Blue Tongue Petition

Image: http://www.yourhorse.co.uk/upload/19404/images/Blue%20tongue.jpg

The FEI investigation regarding the “Blue Tongue World Cup Video” has concluded that there is no reliable evidence that the warm-up techniques used by Mr Kittel were excessive. Following this decision a Round Table meeting has been arranged to take place on 9th February 2010 at the FEI headquarters in Lausanna.

The petition to request the FEI to ban Hyperflexion in Competition now has over 7000 signatures and these will be presented at the meeting. Before the petition is published ready to be taken we would like to encourage anyone who hasn’t already added their signature to do so now. Please encourage all non-horsey friends to do so also. The more signatures on the petition the more the FEI will have to take note.

Thank you for your continued support.

Regards
Carolyn Jenkinson

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/antihf/

Thank you for all you do for the welfare of the horse.

Uncut Blue Tongue Video

Uncut Blue Tongue Video

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Al Lewis: Dark Horse Battles Predatory Lender - Sarah Schrock

This information is from Al Lewis via Fox Business.

Home / Markets
Friday, January 22, 2010


By Al Lewis -- A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
FOXBusiness Another two million homeowners will suffer foreclosures by the end of this year. One of them, I am afraid, will be Sarah Schrock, 51, who lives in a quaint, yellow house near Kansas City, Kan.

Schrock isn't perfect.

She has a low credit score. She has had trouble holding on to jobs. She is deaf because her mother contracted rubella during pregnancy. She reads lips, but she was once denied a promotion after her boss complained to her face that she just doesn't hear so well.

Schrock had long been taking care of her sickly mother. When her mother died in March 2006, she was forced to take out a new mortgage on the house they had shared.

The deaf, grief-stricken, worn-down caregiver, living alone with her dogs, cats and birds, was the perfect target for a predator.

Schrock has now been fending off a foreclosure petition since March 2008.

Her best remaining hope comes from an imaginary horse named Hayseed that she has been drawing since 1981.

"A horse may save my home at the last minute," she wrote as we communicated via email.

Surely, you've heard the song: "If wishes were horses, then dreamers would ride."

Schrock's first children's book, which she both wrote and illustrated, will be published in April.

Rudolph Alvarado, CEO and publisher of Caballo Press of Ann Arbor, Mich., told me he discovered Schrock's work online and struck a deal to publish "Hayseed's First Race." It is about a horse that isn't perfect but must race against an uppity equine that thinks it is.

To win, Hayseed must overcome derision from "Prince Perfect," and all the self-doubt that comes with it. Hayseed remembers his mother's words: "Love yourself for who you are never let anyone tell you that you don't belong."

Schrock remembers what her mother said and isn't letting lenders tell her she doesn't belong in her house. She has been crying out to regulators, government officials and organizations for victims of predatory loans. But foreclosure keeps grinding toward her like a bulldozer.

In 2006, Schrock had the misfortune of dealing with a mortgage broker called Soldi Financial LLC. Soldi's license was revoked in 2007, and last year one of its regional managers, Monty J. Kinman, then 27, of Overland Park, Kan., was sentenced to two years and six months in federal prison without parole for mortgage fraud, unrelated to Schrock's loan.

Schrock claims a Soldi loan broker falsified her income to get her into a loan whose monthly payment exceeded her income.

Loan documents that do not bear Schrock's signature claim she had a monthly income of $3,655, but tax returns show she made $5,896 in 2006 and $12,477 in 2007, according to a review of her case by the Kansas State Banking Commission. Her monthly payment was more than $1,034.

Schrock said the Soldi broker padded the loan with a cash payout to help her make payments until she either refinanced again or got a better income. Schrock said she felt she had no choice but to take this gamble.

Schrock also said she thought she was getting an ordinary fixed-rate loan when she was getting a huge balloon payment at the end of 30 years. And she didn't understand she would be paying an annual interest rate of more than 11%.

"I didn't even know what a subprime loan was," Schrock said.

In April 2009, an official from Kansas' banking commission fired off a letter to Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC: 27.3, -0.74, -2.64%) CEO Richard Kovacevich: "In light of the questionable circumstances surrounding this transaction, our office would appreciate any additional assistance you may be able to provide this customer."

Schrock said Wells Fargo never responded. But the story is complicated.

Near as I can tell after calling all of the companies with their fingerprints on Schrock's mortgage, she owes her monthly payments to a mysterious pool of investors.

Wells Fargo is merely the trustee on her mortgage as it floats around in this pool like a belly-up corpse.

Coppell, Texas-based American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. now services Schrock's loan. And Option One Mortgage, a shuttered a division of Kansas City-based H&R Block Inc. (HRB: 22.24, -0.46, -2.03%), funded the loan.

So my inquires went like this:

A Wells Fargo spokesman referred me to American Home Mortgage, saying it would have initiated Schrock's foreclosure.

An American Home Mortgage spokeswoman referred me to Option One, since it funded the loan and had a division that likely serviced the loan at the time the foreclosure was filed.

Option One folks didn't return my emails and a phone call.

I also tracked down the very Soldi broker who wrote up Schrock's schlock loan.

She is now doing sales for another company. I am graciously leaving her name out of this column for now. But when I called to ask if she remembered handing complicated loan documents to a deaf lady with no interpreter, she declined comment.

I am not sure what can be done at this point except to watch the legal machinery strip Schrock of her house. Schrock, after all, is down to living on food stamps. 

Soon, though, I hope she'll be able buy a new house. And with the way foreclosures are going, she'll be able to pick one up cheap.

Schrock's publisher says he has been surprised by the reception that "Hayseed's Last Race" is getting as its publication date looms. (My review: Two big hoofs up. Check it out at: http://www.caballopress.com/Hayseed )

Alvarado said he plans to publish a whole series of Hayseed books that, with a bit of luck, could lead to film, TV, merchandising and other ancillary royalties. Schrock's luck, he says, may just be about to change.

"If I had discovered her a year earlier, we might have been able to stop this," he said.

(Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. Contact Al at al.lewis@dowjones.com or tellittoal.com)

A Pet Rescuers Answering Machine

Hello: You have reached ___-____, Tender Hearts Rescue. Due to the
high volume of calls we have been receiving, please listen closely to
the following options and choose the one that best describes you or
your situation:

Press 1 if you have a 10-year-old dog and your 15-year-old son has
suddenly become allergic and you need to find the dog a new home
right away.

Press 2 if you are moving today and need to immediately place your
150 pound, 8-year-old dog.

Press 3 if you have three dogs, had a baby and want to get rid of
your dogs because you are the only person in the world to have a
baby and dogs at the same time.

Press 4 if you just got a brand new puppy and your old dog is having
problems adjusting so you want to get rid of the old one right away.

Press 5 if your little puppy has grown up and is no longer small and
cute and you want to trade it in for a new model.

Press 6 if you want an unpaid volunteer to come to your home TODAY
and pick up the dog you no longer want.

Press 7 if you have been feeding and caring for a "stray" for the
last three years, are moving and suddenly determine it's not your
dog.

Press 8 if your dog is sick and needs a vet but you need the money
for your vacation.

Press 9 if you are elderly and want to adopt a cute puppy who is not
active and is going to outlive you.

Press 10 if your relative has died and you don't want to care for
their elderly dog because it doesn't fit your lifestyle.

Press 14 if you are calling at 6 a.m. to make sure you wake me up
before I have to go to work so you can drop a dog off on your way
to work.

Press 15 to leave us an anonymous garbled message, letting us know
you have left a dog in our yard in the middle of January, which is
in fact, better than just leaving the dog with no message.

Press 16 if you are going to get angry because we are not going to
take your dog that you have had for fifteen years, because it is
not our responsibility.

Press 17 if you are going to threaten to take your ten year old dog
to be euthanized because I won't take it.

Press 18 if you're going to get angry because the volunteers had the
audacity to go on vacation and leave the dogs in care of a trusted
volunteer who is not authorized to take your personal pet.

Press 19 if you want one of our PERFECTLY trained, housebroken, kid
and cat friendly purebred dogs that we have an abundance of.

Press 20 if you want us to take your dog that has a slight
aggression problem, i.e. has only bitten a few people and killed your
neighbor's cats.

Press 21 if you have already called once and been told we don't take
personal surrenders but thought you would get a different person this
time with a different answer.

Press 22 if you want us to use space that would go to a stray to
board your personal dog while you are on vacation, free of charge,
of course.

Press 23 if it is Christmas Eve or Easter morning and you want me to
deliver an eight week old puppy to your house by 6:30 am before
your kids wake up.

Press 24 if you have bought your children a duckling, chick or baby
bunny for Easter and it is now Christmas and no longer cute.

Press 25 if you want us to take your female dog who has already had
ten litters, but we can't spay her because she is pregnant again and
it is against your religion.

Press 26 if you're lying to make one of our younger volunteers feel
bad and take your personal pet off your hands.

Press 27 if your cat is biting and not using the litter box because
it is declawed, but you are not willing to accept the responsibility
that the cat's behavior is altered because of your nice furniture.

Press 28 if your two year old male dog is marking all over your house
but you just haven't gotten around to having him neutered.

Press 29 if you previously had an outdoor only dog and are calling
because she is suddenly pregnant.

Press 30 if you have done "everything" to housebreak your dog and
have had no success but you don't want to crate the dog because it
is cruel.

Press 31 if you didn't listen to the message asking for an evening
phone number and you left your work number when all volunteers are
also working and you are angry because no one called you back.

Press 32 if you need a puppy immediately and cannot wait because
today is your daughter's birthday and you forgot when she was born.

Press 33 if your dog's coat doesn't match your new furniture and you
need a different color or breed.

Press 34 if your new love doesn't like your dog and you are too
stupid to get rid of the new friend (who will dump you in the next
month anyway) instead of the dog.

Press 35 if you went through all these 'options' and didn't hear
enough. This press will connect you to the sounds of tears being
shed by one of our volunteers who is holding a discarded old dog
while the vet mercifully frees him from the grief of missing his
family.

~Author Unknown, but much appreciated

Small Business Owners - Help for you here http://ping.fm/nctJW

Job Seekers, here's a decent place for you. http://acinet.org/