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This nice video from Scott Fraser via Rocketboom shows a large number of starlings landing on a tree that can barely support their weight. One viewer comments: it is a sign in the form of a angel. 08-01-2006by [email protected] the family who filmed this show were meant to see this and show us.if you notice the branches bent into angel shape wings. I don,t know what sign it is.but it must be gods way of showing himself through the birds.and have the birds done this again after this video was shot. Historical Comments OutOfContext (2006-12-09): I wish nature would keep it's legs together, there's too much of it already. ...

The Arizona Republic prints a story on some housing speculators now being burned: Two houses on the same north Valley street, similar in size and age, are for sale. One lists for $749,000 and the other for $775,000. A third house came on the market on the same street a few doors from the other two. The new listing was similar to the others in size and age but priced at $659,000. Reaction: outrage. “The neighbors were really mad,” said Thomas Stornelli, principal of Global Network of Homes in Scottsdale. “They knocked on the door and asked, ‘What are you thinking?’ For a lot of people, their home equity is their bank. It’s like taking money out of someone’s bank, their retirement account. People (future buyers) are going to use that house as a comp, even if it doesn’t have the same upgrades. It’s going to leave a mark." The owners of the least- expensive home were equally upset. They were in the midst of a corporate relocation and wanted to sell quickly. Suddenly, angry neighbors were confronting them. One night, someone tore down their for-sale sign. Stornelli is the listing agent for one of the higher-priced homes. His approach is to try for the higher prices, which he believes are justified in Scottsdale. “Whenever you mix emotion and finance, there’s going to be stress,” he said. “As a Realtor, we deal with that every day." The market has proven everyone wrong. None of the houses had sold as of the third week of this month.Another account in the same story: A woman walked into Barry’s Realty Executives office about nine weeks ago, sat down and began crying. She said she bought two houses last year, fixed them up and quickly sold them, making a $50,000 profit on each. She was a novice investor, but it all looked easy. She took her profits, threw in some extra money and bought five more houses. She spent money fixing them up, but when she put the houses on the market, she realized she had bought at the peak, Barry said. “Her eyes just started to well up, and she just started bawling,” Barry said. “She said she couldn’t sell them for what she bought them for. She said her monthly payments were about $20,000." Barry suggested turning them into rentals. She told him she couldn’t get enough rent to make it worthwhile. “She was expecting to flip them,” he said. “The market flipped her. She was devastated. People have forgotten that houses are not a liquid asset. They never were meant to be."There are a few others in the report. I expect we’ll see more stories like this over the next couple of years as ARMs reset on people who are unable to sell or refinance. Also check out the comments on this story at The Housing Bubble Blog. ...

CNN reports that Mel Gibson has released a statement about his DUI arrest in which he says: I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said, and I apologize to anyone who I have offended.But they don’t tell us what these things are. TMZ.com, however, has published a very plausible account of the full police report (including images of report pages): The actor began swearing uncontrollably. Gibson repeatedly said, “My life is fd.” Law enforcement sources say the deputy, worried that Gibson might become violent, told the actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated. As the two stood next to the hood of the patrol car, the deputy asked Gibson to get inside. Deputy Mee then walked over to the passenger door and opened it. The report says Gibson then said, “I’m not going to get in your car,” and bolted to his car. The deputy quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car. … Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, “You mother fr. I’m going to f*** you.” The report also says “Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.” The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: “F*****g Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson then asked the deputy, “Are you a Jew?" ...

Odyssey Truett, a Springer Spaniel, comments on the Bible’s negativity about dogs. (Hat tip to Ed Babinski.) Anonymous (2007-11-07): I dont like that link and i think the writer of that "blog" is a complete ignoramus and doesnt understand dogs himself. True that there arent many nice things in the Bible about dogs. Most of the references i've read about them were comparing them to bad things.. dogs eating scraps in the street or the dead people who are sinners unworthy of burial. aka Pariah dogs, living on the fringes of society and not really doing much good for anyone but themselves. However in a lot places in the world this is still true today. the homeless dogs are thieves, scavengers, carriers of vermin and disease, and not very well liked among the locals.Being cast out among the dogs in the Bible was never a good thing for that reason because there is no one to care for you and you are scorned.. and one that i see again and again proven true by people i know personally is in Proverbs 26:11 "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly". Yes dogs can regurgitate FOOD but there is a clear distinction of FOOD and VOMIT. When you vomit its because there is something wrong with the food. wouldnt you think you should probably not eat it....? If you barf up steak and eggs are you going to scrape it off the floor and put it back on your plate for a second chance? There are usually good medical reasons why a dog returns to its vomit.. they would rather re-eat tainted food than starve to death because thats the only option a pariah dog has. One way or the other he is going to die.... but at least he can die with a full belly even if its poison rather than dying a slow death by starvation. I dont believe the Bible is saying ALL dogs are bad. i believe it speaks mostly about street dogs. and if you've ever lived in a place where stray dogs were a danger or destroyed your property then you would understand why the comparison fits with sinners and thieves. ...

Mel Gibson, whose idiotic views on evolution and the role of women resulted in more hits to this blog than any other post, was arrested in Malibu on suspicion of driving under the influence. Historical Comments Einzige (2006-12-09): I wonder if he went crazy and started rubbing his own feces all over himself like he did in South Park Colorado that one time.

Casey Luskin, responding to a point in a book review by John Derbyshire, argues that Judge Jones was incorrect in his decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover when he wrote that Intelligent Design is not supported by any peer-reviewed publications. As Wesley Elsberry shows, Luskin’s argument is not with Jones but with the defense in the Dover case, and in particular with the testimony of Michael Behe, who agreed in cross-examination that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." Q. [Rothschild] Now you have never argued for intelligent design in a peer reviewed scientific journal, correct? ...

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that border police have the right to conduct random warrantless searches and seizures of laptops–including full forensic disk examination. I recommend using full-disk encryption. Hat tip to The Agitator.

A study by Brix Networks, which runs TestYourVoip.com, shows that the quality of VoIP calls has degraded over the last 18 months. Their tests of VoIP connections show that 20 percent of calls have unacceptable quality, up from 15% 18 months ago. Brix’s CTO says that the cause is competition for network resources–i.e., congestion. The solution is, of course, prioritization–putting voice and other latency and jitter-sensitive traffic in a higher class of service with QoS (quality of service). Thanks to Matt Sherman for the link. Further comments on the subject may be found at Richard Bennett’s Original Blog and by James Gattuso at the Technology Liberation Front.

Tucson made Forbes’ list of the top 10 most overpriced cities in the United States for 2006 at #7. The list is based on the largest 112 metro areas in Forbes’ 2006 list of best places for business and careers, ranking them based on job growth, cost of living, housing affordability, and salaries. The ten most overpriced locations have the highest costs of living, lowest housing affordability, least job growth, and lowest salaries. 1. Essex County, Massachusetts 2. San Francisco, California 3. San Jose, California 4. Honolulu, Hawaii 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts 6. New York City, New York 7. Tucson, Arizona 8. Oakland, California 9. Boston, Massachusetts 10. Los Angeles, California

While the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against AT&T continues, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly today threw out the ACLU’s lawsuit against the National Security Agency for collecting call detail records from AT&T, MCI, and other providers (though not, apparently, from Verizon or BellSouth). Lippard (2006-12-09): Correction: This ACLU lawsuit that was thrown out was against AT&T. The ACLU lawsuit against the NSA in Michigan was a victory today for the ACLU. ...