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August 25, 2006 at 2:42 PM in reply to: Another KPBS (89.5 FM) program on the SD housing market #33280
CardiffBaseball
ParticipantPhil Hendrie loves ripping NPR, and is usally pretty logical and funny when going about it.
ParticipantI nearly chose Carlsbad over Cardiff but the place I was to rent at the last minute wanted 2X monthly rent up front because my FICO was below 650 at the time.
So I am interested in Bressi, and also a co-worker bought there in mid-2005, so any news on Bressi I try to take note of. However I have never gone and priced units, mostly because I really don’t want to leave where I am at this point. It just seems like a good development to look for trends in this general area.
ParticipantI have a 6 figure job software job, the wife does ok teaching at a private school (not public school money though), and in no manner do I want to spend $3500 to buy a home in Escondido. I’ll continue to rent and we are both upper 30’s with elementary aged kids. They still have bedrooms, and a place to play, and we don’t live in a less than desirable town.
The thing you need to realize David Peace is that most of the folks on here are doing fine, and are seeking to make the wisest use of our resources. Right now buying a depreciating home isn’t smart, if your horizon to sell is so short. You are simply dismissing everything as negative when post after post on this board outlines very good reasons with DATA that explains most of the opinions of the market around here.
If you truly were here for over a year you’d know about some of the folks who sold out and are sitting on large wads of cash waiting for a better time. And they are discovering how easy it is to make 5% on that money while waiting.
Participant1) women who seek attention by wearing skimpy clothes or talking loud, esp. on their cell phones.
I object to number 1. I just hope they don't mind the double-takes, because there is a fine line between a guy being flattering and just plain creepy.
ParticipantIt wasn't Mexico's land originally. They also took it from the Native Americans. Mexico's hands are just as dirty as America's.
True and I am guessing Vincente Fox has some European Stock in him? He sure doesn't look like one of the little guys that make it across the border. Wasn't Mexico only in control of some of these lands for less than 30 years? I could be mixing up Texas, where it wasn't in control of Mexico for a long time before the Texans fought for independence.
ParticipantWhat are the names some of the better manufacturer’s out there? Who knows I might be in the market someday and want to at least consider this option. I wonder if the VA looks down on these?
ParticipantBruce Bawer, was the author, and I might look for this book myself, based on the following snip from Dan Simmons Site, his May-June essay.
While Europe Slept…and Slept…and Slept…and Slept:
Bruce Bawer ( While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within) seems to be an unlikely candidate for the labels of "racist" and "bigot" and "fascist" that so many enjoy applying to anyone who warns of the threat of militant Islam.
Bawer is gay and the author of such books as Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity and A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society and was best known in the United States before publishing While Europe Slept for his outspoken opposition to the likes of James Dobson and his Focus on the Family evangelical political organization.
Previously a lifelong New Yorker (and happy to be so), in 1998 Bawer and his partner packed up and moved to Amsterdam. Almost everything about their adopted country appealed to the two—the human scale of the skylines, the near absence of cars, the Dutch language, the love of books and culture, the European tradition of tolerance so emphasized in the major cities such as Amsterdam, and even the Dutch devotion to gezelligheid (small, daily pleasures)—but even in tolerant Dutch society Bawer and his partner became aware of the tradition of verzuiling, "pillarization," the division of society into religious and ethnic groups, each with its own schools, unions, political parties, newspapers, and even TV channels.
Bawer also became aware of the growing tension in Amsterdam and other European cities between the many groups living comfortably there under the umbrella of tolerance and much of the Muslim immigrant community, which seemed to benefit from, but show little or none of, the tolerance of the larger society around them.
In 1999, Bawer and his Norwegian-born partner moved to Oslo where they were soon legally married. Thanks to Norway’s "family unification" laws, Bawer had a right to residency and even five free months of language lessons (he’s good at languages and feels an obligation to speak the language of whatever country he’s visiting, much less residing in.) In their years together in Europe since 1998, as the dustjacket rather breathlessly explains—
"Across the continent—in Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Stockholm—he encountered large, rapidly expanding Muslim enclaves in which women were oppressed and abused, homosexuals persecuted and killed, ‘infidels’ threatened and vilified, Jews demonized and attacked, barbaric traditions (such as honor killing and forced marriage) widely practiced, and freedom of speech and religion firmly repudiated.
"The European political and media establishment turned a blind eye to all this, selling out women, Jews, gays, and democratic principles generally—even criminalizing free speech—in order to pacify the radical Islamists and preserve the illusion of multicultural harmony. The few heroic figures who dared to criticize Muslim extremists and speak up for true liberal values were systematically slandered as fascist bigots. Witnessing the disgraceful reaction of Europe’s elites to 9/11, to the terrorist attacks on Madrid, Beslan, and London, and to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bawer concluded that Europe was heading inexorably down a path to cultural suicide."
What you may decide after reading Bawer’s book—decide about these extraordinary claims and about Bruce Bawer himself—may be quite different, but both Bawer’s personal anecdotes about gay-bashing from Muslims and his excerpts from various European media reactions and dialogues, especially those following terrorist attacks or the very public murders of Theo van Gogh, Pim Fortuyn, and others, should be of interest.
Early in the book, Bawer underlined the essential difference between the peculiar American form of fantasy-ideology religious fundamentalism he’d long fought, and the more pervasive and lethal Muslim variety he was encountering in Europe—
"The main reason I’d been glad to leave America was Protestant fundamentalism. But Europe, I eventually saw, was falling prey to an even more alarming fundamentalism whose leaders made their American Protestant counterparts look like amateurs. Falwell was an unsavory creep, but he didn’t issue fatwas. James Dobson’s parenting advice was appalling, but he wasn’t telling people to murder their daughters. American liberals had been fighting the Religious Right for decades; Western Europeans had yet to even acknowledge that they had a Religious Right. How could they ignore it? Certainly as a gay man, I couldn’t close my eyes to this grim reality. Pat Robertson just wanted to deny me marriage; the imams wanted to drop a wall on me. I wasn’t fond of the hypocritical conservative-Christian line about hating the sin and loving the sinner, but it was preferable to the forthright fundamentalist Muslim view that homosexuals merited death."
One can argue the cause and motivation for various observations in Bawer’s book, but the observations themselves can not easily be disputed—especially the fact so obvious to anyone who lives in a major European city today or who travels there, of elite, expensive central cities occupied by the natives of that country, but that city center often surrounded by rings of increasingly alien immigrant ghettos, most frequently Muslim immigrant ghettos in which neither the language of the host nation nor the laws nor the cultural mores nor the cultural traditions of that country are honored.
And anyone observing Europe’s reaction to events in the last half-decade will respond to Bawer’s itemizing of the cowardice of the governments, intellectual classes, and national media in the face of Islamic bullying and overt terrrorism.
Even the media’s reaction to terrorism in their own countries is disturbing.
"On July 7, 2005, suicide bombs in London ripped through three underground trains and a double-decker bus, killing fifty-six. Londoners handled the chaos with admirable composure, recalling the city’s legendary stoicism during the Blitz. When it turned out that the perpetrators had been born and bred in Britain, had been regarded as well integrated (one, a primary-school teaching assistant, had mentored immigrant children), and had been coverted to radicalism at a government-funded youth center in Leeds, astonishment reigned. How could British lads do this? It was as if the Madrid attacks (carried out by Spanish Muslims) and the murder of Theo van Gogh (committed by a Dutch Muslim) had never taken place.
"Watching the BBC that day, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that reporters were eschewing the usual euphemisms and actually using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism.’ Might this signal a change in establishment attitudes? Alas, BBC news chief Helen Boaden soon put an end to this, ordering reporters to speak of ‘bombers,’ not ‘terrorists.’ Even the BBC’s 7/7 reportage, archived online, was retrospectively cleansed of the offensive words. Recalling that the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984 had been based on the BBC, Gerald Baker remarked in the Times of London that ‘I can’t think of a better example of pure Orwell than this painstaking effort at rewriting the verbal record to fit in with linguistic orthodoxy.’"
Speculative fiction, it seems, sometimes serves as memory even when civilization seeks forgetfulness.
ParticipantJimmy Carter more than any other President in recent memory should be held in contempt for the massive mistake in not backing the Shah. This emboldened the radical Islamfacists.
By the way there is such a thing as a greater evil.Islamofacism is an idea that must be killed. The 13th century barbarians need to go through their reformation and if they do not we’ll continue to have bloodshed. PS wants us to turn their back on Israel, calling it Islamic “Holy Land”. Please the throat slitters storming Asia Minor killing and converting everything in site, and somehow Jerusalem is holy to these people. Thankfully they were turned back in Europe.
What needs to happen is for groups like CAIR to quit making announcements pleading with Americans not to judge all Muslims, and start bashing the mullahs.
Participantsdrealtor, yes I saw that the house sold. I’d be interested to know if there were any incentives or lower prices.
The realtor he hired worked it pretty hard, as I saw him walking up and down the surrounding area passing out fliers, working open houses, etc. Good for him. Also he must have advised to lower the price.
The owners wound up with a lot less cash in the end assuming they sold at 689 and paid 6% but as long as it was bought some time back they are good.
ParticipantDidn’t USAA stop taking non-military members at the end of June? I was under the impression from following creditboards.com that one had to get a member ID and get an account open before the end of June.
Otherwise they were going back to a Military only model. Currently only military members qualify for their well respected automobile insurance. I have heard they are tired of having two tiers of customers (mil, vs. non-mil). For instance the mil credit cards get 0% balance transfers and lower interest rates.
Of course I could be wrong about all this.
I have used USAA for checking since around 99-2000, and can’t imagine switching. I have a Credit card, and will probably do all auto loans with them.
ParticipantI used to look at 805 at quitting time (I work around UTC) and now way was I going to move south. I get back and forth to Cardiff most days in less than 30 minutes. Plus the demographics fit us a little better. I’d also didn’t want to send my kids to some HS where there are like 30% white kids like Madison which isn’t terribly far away.
Rancho Penasquitos and in particular areas that fed into Westview HS was where I was targeting. The furthest south I looked was San Carlos, and it was just too far away. I am sure the South is fine, and depending on your work location it might make sense.
ParticipantI live pretty close to Today’s Pizza, but I guarantee you couldn’t all fit in my house. A little over 1000 sq. feet, thought the yard isn’t bad. Coming from 2500 Sq. Feet in Ohio and an additional 1200 Sq. feet of finished basement, made us really throw a lot of stuff out. With that size house plus the 3 acres we hosted a lot of bashes.
Heck we used to host minor league ballplayers in the extra bedrooms from one of the Cleveland Indians, short season A clubs. Talk about fun for the kids going to the minor league games every night. Feeding those guys was an expense though.
I digress, but my hosting days are limited in exchange for living near the beach.
ParticipantOh yes I forgot to mention that you should get the Chipotle marinated version and frankly I can’t ever imagine going out for steaks after eating this. Man I am getting hungry just thinking about it, as I am in weight loss mode and eating more chicken right now. Chicken gets old fast though one big tri-tip from Seaside, can last a couple of meals.
ParticipantAlso getting the marinated Tri-Tip from Seaside Market in Cardiff is a sure fire success. Ummmm, Steak.
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