patrick.net

Aryan Nation - You got to be kidding me.
http://www.dictionary.net/aryan
Stupid white American's in prison dont have anything better to do. Geez.

I have a cousin who is a Lesbian in Atlanta. An Aunt who is an atheist and best friends with a lesbian black couple in Memphis. My immediate family and I are not particularly religious and live in a very rural part of the state.In all that time, I have NEVER had anyone tell me what to believe, how to act, where to go to school, or that what I believed was wrong. Needless to say, I was never persecuted for me beliefs. Nor did I openly proclaim my beliefs on others. I, like yourself take me convictions very privately, as most people should do.

Ironically, I have had PLENTY of people here in the Bay area tell me how WRONG I am, as in how wrong the people in general that carry my drawl are.

nomadtoons2 / SF Woman,

I have to chime in here, as a Californian who has both lived in the South and often visits family, who are spread all across the "Bible Belt" (KY, AL, NC, GA). Thirteen years ago, at the urging of my family (and thanks to an almost complete lack of jobs in recessionary CA), I relocated to Atlanta along with my future wife. I'll grant you I went there with a considerable amount of trepidation. While many in my family are either Southerners, or long-time transplants, I was a native Californian with very little direct experience with that part of the country until that time.

Living nearly two years around Atlanta opened my eyes on a number of fronts. Firstly, I agree with nomadtoons2 that not all Southerners are sheet-wearing, Bible-thumping racists out to proselytize everyone they come into contact with. OTH, there are quite a few of these types around, and the dominant culture is far more WASP/Christian/Bible-centric than other parts of the U.S., for better or for worse. Fyi, Stone Mountain, GA (not far from where I lived) is one of the birthplaces of the Klan. As a non-religious type myself, I can certainly empathize with SF Woman in feeling like an "outsider".

While I never experienced direct racism myself (as a very white guy), my wife --who is hispanic-- did. I saw her apply for many jobs, get called up for interviews (she has no accent, and her maiden name sounds Italian), just to show up, watch the friendly expressions turn to ice, and be told "no thanks". Even I got hit with the occasional anti-Yankee, "you're not from around here", and "Californicator", etc. It took a while for either of us to find decent employment, despite having a bit of help from my family. To keep things in perspective, we eventually did develop a network of friends, some of whom were Southerners, while others were transplants like ourselves. In the end, we moved back, mainly due to better job opportunities for me (at that time) in IT, not mainly because of prejudice/cultural reasons.

I have also seen/experienced the kind of arrogant lefty self-righteousness in the Bay Area that nomadtoons2 describes, though I would take care to distinguish it from the more extreme, violent kind of bigotry that still (unfortunately) permeates much of small town life in the deep South. I have never heard of anyone having a pentagram burned on their front lawn for not worshipping Wicca or voting for Nader, for example. While not entirely reflective of the current situation, it’s important to keep in mind that not all horror stories about Southern racism are complete fabrications, and there is still a good measure of it around. This is why many from “blue states” are reluctant to move to the Bible Belt region.

Just a couple of clarifications since I fear the reactions that nomadtoons and others have to my opinions tend to override my main points and beliefs.

* I don't think any region of the country has any absolute advantage over the other. What is so great about the US is that we, as citizens, are quite willing to move around. And we do it *a lot*. Much more so than balkanized places of the "free world" like the EU.

* Since we move around so much, and we have a very distinct common national culture, we are more alike than different. Stereotypes tend to focus on the minor distinctions, and are very easily to find counter examples defying. This is why my mother-in-law doesn't like gays, but has a very good neighbor friend who is a lesbian.

* Currently, politics are being forged by dividing, not uniting. Elections are won or lost on abortion, evolution, gay marriage, gun rights. Not that these aren't important issues, but they are only important because things like nation-state wars and financial system collapse aren't real fears for most people. More people fear their child will/won't be taught evolution than an invasion by the Red Army or another Great Depression.

* I'm not so sure the West is religiously "tolerant", as much as it is historically "libertarian". The story of the west has helped to form the current attitude of religious (or new age or atheist) beliefs being private. This isn't some great enlightenment that Westerns have, but a luxury of lots of space, until the past few decades fewer people, and a need to get along to survive the environment. The East, Midwest, and South all had a very different view towards community, privacy, and religion. In order for communities to survive people needed to be much more public and conformist about their beliefs. Even the "liberal" New England communities weren't at all libertarian, but instead very institutionally religious, just more Catholic and Protestant, and less Evangelical (from the old-world definitions of these).

* And, for the record, I believe the midwest tends to be more racist than the south on balance. The south had a history of institutionalized racism, while the midwest did not. This ironically has allowed the south to progress past this point in history while the midwest has become mired in a vicious circle of subtle, nefarious racism. Cities like Cincinnati are much more racist at the core than Atlanta. Atlanta works very hard to counter racism, while Cincinnati generally denies it exists.

Tends to happen here when a new thread starts. This tends to be a post to the last thread community.

I have no respect for the UN. What have they done for humanity lately? They only do pointless things like banning Caspian caviar export. They are unable to mitigate human suffering anywhere. They are not even a paper tiger.

Their NY HQ should be converted into condos.

That's a pretty standard view amongst standard people in the standard US lately. Something to do with the Security Council not ratifying a 2nd resoluton to invade Iraq mostly, as the UN was set up as a democracy of countries to attempt to maintain world peace as its main goal and look for constructive alternatives.

I think they do things like peace-keeping in Sudan, running UNICEF to give mass vaccinations against disease and provide uncontaminated drinking water in 3rd world countries, etc.

Sure it's got the usual problems of bureaucratic bloat, comfort zones and goal displacement. Still, better than nothing...

Linda in LA-LA Land -

Here is the link you requested.

http://overvalued.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Whoever claimed that San Jose price still climbs should go to Ziprealty and select all the San Jose properties, then select properties with reductions only. 118 properties have reduced price. Moreover, most reductions happen quietly, which means, the seller delists and relists with a lower price as a *hot new listing!". So the number of properties with price reductions can easily surpass 200.

With 200+ homes undergoing price reductions, some of them more than one round, do you believe that price is going up?

If including condos as well, South San Jose is showing 20 price reductions. I won't call 20 *apparent* price reductions out of 140 total listings "still going up".

lunarpark
Thanks...very enjoyable!

Bush and the republicans long ago have turned on the money faucet and are spending more money in foreign nations with their goofy “nation building” instead of getting their priorities straight and spending it on the many problems here on the homeland.

But they're not interested in 'nation-building', it's aways an attempt at an 'investment' with a payoff -- e.g. loads of cheap oil, or strategic bases, or preserving the USD as the world's chief petrocurrency, or all 3 if possible. The neocons miscalculated because they thought they would be accepted and welcomed by the overwhelming majority of iraqis for delivering them from a tyrant. middle eastern politics and the cultural mindset are not so simple. further, people in that region are sick of decades of having puppet leaders foisted on them by the west in order to ensure a steady supply of oil, so you are battling that distrust and desire for autonomy as well.

that's why they don't do nation-building in africa - they're just not interested - unless there's a big pile of oil or some other valuable, indispensable commodity underneath it, e.g. oil in southern sudan or nigeria. clearly the iraq and caspian sea oil and gas resources were of primary interest. it doesn't matter if there's a hit to govt if industry benefits - because the two are intertwined in the national self-interest.

look at the US undermining of democratically elected left-wing leaders in S. America practising assassination, training thugs and putting in right-wing despots when it suits - usually because Chiquita or some other vested interest says it will increase the price of bananas, or reduce profitability, or get chucked out of the country altogether...

there are huge oil and infrastructure connections with the current administration of course - they are the most conflicted and corrupted in america's history. rice is an ex-texaco oil exec with a ship formerly named after her. bush - say no more. cheney is bribed by an infrastructure company he headed for 5 years. then there's the military-govt connection - lockheed martin are the current favourites in the administration, with a revolving door of jobs between the two.

anyhow, he was 'selected, not elected' - the 2000 and 2004 elections were both stacked and rigged so that the republicans need never worry about something so trifling as a democratic election obstructing them in their agendas ever again.

i don't think terrorists are really even a problem - there's a big question mark over who the terrorists even were - half of them had stolen identities, they conveniently found a lot of passports in the wreckage, etc. why would the middle east be so angry with the US in particular anyway? they don't normally attack the UK, Australia, france, germany, scandinavia, all of western europe, etc, all similar sorts of countries with oil contracts. so clearly it has nothing to do with 'they hate freedom and democracy', that's just a propaganda line for local consumption to gain support. america always gets to name the enemy and prescribe the remedy, usually military or otherwise coercive. but america is completely financially self-interested and self-absorbed also, and can only be expected to try to steer every situation to its own economic advantage, so how can they be trusted to name the rules, be the umpire and become the 'new world order'? that's meant to be the job of the UN, as a democracy of nations of sorts. that's where the neocons are particularly just a blinkered, elitist failure and completely mistaken in their thinking.

oh, and the 'smoking gun' theory about the neocons, where they actually put in writing for public consumption (!) that the US should invade iraq post haste, take control of caspian sea resources before someone else did, such as the russians, and that america needed another 'pearl harbour' to work them up into a frenzy to do it. all this in the late 1990s...

anyone heard of the fact that most lender banks are setting up brand new, and/or larger repo departments???

there's record foreclusures in sydney for the last 2 years already... apparently largely young, burnt investors...