happythoughts

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Posts posted by happythoughts

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    Prohibition basically allowed the Mafia to come into its own in the US. Once Prohibition was repealed, the Mafia moved more heavily into stuff like heroin, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking and corruption of unions and the construction industry. And thus organized crime in the US has flourished ever since. Now there was organized crime in the US prior to Prohibition, but Prohibition is what allowed the mob(s) to mature organizationally. And then once the mature infrastructure was there ... it was there. And still is here.



    and now, alcohol and gambling are legal. still unsure why prostitution is illegal. we no longer need loan sharks, we have "credit card" companies who charge the same rates.



    Loan sharking is coming back thanks to new credit card policy passed last year. those that can't get credit cards anymore are using payday loan places that advertise 50 to 500% for cash advances. Thanx Mr president.



    Please advise, with specifics, how Obama is responsible for this.



    if there has ever been a one-sided issue, it should be
    the promotion of any legislation that fights the destructive
    and predatory lending practices of the credit card industry.

    i would really be interested in what part of that legislation
    was objectionable.

  2. Quote

    It was not that complicated... Money was loaned to people who could not pay it back.... Pretty simple and then the snowball kept rolling....

    I read that Canada did not have the same problem because they required people who were borrowing money to be able to pay it back.

    What an interesting concept.



    i have never understood that. the absolute worst part?
    the policy still exists.

    sound banking practices says "if you probably won't be able to pay
    back the loan, you don't get one."

    political practice ? "we want everyone to get a loan,
    so the govt will guarantee those improbable loans"

    the beauty of it ? turns out the govt has no money.
    it is all taxpayer money. :o

    when the home loan system starts collapsing, who jumps in ? the govt with more taxpayer money...

    so, i am paying my home loan. the home loan of a
    person who shouldn't have one, and the fat bonus of
    the banker who lent the money.

    anyone remember the last time ? the S&L scandal ?

    the practice continues. stay tuned for our next fiasco.
    :S>:(

  3. when someone is wrong or obnoxious, there are two responses.

    "i will not tolerate that"
    "i will put up with anything, or agree"

    for very attractive or rich people, there is always someone
    who will agree with them that is standing 25ft away.

    some people are messed up because we train them to be.
    it is too easy to agree with attractive-but-crazy for an evening.

  4. Quote

    Prohibition basically allowed the Mafia to come into its own in the US. Once Prohibition was repealed, the Mafia moved more heavily into stuff like heroin, gambling, prostitution, loan sharking and corruption of unions and the construction industry. And thus organized crime in the US has flourished ever since. Now there was organized crime in the US prior to Prohibition, but Prohibition is what allowed the mob(s) to mature organizationally. And then once the mature infrastructure was there ... it was there. And still is here.



    and now, alcohol and gambling are legal. still unsure why prostitution is illegal. we no longer need loan sharks, we have "credit card" companies who charge the same rates.

  6. when alcohol was illegal in the US, there was a lot of criminal violence associated. after legalization, did the criminals move to less violent crime ? was the violence a product of the competition for the big money involved ?

  12. clicky

    The short version? 3 masked men threw 6 firebombs at
    his house (and his doghouse). He got his safely-stored, and
    legally licensed, gun out and fired warning shots to drive
    off the attackers.

    So... the police arrested him. Reason? You can't fire
    at people burning your house. You can only fire if they
    are in your house threatening you.
    (Personally, if they burn your house down on top of you, I consider it a threatening problem.)

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    A target shooter and hunting-safety instructor, Mr. Thomson had the skill to shoot his attackers if he’d wanted to, Mr. Burlew said, but missed on purpose.



    Apparently, people are becoming irritated with the system.
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    In October, Toronto shopkeeper David Chen was acquitted of forcible confinement charges after he tied up a repeat shoplifter and demanded he stop raiding his grocery store.


    How dare he ? :ph34r:

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    'Christiansen was NOT Cooper and Christiansen was in no way involved in the only Unsolved Skyjacking in history...'



    Okay. Then try to explain all of these things about Kenny as a bundle of coincidences. Before you answer, know this: We have documention on these things, many of which are actually presented in the revised edition. The first entry about Kenny and a possible chute selection is strictly a guess.

    Kenny was a former paratrooper. That's a given. But at the time of the crime, he hadn't jumped out of a plane in almost 24 years. Maybe that's why he selected the older, military-type chute instead of the sport chute.

    He suddenly went from 512 bucks a month to tossing around more than five times his yearly income within eight months of the hijacking.

    Immediately after the hijacking, Kenny stops wearing his toupee and ceases attending union meetings at Northwest. He also begins dressing around town in coveralls, instead of his usual clean-cut type look. He does this until he dies in 1994. Most people in Bonney Lake that don't really know him think he IS a local farmer and have no clue he still works for the airline.

    July, 1972: Out of all the homes for sale in the Bonney Lake area, Christiansen buys his house for cash from Joe Grimes, a known friend of the alleged accomplice.

    December 1972 - Kenny pays off a $3,000 promissory note that he has owed for years, and purchases another lot behind what is now the Bonney Lake Safeway - both in cash. He still works for the airline and still only makes about $500 a month, averaging two trips a month on his Orient route. After one of these trips, he brings Dawn J an expensive handmade cuckoo clock he picked up in Japan.

    October 1994: A few months after Kenny's death, his brother Lyle takes possession of the $186,000 Kenny had in savings at the West One Bank in Sumner, WA, as well as the $24,501 in the checking account. The closing-of-account slips are turned over to Adventure Books of Seattle in 2010 and verified as genuine by both us and the History Channel. They contain the account numbers, dates, branch number, and initials from both the teller and the bank officer who authorized the closures. Lyle also returns to Minnesota with a very large gold and silver coin and stamp collection that belonged to Kenny. Kenny's tax returns don't even come close to reflecting this kind of income.

    Dawn Andrusko, the sister of the alleged accomplice, admits to both myself and the History Channel that she received a $5,000 cash loan from Kenny five months after the hijacking, after she asked her brother to approach him about it. Geestman is the one who actually gives her the money, although the repayments go to Christiansen. She pays it back in two years, using it as a down payment for a house for she and her four children.

    January, 2010 - At the first interview with Geestman's ex-wife, Margie immediately points to Bernie as a possible accomplice in the hijacking, although she denies Kenny was involved. In a subsequent interview, after being presented with certain evidence pointing to Kenny, she says: 'You're not going to make him look bad, are you? No matter what Kenny may have done, he was a nice guy...' She calls her ex-husband 'a crook'.

    February 2010: In her second interview, Margie Geestman produces a set of logs from a tugboat Geestman worked on from about 1968-1975. The 1971 log is the only one missing, which could prove Geestman was NOT at work over the weekend of the hijacking. Margie claims it was stolen a few weeks after KC's death, when her ex showed up after a drive of several hundred miles and broke into her house. He also took several photo albums and some personal papers. She now has locks and hasps on her office door INSIDE the house, even today.

    February 2010: Before Dawn J was told Kenny was a suspect, she pointed out the tie-tac in a picture as one she knew Kenny owned, although she didn't recognize the tie. When she was told that Kenny was a suspect in the hijacking, she said she had suspected the same thing a long time ago. She also said that Kenny owned a toupee but never wore it again after the date of the hijacking. This confirms what Lyle Christiansen claimed in 2005.

    April 2010: Brian McWilliams, or 'Mac' as he is better known, finds out from his apartment manager in Selah, WA that Skipp Porteous wants to speak to him about Christiansen. Mac was left the adjoining lot behind Kenny's house. He sold it right away and left town. He also took care of Kenny while he was dying. When he found out Porteous was looking for him, he moved three times in the next four months. Although he spoke to Geoff Grey for the NYM article, he hasn't been seen since.

    June 2010: A senior exec from Foss Tugs in Seattle contacts Adventure Books and says Geestman's claim that he was 'gone to sea for months at a time' was not true.

    July 2010: A picture of Carolyn Tyner's ex-husband Robin that was taken in 1992 at Kenny Christiansen's house is discovered. Robin is dressed like DB Cooper and carries a fake gun in the picture. He and Carolyn lived with Kenny for a while. They were later left the house, which they sold after Kenny's death.

    September 2010: Bernie Geestman admits to History Channel execs that he called up his sister and asked her to deny everything she previously said for the book. History Channel goes easy on him, hoping he will agree to appear on the show, which he eventually does. Initially, he told them he barely knew Kenny and thought he was a dishwasher, when in reality they worked together for years. Pictures of them together range over a period from 1951-1972. Kenny also attended his wedding in 1968.

    October 4, 2010: Helen Jones, a lifelong friend of both the alleged accomplice and Kenny, said that both men failed to show for Thanksgiving dinner the weekend of the hijacking, and she confirmed for the first time that both men were together, wherever they went. Previously, no one had said Kenny was with Geestman. Her daughter, who was also at the interview, describes Kenny as dark-complected, using the term 'olive'. When I asked her if she had ever seen the official FBI description of the hijacker, she said no.

    October 5, 2010: Helen Jones drives up to Bonney Lake from Sumner and tells producers for the History Channel show that she is absolutely certain Kenny smoked Raleigh cigarettes, not Camels. She had initially named the brand SHE had once smoked, but said that she remembered he actually smoked Raleighs because 'he saved the coupons'. She had no idea what the significance was of this statement, although History Channel did. The Decoded producers ask her to appear on the show, since they are filming when she shows up in Bonney Lake. She refuses, saying she's afraid of Geestman.

    October 6th, 2010: Geestman goes on camera but remains silent when asked where he was over the weekend of the hijacking. Previously, he had said he was out camping. He responds to questions only by calling me a liar and claiming he didn't do anything.

    December 10, 2010: Carolyn Tyner of Boulder, CO confirms Dan Rattenbury's story that approximately $2,000 in twenty-dollar bills was found in a pile of stumps on the adjoining lot Kenny once owned behind his house. She did not know Rattenbury. Her ex-husband Robin, the one in the 1992 dress-up-like-DB-Cooper picture, is currently in prison. Carolyn is remarried to a cop.

    December 24, 2010: Original edition of Into The Blast is pulled from publication. Revised Edition is released on January 6, 2011. Two corrections to the book are made on January 21 and the final version is re-released.

    Yeah...maybe it's all just coincidence. Then again, maybe not. And these things only scratch the surface regarding Kenny as a suspect.

    EDIT: Sluggo asks...

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    And yet...that chute hasn't a hole in it, even though it was buried (if you believe the FBI version) since 1945/46. That is 63 years.

    Source please.



    The picture of Robbie Burroughs standing next to the parachute. From the FBI website. Looks like it's in real good shape. There were a lot of articles about the chute, but that silk thing keeps nagging at me for some reason. Here's a quick quote from one of the articles:

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    'Cossey said Monday that the parachute he examined last week could not have been used by Cooper because of differences in fabric. The parachute laid on his garage floor on Friday was silk; the parachute packed for Cooper was ripstop nylon, Cossey said.'



    The hard truth is that no one can say it was a Cooper chute, but on the other hand their reason for saying it isn't doesn't make much sense to me.


    :D:D Those darned provable facts.
    Just one problem with those. Some people aren't going to
    discuss any facts that don't support their case.
    Especially if they have no facts that support their case.

    I like to check in and see which rock has finally collapsed after being
    eroded from the continuous waterfall of illogic and crap.

    Remarkable that you are still here, but no sympathy,
    I warned you about it months ago.

    It's the old 95/5 rule. 95% of the useless drivel comes
    from 5%. Cease to respond to that 5% and you will
    cease wasting your time.

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    Back in my teens/20's (1970's-80's) in my neck of the woods, that was a generic euphemism for "Do you get high?" Don't know if/how it's evolved since then.



    today's "do you get high" mistake

    Well... two mistakes... errr... three... or more.

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    MARION COUNTY — Some Florida teenagers are accused of sniffing the cremated remains of a man and two dogs.



    First, some people have cremated remains in an urn
    at their house. But! It is usually one person.
    However, one person and two dogs ?
    So, they broke into a weirdo's house.

    And be a responsible drug user. Know that drugs
    should not contain bone chips. Snorting a chip will likely sting.

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    Three teens and two juveniles face assorted charges including attempted residential burglary.



    Next, don't bring all your friends unless you plan to steal large furniture items or appliances.

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    We have MLK day for the same reason so many things are named JFK. :)



    At least MLK was an achiever.


    politics and speech making are fine, but true "achievement" is invention - I'd rather see George Washington Carver or Thomas Edison day for contribution to the people.


    i totally agree. unfortunately, fanfare and awards are often guided into becoming political tools, rather than signposts of lifetime work and real contribution.

  18. Quote

    We have MLK day for the same reason so many things are named JFK. :)



    At least MLK was an achiever. He accomplished the
    overthrow of the political system in the southern US.
    (As someone who was in school in 1969, I can describe
    its implementation. It was not as attractively one-sided as
    revisionist-history tv shows describe it.)

    JFK was a train wreck in every aspect of his life, politics included.

    MLK supported the idea of "integration". Giving equal opportunity
    to all citizens. That is an excellent idea.
    However, the new term is "diversity". it's opposite.
    That was never a term used by MLK. He wanted black Americans to
    have the opportunity to participate in American society, not sub-divide it.

    Instead, politicians have institutionalized the polarization
    of American society.

    Some aspects of integration have succeeded, in spite of the best efforts of those with vested interests in its failure.

  19. the Cuban govt seized private property without compensation,
    so the US govt would not normalize relations.

    other countries have gotten over it. eventually, you just
    have to recognize that this is the reality.

    personally, living a few miles from Cuba, i think about
    possibly retiring there one day.

    hopefully, as relations improve, the hotels and gambling
    will return.

  22. "All politics is local" - Tip O'Neill

    Wiki
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    The phrase, "All politics is local" is a common phrase in U.S. politics. The former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill coined this phrase which encapsulates the principle that a politician's success is directly tied to his ability to understand and influence the issues of his constituents. Politicians must appeal to the simple, mundane and everyday concerns of those who elect them into office. Those personal issues, rather than big and intangible ideas, are often what voters care most about, according to this principle.



    I agree.

    Federal govt vs state govt.

    "what have you done for me lately?"

    State - Usually, there is some self-interest for the elected official.
    A business connection. Also, it is right there.
    If you don't support the locals, they will figure it out.
    Bringing business back to the state is their goal.

    Federal - not seeing it. It seems that the Fed govt
    is selling out our business structure at every level.

    I see no difference in the policies of either party because
    I actually check to see who voted for a particular bill.
    Legislation goes through committees with member of both parties.

    "Business is war"

    Our congressmen need to pick a side.

  24. Ever go back and read their high school yearbook...
    and look at the pics.

    Weird hair, dorky (but stylish-at-the-time) clothes.

    So, I am posting a totally fictitious high school pic.
    Who is it?
    :D

    Other pics requested. :)