Thought for the Day

[trish]

Those 'wisemen' on Wall Street be jumpin' out of windows the next time I take a step in an unexpected direction.

[blackchubby38]

I just want the Hispanic immigrants to clean up after themselves when they are done having a party in a public park. Is that too much to ask.

[trish]

No it's not too much to ask. I'd like everyone to clean up after themselves.

"People generally litter when they don’t feel a sense of ownership of an area, like along roads, in parks, and in abandoned areas. Research has shown that the most likely person to litter, regardless of race, income, and education level is a male between the ages of 18-25." ( http://www.gwinnettcb.org/resources/...facts-figures/ ).

"Who litters?

• Young people are more likely to litter when they are in a group.
• Older people are more likely to litter when alone.
• Men litter more than women.
• Women use bins more than men.
• In a group of ten people in a public place, three will litter and seven will do the right thing.
• More smokers will litter their butts than use a bin.
• People are more likely to litter in an already littered or unkempt location.
• The most common reasons for littering are "too lazy" (24%), "no ashtray" (23%) or "no bin" (21%).
• Less than one third of older people who were seen littering admitted their behaviour when questioned.

Why they litter

• Unaware - Littering is not always a deliberate act, and may result from uncertainty as to who is responsible for disposal, or just viewing their littering as an inconsequential thing to do. For instance, householders and businesses may dump at the front of their property, thinking it is the council's responsibility to clean it up.
• Careless - Some people litter because it is too much trouble for them to do otherwise, or litter is something they simply don't think about.
• Convenience is often the driving factor here, hence well located and designed disposal units and bins have a good chance of improving behaviours.
• Premeditated - Individuals may be well aware that littering and dumping are illegal, but find it more convenient (and cheaper if not caught) to find a hidden dumping spot, or simply dispose of smaller litter items irresponsibly. Here, the thinking is that they are unlikely to be caught or shamed. Enforcement and education play a primary role in improving these behaviours." ( http://www.litter.vic.gov.au/about-l...ring-behaviour )

[hippifried]

Oh yeah. Them Wall Streeters saw the last bank panic coming a mile away, didn't they? That's why nobody lost any money in the crash. Right? Oh wait... There wasn't any crash because the prognosticators saw it coming and headed it off. Everyone was fully insured anyway, so AIG was able to cover all bets with no problems. Same thing with ENRON. And the dot com bubble didn't swell and burst because the market soothsayers knew it was all just a bunch of bullshit.

So now we can all rest assured that the same seers and sibyls will be able to predict the obvious when it comes to politics. Or maybe consumer trends too.

The exchange gamblers haven't got me figured out at all. Or anybody else really, outside their own clique. The reality is that for the most part, they can't see past the current quarter. They just follow whatever trend is happening at the moment. Like a flock of sheep or a school of fish. Ooooh, shiney!

I don't even have a checkbook. When I changed banks a few years ago, I didn't even bother to order any. I'm retired. Completely paperless. No debt. Just plastic and a phone. I can do all my banking by text messages nowadays. I don't live large, but I get by okay, despite losing a pension and mutual funds to the so called wise men of Wall Street who couldn't find their asshole with a funnel.

Don't try to blow smoke up my ass, Buttslinger, unless it's laced with something real good. I've been around a little. Mostly, I think you're alright though. I have plenty of salt. Help yourself to as many grains as you need when reading my shit.

[buttslinger]

Look West Coast.......
I will step back and admit that I do not understand the 1% that own 50% of everything.
It's like a maze that includes my eyes.
I really don't even know where to go to find out about it.
Every one you ask will give you a different answer.
I do know that a billion dollar corporation can hire people that know more about me than I do. What I'll buy, what I won't.
Trash me all you want Hippifried, but don't give Wall Street the benefit of the doubt because they sure don't deserve it. Their blatant stealing of everything that wasn't chained down before an election they knew they were going to lose was a winner for them, they dropped everything they were set to lose anyway. They see the bad and the good. And Profit from both.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=nitron;1715605]

A brief comment to follow Martin's brilliantly argued post.

Let's come to some common ground.
It's a terrible gamble, to think ,"Oh no, don't worry about it, just like the Jewish people in Russian empire,or the outsiders that always existed in older times in Europe or the West, they've always been absorbed". Maybe this time ,just once , the demographics in the west are actually making the situation worse. Maybe , with multiculturalists willful blindness to intolerance(Islam) through the mechanism of cultural relativism,coinciding with reduced population numbers are the perfect storm?
--It may be natural to predict the future on the basis of what we know now, but history shows this to be the gamble that does not pay off if the terms of the bet change to make it meaningless.


For example, the UK passed the Aliens Act in 1905 in an attempt to halt the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe, and the US passed the Immigration Act of 1924, again to put a halt to -mostly Jewish- immigration from Eastern Europe, and also immigration from 'southern Europe' -code for Italy. In addition, in both the 1905 Act and the 1924 Act the 'fear' was that a) too many people were coming, b) they were 'not assimilating', c) they were the direct cause of crime in the areas where they lived, and d) that they tended to work for low pay depressing wages for other workers. In the British case, Jews arriving in Britain were expected to 'assimilate' and told how to do it, for example, by not speaking Yiddish or German in public, a harsh task for those living in small areas of London like Bethnal Green and Shoreditch where most of their neighbours would have spoken Yiddish, Russian and some German.

It is also worth pointing out that when the British Brothers League was campaigning against the Jews in London all the arguments against the Jews were there -their abundance, their uncontrolled breeding, their criminal tendencies and the 'fact' that they were dirty. At rallies when speeches raised the temperature crowds would chant 'Wipe them out!'. The League did not survive long after the Aliens Act, but many of its members remained fixated on the Jews and migrated into Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists by which the time the Protocols of the Elders of Zion had added to the mix a co-ordinated conspiracy of world domination, of which the Bolshevik Revolution was just one part. Finally note too that then as now there was an obsession with the way Jews dressed, just as that moment in Vienna when Hitler saw an Orthodox Jew in his frock coat, the Hat and the curls and asked himself 'Is this a Jew' and then 'Is this a German?'. We have this today with the desperate attempt of the French to 'protect' their secular constitution that makes it illegal for a Jewish male to wear a Yarmulka in school, ditto a Sikh male with his Turban (some Sikh males have also been told to remove their Turbans when having a passport photo taken) and Christians not being allowed to wear a crucifix if others can see it. And this in a country where the Roman Catholic faith never dissipated that much in rural areas in spite or because of the Revolution.

But neither those two laws cited above nor the politics behind them could predict that up to 70% of the Jews living in Europe at the time would not be there in 1945 because most of them -approx 67%- were murdered, the rest surviving to leave the continent for somewhere else. All of the fears generated by 'mass immigration' in Britain and the USA turned out to be false. And just as the trend in the first half of the 20th century was for migration within the US to be dominated by south-to-north flows, in the second half the trend reversed with migration moving from north to south and south-west, and I could predict a new wave of south-west to north-west over the next 25 years as the south-west runs out of water, but it is just a prediction. And predictions have a tendency to be wrong.

[buttslinger]

I do have a limp grasp on why Martin and Stavros applaud clear thinking and facts over my dogfight mentality, but when it comes to immigration, bile is the motivator, not clarity of thought.
My fore-fathers that died in the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, and WWII where all WHITE.
Mostly WASP.
American Indians and Mexican immigrants can't say that.
When you see a gorgeous front lawn, subconsciously you have to account for the extermination of countless species of flora whose only crime was they wanted to live.
If, ....in the USA, .....White, Black, and Hispanic Americans ever all get on the same page and see a clear path to Glory as One, I guarantee you it will come at the expense of Middle Easterners and Asians everywhere.
I think it is possible that in my lifetime you have a President that makes the WHITEMAN wait outside his office.
That's the way these things work.
Romans attack Gaul.
Gaul attacks Romans.
Gauls get named "Barbarians" just because of the way they dress......
People get power by strength of number and they lose power by strength of number.
Clarity of thought and Wise Decisions will be the death of us all.
Personally.
Everything has an expiration date.

picture sharing

[buttslinger]

My thought for today is that the 20 richest Americans own as much wealth as the bottom 160 million people.

Did they all get together over martinis and decide what percentage crosses the line from rich to gawdy?

[martin48]

Bet the 160 million pay more tax than the 20

[Erika1487]

I miss W.............. at least he had balls..........too much pussyfooting around the issues with the Republicans these days