[Boo'ing the President]

I've never liked him much at all, but personally I wouldn't boo him in public, purely out of respect for the office he holds and the job he does.

 

That being said, I would hope the leader of this country has thick enough skin to not really be that bothered by the public's opinion of him, and it's not good for him to live in a fantasy world where a majority of people actually like him, either.

[Mutual Contempt: Obama and McCain, genuine dislike]

Every time Obama mentions McCain's name he speaks of him with great respect, he says "genuine American hero" almost every time he brings his name up, but he sharply disagrees with him on the issues and happily criticizes them. His tone is more like "bring it" than scorn, although he does crack a few jokes here and then.

 

McCain seems to be running a pretty clean campaign and I expect it'll stay that way on his end. Any nastiness or below-the-belt nonsense I'd expect to come from the rank-and-file conservatives, but not McCain's people. At least if there is, there'll be accountability.

[Your favorite baseball movie ever?]

Has anyone mentioned Mr. Baseball? Good movie.

 

And I highly recommend the book over the movie in "The Natural"

It came on right after Bull Durham, I watched that too. So I was up until 4 that night. I never actually sat and watched that movie all the way thru before.

[Discussion Thread - NUKE's war diary]

Yes, but only for 24-48 hours from what Im hearing. Not too bad at all.

I was there for like 10 days, just sitting around doing nothing. That was 3 years ago though so they probably have it ironed out a little better. I hope, anyway.

 

If you were somewhere around me, I'd buy you a beer.

[Obama's Pastor]

Go ahead. Close your minds to anything that makes you uncomfortable. Meanwhile, those of us who are moderates and independents are looking forward to an election in November that we can finally be a little bit happy about - two candidates (Obama and McCain) who are NOT in the far gutter of their respective parties. Two people who are actually willing to work across the aisle and act like reasonable adults. Feel free to ignore that this will be the best available pair of candidates we've had for a long, long time. Take the easy route - hyperbole and pile-on mentality. Enjoy wallowing in your fear-dominated world. Just know that the middle of this country wants no part of it.

[Alexei Ramirez to start at CF on Opening Day?]

Well, if Owens didn't get hurt he probably wouldn't be on the major league roster.

edit: nevermind

[Your favorite baseball movie ever?]

Anyone like Mr. 3000? haha.

I do actually. heh. I love Bernie Mac.

 

They just had my favorite part of Bull Durham.

 

"You told him I was gonna throw the deuce huh?"

"Yup... Boy that ball got out of here in a hurry didn't it? Anything that flies that far's gotta have a damn steardess on it."

[Your favorite baseball movie ever?]

Bull Durham just came on WGN about 20 minutes ago if anybody wants to watch it.

[White Sox 6th in Payroll at $118 Million]

Dye, people would have b****ed, but yes I think we should have traded him at the deadline.

For what?

 

GMs don't give up anything of much value for players they'll only have for half a year, especially for players who have terrible stats before the deadline.

[Joakim Noah/The NBA Draft]

lol @ the complete jacking of this thread, but Noah's got 13 points and 6 rebounds at the half vs. the Bucks. Not too bad.

[Your favorite baseball movie ever?]

Little Big League

The Sandlot was pretty awesome too.

[Your favorite baseball movie ever?]

Considering how long this board has been around you guys have probably had this discussion before, but I haven't been here long enough to know.

 

What's the best one ever? I'd say Bull Durham, A League Of Their Own is pretty underrated. Major League gets knocked down because it has the Indians in it and the Sox are the bad guys.

[Obama's Pastor]

/Thought the Imus firing was stupid.

me too

[Obama's Pastor]

Here's a comparison... how come when Don Imus called that women's basketball team "nappy headed hos", he got pretty much crucified... but when this Jeremiah Wright guy says much more offensive stuff, and whole lot more offensive stuff, people make excuses for him?

1 - who is the judge of how offensive something is or should be to someone else?

2 - who is making "excuses" for Wright? Besides saying "it's ridiculous to think he actually preached nothing but hate for 20 years"?

3 - I wasn't here posting about it but I thought the reaction to Imus's comments was insanity, it wasn't that big of a deal to me.

[Alexei Ramirez to start at CF on Opening Day?]

You may "know", but I don't.

You beat me to it.

 

If anyone actually "KNEW" what Anderson would do at the MLB level at this point, he wouldn't even be sniffing a major league roster.

[Discussion Thread - NUKE's war diary]

You don't have to go to Kuwait first?

[Obama's Pastor]

Unless the church is doing something illegal, which apparently they are not, I see absolutely zero wrong with that and I actually don't even think it's newsworthy.

 

By the way, it sounds like the guy he bought the house from is the owner of Kenny's Ribs. I love that place.

[Obama... drug use within the past 10 years?]

It's kind of like saying "the Dems oppose the war, but they keep funding it don't they?" Of course they do.

 

At the time he was running for the Senate I was actually in Iraq and the general climate there was completely different, there was no such thing as an Iraqi government or security forces and without us there would've been total anarchy.

[Obama... drug use within the past 10 years?]

Like I said, he doesn't do it in the speeches. In a speech he will say "I'm going to end this war..." which by itself doesn't mean anything. If you see him on Anderson Cooper or something that's when he gets more specific and he'll say "Well you see in Iraq we have only bad options and worse options" and then he goes on to say what they are.

 

The speeches are there just to spout populist rhetoric like all politicians do. You can't really get elected without doing that.

[Obama... drug use within the past 10 years?]

The lack of "substance" in this race, to me, doesn't lie with the candidates... its lies with the media, and therefore, it also lies partially with the voting public who prefer sound bytes to hard information.

ding ding ding... we have a winner

[Obama... drug use within the past 10 years?]

None of the campaigns have much substance. It's just Obama, despite having basically no experience, claims substance when he doesn't have any. It's an election where you vote your party, because substance and honesty are almost impossible to find, especially with McCain's recent pandering to the right.

If you define "substance" as what his stances are on the issues and what his plans are if he gets elected he's most decisively a Democrat, he's pretty much been in lock step with the party since he's gotten elected. And if that is, in fact, your definition I don't know where you'd find any basis to say that. He does talk in pretty explicit detail now when he outlines his plans, he doesn't do that in the rah-rah speeches. Really it's no different than when Bush says things like "we're winning the war" or "we're keeping America safer." Those statements by themselves have no substance and if you want to find out what they're based on you have to look elsewhere.

 

If you define "substance" as experience in politics at the national level, he doesn't have that, but at the same time he makes no claims about having it either and never has. Whenever he's called on that his response is something like "don't confuse experience with time spent in Washington, not everything that comes out of Washington is any good."

[What the hell do I do?]

It very rarely is. I couldn't have imagined doing what I do now even a few years ago. That is why the college experience is so important, because you learn how to learn... You will be doing that for the rest of your life.

I'm kind of backwards, college was kind of secondary to everything else. My college education is following my career instead of vice versa.

 

In h.s. I actually had an engineering internship that I could've followed through college if I wanted but instead I abruptly decided I hated it and it was boring. So then I thought, I'll just get a computer science degree, but then again I kind of spontaneously decided to join the Army. Then I thought... well screw it, once I get out I can make more money doing what I'm doing now than whatever I thought I'd be doing before, and the Army's gonna pay for my degree so... why not?

[Obama's Pastor]

The point I was trying to emphasize, the bold text part, was the pointing out of the bias on the part of the other paper. I agree, I believe the Duke remark, and there is a Hitler remark in the column, that are 'over the top' in my opinion. I personally wouldn't have gone there.

I can agree with pro-Obama bias though, some of the media's been trying to self-police itself in the last few weeks (CNN sometimes) but some of the coverage is still pretty unapologetically biased. I actually think it's kind of funny.

[Obama's Pastor]

I didn't read the article (don't have time to, I'm at work), I'm just talking about that specific quote. I don't really like that kind of intentionally polarized rhetoric, it's a pet peeve of mine. Ironically it's just as divisive as anything Wright's said.

[Obama's Pastor]

That's kind of an interesting side point that might be worth exploring. How differently are people like Rev Wright treated when they say racist and controversial things, versus someone like say Don Imus or Geraldine Ferraro?

White people are held to a pretty silly standard a lot of times, at least those that are public figures anyway.

 

I wouldn't say Imus and Ferraro are the best examples though, Imus painted himself into his own corner (although I think the level of backlash was kind of crazy) and Ferraro, while there might've been some degree of truth in what she was saying, was only pointing it out to use as a subtle strike against Obama which is an inappropriate and unnecessary. And then she tried to act like that wasn't what she was trying to do. Of course she was, why even bring it up otherwise?

 

A better example would be when Rush Limbaugh said Donovan McNabb was overrated and that the media has a tendency to want to see black QBs do well. Honestly in my mind there was nothing controversial about what he said, only because Limbaugh said it and they were just waiting for a reason to get on him about something. If it was Stephen A. Smith saying it nobody would've even noticed.