cwsox

LDF is back!

did your body physically react when you first started reading the posts?

gotta work in a horrendous place tomorrow - it is on WGN - maybe I can get into a fight with my boss and go home early! bring home a winner regardless!

do you remember 3000? I don't. It was so long ago......... I like watching the little ones get their 3000 posts, like when the don't need training wheels on the bike anymore, they are growing up

just needs to find his position - if catcher doesn't pan out -- shortstop? Can he make any more errors than the incumbent?

not a little love for the Red Wings? C'mon on.... and I got you all those Red Wing shirts....

I did my clinical pastoral education at University of Michigan Med Center - tough mice, there.... like everything at Michigan, tough and unbeatable!

I sure did! Uribe's home run was for you!

but giving up home runs helps prevent Jose and Uribe from making errors!

Graf in the headline with all sorts of innuendos about the rotten Sox and Graf as free, free, free from hell

agreed

the White Flag trade turned out very positive for us. Although I b****ed about it like hell at the time. And still do on occasion. ESPN and all these folks are just creating controversey because they have airtime and pages to fill and it gets people talking. Their comments are not even original, but tired cliches. And everyone knows the worst thing was not the White Flag trade but the throwing of the world series and lsoing 8 players who would have made us the yankees of the 20s and changed our whole history. But that is also a cliche to have that posted. Some origi9nal thoughts from ESPN would be nice, but will never happen.

you mean for Uribe as in not commit an error and drop a double play ball? PK looks energised and has something to prove and I was glad the fans demanded a curtain call from him on the home run, that is class to say you had a rough year and we are here for you wanting you to do well. I am glad the proposed trade did not happen. As someone else said, wisely, that pitcher (in my opinion) is overrated. I will never agree on keeping Valentin, the wonderful StJosE6. But I am not saying anything not positive today because we won the home opener!

the new roof is fine, my concern was would I feel "indoors" with the overhang roof and the fewer rows but it was acceptably outoorsy for me where I was, today in row 7. My usual seats are row 5 in the UD and so all if going to be fine there. For those in the last rows that have obstructed seats, that is what I don't like about the roof or roofs in general and what I loved about the original way, not obstructions and I felt that I was outside at a ball game. What we have now looks good, it works visualy, and I will live with it fine. The change in the fan deck (second level) was real obvious and looks great from the UD perspective. The 5th-3rd sign was far more colorful than whatever bank replaced it with its signage. The park looked great. The outside view of the park with the new roof, it looks different but in a year people will forget who it used to be. It feels so much like home, in fact, it is home. and I wish I could go home everyday.

I did not mean to ignore your question. I would love to hear you answer. As I said, the intelligence is/was from different sources entirely. Not all intelligence is equal. That Bush was fixated on Iraq has not been challenged as I see it. Sandy Berger spoke to that obsesson prior to September 11th, Paul O'Neill wrote of it, now we have it from another source, we have had it from a lot of sources, it was the context of much of what Bush's people were writing in the 1990s during Clinton's regime, and totally undenied is Richard Clarke's statement that Rumsfield on September 12th was advocating attacking Iraq on the grounds that Afghanistan had no good targets but Iraq had a lot of good targets. So the use of pretext - hell, Bush knew that his claim in the 2003 State of the Union address was wrong about the nuclear fuel rods because it had already been cautioned on and he used it any way. And when that was brought to the public, the white house broke the cover of a CIA agent who happened to be the spouse of the person who had warned Bish off the nuclear story and said so. Bush was fixated on Iraq. Clarke's book - the "go back and find a conenction" - intelligence that did not say what they wanted it to say was spun. Intelligence on an imminent threat - bin laden intends to attack the US and saying everything it did so it was not "historical" but was indeed about an on-going investigation amidst a source of other evidence that was popping up in those circles and the refusal to act because ideoogy called for a Star Wars shield rather than concern for terrorism - is it asking too much to say, "hey, get me more info, follow up on that, get back to me." It is obviously too much to ask of Bush. And as winodj has pointed out, the Rudman/Hart pleas for homeland security for terrorism were not excactly unknown - just ignored. If the difference between going to war and having an alert is something that people fail to see, then there is nothing more that I can say. But in its simplest terms, if I hear a rumor that my neighbor has a gun and is going to shoot my dog, I do not have a right to bomb his house without getting a lot more information. But to let the dog roam, not watch, and not take any safety precautions for the dog, ok? Again, if the difference between going to war and having an alert is something that people fail to see, then there is nothing more that I can say.

I've got to leave for Chicago soon - no one in a Sox uniform should be booed during the intros -

hope so - I will be thinking of you, and cheer the sox on your behalf

I would suggest no more Ross quotes posted in threads here - he was banned and this begins to circumvent his banning

interesting that Rice's sworn testimony that the August 6th PDB was only "historical" and had no curerent intelligence would be an act of perjury and that Bush has agreed to talk with the commision not under oath, only with Cheney at his side (to make sure they keep the stories straight?) and with no transcript being made. I think what happens in a deposition in a civil matter about whether oral sex constitutes a sexual relationship is far, far less important than the lies that are made in a State of the Union address or in statments made to bring a nation to war. But that is just me. I thank you for the tone and attitude you have brought to this discussion. The mature and informed exchange of ideas is refreshing and I thank you for your very large role in that here.

Bush said in the Woodward book he had "no sense of urgency" on terrorism. Congress did not have this same intelligence but that is not the issue - the Executive Branch did. I believe very firmly that an involved president would have followed up. Gore, if he were in, would have been all curious and wanted a follow up. Clinton certainly. I suspect Bush 1 would have followed up. Reagan may or may not have but I suspect someone on his staff would have. carter certainly. Ford for sure. Nixon for damn sure. LBJ for damn sure. Kennedy for damn sure. I'd have to go back to Hoover to find a president that I think might no have done something. The ideology that blinds in this white house was that any information from Clinton's transition briefings was to de disconunted and that terrorism was not an issue, the threat to the US would be missiles and thus Star Wars needed to be built. By nature of ideology that refused to take seriously the warnings on terrorism. It is not right as I see it to say that no one elee would have done anything either for I think a lot of people who have held or should ahve held that office on 6 August would have done something. Take this point however you wanted: when Clinton wanted to deal with al qaeda he was accused of wagging the dog. One can argue that if the Congress had nopt obssessed on ral sex but on national security, we may have been better prepared. If you want to blame Clinton then it was his personal failure that led republicans in congress to obssess about oral sex rather than deal with security threats. The national dialogue could have been far better off and at the least the republicans in Congress did not support Clinton in dealing with bin laden. Sandy Berger has said for a long time he begged the incoming Bushies to pay attention to what he labeled the #1 threat - terrorism and al qaeda and the Bish people dismissed it because it was from Clinton and thus not important. The dismissal of any warnings that came from the outgoing Clinton administration has been reported much. The doing nothing in response to terrorism was/is a very particular and peculiar GW trademark. Thus bin laden remains free, terrorism is on the increase, and we are engaged in massive violenmce in acountry we invaded that had nothing to do wiith terrorism. If Ozzie thought like Bush, he's hear scounting reports that KC plans to steal bases on us - and then fail to tell the pitchers and catchers. And when the basestealing happened, if Ozzie were like Bush, he'd attack the beer vendors because KC is getting away with basestealing that Ozzie failed to warn the pitchers and catchers about. Ozzie would in that scenario be fired. As Bush will be, for the sake of the nation.

I answered that - there is no new answer - you follow up - you don't set it aside and never deal with it again (or until September 11) and you don't fail to get another PDB, soon, dealing with what type of alerts need to be put into place, if any, but you follow up. You focus on the subject at hand. Then maybe when a guy is arrested in Minnesota, the so-called 5th hijacker, in late August, you have put yourself in a better place to have two and two put together for you. Especially when the reports are that "chatter" is way up on something big happening. He did nothing. He did nothing. He did nothing. He did nothing. It is possible that it all would have happened. But it is possible it might not. He did nothing. Never gave a chance to stop it.

you are so cute

If all your questions are so easy. You ask for more information. You ask for a follow up. You give an alert to the airlines. Then maybe groups of 5 buying one way tickets with cash at the last second might have not been so damned easy. Come on, the president has to be told how to follow up because nothing was "actionable"????? Give me a f***ing break. The president hears a report "bin laden plans to attack US" and doesn't even ask to be updated? It is unbelivable. And it was not from the same sources that we had the intelligence as with Iraq. But damn it ss2k4 you ask for an update at the very least, you stay on top of it - you don't stay on f***ing vacation worrying about Ken Lay and do f***ing nothing. If you did your job with as little curiousity and follow up you'd be deservedly fired. As Bush will be.

Lo21, the daughter of my tax person also turned 16 today, and she is beautiful and will one day be rich. Would be nice to introduce you to each other for the birthday celebration... happy birthday!