Virginia's Dirty Secret

Virginia has a vehicle emissions program that requires vehicle owners in Northern Virginia to get their cars/trucks inspected every 2 years. The idea is to prevent someone from driving around with a car/truck that is spewing high levels of toxic pollution into the air. You would think this was to keep the air clean. But you would have to be wrong. That's because anyone who owns a diesel vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 8,500 lbs or more (some of the greatest polluters out there) don't have to get an inspection. Go figure. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that so many diesel vehicles are owned by businesses and local governments (buses)? Hmmmmm....

The real estate market is bad...but that's the good news!

Gotta love Realtors. A month ago they were predicting that we had already found the "bottom" of the real estate market. Now they're telling us, that *right now* is the bottom. This new reassessment is due to the fact that in December 2006, the market for existing housing fell by 8.4%, the biggest decline since in 17 years (or as some of the stories claim, "since 1982" [eh..one of those is wrong I guess].

Note the textbook use of "weasel words" in the following examples:

But economists said they believe the low point for housing has been reached and they are forecasting a slow rebound in 2007.

Just who are these "economists"? Surely not all economists are saying this. In fact, the article cites *just one* economist (David Lereah), who conveniently works for The National Association of Realtors.

And this one:

Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession.

Who are these "analysts"? No mention is made. But apparently they caution us from reading too much into the bad news (the 80% higher than predicted jump in jobless claims), and yet because of the optimism of unknown economists, they don't think we're headed for a recession ("Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession").

Ah..now that's reassuring. Let's all go out and buy a half million dollar closet condo.