SeanF

Yeah and from what I saw when I looked through the ads their sales are as good as some of the other places. Circuit City seems to have some really good deals this year but most of the deals don't seem as good as last year.

They were right last year. I think most of these are leaked by either employees or by the printers of the ads.

Here is the link to where you can download the walmart ad: http://www.daddyodeals.com/redirect.php?url=http://www.sendspace.com/file/xw3j2l

I think there is no doubt that the Pac 10 has the worst officials in the US. The guy was standing 3 ft away and looking right at him and blew the call. It wasn't like it was a tough one.

Yeah the more you mark a box like fragile, live corals, rush the more they want to throw it around and mishandle it.

More than likely they will be fine if he used oxygen. The only thing will be the temperature but even then you should be alright. It was pretty warm yesterday and corals generally do better when cool than warm. It all really depends on whether the guy has any idea what he is doing. On a side note UPS, Fed Ex, and DHL seem to be dropping the ball a lot lately.

The problem with PCI is not if it goes bad but when it goes bad.

Dremels work fine for either type and there is no need to cut most of the way through the skeleton and let them seperate by themselves. As long as the coral is healthy you can just take that dremel and cut right through the thing flesh and all. The coral will usually be fully open and happy again within an hour of fragging. With the branching Euphyllias you can even cut through the heads and they will live.

Here is the problem with the radical environmental movement. There once was a hippie that sat in a tree for a long time and eventually paid like a million dollars for one tree. That million dollars could have bought hundreds of acres of trees that while they may not have been as old as this one tree but they could have eventually become that old. This is a good example with what is wrong with a lot of these movements. There are not really any politicians that are not hypocrits to some degree it is just what degree they are. I am not going to say that we should not limit what we do but if you are going to lead the charge you should lead by example. How about we convince the 3rd world countries and newly industrialized nations that they should give up their chance to not live in poverty so that they can help the earth which may or may not be going through a change that is caused by their desire to do something better for their family. As far as global warming there are hundreds of things that are contributing factors to the warming of the earth. Species will adapt or go extinct. We as humans interfere in the natural world far to much. We have almost caused species of trees and plants to go extinct by putting out fires. For all we know our efforts to help the earth will cause more damage than it will help. The topic of Al Gore. The big advocate of carbon offset credits. First let me ask you how you can offset your pollution. The answer is there is no real way. There are two reasons for carbon offset credits. Number one so rich people can feel better about themselves and the fact that they pollute 100s of times more than the rest of us. The Second Reason is if you are Al Gore you had a little prethought before you introduced the idea and started a company to sell carbon offset credits so that you can get rich and fly around in your private jet by convincing people that they are destroying the earth and telling them how they can make it better. I know so many people out there hate George Bush and think he is evil for starting a war but let us look back at what has led up to this war and what has happened because of it. Lets start with Sadaam Hussein. This is a man who was an incredibly brutal dictator that killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. He intended on everyone believing that he had weapons of mass destruction. This was a ploy to keep Iran from invading his country after we put him in his place in the first gulf war. So we overthrew a brutal dictator because we thought what he wanted us to think. Either way although we may not have gone in there for the reason we thought we were it will be in the end an amazing result and that is a free and peaceful Iraqi democracy. So once all this plays out and we have a Middle east based on democracy and freedom at that point in time George Bush should be given the Nobel Peace prize for standing on an unpopular idea and making a real difference in the world not pushing some idea that may or may not be happening.

The tank of the month on Reef Central this Month is a T5 driven reef tank. Unfortunately I left Oklahoma before he started building this beast but I saw his 225 that had metal halides on it. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both sets of lighting it really comes down to your personal likes or dislikes.

you have a pm

I would be willing to say that the people that post on this board represent a small highly specialized portion of the actual market that most of the stores that you mentioned are targeting and a store can make far more money getting new customers started in the hobby and creating a customer base than trying to skim customers off of existing businesses. There are plenty of people in the Portland area to support a huge amount of stores it is the cost of living that is the problem. I came from Oklahoma City which is just slightly larger than the Eugene/Springfield area and currently supports 6 petsmarts, 2 petcos, and around 12 independent fish only shops so it just comes down to how many people have the disposable income to spend and creating those people that don't have aquariums but want them into customers.

I am willing to bet that the good doctors are getting that 14 day guarantee through the wholesalers that are direct shipping their livestock anyway so what the heck does he care. Because just in case you don't know these fish that they are so high on they never see. They are direct shipped from wholesalers. I am guessing it is a setup very similar to what Walmart has with their fish wholesalers in that the wholesaler is required to provide the warranty on their fish. I will also guarantee you that this is completely a marketing ploy so that everyone will be discussing how LFS should be offering a guarantee. I have had customers that wanted me to replace a fish that jumped out of their tank. I think that if you are dealing with a reasonable store they will be willing to work with you even if they are pretty sure that it was a problem with your tank that killed the livestock. Unless of course every time you take something home you kill it.

I will send some stuff what time do you want it by I can meet you somewhere or what ever is easiest. Could you PM me your number so we can make arrangements.

There are columnists in the New York times one of the most liberal newspapers in the country that now believe that we are making signifigant progress in the war. I am not saying it has all been roses all the time but that is the nature of war particularly gorilla warfare which is basically what this has become. It was a nasty can of worms to get into but really not much worse than going into Bosnia. Whenever you have two people fighting in the name of Religion it is not going to go well. I am personally opposed to religion. I think far more bad comes from it than good. Religions in general are fundamentally good but the peope practicing the religion twist them in ways to justify their means. Whether it is people coming to your door to try and convert you or people convincing little kids that strapping bombs to their body is the greatest thing that they can do. I am not saying that there are not conservatives on fox news but they regularly bring on Democrats also. In fact there are democrats that cohost some of the programs. I find this funny because how many conservatives are there on any of the news channels. Zero. The war is covered quite a bit on fox news. I don't watch all the news stations as much so I cannot comment on exactly how much news coverage it gets on them but I do turn them on occasionally. How much do you watch fox news? I am guessing you don't but you can read about it on those liberal blogs. I believe we should institute a flat income tax but the biggest benefit is not in the tax itself but in its simplification of the system. We could almost completely do away with the IRS which I have never looked up the numbers but I am guessing they take a signifigant chunk out of the budget. I am not personally really opposed to the idea of universal health care but I know how it would end up and that is the problem. It would be an idealistic way of doing things that may work for 4 months well but then there will be complaints filed about something then we will have to have a department to handle that and then an oversite commitee to make sure they are doing their job and then someone to look over them. The politicians always have to find away to get their fingers in the pie. The only way to get away from this is to privatize more things. Not only would the plan to privatize social security taken the ability for the government to screw it up more but if it would have been handled in a mutual fund type manner it would have really given a boost to the economy. As far as jails keep those people in a cell all by themselves for their sentence. The only people they should get to talk to are psychatrists and job training people. Better yet they could get closed circuit feeds in their room with nothing but training on them. No violence this way. A pretty miserable way to serve time I would say but this would probably reduce the amount of repeat offenders because many of them could earn degrees while they are in jail and then go out and get good jobs. I have been in half a dozen correctional facilities when I used to work on x-ray equipment. Just not that rough. I mean when I punish my daughter I don't tell her to go to her room but you can watch TV and play with your toys. I mean we let people out of Guantanamo Bay that we new were terrorists and then they go back and fulfil their missions as suicide bombers. As far as the depression and the jobs available the jobs that were available while they may have paid a decent wage were often times very dangerous. I would never give someone who is not motivated enough to go out and work a good job just so they have one. This the land of opportunities not of handouts you have to work hard to get ahead in life and far too many people aren't willing to do that. What was that movie with Will Smith where he became a stock broker. If I am not mistaken that was based on a real person. That is the kind of sacrifice and drive that should be rewarded. You have to be willing to risk it all and put yourself out there to do it but it can be done. There are reasons why people have less money, less savings, and more debt than when you were born. The biggest reason for this is because people are all about me, me me where as previous generations thought about leaving a legacy behind for future generations. People have to have things now. We are an immediate gratification society we waste lots of money. The other reason would be much bigger government. The government grows faster than those who support it. Everytime a conservative president takes office they cut taxes which in the short term leads to a higher deficit but in the long term leads to a net gain. We can argue about government for a long time but no signifigant changes will be made. Just think about how much money is being thrown at the presidential race. Think of all the good that could actually be done with that money but it is wasted. That is the name of the government game waste but that wasted money goes into the pockets of the people that win the races so it will always continue this way. He or She who makes the rules is very likely to cut their own throat. As far as who I would vote for in the election it would be John McCain. He may not be completely honest but is definately the most honest canidate. I mean the guy supports the war which is a pretty unpopular stance in the country right now but in line with his party. Then goes and supports the immigration bill which was political suicide in his party. You can usually tell the honest politician because nobody likes them. I mean Mitt Romney is full of it on most of his views. He changes depending on who he is talking to. Pretty much the same with the other Republicans. I can't say anything nice for most of the Dems. I mean this is how the Clintons get elected. They poll then they way the popular opinion versus that of the people that are footing the bill for their campaign and play the odds. I mean Bill Clinton is completely full of it any time words are coming out of his mouth. Baraka Obama is trying to play the I didn't vote for the war card all the way to the white house when the only reason he didn't was because he wasn't around to yet. John Edwards now really do we think that anyone that lives in a mansion really gives a crap about poor people. If he did maybe he would quit wasting so much money and actually do something. Joseph Biden seems to be the most honest one I have seen so far but I haven't heard much from him. The person that I would like to see run as kind of a Democrat would be Joe Liebermann. That is a guy that shoots straight but like I said you don't win elections by telling the truth. You win elections by convincing the majority of the voting public that you are exactly what they are looking for. This is why I am a bush supporter. He is a good old southern boy that doesn't mince words. He does what he feels is right and in the best interest of the country regardless of what people think of him. I know you are going to say that he lied about the Iraq war. Which is BS. He operated on the current intellegence which Hillary Clinton was also more than a vocal advocate of at the time. It was bad intellegence because Saddam wanted Iran to believe that he was much more capable than he was. I mean what are you going to do. We tried to allow UN weapons inspectors to do their jobs but he kept thwarting their efforts to verify what weapons he had. We kept warning him we had to act or else we would have never had any respect in the world anymore. It is the reason why we will eventually have to go into Iran. The idiot in charge of that nation is playing a game of brinksmanship that we cannot afford to string out until a point in time that he actually has the weapons that he is trying to produce. He will without a doubt use the nuclear technology or pass it along to some religious crazies that will. I just find it incredibly funny that if I express my point of view based on all of the information I obtain. I am just spewing right wing propoganda but your spewing of left wing stuff is your opinion. Well I guess I will end with immigration. I am not saying that rounding up all the illegal aliens will be easy or cheap in the short term but it will pay for itself in the long term. Eventually it will be easier and easier. I mean this state has ID card programs, Bank of America is offering banking to illegal immigrants, the very things that enable them to milk this country for benefits without paying taxes are the things that we can use to round them up and send them back. Definately any illegal immigrant that gets drug in by the police for violating another law should be immediately without question deported. There are more and more incidents of people that are here illegally that have been hauled into court repeatedly for breaking the law and then they get to continue to live here. They then really have no respect for our legal system because they don't suffer any real punishment for it so why should they stop. Lots of people die every year trying to come to this country because they know that once they are here more than likely they will get to live here forever. While this is a great goal there are ways to get here without violating the laws and maybe they should take a little more time to follow the law then giving us the finger and saying that there is nothing we are going to do about it. One of the things that people were fighting for in the immigration bill was the ability to vote. This would be great for them because in many areas they could take over the government. You have to look at the bad side of situations also. I think many democrats look at things on the glass half full side and don't think about the long term. Whether it be health care reform or the war you have to think fully about what will actually happen not the idealized outcome. I am not trying to get in a pissing contest with you but you were the one that started attacking people with my views and I personally think that maybe you could be served by taking in some of the information instead of blindly believing every fact they spew forth on those blogs. Like I said numbers can be made to say whatever someone wants and it is usually the people that are spewing forth the most numbers that think they have something to prove. It is all about the bottom line Money.

So enlightened one where should I read all this great information. Should I go to some liberal blog where they make up facts and figures to support their point. The funny thing about studies is that depending on who is doing the study the facts always seem to support their point of view. Lets try using a little common sense. I cannot think of one thing run by the government where there isn't a huge amount of waste. If you can I am welcome to hear about it. Where are you facts to support the fact that trickle down economics doesn't work. In order for a capitalist society to work money has to be spent. The more money you take away in taxes the less people have to spend. The reason why some companies get breaks on at least local taxes is to bring jobs to an area. These jobs translate into more people being able to spend money in local businesses thus generating more revenue for the local government in taxes. You like to use the "talking points" statement. Well all the things that you are talking about are left wing talking points. Yes I don't like people that break the law. I don't see anything wrong with that. Yes I don't have sympathy for murders, rapists, or even just people that shoplift. Yes their country sucks but that is not our fault. If we let them keep coming our country will be just like theirs. Yes the time to stop it would have ideally been awhile ago but that is not justification for not rounding them up and sending them back now. As far as 50% of people in Jail being black I don't know where you are going with that. Probably over 99% of people in jail deserve to be there. Jail is to easy that is why people keep going back. If jail was tough maybe when the criminals got out in the real world they might actually try to make an honest living instead of just going back to breaking the laws. Two ways to make jails less crowded. Make jail a living hell. These people broke the law. They more than likely affected other people in a negative way but hey let them sit around all day and watch cable and work out. That sounds rough doesn't it. The second is to not let all the murderers sit on death row for a decade. 2 years is more than enough time to get through their appeals and get them out of the jail. As far as the cops not doing their jobs let me just ask you this question? When do most cops work? During the day. When do most crimes occur? At night. The neighborhood I used to live in was one of the worst in Springfield for theft. Great to find this out after you move in. I saw cops drive by all day long but there was never a cop around in the middle of the night. My vehicle was broken into 5 times while I was there. You call the cops they won't even bother to come out. The kidsport office that was right around the corner from me was broken into 12 times in one year. Probably by the same people over and over again. Rather than taking a proactive approach they just kept letting it happen. You are completely right about me. I have no sympathy for anyone who has no respect for other people and illegal immigrants take jobs away from other people. Yes they are jobs that most people wouldn't want to do but maybe if we quite making life so easy for people that are lazy they would get off their butts and appreciate the ability to have a job. I guarantee during the depression people would have loved to have those jobs. In fact too many people in this country don't appreciate what they have. It is part of the reason why so many americans are so far in debt. Everybody is so hung up on material possesions and so they end up working so many hours that they don't get to see their family but their kids have all the toys they could possibly want. You are right I am just an evil guy that happens to give thousands of dollars to charity every year. I just want to make sure that this country doesn't get screwed up like so many others in this world. "I said that currently the average American Spends OVER 4000 dollars on health care per year. Secondly, all the other countries with health national health care pay far less per capita. Doesnt it make sense that the taxes for this health care would be under 4000 dollars" How does this make any sense. If on average an american spends over 4000 on health care how are you going to increase taxes less than 4000 per person to cover national health care. That seems like some funny math to me. You keep saying that countries with national health care pay less per capita. Again is that out of pocket expense or in taxes. Where do your numbers come from? I am guessing that they come out of the movie. I will not give that blow hard any of my money to go see his movie. I know I won't change your mind so go ahead and vote for the people that can't get anything done. I will vote for the person that I feel is the most honest no matter what side of the isle they sit on. Also for your information I watch Fox News the news station with the highest ratings in america. I don't listen to the radio. Since you brought up the radio though what happened to Air America. Ohh thats right they went bankrupt. Why did they go bankrupt. My guess is because they had liberals running it with the same theories they have on the economy.

Yes lets increase taxes so that nobody has any money. That is like saying that if I raise all my prices on things in the store I will make more money. Cutting taxes increases revenues for companies which in turn creates more jobs which employs more people which cuts back on the amount that we are paying for unemployed people which generates more revenue. The problem with this state is that the people in charge have no idea what the heck they are doing. You raise the minimum wage it makes it harder on business to keep people employed so they have 2 choices they can raise the prices on everything they sell or they can employ less people. Texas is one of the wealthiest states in the union and they privatized a lot of their different programs. They have privatized road maintainence on some of their roads and those are the nicest ones. The ones the state takes care of are in bad shape. Ok so you want to save everyone then what is wrong with the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein was killing hundreds of thousands of people and thumbing his nose at the rest of the world while doing it. So why is it better to supply health care to people that break our laws but not alright to save people from tyranny and oppression. I say if they want to try to come to our country illegally then they should be prepared to suffer. This country is far to weak on crime not because we don't have enough cops but because they won't do their jobs and then when they actually do catch someone they are in jail for a couple of days and right back out. They just don't care anymore. They would rather sit on the freeway writing speeding tickets than taking care of the people that pay their salaries. We need to start at the top with reforms not the bottom. If we try to reform health care with our current government all the money will get used up for special projects written into the bills. We need to put our votes out not for people that tell us what we want to hear but for people that will actually get something done. I am tired of politicians taking polls to find out what their position is going to be during election time. When something is popular like the war they are all for it but when it starts to go bad they want to run. What if the French would have said to heck with these guys during our fight for freedom. Now is a time to have some intestinal fortitude and deal with hardship. Vote for people that have unpopular ideas because these are the people that are telling the truth. Quit putting up with politician misspending our hard earned money. This is supposed to be the land of opportunity. This thought brought many people here from around the world legally. That doesn't mean sit around and milk the government for all you can get it means work hard and you will get ahead.

Yes the problems with socialized medicine are as follows: increased taxes which probably won't affect the lower income levels as much as the people that make the most money(the ones that are able to provide most of the jobs for the lower income level people), incompatent doctors, and long waits to get care. But after a couple of months you will be able to get something to help you with your cold that ran its course after a couple of weeks. These problems are the same everywhere that has socialized medicine.

Sorry to hear that but socialized medicine has been a failure every where else it has been tried. Sure it doesn't cost anything but you can end up on a waiting list for an eternity to get in to get something done. I don't know if any of you have ever been to a military doctor but I can imagine that is what this would end up being like. All the worthless doctors that can't practice in the real world end up flocking to the military because they are protected against lawsuits. You go to a military doctor for just about anything and they will send you home with some 800mg motrin and hope you get better.

The government shouldn't be in charge of the government let alone health care. We should have universal health care but instead of it being run directly from the government we should have insurance companies submit bids for contracts from state to state with specifications about what is covered and the like. Then the government cuts them a big check. The insurance companies do a pretty good job of holding the prices of what doctors can charge down. I used to hear them complain about it all the time. The problem with drugs is that these companies keep researching drugs to treat things that already have good drugs to treat them. These new drugs usually are not as effective as the old drugs and have more side effects. Then after they have spent a ton of money on research they want to get these drugs sold so they do tons of national advertising about how great these drugs are and then go smooze the doctors telling them how great there new product is and then giving them incentives for selling it. So you have someone who comes in to their office asking for a drug that the doctor is getting a kickback on of course the doctor puts them on the drug. Then eventually people have problems with the new drugs and sue the drug companies and have to take more medication or have surgery to fix the problems. Then every once in awhile the drug companies actually come up with a medication that is a great new medication but it is rare and in order for them to stay in business they have to generate income with all the garbage they are producing.

Ok I can't resist anymore here are a picture of one of the new varieties I just got.

Holy moly look everyone it is Stacy she lives. I guess the World of Warcraft has let you go for a little while.

No not Barleychowns tank but I have seen it before featured as tank of the month on Reefcentral.

I just wanted to be the first to personally thank Sarah and Mike for opening up there house so we could drool over her tank. It is definately coming along nicely.

Why should I take the risk on a coral that has a good probability of having parasites when I can get one that in my experience has much less of a chance of having it. I would love to be able to take in tank raised corals but until the attitude towards the control of parasites changes I choose not to take that chance. Obviously there is always a risk but this is all about playing the odds and taking every precaution I can. I make my living doing this and am not willing to risk that on taking in one coral. I have read the stuff online about how they are harmless but I can tell you that I know of more than half a dozen people that have had problems with sps death due to these parasites. Maybe corals isn't there prefered food or maybe there are species that are very similar in appearance but look at one of your pictures again. You state that they are not on your corals unless there is dead tissue but look at the circled areas in your photo. There are flatworms on the coral and the polyps are closed. My question is why wouldn't you take every opportunity to keep a questionable species under control. With as fast as those things reproduce they cannot possibly be good. We all know the golden rule of reef tanks that nothing good ever happens fast in a reef tank. I am just advocating better quarantine procedures by everyone and a greater awareness of the problems that are wide spread with tank raised corals at this time. If you don't think they are widespread go to some of the major boards and look around. I keep an eye on several club boards around the country and parasites are becoming a major problem.