Much like the rest of the country the news out of California regarding home foreclosures is particularly gloomy. Increases in foreclosures in this state are climbing at astronomical rates, over 160% by some counts, and the trend shows little sign of slowing down. As with all other states California is no different in that foreclosures are occurring because of conditions arising in which homeowners are unable to make their mortgage payments.

As a result lenders are being forced to start foreclosure proceedings so as to confiscate and sell the property in accordance with the terms of the original mortgage contract. One research service has predicted that California foreclosures are likely to continue to climb because the conditions that lead to them are still very much at work: rising default notices and flattening home prices. These California foreclosures are a lot of the time new homes or homes that have been refinanced in the last couple years.

Unless you've been living in a cave in some outlying part of the world, you have likely tuned into the news and learned about the largest California home foreclosure liquidation sale in the history of the state's real estate industry. Recent historical data for California homeowners shows they were an average five months behind on their primary mortgage before receiving the notices, and owed an average of $11,126 on a median $342,000 mortgage. Notices of default during the same time period increased to over 20,000 from the same time period as the previous year.

There is no difference in California from other states where the decision to stop foreclosure depends largely on the borrowers determination whether they want to keep or sell the property. The non-judicial foreclosure is the primary method for foreclosure in California. These usually occur when no power of sale language is included in the loan documents.

Fortunately for the consumer California is generally a friendly state when it comes to protecting the right of the homeowner. The foreclosure timeline in California is typically 120 days from the time you miss your first payment until a Notice of Default or Notice of Sale is issued to your actual foreclosure date and sale. This allows some breathing room for the homeowner trying to remain in the home as long as possible while trying to stop foreclosure and keep their home.

In California, lenders may foreclose on deeds of trusts or mortgages in default using either a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure process. Judicial foreclosure is used on a rare occasion, while non-judicial foreclosures are most common in California.

California is also generous towards the homeowner if they desire to buy back the home after the foreclosure, but there is a caveat to be aware of. It is a complicated statutory right of redemption that states after the foreclosure sale has occurred, the party whose property has been foreclosed has the right to reclaim that property by making payment in full of the sum of the unpaid loan plus costs one year after foreclosure sale unless the original lender made a full price bid, at which point that period is shortened to three months. Simply put, the homeowner should never assume they have the full year to exercise their redemptive rights.

Unfortunately foreclosures in California slowly are still on the rise and home prices are getting lower, slowly but surely. This is good news for potential real estate investors, but does not bode well for those trying to sell their home to avoid foreclosure. A great many people besides the homeowner and lender are affected, and it a painful process that no one willingly wants to go through.

By: Chuck Lunsford
SaveMeFromForeclosure.com is a forerunner in the foreclosure prevention service industry, helping people to stop foreclosure and keep or sell their California home. Our experience, along with our passion to help homeowners through this challenging time, set us apart from the competition. We only succeed if you are able to avoid and prevent foreclosure on your California home with our assistance. Visit our website or call us at 1-888-472-8380 for a no-obligation consultation.

Smoking bans are ridiculous. Period. If this were 1987 instead of 2007, next to nobody would have a problem with smoking in public. And in fact, almost nobody did until 1993, when the EPA declared that "secondhand smoke," a term unheard of by most of us until 1990 or so, was declared to be a "Class A Carcinogen." The terms "secondhand smoke," "passive smoking" and "Environmental Tobacco Smoke" were coined by two groups of people:

A) Those offended by the smell of smoke, and

B) those angered because either they or a loved one became sick due to a "smoking-related" illness.

This is in itself questionable, to say the least. Let's suppose 65-year-old John Doe weighs 300 pounds. He also eats 4 Big Macs every week. His exercise consists of getting up off the couch to grab a beer out of the refrigerator. He also happens to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day. Now let's suppose poor John drops dead of a heart attack. Smoking will automatically be recorded as the cause of his myocardial infarction and be added to the supposed 500,000 annual deaths allegedly attributed to smoking. In addition to this scenario, the Center For Disease Control pulls these numbers out of a computer. They are estimates that are pulled out of someone's backside, and carry no proof whatsoever. In reality, the number of deaths directly caused by smoking is probably less than half of what is claimed. Here's another little tidbit of information: While it's true that 87% of lung cancer cases will be found in smokers (or former smokers), the CDC fails to inform the public that less than 10% of smokers will ever GET the disease. In fact, a 75-year-old woman who smokes three packs (that's 60 cigarettes) a day for a period of 55 years has about a 15% chance of developing lung cancer within the next ten years. This also means that she has an 85% of NOT developing the disease! There are approximately 55 million smokers in the United States alone, and only 150,000 or so will die from lung cancer each year. I'm not claiming that smoking doesn't carry health risks. Certainly it does. People who indulge increase their chances for emphysema, COPD, and heart problems, but the assumption that everyone who smokes will go to an early grave is simply not true. There are plenty of people in nursing homes who were around before movies had sound who still smoke like chimneys. Of course now, they're thrown outside, which brings me to my second and most important point.

It is utterly preposterous to the point of being insulting to the intelligence to believe that a minuscule trace of smoke emanating from a 70 millimeter stick of tobacco and paper will somehow travel several feet across a room, enter another person's bloodstream, attach itself to his/her lung, and begin a malignant growth or clog his/her arteries. Let's be honest here. The former Surgeon General is an idiot. He claimed that a mere 30 SECONDS of exposure to someone smoking could cause an instant heart attack! This would be synonymous with claiming that if someone drinks a Pepsi too fast and belches in a diabetics direction, the innocent party will go into a high blood-sugar coma. "Secondhand smoke" is hundreds and even thousands of times less concentrated than the direct smoke that a smoker ingests. An average sixth-grader should be able to determine that if it takes several decades for a smoker to experience ill effects from his/her habit, then it would require thousands of years; rather CENTURIES, for a nonsmoker to render the same damage. Why people can't fathom this is beyond me. Not to mention, I pose a question: Why aren't millions of people who grew up in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's, when smoking was very prevalent, either dead, hooked up to respirators, or have had four or five bypass surgeries by now? Those in opposition love to use this analogy: Smoking sections in restaurants are like having urinating sections in swimming pools. They are shooting themselves in the foot with that argument, because they are right. Allow me to explain: A swimming pool contains thousands of gallons of water. Let's suppose 15 or 20 people are too lazy to get out and use the restroom. A typical urine stream is about 12 ounces. If 20 people relieved themselves in the pool, that's 240 ounces of urine DILUTED by thousands of gallons of water.I'm not advocating the use of swimming pools as toilets, but the point is that if nobody SAW the act of urinating,it would go unnoticed. Similarly, for decades, nobody cared whether or not anyone smoked in public. That is, until the government and media planted it into their minds that it was a health hazard. I believe the big pharmaceutical companies are behind this, for they stand to reap huge profits from the sale of smoking-cessation drugs. The EPA lied by changing the definition of just what a "Class A Carcinogen" was in order to include ETS on their list. They also ignored research that showed no link to disease. As a matter of fact, the whole Report was ruled invalid in 1998 by Federal Judge Willam Osteen. They used junk science to obtain their results. Meanwhile, politicians' pockets were filled with funding from Anti-Tobacco groups and today the bans continue unabated. At first, smokers were thrown outside from restaurants, public transportation, and workplaces. This has now been extended to bars, hotel chains, and even OUTDOOR places such as sports stadiums, theme parks, beaches, and in some cases, if you happen to live in the People's Republic of California, SIDEWALKS. Never in my wildest dreams when I began smoking in 1975 did I ever think that those who smoke would one day be treated like criminals. Smokers are now regarded as child abusers if they so much as even think about lighting up in the presence of young ones. We are told we stink. We are ridiculed. In short, we are hated. Children in schools are being taught to not only despise tobacco, but also those who use it. Famous historical figures such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt are now having smoking materials airbrushed away from photos in school textbooks. Try to find a copy of Abbey Road where Paul McCartney is still holding a cigarette. This is social engineering, and has absolutely nothing to do with "public health." Sharing a room with a smoker is about as life-threatening as an earthquake in India would be to someone standing in a cornfield in Nebraska. The goal here is to denormalize smoking. It's wrong. Common sense has taken a backseat to hysteria. It's time for the brainwashing unseen since Hitler became Chancellor of Germany to come to an end. Smokers and nonsmokers co-existed in peaceful harmony for decades. The current bans are nothing short of Fascism, and I don't know about you, but I'd like the America I once knew to be returned. How about it?

By: Patrick Sills

Are you a resident of California and presently planning to file for Social Security Disability benefits? Well then, you have to know if you are eligible for the benefits first.

Here are several of the specific requirements in the state of California that you need to comply with in order to qualify as a disabled person and be eligible for benefits.

* You must prove that you did not have the capacity to carry out any kind of "substantial" work because of a mental or physical condition. This condition must have persisted or would have expected to persist for a year or more. This condition may also be expected to have fatal consequences.

* For a work to be considered "substantial" you must have earned at least $780 monthly.

* Your mental or physical condition must have affected or impaired you severely subsequently preventing you not only from performing your usual job but also other occupations even with due consideration to your work experience, training, education and age.

Your tax contributions directed towards the Social Security trust fund is the base factor for your eligibility. By having paid tax contributions, this means that you are insured. You will have to earn credits depending on the age when you have incurred a disability. Credits are required of you in order to become eligible to receive disability benefits.

* Before you have reached the age of 24, you must have gained six credits over a period of three years or 12 quarters.

* If you are between 24 - 30 years old, then you must have already gained credits for "half of the calendar quarters" during the time after you have reached 21 years old and until the time you became disabled.

* After 31 years old, you must have already gained work credits for 5 years or about 20 quarters in the calendar during a period of 10 years or 40 calendar quarters. This ends at the time or after the quarter when you have become disabled.

These are the salient points you must be aware of, before ever you start your application for Social Security Disability benefits.

Aside from these, you must also have a proper understanding of the Social Security's system in handling claims for Social Security Disability benefits. 1. Everything starts with your initial application - with this, you are initially starting your claim for disability benefits. During this first step, it is a disheartening reality that 75% of all of the applicants find themselves denied.

Usually, the reasons for denial are usually based from the forms and medical records you have included supporting your claim. If you find that you are among this percentage, do not give up easily. You have to file for an appeal within the next 60 days after you have received the decision.

2. Reconsideration - this is the second step that you have to undergo, but you must still brace yourself for a denial. 82% of claimants for reconsiderations are denied. There is still recourse for you if you decisively push through with your claims.

3. Request for a Hearing before an Administrative Law Judge - you will have a good chance to win your case. Your case will have the benefit of being reviewed by a Judge and you can testify about your situation.

Bear in mind that it is best to understand and be well prepared for everything before filing for a Social Security Disability claim. You will do well to increase your probability at gaining your rightful benefits.

By: Lala C. Ballatan
For more information about social security disability claims, visit our Los Angeles Social Security Law Attorneys website.

Traditional journalism has been so battered that it can hardly afford to receive another black eye. Remember the CBS Evening Snooze and the Dan Rather debacle regarding President George W. Bush's National Guard service? "Just the facts, ma'am" has been replaced by the mantra, "All sensation, all the time." And there's nothing some members of the mainstream media like better than a salacious story about the troops in Iraq.

Since January, the New Republic has been running a hot series by a soldier operating under the pen name "Scott Thomas." The articles spoke of an Iraqi boy making friends with the Americans, then having his tongue slashed by insurgents. Hard-hearted soldiers in Iraq make fun of a disfigured woman; animal-hating GIs use armored personnel carriers to mow down dogs.

Such stories may make great copy, but the Army says that, as told in the New Republic, they simply weren't true. The whistle-blower, in this case, was the conservative Weekly Standard magazine. In an example of virtual democracy at work, the magazine dared bloggers to uncover the truth behind the liberal New Republic's dispatches.

Meanwhile, the military probe showed that all the soldiers from his unit countered the allegations made by Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the author of the articles. The Weekly Standard reported that Beauchamp eventually swore that the articles represented falsehoods.

Unfortunately, people with a penchant for publicity may be tempted to exaggerate. And the temptation can prove irresistible when there's a magazine around that's salivating at the chance to cast U.S. military efforts in Iraq in the most unflattering light possible.

Still, some important lessons are emerging from this journalistic travesty. To begin with, despite the efforts of some media outlets to discredit our military, the Army is not always wrong. In fact, it may be right quite a bit of the time. Secondly, the mainstream media's opposition to the war can lead to a kind of ideological blindness that makes it possible for articles with little credibility to appear within the pages of mainstream magazines. Thirdly, conservatives have more credibility than many rank-and-file journalists would have you believe. After all, it was the conservatives who called into question Beauchamp's dispatches.

Fourthly, even some members of the Fourth Estate are tiring of the slipshod way that some journalists are operating these days. Fox News reported that Bob Steele of a prestigious institute for journalists in Florida said that giving a writer anonymity "raises questions about authenticity and legitimacy." Steele also noted that anonymity permits the writer to "sidestep essential accountability."

We've seen it at CBS News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—supposedly ground-breaking stories that proved, in the end, to be false. Inaccuracies and liberal bias have made journalism's old guard antiquated and ineffective. That's why the future belongs to the bloggers, where the goal is simply to report the truth, rather than the sensationalized fantasies of the media elite.

By: Nathan Tabor
http://www.theconservativevoice.com
Nathan Tabor is the Founder and CEO of TCVmedia.com and TheConservativeVoice.com. After just eighteen months, TheConservativeVoice.com gets over 250,000 unique visitors a month, 1.7 million page views and has over 150,000 email subscribers. The Conservative Voice has over 100 columnists and features up-to-the-minute news. He is heard daily on over 250 stations nationally with AConservativeMoment.com.