The democratic representative from Florida came out with a doozy this week.  He’s frustrated, and rightly so, that nothing coming out of the House is being taken up by the Senate.  Here’s his quote direct from TheHill.com (and paraphrased a bit by moi):

It doesn’t make a difference if the Republicans in the Senate are blocking everything they can.  At this point, if you put a cure for cancer up in the Senate, it would get filibusters

Sad but true Congressman, sad but true.

I was falling over laughing this week about the insane details coming out about John Edwards infamous “Mistress Cover-up”.  This man has got to be the dumbest lay ever.  First he falls for a new agey California filmmaker.  Then he decides he’ll just cheat a little bit on his wife.  Did I mention she’s suffering from incurable cancer?  Shades of Newt Gingrich anyone?  Well the story goes on.  Turns out the idiot mistress gets pregnant and Edwards campaign manager sends her into hiding so that Edwards can maintain his bid for president.  His former aide who accepted responsibility for the child’s paternity also goes into hiding with her and his wife.  Are you still with me?  Well they spend the entire pregnancy camped out in high end hotels and flying around the country in private jets all on the dime of a 99 year old  private donor named “Bunny” Mellon.  To the tune of $700,000 sent via chocolate boxes with notes saying, “This is the save the nation.”.  Obviously Bunny had no idea what she was paying for.  In the end they spent over a million dollars and it all came out anyway.  These things always do.  What next?  Well the aide is morally indignant enough with Edwards actions that he has written (and is flogging) his own book, The Politician.  Yeah, the guy who lied about paternity is pissed because Edwards didn’t tell America the truth.  Somebody get that guy a mirror, “Hello pot?  This is the kettle, you’re black!”.  Oh and did I mention he has photos and a sex tape of Edwards and his mistress safely stashed away?  American scandal.  It just doesn’t get any better than this!

So… Are you a homeowner? Have you used Zillow.com to check the supposed value of your house? Do you believe what they tell you? Well I sure as sh*t wouldn’t. Here’s why…

As many of you know The Frogette and I recently sold our San Francisco condo, and although the price wasn’t what we could have made a year earlier, we did well—a combination of buying well below our capacity and a market region that hasn’t completely cratered. But…if Zillow were the definitive guide to our home’s value, not only would we have taken a bath, but the new owner would have realized a 15% appreciation in just the time between when we accepted an offer and today.

What Zillow did was to torpedo their estimate of our condo’s value, dropping it 25% in the 3 month span from Nov 2008 to Feb 2009, with no evidence of a corresponding drop in our area. In fact, when the condo across the hall sold well above market in Mar 2009, Zillow did nothing. They didn’t even count it as a comparable.

Here’s the time-line:

• Early Jun 2009 – We decide to sell, Zillow’s estimate is 20% below the eventual asking price
• Late Jul 2009 – The condo goes on the market, Zillow’s estimate is 16% below asking
• Late Aug 2009 – An offer is accepted, Zillow’s estimate is still 10% below the sale price
• Late Sep 2009 – Escrow closes, Zillow’s estimate (even with MLS data to the contrary) is still 7% below the sale price (but they’re dragging it up almost daily)
• Late Oct 2009 – Now… a month since the close of escrow, Zillow finally has their estimate at the sale price, and guess what?  That price is almost exactly what you would get if you drew a straight line across that huge valley on the graph.

It seems pretty clear. Zillow isn’t just reporting real estate prices and statistics, with maybe a zippy algorithm here or there to get a good bead on property values, they are blatantly trying to manipulate the market, for what reason…I have no idea.  You can draw your own conclusions, but we’re very glad that potential purchasers of our condo, paid little or no attention to Zillow, and with good reason I’d say.

Thank you Mayor Norris, Walker, Texas Ranger is my favorite show ever.

Hello ladies, gentlemen and fans. Man, aren’t there a lot of six foot rabbits here today. It’s great to be back in Mount Vernon, my home town, out on the edge of the prairie.

And what a randy town you are! Painting tulips on the big smokestack like that; I’m also an art critic, so I know what the message is you’re trying to get across with tulips. On a smokestack.

Wow, the key to the city. Keys are really a randy thing too. Let me show you what I’m talking about. First slide, please.

Look at how this key is shaped. It’s long and slender with ripples on one side. It’s metal, which is hard. Yet not the hardest metal, so it’s soft. Something very familiar about that. Next slide.

What do you do with a key? You put it in a hole, don’t you? You slide it in, pull it out, slide it in, pull it out. You twist it, which is like screwing in a screw. It’s a sexual metaphor, I’ve given this a lot of thought, it’s so obvious. Next slide.

And do you have a different key for every door in your house? No, you probably have one key that you put in a lot of holes. That’s promiscuity. Next one.

Now look what’s written on this key: “Yale.” As in Yale University, one of the biggest centers of the liberal east coast intelligentsia. Next.

What happens when you turn that key? It unlocks stuff! It opens doors! Doors to home, doors to employment, doors to school, doors to your car, doors to your doctor’s office! Last slide.

ATM cards are like keys! You put it in a slot!

Look at this key, people! It has a secret message for you from the liberal intelligentsia. They’re telling you that having sex, promiscuous sex, is the key that opens doors to home ownership, work, education, a nice car, medical care, and wealth in general! God, I worry so much about the hidden messages liberals hide everywhere, it brings tears to my eyes.

You know what? I can’t believe I came back here for a filthy, dirty key. I’ve never been so insulted in my life. You can keep your damn key, Mister Mayor, and you can shove it in your hole!

And Clarence Gilyard Jr. was the best thing on that show.

by SARAH PALIN, Syndicated Columnist

Dear ex-governor,
With the kids away at college, the wife and I are thinking about taking a little vacation. Has the dollar rebounded enough to make Europe an affordable destination? Or are we looking at a stay-cation?
Signed, Roamin Holiday

Dear Roamin,
Whoa Nellie, the last thing you want right now is any travel abroad or internationally, such as to places where unplanned sickness and injury could expose you and your wife to socialized medical care at no cost to you — as well as the awful service because the death panels means there are no Europeans left to work as tour guides, cab drivers, waiters, chefs, concierges and chambermaids doggone it — and also too the availability of high speed intercity rail systems means you would miss out on all the joys of an American-style family car trip, such as the chance to buy tank after tank of unleaded — and don’t forget that everything in Europe is so old anyway and the streets are cramped, so why not just stay home in the good old US of A?

There’s no question that online bill payments—the ability to pay your credit-card bills, mortgage, or car payment with the ease of a single click—are a great convenience.  But now banks and financial institutions are abusing this system to inflate their profits and are destroying people’s credit ratings in the process.

From The Consumerist we hear about two instances where customers had their credit destroyed by predatory corporations who played games with their automated payment systems.  In the first instance, Nissan Auto Finance reversed one woman’s car payments—made on time—in each of six consecutive months without notice and without explanation, then reported her as delinquent to the credit bureaus and refused to correct their error…as they are required to do by law.

In the second, AT&T simply stole $157.00 + from one of their customers by claiming that the customer’s payment via credit-card was declined (it wasn’t) and then auto-debiting the same amount (plus hefty fees) again the next month.  Now, despite proof that AMEX didn’t decline the initial charge, AT&T refuses to do anything about the situation.

These criminals are banking on the fact that their customers don’t have the resources to sue the cr*p out of them, and for the most part they are correct.  So…when dealing with corporations that are willing to resort to out-and-out theft to keep their balance sheets in the black, what’s a consumer to do?  RETURN TO CASH, that’s what!  It is, if fact, the only alternative.  Buy your car in cash.  Pay your bills with checks.  Don’t give these bastards even a single opportunity to rip you off.

Controversy surrounding the U.S. Census eased somewhat today, after the agency’s chief critic, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), filled out a practice Census form.

The form was provided to Bachmann by Census enumerator Jim Tally in Bachmann’s Stillwater home. The Census Bureau arranged the special visit to allay Bachmann’s publicized worry that the decennial national survey is “very intricate,” “very personal,” and “contains coded quotations from the the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.”

Afterward, Bachmann said she was satisfied the process is above board. “It used short, easy to read words, and did not appear to be concealing any anti-America motivations,” said Bachmann.

“In fact, I was pleased at the number of essay questions,” she said, and provided reporters with copies of her form. Some of the questions, with
Bachmann’s answers, were:

• Number in your household: 160 million (including all sperm and ovum)
• Sex by Age: About twice a month
• Median sex by age: We don’t do it in the road
• Sex by marital status 15 and over: My kids would never have premarital sex, anymore than Sarah Palin’s would
• Sex by year of entry for the foreign-born population: This is why we have to close the borders!
• Sex by Work Experience: All this ’sexual harrassment’ stuff is a bunch of hooey.
• Means of transportation to work: Automobile, emitting life-giving carbon
• Was the moon landing faked? Yes
• Number of voices in your head: 27

“Those weren’t essay questions, but we’ll do our best to interpret them quantitatively,” Tally said.

I’m having a Consumerist moment right now.  For the third time in a row I’ve gone to my local Whole Foods to buy groceries.  At the check out my $12.99 bottle of wine suddenly experiences inflation and comes up on the register as $13.99.  The first two times this happened I politely pointed out the mistake and the checker immediately made a correction.  The third time, I got pissed. I called them on it and, again, they fixed the price for me.  No argument, no complaints, just fixed it right up.  What this tells me is that Whole Foods is planning to survive the recession by overcharging busy or harrassed shoppers for their food.  If you don’t have time to watch each item ring up, expect to pay more. I would expect this from a Safeway or our local Cala, but Whole Foods?!  It’s like Whole Paycheck Foods to begin with, the last thing they need to be doing is cheating me at the checkout!

From the iNews 9000 Turbo wi-fi headline translator—

Headline: Food taster tested Obamas’ Paris meal
Translation: All in a day’s work for the U.S. Secret Sauce Service

Headline: Television go blank? Maybe you weren’t ready for DTV switch
Translation: Blank screen debuts on NBC to huge ratings

Headline: Ahmadinejad’s victory greeted by Tehran protests
Translation: Satirists protest- Norm Coleman jokes only work if Ahmadinejad loses

Headline: Netanyahu Agrees to Palestinian State With Conditions
Translation: “I’m thinking of a number between 1 and infinity”

Headline: Koogle Kosher Search Engine To Rival Google
Translation: System goes down every Friday at sunset

Headline: Ensign Placed Son of Mistress On NRSC Payroll
Translation: “Thanks, but don’t expect me to call you ‘dad’”

Headline: Dungeons & Dragons maker sues 8 over handbooks
Translation: Calligraphed on non-standard parchment, nerds allege

Headline: Obama Swats Fly During Interview
Translation: “Obama is a frog” – Grabbed fly with his tongue, patriots claim (Read the blog!)

Headline: Ensign’s admission blurs conservative image
Translation: Now conservatives’ faces on TV have to be pixelated

Headline: AG Holder – 50 or more Gitmo trials possible
Translation: “I’m a Detainee, Get Me Out of Here!”

Headline: Kremlin Names Panel to Repair Russia’s Image
Translation: Say hello to “The Happiest Plutocracy on Earth”

Headline: PETA wishes Obama hadn’t swatted that fly
Translation: “If you kill the flies, who will eat the dog turds? See, life’s a circle-”

Headline: Kate Gosselin defends spanking her kids
Translation: “Eight kids! Eight! EIGHT! Twenty-four seven!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

Headline: Senate OKs bill to keep detainee photos private
Translation: Carrie Prejean wants to know how she can get that deal

Headline: Daschle comes out publicly against public option
Translation: Public option would not provide free car with driver

Headline: Is the Fed wearing so many hats it can’t do its main job?
Translation: Fed phones up Condoleezza Rice to talk shoes.

Headline: Robert Pattinson struck by car, escapes injury
Translation: Taxi with Pattinson-shaped dent appears on Ebay

Headline: No Constitutional Right to DNA Evidence, Supreme Court Rules
Translation: Now we’ll never know whose pubic hair was on the Coke can

From the iNews 9000 Turbo wi-fi headline translator—

Headline: White House aide resigns over NY flyover
Translation: Caldera takes train out of the capital

Headline: Women’s fertility drug caused failed Ramirez test
Translation: Manny’s testicles no longer suspended

Headline: Manny ‘very sorrowful’
Translation: Ramirez on 50 game DL – Post-partum depression

Headline: Dennis Miller on Wanda Sykes’ Controversial Jokes at White House
Translation: “Where are the precious Kierkegaard references?” asks smug prick

Headline: Republicans to Brand Democrats as “Democrat Socialist Party”
Translation: Most Americans have already branded Republicans as “American Nazi Party”

Headline: WHO meets on production of swine flu vaccine
Translation: World hails vaccine found on cheese in Daltrey’s refrigerator

Headline: Budget Crisis in California Could Claim Landmarks
Translation: Stop payment on California pageant organizers’ check could force Prejean to return implants

Headline: Abuse photos put US in ‘double catch-22′
Translation: 2×22=44, and Obama is the 44th president – “COINCIDENCE?” asks Alex Jones

Headline: Bike to work on Friday
Translation: Bike to work commuters outnumbered by those biking to unemployment office

Headline: Prudential, Hartford Among Insurers Cleared for US Bailout
Translation: Geithner gored by stag after being hit by piece of the rock

Headline: Rove to Be Interviewed Over Attorney Firings
Translation: Poll – Americans say waterboarding would be OK in interview of this type