If you have a website or blog running under ANY platform it’s always a good idea to be alerted if your site is down for any reason! Rockbridge Services LLC has introduced a new website monitoring system that can provide you that notification. We have added some links where you can go directly to their site and test it out. You can also sign up your website for free and then try out their notification service in real time before subscribing… Sweet. They offer both a free version as well as a professional upgrade…
This new service is worth checking out if you don’t have any method of monitoring your website’s uptime and want to be alerted to your cell phone or Blackberry if your site goes down…
Rockbridge Designs announces it has added new Wordpress themes based on the old classic Wordpress template but with improved CSS formatting. They have now also assumed operations of our OpenWeb Downloads site, which has been affiliated with ZZ N&S for a number of years and we are currently working with them in partnership. We wanted to give them a plug here since they have begun work on providing new Wordpress themes and custom templates targeted mainly to professionals and small business websites.
Their themes, templates and skins will work fine with any Wordpress installation that supports sidebar widgets (WP 2.6+) . Rockbridge is also planning to add additional Drupal and Joomla website themes and provide and manage software and shareware for the OpenWeb Downloads Affiliate Program.
You can download free demos and shareware samples, so feel free to check them out when you have a chance.
If you prefer to make an investment and join a club for around $50 /yr you might check out DreamTemplate below.
Educated Muslims around the world need to unite and have the courage to speak out against Sharia Law and radical Islam which has become an affront to humanity. If you are confused about the level of barbaric extremism that is Sharia Law, the cornerstone and underpinning of radical Islam, the video below is just a sampling to help educate you. You will not see these images or stories carried by Main Stream Media since they would help undermine the dhiminitue and appeasment agenda of the Obama administration toward radical Muslims.
WARNING: This video contains disturbing but TRUE scenes that accurately reflects current Sharia Law in, yes, the year 2009. Ask yourself while watching this, just what kind of society embraces this form of “justice”.
President Obama acknowledged today that he signed an “imperfect omnibus bill” but told Congress to clean up its act when it comes to pork-barrel projects, better known as earmarks.
“I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it is necessary for the ongoing functions of government. But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change,” President Obama said in a speech on earmark reform.
Lashing out against those who have criticized the earmarks in the bill, Obama added: “Now, let me be clear: Done right, earmarks give legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their district, and that’s why I have opposed their outright elimination. I also find it ironic that some of those who railed the loudest against this bill because of earmarks actually inserted earmarks of their own — and will tout them in their own states and districts.
— ABC News
Clearly this guy is shaping up as the all time champion of talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. He has been avoiding direct questions from the press and probably still feels confident he still has the main stream media in his back pocket. I guess he takes us all for a bunch of idiots when just a few weeks ago he spoke out against “earmarks” happening on his watch. Seems like earmarks are now ok as long as they meet his socialistic agenda of increasing the power of big government (aka as “the State”).
If his signing this bill is not abject hypocrisy, then it is the weakest case of over rationalization and double speak he has made yet to the American people. No wonder he lacked to courage to take questions from the press today after his remarks. He knew exactly what they would be asking him!!
U.S. presidents usually don’t try to give investing advice on the stock market. But not this President. President Obama opted today to play financial adviser to America and the World.
“What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it,” Obama said this in public in the White House while meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. – Pres. Obama 3/3/09
So just where and when did Pres. Obama get his financial consulting license? As President he needs to be very careful about what he says in public regarding the financial markets. These personal tips of guidance are just one more example of his naivety and rookie status on holding the highest executive office in the country. There is no doubt that the current floundering on Capital Hill and at the White House is now at least partly responsible for the stock market’s dive this year. The direct correlations of the recent severe down days cannot be attributed to the previous administration, but instead to the lack of clarity coming out of Washington. It may be true Obama has inherited the seeds and foundation of the current banking crisis and over extended credit problems spanning back over the last 16 years and two administrations, but the meltdown of the last 30 days is attributable to decisions and speeches he and his administration have made on his watch since taking office in January.
The Dow Jones stock index and S&P both dived last week as well as Monday and now Tuesday of this week to their lowest levels in 12 years which has sparked new rounds of concern and selling reflecting a sentiment with all investors, big and small, that the geniuses we have elected in Washington are flying by the seat of their pants and are NOT inspiring confidence in the financial / business investment communities.
President Obama needs to begin to learn that it is naive to think he can talk openly about complex fiscal matters in his usual condescending fashion without sometimes creating un-intended consequences.
Warren Buffet, aka the Oracle of Omaha, is revered on Wall Street as one of the all time most savvy down to earth investors of the 20th century. What did he have to say today about another severe leg down in the global equity markets? Something akin to… no one noticing that the canary in the coal miner’s cage was dead.
Pre-fabricated home collapse should have made the Fed, Congress and SEC sit up and scream for legislative action. The republicans tried but were shot down by the likes of Senators Barney “Rubble” Franks and Chris “Head in the sand” Dodd.
WARREN BUFFET TODAY — Market Watch
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Warren Buffett’s ruminations on the battered economy grabbed most of the financial headlines to start the week, but in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, the folksy investor also offered some thoughts on the public-policy debate raging over how to fix the housing and mortgage markets.
Buffett devoted a section of his highly anticipated missive to the experience and lessons of Clayton Homes — the family-run, manufactured home builder that Berkshire Hathaway acquired in 2003 — during a mortgage crisis that shook the industry in the late 1990s. The debacle “should have served as a canary-in-the-coal-mine warning for the far-larger conventional housing market,” he said.
Manufactured homes — also known as prefabricated, or modular homes — are dwellings that are constructed at a factory and then delivered. Maryville, Tenn.-based Clayton has been building manufactured homes since the 1930s; about a third of its borrowers have subprime credit scores. The builder delivered about 27,500 units last year and has the largest market share, but overall sales in the industry have fallen since they peaked in 1998.
“At that time, much of the industry employed sales practices that were atrocious,” Buffett wrote in his letter to shareholders, released over the weekend.
“To begin with, the need for meaningful down payments was frequently ignored. Sometimes fakery was involved,” he said, pointing to lucrative commissions for salespersons if the loans were approved. “Moreover, impossible-to-meet monthly payments were being agreed to by borrowers who signed up because they had nothing to lose.”
The fallout from this earlier lending spree doesn’t bode well for U.S. home sales if the scenario repeats itself on a larger scale.
Eerie rerun
Buffett explained that manufactured-home mortgages were typically bundled and peddled by Wall Street to investors. This “securitization” of mortgages contributed the late 1990s “fiasco” in manufactured housing.
Conseco, which filed for bankruptcy in 2002, had large exposure to manufactured-home mortgages that went bad. Conseco bought Green Tree Financial Corp. — which specialized in manufactured-housing mortgages and was later called Conseco Finance — in 1998, when sales of mobile homes were booming, thanks in part to loose lending standards.
Investors, the government and rating agencies “learned exactly nothing from the manufactured-home debacle,” wrote Buffett, who often uses narratives when dispensing his wisdom.
“Instead, in an eerie rerun of that disaster, the same mistakes were repeated with conventional homes in the 2004-07 period: Lenders happily made loans that borrowers couldn’t repay out of their incomes, and borrowers just as happily signed up to meet those payments,” he said. “Both parties counted on ‘house-price appreciation’ to make this otherwise impossible arrangement work.”
He said the consequences are now making their way “through every corner of our economy.”
Given this new information the people of the State of Illinois should be demanding a special election to determine who should permanently replace Barack Obama as Senator. If this were baseball he should be checked for steroids. Too bad there isn’t a blood test yet to detect political corruption…
CHICAGO (AP) — Just as Illinois was moving past the agony and embarrassment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ousting, the fellow Democrat whom Blagojevich appointed to the U.S. Senate was hearing calls for his own resignation Sunday amid allegations he lied to legislators.
Freshman Sen. Roland Burris released an affidavit on Saturday that contradicts his statements last month to a House committee investigating Blagojevich’s impeachment.
“I can’t believe anything that comes out of Mr. Burris at this point,” Rep. Jim Durkin, the impeachment committee’s ranking Republican, said at a news conference Sunday. “I think it would be in the best interest of the state if he resigned because I don’t think the state can stand this anymore.”
Gov. Pat Quinn, who advanced to the governor’s mansion after Blagojevich was ousted over corruption allegations last month, also called on Burris to explain the contradiction.
“My opinion is that he owes the people of Illinois a complete explanation,” Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said, according to Quinn spokesman Bob Reed.
Durkin, the impeachment committee’s ranking Republican, and House Republican Leader Tom Cross also wants an investigation of Burris for possible perjury.
It’s not clear what action state legislators could now take against Burris, said Northwestern University law professor and former Illinois Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch.
“I’m not aware that anything quite like this has happened in any state before,” she said.
Based on federal law, the state Senate could argue that Burris was a temporary appointment, then pass a bill calling for a special election to name a permanent senator, Netsch said. — A/P News
Here are our top three political cartoons of the week. They all make the point rather painfully. Especially in light of the weak testimony given today to Congress from both Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the confusing exchange of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Even with the Senate passing their version of a questionable “stimulus” package being sent to the House, the Dow Jones still took it on the chin dropping down nearly 5% to close at 7888 for the day. Yikes…. the market is testing the bottom again!
Investors are very concerned about the lack of specifics from the Treasury Secretary and the amount of politics and pork associated with this package.
[+2 rating, 2 votes]
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So just where and when did Pres. Obama get his financial consulting license? As President he needs to be very careful about what he says in public regarding the financial markets. These personal tips of guidance are just one more example of his naivety and rookie status on holding the highest executive office in the country. There is no doubt that the current floundering on Capital Hill and at the White House is now at least partly responsible for the stock market’s dive this year. The direct correlations of the recent severe down days cannot be attributed to the previous administration, but instead to the lack of clarity coming out of Washington. It may be true Obama has inherited the seeds and foundation of the current banking crisis and over extended credit problems spanning back over the last 16 years and two administrations, but the meltdown of the last 30 days is attributable to decisions and speeches he and his administration have made on his watch since taking office in January.
CHICAGO (AP) — Just as Illinois was moving past the agony and embarrassment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ousting, the fellow Democrat whom Blagojevich appointed to the U.S. Senate was hearing calls for his own resignation Sunday amid allegations he lied to legislators.
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