How much interest are you charging him, exactly?
Not enough, I guess. Only a few posts had the vowels repossessed. And we should give them to Mr Cooley who made such laughter from that fungi bowl post.
In Everquest circles, there was an infamous post by someone (and himself as sockpuppet) that ended up making "page 8" a verb. So, to put it in EverCrack jargon, Rimmer page eighted himself.
I wonder if anyone here has an opinion on Jane Jacobs' Cities and the Wealth of Nations. It's interesting to me because it tries to make a principled argument for something that I feel intuitively ought to be true -- that cities and nations ought to strive to produce their own goods for local consumption first, rather than becoming ever more dependent on global trade. I know nobody in mainstream economics takes the book seriously, because nobody in mainstream economics tries to argue that. But I don't know why.
In general, economists reject her arguments because what Ms Jacobs is referring to is traditionally called "mercantilism" by economists. Mercantilism is the economic system that Adam Smith (the patron saint of modern western economists) railed against. Her books introduce no equations, nor any magical handwaving. As a result, they look down on her.
That being said, I happen to like that book, and think it accurately describes how countries get wealthy, or lose it. Any region that consistantly replaces imports with exports will end up becoming a city. In later books, she describes how some cities can manage to acquire wealth without manufacturing, or import-replacement, with an odd turn of phrase: "transactions of decline." Paper pushing, financial mismanagement are those sorts of things and usually national/state capitals specialize in those transactions of decline.
Weasel words: All typographical errors in this post are the fault of the error correcting modems that are currently taking a coffee break on Staten Island. I hereby certify that this is my true first name, and if your stud finder is detecting me, then it most certainly is broken. I may look like Al from Home Improvement, but my home improvement projects usually involve plenty of my blood, a minimum of 100 trips to the hardware store and all the NSFW curse words I can muster.
To which I would add:
"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
- James Madison
Falwell also managed to blame 911 on gays and feminists.
Between the time that the owners of the Teletubbies sent a cease&desist to walmart, and filing a lawsuit, Falwell stepped in to start the Tinky Winky is gay slander campaign. At that time, walmart was selling counterfeit Teletubbies, called "Bubbly Chubbies" that they had designed and contracted to be made in China.
I think I found the answer to my own question: it's very dangerous. Only do it if the belt is integrated into the seat:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/10/earlyshow/main1195540.shtml
http://www.langdonemison.com/CM/Articles/Articles2.asp
Not too long ago, Russia and Georgia got into a dispute. This escalated into a pretty severe shouting match, and one result was that Russia managed to deport every Georgian inside of 2 weeks. Legal or illegal Georgian residents, all sent "home." All their businesses shut down too.
If there was a "will" to end illegal immigration, or to "do something," then we could. But we as a country don't want to do anything about it, just bellyaching, since illegal immigration benefits the people who tend to vote republican, while hurting the people who tend to vote democrat. As this administration has repeatedly shown, there is nothing too important, nor too trivial, that it cannot be smothered with scortched earth partisan politics.
Steve Taylor wrote: Or are there barriers to having a bank account in the US if you're poor?
If you've had a bank account closed by the bank, you cannot get a replacement bank account until you pay back the old bank. Being out of work for an extended period, combined with the infamous ISP who refuses to let you cancel your account, and has been EFTing the monthly service out of your account, combined with a bank that won't let you close your account because there are monthly recurring charges that haven't stopped. Well. All that means you'll be using a check cashing store for a year or two before you can afford to clear it up.
The company that keeps track of all the checking accounts closed for nsf isn't regulated like the credit card agencies. There is no recourse, no chance to appeal. Only to pay and pay and pay and pay.
there had been so much fraud (person comes in, deposits $5K, writes check for $15K while that one is clearing, decamps) that the rules were really rigid.
There is a common scam going around where someone claims to be interested in purchasing your [whatever] off of ebay or craigslist, this other company owes me money, will you take their big cashier's check, take out the purchase price and shipping, then wire the remainder to [third world country]. In a few weeks, the cashier's check comes back, since it was forged, and you get to reimburse the bank back for that.
Now that I'm making almost what I used to make 5 years ago, I'm socking away as much as possible. In addition, I keep a few thousand in cash around the house; memories of the time I had to live without banking of any kind for almost 2 years.
While Jim's concept is entertaining, most of the terrorist targets in the US have been symbols:
The WTC being a symbol of US economic power projected onto the world.
The Murrah building being a symbol of US political power projected onto the US.
The Pentagon being a symbol of US military power projected onto the world.
Murdering folks for the sake of killing is usually justified by words like "justice" or "vengence." Which was a large part of the beltway sniper motivations.
While network attacks are more effective at hurting the economy (like the guy who allegedly was paid by alneda to attack the Alaskan oil pipeline, or the foiled IRA attack in Britain that would have taken out several substations, each of which take 6-9 months to replace), symbolic attacks are more useful for their own propaganda. OBL's attack on 911 was more theatre intended for his own followers and audience (from his own words on the tape after 911) rather than the effects it would have on the US. That the buildings collapsed was "the will of God" rather than his (followers') actions and designs.
Actual biowarfare is very hard to do. Even extremely wealthy and motivated organizations like Aum Shinrikyo and the Rajneeshi were unable to deploy working bugs. Graysmith's book Amerithrax goes into details on the 2001 letters that conveniently hit only targets hated by the US right wing: democrats, NY Times, among others, and mailed when the PATRIOT act was being debated in congress. FBI investigations turned 100% domestic when testing showed the substance was processed in the US fashion, and not the Soviet fashion. If it were Iraqi, as many people tried to claim, it would have contained bentonite, which was a key ingredient in the Soviet style of weaponizing the stuff. Observing the targets of the stuff, and to whom those differences were important leads one to the inescapable conclusion that it was both politically motivated and domestic dirty trickery.
It's not that NYC doesn't have monuments and icons, it's that they are invulnerable due to the Heckuvajob™ that's being done by HLS.
Hot lesbian sex makes things invulnerable? Who'd have thought? ;)
http://digg.com/technology/DMCA_Shuts_Down_Message_Board_for_Posting_Agent_s_Email_Address
Front page would be nice for her. ;)
Wow... Fort Wayne, you break my heart.
hey, even bush knows he doesn't care what you think. he was honest about it right before he failed to prevent september 11:
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/03/19/bush_encounter/index.html
that burning human flesh smells like pork. Since he was an explosives export in the Vietnam War, I assumed he has some personal experience in the matter, although I didn't ask.
I went to highschool in Ireland. There were a number of terrorist attacks where firebombs were used. One was near where I commuted to school. Yes. Smells like burnt pork. Also, when humans burn to death, their arms get into a preying mantis or boxing position. I thought I had forgotten all that until a train vs gas tanker truck incident where I worked in FL.
Is chalk treif or vegan? Last time I ate chalk, I was a kid in school, trying to gross out girls. The clique I hung with ate chalk a lot. Now that I'm older, I'm trying not to scare away women. ;)
...that pigs are also treif due to diet, not merely form...
I'll recommend books by Marvin Harris: Good to Eat is one that goes into a lot of details about dietary restrictions. Very short synopsis of the pork story: back in those olden days, there weren't grocery stores, so the place you got meat was also the place that the critter was sacrificed to the god(s). Pork was sacred to Baal. Someone who was raising swine was raising them to sell to the temple of Baal. The prohibition on fields where swine were present was an economic boycott of the chief deity of Babylon. Want pork? You had to go to the temple of Baal and give them money as well as worship there. What? Have no other gods before me? Guess pork is out...
As for giraffes, one is supposed to use a blade 2x the diameter of the neck, and kill the creature with one stroke (while saying the proper prayer) for kosher/halal meats. I suspect that a blade that meets requirements will be rather unwieldy.
That's "what's next" from Dan M.
I hope you don't have a bunny, Patrick . . .
Right. Because I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING WHATSOEVER, it’s fair for Doug M. to attribute to me a set of views and attitudes that, actually, he pulled out of his ass. Views which—let’s be clear—he made up. Views which I don’t hold. Fantasies that he invented.
What's next? I won't be ignored?
James, I think that the 2 most likely scenarios for the expose are:
1 - The locals knew what the place was, that nothing was being done about it, but by "informing" the military that it was a insurgent/terrorist house, it would promptly be raided.
2 - The administration knew about the place, and blew the whistle on it solely to divert attention away from the white phosphorous issue.
In support of #2:
American troops, he [Hakim] said, had been in the building where the prison was discovered "four times a week."Washington Post article, where Hakim basically says that the civil war is only going to get worse, as in "you ain't seen nothing yet" worsse.
There have been a couple stories in the media about the Volcano Brigades. If these are accurate (and remember, that the Abu Giraib stories first popped up in european and scandal papers before they hit the main stream press), and if they are like the US trained and equipped ElSalvadoran Death Squads, then 90% of the people dieing in Iraq are dieing on our nickel. The reconcilliation commission in El Salvador determined that 90% of the dead were killed by the death squads. The reagan administration believed that the rebels were supported by the Sandinistas, which lead the Reagan Empire to wage a private war (against the laws of this country, remember the Boland Amendment?) with funding from selling weapons to Iran (also against the laws of this country). You remember Iran-Contra? And perhaps this explains why so many Iran-Contra people are working for this administration.
The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.
January 2005 Newsweek article where Rumfeld talks about the El Salvador Option
Abu Ghirab stories first break in non-US and in so-called non-respectable papers.
RightWingResponseThey Hate America!
Almost a year later, the Abu Ghirab stories break in NY Times and WaPo.
RightWingResponseWe knew about that last year? What's news about this?
One such group, the Volcano Brigade, is operating as a death squad, under the influence or control of Iraq's most potent Shia factional militia, the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, said several Iraqi government officials and western Baghdad residents.
In the past six months, Badr has heavily infiltrated the Interior Ministry, under which the commandos operate, the sources said. Badr also was accused of running the secret Interior Ministry prison raided Sunday by U.S. troops.
About 2 a.m. on Aug. 23, men in Volcano Brigade uniforms and trucks rolled into the streets of Dolay, a mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood of western Baghdad, residents say. "I got a call from my cousins" around the corner, said Ahmed Abu Yusuf, 33, an unemployed Sunni. "They told me to stay hidden because the Volcano were in the streets, arresting Sunnis."
For three hours, the raiders burst into Sunni homes, handcuffed dozens of men and loaded them into vans. They ended the assault and drove out of the neighborhood just before the dawn call to prayer, which would bring men into the streets, walking to the local mosques, Abu Yusuf said.
Two days later and 90 miles away, residents of the desert town of Badrah, near the Iranian border, found the bodies of 36 of the men in a gully, their hands still bound and their skulls shattered by bullets. Two were the cousins who had phoned him the warning, Abu Yusuf said.
Newsday Article
"you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness."
"Rep. Dreier bid declined because of sexual politics"
No. His bid was declined because his significant other is working in the same office to the tune of $156k/year. It is against the rules for his wife or mistress to do so, and it should be equally against the rules for his boyfriend to do so.
New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey was recently forced to resign when it was about to become public that he had put his boyfriend on the public payroll at a salary slightly less than the one which Dreier pays Smith.
The real beef of the issue
David,
It wasn't habaneros, it was one malagueta that I merely ate and left some stray juice on my fingertips.
Aiyy Yi Yi!
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| 2008 | 1 |
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| 2006 | 6 |
| 2005 | 25 |
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