Author: Joey deVilla

First, a warning to owners of real estate: if you have tenants, this series of photos is going to give you nightmares.

Here’s the text from a posting on a forum at Houston-Imports.com:

This has nothing to do with the Hurricane. We had a resident who had an outstanding balance for over a month and no one could get ahold of her. The Bookkeeper went inside after so many tries to leave a note and this is what we found:

I’ve posted some of the photos below. For the whole set, go see the original posting.

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Here’s the entrance. This does not bode well…

In the living room, we see that the if you remove the middle cushion from a couch, you’ve got a handy built-in trash can. And who needs an ashtray when you’ve got an armrest?

If you thought that the living room was loaded with trash, it’s nothing compared to the bedroom.

Here’s the computer. It looks as though the tenant uses the mouse way more than they keyboard.

I’ve saved the worst for last: the bathroom. The toilet looks out of commission, which probably means that the bucket was its replacement.

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According to the post, there are supposed to be two cats in the apartment, but they haven’t been able to find them. Needless to say, the stench is powerful.

How do people end-up living like this? Mental illness? Crystal meth? Extreme laziness?

I think that this cat is about as close as we’ll get to a real-life Bill the Cat (without animal abuse, anyway):

This one’s from The Week:

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Here’s one from the webcomic Sinfest that takes a cue from the film Titanic to remind us that the rich will go on:

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Here’s one featuring a name that you should familiarize yourself with: Phil Gramm.

He was an official economic advisor to the McCain campaign — at least until he called America “a nation of whiners” in an attempt to downplay the idea that the country was in a recession. He’s also one of the guys behind the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which led to the deregulation of the banking industry that led to the current crisis.

He’s still with the campaign on an unofficial basis and often travels with McCain. McCain also drops his name whenever questions of economics come up.

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And finally, a poke at Reagan’s joke “The nine most terrifying in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”

Chart courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Seen outside the head shop/furniture/jewelery store Shanti Baba on Queen Street West:

Photo by your ‘umble accordionist.

Is “Mike Litoris” (say it out loud a couple of times) his real name, or was he just having fun with a TV News reporter? I just can’t tell anymore…

Mike Litoris is looking a little droopy. Perhaps Mike Litoris needs a little stimulation. Do you know where Mike Litoris is?

SFGate’s Culture Blog has more details on Mike Litoris.

(Yes, it’s from 2006, but it’s making the rounds right now.)

I’ve been thinking that sooner or later, someone’s going to have to take the blame for the credit crisis. Of the people involved, the easiest target are the poor: the people who took out subprime mortgages and then defaulted on them. They’re not organized and don’t have much in the way of media representation, and would thus make the perfect scapegoat. I was wondering why none of the talking heads or representatives of the banks had gone after the poor yet.

I was wrong: Larry Kudlow blamed the poor in a roundabout way, pointing the finger at Congress, who “forced” banks into giving subprime loans to people who’d never be able to pay them back. What’s even more surprising is that MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called him out on it:

The fact that bankers had an ironically humourous term for high-risk customers — NINJAs (short for No INcome, Jobs or Assets) should be a tip-off to you that they were a necessary part of their get-rich-quick scheme. Their debts were terrible investments that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on, but when used as “filler” for packages that contained much better investments, they could create investment vehicles with triple-A ratings, which would then sell at a huge markup. Think of it as being like an unscrupulous butcher in the old days: he can make a more money by making sausages out of sawdust with just enough meat to hide the taste rather than making sausages entirely out of meat.

(I posted an explanation of how subprime sausages were made in this entry.)

Crooks and Liars and Oliver Willis have more to say on the Kudlow piece.