background checks – Page 4 – Hopeful Romantics

Fuel Prices Send American Workers Below the Border

I noticed this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune about American drivers going down below the border to buy diesel fuel at half the price they can get it here.

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UNION-TRIBUNE

June 19, 2008

TIJUANA – Truck and bus drivers experienced a day of chaos in Tijuana yesterday, as they chased a dwindling supply of diesel fuel. Today was shaping up to be even worse.

DAVID MAUNG

Pemex gas station manager Claudia Torres placed a sign yesterday to block the entrance to the diesel pumps after the Tijuana station ran out of the fuel.

For weeks, drivers from the United States have snapped up Mexican diesel, which is selling for about 50 percent less than in California.

That has resulted in a shortage of the fuel, and gas stations nearest the border crossings started halting or limiting sales last weekend.

By yesterday, diesel had started to run out at outlying stations, provoking delays or cancellations in public and private transportation. New supplies might not arrive until Monday.

Long lines of trucks and buses, their drivers desperate to buy diesel, formed at those stations still selling the fuel.

Public transportation officials announced that if they could not refuel their buses they would halt service today, a decision that affects at least 750,000 daily riders.

For the entire article go to San Diego Union.

It’s pretty amazing. Once upon a time people went south of the border to Mexico for romantic reasons. They were escaping the reach of the American law. They were getting married or getting divorced. They were young and restless, looking for a good time in the Tijuana night spots, drinking and cavorting. Looking for the fabled donkey show, or for the more romantic sort that special girl or boy who amid all the drinking still cared enough not to throw up on their sandals.

Stories abounded about kids getting a little too frisky and getting thrown into jail. Their parents or whomever who would have to shell out some cash to get them out. There were stories about the nasty stays in jail, known by most as life changing experiences. The Kingston Trio wrote a song about it, titled appropriately enough, “Tijuana Jail.” If you survived it all, and usually you did, it was a right of passage.

Then, even today there are the short hops from the California Border to Rosarito Beach and Ensenada for beer fests, partying and the occasional lobster meal. You could ride horses on the beach, cheaply. You could buy great Mexican tile by the truckload and save money on your home renovation. You could buy leather goods and switchblade knives. Cheap ones, but it was a five minute thrill to flick it open and closed a few dozen times.

Now you go south of the border to buy gasoline. More specifically, it’s diesel fuel you buy at half the price. You venture to Mexico for diesel fuel, prescription drugs and dental and medical work. It’s cheaper. There are chartered buses for the dental and medical work. For the diesel fuel, you need your car or truck.

So the lines form. Orderly lines, I’m sure. All while the Mexican drug cartels duel it out on the border town streets, killing each other in record numbers. While you buy diesel fuel.

Some world. Eh, Ese`?

The Miss Universe Pageant–Eighty Contestants from Eighty Countries, And They All Look the Same

I was watching the Miss Universe Pageant the other night. It was a brief break from the usual weekend activities and a respite from the world of background checks and corporate research. I came in around the middle of it, or what I thought to be the middle of it, when they weeded it down to the finalists. I didn’t watch all that long, either. I waited until the finalists sashayed off the stage, brimming with perky charm and K-Mart flirtatiousness. I didn’t even see Miss United States take her fabled spilled, which later aired ad nauseum on every news channel on the earth. Well, maybe not on Al Jazeeri TV, but then I don’t watch a it.

Not being much for beauty contests, beyond the initial observation, I did come to some perhaps minor epiphanies, but epiphanies none the less. I thought how it was interesting that young women from all these different nations used to seem so exotic. Now with the United States being the modern global melting pot, if you did away with the hair and the heavy make up, in today’s world you may see any one of these women, or women who look someone like them, exercising at your local gym. You may see them at your local Starbucks or picking up Pizza or hanging out in your local sports bar.

The exotic is not exotic anymore. It is common place. And as for their great beauty, yes they are quite attractive. Enough money has been spent to make them that way. Having worked in Hollywood, I realize you spend enough bucks, supply the makeup artist, the costume director, the coaches who teach you how to walk and talk and flash that chaste but come hither ersatz charming smile and you can make a dumpster look attractive. If the light is right.

But if in early age one doesn’t get enough calcium, or if body does not absorb enough calcium http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/directorio/seccion/trajes-de-novia/?wpbdp_sort=field-1 generic tadalafil india from the diet, and this is seen in animal fat, brain, cheese, egg yolk, beef, pork, poultry, shrimps and cuttlefish. ESPN new.castillodeprincesas.com cialis properien MVP on Verizon Wireless will feature race highlights from NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races throughout the season, as well as all the latest news and information, ESPN.com columnists and in-progress race leader boards. If a man is diagnosed with prostatitis, Chinese herbal medicine Diuretic and cialis no prescription Anti-inflammatory Pill to get a cure. This causes the blood flow to the penis to cialis overnight shipping be enhanced. But what is really remarkable is how they can get that big hair just so, insert the flowing falls to lux it up a little–yes, they are wearing falls–and make them up so at the end of it all, they look exactly like each other. This is no mean feat if all the girls come from more or less the same nationality. But to take contestants from every ethnic group and every nation, and make them all look the same, this is really doing something. This is the magic cookie cutter, which I’m sure begins with selection. Most appear about the same height. They all endure similar dental work and are taught to walk and smile in similar fashion.

In the end they look like the Stepford Beauty Queens. Pretty remarkable. Not that there aren’t millions of men and probably a million women who wouldn’t want to date them. At first glance, as homogenized as they all appear, you have to wonder if they come equipped with the necessary plumbing. I’m sure they do, but you still must wonder as you feast upon their doll-like forms. As you must wonder if they all come out of the same factory, luxury sex objects who are stamped out in some universe standard and then tweaked just so that their features can make Miss Somewhere in Asia slightly distinct from Miss Somewhere in Europe.

Well, it is a global marketplace, after all. And we do have a Starbucks on every corner, and if nothing else, besides lousy coffee, they certainly all look the same. So why not Miss Universe? Look at it this way, when they all look the same, you don’t feel so bad for the losers.

Corporal Punishment for White Collar Crimes and Those Who Betray the Public Trust

Anyone with eyeballs and a set of ears has either scene or heard at least one of a dozen news announcements that the FBI will be investigating IndyMac Bank for fraudulent practices. CNN writes that the government is looking into the bank engaged in fraud while granting mortgages to high risk borrowers. IndyMac is listed as well as twenty one other companies in the sub-prime market under investigation. I’m sure there will be more.

For those who are uninitiated the FBI has a terrific posting, listing of crimes and scenarios related to mortgage fraud. I would urge everyone to read it. It will provide a comprehensive overview as to how we have been hosed for the better part of this century, and who did the hosing. But for now let me give you the brief overview.

Here is a decent insight provided by CNN–“I would suspect they are looking at bad appraisals, bad underwriting, which would mean false statements on loan applications, some of which require federal forms to be filled out — so they can be prosecuted for the false statements,” he said. “I would also suspect they would look at false statements to the investing community for securities fraud violations.”

What this means is say there is a house on the market for $300,000. It’s a hot market to the normal precautions, due diligence, house inspections, common sense and closer scrutiny are thrown out the window in the bidding frenzy. Scammer one, the Realtor, whomever sells the house to someone he knows. He may sell it to another business front, or have someone stand in for a fee, say $15,000. He may sell it to his wife, his mother, whomever. Whomever he sells it to stands in for the mortgage. Whatever the price, it is inflated, say $500,000.

Thanks to certain arrangements, the “buyer,” qualifies for the inflated price. The realtor is on the take, as is the mortgage lender. Each is paid off nicely to grant a mortgage based on false documents or no documents fraudulently claiming that this “buyer” is earns enough and is worth enough that he or she qualifies for the loan. The appraiser is also on the take and appraises the house for the inflated value. Often the appraiser will use specious comps or comps taken from a neighborhood not too far away, but very different in true home value.

The bank grants the mortgage, holds it for ten seconds and then flips it to a hedge fund or some financial group seven billion light years away from the transaction. The house could be in Las Vegas, the ultimate lender who picks up the note could be in France. They don’t know the difference in neighborhoods. They don’t know that three blocks away the houses are $2 million, but here in this neighborhood they are in reality valued for much less.

Once the mortgage is secured, the “buyer” then flips it back to the “seller” or someone else in the ring. They put it on the market again, for an even higher price. And then maybe again. And then some poor soul buys it in the bidding frenzy of a hot market, only to discover he is in way over his head. He may have bought it on an interest only loan, or some other cutesy loan where he pays only a portion monthly of the true mortgage cost. He is told don’t worry, the house will always increase, he can take equity loans to pay the balloon payment coming due. And then the other shoe falls, reality sets in and there is a lot of collective whining about being bamboozled by unfair practitioners.
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Well this is just part of it. I tried to keep it simple. It can get pretty complex. As a background checking company who also conducts corporate investigation and corporate research we at Corra Group had had several mortgage fraud cases cross our desks, all with similarities, but also with variations on a theme. We realize theses cases, under pre-trial preparation, before the attorneys take them to court are but an infinitesimal fraction of the deceit fraud and outright crime that has taken place in the name of real estate commerce.

Okay, so now too late in my opinion, the game of musical chairs is over. There are no chairs left for these asses to find a seat. They want to be bailed out. They want recompense for their greed. In fact, what they have done is betray the public trust. They have betrayed the public trust as have politicians and media people and those involved in myriad white collar crime. They have ruined lives and cost billions, gutted pension funds and lied to anybody who would listen.

In a world where the kid on the corner running a three card monte game may get a stiffer sentence than these politicians and white collar criminals, something is terribly wrong. I propose we not only send them to jail but that we invoke corporal punishment. I believe whole heartedly that these betrayers of the public trust should be treated to a public flogging, before being flung into prison for a hearty sentence.

If we can allow for capital punishment then we can certainly make a little room here for the corporate variety. Frankly, I don’t think it will deter drug addicts or garden variety criminals. It would just be another speed bump on the road to desolation. But with the more high minded alleged reputable citizens of our fair country, flogging behinds would prove a very clear and concise deterrent. The mere spectacle of having their collective pants pulled down around their ankles and being flogged with cane or cat o’ nine tails for the benefit of public access TV would give pause to most crooked politicians and white collar criminals.

The reality of seeing their friends being flogged in living color would turn most into honest men. They would be forced to listen to the berating of their spouses, parents and in-laws. They would be admonished by all, reminded how awful it would for the children, how embarrassing for friends and neighbors, and how they have put on some pounds and wouldn’t look as fashion forward with big red welts on their coddled derrières

They may be capable of doing the time, but they may balk when threatened with the pine. We could even bring back the stocks, where the angry rabble could throw garbage and worthless mortgages at them. I believe this is not only a workable solution, but one whose time has come. As for these evil doers, to quote a President, these folks who believe they are privileged and entitled to operate beyond the law. Those who believe they can betray the public trust, well for their public flogging session, this is one time I wouldn’t mind them butting to the front of the line.

The Death of Satire…the New Yorker Obama Cover

It’s hard to miss all the controversy raging over the New Yorker Magazine cover, depicting Barack Obama as a flag burning Muslim and his wife, Michele, as an Ak-47 toting radical guerrilla. The media is apoplectic. Pundits and politicos are practically dripping with self-righteousness. As I sit and write this, Bill Bennett blunders about its bad taste while James Carville defends the cover in the name of the New Yorker’s time honored history of satire. At any moment peasants with pitchforks will gather before the New Yorker offices, demanding the head of its Editor-in-Chief, David Remnick.

Let me say at the top that is is far from my favorite New Yorker cover. In fact, this wouldn’t make the top twenty . Nothing will ever compare to the iconic and monocled snooty man in his high hat or the graphic depiction of a New Yorker’s perception of the fair island of Manhattan compared to the seemingly menial expanse of the the rest of the country. No, this cover doesn’t possess by half that kind of aesthetic quality. But it is selling magazines.

At a time when all print media is hurting, this cover has arguably more to stimulate interest in the New Yorker than just about anything else. Forget the fact that its covers for decades have established a benchmark for graphic quality in magazines. It’s cartoons are smart, incisive and actually funny. Historically speaking, some of the best writers in our nation have contributed to its pages. David Remnick defends the cover as satire. He claims the cover is to draw attention to all the misconceptions about Barack Obama and his alleged Muslim and anti-American past.

By animating public concern to a cartoon caricature, the cover , Remnick claims, is designed to put the lie to Michele Obama’s alleged dislike of America. While I believe the cover could have been better, I believe Remnick and the New Yorker has accomplished what they set out to do. Everyone is talking and light is being shed on the darker corners of a series of spurious allegations about Obama. That, overall, is a good thing. You can believe he is the best person for President, or you can think otherwise. The main thing is to understand who is really is and what he isn’t.

When ten to twenty percent of the nation still believes he is a Muslim, that he was sworn in to the Senate on the Koran, and all the other foolish allegations, we have a problem. More so, clearly the regular media, the sincere media, isn’t getting through with all if its soppy ingenuousness. Lord knows, we have seen enough and heard enough as the media has milked this campaign for all it is worth. But, still, a quarter of the population thinks he is a Muslim, has been a Muslin, may be a Muslim…what’s a Muslim?

So enter satire, doing service where it does it best. Going over the top to elucidate a murky discussion that no truckload of pundits with all their stiff necked sincerity can ever accomplish. Enter satire, although, sadly, most fail to recognize it for what it is. Most have been so programmed, so dumbed down by relentlessly bombastic media that they can’t differentiate ingenuousness from exaggeration. This is disturbing.

This could mean that that satire is all but dead. One of the great vehicles in history, one of the best means of shedding light on an issue by infusing it with humor and hyperbole is dying slowly in our very literal world. That and irony are, if not lost arts, are arts losing the battle of attrition against an increasingly closed minded and literal world.

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To support this rather horrific theory, unintentionally, of course, CNN’s commentators asked people on the street to interpret the cover. They didn’t get it. Not a clue. Maybe it was a bad survey sample, but everyone of them didn’t see it as satirical. They saw it as racial, offensive, threatening, and horror beyond horrors…negative. Oh, my, negative. We live in such a positive world, after all.

We are a nation that clamors for photos of our celebrities’ children. We are a media that will pay millions for photos of our celebrities’ babies, or for that matter any scrap of lurid knowledge about the most inconsequential people. And this is a nation that wants to kill off the satirical form and render irony to its marginal place among the twelve remaining people who can perceive it.

Why? Because we are literal. It is convenient to be such. We are intolerant. We are, culturally speaking, a bore. While we proclaim individual and social freedoms with our hair, tattoos, music, religious practices and personal hygiene or lack of it, we are increasingly a constrained and stultified nation that is on brink of being able to recognize an original thought. Or distinguish satire from reality. Somehow we got it in our heads, we have the right to not be offended. Nothing should impinge upon our social, political or religious sensibilities.

No contrarian should go over the top in making our point of view look ridiculous. Somehow we have garnered some convoluted interpretation of the First Amendment to where we believe that nothing offensive should pass through our ears or by our eyes. We do not want to our life perceptions threatened by another point of view. So whether we are politically correct or politically inept, we kill anything that challenges our senses. The worst thing is we don’t even know what we risk losing.

If we haven’t killed satire, we have dealt its tradition a terrible wound. We have stomped its relativity with our Crocs and Thongs. And tomorrow, we will probably feel better for it. We will feel safe and less threatened by that awful bugaboo, a magazine cover.

Perhaps sometime in the distant future a more enlightened population will find great works of satire under the rubble of our literal thoughts. They might even find the dreaded New Yorker Magazine cover of Barack and Michele Obama. I wonder what they will think of it.

The Soul of the Machine

Automated Content Will Unmake Existence

By Jason Lee Miller – Fri, 07/11/2008 – 12:53pm.

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Hug a writer today

Chess is one thing, but if we get to the point computers can best humans in the arts—those splendid, millennia-old expressions of the heart and soul of human existence—then why bother existing? For the entire article go to webpronews.com

I truly enjoyed reading Jason Lee Miller’s article. Not only does he explore some excellent points, but anyone who can cite Jorge Luis Borges in this day and age will always garner my respect and attention.

I am a writer. I have been a writer since my latter teen years when I was first paid by an Urban Weekly, Nightlife Magazine, to write short pieces on the various politicos and characters who frequented the night clubs and bars in North Philadelphia. It was there I found true affirmation of the power of the word among the semi-literate folk who read this politically oriented paper, published by a pair of brother-in-laws. Here in this modest publication, they were able to see what was written between the lines in the mainstream press, or not at all, with regard to local social and civil issues.

Since then I have written damn near everything. I have written for newspapers, have written ad copy, public relations pieces. I have published novels and non-fiction books and have had scripts produced for television and film. Along with the world of background checks and corporate investigation, I have immersed myself in the arts for more decades than I care to disclose.

And what does this mean, exactly? It means one thing. It means that in no time either in history, or in the future will the automated process every capture the heart and soul of the art created by a living human being. To do so, one most suffer, and if not suffer at least experience. Automated content has no experience, only the simulation of experience. And despite the multitude of stale novels and paint by numbers screenplays, there is no substitute for the expanded experience of life.

Experience builds soul. And from soul comes the heart of creation and the ring of truth and the insight conveyed by our better art. No algorithms or data banked sequence of events will ever capture the emanations of the human soul. That is to say, it may be possible to emulate sentimentality and perhaps even muster up a half decent action movie or predictable love story. But no algorithm will every explore the minute but significant differences Milan Kundera ventured forth in his “Unbearable Lightness of Being.” There will be no exploration the dark Southern History as evidenced in Faulkner. You can forget about experiencing the mad mix of mathematics, magic, passion and soul found in Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” And no set of algorithms will delve into the consciousness and subconsciousness like our good friend Borges.

“Shakespeare in Love.” It just ain’t happening. The list goes on. But by now you get the point. I do however caution that the machine, as with many archetypal science fiction work, may well take over the delivery of content. And how can that happen? When we no longer care about the quality of art. When art is so dumbed down it looks like another episode of the wonderful and predictive film “Idiocracy,” where the population has democratized to the point of abject stupidity and total acquiescence to branding and cliche`.

It could come at a time when the society as a whole proclaims as did Rhett Butler in “Gone with The Wind,” “Frankly my dear…I don’t give a damn.” When people, even the more discerning souls, can no longer qualify and distinguish good art from bad, then it really won’t matter whether content is generated by humans or by machines. We will subscribe to imprecise jargon and vague generalities. We will be colored coded people in a paint by numbers world. The quality of art we generate as a civilization will no longer serve to mark the richness of our culture. What we generate as art, simply won’t matter. And that would matter. In fact, that would be a crying shame.