Word: sofa
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...Freecycle members interact by posting both offers and requests on an online. In the past, Martinez says she would typically see people post items when they were in the process of upgrading, offering, say, to give away a desktop computer if they were buying a laptop or an old sofa if they were getting a new one. But today, as consumer spending has plummeted, Martinez is seeing fewer offers to unload such big-ticket items. "What you can sense is that no one is buying anything new," she says. "They aren't upgrading, so there's nothing being passed down...
...power on the ground. Maliki's Sunni allies in the Tawafuk Front, the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, have branded the Shi'ite prime minister as "another dictator". And Maliki remains at odds with Shi'ite opponents such as Moqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc of 28 lawmakers vociferously rejected the SOFA vote on Thursday, chanting "no, no to the agreement, yes, yes to Iraq...
...discord in Baghdad's parliament, and on its streets, over the SOFA deal wasn't only about the particulars of the treaty, but also about which Iraqi parties will most effectively leverage the Americans' eventual departure to their own political benefit. It was always going to be politically sensitive - so much so that some 77 MPs stayed away from the parliamentary session. Although by Iraqi standards, 198 lawmakers could be considered a healthy turnout, there was much speculation that the no-shows purposely feared publicly committing to the SOFA (especially ahead of provincial polls to be held in January...
...many others viewed the treaty - and the debate it provoked - as an opportunity to change the direction of the country. "This wasn't about [opposing] Maliki as a man," said Nada Ibrahim, a Sunni lawmaker from a smaller political bloc that did not vote for the SOFA. "It's about the political parties in this government, the parties that are thinking in a sectarian way, behaving in a sectarian way. That is the problem. We think we have to share everything in this country, to re-evaluate and rebalance things...
...Maliki's hard bargaining on the SOFA deal, in which he forced Washington to make a number of key concessions on issues ranging from a firm deadline for withdrawing from Iraq to restrictions on the operations of U.S. troops currently in Iraq, might have been taken as a point of pride among Iraqi nationalists. Instead, at least among the political class, it merely reinforced a perception that Maliki is a new strongman who does things his own way, without consultation. "He could have been more diplomatic with handling this treaty," said Abdel-Bari al-Zebari, the Kurdish lawmaker. "He didn...