New Port Richey, Florida Real Estate Blog: October 2009

Via Simon Conway (Picket Fence Realty):

This is Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani. For more than 20 years, the Colonel has had your back. He's had your back three different times in Iraq including the second battle of Fallujah; once in the first Persian Gulf War and has also served in Panama.

It has been said by his superiors that Col Chessani has unlimited potential and value to the Marine Corps. That he has demonstrated moral courage and that he is a superb leader.

And now on December 1, 2009 he is facing a Military Board of Inquiry (BOI) to figure out if he is guilty of misconduct and should be demoted in rank. All this because of the "Haditha Massacre" - a "massacre" that quite literally never happened.

The question must be asked. Why is the Government going after this fine Marine Officer? Someone who represents the very best America has to offer? And why are they doing it on a trumped up charge? What is the purpose of trying to destroy this truly great American hero?

Let's take a step back first. Almost four years ago to the day (November 19, 2005) a Marine convoy was moving through Haditha in Iraq - a terrorist stronghold. A roadside bomb exploded and the convoy took casualties. One United States Marine dead and two more seriously injured when the bomb went off under a Humvee. Gunfire directed at the Marines started immediately from the ambushing insurgents who were holed up in nearby civilian-occupied home.

The officer at the scene ordered four Marines - at great risk to themselves - to storm those homes from where the terrorists were firing. What happened next was a house-by-house, room-by-room battle in which nine terrorists were killed. There were also 15 civilian casualties who might have been shot by the Marines or the terrorists or a combination of the two. Obviously the death of civilians is always terrible - but not as common an occurrence as some people might think.

The bottom line here is that the colonel IMMEDIATELY reported those 15 deaths to his superiors. In fact the Pentagon had his battlefront report within 24 hours. NOT A SINGLE superior officer - including generals - thought it unusual. NOT ONE OF THEM suggested an investigation. In fact those officers went so far as to commend Lt Col Chessani for a job well done.

Then along came Time Magazine. MASSACRE they screamed. John Murtha jumped on the bandwagon accusing the Marines of cold blooded murder - even saying there was no firefight! He said the Marines were stressed from being in country for too long.

The Liberals went nuts. Our brave military were torturers; murderers; rapists - and of course, responsible for the "Massacre at Haditha" - that has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

The largest investigation in the history of the NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Services) .........

Take that in again!!! - The largest investigation in the history of the NCIS including 65 full time agents went on a year-long, multi-million Dollar digging trip - targeting the Colonel and his four enlisted men.

The Government has LOST at every stage of the criminal process. The four marines have been cleared. At one point they were charging Lt Col Chessani criminally. The Government's case? He did not file the proper paperwork. Had he been convicted he would have faced two and a half years in prison!!

One of the military judges who heard testimony in the case, had the following to say about the Government's evidence and pursuit of this national hero.

"To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary and sets a dangerous precedent that, in my opinion, may encourage others to bear false witness against Marines as a tactic to erode public support of the Marine Corps and mission in Iraq. Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy..." - Military Judge, LtCol Paul Ware, USMC

So now he faces this BOI. There are no rules of evidence as we understand them. No cross examination; no subpoena of witnesses. The Government merely has to prove misconduct by a preponderance of the evidence - not beyond a reasonable doubt. The Board could demote him or force him to retire. He could lose his retirement and health benefits for himself and his family.

And at the end of the day, the Government is charging him with failing to report a criminal incident which EVERYONE now understands DID NOT TAKE PLACE!

On Monday of this week Brian Rooney - one of the owners of the Pitsburg Steelers and a Marine Reserve Major himself - was my guest while I was filling in on 540 WFLA. It's a fascinating interview and you can here it BY CLICKING HERE - the top of Hour Two on 10/26/09.

Brian is one of the attorneys representing this Marine through the non-profit Thomas More Law Center. They are doing it for free. They will examine thousands of pages of reports; personally interview witnesses and travel the 2,000 miles to the BOI in California - an event that is expected to last for weeks.

Please check out their website and see if you can help. They are all that is standing between this Marine and Governmental crucifixion! - http://www.thomasmore.org/

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE!!

Make sure Lt Col Chessani understands just how much we Patriots get it!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Copyright © 2009 By Simon L Conway All Rights Reserved.)

Simon Conway is the two-time winner of the FIVE STAR Best in Client Satisfaction for Real Estate Agents in the Orlando area.

Please give me a call if you have questions about the Central Florida real estate market.  You can reach me on 407 876 8200.  Also visit my web site at www.simonconway.net or www.move2orlando.net

Via John Elwell (CENTURY 21 Bill Nye Realty, Inc):

Our state Attorney General Bill McCollum has created a project called Seniors vs Crime in Florida. This sounds a lot like the neighborhood watch volunteer programs, but on a more grand scale.

If you want to learn more about the ways this project can help you, OR how you can help this project, click on the following link: http://seniorsvscrime.com/

Ignoring problems can be the worst thing we can do, in many cases. So if you are able to, get involved. If you need assistance, see if this program can assist you in some way. It never hurts to offer help or to ask for it.

Via Tamara "The Real Estate Therapist" Dorris (Davis & Davis and Top Producing Techniques):

When I used to teach English to college kids, one of the things I did each course was show the movie, Rudy, the story of a kinda small kid who ate, lived and slept Notre Dame football. All he wanted, with all his heart and soul, was to play for the "Fighting Irish."

Unfortunately, Rudy was not big enough to play ball--especially on this revered team. Also, his grades were not good enough for him to come anywhere near admission into Notre Dame. If you happen to be one of those very rare folks who have never seen the flick, here's a video clip.

I am fortunate enough to get to interview the "real" Rudy on my show tomorrow. Yes, the guy that the true story was based on. Rudy walks the walk. Even though many years have passed since that noted 27 seconds on the football field, his life was, is and will always be an example of absolute faith and perseverance. Rudy did not give up when he was told that something was impossible. And really, if you saw the movie you know he was told "no way" a million times. Even his own family couldn't believe it was at all possible that Rudy could even be a bench warmer for their beloved state team, The fighting Irish.

Now let's compare and contrast that with your real estate business (there I go, sounding like an English professor again!).

Sure, the recession and the economy have got some of us down. In fact, Thanks to Active Rain and twitter, I have Realtor friends all across the country and more than a few of them have told me that they've had to pick up part time jobs.

So What?

Rudy had to sleep in the cleaning room and eat what he could find...but those things were SMALL in comparison to the ultimate realization of his dream. So you have to pick up a job at Starbucks a few hours a day. So what? As long as you have a place to sleep at night and enough food to survive, you CAN still sell houses or lend money. Sure, times are tough for some of us, but it's only those of us who take our eyes off the ultimate prize that tend to falter in our actions and effectiveness.

As long as you hold close that dream....selling so many houses you can't see straight, making the difference in so many lives of people you can help, taking good care of your family and making enough money to give to the charities and causes of your choice...as long as THAT is what you focus on, then you will ultimately succeed. And, the "stuff" you have to do in the meantime, whether it's taking on another "real" job, cutting out coupons, scaling back on Christmas or knocking on doors and doing a little cold calling...is all worth it.

In reality, if you post everyday, attend local social networking events and partake in the social media outlets that work for you, you probably won't have to cold call or get another job, but even if you do, so what. As the saying goes, "This too shall pass."

Just think of Rudy.

"You're 5 foot nothin', 100 and nothin', and you have nearly a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football team in the land for 2 years. And you're getting a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don't have to prove nothin' to nobody but yourself." --Fortune (as played by Charles S. Dutton) in "Rudy."

Show time: Wednesday October 28th, 10 AM PST time (California) at www.InLoveWithSacto.com 
You can catch the podcast later if you miss the show.

Thanks!
Tamara

Visit my blog at www.InLoveWithSacto.tv, Listen to my radio show at www.InLoveWithSacto.com

 

Via John Elwell (CENTURY 21 Bill Nye Realty, Inc):

Just to let you all know that on Saturday, December 5th Zephyrhills, Florida will be holding its Festival of Lights Christmas Parade in the downtown area. It is scheduled to begin at 6 PM and promises to be a wonderful chance for families and friends to get together to enjoy the floats and other attractions.

If your group or organization would like to be in the parade, you can download an application and the rules by clicking on the following link: Download Festival of Lights Parade Application and Rules

For more information you can contact Main Street Zephyrhills at: 813-780-1414 or by e-mail at: mszi@verizon.net

 

Via Residential Home Funding :

We have HVCC on the ropes so we need your help more than ever!   On Wednesday, October 21st, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers used this petition hvccpetition.com to help convince the House Financial Services Committee to pass an amendment that will finally put an end the mess that HVCC has been making of the real estate and lending industries.  More than the 102,000 signatures on the petition, it was the pace at which the petition is growing and the HVCC horror stories signers included with their electronic signatures.  Now more than ever we need everyone to rally behind this cause to make absolutely certain it continues to gain the momentum necessary to make it through the House and Senate votes that are forthcoming.  Please, please, Please, sign this petition if you haven't done so already and more importantly, send it to everyone you know in any sector of the real estate and lending industry as well as to all the current, past and future clients in your database.  The new petition website makes it abundantly clear how all homeowners are losing equity and being harmed directly by HVCC as well as how it is blocking any chance at the real estate recovery our economy needs so desperately.  Everyone you send to hvccpetition.com will be indebted to you for looking out for their best interest.  We won the first of three battles which is more than anybody thought could happen and if we get serious and rally together now for one last massive push we should be able to put HVCC behind us forever.  Thank you for your time, effort and support.   Click here to interview with the president of NAMB  thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/player/tbws/19036/-4592      hvccpetition.com

Via John Novak - Las Vegas and Henderson NV Real Estate (Keller Williams Realty The Marketplace):

The recent changes by the Facebook development team have caused a couple of glitches in the site. One of them is that all new friend notices are appearing in our news feeds, which makes them look like this:

 

I'm glad to see my friends making connections, because that makes my extended network bigger. But for any Facebook user who has more than a couple of hundred friends, these notices can quickly overwhelm the news feeds and bury what's really important -- status updates, links, photos and video.

The 'Hide' button doesn't work in this situation. I'm sure the Facebook team is working on a fix for this, but in the meantime, here's what we can do:

1. From your Facebook home page, click on Settings (upper right on the top menu bar), then Privacy Settings. Click on News Feed and Wall, then make sure the box that says 'Add a Friend' is unchecked, and click the Save Changes button.
   
   This will stop your new friend notices from going out to your friend's feeds. We also need to let your friends know to make these same changes.
   
   
   
2. For your ActiveRain contacts, feel free to reblog this post. For your Facebook friends, copy and paste this status update to your own status:
   
   With the new Facebook changes, your stream can fill up with posts of people adding friends. To stop filling your friends streams with this go to: Settings --> Privacy Settings --> Newsfeed and Wall. Uncheck 'Add a friend.' Please share this tip.

Hopefully the Facebook team will have this resolved quickly. In the meantime, these simple steps can help us manage our news feeds so that we're getting the information we really want to see.

Via Matt Stigliano (RE/MAX Access):

photo courtesy of hyku

FTC handing down $11,000 fines?  Yikes!

When first announced, the changes to the FTC Act of 1980 caused quite a stir throughout the blogging community.  The idea was that if you were endorsing a product, you had better disclose your relationship with that company.  Were you given a free sample?  Did they let you keep that $5,000 product in exchange for a glowing review?  After many for-profit bloggers were seen as becoming the mouthpiece for advertisers and more or less company spokesman, the FTC decided to step in and stem the tide of possible false claims in exchange for free stuff.

Although some of the heat from the initial announcement has died down thanks to some explanations by the FTC, it is still a good idea to disclose any relationships between blogger and products or services.

Enter CMP.ly.

I bumped into Kris Smith of CMP.ly (as in "comply") quite randomly at Blog World Expo 2009.  He started a conversation with Jeff Turner, Todd Carpenter, and I and he gave us a quick rundown of CMP.ly and I thought it sounded like a great, simple idea.  Back in the hotel room, I loaded up the site and checked it out.

screen capture from CMP.ly

Use of the site is about as simple as it gets.  Go to CMP.ly and select one of the five (currently) available disclosures.  Once selected, the site will give you a quick and easy cut and paste wording to provide a link to your disclosures (which according to Kris Smith were checked out with the FTC and comply to their definitions of disclosure).  Paste onto your post and away you go.  Full FTC disclosure compliance in seconds.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

(see how it works?)

All content ©2008-2009 by Matt Stigliano, Realtor® unless otherwise noted.

 Matt Stigliano, Realtor® | RE/MAX Access | (210) 646-HOME | www.RErockstar.com

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