Local: This sucker here, we can make alot of money ripping her off!

Sucker: Did I mention that I understand your language and I have no intention of paying you triple the going rate for a 20 minute car ride to my hotel?

Local: Only $10 and I can drive you the 5 blocks to your destination. Easy money when it comes to these foreigners.

Sucker: What a minute. I can see my hotel from here and do I look like I’m carrying a large bag of money on my back?

Local: You want your shoes shine? It’s only $2.

Sucker: Great price! However, I’m wearing tennis shoes! You want to shine my walking/running trainers?

Local: I need to charge you tax and VAT on top of the taxes that you will be paying. We agreed to this in the email.

Sucker: Your email said that this was the total amount, including taxes and VAT. Do you know what included mean? It means it’s already calculated.

Local: Oh, well I will have to get back with you on that after I look up this word “included.”

Local: Yes, we have a restaurant on the top level, but we don’t serve food up there.

Sucker: Then that’s not a restaurant, is it? You just have tables up there for what reason?

Local: Just tables so you can sit, eventhough our website saids we have two restaurants. Oh and there’s no light up there either so I wouldn’t go up there after dark.

In all honesty, we have better sense than to expect equal services and quality in a less than developed country, but it’s quite frustrating when you are subjected to such a moronic double standard. It’s discrimination in the most demeaning and asinine fashion. Just because we are in another country does not mean we want to indulge you in ripping us off. The obvious reason given is that everyone is just trying to make a living, but my response to you is there’s nothing wrong with making an honest living. Most of us are more than happy to pay up to 40% over the going rate when we travel to modest countries, it’s inherent in being a tourist, but double or triple is absolutely unacceptable.

Haggling has become a mechanism for deceit and a vehicle for dishonesty. There’s no integrity in haggling as one party always starts extremely high and the other party starts too low. The party that wants to sell the service or merchandise knows that it’s not the fair rate and the party that is considering purchasing is uncertain about whether it’s the fair rate. Ultimately, the bargaining party walks away feeling like they negotiated a fair price through the “art” of haggling, when in essence they are paying the fair market value, but only after going through the process of negotiating it. The item is priced based on its value to the purchaser, not it’s actual value based on the economic model of supply and demand. It’s an unfair, unscrupulous system that penalizes the purchaser.

This is what some of us end up doing. We buy substandard souvenirs at inflated prices at the airport, before we catch our flight home. At least we KNOW they are being honest about ripping us off. We both enter the arrangement with the same understanding, seller doesn’t pretend to sell us anything at a discount and purchaser knows that’s the price you pay when you buy tourist items at the airport. Both parties know it’s inflated, unfair, and lining the pockets of big business, but at least we don’t have to haggle.

Bloggers worldwide are rejoicing with the latest news from the Oval office that Karl Rove’s resignation will be effective August 31, 2007. Rove is a political genius, but what makes him this revered and villified, is the notorious and underhanded way that he manipulates U.S. domestic politics. Nonetheless, the past few months Rove was defeated on two controversial and poignant policies; comprehensive immigration reform and the privatization of social security. Both were miserably defeated and hammered by opponents of the Bush administration for its neo-conservative position and overreaching principles. While the spirit of the law was laudable, Rove could not convine the small opposition Republican to come on board.

Rove masterminded America’s electoral process, evidence of which has befallen on the likes of Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004, but whether you like or dislike the man, his intellectual manipulation behind the Bush administration has been revolutionary. He relentlessly tormented the left and, at every corner he prevailed. He massacred Al Gore’s reputation and any influence he may have had with the “information highway”, accused former President Bill Clinton of being a mass murder, and accused John Kerry of commiting war crimes in the Vietnam War and questioned the medals of honor that he received for saving his fellow soldiers. Despite reports from his fellow officers that Kerry was an honorable soldier that would risk his life to save others, Rove went as far as insinuating that Kerry was not a war hero but a murderer. The evilness does not end there. Read Al Franken’s book and those of many political experts, and you will find that few people will dispute Rove’s role in history. (Well, maybe FOX News and Michelle Malkin would disagree.) Do I need to mention Rove’s role in leaking the identiy of CIA agent Valerie Plame? Do I need to mention that sources revealed the leak was actually Rove? Do I need to mention that Bush used his presidential powers to reduced the sentence of the man convicted of the leak? Ahhhh.. nice to have friends in high places.

Rove has been friends with Bush for over three decades, from his two gubanatorial elections.

This is quite a clever move on Rove’s part. At a point where Bush’s approval rating is at all time low, Iraq is no longer a source of support, and Americans are sick and tired of hearing about terrorism imbedded in Iraq. Didn’t the latest report disprove that? At the low point in Bush’s career, it would seem that his dear old buddy is abandoning him, think Donal Rumsfield and Colon Powell. This, my friend, is not quite the same.

The political powerhouse has cleverly decided to reorganize his priorities for the upcoming presidential election. Obviously the Republicans will need to vamp up their smear campaign early to defeat the Democrats. So as we bid adieu to Karl Rove, his domestic polictics will continue to live on. You may not see Rove in the news in the next 18 months, but you will defitely feel the effect of his manipulation every time you turn on the television and some Democrat’s being villified. The hate wheel has only warmed up..