I definitely agree with that.

By the way, vitus979, you beat me to the punch on this story.

Afterall, if this becomes more common, I don't see it as much of a stretch for the corps of today to litigate their way to extrateritoriality of one sort or another.

- theartthief

Sorry, but rules are clear: you can only eliminate Flaws with Karma. So if you're a spike baby with the Human Looking edge, you're gonna stay foreover human looking. But you'd still get elven longevity and ease to obtain Tir Tairngire nationality.

They're Stuffer Shack--a wholy owned subsidiary of Aztechnology.

Yes, there was. And then the infighting produced a board the created the Wal-Mart we know now; the one that would not have existed but for Sam's death.

The Board that has been around since his death is responsible for Wal-Mart becoming the largest corporation in the world. Before, it was still relatively small and competed with K-Mart. Now it's competing with everyone (one of, or the, largest toy sellers, jewelry retailers, gasoline sellers, supermarket chains, booksellers, and clothiers in the country), and what did help was getting rid of Sam's pesky "Made in the USA" nonsense (even though it's often used to refer to sweatshop products made in protectorates like the Marshall Islands).

One of the bigger reasons that this vote is so important, and why the grocery workers strike was so significant is because there are a relatively few number Wal-Marts in California despite it being the largest state in population and economy. And part of their plan to literally double the number of existing stores by the end of the decade (this began a couple of years ago when it was ranked the most admired company by Forbes or Fortune) involves attacking California. Well, Wal-Mart is notoriously anti-union, and they are already one of, if not the, largest grocery chain in the United States (thanks to the megalomart Supercenters). The three chains involved in the strike in SoCal argued that once Wal-Mart comes it, their days were numbered if they had to keep paying grocery employees the wages and benefits they earned under collective bargaining that Wal-Mart simply does not pay.

And the fact that this store is in Inglewood, which in in the heart of incorporated L.A. County doesn't help anything, especially since Wal-Mart prices are pretty tightly controlled whereas in Los Angeles you can see vast disparities in prices for goods depending on the neighborhood (Bevery Hills/West Hollywood stores generally sell juice for $2-3, whereas in Inglewood and even downtown L.A. near USC juice is $4-6). It was not a coincidence that the first Wal-Mart in Los Angeles was in the heart of South Central L.A. on Crenshaw (perhaps you've seen the commercials)--it was an area where Vons and Safeway just don't exist, let alone the various stores Wal-Mart serves as a cheap alternative to (department stores, etc.). And Wal-Mart can capitalize on being cheap, and having a captive market in that area while paying very low wages to its employees.

In Shadowrun, Stuffer Shack has become the ubiquitous catchall store for random consumer products--going from the supermarket featured in Food Fight (which was a pretty blatant ripoff of the first 5-10 minutes of Cobra) to the place where you can buy damn near anything, and I assume the stores vary in size. Having lived in a real city (long, long ago..............) it probably ranges from the eqv. of a corner CVS/Rite-Aid, etc. where it takes up a chunk of the street level in an office building, to the multi-story hubs in major traffic areas (the Corte Ingles in the geographic center of Madrid, for example, or rather... The Wal-Mart on Crenshaw in L.A.), and the sprawling monstrosities out in the suburbs. The amount of stuff each carries varies widely, but they all carry lots of different stuff, and they're all the same corp. You can get the same Stuffer Shack soyflakes and cheap pair of socks just about anywhere, and they're the same (and about the same price) everywhere. The store in the 'burbs will also have a produce section and a whole clothing department the one in downtown Seattle doesn't, but you'll also find the same soyflakes and socks.

And that corp is run by Aztechnology. A heartless corporation that was in part built on cheap consumer crap, captive markets, and a PR machine that is... well, it's like the machine that Wal-Mart pulled out for this vote in Inglewood.

Most likely is. If you're thinking of Stephen King that is.