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Here is your open thread for Monday December 17th, 2012. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
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The After Christmas Sales from Over Stocked Glut
The best time to shop in Seattle?
The PI semms to think this way….
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/personal-finance/article/Holiday-shoppers-may-see-big-discounts-soon-4119116.php
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RE: softwarengineer @ 1 – There is a study out there that shows that the median price of toys, when the distressed sales are all excluded or discombobulated, has stayed about the same for the past five years proving that houses, er, toys don’t go down in value. Better not wait, you could be priced out foreva. If only we had some inventory to fill the demand! Cabbage Patch dolls anyone?
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Thank you for defending our freedom.
Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.
“Did we just kill a kid?” he asked the man sitting next to him.
“Yeah, I guess that was a kid,” the pilot replied.
“Was that a kid?” they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pain-continues-after-war-for-american-drone-pilot-a-872726.html
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RE: blurtman @ 3 –
The problem with war is women, and children get killed. Whether it’s by mortar, random fire fight, napalm, or drone, women, and children get killed in war.
The solution is to make a lasting peace which is where the United States has a stumbling block.
There has been resistance to humanitarian aid going to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. It seems to be OK to spend billions on weapons, soldiers, equipment, or drones, but to rebuild we need some financial partnering.
If we were the good guys, we would be there to help. I understand throwing off the dictators, but in the vacuum, we seem more interested in the deals we make, for what we can get, rather than what is good for the people of that country.
If you care about the kids then feed them, give them shelter, and be a buddy.
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RE: blurtman @ 3 – War is hell. That’s why we only go to war after Congress has debated & authorized it. The President just can’t go out declare war on anyone. We have rules of law in this country.
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RE: David Losh @ 4 –
I Want the Good Old Days Back
When we had a “Cold War” with the Soviet Union and Red China….hades, we at least had an American manufacturing base then and decent wages with low unemployment.
And “Cold War” mutual destruction kept us from pushing the button anyway….but alas, Nixon started that ping pong games with the Chinese….the rest is the unraveling of American economy replaced with an unpayable debt and unpayable wars now too.
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RE: ChrisM @ 5 – So it is said, especially by those who sit in their comfortable homes, oblivious to the violence. But can you provide a link describing the US Senate’s ratification of a declaration of war against Afghanistan?
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RE: Blurtman @ 7 – I think you missed a heavy dose of sarcasm in that post. I believe the last time there was a declaration of war was after Pearl Harbor. Congress has basically ratified other actions . . ..
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RE: David Losh @ 4 – I’d say it is ALSO a problem than men get killed, most of whom had no choice in signing up. Let’s not forget that, David.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 8 – Probably right. If so, apologies to ChrisM.
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By blurtman @ 3:
When I read your post I thought of the shooting in Conn. and did a google search on Adam Lanza, the shooter, and videogames.
Seems he had a “hypnotic obsession” (not my phrase) with violent videogames. The dude dressed up in a demon of darkness spec ops get-up and went for the kids, just like shooting zombies in a videogame.
We have become very good at teaching how to kill from a distance, literally and emotionally.
I think (hope) the difference is that the guys in the link felt remorse when they realized they made a mistake.
Both are very sad.
Fel Temp Reparatio?
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Found while surfing on Matt Taibbi’s blog. Pegs and Blurty should like this. Ira will ask, “what’s new?”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
Here we go again.
Fel Temp…
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RE: ricklind @ 12 –
Just outrageous. Aren’t we supposed to receive equal justice under the law? Maybe we are supposed to, but the reality seems to suggest that if you’re a top official with a major bank, you can pretty much commit any crime out there and not get charged with a crime.
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RE: Ira Sacharoff @ 13 – Guilt by association?
I don’t like our drug laws at all, but I don’t think it’s possible to prosecute a teller in Mexico for violation of US laws. And I doubt you could ever prove that any executive in the United States knew what was going on in Mexico. There is the possibility of trying a corporation itself for a crime, as happened with Ford and the Pinto, but I don’t think the result would be much different, and at what cost?
Finally, it’s not at all clear that the penalty didn’t exceed the profits the bank made from the transaction. The bank does not make a million dollars when it aids in laundering a million dollars.
This should probably be a bigger issue in Mexico. Down there thousands of people are being murdered because of our drug laws, and this activity assisted those entities. Stated differently, this is not our fight as much as theirs. (Although I think the better solution would be for them to simply legalize drug activity and bring it mainstream to end the killing.)
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