Tropposurfer

Came up in Sydneys inner suburbs to begin my life, divorced parents (when a woman left the man in those days she got ZIP help from the government - no child support.

Mum worked all her life to provide. Small house (bought from an inlaw) . Lucky to move to Manly as a young kid. Never any money, second hand footy boots,  learnt not to ask for anything very early on, Aunt made clothes for us.

But a decent home life (except for the few years of an ahole step dad and his violent alcoholism) with fresh garden grown food by mum's hard working hands, I learnt by her side how to grow things. I learnt there how to fight and began boxing to protect my mum from him.

Nevertheless life was difficult for me and my sister (bullied at school). Sister very studious in her adaption to survive what was happening, me athletic and distracted at school.

We both carried and suffered all sort of weights as we grew up, and inflicted suffering on others (not violence but me a train wreck for the fist thirty years of my life).

Later in life my life began to shift, I went back to school as a solid C grade student - good brain (thanks Dad) 2 degrees and 2 Masters degrees fought for, with blood, tears, facing a lot of fears, and sweat to get them. 

Hard manual work first half of my life. Began in horticulture and landscape building, later design, then carpenters license and building too.

Money came later and now I live a life of ease and privilege, for which I maintain an 'attitude of gratitude' lest my ego rise and sabotage me.

Nietzsche  once said; 'Out of life's war - that which does not kill me makes me stronger'.

21 hours ago, Will B Good said:

I was going to put (sarcasm) but it kind of spoils the whole thing.

I doubt it would have been of help to the "NRA gun loons" Will 🥴😂 such obviousness is lost on these sick, paranoid, violence-proclivity suppressed individuals.

As a comparative social phenomena of nations with massive gun ownership per capita Austrians own, per capita, more weapons than Americans yet their mass-shooting numbers are almost non-existent, with no mass shootings: It is 40 years since any mass shooting of any kind in Austria. They occur in the USA multiple times a week! 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54838016

I will take a wild leap of a guess and say the causations of such daily/weekly mass murders/slaughters is in the psyche of the culture, and as an extension of this group-think, the supporting regulations or rather the lack of them that promulgates such mass murder. 

As to this individual apparently he was reporting to others, openly and frequently, and recently, that he was hearing voices (schizophrenia?) and had talked of going to such-and such a place (another location to the ones he did kill at), and killing many people.

Because of the almost complete lack of check n balances in US social thinking and civil structure, especially when looking at State to State, he was still allowed to conduct his business which was ALL about firearms despite his uttering's, and as a  firearm trainer he had legal access to and possession of many, many weapons.

He was also militarily trained.

No one, no one had any notion of reporting this fellow it appears, well from reporting I've read so far, so his access to weapons could have been suspended pending a psyche evaluation.

I have no evidence as yet as to why he did this, but, it is being reported across many media outlets that he went to a bowling alley very close to a 'liberal' (meaning the teaching ideas, socially centralist/moderate, and activist campus i.e. not a MAGA or GOP leaning place) focussed college and killed young students from that college as a large proportion of his victims.

Visit America, no thank you.

5 hours ago, Longwood50 said:

Making false statements is a crime. However the loan payments do have a bearing on it.  Where is the injury to the bank?  

If Trump was not being persecuted because he is hated by the left, the bank which ostensibly is the injured party would not be bringing the action.  This is purely political BS.  

The bank if the financial statements were false is also guilty of not performing its duty to verify. 

If you pull virtually any financial statement from any loan you can argue that it is not 100% accurate.  As to valuations of buildings.  They are all "subjective"  The valuation can only be established at the time of sale.  Further, valuations fluctuate wildly from period to period.  

When I was doing assessing valuations for accounts back in the 1980's huge blocks of real estate we deemed as worthy of "holding" for future appreciation.  In truth we couldn't give those buildings away Texas oil crashed and building valuations were a joke because no one wanted them at any price.  Today, those same buildings are worth hundreds of milllions.  So did we  the bankers make a mistake in calling those buildings worthwhile holdings.  Pure subjectivity.  

 

Ya can't fix stupid n ignorant.

The law is quite clear.

Opinions such as yours, mine, and others here matter nought. The law is quite clear. Trumps engagement in massive financial fraud and to conspire to do so has been established beyond doubt under clear stated law.

You are right in inferring that its 'normal business' for much of US business to stiff everyone and walk away free. Let us remember the sub-prime debacle that plunged the US and the world into chaos. However, frequency and consistency of same unlawful behaviours does not excuse them.

The ruling and laws consulted before making those rulings are not someones opinion based on political or personal bias. These rulings have been under the statutes of law.

Inflating a properties value over 100 times or more then for tax reasons devaluing it by even more (it was a contrived and deliberate conspiracy to do so!)  is not a matter of 'valuers subjective opinion' (aint' that some total BS), it is fraud.

For me personally I don't care who it is Trump, Pelosi, Boris Johnson, Biden, that fella Democrat who just got busted for serious fraud and expelled from the Democratic Party, Murdoch, <deleted> stealing PPE money during the epidemic, Bezos stiffing and enslaving his workers, that <deleted> who owns Starbucks and refused to pay his workers a living wage ... whoever.

No one has the right to defraud the People of tax moneys rightfully and properly to be paid. No one has the legal right to defraud investors, put banks at severe risk, AND knowingly doing so in a contrived scheme to do so which opens up real risk of crushing mom-n-pop investor/shareholders, banks, workers, and contractors of right and correct payment of money owed them.

Trump has given the US and hopefully the world a gift in exposing to us all his sociopathic greed and madness.

An awakening to how enslaved we are and how the lie of trickle-down economics as the basis of capitalism is false, a lie, pernicious, crippling, murderous, and unworkable.

76 years of systematic institutionalised apartheid and genocide gets ya what ya got.

After all why would anyone in the world bother to acknowledge, or consider those souls as even  people? People who have no nothing to give or be taken or traded, no wealth no access to the land, no resources, no inclusions in the GDP of the land their people have lived in for 4 thousand years and more.

The Poms left in 47 cause they could not stop and refused to get their soldiers killed in the crossfire, so they simply threw their hands up and left. 

For 70+ years the Israeli Zionist movement (not representing the Jewish faith in any way) has not stopped bombing, bulldozing, shooting, beating, poisoning wells, destroying crops, evicting, steam rolling day in and day out the Palestinian people from the land called Palestine.

No negotiations only cowardly conniving empty promises, empty treaties broken by Israel once again consuming land not theirs and using the institutions of the courts, legislation, and the army to justify and validate such atrocities, with yet more murdering, and land stealing.

The Arabic people fought back against an unending supply of money and arms to the Israeli Zionist movement crushing them under foot.

In the days of Meir there was some semblance of negotiations and respect for the Palestinian people and their right to live in Palestine alongside Israeli's equally withy equal rights.

But slowly and inexorably the successive governments of Israel moved further and further to the Zionist right. In their Imperialist arrogance and blindness they blamed the Palestinians for fighting back against their being brutalised, humiliated.

Now Israel is headed by a cold hearted power mad crook who has made deals with the fascist Zionist power cliques to hold power and accrue even more crookedly gotten wealth.

Now, in his devil-deal he is bound to supporting the lust of the Zionists to exterminate Palestinians and the notion of a Palestinian state from any hope in mans future.

Not that Netanyahu ever cared for Palestinians. 

So lets got this straight.

A multi baht billionaire has an orthopaedic issues with his shoulder, lives in Dubai or wherever for years n years where such surgery can be rectified superbly at any time in multiple O/S hospitals and exclusive clinics, but Mr T waits till he returns to LOS to get surgery for an issue that develops over some time, and this has zero to do with trying to manipulate his complicity in all manner of crimes and avoid jail-time?!

Fool me once (the Thai people) ..., fool me twice then I'm a twit.

In some sectors of cultures (Indian) its the essence of our humanity or as in Yoga 'Prana' (which we all carry) that is honoured by waiing or as the Indians describe the actions of the hands together, being still, a gentle bow of the head 'namaste' far above longevity.

Its an interesting phenomena in LOS to see the cultural notions of wai and youth and the aged, and the fusion of this with economic and caste class wealth status/power dynamics and imperatives.

I would suggest it's also true that wealth, and age are not harbingers of insight nor wisdom.

I try, but fail at it a lot, to respect the essence of others as taught in Yoga, hence my working at greeting all others with namaste, including falangs. My fundamental practice of working at respecting others has been informed by this, Buddhist, and Gestalt therapy learning.

I find namaste a wonderful spiritual, calming, centring key to support my awareness of how I am no greater than, yet a vital part of the whole, just as you are. What others think of this is inconsequential really it is my intent that is significant.

I actually use this towards nature as it lays before me in such beautiful a way. I do this as an action to calm and empty my mind before, and as I move around playing golf. I usually hit the ball well after doing so by the way 😊👍

As a zeitgeist figural note I would suggest that many 18 year olds are far more mature than Donald Trump as an example of the age and maturity wisdom hypothesis. 

2 hours ago, sidneybear said:

There's nothing wrong with respecting people who have more life experience. They're not always right, but they're more often right than the young folks. 

 

This article was obviously written by someone who is trying to replace charming Thai culture with the ghastly lefty western kind. Lefties hate the old, because they remember better times.

the first sentence has some merit. The second is a generalised, bigoted, ignorant crock of ....

Beware man's capacity to project.

Buy the very best you can afford, you won't regret it.

Upright/wand styled vacuums are popular and quite easy to use (great for a quick clean of an area). For the whole house we use a floor styled machine ... Miele 👍

The good old Hoovers are still great value.