Old Navy Salt

Subject: Fwd: Old Navy Salt
This is forwarded only to those who will "get it."

The Navy Peacoat, I know that they don't issue them like they did in 1962...Those sonsuvabitches weighed two tons and were ALL WOOL...It took the entire wool production of thirty seven sheep over two years to make. They were the equivalent of a four-inch thick lead kimono. You could stand out in a driving rain and they could soak up thirty gallons of rainwater and become so heavy that your ankles broke and your femurs would punch their way through your pelvis. They came with two lined very warm pockets. And some REALLY stupid bastard in the Navy came up with a goofy uniform reg that forbid a sailor with frost bitten fingers from putting his hands in his pockets...Then the Navy created ratings called Boiler Tenders, Postal Clerks and Personnelman, who when they reached E-6, were handed a white belt and a Billy-club an SP armband and put the bastards in bus and train stations to walk around saying, "Hey Sailor...Get yer hands outta them pockets!" Then you ended up at Captain’s Mast and risked having your hands surgically removed so that you would not repeat the offense.
Take a look at the statue of the Lone Sailor in the memorial plaza down on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC...THE SAILOR HAS HIS HANDS IN HIS PEACOAT POCKETS...wonder what the jerk who made up the stupid regulation thinks every time he sees it? They actually keep a Navy nurse on duty to revive shore duty CPO's who pass out when they see that statue..."Oh my God...That bluejacket has his hands in HIS POCKETS." None of the sonsuvabitches ever hitchhiked home in February in single digit temperatures.
I once saw a modern peacoat...some Dacron and wonder fiber composition lightweight thing that remotely resembling an old time peacoat but weighing the same as a Victoria Secrets teddy...Why do they do it? Turned out cheap crap with severely reduced spec requirements and terribly reduced efficiency?
To say nothing of this idiotic seagoing aguaflage (stupid camouflage) to be worn by sailors...mark my word, American bluejackets are going to be laughed at and embarrassed by the ridicule if that silly Madison Avenue female dreamed up fashion statement ever gets issued...God help the poor bastard who goes overboard in a sea state with whitecaps. When they pass MAN OVERBOARD simply draw a line through his name on the WATCH, QUARTER AND STATION BILL...and pack the contents of his locker.
At some point, the Navy is going to find itself with a big cajones CNO...who is going to put his bluejackets back in uniforms dating back to the days when the United States Navy only knew VICTORY and never dined on the bitter tasting fruit of loss and defeat, endless go-nowhere wars...ass kickings and sitting duck duty chasing animals who have no fear of death. Once you start dressing sailors in carnival clown suits, things referred to as poopie suits and shitcan the uniforms worn by men who wore the WWII Victory medals (last VICTORY medals issued) and the sailors referred to THE GREATEST GENERATION you simply reinforce the loser culture...
You begin to gentle and socially refine the mixed gender sensitized force and put your forces in Girl Scout beanies and sloppy baggy pajamas with boots that no longer require shining...you lose the cockiness and "devil take the hindmost" attitude that characterized our military forces. In the days before this wonderful nation had to bribe its' manhood to fill the ranks, with money pan-handled from the Chinese...the same bastards that put the shrapnel in many of the vets suffering in VA hospitals (Whatever happened to financing wars by the issuance of WAR BONDS where AMERICANS and only Americans benefited from the interest involved in repayment? We wouldn't be in the shape we're in if we hadn't turned inherently military functions over to profit incentivized contractors, hired mercenary thugs, paid foreign contractor created police forces and Iraqi and Afghani Poor Quality Military Forces filled with terrorist sympathizers and people whose loyalty is to the highest bidder.
When did you hear of Naval Studies on the competence of present leadership like our Navy is currently involved in? All we need to do, is to bring back the two ton peacoat...bell bottoms, low jumpers...spit shined shoes...cocky looking white hats with wings and worn cocked over one eye or on the back of your head...allow bare breasted girls in ships insignias...beer ballgames...pier dumpster nightly conferences.... slush funds...frayed white hats...faded dungaree shirts, soft dungaree trousers...red lead and zinc chromate spattered Mammy Yoakum’s...and greasy snake neckerchiefs and simply "let sailors be sailors" and forge the sacred traditional bonds of becoming shipmates over beers consumed in seaport dumps from Hell to Hong Kong...and stop paying sonsuvabitches to join the finest organization on the face of God's earth...THE UNITED STATES NAVY...And oh yeah, don’t forget some Painless Nell Tattoos!

Jolly Roger 14 out

So this is where the housing idiocy got some help

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: (September 30, 1999 NY Times article)

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

Hat-tip to Atilla

Jolly Roger 14 out

Happy 10th Impeachment Day President Clinton

The President of the United States Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, and acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. The charges, perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power arose from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Paula Jones law suit. The trial proceedings were largely party-line, with no Democratic Senators voting for conviction and only five Democratic Representatives voting to impeach. In all, 50 senators voted not guilty, and 45 voted guilty on the obstruction charge. The Senate also acquitted on the charge of perjury with 50 votes cast as not guilty, and 50 votes as guilty. It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, following the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

JR14 out

Battle of the Bulge

On this day, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a "bulge" around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.
One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers - even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times - by answering questions about football and Betty Grable - before being allowed to pass a sentry point.
The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war's end, "Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded." The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.
The war would not end until better weather enabled American aircraft to bomb and strafe German positions.

JR14 out