Zee Links and Minifeatures: April 2007 Archives

Carnival of Consumer Oriented Real Estate

Sorry, but I don't have time to go through these Carnivals for the most recommended stuff today:





Carnival of Real Estate



(Cool, and thank you to the judge!)

"Which brings to mind a conversation with a broadcast network news executive I remember from many years ago.



Q. Don't you think it affects your work product that 90 percent of your people are Democrats?



A. No, no, our people are objective, they have professional standards, they report fairly.



Q. Then doesn't that mean that your work product would be the same if 90 percent of your people were Republicans?



(Quickly) A. No, then it would be biased.

Penn and Teller on Gun Control (28:00 video) Severe Language Advisory applies.



As the point has been made any number of times before, in events like today's top news story, if law abiding citizens could have guns, the tally would probably be a lot lower than 32, and I think there would be a lot fewer incidents, as any number of studies have shown that incidence of violence declines when the population is armed.



As the gang member interviewed says: Gun control laws don't keep him from getting guns. All they do is keep the law abiding citizens from being able to shoot back. Because, hard as this fact is to assimilate for some people, criminals don't obey gun control laws.



Michelle Malkin gives specifics



That and sympathy for the families of the victims is all I've got to say.



(I actually had the Penn and Teller link saved here a couple days ago. I would rather not have had such a fresh and graphic illustration of how right they are to accent it)

Indeed, from my perspective we should be doing the same things — working hard to reduce the use of fossil fuels — regardless of what you think about global warming. But the self-righteousness and exaggeration of the global-warming advocates does set my teeth on edge, and encourage mockery. As I wrote here: "I don't know a lot about climatology. But I know a lot about media bulldozing operations, and I see one of those in action at the moment on this subject. . . . However, my own position is that it doesn't matter much in terms of policy. We should be trying to minimize the burning of fossil fuels regardless of whether it's a cause of global warming or not. The rather patent hucksterism — and outright bullying — of some global warming advocates, though, will probably hurt that cause more than help it over the longer term."

My shoulder is starting to hurt a little less, but it's still going to be a while before my activity level is back to where it was. It still hurts to use the computer normally, and I have to use it a significant amount no matter how much I neglect the websites. But I am going to start putting in new articles again - there is a completely new article waiting for 7 AM Pacific Time tomorrow morning. I may be a while until there are four new ones per week on a reliable basis, but it should gradually increase over the next few weeks until I'm there again.

Consumer Based Carnival of Real Estate



Haven't gone through this one yet, either. But have to meet my obligation to link back.

Sorry, this is just going to be links to carnivals I submitted to. It hurts to use the computer due to my separated shoulder, so I didn't go through them for especially good stuff like I normally do.



Carnival of Debt Reduction



Carnival of Personal Finance

I have reluctantly decided to start requiring comment accounts again. I was getting way too much comment spam for the level of real comments and even those who were real were often trying to drive their own agenda at the expense of the public, as the comments here illustrate - not at all the sort of discourse I'm trying to encourage.



Why comment spam is ruthlessly deleted: When I recently put up one link to my wife's Mary Kay site, my search engine traffic dropped by a full third, week on week. I did that because it's a part of my domestic responsibility. It's gone now because she wasn't seeing any benefit while it was hurting this site, but the illustrative principle remains: You want to boost your ranking at my expense, it's going to cost you some serious cash. A percentage of your net is not going to cut it. If you're not willing to front cash, don't bother.



Of course, the level of this nonsense was practically zero prior to the "no comment account" experiment, and I expect that's where it'll go back to.