Archive for March, 2011
Condo Building’s Condition Could Make or Break Your Buying Potential
We always hear about what Chicago buyers need in order to get financing from lenders – good credit, adequate down payment, sufficient income – but many lenders also look at how a Chicago condo building itself measures up before doling out a home loan to a qualified buyer. So what are some of the things you [...]
Young Home Buyers Will Lead Housing Market Recovery, Says NAHB
RISMEDIA, March 21, 2011—Generation X—young families and adults ages 31 to 45—are likely to lead the home-buying recovery as it gets underway, according to real estate experts who spoke at an educational webinar produced by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) in partnership with Builder magazine. These potential home buyers are most likely to [...]
Overwhelming Majority of Americans Believe U.S. Economy Is In a Recession
The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures the economic confidence of consumers on a daily basis, held relatively steady on Sunday at 76.7. That’s down a point from a week ago, seven points from a month ago and down 16 from the highest mark of 2011. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Americans believe the U.S. economy is [...]
Counterfeit Goods Crackdown in 2010
The number of counterfeit-product seizures rose dramatically in 2010, reaching nearly 20,000, while seizure value dropped significantly, according to the latest data. There were 19,959 counterfeit-product seizures in fiscal year 2010, up 34 percent from 14,841 in 2009, according to a new report this week from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration [...]
New Mexico’s Driver’s License Law for Illegal Immigrants Remains in Effect
Republican Governor Susana Martinez campaigned on repealing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, one of only three states to have such a law – she failed. The initiative that would of barred undocumented immigrants from receiving driver’s licenses was passed in the State House and then when it came to the Senate it was modified to [...]
Utah’s New Immigration Bills: A Blast From the Past
Last week the Utah legislature passed three new laws that have been hailed in the media as a new, more reasonable, approach to immigration policy. Reasonable, that is, compared to Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which would allow police to stop anyone, demand immigration papers and hold her or him for deportation. Utah’s law was signed by [...]
Beyond the Book: Maya Banks on why she wrote a romantic suspense series
I asked Maya Banks if she would write a post about why, after years of success writing erotic romance, she decided to write romantic suspense. The Kelly brother series is about a military family who run a paramilitary search and rescue organization. Her third book in this series, Hidden Away, was released this month. ~~~~~~ [...]
When Romance Mimic Real Life
Ever had a book intersect with your real life in an unexpected way? Meg has: Random idea for reader interaction: How have the romance novels you’re reading intersected with your life? An example: I’m finishing up my senior (undergrad) thesis, which deals with British children’s literature and colonial India. One chapter discusses the Indian Mutiny [...]
Opening Up Social Networks
I have a social network management system that is somewhat well thought out and which I exercise diligently. You could call it discerning. On the big four it goes something like this: Join the professional networks of people I have conducted business with on LinkedIn Follow people on Twitter that I find interesting Friend people on [...]
Inclusion Into Bing News
Being accepted into Bing News is no easy task. But with Bing growing in market share, it is likely worth trying to get your news site included in Bing News. Almost two years ago, we covered one way of requesting inclusion into Bing News. That method was basically sending them an email. I personally tried [...]
Bulletstorm Review
A “dudebro” is your generic fratboy gamer, particularly those who play nothing but Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War. Typically, they know diddly-squat about culture, and the books they have read basically consist of such enlightening titles as Green Eggs and Ham and about the first ten pages of the first Halo novel. [...]
Max Payne 3: Concerns
He lost his family, he lost his best friend, his home, his chance at new romance, and for better or worse, he may have lost his mind. Max Payne has always been advertised as “the man with nothing to lose” and it’s a title you either have to respect, or you wish you had before [...]
Google accused Microsoft of copying the results in Bing
Waters are all jumbled up between Google and Microsoft for a public denunciation of copy of results has made the first of Bing, the search engine company launched by Steve Ballmer to compete with the Mountain View giant. Google’s accusation has been captured through the official blog of this company, not a legal status in court. Since the company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page argues that it has carried out test results are handled in its own search engine, a few weeks outof the way Bing. The detailed explanation can be found in the corresponding entry in the official Googleblog, but roughly what has happened is that the multinational form have linked an invented word (eg hiybbprqag) with a real web page and indexed data on their servers. Later, in a computer with a clean installation of Windows 7 with Bing toolbar for InternetExplorer installed, we [...]
Push notification
With all the real trouble in the world these days, it seems small-minded to ponder the impact of the latest wave of technologies on our lives. After all, TechCrunch is a blog about startups and the Valley, with only a tangential relationship to the struggles in Japan and the Middle East. But the larger theme [...]
February 2011’s Top 10 Movers n’ Shakers
Movers 1. Palm Bay, FL 93% 2. Maricopa, AZ 92% 3. Grand Rapids, MI 67% 4. Pompano Beach, FL 64% 5. Palm Coast, FL 60% 6. Louisville, KY 58% 7. Mesa, AZ 54% 8. Sterling Heights, MI 48% 9. Naples, FL 46% 10. Venice, FL 44% Shakers 1. Queens, NY -68% 2. Jersey City, NJ [...]
The Stimulus That Isn’t
On signing the tax-cut deal December 17, President Obama jubilantly declared “We are here with some good news for the American people this holiday season. This is progress and that’s what they sent us here to achieve.” So how have Republicans repaid Obama’s willingness to meet them three-quarters of the way? Bipartisanship evidently lasted about [...]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is Price Weighted
The Dow Jones is not a benchmark, though the media and others like to use it as such. The weird thing about this particular average is that you couldn’t easily replicate its returns with a simple buy and hold strategy. Sure, you could buy an exchange-traded fund like the DIA etf, but you cannot recreate [...]
Office for Civil Rights Posts Agreements From Investigations
The U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights is posting agreements online that are forged between the office and school districts resulting from compliance reviews or investigations of complaints. Russlynn H. Ali, the assistant secretary for the OCR, made a point of telling me about the new method of distribution in a phone interview [...]
House Panel Has Lively Session on Illegals’ Impact on Black Workers
The House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held a lively but largely good-tempered discussion yesterday morning about the extent of the impact of illegal alien workers on the labor market experiences of blacks, particularly black men. Presiding was Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), the new chair of the subcommittee; also very much present [...]
Review: Scandal by Carolyn Jewel
I finished the book just before midnight with a happy glow. My favorite scene was in fact the scene after they got married. She was telling him how much she hated him, despised him, and deplored him with every breath as he brought her to orgasm. What makes it so hot is that we know [...]
