[QUOTE=ewmayer;300540]
In the U.S., today is the annual Memorial Day holiday. ZeroHedge offers a trenchant commentary which is, shall we say, a tad light on knee-jerk patriotism:
[quote]...the Afghan [U]sh*thole[/U]. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East [U]rat holes[/U] over the last 11 years with [U]no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States[/U].[/quote]
[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-war-pigs-fall-global-empire]Guest Post: War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire[/url]
[/QUOTE]
IMO that guy isn't exactly the leader of the movement to get less people to hate us.

(To be fair, a lot of good people's lives have been made worse, but I'd like to believe that the freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan are not figments of my imagination, and that the quality of life in I and A is overall better than in 2000.)

@cheesehead: Who's gonna look? I sure aint.

[url]http://www.mic-at-50.net/[/url]

[QUOTE=Dubslow;300543]
@cheesehead: Who's gonna look? I sure aint.[/QUOTE]?

Shunting this to another thread does not answer these questions:

Why is it that unfounded personal attacks on me are allowed to remain in this "Mystery ..." thread, but my responses to those attacks, and my efforts to educate the attackers as to what different approach they should use, are shunted out of this "Mystery ..." thread?

May we have an objective standard published about this?

In the future, will other unfounded personal attacks be allowed to remain in this "Mystery ..." thread, but the targets of such attacks will also have their responses shunted out -- is that going to be the official policy in this "Mystery ..." thread?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;300553]Shunting this to another thread does not answer these questions:

Why is it that unfounded personal attacks on me are allowed to remain in this "Mystery ..." thread, but my responses to those attacks, and my efforts to educate the attackers as to what different approach they should use, are shunted out of this "Mystery ..." thread?

May we have an objective standard published about this?

In the future, will other unfounded personal attacks be allowed to remain in this "Mystery ..." thread, but the targets of such attacks will also have their responses shunted out -- is that going to be the official policy in this "Mystery ..." thread?[/QUOTE]

Who's going to look and notice these things? I sure aint. They're long gone post-wise.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;300543]IMO that guy isn't exactly the leader of the movement to get less people to hate us.

(To be fair, a lot of good people's lives have been made worse, but I'd like to believe that the freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan are not figments of my imagination, and that the quality of life in I and A is overall better than in 2000.)[/QUOTE]

That Afghanistan's better-off now than in 2000, I'll grant you. But I get a fairly strong impression that it was a lot better off in 1975 than it is now or than it shows much hope of becoming in the foreseeable future. I don't see much of what I'd call freedom; the countryside is feudal and the cities insanely dangerous, and I'd take secret political police over public morals police.

I'm not sure the average Iraqi wouldn't vote for 1975 over today (yes, I've carefully picked a date before the first Gulf War): dictatorships aren't much fun to live in but we've demonstrated that there are worse options.

I think we've turned both Iraq and Afghanistan into places from which refugees would happily move to the East Germany of the 1970s - which was oppressive, poor, miserable and safe. I'm not sure that's something we should be cheering about.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;300540]But whether naked or not, the best tool to dissuade predatory short-sellers (real or imagined) is to run a profitable company, and hurt the short sellers where it hurts most, in their pocketbook.[/QUOTE]

Running a profitable company is relatively difficult if you're in a capital-intensive business like volatile retail and can raise the capital either on public markets which are being aggressively rigged against you or by trying to convince banks to lend to you while you're being kicked in the teeth by the market.

Obviously if you're one of those companies whose assets are a large mountain in Mongolia made out of manganese ore, and intrinsically profitable for as long as people want to make strong steel, you're safe against some kinds of short-sellers, but becoming such a company really isn't a generally available option.

[QUOTE=fivemack;300557]Running a profitable company is relatively difficult if you're in a capital-intensive business like volatile retail and can raise the capital either on public markets which are being aggressively rigged against you or by trying to convince banks to lend to you while you're being kicked in the teeth by the market.[/QUOTE]Certainly. That is pervasively understood. The game is badly rigged and when the bad boys screw up they are often caught in the process of lobbying for even more insider advantages and laxity even as they go down in flames much like MF Global was.

I didn't mean to imply that the Overstock's case had no merit. Ernst was being nice and fleshed out more about what the whole thing was about because I truly did lose my will to summarize the situation.

Deep Capture also references "The X files" show when they talk about themselves. This is suggesting a level of persecution and disbelief. Certainly there is some meat on the bones. I wouldn't have explicitly mentioned the articles and lifted them up for examination if I didn't feel that there was something there worth a look.

[QUOTE=fivemack;300556]That Afghanistan's better-off now than in 2000, I'll grant you. But I get a fairly strong impression that it was a lot better off in 1975 than it is now or than it shows much hope of becoming in the foreseeable future. I don't see much of what I'd call freedom; the countryside is feudal and the cities insanely dangerous, and I'd take secret political police over public morals police.

I'm not sure the average Iraqi wouldn't vote for 1975 over today (yes, I've carefully picked a date before the first Gulf War): dictatorships aren't much fun to live in but we've demonstrated that there are worse options.

I think we've turned both Iraq and Afghanistan into places from which refugees would happily move to the East Germany of the 1970s - which was oppressive, poor, miserable and safe. I'm not sure that's something we should be cheering about.[/QUOTE]
Honestly, (IMO) you can fight public morals police much better than secret political police. In any case, yes 1975 would have been better, but obviously things have gotten worse since then. I'm not entirely sure about this (please correct me if wrong), but I'm decently sure that the changes for the worse since then generally weren't the fault of the US. (Iran, on the other hand, is a different story I think. My post-WWII history isn't too sharp.) Since we've intervened, QoL [i]has[/i] improved, and it stands to do so much more if the transitions to truly free democracies go well (no guarantee of that of course. Egypt is looking rather shaky on that front.)

[QUOTE=Dubslow;300587]Honestly, (IMO) you can fight public morals police much better than secret political police. In any case, yes 1975 would have been better, but obviously things have gotten worse since then. I'm not entirely sure about this (please correct me if wrong), but I'm decently sure that the changes for the worse since then generally weren't the fault of the US. (Iran, on the other hand, is a different story I think. My post-WWII history isn't too sharp.) Since we've intervened, QoL [i]has[/i] improved, and it stands to do so much more if the transitions to truly free democracies go well (no guarantee of that of course. Egypt is looking rather shaky on that front.)[/QUOTE]

Have you bothered to ask any Iraqis or Afghanis or are you basing your opinion off the oh-so-objective US main stream media? Your use of the phrase "I would like to believe" clearly suggests that you are not open to the possibility of the invasions being a malign influence.

Regarding things getting worse since 1975 not having anything to do with the US, have you ever seen the photo of Rummy shaking Saddam's hand?

I would encourage you to read a bit more especially non-US sources before making your mind up.

I don't think it is a good idea to use overstock.com as the posterboy for NSS. Its CEO is a piece of work and it is hard to separate facts from conspiracy mongering in his case.