HMM: Decline in real estate sales greater than stated? “Statistics published by the National Association of Realtors appear to overstate sales of existing home by 15 to 20 percent, mortgage and property data aggregator CoreLogic says in a new report that concludes home sales fell more sharply last year than previously thought.”

UPDATE: A reader emails:

You have a post up about possibly mis-leading real estate sales figures.

I work for an appraiser. And while we’re just one office among many in Orlando, we track our numbers.

January 2010 we performed 59 appraisals
January 2011 we performed 39 appraisals

Of course, not all of those are sales. Very few are refinances. Many of those are REO appraisals.

If I have time later today, I’ll go through and run numbers for 2009 month-by-month to do a better comparison. But January 2011 felt really, really dead to us. Even though it’s a slow month as a rule. (I did an end of month tally for all of 2010, but didn’t do that in 09.)

In a followup email, this: “Jan. 2009 was 50 appraisals.”

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT NEW CLIMATE OF CIVILITY I’VE HEARD ABOUT: Nir Rosen trashes Lara Logan, dismisses her sexual assault.

DIMINISHED? The Diminished Relevance Of Media Matters.

FROM SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO to Senator Joe Arpaio?

BILL QUICK IS getting ready for inflation.

DEFENSE SECRETARY GATES’ OFFICE: Rumors of Petraeus Leaving Afghanistan Are “Unfounded.”

HERE WE GO: House GOP vows to tackle entitlements in new budget.

JAY LENO: “Michelle Obama was expecting jewelry for Valentine’s Day but nothing extravagant. She says the president is very responsible when spending his own money.” (Via Andrew Malcolm on Facebook).

AT NYU, an appalling reaction to an outrageous crime. Sounds like Nir Rosen, with his “warmonger” bit, is channeling Brian Leiter. Funny how these people who are so opposed to all that nasty war stuff can be so . . . callous about violence.

UPDATE: As an antidote to the above nastiness, let me offer Ace’s take.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “When last seen on these pages, Nir Rosen was a journalist embedded with the Taliban who used his US documents to pass a band of Taliban through an Afghan government checkpoint.”

From the comments: “And only a couple of months ago he was welcomed to UT Austin by The Center for Women’s & Gender Studies [sic]. And this isn’t even ironic.”

MORE: On further thought, it’s probably unfair to link Brian Leiter to Nir Rosen, despite the common condemnation of warmongers. Leiter’s Soviet-Union nostalgia, while execrable, lacked the personal nastiness of Rosen’s comments.

I SEE AN UNDERPANTS GNOME SIMILARITY HERE: The “Guy Named Bob” Theory of Development.

ROKU UPDATE: Reader John Steele writes:

After your last mention I broke down and bought a Roku XD box. I have to say that compared to this Windows Plug-n-Play is an Erector Set. I have never seen a device this flexible that installed and configured as quickly and easily as this thing. Out of the box to running subscribed to Netflix and HuluPlus a total of maybe 10 minutes. And the performance is simply excellent.

Do you have any recommendations on a universal remote that will include the Roku functions?

I don’t know, but maybe some InstaPundit readers will. And yeah, it really is easy.

UPDATE: Reader Diana Holden writes: “Regarding your post about Roku remotes — My husband and I have had a Roku box for about a year and love it. We use the Logitech Harmony 700 remote and it works beautifully. We have our satellite, TV, Blu-Ray, and Roku on the remote and haven’t had any problems.”

And reader Basil Copeland sends a warning for readers with hearing problems:

I’m hard of hearing, and dependent on captions or subtitles to fully appreciate movies. I did not think to investigate the possibility that streaming video doesn’t provide captions. Apparently, that is a major issue with the Roku box. In the few hours since I set it up, I’ve found a lot of discussion on the Internet about this issue, and whether or not captions or subtitles are available for streaming media players. It seems that it exists for some platforms, but not for Roku. So until that changes, the box will probably sit unused.

Bummer. I imagine they’ll fix it sooner or later.

WHERE PROFESSIONALS get their surveillance gear.

AT AMAZON, new releases on Blu-Ray.

TRANSLATE THIS.

MEGAN MCARDLE: The Ever-More-Desperate Health Care Budget Gimmicks. “In other words, we paid for spending now by promising to spend less in 2014 and beyond.” Conveniently, after the next Presidential election.

ANN ALTHOUSE HAS MORE ON THE “RACISM” BROUHAHA involving Widener Law School’s dean.

HOW YOUR GADGETS ARE REALLY MADE: “Those who’ve journeyed to China to see how electronic devices are made have been shocked by working conditions.”

UPDATE: A reader — and high-school friend — writes:

As a creative person who traveled to China to help products get made I have a couple of takes on this.

In the 90’s I got to visit the Crayola factory in Pennsylvania and it was like visiting a high tech Willy Wonka factory. Beautiful and gleaming, the unwrapped crayons were beautiful. At my next employer I traveled to Taiwan and saw Crayola’s competitor ( on a small scale ). There was a tin shed out back with an ancient man hand-pouring colored wax, heated over open flames, into soot covered molds. It got the job done, but the contrast was pretty extreme.

In this last decade I visited plush factories in the Shanghai area. For the most part they weren’t new, but they weren’t terrible either. I got the strange impression that it was a substitute for a women’s college. The young ladies lived in dorms, ate together and shared the same schedule. The funny thing was what happened at break time. The bell rang, they all flooded into the commons and the uniformity disappeared. They all had modern, multi-colored hair styles, hip jeans and clothing, and all were chatting away on cell phones that were probably better than mine. It seemed like a pretty good metaphor for today’s China. Professionally one appearance, socially another.

Also, the massive construction, the unbridled pollution, the sense of plunging into the future whatever the cost, had an oddly compelling effect on me. Even the architecture was ambitious. We look so clean, almost sterile, restrained and tentative by contrast. Al Gore and his eco-posse are preaching to the wrong country for sure.

“Restrained and tentative.” Indeed. And yeah, except that in China, nobody would listen to Gore et al. Too interested in plunging into the future. We used to be that way.

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY: Unrequited car lust.

OBAMACARE BATTLESPACE PREPARATION: Trying to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Because they’re afraid they’ll lose, I guess.

A MARITAL RATING SCALE from the 1930s.

EGYPTIAN PROTESTS NOT AS NICE AS ORIGINALLY PORTRAYED: Lara Logan Attacked, Sexually Assaulted In Egypt. Apparently, some barbarians slipped in.

ALAN BOYLE: Don’t Fret Over Planet X.

MORE ON the first programmable nanoprocessor.

AT AMAZON, a sale in Toys & Games. Ends today.

REASON TV: Three Reasons This Budget Won’t Win The Future. Hell, it’s not even winning the present.