Christmas lights on a wagon

How do you make the tour of holiday houses extra special for your Christmas-crazed son? Pull ... Readings did. He powered it with an old motorcycle battery and a cheap power inverter. How about adding [more...]

Date: 2008-12-15 02:05:32

Blog posts (440) | Videos (151)
 

Are they cheap, broke, or understaffed?

Are they cheap, broke, or understaffed? Category: Politics We know that the GOP has been incapable of and uninterested in governing for about half ... houses?). And the school has now also sent a cease & desist notice. The 2000 and 2004 conventions were [more...]

Date: 2008-09-06 03:51:10

Ahh, cool.

Ahh, cool. July 9, 2008 in Places, problems | 4 comments This morning we finally got the air conditioning going at our apartment here in Boston ... by cheap window fans in every room. It’s amazing to me that most of my life has been lived without much benefit of AC. We didn’t have it in any of the three houses where I grew up in New Jersey. (Well [more...]

Date: 2008-07-09 13:23:49

The Concept of Non-Ownership (by Phila)

I've been thinking lately about the form that architecture takes in an economy based on land speculation rather than, say, industrial productivity ... would have their sovereign acre of prairie (and a Wright house planted squarely on it), to Frank Gehry ... . Is there a certain type of building, or building style, that becomes dominant during a real [more...]

Date: 2008-11-01 16:49:43

What Obama Means to Me

My parents were white shopkeepers in the black ghetto of Harlem, living in back of a small store, selling things to people even poorer than they were ... more than fences, acquiring stolen goods cheap to resell. Now strict laws required them to be wary ... . In the windows of Harlem shops, black-on-yellow placards showed the week’s offerings of local movie [more...]

Date: 2009-01-19 19:13:00

Business Pundit’s Biggest Winners and Losers of 2008

If one sentence comes to mind regarding this year, it is “Good riddance.” On its coattails, next year’s sentence: “I hope it doesn’t get too much worse.” Collectively, there’s a feeling akin to a strong hangover, the kind that chooses its own terms of exit rather than yielding to the traditional 3,000-calorie breakfast, Gatorade and painkillers [more...]

Date: 2008-12-31 17:16:12

Building Smarter Homes

This article was written by Alex Steffen in April 2007. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective. [ ... buildings are at least as important a goal as radical new material breakthroughs. We don't even need ... of home designs the existing sustainability benefits of pre-fabricated buildings, and what we see [more...]

Date: 2008-09-16 19:41:37

Squatters, fuckwits, bums, lowlifes

A reply to John Surname, principally, but also an opportunity to review some of the recent history of squatting in Australia ... buildings for accommodation or other, social purposes. Leaving aside the emergence of a squattocracy in the nineteenth century, “bums and lowlifes” have been occupying buildings in this manner in Melbourne [more...]

Date: 2009-01-19 14:21:20

It’s The Flip Side Now

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. The Guardian, “After Taylor Wimpey’s shock warning today that it will take months to secure a rescue package from investors and that it could breach its banking covenants next February, analysts say there is ‘a very real danger’ that Britain’s biggest housebuilder by volume could collapse [more...]

Date: 2008-07-02 18:38:46

"The torture of chalkdust collects on my tongue" or, How I spent my 3-day weekend

I have a small hole in my ankle, my legs feel like I've been running all weekend, and I can still taste the drywall dust in the air ( ... older houses. We would much rather live in a '50s - or earlier - fixer-upper than in any new ... , there's always more to do.THIS weekend, we did a relatively quick and easy and cheap job that, I think, makes [more...]

Date: 2009-01-20 07:01:00

Last weekend I moderated a panel in the sweltering heat of the third annual Brooklyn Book Festival. The guests were both well-regarded representatives in their chosen fields, if somewhat polarization in terms of output, but with enough overlap that they both effectively represented the fairly abstract panel title, “Cartooning Today [more...]

Date: 2008-09-17 13:01:04

Repossessions should become council houses

What a day it was yesterday! I had my radio with me in the office so that I could keep up to date with the latest developments as the global economy ... for the destruction of the British manufacturing industry and rising unemployment. Cheap foreign imports ... . I am certainly shedding no tears this morning. With the disappearance of the cheap credit [more...]

Date: 2008-09-16 08:17:10

The beauty in imperfection!!

photo: source unknownIt seems many of you share my belief that our homes don't have to have the best of everything to be beautiful and welcoming. In fact, most of us would rather be surrounded by our treasured collections that we choose because they make us feel a certain way, than simply accessorize with what should be added to the mix [more...]

Date: 2008-07-17 01:00:00

SPIN YOUR GLOBE TO LONG ISLAND (Apr, 1939)

view additional pages SPIN YOUR GLOBE TO LONG ISLAND Only Six States Have More People than the Insular Empire that Ranges from a World’s Fair Through Potato Patches, Princely Estates, and Historic Shrines By Frederick Simpich With Illustrations from Photographs by Willard R. Culver WHAT if a super-tugboat could cast a line about Long [more...]

Date: 2008-09-12 06:20:31

DrumBeat: November 16, 2008

Global climate changes could lead to violence: Experts say it will accelerate the race for food, water KANSAS CITY, MO. — A warmer planet could find itself more often at war. The Earth's fast-changing climate has a range of serious thinkers — from military brass to geographers to diplomats — predicting a spate of armed conflicts driven by the [more...]

Date: 2008-11-16 13:20:33

The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Hedge Funds

How the might have fallen. Once dominant hedge funds have been in a spectacular freefall since their complex world of finance imploded this year ... fees. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~Special~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Get Gold Cheap… Before It Takes Off Again Gold is giving ... so high that — here in London at least — the money held by brokers, exchanges and clearing houses [more...]

Date: 2008-11-26 13:45:30

Lloyd Alter: Let's Get Small

Slow food has evolved into slow cities, slow design and more; it is a useful meme for the idea that you take it slow, ... there is a small modern movement happening as well, with the Micro Compact Home, sustain minihome photo ... called the modern economy unsustainable, as natural resources were treated as expendable income [more...]

Date: 2008-09-13 22:14:50

Loose Lips Daily: Jim Graham Likes to Party With Firefighters

As much local politics as humanly possible. Send your tips, releases, stories, events, etc. to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. And get LL Daily sent straight to your inbox every morning! IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—”At Birthday Bash, Fenty Returns to Campaign Mode“; “New Utah Rep Against D.C. Congressional Vote” Morning all [more...]

Date: 2008-12-09 13:56:57

Government Bailout

The government bailouts of firms like AIG and Fannie Mae were intended to promote stability in the financial markets and ensure access to credit ... footing by directly intervening, the government would buy foreclosed houses in areas where prices are declining and then burn those houses down so that they could not be resold. I know that sounds silly [more...]

Date: 2009-01-21 01:16:48

Poor affected most as Environmental Destruction Agency blasts away barrier to expand mountaintop removal mining

“Clean” coal’s dirtiest secret: Part III This article, third in a series on mountaintop removal coal mining, was originally titled “The poor are always downstream.” It must now be amended to add “when there is still a stream to be down from.” In an act that puts a grossly ironic twist on its name, [more...]

Date: 2008-12-04 19:33:33

Speculators in Exurban Bubble Markets

With the financial crisis, we might start seeing a few more defaults in Greenwich, CT (we can all hope, can't we?), but so far, the defaults have tended to hit marginal areas hardest. Here in California, people in Santa Monica aren't defaulting, it's the poor bastards out in the high desert or even down in Bakersfield in the hot, [more...]

Date: 2008-09-29 10:56:20

Buffalo: Where the Urban Dream is Going Cheap

From tiny apartment to big front porch Buffalo has everything going for it; green hydropower, water, railways, canals, a temperate climate; it should be a hot spot. Instead it has a smaller population than it did in 1907 and acres of empty houses. Adam Sternbergh writes in New York magazine about how New Yorkers [more...]

Date: 2008-08-29 18:06:20

Local Market Observations!

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Lower prices? “Orange County’s median home sale price dropped to $291,500 in July, down 11.2 percent from a year ago, according to data released Monday by the Orange County Association of Realtors. ‘We’ve been averaging a 1 percent drop per month,’ said Chris Scibelli, president of OCAR [more...]

Date: 2008-08-16 17:43:06

dirty deeds done dirt cheap

Due to previously scheduled in-service days combining forces with extreme weather conditions, ... . Being away from school friends for so many days means the phone at my house has rung virtually nonstop ... . Wait! Did you read that as "seeing if my son could go over to R's house to play?" Yeah. I did, too [more...]

Date: 2009-01-19 03:15:00

The Nonconformists’ Guide to Personal Finance

This is a guest post from Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity. It’s long. It’s good. If you can’t read it all now, bookmark it and come back later. It’s worth it. Earlier this week, Chris released a short (and free) e-book called A Brief Guide to World Domination. It’s all about rejecting mediocrity and pursuing a higher purpose [more...]

Date: 2008-06-26 12:00:08

Party tricks: Ten ways to save on your next shindig

This is so timely as my dear daughter’s 2nd birthday is coming up! But no, we don’t have any grand plan for her special day this year since we had a big one on her 1st birthday already. But instead, we might just get her a Dora cake and prep up some balloons here in our place on her day  and a dinner out with our immediate family since it’ll also [more...]

Date: 2009-01-02 16:25:55

Bailout rejected

The Democrats mostly supported the intervention while the Republicans mostly opposed it. I watched the proceedings in the U.S. Congress and my reaction is: wow.See also: Lawrence Summers: Taxpayers can still benefit from the bail-out, Financial TimesThese guys have a lot of courage if not irresponsibility. Not too shockingly, Dow drops by 7% ( [more...]

Date: 2008-09-29 18:29:00

Pet Advice - Pet News - Pet Photos

Bitter Cold Weather Tipsby Mary Bushnell, St. Louis Pets ExaminerThe weather in the Midwest has been about as unpleasant as it can get. As bad as it is for people, think how it affects the thousands of animals left outside.Temperature and wind chill will kill. Here are a few ideas on winterizing your pet accommodations if you have outside pets [more...]

Date: 2009-01-19 15:24:00

First snowy night

Looks like we'll be at home tomorrow. Here are a couple of cheap Christmas projects perfect for indoor, hot cocoa kind of days:Using blocks to make a winter sceneSugaring box buildings for a snowy villageBuilding gingerbread houses for the birdsFood Lion has clementines $5/crate this week, so we may toss our peels in a pot [more...]

Date: 2008-12-12 02:58:00

The Triple Whammy of Bigotry in the 2008 Election by William Cox

by William Cox featured writer Dandelion Salad www.thevoters.org Sept. 22, 2008 It’s been awhile since a black man was lynched in America, but the Rove Gang’s getting the crowd ginned up for another one and the town’s on edge. The last lynching took place 10 years ago in East Texas Bush Country when three young white racists chained James [more...]

Date: 2008-09-22 21:47:21

Cone-of-Not-Silenced John McCain Bombing Missouri Airwaves

The may come as a surprise to people, but I"m not a big John McCain fan.I know. I'm shocked too. To think that a mere eight years ago he was being attacked for having Vietnam War PTSD, that his wife was a pill-pooping loony and he had an illegitimate black child. But there he is, beaming at me from my TV.John McCain: The Thing That Would Not Die [more...]

Date: 2008-08-21 03:25:00

How to Live With Your Favorite 'Fur-Ball'!

Bitter Cold Weather Tipsby Mary Bushnell, St. Louis Pets ExaminerThe weather in the Midwest has been about as unpleasant as it can get. As bad as it is for people, think how it affects the thousands of animals left outside.Temperature and wind chill will kill. Here are a few ideas on winterizing your pet accommodations if you have outside pets [more...]

Date: 2009-01-18 18:06:00

MAPS AND ATLASES - You And Me And The Mountain (2008)

Maps & Atlases dazzled us with their ability to fuse the technical wizardry of Don Caballero with poppy melodies on their debut EP Tree, Swallows, Houses. Since then, record labels have dazzled us by not paying for a full-length from these guys. OK, I can't support that claim, but really, has that ever mattered to me? It's just as possible [more...]

Date: 2008-08-08 19:38:17

Did That Slap On The Back Leave a Knife?

One of the things the place I work does to attract clients is advertise foreclosure lists to our clients. Several times a week, people call and ask for the lists, and we say, "Great! Just come on down, fill out a loan package and an agency agreement, and we'll get them to you fresh every morning, and when you see one you might be interested in, [more...]

Date: 2008-06-28 16:50:16

US Economy - A “perfect storm” of housing and lending events

First let me qualify this post. I am not an economist. However I do have more than the average “Bear Sterns” experience in the real estate world and lending. So here, I like to project some of my own theories as to the culmination of the US economy, turning a 180 because of the effects of what many like to call the subprime mortgage crisis [more...]

Date: 2008-09-23 01:20:23

Madmen v Migrants: Anti-Group-Home Opposition Rises Again in Aspen Hill? (Part VI)

Earlier we covered the general movement in opposition to any increase in the number of rental properties in Aspen Hill, ... civic association to close down one of those group houses. We covered some background on mental ... to rent to; it's in their best interest to kick the disabled into the street so they can have cheap [more...]

Date: 2009-01-19 20:50:04

Opportunity?

We are faced with a situation in less than a decade, of rising oil prices which will rise so high that many of us will be forced to abandon our petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles. Transportation of all goods and freight will be effected. The cost of everything from groceries to imported clothes and toys and medicines will be higher, [more...]

Date: 2008-08-30 12:34:37

The Faux Bottom, Housing Worsens, Newspapers in Trouble, An Oversold Sector, and More!

ur “Obama Rally” forecast… will things “get worse before they get better” or vice versa?… Print in the doghouse… Tribune Co., New York Times and McClatchy looking desperate… Still no bottom in sight for housing… foreclosure, refi and pending home sales data all down… Anecdotal evidence of tough times to come… Wiggin house, [more...]

Date: 2008-12-10 13:43:43

What Type of Real Estate Listing Agent to Choose

On a regular basis, I see advertisements for real estate offices that say "discount broker - full service". This is nonsense. Actually, it is a calculated lie. A discount broker has consciously chosen a business model whose economics do not permit them to give the same service provided by a full service provider. Here's the rundown [more...]

Date: 2009-01-03 15:41:44

The Peak Oil Crisis: Renovating Suburbia

Falls Church News-PressBy Tom Whipple There has been a lot written lately about the coming demise of America's suburbs. The general thesis is that without cheap fuels for cars, lawnmowers and heating, suburban living ... side to this coin.I will be the among the first to grant that suburbia is a creature of cheap energy [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 20:51:00

Book Publishers: Are They Car Companies or Banks?

Amid all the horrible economic news, there was a little blip in book publishing this week that may turn out to be a milestone in the evolution of the business. Three major publishing houses announced significant changes–the remaining firms will certainly follow suit in the weeks and months ahead. The problem is the cascading effect [more...]

Date: 2008-12-06 16:11:57

Welcome to History

It’s helpful to think of how to address the current financial crisis (and I don’t use that word casually) in terms of the end-state we want to achieve, and the transition plan to get there. The problem ... . It is well known, in retrospect, that we had a classic speculative bubble in home prices. As is typical [more...]

Date: 2008-09-19 20:04:15

Built On A Fallacy

The Pittsburg Post Gazette reports from Pennsylvania. “Howard Hanna III has never seen a real estate market like this — and he has been keeping an eye on real estate for the past 40 years. Falling interest rates and generally low unemployment typically prompt home owners to expand their homes or trade up. But Mr [more...]

Date: 2008-09-29 13:06:00

Burn After Reading: The $22 Movie

I’m going to sound like a crotchety old man for a minute here — but it’s my blog and I can write what I want. Movies are too damn expensive ... we stay at home and watch movies from Netflix. When we do go out, we make a point of hitting the cheap ... and I looked for a venue yesterday, none of the cheap places were showing Burn After Reading. The closest [more...]

Date: 2008-09-25 20:00:26

Square Today, Octagon Tomorrow

Orson Squire Fowler was determined to be a preacher. At the tender age of 17 he walked 400 miles from his small town of Cohocton, New York to Massachusetts so that he might be tutored in the ways of the ministry. When Fowler enrolled in Amherst he made fast friends with another minister-to-be, [more...]

Date: 2008-10-14 04:45:17

DrumBeat: January 1, 2009

Blackout fear for EU as gas row escalates Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, ... energy giant, says it will continue pumping gas to European customers through Ukrainian territory ... to restore supplies, a White House spokesman said Russia should bear in mind "the humanitarian [more...]

Date: 2009-01-01 13:44:53

From Spore to Space: Being the East India Company

Filed under: Features, Hands-on, Simulation, Strategy, Spore You may choose to annihilate all of your fellow races in Spore, but the alternative is far more sinister than outright genocide. I am referring to the trading mechanics of Space mode, which reflects the Elite-like premise of the mode, just with less depth [more...]

Date: 2008-09-16 12:00:00

Why should Realtors come to BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Orlando? To learn the Bloodhound art of marketing listings, for one thing, as an expression of an attainable moral perfection

I like to think that, as a secondary consequence of the things I do, I goad good people into becoming better people. This is a part of everything I do, but it’s why there is a category called “Egoism in Action” in BloodhoundBlog, and it’s why so much of what I write about is focused on the idea I call “Splendor [more...]

Date: 2008-09-10 12:00:00

Teaching My Son to Be a Man

Image from mattbellphoto Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Sean Platt at Writer Dad. Check out his site! Whenever I’m watching a movie that harkens back to a sepia tinted yesteryear, it isn’t the simpler times I long for so much as a return to the distant days when a man rose alongside the [more...]

Date: 2008-12-03 05:45:29

One ex-Israeli Army Officer testifies to Israel's Abuses of Power

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastropheOxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusionsA wounded Palestinian policeman gestures while lying on the ground outside Hamas [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 03:39:00

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