Housing Doom

This one cannot pass unremarked, and I see over at HuffyPo Hugh McGuire has already remarked: "It's hard to swallow an article made up almost exclusively of quotes from various other thinkers, about how dangerous mash-ups are."

With your indulgence I'm going to shift into Dvorak DSK and just vent until the old blood pressure returns to something resembling normal.

Obviously the following is a preliminary response, and I'll need to reflect further before mounting a more definitive defence.  Meanwhile, Doomers would do well to read the Crown's complete set of accusations here …

NYT "Texts Without Context"

… these authors’ books are nuanced ruminations on some of the unreckoned consequences of technological change — books that stand as insightful counterweights to early techno-utopian works like Esther Dyson’s “Release 2.0” and Nicholas Negroponte’s “Being Digital,” which took an almost Pollyannaish view of the Web and its capacity to empower users.

So first of all, Mr. Sulzberger, here's a hearty greeting from one of those amateur empowered users who's been busy turning your old business model into custard these last few years.  Frankly, there would have been no need for us to have invaded your turf if you'd continued to cover the ground as you did from your founding.  Your minions can pour scorn on us all day long, but until you start getting down and dirty with ground truth again without fear that you will offend a corporate or government source you'll continue to have difficulties in the area of credibility.

Now Kakutani's article isn't all that outstanding, it's just the usual extended series of disjointed appeals to emotion supporting established authority against low-wattage challenge that constitutes most of the editorial (and now "blogging") content in the MSM.  It just stands out more in a long casual pre-review piece for several books she may or may not dig into later.  And I happen to be having a bad hair day up here.

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By the time this posts in the morning, I should be on Long Island, where I'm going for spring break.  I usually continue to check in when I'm traveling, but the storms have taken out power in many spots in the northeast- and it doesn't look like I'll have electricity for a bit. My relatives are telling me that they've been without power since Sunday, and are not likely to have any until Friday.

All I need to keep me happy is a thick quilt, a candle and a good book. I'll have a good visit anyway, if not the vacation I envisioned.  John and Igor are liable to be rather busy while I'm away though.  If you see anything interesting, please post it here. Feel free to use this as an open thread. I'll be back when the lights are on.

Oh, and Happy St. Patricks Day!

cheers,

Twist

It's Monday, and by the time you've had your breakfast and headed off to work, I'll be on the road to California.  My mom was in the mood for a road trip, so I'm leaving the kids in Mr. Twist's capable hands and Doom Castle to John and Igor, while Mom and I head off on our cross country adventure. 

I'll still be checking in, and maybe reporting on interesting finds along the way.  If Doomers see anything of interest in the way of links and stories this week though, please post a comment or drop us a line.  We could use the help! Read the rest of this entry »

America’s Treasury Secretary should, in my opinion and for a variety of reasons, resign.  I have been forcefully setting forth this thesis with everything I’ve got ("Recuse Me Timothy" was of course name calling, but arguably funny) from our humble corner of the blogosphere for some time now, especially since Treasury’s actions of 12/24; however, …

I fear these two recent offerings from the MSM may not be supportable.

First up, from the NY Post.¹

Geithner’s fielding a fresh round of criticism after e-mails surfaced last week that showed he forced insurance giant AIG to keep quiet about tens of billions of dollars in payments it made to several Wall Street banks — payment that represented full payouts funded by taxpayer cash that the banks otherwise wouldn’t have received.

The difference between ‘he’ and ‘his staff’ is material here, and I’d like that assertion to come with some fresh meat.  The Obama White House’s continued support of the Secretary has been specifically based on that very point not being true.

Next, from the venerable Sunday Times in London.²

Now it appears that as the money started to roll, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then under Geithner, was urging AIG to limit disclosure on payments made to banks. Emails show AIG staff, soon to become social pariahs and the target of death threats, arguing for more disclosure only to be discouraged by officials.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe that one goes beyond rhetoric.

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I thought I would stray just a bit from housing this morning and talk about another subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that is the status of bloggers as press.  I was horrified by this recent action of the TSA, summarized here by Henry Blodgit of Business Insider:

Shortly after the Christmas bomber tried to blow up a Delta flight into Detroit, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rolled out an emergency directive requiring airlines to implement draconian new security procedures.

Most travelers, unfortunately, had to find out about these new procedures from airline web sites or from firsthand accounts of those who had the misfortune to fly.  Despite operating a consumer web site with a chatty blog, the TSA didn’t bother to tell the public about the new rules.  Instead, the agency just distributed the new rules electronically to thousands of airline, government, and security employees and left the public in the dark.

Thankfully, someone leaked the rules, so Americans finally learned what we should have been told immediately.  Thanks to bloggers like Chris Elliot and Steven Frischling, who published the memo, we got to read the whole directive.

Needless to say, the TSA should have made all of the new rules public from the get-go.  The secrecy surrounding them was an insult to anyone affected–namely all Americans.

This insult was nothing compared to the TSA’s next move, however, which was to send agents to the houses of Frischling and Elliott (and presumably others) to slap them with subpoenas and demand that they immediately reveal the sources of the leaked directive.
 

This was not a leak that threatened national security and did not justify this type of response.  I am willing to bet that had this memo been leaked on say CNN or Fox News, the TSA would have gone to court [and lost] to discover the source of the leak, rather than do this:

[T]wo black sedans with TSA special agents came to the Connecticut home of blogger Steven Frischling and walked out with his laptop computer. They promised to return it, but later claimed that there were "bad sectors" on the drive.

He is not sure when he is going to get it back.

The agents were looking for the anonymous source who leaked a TSA Security Directive which advised airlines to restrict passengers from getting out of their seats, concealing their hands, or accessing carry-on luggage an hour before landing.

Frischling, home alone with three young children, was intimidated by the armed agents who had driven from Newark and Boston to central Connecticut.

The agents threatened to get Frischling — a blogger for KLM airlines — fired from his job, confiscate all his electronic devices — phones, computers, and iPods — and declare him a security risk — which would get him on the No Fly list – unless he cooperated.

Frischling — who has worked for Life, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and was embedded with troops in Iraq — didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t reach a lawyer.

The civil subpoena threatened a fine and up to a year in jail for failure to comply.

So why should a housing blog care? Read the rest of this entry »

2009 is over, and I suspect most of us won’t miss it.  For better or worse, it’s 2010.

We’ll save the debate for whether 2010 is the beginning of that "jobless recovery" or the next leg down.

John, who is more technically savy than me, has videoed his New Years greeting from Doom North.  I might have managed the same, but I’m not quite sure where the charger for the camera ended up.  At any rate, here’s hoping you and yours a very Happy New Year from here in the heart of Texas, and here’s John’s greeting as well:

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Whew!  This is the first I’ve been out of my kitchen in two days.  I’m going to get back to the Twist family festivities, but we wanted to send holiday greetings from us and ours to you and yours.

For our Christmas gift to you, here’s John singing [with a little help] at the Halifax Citadel for Victorian Christmas.

UPDATE (from John M): Many thanks to Parks Canada for their hospitality at that gig.  The above was recorded inside between sets at the basically furnished casemate where our hosts laid out some delicious refreshments.  Fascinating acoustics there — check out the reverb from the basses.   … And also from Doom North, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

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Yes, I know the NAR says home sales are up, but there’s just a few days left until Christmas, and I’m finding that holiday preparations around here have gone into overdrive.  Posting is liable to be sporadic for the next few days.

Given that some lenders are putting off foreclosures until January and trading in the markets is liable to be light, this should be kind of a quiet week anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

I thought we’d let Johnny Cash sing today’s post for us: [Starts about 1:00]

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Doom readers spoke, and we listened.  We have finally installed a favicon on the site.  Thank you to the reader who designed ours for us, but prefers that we not use his name.  For those of you who don’t know what a favicon is,  I believe the technical description is that it’s the thingey that makes a little picture up in the address bar.  [Clearly I'm not a techie.] Ours looks like this:

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