zl1vette

Anyone know the number one selling beer in the world, including Europe?

scroll down for answer

Budweiser.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

They do the same thing in virtually every city in America, except they TRY to disguise it a little better. Those who "excel" in their job performance (write lots of tickets) get "promoted" (more money in their pockets) whereas those that do not "enforce the law" properly get passed over. Despite the claim (lie) that there is no quota system for ticket writing, for some strange reason my radar detector gets a lot more hits near the end of every month.

I used to bartend in a small town a few years back, and the owner of the bar where I worked was on "good terms" with the cops. They would hold their annual Christmas party (a private event) at our place, and got huge "discounts" on the food, alcohol (and these suckers could drink!), and use of the facility. On a given night, especially weekends, they would be camped out just down the road from a couple of other local watering holes, looking to pull over drunk drivers. The most that we usually got was a drive-through of the parking lot a time or two. The bars that had a reputation as "hot spots" for police on patrol of course saw their business take a hit, as the drunks will always just migrate to some place where it is "quieter".

my daughter was in the garden one night with both dogs (quite well lit) and I heard her scream, i thought the dogs were in trouble so I ran out to see a black king cobra coiled with its head raised. I got the dogs in the house and went back out but it was nowhere to be seen, these things spit their venom also which can blind.

Wow!! Your daughter must be one bad Ninja seeing as how you left her out there with a king cobra.

Amazing , even more considering that this criminal is only 21 years old !

Its a person who doesn't care about anyone or anything but himself , as stated above

he is a murderer . There will be an undercover tv show on Sunday in the Netherlands

trapping him again saying he killed the American girl , and wanted to hire an assassin to kill

the man who is stalking him ( P R de Vries ) ever since his first confession

in another undercover operation , where he confessed to his murder .

The crime journalists name is Peter R de Vries , who even got an Emmy for his work on his show .

Hope , if proven he already did business in human trafficking , the Thai police will know what to do

with him .

Som Nam Na

Not exactly a fan of Joran van der Sloot, but to get the facts right: he never confessed to murdering anyone. What he confessed in the under cover operation was getting rid of the body, after she suddenly died.

Sure hope he will get arrested and not just deported.

Yes, let us indeed get the facts right: van der Sloot was with Natalee, and poured huge qauntities of alcohol into her. He was with her on the beach when she passed out. He knew that something was wrong and failed to render or seek aid. His call instead was to a criminal accomplice who took her out to sea and dumped her overboard. Neither of them were medically able to make a call of death. A person in a deep coma can mimic death with extremely shallow breathing and weak pulse.

Put it into whatever legal terms that you want, but van der Sloot is responsible for her death through his negligence and dumping of her body.

Someone needs to take this SOB out.

Here's hoping he gets to rot in a Thai prison.

But here is what we can look forward to in America:

The harder we get hit here in America with Obama's Marxist plans, the fewer travelers are going to "spread the wealth around" in LOS.

Not to derail this congratulation to Obama thread further but....

What you say is nonsense in that it has not occured.

Here is FACTS of what HAS occured.

Here is a larger version for you to study further

http://i27.tinypic.com/120m447.jpg

Now you have the FACTS not some crystal ball fantasy.

Amazing isn't it? Why don't the folks that vote Republican ever see that? OR the state of the economy that screws up under their watch every time?

Yeah, it's pretty amazing, especially the Reagan years. The latter half of the chart should be labeled Blue-"Greenspan Internet Bubble" and Red- "Greenspan Kondratieff Winter".

What we have here is raw data without the proper supporting conditions. I am an analytical chemist, and I work with data for a living, so I know the necessity of having ALL of the inputs.

Let's begin with the Reagan years. Reagan cut taxes, but the Federal Treasury actually took in more revenue than with Carter's stifling tax brackets. In 7 of the 8 budgets that Reagan proposed, the DEMOCRAT controlled Congress spent more money than Reagan had asked for. By the end of Reagan's term, the DEMOCRATS had spent 28% above what the President had requested. Had Reagan received the budgets that he wanted, he would have left with a $130 Billon surplus. There was also this matter of the Cold War that was being fought, and was won with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the Clinton years, Clinton lied through his teeth about a middle class tax cut and then pushed through the LARGEST TAX INCREASE in U.S. history. This was all done to finance his universal health care plan. The REPUBLICANS in Congress defeated this plan, and then the technology explosion of the 1990's occurred, something that Clinton had nothing to do with. That is what lead to the fake surplus. Before Clinton, Social Security taxes were not part of the deficit figures. A little Clinton Hocus-pocus, and voila, a "surplus"!

GWB takes office and inherits a recession from the Clinton Administration. Shortly thereafter, we are hit on 09/11 despite the fact that Clinton had been briefed on terrorists using airplanes as weapons, and passing on several chances to get Osama Bin Laden. As this country was again faced with two wars, spending increased. (For those who still believe the liberal lies of no WMD's, read "Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied & Survived Saddam Hussein" by former Iraqi General Georges Sada). Had Hitler been stopped in the 1930s, WWII doesn't happen.

Now is it true that Republicans spent money like drunken sailors when they held power? Yes, and it is also why many were removed from office. However, the Democrats were willing participants in the spending fun as well.

Which party passed the line item veto for the President to strip out pork of federal spending packages? Republicans.

Which party went to one of their hand picked liberal judges and got the measure overturned despite support by 70% of the American people? Democrats.

Which party supports a balanced budget amendment? Republicans.

Which party votes almost unanimously against a balanced budget amendment? Democrats.

Put all the charts up thee that you want, but without the facts behind what is happening, your data is worth as much as a bar girl's IOU to pay back that loan for her English lessons, mother's operation, and the sick water buffalo.

Pandora's Box has been opened. After almost two years of this American Idol candidate, whose previous experience of being a state senator and 140 days in the U.S. Senate leaves him woefully short, I am yet to hear what he is going to do. Tourism to Thailand is going to drop. The Dow Jones is already down 177 points as I write this, having gained yesterday on hopes of a McCain victory.

But here is what we can look forward to in America:

Obama is on record as saying “if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” Man made Global Warming is a HOAX. The majority of electricity generated in the United States comes from burning coal. Guess what will happen to everyone's electric bill.

The Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. Obama has pledged over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in new Federal spending. Obama is on record as saying that he wants to "spread the wealth around". This means that in 2010, our federal income taxes will INCREASE 20-87%. Here's a comparison:

Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008

Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500

Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500

Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750

Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000

Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750

Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Who gets hurt the most? The single taxpayer under $30,000/married under $60,000 will see an 87% INCREASE. Bill Clinton ran on the lie of a middle class tax cut, and then enacted the largest tax INCREASE in U.S. history. Obama and the liberals are not going to keep the current tax plan in place. Too bad, because EVERY time taxes have been cut, the actual dollar amount to the U.S. Treasury has gone up. In some states, federal income, social security, medicare, and state taxes are going to consume over 60% of every dollar made. That is before any state sales tax kicks in on purchases, along with gasoline tax, energy tax increases, etc.

Corporate taxes in America are the second highest in the world, and Obama wants to increase them as if they don't pay enough. Exxon Mobil pays more in income taxes ($27.9 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers ($27.4 billion), which is 65,000,000 people. People characterize Exxon’s profits in terms of nearly $1,500 in profit per second. Exxon also paid $4,100 a second in taxes. In 1Q 2008, Exxon paid $29.3 BILLION in all taxes combined with a net profit of $10.9 BILLION. Almost 75% of every dollar of revenue goes to taxes, but it's too low.

Business needs to make a profit to stay in business and any increase will only result in higher prices for the consumer, and more companies relocating off shore. Jimmy Carter tried this idiotic crap with his "windfall profits tax" on the oil companies and only succeeded in increased prices and gas rationing/gas lines that stretched for blocks.

These are not opinions, these are hard economic FACTS. The harder we get hit here in America with Obama's Marxist plans, the fewer travelers are going to "spread the wealth around" in LOS.

".......the government must attempt every possible concrete measure to drive the economy ahead in the remaining two months of this year."

That could well make matters worse.

If I am driving in 2-wheel drive down a little 'fair-weather short cut' unpaved track ( such as we have around her), and the heavens open and it pisses down like a cow onto a flat rock (as happens round here) and then I see a puddly patch ahead, I do not drive ahead. I stop and engage 4-wheel drive and move into the puddly patch carefully. Then, if it starts getting worse, I back out and leave the short cut and take the long, tarmacced way round.

This is not going to be a temporary recession. America is not going to be back to importing things it doesn't need (like more Isuzu pickups, built in Thailand) in a couple of quarters. So it is no time to "attempt every possible concrete measure to drive the economy ahead..............."

This is a time when the Government should retrench. Cut back on public spending and stop any new costly developments.

Closed firms pay no profit taxes. Workers whose jobs have become redundant pay no income tax. The Government's income is on the way down.

What a government might do when going into a short recession of the variety that we have previously seen in our lifetimes would be the wrong response to what is coming now.

Cut taxes, lower interest rates, make it easier for business to grow. After all, jobs are created and maintained by those with the means to do so.

If Barry Hussein gets elected President in the U.S., the whole world could be in for trouble. He is a Marxist and will utterly destroy our economy. Jimmy Carter was a blithering idiot whose administration created the worst U.S. economy since the depresion, but he was not a Marxist. BHO could take it to the next level. Pray that he doesn't get in.

"I think 1997 made us very aware of the role that risk management has to play," said Kosit Panpiemras, executive chairman of Bangkok Bank, speaking of Thai banks in general. "I think we have also been very careful about liquidity, particularly here at Bangkok Bank. Our loan-to-deposit ratio is something like 90 percent -- only 90 percent of our deposits have been lent out."

Only 90 percent? Since when is 90 percent not much? Perhaps he meant to say "only 10 percent..."

Some of the morons running the banks in the U.S. had them leveraged 50:1. In other words, actual cash on hand accounted for only TWO PERCENT of deposits.

I've found the country to be really monotonous and predictable after a year, and now it's just a hot, smelly place with self-absorbed people.

Wow, for a moment I thought you were talking about Dallas, Texas.

My source confirms that Samak will announce his resignation in the morning.

If he doesn't, I will run naked through the PAD crowd.

Khun Sunderland, would that be short time or long time?

Since the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center is only about 3 km from Nana, I wonder if the Presidential Motorcade stopped off for a night cap...

WHY DO WORLD WIDE MEDIA INSIST ON CALLING THEM "INSURGENTS"?

THEY ARE TERRORISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Salvation for the poor

BANGKOK: -- State kicks in nearly Bt50 billion for economic fillip and to help needy make ends meet.

The government will pay water bills for low-income households that consume fewer than 50 cubic litres each month.

--Xpress/The Nation 2008-07-16

<deleted> is a cubic litre?

Can't they get journos who understand what they are writing about? Or at least an editor who does?

Don't you remember this one? It's a cube that measures one litre on each side.

Poor Nick Leeson and his $1.4 BILLION misdemeanor. He should have been taken out and shot. Wonder how many people's jobs and life savings he wiped out through his GREED. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson

A truly smart man doesn't play these games with a woman. If she cannot communicate openly and honestly, or control her anger, then it's time to kick her to the curb and drive on. And no, they're not all the same, there are good ones out there. It's also a matter of drawing the line in the sand early. A man cannot let a woman get away with abhorrent behavior for several months and then expect her to change once he's gotten over the "ga-ga" stage. Life is too short to waste one's time.

If only the U.S. would get its act together and learn from this.

Good for the Thai Gov't. It's not fair for the big retailers to come in, provide better goods at lower prices, and destroy our business.

In fact, if the US Gov't doesn't do something to stop all of those d@mned computer retailers, our business could be in big trouble soon!

Smith Corona

Good thing airport seciurity is shaking down all of those 95 year old ladies and five year old kids. Wouldn't want to violate the rights of terrorist.

Jon Benet's MURDERER is buried next to her in GA.

Those interested in reading the FACTS in the case can find them here:

http://vincentbridges.com/?p=83

Here's a quote: An analysis of the ransom note and a psychological profile done by SERAPH Inc., a private profiling agency, and delivered to the Boulder Police on May 25, 1998, determines that the case is one of “a child’s murder with ritualistic overtones. Mrs. Ramsey’s motives and post incident actions cannot be understood with rational thought. This crime was committed by a delusional individual who has convinced herself of her own innocence. Sociopaths always view their violent actions as justified. When a divine intervention is added to this justification pathology, you have a highly volatile individual.”

The report continues: “We believe that Patsy Ramsey is a delusional sociopath."

If you look further, in other sources, you will discover the failed polygraph test that was suppressed. This was after shopping for someone who would test them without drug testing them, which they refused to others.

Occam's Razor.