not that surprised.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

We do? Nah, the Rushmas thing was done to death. I don't plan any other Rushmas threads or competitions.

Done to death? It was one month, over Rushmas. 8^]

I'm with you on that, Rush!


More eye-candy!!! More Rushmas!!!

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...and who do you think is buying a hugh percentage of U.S. Treasury Bonds to finance our governments "borrow and spent" policies...Zimbabwe? The Chinese own us...the Chinese would never attack us...they'd foreclose.

B) It's ironic that you decry "our governments 'borrow and spent' policies" (sic) and yet you comment that "our lack of universal health care in [our] country is a national disgrace." Where exactly would the money to pay for universal health care come from? Can you guess?

My fundamentalis cousin has an answer for that. He says, "The Good Lord will provide." :)

---

There are several differences between now and then. Japan mainly sold cars, television/electronics, and cameras. Now almost everything on the shelves, except cars is "Made in China."

Except that that isn't true, other than maybe final assembly. The machines, parts, paint, packing, packaging, printing, inks, wrapping, and on and on and on and on and on and on and on come from all over the world.

"Made in [anywhere]" really doesn't have much meaning anymore.

And everytime we talk to the Chinese about their undervalued currency they tell everyone to jump in the lake and mine our own business, which we have no other option but doing. They currently have us by the gonads. The last thing the Chinese want is to float their currency, and why should they.

They will have to, eventually, just like everyone else does: because the costs associated with value by fiat will become far too expensive for them, in any currency.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

There are several differences between now and then. Japan mainly sold cars, television/electronics, and cameras. Now almost everything on the shelves, except cars is "Made in China."

Not only China, but South Korea also. An industrialist in South Korea spoke on BBC radio today and said the jump from a 'medieval' industry to the modern industry today took South Korean just one generation, and was equivalent to industrial progress in England from the reign of George I (1660 - 1727) until present day. He said that in South Korea he was 43 years old, but in England he was more like 243 years old.

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flaming balloons

This just in...



Move Over, Bill Gates!!!



Richest man in world has no
plan to be Santa Claus
Fellow Mexicans view ‘big enchilada’ as having monopoly over their lives
WILLIAM LANGLEY







The statisticians were all over Carlos Slim Helu last week; what would his $67.8-billion fortune buy?

A stack of tortillas stretching to Neptune; every government since independence; more gold than the Aztecs lost. This is how it is with serious money. You think you own it, but it ends up owning you.

The portly, 67-year-old mogul maintains a discreet presence in a country where the average wage is around $21 Cdn a day. His emergence as the world’s richest man therefore did little for his mood. At a recent press conference Slim, as he likes to be known, sat glumly while people demanded to know not how he had made all his money, but how he was going to give it away. After a while he stubbed out his trademark cigar, declared that he wasn’t Santa Claus, and left.

Sadly, there is nowhere for Slim to escape to. Like his predecessor, Bill Gates of Microsoft, he will learn that the title is all trouble. He will be a symbol of the wretchedness of excess, a measure of all the heart-rending inequalities of the world.

It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that Slim owns an entire country.

Take your average Jose, a working stiff with a house and a family to support, and see how his pesos pour like the water from a Plaza Zocalo fountain into Slim’s appreciative paws.He wakes in the morning swaddled in bedding from one of Slim’s department stores, breakfasts on pastries from his bakery chain, drives to work on roads built by his construction company, in a car covered by his insurance company; spends the day using phones and Internet services provided by Slim’s near-monopolistic telecoms division, and after supper in one of the tycoon’s innumerable chain cantinas, goes home to watch the news on a TV channel owned by … guess who?

Jose, like most of his fellow citizens, isn’t sure what to make of the big enchilada. On one hand, it’s a matter of national pride that Mexico has produced the world’s most successful businessman.

Onthe other, there has long been a suspicion of something shady about Slim; a sense that such wealth, power and ubiquity can only have been built through the skilled manipulation of a notoriously corrupt establishment.

And there is something else. Slim isn’t — at least in the eyes of many Mexicans — a proper Mexican at all. He was born to Lebanese immigrant parents who arrived in the early 20th century.

Slim’s father, Julian, ran a Mexico City grocery store, the Star of the Orient, later investing in residential property, and by the time Slim, the youngest of his six children, left school, was a moderately wealthy man. Today, Slim strategically plays down his Lebanese provenance. "I’ve only been there once in my life," he says, "and the only Arabic I know is swear words."

Fiendishly handsome in his youth, he married Soumaya Gemayel, the daughter of a prominent Lebanese Maronite family, who died eight years ago from kidney disease. A Mexico City museum set up in Soumaya’s name now houses Slim’s art collection, and three of their six children now run divisions of the family business.

In this sense, Slim’s usurpation — as calculated by a Mexican financial website — of Gates (a relative hardship case with only $56 billion) can be seen as a reassuring triumph of the old economy over the new. The burly Mexican operates in the manner of the capitalist barons of yore; building monopolistic stakes in the kind of mostly dull, dependable enterprises people have little choice but to spend their money with. "I don’t even use a computer," he has said.




I'll bet you Jeffrey just loves this guy!

---

...and who do you think is buying a hugh percentage of U.S. Treasury Bonds to finance our governments "borrow and spent" policies...Zimbabwe? The Chinese own us...the Chinese would never attack us...they'd foreclose.

A) They can't foreclose, that's not how the system works. Those bonds have value, in part, because of the strength of the U.S. dollar and market, regardless of recent fluctuations.

B) It's ironic that you decry "our governments 'borrow and spent' policies" (sic) and yet you comment that "our lack of universal health care in [our] country is a national disgrace." Where exactly would the money to pay for universal health care come from? Can you guess?

Just like everywhere else in the advanced civilized industrial world...TAXES

Yah want it, yah gottsa pay for it.

OMG, I could hear all the neocons and libertarians screaming from here even...

---

Account frozen...

...and who do you think is buying a hugh percentage of U.S. Treasury Bonds to finance our governments "borrow and spent" policies...Zimbabwe? The Chinese own us...the Chinese would never attack us...they'd foreclose.

B) It's ironic that you decry "our governments 'borrow and spent' policies" (sic) and yet you comment that "our lack of universal health care in [our] country is a national disgrace." Where exactly would the money to pay for universal health care come from? Can you guess?

My fundamentalis cousin has an answer for that. He says, "The Good Lord will provide." :)

Nah, I provide for myself and my family. Know how to annoy the liberals? Work hard and be happy! Think about that...

WOOT! Night all..

---

The portly, 67-year-old mogul maintains a discreet presence in a country where the average wage is around $21 Cdn a day. His emergence as the world’s richest man therefore did little for his mood. At a recent press conference Slim, as he likes to be known, sat glumly while people demanded to know not how he had made all his money, but how he was going to give it away. After a while he stubbed out his trademark cigar, declared that he wasn’t Santa Claus, and left.

Heh. Even if he did give it all away, every person in Mexico would get about 600 bucks. Big deal. Won't change their lives hardly at all.

But it would destroy a number of companies that millions of Mexicans depend on every day.

What a great plan.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

...and who do you think is buying a hugh percentage of U.S. Treasury Bonds to finance our governments "borrow and spent" policies...Zimbabwe? The Chinese own us...the Chinese would never attack us...they'd foreclose.

B) It's ironic that you decry "our governments 'borrow and spent' policies" (sic) and yet you comment that "our lack of universal health care in [our] country is a national disgrace." Where exactly would the money to pay for universal health care come from? Can you guess?

My fundamentalis cousin has an answer for that. He says, "The Good Lord will provide." :)

Nah, I provide for myself and my family. Know how to annoy the liberals? Work hard and be happy! Think about that...

WOOT! Night all..

I'm also of the "God helps those that help themselves" persuasion. :)


Good Night, Mike!

---

Just dropped by to say a quick Hello. :-)

btw....Sorry, Beets....no can do on the Sony Boycott. I WANT a PS3....lol

---

Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

Just dropped by to say a quick Hello. :-)

btw....Sorry, Beets....no can do on the Sony Boycott. I WANT a PS3....lol

Oh, okay. But what's your hurry? Think of how much cheaper they'll be in just 6 months! If you can't resist, delay...maybe.

But if you can't wait, then all I'll say to you is, "Happy Gaming!" :)

---

Just dropped by to say a quick Hello. :-)

btw....Sorry, Beets....no can do on the Sony Boycott. I WANT a PS3....lol

Oh, okay. But what's your hurry? Think of how much cheaper they'll be in just 6 months! If you can't resist, delay...maybe.

But if you can't wait, then all I'll say to you is, "Happy Gaming!" :)

Actually...there really isn't that much of a hurry. I want to buy a new TV first and I am still in the process of deciding which type I want to get. :-)

---

Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

Just dropped by to say a quick Hello. :-)

btw....Sorry, Beets....no can do on the Sony Boycott. I WANT a PS3....lol

Oh, okay. But what's your hurry? Think of how much cheaper they'll be in just 6 months! If you can't resist, delay...maybe.

But if you can't wait, then all I'll say to you is, "Happy Gaming!" :)

Actually...there really isn't that much of a hurry. I want to buy a new TV first and I am still in the process of deciding which type I want to get. :-)

Wonderful!

That way you can have your PS3 and help the cause at the same time. You see, if you and others wait 6 months, that'll be two quarters in a row that they have poor sales. The analysts will spread the news and the share price will take a hit. That'll make the shareholders mad, and they'll give him a good earful at the shareholders meeting...if they don't do worse.

Who says you need bombs to damage a company? LOL

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Good Morning everyone!



Boy! We're already into July, so let's make the most out of what's left of the summer. We're firing up the grill and making Western-style Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for breakfast today, along with Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice.


Enjoy!

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Heyas Dogbytes!


Welcome back, Darth!


I agree, I can't see the Egyptian pyramids not being part of the list. Have you gone to the http://www.new7wonders.com site? Some of those 21 semi-finalist sites look real interesting. And a couple of them I've never even heard of before.

I've heard of Petra though. Interesting ancient city, way up high in the mountains of Syria. :)

That is quite an amazing picture...it seems like a magical place.

. . . ever see The Fountain?

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

. . . ever see The Fountain?

No, I haven't, Richard. It doesn't seem like my cup of tea, I'm tired of the fantasy genre. But I read your wiki article and I found the behind-the-scenes story of the two attempts to make the movie, really interesting.

It takes a lot to get a movie project onto the screen. ;)

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. . . ever see The Fountain?

No, I haven't, Richard. It doesn't seem like my cup of tea, I'm tired of the fantasy genre. But I read your wiki article and I found the behind-the-scenes story of the two attempts to make the movie, really interesting.

It takes a lot to get a movie project onto the screen. ;)

yes it doEs Beets (the *Film Guarantors* etc . . . plus 'Certification' blah blah blah . . . ;)))

> as for the 'Fountain' - ya shouldn't really make any judgement - it's based on a 'philosophical' way in life and isn't (to my knowledge) a Fantasy genre . . . critics rarely have any sense to even look @ films - YET make commentary as if they actually saw said films . . . DOH!!!

anyway - - - - > think 'bout iT Beets

it's VERY similar to that foto you put in this Thread (the film that is)

latEr . . .

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

. . . ever see The Fountain?

No, I haven't, Richard. It doesn't seem like my cup of tea, I'm tired of the fantasy genre. But I read your wiki article and I found the behind-the-scenes story of the two attempts to make the movie, really interesting.

It takes a lot to get a movie project onto the screen. ;)

yes it doEs Beets (the *Film Guarantors* etc . . . plus 'Certification' blah blah blah . . . ;)))

> as for the 'Fountain' - ya shouldn't really make any judgement - it's based on a 'philosophical' way in life and isn't (to my knowledge) a Fantasy genre . . . critics rarely have any sense to even look @ films - YET make commentary as if they actually saw said films . . . DOH!!!

anyway - - - - > think 'bout iT Beets

it's VERY similar to that foto you put in this Thread (the film that is)

latEr . . .

Okay, you talked me into it. :)

I'll see if I can rent it at Blockbusters.

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Uh, Beets, it seems the war between us are taken to a much higher level. :-O

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me