Weekend Tids and Bits

FULL-SERVICE MORTGAGE BROKERS INDEED as the New York Times reports that the folks who made lots of money by selling mortgages to those who couldn’t afford them now are trying to make money by selling mortgage renegotiation services to that same customer group. That’s well in the historical legacy of hucksters who went to towns lecturing about this or that horrible disease for which – just by chance, honest – they happened to have the cure at $2 a bottle. History also shows that from time to time the rubes got wise and tarred and feather the hucksters, riding them out of town on a rail. Current official indifference here shows our learning lessons from history to be incomplete, since selling cures for problems you caused remains legal, but tarring and feathering isn’t.

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AND IS THE OFFICIAL SONG “ ZIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH?” – Who knows, but in Durham, NC, Mayor Bill Bell signed a proclamation making July 17 a day of happiness in Durham. Read the article on the News and Observer website which will explain – sort of – the connection between Durham, happiness and SpongeBob SquarePants. It’s all a puzzle to those of us in New Jersey, where elected officials don’t proclaim happiness, they seek it out in cash, as the recent batch of corruption indictments in the Devil’s Favorite State attests.

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DETAILS, DETAILS! Didn’t bother Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele this week when he was asked by CNN what his health coverage was. He thought it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Turns out the health coverage for the Republican National Committee comes from Cigna, reports Politico. Isn’t it unfair to bother a Very Important Person with remembering mundane details as might ordinary folk when he’s busy working to deny 47 million of them health coverage?

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ONE, TWO, THREE REBOOTS AND YER OUT! isn’t yet the norm in professional baseball, but a story from AP on the USA Today site reports on a robot that pitches and a robot that bats. No word yet on robots that scratch, spit and take steroids or on fan robots that can endure five hours of watching grass grow punctuated by a total of five minutes of action.

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MORE AMMO FOR SEXUAL EQUALITY comes from this oprah.com report on CNN’s site that women can enjoy porn as much as men and that the fair sex accounts for about a third of the traffic on some adult websites – as viewers not just those viewed. Next up on the list of revelations each generation usually finds: You mean Mom and Dad did it?

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Last Week’s Class Assignments:

n Evidence to the contrary aside, the donkeys and elephants in the Senate are against human-animal hybrids we discover at http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/07/24/o.women.watching.porn/index.html

n Most toddlers outgrow the No! stage of the Terrible Twos, and those that don’t become Republicans at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/terrible-twos-some-never-outgrow_21.html

n The Senate had a chance to start finding common national ground on concealed-carry guns laws, but fell back on its time honored shoot-self-in-foot stall tactics at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/update-common-sense-wounded-in-senate.html

n A man with lots less hidden than most – and photos to prove it – says his hat is in the ring for New York City Mayor, which leaves him in just his boots, tighty-whities and guitar at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/naked-almost-ambition-enters-nyc-mayor.html

n When Satan left the Garden of Eden, he found himself a home in the Garden State as this exclusive interview on the recent corruption roundup shows at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/much-easier-pickings-satans-garden-of.html

Have a great weekend!

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