Near Owens

Shrinking Society

It is no secret that economic and social changes are driving us to a harder more cynical place. Here we have another landmark; the Pasadena Playhouse closing its doors.

PASADENA - Faced with mounting bills and more than $1.5 million in debt, the Pasadena Playhouse will close its doors Feb. 7.

The playhouse, which was founded in 1917, will close after the final performance of its current production, "Camelot."

Maybe we can convert it to a prison.

Let It Snow

Fresh tracks!

Min-iPad

Humor works best when there's a grain of truth inside:


No camera? no multitasking? No flash support? I wanted this:


And got this instead:


iPad. Mrs. Dawg's first comment was "Cripes, didn't they have any women involved in naming that thing? Will the upgraded model be called MaxiPad?"

Predictions: When shipped 32/64/128Gb for the same prices. Massive educational ties-ins will be announced soon. There will be a storage option.

And let's face it, no camera, no storage port equals no teen market.

Washington Monument Part 1

A "Washington Monument Play" is when government punishes the populace by denying a popular service in order to extort money for unpopular costs. We start this ongoing series with the great State of Arizona

Arizona decides to close most state parks
Facing a multibillion-dollar shortfall, the state will shut 13 parks by June, including the Tombstone Courthouse and Yuma Territorial Prison. Several had already been closed.

January 16, 2010|By Nicole Santa Cruz
Wrestling with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, Arizona decided Friday to close nearly all of its state parks, including the famed Tombstone Courthouse and Yuma Territorial Prison.
The State Parks Board unanimously voted to close 13 parks by June 3. Eight others had already been closed, and the decision would leave nine open -- but only if the board can raise $3 million this year.
The action represents the largest closure of state parks in the nation, although several other states are considering similar moves.
"It's a dark day for the Arizona state parks system," said Renee Bahl, the system's executive director.
"We have 65,000 acres around the state and the majority of them are closing."
The Arizona parks receive about 2.3 million visitors per year who bring about $266 million into the state, Bahl said.

Got that math? $3m is "saved" to help close a multi-billion dollar deficit. That $3m apparently generates 80x in economic ripples. There's no way this is about saving money.

The Little Choo-Choo That Couldn't

California High Speed Rail died recently and no one noticed. The CAHSR authority finally made the first of a long series of confessions that the service will be less and price higher than was sold to the voters 18 months ago in a narrow bond approval vote.

The new plan calls for a one-way charge of $105, about 83 percent of the $125 the rail authority predicts airfares will run in 2035. That near-doubling of prospective fares from the 2008 $55 would reduce expected ridership by almost one-third.

Prices up, ridership down. Quelle surprise.

But don't be discouraged. There's a new blog out there where CAHSR is not only alive but so perfect only apostates can dare deny its beauty: CAHSRblog.com

If it weren't my money the whole debacle would be sad. As it is it is a travesty.

The updated cost estimate for the San Francisco‐to‐Anaheim initial high‐speed rail system is $42.6 billion [pdf file] in year‐of‐expenditure dollars.

State funding: $9 billion from Proposition 1A (used to leverage additional investment)
Federal funding: $17‐19 billion (ARRA, other federal loan programs, transportation appropriations)
Local funding: $4‐5 billion (in right‐of‐way, parking fees, transit‐oriented developments, contributions)
Private funding: $10‐12 billion (public‐private partnerships, vendor financing, availability payments, etc.)
Total: $45 billion

Not. Fed funding will never exceed the $9b State contribution and private funding to date has been zero. There's no reason for private interests to fund HSR. It has no commercial value. And the "local funding" is just a joke. Bakersfield is not going to invoke Eminient Domain to cover CAHSRs accounting ass.

Back East

A little family business. Nothing serious. Expect to be busy. I'll check in if I can. And no, I don't get to go to the Patriots game.

Update: I'm back. My recalcitrant little brother needed to see 5 feet of scars in order to start taking care of himself and availing himself of VA benefits. Back to your regularly scheduled snark.

La Loma Redux

It's back. La Loma is back on the market.


You'd never know this was once asking for a million.

2010 Movie Remakes

Underwaterworld
The Unpayables
War of the Wards
0-mega man
Debt-raiser
Debt-raiser
Blackdebt Down
Chinamen in Black
Dependence Day
Debt, followed by Children of Debt
3000 Miles to Poorland
Thirteen Days to Bankruptcy
For Love of the
Eviction Message in a Bottle
The Postman Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
Big Treasury Trouble in Little China
The Checkbook
Massive Asset-Slashed Haircut: M.A.S.H.
Pretty WaMu, the unlikely romance of a prostitute and a corporate raider.
Tin Cup and Pencils
Wyatt Earp Real Estate Investment Trust
A Perfect World for Goldman
The Bodyguard to Benny
True Romance
The Bodyguard to Benny
The Bootyguard starring Shelia Bair
True Romance
Romancing The Sachs
Massive Asset-Slashed Haircut: M.A.S.H.
I especially liked Hotlips WaMulihan in the scene where she does Major Burnstheinvestors.
Romancing the Blackstone
Stanford & Son
A Default Grows in Harlem.
The Stanfords
Skull and Bonus
Three Loans for Sister Sarah
Last House Left
The Legend of Beggar Vance
Bend It Like Bernanke
Ben & Timmay's Excellent Misadventure
Buffy The Squid Slayer
buffet fraud
Cheaper by The Dozen Trillion
Close Encounters of The Third Tranche
Citizen Pain - who can forget that classic tale?
Dirty Benny
Buffy The Squid Slayer
The Money Pit
Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels
Bonfires of the Vainities
Easy Writers
Nightstand Cowboy
Close Encounters of The Third Tranche
Final DebtstaNation
The International (no title change necessary!)
Taken
Gone With The Win
2010: The Year We Break Contract
When Benny met Timmy?
Home: A Loan
Routes
A Debtors' Line
The Dark Pool
The Debt Pool
Debt Men Don't Wear Plaid
for pav: Debt Poets Society
debtsturbia
Hock Hollywood
Eight Squid Heads in a Duffle Bag
Eternal Obligation of the Spotless FICO
Management on Fire, starring Denzel Washington DC
19 Men on a Debtman's Chest, yo ho ho
Deja Vu
He Knows You Need A Loan
Live Free or Die Pennyless
The Perfect Storm (no changes necessary)
Pirates of the Carribean (no changes necessary)
Flatliners (no changes necessary)
Apocalypse Now
A-liens
The Incredible Hulk - a tale of seethrough megatowers
Apocalypse on Credit - The Sequel
Wallets Wide Shut
Fantasia 2010
Ferris Beuller's Pay Off
Forrest Pump and Dump
Four Mortgages and a Jubilee
Funds and Fancy Free
Glodzilla
A-liens
Wiped Out Men Can't Jump
Snatch
My Big Fat Greek Riot
The Day the Earth Paid Bills
Throw in two others and you'd have The Magnificent Seven
Flight Club
Charlotte's Web (tale of a spider and a )
Schiller's List
St. Elmo's FIRE
The Puppets Take Manhattan
The F/C Files
Con-Heir
Throw in two others and you have The Malignant Seven
Office Space
CREmatorium
The Good, The Bad, & The Fugly?
Squirrel Interupted
Glods and Monsters
The Glods Must be Crazy
Good Bills Hunting
Groundhog Decade
All Go To Heaven
The Whetherman
Miss MBS March
The Great White Hype
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Retail Bones!
Logan's Loan Run
The Day the Loans Stood Still
M.B.S.
Saving Private Buying
E for Endebtedness
Dial M For More
Flash-Trading Gordon
Clash of the Banking Titans
The Hangover
The Day the Loans Stood Still
Deliverance
Bando Brothers
Land of the Lost Wages
Fannie
Nightmare on K Street
reserved hogs
Dead Bank Walking
The Loan King
Dead Beat
Plan of the Caved Bair
Masters of the Universe (no change needed)
Minority Deport
Sachs and the Citi
District 8
Crash
The Bad News Bears
Weekend at Bennies
Growing Pains
Weakened @ Bennie's
Romancing The Sachs
The Last Par Fighter
CDS: Fatal Affliction
Escape from Needless Markup
The Revenge of the Mannequins.
Expatriate Games
Fatal Redaction
up in the smoke
The Gain Mutiny
Throw MBS from the Train
A bridge to....a bridge
A Bridgeloan Too Far
To HELOC & Back
Bond, FIRE and Vanities
FIREstopper
Loan Terminator
(old TV show) The Loan Arranger
The Bridge Loan over the River Side
Bridges of Mason Country
Crash of the Titans
Axe-Men
Violence of the Lambs
The Chuck Prince Diaries
National Displeasure
No bridge to far
VATman
2010: A Treasury Oddity
Run Silent, Run Deep Losses
bANK fAILURE (homepage, profile) wrote on Sat, 1/2/2010 - 1:07 pm
The China Sin-Drone
Yu Gots Males
Arabian Blights
Meet Joe Sixpack
The Unshining
...starring Jack Nicholson as Alan Greenspend.
Atlantic Citi
Devil wears goodwill
The Loan Bug
Andduetome Strain
The Longest Yarn
Star Whores: The Empire Likes Crack
Star Whores: Reburn of the Junkie
Cashless In Seattle
Merry Pop Pins
Star Whores: The Phantom Ceiling
The Clowns of Music
and of course: Star Whores: The Revenge of the Squid
Czardoughs
Fast Times at 30 Broad
Did You Hear About The Benjamins?
Obama: A Nude Hope?
Ace Ventura, FED Detective
GS:Meet the Fuckers
Raiders of the Last Park
Star Whores:Return of the Tarp
Gunfight at the GS Corral
All Quiet On The Eastern Front
Cool hand Mack
Loan Misérables
The Rapes of Graft
Promotion's Eleven
ResistanceIsFeudal (profile) wrote on Sat, 1/2/2010 - 1:24 pm
Citi Slackers
Orifice Space
Whore A Few Dollars More
Ben Hurt
American Flipstory Essex
Blankfein's Monster
ET(gs): the evaded tax
Pigmen on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - by Almostdover
Hex on the Citi
The Loan and I
Transformers:Revenge of the Realwhores
Planet of the Realtors
West Slide Story
The Lord of the FED:The Return of ...nope, returns are negative
Mr. Smith Goes to Bankruptcy Court
Mutiny of the Bounty
The Passion of the
One-Eyed Jack-a-Lopes
-staring Karl Maldin as Bad-Loanworth
Dial M for Mortgage
Finding Nemo!!!!
Alan and the FedMonks: The Squeakquel
'Invasion of the Money Snatchers'
The Lying King: the mozillo story
To Live and Die in the Beltway.
The Write Stuff
The Lord of the Blings: The Empty Towers
Pirates of Lower Manhattan; At Squid Island
A Dutiful Mind
The Lying Game
Twelve Flunkies
HouseFlipper's New Adventures
2010: The Year we broke the contract
Bye Bye Money
Rebel Without a Clause
You Can't Take It With You Unless You're Goldman
Chairman Dolittle
How to Marry a Trillionaire
The Three Faces of Greed
Bonus Season: The First Sense
The Bankshank Redemption
Sherlock Homes and the Case of the Missing Payments
Comrade Rally Monkey (homepage, profile) wrote on Sat, 1/2/2010 - 1:35 pm
The Handover: nth to default
It's Californicated
Village of the Damned Bankers
The Absent Minded Economics Professor
The Loan Vanishes
Voyage to the Bottom of the Recovery
Governator 3: Eviction Day
Kashkari:I am Legend
Panic in the Year 2010
Forget Perris
Hush...Hush, Sweet Sheila
Re-cast away
The Crawling Invisible Hand
The warren ultimatum
The Nutty Economics Professor
The Three Stooges Meet Geithner
How Green Was My Wallet
Cents and Cents-ability
-the making of Lowered Expectations
Caper-Corn Won
-Forex food fights staring transgendered asians, hilarity ensues
The Mishpocha Man
No Retirement for Old Men
No Country for Young Men
Fiat: Cultural leanings of a society bent on debt servitude for make glorius benefit of nation of Richistan
Star Tranche: First Contract
Who Framed Robert Reich?
Soylent Green Shoots
Oh man is dad ever gonna be pissed when he comes back from his hike and sees the mess we left.
To Be or Not To Be Homeless
The Last Wagon Out of IE
Father's Little Dividend Deferred
The Margin Call of the Wild
The Seethrough Menagerie
Elizabeth Warren: 2 smart, 2 curious
I haven't laughed this hard in quite a long time. Suicide hotline without the humor, my skinny white ass.
Altar'd Statisticians
Scammers
Krugman v. Krugman
Honey I shrunk the 401K!
*Battering Rams Not Included
Dr. Goldbug and the Bikini Machine
The Slime People
That title didn't need any work.
Anna and the King of Liar Loans
HELOC Down There
Doctor No Loan
The Net Worth
Feestack
Silence of the HAMPs
For Whom the Bank Tolls
Pay It Never
[alt: Pay It Forever]
[alt alt: Pain It Forwardization]
Around the Drain in Eighty Days
bANK fAILURE (homepage, profile) wrote on Sat, 1/2/2010 - 1:59 pm
SHAME !!
-a charming caste of up and coming are delightful in this musical romp through the interworkings of revolving doors. The smoke and mirrors budget is equalled only by the great wall Chindia's big shitpile.
The Last American Heloc
The Birth of a Nation of Debtors
A Farewell to ARMs
The Phantom of the Stock Market
20,000 Loans Under the Sea
The Good, the Bad, and the Regulators
Citizen Thain
Curse of the Voodoo Economics
Honey, I sold the kids
Evictus
All Squids go to heaven