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| 2007/3/27-29 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:46105 Activity:nil |
3/26 BUT....BUT.... BUT REAL ESTATE ALWAYS GOES UP!!!!!
\_ Yes. It does. Over time. No one with a multi-decade investment
time line ever lost money on real estate. If you bought swamp
_______________________________________/
\_ The same is true of the stock market. Read a random walk down
wall street. Over any 20 year time span, including one where
you invest on the eve of the great depression, the stock market
has averaged at least 20% annual returns after inflation. Read
a random walk down wall street. -dans
\_ 20% after inflation? I think not. Try more like 7%. -ausman
\_ mea culpa. -dans
land, that's your problem. Land ownership is the traditional
way to wealth going back to the start of history. The other way
is military conquest of the world but I doubt you have a personal
army.
\_ Is that true? I remember a time when Tokyo real estate
bubbled to truly absurd values. If you bought at the wrong
time I think you may have failed to beat inflation over a
30 year period.
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_asset_price_bubble
\_ Yes, it's true. If you buy over priced swamp land you're
going to get burned. Doesn't matter if the swamp land is in
Florida or Tokyo. There's always more people, there's always
less land.
\_ I'm pretty sure you've qualified that statement so much that an
equivelent statement could be made for stocks. "No one has ever
lost money in a multi-decade investment in a well diversified
portfolio." Is that not true as well?
\_ Not equivalent--key diff is "diversified". You could easily
lose money in real estate in selected markets, even long term.
\_ I think that land ownership has been the traditional way to
store and transfer wealth. The traditional ways to create
wealth have been trade and military conquest (which is just
taking someone else's wealth).
\_ I did mention conquest. Trade is another way but requires
more effort and skill than sitting on land and waiting. |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Uncategorized] UID:46106 Activity:nil |
3/26 Is there a place in SF that sells kettlebells? |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Reference/Law/Court, Reference/Military] UID:46107 Activity:kinda low |
3/26 "I support the First Amendment right to carry and bear arms," - Rudy
Giuliani, on Sean Hannity's radio show.
\_ Are there any other ultra-dense cities in the world
where it is legal to carry guns?
\_ Maybe he's trying to make the point that the pen is mightier than
the sword!
\_ only if said pen is stuck into the neck
\- how would you like a pencil in your neck?
get off bob dole's lawn.
--bdole
\_ ???
\_ Thus far, the D.C. Cir. has little company in its holding that
the 2d enumerates two rights, one for the states re militias,
and one for the people. But no court has held that this this
personal right is incorporated against the states.
Maybe "Rudy" thinks the personal right would get more mileage
in the courts if one were to claim that it was based on
associational freedoms, "free exercise" rights (particularly
if one was a sikh) or "expressive" political speech rights,
all of which receive strict scrutiny and are incorporated
against the states via the 14th.
Or he just misspoke 1st for 2d.
\_ "Rudy" misspoke? Anyway.... If the USSC rules that the 2nd
does mean 'personal right' to carry a weapon, will you accept
that or come back and complain that BUSH's court has destroyed
the USC?
\_ If my comments conveyed the message that I believe the D.C.
Cir. incorrectly decided that the 2d enumerates a personal
right and a state right, I apologize. I think that the D.C.
Cir. correctly decided that the 2d enumerates a personal
right.
I would completely support a USSC decision finding that
(1) the 2d enumerates a personal right; and
(2) this right was incorporated against the states via
the 14th.
Finding a personal right w/o incorporation is, in my view,
insufficient b/c the states would remain free to regulate
arms. Since the 7th's jury trial in civil cases hasn't been
incorporated, conceivably the 2d's personal right may not be
either.
\_ Thanks for clarifying. |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:46108 Activity:high |
3/26 War Nerd reviews 300 and Victor Hansen
http://www.exile.ru/2007-March-23/war_nerd.html
\_ Spot on, thanks for this.
\- one point about this: yeah, athens should be given their
due in the case of the persian wars, but if you are going to
talk about contemporary lessons, the pel war is much more
relevant. and there the lesson is: eventhough the "athenian
way of life" was far more appealing than the spartan, athenian
high handedness and power was a greater threat to many of
their neighbors. nobody is inspired by north korea, but
NK doesnt affect say how their govt wants to spend their tax
dollars [anti-drug measures, ip enforcement etc]. the pel
war ushers in "the fall of the athenian empire". Let's hope
Iraq is not America's "Sicily" ... "the athenians responded
first in anger and then in fear. first they lashed out at th
politcians who had proposed and argued for the Sicilian
expeditions (Thycydides bitterly remarks, "as if they had
not voted for it by themselves"); the were furious with the
seers who had predicted success. Next, they grieved over men
lost in Sicily. Finally, they feared for their own safety
when they calculated their own losses and te enemy's gains ...
Athens' allies ... would not surely rebel ... they exaggerated
the enemy's capacity to take effective action, but they had good
reason for concern over the condition of Athens and its ability
to carry on the war. The most obvious problem was manpower ..."
--Donald Kagan, via psb
\- one point about this: yeah, athens should be given their due in
the case of the persian wars, but if you are going to talk about
contemporary lessons, the pel war is much more relevant. and
there the lesson is: eventhough the "athenian way of life" was
far more appealing than the spartan, athenian high handedness
and power was a greater threat to many of their neighbors.
nobody is inspired by north korea, but NK doesnt affect say how
their govt wants to spend their tax dollars [anti-drug measures,
ip enforcement, susidies etc]. the pel war ushers in "the fall
of the athenian empire". Let's hope Iraq is not America's
"Sicily" ... "the Athenians responded first in anger and then in
fear. first they lashed out at th politcians who had proposed
and argued for the Sicilian expeditions (Thycydides bitterly
remarks, "as if they had not voted for it by themselves"); the
were furious with the seers who had predicted success. Next,
they grieved over men lost in Sicily. Finally, they feared for
their own safety when they calculated their own losses and te
enemy's gains ... Athens' allies ... would now surely rebel
... they exaggerated the enemy's capacity to take effective
action, but they had good reason for concern over the condition
of Athens and its ability to carry on the war. The most obvious
problem was manpower ..."
--Donald Kagan, via psb [see http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801499844]
\_ So you think that if the US decides to pull out from Iraq and
the country falls to chaos, our allies (UK, Israel, Canada,
Germany, etc) are going to turn on us and attack? What?
\_ We have already lost some of our Cheese-Eating Surrender
Monkey allies, but we are likely to lose more.
\_ Which allies? And have they turned on us a la Athens
and are now gearing up to attack us?
\_ France, Turkey, Egypt, to a lesser extent
the EU and Saudi Arabia. No, they are probably not
gearing up to attack us, but they will co-operate
less with us in the future and are already lining
up alliances with our rivals. So we are definitely
in a weaker position geopolitically. I am surprised
that this is news to you.
\_ France: independent at best. The ultimate self-
interested nation. (I've no problem with that,
it is just how they are).
Egypt: An ally? Are you nuts? We pay them a few
billion a year to not attack Israel. They're
a cold war era 'our bastards are better than
their bastards' dictatorship who has a piss
poor record of supporting the US at the UN (for
example).
Turkey: a matter of self-interest. They have
Kurdish terrorists/freedom-fighters who want to
break away and a free Kurdistan in northern
Iraq is the last thing they want to see. Are
they kicking us out of the country? Are they
asking us to do anything in particular? What
exactly is Turkey doing that gives you the
willies?
If these are the 'allies' we're losing due to
American foreign policy (and I disagree they were
allies in the first place or that the
relationships have changed *at all* then we have
***nothing*** to worry about in the "oh n0es~! our
allies are turning on us!!11" sense. I'm
surprised you see these nations as 'allies'. They
are on-again off-again self-interested parties,
like all nations. They semi-rationally determine
what is in the best interests of their leaders,
(not necessarily their nations) and do whatever
that is until such time as some other greater
self-interest emerges.
\_ I haven't even seen this movie, but I'm not sure I believe it was
made by neo-cons. Was it financed by Cheny or something?
\_ Does it say it was made by neocons? I think the author
was saying neo-cons point to the movie and cheer about how
the movie shows the good, fascist, strong, 'democratic?'
disciplined Spartans (american proxies) triumph over
the unwashed ninja move boy-loving hordes. I can easily
\_ There was no Persian boy-loving
going on in the movie.
believe the not so bright will see this movie and think it
represents Greek history accurately, and that you can
derive some sort of parallel between the Greeks then and
the American War On Terror. Victor Hansen has written
many nationally printed columns about how wonderful 300
is, which is pretty amusing since Hansen is a classics
professor and should know this period of history very well.
\_ It's a movie made from a friggin' comic book! It has nothing
to do with anything. It is entertainment. The entire world
is not some sort of allegory for Iraq or US Hegemony or any
such thing. C-O-M-I-C B-O-O-K!!! sheesh.
\_ From the rant "The only reason this thing got made is that it
makes good anti-Iran propaganda..."
makes good anti-Iran propaganda...[big cut]...Now the neocons
have gone so over the deep end of delusional thinking that
they've resorted to fantasizing about Sparta...These diehard
neocons have gone insane because there's no way they can
argue for an invasion of Iran any more."
He seems pretty sure that this is some neocon conspiracy.
I agree with the above guy, it's just a comic book movie, war
nerd should get over it. Besides, there are probably far
more people who believe in Michael Moore's fantasy
documentaries. |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Reference/Tax] UID:46109 Activity:nil |
3/26 I bought a Prius last year thinking I'd get $3150 tax credit. Well
as it turns out I'm *eligible* to get up to $3150 tax credit, and
in reality it turned out to be much much less thanks to my
mortgage deductions. Oddly enough, if you make over $750K/year
you'll get the entire $3150 credit. This is the apotheosis of
Republican tax policy.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/26/EDGC7N75RT1.DTL
\_ Welcome to the bizzaro world of AMT. |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Politics/Domestic/Gay] UID:46110 Activity:nil 90%like:46098 |
3/26 Gay-wango-tango
http://urltea.com/2e2 (nj.com) |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:46111 Activity:nil |
3/26 So many here are interested in global warming, I thought this
would be a good place to ask this question:
What is a good source for the relative carbon footprint of
various countries? What is the per captia CO^2 output for
China? The US? Europe? Does anyone has this info handy?
Googling doesn't turn it up for me. -ausman
\- i didnt have the energy to
\- i'm only interested in usa vs china,india,brazil [to argue
with self-serving morons like mr "fine the hell out of
india/china, below] but you can see http://tinyurl.com/yzh39x
--dept of energy person
\- oh, i had not previously seen this version. has agg numbers:
http://tinyurl.com/e3nfc --doe person
\_ http://tinyurl.com/yxawra (wikipedia.com)
Total emissions, by country |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:46112 Activity:nil |
3/26 Bush's kangaroo court gets its first "conviction":
http://www.csua.org/u/ibj (SF Gate)
\_ "Under the evolving rules of the Military Commissions Act
passed by Congress in September..." i.e. after five years
we're still making it up as we go along.
"civilian criminal defense lawyer Joshua Dratel was barred
from participating because he refused to promise to adhere
to procedural rules that have yet to be defined.
Kohlmann also declined to approve a second civilian lawyer,
Rebecca Snyder, on the grounds that commission rules allow
civilians only if their representation incurs no expense to
the U.S. government. Snyder is a Pentagon employee." Awesome. |
| 2007/3/27 [Uncategorized] UID:46113 Activity:nil 80%like:46119 |
3/26 REAL...ESTATE! SHE ALWAYS GOES UP!
http://www.burbed.com/2007/03/26/affordable-starter-home-or-fallujah-replica-in-the-bay-area-you-decide
\_ I see Sour Grapes Housing Guy has his account back |
| 2007/3/27-31 [Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:46114 Activity:nil |
3/27 Governor of Mass has 9/11 truther webpage:
http://devalpatrick.com/issue.php?issue_id=7579012
\_ And did you hear? MoveOn had a short film calling Bush Hitler!
\_ I just read most of this, I think this is a community
website that lets anyone who has registered to post
an article, so it's not the Governor or his staff posting
this.
\_ If your beliefs can be simplified to the organizations you
belong to or associate with, then that says a lot about your
intellectual inflexibility and overall lack of.
\_ Go to http://freerepublic.com
Now please go away.
\_ Don't let facts get in the way of a good slander. |
| 2007/3/27-31 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold] UID:46115 Activity:nil |
3/27 Are you a member of the libertarian party and you're not white?
Are you active in the party? What race are you and how do the mostly
white members treat you? I'm asian-american and I'm thinking of
joining the LP. After reading a lot of the materials on http://lp.org and
http://cato.org, I find that their beliefs are very compatible with mine.
But that's libertarianism at the national level. What about at the
grass roots local level? Is there a lot of minority participation?
Thanks.
\_ If your beliefs can be simplified to the organizations you
belong to or associate with, then that says a lot about your
intellectual inflexibility and overall lack of.
\_ Go to http://freerepublic.com
Now please go away.
\_ Why don't you vote your conscience and use http://match.com for socialization.
\_ Why don't you vote your conscience and use http://match.com for
socialization. |
| 2007/3/27-31 [Finance/Banking] UID:46116 Activity:nil |
3/27 http://tinyurl.com/2wbv5j (voiceofsandiego.org) San Diego default notices, foreclosures from Jan 91 - Feb 07. graph1 - absolute number ; graph2 - as percentage of population \_ The second one appears to be off by an order of magnitude. \_ No facts on MOTD please. :-) \_ please note graph2 uses % of pop, not % of mortgages \_ Right, and 1200/1.2M != 1.0% \_ sorry. i wrote an e-mail to the guy. he wrote back and will fix the mistake.. |
| 2007/3/27-31 [Transportation/Car] UID:46117 Activity:low |
3/27 "Comedian Eddie Griffin Wrecks $1.5M Car"
video: link:www.yahoo.com/s/542098
story: link:www.yahoo.com/s/542099
Watching the video, I'm not so sure whether it's bad driver or bad
car. It shouldn't have been that tight of a turn at that speed for an
Enzo to make, even for a bad driver.
\_ The driver makes a racist remark, implying that blacks can't
drive. But ya I agree that the turn could and should have been
made easily. He panicked the last turn, hit the brake, but by
then it was too late.
\_ I think he was just joking when he said "Brothers can't drive,"
referring to his role in the movie Undercover Brother.
\_ I think he was just joking when he said "the Brother can't
drive," referring to his role in the movie Undercover Brother.
\_ oh no, this must be stopped! Join our strugle to save the Enzos
while there is still some time left!
http://tinyurl.com/2ovlly
http://shop.gawker.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=JLT01
\_ Only 398 Enzos left. |
| 2007/3/27-28 [Uncategorized] UID:46118 Activity:nil |
3/27 You know what I enjoy doing? I love turning super long URLs
into http://csua.org, then turning that URL into http://tinyurl.com. Now
that I've discovered the joy of http://urltea.com, I enjoy turning all
the http://tinyurl.com into http://urltea.com, then back to http://csua.org, then
repeat this long process. After 10-20 chains, all the URLs on
motd takes 1-5 seconds to load. It is really fun!!! -url addict
\_ You know, there're a lot of volunteer organizations with
good, meaningful work to do, since you seem to have so much
time on your hands. |
| 2007/3/27-29 [Reference/RealEstate] UID:46119 Activity:moderate 80%like:46113 |
3/26 REAL...ESTATE! SHE ALWAYS GOES UP!
http://urltea.com/2fs (burbed.com)
\_ I see Sour Grapes Housing Guy has his account back
\_ Oh come on, that page is funny as hell.
\_ I see Humorless Married to His Mortgage Guy is still around, too
\_ A mortgage is like free money. You get some money off your
taxes and would have to pay rent otherwise and while living
a few years in the thing you own it goes up in value. What
is wrong with having a mortgage? What have you done with
the 'freedom' that renting provides?
\_ Unless, of course, you're in a depreciating market and/or
have an ARM and/or an "interest only" loan. In which
case, a mortgage is a great way to convey what little
wealth you actually have/earn and give it to someone
else. |
| 2007/3/27-28 [Uncategorized] UID:46120 Activity:nil |
03/27 mead is down for nefarious drive-enhancement purposes. Theoretically,
you should still be able to read yout mail, but sending and receiving
won't work until we bring it back up. Updates here and in wall. |
| 4/15 |