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With gas, food and admission to Disneyland skyrocketing (think $100 for an adult ticket to the happiest place on earth) this might be the time to start thinking about free things to do in Los Angeles. And have we go one for you. This week TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX® (www.tclchinesetheatres.com), is hosting a fabulous pre-summer exhibit of Hollywood featuring millions of dollars worth of costumes and accessories from the most iconic films ever produced. The free admission is only for ticket holders or folks who purchase a tour of the theatre.
Movie buffs can get glimpses of Marilyn Monroe's gold lame, pleated halter gown from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953),), Vivien Leigh's green velvet drapery gown from "Gone With the Wind" (1939) and Judy Garland's blue and white gingham pinafore and blouse from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). You'll also see exotic accessories and props from the "Ten Commandments" (1956) used by actor Charlton Heston in his role as "Moses."
Also on display
- Vivien Leigh's drapery dress worn in "Thoroughly Modern Millie"
- James Dean's jeans and workshirt from "Giant"
- Grace Kelly's beaded gown worn at the Chinese Theatre premier
- 10 Commandment tablets carried by Charlto Heston as Moses
- Rita Hayworth's black satin strapless dress worn in "Gilda"
- Judy Garland's pinafore and blouse from the "Wizard of Oz"
- And more can be seen t his week at the "Cinema Icons Collection" at the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX in Hollywood.


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March 4 is Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday is dedicated to revelry and overindulgence in everything pleasurable before the Lenten season begins. Most Mardi Gras food ideas come from the city that made Mardi Gras famous, New Orleans. However, it's high time for the Quebecois invention known as poutine to become a Mardi Gras staple.
Poutine is a savory side dish consisting of french fried potatoes topped with a tangy beef sauce with cheese melted over the whole shebang. The original recipe calls for cheese curds, a product that is available from a few local dairies that sell directly to the consumer or over the internet. Shredded cheddar cheese can be substituted.
6 to 8 medium potatoes
vegetable oil for frying
4 c. beef stock
2 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp. butter or margarine
2 tbsp. corn starch
1 tbsp. minced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 c. Cheddar cheese curds or shredded Cheddar cheese
Wash and julienne potatoes. Place in large bowl and cover with cold water. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour; for extra-crispy fries, soak in cold water overnight.
Prepare sauce. In large measuring cup, mix together beef stock, ketchup, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Add corn starch and stir until dissolved. In medium saucepan, melt butter. Saute onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes. Add liquid ingredients, bring to a simmer and stir occasionally, allowing liquid to reduce by half, about 20 minutes. Stir constantly as liquid thickens to prevent scorching, then remove from heat.
Drain potatoes, pat dry with paper towels. Heat oil for frying to 350 degrees in a deep fryer or deep skillet. Drop in potatoes, fry 4 to 6 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown. Remove potatoes from oil and drain on paper toweling.
Place potatoes in a shallow bowl. Cover with beef sauce, and top with cheese curds. Toss ingredients together prior to serving; if sauce has cooled, place bowl into microwave and heat 30 seconds so that cheese melts. Serves 4 - 6
Starting on Wednesday we'll feature meatless main dishes that will make Lent less challenging.

subset: commoncrawl


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Video Industry News Video Company News Technology Industry News Technology Company News Novelty Industry News Novelty Company News Gay Industry News Gay Company News Legal Industry News All Company News
Released: Aug 10th, 2009
Running Time:
Director: Uncredited
Company: Devil's Film
DVD Extras: Cumshot Recap, Music-Free Option, Still Gallery(ies), Trailer(s), Widescreen
Cast: Vannah Sterling, Scotty Piper, Echo Valley, David Loso, Melissa Monet, McLovin, Frankie Young, Raquel Sieb
I know what you're thinking. Just because she's hot, horny, beautiful and she's my wife's mother...It's wrong. But she wants my hard cock deep inside her steaming pussy and I don't care, we will both want to cum all night, and we will!


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Three Must-Read Articles
Every Friday we select a handful of in-depth articles we think are worth a bit of your valuable weekend time, either because they peel back the layers on a compelling business story, or somehow make us look at business in a different light.
The rise and fall of Eike Batista. Eike Batista was the poster boy for Brazil's economic expansion and became the world's eighth-richest man—before losing his fortune in one year, write Juan Pablo Spinetto, Peter Millard, and Ken Wells in this Bloomberg Businessweek cover story. In what is shaping up to be one of the largest personal and financial collapses in history, Mr. Batista may be nearing bankruptcy. On Oct. 1, his oil company, OGX Petróleo e Gás, missed a $45 million interest payment on bond debt it had racked up during its rise. He's sold his planes and his helicopter, and creditors are arguing over the remains of his companies. He's no longer on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and has become the butt of jokes in Brazil. One suggests that Pope Francis plans to return to Brazil soon and will again be visiting the poor, including Mr. Batista.
Why are there still so few women in science? In the New York Times Magazine, Eileen Pollack, one of the first two women to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Yale University, researches the reasons for the shortage of women scientists. She discovers, after talking to female scientists and students, reviewing funding and grant support for scientific projects world-wide and tracking down her own (male) undergrad adviser for an uncomfortable reunion, that culture remains a major force in turning women—and many men—away from science. The culture today still "teaches girls math isn't cool and no one will date them if they excel in physics." Such attitudes continue even within some of the best university science programs where "professors rarely encourage their female students to continue on for advanced degrees."
I, smartphone. Google Glass has nothing on a new generation of wearable computers bubbling up in labs world-wide. In United Hemispheres magazine, Boyd Farrow tracks the technology industry's efforts at melding sensors with the human body. One Massachusetts-based lab is exploring RFID tattoos for "a generation more accustomed to wearing ink than watches." California's Proteus Digital Health has a sensor-laden pill, that when swallowed, makes the entire body "an authentication token." Meanwhile Samsung Electronics is developing software that would be controlled by a user's thoughts, to "select songs from a playlist, or even write on a Galaxy Note." Farrow writes that one "computer guru" already is concerned that hackers will embed their spyware in brain-enabled digital technology: "If this were to happen, merely thinking about making a credit card payment could result in somebody, somewhere, buying a speedboat at your expense."


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How Did the Banks Get Away With Pledging Mortgages to Multiple Buyers?
- George Washington's blog
- Printer-friendly version
- Oct 26, 2010 2:02 AM
- 49
I think the POS banksters are already two more frauds ahead while we are just uncovering the current ones.
They've commoditized humans for the revenue generator slaves that we are, long ago. I wonder how many times I've been double booked as a ledger entry so I could be leveraged twice. Nice to have people fight over you but I can do without.
I hope I never become a liability on their books. They'll sell my soylent green for the carbon credits PDQ. You can't go anywhere these days without stepping in a rabbit hole.
a question for the professors:
how many words are necessary to describe "pick-pocket"?
answer for the professors (i have taken the liberty to speak on their behalf since they work so tirelessly to spell things out for me and it would appear they are quite busy at the moment)...well, in case you haven't figured it out yet, the answer is one word..."irrelevant".
Being sucked in again . . .
The fraud in mortgage backed securities is a separate issue from mortgage fraud.
The administration has sufficient evidence to pursue securities fraud on mortgage backed securities however, doing so will necessarily require another bank bailout. But the public would go ballistic if it were to do so. They must therefore create a public crisis in order to justify this bailout.
Enter mortgage fraud. If the media can work the public into a mind numbing rage over the injustice of evil bankers abusing poor defenseless homeowners and inextricably tie mortgage fraud to mortgage backed securities, then the politicians can pursue another banker bailout under the guise of "protecting the homeowner".
That is my theory - lets see how it works out
Why it will not be easy or perhaps even possible to sweep this away ? Four words - unions, pimpco, money market funds. Thes, they are IIRC the vast majority of the private entities holding MBS.
They too have $1500/hour lawyers and politicos supporting them, so they will not just "go away" or allow themselves to be shafted like the GM bondholders did.
No, this has serious legs precisely because it's one politically favored and wealthy constituency, the banksters, against another politically-favored and cash-flush constituency, the unions and the fund companies. You might also throw in the insurance industry against the banksters too, as they probably wrote a lot of derivatives as a counterparty in the mess.
There's no "sweep under the rug" possible.
It won't be swept under the rug. It will be swept onto the Fed's balance sheet and thus become a liability of the American taxpayer.
A $4-trillion ($4,000,000,000,000.00) pile of horse shit.
Which none of the politicos can smell, though they do hope that Elizabeth Warren will save them from their folly/cowardice/stupidity and pull their Uranus-severed genitals out of their mouths.
There's no Aphrodite popping out of the foam this time around....
"unions, pimpco, money market funds."
Most of their assets are in worthless MBS and CDS paper -- soon to become even more worthless when a bank holiday closes the banks and the markets for a massive devaluation of USD, ETF, GLD and equity paper. No fighting funds there!
The MBS's aren't that bad off.
The CDS's ??? Fantasy paper, masquerading as MBS's... a helluva lot of it.
...and add the International counter parties who are holding MBS. This garbage was sold all oer the world, and the world wants it's money back.
That may be the final factor. We've said this before, hopefully the regulators in other countries will do what ours should have some time ago
I feel a great disturbance in the Force...it is as if millions of senior tranches cried out in terror, and were suddenly impaired
I feel a great disturbance in the Force...it is as if millions of senior tranches cried out in terror, and were suddenly impaired
Man, that is a fricking thing of beauty there!
Not to worry. Darth Vader Bernanke is coming to the rescue of all those poor impaired tranches.
"Give me your tired, your hungry, your seriously impaired tranches."
For today's Outside the Box I have something a little different. Michael Hudson has written a book called The Monster about the Mortgage industry, and specifically Ameriquest and Lehman. Someone sent me his introduction and I read it on the plane. I will buy the book. It made me angry. And the new financial regulations don't address some of the real problem here.
It is an easy read, well written and lots of great quotes and stories. I won't say enjoy but do take the tine to read and then think about what you just read and about the culture in our country. John Maulden
The Monster : How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America--and Spawned a Global Crisis
Michael W. Hudson
Bait and Switch
A few weeks after he started working at Ameriquest Mortgage, Mark Glover looked up from his cubicle and saw a coworker do something odd. The guy stood at his desk on the twenty-third floor of downtown Los Angeles's Union Bank Building. He placed two sheets of paper against the window. Then he used the light streaming through the window to trace something from one piece of paper to another. Somebody's signature.
Glover was new to the mortgage business. He was twenty-nine and hadn't held a steady job in years. But he wasn't stupid. He knew about financial sleight of hand—at that time, he had a check-fraud charge hanging over his head in the L.A. courthouse a few blocks away. Watching his coworker, Glover's first thought was: How can I get away with that? As a loan officer at Ameriquest, Glover worked on commission. He knew the only way to earn the six-figure income Ameriquest had promised him was to come up with tricks for pushing deals through the mortgage-financing pipeline that began with Ameriquest and extended through Wall Street's most respected investment houses.
Glover and the other twentysomethings who filled the sales force at the downtown L.A. branch worked the phones hour after hour, calling strangers and trying to talk them into refinancing their homes with high-priced "subprime" mortgages. It was 2003, subprime was on the rise, and Ameriquest was leading the way. The company's owner, Roland Arnall, had in many ways been the founding father of subprime, the business of lending money to home owners with modest incomes or blemished credit histories. He had pioneered this risky segment of the mortgage market amid the wreckage of the savings and loan disaster and helped transform his company's headquarters, Orange County, California, into the capital of the subprime industry. Now, with the housing market booming and Wall Street clamoring to invest in subprime, Ameriquest was growing with startling velocity.
Up and down the line, from loan officers to regional managers and vice presidents, Ameriquest's employees scrambled at the end of each month to push through as many loans as possible, to pad their monthly production numbers, boost their commissions, and meet Roland Arnall's expectations. Arnall was a man "obsessed with loan volume," former aides recalled, a mortgage entrepreneur who believed "volume solved all problems." Whenever an underling suggested a goal for loan production over a particular time span, Arnall's favorite reply was: "We can do twice that." Close to midnight Pacific time on the last business day of each month, the phone would ring at Arnall's home in Los Angeles's exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood, a $30 million estate that once had been home to Sonny and Cher.On the other end of the telephone line, a vice president in Orange County would report the month's production numbers for his lending empire. Even as the totals grew to $3 billion or $6 billion or $7 billion a month—figures never before imagined in the subprime business—Arnall wasn't satisfied. He wanted more. "He would just try to make you stretch beyond what you thought possible," one former Ameriquest executive recalled. "Whatever you did, no matter how good you did, it wasn't good enough."
Inside Glover's branch, loan officers kept up with the demand to produce by guzzling Red Bull energy drinks, a favorite caffeine pick-me-up for hardworking salesmen throughout the mortgage industry. Government investigators would later joke that they could gauge how dirty a home-loan location was by the number of empty Red Bull cans in the Dumpster out back. Some of the crew in the L.A. branch, Glover said, also relied on cocaine to keep themselves going, snorting lines in washrooms and, on occasion, in their cubicles.
The wayward behavior didn't stop with drugs. Glover learned that his colleague's art work wasn't a matter of saving a borrower the hassle of coming in to supply a missed signature. The guy was forging borrowers' signatures on government-required disclosure forms, the ones that were supposed to help consumers understand how much cash they'd be getting out of the loan and how much they'd be paying in interest and fees. Ameriquest's deals were so overpriced and loaded with nasty surprises that getting customers to sign often required an elaborate web of psychological ploys, outright lies, and falsified papers. "Every closing that we had really was a bait and switch," a loan officer who worked for Ameriquest in Tampa, Florida, recalled. " 'Cause you could never get them to the table if you were honest." At companywide gatherings, Ameriquest's managers and sales reps loosened up with free alcohol and swapped tips for fooling borrowers and cooking up phony paperwork. What if a customer insisted he wanted a fixed-rate loan, but you could make more money by selling him an adjustable-rate one? No problem. Many Ameriquest salespeople learned to position a few fixed-rate loan documents at the top of the stack of paperwork to be signed by the borrower. They buried the real documents—the ones indicating the loan had an adjustable rate that would rocket upward in two or three years—near the bottom of the pile. Then, after the borrower had flipped from signature line to signature line, scribbling his consent across the entire stack, and gone home, it was easy enough to peel the fixed-rate documents off the top and throw them in the trash.
At the downtown L.A. branch, some of Glover's coworkers had a flair for creative documentation. They used scissors, tape, Wite-Out, and a photocopier to fabricate W-2s, the tax forms that indicate how much a wage earner makes each year. It was easy: Paste the name of a low-earning borrower onto a W-2 belonging to a higher-earning borrower and, like magic, a bad loan prospect suddenly looked much better. Workers in the branch equipped the office's break room with all the tools they needed to manufacture and manipulate official documents. They dubbed it the "Art Department."
At first, Glover thought the branch might be a rogue office struggling to keep up with the goals set by Ameriquest's headquarters. He discovered that wasn't the case when he transferred to the company's Santa Monica branch. A few of his new colleagues invited him on a field trip to Staples, where everyone chipped in their own money to buy a state-of-the-art scanner-printer, a trusty piece of equipment that would allow them to do a better job of creating phony paperwork and trapping American home owners in a cycle of crushing debt.
Carolyn Pittman was an easy target. She'd dropped out of high school to go to work, and had never learned to read or write very well. She worked for decades as a nursing assistant. Her husband, Charlie, was a longshoreman.In 1993 she and Charlie borrowed $58,850 to buy a one-story, concrete block house on Irex Street in a working-class neighborhood of Atlantic Beach, a community of thirteen thousand near Jacksonville, Florida. Their mortgage was government-insured by the Federal Housing Administration, so they got a good deal on the loan. They paid about $500 a month on the FHA loan, including the money to cover their home insurance and property taxes.
Even after Charlie died in 1998, Pittman kept up with her house payments. But things were tough for her. Financial matters weren't something she knew much about. Charlie had always handled what little money they had. Her health wasn't good either. She had a heart attack in 2001, and was back and forth to hospitals with congestive heart failure and kidney problems.
Like many older black women who owned their homes but had modest incomes, Pittman was deluged almost every day, by mail and by phone, with sales pitches offering money to fix up her house or pay off her bills. A few months after her heart attack, a salesman from Ameriquest Mortgage's Coral Springs office caught her on the phone and assured her he could ease her worries. He said Ameriquest would help her out by lowering her interest rate and her monthly payments.
She signed the papers in August 2001. Only later did she discover that the loan wasn't what she'd been promised. Her interest rate jumped from a fixed 8.43 percent on the FHA loan to a variable rate that started at nearly 11 percent and could climb much higher. The loan was also packed with more than $7,000 in up-front fees, roughly 10 percent of the loan amount.
Pittman's mortgage payment climbed to $644 a month. Even worse, the new mortgage didn't include an escrow for real-estate taxes and insurance. Most mortgage agreements require home owners to pay a bit extra—often about $100 to $300 a month—which is set aside in an escrow account to cover these expenses. But many subprime lenders obscured the true costs of their loans by excluding the escrow from their deals, which made the monthly payments appear lower. Many borrowers didn't learn they had been tricked until they got a big bill for unpaid taxes or insurance a year down the road.
That was just the start of Pittman's mortgage problems. Her new mortgage was a matter of public record, and by taking out a loan from Ameriquest, she'd signaled to other subprime lenders that she was vulnerable—that she was financially unsophisticated and was struggling to pay an unaffordable loan. In 2003, she heard from one of Ameriquest's competitors, Long Beach Mortgage Company.
Pittman had no idea that Long Beach and Ameriquest shared the same corporate DNA. Roland Arnall's first subprime lender had been Long Beach Savings and Loan, a company he had morphed into Long Beach Mortgage. He had sold off most of Long Beach Mortgage in 1997, but hung on to a portion of the company that he rechristened Ameriquest. Though Long Beach and Ameriquest were no longer connected, both were still staffed with employees who had learned the business under Arnall.
A salesman from Long Beach Mortgage, Pittman said, told her that he could help her solve the problems created by her Ameriquest loan. Once again, she signed the papers. The new loan from Long Beach cost her thousands in up-front fees and boosted her mortgage payments to $672 a month.
Ameriquest reclaimed her as a customer less than a year later. A salesman from Ameriquest's Jacksonville branch got her on the phone in the spring of 2004. He promised, once again, that refinancing would lower her interest rate and her monthly payments. Pittman wasn't sure what to do. She knew she'd been burned before, but she desperately wanted to find a way to pay off the Long Beach loan and regain her financial bearings. She was still pondering whether to take the loan when two Ameriquest representatives appeared at the house on Irex Street. They brought a stack of documents with them. They told her, she later recalled, that it was preliminary paperwork, simply to get the process started. She could make up her mind later. The men said, "sign here," "sign here," "sign here," as they flipped through the stack. Pittman didn't understand these were final loan papers and her signatures were binding her to Ameriquest. "They just said sign some papers and we'll help you," she recalled.
To push the deal through and make it look better to investors on Wall Street, consumer attorneys later alleged, someone at Ameriquest falsified Pittman's income on the mortgage application. At best, she had an income of $1,600 a month—roughly $1,000 from Social Security and, when he could afford to pay, another $600 a month in rent from her son. Ameriquest's paperwork claimed she brought in more than twice that much—$3,700 a month.
The new deal left her with a house payment of $1,069 a month—nearly all of her monthly income and twice what she'd been paying on the FHA loan before Ameriquest and Long Beach hustled her through the series of refinancings. She was shocked when she realized she was required to pay more than $1,000 a month on her mortgage. "That broke my heart," she said.
For Ameriquest, the fact that Pittman couldn't afford the payments was of little consequence. Her loan was quickly pooled, with more than fifteen thousand other Ameriquest loans from around the country, into a $2.4 billion "mortgage-backed securities" deal known as Ameriquest Mortgage Securities, Inc. Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates 2004-R7. The deal had been put together by a trio of the world's largest investment banks: UBS, JPMorgan, and Citigroup. These banks oversaw the accounting wizardry that transformed Pittman's mortgage and thousands of other subprime loans into investments sought after by some of the world's biggest investors. Slices of 2004-R7 got snapped up by giants such as the insurer MassMutual and Legg Mason, a mutual fund manager with clients in more than seventy-five countries. Also among the buyers was the investment bank Morgan Stanley, which purchased some of the securities and placed them in its Limited Duration Investment Fund, mixing them with investments in General Mills, FedEx, JC Penney, Harley-Davidson, and other household names.
It was the new way of Wall Street. The loan on Carolyn Pittman's one-story house in Atlantic Beach was now part of the great global mortgage machine. It helped swell the portfolios of big-time speculators and middle-class investors looking to build a nest egg for retirement. And, in doing so, it helped fuel the mortgage empire that in 2004 produced $1.3 billion in profits for Roland Arnall.
In the first years of the twenty-first century, Ameriquest Mortgage unleashed an army of salespeople on America. They numbered in the thousands. They were young, hungry, and relentless in their drive to sell loans and earn big commissions. One Ameriquest manager summed things up in an e-mail to his sales force: "We are all here to make as much fucking money as possible. Bottom line. Nothing else matters." Home owners like Carolyn Pittman were caught up in Ameriquest's push to become the nation's biggest subprime lender.
The pressure to produce an ever-growing volume of loans came from the top. Executives at Ameriquest's home office in Orange County leaned on the regional and area managers; the regional and area managers leaned on the branch managers. And the branch managers leaned on the salesmen who worked the phones and hunted for borrowers willing to sign on to Ameriquest loans. Men usually ran things, and a frat-house mentality ruled, with plenty of partying and testosterone-fueled swagger. "It was like college, but with lots of money and power," Travis Paules, a former Ameriquest executive, said. Paules liked to hire strippers to reward his sales reps for working well after midnight to get loan deals processed during the end-of-the-month rush. At Ameriquest branches around the nation, loan officers worked ten- and twelve-hour days punctuated by "Power Hours"—do-or-die telemarketing sessions aimed at sniffing out borrowers and separating the real salesmen from the washouts. At the branch where Mark Bomchill worked in suburban Minneapolis, management expected Bomchill and other loan officers to make one hundred to two hundred sales calls a day. One manager, Bomchill said, prowled the aisles between desks like "a little Hitler," hounding salesmen to make more calls and sell more loans and bragging he hired and fired people so fast that one peon would be cleaning out his desk as his replacement came through the door.As with Mark Glover in Los Angeles, experience in the mortgage business wasn't a prerequisite for getting hired. Former employees said the company preferred to hire younger, inexperienced workers because it was easier to train them to do things the Ameriquest way. A former loan officer who worked for Ameriquest in Michigan described the company's business model this way: "People entrusting their entire home and everything they've worked for in their life to people who have just walked in off the street and don't know anything about mortgages and are trying to do anything they can to take advantage of them."
Ameriquest was not alone. Other companies, eager to get a piece of the market for high-profit loans, copied its methods, setting up shop in Orange County and helping to transform the county into the Silicon Valley of subprime lending. With big investors willing to pay top dollar for assets backed by this new breed of mortgages, the push to make more and more loans reached a frenzy among the county's subprime loan shops. "The atmosphere was like this giant cocaine party you see on TV," said Sylvia Vega-Sutfin, who worked as an account executive at BNC Mortgage, a fast-growing operation headquartered in Orange County just down the Costa Mesa Freeway from Ameriquest's headquarters. "It was like this giant rush of urgency." One manager told Vega-Sutfin and her coworkers that there was no turning back; he had no choice but to push for mind-blowing production numbers. "I have to close thirty loans a month," he said, "because that's what my family's lifestyle demands."
Michelle Seymour, one of Vega-Sutfin's colleagues, spotted her first suspect loan days after she began working as a mortgage underwriter at BNC's Sacramento branch in early 2005. The documents in the file indicated the borrower was making a six-figure salary coordinating dances at a Mexican restaurant. All the numbers on the borrower's W-2 tax form ended in zeros—an unlikely happenstance—and the Social Security and tax bite didn't match the borrower's income. When Seymour complained to a manager, she said, he was blasé, telling her, "It takes a lot to have a loan declined."
BNC was no fly-by-night operation. It was owned by one of Wall Street's most storied investment banks, Lehman Brothers. The bank had made a big bet on housing and mortgages, styling itself as a player in commercial real estate and, especially, subprime lending. "In the mortgage business, we used to say, 'All roads lead to Lehman,' " one industry veteran recalled.Lehman had bought a stake in BNC in 2000 and had taken full ownership in 2004, figuring it could earn even more money in the subprime business by cutting out the middleman. Wall Street bankers and investors flocked to the loans produced by BNC, Ameriquest, and other subprime operators; the steep fees and interest rates extracted from borrowers allowed the bankers to charge fat commissions for packaging the securities and provided generous yields for investors who purchased them. Up-front fees on subprime loans totaled thousands of dollars. Interest rates often started out deceptively low—perhaps at 7 or 8 percent—but they almost always adjusted upward, rising to 10 percent, 12 percent, and beyond. When their rates spiked, borrowers' monthly payments increased, too, often climbing by hundreds of dollars. Borrowers who tried to escape overpriced loans by refinancing into another mortgage usually found themselves paying thousands of dollars more in backend fees—"prepayment penalties" that punished them for paying off their loans early. Millions of these loans—tied to modest homes in places like Atlantic Beach, Florida; Saginaw, Michigan; and East San Jose, California—helped generate great fortunes for financiers and investors. They also helped lay America's economy low and sparked a worldwide financial crisis.
The subprime market did not cause the U.S. and global financial meltdowns by itself. Other varieties of home loans and a host of arcane financial innovations—such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps—also came into play. Nevertheless, subprime played a central role in the debacle. It served as an early proving ground for financial engineers who sold investors and regulators alike on the idea that it was possible, through accounting alchemy, to turn risky assets into "Triple-A-rated" securities that were nearly as safe as government bonds. In turn, financial wizards making bets with CDOs and credit default swaps used subprime mortgages as the raw material for their speculations. Subprime, as one market watcher said, was "the leading edge of a financial hurricane."
This book tells the story of the rise and fall of subprime by chronicling the rise and fall of two corporate empires: Ameriquest and Lehman Brothers. It is a story about the melding of two financial cultures separated by a continent: Orange County and Wall Street.
Ameriquest and its strongest competitors in subprime had their roots in Orange County, a sunny land of beauty and wealth that has a history as a breeding ground for white-collar crime: boiler rooms, S&L frauds, real-estate swindles. That history made it an ideal setting for launching the subprime industry, which grew in large measure thanks to bait-and-switch salesmanship and garden-variety deception. By the height of the nation's mortgage boom, Orange County was home to four of the nation's six biggest subprime lenders. Together, these four lenders—Ameriquest, Option One, Fremont Investment & Loan, and New Century—accounted for nearly a third of the subprime market. Other subprime shops, too, sprung up throughout the county, many of them started by former employees of Ameriquest and its corporate forebears, Long Beach Savings and Long Beach Mortgage.
Lehman Brothers was, of course, one of the most important institutions on Wall Street, a firm with a rich history dating to before the Civil War. Under its pugnacious CEO, Richard Fuld, Lehman helped bankroll many of the nation's shadiest subprime lenders, including Ameriquest. "Lehman never saw a subprime lender they didn't like," one consumer lawyer who fought the industry's abuses said.Lehman and other Wall Street powers provided the financial backing and sheen of respectability that transformed subprime from a tiny corner of the mortgage market into an economic behemoth capable of triggering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
A long list of mortgage entrepreneurs and Wall Street bankers cultivated the tactics that fueled subprime's growth and its collapse, and a succession of politicians and regulators looked the other way as abuses flourished and the nation lurched toward disaster: Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide Financial; Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo; Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve; and many more. Still, no Wall Street firm did more than Lehman to create the subprime monster. And no figure or institution did more to bring subprime's abuses to life across the nation than Roland Arnall and Ameriquest.
Among his employees, subprime's founding father was feared and admired. He was a figure of rumor and speculation, a mysterious billionaire with a rags-to-riches backstory, a hardscrabble street vendor who reinvented himself as a big-time real-estate developer, a corporate titan, a friend to many of the nation's most powerful elected leaders. He was a man driven, according to some who knew him, by a desire to conquer and dominate. "Roland could be the biggest bastard in the world and the most charming guy in the world," said one executive who worked for Arnall in subprime's early days. "And it could be minutes apart."He displayed his charm to people who had the power to help him or hurt him. He cultivated friendships with politicians as well as civil rights advocates and antipoverty crusaders who might be hostile to the unconventional loans his companies sold in minority and working-class neighborhoods. Many people who knew him saw him as a visionary, a humanitarian, a friend to the needy. "Roland was one of the most generous people I have ever met," a former business partner said.He also left behind, as another former associate put it, "a trail of bodies"—a succession of employees, friends, relatives, and business partners who said he had betrayed them. In summing up his own split with Arnall, his best friend and longtime business partner said, "I was screwed."Another former colleague, a man who helped Arnall give birth to the modern subprime mortgage industry, said: "Deep down inside he was a good man. But he had an evil side. When he pulled that out, it was bad. He could be extremely cruel." When they parted ways, he said, Arnall hadn't paid him all the money he was owed. But, he noted, Arnall hadn't cheated him as badly as he could have. "He fucked me. But within reason."
Roland Arnall built a company that became a household name, but shunned the limelight for himself. The business partner who said Arnall had "screwed" him recalled that Arnall fancied himself a puppet master who manipulated great wealth and controlled a network of confederates to perform his bidding. Another former business associate, an underling who admired him, explained that Arnall worked to ingratiate himself to fair-lending activists for a simple reason: "You can take that straight out of The Godfather: 'Keep your enemies close.' "
Excerpted from The Monster by Michael W. Hudson
Copyright 2010 by Michael W. Hudson
Published in 2010 by Times Books/Henry Holt and Company
All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.
How can anyone think elections "fix" anything?
Thanks for the breath of reality, dizzy. Now this is American business as I know it, from the front lines all the way to the top.
This guy should get a youtube video out there as part of his promo.
George W. Bush was never elected.
Make no mistake about it -- the bank cartel installed that crook.
Make no mistake about it -- the bank cartel installed that crook.
This is an unpopular idea because it runs so contrary to the public myth of a "free" America that holds "elections" where people are selected by popular "consent" to lead us.
I'm working on an article called "A Silent Coup D'etat" that touches on this subject as part of a bigger theme.
CD...... you are such an incurable optimist.
My rejection of the public mythology Kool-Aid doesn't make me anything other than a careful researcher who doesn't assume that the various "truths" I've been told in the past are actually true. The more rocks I look under, the more spiders, cockroaches and other assorted bugs I find.
I do myself and those around me a disservice by remaining with the fantasy world that's been constructed for our behalf in order to control, manipulate and extort.
If we have no laws that are ever enforced we will be living like some aborginal rainforest tribe within a generation. people need to reflect on why the West became successful over the past few hundred years. It is not written in stone - it is a function of a culture that rewarded technological accomplishments, dealt rather harshly with criminals and did not sit around and wallow in its problems. Disciplined, cultured and capable of extreme violence towards threats.
Why are we sitting around being ripped off every which way, no laws seem to apply to certain segemnts of the population. No one seems to know how to enforce any laws - so people are actually scared of violating them. Are we turning aborginal? ( eating spam out of cans and singing teenage love songs strumming a ukelele so Asian tourists can throw us a few coins?)Western culture has decided to chuck in the towel? I dont get it.
well, our government has not exactly been favoring hires on the basis of competency for some time. We favor diversity. At any cost.
This leads to systemic gridlock and incompetence. How interested does anyone expect an AG who was derisively referred to as "Place" Holder by a major local paper during his stint as US Attorney for DC?
Our nation is in a multidecade process of systematic repudiation of all the cultural norms of the dominant demographic which led to its position.
Oh... Ashcroft was such a ubermensch super lawyer ?
There's dumbasses in every shade of skin, or gender. Still, Holder is a coward. So far utterly gutless.
Good post. Also illustrates the govt exploitation by design.
Pirates are now in charge and they have penultimate power -- even to say "there isn't going to be an election".
Summers out, Warren in. Similar to replacing Rumsfeld with Gates....
When they call Coleen Rowley and ask her to reconstitute the Organized Crime Strike Force from Rudy Giuliani's day, then I'll believe something is moving.
I'm by no means an expert, but the only way I see that multiple pledging could have taken place is with synthetic CDO's. In other words investors were effectively selling CDS's on a group of mortgages with the buyers of the CDS's providing the "mortgage" payments to these investors.
That's the major trillions of this scam.
Little Tampa Ponzi Guy ??? No-no-no.
The lenders stood to make so much on the CDSs from each default (reportedly upwards of 30 times the loan amount!), that they could happily pay the investors the small change out of their own very deep pockets while waiting for the default.
This was the whole point of the scam ... to sign up borrowers who had no hope of repaying so that the lenders could collect on the CDS 'bet' when the borrower inevitably defaulted.
A stunningly evil system of incentives. As a nation we are being reacquainted - without lubricant - with the fundamental importance of the concept of "insurable interest."
What may change is that there will not be a private market for MBS going forward.
Jokes on you, there never was a market - it's a racket.
The paperwork said that it was a market. Read the contracts. Pension funds and private investors got contracts saying they were buying Mortgage Backed Asset bonds. Boilerplate says so.
What did get sold were bets at the Goldman/CS/etc run Big Short Casino. The pensions bought trillions of shadow images of real MBA bonds.
Finger shadows on the walls
Of Goldman/CS office walls.
This round of disinformation attempts to blame mortgage brokers and originators for the duplicates. There's a tiny bit of that. But the BIG SCAM is that Goldman/CS/etc sold Big Short Casino bets as though they were selling real MBA bonds.
Little Tampa Ponzi Guy ??? He and his fellows were 1/10th of 1% of the phony-MBA-bond-and-mortgage scams.
Paperwork stopping housing seizures ??? August and September went 95,000+ and 100,000+ record takings, down payment and improvement wipeouts, and more/acceleration due for October-November-December. Its a bullshit story to distract us from the REAL NUMBERS for property takings.
I remember in the mid 2000s when i heard in conversation from a few mortgage loan officers that their firm would do anything to sign up volumes of people. One of the worse i heard was convincing the client that they could afford the interest only loan ( knowing that they could'nt ) and the firm would make the first 3 monthly payments. They felt after that the mortgage firm was in the clear and did'nt care what happened to the client after that.
I would love to hear CD opine on whether or not the lucid commentary by these sober and coherent experts will change a damn thing.
I would love to hear CD opine on whether or not the lucid commentary by these sober and coherent experts will change a damn thing.
It sounds like you have applied selective hearing or reading when it comes to my comments. I never said "it" won't change a damn thing. I have said many times over the past few weeks that ultimately there will be a political solution implemented to "fix" these issues because the balance of power is still heavily weighted towards the banking cabal and the corporations.
If the banks, which ultimately directly or indirectly service many of these loans, originated many of them and even bundled many of these securities into MBS, were Too Big To Fail in the past, and it's clear the banking cabal has captured the Congress, than what makes us believe the banks will not be To Big To Fail this time around.
Sure, they might let one TBTF bank go as a PR stunt to try and convince the population that they tried to fix the problem, but couldn't without killing the so called "economic recovery". Who knows how it will work out. But if this issue matures to a full scale thermonuclear event, the problem will be papered over with a political solution.
They are trying to kick this can past this election cycle so they have some breathing room. I fully expect an engineered stock market crash to "force" the political solution. It might even come under the cover of a disappointment over a smaller than expected QE 2.0
I'm not happy or joyful with my conclusion. And I certainly could be wrong. In fact, I would love it if I'm wrong. I'm just as outraged as everyone else here by this ongoing cluster-fuck. But to believe that the banks specifically and the powers that be generally are just going to allow themselves to be snowed under without an all out war is naive and dangerous false hope seeking.
I'm all for hope. We need hope to get out of the bed in the morning. But false hope paralyzes us into inaction, where we all wait around and do nothing to protect ourselves hoping this time will be different. This is why we are lied to, to enable our tendency to engage in false hope seeking rather then get down to the dirty work of taking back our country.
CD - I was suggesting that nakedly revealed fraud would be ignored in favor of a political "solution", not that you said that "it" won't change a damn thing.
Looking at the price action in BAC, I'm starting to think they're the offering.
There's poetic symmetry at work here. Back in 1930 the first bank to fail was the Bank of United States. Many others followed, but B.U.S. was the leader, as it were. Now if Bank of America were to fail we would see history rhyming, as Mark Twain liked to say.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say the universe was orchestrating the entire episode. Then again, I really don't know any better...
Letting BAC "fail" would re-bury a lot of graves people are looking to dig up. Think of all the mortgage garbage BAC swallowed during the "save the TBTF banks" campaign of 2008-2009.
By letting this wounded animal die, the government can brush the dirt off it's hands and say "Well, it looks like we got most of it" without really digging too deep. Win/win for everyone but you and me. Thus it's perfect.
"I fully expect an engineered stock market crash to "force" the political solution. It might even come under the cover of a disappointment over a smaller than expected QE 2.0"
Good call, CD. It would be perfect timing -- right after the election and during the lame duck Congress session.
I'm all for hope. We need hope to get out of the bed in the morning. But false hope paralyzes us into inaction, where we all wait around and do nothing to protect ourselves hoping this time will be different. This is why we are lied to, to enable our tendency to engage in false hope seeking rather then get down to the dirty work of taking back our country.
I am gonna have that tatooed on the inside of my eyelids in glow-in-the-dark ink.
Sadly, it doesn't matter in the land of too big to jail.
Any indictments yet -- even one? What about those record TARP bonuses? When does the statute of limitations plan of criminal escape expire?
There's your answer.
I've said it countless times, until street beatings happen to these crooks, given by the common man, the law will continue to be a total failure and laughing stock of the rich using it as a tool to oppress/steal from everyone else. Incorporation doesn't follow these crooks home. The statute of limitations doesn't expire on ass beatings, right Chemba?
How will your cursed ill gotten Goldman Fags retirement feel with people threatening your family for the rest of your life? Money can only insulate, it can't protect.
If the issue of the same mortgage tied to multiple MBS is really widespread, based on the way I read this article, fraud is very clearly involved.
These are real pieces of property and real families involved. Real lawyers smell real blood in the water, the sharks have started circling and a lot of them are hungry. Some may even have a dog in the hunt.
Add to this the fact that all 50 AG's are now on the trail - on behalf of their citizens. I don't know the laws in all the states, but I think most AG's are elected, and are not really backed but big campaign contributions. Often, it is big prosecutions that can make or break them at the polls. It is not so easy for TPTB to stiff these guys and tell them to just move along and go play somewhere else. What happens if there are criminal indictments that get in front of a jury?
And then we have the International exposure. Many foreign interests want their money back on crappy MBS stinking up their portfolios, and have their own power base to back them up.
There may be some "political" solution, but what a rotten kettle of fish. How could all the players be satisfied?
TPTB have been covering this up for years, but somehow the zombies keep coming back to haunt them. They just won't stay buried. Perhaps 'The Night Of The Living Dead' is upon us. We can always be hopeful.
Happy Halloween....Independent Contractor
All good points, however what's bigger than all 50 AG's?
Insert the Federal Reserve Bank. Of banks, for banks, by banks and operated by fraud street with comprehensive immunity from everything.
It's their complacency and lack of fundamental respect of the rule of law that is treason, "we never saw it coming..." cry me a river of lies.
I knew the Fed was the Don of organized fraud when they bailed out every last crook on Christmas fu**ing day.
If I'm present when a 12 year old girl is being gang-raped I'm not accountable for putting a stop to it (or even trying) as long as I'm the Fed, "I never saw it coming," and besides, it's not in my charter -- but I'm hell bent advocating that gang-bonuses are paid out of that girls future in the name of free markets. People, this is organized crime.
Lastly, insert a captured/corrupt Fed-cum guzzling Congress led by fudge-packer-Frank and Fraud-Dodd that endorses this behavior and decision-making. Bye bye AG's through simple marginalization -- they don't print money for lawless dogs in Congress.
The private Federal Reserve is the textbook example that CRIME PAYS IN THE US OF A.
TOO BIG TO JAIL -- indeed.
Jail and money don't mix. Sure as a sunrise since January 2008 when George Anderson got drunk at a Rangers game, killed Florence Cioffi DUI at 60 mph up Water Street and Sip, fled the scene, and bought his way to a 15-day stint at Rikers and a $500 fine.
Yeah, vehicular homicide manslaughter is a felony in NY State. But not if you have enough money. No way. That is a fact.
Mortgage fraud ???? Fergitaboutit....
Read the carriage scene from "Tale of Two Cities" if you want to know where we are. And after the Citizens United counterrevolution, its going to get worse. Look at the dozen worst criminals/idiots/thugs the GOPers are running for Senate around the country -- if the Dems ran the likes of these scumbags, corporate media would tear their heads off.
Maybe they'll throw a gold coin or two to distract us....


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Keith Reddin Movies and Career Information
Jul 07, 1956
New Jersey
Actor and Writer
Jul 07, 1956
New Jersey
Actor and Writer
Keith Reddin is an American actor and playwright. He received his B.S. in 1978 from Northwestern University and then went on to attend The Yale University School of Drama until he received his M.A. in 1981. His plays Life and Limb, Rum and Coke, Highest Standard of Living and But Not for Me all received their world premieres at South Coast Repertory. SCR also produced his adaptation of Alexander Buravsky's The Russian Teacher. Other plays include Nebraska, Life During Wartime, Brutality of Fact, All the Rage, The Prophets of Nature and Frame 312. Adaptations include: Bulgakov's Black Snow, Shatrov's Maybe, Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, Anouilh's Antigone and Thorton Wilder's Heaven's My Destination. Film and television include, Big Time, The Heart of Justice, Milken, The Alarmist, and All the Rage.
- Keith Reddin Movies before 2015
- Revolutionary Road 2008
- Someone Like You 2001
- Five Corners 1988
- Reversal of Fortune
- Lorenzo's Oil
- Movies Written by Keith Reddin
- It's the Rage 2000


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After Dinner Coffee Blend (5lb Bag)
After Dinner Coffee Blend (5lb Bag)
Woodbridge, VA
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Great all day coffee...."After Dinner" is for all day
March 4, 2015
Great medium coffee that we have been drinking as our "daily" coffee that we make all times of the day.. Can't wait to try other flavors (we didn't want to open the vacuum sealed bags of other brands/types we purchased)..to keep them fresh. Now we can't wait to try them all.
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Very Good!
November 20, 2014
This coffee is great right after a meal or with dessert. It has a very bold flavor, but it's not too acidic. We really like it and will be buying it again.
kelly Caudle
Southern Oregon
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
after dinner blend
October 22, 2014
we tried this as a sample and now love it as one of our daily cups, it is bold, we like it very strong, and it is never bitter leaves an after taste that leaves you wanting more, this is the perfect cup of coffee.
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
bold flavor smooth finish
February 26, 2014
this coffee is very good tasting and a good price
Sheffield, PA
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
February 22, 2014
This blend is nice and calm and perfect in the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and just whenever. The cardamom (sp.) is noticeable but way back delicate. Has a great calming effect on my stomach which is great cause my stomach is the last thing that wakes up in the morning. The blend really is in the middle or a 4 on a 1 to 5 scale. This Is My third coffee purchase from CoffeeAm and we have not been disappointed. Actually the word "disappointed or ment" has not even come into question. We've tried French Roast, Reggae Blend - All are great and nice to twitch between. I have a household of 4 adults, so coffee goes-by every quickly especially when its an all-day affair keeping the pot on and full. A 5lb. bag lasts us almost 3 months, which is great! We are convinced that the coffee on the shelf at local markets and stores are passed due on date and halved with fillers. I say this cause we were force to look elsewhere for a cup of joe. The strength has changed, taste, color after brewing and a sense of be unwell after consumption. CoffeeAm has been "True in all of their Beans." CoffeeAm is the first one that came up when looking for bulk beans and our main source for coffee from now on!
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Great blend!
January 9, 2014
I know this is billed as an "after dinner" coffee, and I'm sure it would work out fine for that, as it's very good coffee, but I use it in my espresso machine, and it makes great espresso! Highly recommended!
Lancaster, OH
5 Stars
Great Flavor
September 30, 2013
Has good body, aroma and flavor. Great cup of coffee.
Hampton, VA
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Agree with James
August 24, 2013
I totally agree with James's review.
Blowing Rock, NC
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Not just for after dinner
July 1, 2013
This is a great coffee (and I am a picky coffee drinker) for the whole day. I can drink this for breakfast as well as enjoy an afternoon cup and a must have after dinner. Smooth and rich flavor. Great buy too.
Ty Carter
Washington, NC
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Amazing blend and flavor
April 27, 2013
In a quest to match the bold flavor of SB PPlace House blend; this product comes in a close, close second; however this blend; unlike PPlace; leaves NO flavor aftertaste... Which, in my opinion is a great plus... Don't get me wrong, I like the flavor of SB; however the lingering aftertase sometimes can become an obsticle... I think I will have to give this blend a A++++ for flavor, quality and blend. We will be stocking this as a prime replacement for the SB PPlace lovers.... The crazy thing about this blend is the beans are a little smaller and the oil surfactant produced in the roasting process can cause my burr to not be operated in self mode; as it requires manual intervention to gravity feed the beans into the mill blades. This is NOT a CON indicator; mearly a strict observation on my part and does not in any way give, indicate or otherwise detract from the quality of this product.
cindy robinson
Nashville TN
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
good anytime
May 30, 2012
I love the spiciness of this...it's great for afternoon and I do like it more in the evening..with dessert is the cherry on top.
chester ILL
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
coffee lover
March 9, 2012
rich full flavor use less coffee grounds to get the same results as my reg brand of maxwell house will buy again
Dallas, TEXAS
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Rich Dark Roast with Medium Tones
August 30, 2011
I really like the warm dark flavor. Although it is a dark roast coffee, it has medium tones that give a full bodied flavor.
Beavercreek, Ohio
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
After Dinner Blend
August 27, 2011
This is a wonderful blend of beans that makes a great cup of coffee. If you are looking for a full bodied, dark and robust coffee without any bitterness this is what you should order. I have been ordering coffee with CoffeeAM for years and I have never had a bad experience! My order arrives within days and the coffee is always fresh. I constantly recommend this company and this coffee to anybody that will listen!
Rich A.
Searcy, Arkansas
5 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Warm and perfectly roasted
June 24, 2011
Delicious roast, full flavored, dark and rich. I love the aroma it fills my kitchen with.
Pros:Great value, great taste
Cons:No scoop. Wish it came with a scoop for the beans, and a resealable container.
4 Stars
I would recommend this item to a friend.
Afer Dinner Coffee
May 26, 2011
The After Dinner Coffee was good. However, it does not taste like the great coffee you get in a restaurant after a great meal. if you dine out a lot, you know what I mean. The search goes on.......


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PROVO, Utah — Many scholars believe there's no such thing as perfect Bible translation, yet despite the flaws in the King James Version of the Bible, it remains the version treasured by much of the world, including members of the LDS Church. During a three-day symposium sponsored by BYU in honor of the KJV's 400th anniversary this year, scholars shared insights about the translation's connection with the LDS faith, its historical background, textual distinctions and literary influence.
Robert Millet, a professor of ancient scripture in BYU's Religious Education Department, pointed out that because Mormons believe in an open canon, others often suggest that Mormons don't revere the Bible, or have even replaced it with their 'own Bible,' referring to the Book of Mormon.
Yet, Millet quoted Elder M. Russell Ballard who emphasized that Mormons love the Bible as one of the "pillars of our faith" and a powerful witness of Jesus Christ.
"The more we read and study the Bible and its teachings, the more clearly we see the doctrinal underpinnings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ," Ballard said in LDS General Conference, April 2007. "We tend to love the scriptures that we spend time with. We may need to balance our study in order to love and understand all scripture."
While Mormons believe the Bible, specifically the King James Version, to be the word of God, such belief doesn't mean that every sentence contains an exact replica of God's words, Millet explained.
When God spoke to prophets, they didn't become mindless ventriloquists but instead were enlightened and filled with intelligence and truth, then able to convey the word of God, he said.
"Clearly, many factors impacted the prophetic message," Millet said. "Personality, experience, vocabulary. The word of the Lord as spoken through Isaiah is quite different than as spoken through Luke, and both are different from Jeremiah or Mark. The LDS concern … is not the perfectness with which such messages were recorded, but the inspiration behind the message," he finished.
Thus, scriptures for Latter-day Saints are not the ultimate source of knowledge, but often precede the ultimate source — revelation.
Yet some translators have gotten caught up in specific words, such as the Greek "baptizo," which literally translated means "immersion." However, that didn't mesh well with some translators' belief in sprinkling, explained BYU professor of ancient scripture Kent Jackson. Thus some translators simply transliterated the word as "baptism" rather than "immersion."
One 19th-century translator was troubled by the word "Hades," which means the world of departed spirits. Yet, because the word "hell" had so much "medieval baggage," Jackson said, the translator just used the Greek word instead.
Thanks to latter-day revelation, troublesome words like bishop, church, deacon, devil, eternal, hell, repent and Satan don't bother Latter-day Saints.
The word angel, for example, in Greek and Hebrew is most correctly translated as "messenger," yet it's written as "angel" in the King James Version of the Bible.
"But because we understand 'angel' from modern revelation, we have a correct idea when the word appears," Jackson said. "Not that the King James Version used the right word, but that modern revelation makes the word work."
The King James English is interwoven throughout the Book of Mormon, in both small phrases and large blocks of text, said Dan Belnap, professor of ancient scripture, yet Joseph Smith didn't use a biblical text during the translation process.
Smith declined to say exactly how translation happened, and instead called it something that "happened through the gift and power of God," Belnap quoted.
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Dec. 20, 2006
Recap | Final Stats | Photo Gallery
Game Notes
#17 Washington 88, #12 LSU 72
December 20, 2006; Bank of America Arena; Seattle, Wash.
Spencer Hawes tallied career highs with 23 points and 12 rebounds. His previous highs were 21 and nine.
With Spencer Hawes' 23 points and 12 rebounds and Jon Brockman's 19 points 14 rebounds, Washington finished with two players with double-doubles for the first time this season. The last time two Huskies recorded double-doubles was last year against Air Force, when Brandon Roy tallied 27 and 10, and Jon Brockman recorded 21 and 10.
Jon Brockman's 14 rebounds ties a career high set earlier this season against Idaho. Brockman is averaging 9.9 rebounds/game.
Washington turned the ball over a season low nine times. Its previous low was 12, against Idaho on 11/29/06.
Washington out-rebounded LSU 44-34, the Huskies have out-rebounded every opponent thus far this season.
Washington attempted a season-low 13 three-point shots, but made a season high 61.5% of them (8-13).
Davis finished with nine points and eight points, ending a 48 game streak of scoring in double figures. Washington's defense held Glen Davis scoreless for a 22 minute stretch from 9:20 in the first half to 7:59 in the second half.


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When I first saw this; I had a mixed reaction. However, Christianity trumps personal feelings.
DAN RIEHL IS SICK: Dr. Melissa Clouthier writes:
Sorry I didn't write earlier. Thought you'd want to know that Dan went into the hospital last night with respiratory failure. They had to do pulmonary bypass because he couldn't be intubated. The doctor gave him a 50-50 chance of living.
I talked to the nurse today, she thinks he's doing better. They're currently chasing his heart rate and trying to keep him oxygenated — he has a nasal canula now, which is not that big of a deal. They said they'd try to move him out of ICU tonight but weren't sure.
He's at the Fairfax County hospital.
Elizabeth Scalia suggested that I ask you to post a link to his website and maybe his tip jar. Not even sure if he has one.
He does. Here's the link to his page. The donate button is on the right. I just kicked in a hundred bucks.
This is the difference between true Christianity and Godless secularism. Christianity says "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." This is done with the hope and prayer that one day; when the chips are down and you find yourself at death's door, that someone would do the same to you. Having said the following, I ask anyone that happens to see this blog posting —- go and do thou likewise.
My Prayers for Dan Riehl. I hope he pulls through and gets back to the fight.
That is all..


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I need to dress nicely for work and I don't do well with heels and, to wear a dress or skirt I fee like I am not able to have all the accessories needed, from the right belt to the right shoes and so on. I have a hard time finding pants to fit me though I am pretty average sized, size 8 usually. Where do you shop for nice fitting trousers? I have tried going to the malls and hitting every single store- even Macys and Nordstrom, but with no luck. Have you ever had clothing custom-made? I am thinking that's the way I need to go. From chinos to wools and wool with some stretch, I need a variety of nice-fitting, flattering trousers. Also I am wondering if anyone has any ideas about how much something like this might cost, whether I supply the fabric or if the seamstress provides it. Please send me any recommendations, preferably in Richmond- Berkeley area though I am willing to travel farther in any direction for the right person. I would also welcome any tips on how you shop for nice-fitting pants without spending the whole weekend shopping. Tired of shopping
Do you love your long-lasting jeans?
Most of my jeans lately have been lasting all of a year or so before getting tears in the knees (mostly) or the rear (that one does a lot for my post-mom body image, I tell you). I've usually been getting Gap jeans, which I like, but they just don't last.
I do like having some 'stretch' in my jeans. Is it possible to get some that are stretchy but last 3 years or more? Ideally they don't cost a fortune, but if they last a long time, it'll even out, I suppose since I'm having to buy new jeans every year lately.
I'm thinking maybe I should try Levi's? Not sure if they have lots of styles to choose from, including ones with some stretch. I'm also on the shorter side, so having 'petite' or 'ankle' length options is pretty important.
Where can I go where I am likely to find what I'm looking for? I'm not a fan of shopping so would love to make one stop somewhere, confident that I'll find a few things that I like. Thanks! Holy Knees!
Looking for a great pair of jeans! Would like something with a little flare or boot cut leg and not tight in the bum and thighs - and not too low waisted; I have some wobbley belly. I generally like Gap jeans, but they are just too tight and hip for me now! But, I don't want 'mom jeans' either, and don't want to break the bank. If I can find a nice pair of jeans for a good price, that'd be great too! no mom jeans
For years I wore Gap men's baggy jeans. They are now discontinued. I've tried a couple of new different cuts but they are all right above my butt crack. The world is a dropped piece of paper away from a very unpleasant sight. Any suggestions about a different cut and/or brand to try? Anon
Since becoming a mom, I'm finding that the dress pants I try on are either too tight in the wrong places or too loose in those same wrong places. Moms, who's making the flattering work-wear dress pants/slacks these days? Ideally, that survive life with a 2-year old, as well. Better yet, that survive a washing machine (but dry clean is OK!) (PS I'm a size 8 or 10). working mom
I'm hoping I'm not the only one with this problem -- but I
can't seem to find jeans that look good on me. I wear a size
10 in pants mostly because I need the extra room for my thighs -
- but my waist is smaller. Therefore, whenever I've bought low
rise jeans, I end up looking like a plumber (if you know what I
mean). Can anyone recommend some stylish non-low rise jeans
with extra thigh room? I've tried J Jill jeans, and they are
pretty good, but I'd like to try others. Thanks!
In search of the perfect jeans
I have finally managed to lose the pregnancy weight, and then some, and am finding that the old clothes I have longed for years to fit back into are no longer cool! In particular, I have trouble with jeans. Can anyone recommend a brand of jeans that is hip and reasonably comfortable? (e.g. not super low on the hips: despite my weight loss, I'll never get that flat belly back...plus I do need to bend over every once in a while!) I am willing to pay $$ as I am only planning to buy myself one cool pair of jeans, but I'm not even sure where to start looking--I am so out of the fashion world. recovering hipness...
If you're short on time you may want to consider a Nordstrom
personal shopper. It's a free service and you can tell the p.
shopper your scenario/desires and she'll pull different brands
and styles for you, have them waiting in a dressing room when
you arrive, and you can be in and out in less than an hour
with your new cool jeans. I did a this before returning to
work in July and I have to say it's hard to beat. Have fun and
good luck with it!
East Bay Mom
I'm 5'10'' and have trouble finding pants that are long enough-- i'm looking for casual pants and sweat pants, as well as things to wear to work. Any suggestions of stores or brands that carry ''tall'' sizes for women? thanks
I desperately need to update my wardrobe for work and am looking for a recommendation on where to buy pants! I need pants appropriate for work (no crop pants or hip-huggers!) Post baby, I am still a few pounds overweight, and wear a size 12. I use to love to shop but just don't have the time anymore! Recommendations for either stores in the area, or online/catalogs for great pants that are both gentle on the figure and on the budget would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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text:
Rese Barrett and Lance Michelli have agreed to run her Sonoma B&B as partners. But Lance is still driven to unravel the mystery behind papers he found buried in the basement there: papers left by his grandfather, who built this house two generations ago. Now they have gone to Lance's family in New York to find some answers.
©2005 Kristen Heitzmann; (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC
"I want my life back"
This book was slightly better than the first one, but only just!
Honestly I think watching a 1980's re-run of a televangelist would have been more entertaining. The only thing missing was someone jumping up and claiming they were saved... Oh wait I think that was in this also!
After reading this series I have to wonder if the author is related to Tammy Faye Bakker.
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After his shock diagnosis with Hodgkins Lymphoma, tennis player Ross Hutchins tells Sky he remains positive despite his illness.
15:19, UK, Monday 14 January 2013
As a young and fit professional tennis player, cancer was the last thing Ross Hutchins thought about when he went to his doctor with severe back pain before Christmas.
One of the top doubles players in the world and a Davis Cup partner and best friend of Andy Murray, he had planned to spend Christmas preparing for the Australian Open.
Instead there was the awful wait as doctors tried to find out what was wrong with him.
Just after Christmas he was given the news that he had Hodgkins Lymphoma, a blood disease affecting the lymphatic system.
What is more, he had been suffering from the disease throughout 2012 - his best ever season.
It was a crushing blow for him, his family and for his best mate Murray. Winning in Brisbane before the Australian Open started, the US and Olympic champion dedicated his win to Hutchins, breaking down with emotion as he did so.
In a typical sportsman fashion, Hutchins is just getting on with it.
He has had his first bout of chemotherapy and still managed to come into Sky News to give his first television interview on the opening day of the first Grand Slam of the year.
Without a trace of self pity he told us: "Some hours are better than others. Sometimes you feel like you have got bad headaches or bad sickness.
"Sometimes you don't want to eat and you have to force food down you. My diet has changed a lot. People talk about a sportsman's diet but now battling this cancer it's a different diet completely.
"There are more health foods, beetroot and carrot juice and not having red meat. It's difficult but I'm getting through it. I feel good, I feel positive."
He's spoken to Murray every day since he was diagnosed.
"He's been fantastic and I wouldn't expect anything else," he said. "It was very touching what he did for me in Brisbane."
There will be more tearful dedications to Hutchins should Murray end up winning the Australian Open. He is on a roll. He could do it. Hankies at the ready everyone.
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