Stuff White People Like

Stuff White People Like

Is this satire? I can't quite tell.

My Thought for the Day

Expecting Hope and Change from a Chicago politician is like expecting a good presidential candidate to emerge from the Senate. Anyone expecting either to happen is delusional.

Housing market weakness long-term: survey - Yahoo! News

Housing market weakness long-term: survey - Yahoo! News

Consumers expect housing market weakness to linger for longer than they did a few months ago, a survey showed on Friday.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers Home Prices Report for June also cited a broad gulf between buyers and sellers in the housing market.

Economists broadly agree that U.S. house prices peaked sometime in 2006. According to some measures, they have fallen about 16 percent since then.

"Consumers now anticipate that the weakness in home prices will last much longer than they had anticipated a few months ago," wrote Richard Curtin, director of the survey.

"Record numbers of consumers now think there are very attractive prices on homes for sale," Curtin said. "The problem has been that record numbers of consumers have objected to selling their home at such deeply discounted prices."

Asked about prospects for home prices during the year ahead, 23 percent of homeowners reported that they anticipated declines, down from 27 percent in the May survey. In June, 19 percent said they expected home prices to rise in the next year, unchanged from May's reading.

Asked about the direction of house prices over the next five years, 13 percent of respondents said they expect prices to fall, while 55 percent said they expect prices to rise. That was down from a 2007 peak of 70 percent who said they expected house prices to rise.

Hundreds swept up in mortgage fraud arrests - Yahoo! News

Hundreds swept up in mortgage fraud arrests - Yahoo! News

Since March 1, 406 people have been arrested in the sting dubbed "Operation Malicious Mortgage" that saw 144 cases across the country. Sixty people were arrested on Wednesday alone, including in Chicago, Miami, Houston and a dozen other regions policed by the FBI.

In a separate sweep, two former Bear Stearns managers in New York were indicted Thursday, becoming the first executives to face criminal charges related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

Across the country, reports of mortgage fraud have soared over the past year as the subprime mortgage market collapsed and defaults and foreclosures soared.

Banks reported nearly 53,000 cases of suspected mortgage fraud last year, up from more than 37,000 a year earlier and about 10 times the level of reports in 2001 and 2002, according to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

The most common type of mortgage fraud was misstatement of income or assets, followed by forged documents, inflated appraisals and misrepresentation of a buyer's intent to occupy a property as a primary residence.

Over the last several months, the FBI has been investigating an estimated 1,300 mortgage fraud cases — including 19 involving subprime lending practices by U.S. financial institutions.

Another Obama buddy bites the dust

Senators Appear to Have Received Below Market Mortgages from Countrywide:

Senator Chris Dodd, a vice-Presidential hopeful Democrat from Connecticut and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee which regulates mortgage lending, was named as having received preferential treatment from Countrywide in obtaining mortgage loans. Dodd had earlier this year called Countrywide's lending practices 'abusive.'

One week ago the allegation of a similar deal with Countrywide forced former Fannie Mae Chairman Jim Johnson to step down from his volunteer position as head of Barack Obama's vice presidential search team.

According to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the average foreclosure costs $77,935, while preventing a foreclosure runs only $3,300

A Look at Foreclosures Costs

Stoopid People Tricks

'Black is Beautiful' pet adoption program canceled

It's a well known fact that black coated dogs are much less likely to get adopted from a shelter for a variety of reasons. So the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter held a sale to promote the adoption of black animals. 12 black cats and 25 black dogs adoption fees were to be cut to $25 from the normal $85.

The promotion was canceled.

Because of racism.

Configuring AVG Internet Security

Configuring AVG Internet Security

It turns out that AVG Free 8.0 just about shuts down Firefox. Any java pages either can take up to minutes to load, or simply cripple Firefox.

There are important steps to set up AVG 8.0 for Firefox.

Weeeeeeeeee!

Dog Survives Toto Impression During Tornado

Now that would be a reason for a puppy to scream out loud...

AVG Free

AVG Free - Download installation files & documentation

They are making it very hard to follow all the links to download AVG Free 8.0

So here is the link. Version 7.5 expires in June.

Certified Time Waster

Jigsaw Sudoku - Free Online Sudoku Game

Who Needs Free Speech When We Have Socialized Medicine?

Should be the new motto for Canada.

Hey Canada? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!

Mark Hemingway on Canadian Human Rights Tribunal & Mark Steyn on National Review Online

...the general interpretation by the human-rights commissions is that they now have free rein to regulate the media. The slippery slope has been a toboggan ride to hell ever since.

What this means is that everyone in Canada now has fundamental freedoms, provided they’re not in conflict with whatever specious definition of “human rights” the CHRC chooses to apply. The threshold for conviction set by the Human Rights Act is incredibly low, because its highly subjective language means that “likely to cause contempt” is as good as a preponderance of evidence establishing guilt.

As a result, the Canadian Human Rights Commission is stunningly effective: In its 31 years of existence, not a single complaint brought before it has been dismissed. That's right: Everyone is guilty before God and the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In 1999, a Christian printer was fined $5,000 for refusing to print a series of pro-pedophilia essays. He spent $40,000 in legal fees trying to defend himself.

In 2005, the Knights of Columbus of Port Coquitlam, B.C., were fined for refusing to rent their hall for a lesbian wedding.

There’s simply no point in naming all of the clergy that have been brought up on charges for preaching against homosexuality. Suffice to say it’s more than a few.

In 2002, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ordered the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and Hugh Owens each to pay $1,500 to three complainants for running an ad that quoted Bible verses condemning homosexuality. The decision was overturned by an appeal court . . . four years later.

In January of this year, Ezra Levant, publisher of Canadian conservative magazine The Western Standard, was brought up on charges for publishing the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons as a matter of informing his readers what all the fuss was about.

Maybe there is hope:

This kind of nonsense on stilts is now the accepted norm in human-rights tribunals. With Steyn and Maclean’s involved, supposedly enlightened liberal Canadians — who needs free speech when we have socialized medicine?! — may not be able to dismiss the victims of the injustice this time around as merely neo-Nazis or those backward Christians. Steyn’s fame precedes him, and Maclean’s is a beloved national institution in Canada, with ample resources.

In fact, according to Andrew Coyne of Maclean’s they’re hoping to lose the case in Vancouver this week so they can bring it to a real court of law, and possibly set a precedent that could be the beginning of the end of Canadian “human rights” tribunals. Here’s hoping.