eddhead

hmmm... i was using the term 'Christian' more as an example.. Christian, Moslem, etc.. bute even if that is true, it doesn't necessary imply because i believe in Christ, I believe in all that is professed in his name. For instance, I do not necessarily believe in the notion that only believers will find salvation, as strict chrisitan dogma would suggest. As I mentioned in the prior post, deeds rather than faith is what I believe is important. For that matter, I am not sure I beleive in the concepts of heaven and hell (although I do believe in an after life) . To me, it is possible Christ was talking alogorically when he used terms like the "Kingdom of my Father". That is at definitly at odds with Christian beliefs, but it does not necessarily mean I do not believe in Christ the Savior. Becaues, there is quite a lot about mainstream Christian beliefs I question and I am not sure I fit comfortably into any maintream religious institutions. I think matters of spirituality are very personal and I am not sure that traditional worship practices work for me.

i don't know if the otherside is necessarily screwed... at the end of the day (figuratively and literaly) I would like to think that if we are judged, we will be judged on our deeds, not our beliefs. This is why i have such a big problem with mainstream religous dogma which tends to focus more on your beliefs than i am comfortable with.

not really sure i understand the question, oh god of sea-elephants, but i will answer tentatively, (and haltingly) yes.

I have always assumed that Agnosticism is akin to uncertainty.. i.e. one cannot be sure that God exists or does not exist.. whereas Aethisitic which implies a hard belief that God does not exist. taking religon out of the equation, you are agnostic on an issue if you cannot take a position because you are nuetral, or lack the understanding necessary to render a judgment. Here is the wilkepedia text: Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge or, alternatively, that while certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism. What I am suggesting is that you can believe in God, personally, without necessarily believing in established mainstream religous dogma

I think you can believe in God or a supreme being without necessarily following or believing in a formalized religon. To me, belief and God and adherence to religon are two seperate considerations. God either exists or doesn't. Religon is a philosophy or a dogma. To steal the phrasing you used in the etiquette thread, to me, religon is an artifical construct created by man.. but not so God to the believer.

minion? that is pretty insulting actually.. and no, i am not a minion. what exactly is your information source? I think Phoband makes an excellent point.. how is a diamond rolex presidential anything but a dress watch?

sorry... here is the text You have to admire the straight lines in the French capital: Haussmann's avenues, the pollarded trees as stern as sentries, the relentless Rue de Rivoli. Stand at the Place de la Concorde or the Invalides and what you get is civilization as geometry. The perfection gets under your skin and you wonder if you'll always have Paris. But French politics is another story, more crabwalk than linear exercise, more scuttling sidelong - a couple of meters forward here, one back there - than impetus toward a destination. There is movement, but seldom avowed and even more rarely celebrated. Somewhere in its soul, it seems, France wants immobility. Jacques Chirac, the outgoing president, understood that; he has delivered. A dozen years into his presidency it is still unclear whether he's really a man of the right or left. His love-hate relationship with capitalism had produced privatizations and hymns to the state in equal measure. The market remains a semi-dirty word. Quietly, very quietly, France under Chirac has continued its long slither down the catwalk toward a market economy, followed ever since François Mitterrand tried and failed a quarter-century ago to borrow from the Soviet economic plan. But the country's deities - the state, the functionary, the social model - and its demons - the entrepreneur, Anglo-Saxon capitalism, "neoliberal" competition - have not changed much for all that. France has a terrible, an irrational, fear of the very forces with which its leading global companies - L'Oréal, LVMH - live and thrive. And here we are, less than two months from an election that, not before time, will usher into power a new generation, one for whom the Cold War was prologue, facing a seemingly perennial question: can this country whose global ambitions are oddly undiminished recover its vitality, its sense of purpose, its coherence? The need is obvious enough. Opposition to the Iraq war will be Chirac's legacy, but it does not an invigorated national identity make. Take most measures - unemployment, growth, national debt - and France lags. Beyond the numbers, as Edmund Phelps, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, suggested in a recent interview in Le Monde, lurks a troubling loss of "vital élan," the taste for change, and the readiness for intellectual challenge. Unemployment, now at 8.8 percent, is the worst of inequalities. You feel that here - in the restive suburbs but also in young faces everywhere that look somehow numbed. While Germany, its longtime sidekick in capitalism with a Rhineland conscience, has absorbed 17 million East Germans, and Scandinavia has put people back to work without ripping out its safety net, France has merely tinkered with its failures. Both of the leading presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy on the center-right and Ségolène Royal on the center-left, are innovators in one critical sense. They do not hold the monarchical view of the presidency shared by Chirac and Mitterrand, two men who held themselves accountable only to a mystical idea of "La France." Not so for Sarkozy the modernizer, who wants to imbue Parliament with greater powers, and not so for Royal the mother, who wants the far-flung French family to be represented in forms of direct democracy that would create new accountability. As president, it seems, each would descend from the heights. That's positive; France has been trying to put the monarchy out of business for more than 200 years. But there the similarities end. Sarkozy is attached to the Atlantic alliance, Royal less so. Sarkozy is drawn to the United States, although he's curbing his enthusiasm in the name of electability; Royal has all the de rigueur reservations about the American "hyperpower." It's hard to imagine her in Palo Alto. Sarkozy, the upstart, is tempted to walk straight; Royal, a product of the best political schools, has the old crabwalk deeply bred in her. He's talking of circumventing the 35-hour week, streamlining cumbersome firing procedures and, odd notion, working more to earn more. She wants to raise the minimum wage to fire consumption, that in turn will spur investment and output, but who pays for that and for much else is a mystery. Her strength seems to lie in the promise of a pain-free extraction of the French from their problems; she will take care of them, as the state always has. "This is still a country that believes you build society from the state out," said André Glucksmann, a political philosopher. "The French are record holders when it comes to suspicion of liberalism. I believe Sarkozy wants to break with 30 years of a failed model preserved by left and right. But Royal never talks of painful measures or a crisis being needed for change." She does occasionally talk approvingly of Tony Blair's reinvention of the British left, a nod to ideas most powerfully represented in her Socialist Party by former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn. And Sarkozy, in the other direction, has taken to tipping his hat to the state and Gaullism. Each is reaching out. Not fast enough, however, to arrest the rapid rise of François Bayrou, whose "social-economic" platform, avowedly mixing the best of left and right, of state and market, of competition and protection, of profit and solidarity, allows France to dream anew of the best of all possible Gallic worlds. Bayrou has successfully triangulated the campaign. Whether he can triumph in it is another matter. A little bit of left and a little bit of right is what France has had for a long time. What it needs is a little bit of movement. At some level, more and more French people seem to be onto that. France will always have a certain idea of itself. The perfect perspectives of the capital - the orb of the sun seen dead center through the Arc de Triomphe - declare that glorious notion. But glory must be earned. It cannot be, or at least cannot forever be, an exercise in nostalgia. Getting reality and self-image more in line is what this election is really all about. Here's looking at you, Paris.

now, was that necessary?

I thouhg this was interesting, especially considering the upcoming elections. Would be curious to get the perspectives or our french-resident members. http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/02/28/w...8globalist.html

+12 = 2751.

Really? well today i am wearing a gen 5513 with a nice blue suit, and it looks great. Not only that but this morning I was sitting accross from my boss, who is an executive level manager. He was wearing his Pesi GMT with a dark blue suit (probably a brooks bros.) and it looked pretty damn good to me too. Both with metal bracelets. I know people in pretty high income groups but I do not know too many people who own genuine VC's

I wear my 42MM with a leather strap and a suit and it looks great. I will let you know about the 45MM when it arrives

A pig is an animal with dirt on his face His shoes are a terrible disgrace. He has no manners when he eats his food. He's just plain lazy, and extremely rude, So if you don't care a feather for a fig, You may grow up to be a pig.

well there you go than. I came to the party late missed this last night, but was going to guess rep only because the red lettering on the dial looked off to me... but ubi is the man...shows what i know...

thank goodness you added metaphorically... it is not bad enough that i have that sea-elephant thing in my nightmares...

sorry about not opining sooner, but I absolutely agree with the concept of voluntary adherance to a standardized naming convention, measured by a 5 star grading system. As for drop-shippers, I am not as convinced they should automatically be excluded. The only requirement should be that they certify the accuracy of what they are selling per the guidelines. If they are tight enough with their suppliers to do that, they should be eligible for the higher rating. If not, frankly, they shoiuld be. but if they certify something and end up wrong, we'll deal with it in the review section.

really? ok, let's try it.... what kind of pigs? see? doesn't work at all!!!

well, that sounds innovative, but doesn't that put us all in the position of asking the question... "what kind of pigs"?

that is how i read it as well.

yeah, but sea elephant doesn't seem to go with "koo koo ka chu!!" like walrus does.

Dude, you look like a walrus.

but you can always get back to the odd number by taking into account the guy behind you.. or at least i think so... actually, i am still recovering from a long nite.. and i doubt i am up for this now...

wow. kinda scary.

re-read the more detailed edited post.. i think you will find it is correct. and if it is not it is friday night and happy hour in NYC anyway so it is all good!!

pm sent