Carnival of the Vanities

Welcome to this week's edition of the Carnival of the Vanities.

I'm sticking with my usual method of hosting a carnival -- listing a summary of each piece with the author's reason for submitting the post to the carnival (for those that submitted one) and/or a bit of the post itself as a summary -- so you readers know what to expect before you get to the post.

With that said, here we go:

• No Attack On Iran By Airstrike - The odds of an American or Israeli air strike on Iran have dropped considerably.
• How to Write a Mortgage Gift Letter - Often times a propsective homebuyer can’t come up with sufficient funds for a downpayment in order to qualify for a mortgage on the home they want to purchase. While there are a number of options out there, including no-money down or low-money down mortgages, another alternative would be to procure the necessary funds from a family member.
• Kid Hack: Sandwiches by the Load - Given the number of kids that we have running around the house, mornings can get pretty crazy around here. And lunch-packing before the schoolbus arrives just adds to the craziness. In order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, we’ve had to come up with creative ways of streamlining our morning routine. Probably the simplest of these steps has to do with sandwich making.
• Thought Experiment in 4GW/5GW: The Takedown of Sam Adams and John Hancock - "US News & World Report (which I have been reading since I was a sophomore in high school in the distant past) has an interesting blurb in the whispers section entitled: Did Trigger-Happy Brits Blow 1775?...Well this sounds pretty fun to think about. Here is the results of my solitary brainstorming on this..."
• King Arthur: Quests for bloggers - Blogging helps to build connections with others, including other bloggers. When a blogger needs our help, it should be our pledge to assist the person, even if only in a modest manner. Bloggers often need advice, or aid with a business or personal problem. By sharing the connecting power of blogs, any blogger has an entire network of potential helpers upon which to draw. At some other moment, the previous assisting blogger might need the favour returned as well. As with the Knights of the Round Table, it is a mutual help society.
• Shall We Buy Beachfront Property? - Best Practices for investing with friends and associates.
• KW, Alive and Well - My blogmate KW barely survived the recent tornadoes in Nashville. Here is his story, along with a couple of pictures. 
• Benchmark Success: Hit by the Onion - Your audience can laugh with you. Or at you. Today's dual case study has the wife of Your Business Blogger and her employer, the Family Research Council as the subject of both. And a little about me.
• What we fought for and what we're fighting for - Remembering Michael Kelly.
• Jill Carroll vs. the Blogosphere - While the mainstream media rushed to judgment and proclaimed the release of Carroll by Iraqi kidnappers to be a positive thing, many in the blogosphere urged caution.
• Cynthia Style - In Washington DC today, throngs of barbers, colorists, stylists and coiffeurs, marched on the Capital in response the statement by Cynthia McKinney that she intended to inform the Capital Police every time she changed her hairstyle.
• Almost five years later and still a raw wound - Will this wound EVER heal?? Should it??
• Approaching the Loan Application Process - What Loan Will You Qualify For? - One of the biggest time and money wasters in real estate is people that apply for the wrong loans - loans that they can never qualify for because they can't meet the guidelines, or can't prove they meet the guidelines, which amounts to the same thing.
• What was the term? - Why re-invent the wheel?  The new terminology is to trick the public.
• Bloggin' On Up, Part 4: Setting Up Shop In Your New Town - Ditched Blogger? Check! Found a new webhost? Check! Grabbed a domain name? Check.com! New website set up? Uh... uh... uh... you didn't tell us how to do that yet!
• GM and ERISA Stock Drop Litigation - This story from The Auto Channel about GM's motion to dismiss being denied by a district court in Michigan in an ERISA fiduciary class action could not be more timely. 
• The American Dream Revisited - Ok, time for my promised response to Brutus' critique of the American social model.
• The Case For Having Jack Bauer Annex Mexico - The debate over our lax border control policies and the subsequent flow of illegal immigration that accompanies them, continues to rage. Thus far a plethora of solutions have been offered, but none that is truly feasible in and of itself.
• This Man - I do not think I have ever felt completely relaxed in the envelope of a man's love. Yet with this man, his strength beckons. He is more challenging in some ways then I am experienced at working with. Therefore, I find myself both attracted to his strength yet also wondering if I am betraying who I have grown to be – strong, independent, in control. And maybe control is the biggest flag of all. By relaxing into, and accepting, his male strength and position as a leader, who am I?
• Out Of The Mouths Of Babes - For years, the only way that a university could inoculate itself from Title IX litigation was to have athletic participation mirror enrollment. In other words, if 58 percent of students were women, then 58 percent of athletes had to be women. Universities trying to meet this criterion struggled to attract female athletes. But, all too often, they resorted to the surefire method of balancing the equation: eliminating men’s teams. More than 90 universities cut men’s track and field, and more than 20 cancelled wrestling.
• Fat != Wrong - It's difficult to go from fat to thin; it's even more difficult when everyone tells you that being fat is wrong. 
• I guess Mesh follows the O'Reilly 10% rule - Gender diversity at conferences is still a hot topic, and this post set off quite a few conversations about it. 
• We've Got Issues - This post describes the "peer-reviewed" blog carnival of law bloggers called Blawg Review, progeny of the CotV by way of the Carnival of the Capitalists. We're not saying that what works for us would work for other blog carnivals, it's just one way that law bloggers have sorted out some of the same issues that are being debated at Carnival of the Vanities. My momma always said, "Blawg Review is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
• Where to Start? - The last few days there's been one of those big side-of-the-road programmable construction site warning signs in town, with a message flashing on it in three parts: You Drink. You Drive. You Lose.
• Rules of Engagement - The leading candidate for a high level, high stress position has all the right credentials. He also has more medical pathologies than a monkey has fleas. Rigor Mortis and the Black Widow agree: Fugeddaboudit!
• Man gets decent shave with two-bladed razor - This morning a Formosan mushroom farmer discovered that sometimes, old technology is the best technology.
• The New Camera - I got carried away and bought a new camera for myself!  I did enjoyed it even when it meant that I have to pay it for the next 12 months.
• Birds of the Mid-Atlantic #5: Red-shouldered Hawk - The red-shouldered hawk is a characteristic raptor of eastern woodlands. They get their name from the rufous coloration on the leading edge of their wings, which are otherwise checkered with black and white. The scientific name, Buteo lineatus, refers to the black and white striping on its tail.
• Goosing the Antithesis: The scientific Fall of God part 1 - There's an old bromide, that Christians, agnostics and consilience-loving scientists have managed to make everyone believe, that says "science can't prove gods don't exist".
• The Radical Libertarian: The "Non-Libertarian FAQ" - I have taken a long time to examine critically the claims on a statist FAQ.
• Cynthia McKinney, Tom Delay and 2006 Mid-Terms - This week brought us many shake up in the House. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made a fool of herself. Congressman Tom Delay announced his resignation, effective as of June. And more and more Americans grow dissatisfied with their Congress. And more and more the prospects look grim for Republican this coming Fall.
• Ode to the Leaker-In-Chief - A political poem.
• A Solution to Illegal Immigration? - An attempt to camp out a workable compromise on the illegal immigration issue.
• Bill Gates' Desk vs My Desk - How my desk shapes up against Bill Gates' desk.
• Destroying Seeds - It is quite well known that a Jew has a prohibition against destroying his (or her) own seed. Although it is unknown (or at least subject to controversy) exactly what the Scriptural source for this prohibition is, it is widely accepted that such a prohibition exists.
• Donald Trump's Hair Secret Exposed - You gotta see it to believe it.
• The four subjects of catblogging - I've noticed a few recurrent themes in cat blogs.
• The kind of nonsense, up with which I will not put... - My thoughts on today's Immigration protests - with a little help from the words of Winston Churchill.

Thanks for visiting the Carnival of the Vanities! If you want to know a bit more about Free Money Finance, see my posts of the week for last week. And don't forget about the FREE book giveaway I'm having all month.

Comments

[Steve Mertz]

Thanks for Hosting the Carnival Free Money-Nice look!