patrick.net

"Wow! Your job is pretty risky, because if an enemy figher gets close to you, there’s no way to fight back or escape."

Oh, why weren't you in a bar when I was trying to pick up?

We were never really in danger. No Iraqi fighter would even get close enough for a shot, since every F-15 in the air that day would jostle for the chance to splash it (in fact, this eagerness accounted for the US helicopter shot down by "Rotor", who did not take the time to properly identify since doing so may have allowed it to land, and thus cheat him out of his 5th air kill) And no ground anti-aircraft radar would even be used to guide rockets or artillery since merely turning it on would invite Wild Weasel strikes.

In fact, the only time I know of that we we fired on is when I saw the puffs from what looked like a howitzer on the ground firing, and the hits on a mountain. The howitzer was probrably Kurds who may have thought we were Turks. Yes, our allies the Kurds were routinely bombed by our allies the Turks, with the Turks flying American built aircraft.

If we didn't have smart people, we wouldn't have our current stupid people social problems.

Once all the smart people dies off, the idiots will return things to an (idiotic) equilibrium.

SFBubbleBuyer Says:
Re Evolution in modern society…
In our not too distant past (say, 1 million years ago up to about 1900s)

hmm, that would be distant past -- homo erectus I think (Peking Man, etc)... modern homo sapiens is pegged at emerging maybe 200,000 years ago, and modern civilisation and settlements only in the last 10,000 years. Prior to that, it is considered neolithic societies were largely unstratified, much as we see in pre-state societies today such as the New Guinean highlanders or Australian Aboriginals. It's possible there was an evolutionary 'spark' about 10,000 years ago where alleles for intelligence became more widespread, which might explain the very long period of incredibly slow advancement prior to that...

We're getting to the tipping point where the benefits of smart people and functional society are inadequate to counter the environmental degradation and destructive weaponry and lack of herd culling.

We're doomed. No changing that. Let's have fun while we can.

I refuse to believe that humans evolved from monkeys.

"neolithic societies were largely unstratified, much as we see in pre-state societies today such as the New Guinean highlanders or Australian Aboriginals."

Yes, and the land is owned in common and everyone gathers or hunts what he needs. No private plots to farm. Property is limited to articles of clothing and rudimentary tools, which are easy to defend or replace.

An environment where socia$m actually works.

lunarpark,

Someone e-mailed me that link earlier and it was titled:

Have you ever wondered what happened to the Coppertone Girl?

E-gad! Mom... knock it off! :(

Lunar Park,

That is the perfect Computer Wallpaper I will put on co-workers machines

I refuse to believe that humans evolved from monkeys.

Actually, we didn't. Humans and monkeys are different evolutionary offshoots of a common ancestor.

Peter P evolved from an accidental meeting between a cylon and a cat.

"That is the perfect Computer Wallpaper I will put on co-workers machines"

Heh, thanks for the idea...

You're right Peter P, we didn't.
We both evolved from a common ancestor - proconsul - around 20 million years ago. We never have and never will evolve from monkeys...

In other news - listings in L.A are dull, as
A) they're just the same houses relisted from last june.
B) new houses, 3000 sq ft + built on lots of 4500 sq ft.
C) Teardowns/duplexes/condos/townhouses/'investment properties'(wtf), pretending to be SFRs with little or no success at pretence.
D) Mansions big enough to hide a religious cult in, none under 5 million dollars.
E) teeny houses for Ken and Barbie, wedged under freeway onramps, yet somehow priced as if they were mansions in Malibu.

I keep an eye on ZipRealty, but to be honest, the fun has gone out if it - almost 2000 lisintgs in my search, and yet I only have 25 saved in 'my homes' because they meet with my requirements.

On the subject of savoury pies....I like a Cornish Pasty almost as much as I like a man in uniform

"I refuse to believe that humans evolved from monkeys."

Why Peter P? Would that make you feel guilty about eating chilled monkey brains?

I do not eat brains.

So the cat was not a zombie cat.

Hey, theotherside, do you know what the real (and nominal) appreciation rate for housing has been for California for the period from 1945 to 2000?

I think that is an appropriate number to use for estimated long term numbers in these buy vs. rent calculators. I read somewhere that it was 3%, but I cannot find it now.

So the cat was not a zombie cat.

My cats hate me anyway.

@Different Sean

You only see unstratified societies when there isn't 'enough' for one person to be on top. Hawaii kings lived like kings. Living where resources are scarce enough that you can't take a cut from other people as a 'tax' leads to universal equality. Even the 'leader' has to grub for grubs if he wants to live.

SFBB,

Don't crack the Rousseau tinted glasses.

shot in the dark, but any chance someone can send me Bill Gross' email address?

Like I said, a shot in the dark.

Casey Serin is an In-n-Out burger eating vegetarian.

Someone said:

> “Whoever figured out to sell shirts to girls that
> only go down to the midsection is my absolute
> favorite person on earth. ”

Then HeadSet Says:

> YES! And they fashion leader who coupled that
> with the low-rise jeans deserves a Nobel Prize.

Then Malcolm Says:

> SDSU in my opinion has the highest concentration
> of beautiful girls on the planet. Going there was like
> some of those early Nazi society movies of beautiful
> people everywhere.

Does anyone know if they still have the ISVT (Inter Sorority Volleyball Tournament) on the beach at UCSB every year? I went for about 6 years in a row and the girls from SDSU (along with the girls from ASU) were always the best looking.

While nothing is hotter than a 5’10” 120 pound 19 year old sorority girl in a short shirt and low-rise jeans most girls I see wearing low-rise jeans make me ill with their “beer guts” hanging over their belts…

Casey Serin is an In-n-Out burger eating vegetarian.

I am sure you can ask them to leave out the meat.

Quick question: do some vegetarians use lard in their pastries?

Randy H Says:

> shot in the dark, but any chance someone
> can send me Bill Gross’ email address?

It looks like the Pimco site was down for a redesign. If you don’t find the e-mail address you might try:

http://www.pimco.com/TopNav/ContactUs/Contact+Form.htm

No, I believe Serin believe In-n-Out burgers are okay because they are "better somehow." (They don't freeze their burgers, but the meat still come from corn fed cattle lot cows).

I like my burger medium. And it is not safe to have under-cooked burger from most places. I do not know.

I'm open to steak tartare.

SFBubbleBuyer Says:
@Different Sean
You only see unstratified societies when there isn’t ‘enough’ for one person to be on top. Hawaii kings lived like kings. Living where resources are scarce enough that you can’t take a cut from other people as a ‘tax’ leads to universal equality. Even the ‘leader’ has to grub for grubs if he wants to live.

That's not true, SFBB. You'll have to go off and do a year of anthropology or read some books to look at the history of development of societies and stratification as unearthed in the archaelogical records and by contemporary observation. There has been a progression from roughly equal neolithic hunter-gatherer societies, stratified only by age and gender, to more elaborate systems of social organisation involving role specia1isation, such as your Hawaiian 'kings'. (I don't think you will find that they possessed much wealth so much as influence.) Many early 'chiefs' (not so much 'kings') were actually required to generously donate most of what they had to their people -- this still occurs in many African tribes, and used to occur in many American Indian tribes. There are a range of societal type in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, many of which were settled in the last 7,000 years or so or even more recently.

The transition of power away from the masses into the hands of 'kings' in the last 10,000 years has in many ways been an unfortunate one, ref Marx's 'primitive communism'. The accepted 'stages' of technical evolution seem to be from flat hunter-gatherer societies to horticultural to agricultural to industrialised, with political evolution (or devolution) from equality to chieftains to kings to other systems of representation and leadership such as we see in 'modern' industrialised societies (really disguised kings). You are right that stratification often appears with the accumulation of surplus, but the Australian Aboriginal societies could meet all their material needs with only 3 hours work a day, for instance, the rest of the time was spent mostly relaxing and socia1ising. ref Marshall Sahlins 'The Original Affluent Society'. Some modern industrialised countries with a healthy surplus still retain strongly egalitarian political and economic features, however.

I’m open to steak tartare.

I love steak tartare. With quail eggs.

Using non-humanely raised eggs and dairy products should also be abhorrent to them, but most vegetarians seem to eat enough of those things.

Peter P: Quick question: do some vegetarians use lard in their pastries?

Don't know about here, but in the UK several supermarkets sell vegetable lard for baking tasty non-meat pastries.

I refuse to believe that humans evolved from monkeys.

Something human-like with a large brain could, of course, evolve from monkeys over time. It is most likely that we originally evolved from small lemur-like primates anyhow, which in turn evolved from earlier rat-like mammals and proto-mammals. Effectively, all of the mammals we see today stem most likely from a single rat-like species some 64 million years ago... The same proto-mammals could have had a shot at it some 250 million years ago, but they blew their chance due to reptiles and dinosaurs gaining hegemony and eating them, leaving them to scuttle in the undergrowth and devour their own offspring...

Non-vegetarians should also seek out humanely raised and sustainably farmed foods. They usually taste better.

(Possible exception for goose livers, lobsters, live crabs, veal etc., where cruelty is directly related to tastiness)

I'd say given the last oh, say, 40 or so posts, it's about time for a new thread.

speedingpullet, HARM and other SoCal'ers,

Have you seen the DQ numbers for SoCal that just came out?

http://dqnews.com/RRSCA0407.shtm

I find it very interesting that, in addition to volume being WAY down everywhere, prices are down or flat YoY everywhere except, glaringly, LA county. What are your thoughts on the contrast between LA and the rest of SoCal? Are LA and OC the "prime" areas holding up the rest? Is there a shift in the type of home being bought there (from condos to sfh's, for instance)?

steak tartare scares me now. 5-10 years ago great but agribusiness has probably made this an unecessary risk today. Likewise I wouldn’t drink much mainstream milk these days either.

Huh? Haven't food safety practices gotten better with time? irradiation and etc?

Robert,

Ventura's #1 on price decline, but what about the decline in sales number in San Bernadino and Riverside? Holy crap! Basically HALF the sales volume compared to last year????

@skibum,

The only explanation I have for why LA County is *still* posting YoY price gains in the median (despite some anecdotal evidence to the contrary), is that there really is some truth to the permabulls' "limited supply/growing demand" argument here.

There is virtually no part of LA County that is not already built out --and has been built out for at least 20+ years. The only "new" development I see going up around my neck of the woods (San Gabriel Valley) is very old SFRs that are being torn-down to create high-rise condos/townhomes, or zero-lot line houses.

Tear-downs & high-rises are almost always more expensive on a sft basis than SFRs built on raw land. Then you add in all the zoning, easements & gratuitous developer fees. Contrast this to the relative ease and low cost of building in San Bernardino or Riverside counties, where the sprawl can literally spread as far as the eye can see and beyond --all the way to the AZ border if necessary.

Add to that, the fact LA County is still the primary job-growth engine for all of SCAL (kind of like Silly Valley is to NCAL) and attracts more than its fair share of the half-million or so in "diversity" being added to the population each year, and you have relatively stronger underlying "real" demand vs. a geniunely more limited supply.

Does this mean there was no reckless/speculative buying here and we're immune to a crash? Hardly. It'll just take a bit longer to register here, and may not fall as far as the less densely populated counties.

I only track SFRs and only in certain parts of Westside, using ZipRealty and Zillow, so my obsvervations are anecdotal at best.

However, as I mentioned above, people are still adding psylocibin to their drinking water when it comes to prices here.

To cheer myself up, after hearing about massive price crashes in other parts of the country, I've taken to producing little on-the-fly frequency counts of properties by asking price.

Then I shake my head and go back to reading blogs such as this.

Here, then, is today's insanity by numbers:

Using my ZipRealty search, there are 2012 properties (SFR, 2+ beds, any price, in Westside, south San Fernando Valley, Topanga and Malibu) on ZipRealty today.

PRICE RANGE - FREQ - %of total - cum %-
over $ 10 million - 61 - 3.0 3.0
$10m - $5m 155 - 7.7 10.7
$5m - $4m 74 3.7 14.4
$4m - $3m 187 8.9 23.3
$3m -$2m 335 16.7 40.0
$2m -$1m 719 35.7 75.7
$1m - $500K 462 23.0 98.7
under $500K 27 1.3 100.0

So, from this very unscientific poll, it seems that asking price median falls somewhere over 1.5 mill, and that the lower quartile falls somewhere near the Million mark.

Then, as you notice that there's twice as many places for sale over 10 million as there are under 500K (and many of these are actually condos that got lost in the SFR search by mistake - telltale '#XYZ' in the addresses gives them away), you realise that you're better off spending time baking a nice cake, than considering buying ANYTHING in L.A at the moment.

LOL, we call this at Corporate as back end loaded... ouch!!!

"Third, it's becoming apparent that a lot of the 2004/2005 buying activity was drawing from the future, and that future is now. A lot of demand was pre-met, otherwise these low sales counts would have put more downward pressure on prices by now," Prentice said. "

So there is no more demand!!! Thats it folks...