Home Prices in September Fall Faster than Expected

Damndest recovery I've ever seen.

Prices of single-family homes in September fell more than twice as fast as expected from the prior month, while prices compared to a year earlier rose more slowly than forecast, according to a widely watched index of U.S. home prices released on Tuesday.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.8 percent in September from August on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a decline of 0.3 percent.

WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton, and the Smoking Gun

More circular artillery from the left, this from Slate...

But what makes Clinton's sleuthing unique is the paper trail that documents her spying-on-their-diplomats-with-our-diplomat orders, a paper trail that is now being splashed around the world on the Web and printed in top newspapers. No matter what sort of noises Clinton makes about how the disclosures are "an attack on America" and "the international community," as she did today, she's become the issue. She'll never be an effective negotiator with diplomats who refuse to forgive her exuberances, and even foreign diplomats who do forgive her will still regard her as the symbol of an overreaching United States. Diplomacy is about face, and the only way for other nations to save face will be to give them Clinton's scalp.

Incompetance does have it's consequences.

Monday Funny

Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84

An absolute virtuoso in the art of deadpan humor, he will be missed.

North Korea Deploys Missiles on Southern Border

Measured yet steady escalation.

North Korea is taking its belligerency to a new height today, as it has deployed surface-to-air missiles on its southern border with South Korea. This raises concern that the North could attack or otherwise become more belligerent in the very near future.

The Russian-made missiles have been deployed since the North's artillery shelling of the South this past Tuesday.

As the hostilities between the South and North seem to mount, the United States is carrying out war games with the South while China is calling for emergency talks. Yet the North seems to refuse to listen to reason.

The reason why North Korea is acting so belligerently is uncertain. Some analysts believe it is to attract attention, others believe it is to test the United States, while more believe it is simply to start a war with the South.

Sunday Funny

First lady loosens up food rules: 'Have pie! Eat the dressing!'

First Lady Michelle Obama encouraged American families to enjoy their food over the holiday weekend and not to worry about "how much you eat."

Obama, who is spearheading a nationwide campaign against childhood obesity, explained to 20/20 host Barbara Walters that "this is the time" to let go a bit.

"I would urge people to use this time to come together, as families and community, and don't take it for granted. Be kind to each other and laugh a little bit. And don't worry about how much you eat. Just enjoy it," she said.

Memo to Thunderbutt, mind your own freakin business! We don't need your permission for squat.....at least for the moment.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, Somali-born US teen, arrested for alleged blast try

One has to wonder how many others are running around out there that are NOT part of a sting operation.

Undercover agents in a sting operation stopped a Somali-born teenager from blowing up a van full of explosives at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, federal authorities said.

The bomb was a dud supplied by the agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Friday just after he dialed a cell phone that he thought would set off the blast but instead brought federal agents and police swooping down on him.

Happy Thanksgiving

Carter pushes talks with North Korea

Epic fool.

Former President Jimmy Carter says the Obama administration should "consider responding" to North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean island and other recent incidents by engaging in direct talks with Kim Jong Il’s government.

“Pyongyang has sent a consistent message that during direct talks with the United States, it is ready to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire of 1953,” Carter wrote in Wednesday’s Washington Post. “We should consider responding to this offer.”

Sure, you bet, reward this rogue regime for their aggressive contemptuous behavior.

Obama calling Lee over North attack

When you're the most powerful nation in the world and you project weakness, this is what happens. Expect lots more.

Obama is "outraged" by North Korea's attack on a South Korean island, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said Tuesday.

Obama plans to call South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak, on Tuesday, Burton said, adding that Tom Donilon, his national security adviser, called Obama at 3:55 a.m. to tell him of the attack.

"The president is outraged by this action," he told reporters on Air Force One. "We stand shoulder to shoulder with South Korea."

Comment of the day " STOP or we’ll tell you to stop again!”

Thanks to Blueflag at FR.

Barbara Bush: ‘You Can’t Dislike Bill Clinton

Ramblings from the matriarch of a soon to be irrelevant elitist dynasty. Why not go back to Texas you crusty old cow and STFU.

Over the weekend former First Lady Barbara Bush shocked some when she took a jab at Sarah Palin, saying she hopes the former Alaskan governor stays in Alaska. Now she’s following that up with another surprising statement, this time saying that “you can’t dislike Bill Clinton.”

During an interview with Larry King that aired in full Monday night, Barbara admitted that while “it took me a little while” to warm up to the man who beat her husband and won the presidency in 1992, she now has nothing but good things to say about him. “You can’t dislike Bill Clinton,” she said. “He’s very likable. And he was so good to George… he would let George have the bed. I have a feeling Bill wishes he had a father like George, truthfully”.

Monday Funny

Democrat Corruption Part Deux

Expect a double secret probation in her future...

Apparently, the Charlie Rangel ethics trial was just the warm-up act. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the House Ethics Committee suddenly postponed the trial of Maxine Waters on ethics violation because it found more evidence of direct intervention by her office to benefit the bank in which her husband owned a substantial interest. According to new e-mails uncovered by the committee, her chief of staff directly coordinated with other members of the House Financial Services Committee on behalf of OneUnited:

A newly discovered exchange of e-mails led the House ethics committee on Friday to delay its trial of Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat accused of helping steer bailout money to a bank in which her husband owned shares.

The e-mails are between Mikael Moore, Ms. Waters’s chief of staff, and members of the House Financial Services Committee, on which Ms. Waters serves. The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf. The bailout bill had provisions that ultimately benefited OneUnited, a minority-owned bank in which her husband, Sidney Williams, owned about $350,000 in shares.

We May Be Infidels But....

But I thought Cuba had the best healthcare in the world.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's aged ruler will fly to the United States for medical tests over a blood clot, according to a Saudi official, in a development that would renew questions about succession in the oil-rich kingdom.

The 86-year-old King Abdullah is set to leave on Monday, three days after he was admitted to the hospital suffering from back pain due to a blood clot, the official said late Saturday. The official didn't say which hospital would receive the king.

On Friday, the palace said that the king had a blood clot, which had created pressure on the nerves surrounding a ruptured disc.

Obama administration plans to pull back National Guard from much of the border

The worst border violence ever and this is his solution?

The Obama Administration plans to withdraw National Guard troops from the Texas, New Mexico and California borders by the end February under a new Southwest security plan, even as turmoil in Mexican border cities grows, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner.

A letter sent to various members of the Texas Congressional delegation from Texas' Gov. Rick Perry's office says, "In February, 2011, the Texas, New Mexico, and California National Guard forces that were deployed to the border in September, 2010, under President's Obama's Southwest Border Augmentation Plan, will have 30 days to complete a total draw down of forces."

Give more military assistance to Pakistan: Powell to US

How can someone with such hard core military experience be so unbelievably naive?

Washington : With the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden still elusive, the Obama administration must give Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani adequate mobility or intelligence capability he needs to win the war against terror, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.

Powell, who recently met Kayani at his home, said the Pakistani Army chief was facing a tough task in the war against terror along the Pak-Afghan border.

"He's got a tough problem. This is the most difficult terrain imaginable. And he has troops, but he doesn't have the kind of mobility or intelligence capability that he needs," Powell said.

Etheridge can't overcome Ellmers' lead in recount

You folks remember this jerk.

Republican Renee Ellmers has unseated veteran Congressman Bob Etheridge, according to unofficial results of a recount in the tight race.

Etheridge, a seven-term Democrat, picked up six votes on Ellmers after voting results from 10 counties were tabulated a second time, but it was nowhere near enough to overcome her 1,489-vote lead following the Nov. 2 election.

Senate Democrats vent anger with Barack Obama

A classic illustration of co-dependence.

Senate Democrats – including typically mild-mannered Bill Nelson of Florida – lit into President Barack Obama during an unusually tense air-clearing caucus session on Thursday, senators and staffers told POLITICO.

Nelson told colleagues Obama’s unpopularity has become a serious liability for Democrats in his state and blamed the president for creating a toxic political environment for Democrats nationwide, according to two Democrats familiar with his remarks.

“It was a raucous caucus,” said one Democratic senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because closed-door sessions are not supposed to be discussed with outsiders.

TSA Chief admits full body screening is invasive, but says it's necessary anyway

I don't know what all the hullaballoo is about, we've had these for at least 50 years.

At a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, TSA chief John Pistole defended the airport screening procedures and said they were necessary in, "the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat,"