The more things stay the same the more they change, roses are blue violets are red and now finders weepers losers keepers. Do any of these slightly altered sayings come across as a bit odd?
Take for example a ruling in the case of over $500 million in gold and silver coins found and brought to the surface by a team of salvage/treasure hunters.
“A U.S. district judge has ruled that U.S. treasure-hunting company Odyssey Marine Exploration should return to Spain a fortune in old coins recovered from the wreck of a 19th-century Spanish warship.”
The salvage operation happened in international waters; but since the ship that went down was a war ship under the Spanish flag there’s some special deal that sets aside the old “finders keepers” rule.
Overheard by an anonymous fly on the wall in the judge’s chambers was the Spanish delegation’s representative, “It’s our treasure, we plundered it from Peru fair and square”.
I’d have to side with the salvage team, if the Spanish government was so keen on getting back the treasure they lost over a hundred years ago they should have done more to find it rather than let someone else do all the work. Looks like another case of “we’re the government and we’re here to help”.
Here’s my solution, load tons of iron ore in dump trucks, drive them through the aqueduct in New York, fill up a cargo ship and make a big deal out of sinking the ship over the deepest part of the Atlantic trench. Everyone will claim this is just a remake of a Die Hard film; but the lost content of the cargo ship will be buried across miles and miles of ocean floor so deep as to be unsalvageable.
When the judge comes to confiscate the treasure the salvage team can express the all too familiar salutation with one finger. Then, when the Spanish consular official steps around the corner they can add, “…and that goes for the horse you came in on.”
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