Controlled Chaos

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 12:58 PM) And he was right. Ok sorry didn't mean to let facts get in the way. You're correct McCain and his campaign started all this.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 12:51 PM) Take out the "doesn't look like all those other presidents" and they've pretty much done everything else to a T. The McCain campaign has tried to make people scared of Obama? Scared of his policies yes. Obama brought race into this. He named McCain and said he will try to make you scared of me because I'm not white like all the other presidents.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 11, 2008 -> 03:10 PM) I don't. He should be ashamed of himself. It's McCain and his campaign that started all of this and now that everyone is calling him on it he's finally acting on it. What a disgrace. What happened to the McCain of 2000? That man is long gone. "Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky."

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 01:16 PM) Friday Night Lights is also off to a good start IMO. Were is Jason Street though? What's the deal here....it's only being shown on Directv??

Negative Advertising Thomas Sowell Tuesday, October 14, 2008 One of the oldest phenomena of American elections-- criticism of one's opponent-- has in recent times been stigmatized by much of the media as "negative advertising." Is this because the criticism has gotten more vicious or more personal? You might think so, if you were totally ignorant of history, as so many of the graduates of even our elite universities are. Although Grover Cleveland was elected President twice, he had to overcome a major scandal that he had fathered a child out of wedlock, which was considered more of a disgrace then than today. Even giants like Lincoln and Jefferson were called names that neither McCain nor Obama has been called. Why then is "negative advertising" such a big deal these days? The dirty little secret is this: Liberal candidates have needed to escape their past and pretend that they are not liberals, because so many voters have had it with liberals. In 1988, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts called himself a "technocrat," a pragmatic solver of problems, despite a classic liberal track record of big spending, big taxes, and policies that were anti-business and pro-criminal. When the truth about what he actually did as governor was brought out during the Presidential election campaign, the media were duly shocked-- not by Dukakis' record, but by the Republicans' exposing his record. John Kerry, with a very similar ultra-liberal record, topped off by inflammatory and unsubstantiated attacks on American military men in Vietnam, disdained the whole process of labeling as something unworthy. And the mainstream media closed ranks around him as well, deploring those who labeled Kerry a liberal. Barack Obama is much smoother. Instead of issuing explicit denials, he gives speeches that sound so moderate, so nuanced and so lofty that even some conservative Republicans go for them. How could anyone believe that such a man is the very opposite of what he claims to be-- unless they check out the record of what he has actually done? In words, Obama is a uniter instead of a divider. In deeds, he has spent years promoting polarization. That is what a "community organizer" does, creating a sense of grievance, envy and resentment, in order to mobilize political action to get more of the taxpayers' money or to force banks to lend to people they don't consider good risks, as the community organizing group ACORN did. After Barack Obama moved beyond the role of a community organizer, he promoted the same polarization in his other roles. That is what he did when he spent the money of the Woods Fund bankrolling programs to spread the politics of grievance and resentment into the schools. That is what he did when he spent the taxpayers' money bankrolling the grievance and resentment ideology of Michael Pfleger. When Barack Obama donated $20,000 to Jeremiah Wright, does anyone imagine that he was unaware that Wright was the epitome of grievance, envy and resentment hype? Or were Wright's sermons too subtle for Obama to pick up that message? How subtle is "Goddamn America!"? Yet those in the media who deplore "negative advertising" regard it as unseemly to dig up ugly facts instead of sticking to the beautiful rhetoric of an election year. The oft-repeated mantra is that we should trick to the "real issues." What are called "the real issues" are election-year talking points, while the actual track record of the candidates is treated as a distraction-- and somehow an unworthy distraction. Does anyone in real life put more faith in what people say than in what they do? A few gullible people do-- and they often get deceived and defrauded big time. Barack Obama has carried election-year makeovers to a new high, presenting himself a uniter of people, someone reaching across the partisan divide and the racial divide-- after decades of promoting polarization in each of his successive roles and each of his choices of political allies. Yet the media treat exposing a fraudulent election-year image as far worse than letting someone acquire the powers of the highest office in the land through sheer deception. Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 11:46 AM) They're all about the 40-somethin' Alaskan pussy, my man..... so in turn liberals would be for some 47 yr old Chitown cock. thanks for your help

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 11:13 AM) About 5 years ago during the runup to the war, when the entire media was beating the war drums loudly (but especially Fox), it used to sit about 15 feet from my work station on a big-screen TV when I was deployed. Because I worked nights, that meant I would normally be watching prime-time, which meant a healthy dose of O'Reilly, Hannity, Cavuto (who isn't that bad), etc. This is mostly because people in the military are overwhelmingly Republican and couldn't stand CNN (even though they were pretty jingoistic too), and nobody wanted to watch BBC. Anyway my whole point in saying this is that I had no choice but to watch Fox because it was blaring into my left ear for almost a year, and I spent quite a bit of time admiring Laurie Dhue because she is possibly one of the hottest news anchors on TV. Well, was, she doesn't work for Fox anymore. Maybe if you had it blaring into your 'right' ear, you'd be voting for the better candidate in Nov. As for the thread topic....pretty simple...Did they touch up photos for RSO, his wife, Hillary, etc...If so....why wouldn't they for Palin. That's all it is, nothing more, nothing less. Unless it's some leftwing rag mag, all things should be equal and that includes how they treat cover photos. If they were gonna show some photos in an unflattering light for one party and not for the other, well then the arguement is legit.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 10, 2008 -> 07:49 AM) I was actually surprised at how quickly the Palin's pregnant daughter thing faded out. I think the American public spoke on that one - once the Obamaites saw picking on a 17 yr old pregnant girl backfiring, they didn't want to pursue it anymore. The press obliged. Fixed

So she winks. I have an Uncle that winks. It drives me nuts when he does it too. But everyone is so sure that she is doing it as some grand plan to be "folksy". Maybe she has always winked...what the hell do you or I know about her mannerisms. And why does the one blink of an eye piss of so many people. Blatant gimick? Exaggerating certain aspects of her persona? Reveling in acting uneducated and ignorant? Jesus Christ, if you want to paint the Paris Hilton portrait on someone it should be Biden who's been acting like an airhead for the last 30 years.

I bet most people have never used the word "folksy" in their entire lives. All of a sudden it's a household term. She has an accent/dialect/regionalism, whatever you want to call it, so that makes her uneducated??? So she says "you betcha" and "gosh darn"... Sorry those phrases dont' fit the elite, but they are simply just that...phrases. It says nothing about a persons intelligence. Yes she is different from many of us...she hunts, ice fishes, is a member of the NRA. For that she has been called white trash? Are you kidding me? Talk about bigots. People were swinging from Obamas jock strap without knowing a god dam thing about him, other than he could read a teleprompter, but Palin is a white trash uneducated moron because she talks different. Hypocrites!! I guess it's ok to be a bigot if you're talking of someone from a different party. I'm guessing the same people that are saying this are the same ones who feel people with a southern accent are just dumb country bumpkins. Some would be ashamed to have their kids see this person as a role model. An athlete in high school, a beauty queen, a mom of a wonderful family. Wanted to change her local politics, ran for mayor and won. Wanted to change state politics, ran for governor and won. Took on the good old boys, regardless of their party affiliation and was the most popular governor in the country. Gosh darn, those are some terrrible attributes to have your kids look up to.... Now I certainly don't expect dems to like Sarah Palin, her views are the exact opposite of theirs, but to call her dumb, white trash...etc...is...ridiculous.

"The Real Issues": Part IV Thomas Sowell Friday, October 10, 2008 Barack Obama's supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as "the real issues." But Senator Obama's record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America. Among the so-called "real issues" are earmarks for Senators' pet projects, like the "bridge to nowhere." These are among the most indefensible parts of the inbred Washington political culture, which Obama has so often claimed to be against, as part of his promise of "change" to "clean up the mess in Washington." Yet Senator Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, he voted against anti-earmark amendments proposed by Senator John McCain. Obama has had more than two dozen of his own earmarks in the past fiscal year, and he knows the Senate well enough to know that, if he voted against the bridge to nowhere, his own earmarks might get nowhere. Those earmarks, incidentally, included a million dollars of the taxpayers' money for a facility where his wife works at the University of Chicago. Her salary rose by nearly $200,000 when her husband became a United States Senator-- no doubt a shrewd investment by the university that paid off. When a highly publicized bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007 led Senator Tom Coburn to propose taking money from federal spending on bicycle paths and use it for maintaining and repairing bridges instead, Senator Obama voted against it. The kind of people who vote for him want bike paths. Moreover, the very idea of taking money from one thing to use for something with a higher priority-- something that we all have to do in our own personal lives-- is foreign to the liberal big spenders in Washington. When they want more money for some purpose, they simply raise the tax rates. They don't cut spending somewhere else. The idea that Barack Obama is somehow different from other liberal-left politicians can only be based on his rhetoric, because his actual track record shows him to differ only in being further left than most liberals and at least as opportunistic. His talk, however, is another story. The speech that Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic convention-- the speech that put him on the national map politically-- was one which has been aptly described as a speech that would have been almost equally at home if it had been delivered at the Republican national convention. In the world of rhetoric-- the world in which Obama is supreme-- he is a moderate, reasonable man, reaching out to unite people and parties, dedicated to reform, opposed to special interests and a healer of the racial divide. It is only in the real world of action that Barack Obama is the direct opposite. He has pushed for federal subsidies for ethanol, for example, as other midwestern Senators have, since a lot of corn is grown in the midwest to be turned into ethanol. He is 100 percent behind the teachers' unions in their fight to preserve their grip on the public schools and exempt their members from being judged by performance instead of seniority-- which is to say, he is throwing the students, and especially minority students-- to the wolves. Senator Obama would never call voting for ethanol subsidies a vote for "special interests," any more than he called his total support of the teachers unions a matter of special interests, even though teachers unions are the biggest obstacle to changing the status quo in public schools that have failed American children in general and minority children in particular. Barack Obama's track record on so-called "real issues" is no better than his track record on issues of character and judgment. The media's track record of conveying the facts to the public is a travesty of their claims about "the public's right to know." If John McCain had made half as many gaffes as Barack Obama-- "all 57 states," for example-- they would be picturing him as senile. Meanwhile, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran supplying its terrorist surrogates with nukes does not interest the media nearly as much as scoring "gotchas" against Sarah Palin. Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Do Facts Matter? Thomas Sowell Friday, October 03, 2008 Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." Unfortunately, the future of this country, as well as the fate of the Western world, depends on how many people can be fooled on election day, just a few weeks from now. Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people are being fooled a whole lot of the time. The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain-- which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis. It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant? Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years-- including the present year-- denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis. It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis. Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago. Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration "right-wing ideology" of "de-regulation" that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter? We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't. Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter? Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and for "the people." Franklin Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and mismanaging that institution into crisis. Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines? Liberal Democrats, including Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus, at least one of whom referred to the "lynching" of Raines, as if it was racist to hold him to the same standard as white CEOs. Even after he was deposed as head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines was consulted this year by the Obama campaign for his advice on housing! The Washington Post criticized the McCain campaign for calling Raines an adviser to Obama, even though that fact was reported in the Washington Post itself on July 16th. The technicality and the spin here is that Raines is not officially listed as an adviser. But someone who advises is an adviser, whether or not his name appears on a letterhead. The tie between Barack Obama and Franklin Raines is not all one-way. Obama has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae's financial contributions, right after Senator Christopher Dodd. But ties between Obama and Raines? Not if you read the mainstream media. Facts don't matter much politically if they are not reported. The media alone are not alone in keeping the facts from the public. Republicans, for reasons unknown, don't seem to know what it is to counter-attack. They deserve to lose. But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America. Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

The Real Obama: Part III Thomas Sowell Thursday, October 09, 2008 What about those "real issues" that Barack Obama's supporters in the media say we should get back to, whenever some new unsavory fact about his past comes out? Surely education is a real issue, with American school children consistently scoring below those in other countries, and children in minority communities faring worst of all. What about Senator Obama's position on this real issue? As with other issues, he has talked one way and acted the opposite way. The education situation in Obama's home base of Chicago is one of the worst in the nation for the children-- and one of the best for the unionized teachers. Fewer than one-third of Chicago's high-school juniors meet the statewide standards on tests. Only 6 percent of the youngsters who enter Chicago high schools become college graduates by the time they are 25 years old. The problem is not money: Chicago spends more than $10,000 per student. Chicago teachers are doing well. A beginning teacher, fresh out of college, earns more than the city's median income and that can rise to more than $100,000 over the years. That's for teaching 6 hours a day, 9 months of the year. Moreover, a teacher's income is dependent on seniority and other such factors-- and in no way dependent on whether their students are actually learning anything. Obama has said eloquent and lofty words about education, as he has about other things-- for example, how it is "unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours" that some children "are not getting a decent shot at life" because of the failing schools. In a predominantly black suburb of Chicago, where the average teacher's salary is $83,000 and one-fourth of the teachers make more than $100,000, Barack Obama noted that the school day ends at 1:30 PM. In his book "Dreams from My Father," Obama said candidly that black teachers and administrators "defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before." It is not a question of Obama's not knowing. He has demonstrated conclusively that he knows what is going on. But, for all his eloquent words, he has voted consistently for the teachers' unions and the status quo. "I owe those unions," he has said frankly. "When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don't consider this corrupting in any way." Only other politicians' special interests are called "special interests" by Barack Obama, whose world-class ability to rationalize is his most frightening skill. Even when he verbally endorses the reform idea of merit pay for teachers, he cleverly re-defines merit so that it will be measured by teachers themselves, rather than by "arbitrary tests." In other words, Obama placates critics of the educational status quo by being for merit pay in words, while making those words meaningless, so as not to offend the teachers' unions. The failings of teachers are only part of the disaster of inner city public schools. Disruptive and violent students can make it impossible for even the best teachers to educate students. Administrators are reluctant to impose any serious punishment on those students who make it impossible for other students to learn. Partly this is because liberal judges can make it literally a federal case if more minority students are punished than others. In other words, if black males are punished more often than Asian American females, that can be enough to get the administrators drawn into a legal labyrinth, costing money and time, even if the punishment is eventually upheld. When a bill was introduced into the Illinois state legislature that would put more teeth into suspensions of misbehaving students, Barack Obama voted against that bill. A real reformer would want to crack down on both unruly students and unaccountable teachers. A clever politician would speak eloquently, demand "change"-- and then vote for the status quo. Obama talks a great game.

If this is posted somewhere else please delete, I've never seen it.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 11:39 AM) Actually unless I'm mistaken, they didn't target people, and would give advance notice of their target so people could get out of the way. They weren't very good at what they did anyway, the only casualties I know of was when one of their bombs went off and killed 2 of them. None of this is to say he wasn't a piece of s***, though. It wasn't until after they blew themselves up, that they decided human casualties were unacceptable. Dynamite was being wrapped in tape with nails embedded to act as shrapnel. I guess it could be because they wanted nails to stick in the walls of an empty room, but I'm guessing it was the same reason all terrorists embedd shrapnel and that's to inflict as much harm on as many people as they can. Anyway....glad we agree he's a POS

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 7, 2008 -> 09:20 AM) Didn't take you long to jump on the known terrorist thing eh? The McCain campaign may be willing to be that low, but I'd hope the educated masses of Soxtalk can ignore that one as the complete BS it is. Reverend Wright, go ahead, continue, that one was stupid. However, Ayers, at the time of his association with Obama (nothing more than an acquaintance, mind you), was a well-respected man within Chicago. Not only that, but he does not have a single conviction on his record... I'm not just jumping on the terrorist thing. I'm sure the educated masses on soxtalk, in this thread anyway, have known about the Ayers connection for quite some time now. Just because the NYT decided to write an article recently doesn't mean we all just became aware of it. Also, if you want to act like your BFF's with Obama and you know how close he was with his "acquaintances" 20 years ago, then you should spew that stuff in the other thread cause it's nothing but your opinion and that of the Obama campaign. You can close your eyes and pretend Obama didn't know who Ayers was or what he stood for, but I tend to see things a bit more clearly. Ayers is a piece of s***........If his plans had worked thousands of innocent people would be dead from his bombs. Yes Wright was just stupid....let's sweep it under the rug...I'll bet Obama hardly knows the guy

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 6, 2008 -> 02:30 PM) Honestly, I don't know. But if my candidate was up there that far in age, and had his health history, and did with his Medical Records what Senator Mccain has done, that would certainly worry me. Well your candidate isn't up there in age, but in my opinion he does have some mental health issues. He chose to associate himself with a known terrorist and a racist pastor for 20+ years. I don't need to see his health records for that.

I'm definitely in the keep Swisher fan club.

Thank You!!!!!!

JUST f***ING WIN!!

QUOTE (LosMediasBlancas @ Oct 6, 2008 -> 12:28 PM) What scares you more Javy starting, or Dotel coming in with runners on? What scares me is the proximity of myself and the knives in the kitchen when either situation occurs.

Here ya go... http://www.buy.com/prod/Westinghouse-19-LC.../209681043.html Coupon http://www.buy.com/retail/coupon.asp?prid=84773074

QUOTE (CryptviLL @ Oct 5, 2008 -> 10:13 PM) Lmao, priceless. Another one was..."What does a Bear on birth control and the 2008 World Series have in common? No Cubs.

Sox are due for slugfest. Lets take this next one in a laugher

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 3, 2008 -> 08:38 PM) Does anyone think the starts on short rest are catching up with Buerhle now? I know Mark wouldn't use that as an excuse, but his pitches just weren't quite as crisp as I've seen before...his fastball averaged 84-87, usually, he's a tick faster. I just hope we can get starts for both Danks and Floyd in the post-season, it's going to be a great experience for both of them moving forward I think. Buehrle pitched a great f***in game.