Stockstradamus AKA Stocky’s Blog

Of all the sections of the Boston Globe that Stocky reads none is more painfull than the editorials. You can’t make some of this shit up.

Todays editorial lavishes praise on Deval Patricks choice for the SJC. Judge Margot Botsford. A trust fund beneficiary, soft on crime, limousine liberal judge from New York who’s in the tank for the teachers unions and was originally appointed to the bench by one M. Stanley Dukakis. The only thing missing from her resume is a “husband” named Stephanie instead of Steve. For the Globe, what’s not to love?

Diabetics should be careful to check their insulin levels before reading the sickly sweet gushing praise for Ms. “slap on the wrist” Botsford.

It’s the last paragraph that is particularly galling:

Botsford’s mentor was SJC justice Francis Quirico, for whom she clerked in 1973. Quirico was a towering legal mind known for a philosophy of judicial restraint. At a memorial service for him in 2000, Botsford said: ‘‘I knew after about six weeks on the job, just watching and being with the judge, that what I wanted to do in life was to become a judge myself, and I spent the next 16 years after my clerkship ended trying to figure out work experiences that would give me a chance to apply.’’ That speaks to Quirico’s influence, but also to Botsford’s own diligence.

Luckily, Boston is still a 2 newspaper town so we are able to learn just how far Judge Botsford was willing to go to “apply” for the position. Howie Carr does an excellent job laying out the Judge’s “credentials” here.

Her “credentials” include her husband making illegal campaign contributions to the person who took her “application” for the job, Gov Deval Patrick. Only in Globeland does a $50,000 illegal campaign contribution by the husband of a nominee to the SJC get no mention anywhere.

A search for Steve Rosenfeld on Boston.com turns up not a word about the “inadvertant over contribution”.

Judge Botsford does all but confess that she’d do anything to become a Judge, her Husband gives $50K in illegal campaing contributions to the Governor and the Globe thinks this is just swell. More than swell, it speaks to her “Due Dilligence”.

Pass the barf bag.

All quotes taken from stories listed in the excellent Housing Bubble Blog.

“‘I’m a little hesitant to jump right in immediately, because I think that prices are still going to go down,’ said Duplessis, who has been paying $2,600 a month in rent since she sold her last home in the city of Inglewood near Los Angeles a year and a half ago.”

“‘I’m not at this point too anxious,’ she said. ‘You know why rich people are rich? Because they shop around.’”

*****************************************************************

“Winckel said builders also are concerned about their livelihood. ‘We’re not looking to go from bust to boom again; we’re just looking to get back into the business,’ he said.”

“Winckel urged potential buyers to…take advantage of the swelling inventories of for-sale signs in neighborhoods all over the county. Economist Robert Campbell predicted most buyers won’t. ‘We’re in a hurricane right now. The leading edge of the hurricane is hitting us with full force,’ he said. ‘You think people are going to jump back into this market after what’s happened the last year and a half? No way.’”

*****************************************************************

“Chris Ragsdale, the Los Angeles Police Department’s senior lead officer for Westwood and Bel-Air, recalled one case from the end of that era in Pacific Palisades. The squatters changed the locks, turned on the electricity and brought in furniture. When the agent trying to sell the place showed up, they maintained that they had a lease.”

“‘If you know what you’re doing, you can get six months in a place with a kick-ass view,’ Ragsdale said.”

******************************************************************

“Foster knows of two or three Folsom couples in their 20’s who allowed the bank to foreclose on their homes, opting to rent instead.”

“‘They weren’t even behind on their mortgage,’ Foster said. ‘They just figured they could rent a house for half the payment, and twice the square footage.’”

*****************************************************************

“After juggling 15 calls from debtors, creditors and clients, Seither lays the phones aside and delivers a pep talk to herself. ‘I’m not a real estate bum,’ the president of Executive Preferred Properties announces. ‘I wear diamonds, Rolexes and necklaces. I’m a classy Realtor.’”

********************************************************************

“Some buyers are bailing because they no longer can afford their investments. Blank said another agent in her office represented a buyer who walked away from two downtown condominiums he had contracts to purchase. He lost about $100,000 in down payments rather than risk foreclosure or bankruptcy, she said.”

“‘People are losing big money,’ she said. ‘It’s almost like a crash.’”

********************************************************************

“Many sellers are still unrealistic, believing that their homes can fetch the same prices the could two or three years ago, Deleo said. He estimates most of the houses on the market are 10 percent to 20 percent overpriced.”

“Naiveté among sellers is a real obstacle, he says. ‘You’re the messenger, and you’re the one getting shot,’ Deleo said.”

*********************************************************************

“‘How can there be no buyers? None?’ Damonte asked. ‘It’s not even a buyer’s market; it’s a nobody market. We’re not flipping houses or trying to cash in. We just want to move on with our lives. We’re in a tough spot.’”

“Ganda, who lives a couple of miles away, said there are dozens of ‘For Sale’ signs in his immediate neighborhood, so he isn’t optimistic about the prospects for selling his house.”

********************************************************************

“Buyers were escorted out of the ballroom to a nearby side room where they opened escrow. But most of the crowd, like the Reineckes, left via the front door. But Michael Reinecke and his wife weren’t deterred.”

“‘We’ll just wait for the market to get crappier,’ Reinecke said.”

********************************************************************

“‘I’m not seeing it, I’m sorry,’ said Hibnick. She said the inventory of houses for sale in her area has doubled since the beginning of the year.”

“‘I used to tell them they have two choices — either price it [lower] to sell it or get it in absolutely gorgeous condition,’ she said. ‘I tell them they have to do both now, unless they’re going to dump the house. Their first reaction is, ‘Are you crazy?.’”

********************************************************************

“Fenn recently tried posting huge signs in the yard and on the garage door. One read: ‘Reduced $1,000 a week until sold.’ The city of North Port cracked down on the signs, and Fenn has since turned to more traditional means. ‘I think I can keep my head above water the next 90 days,’ he said. ‘At that point in time, I am going to be in big trouble.’”

“Fenn still likes Southwest Florida. He just wishes he did not own so much of it: ‘I think I got greedy and I think the greed came back to haunt me.’”

********************************************************************

“Meanwhile, the back rooms of area pawnshops are filling up with saws, drills and other tools and equipment pawned by displaced workers in the construction trades. ‘We’re being swamped, to the point that we’ve pretty much stopped taking it,’ said James Sewell, co-owner of Goldcoast Pawn & Jewelry in Sarasota. ‘It’s gotten really bad in the last four to five months.’”

“Sewell said many of the former construction workers tell him they are leaving the Sunshine State. The unemployment situation combined with rising taxes and property insurance premiums has made Southwest Florida unlivable for many, Sewell said. ‘It’s gotten to be like California, but without the wages.’”

********************************************************************

Just an average story today in the Boston Globe. Cops get in gunfight with gang banger, shots are fired and a cop is wounded. Except that we now learn that the wounded cop was shot by another cop, not the gangbanger.

If the account of the cops is true, the Mass State Trooper shot the perp but the round ricochet’d off the perp’s body and lodged in the chest of the other Cop.

Bad luck for sure but not totally unexpected. Stocky does not know this for sure since it’s not mentioned anywhere in the story but I can almost guarantee that the State Trooper was NOT using hollow point ammo.

You know what Hollow Point ammo is right? The Media has told you over and over again that they are “lethal” and “Viscious” ammo. Used only by people who are intent on causing maximum damage to humans. Apparently there are times when you need to shoot someone but don’t want to Really hurt them. How moronic is that?

The real story of Hollow Point ammo is that it is SAFER than the jacketed ammo likely used in this case by the State Trooper. Hollow Point ammo expands when it hits something. Spreading out and yes, causing maximum damage to what was hit. What it almost never does is ricochet from one place to another.

If that State Trooper had Hollow Point Ammo in his gun, that perp would have stayed hit and Officer Romano would have gone home to his family unhurt.

Jacketed ammo will ricochet off the intended target as well as penetrate doors + walls. In this case you have a highly trained State Trooper who showed good judgement and perfect aim when firing his service weapon yet still an innocent person was hit by the Troppers bullet. Why Law enforcement does not exclusively use Hollow Point ammo is beyong Stocky’s comprehension.

Of course in this pathetic State (Massachusetts) thousand of Law Enforcement personel are carrying state issued weapons that the Attorney General has deemed Unsafe. Pretty much all Glocks manufactured after 1998 are considered “unsafe” by the AG and gun shops that sell them to private citizens are prosecuted. None do.

Law Enforcement personel are excluded and are allowed to purchase the Glocks.

This makes sense??????

You always have to ask yourself what agenda those limousine liberals are trying to advance for each story. I can only guess that in this case it’s in response to the devastating anti-diversity study the Globe wrote about a few weeks ago. The bottom line of that study is that the more diverse a community is the worse off it is. On every meaningful measure, diversity harms communities.

The Globe can’t leave that notion unchallenged.

As luck would have it, there is a magical community where immigrants and natives alike live in perfect harmony. Perfect harmony with a liberal dose of white guilt, that is. Although nothing those plucky immigrants can’t overcome.

That place is Nantucket. A place Stocky is very familiar with. Let’s take a look at the article on Nantucket. There’s plenty of ommisions and mischaracterizations.

It is an unlikely spot to chase the American dream: a rural island 30 miles offshore, famous as a summer retreat for the rich and powerful, where the median house price tops $1 million, gas costs almost $4 a gallon, and a cheeseburger at one bistro sells for $19.

A chasm separates most foreign workers on Nantucket from their moneyed neighbors. Many immigrants work two jobs, ride bicycles to get around, and live two to a room to cut costs.

Immediately, The Globe misses the most important aspect of life on Nantucket. Those “moneyed neigbors” are only around for at most a few months in the summer. Most are there for only a few weeks. The “locals”, the people who live there year round also ride bikes to get around (lots of bike paths on the island) and while they don’t live 2 to a room themselves, they are likely to have at one time or another rented a room to someone in order to make ends meet. And they have a name for somone who works 2 jobs. Lazy. Most locals bust their ass during the “season” to make a buck any way they can.  

Those “immigrants” also tend to disappear at the end of the season. National Politicians take note: When the jobs leave, so do the illegals. No deportation required. Back to the story:

Many of those who employ them inhabit sprawling mansions, travel by private jet and yacht, and do not work.

Well, that describes John Kerry to a T. I’ll give them that.

For well-off families who summer on the island, shopping for clothes might mean a trip to Lilly Pulitzer, where a man’s cotton blazer in a pink-and-green hibiscus pattern costs $595.

Some immigrants find their clothes at the dump.

Images of peasants rummaging through the squalor of a dump on the outskirts of Mexico City or some other third world hell hole come to mind.  Not so on Nantucket.

The Dump. Just off Madaket road. Like a lot of dumps it has an area where people leave things others might want. It is even staffed by a town employee. It’s “Official” name is the Take it or leave it shop. It’s unofficial name is The Madaket Mall. Lots of good stuff there. While you wouldn’t expect to find John Kerry checking out the offerings(unless he was between heiresses), there’s no shame in picking up an item or 2 from the Madaket Mall.

Besides, Amazon.com ships for free to Nantucket just like anywhere else. It’s not like you are forced to pay Island prices.

But enough with the white guilt. Nantucket is a magical place where immigrants and locals live in perfect harmony. Let’s get on with the “narrative”.

In interviews, foreign workers voiced little resentment of the leisure and luxury that surrounds them. If anything, they say, the excess provides inspiration.

“Here, you sit next to a multimillionaire and you’re treated the same,” said a 34-year-old man from Ireland who was drinking beer at The Muse, an island nightclub, and declined to give his name because he is in the United States without proper immigration documents. “There are a lot of success stories of people who came here with nothing.”

“Without proper immigration documents” …. hmmmm Stocky isn’t sure but that could make him ILL fucking EGAL. Maybe not though. If he were I’m sure the Globe would point that out.

True enough about those success stories though. If you’re willing to work and make sacrifices there is money to be made on Nantucket.

Foreign workers’ presence on the island has grown more visible. The Brazil Mini Mart sits at a busy intersection near Brant Point Lighthouse, its wooden sign shaped like a whale.

Gee, a regular Horatio Alger story there. Brazilian immigrant starts own business and lives happily ever after. Well, not exactly. The Globe left out a few details about the Brazil Mini Mart. The landlord wanted to expand the building and rent it out to new businesses no doubt in order to attract higher rents. When word got out that the Landlord did not intend to renew the lease for the Brazil Mini Mart, the plucky immigrant owner showed just how much she’s assimilated into the American culture by screaming Racism. It now appears that this property owner has a tennant for life. Playing the Race Card trumps all. 

Foreign players dominate the island’s adult soccer league

That is certainly true. One small detail about that soccer league the Globe left out. 2 weeks before the Globe ran the story, the league was shut down. Not because of the piles of trash left on the sidelines after every game but because of a fight, a knife and a gun all coming together during a game between 2 Jaimaican teams. Yup, it’s just a swell time at those soccer games.

Where do all these immigrants live? Now we’re getting to the real impact of illegals on the Island. Even the Globe has a difficult time sugar coating this:

On Essex Street, a curving road in a dense neighborhood near the island’s center, many immigrants live in tidy, gray-shingled duplexes built close together.

Some house as many as 18 people in four bedrooms, said Rose Altunsacan, a legal immigrant from Brazil who moved here from Florida five years ago.

“A lot of people, when they first come, they get a shock,” said Altunsacan, who runs a small housecleaning business. She pays $2,800 a month to rent a bright, airy duplex on Essex Street, which she shares with her husband, a tiler.

Tidy??? A quick drive down Essex St will bring many adjectives to mind. Tidy is not one of them.

18 people in 1 house??? That’s the one with only 10-12 vehicles jammed in and around it.

The other houses obviously contain more people.

What can be done about this? Apparently, not much.

Richard Ray, director of Nantucket’s Health Department, tries to enforce housing rules, which limit how many people can use one septic system or inhabit a certain-sized room, but said his job is complicated by the cultural gap between Nantucket and the places workers come from.

“This has been their way of life in their country of origin, so to convince them you can’t have nine or 12 people in a three-bedroom house is difficult,” he said.

Where Stocky comes from, robbing banks is considered a way of life. I bet the Nantucket authorities wouldn’t waste a lot of time trying to “convince” me to stop robbing banks. WTF is Richard Ray smoking?

But lets get back to the narrative. All is wonderful for the immigrants on Nantucket. Or is it?

Among foreign workers, competition for jobs is intense. The going rate for cleaning houses is $25 per hour, but Altunsacan said she has lost jobs to other immigrants who are working illegally and offer to clean for less.

Let Stocky translate that Globespeak for you. Even the immigrants are bitching about the illegal immigrants.

Sorry to digress. Let’s get back to the narrative and finish this story on an upbeat note.

Peña said she feels at home on the island she loves dearly, and she laughs at the “very Spanish” name she gave her daughter, Chelsea. But the simplest things about life on Nantucket can still cause amazement.

In some of the big houses she cleans, there are just two people, and “all those rooms,” she said.

She expressed no envy of the size of the houses. But she marveled at the orderly calm of such a life.

“If they put something down in the house, it stays there, and nobody takes it,” she said.

Nice. Stocky has a warm and fuzzy feeling now. Do you? This story is a Jenna Russell creation. She has made Stocky’s “list”. On her way to her own category maybe.

Kim gets 2 mentions today.

First, she writes what at first glance seems to be a pretty good article about “short sales” What makes it different than most of these “homeowners lose house” story is first the successful short sale aspect and second the lack of the “homeowner as a victim” angle.

The husband lost his job and now they can’t afford to pay the mortage(s) after refinancing. Reasonably standard stuff. No tales of woe about how they got taken advantage of by a mean mortgage broker and no story of “medical bills” being involved.

What makes the article bad and bad it is, is what she left out. That couple that executed a “successfull short sale” and skeedaddled to North Carolina where they bought a new, cheaper house is in for a big tax bill. The difference between what they owed on their old house and what the bank accepted for the sale price is whats called “forgiven debt”. Or as the IRS likes to call it, Income.

In this case, $168,000. 1/3 of that leaves them with a $56,000 tax bill.

And the IRS will get their money. Short of bankruptcy (which is now much more difficult) there is no walking away from that debt.

Writing an article on short sales without a single mention of the tax implications is just poor work. I wonder how many strapped homeowners read that article and now think they have a chance to save themselves from financial ruin when if you factor in the IRS hit, it’s a bad option.

Kim’s second item comes from a story she writes about Countrywide Financial. The same Countrywide financial that Kim said “Depeleted” an 11.5 billion dollar line of credit a few days ago. 

Totally false of course.

Today she “corrects” (sort of) that falsehood here (the very last line of the story).

Countrywide drew down a $11.5 billion line of credit from its banks to replace funds that Wall Street investors no longer can provide by purchasing mortgages

“Drew Down”??? What does that mean. Stocky thinks she’s still insinuating that the line of credit has been “depleted”.

Maybe it’s because of media types like her that we have what she describes in the beginning of the article:

Some real estate agents no longer refer their home buyers to Countrywide, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, because they fear it would be unable to fund the mortgage at the closing table, loan brokers said. And some depositors, particularly retirees, have been concerned about the safety of their savings at Countrywide’s banking unit, even though their balances are federally insured up to $100,000.

Gee, some people are concerned about CountryWide continuing in business???? Where could they be getting that idea??????

America as the worlds “Melting Pot” has a long history of embracing elements of other cultures and making them our own.

Despite what the pony tailed nitwit teaching at the local university says, That’s not always a good thing.

Stocky gives you Machetes.

A scan of the news on any day of the year will turn up many stories of Machetes being used in crimes. A lot of the stories will not the immigration status of the perp while others don’t. In any event, in nearly all cases the surnames have a distinctly “undocumented worker” sound to them.

Todays NY Post gives new details to one of the most horrific crimes in recent memory. 3 dead and 1 wounded in an execution by “undocumented workers”.

Yesterday, a family member of one of the slain victims, Iofemi Hightower, described the level of savagery of the attack. He said the thugs used a machete to hack their victims.

“They cut my niece’s face off,” said John McClain, who is Hightower’s great-uncle, and the chaplain of the Newark Police Department. “They cut her from cheek to cheek. They left her head hanging.”

Just using the weapons Americans won’t use.

More Machete Madness from Todays news:

Nashua, NH

Palm Bay, Fla

From the title of this post you’d probably assume that Stocky is shining the light on some Real Estate professional. Not Exactly. It doesn’t take much effort to come up with many “It’s a great time to buy” quotes from realtors and/or delusional predictions of a “U Shaped recovery”. (Note: At the time of the U shaped recovery prediction, market is always at or near the bottom of the U. Funny how that works.)

What’s caught Stocky’s eye, mostly via the excellent Housing Bubble Blog is California “Regional Economist” John Husing who said in July 2007: 

‘They don’t get the market,’ Redlands-based regional economist John Husing said about buyers. ‘They don’t understand it. They think prices are too high.’

It apppears that our esteemed “Regional Economist” missed the Jr. High class on Economics where what something is worth is defined as what somone is willing to pay for it. That advanced economic concept has escaped Mr. Husing.

That doesn’t keep Mr. Husing from getting quoted in Calif papers though. Here are some more gems:

“‘It’s fear,’ said regional economist John Husing of Redlands. ‘People just flat don’t understand this market. If you’re thinking about the biggest purchase of your life and you don’t understand it, you don’t buy.’”

Who’s to blame?

“‘A lot of those loans are loans that should not have been made,’ Husing said. ‘Anytime you have a speculatize boom with excesses, there are prices to pay. This time we have homeowners, we have people who were trying to flip properties and we have the enablers.’”

Enablers??? You mean Enablers like empty headed academics who are looked at as “Experts” and who totally misdiagnose the problem??

Personally, I wouldn’t ask John Husing for advice on which bank to open a checking account in never mind ask him to analyse a modern economy. 

In his defense, if you need help with the Housing Market in the Stone Age, John’s your guy.  

Stocky wonders how many copies of Barrons walked away from the newstands with Media whore/stock guru Jim Cramer on the cover. Stocky give the Cramer article 2 cuervo gold thumbs up.

With careful analysis applied to Cramers stock picks you find out that you’re better off just investing in an index fund. Mr. Stock Market Idiot Savant turns out to be more Idiot than Savant.

The folks at CNBC did some serious backpeddaling when confronted with the facts of the poor performance of Jimmie’s picks.

CNBC officials also said that viewers should buy Cramer’s picks a week after they’re aired. They said that the show is mainly educational, and not just about stock-picking. In the end, they said we should focus only on the tiny universe of stock selections — about 12 a week — that Cramer researches the most.

12 stocks a week????? He does 5 hours of TV a week and manically yells and screams about hundreds of stocks. Viewers are only supposed to listen to 2 stock picks a show???

What about Jim’s favorite and most hyped segment of the show, the lightning round. Cramer no longer destroys chairs at the begining of each segment but he clearly revels in showing off his supposedly encyclopedic knowledge of thousands of stocks and dispensing buy + sell recomendations on nearly every one.

But wait. Now we find out that all that yelling about buying + selling should be ignored. The Barrons piece  looks at his latest book about his Mad Money TV show and it’s description of how to use the lightning round segement.

He writes that, by definition, Lightning Round recommendations are based on his previous knowledge of the stocks, not on fresh research. Yet he doesn’t tell his viewers to ignore the call-in segment’s Buys and Sells, concluding: “I still think you should listen to what I’m saying.”

Huh??

Should we just fast forward through the lightning round (does anyone watch TV live anymore) like we do the commercials or not? CNBC would have to agree with that according to their 12 stocks a week statement. But what about Cramer?

Luckily, last night, in his first show after the Barrons issue he addresses the subject. After several veiled references to “partners” being biased (Vast right wing conspiracy anyone?) he finally gets to the lightning round.

Immediately after explaining the “rules” of the Lightning Round (You give me a stock, I tell you to buy or sell …) Cramer starts whining about the Barrons piece. He ends the whine by saying that his LR picks are “not based on as detailed analysis as the rest of the show” and he’s “just trying to point you to Best of Breed.”

Wait, what was that about “buy or sell”. Cramer even flip flops when describing the rules to a segment where he spends most of his time flip flopping.

With commercials on each end the LR took 17 minutes. Thats 34 clicks of the Tivo 30 second skip.

For all you Cramer lemmings, Stocky has just saved you 17 minutes a day. You’re welcome.  

From the Boston Globe:

About 1:30 a.m., the couples, who said they were laughing and chatting excitedly, began walking back to the hotel. They were about a block away when they saw three women whom they estimated to be in their late 20s staring at them.

As the couples passed, Lakeesha Johnson said, the women, who were White, screamed “N—-r” at them and swore at her.

Tameeka Johnson said she responded, “Excuse me?”

“They took offense at it,” she said. “Who knows what offends people?”

The couples walked on hurriedly and were about 10 feet away from the hotel door when the attack began, she said.

Lakeesha Johnson, who fell to the ground, looked up to see her sister-in-law surrounded by women. One woman had grabbed her from behind and wrapped her arms around Tameeka Johnson’s face.

…

Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department said it is too early in the investigation to determine whether the attack was racial. “To suggest a motive at this point would be inappropriate,” she said.

To suggest a motive would be INNAPROPRIATE?!?!?! You gotta be friggin kidiing me.

Oh. Wait. I quoted that story incorrectly. The attackers were BLACK and the racial slur they used was “Honky”. The women who got attacked were white and their names were Sullivan.

My mistake. Hold the 7 part series on racism in Boston.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Local WEEI radio morning duo John Dennis and Gerry Callahan had the crap kicked out of them by their management team. The short version of the story is that the duo had illusions of grandeur by jumping to a ”new” sports station funded by Venture Capital when their WEEI contracts ran out in Sept.  

Unfortunately for them and their wallets, WEEI took them out behind the woodshed and laid the lumber to them by buying the “new” sports station. Leaving D+C with few options but to come crawling back to Daddy WEEI. The long version of that story is detailed here.

What does Stocky have to add to this? Well, I wonder what the over/under is on how long it takes a caller to say “Joe Athlete ended up taking the money. Just like you 2″.

How will D+C’s contract squabbles temper their criticism of Athletes who talk a good game about “it’s not about the money” but end up following the dollar signs just as D+C will likely do.

I’d love to see them pull some rabbit out of a hat here (WBCN?) but the likely scenario has them eating WEEI crow and liking it.

It’s interesting that just recently when the Dems floated the idea about re-implementing the Fairness Doctrine they were rightly shouted down due to the huge number of outlets now available to anyone who wants to get their point of view out there. What all those outlets don’t guarantee is the right to be paid a $mil plus per year.

D+C got schooled on that by WEEI.

Another day, another gang banging thug gets a free pass from a Judge in Massachusetts.

Michelle McPhee does some more excellent work here.

   Last week Boston Municipal Court Associate Justice Annette Forde gave a stay of execution to a convicted gun-toting thug who secreted a loaded weapon - with its serial number filed off - in a “hide” built into a car stereo. The judge’s move is essentially a free pass to stay home while he appeals his jury conviction for gun possession.

    These are the facts of the case:

    Locksley Bailey, 20, was arrested less than two hours after a shooting when the car he was traveling in was approached by Boston cops, who said they who smelled marijuana coming from the windows. He fit the description of the gunman who unloaded a fusillade of bullets on a Dorchester street corner, hitting a man in the buttocks and hand.

A search of the Globe Website finds nary a mention of a “yout” named Locksley Bailey. No surprise there. Stocky bets they will get around to this story in the unlikely event that Locksley actually begins to serve some time. Look for a story on his aspiring rap career with the standard quotes about “turning his life around” along with a heartfelt shoutout or 2 to his kid(s) and his girlfriend suddenly turned fiance.

And of course, not a word of outrage from Steve Bailey.

Business reporter Kim Blanton draws Stocky’s attention with a story yesterday with a blatant mistake about Countrywide financial. More on that shortly. Stocky perused the Blanton archives at boston.com and found this gem from a few months ago.

Remember a few months ago? Stocky does. The cratering of the housing industry was continuing unabated. Unless you read Kim’s article from April 15th.

According to Kim the it looks like the “worst is over” for the Boston market. This graph sounds like it was taken verbatim from NAR press release.

If you’re selling a home, it’s not great, but not awful, either. Expect a still-slowish market for a time, though not as dreadful as 2006, which posted the fewest home sales in a decade, and a nearly 6 percent drop in prices. Don’t expect prices to bounce back much this year, though one silver lining is they probably won’t fall anymore, either.

But if you’re shopping for a house, 2007 looks pretty good — so far. You have many houses to choose from, and the upper hand in negotiations. One risk: other buyers are also more active, so moving too slowly may mean missing out on good opportunities.

Sounds like “It’s a great time to buy”. (more…)

What do you get when you take a clueless Boston Globe (sorry for the redundancy) “business” writer and let him write about Guns?  Typical liberal kneejerkism followed by holier than thou excuse making and attention diverting attacks on the messenger.

The Steve Bailey Straw purchase is detailed here. To summarize, Stevie is bored with writing boring business stories so he grabs the Globe’s favorite loony leftist gun control nut (John Rosenthal) and he heads to a New Hampshire gun show. Hijinks follow when Stevie uses his El-Globo expense account to have someone else buy him a gun. Otherwise known as a “Straw purchase” and/or a felony. (more…)

What is it about AAPL that brings the morons out of the woodwork? Neil Cavuto on Fox News delivered a pathetic end of show “commentary” that showed how little he understands about Wall St., product marketing and for that matter the pop culture of the Iphone. I happened to catch his performance on the air and was stunned at how much he got wrong in his folksy “commentary”. Maybe he should take a page out of the Katie Couric and Dan Rather playbook and have some low level staffer write these “from the heart” commentaries. (more…)

Being a CNBC addict, I’ve watched countless reports from Jim Goldman. He’s the “tech” reporter usually doing a standup outside some Silicon Valley company after they’ve reported earnings.

Besides looking like he just finished sucking on a helium gun before going on the air, Goldman has a self-important air of smarminess about him. Like he’s the expert on all things tech and we should consider ourselves lucky to hear his “insight”.

It was after reading his post about being “Flamed” on his blog that I knew I had to get off my ass and start my Blog. Mind you, reading Jim Goldmans blog is not something I’m proud of. What a waste of friggin time you’d say. (And you’d be right) But I stumbled on it after catching up on Diana Olick’s very good housing blog.

Anyways, back to Goldman. This post got my blood boiling. Here is the money quote:

In the media business, we have a term for the Mac (now iPod) faithful when we write or report some less-than-flattering comments and angles to the Apple story. We call it, “getting flamed.”  

 You gotta be friggin kidding me!! The CNBC Tech “Expert” thinks being “Flamed” is something he and his media insiders made up for and use themselves. What a fucking moron.

Flame wars have been going on in Usenet since shortly after Al Gore invented the Internet.

In fact, Goldman doesn’t even use the term properly. Getting boatloads of Email telling you what a clueless Dolt you are is not getting “Flamed”. Flaming is typically done in an open forum like Usenet or some message board.

An important aspect of Flaming is the public humiliation involved as all your Usenet/Message board buddies get to watch you getting stomped on by the Flamer. Good Times.