Obama Attracts a Multitude; Media Mostly Silent

Barak Obama attracted 75,000 people to a campaign event in Portland, OR, and the big media were mainly quiet about it.

The New York Times described the crowd as a multitude. When is the last time a multitude came out to see a politician in America? A pope, maybe. Or U2. But not a politician.

What was odd is that other major US dailies failed to treat a turnout the size of a small city at a political rally as anything remarkable, or particularly newsworthy.

The LA Times mentioned it, four paragraphs into a story about Obama's attacks against John McCain on social security, lobbyists and foreign policy.

It was hard to find any reference to the Portland multitude on the Washington Post's site, which also gave greater prominence to the McCain/lobbyist story.

Is anyone really surprised by the lack of coverage?

Real Estate News Not All Bad

Despite what is being reported widely in the national media, not all real estate news is negative.

For example, the news coming out of Faulkner County, Arkansas, shows the real estate market in that area in only down by 1 percent over the same time last year.

Local Realtor Richard Henley had this news to share:

"We're seeing increased real estate activity," he said. "Last month was one of our best months. I've been busy, and I know other Realtors have been busy as well. That's always a comforting thing."

He added, "We've been tracking this quite a while. Home prices are apparently not going to have any significant decrease in this area. We are all quite pleased with this news."

In Oklahoma home values continue to rise prompting the Central Oklahoma Home Builders Association and the Oklahoma Association of Realtors to start separate marketing campaigns trumpeting the good news about real estate in the Sooner State.

The Realtors' main message is that home values in Oklahoma rose more than 4 percent last year compared with 2006, in stark contrast to other markets where values are plummeting. Lisa Yates, chief executive of the Realtors group, said Realtors were glad to see the builders' campaign, "which reinforces the facts about our solid market.”

Lenders in these neighboring states avoided the real estate trap of subprime mortgages found in other areas of the country.

For additional news concerning real estate, visit National Realty News.

Bush: Economy Facing Tough Time

President George W. Bush has just found out what most Americans have known for a long time.

“Our economy obviously is going through a tough time,” he said on Friday March 14.

Well, welcome to our reality, Mr. President.

From The New York Times:

President Bush on Friday acknowledged more starkly than ever that the economy has slipped into trouble, dogged by falling home prices and turmoil in financial markets, but he inveighed against government bailouts aimed at limiting the pain.

“Our economy obviously is going through a tough time,” the president told the Economic Club of New York in a morning speech at a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “The temptation of Washington is to say that anything short of a massive government intervention in the housing market amounts to inaction. I strongly disagree with that sentiment.

“I believe there ought to be action,” Mr. Bush added, “but I’m deeply concerned about law and regulation that will make it harder for the markets to recover.”

What a bullshitter.

War Costs Put at $12 Billion Per Month

The cost of the Iraq war is projected to cost $12 billion per month during 2008. At least the Bush cronies are being taken care of.

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

Variations in such estimates stem from the sliding scales of assumptions, scenarios and budget items that are counted. But whatever the estimate, the cost will be huge, the auditors of the Government Accountability Office say.

In a Jan. 30 report to Congress, the GAO observed that the U.S. will be committing "significant" future resources to the wars, "requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces an increasing long-range fiscal challenge."

Frankenstein in Space

The writer of this article takes a whole lot of literary license in comparing a device at the International Space Station to Dr. Frankenstein's monster.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a "monstrous" two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.

Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off in the wee hours of Tuesday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.

They're also delivering the first piece of Japan's massive Kibo space station lab, a float-in closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate.

At 16 days, the mission will be NASA's longest space station trip ever and will include five spacewalks, the most ever performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show.

With 11-foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre — short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter — is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman.

"Now I wouldn't go as far to say that we're worried it's going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how it's operated and it doesn't have a lot of its own intelligence," Reisman told The Associated Press last week.

"But I'll tell you something ... He's enormous and to see him with his giant arms, it is a little scary. It's a little monstrous, it is."

Contraceptive Patch May Cause Blood Clots

The FDA has issued a warning about the contraceptive patch and blood clots. Talk to your doctor, they advise. Just make sure the doc is not on the payroll of Big Pharma.

The agency said the label on the Ortho Evra Contraceptive Transdermal Patch will include the results of a study in women aged 15-44 indicating a higher risk of clots than for women using birth control pills.

The blood clots could potentially lead to a lung embolism, the agency said.

"For women that choose to use contraceptives, it is important that they thoroughly discuss with their health care providers the risks and benefits involved," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA's deputy commissioner for scientific and medical programs.

The agency said it believes the patch is a safe and effective method of contraception, but recommends that women with concerns or risk factors for serious blood clots talk with their health care provider about contraceptive options.

The possibility of blood clots was first placed on the Ortho Evra label in September 2006.

Ortho Evra is a prescription patch that releases hormones through the skin into the bloodstream. Because the hormones are processed by the body differently than hormones from birth control pills, women using the product will be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than if they were using typical birth control pills, FDA said.

High School Students Suspended Over War Protest

High school students in this country continue to be second class citizens. An Illinois school superintendent suspended a group over an anti-war protest after they followed all the rules.

A group of Illinois high school students protesting the Iraq war have been suspended for their act and may face possible expulsion. What a nice lesson in civil disobedience for them. By all accounts they followed the wishes of the administration, but still face stiff disciplinary action. There is some evidence that certain students were warned before hand and pulled out of the demonstration. What a country!