SitRep

Well I have been laid low past two days after eating some tilapia at Red Lobster. No food for 48 hours is probably good for my waistline but when I can't even read blogs or books for more than a few minutes, why its surely something akin to Hades in a hand basket. Good news is, on the mend and eating again - plus reading.

Well on to some serious stuff. Naturally this is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slowly moving ashore as a borderline Cat-2/3 storm and killing more than 1300 people. Unfortunately New Orleans is still under the piper's song of Ray Nagin whilst Gov. Kathleen Blanco wont be governor for long, assuming she don't somehow become a co-defendant in this case. And there is doubt the Army Corps of Engineers is really up to the task since it seems they are still aiming to build up levees and pumping stations to fend off a Category 3 storm, assuming they even do that. Never mind a Category 5 storm like Camille or Andrew or Dean.

While on Katrina talk, I am reminded of my battle with my mortgage company after Katrina in which they arbitrarily cut off my automatic payments because I was in Katrina's disaster area and because I did not respond to their mail in a timely manner. My mortgage holder is Countrywide, which seems to have had to borrow $11.5billion to keep afloat and Bank of America has tossed them another billion or so. My faith in Countrywide staying afloat is minimal. They keep trying to talk me into renegotiating my mortgage with them, but when I factor in the closing costs which could be $1500 I never come out ahead so I stick with what I have.

To tie in with my ire at Countrywide it was something of a shock to find out that one of Nancy Pelosi's sons, Paul Jr, works for the California part of Countrywide. And if you look around a bit one fines something mighty interesting on how, as this writer puts it, 'the six degrees of Kevin Bacon' syndrome comes into play.

Darius Anderson had been one of Gray Davis's major fundraisers, and is best friends with Susan Kennedy, formerly deputy chief of staff to Gray Davis, now Arnold Schwarzenegger's chief of staff. Darius Anderson is also a very good friend of Willie Brown, and Gavin Newsom (he spearheaded a fundraiser to help retire Newsom's campaign debt). San Francisco seems to be a small town, in many ways, and it turns out Gavin Newsom is cousin to the Pelosi kids, including Paul Jr., and Laurence. Paul Jr. works for Countrywide Home Loans, which has significant subprime loan problems. Laurence formerly worked for Lennar Corporation, which is developing Treasure Island in tandem with Darius Anderson's Kenwood Investments LLC. Laurence Pelosi also sits with Darius Anderson on Berkeley's IGS National Advisory Board.

What this tangled briar of incestuous political/economic interest have in common is the goal of padding their bottom lines at the expense of the Donner Pass' environment. As to why all this horsepower is behind this, well it seems not enough Republicans could be bought off when they were in power. Kudos to Kathryn Gray for correlating all this. This is the kind of political behind the scenes skulduggery that needs to be stopped.