Roaming wolves across Europe have become a “real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday, launching the next phase in combatting their growing numbers in the bloc. Affected parties were invited to submit data on the wolf population and its impact to the Commission by Sept. 22, ahead of a potential EU decision to modify rules protecting the animal. A point to note: von der Leyen’s pony Dolly was killed by a wolf last year.
I Was Once Found But Now I Am Lost
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I saw this on Bloomberg news Henry and thought of you.
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New Jersey has the highest density of black bears in the country. Maybe you should move up and join us in Alaska instead. The median home price is 2/3 that of NJ as well. 
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It appears the mortgage industry is highly regulated. Mandatory 20% down. 36% home ownership rate, lowest in West. People have pretty much given up. You are almost stigmatized for owning. The mortgage broker interviewed in the article is a renter. It's too bad. It's beautiful. I would live there but that is not going to happen.
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You could argue it's no bad thing, and I believe renters enjoy high security of tenure. Rural property can be much cheaper, @Jean bought his house for cash I believe.
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I bet if you asked the question "which state has the highest density of black bears in the country" New Jersey would be one of the last states people would guess, maybe behind Hawaii and Florida. Before I moved to this specific area, I would have been one of those people who responded "Who gives an incestuous Appalachian fuck as long as it not New Jersey." And it goes without saying these bears are not roaming around downtown Newark scoring crack or drinking in the bleachers of Giants stadium fighting post-menopausal amazonian Jets fans women so their density is limited to certain portions of this state. I never put it together when there was an episode of the Sopranos with a bear. I thought it was more allegorical but it turns out it has geographical implications. Little did I know that Timothy Treadwell could have moved to New Jersey after he lost his Cheers part to Woody Harrelson. And when a bear kills a person, they never mention the person's name as though there is some court appointed bear therapist who thinks its bad for the marauding bear's psyche to find out who they slaughtered while reading the morning paper taking it's magnanimous and public post-murder dump. That's why it's smart to say the wolf murdered "Dolly" and not some anonymous pony so people can rally around Dolly instead of making sure the killer wolf maintains its rights to terrorize an entire fucking continent like its an early 20th century psychopathic dictator.
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Last night I had a dream. Maybe not a dream, maybe a vision. Maybe not a vision but a scenario. My doorbell rings and there is a bear and a lawyer. And the lawyer hands me a piece of paper and says that he represents this bear and according to that piece of paper this bear has rights to maul people to death. So I say, what the fuck do you want from me. And the lawyer says, nothing, just that this bear has the right to maul me to death so if there is someone else presently in the house like a mother in law, or an unwanted child that I wish to be mauled in place of me, to go get them because this bear is going to start mauling me to death. So I say you're going door to door like fucking Girl Scouts but instead of selling thin mints you're mauling motherfuckers to death. And the lawyer says pretty much and I say, can't you go to my neighbor's and maul them because they are certified assholes and deserve to be mauled? And the lawyer says, they will, but only after they maul someone in my house. So I think for a moment and say this kind of fucked up because you can't do this for a person but only a bear and the lawyer says that's immaterial to the fact that this bear can maul me to death with impunity. And I say you're both fucking assholes and we blah blah back and forth for a while until I finally say OK let me get my mother in law.
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I googled Timothy Treadwell and saw he as a bear enthusiast, and I joke to myself it would be funny if he got eaten by one. I then read on...
He reminds me of that Aussie bloke Steve whatshisface who also did stupid things with dangerous wildlife and got eaten by a shark.
He reminds me of that Aussie bloke Steve whatshisface who also did stupid things with dangerous wildlife and got eaten by a shark.
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Every time I see Steve Irwin's kids dressed like forest rangers and smiling for the camera like they're excited to see their proctologist, I think people born into the Corleone and Kennedy families have a better chance of living to see old age.
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Three years ago we lived in a 1000SF condo that was 25% below average house price and 100% below average house size in US. Statistics may vary but this is not a think tank piece. Our mortgage balance was 1/4 of average mortgage balance in US but our home equity was approximate 1/4 less than average home equity. Today our home size is equal to or slightly above average home size, our home price significantly more than average home price, our equity significantly higher and our mortgage balance slightly higher than average. Our interest rate is 2021 so it's significantly less than 2023. Home equity was approximately 10% of our net worth in 2021. Now it's 35%.
It appears home ownership in US is in the shitter and will remain so for years to come. Some economists believe that a recession did not occur because people who had saved for a down payment on a home were unable to purchase due to prices and interests rates and decided to spend the money on a new ass and a trip to Dollywood. Charlie Munger stated that he and Warren both noticed that people they knew who bought huge homes became less happy after doing so. So it was not to maintain the homespun billionaire but bumpkin Berkshire lore but an acknowledgement of some type of Aristotelian understanding of happiness that kept them in their OG homes.
I never felt like a homeowner in our original place. It was large enough but the quality of life was unsustainable. Are we happier. Yes. Does it appear we made the right economic decision? I would have to say yes based on our interest rate and the housing shortage and the sales we see in the neighborhood. I guess my point is that there has been a seismic shift in the access and perception of home ownership in the US and it might not ever return. So I think we might have made a move at the last point we could have made a move without knowing that fact.
I got into a discussion with a woman in the farmer's market as to whether I lived in the country. She said no. I said kind of. It's relative. I said due to the fact that I am at DEFCOM bear level 5 I am now frightened of every living creature on the planet including but not limited to squirrels and old people especially old people in cars. I have to admit I see these two presidential candidates and I think instead of debates they should go on national television and demonstrate that they can back their cars out of the White House driveway because I think it will be demonstrated that they cannot. If a person can not pass a driving test, I don't think they should be president.
It appears home ownership in US is in the shitter and will remain so for years to come. Some economists believe that a recession did not occur because people who had saved for a down payment on a home were unable to purchase due to prices and interests rates and decided to spend the money on a new ass and a trip to Dollywood. Charlie Munger stated that he and Warren both noticed that people they knew who bought huge homes became less happy after doing so. So it was not to maintain the homespun billionaire but bumpkin Berkshire lore but an acknowledgement of some type of Aristotelian understanding of happiness that kept them in their OG homes.
I never felt like a homeowner in our original place. It was large enough but the quality of life was unsustainable. Are we happier. Yes. Does it appear we made the right economic decision? I would have to say yes based on our interest rate and the housing shortage and the sales we see in the neighborhood. I guess my point is that there has been a seismic shift in the access and perception of home ownership in the US and it might not ever return. So I think we might have made a move at the last point we could have made a move without knowing that fact.
I got into a discussion with a woman in the farmer's market as to whether I lived in the country. She said no. I said kind of. It's relative. I said due to the fact that I am at DEFCOM bear level 5 I am now frightened of every living creature on the planet including but not limited to squirrels and old people especially old people in cars. I have to admit I see these two presidential candidates and I think instead of debates they should go on national television and demonstrate that they can back their cars out of the White House driveway because I think it will be demonstrated that they cannot. If a person can not pass a driving test, I don't think they should be president.
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A Russian woman died of a genital rupture when she fell off a waterski and her husband hit the gas creating a hammer effect on her holy of holies. Her cause of death was attributed to a hydraulic injury. It's hard to keep a straight face when people speak of human dignity. And no offense to Russian people, but they seem like the last people on earth you should spend your leisure time with. As I get older and live amongst the bears, these types of stories resonate more with me. Of course I will never know, but I'm getting the sense I will suffer a humiliating demise with these bears. My limbs scattered on a dirt road with the middle fingers of my hands up. Some redneck surveying the scene commenting "Looks like those bears didn't take kindly to Henry giving them the finger. They just did what we all wanted to do." In the meantime thank God for NVDA.
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If that's a recent press photo Elena Spiryakova was looking damn fine at 49. Which leads me to idly speculate whether she may have had some work done down there which made her more vulnerable to hydraulic injury.
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Oleg told the doctor "make it watertight" not thinking of the repercussions.
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Like life itself, living in Oldfuckland has proven to be a blessing and a curse. The curse is that I live amongst old fucks. The blessing is I see the problems that old fucks have which will soon be my own. Not developing Alzheimers is as dangerous as developing Alzheimer's. Life is short but days are long. If you are stlll playing with a full deck of marbles you will still have a lot of mental energy to apply to something. Great baseball pitchers have three careers. They start out as flamethrowers where their "stuff" is good enough to be effective. As they get older and they lose some velocity they become a pitcher. They develop a curve, a splitter, a change up. In the third stage they become a crafty veteran who throws junk but can out think the batter. The second stage is the longest. The first and third stage are similar. No one's fastball lasts forever, even Nolan Ryan's. The irony is that a pitcher who was always a junk ball pitcher can have a long career being a junk ball pitcher. Like gym teachers or the asshole who runs your local DMV. The worst people to have around are ex flamethrowers who never became pitchers. The key as I see it is to plan on being effective until you are so far gone that you don't realize you are no longer effective. To still be effective but to have nothing to be effective at is a nightmare to you and those around you. Everyone needs to develop a pitch that they can still throw from an electric wheelchair that is not merely being a pain in the asshole to others. Warren Buffet is not just a financial genius. He's a how to effectively become an old fuck genius. NVDA is playing with my head but I can't sell. I also can't buy. I have moved into bio-techs and pharmaceuticals with my aggressive money. I could have forty years. That's a short time packed with a lot of fucking long days. I need to find some multi-baggers so I will be the asshole in the supermarket yelling at the cashiers not the cashier yelling at the customers. Old people suck. It's just a fact. I need to be prepared for the crossover.
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Interesting. I've always thought of the transition as being more from player to coach. For example, Walter Matthau in the original "Bad News Bears." It does generally seem to be the case that as men become older and lose the ability to manipulate the physical environment with own body as tool, they switch over to grouchily/gleefully ordering other humans around, more or less effectively. That's why I encourage the older men of my acquaintance to spend a good deal of time outdoors engaged in activities such as chopping wood.
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Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. Generally speaking, the best coaches were not the best players. They are actually amongst the worst. Ted Williams was the greatest hitter in MLB history. He tried to be a manager. He failed. They have pictures of him in the dugout practicing his swing while his players look at him dumbfounded. You can't teach greatness. Maybe you can teach to "very goodness." As I said, generally speaking Deon Sanders in football maybe an exception. Older great player has halo effect on recruitment, but can he teach or coach is a different topic. The greatest scholars try to avoid teaching the basics of their profession. It's those who barely got beyond them that resort to teaching them ie Buttermaker teaching a bunch of snot nose kids. Greatness is best as emulation. Like the JAFI. To me it's a Platonic ideal but it will never become an Aristotelean particular. "Be like Mike" vs Charles Barkley "I'm not a role model." What Barkley meant was not that he was an anti-hero, but that he possessed a level of athleticism that very few have so you are wasting your time thinking you can be him. Plus, I have no interest in telling people what to do beyond instructing them to go fuck themselves.
Last edited by Henry on Mon Mar 04, 2024 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Maybe you should consider moving to Switzerland again?
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Yesterday I was with two people. We were waiting to get into a place. One was continuously pounding on a door with a wheelchair emblem but no one was answering. I said "well, maybe we should give them more time, all things considered." So while we were waiting, I get to talking to the other guy and we start talking about his family and he shows me a picture of his kids and one of them is in a wheelchair. I just say "well, who's the asshole now" and we start cracking up. Now we're friends. Turns out the OBGYN fucked her shit up. But I went home and bought a dividend fund because I don't know how much longer I'll be able to survive myself.
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Oldfucksland was the epicenter of the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked the tri-state area yesterday. I was walking with my wife when shit got real. We are always on the lookout for falling tree branches, so when it struck, I did the whole sacrifice my life for my wife's life thingy and threw myself on top of her. She starts screaming "get off of me, get off of me." Seems she was more interested in experiencing an earthquake than living. I told her next earthquake, she's on her fucking own. We came home to no damage, but paintings askew, books fallen, and some doors open. The aftershocks are disconcerting as there have been 5-6 of them. One was significant enough that we dropped to the floor. Earthquakes do scare the bears away and being that I'd rather die of a result of an earthquake than a bear mauling, I'm not jumping on the anti-earthquake bandwagon. Not to mention they keep the flat asses from biddying up the streets.
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Apparently solar eclipses drive wildlife mad.
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Let's keep an eye out for an increase in bear maulings.
Last edited by zbigi on Mon Apr 08, 2024 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.