| See-through condos
Sales contracts fell through when buyers couldn't get affordable loans. Investors who had hoped to buy in and then resell at a profit pulled out of the market. Buyers who had to sell their current homes first were stuck when they couldn't sell. Others balked at paying prices that had seemed more reasonable during the run-up in home prices.
New condo sales in metropolitan Baltimore fell 37 percent in the first half of this year - the latest statistics available - while new townhouse sales fell 15 percent, according to Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. And in the third quarter, as the credit crunch hit the market, there were more contract cancellations than sales in the Baltimore metro market, according to an analysis by Delta Associates, which includes projects that are selling or under construction.
Jim Paxon's wildfire blog
There is blessed stuff of a White Christmas on the ground in Show Low and even fire ravaged California has finally gotten some rains along with the cessation of Santa Anna winds. Wildland Fire Season 07 is virtually over. Even though this was an unusually mild fire season in Arizona, it was another record breaker in the West and Southeast. Nationwide, there were almost 80,000 fires that burned nine million acres at a cost of 1.5 billion dollars. Thousands of homes and many lives were lost. Contrast that with the last mild fire season prior to this extended drought (1995) which only burned 1.84 million acres with approximately 82,000 fires. This years damage is five times the acreage with approximately the same number of fires. What is going on, we ask? Can we blame it all on global warming? Hardly! We know that fires are burning hotter and are much harder to stop than ever before.
Schwarzenegger's bad-news budget
Besides, rigid formulas are no substitute for the types of line-by-line judgment calls that the governor and legislators are elected to make. Schwarzenegger is right to serve up the fiscal news in unadorned fashion. There aren't any easy answers. A resolution to this mess will require a revival of bipartisan spirit that has helped this governor in the past - but may be very hard to find if interest groups and anti-tax ideologues dig in their heels. .
Different Clinton, more painful bill
It was like turning the clocks back 16 years when Hillary Clinton put her campaign to become the first woman president of the United States back on track with victory in New Hampshire. It was, of course, the same small north-eastern state where Bill first won his spurs as the comeback kid. The similarity does not end there. Just as in 1992, the US economy is a mess. Unemployment is rising, the federal deficit is enormous, personal debt frighteningly high, the real estate market is in freefall. For the first time since George Bush Sr was booted out of the White House, the economy is going to be absolutely central to this year's struggle for the presidency. Whoever wins the race - be it a Republican or Democrat - will take comfort from the fact that if economic recovery could be achieved in the 1990s it can be achieved again.
the has-been
Could Bush be deliberately forcing us into the very type of national embarrassment in the Middle East that has prompted merger offers in the past? Like Ricky Bobby in Talledega Nights, who loses his NASCAR crown to a gay Formula One racecar driver from France, could Bush subconsciously be steering us into the wall on purpose as the only way to escape the haunting sense that "if you ain't first, you're last"? Like the cake and the Bible in Iran-Contra, the pieces start to fit together at last. Merger kingpin Henry Paulson's baffling decision to leave one of the largest deal-making firms on earth to come to Washington, where there are no deals in sight. The until-now-unexplained fit Bush threw when reporter David Gregory might have uncovered any merger talks had he been allowed to keep speaking French to Jacques Chirac.
President Bloomberg?
His platform, so far, consists of a vacuous rhetoric that lets listeners read into it whatever they want. He would end "the tired debate between the left and the right, between Democrats and Republicans." Oh really? He would pull Washington out of its "swamp of dysfunction." How grand! Michael Bloomberg, who couldn't get a crowd to stand on its feet and cheer with real enthusiasm to save his life; Michael Bloomberg, who raises the temperature in the room only when he reaches for his wallet; Michael Bloomberg, who has managed to duck every tough question about the direst issues confronting our country, from Iraq to Iran. Michael Bloomberg will run for president because he hears America calling for change. He alone hears his own name in that same wind, but no matter. He can do so because he can afford to.
Off the map in Africa
And most oil companies are neither based in Geneva, best-known for United Nations' agencies and secretive banks, nor expect takeover offers from Asian energy interests, the exit scenario considered most likely by Mr. Gandur, Addax's chief executive officer and controlling shareholder. "We are the reverse of most companies," he said. .
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