To Steve Harvey: No More Jokes Denigrating Black Women

I just sent the below message to Black comedian Steve Harvey via his web site:

 

 

********  To Steve Harvey *************

 

Steve, my wife announced to me this morning that she doesn't like you any more (in spite of enjoying you on the Family Feud show) because you make negative jokes about Black women.

 

I looked to see whether you married a white woman and discovered that your wife Marjorie looks, well, mostly white, lovely on top of that.  So I guess it’s not a racial issue but one of your less-than-ideal experiences with your wives, girlfriends, and similar stories from friends.  In other words, I told my wife, you have good reason to make jokes about your wretched experiences because it’s the only way you can face your past without committing suicide over your errors.

 

However, maybe you ought to look at the plight of Black women to get a more merciful, empathetic feeling.  Why do so many act so angry?  Let’s see...  A huge percentage of young Black males get themselves killed in drive-by shootings, gang activities, and Rodney-King-style incidents.  So, Black women outnumber Black men.  Then, governments have incarcerated as many as 10% of eligible Black men at any one time. And then,  6% of eligible Black men choose non-Black mates.

 

Let us do some arithmetic. Let us estimate that the US contains 45 million Blacks, including 20 million children, leaving 25 million adults, including 14 million women and 11 million men.  660,000 of those men chose non-Black mates, and 1,100,000 sit in jail or prison.  That means 14 million Black women must share 9.2 million Black men.

 

On top of all this, scientists have proven that women of a given racial testosterone group prefer (feel naturally attracted to) men of their group or any higher testosterone group.  Racial testosterone groups rank as follows:  Most: Black, then White, then Brown (Hispanic), then Yellow (Eastern Orientals).  Aside from exceptions that always occur in any generality, that means Yellow women can lust for men of any race, leaving Yellow men to choose mates only from Yellow women (because higher testosterone group women don't feel attracted to them).  It also means the opposite in the Black race - Black women don’t generally find appealing as mates of choice any but Black men, whereas women of all races might find Black men appealing.  Thus, Black men can and do choose women of other races, but few Black women choose non-Black men as mates.

 

The generalized upshot of this reality:  Black women face a terrible paucity of Black men, AND Black women simply don’t feel attracted to (find appealing) men other than Black men (well, Klingons, maybe, but they don’t live on this world).

 

Since Black women don’t like sharing their men, ESPECIALLY NOT with women of some other racial group, and since they generally don’t care for non-Black men, 14,000,000 Black women jealously guard their interest in 9,200,000 Black men, and fight among themselves for that precious commodity.  When they must, they share.

 

And that explains why Black men generally consider themselves "itinerant sowers of seed" in the less-refined Black communities of America.  It explains why many generally "stay" but don’t "live" somewhere.  It explains why many, particularly pimps who have no shortage of charges, refer to their female intimates as "my bitches," and use that appellation to refer to women of any race not just Black women.  It shows why even Black women laugh at such references on TV shows like "In Living Color," rather than take it as a personal affront.

 

But Black women suffer terrible deprivation, most longing for a stable Black man (husband if possible) at home, permanently.  Many if not most Black children yearn for a real, live-here, Black Daddy to love and care for them and their mommy.  And most Black men have little sense of belonging anywhere, particularly not permanently "living at home" with a Black wife.  And Black families have generally become intensely matriarchal.

 

So, just because Black women can laugh at their terrible predicament does not mean you should cut into them all the way to the bone, hurting them way down deep where they can only scream in lonely silence, by poking fun at them and making them the butt of your jokes on national TV. 

 

Steve, you can remain funny and still say things to ennoble and inspire Black women, indeed ALL women, to higher standards of behavior so more of them will actually deserve the husbands for whom they yearn so hopelessly.  You can also inspire Black men, particularly leaders, to find ways to give Black children more permanent or permanent-seeming Black Daddies.  You can inspire Black men, particularly youths, to take a more respectful attitude toward woman, and see themselves as protectors and caretakers rather than merely USERS.

 

Sadly, Steve, your woman-denigrating jokes don’t accomplish that.  I encourage you to do a little soul-searching and find joke writers who can prep material for you that accomplishes GOOD while remaining funny. You could lead the way and inspire other Black comedians to follow in your GOOD footsteps.

 

Why not give it a try?  You, a comedic genius and man of goodness, can surely achieve such an ambition, can’t you?

 

Feel free to answer me personally and confidentially if you wish.

 

 

***

WARNING:  I do NOT function as  law practitioner, lawyer, licensed attorney-at-law, or legal advisor.  Construe my comments ONLY as speculation or general information, and NOT as legal advice for you or anyone else.  Consult a well-qualified attorney (good luck finding one) in all questions of legality or law.

***

Bob Hurt

Contact: Email  bh   f  t • Blogs: 1 2 3 • Law: E-letter Subscribe Donate
2460 Persian Drive #70,  Clearwater,  Florida 33763  •  727 669 5511

 

***

 

 

Bob Hurt Demands HP Live up to Customer Expectation - NO MORE JUNK

Today I sent the below message to HP CEO and President Meg Whitman's USELESS Executive Team at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/ceo/index.html.  When one of them called me the other day, I heard background babble that sounded like a Wall Street boiler room.  I spoke with three people who sounded African American, and who seemed not the least interested in making good on HP's obligation to live up to standard industry expectation regarding computer product quality, maybe because I sounded Southern and Caucasian, and they've heard the same complaint thousands of times.  

HP sold junk computers as good ones, and the junk plagued the customers with heat problems that led to destroyed components that only a component replacement could fix.  This meant years of flaky operation, loss of use, and repair costs that far exceeded the value of the system.  The Executive Team members only further tarnished HP's flagging reputation by refusing to do anything at all to gratify this one customer.  Team members insisted the product was out of warranty.  I insisted that had nothing to do with typical customer expectation that the product operate trouble free for 3 to 5 years.  They wouldn't budge, particular the one man who could have set things right, Floor Manager Garfield Wilson.


So, I decided to blow the whistle.  First I wrote this, then the message below:
http://bobhurt.blogspot.com/2011/11/hp-refuses-to-replace-s3120n-junk-they.html.

Meg Whitman:

This week I canceled an order I had placed for an HP I7 desktop computer valued at $1300 and placed an order for an similar Lenovo with more capability and features, valued at $1000.  Why?  Because I no longer trust HP to live up to customer expectation of quality and durability of HP computers.  And I now recommend to everybody who will listen that they buy anybody's computer but HP's.  Why?  Because HP refuses to apologize for delivering junk to customers and replace that junk with properly functional equipment.

In particular...

I had a dissatisfying experience with our executive team.  I explained the problem with HP insistently shipping s3120n computers with a serious design flaw related to heat sensitivity that created myriad disgruntled customers.  I demanded a replacement system even though warranty expired on the old one.  Your team refused in spite of may warning of consequences when I start blowing the whistle.  
In response, I blogged the incident at http://bobhurt.blogspot.com/2011/11/hp-refuses-to-replace-s3120n-junk-they.html and emailed a copy to the Special Agent In Charge at the Tampa FBI office.  I have suggested that the FBI lodge criminal charge against HP for Honest Services Fraud under 18 USC 1346.  HP Persons should do jail time for the recalcitrant for repeatedly using interstate communications in the racket of defrauding customers by selling them known-defective junk disguised as a pretty PC - the HP s3120n, and then refusing to show any good-faith effort to meet the standard customer expectation.  I doubt that in any single case you compensated your customers for lost use of the product and for resources wasted on tech support and warranty repairs.

I don't intend to stop blowing the whistle on HP till some corporate executive makes good regarding my complaint.  If you doubt my sincerity, Google bobhurt hp.  

https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=bobhurt+hp+

I ask you again to order your executive team to provide a replacement computer at HP expense, NOT an s3120n, but one that works.

Do I expect HP to do the "right" thing?  No.  Not unless many more people complain at the executive team (web page above) and on blogs as I have.   And ONLY if people cancel orders for HP equipment and stop buying from them till they show more responsibility to their customers for valid complaints.


In othr words, HP needs a conviction in the court of public opinion with enough noise to make their stock fall.  Then the shareholders will insist that HP fix the problem.  Then HP WILL fix it.


If you have bought HP Junk (sold with serious design or parts problems they should have caught and fixed before shipment) and HP refused to replace it with something properly functional, in or out of warranty, you have a valid reason to COMPLAIN AND COMPLAIN LOUDLY, including writing letters to your local FBI office, demanding prosecution for fraud and racketeering. 


I have filed complaint # 33656167 with the Federal Trade Commission https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov.

HP Refuses to Replace s3120n Junk They Sold

In 2007 John Proios of Clearwater, Florida, purchased a new HP Pavilion Slimline s3120n TV PC (refurb value $318 on 23 Nov 2011), a beautiful, compact desktop micro-tower powered by an Athlon dual-core CPU with 2G RAM, 320G 7200 rpm hard drive, DVD burner, built-in television tuner, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Windows Vista. 

 

John spent over $1000 on the system but he didn’t use it often.  Nevertheless, about 3 months later, the computer stopped working properly, taking several hours to boot up and show the Windows desktop.  John contacted HP support and sent the product for repair.  HP returned it in due course.  It still functioned as it had when he sent it to them.  It had become useless.

 

Like so many other computer buyers, John immigrated to the USA from Europe.  At the age of five he watched Nazi warplanes lob bombs onto his Greek island home, spent over 2 years in an Israeli refugee camp, returned home with his parents to rebuild, and made his way to seek his fortune in New York City at the age of 17.  John worked as a bookbinder and as a furrier, married, learned to play classical guitar, and in time moved to a retirement condominium in Florida.  There, knowing nothing about computers, he bought his junk HP Pavilion Slimline s3120n TV PC.

 

Instead of complaining again at HP after the company’s first failure to repair his s3120n, John set it aside and used an old laptop with a cracked screen. He bought a cheap monitor and used the laptop to play chess and conduct trade on e-Bay.  I, a 40-year computer industry veteran, met John because of our common interest in guitars.  One day about 6 months ago he asked me to look at his HP s3120n to see what I could find out. 

 

First, I tried to boot it up, but walked away in disappointment when the screen remained blank.  Hours later I returned to see a Windows Vista desktop on the screen.  I realized that the computer did work, but ran slowly.  I put in my live UBUNTU disk and booted it.  It took hours to come up, and I installed it on the hard drive.  It still took hours to work,.  That convinced me that John’s computer had a hardware problem.

 

I opened the computer and saw not a single fleck of dust.  The computer looked brand new.  Well, why wouldn’t it?  John barely used it and HP repair folks (I hope) repaired it.  I reseated the memory module and TV card and powered it up again.  As before, it took nearly forever to boot.  I concluded it needed a component change.  I visited the web to look for repair hints to corroborate my assessment. http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1AVSX_enUS383US383&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hp+s3120n+problems

 

What I saw shocked me. There in front of my eyes I saw dozens of reports of heat sensitivity in this model.  When the s3120n overheats, motherboard or other components start dying.  That means you cannot merely swap a card, chip, module, or drive.  Typically, you have to remove the plug-in components and swap the motherboard, a project that typically costs $300 to $500 for a name-brand repair company (like HP) to do.  Maintenance professionals well know that if the repair costs less than half the price of a new system, the customer will usually fall for it and buy the repair job.

 

Some of the writers concluded that the s3120n has a fatal heat sensitivity problem and went on to discuss how to cool the system.,  This one typifies them:

 

http://superuser.com/questions/194242/installing-an-additional-fan-in-an-hp-slimline-s3120n

Installing an additional fan in an HP Slimline s3120n

I've read many terrible things about this particular computer model's overheat issues. In addition, all of the dozen or so reviews I've read mention that the motherboard fries with 6-12 months of use. One guy claimed to be on his fifth mobo in less than a year.

Having just refurbished one of these puppies for my brother to use as his office PC, I'm worried, even though there's not much dust in his office and there's plenty of room around the case in all directions. I want to permanently forestall these potential overheat issues. I'm supposing the best way to do this is by installing an additional fan. The main problem so far is...

... the s3120n's case is tiny.

It seems that the only location in which an additional fan could be installed is on the side below the CPU's fan. Even then, no fan larger than 50mm is going to fit, and even a 50mm is going to be a tight squeeze against one (currently empty) card slot. Thus, I'm considering a 40mm fan like the SilenX IXP-13-14 (20mm deep), mounted on the side and pushing into the case and onto the mobo's heat dissipator (or what appears to be the mobo's heat dissipator). This would be perpendicular to the PSU's intake/exhaust fans' flow (front to back) as well as the CPU's single fan (which pulls from the front).

I'm comfortable with computers' "guts", but I've never installed a case fan. I've found no guidance online on how to install a case fan when there's no special fan-mounting location on the case, as with this surreally tiny Slimline. My current trajectory is to get the fan and install/jerry-rig it on the side using the case's many tiny side-vent holes.

Here is an HP article and video that should give an idea of this case, its dimensions, and the relative locations of its internals.

My questions are general ones: Am I on the right track? How might you, my dear saving answerer, go about this? Thank you in advance for simply bearing with my long, detailed explanation.

 

 

This Amazon.com complaint pretty well summarizes what disgruntled customers have to say:

 

http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-S3120N-Slimline-Processor/product-reviews/B000S6PLVE

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars HP s3120n runs so hot it will burn out within a year - mine did
Putting an Athlon 64 into a small form factor case is a BAD IDEA. You need laptop chipsets in a small form factor case otherwise the thermal load on the system will lead to premature failure. My s3120n is now a door-stop that will not even POST. 

This computer has inadequate cooling and runs really hot. Heat kills computer chips.

Published on August 1, 2008 by App

 

Cnet.com’s Senior Editor Matt Elliot has written this: 

 

“A typical PC should give you 3 to 5 years of good use before you need to look for a replacement or upgrades. By comparison, though a monitor loses its brightness over time, it certainly won't need to be replaced every 5 years..” http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10166_7-5543710-1.html.

 

The typical s3120n customer gets less than a year of trouble-free performance, and when it does fail after the 1-year warranty, repair becomes prohibitively costly.  Customers have a reasonable expectation that their computers will last well beyond the traditional one-year warranty, up to 5 years.  If it does not last that long and repair cost makes repair unfeasible by approaching the cost of a competitive replacement, one can reasonably assume that the manufacturer cheated the customer by delivering a substandard product, substandard according to industry standards.

 

I concluded the following as a consequence of the foregoing:

 

1.       HP employees poorly designed the s3120n, neglecting an important standard in computer construction – provision of adequate cooling. 

2.      HP employees discovered its terrible flaws during burn-in and simulated life-testing, but ignored the resulting failures, probably under some senior manager’s time pressure. 

3.      HP managers responsible for the s3120n ordered shipment of the product in spite of knowing about the heat sensitivity problem. 

4.      HP managers reasoned that they would pay for repair costs during warranty, but after one year they would ignore the fact that customers worldwide expect to get 5 to 10 years of service out of a computer without a catastrophic motherboard failure.

5.      S3120n sysrems began failing widely, but HP senior managers refused to issue a product recall notice, even though they knew that hundreds or thousands of systems would become doorstops because the customers they victimized would simply refuse to pay exorbitant repair costs.

 

I called HP support to test my theory.  The support man spoke kindly to me but resolutely insisted he could do nothing to compensate me for the junk s3120n computer John had bought on good faith.  I complained vociferously to him, explaining that I had worked in the Loveland Instrument Division of HO back in the 1970’s and that we would never subject our customers to such a cavalier distribution of known-defective products as HP did with the s3120n.  He suggested I write to the HP CEO executive team at http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/ceo/index.html.  I sent him this text, alleging I, not John, suffered loss of the computer, to conserve explanation:

 

 

I write to take issue with HP's manner of dealing with heat sensitivity of the Pavilion Slimline s3120n TV PC. I believe mine constitutes a case in point. Within the first year of use the computer became so slow that it took several hours to boot. A friend of mine had used it and set it aside for several months to use his laptop. Then he gave it to me to fix. It worked as I mentioned above. I tried reseating components. The system had no dust or debris in it because of its scant use. I googled for others with similar problems and I found several, most notably the vocal customers who wrote about it at Amazon.com, thoroughly condemning it for heat sensitivity and repeated failures after repeated repairs.

A FAQ at hp web site suggested putting a fan in it and maintaining adequate clearance around it for air flow.

I have determined that the s3120n has a serious design flaw. Components overheat because of poor circulation, probably caused by insufficient ground clearance and insufficient fans for the tight space of the ATX form-factor inside that tiny case and the powerful dual core CPU in it. But for this you would have happy customers.

I found no warnings to buyers or recall notices. I asked for some accommodation. The support person refused, politely of course, claiming expired warranty. I have concluded that HP knew of this problem after many customers complained about it, and yet swept it under the rug thankful for expired warranty. As you know everyone expects their computer to last years, not a single year. With this system, HP has cheated customers out of that expectation.

In the mid 1970's I worked for the Loveland Instrument Division in Colorado. We developed and manufactured high reliability test and measurement instruments. Our customers would have condemned us if any equipment ever operated as the s3120n has. This computer therefore constitutes a grave embarrassment to me and to HP. Unfortunately, HP behaves about this item as a bumpkin guest might who just eructed loudly at the dinner table and pretended not to smell the stench or notice the sound emanating from his body. Such behavior goes way beyond the faux pas. The embarrassment would convince all present never to invite that guest.

I know HP has lost a lot of business because of this product, owing to the incessant failure and irreparable damage to customer good will. I for one have made up my mind never to purchase another HP product UNLESS HP provides me with a suitable replacement for the s3120n, GC665AA, SN CNH78023DK, now out of warranty.

I can't fire your engineering manager, but I can fire HP and buy elsewhere while I blow the whistle far and wide about HP's dereliction of duty to its customers. I don't mean these comments as a threat, but rather as a conviction. HP has one way to remedy this aside from full refund: a replacement system with similar or better performance for my friend John Proios who suffered considerable disappointment and inconvenience, even more than I did, from the premature failure of the system.

I look forward to hearing from you. If you react ethically as we both know you should, I'll write a glowing report of your accommodation efforts, subject to your approval.

 

 

The next day I received a call from HP Case Manager Douglas, caller ID 650-857-1502, in response to the above complaint. I reiterated my complaint and asked for remedy, such as a replacement computer of some kind.  He said because of policy and warranty he couldn’t do anything about the problem.  I insisted that he bring a supervisor to the phone.  Executive case manager Jody said “there is nothing we can do – the unit is 2 years out of warranty.”  I said give me someone who can say yes, not a thousand who can only say no.  Finally, HP Escalation Department Floor Manager Garfield Wilson came to the phone, listened to my explanation and appeal, and said emphatically before hanging up on me. “We are not going to replace the unit because it is out of warranty.”  I insisted that he put the CEO on the phone.  He refused.  I alerted him that I intended to make the public aware of HP’s intentional defrauding of s3120n buyers by selling them units with known design flaws that would dramatically increase cost of ownership, and then refusing to give customers remedy outside the one-year warranty period.  He told me “Do what you have to do.”

 

I have decided to follow through on my commitment. 

 

Therefore, I hereby encourage all who feel inclined to purchase or sell Hewlett Packard brand name computers to remember the above story.  If it can happen to one model, it can happen over and over and over to innocent buyers and salespersons.  If it does, the salesperson will become complicit in a what I consider a fraud – intentional misrepresentation that results in injury and damages to the customer.  And, the customer will receive a lemon with a design flaw so bad that every one will exhibit serious performance or reliability problems that will become expensive to repair.  Such victims will expend time and money and suffer frustration because the computer will stop working, the customer will have to troubleshoot it, then call support, then do without a computer while sending it for repair.  This can happen several times during the first year.  In succeeding years, the customer will have3 to payh nearly half the product cost to repair it, then eventually give up and use it for a “boat anchor” or “doorstop”, send it to Florida for use in building an artificial reef, drop it out a 10-story building in frustration just to see it smash and scatter parts on the concrete below, or salvage any possible parts from it and sell it for scrap or trash it.

 

For all of you, why not tell HP to consider bypassing you and all that trouble, and just scrap it themselves?

 

I shall NOT KNOWINGLY PURCHASE ANOTHER HP PRODUCT OF ANY KIND, not EVER, unless HP gives me and John remedy for this outrageous dereliction of moral and ethical duty, and for our frustration, expense, and waste of parts of our lives we will never get back, all because HP employees made a business decision to cheat customers rather than conduct business honorably.

 

I encourage EVERYONE contemplating purchase of an HP computer to look to a competitive product instead.  I encourage a general boycott of HP till the CEO makes the RIGHT decision to make up to its customers for selling them junk which HP employees KNEW was junk, and using the warranty period to get out of the good faith obligation to provide computers that live up to market expectations of a  3-to-5-year useful life.

 

In my thinking, HP deserves to suffer a class-action lawsuit for fraud and racketeering for this kind of shoddy business.  I contemplate filing a criminal complaint against HP under 18 USC 1346, Honest Services Fraud.  Remember Enron?  The DOJ prosecuted CEO Skelling for Honest Services Fraud, and won a conviction.  He deceived shareholders about the value of the corporation.  HP cheated customers out of millions of dollars by selling systems with known n flaws -  the Paviloion Slimline s1320n TV PC, a truly good-looking, but terrible computer and bad investment.   I encourage all others affected by the shoddy quality of the s1320n to file a complaint, too, or to fight back through boycott and exposure of the fraud, or both..

 

 

Think about this:  HP sold the product under a one year limited warranty, but industry consumers expect computers to last 3 to 5 years.  Didn’t HP have the legal duty to inform customers that it had a 3 to 6 month Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)?  I say yes, they had that duty, and all computer makers have it.  If they don’t fulfill that duty, and they sell their known-junk to unsuspecting, trusting consumers, take customer money, full price, as they would for a properly designed computer, and the computer then breaks repeatedly, requiring warranty repair, and keeps breaking likewise after warranty does that not injure the consumer?  Does the unnecessary expense not constitute damage?  Does the failure to give notice, the sale, and the damage not constitute fraud on the part of the manufacturer?  Think about it. Then contact an attorney for remedy.

 

 

***

WARNING:  I do NOT function as  law practitioner, lawyer, licensed attorney-at-law, or legal advisor.  Construe my comments ONLY as speculation or general information, and NOT as legal advice for you or anyone else.  Consult a well-qualified attorney (good luck finding one) in all questions of legality or law.

***

Bob Hurt

Contact: Email  bh   f  t • Blogs: 1 2 3 • Law: E-letter Subscribe Donate
2460 Persian Drive #70,  Clearwater,  Florida 33763  •  727 669 5511

 

***

Morgan and Morgan inquiry ID number is 166500.

Please forward to Meg Whitman, CEO & President, HP

New Adverse Possession Links and Forum

Click Here for the QR code for adverse possession related links. 

 

I have published AP articles at http://bobhurt.blogspot.com.However I have created new links for Adverse Possession:

 

·         AP at patriotplatz.com – write for info about AP or to pose questions/comments

·         http://groups.google.com/group/adversepossession - new google group : subscribe now

·         http://aplag.wordpress.com – New blog.  I’ll migrate my articles to it.

·         http://aplag.info – web site not yet created, but coming soon to register

 

 

Adverse possessors and advocates need to engage in political action and litigation to make the Government clarify and respect AP rights.  If you want to join in this effort, click here to send email and subscribe to the AP discussion group by sending email to this address:

 

AdversePossession+subscribe@googlegroups.com

 

 

***

WARNING:  I do NOT function as  law practitioner, lawyer, licensed attorney-at-law, or legal advisor.  Construe my comments ONLY as speculation or general information, and NOT as legal advice for you or anyone else.  Consult a well-qualified attorney (good luck finding one) in all questions of legality or law.

***

Bob Hurt

Contact: Email  bh   f  t • Blogs: 1 2 3 • Law: E-letter Subscribe Donate
2460 Persian Drive #70,  Clearwater,  Florida 33763  •  727 669 5511

 

***

 

 

Bridge named in honor of educator Bevil Jarrell - Monday, June 20, 2011 - Copyright 2007 Ourtribune.com

Bridge named in honor of educator Bevil Jarrell - Monday, June 20, 2011 - Copyright 2007 Ourtribune.com

I shall love Bevil Jarrell forever for setting me straight young in life. God has preserved a part of him on this world in the heart and mind of every one of his students throughout his coaching and teaching career at Humble High School.

County Clerks Sue MERS in a Lost Cause

County Clerks Suing MERS/MERSCORP in a Lost Cause

9 November 2011 by Bob Hurt

The following news stories explain the Florida Duval County Clerk lawsuit against MERS and MERSCORP.

• http://www.mortgageservicingnews.com/dailybriefing/2010_471/fla-clerk-del-ag-sue-mers-1027375-1.html#.Trm_SSxjslk.twitter
• http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/dailybriefing/2010_471/fla-clerk-del-ag-sue-mers-1027375-1.html

The lawsuit complains: 

“MERS has usurped the rights and privileges of the Florida Clerks of Court by establishing, maintaining and inducing lenders to use its private recording system, which unlawfully interferes and competes with the public recording system.”

The clerk alleged that both the note and mortgage must go on the county record.  MERS attorney rebutted the complaint, claiming inaccuracy, and said MERS owns the mortgage and no law require the recording of a note.

I agree with MERS, but I also think the squabble could result in a beneficial change in the laws.

I consider this the core problem:  Smart people will always seek ways to keep their wealth while taking the wealth of others, particularly the stupid.  This case merely punctuates the problem.

Furthermore, Government operatives incessantly try to invade privacy rights of the people, and requiring the recordation of notes would reveal wealth in a way that would definitely invade privacy.

Most importantly, Florida law does not give the Clerk the authority to require recordation of notes. Florida statute 28.222 lists all the instruments the Clerk (County Clerk or Clerk of Courts) must record.  Notes do not appear in the list.  28.2222 (3) (h) names “Any other instruments required or authorized by law to be recorded.” 

Additionally, one’s possession of the note, or one’s name on the note or an allonge as beneficiary or assignee, proves one’s beneficial interest in the note, such as a stream of repayments.  Any law requiring recordation of notes would impose an undue burden on commerce and unduly enrich the Clerk.

Imagine the insanity of filing every issuance of every Federal Reserve Note with a Clerk, and paying associated fees to the clerk.  The Clerk has neither a right nor a privilege to record notes, nor a right to receive fees related to registration of the notes with MERS.

Society’s big problem with recordation of notes lies in the mess caused by promissory notes  (“Notes), mortgage security instruments (“Mortgages”), securitization, and  mortgage foreclosures. 

The mortgage loan borrower signs a Mortgage when buying a house.  The Mortgage contains language that protects the lender and abuses the borrower through rights-stripping.  Borrowers almost never read it.  If they did, and they thought about it, they might wonder why they need to convey the realty to the lender as part of the mortgage.

That conveyance makes the lender the legal owner of the realty.  It also implies that the “loan” consists of the realty, not the alleged money which the borrower allegedly borrowed and typically never sees.  Instead, the closer hands the purchase check directly to the seller.  In effect, the lender bought the realty and lent it to the borrower.

This makes the typical closing into a scam that leaves the borrower owning nothing but a debt, equitable interest in the realty, and the obligation to maintain and insure it. 

Neither the Note nor the Mortgage contain language requiring the lender or assignee to keep the note and mortgage united as one package of documents, nor to return the Note and Mortgage security instrument to the borrower upon satisfaction of the terms of the Note.  The borrower typically relieves the lender of the obligation both to inform the borrower of every assignment of the note, and to comply with the UCC’s notice and demand cycle.  Worst of all, no language in the Note actually conveys the Note to the lender, and yet lenders sell and securitize the note as though it constitutes their own chattel, depriving the borrower of all the fruits of such conversion.

Various rumors and facts surround the mystery of what happens to the physical Note after the borrower signs it at closing.  These have caused confusion so great that the mishandling of notes confounds judges in the real estate trial courts across America.  For decades, lenders or assignees held the notes securely in vaults and never brought them to court or the trustee in foreclosure matters.  They merely provided proof of loan payments and a copy of the note to prove its existence.

When challenged for the original, they claimed they had lost or accidentally destroyed the note, and maybe they did.  In recent years when the foreclosures began to mount and defendants demanded to see the original note, plaintiffs magically found them.  Companies like DOCX specialized in re-creating “original” loan documents, a crime for which no court has yet punished anyone.

Now, amidst all this confusion, county clerks have started suing MERS in an effort to stop MERS from registering note assignments, and to force the assignees to file the assignment along with any changes in the mortgage with the county clerk, and to pay corresponding recordation fees.  This would of course bring a windfall of much-needed money into the court coffers.

But, as I have explained, that would constitute malfeasance, invasion of privacy, and a ball and chain on the ankle of commerce.

The assignment-in-blank and bearer instruments like bonds and currency constitute an additional major fly in the ointment of the clerks’ nefarious scheme to record notes.  If they get their way, people will, out of logical consistency, have to record every I.O.U., promissory note, bond purchase, and currency transaction, even when it does not relate to a mortgage.

For further consistency, people might also have to record purchases and transfers of chattel, and pay a corresponding fee.  This would amount to a tax on all commerce, on top of existing luxury tax, sales tax, and other excise taxes.  The clerks would have a monumental, new outrage from the public to deal with, a brand new justification for a Boston Tea Party uprising.

In addition, the clerks don’t seem to grasp the significance of MERS and MERSCORP.  The MERS concept started because lenders wanted it and funded it so they could keep track of notes and simplify foreclosures while reducing the cost of assigning notes.  All major lenders own shares in MERSCORP for that reason.  Thus, MERSCORP operates as their special-purpose alter-egos with perfect legitimacy.

For the foregoing reasons, I predict that the clerks will lose and lose badly in their effort to force note assignees to record the assignment and pay a fee for it.  They will fail in their effort to shut down the legitimate operation of MERS.

However, MERS does cause a certain problem.  When the holder of the note and the mortgagee sue under separate names to foreclose, they have no standing to force a foreclosure sale of the mortgaged realty.  These points explain why. 

1.       The holder named on the note or allonges has the right to foreclose the note, but because the mortgage bears the servicer’s name (MERS) as mortgagee, and not the holders, the holder has no authority to force a sale UNLESS the holder has made the mortgagee the holder’s agent for that purpose.  That almost never happens.

2.       The mortgagee (MERS) has no standing to sue to force the foreclosure sale because the borrower’s failure to make timely mortgage payments injured only the holder, not the mortgagee.  Only injured parties have the right to sue.

If these sticky issues become salient in the clerk’s lawsuit against MERS, maybe the legislature will take the hint and clarify the issue in statutes that prevent splitting the note from the mortgage.  This would force the assignees of the note to file and pay a recording fee.   I doubt that will happen, however.  The lenders could combine the note and mortgage in a single document, but for a variety of sound reasons chose not to.

Bob Hurt    bh   Blog 1  2  3 • Email    f      t

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Elucidation on "What is a Human" and the Bible

With respect to my  What Is A Human commentary (see text below), Scott wrote:


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Bob,

Respectfully, you are entitled to your opinion, however until you or anyone else in this world can create the living and breathing things we have in the world , God is still God and his word stands true. The reason the world is in the mess it is in is because man wants to put his spin on Godly issues. 

Humbly,

Scott
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I do my best to answer Scott fairly:


Dear Scott:

LIVING?  BREATHING?  Well, I guess you just made my point, Scott.  If a genetic entity doesn’t live and breathe, we cannot rightly call it “human” can we?

Moreover, as I pointed out in my comments, a human does not merely breathe.  It must also enjoy sentience, and demonstrate personality – show self-awareness, and at least the incipient ability to make moral decisions, communicate ideals with other persons, love other persons, and crave to know God.  These incipient abilities do not exist in certain sub-humans like the worst with Down syndrome, and they most likely will not survive to attain any level of Heaven.  When they die they will have no more chance of going to Heaven than dogs have, and so we should not consider them “human.”  Because of that and the fact that normal people will abuse them unless protected, they will become a net burden on society forever, and they represent a danger to society, women pregnant with them should abort them in every instance.

If we attach undue moral significance to aborting subhumans, we will also attach undue moral significance to preventing conception of subhumans and defective, degenerate, inferior types, such as the 85 million people in America with IQ below 85.  Such people will never graduate from high school.  They become victims of nearly all smarter people.  They make notoriously bad decisions and gravitate to crime and welfare abuse to get by.  They terribly burden society’s infrastructures related to welfare, education, housing, health care, and criminal justice.  They dramatically reduce the GNP both by burdening infrastructures and having low value of productivity.

If indeed a millennium ever arrives (as in the Bible's book of Revelations) such people will obviously not survive to experience it because of their tendency toward indigence, irresponsibility, lifelong dependence on others for subsistence, and crime.  Sooner or later, all enlightened societies get rid of them through abortion, and through sterilization of the stupid and inferior so such prospective parents cannot procreate similarly feckless innocents.

Word of God?

You mentioned God’s word.  WHAT word?  According to whom?  213 years ago Thomas Paine began publishing his Age of Reason volumes in which he cited the Bible’s own statements to prove its errancy, fallibility, and contradictions, and to refute its authenticity, showing it as a collection of spurious works by a wide array of unknown authors.

Furthermore, any reader can clearly see that much of the bible consists either of letters with either unknown or unreliable authorship based on ZERO divine authority, or of the secular history of the Hebrews/Jews which ought to stand alone, apart, and separate from purported religious or inspirational writings.  And as you well know, part of the Bible, the Song of Solomon in particular, consists of ancient prurient or erotic literature, the "porn” of that day.  You can hardly consider this as rightly belonging to the so-called Word of God.  And hey, even Jesus complained that nobody could live up to all of the Jewish laws, so how COULD they have such merit as to warrant our adherence?

I do not mean by my comments to insinuate that the Bible does not provide spiritually inspirational content or relevant moral guidance.  I mean to assert that

·         we ought to view it as a banquet feast with a table containing food prepared by primitive chefs ignorant of man’s nutritional needs, as well as by modern chefs and nutritionists.  We ought to know better than to eat cave-man food or eat the plates, silverware, tablecloth, and centerpiece. 

·         We ought to know that as a historical work it reveals the evolution of the concept of God among primitive people, not the evolution of God himself.  For example

o   early Hebrews saw Yaweh as their vengeful, jealous, tribal deity among other less powerful deities,

o   later Hebrews saw him as the ONLY God,

o   still later Hebrew prophets like the Isaiahs saw him as a God of love,  and

o   Jesus of Nazareth boldly proclaimed him as our loving, wise Heavenly Father whom we should love and emulate, a reality that neither Jews nor Muslims nor fundamentalist Christians have yet fully grasped.

We have stood by while ancient and modern preacher/teachers have perverted and polluted the beautiful Gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus of Nazareth both taught and lived.  We have idly or supportively watched today’s preachers browbeat children into accepting Jesus as a savior through his crucifixion as a human sacrifice to appease God so that God might willingly forgive his earthly children of their petty sins, even though Jesus himself never taught such an illogical and wretched notion about God’s relationship with his children.  We now bear the cross of reforming Christianity so that it will abandon such nonsense and return to the real gospel of Jesus, which I shall recite in a nutshell for you because I know you don’t know it.  I do this because I know you probably believe the red words of Jesus in the Bible BEFORE you believe anything else in it, and you probably accept him as the ultimate authority on the Gospel, above everyone else, including Saul/Paul.

The Real Gospel

Jesus taught that every faith-son of God will, by embracing sonship with God, strive to show his wise and loving nature to others through sincere daily living – pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness through love, mercy, and ministry to others.  He asserted this in the following tenets of the Gospel:

1.       Fatherhood of God.  Acceptance of the reality of the sovereignty of God – he is our Heavenly Father, he loves us, we are his children, and we ought to love and spiritually emulate him;

2.      Brotherhood of Man.  Belief in the truth of the brotherhood of man – we are the brothers and sisters of our fellow humans and others of God’s willed creatures, and we should love and forgive them, and serve them unselfishly and lovingly;

3.      Becoming like God.  Faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do the will of our Heavenly Father – to become LIKE him through sincere, moment-by-moment striving to do what we consider most right.

The Great Commission

Scott, I encourage you to share these saving truths with others as I do and as Jesus commanded his followers to do, for these constitute the real “Word of God.”

I do appreciate your response to my comments, for it shows that you have deep feelings about the issues.  I did not respond to you on the Lawmen group because I made my message a little religious, and it might seem that I hold Christianity in disdain, which I do not.  I merely expect all Christians to take seriously and sincerely the messages in Jesus’ life and teachings, even though they get the story from a source long and widely known to contain errors, editorializations, contradictions, and false credentials.


Bob Hurt

 ***********************  For Reference, the source article **********

Proponents of Mississippi’s 8 Nov 2011 ballot measure “Proposition 26” seek to define the term person to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization.”  The proposition impacts a pregnant woman’s access to health care, including abortion. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released an opposition statement calling the proposition “vague and overly broad”.

I don’t believe personhood begins till the Heavenly Father bestows the personality upon the child, whether that happens in our out of the womb.  I believe the seven

adjutant mind spirits must first become functional in the mind so that personality bestowal will have meaning and function.  The spirits go by the names

• intuition,
• understanding,
• courage,
• knowledge,
• counsel,
• worship, and
• wisdom

Personality has qualities including

• Self-consciousness – awareness of awareness,
• Ability to exercise moral will – to choose between right and wrong,
• Ability to communicate thoughts, ideas, and ideals to other persons,
• Ability to desire to do good to others – to love, and
• Ability to crave to know God and to grow to know him,

I do not know how much of the brain must function, nor in what way, before the adjutant mind spirits can function in association with it.  I imagine it must become sufficiently developed for the baby to seek nourishment before the Father bestows personality upon the genetic entity.

The typical child does not exercise moral will (begin to exhibit wisdom) until the fifth year of life.  So, I don’t believe minimal personhood requires full exercise of the prerogatives of personality.  Since premature babies can survive with care and nourishment, I believe it safe to say that a baby does not have to experience natural birth in order to become human. 

However, if a baby cannot survive outside the womb at some age with personality prerogatives intact, regardless of the care given, and become a normal human, then that baby does not have the requisite characteristics of a human being with real personality.  And, neither government nor people should not seek to keep it alive if the mother dies while pregnant. Nor should government confer personhood status on such an entity.

I believe we should exercise common sense in determining when human life starts, such as by the above factors.  I do not believe conception constitutes the beginning of human life, nor that a human zygote or embryo constitutes a “human.”

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Bob Hurt    bh  Blogs 1 2 3 • Email • Law • Donate    f      t 
2460 Persian Drive #70, Clearwater, Florida 33763 •727 669 5511

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