October 2010
40 posts
The most shocking discovery yet about how the... →
These documents, from Clayton Holdings, a due diligence company retained by the banks, reveal that Clayton, after analyzing more than 900,000 mortgages, told the banks that about 30 percent of the loans being packaged into securitized products did not satisfy the banks’ own underwriting standards. This meant that the securitized products were almost bound to blow up.
24 Statistics About The United States Economy That... →
The entire society is absolutely drowning in debt. We are being slaughtered in the arena of world trade, and every single month tens of billions of dollars (along with large numbers of factories and jobs) leave our shores for good. Our infrastructure is failing, our kids are less educated and our incomes are going down. We have serious, serious problems. At one time, the U.S. economy was so...
Former Miami Beach cop pleads to drug charges,... →
A former Miami Beach police officer who was involved in two fatal shootings last year will serve two years of house arrest plus probation after he was arrested for growing marijuana inside his home.
Inside his West Miami-Dade apartment, detectives found a “fully operational clandestine marijuana laboratory containing 47 plants” valued at about $50,000, according to police.
Mexican hit men stalk U.S. →
Drug-smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or “sicarios,” into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.
In a memo first sent in May but widely circulated since, the department said a...
Luxury sales rebound to pre-crisis levels →
The luxury sector is rebounding better-than-expected this year thanks in large part to wealthy Americans replenishing their wardrobes after a year of self-denial and nouveau riche Chinese indulging in a worldwide spending spree, according to a new study released Monday.
Keith Richards says he kicked heroin in 1978,... →
Richards boasts that he used to walk down Oxford Street openly carrying ‘a slab of hash as big as a skateboard’ and it did not even occur to him that this might be illegal in the lax attitude of the Sixties.
After decades indulging in what he calls the ‘breakfast of champions’ – a cocktail of heroin and cocaine – he claims he has finally given up hard drugs.
But having quit heroin in 1978,...
Stone crab season off to a rough start (Miami... →
Gary Nichols of Nichols Seafood in Conch Key was running several days behind getting his 6,500 traps in the water. He got them out, but some may need to be shifted and it will take until at least the weekend before he can get a true indication of how things look.
Friday, one of Nichols boats pulled about 600 traps. They ended up with about 450 pounds of crab.
“This is mediocre,”...
TV shows set in New York, LA, Miami? Been there,... →
“It’s [The Glades] not ‘Burn Notice’ or ’ Miami Vice’ — it’s a show about the other Florida, the one we haven’t seen,” said Tana Nugent Jamieson, senior VP, drama programming, at A&E. “And it has an eerie quality to it that stems from those out-of-the-way places.” “The Glades,” which will return for a second season...
Convicted Miami-Dade Medicare scammer blows... →
A former Miami Springs High pitching star who almost played in the majors threw himself at the mercy of a federal judge Thursday, asserting that while he stole millions from the taxpayer-funded Medicare program, he was fundamentally a generous guy.
By way of example, his lawyer told the judge that Ihosvany Marquez took an entourage of family and friends out to dinner at the pricey Miami Beach...
The backlash against hipsters has begun (Toronto... →
Hipster culture, you may have noticed, has gone global. What started with a few ravers turned graphic designers in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg has been successfully marketed and franchised around the world. In a forthcoming collection of essays entitled What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation (n+1 press), musician Jace Clayton recalls that while working in...
“The lessons of history…show conclusively that continued dependence upon...”
– FDR, 1935 State of the Union
fascinating: Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands... →
A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do.
It took just 24 hours to find out: The device was real, the...
Seasonal high tide will peak on Miami Beach around... →
That’s because in the early morning hours, the tides will reach their highest point in the fall, just as the moon gets to its perigee, which is when it’s closest to the earth and has the strongest gravitational pull and becomes a new moon.
—Miami Herald
Florida attorney general candidate calls for... →
Relatively unknown as a candidate in the race to become Florida’s next Attorney General, Fort Lauderdale attorney Jim Lewis has announced he’s calling for Florida to take a step beyond simply decriminalizing marijuana for medical use, saying in press release Tuesday that he will seek the legalization of marijuana (in what is widely considered to be the state that ranks number one for highly...
South Floridians have the worst credit scores out... →
For the second quarter of 2010, TransUnion found that about 23 percent of South Florida residents had a credit score between 501 and 600, which is considered poor and was labeled an F, according to a review of its data.
About 19 percent of people nationwide had scores in the same range.
Democrats Look to Cultivate Pot Vote in 2012 (Wall... →
Party strategists and marijuana-legalization advocates are discussing whether to push for similar ballot questions in 2012 in Colorado and Nevada—both expected to be crucial to President Barack Obama’s re-election—and Washington state, which will have races for governor and seats in both houses of Congress.
Already, a coalition of Democratic-leaning groups has conducted a poll in Colorado...
Media Industry Struggles as Power Shifts to... →
“For film distributors there’s fear because you’re trading dollars for pennies,” says Jane Rosenthal, whose movies like “Meet the Fockers” have grossed over $2 billion. “But from a filmmaker’s point of view, it’s actually very exciting because you can provide your content in so many different ways,” she adds.
so wait, electronics dont interfere with... →
Singapore Airlines announced today that it will soon allow wireless connections — for text messages, Blackberrys and perhaps cell phone calls — on its medium- and long-haul flights.
The move comes as the airline announces a multi-million-dollar collaboration with in-flight connectivity provider OnAir to offer Wi-Fi Internet access and other services on its flights.
Miami Beach's reefer revolution: SoBe is ground... →
As of this past September 6, Sensible Florida has collected 2,402 signatures from registered voters in Miami Beach. Stevens and Bannister need to get another 1,800 John Hancocks in order to hold a special election that would let Beach residents make their city the first in Florida to legalize small amounts of reefer.
Grey Moose and Ketel Two: Miami Bars Caught... →
So far this year, state agents have caught five bars around the county serving bottom-shelf liquor from top-shelf bottles. They range from the Booby Trap strip club to a swanky cafe. But waiters say the practice is much more widespread than the numbers show. And even when bars are caught, authorities are toothless to keep them from repeating the trick.
iPad Has Faster Adoption Than DVD →
This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.
WatchReliable Sources looks at why CNN fired Rick Sanchez following his comments on Jews running the media and Jon Stewart.
great reporting by the Miami Herald: Congress... →
Legal experts say there are more than 4,450 federal crimes on the books and as many as 300,000 federal regulations that can be enforced criminally. From 2000 to 2007, Congress created 452 entirely new crimes — that’s more than a crime a week, said Brian Walsh, a senior legal research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who focuses on overcriminalization. “It used to be a grave...
Africa's Soccer Impostors: the bizarre, sad tale... →
Togo, which occupies a sliver of land between Ghana and Benin on the Gulf of Guinea, is a soccer-loving country, and the news that a mysterious group of easily winded players had impersonated the national team provoked a public outcry. Investigations were launched, and the nation’s sports minister muttered to the press about “shadowy handlers” and “mafia groups.
Hitchens: Is it so offensive to note the... →
I ask myself if the world in which I have worked for so many decades—the intersecting and overlapping world of the news media, publishing, the academy, and the think-tank industry—is even imaginable without the presence of liberal American Jews. The answer is plainly no. Moreover, I can’t think of any other “minority” of which this is remotely true, unless it were to be the other...
Federal Judge in Atlanta Arrested; Charged With... →
Atlanta federal judge Jack T. Camp faces drug and firearms charges after an exotic dancer at an Atlanta strip club told authorities the judge used cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs with her.
Maglite: Made in the USA (NPR) →
It’s easy to say that nothing is made in the U.S.A. anymore. So many things we use in our daily lives now come from China or elsewhere. But the National Association of Manufacturers says 286,000 companies make things here, including one that produces the Maglite flashlight.
USA Today finds US prosecutors repeatedly have... →
Yet USA TODAY documented 201 criminal cases in the years that followed in which judges determined that Justice Department prosecutors — the nation’s most elite and powerful law enforcement officials — themselves violated laws or ethics rules.
In case after case during that time, judges blasted prosecutors for “flagrant” or “outrageous” misconduct. They caught some...
Bugatti, Ferrari Sell Out of Supercars as Luxury... →
All five of Bugatti’s 1.95 million-euro ($2.7 million) World Record, the globe’s fastest serial-production car, have been reserved. Chief Executive Officer Franz-Josef Paefgen showed the car, which has a top speed of 415 kilometers (258 miles) per hour, at the Paris Auto Show this week.
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, the world’s two biggest luxury-car makers, are...
Trouble on the home front: an explosion of... →
The Homestead couple’s murder-suicide was the first in a streak of horrific domestic-violence murders last week in South Florida. In one day alone, 10 people — including four children — were killed in three separate murder-suicides in Riviera Beach in Palm Beach County and in Lauderdale Lakes and Tamarac in Broward.
Las Vegas Faces Its Deepest Slide Since the 1940s →
The nation’s gambling capital is staggering under a confluence of economic forces that has sent Las Vegas into what officials describe as its deepest economic rut since casinos first began rising in the desert here in the 1940s.
Even as city leaders remain hopeful that gambling revenues will rebound with the nation’s economy, experts project that it will not be enough to make up for an even...
Concern That Terror Teams Have Selected Targets,... →
Strong concerns that terrorist teams in Europe have selected their targets, completed their surveillance, eluded capture and are now ready to strike at airports and tourist attractions have prompted the State Department to ready a highly unusual travel advisory for Europe, multiple law enforcement and intelligence sources tell ABC News.
Intelligence and law enforcement officials have information...
Rick Sanchez Calls Jon Stewart “A Bigot”; Says CNN... →
“I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah.”