Latest Real Estate Market Info for Maricopa County

The count for March's Notices of Trustee's Sales in Maricopa County was 1720. Not a record beater, but certainly within sight of the summit.

MC Trustee's Sale Notices (1995-Present)
Mean	929.5
Median	819
Mode	746
Standard Deviation	306.2041743
Range	1256
Minimum	482
Maximum	1738
Sum	135705
Count	146

The daily average in March (78.18 Notices recorded per day) was also not a record beater.


Here's an interesting chart I threw together based on sales data I pulled from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service. The take-away from it is that, clearly, the inventory of unsold homes in the Phoenix area has been increasing for quite a while, now. The words "downward pressure" come to mind.

Ron Paul in Phoenix

Last night I attended a small event where Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) spoke about his candidacy for president as a Republican. I found it a bit of a disappointment. On the plus side, he is making opposition to both the drug war and the war in Iraq a major part of his campaign. He also opposes warrantless wiretapping, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the Military Commissions Act. And in response to a question from one of several atheists present, he indicated his support for the separation of church and state (and opposition to Bush's faith-based initiatives). On the minus side, his stance on illegal immigration is to "secure the border," deny benefits to illegal immigrants, and eliminate birthright citizenship. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's stance on illegal immigration (double Border Patrol officers, implement a guest worker program, and provide a mechanism for illegal immigrants to pay a fine and become legal residents) makes a whole lot more sense than that. Also on the minus side, as Sameer Parekh has pointed out at his blog, his stance on free trade is to oppose anything that he sees as a compromise on free trade (like major free trade agreements), which makes him look like he's pandering to protectionists--his web page makes no indication that he support free trade, which strikes me as dishonest.

Nutjob Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson was there, and she asked a question about Bush's "stealth campaign" to establish a North American Union; Paul responded that he opposes creation of such an entity and a common currency for such an economic area (the "amero"). This is going into WorldNetDaily and Alex Jones conspiracy theorist territory, conflating the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (a meeting between the three heads of state to increase economic cooperation) with the ideas of Robert Pastor, a professor at American University, about creating a political union. If the EU can't approve a Constitution (with France and the Netherlands rejecting it) and still has holdouts on the euro (Britain and Norway), how likely is it that countries as different as the U.S., Mexico, and Canada would combine into a single political entity?

I'm glad Ron Paul has provided a consistent voice in Congress against the war in Iraq and erosion of our civil liberties in the name of the global war on terror, but I'm afraid he probably wouldn't make a very good president (though I did make a small contribution to his campaign which I'm feeling some buyer's remorse for this morning). My preference is to see a Democratic president and split control of Congress--gridlock seems to be the most effective way of achieving economic growth and slowing the erosion of our civil liberties.

UPDATE (April 12, 2007): The argument that Paul makes about illegal immigration--that we should stop it because of the impact on welfare--is aptly turned on its head in this post from last year at David Friedman's blog.

UPDATE (February 11, 2008): Here's a debunking of a number of Ron Paul claims, including the NAFTA superhighway.

Arizona minimum wage increase put developmentally disabled out of work

Arizona's recent increase in the minimum wage to $6.75/hour put a bunch of developmentally disabled people out of work. The result--now the state Industrial Commission is proposing to call these people "trainees" and exempt them from the minimum wage so that they can go back to work.

(Via Creative Destruction.)

9/11 Conspiracy Nutball Convention in Chandler

I've just learned that I missed the "9/11 Accountability: Strategies and Solutions Conference" that was held in February in Chandler. The guest list is filled with the expected kooks like James Fetzer, Steven Jones, and Col. Robert Bowman from "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" (Jones apparently has withdrawn from co-chair of that group and started another of his own with a similar name after clashing with Fetzer), and Jim Marrs, among many others.

If there was any doubt that this is a collection of people with no concerns about their credibility, I was quite amused to see this entry on the speakers list:

Michael and Aurora Ellegion Michael and Aurora Ellegion, have been investigative reporters for over 25 years. They have insight into the powerful mind control aspect that 9-11 was utilized to create. They have appeared on numerous television programs, the BBC TV and Armed Forces Radio, newspapers and magazines. The Ellegions are also futurists and deeply desire to enlighten mankind, feeling that we must each play a part in directing our government. Michael and Aurora have spoke at cutting-edge conferences worldwide and at the Press Clubs throughout the U.S. on numerous social and political issues.

This description is remarkable for what it omits. I'm familiar with this couple under the name "El-Legion" rather than "Ellegion," from meeting them at a psychic fair in Phoenix around 1987 when I was head of the Phoenix Skeptics. There, they presented themselves as channelers of Lord Ashtar and other discarnate extraterrestrial entities from the Pleiades, along with the occasional Archangel. The website I've linked to, "channelforthemasters.com," seems to indicate that they are still in that business. Hopefully they've discontinued their side business of selling stolen telephone card numbers in Hawaii, for which they were arrested in 1987.

Admission to the psychic fair gave me a ticket for a reading from the psychic of my choice. I chose Michael El-Legion, thinking his reading would be the most likely to provide entertainment, and he did not disappoint. He told me I was an "Eagle Commander" of the Star People and a person of great cosmic importance. I'm pretty sure I still have an audio tape of that reading somewhere.

I wrote up my encounter with Michael El-Legion in the Arizona Skeptic, vol. 2, no. 1 (July/August 1988), which unfortunately I can't seem to find my copies of.

UPDATE (March 31, 2007): Found my copies of the Arizona Skeptic. Turns out I misremembered writing it up, and misread grep output from my search of the online index. The only reference to the El-Legions was in vol. 3, no. 3 (April 1990), in Mike Stackpole's "Editorial Blathering" column. The psychic fair I reported on in vol. 2, no. 1 didn't include anything about the El-Legions, though I did converse with a man who claimed to be an alien contactee, who now is claiming online to have had a near-death experience that have given him healing powers.

My Sweet Lord

Various newspapers (including the Arizona Republic) are covering the story of Cosimo Cavallaro's life-sized statue of Jesus made out of 200 pounds of milk chocolate. All are giving prime coverage to the typical over-the-top rantings of William Donohue of the Catholic League, claiming that "this is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

This Jesus, titled "My Sweet Lord" and hanging in a crucifixion position, is sans cross or loin cloth. For this reason newspapers are only showing it photographed from behind, so you can't see how anatomically accurate it is. A photograph of the work from the front can be found at the artist's website.

Why "the customer is always right" is wrong

At Alexander Kjerulf's Chief Happiness Officer blog is a list of the top five reasons why "the customer is always right" is bad for business:

1. It makes employees unhappy.
2. It gives abrasive customers an unfair advantage.
3. Some customers are bad for business.
4. It results in worse customer service.
5. Some customers are just plain wrong.

I think these reasons hit the nail right on the head (and he includes some fun examples).

(Via a comment at Behind the Counter, a blog that often includes examples of the Florida Wal-Mart where its author works getting ripped off by horrible customers.)

A variant of "the customer is always right" that also drives companies in the wrong direction for some of the same reasons is "the executives are always right."

McCain's MySpace page

Whoever maintains John McCain's MySpace page borrowed the template from another MySpace user without giving credit. That template included an image in the "Contacting " section, which was being pulled from the original user's page and had a list of menu items to click on.

The original user, upset at his template being used without credit, changed the image, so that it said: "Dear Supporters, Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage... particularly marriage between passionate females. John"

McCain's MySpace page has subsequently been fixed.

BTW, the Republican candidate for president with the most MySpace friends is libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, who has for some reason been removed from multiple online polls about candidate preferences (including Pajamas Media and Slate's reporting of the online idea futures).

UPDATE (March 30, 2007): Pajamas Media has re-listed Ron Paul and added Fred Thompson this week; Fred Thompson is leading and Ron Paul is in second for the Republicans; Bill Richardson is leading for the Democrats. Not that online, self-selected polling has any reflection on how an actual vote would go...

A lottery winner who's not blowing his money on strippers

Brad Duke, who managed 5 Gold's Gyms in Idaho, won a $220 million Powerball jackpot in 2005, which translated to an $85 million lump sum payment after taxes. He assembled a team of financial advisors before claiming the prize, and set a goal of turning that $85 million into $1 billion in the next 15 years. Here's what he's done with the money so far:

Investments:
$45 million in low-risk investments such as municipal bonds.
$35 million in aggressive, high-risk investments such as real estate, oil, and gas.

Donations:
$1.3 million creating a family foundation.

Debt retirement:
$125,000 to pay off his mortgage (on a 1,400 sf house he still lives in)
$18,000 to pay off student loans

Purchases:
$65,000 on bicycles, including a $12,000 BMC road bike
$14,500 on a used VW Jetta

Gifts:
$12,000 annual gift to each member of his immediate family

Splurge:
$63,000 on a trip to Tahiti with 17 friends

The result so far--he's turned $85 million into $128-$130 million.

Viacom responds to EFF/MoveOn lawsuit

EFF filed a lawsuit against Viacom for abusing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to cause the takedown of a YouTube video clip called "Stop the Falsiness" which used video from The Colbert Report within the boundaries of fair use.

Viacom has issued a pretty solid response (PDF)--that they issued no such DMCA notice, and if they had, YouTube should have notified the user who submitted the clip and given them a chance to file a counter-notice. Viacom further stated that they found the clip elsewhere, reviewed it, and agree that it constitutes fair use of their content and should be put back up. (YouTube has put the clip back up.)

This is not good news for YouTube--this is further evidence that they are taking down content without receiving DMCA notices, which means that they are exercising editorial control over their content, which places them at greater risk of failing to successfully defend their claim to be protected by the DMCA's "safe harbor" protections.

Other such evidence comes from Mark Cuban, who has been issuing DMCA subpoenas to YouTube users who have used his content (movies produced by his companies such as HDNet). He has also issued takedown notices for some such content, while explicitly choosing not to issue takedown notices for others--because he wants the promotion from YouTube, just not wholesale theft of his content. Yet YouTube has taken down clips that he has specifically chosen not to issue takedown notices for.

This looks like a misstep for the EFF.

UPDATE (March 28, 2007): As noted by commenter Jamie, there apparently was a DMCA notice issued by BayTSP, which was hired by Viacom to send out DMCA notices on its behalf, so Viacom may not be in the clear.

White House involvement in Duke Cunningham scandal

Talking Points Memo has been discussing the fact that the very first contract that Mitchell Wade's MZM, Inc. got with the federal government, back in July 2002, was with the Executive Office of the President, allegedly for office furniture.

It now turns out that it was actually to screen mail for anthrax.

How did MZM, Inc., which had no record or experience, get such an important contract? Who did Mitchell Wade bribe to get that one?

Rep. Henry Waxman is asking for answers.

And remember, the Cunningham/MZM scandal is what San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was investigating when she was asked to resign, the day after she announced that she was going after "Dusty" Foggo, then #3 at the CIA.

More at Talking Points Memo.