setting factors that allowed Clayton to give them a passing grade, like if the borrower who took out the mortgage put a lot of money down or had a very high income. But 28 percent failed to meet those standards. Of those 255,802 mortgages that Clayton flagged for what were a variety of reasons, Wall Street ended up waiving 100,653 of them, or 39 percent of those loans that did not meet basic standards. And Wall Street firms didn't share this with investors. "This should have raised red flags," said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, a leading trade publication and data provider. "To our knowledge, prospectuses do not refer to Clayton and its due diligence work," Beal told the FCIC in prepared remarks. "Moreover, Clayton does not participate in the securities sales process, nor does it have knowledge of our loan exception reports being provided to investors or the rating agencies as part of the securitization process." Johnson said that Clayton "looked at a lot of prospectuses" -- documents given to potential investors outlining what comprises the deal -- and that the firm wasn't aware of any disclosure to investors of Clayton's "alarming" findings, Johnson said. The reports Clayton generates are "the property of our clients and provided exclusively to our clients. When Clayton provides its reports to its clients, its work on those loans is generally completed -- Clayton is not involved in the further processes of securitizing the loans and does not review nor opine on the securitization prospectus," Beal said. During questioning by Angelides, Beal acknowledged that, because the firm was checking roughly 10 percent of the mortgages Clayton's clients were looking to purchase, one could say that Wall Street firms waived in as many as 1 million loans that Clayton had initially rejected. Angelides told the current and former Clayton executives that it appeared that securities issuers -- Wall Street firms -- didn't examine the other 90 to 95 percent of loans that comprised a pool waiting to be securitized and sold to investors. Johnson agreed with him. Furthermore, Johnson said that he heard that some market participants operated under a "three strikes, you're out rule" -- if bad loans were flagged by Clayton, sellers and issuers would have Clayton take out another 5 to 10 percent sample to check the pool again. Angelides hinted that when done three times, it would be incredibly unlikely that Clayton would again discover those individual questionable loans, and that they'd find their way into securitization deals. Johnson agreed. "What the standard practice, supposedly, and best practices call for is if you do a sampling and you show problems, you go back and take a bigger slice and keep going until you find out the true extent of the issue and the problem," Cecala said. That didn't happen. "If issuers had been scrutinizing all the collateral in a security and only putting in loans that met actual underwriting and documentation requirements, a lot of these deals wouldn't have gotten done," said Cecala. "But as a practical matter that didn't happen. Most of the loans that were originated got thrown in securities one way or another." Johnson told the crisis panel that he thought the firm's findings should have been disclosed to investors during this period. He added that he saw one European deal mention it, but nothing else. The firm's findings could have been "material," Johnson said, using a legal adjective that could determine cause or affect a judgment. It's unclear whether the firms ended up buying all of those loans, or whether Wall Street securitized them all and sold them off to investors. "Clayton generally does not know which or how many loans the client ultimately purchases," Beal said. That likely will be the subject of litigation and investigations going forward. "This should have a phenomenal effect legally, both in terms of the ability of investors to force put-backs and to sue for fraud," said Joshua Rosner, managing director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co. Original buyers of these securities could sue for fraud; distressed investors, who buy assets on the cheap, could force issuers to take back the mortgages and swallow the losses. "I don't think people are really thinking about this," Rosner said. "This is not just errors and omissions -- this appears to be fraud, especially if there is evidence to demonstrate that they went back and used the due diligence reports to justify paying lower prices for the loans, and did not inform the investors of that." Beal testified that Clayton's clients use the firm's reports to "negotiate better prices on pools of loans they are considering for purchase," among other uses. Nearly $1.7 trillion in securities backed by mortgages not guaranteed by the government were sold to investors during those 18 months, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. Wall Street banks sold much of that. At its peak, the amount of outstanding so-called non-agency mortgage securities reached $2.3 trillion in June 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Less than $1.4 trillion remain as investors refused to buy new issuance and the mortgages underpinning existing securities were either paid off or written off as losses, Bloomberg data show. The potential for liability on the part of the issuer "probably does give an investor more grounds for a lawsuit than they would ordinarily have", Cecala said. "Generally, to go after an issuer you really have to prove that they knowlingly did something wrong. This certainly seems to lend credibility to that argument." "This appears to be a massive fraud perpetrated on the investing public on a scale never before seen," Rosner added. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who's running for governor, reportedly launched an investigation and granted Clayton immunity in exchange for information on what Wall Street knew and when, according to press reports in January 2008. A spokesman for the state prosecutor didn't return a Friday call seeking comment. Clayton, for example, analyzed about 10,200 loans for Bank of America. It found problems in 30 percent of them. Of those, the bank waived about a quarter. For Credit Suisse, Clayton found that 37 percent of the 56,300 loans it reviewed failed to conform to standards. It waived a third of those. Clayton discovered that 42 percent of the pool of loans Citigroup wanted to buy didn't meet standards, and that nearly a third of those were waived anyway. Citi is the nation's third largest bank by assets and is still owned by taxpayers. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs had rejection rates of 27 and 23 percent, respectively. JPMorgan's waiver rate was 51 percent. Goldman Sachs, often derided for its practices during the boom and bust, had a waiver rate of 29 percent, far below the 39 percent average Clayton experienced. Among the firms with the worst records are Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Freddie Mac. About 35 percent of the 66,400 loans Deutsche wanted to buy were marked for having some kind of deficiency; the bank waived half of them. Morgan's 63,000 loans had a rejection rate of 37 percent; 56 percent of them were waived in. Clayton rejected 35 percent of the loans government-owned Freddie Mac wanted to buy. The firm, one half of the mortgage duo now owned by taxpayers and costing the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars, waived 60 percent of those loans. Neal, though, testified that Deutsche was one of its tougher clients when it came to checking mortgages. Because of its rigorous guidelines, that's likely why the German lender had such a high rejection rate, she said. These firms were among the biggest issuers of so-called non-agency mortgage-backed securities in 2006 and the first half of 2007. Goldman issued about $65 billion in these securities, Inside Mortgage Finance data show. JPMorgan issued about $61 billion. Morgan Stanley sold about $49 billion, followed closely by Deutsche which sold $46 billion and Credit Suisse which issued $40 billion. Bank of America and Citigroup were next, selling $37 billion and $35 billion, respectively, data show. Spokesman for Citi, Morgan, Deutsche, and Goldman declined to comment. Representatives for Freddie Mac and JPMorgan didn't respond to requests for comment. But none of this should be new to savvy market players. Clayton had been warning about these issues for years, Cecala said. "We have regular conversations with Clayton and Clayton would make the claim that they were seeing a lot of bad loans in their examinations and not many people were acting on it," Cecala said. "And clearly, the only way we could have the problems that we experienced is if people actually ignored problems. It's not like these were bad loans that suddenly turned bad. There were problems from day one and someone should have known it. "Clayton was very frustrated that a lot of people never really acted on [their findings]," said Cecala. "Clayton would report that a lot of times they found problems in loan samples and not only did the issuer not want them to sample any more, which would have cost more money, but they didn't act on the information they uncovered." Issuers, which hired Clayton to perform due diligence, didn't want to pay for more sampling. They also wanted to pump out as many deals as quickly as possible, Cecala added. But, he cautioned, investors weren't necessarily paying attention to these kinds of details. "Keep in mind that investors ultimately bought a deal almost exclusively based on the rating, and not the issuer's decision [regarding] what loans to put in or what loans not to put in," Cecala said. "Historically there's been very little recourse back to the issuer for problems with securities down the road and the bottom line is if you can get it past the ratings services you're more or less home free." The three big credit rating agencies that dominate the market -- Standard and Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings -- had a chance to use Clayton's information during this time, but declined, Johnson testified. He told the crisis commission that Clayton had meetings with S&P in 2006 and with Fitch and Moody's in 2007. "All of them thought this was great," Johnson testified. But the rating agencies declined. The reason why, Johnson said, was because if a rating agency bought Clayton's services it would have likely been more stringent. That, in turn, would cause it to lose market share because Wall Street issuers would have just gone to an easier rating agency. The rating agencies began requiring such third-party due diligence in 2007 after a state attorney general stepped in, Johnson said. By then, though, it was too late. "Keep in mind that the rating services basically based a lot of their rating decisions not on an examination of every loan or the collateral, but basically on representations from the issuer," Cecala said. "That was the system we had in place." Cecala said it was "highly unlikely" that Wall Street firms shared Clayton's findings with the rating agencies. "We could have... stopped the factory from producing," Johnson lamented. ************************* Shahien Nasiripour is the business reporter for the Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail; bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed; follow him on Twitter; friend him on Facebook; become a fan; and/or get e-mail alerts when he reports the latest news. He can be reached at 646-274-2455. See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/25/wall-street-subprime-crisis_n_739294.html

Margaret Witt, Air Force Major Discharged Under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' Ordered Reinstated GENE JOHNSON | 09/24/10 11:28 PM | AP TACOMA, Wash. — A federal judge ruled Friday that a decorated flight nurse discharged from the Air Force for being gay should be given her job back as soon as possible in the latest legal setback to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The decision by U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton came in a closely watched case as a tense debate has been playing out over the policy. Senate Republicans blocked an effort to lift the ban this week, but Leighton is now the second federal judge this month to deem the policy unconstitutional. Maj. Margaret Witt was suspended in 2004 and subsequently discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy after the Air Force learned she had been in a long-term relationship with a civilian woman. She sued to get her job back. Leighton hailed her as a "central figure in a long-term, highly charged civil rights movement." Tears streaked down Witt's cheeks and she hugged her parents, her partner and supporters following the ruling. "Today you have won a victory in that struggle, the depth and duration of which will be determined by other judicial officers and hopefully soon the political branches of government," the judge told her, choking up as he recalled Witt's dramatic testimony about her struggles. The ruling was the second legal victory this month for opponents of "don't ask, don't tell," and it throws the law into further disarray. Barring an appeal, Witt will now be able to serve despite being openly gay, and a federal judge in California earlier this month ruled the law unconstitutional and is considering whether to immediately halt the ban. While such an injunction would prevent openly gay service members from being discharged going forward, it wouldn't do anything for those who have already been dismissed. Witt's attorneys, led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, say her case now provides a template for gays who have been previously discharged to seek reinstatement. Gay rights advocates say that if the government must justify each firing under "don't ask," it will mean a slow death for the policy – even if an outright repeal isn't endorsed by Congress or the courts. The 1993 law prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members, but allows the discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or are discovered engaging in homosexual activity. The Justice Department did not immediately comment on the ruling, but James Lobsenz, Witt's attorney, said he expected an appeal. In 2006, Leighton rejected Witt's claims that the Air Force violated her rights, following precedent that the military's policy on gays is constitutional. An appeals court panel overruled him two years later, holding that in light of a Supreme Court ruling striking down a Texas ban on sodomy, "don't ask, don't tell" intrudes on the rights of gay service members. For the government to discharge gays it must prove that their firings further military goals, the panel said. Leighton determined after a six-day trial that Witt's discharge advanced no legitimate military interest. To the contrary, her dismissal hurt morale in her unit and weakened the squadron's ability to carry out its mission, he ruled. "There is no evidence that wounded troops care about the sexual orientation of the flight nurse or medical technician tending to their wounds," Leighton ruled. Leighton became emotional as he recalled Witt's testimony about the support she has received from her parents since she came out to them on the eve of filing her lawsuit. "The best thing to come out of all this tumult is still that love and support," he said. A crowd of spectators remained quiet until the judge left the courtroom, when it erupted in cheers. "I'm just so thrilled I have the chance to do what I wanted to do all along: that's return to my unit," Witt said. She also said that she appreciated the judge's recognition of the many gays who continue to quietly serve in the military. ___ Associated Press writer Julie Watson contributed from San Diego. See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/margaret-witt-reinstated-dont-ask-dont-tell_n_737656.html

ditto... ditto... ditto... Love the sweat pants. Wish it got more time and close-ups.

Um... I dont know. Ask Fox News or the NY Post. They dont seem troubled by unfair journalism. Please do not confuse journalism with circulation and ratings. Two very different things. No, they are not the only ones, just the ones that leapt to my mind as a couple of egregious examples.

You are correct. The profile is still MIA. I have alerted programmers second time. Thanks for the reminder. Re the verified photo. I see nothing in the queue. I will ask Oz if he knows anything.

I'd tell you if I knew but Oz is the forum guru. I do a little poetry from time to time though.

Adrian Healy & Girlfriend Kicked Out Of English Hotel For Writing Bad Review On TripAdvisor First Posted: 09-20-10 08:32 AM | Updated: 09-20-10 08:32 AM A cancer patient and his girlfriend are furious with an English hotel after being kicked out after two nights of their three night stay, supposedly for writing a poor review on TripAdvisor, according to USA Today. Adrian Healey and his companion, Sherrie Andrews, were two nights into their stay at Surrey's Golden Beach hotel for what was supposed to be his first break from a grueling round of chemotherapy for his testicular cancer (it was discovered that he had 14 tumors throughout his body), when the manager supposedly banged on their hotel room door and told them to get out for posting a bad review of the hotel on TripAdvisor, the Blackpool Gazette reports. Healey told the Gazette: "We had been there a day when they said we couldn't get back in our rooms because they were recarpeting, and we didn't complain - all we asked was if we could have an extra towel. Then, on our second evening, he banged on the door and told us to get out, accusing us of writing a review on Trip Advisor, and said he would call the police." The police were called to the hotel, and the couple decided to leave on their own volition. A quick visit to TripAdvisor, it should be noted, shows that 59% of reviewers give the Golden Beach hotel a thumbs down.

Bah-da bah-da-da-da Bah-da bah-da-da-da Bah-da bah-da-da-da Undie Monday, so good to me Undie Monday, it was all I hoped it would be

The so-called 30-year-old-plus War on Drugs is stark proof that intelligent beings doesn't always learn from experience. What we are doing doesn't work. What we have done didn't work. We try to interrupt the supply and stop only a trickle. In the past, we tried locking up everyone who used. All that did was fill our prisons and destroy as many or more lives than the drugs did. There are only two solutions: all out war, or taking the money out of the trade. We do not have the balls for all out war. It means suspending Constitutional rights which we never extend to enemy combatants. We kill the enemy that doesn't surrender. We see that surrender is not an option with the cartels. We can only take the money out of it if we legalize and sell at a price that makes black market operations insufficiently profitable. We do not have the fortitude to do either so we waste money and lives in futile pursuit of an imaginary resolution. It might be argued that if one carried on long enough maybe the population through generation replacement might outgrow the problem. The trouble with that is the obscene profits provide tremendous incentive to the providers to keep the cycle going from generation to generation. Bottom line is that we are more prepared to live with the problem than to solve it. That's the fact.

6 abducted police found slain in Mexican state September 19, 2010 02:03 PM EST | AP ACAPULCO, Mexico The bodies of six kidnapped police officers, most of them dismembered, were found Sunday in a ravine in the Mexican state of Guerrero, bringing to eight the death toll from a mass abduction of policemen, officials said. Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of State Investigative Police, said one survivor of the massacre was located in this coastal state known for beach resorts that has become a drug cartel battleground. Two other bodies were found on Saturday, accounting for all nine officers who disappeared Friday after going to identify a body in the community of El Revelado, located about 165 miles (265 kilometers) south of Mexico City. Authorities said they later learned that the officers had been abducted by gunmen. Four of the six bodies had been dismembered and were found with a warning note apparently directed at authorities, Monreal said. The bodies included the group's chief, Commander Enrique Figueroa Abundes, said Monreal, who declined to name the survivor. Monreal did not say who was suspected in the killings. Mexico's government says the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang are fighting for control of the region with La Familia Michoacana. The state was also a base for detained drug lord Sergio Valdez Villarreal alias "La Barbie" who was fighting for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel with Hector Beltran Leyva. The bodies found Saturday corresponded to two heads thrown from a moving vehicle into a refreshment stand in the municipality of Coyuca de Catalan in Guerrero, according to a report by the state Public Safety and Civil Protection office. The first two bodies were accompanied by a note that threatened a similar fate for anyone supporting Hector Beltran Leyva and suspected trafficker Reynaldo Pineda Chavez, saying "Guerrero and Morelos (states) have an owner and they know who is it is." Hector is the brother of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the former head of the cartel who was slain in a military operation in December 2009. Hector is the only one of the four Beltran Leyva brothers still alive and at large. More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug traffickers in late 2006. See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100919/lt-drug-war-mexico/

Thanks for the heads up. There seems to be a new bug at work here. His profile is in the system and seems a normal active profile. You can access it from his review. I will set the tech weenies on it first thing Monday morning.

This attitude is one of a handful of reasons I have no interest in Texas. As for Montana, well I was never into sheep anyway.

Montana GOP policy: Make homosexuality illegal MATT VOLZ | September 18, 2010 12:47 PM EST | AP HELENA, Mont. — At a time when gays have been gaining victories across the country, the Republican Party in Montana still wants to make homosexuality illegal. The party adopted an official platform in June that keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997. The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members. "I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party." Gay rights have been rapidly advancing nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy law in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas decision. Gay marriage is now allowed in five states and Washington, D.C., a federal court recently ruled the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy unconstitutional, and even a conservative tea party group in Montana ousted its president over an anti-gay exchange in Facebook. But going against the grain is the Montana GOP statement, which falls under the "Crime" section of the GOP platform. It states: "We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal." Montana GOP executive director Bowen Greenwood said that has been the position of the party since the state Supreme Court struck down state laws criminalizing homosexuality in 1997 in the case of Gryczan v. Montana. Nobody has ever taken the initiative to change it and so it's remained in the party platform, Greenwood said. The matter has never even come up for discussion, he said. "There had been at the time, and still is, a substantial portion of Republican legislators that believe it is more important for the Legislature to make the law instead of the Supreme Court," Greenwood said. Critics say the policy is a toothless statement, the effect of which is simply to make gays feel excluded. A University of Montana law professor says Montana's 1997 case and the U.S. Supreme Court's Lawrence decision means there's no real chance for the state GOP to act on its position. "To me, that statement legally is hollow," said constitutional specialist Jack Tuholske. "The principle under Gryczan and under Lawrence, that's the fundamental law of the land and the Legislature can't override the Constitution. It might express their view, but as far as a legal reality, it's a hollow view and can't come to pass." Montana Human Rights Network organizer Kim Abbott said the GOP platform statement does not represent the attitudes of most Montanans, and it shows that the party is out of touch with the prevalent view of the people they are supposed to represent. "It speaks volumes to the lesbian and gay community how they are perceived by the Republican Party," Abbott said. "It would be nice if Republicans that understand that gay people are human beings would stand up and say they don't agree with that. But I don't know how likely that is." Brueggeman suspects that the vast majority of the party believes, as he does, that the Republican party should remove statement. It's against every conservative principle for limited government and issues like this exemplify how a political party can interfere with the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. "I just hope it's something that's so sensitive that people don't want to touch it," he said. "Even if there wasn't a Supreme Court decision, does anyone really believe that it should be illegal?" See original post at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100918/us-gays-in-montana/

I think it is a mistake to paint all tea-baggers with this broad brush. You point out some stark examples of what I term right-radicalism tarnished with individual failures of character or vision -- my opinion. Also, certainly there are pockets of unsavory attitudes represented in the tea party. That is to be expected. The tea party is upset with what they see as the failure of the establishment (including both parties) to solve problems and to represent the individual people over special interests. These unsavory groups are upset with the establishment that does not embrace their views. It is only natural that dissatisfaction with the establishment would attract various anti-establishment causes. It is not surprising that some individuals overlap. I do not believe these examples represent all or even most tea-baggers -- just the most vocal. What is disturbing to me about the tea-baggers at large is that they are so upset about present issues that they are willing to embrace such crazies to wrest change from the establishment. They ought to be able to find better leaders.

I don't fault anyone for raising questions about programs which seem questionable at first glance. Also, I've also been around long enough to know that first glances don't always tell the story. I don't question the motives of anyone participating in our forums. Even if I disagree I recognize the right for others to have differing opinion for reasons which may be quite valid but which I value differently. Also, I do not buy into the fact that because the cause is noble then the methods are beyond question. Money and effort thrown at problems without a thoughtful plan and practice and realistic goals is just wasted money that could have been put to better use for the same end. Let's remember to question the issues and not our values. We ought to be able to keep the discussion on facts and propositions and not on personalities. I value the opinions of intelligent and informed people that I differ with because I often learn something even if it doesn't persuade me to change my mind. And I have been persuaded to change on more than one occasion.

I agree with much you say. There was too much politics involved. Obama gave Congress too much leeway in crafting the bill. Not enough was targeted on infrastructure, too much on questionable items. There ought to have been more accountability on 'bang for the buck' job creation quotas. Your examples are proof of that. Obama deserves a good measure of responsibility for that. I part ways with you on the auto bailout. I won't relitigate that here as it is past, as is the unpaid-for Iraq war and Bush tax cuts and ... Good luck with that. I suspect if successful then you will get a lot more than you bargain for. Time will tell.

I remain totally unconvinced of your position, in the large. Sure, there will be changes. There should be!! I'm down with that. Some people will be adversely affected I'm sure. I'm also pretty sure some were skating on others to absorb the cost of the services they were using. I'm probably in that group. First, you are free to shop other banks for a better deal. I recommend it. When my bank got swallowed up by a bigger bank with a rate schedule I disagreed with I dropped them like a hot potato. It happened to me more than once. I found a bank that suited my needs and idea of fair fees and I have been with them for years. Second, I'd rather pay a fair fee for a fair service than get screwed when when I accidentally screw up. The former policies often preyed on the poor and the marginal. I have free checking now. I have free bill-pay too. I love it. Free checking arose out of competitive pressure and the fact that banks get an enormous benefit off the interest-float of that money sitting in accounts. The margins on that avenue of income may have shrunk in the present times. That banks may feel they need to charge for checking doesn't bother me as long as it is a fair reflection of the cost of the service and fees are competitive. Remember also that the cost of processing a check today is a fraction of the cost of days past. Everything is electronic, the number of people involved is minisucle by comparison. Bill-pay saves me the price of a stamp plus the effort to write and record checks and balance check books. (I hate writing and mailing checks.) I would gladly pay that price of a stamp to the bank for each transaction if they demanded. That is a fair price for a fair service. I have no problem paying a fair fee for a checking acount if demanded. I prefer a per check charge as I write so few but I understand there is an overhead cost too. So just as long as it is fair and competitive. Under the new law I was notified that I had been approved for overdraft protection at a per event charge of either $29 or $36, I do not recall now. I am thankful for that notification by law. I declined. I appreciate that the law required them to notify me rather than just charge me after the fact which had been done on rare occasion in the past. The responsbility for my account is mine not theirs. Some people want that protection. Fine. Notify them and let them sign up. IMO credit card late payment fees have always been a rip off. The fact that they remain so is no suprise to me. The fact that your bank is raising it is also no suprise. Other banks have already been charging that rate level. It is a fee that we can choose to pay or not by our charing practices. I do not see why we as consumers should expect free services at the expense of others who are tricked and trapped with unfair business practices IMO. I don't understand why banks are not satisifed to base their business model on fair fees for fair services documented in plain language in plain sight, not embedded in a volume of legalize. That used to be the business model and it worked. I just do not buy into the notion that more people get better service if we are allowed to practice deceitful policies that trick and trap customers. Fair fees for fair services. What is so immoral about that?

How do all of you guys manage to come up with the right photo at the right time? God, I love it as it enriches comments so much but freaky that you and lookin and others magically have these at your finger tips. Keep it up, all.