Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report

“State and federal officials are pushing a plan that could help some ‘underwater’ borrowers get refinancing assistance in the latest government bid to break a legal impasse with big banks over alleged foreclosure abuses and ease problems in the housing market,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The proposal was raised in a meeting last week between government negotiators and giant lenders as part of an effort to settle allegations of questionable foreclosure practices. Discussions are still fluid and any final outcome is uncertain. Talks between government officials and the banks are expected to continue this week.”

The rest of the article is here.

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The vocal, local hard right keeps denigrating the Occupy Wall Street protests, with Aaron Klein (elected to a nonpartisan post as a Sierra College Trustee), Barry Pruett (whose spouse works for our hard-right Congressman Tom McClintock), far-right blogger George Rebane and others weighing in. Rebane even called the protests “Obama riots — The last full measure of desperation.“

But the Occupy Wall Street protests are continuing, with the next one set for Nevada City on Oct. 19 (see flyer). A TV crew announced it is going to be there. I can’t help but think: Does extremism breed extremism? In the end, however, the “swing voters” in 2012 are going to be the independents — often moderates who are “in the middle.” This latest joust reminds me of the “push me, pull you” toys from childhood — you don’t get very far. I wonder if the two sides would ever discuss their similarities rather than their differences.

OccupyWallStreetNCOct19th-V2

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“Apple today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14,” according to a press release. “In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.”

“iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.”

Phone 4S comes in either black or white and is available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model, $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the new 64GB model.

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