patrick.net

GC
Your posts are showing not just a moodiness but a genuine and disturbong imbalance and inability to hold a train of thought.
Have you gone off your lithium?

Meanwhile, my Opinel is now incredibly sharp and ready to do damage on some Fuji apples...

Linda,

Yum, lithium. I can chase that with a vodka tonic and some Nick Drake :)

I think perhaps that GC has proven himself to be the worst kind of troll. His blatherings have engaged some badinage, however all in all, he has derailed several of our threads and offended some of our lurkers and posters(ie Bork). His meandering mind is dangerous to the integrity and reputation of Patrick.net.
For the longevity of this site,
I vote that he is banned.
Honestly, this blog has degraded somewhat thanks to Gentle Cheetah and his multiple alter egos. I have to skip a lot of comments originated by/in reply to GC. It started with homosexual fantasies, turned into pedophilia topic and now it seems to be taking a “suicide” turn.

BTW- Polished concrete sinks...MMMMM

Anybody?
Or are you just too tired to think?

Linda,

It's really best to ignore him and erase on an comment by comment basis. He just throws a lot of random stuff out. But honestly, I can see where he's coming from, even though I don't happen to agree with that perspective.

Here's a song for you:

http://www.candlerecords.com.au/candle/bin/candlebands.cfm?bandName=han#

go down and click on "I wish I was beautiful for you"

Linda -

should I repeat it? GC is some bored Microsoft desk jockey, perhaps even assigned to pick up the pulse of the times here at Patrick.net.

Either that, or he is a bored financier with a real interest in Auburn Bank Corp.

Take your pick.

Astrid
I know you've been a fan of his as you've defended him from the start. You said that he probably wouldn't act on such statements...(BTW...how do you know? Is he an old friend or something?)
I'm talking about for the integrity of the site to have someone throwing out random flamelike comments...

Anyway, Bork said it well.

Whatever the rest of you choose as a group.

I come
to
this site
for sanity
not
insanity

tsusiat
But the pulse of Patrick.net has been the same for a long time.
Steady, strong, and very furry. :)

tsusiat,

How exciting! Patrick could be bought out with Big Bill's money. Maybe he could treat us all to sushi.

Linda,

Huh? If you thought that, you really don't know me at all. I don't advocate banning unless the individual is clearly a troll. I don't see it yet. I don't even advocate banning Bap33 or DS or Robert Cote or Ha Ha, even though I disagree with just about everything they've said.

nomadtoons:
I’d much rather get on with my life somewhere else.

with the animation work being virtual, etc, you could probably live and work anywhere and cyber-commute, couldn't you? or look at more lucrative areas in similar types of work in LA like hollywood special effects in Maya or something... assuming those guys are getting good pay, and not living at home with their parents, heh

or have i got the wrong profile?

the other options here seem to be that people are moving further and further out of the greater metro area up and down the coast to where i assume it is more affordable -- i just did a 1 hour trip about 80km south and had forgotten what regional living is like -- more relaxed and costs are 2/3 of the city for many things, and yet they have a beach lifestyle. only nuisance is having to commute if you are working in the city, altho there's a good train line up and down the coast. i don't think it's fair that housing allocation works like that, but it's a reasonable compromise in the market society -- i bandy phrases like 'key worker initiatives' around with govt people in affordable housing, but they tend to look blank. further, the US has got huge areas of affordability still in comparison with the pattern in other boom countries.

like someone was saying, tradesmen have to drive for hours these days to get to a job -- from an embedded energy and personal cost point of view, it's incredibly wasteful -- i.e. these are extra 'hidden' costs of construction, altho i don't know what the answer is -- michael mobbs points out that when he is constructing a best practice 'green' village somewhere, there's an endless convoy of tradesmen arriving from 2 hours drive away each way every day from the affordability belt...

I don’t even advocate banning Bap33 or DS or Robert Cote or Ha Ha, even though I disagree with just about everything they’ve said.

and others agree and voice similar views. so i don't think it's worth 'even advocating banning' simply on the basis of belonging to a faction.

SFWoman -

I don't mind digressions into economics, but statements meant to be un PC and designed to draw ire, well, I agree they could be better directed elsewhere.

Unfortuantely, I think surfer x opened the door in this direction with his *direct* diatribes, but for some reason I like Surfer X, maybe because the surfer's statements are rarely accompanied with pontifications about childhoods in China and cafe culture in Paris, all a kind of bloggish name dropping, if you know what I mean...

Linda,

Intellectual voyeurs are a different creature from sexual predators. I've contemplated plenty of actions that I would never act upon. Thus far, you have no conclusive proof either ways. Furthermore, GC's offending comments were already erased (noticed that I have no problem with erasing on a comment by comment basis, only with all out banning?) and he more or less said he was wrong.

Are his comments obnoxious? Perhaps. But this blog doesn't delete for obnoxiousness alone. Or insults? You have no problem with Surfer-X's diatribes.

Yet you expect me to agree with you on a decision to ban and since I disagreed, then I must be a fan and a pedophila enabler.

What is the harm of GC unbanned, other than that he made a series of ill judged comments that pissed a bunch of unforgiving concerned mothers off? If he was indeed a sexual predator (a very unlikely thing, even his worst comments spoke of distant hypotheticals), what would be so bad about having him on this site, which has virtually no children traffic, no openly available contact information. His offending comments were already taken off.

Anyways, that's just fantastic. I'll keep in mind not to respond to your future queries, for fear of offending you further.

I personally do not care for people that use multiple screen names. What's the point?

Astrid
Why are you being all snippy with me?

This is a housing site
Not a site for perverts to drool.

Girgl,

when you experienced the German property bubble, were average German homebuyers heavily leveraged in their own personal finance?

I was in Japan in 1990-1991, and based on my expereince, I never saw an average japanese as leveraged as an average American middle class. The Japanese companies were in deep doo doo for property flipping, but property flipping was very rare for an average Japanese family, the younger generation just couldn't buy a home, Neg-am, No-money-down was unheard of. The most creative Japanese mortgage loan was 100 years in duration, and the 100-year mortgage deserved a lot more sound bytes than its true market share (No statistics, but I believe it to be below 10% of the total loan share). On top of this, Japanese are obsessive savers, they never let their annual savings rate get below 5%.

That's why I think what we are about to experience in this property market will be quite unprecedented.

Astrid said
Yet you expect me to agree with you on a decision to ban and since I disagreed, then I must be a fan and a pedophila enabler.

I never said you were a ped. enabler.
I did say that you've been chatting away with him.
I've never asked for anything from you.
I expect nothing from you.You can agree or disagree. I asked the group.
He has *offended* plenty of people.

Read your own posts.
You've been clearly defending this guy.
Even in your most recent post.

Randy,

I hope you'll enjoy this article about Whole Paycheck and the organic food movement.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/060515crat_atlarge

Fewlesh
I bought an out of reach house in 1989.Held on for 5-6 years...then sold at the bottom!
OUCH!
If I didn't learn my lesson then...then I deserve to buy now!
Bwahahah!

Linda,

Here are some of my responses to GC

"GentleCheetah is just going for the stealthtroll triathlon. He’s already a sexist and a postmodernist. However, he is very quiet and rather zen, so I’m cool if he’s cool.

Congratulations to GC for completing his events! "

"Complaining about other people’s materialism is best if not followed by bragging about money, especially money you haven’t made."

"I doubt the Poles and the Italians harbored the same sort of global ambition as the Chinese. It goes beyond irridentism. Having a history of a powerful empire for so long, they believe they deserve to be the world’s leader."

"I’m not actually offended by any of your comments. However, you do seem awfully boastful about your uber man status. That, in my mind, makes you a fun target for teasing"

"GC,

Well, you can believe whatever you want to believe. History already demonstrated the ruling classes are more fluid than your construction and that the fates of the upper classes are tied to happenings of the lower classes. "

"You just said in the last thread that you’re not gay.

Are you or aren’t you? :) "

"GC,

Wow, you’re really going for as many un-PC events as possible!

Linda,

Hehe. But Jake Gyllenhaal is often suspected of being Peter Saarsgard’s gay lover! "

So yes, I did engage GC in conversation, but I'd hardly call what I said to be fandom.

Finally, in the conclusion of those particular offending statements:

"GC,

You’ve toyed with us and just now discovered that your toys come with teeth and a conscience.

You’re the young urchin who makes obscene gestures to get other people’s attention. "

"Linda,

It’s fine. You’re right to be angry.

Although I don’t think GC would actually act on his impulses, that sort of dehumanizing of victims thinking is the sort that aids many a gruesome crimes. "

"GC,

Alas, we’re social creatures. Fortunately or unfortunately, what we say can be held against us. "

The best writers cherish their audience. They choose every word carefully to evoke a desired reaction. That reaction may be pleasure, laughter, anger, enlightenment -- but the focus is always on the dear, gentle reader.

The writer who just "expresses himself" with no concern for his audience is the guy on the corner gesticulating and arguing with the sky.

The name of my target audience for this post shall remain nameless but his initials are infamous.

Astrid
Hopefully, when you went through all those posts, you saw that you also have been defending him.
So what? It's your right.
You have a right to defend him if that's what you want to do.
And I have a right to disagree.
Oh, well. This "unforgiving concerned mother"
often forgives,
however,
there are some things
that one
cannot
forgive.

Fewlish
We bought Adelphia on its way dooowwwwnnn! :lol:

Linda,

"I know you’ve been a fan of his as you’ve defended him from the start. You said that he probably wouldn’t act on such statements…(BTW…how do you know? Is he an old friend or something?)
I’m talking about for the integrity of the site to have someone throwing out random flamelike comments…"

You said I was fan. If you'd bothered to check the back history, you'd see I'm not. I do chat with him, just as many here did, and I disagreed with him much more often than I agreed with him. I did not defend him from the start, I merely said I think he should be censored as needed and not banned, that's a consistent position. He has not engaged in troll like behavior and he's been responsive to queries, I see no reason to ban.

You also called him a pedophile, even though I recall no statement that suggest he ever attempted such an act or would attempt such an act. Furthermore, GC has later called his earlier statements to be wrong and an attempt to provoke. I chose to take him at face value rather than accuse him of being a pedophile. It's hard to not draw lines between the dots and see that if I defend him and he is a pedophile (though how that's relevant on this blog and requires banning, I don't know), then I am enabling his (erased) pedophile behavior.

Fewlesh,

I made statements about holding a value-weighted diversified commodity portfolio which would necessarily be heavy in agriculture. I've talked a lot about ag as a macro thing, but my comments are really very long term in nature.

As for GM Crops; I'm incredibly bullish on the technology and its future economic potential. But again, it's a very long-term thing. Since there is both politics and education/misperception involved, not to mention cultural biases, it could take over a generation for the tech to really take hold. But, short of any mass population calamity like a pandemic killing off 1/3 of the world's population, GM agricultural technologies will happen. Even if disaster strikes, they may still happen due to climate change pressures.

The problem betting on it financially is that you could go broke before it pays off. This is again why I favor old-fashioned, boring, never make you a billionaire diversification.

Aiyah, some trolls just last forever!

There are certain political sites that tend to disallow comments, or are swiftly efficient in their removal of those that don't "stay on message". Such rigid orthodoxy in the end tends to be harmful, as it acts as an evolutionary selector against creativity. Such a situation can be recognized in part by a large quantity of phrases similar to "but who would do such a thing" or "how does someone even thing of that".

As such groups tend to pride themselves on a certain moral superiority, it is amusing to note that removing the possibility of contemplating "sin" also removes the free will that is a necessary prerequisite for "sin" in all but a few dogmatic cases. A population unable to make moral decisions because of such limited cognitive ability should at best be called amoral. The moral population is one that is able to freely contemplate all actions, and then choose to act on them in accordance with an assumed moral framework.

For this reason, I tend to have a greater antipathy to posts that call for the removal of offensive material, subject to my own somewhat liberal standards. Also, as the material has in this case been elided from the record, is is often through such objecting posts that the initial offense is kept alive for an unmerited length of time.

And a bit of unsolicited advice for the other resident lightning rod : brevity.

Fewlesh,

I think I had a share in pimping grains too:-) But I pimped BG a while back, and have already sold ADM.

SFWoman Says:

> I bought nice (white!) low flow toilets with a little button
> that you pull up on to flush. Everything goes down!

My Dad has a collection of over 100 “high” flow toilets under one of his apartments in San Mateo. He is not against saving water, but years ago my He noticed that he started to make a lot more calls to Roto Rooter on all the new buildings he bought with low flow toilets (it was about 1986 that CA required every toilet that was not low flow to be replaced prior to the sale of an apartment building). Since then my Dad has told fellow apartment investors that he will send his plumber down to install the new toilets for free if they let him keep the old toilets. Low flow toilets are fine in new buildings with new plumbing but for some of the 80 year old buildings my Dad owns in Burlingame and San Mateo you need a little more water to push all the “crap” through the old pipes aka “clogged arteries”…

> I despise those low flow showerheads though.

Over 20 years ago my Dad had a sales guy come by and give him a sample low flow showerhead called the “Nova 2.35” and tell him to try it at home to see how great it worked. These “Nova” shower heads worked so great that my Dad called the guy back and bought 200 of them. I don’t know if the company is around anymore but since my Dad still has at least 20 I don’t have to worry. I’ve had a couple that I move from apartment to apartment since it is a “low flow” showerhead that seems to have even more power than a “high flow” head (and I need a lot of flow since still fortunately have as much hair as I had 20 years ago)…

> I would consider a great showerhead with an on/off valve for times of drought.

Back when I was managing property in Berkeley 20 years ago we got a lot of sample shower heads with on off switches (the companies must have sent us all the samples figuring that they were a sure sell in Berkeley)…

I’m not the tallest guy in the world at 6’3” but have to bend down to get my hair wet in most showers. Can any architects comment why we don’t just put the average shower head a few inches taller than the average American male?

P.S. Every since SF Woman posted that she was a bridal model years ago I picture her looking like this (http://tinyurl.com/nkewy ) whenever I read her posts…

astrid, LILLL

calm down. CAT FIGHT is strictly illegal on this site (although I always fantasize of watching of in real life). So let's behave ourselves before Uncle Randy cracks the whip.

Garth,

Sorry, I didn't want to be accused of cherrypicking.

fantasize about watching one, can't help mistyping when I am drooling...

astrid,

Thanks for the link. Not much to disagree with in that article. I especially like seeing someone finally point out that GM crops actually feed lots of people, something of a basic deficiency in much of Africa recently. I read a piece a few months ago which estimated the number of people killed per day in African nations that are essentially forced to avoid GM imports due to bilateral EU trade deals and the EU's insistence on prohibiting GMOs. I'll see if I can find it, and if it was really a valid conclusion (I just read it, didn't really check to see if it was a legit assertion).

Guys & Gals
Just to be clear.
I had dropped the pedophile topic
and had continued with the
Hitler
and then
suicide
comments.
The random
ramblings
were getting to me.
And others.
It is not my intention to keep these topics
alive.
It was my intention to put an
end
to them.
And him.
Never mind. :(

Owneroccupier,

It's not a cat fight. It's just that I think Linda has been too quick to judge.

I'll be happy to move onto something else. - how does Whole Foods organic vegetables relate to the credit and housing bubbles? OR was Warren Buffet a polygamist?

I'm too tired to think.
Good night.

Randy,

Yup. I'm amazed by the report of 30% gross profit. Whatever else WF may be, they've done an extremely effective job of marketing very overpriced Brussels Sprouts. I hope HBS is adding it to their case studies.

Astrid,

Your posts are always delightful -- even when you're kicking my butt.

WRT GM crops:
I've generally considered the famine problems in Africa to be of a political nature. That is, the necessary infrastructure for large agricultural production is essentially non-existent, and donated food is repurposed by various political powers.

I disagree with the EU on the potential dangers of GM foods, but do feel that it creates vulnerabilities to the food supply, mostly relating to monocultures and non-reproductive breeds.