Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

Up thread Geezer you mentioned you were with the FBI? Not in custody but as a badge & gun touting G-Man?

Prime2: sorry. just got in from a day on the road and didn't reply to your question up thread

Naw, I worked as a plant putting crooked bankers and appraisers in jail in Gary and South Bend. I guess you would call it "wearing a wire", but the electronics involved were not on my person. When Fannie and Freddie began buying almost all mortgages, bankers and appraisers, and customers would get together and appraise an actual purchase higher than the contract price, and the loan was made at the higher of cost or appraisal. Of course you needed a crooked customer for that to work, and that was me. In real life, I was just the kind of guy they felt they could approach. You might say that the free market determined that I was a crook!

I did and do carry a gun as these fellows get out of prison.

Hey, watch those turtles. Oldest animals on earth and the originators of the Chi Chi Rodriquez longivity plan: "don't move, and if you do, move real slow"

[Da Geezer]

That said, you can have a community with woeful standards. I think the death spiral of communities in the "White Ghetto" are great examples of this.

Talent:

Up thread you mention the great white ghetto. I don't know if you were referencing this article, but I found it very informative, particularly the part where they turn their welfare checks into cases of soda immediately, and use that in a barter economy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367903/white-ghetto-kevin-d-williamson

[Da Geezer]

would someone help an old fart figure out how to put what some other person said in those nice blue boxes. Not too good on this here Commodore 64.

[lineygoblue]

Geezer: Do you see these icons above ^^^^^^ in the box you type in?

There is one at the end that is square and looks like what is used in a comic book to show what the character is saying.

To do a "quote", you go and highlight what the person said, then right click on "copy"

Then you come down into your box where you type, and click "paste". The highlighted text should be in your typing box.

Then, highlight that, and click on the little quote box. It should add a "quote" both at the beginning, and the end.

That will give you the blue quote box.

would someone help an old fart figure out how to put what some other person said in those nice blue boxes. Not too good on this here Commodore 64.

[Da Geezer]

Entropy:

Love the pumpkin farm story. And I agree with almost all of what is said above about adults being the problem. And I suspect a lot of us grew up in a situation where punishment, maybe not corporeal, but punishment, was common if you got out of line.

And whether we will say it or not, just the fact that we are discussing these matters indicates to me that we did not turn out so badly. Why then did some of our generation abandon what worked for our parents? Dr. Spock is just too pat an answer. That lady at the pumpkin farm was teaching her child the benefits of "beating the system". We see that in disability claims and in the soda economy in the white ghetto. When did getting something for nothing become the "organizing myth" for several subcultures. Personally, I think it started with the Great Society in about 1964.

Or perhaps with the New Deal in the 1930's. I'll say here, I'd give up my Social Security if it would guaranty my daughter getting her's. My father turned his down with the statement: "...if I need to go on the county, I'll let them know...." He was not rich at all, but he was proud of what he had. My grandmother turned her's down, or had it sent to the church. I'm the greedy pup of the bunch.

[Da Geezer]

To do a "quote", you go and highlight what the person said, then right click on "copy"

hope this works

[Da Geezer]

thanks Liney, Not too hard to do. I appreciate it.

[lineygoblue]

There you go! :-)

[Mike]

Once again we are given a stark reminder that there are actual problems in the world that take priority over rednecks in pickup trucks and debates over Halloween costumes. The Mizzou protesters are pissed that Paris is receiving more coverage than their "tragedy".

http://www.barstoolsports.com/barstoolu/mizzou-protestors-are-upset-that-the-terrorist-attacks-in-paris-are-getting-more-attention-than-them/

[hack]

They can go commisserate with the Iranian protestors who got knocked off the front page in 2009 by the death of Michael Jackson.

[lineygoblue]

Is it safe to say that followers of the prophet mohammed did these things, or is that politically insensitive?

[Mike]

It is not. And I'm tiring of those who insist it is.

[Rocky Bleier]

The pumpkin farm story is a great example of the stuff that chafes my ass about people nowadays. Saw this coming decades ago. If you say anything you're labled the grumpy old man.

[Jeff Buchanan]

My daughter lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland. It's an easy train ride from there to Paris and she goes there frequently. Texted her immediately after hearing of the bombings in Paris to make sure she hadn't gone there for the weekend. Thankfully, no.

France has an open boarders policy and has for decades. They have the largest Muslim immigrant population in the EU if I have that right. I'm somewhat foolishly but then again maybe not, asking myself if Donald Trump doesn't have the right idea on US immigration policy.

For decades I've been a supporter of Immigration Reform and backed a good portion of what John McCain offered most of it targeted at immigrants from South America and Mexico. None of these folk are trying to kill us, they just want to work. No problem there.

I do have a problem with the potential for over-reacting but allowing immigration to the US from anywhere in the troubled Middle East, Afghanistan (all of SW Asia actually) and the Urals scares the crap out of me. Student visas to me are the most troubling. The mass exodus from Syria, Iraq, Lybia, probably now Lebanon as IS lights it up v. Hezbollah, is another worry both for the US and for EU nations.

Hate it, but right now, today, after that unprecedented slaughter of young, innocents having a good time on a Friday night at a concert hall by what is bound to have been conducted by a terrorist cell that was well established in Paris months before this attack, is making me feel like everyone that looks like they are from these troubled regions needs to be rounded up, put on big Cargo Planes, and dropped off where they came from.

Clearly, there are probably more reasonable reactions to this, steps that can be taken, but I sure as hell don't know what they are.

[Da Geezer]

France has an open boarders policy and has for decades. They have the largest Muslim immigrant population in the EU if I have that right. I'm somewhat foolishly but then again maybe not, asking myself if Donald Trump doesn't have the right idea on US immigration policy.

Glad your daughter is safe, Jeff.

France contains, within its boundaries, 15 separate geographic areas where the French police are not allowed to go. These are all Muslim ghettos (a concentration of people). If Hollande is indeed going to be "merciless", then he might consider taking back his own country first.

And has anyone noticed the absolute dearth of coverage of the Sunni v Shite split. I had to go to a 1984 Encyclopedia Americana to find a reasonably non-ideological coverage of the matter. I believe that our media, and certainly our educational system, are afraid to even talk about a 1,300 year war that will/does affect all of us. They saw Charlie Hebno, and they are terrorized.