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I’m the last hand on deck as we finish up the opening day wrap; if you want to celebrate Jason Heyward’s(notes) fantastic debut, go here; if you want to marvel at Mark Buehrle’s(notes) Globetrotter act, click here. Otherwise, let’s take a look at a glorious first full day of action and see what’s moving and shaking on the roto landscape.

The optimist looks at Carlos Gomez(notes) and wants to see another Michael Bourn(notes) make-good story. The realist concedes that we’re probably looking at this year’s Tuffy Rhodes Award Winner.

Gomez was one of the surprise stars of opening day, collecting four hits (including a homer) and a stolen base in Monday’s loss to Colorado. And the snappy debut came on the heels of an exciting spring (.301 average, 11 steals in 11 attempts). He’s going to get a shot at the No. 2 position in the Milwaukee lineup, and it looks like Gomez will have the green light on the bases anytime he wants it. All sounds great, doesn’t it?

Ah, but there’s an ugly flip side to consider here. Gomez has long been known as a player with no patience or pitch recognition skills at the dish; he sees the ball, he hacks at the ball. His putrid on-base percentage (.292) forced him out of Minnesota, and Gomez didn’t show any improved patience during March (just two walks). Bourn’s reinvention last year came through a series of important changes – better pitch selection, more balls on the ground; conversely, Gomez’s big Monday was all about swinging from the heels at the first pitch available (he took a cut on 8-of-13 pitches, and look at his pose above – you can almost hear him saying "yeah, I’m a slugger"). You could make the argument that the home run Gomez hit was the worst possible result for him long term; it’s going to reinforce bad habits.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make a short-team pickup with Gomez; for all of his offensive flaws, he is capable of stealing 40 or more bases over a full season. And you never know, perhaps a fast start could turn him into a trading chip, depending on the quality and sophistication of your league. Just keep in mind that Monday’s results didn’t show a change in offensive philosophy, and this is a player that’s desperately needed one for a while.

• Monday was a fairly clean day from the closers but we didn’t get away completely unscathed; Jason Frasor(notes) has the first ninth-inning meltdown of the year, falling apart in Arlington (0.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R). Scott Downs(notes) breezed through the eighth inning on just 11 pitches (eight strikes) and probably is Toronto’s best reliever pitcher on raw skills, but Kevin Gregg(notes) is also around and might be more attractive as a potential closer because he’s right handed (never mind that he’s not as good as the other two options here). It’s probably 50-50 at best that any of these three guys manages to get to 20 saves when it’s all said and done.

• Ryan Franklin(notes) came out for an inning of work in Cincinnati; he was in line for a save chance until Yadier Molina(notes) counterfeited things with his grand slam in the top of the ninth. Franklin had just about nothing on his cutter and the Reds hit him pretty sharply (3 H, 2 R); Brandon Phillips(notes) laced a two-run double to center that probably dented the ball.

If you’re hedging against Franklin (and really, who isn’t?), please note that Jason Motte(notes) struggled in the seventh (one run, two outs, three baserunners) while Kyle McClellan(notes) was ordinary in the eighth (1 H, 1 BB, 2 K, an unearned run). The fact that McClellan got the eighth-inning assignment in the first place is worth noting; the Cardinals aren’t afraid to close with a non-name brand (like Franklin last year) and Motte’s still a work-in-progress in a lot of ways (heck, he’s only been pitching since 2006).

• I’ve never really been a Casey Kotchman(notes) fan, but if he’s going to bad third most of the year behind Ichiro Suzuki(notes) and Chone Figgins(notes), maybe something interesting will happen. The table setters got on base four times in Oakland (one hit, three walks, plus three steals) and Kotchman made the most of it, collecting two hits and four RBIs. Location, location, location.

• Garrett Jones(notes) homered on his first two at-bats and they both made a statement about his game; make a mistake over the plate and he’s capable of splashing into the river, and even if you work away from him, he’s got enough power to find the seats. He’ll probably see a lot more off-speed stuff as the season goes along, but he’s no longer a secret to anyone, teams had a full offseason to consider how to get this guy out. His average will probably fall 20-30 points from last year, but 25-30 homers looks like a sure thing to me.

Handshakes: Franklin Morales(notes) allowed a couple of absolute rockets in the ninth inning at Milwaukee but survived (thanks, Troy Tulowitzki(notes)). … Brian Fuentes(notes) was surprisingly tidy putting down the Twins in order. Fernando Rodney(notes) got through the eighth as only he can; working a scoreless inning despite throwing just 3-of-10 pitches for strikes. … Piece of cake for David Aardsma(notes), getting the A’s in order and recording two strikeouts. Andrew Bailey(notes) worked on the other side and needed 16 pitches to record one out, albeit a Kevin Kourmanoff error extended the inning. … Frank Francisco(notes) struck out two of the four Blue Jays he faced, then picked up a victory when Frasor imploded in the bottom of the ninth. … The perennially-underrated Brian Wison closed up with two outs in Houston, made necessary after Brandon Medders(notes) ran into trouble.

Speed Round: Shaun Marcum(notes) was the early story of the day, taking a no-hitter into the seventh at Texas before the Rangers caught up to him (Nelson Cruz(notes) eventually squared the game with a three-run moonshot). Marcum’s a nice story off Tommy John surgery, but I’m not betting on AL East pitchers for mixed-league play unless they’re All-Star quality. If I were doing a pitcher Shuffle Up and Deal right this second, I wouldn’t go past $5 on Marcum. … It’s a little surprising Felix Hernandez(notes) couldn’t completely dispatch of that pedestrian Athletics lineup (everyone starting for Oakland should be batting first, sixth or ninth; the middle of the order is embarrassingly weak). … Ubaldo Jimenez(notes) might have pitched better than his line suggests (6 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 6 K) and it’s interesting to note that the Brewers could’t stop praising his nasty stuff after the game. Yahoo’s Jeff Passan tabs Jimenez to win the Cy Young this year. … Carlos Gonzalez(notes) was nabbed on his stolen-base attempt but that was just about the only thing that went wrong for him during a 4-for-5 opener with two runs scored. Now let’s hope Jim Tracy gives Cargo a chance to play against all kinds of pitching, as he deserves. … The Mets have plenty to feel good about with their opener (David Wright(notes) homered, Johan Santana(notes) was sharp), but it’s hard to feel good about a lineup that uses Mike Jacobs(notes) in the cleanup spot (0-for-4, 2 Ks).

Nothing about Philly’s romp in Washington comes as a surprise; here’s a look at the crooked numbers. Ryan Howard(notes) tends to struggle with hard-throwing lefties, but the soft-tossing John Lannan(notes) didn’t fool him in the fourth inning. … Drew Stubbs(notes) didn’t start for the Reds but he made an impact later in the game (2-1-2-1). … Vernon Wells(notes) broke a lot of hearts in 2009, in part because he was playing with a bad wrist. He sure looked healthy in Texas (three hits, including a homer). … Tim Lincecum(notes) mowed down the Astros and Dan Haren(notes) toyed with the Padres, to the surprise of no one. Good work if you can get it. … Carlos Zambrano(notes) didn’t have a thing in Atlanta (1.1 IP, 8 ER) but he made good on his promise to be more in control of his emotions; he did not attack the Gatorade bucket in the dugout. Lou Piniella seemed to take Chicago’s ass-kicking in stride as well. … I’ve run out of words to describe the awesomeness of Albert Pujols(notes), so you can take up that chore in the comments. Welcome back, baseball.

Article Tags: Joe Bastardi, Reply To Article

AccuWeather’s Senior Long Range Meteorologist. Bastardi is responding to this New Yorker article (Up in the Air by Elizabeth Kolbert) on him and other skeptics.

We finally have an objective way of measuring temps, and they are obviously afraid that their answer is wrong.

I am growing weary of stating the obvious.. in a fight that is a side issue to me. My agenda is nailing the weather, not saving the planet. I believe what I believe based on research to get to the correct forecast on anywhere from a day to a multi-decadal trend. That the IPCC is busting on lower trop temps, upper trop temps, the stratosphere, the positive feedback, and the death to the ice cap people have now also been beaten back , at least for the time being, should make any person of good will understand there is room for a debate here. Which is what I advocate in the spirit of what has made this nation great, the exchange without fear of ideas in the open forum. Its not a debate I want to be in, but one I want to watch to make sure I have all the ideas in front of me. What could possibly be wrong with this cry for sanity in this matter.

A nation that has homeless and uninsured should not be dumping money into chasing something that may not be there, when we have problems that are there. I am sorry that my old New England John Kennedy roots come out with that statement, actual concern for what I know to be rather than a ghost that may not be there. A nation that has built itself, in spite of its faults, on the freedom to confront the truth will not survive if those freedoms are discouraged and hard realities are not confronted.

Read in full with comments »   

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1262904/Prehistoric-hailstorm-triggered-1-000-year-freeze-Earth-wiped-animal-species.html#ixzz0k81YvDDx

Designer Ricardo Fedrizzi has shown some deviation from conventional material for his “Bug” electric concept car. He has suggested recyclable and renewable materials, such as polymers with a load of vegetable fiber in order to keep it a lightweight ride, which in turn will enhance the efficiency of the car. Like many other sustainable transportation designs, special attention has been paid to the aerodynamics, as it’s an important factor that affects the efficiency of vehicles. Reduction in weight and better aerodynamic can help promoting economy and performance.
(more…)

Luke Timmerman wrote:

It must take real guts, or maybe hubris, to try to do what Allon Therapeutics is attempting. This Vancouver, BC-based biotech company has designed a drug that is made to work unlike anything else on the market against some of the world’s major neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s.

Scientists don’t really know what causes Alzheimer’s, and they don’t have a consensus on what is going wrong at the molecular level that leads to the heartbreaking loss of cognition and memory that an estimated 4.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from as they grow old. Quite a few biotech companies have failed with once-promising drugs for this disease—San Francisco-based Medivation (NASDAQ: MDVN), and Salt Lake City-based Myriad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MYRX) are a couple that leap to mind.

Yet Allon (UH-lahn) remains in the game, and CEO Gordon McCauley insists that things are still looking up.

“What I find fascinating about the standard of care today is that there is $6.5 billion of drugs sold to treat Alzheimer’s per year, and they all have one common characteristic. They don’t do much,” McCauley says. “They have nasty side effects, and provide some relief from symptoms for about six months. There’s a real opportunity for a therapeutic with disease-modifying potential.”

Allon (TSX: NPC) is placing its bet on what is known as the “tau tangle” hypothesis. For years, many researchers and drugmakers have been pursuing the notion that a buildup of amyloid beta plaques in the brain is the primary culprit causing Alzheimer’s. Break up the amyloid, or prevent it from building up, and you can treat the disease. That effort hasn’t borne fruit yet, McCauley says.

A dueling school of thought, which Allon has thrown its resources behind, says that key structural components of neurons, called tau, get broken up into fragments and form tangles as neurons die over time. That process happens when people don’t produce enough of a couple proteins called activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP) and activity-dependent neurotrophic factor (ADNF). Allon’s idea was to create a small peptide fragment, called davenutide, which is meant to restore that neuroprotective function. If it works as designed, the drug ought to prevent tau tangles from building up, and keep people’s minds sharp.

The Allon drug has been in some small trials to date, and McCauley characterizes them in a bullish way. The company ran a study that randomly assigned 144 patients with a mild form of cognitive impairment to get a low or high dose of the Allon drug or a placebo. This study didn’t look at the main patient population of people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s, and it didn’t measure one of the main goals that’s usually required in an Alzheimer’s study by the FDA—what is known as ADAS-cog. Nonetheless, Allon says it is encouraged because the study found a statistically significant improvement …Next Page »

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Daily Random Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons red or white vinegar

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

In a 23 centimeter / 9 inch round, 20 centimeter / 8 inch square or 23 x 15 centimeter (9 x 6 inch) rectangle baking pan, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar. In a bowl, combine water, oil and vanilla. Pour liquid into dry ingredients, whisk with fork to combine. Add the vinegar – stir only until the vinegar is distributed around the batter (color variations will occur because of reaction with vinegar and baking soda – not a problem). Bake for 25-30 minutes. You can serve with spoonful of applesauce to make it like a german sacher torte.

News from KurzweilAI.net:

‘The Singularity is Near’ film debuts at Sonoma Film Festival

KurzweilAI.net, Apr. 5, 2010 “The Singularity Is Near: a True Story About the Future” makes its festival debut at the 13th Annual Sonoma Film Festival (April 15-18, 2010) with a special screening on Friday, April 16, 2010. The feature-length film, directed by Anthony Waller and produced by Ray Kurzweil, Ehren Koepf and Toshi Hoo, executive producer Martine Rothblatt (Terasem MotionInfoCulture), explores the controversial ideas of Ray Kurzweil, based on his New York Times best-selling book by the same title. Kurzweil examines the social and philosophical implications of these profound changes and the potential threats they pose to human civilization in dialogues with leading experts, such as former White House counter-terrorism advisor, Richard Clark; technologists Bill Joy, Mitch Kapor, Marvin Minsky, Eric Drexler, and Robert A. Freitas, Jr.; Future Shock author Alvin Toffler; civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz; and music luminary Quincy Jones. Kurzweil illustrates possible scenarios of his imagined future with narrative scenes starring popular NCIS actress Pauley Perrette and personal development guru Tony Robbins. For more information: Sonoma Film Festival and The Singularity is Near – The Movie.

• Peak oil is either here, or close enough.
• Prices will have to go higher as demand outstrips supply.
• Governments will be forced to intervene to maintain critical levels of oil supply, and limit volatility.
• Rationing measures may be unavoidable.
• Electrification of transport must be pursued in order to reduce demand.
• Communities will need to work quickly to reorganize around walking instead of driving, producing food and energy locally instead of importing, and generally try to reduce their need for oil.

New research on how carbon nanotubes may be used in medical applications.

The release:

[PRESS RELEASE, 5 April 2010] A team of Swedish and American scientists has shown for the first time that carbon nanotubes can be broken down by an enzyme – myeloperoxidase (MPO) – found in white blood cells. Their discoveries are presented in Nature Nanotechnology and contradict what was previously believed, that carbon nanotubes are not broken down in the body or in nature. The scientists hope that this new understanding of how MPO converts carbon nanotubes into water and carbon dioxide can be of significance to medicine.

“Previous studies have shown that carbon nanotubes could be used for introducing drugs or other substances into human cells,” says Bengt Fadeel, associate professor at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. “The problem has been not knowing how to control the breakdown of the nanotubes, which can caused unwanted toxicity and tissue damage. Our study now shows how they can be broken down biologically into harmless components.”

Carbon nanotubes are a material consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms rolled into a tube with a diameter of only a couple of nanometres (1 nanometer = 1 billionth of a metre) and a length that can range from tens of nanometres up to several micrometers. Carbon nanotubes are lighter and stronger than steel, and have exceptional heat-conductive and electrical properties. They are manufactured on an industrial scale, mainly for engineering purposes but also for some consumer products.

Carbon nanotubes were once considered biopersistent in that they did not break down in body tissue or in nature. In recent years, research has shown that laboratory animals exposed to carbon nanotubes via inhalation or through injection into the abdominal cavity develop severe inflammation. This and the tissue changes (fibrosis) that exposure causes lead to impaired lung function and perhaps even to cancer. For example, a year or two ago, alarming reports by other scientists suggested that carbon nanotubes are very similar to asbestos fibres, which are themselves biopersistent and which can cause lung cancer (mesothelioma) in humans a considerable time after exposure.

This current study thus represents a breakthrough in nanotechnology and nanotoxicology, since it clearly shows that endogenous MPO can break down carbon nanotubes. This enzyme is expressed in certain types of white blood cell (neutrophils), which use it to neutralise harmful bacteria. Now, however, the researchers have found that the enzyme also works on carbon nanotubes, breaking them down into water and carbon dioxide. The researchers also showed that carbon nanotubes that have been broken down by MPO no longer give rise to inflammation in mice.

“This means that there might be a way to render carbon nanotubes harmless, for example in the event of an accident at a production plant,” says Dr Fadeel. “But the findings are also relevant to the future use of carbon nanotubes for medical purposes.”

The study was led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, the University of Pittsburgh and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and was financed in part through grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission. The work was conducted as part of the NANOMMUNE project, which is coordinated by associate professor Bengt Fadeel of the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, and which comprises a total of thirteen research groups in Europe and the USA.

by Grist

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Engine idling is a significant factor in gasoline engine inefficiency, making up as much as 17% of the fuel consumed in urban driving. To address this, some manufacturers are looking at incorporating hybrid-style technology such as start-stop systems as a way of gathering some of the “low-hanging fruit” of hybrid efficiency for the non-hybrid vehicles in their fleet.

Start-stop (turning off the engine instead of idling at red lights and other times when the car isn’t moving) is already a staple of hybrid vehicles. But start-stop technology only costs $300-400 per vehicle, as opposed to the thousands of dollars a full-hybrid version of a vehicle represents.

European and Asian markets have taken to this more readily, while in the US, Mazda has encountered EPA testing regulations that offer no fuel-efficiency credit for their i-stop system. BMW, Smart, Mercedes-Benz, and Mini are also working on adopting this technology to vehicles in their fleets.

via: bnet

image: Mazda 3 i-stop

by Umbra Fisk

Dearest readers,

How did you like our first book club selection, Dolly Freed’s Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money? I thoroughly enjoyed it—aside from some mild retching at the thought of removing a turtle’s gallbladder (a necessary step for a proper snapper soup)—and came away feeling amused, inspired, and challenged. But enough about my insights; I’m much more interested in your inklings.

In the first chapter, Freed writes, “People don’t own possessions, their possessions own them,” and, “We have and get the good things in life so easily it seems silly to go to some boring, meaningless, frustrating job to get the money to buy them, yet almost everyone does. ‘Earning their way in life,’ they call it. ‘Slavery,’ I call it.”

What do you think about what Freed’s saying here? Do you think you’re a slave to your job or possessions? I saw a distinct connection between this concept and Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff, in which Leonard describes the neverending treadmill of working to buy stuff, collapsing exhaustedly after work in front of the TV, where we’re told to buy more stuff, going back to work to earn more money to buy said stuff, and so on. What do you think about the relationship between Freed’s and Leonard’s messages?

Let’s get the discussion rolling in the comments below. I’ll pop in with feedback throughout the day. And stay tuned tomorrow for more queries and conversation starters. We’ll stick with the Possum Living discussion through Friday, when I’ll announce the next book selection, which we’ll be dissecting in May. (You can follow along with all the book club posts here.)

Rat racily,
Umbra

Related Links:

New Jersey to put ex-strippers to work weatherizing homes

Chu: “A price on carbon is essential”

‘The Story of Bottled Water’ and big fun learning about water

In a world where the past has met the future, or maybe it’s the future that met the past… Anyway in a world where stuff is meeting something, get prepared to take a travel in time. Back to a time where good men and women were looked down upon for being different and wanting to be free and independent from their evil overlords. Back when men’s teeth were made out of not just their own teeth but also other people’s teeth along with gold, lead and hippo tusks. You can now join this Independent movement by signing the Declaration of Independence yourself. That’s right the government actually did do something cool over at Archives.gov they have actually made a flash application that will let people put their name on there. Now don’t worry, this is not an evil plot by the government to get everyone’s IP addresses that actually want freedom and independence to hunt them down… at least I’m pretty sure it’s not…

I guess they’re loading the archive from 1995?

Apparently your signature is in High Definition!

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_join_the_signers.html

Sacramento has a new proposal on what to do about homes built in violation of federal rules in the high-risk flood zone of the Natomas basin. It doesn’t pass the laugh test.

The city proposes to paint sealant on 10 illegally built homes to make the walls watertight up to 5 feet and have temporary shields available to install on doors and windows.

The problems with this proposal are numerous. The Army Corps of Engineers considers the “seal and shield” method to be practical only where “flood depths are low (no more than 2 to 3 feet).” Why? Because of water pressure on walls and from underneath the foundation, “walls may collapse, floors may buckle, and the home may even float.”

Further, painting on sealant up to 5 feet has no relation to actual flood depths expected in the Natomas basin. With a levee breach, a flood would put the basin under 20 to 25 feet of water.

For obvious reasons, the “seal and shield” solution does nothing to reduce flood insurance premiums. In the high-risk Natomas AE zone, the city estimates it would cost about $87,500 a year for premiums. The city is proposing that the builder take out private insurance for nine of the 10 homes that are occupied.

The other option is to elevate the homes about 16 feet – dropping the cost of insurance premiums to $400 a year.

The cost to “seal and shield” the 10 homes would be about $12,400 per house; elevating them would cost about $285,500.

A cheaper solution, not considered in the city’s report to FEMA, might be for city and builder to work out a deal to buy back the nine occupied houses (which ranged in price from $249,000 to $302,500), sealing the unoccupied homes until levee upgrades are done.

It should be the city and the builder who bear the burden of the violations, not the homebuyers. The city says it has fixed the building permit process to prevent future violations in the flood zone. Now it needs to find the right solution for the people living in nine houses that never should have been built. These folks deserve something better than a “seal and shield” fiction.

A definition of demagoguery is when a politician knows something isn’t really true or fair, but continues to exploit it anyway.

So will Republican gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman step up and admit they’re misleading California’s voters about college students who are also illegal immigrants?

Both have been bashing the students as a financial burden on taxpayers to prove their tough-on-illegal immigration bona fides to the party faithful. They both want to repeal Assembly Bill 540, which grants in-state tuition to some non-residents, including some illegal immigrants.

But as The Bee’s Susan Ferriss reported last week, those students represent a tiny fraction – 1 percent or less – of all students in all three of the state’s higher education systems. On University of California campuses, for instance, there were fewer than 2,000 students who were not state residents but were paying in-state tuition in 2007-08 – and UC says only as many as 400 were illegal immigrants.

So the savings from rescinding AB 540 would be far less than the candidates suggest, a minuscule portion of the higher education budget.

Many of the students were brought here as young children by their parents; even to be eligible for in-state tuition, they have to graduate from California high schools and must have attended for at least three years. And many of them will stay in California, so the state has a real stake in their education and future.

Poizner, in particular, isn’t letting the facts get in the way in his desperation to catch Whitman. He also wants to change federal law to bar the public school doors to illegal immigrant children. In a TV spot promising to end taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants, he rails against “years of liberal failure.”

“We all know California is heading right over a cliff,” Poizner says in the ad, as a car falls off a precipice. “Politicians have lacked the guts to tackle the problem.”

Whitman is no innocent on the issue, either. She says in her policy agenda pamphlet that she wants to ban illegal immigrant students from attending the University of California, California State University and community college systems. In their only debate so far, she went after Poizner on immigration when he criticized her for opposing Proposition 187, the draconian 1994 ballot measure that denied many public services and benefits to illegal immigrants.

This is a good test of the candidates’ character that voters can judge: Will Poizner and Whitman face up to the truth and engage in a serious discussion about immigration? Or will they continue to ignore the facts and appeal to voters’ worst instincts?

The early indications are not promising. We asked both campaigns if they would reconsider their stance in light of Ferris’ report. The answer was no. “Steve Poizner feels we must end taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens, including in-state tuition,” replied Poizner’s spokesman, Jarrod Agen.

In 2007, well before the economy tanked, before home values started to plummet and before his adjustable-rate mortgage was set to increase, Zachary Norris of Oakland began seeking a loan modification.

After repeated phone calls and faxes and struggling to make sporadic payments, the Norris family received a notice of default, even though officials at Litton Loan Servicing had yet to either make a loan modification offer or tell Zachary Norris why they hadn’t.

Sadly, the Norris family’s story is not unique. While specific data is hard to come by, lawyers and housing counselors from across the state tell the same stories of homeowners who lost the roof over their heads while they were trying to honor the debt that paid for it.

Recently, the federal government announced changes to the “Home Affordable Modification Program,” otherwise known as HAMP, aimed at preventing loan servicing companies from initiating foreclosure on a homeowner when a loan modification is in progress or under negotiation.

The Norris family story suggests those changes do not go far enough. Servicers make mistakes. Borrowers fall through administrative cracks that shouldn’t exist. Homeowners who lose their homes due to errors by loan servicers have no remedy.

Fortunately, California state Sens. Mark Leno and Darrell Steinberg have a modest and common-sense proposal to address this problem. Their legislation, Senate Bill 1275, would include some provisions similar to the new HAMP changes, like prohibiting the start of the foreclosure process when a homeowner is pursuing a loan modification. But it would also go further. It would provide borrowers with a backstop if they face foreclosure because of mistakes by a loan servicer.

This is a critical void that HAMP alone cannot address. It’s unfair that when homeowners play by the rules, but servicers don’t, the only party that pays the price is the homeowner.

It’s also not fair that the same rules don’t apply to all servicers. Even as the Obama administration has made significant changes to HAMP that both complement SB 1275 and underscore the need for policies that prevent as many avoidable foreclosures as possible, SB 1275 will go even further by making sure that all servicers doing business in California, whether they are participants in the voluntary HAMP program or not, must abide by the same foreclosure-initiation provisions.

Consistency is critical, and no California homeowner should be foreclosed upon because their servicer doesn’t participate in the federal loan modification program. All of the program fixes in the world won’t help those homeowners whose servicers aren’t HAMP participants.

The need for improvements to HAMP, as well as to California law, has been abundantly clear for months.

We are now two years into our foreclosure crisis and mortgage servicers simply have not delivered a sufficient volume of loan modifications: Federal data released last month showed that only 35,000 California homeowners had received permanent modifications through the end of February 2010, compared to the more than 200,000 completed foreclosures that occurred in 2009. If a homeowner gets turned down for a modification, or worse, loses a home to foreclosure, it shouldn’t be because a loan company is understaffed or can’t keep up with its faxes. Leno, Steinberg, the Obama administration and growing numbers of policymakers now recognize this.

It’s true that there are many California homeowners who probably won’t be helped by any legislation, fixes to HAMP or tweaks to the foreclosure process. We cannot prevent every single foreclosure. But we must work to prevent the ones that we can, and certainly no one should lose their home while they are in the middle of trying to save it.

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, proclaimed last month that no one could have predicted the housing bubble. “Everybody missed it,” he said, “academia, the Federal Reserve, all regulators.”

But that is not how I remember it. Back in 2005 and 2006, I argued as forcefully as I could, in letters to clients of my investment firm, Scion Capital, that the mortgage market would melt down in the second half of 2007, causing substantial damage to the economy.

My prediction was based on my research into the residential mortgage market and mortgage-backed securities. After studying the regulatory filings related to those securities, I waited for the lenders to offer the most risky mortgages conceivable to the least qualified buyers. I knew that would mark the beginning of the end of the housing bubble; it would mean that prices had risen – with the expansion of easy mortgage lending – as high as they could go.

I had begun to worry about the housing market back in 2003, when lenders first resurrected interest-only mortgages, loosening their credit standards to generate a greater volume of loans. Throughout 2004, I had watched as these mortgages were offered to more and more subprime borrowers – those with the weakest credit.

The lenders generally then sold these risky loans to Wall Street to be packaged into mortgage-backed securities, thus passing along most of the risk. Increasingly, lenders concerned themselves more with the quantity of mortgages they sold than with their quality.

Meanwhile, homebuyers, convinced by recent history that real estate prices would always rise, readily signed onto whatever mortgage would get them the biggest house. The incentive for fraud was great: The FBI reported that its mortgage fraud caseload increased fivefold from 2001 to 2004.

At the same time, I also watched how ratings agencies vouched for subprime mortgage-backed securities. To me, these agencies seemed not to be paying much attention.

Betting on the downturn

By mid-2005, I had so much confidence in my analysis that I staked my reputation on it. That is, I purchased credit default swaps – a type of insurance – on billions of dollars worth of both subprime mortgage-backed securities and the bonds of many of the financial companies that would be devastated when the real estate bubble burst.

As the value of the bonds fell, the value of the credit default swaps would rise. Our swaps covered many of the firms that failed or nearly failed, including the insurer American International Group and the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I entered these trades carefully. Suspecting that my Wall Street counterparties might not be able or willing to pay up when the time came, I used six counterparties to minimize my exposure to any one of them. I also specifically avoided using Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns as counterparties, as I viewed both to be mortally exposed to the crisis I foresaw.

What’s more, I demanded daily collateral settlement – if positions moved in our favor, I wanted cash posted to our account the next day. This was something I knew that Goldman Sachs and other derivatives dealers did not demand of AAA-rated AIG.

I believed that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market would ultimately lead to huge failures among the largest financial institutions. But at the time, almost no one else thought these trades would work out in my favor.

During 2007, under constant pressure from my investors, I liquidated most of our credit default swaps at a substantial profit. By early 2008, I feared the effects of government intervention and exited all our remaining credit default positions – by auctioning them to the many Wall Street banks that were themselves by then desperate to buy protection against default.

This was well in advance of the government bailouts. Because I had been operating in the face of strong opposition from both my investors and the Wall Street community, it took everything I had to see these trades through to completion. Disheartened on many fronts, I shut down Scion Capital in 2008.

Greenspan’s blinders

Since then, I have often wondered why nobody in Washington showed any interest in hearing exactly how I arrived at my conclusions that the housing bubble would burst when it did and that it could cripple the big financial institutions.

A week ago I learned the answer when Al Hunt of Bloomberg Television, who had read Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short,” which includes the story of my predictions, asked Greenspan directly. The former Fed chairman responded that my insights had been a “statistical illusion.” Perhaps, he suggested, I was just a supremely lucky flipper of coins.

Greenspan said that he sat through innumerable meetings at the Fed with crack economists, and not one of them warned of the problems that were to come. By Greenspan’s logic, anyone who might have foreseen the housing bubble would have been invited into the ivory tower, so if all those who were there did not hear it, then no one could have said it.

As a nation, we cannot afford to live with Greenspan’s way of thinking. The truth is, he should have seen what was coming and offered a sober, apolitical warning. Everyone would have listened; when he talked about the economy, the world hung on every single word.

Unfortunately, he did not give good advice. In February 2004, a few months before the Fed formally ended a remarkable streak of interest-rate cuts, Greenspan told Americans that they would be missing out if they failed to take advantage of cost-saving adjustable-rate mortgages. And he suggested to the banks that “American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage.”

Within a year, lenders made interest-only adjustable-rate mortgages readily available to subprime borrowers. And within 18 months, lenders offered subprime borrowers so-called pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages, which allowed borrowers to make partial monthly payments and have the remainder added to the loan balance (much like payments on a credit card).

Subprime’s biggest booster

Observing these trends in April 2005, Greenspan trumpeted the expansion of the subprime mortgage market. “Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit,” he said, “lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.” Yet the tide was about to turn.

By December 2005, subprime mortgages that had been issued just six months earlier were already showing atypically high delinquency rates. (It’s worth noting that even though most of these mortgages had a low two-year teaser rate, the borrowers still had early difficulty making payments.) The market for subprime mortgages and the derivatives thereof would not begin its spectacular collapse until roughly two years after Greenspan’s speech.

But the signs were all there in 2005, when a bursting of the bubble would have had far less dire consequences, and when the government could have acted to minimize the fallout.

Leaders abetted the bubble

Instead, our leaders in Washington either willfully or ignorantly aided and abetted the bubble. And even when the full extent of the financial crisis became painfully clear early in 2007, the Federal Reserve chairman, the Treasury secretary, the president and senior members of Congress repeatedly underestimated the severity of the problem, ultimately leaving themselves with only one policy tool – the epic and unfair taxpayer-financed bailouts.

Now, in exchange for that extra year or two of consumer bliss we all enjoyed, our children and our children’s children will suffer terrible financial consequences.

It did not have to be this way. And at this point there is no reason to reflexively dismiss the analysis of those who foresaw the crisis.

Greenspan should use his substantial intellect and unsurpassed knowledge of government to ascertain and explain exactly how he and other officials missed the boat. If the mistakes were properly outlined, that might both inform Congress’ efforts to improve financial regulation and help keep future Fed chairmen from making the same errors again.

In a recent editorial (“Nullify health law? Good luck with that,” March 28), The Bee stated that the recent lawsuits filed by 14 state attorneys general challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care bill are “frivolous lawsuits that are more about policy differences or symbolic gestures than constitutionality.”

The Bee’s editorial board needs a primer in constitutional law.

There are two principal arguments raised by the state AGs, and both have merit. The first involves Congress’ power to regulate commerce among the states. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that this power has limits; that it only permits Congress to regulate the channels or instrumentalities of interstate commerce or economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

Our health insurance system is state-based, so the interstate component necessary for congressional authority is lacking. Nor is an individual’s decision not to purchase a government-approved health insurance policy an activity that has a substantial effect on commerce – it is the absence of activity. Of course, the regulations themselves will undoubtedly have a substantial impact on interstate commerce – just witness the billion-dollar write-offs taken last week by some of America’s leading corporations – but the Supreme Court has never before allowed Congress to bootstrap its way into Commerce Clause authority by relying on the impact of its own regulation.

The second challenge to the constitutionality of the individual mandate is that it amounts to a direct tax, not tied to income, which must be (but is not) apportioned among the states according to population, as required by Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution.

Even if the rate of compliance with this overreaching mandate were somehow identical in every state, the fact that illegal immigrants and incarcerated felons are exempt means that the direct tax will not be tied to state population in the same way representation is.

Ironically, the Obama administration’s Census Bureau has defended its decision not to identify legal immigration status in its census questionnaire by noting that the Constitution requires an enumeration of all persons, not just citizens, for purposes of determining representation in Congress, yet the same clause also applies to direct taxes.

Obama’s health care reform bill violates that important constitutional requirement. It would be nice if we had an attorney general here in California who knew something about the Constitution and would add California’s voice to the litigation debate.