Make a difference in the world...

... by reducing your toilet paper consumption.

According to Cheryl Crow, another Hollywood professor on politics, we need to lower our consumption on paper goods such as toilet paper and paper napkins. Her solution is to use one square per toilet visit and two to three on "pesky occasions". This, in turn, will help our efforts in preventing wastefulness and help reduce the effects of Global Warming.

I seriously don't know how to comment on this, because the idea is so absurd. All I can say, is that it's minds like Cheryl Crow that are funding and backing the whole Global Warming farce.




Cited from the Independent:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/lifestyle/article2480996.ece

Hype!

About the time Hurricane Katrina hit, I finally realized how over-hyped the media is. So to help counter-act this, I'm posting a few links to articles about certain issues today.

Global Warming
Check out Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the outgoing Chairman of Environment & Public Works Committee's, official report about global warming. It's interesting that this isn't reported on the news...
http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6345050%20Hot%20&%20Cold%20Media.pdf
...and here from the Center for Science and Public Policy
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070201_monckton.pdf

Media Hype
Check out John Stossel's articles on media hype.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/the_media_likes_scaring_us_and.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/worry_about_the_right_things.html

There's not much in ratings when you talk about the common flu, less then predicted hurricanes, and a non-existent global scare.

Closing on a house!

Well,

We are in the process of closing on our house. It's quite amazing all the "fees" in this process.

• Realtors get 6% of the closing costs, which as a buyer we don't directly pay, but indirectly since it's "included" in the selling price anyways. Normally the seller posts the price 10% above market, then the "standard" final negotiating price is -3% from the posting price. So basically the sellers get what they want AND the Realtors are taken care of as well. One exception is if the house has been on the market for a while, then the sellers have to bite the bullet.
• Then there's the whole inspection process. Luckily we had very minor issues with the house, but still $200-400 spent. Which looking at the final price is small, but seriously when is several hundred dollars small.
• Then there's the closing costs. This is my favorite because here's where everyone takes a bit for themselves. Let's see, you have 1%-2% of the selling price for the loan organization fees.
• Then all the other fee's total $4000-$6000. That comes down some based on property taxes due from the sellers, but still you're paying that later anyways.

So let's look at this. Let's say we bought a house for $200,000.

• 6% realtor = 12,000; 2% loan= 4,000; $4,000 fees
• 12,000 + 4,000 + 6,000 = $20,000 of fees.
• The final total would be $208,000 paid, because the realtor's fee is "included".

Let's look at the alternative:

• Pay house off in full (ha ha, yeah right)

So welcome to the real world, I guess. My concern is that does it really take ~$8,000 to prepare a loan? I understand loaning out hundreds of thousands of dollars is not something to take lightly, but in this age of computers I can't believe it is harder to process then 20 years ago.

By the way, we didn't pay any of these amounts as stated, they were just rough numbers thrown out there.

Edit twice for formatting.