Lenticular_J

Cordial Churchman released their seersucker bow ties recently. If any of y'all are interested in bow ties, take a look at Ellie's. All handmade in Carolina - my first two proper bows come from her, and I love them dearly. She uses great materials, yet somehow manages to keep prices really low. She also makes neckties and a host of other things, but the bows are the main event. Note: they don't offer very formal bow ties. It's all very southern, cool, casual. Don't even think they offer much in silk. Sounds like an ad, but, meh. She seems to be a nice lady that has a helluva business. I'm excited to pick up a seersucker or two. My second bow tie from her is wool and very wintery. So, naturally, I need something for spring and summer (besides my pink chambray/gingham)!

I like their style and minimalism, but I generally dislike anything that's instantly and easily associated with one brand. That's just me.

Semi-formal? Three-piece, lose the jacket early on, dark tie, white shirt, nice and simple. If you're wearing a three-piece suit, suspenders don't much matter unless they're braces and holding up your pantalones. If you want navy, I'd say pea coat. I prefer beige on my trenches.

Felt a bit too out-there for me. Not really everyman sort of posts.

I'll probably be doing it this summer, if my OSO thinks I oughtta.

Although I typically do not side with the military--and I won't in regards to the RS article--I have to say that not all soldiers are prejudiced, but there is a good portion that give the rest a bad name. Aye. The officers should be ashamed for not catching wind of these anti-civilian ideas sooner. Of course the enlisted men are at fault, but the officers should have had more control over their men. Sometimes I'm disappointed with how American troops are kept when they're stationed overseas. A lot of stuff builds up, and many times lousy officers are at fault. They'll allow and even encourage hatred to build and build, then we have things like this. Those men better be court-marshaled. The whole platoon if necessary. The beginning was combat, and protocol wasn't followed completely, but I don't know enough to say anything truly wrong happened. The rest, though...

I think if either the US or China severed relations with the other, they would relatively quickly begin something of isolationism - pouring all their resources into their own nation. China would have to find someone to export more too, so they'd probably sell goods even cheaper to the EU and other places, whereas the US sells a lot more capital goods, so those can be used in whatever factories are built to provide consumer goods to Americans. They'll be more expensive, to be sure. But who can truly know what would happen? We just make guesses. I personally believe China as a whole, yes, is a superpower. But it's a superpower without many teeth, since it is economically more dependent on the rest of the world than the US or EU - few of the goods produced there would be sought-after by Chinese people, whereas Western capital goods are used here already. Meh.

Everything you said is basically incorrect. Uh...?

Attaboy. Jett's pushing himself out of love, after knowing her for a year and a half. EDIT: Oh yeah, I never told you guys my story. Meh. Obviously didn't work out, but I think it was a good experience. EDIT 2: Or my real name. More meh.

Lol, guess I didn't keep myself updated on this. Huh, wow, I had no idea.

In recent times, the USD is getting stronger if anything. That or the Euro is getting weaker, but I haven't paid any attention to the EU - I just know that they're no longer far ahead of the dollar. I personally am surprised that Kanadian Kash is worth quite a bit less than the dollar, seeing as Canada is our biggest trading partner. We ought to be equals. Of course, having a currency that's too powerful can be bad for a country. We would likely export more if our currency was weaker.

I didn't realize anyone was still on a precious metal standard... Lets say the EU, Russia and China get tired of US posturing and dump the dollar as the worlds reserve currency. Your now screwed because you have nothing backing up your dollar. Countries with high exports don't have that problem because they can then sell their exports for whatever the new currency is. Since you import so much your screwed because you now have nothing to buy those goods with. That isn't the way the world works. None of those nations have the power to change the most widely-accepted currency in the world. Nobody backs up their currency in modern times. Our currency is backed by our sheer amounts of production, just as every nation's is. The EU as a whole has a huge amount of production, whereas Russian and Chinese GDPs are far lower than their population should dictate. If the United States didn't import as much as we did, the global economy would be destroyed. What magical new country would pop up in this fantasy you're spinning to pay for all these goods? If you're going to claim that we're "screwed", use better reasoning than "I changed the rules."

Yeah, we do import a lot more than we export. But we also export majorly. I don't think you grasp the concept of GDP - Gross Domestic Product. It's the world market value for all goods and services produced in a nation in a given year, either nominal (using price values for that year) or real (going by whatever year's values you want). We have the largest in the world - our GDP is roughly the same as our national debt, and, depending on who you ask, it is the largest (by some accounts second) in the world (some figures count EU exports to itself, but evened out the EU and US GDPs are close). GDP is what matters. Net exports - shucks, most of the world imports more than they export. Especially in a service-based economy. Aye, and sees is right - if you think Canada has assets backing up their colorful money, you're quite wrong. Even though an American dollar is only backed by the American government, it's still worth more than a lot of nations'. All this being said, I do think our nation is in trouble - not from competition, so much as from its own growth. We're growing too much, and not in the right ways. Agriculture is suffering more than it should be, and we are far too dependent on foreign energy resources, and nonrenewable fuels in general. In Texas, the largest power providers get huge percentages of their electricity from wind farms out here in the western part of the state, but it can be faulty, and depending so much on a resource that is not completely dependable has already blown up several times with major outages in the cities to the east. We just need to slow down and take a look at what we're doing. Then, we need to carry on.

The United States of America is the fourth-largest exporter of goods and services in the world, although our GDP eclipses rivals such as China and the entire European Union, showing that we consume many of our goods and services in-country. We also import more than the rest of the world, mainly due to our labor being some of the most highly-valued in the world. American-made clothing, automobile, and raw material sales are increasing overseas. For a long time, we've been the largest exporter of computer materials. Japan exceeds us there in some ways, but Microsoft and Apple are two American corporations which have held the markets in an iron grip for a long time. American crops and livestock feed a massive part of the Western world. Goods I have personal experience with: American cotton (West Texas is the biggest competitor of China and India in cotton production), natural gas (currently heats the majority of many communities in the Western states), corn (used as food, livestock feed, and heavily subsidized as ethanol), alfalfa (livestock and ethanol), hay (livestock), and petroleum products (mostly high-grade fuels, asphalt, greases). And even with all of their oil production they still have to buy most of their oil from other countries. Yeah, we do. We're huge, remember? By percentage, we produce a massive amount of our oil - we import roughly 60% I believe, almost all petroleum. We only recently surpassed Canada in our imports, and plenty of other nations imported more by percent. Don't forget that the US is now engaged in several wars around the world, their supplying arms for virtually free to isreal, doing multiple drone attacks into pakistan, ground wars in both afghanistan and iraq, enforcing the no fly zone in libya now, whcih the US just volunteered nato to be the sole enforcer of that. Where do you think all the money for all of this will come from? Wars stimulate production, although our economy is predominantly service. We have troops across the world. Bond sales and taxes pay for it all, same way things have been payed for since WWI. tldr- US isn't exporting anything anymore and is slowly going bankrupt. China might not be the next super power but the US is going down. We export a whole lot. We have some of the most powerful banks in the world - our dollar (backed by nothing more than our government's word that it's a good currency) has held a high position in currency exchanges for centuries. I'd ask what you mean by going down, but as I've noted, you aren't the most educated on economics or world politics. Please fix that. EDIT: Oh, wait, here's more! and imported? Last I checked, our trade deficit was around $700 billion.

Cite some sources that clearly show this. A source is mankind, our nature. What's all this about sides? No matter how you look at it, the soldiers of both opposition and Libyan forces are people. They have families, they have loved ones. Sure, there are bad people, because conflict brings out scavengers and evil. You shouldn't blanket one side with "wrong" and the other with "right". I'm sure both sides are committing atrocities. It's a shame something like this has to happen. A lot of bad will come. Hopefully there will be good come from it as well.

From everything I read, we will end combat operations and assume a support role under this "political panel" that is forming. I can't see why Obama would just hand over control of the entire Sixth and Seventh Fleets, not to mention a Marine Expeditionary Unit, if anyone expects heavy fighting.

Never trust statistics. Data can be and is twisted by everyone that can get their hands on it. In this age of infographics and charts, the true propagandists understand that the people who consider themselves "educated" can be swayed terrifyingly easily by numbers.

Hope y'all are doing good. Me and my friends bought a pedal boat. It rocks. We are having a competition to see who can receive the first boat head. None of us really wants to win. It will make us feel dirty. But girls love it. Go ahead with your speed boats and jet skis, rich boys. I'll just build my leg muscle until I can do what I want. Yeah

I don't think that's true - sometimes violence is necessary for revolution, and indeed has sometimes been successful. It really depends on who ends up in power afterwards - the american revolution for example was a violent one yet it managed to stop the oppression. I disagree there. For one thing, it was a completely different time. The violence was quite small in scale, and it was more a war waged between two nations (well, parts of two nations - neither the Colonies nor Britain had their full power behind it) than a civil war/overthrow such as Libya's. There was little actual overthrow of government in the birth of the United States. It was more a separation, not a division. The American Civil War was similar. The Confederate States wanted to be their own nation to pursue their own goals, because the direction America was going did not further their own agenda. Obviously, it didn't work, but had they accomplished their goal, they may have succeeded due to the desire for separation rather than overthrow (I think I prefer that word here). Now, I'm not saying violence won't happen, nor that it doesn't have its place. But when attempting to change government rather than start anew differently, violence cannot be the answer. I like to think of India here. Of course, that too was a separatist movement, but Britain had a much tighter hold on India than the American colonies. The nonviolence of the majority of the Indian peoples guaranteed support worldwide, and Britain gave them freedom. Had they waged a massive war, the results may very well have been different. Or the American Civil Rights movement. Segregation and racism may have taken complete control had a militant group like the Black Panthers led the movement rather than Martin Luther King, Jr. I support Libya changing - it is needed, although I know embarrassingly little about Libya and its history. I just think a violent revolution will further the cycle of hatred. Those tossed out of power will sit bitterly until they can get their revenge. I like how Egypt went about it because, despite millions and millions of protesters, there was practically no violence in their demonstrations. Their reform looks to last, because so many people from all walks of life supported a peaceful change (widely speaking, of course there were instances of violence). That's just my two cents, though. Maybe I'm a pacifist. It'll be fun to explain that to my recruiter.

My best friend's brother is in the seventh fleet. We're just instituting a no-fly zone and protecting who we can. I doubt we'll have any boots on the ground; not in anything but support roles at least. As Rocco said, this is a French war that we're all getting dragged into due to common interests, not to mention for the Libyans themselves. Although I cannot support any violent revolution. It will only continue the cycle of oppression.

I've heard really good things about Tellason's selvage, too. Those are named after The Clash. Sounds kind of hardcore.

Don't like 'em. Or flat-billed hats, or shirts that scream tool-aimed brands like Hurley or Billabong, Although Hurley makes some kick-ass v-necks.

My friend Travis does it well, but his whole look is honestly very Saintsy. Usually simple and casual and junk.

I don't even know anything about unions, we don't really have them in Texas. My history teacher says that in quite a few places (he used Massachusetts and Wisconsin as examples, I think) teachers doing the same exact thing as him, or even less, make more than triple his salary. Hrm. But I don't know current union situations in the Midwest, so I'm ducking back out.

Sockless I'm cool with, no break can look good like in your picture. I'm usually not a fan of the no break look, though. Some guys make it way too obvious how hard they're trying to follow trends. Reminds me of the picture here: http://www.thestyleblogger.com/reader-question-tom-vs-thom/ If it's rolled and barely there, I like it. When it's rolled up ten times, that's bad. Or just cut off real high. Goes against my upbringing, I suppose. Or something.