Chicago set coyotes loose on the streets to hunt for rats

Chicago set coyotes loose on the streets to hunt for rats

Still, it seems a rather desperate throwback to frontier-style husbandry for a major American metropolis to unleash sharp-fanged predators to roam freely through its streets to contain the growing rat menace. But that's what the city of Chicago has done with its latest, innovative effort in rat control: the coyote solution.

The city's program evidently came to light when numerous concerned citizens reported seeing a coyote running down one of the city's main drags, weaving in, out and around passing vehicles. But the city's animal welfare department told a local media outlet that there was nothing out of the ordinary about this at all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Somehow I doubt this would fly in Privatopia.

Is Your New Neighbor a Squatter? | NBC Los Angeles

Is Your New Neighbor a Squatter? | NBC Los Angeles: "Prosecutors say this is happening across Southern California.
They've caught squatters illegally living in homes in Bel-Air, Marina Del Rey and Winnetka.
'It's a huge problem and growing every day,' says Los Angeles City Attorney Maureen Rodriguez."
---------------------

New homes sales in another big dip - Nov. 24, 2010

New homes sales in another big dip - Nov. 24, 2010: "New home sales dropped to an annual pace of just 283,000, according to the Commerce Department. That was down 8.1% from a slow September and 28.5% from 12 months ago when the annualized sales rate was at 430,000."
---------------
That's pathetic. If we were in a real recovery, instead of this fake one we are being asked to believe in, it would be at least a million units per year.

Think you've read the worst about foreclosures? Read this | McClatchy

Think you've read the worst about foreclosures? Read this | McClatchy: "Hall's foreclosure defense lawyers, in what has become a booming -- and sometimes predatory -- business, charged her more than $20,000 while regularly failing to show up in court. One lawyer charged Hall $2,800 for work he did trying to withdraw himself from the case.

Law enforcement officers are scheduled to come to Hall's house to evict her and her family next week, nearly five years after a mortgage broker showed up on her doorstep unannounced, pitching a stress-free refinance."
------------------
According to the story, this woman has fallen into every one of a long series of pitfalls that lie in wait for those who took out subprime loans. If you want to read a real-life horror story, check out Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us, by Alyssa Katz. She tells the whole story of the subprime catastrophe.