The Housing Boom Is OVER, Economic Slowdown Imminent

...2006 is going to be a tough tough year financially for many.

The U.S. median price of a single-family home was $218,000 in October, according to the National Association of Realtors. It's more than three times that in the San Francisco area ($721,900), more than twice that in New York ($461,100, and that's not including Manhattan), and about double in Boston ($430,900). Rental prices are climbing, too.

People earning the median income can afford only 2% of the homes in the Los Angeles area and 24% in Boston.

And now that the housing boom is over, LOOK OUT...

The housing industry accounts for only about 5 percent of the U.S. economy and yet generated half of the growth in this year's first six months and more than half of the private jobs added since 2001.

Oh and mid-term election years (like 2006) are typically bear markets.

Bush Sure Does Take Care of the People...On His Payroll.

Ahmed Chalabi, after being trounced in the latest elections, has been appointed to head the Iraqi oil ministry.

A brief history for those who missed it.

1) Chalabi gave false information regarding WMDs that were a main component of the Bush case for war. All the information turned out to be false. Bush paid MILLIONS of tax dollars to get this MIS-information but it gave Bush what he needed to make a case for invasion. The MIS-information provided by Chalabi was used by Bush even though it was known to be false or at the very least was unproven.

2) Bush airlifted Chalabi and 800 of his followers into Iraq (he left Iraq decades earlier) just after the invasion. You may remember seeing Chalabi and his people in the staged photos the US took of Saddam's statue being pulled down.

3) Bush pushed for this guy to be Prime Minister of Iraq.

4) Bush asked the King of Jordan to pardon Chalabi (the guy who provided the fake WMD info) of fraud charges and a 22 year prison sentence. Chalabi fled Jordan in the trunk of a car to avoid prosecution.

5) Chalabi is appointed Deputy Oil Minister and then appointed Oil Minister...of Iraq. Second biggest oil reserves in the world. Nice work if you can get it.

If you have any ability to think, reason and use logic one can see that Chalabi is Bush's boy. Bought and paid for. Feel free to offer an alternate explanation as to how a man that never worked in oil, is a convicted felon, and hadn't even lived in Iraq for decades gets appointed Oil Minister if Bush didn't make it happen. Imagine, Chalabi LIES the United States into war and Bush REWARDS him.

Chalabi and Bush should be sharing a jail cell.

Bush Has No Idea Why Iraq Was Invaded

"Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
-- President Bush, 3/19/03

VERSUS

HOST: "If the weapons [of mass destruction] had been out of the equation because the intelligence did not conclude that [Iraq] had them, it was still the right call [to invade]?"
BUSH: "Absolutely."
-- President Bush, on how the ***purpose*** of the Iraq war was actually irrelevant, 12/15/05

Bush Caught on Tape: “A Wiretap Requires A Court Order. Nothing Has Changed.”

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

George W. Bush 20-April-2004

It's Too Bad...

It's too bad that hyping evidence to start an unnecessary war, breaking the law to spy on Americans without a warrant, torturing prisoners in secret prisons, and outing CIA agents doesn't leave sperm stains on dresses or we could just impeach Bush and most of his administration right now.

The Magic Word

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

--Ben Franklin

Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has monitored, without court-approved warrants, the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States.

Apparently the Bush administration feels "terrorist" is a magic word that when spoken allows them to do any old thing they like regardless of how many rights or laws are violated.

If the government can just yell terrorist and do anything they want with no oversight (and completely ignore the laws of this nation) your rights and mine are GONE.

Anyone out there who somehow thinks Bush did nothing wrong here is out of their mind. The President in authorizing surveillance without seeking a court order has committed a crime. The Federal Communications Act criminalizes surveillance without a warrant. It is an impeachable offense.

Putting that aside, ask yourself: If someone accuses you of being a terrorist does that mean you support the idea that the government can just tap your phone without a warrant? What other rights will you be giving up? When they throw you in a hole for a few years without due process, falsely accusing you of being a terrorist, will that be OK too?

Bush Trying To Rewrite History AGAIN

From the AP:

"We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of brutal dictator," Bush said. "It is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in his place."

Umm maybe Dubya should review the tapes. We went into Iraq to remove the threat posed by WMDs and Iraq's working relationship with al Qaeda (neither of which existed at the time the US invaded). That's what Bush and his cronies gave as the rationale for invasion to the world, the media, the United Nations and the American public. The WMDs they said could hit the US. The ones that would cause a "mushroom cloud" in an American city. All lies.

To further illustrate the point:

"Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
-- President Bush, 3/19/03

VERSUS

HOST: "If the weapons [of mass destruction] had been out of the equation because the intelligence did not conclude that [Iraq] had them, it was still the right call [to invade]?"
BUSH: "Absolutely."
-- President Bush, on how the sole "purpose" of the Iraq war was actually irrelevant, 12/15/05


I'm not sure if Bush is the biggest failure I've ever seen or the biggest liar I've ever seen. Ahh heck, he's both.

Context

CONTEXT....George Bush gave a speech Wednesday in which he acknowledged that we got lots of bad intelligence about Iraq's WMD before the war but failed to take any personal responsibility for demanding that very intelligence in the first place and ignoring all dissenting views. Of the major news outlets, only Knight Ridder bothered to point that out:

"It's true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Bush admitted — omitting that he and top aides had ignored warnings from midlevel intelligence agents that some of the evidence was suspect....

See how easy that is? Why can't they all do this?

The Soldier's Deaths Are Bush's Responsibility

From The Times Union:

Recent remarks from the White House and on various message boards have claimed that those with honest disagreement about the President's handling of the war in Iraq, and whether the United States belongs there at all, are somehow unpatriotic, that those that disagree with the administrations poor leadership are, in fact, aiding terrorism causing more of our young men and women to get blown up.

I must say I will NEVER feel responsible for these thousands of deaths, and will continue to point the finger at George Bush and his cronies who manipulated data to suit their already decided-upon goals, and who had, clearly, no plan on how to deal with the aftermath of the invasion that never should have happened.

I am reminded of this quotation: "Opposition to the war in this country is the single greatest weapon working against the U.S." This was Richard Nixon, in the mid-60s. Nixon was wrong about the Vietnam War and wrong about opposition to it, and so is George Bush today about HIS war, and so too is anyone who would suggest that patriotic Americans who think we have no business in Iraq (and never did) are responsible for the deaths of our soldiers.

Someone who does not want the soldiers to be in Iraq is certainly not responsible in any way for their deaths. If they weren't there, they wouldn't be dead. How about we point the finger at the "leaders" who lied and misled this country into putting soldiers into this unnecessary, foolish war in the first place?

Roadside Bomb Kills 10 Marines in Iraq

(AP) BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 while they were on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the Marine Corps said Friday, in the deadliest attack on American troops in nearly four months.

Thank goodness the Bush administration secured Fallujah early on and that our Commander-in-Chief sent enough troops to secure that 380 tons of explosives at Al Qaqaa. Because if Bush just let that stuff get looted, Bush would have to be an idiot, right?

Tons of Iraq explosives missing
'Massive' facility also held large caches of artillery

(CNN) -- Some 380 tons of explosives powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency says.