Minneapolis home sales are up, but prices are down again

It’s become a broken record of late: Home-price declines breaking records. With the economy on the skids and the subprime crisis still unfolding, home values are getting devoured first. This morning the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index was released, revealing that the trend doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The 20-city index showed year-to-year August price declines of 16.6 percent. Minneapolis saw a drop of 13.3 percent over the year period, with a 1 percent decline from July to August.

Marxism: It’s medium hot!

Hotter than Tiffany jewelry but not quite as hot at “Senator Stevens” or a “pumpkin seed recipe,” the nearly 150-year-old Marxism is finding a resurgence on Google, albeit through simple searches instead of a long-time-comin’ proletariat uprising.
Thanks to…

Meet Sarah Palin: ‘This is not Joe Biden’

The funniest part of this video isn’t the Palin makeover (mom jeans!), or the North Carolina Senator introducing her with this statement of the obvious, “Ladies and gentleman…this is not Joe Biden…” or Palin poorly lip-syncing to “Redneck Woman.” No,…

‘Joe the Plumber’ finds new career winterizing Minnesota’s foreclosed homes

Joe, Steve, Scott, Mario, Rodney, and Paul the Plumber are not only in recession-immune jobs, they’re making a career out of a collapsing economy. According to KAAL-TV in Rochester, Minnesota, a company called 1st Class Plumbing and Heating is…

Election official: Group tied to ex-MN Secretary of State Kiffmeyer aims to ‘keep people from voting’

Former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer may not be in the business of supervising elections anymore, but it doesn’t mean she and her friends have abandoned their old habits.

The “traditional values” organization of which Kiffmeyer is the executive director, Minnesota Majority, has been poking around Minnesota’s voter-registration file, and in a pair of letters to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office over the past week, MN Majority president Jeff Davis claims to have unearthed thousands of suspicious registrations in the state’s voter records.

Party like it’s 1979: Holidays go on layaway

Remember the good ol’ days, when there was a handful of Crisco in every cake and a layaway desk at every department store? Mom would drag you along once a week to that crummy counter you couldn’t see beyond,…

Minnesota foreclosures rise 42 percent in September

A recent report by RealtyTrac reveals that Minnesota foreclosures rose 42 percent in September compared to foreclosure filings during the same period in 2007. Overall there were 2,144 foreclosure filings in Minnesota during September, placing Minnesota 26th in the nation for foreclosure filings that month. Hennepin County made up more than half of all foreclosure filings in the state.

John Woo, Wes Anderson and Kevin Smith contribute to McCain’s drop in the polls

A Clerks spoof, a John McCain/John Woo spoof, and what is a hilarious Wes Anderson spoof make up these new famous-director McCain “attack ads” from LandLine TV.

Women4JohnMcCain: ‘A woman’s choice is probably best left to old rich white men’

A new web site, Women4McCain, aims to set the record straight: They’re not, and neither is he. That is, they’re not for McCain and nor is McCain for women’s issues. In full-on Stephen Colbert-style irony, the web…

Future earnings: Unemployment expected to climb to 7.8 percent

There’s the old adage that things will get worse before they get better, or that something must hit rock bottom before bouncing back. And pundits and economists and analysts have been sounding the alarm bell for months: The economic downturn is only in Stage 1 collapse. On Tuesday, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association Jay Brinkman warned industry folks that the mortgage crisis could last well beyond 2009, and added that the MBA is forecasting unemployment will rise to 7.8 percent by early 2010 before more jobs are added.