patrick.net

Yeah, this is the year that the term "staycation" has entered our dictionaries in the US. I'm going to have a staycation during the first week of September. It's Rosh HaShanah. It's my brother's birthday. My Mom needs me because she's undergoing some serious medical testing and will need someone to be present for her. I have Jury Duty in the middle of the week. And I'm going to the periodontist because of a "pocket" they found on my gum where my gold crown is...

Beyond that, I'm going to try to do something fun I haven't done before here in the area. There are plenty of places I can play "tourist" in the area. I like staycations. They're much cheaper and sometimes less hassle than having to go to the darn airport, deal with hotels, rental cars, etc.

mikey says

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the

merger of state and corporate power.” - Benito Mussolini.

But when he was in charge, the trains ran on time! ;)

Bap33 says

The point made by this thread (in my humble opinion) is that funny people that clowned Bush are now clowning Lord Barry.

Only they're not, because the attributions on all but one of these jokes is a lie (The Conan one is real, and, unsurprisingly, it's the only actually funny one on the list)

You can tell the origins come from clueless right wingers because every single joke is being attributed to a late night comedian, generally Jay Leno, but nobody under 50 actually watches these people.

It's the same sort of idiocy that for some reason thinks that Obama voters like Rosie O'Donnel.

These jokes aren't unfunny because they're directed at obama by the way -- they're just unfunny. It's the kind of humor that you find in one of those idiot parody movies by Freidberg and Seltzer, or maybe a Dane Cook standup special.

Here are a few primers on humor that's actually funny:

1. The joke should be funny because it's actually true, and probably a slight exaggeration of the truth.
2. Simply saying something mean is not funny.
3. Things that are on people's minds due to similarities between people, recent events, or highly visible rumors can also be funny.
4. Things that happened long ago are rarely funny, unless you came up with something really unique.

So, making a joke about Obama's citizenship can be funny. Making a joke about the Republicans being in the closet can be funny. Making fun of John Boehner's skin color can be funny.

Saying how you'd like someone to die, leave office, or that you just hate them isn't funny, it's just stupid angry ranting. Making fun of Bill Clinton's infidelity WAS funny, 10 years ago, but there really aren't any new jokes to tell there.

elliemae says

Obsessed with Elliemae says

Funny how that works... In nearly every thread initiated by Ray that I have visited (a small sample to be sure), elliemae is one of the early respondents, and most often initiates some type of lightly-worded personal attack. In this thread alone, elliemae baits Ray with off-topic, personal comments until she gets to the point in the exchange where can then accuse Ray of personal attacks. Perhaps Ray also responds to every thread that elliemae initiates in a similar manner, but if one only reviewed Ray's threads, the question of who is really obsessed with whom gets quite muddied... Is Ray obsessed with elliemae? Is elliemae obsessed with Ray? Or is elliemae obsessed with elliemae? Or a little of all of them?

tatupu70 says

AdHominem says

Exactly, if the owner derives more pleasure from letting his land sit he will do so. That is exactly what I said. The owner will do with his land what he considers best for him. ( the good news being that most people desire profit from their investments) I trust the majority of individuals to maximize productivity on their own property more than I trust Washinton DC to maximize productivity, were the gummint to dictate land use from the top down.

The problem occurs when everyone decides to sell their farmland for condos over a relatively short timeperiod and we’re left with not enough corn, beans and wheat to feed our population. Each farmer was maximizing his profit, but the effect on society was catastrophic.

Has this actually happened? Is our population lacking in corn, beans, or wheat, or have prices raised so substantially that people cannot afford these things? Wouldn't the increasing prices prompt others to get into the farming business?

Paralithodes says

Has this actually happened? Is our population lacking in corn, beans, or wheat, or have prices raised so substantially that people cannot afford these things? Wouldn’t the increasing prices prompt others to get into the farming business?

I'm assuming these are rhetorical questions, but I'll answer them anyway.

1--Not that I'm aware of. As our government continues to subsidize farming, I wouldn't expect it to.
2--There have been occasions where one or more of the main staples have been scarce and become more expensive, but in general, no.
3--I would expect that increasing prices would eventually cause others to get into the farming business. But, I would expect that it would take some period of time to convert land back to farming.

Wait a minute Mikey posts something, and every one but Mikey are doing spin control, and knows which one is attributed and which is not. I'm confused, did Mikey lift this from somewhere, and you folks knows exactly where of you speak. Or are you all just that big of spin bag tools?

And how do you know these weren't attributed as to how Mikey presented them?

It sounds lifted to me, Teno. If Mikey manufactured it there would be puns involved. Elementary, is it not?

Here's an artist's impression of Obama's windows desktop.

ToT does make a good point. A punless post indicates a copy-paste. Much like when I post somethoing that is spelled correctly and wrote intelligently, there is probably a bit of borrowing involved.

Kevin,
I agree 100% that all good humor has a base in truth, and great humor requires some thought. I like Mark Twain humor more than Adam Sandler humor. But, Sandler's "medium pace"(nasty) and "hanaka"(sp)(cute) make me laugh. You?

I think ""Q: Have you heard about McDonald’s’ new Obama Value Meal?

A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it.

–Conan O’Brien"" is a stab at Bush, if you read it a little different ... and still pretty funny. Not as funny as the Michael Jackson burger from McD's, but still funny.

I still like Obama. He’s definitely got a hard job cleaning up the wreckage of the Bush years.

Problem with that statement is that we still haven't cleaned up the wreckage from the Carter years.

Deomcrats love to inject.
In the link Patrick has a link today
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/government-robs-working-renters-to-subsidize-unemployed-homedebtors/?source=patrick.net#blogtitle

The guy that wrote the blog has a Rockwelian picture where he alternates between
Republican figures and Democrat figures.

Instead of looking at the people he depicts for face value based on thier track record.
He goes on to inject scary left talking points above their heads of things they never said.

Then for Obama, of course it's everybody's fault, he has bubble over his head where he just blames his advisers, and the party of no.

You people are classic.
And where did my shout out to John Stewart go?

zzyzzx says

we still haven’t cleaned up the wreckage from the Carter years.

Why not invoke the evils of Johnson or FDR ? ( ra ra sis boom bah,.......gooooo republicans)

Or maybe your point was the same as mine, that going way way back to Bush is silly. If that is the case, then you don't understand the magnitude of what Bush left us.

Well, the articles prove it. This isn't because of the oil slick. IMHO, it's because of the fish media. They've scared the other fish into changing their scales, the equivalent of changing political parties to save the country.

Maybe they could vote oxygen back into the water?

Paralithodes says

Or is elliemae obsessed with elliemae?

Oh, yea. Every morning I look in the mirror and tell myself, "I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with. Because I'm good enough... I'm smart enough.. and, doggonit, people like me!"

Bap33 says

I aint been up late enough for SNL since John Belushi and Eddie Murphy where regulars.

It hasn't been worth staying up for, I don't have a clue how it's remained on the air this long. The edginess is long gone. But this is worth a listen... I wish I had the video too. I know it's available on bearshare...

http://iheartjimmy.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/happy-st-patricks-day/

Paralithodes says

Funny how that works… In nearly every thread initiated by Ray that I have visited (a small sample to be sure), elliemae is one of the early respondents, and most often initiates some type of lightly-worded personal attack. In this thread alone, elliemae baits Ray with off-topic, personal comments until she gets to the point in the exchange where can then accuse Ray of personal attacks. Perhaps Ray also responds to every thread that elliemae initiates in a similar manner, but if one only reviewed Ray’s threads, the question of who is really obsessed with whom gets quite muddied… Is Ray obsessed with elliemae? Is elliemae obsessed with Ray? Or is elliemae obsessed with elliemae? Or a little of all of them?

Thanks for your honesty as displayed in your post. I agree with most of it, however, trust me, I'm not obsessed with anyone. I think you'll see a typical pattern in which I don't respond until I've been hit on about 3 or 4 times by the one that seems "obsessed" with me.

Rayray and Elliemae sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love. Then comes marriage...

I feel like we are suddenly on a Grammar School playground.

I think ellie is beyond Grammar School, don't you? But then again .....

while (House Price > sane value)
{
wait ();
read forums on patrick;
enjoy your value
}

while (House Price > sane value)
{
wait ();
read forums on patrick;
enjoy your life
}

The Bay Area as we see now is different from what it was 10 years ago.
1.) Not many companies are going public.
2.) Even if companies go public, they don’t give shit load of stock options like they use to
So the likelihood of many people becoming rich to afford these houses is very less now. You can maintain these high prices only if this area continues to create enough rich people so that they keep on consuming these over valued assets.
And Don’t forget the most important factor- “Public Schools”, that is the only thing they differ in.
How different is mission san jose from warm springs or even mil pitas ?? Just different schools. More or less same kind of homes, Same kind of people live there. Now keep in mind Schools are going down, because the whole state is going down as you can see.

There can be other developments also, May be some enterprising person may want to develop a network of private schools which are really affordable and are better than public schools in Mission San Jose/Cupertino and completely decouple the Zip Code and the kind of education your kids receive.

A lot can happen- Bottom line an over priced entity always comes down to realize it’s true or sane value.

#include "Sanity.h"

Void Be_Patient{
Can_I_Afford_It -> Can_Anyone_else;
Wait();
}

Redfin has 63 SFH listings for 90487.

There are 40,000 GOOG and AAPL worker bees.

ahum.

When I was FOB in Cupertino in 2000, 90487 was too rich for my manager at Apple, who had purchased a $400K place in Morgan Hill and tried to commute the 101 and 85.

He's still at Apple, has his old manager's job, and I suspect he's no longer making that commute, if you get my drift.

Prices have risen in lockstep with the inverse of interest rates:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1428-Knowlton-Dr-Sunnyvale-CA-94087/19623757_zpid/

Higher rates might push prices down, but as long as AAPL and GOOG are healthy and hiring, I don't see any major fall in this outer fortress area.

"For Sale: $979,000
Monthly payment:$3,862

Down payment:
% ($195,800)
30 Year Fixed:
4.27% $3,862 /mo
15 Year Fixed
3.81% $5,719 /mo
5/1 ARM:
3.24% $3,402 /mo

Include estimated taxes and insurance
Bull Crap if 215K is 1000 a month at least.

Property type: Single Family
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
Sqft: 1,512
Lot size: 7,775 sq ft / 0.18 acres
Year built: 1961

Sqft: 1,512 That's insane! If I was making money to afford that, I'd still not pay it out of principal.

Goto: Blue screen of death

If had stayed at Apple, I'd have around $5M worth of stock stashed by now.

And I was just a very ordinary lower-middle tier worker bee awarded a piddling 1000 options vesting over 4 years.

With 20% down, the nominal cost of ownership is $3300/mo.

That may seem high, but it's about what rents are (lower perhaps), and the important thing is that after 20 years the interest burden drops by half, cutting cost of ownership down to $2400/mo.

What will rents look like in 2030? If comparing 1990 to now is useful, they will be 2X what they are now.

I don't know if past inflation will occur in the next 20 years -- certainly the bond market is telling us no -- but one of the mistakes I made working at Apple was living too far away from the mothership. You get paid and promoted based on your contribution to the company, and living within easy commuting of the place basically means you can up your contribution quite significantly while maintaining the same quality of life.

Tru Dat!

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

Bottom line: DEAD MEAT. Anyone buying a house in the next 20 years is committing suicide.

But if I rent my house, then when the lease is up the landlord will evict me. Why? The world's suffered a melt down, and he wants my potatoes. And my water supply. But I can't buy land to grow my potatoes, because then I'm committing suicide.

I guess my only option is to wander off into the national forest and plant a defensible potato farm ala marijuana grow ops?

PPete says

I saw a promo for a survivalist program with a couple in the wild. In the promo the woman drank her husband’s urine. Do you think it will get that bad?

I wouldn't say that in all cases that a woman drinking her husband's urine is bad. Some people enjoy this type of activity in private.

Call Goldline now!!!

Tomatoes are pretty good, too; easy to grow; lots of vitamin C. Lay in some canning jars and a kettle.

Do you really think it will get better in three generations?

Yeah, i don't know about potatoes, i'd rather live on veggies....totally against my Irish background though....your forgot to mention buy guns and ammo too, right?

I looked up "survival store" on the interwebs and there were 4,920,000 results. I need a little time to go shopping. But I can tell you one thing fer shore, I'm out of tin foil.

What if they try to reach me when I'm driving to the dollar store to buy more?

Plus, since I'm a woman, I can change my mind (ray) as many times as I want.

Yes, basically the hiring class has been squeezing the American worker by paying 1985 wages for 2010 productivity. Labor's productivity has increased over the last 25 years, yet wages remain stagnant. Prices for staples have increased exponentially since 1985. Eventually there is a breaking point. Eventually workers cannot afford to work for 1985 wages if they expect to be able to house, clothe, feed, and bathe themselves and/or their family. Instead of increasing wages to attract good employees, the hiring class will continue to bid bottom dollar in an effort to extract more and more profit out of their employees' labor without having to reward their employees who create profit for the hiring class.

This is how you end up where we are headed: A 2 class system. Labor drops from the middle class and dives into the lower unemployed class joining them in poverty whether they work or not. The hiring class, the capitalists, the ones with all the capital, move farther ahead of the working and non-working poor. A giant gap gets wider as the process continues. And we thought slavery ended with the 13th Amendment.

Do you hear that giant sucking sound? It's the 21st century robber-barons sucking money away from the working class and the poor.

Do you hear that sound like a door being slammed? It's the 21st century robber-barons locking their hoards of wealth away from the rude masses from which they took the money.

Bread and circuses for all.

I was playing a game of Monopoly recently and the situation came up where I owned majority of the property, and had a good amount of cash. Near the end, when player #2 was broke from landing on all my monopolies (with houses), and was about to give up (walk away), I gave him all my money less $500. The results? All the money I gave him came back to me and more since I was able to keep him in the game longer. I was essentially using him to pass go, collect $200, and in turn, give it all to me. Once he is about to give up, repeat. He was not able to buy any houses for his properties since there were no more available from the bank. It infused alot more money into our little economy.

Slavery. But you all can call it helping him (bailing him out). The gap gets wider and wider.

Vain .... good illustration of what is happening today. Slavery to debt, employer and government (high taxation). The powers to be have most people exactly where they want them.