Links and Minifeatures 06 24/25 Late Saturday Night/Early Sunday morning

Navy Missile Intercept Test Successful Good. Looks like we need it more than ever. Japan evidently agrees.

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The real agenda slips out: No Iran nuclear suspension even after talks: official. In short, they are not willing to suspend enrichment. The long delay in responding to the request for negotiations is simple more Fabian tactics.



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Killing scares media away from Waziristan. He had reported something contrary to government pravda, that a US missile had blown up a terrorist rather than the official truth that said terrorist blew himself up. So the Pakistani government wants it kept quiet that there's mutual support between them and the US. I understand why. It's difficult politically for the Pakistani government, factions of which are working with Al Qaeda.



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An expansion of automated appraisals? Lenders set to launch the 'five-minute mortgage' If you read the article with a professionals eye, you learn that's all it is. Unsurprising, and yet appraisals catch a lot of fraud. On the other hand, appraisers are a significant source of fraud themselves. Nonetheless, the incentives for appraisers that want to stay in business are all solidly on the correct side of the equation. Electronic evaluation services are pretty much worthless; I haven't found one where they are reliably close to real market evidence (by which I mean actual sales and failures to sell). The best you'll get is recent sales and current market prices supplemented by someone familiar with the market. In other words, an agent who looks at what has sold and what's out there on the market and makes a professional estimate. Even that is subject to the possibility of an ulterior motive. Today they say "list with me and I can get $40,000 more than anyone else." They lock up your business for six months, and six weeks from now they are pressuring you to reduce the price by $50,000. Ask people who make such claims to back them up with solid evidence of their success: properties that sold for full original listing price. Original listing contract and final escrow statement for each property they so claim. Hint: They don't have these documents, because such claims aren't real. Look for they agent that's going to market in such a way as to find the buyer who is looking for your property, not the person looking in the MLS for the below market property they can flip for a profit. A monkey can make that sale, and many monkeys want to.



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"what happens at foreclosure if the appraisal is wrong" was a search I got today. The answer to this is short and sweet. The appraisals lenders get are intentionally conservative. They want the property to sell; they don't want to own it. Since the minimum foreclosure sales price in California is 90 percent of the appraisal, they want that minimum bid low. It costs them more to take over the property and sell it normally. This is one of the reasons you don't want to go into default if you can help it. See

What Happens When You Can't Make Your Real Estate Loan Payment?



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President Bush has come out on the correct side of eminent domain, albeit in limited fashion. Now if he only he'd put a stop to the money side of the abuse, I'd believe he was serious.



Volokh Conspiracy details the shortcomings of the administration plan. It's a "look like you're doing something" thing.



I proposed a solution in this article that I believe would stop abuse dead. Of course, since big business and wealthy individuals who are likely to benefit from abuse contribute to political campaigns, nobody has yet taken it up.



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Bernanke, US Fed face conundrum on rates. Kill the loan market if they raise rates, watch inflation fester if they don't. This is why I think they should make haste slowly. They shouldn't have gone as low as they did, and now they shouldn't be as high as they are on the overnight rates. Hint: Bernanke et al are bankers first, economists second, and a bankers worst nightmare is inflation. They'll raise the overnight rates some more.



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Dr. Sanity contrasts the reports of WMD discoveries that the administration has downplayed to its considerable political disadvantage because it meant fewer problems winning the War on Terrorism. Fewer casualties. More informants. How mature of them, especially in contrast to their political opposition.



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Hugh Hewitt has a letter to the editor of the New York Times from a servicement in Iraq. I cannot agree that the reporters or editors of the New York Times deserve to be in jail - unless they refuse to name their sources. It's those sources who need to be out of government employ and into jail and sued for every penny they have.



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Volokh Conspiracy notes that the Department of Justice has requested a court hold the ABA in contempt for its accreditation procedure and the fact that said procedure is basically illegal.



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Captain's Quarters notes that the amnesty offer for terrorists in Iraq is essentially dead, having been rejected by various groups. I thought is was likely a political play, removing all possible sympathy and sympathizers from the enemy before handing them their heads. Why fight them when you can co-opt them? Now that the offer has been made and rejected, there is no longer any pretense possible. Anyone who is fighting the government of Iraq now has shown themselves to be not interested in the political process.



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Family went to Nighttime Zoo today. Got some good pictures and I'll try and share them tomorrow (later today).



Be sure to stop back on Monday when I have RINO Sightings again. This will be the Georges Santayana edition.



Tomorrow will have a new article, but Monday will be for RINO Sightings.