Earlier this month, the Center for Responsible Lending put out a study asserting that the foreclosure crisis is only half over. We got some more data from the Case-Shiller report showing declining home prices and over 10.7 million mortgages under water.

A variety of links to articles and interviews on current topics that may, or may not, be of interest.

For the past six hours, it has been clear that the LAPD was building up for a raid on Occupy LA tonight. The biggest hint was the decision to hold a lottery for press that would be allowed into a “pool” that would be protected and allowed on the scene during the raid. Any media not in the “pool” would likely face arrest if they did not disperse from the area when police began to move in to make arrests.

NOTE: The situation at various #Occupy locations is still being covered here. The entire purpose of Herman Cain’s candidacy — making money on the right-wing punditry circuit — has pretty much been fulfilled. So why not get out? It all depends on when the most profitable time of departure is, and whether there is a [...]

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band — Merry Christmas Baby, on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, December 12, 2002.

My, my Santa, what a big gun you have! A Scottsdale, Arizona gun club will let families pose with fully automatic assault weapons for their holiday Christmas cards. And Fox’s “funny” news commentators sure enjoyed it (though there was some debate about the appropriateness of the photo they couldn’t/wouldn’t show which not only featured young children, but Daddy pointing a gun at Mommy’s head).

Under the LAPD’s guidelines, the OccupyLA media team–which includes photographers, videographers, livestreamers and reporters is not credentialed.

There is no Spanish-language media in the pool in a city where 4.7 million people are Spanish speaking. As Monday morning’s midnight-plus-one deadline drew near, there were news crews from the BBC and a Tokyo station present, as well as KMEX (Spanish language). I saw KTLA which was live streaming and had a helicopter overhead, KNBC, KABC, KCBS/KCAL and stringers in unmarked vans. Reporters I ran into included ones from the LA Times and USC’s Daily Trojan, and dozens of people live streaming and taking pictures for blogs and independent media. Oh and Andrew Breitbart was there talking to some dudes with scarves over their faces.

How do you spot the fringe candidate when they’re ALL fringe candidates?

It appears that the helpful assistant, Siri, who lives in your shiny new iPhone 4S might be anti-choice.

Kamran Loghman, the developer of weapons-grade pepper spray and the policy for its use by US police departments, appeared on Democracy Now! to condemn how police forces have been using pepper spray on peaceful protesters in the country.