A smaller house on the far East side of Aberdeen Place (my home street), recently sold for about $850,000.

This is surprising because A) houses on Aberdeen two years ago were selling for $300-$400k (Saint Louis has a much lower cost of living) and those prices were considered HIGH at the time. Run-down fixer uppers on and around South Grand Blvd. (where I live now) could sell for as low as $3k a couple years ago; now they are selling for $300-$400k. and B) the house that sold for approximately $850k was not located IN THE GOOD SCHOOL DISTRIC OF CLAYTON, but the city of Saint Louis, a "bad" school distric (Roosevelt High School is the public high school allotted to this house, THE WORST SCHOOL IN METRO SAINT LOUIS).

It is the end of the semester and the work is piling up. The workload for most college students is unbearable. Three fifteen-page papers, three finals and two in-class presentations are on the agenda for this week alone. Not to mention finishing up that other essay due from two weeks ago that you needed an extension on. You are scheduled for twelve hours to work in the dining hall this week. The holiday season is upon us and you haven't finished your Christmas cards. Not to mention gathering all the presents you are expected to give. There is a month-long break coming up and your room needs to be ready for it. There are dust bunnies the size of Godzilla that are about to eat your month's worth of dirty laundry that still need to be done. You haven't packed a single sock and your mother is calling about trip arrangements. If it hasn't happened already, the dreaded all-nighter is coming for you!

Kara Borden and David Ludwig were just two typical teenagers who had blogging accounts. What led them to kill? No one may ever know, but the blogging community immediately got involved when the murder of Kara's parents occurred.

When Kara and her boyfriend David went missing immediately after the murder of her parents, bloggers took action. They left hundreds of messages on the two teenagers' blogs and even looked up the kids' friends' blogs to leave messages there. All in hope of finding out where Kara and David were hiding and what, if anything, they had to do with the murders. Police soon shut down the blogs, but are using their content to learn more about these two teenagers and what may have made them kill.

The dog whistle is a common item used by pet owners to draw their dogs to them. It is silent to the human ear but attract the attention of canines. Insect repellent candles and spray are unharmful to human beings but drive mosquitos and other annoying pests away from the area. Now, there’s the child whistle, combining both the genius powers of the dog whistle with the same intention as the insect repellent. Invented by Howard Stapleton, he puts to use the fact that children are capable of hearing a higher frequency than adults. Quite simply, that means there are noises that a child can hear that adults can’t. And that, would come in mighty handy.

Christmas means many different things to many different people.

To many people, Christmas is a time to be with family, and celebrate, have fun, eat a lot, and have the joy of getting and giving presents.

For other people, the holiday is more related to religion.

So it's not odd that many, many people don't go to any service on Christmas, because for them it is not really a religious holiday. What strikes me as interesting is that people who normally go to Church, would not go on Christmas, which to Christians represents the birth of Christ. There is a whole season of the church calendar devoted to it!

this article

This article is about how Jennifer Aniston is sueing a paparazzo for using a super lenz and taking naked pictures of her while she was changing.
It seems that stories of celebrities sueing are becoming more abundant. Is this an invation of privacy or the price to be paid for being a celebrity? In past months Linsay Lohan got into a car accident due to paparazzi and chasing her for a picture..

Why do we still have to carry around pennies? Personally, I hate change. There is really nothing I buy that uses up my change. Pretty much everything in life costs at least a dollar, so why is the Federal Reserve still making us suffer through carrying around coin?

With the exception of Ebay, which typically has items start at a bid of 1 cent, there really are no items selling for just one cent. Even a piece of gum costs a nickel. Couldn't everything just be rounded to the nearest five cents or give a certain quantity of an item worth less than a nickel for 5 cents?

We have all heard of the tremendous wealth and generosity of Bill Gates (founder, owner, and CEO of Microsoft). He has donated millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to multiple charities. However, not many people have heard of the marvelous gift given by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay. He and his wife, Pam Omidyar, donated $100 million to Tufts University (their alma mater).

Bryn Mawr College was founded with the ideals of Quaker values. One of the key Quaker ideals is the emphasis on equality. At BMC not one religion, geographical origin, or any other distinguishing factors are favored over any others. With this ideal of equality there are no real national holidays that are recognized by the school. Although some large holidays are observed with a break such as thanksgiving and the winter holidays, no other holidays are given a day off from work. Students on campus are hurt by the College’s insensitivity to holidays that are very important to some students. The main discussion of the past SGA meeting was a controversy over not having Martin Luther King jr. day off from school. Most all other schools, businesses in the area and in the country observe this holiday and all the work that MLK jr. did for the United States’ history.

After seeing this article:
here it is
It occurred to me, never smuggle drugs anywhere near Singapore. In this article it reports how an Australian drug smugger was caught smuggling less then 1 pound of heroin into Singapore. In Singapore there is a 0 tolerance policy for drugs. The Australian was sentenced to be hang.

The Vatican has officially released a document on Tuesday that strongly reinforced its ban on ordaining homosexuals as priests.

The article on CNN.com which covered this story states that the Vatican has said "it would allow those who have "clearly overcome" homosexual tendencies to start the process of becoming a priest." A cardinal, according to the New York Times's coverage of the issue, rejected the contention that the decree was discriminatory.

A little while ago, I wrote a blog about whether or not you would confess to a crime, even if you knew that you would get into trouble. Apparently, some people do.

Stanley “Tookie” Williams is set to be executed on December 13, 2005. You may not know his name very well but he co founded the gang The Crips in 1971. The Crips are one of the Los Angeles, California gangs. The Crips are mostly identified by the blue color worn by their members. The gang is largely composed of African Americans but is multiracial in other cities where there they have a presence, such as New York City. The gang has an intense rivalry with the Bloods over territory and control of the drug trade. What was once a single gang is now a loose network of "franchises" around the United States.

When a person is charged with a crime and brought to trial, they have certain rights. They can plead the fifth (meaning they have the right against self-incrimination), you can’t be charged for the same crime twice (otherwise known as double jeopardy) and in certain states you are protected from having to testify against your spouse. The problem being addressed is what constitutes as a spouse?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, more than one of my local news stations began their broadcast with a story about the Choking Game . It got my attention because I never figured the word choking and the word game could be placed with each other. The Choking Game or Space Monkey is becoming a popular trend among younger children (from the ages of 10 to about 14)- they are using it to achieve some type of high. Personally, these stories have completely freaked me out.

In an artilce, I read that at the University of Kansas, a new course is being offered titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." This is an amazing step of a class that I find as a brave venture in a world that is so uninviting. There will definitely be complaints. The man that created the class, Paul Mirecki, has already been called a laughingstock.

Did anyone go shopping on "Black Friday"? Though it seemed to be completely chaotic and hectic as a whole (I worked a seven hour shift in retail that day), apparently the day was no more busy than it had been in years past.

Though discount chains like Wal-mart were bombarding customers with lower prices and holiday offers, CNN states that an outside firm watching over 45000 retail outlets released a statement saying that the profit margin for Black Friday stayed about the same as compared with years past.

Every day gives way to another politician doing something wrong. CNN created a short segment of the top five political turkeys of this year. Topping this year's list is the infamous former FEMA director Michael Brown (also known as "Brownie"). His major faux-pas was the poor management skills while dealing with the crisis level in Hurricane Katrina stricken areas.

If you had the option of pardoning any five political icons from this past year, which ones would you choose? Which person do you believe caused the most commotion in Washington or around the world? Why would you chose those people?

After reading Glamourous' new post about the Borden murders and how the murderer(s)? conversed their plans over sites like myspace and xanga, I felt that the poll needed to be counted. Check out Glam's post: Myspace, The Small World Phenomenon, and Kara Beth Borden

Anyway, I thank everyone who voted. This issue is near and dear to my heart (since my own old high school is trying to figure this dilemma out)High School on the Forefront of the Blogging Dilemma

Last month, a 26 year-old preschool teacher by the name of Michelle McCusker was fired from her job. The reason? She was pregnant, unmarried, and teaching at a Catholic School.

U.S. Savings Rate reached zero in July 2005.

Who cares how much people spent as long as they buy different goods and services; it makes the economy work. This is a response that many people would give if they were told the fact. Well, that is partially true: there would not be as many services and goods in the stores available if we spent nothing and saved most of our income. Yes, it looks like consumption is one of the mechanisms that are causing the production to grow. But that is not the only “side of the coin.”

I know many of you have not seen the newest Harry Potter film, so I will not post about that as of yet, but here is an entry inspired by the events surrounding the film the past few weeks and influential they can be.

Stanford researchers have just reported that the number of adolescents taking antidepressants is up while, at the same time, few depressed teens are being treated with psychotherapy or mental-health counseling. It has been found that the number of 7 to 17 year olds who were being prescribed antidepressants rose from 47% in 1995-1996 to 52% in 2001-2002.

The FBI recently released their "Top Ten Art Crimes" to the public. Paintings on the list include the ever famous "The Scream" as well as Van Gough's "View of the Sea at Scheveningen."

It is sad to learn that most stolen art is never recovered. The FBI estimates that only about 5% is ever recovered and returned to its original owner. It is also sad to hear that the United States is at the top of the list for the most sales of stolen art in the world. This is due partly in fact to the lack of regulation on the Art Market. It is not always the black market sales of pieces, but sales to private collectors or through large auction agencies which go unnoticed.

No, Afghanistan hasn't magically disappeared forever into nothingness (although to American media it apparently has.) A refresher for everyone: Afghanistan was the first, the original war on terror before the whole Iraq mess happened. So, what's happening? Everything is unravelling at America's feet. The drug trade is even bigger since the fighting started. Over half of Afghanistan's economy is the drug trade in opiates.

The IRS is currently investigating All Saints Episcopal Church, where a reverend delivered a sermon criticizing President Bush’s war policies two days before the 2004 election; the church risks losing its tax exempt- status because the IRS says the sermon may have constituted political campaigning from the pulpit. The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections. But people are questioning why the IRS is suddenly investigating a church that made anti-Bush remarks, and ignoring all the Christian evangelical groups and churches that actually told their parishioners to vote for Bush. There is an article in the Los Angeles Times summarizing the situation.

Alabama representative Lesley Vance along with other legislators have passed a resolution to keep Alabamans from traveling to Aruba.

According to one poll, more people say yes.

This is an important issue to the president, because previously many people who didn't agree with his views or policies still respected his character. Also, his job approval rating is at 42%.

Now more and more Americans are saying that they don't believe he has been honest with the public. For many people, this has to do with how our country became involved in the war in Iraq. The approval rating for President Bush's handling of Iraq is just 38%.

US trade deficit , when import of the country exceeds its export, has gone up. According to NPR in September it went more then 11% up. A lot of people may argue that it is happening due to the damage that was caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And they are right but those disasters are not the only reasons why trade deficit went up.

After sitting in a Home Depot bathroom stall, Bob Dougherty has dollar bills dancing in front of his eyes. The Louisville, Colorado resident was obviously the victim of a prank, but insists