Existing home sales jump higher than expected

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 23 March 2009 03:46:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Even though prices went down again, it's still good to see a forecast that over-delivers.

The pace of sales of existing home in the U.S. rose 5.1 percent in February to a 4.72 million-unit annual rate, rebounding from the previous month's drop, while home prices fell again, the National Association of Realtors said on Monday.

Economists polled by Reuters were expecting home resales to slip to a 4.45 million-unit pace, from the 4.49 million rate initially reported for January, which was unrevised. February's sales increase was the largest since July 2003.

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The Stalkerish Thuggery of Bill O'Reilly's
Program

post from Daily Kos on 23 March 2009 03:40:03 PM. © Daily Kos

We've come to expect some degree kind of classlessness, tastelessness and insensitivity from Bill O'Reilly, but his goon squad's latest escapade goes beyond the pale.

On Jennifer Moore, an 18-year old girl raped and murdered in July 2006, O'Reilly naturally blamed the victim:

O'REILLY: So anyway, these two girls come in from the suburbs and they get bombed, and their car is towed because they're moronic girls and, you know, they don't have a car. So they're standing there in the middle of the night with no car. And then they separate because they're drunk. They separate, which you never do. All right.

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she's out of her mind, drunk.

That's par for the course for this sick little man, and no longer raises too many hackles.

O'Reilly, however, still managed to finagle an invitation to speak at the Alexa Foundation, an organization for rape survivors. In light of this, ThinkProgress thought it appropriate to remind the blogosphere of O'Reilly's past views towards rape victims.
Here's how Team Billo responded.

This weekend, while on vacation, I was ambushed by O’Reilly’s top hit man, producer Jesse Watters, who accosted me on the street and told me that because I highlighted O’Reilly’s comments, I was causing “pain and suffering” to rape victims and their families. He of course offered no proof to back up this claim, instead choosing to shout questions at me.

Watters apparently followed the writer in question two full hours from her home, so as to ambush her on film while she was on vacation.

– The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.

– The Ambush: Shortly after checking into our lodgings, we emerged and immediately saw two men walking toward us calling out my name. Watters said he was from Fox News, but never said his or his companion’s name, nor did he say he was with The O’Reilly Factor.

Instead of calling Ms. Terkel and asking for an interview, or requesting that she come on the show to explain her post, O'Reilly sent his hitmen to follow her on vacation with the sole purpose of catching her off guard.

It's sick behavior, the kind of thuggish, obsessive, intimidation we've come to expect from O'Reilly and shouldn't accept from anyone.

But, you know, as Ms. Terkel puts it, since she's apparently a fairly petite woman herself, maybe she was just asking for it:

Since I’m a 5 ft, 100 pound woman with an opinion that he doesn’t like, perhaps O’Reilly believes I deserve to be treated this way.

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ry-of-Bill-OReillys-Program

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NY-Gov, NY-Sen: David Paterson Toxic, Rubbing Off
On Gillibrand

post from MyDD on 23 March 2009 03:29:35 PM. © MyDD

No matter how far behind him the Caroline Kennedy mess gets, David Paterson just can't seem to gain any new upward momentum in favorability, job approval or head to head re-election match-ups. According to a new Siena Research Institute Poll (626 RVs,[...]

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Fearguth’s Great Snark Hunt

post from American Street on 23 March 2009 03:26:00 PM. © American Street

Taking its cue from Tim Geithner’s rebranding of ‘ToxicAssets’ as ‘Legacy Securities’ and ‘Subprime Mortgages’ as‘Legacy Loans’, the nuclear power industry has decidedto rebrand ‘Radioactive Waste’ as ‘Dollar Tree Energy’.

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I’ll Have My Condoms Without Melamine,
Thank You

post from All Spin Zone on 23 March 2009 03:22:00 PM. © All Spin Zone

The report is from McClatchy, that USAID is going to switch from buying US condoms for their AIDS prevention efforts overseas. They are going to buy condoms from China, among other sources. From McClatchy:

At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products?
In this case, Chinese condoms.
That’s the dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world.
But not anymore.
In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.

There’s a big joke here somewhere that doesn’t involve comments about shipping US jobs overseas. As mentioned in the article, these jobs are in Alabama. I wonder if the free traders on the Republican side representing Alabama are going to cry for some good old fashioned protectionism here. I’m guessing we don’t even need to hold our collective breath.

Oh, McClatchy’s headline includes the word “stimulus.”

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http://allspinzone.com/wp/2009/03/23/ill-have-my-condoms-without-melamine-thank-y
ou/

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Employee Free Choice Act Offers Benefits for
Young Workers

post from Everyday Citizen on 23 March 2009 03:16:04 PM. © Everyday Citizen

As a college freshman, I am often thankful I have several years before I will begin the difficult[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/03/employee_free_choice_act_offer.html

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Dear Gary: Put a Sock in It

post from Firedoglake on 23 March 2009 03:15:33 PM. © Firedoglake

From Politico via Yahoo, we find that Gary Bauer is still out there acting as if anyone gives a rat's buttock what he thinks. Today's Gospel According to Gary: It's not seizing, jailing, and torturing innocent Muslims in the Levant that turns them into[...]

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http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/23/dear-gary-put-a-sock-in-it/

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Politico published Bauer op-ed that
advanced 61-detainee falsehood

On March 23, Politico published an op-ed by American Values president Gary Bauer that falsely claimed that "a January Pentagon report found that 61 former detainees [of the prison at Guantánamo Bay] had engaged in terrorist activities." In the op-ed, Bauer stated that those numbers were the result of what he called an "extreme religious accommodation" at the prison that he said has created "a culture of Islamic radicalization." In fact, the Department of Defense has stated that 18 former[...]

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200903230022

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Photo Essay: Global Poverty- DRC

The Location:Lubumbashi, the second largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has served as the backdrop for many of the region's genocidal civil war actions. The city has hundreds of street children and NGO's like the Bakanja Centre exist to[...]

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http://www.mouemagazine.com/blog/2009/03/photo-essay-global-poverty-drc/

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O’Reilly to run ambush segment tonight:
ThinkProgress ‘hurt a rape victim and her family.’

Over at its website, Fox News is saying that Bill O’Reilly will be running his segment on ThinkProgress tonight:

We’re eagerly awaiting how he justifies sending out his henchman to track me down this weekend, and how he spins his offensive comments about Jennifer Moore.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/23/oreilly-preview-rape/

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