http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/6394256/UFO-alert-police-officer-sees-aliens-at-crop-circle.html#

Thanks again for your help. I’ll check out williams online. I think that would be a good place for me to start.

BTW – the Ommegang Adoration is spicy and complex. Very interesting stuff.

I can’t think of anything like Hennepin that you’ll find any cheaper. But you might want to try the rest of Ommegang’s offerings if you like Hennepin and you’re looking for something new.

That said, try shopping around. Hennepin, Rare Vos and Witte were going for $5.99/750ml at Glendale Liquors in Lawrence Twp (Mercer County) today. And check the price on the four packs. I routinely see them for 7-8 bucks for almost double the volume of the 750ml bottle.

Also, Hennepin will mature a bit in the bottle, so if buying by the case is cheaper, you might want to try that.

Fair Game
If Lenders Say ‘The Dog Ate Your Mortgage’

FOR decades, when troubled homeowners and banks battled over delinquent mortgages, it wasn’t a contest. Homes went into foreclosure, and lenders took control of the property.

On top of that, courts rubber-stamped the array of foreclosure charges that lenders heaped onto borrowers and took banks at their word when the lenders said they owned the mortgage notes underlying troubled properties.

In other words, with lenders in the driver’s seat, borrowers were run over, more often than not. Of course, errant borrowers hardly deserve sympathy from bankers or anyone else, and banks are well within their rights to try to protect their financial interests.

But if our current financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that many borrowers entered into mortgage agreements without a clear understanding of the debt they were incurring. And banks often lacked a clear understanding of whether all those borrowers could really repay their loans.

Even so, banks and borrowers still do battle over foreclosures on an unlevel playing field that exists in far too many courtrooms. But some judges are starting to scrutinize the rules-don’t-matter methods used by lenders and their lawyers in the recent foreclosure wave. On occasion, lenders are even getting slapped around a bit.

One surprising smackdown occurred on Oct. 9 in federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. Ruling that a lender, PHH Mortgage, hadn’t proved its claim to a delinquent borrower’s home in White Plains, Judge Robert D. Drain wiped out a $461,263 mortgage debt on the property. That’s right: the mortgage debt disappeared, via a court order.

So the ruling may put a new dynamic in play in the foreclosure mess: If the lender can’t come forward with proof of ownership, and judges don’t look kindly on that, then borrowers may have a stronger hand to play in court and, apparently, may even be able to stay in their homes mortgage-free.

The reason that notes have gone missing is the huge mass of mortgage securitizations that occurred during the housing boom. Securitizations allowed for large pools of bank loans to be bundled and sold to legions of investors, but some of the nuts and bolts of the mortgage game — notes, for example — were never adequately tracked or recorded during the boom. In some cases, that means nobody truly knows who owns what.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/economy/25gret.html?em

Gator,

I am sooooo embarassed for you two. Admitting that you are seeking to cheap out and leave the burden of providing city government to your neighbors. There is no shame in admitting that one can not afford to live there. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek).

Recession Will Be ‘Full-Blown Depression’: Strategist

This global recession will turn into a “full-blown depression,” Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn’t come down to Main Street.

Wall Street is making money, while consumers aren’t, Harajchi told CNBC.

“We have seen the G20 coming out with cross border capital injections of $5 trillion this year… But a lot of this money hasn’t really come down to Main Street,” he said.

“When it comes down to corporate America, corporate Europe or even in Asia, in Japan, we are not seeing Main Street making any money,” he said. “Consumers are losing their jobs. They are struggling with their mortgages, with their credit. And we are just seeing this continuing.”

The $5 trillion injection is “monetary expansion,” according to Harajchi. “At some point, which we believe to be 2010/11, some of the central banks are going to recall some of that money and that will turn from monetary expansion to monetary contraction.”

He also said he doesn’t see the corporates or the public “being able to pay back that debt.”

“We see 2010 becoming a much more risky year than 2009,” he said.

snip

The Gator family is looking at their 2nd annual tax decrease due to our assessment challenges. We are now paying a bargain $12,800.