kapkomet

QUOTE(Allsox @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 07:21 PM) Pretty good analysis with the exception of the batting order....Think it's Thome 3rd with Dye 5th with Gooch ahead of AJ in the 6, 7 spot....Rather have AJ driving in Gooch than vice versa.... Otherwise, pretty scary that most of the publications have said barring injury that the White Sox should get back to the playoffs Ahhh, hell yes it's good to be the KING!

If you take the combined earnings (not revenues) of Exxon, Chevron, and DutchShell from 2005 ALONE, it could fund NASA, the Justice Department, and the No Child Left Behind Act this year - and these are some massive programs in our government today. That's sad, isn't it?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 05:12 PM) That is simply impossible. There's nothing we can realistically do to be able to slow Iran down if they want the bomb now that our army is tied down in Iraq. That's why they're resuming enrichment now...they know full well there's nothing that anyone can do. The whole premise of Iran helping AQ attack the U.S. RIGHT NOW is also incredibly flawed...simply because Iran knows very well that if they don't have the bomb and they did help AQ attack the U.S., the U.S. would strike back no matter the condition of our army. I have a feeling we will see them be on surprisingly good behavior overall for the next few years, aside from the Uranium enrichment. Balta, stop talking that nonsense. You're being conservative...

Oh, and the other part that he introduced was if we blow up Iran, the Russians would come to their defense... thus escalating it all.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 03:53 PM) And what if we hypothetically throw in your radio guy's conversion to an oil-for-Euro's trade system for the trifecta? We'd probably be lucky to get $100/barrel oil with a confluence of events like that I assume. Yea, and that's basically what he was saying... price the oil at about $150/$200 bbl. And that is what the Bushies can't allow to happen, which is why we're about to blow up Iran. And he says, that is the real reason we are in Iraq, was to have a staging area for our "real enemy" of Iran. Gee, it all makes sense now.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 03:39 PM) Of course that is the true threat, and the heart of the current problem. How do we push a line with Iran on their nuke program that is hardline enough to get real results but still keeps Iran's oil flowing on the world market? Well, that, and if China knocked on the Fed's door at the same time oil supplies "mysteriously" get cut off from the west, demanding payment for our debt, this country would litereally collapse.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 01:52 PM) Iran has zero interest in attacking the US. He has to hit Israel in order to further what he believes is his cause in aiding the return of the final prophet. If they guy had said Iran was going to nuke Tel Aviv I could have believed him, maybe. The US getting attacked by Iran, no way. To clarify, he didn't say Iran DIRECTLY attacking the US, but he is saying that Iran would assist the Al Queda network with what they needed ($$, etc) to attack the US.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 01:48 PM) Must be all those Mexican illegals stealing jobs . . . That was an inside joke for SS. Our econ prof used to tell us that below 5% unemployment was impossible to achieve.

4.7%? Wow. That's impossible...

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 01:42 PM) This is where the Twilight Zone music would be appropriate. The rest sounds like a good Tom Clancy yarn. Yea - it was some strange stuff. I was listening to this thinking, WTF? And the more I listened, the more I couldn't turn it. It was really strange. And yea, I agree, SS. I think before the end of February, something's going to happen. That's the other thing that this guy said. Basically, we know when, where and what the next attack will be right now. It will most likely have fingerprints pointing to Iran in some fashion... That's all similiar to the conspiracy s*** that Bush knew 9/11 was going to happen before it happened in detail.

I was stuck in traffic last night on my way home, so I turned to the AM blowtorch to get an update on traffic. On this show, there was this wacky guy who said the following: It's all but done in the next 60 days we are going to have a terrorist attack against the United States. It will be used in conjunction with the 'threat' that Iran has nuclear capabilities (much like Iraq had WMD's). If you listened to the State of the Union, the part in there to the "Iranian people" was verbatim what the "to the Iraqi people" was three years ago, which was a sign that we were coming in. Why is all this getting ready to happen? On March 20, 2006, Iran is supposed to open the first oil market in the world where the currency is NOT dependant on oil. This guy's theory is that is why oil has been in the $60-$70 range is because that's the only way that we could keep people investing in dollars (read: China - they need $$ to buy oil, so that's one reason they keep investing in our debt). When this new market opens, it will be the first time since 1944 that you can buy oil with the Euro (any currency besides the dollar) and with that, the dollar will lose tons of its value overnight. Therefore, inflation, etc, will hit us almost overnight and destroy our economy. There's even signs of this happening already. Iran, who has money tied into the US Fed system (they had to, because that's the only currency that oil is bought with) has in the last two weeks started moving their money to Swiss bank accounts and it's now Euros. The bottom line is the neocons cannot let this happen, and the people that control Wall Street and in London have already been briefed that something big is about to go down. The plans even call for a possible PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR strike against Tehran if we cannot go in and "secure the peace" almost immediately with traditional forces. I forget the guy's name that was spewing all this s***. But it was interesting enough to share at least what parts I could remember. This ought to fit right up the alley that the takeover of the world by George W. Bush and his neocon friends is immenent. The only way for this to NOT happen according to this gentleman is that we in America have to accept that our economy is now second fiddle because the dollar doesn't control oil anymore. We have to invest heavily in the Euro, and call Isreal and Iran to a peace conference to ensure that the oil keeps flowing to our country, or Iran will essentially shut down the oil market (see Persian Gulf Straits of Hormuz) and at that point oil will be $200 bbl. /insert twilight zone music here

Noooooo, not you...

she just looks like a donkey in this picture, dont' she?

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 02:58 PM) Hey look, it only took 11 posts to blame Clinton. The last time I checked, Bill Clinton didn't rush us into Iraq in 2003. The last time I checked, Bill Clinton didn't fail to plan for an Iraqi insurgency. The last time I checked, Bill Clinton didn't go into Iraq with "the army he has not the army he wants." If Bill Clinton gets a free pass on everything, maybe you could explain why people in this forum find the things he invests in so interesting? I didn't "blame" him. I "blamed" them ALL.

Yes, that body armor, the one that has advancements all the time and it doesn't roll out to the front lines quick enough. No matter how fast, it's too slow. (no sarcasm). But what I think is silly is no matter what happens, it's never, ever good enough. If there's a way to rip into this administration for anything, it sure will be found ASAP. Yea, this administration is hypocrtical screwoffs. So was every administration before this one. But one certain Democratic administration before this one gets a free pass on everything, including scaling down the military and said armor programs back in the 1990s.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 06:30 AM) If Bill is doing something inappropriate, it reflects directly on Hillary. For example, Tom Delay's family managed to conveniently wind up with high paying jobs funded by his donors in his campaigns for several years before people started paying attention. Does the fact that it was his family doing it and not him mean that it doesn't reflect on him? Wow, Balta and I agree on something. :o

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 06:24 AM) You know quite literally what happened? Some of those folks @ Opec came forwards and said today, to paraphrase..."Well, if you're going to cut the amount of oil you need, then we're not going to invest as much in infrastructure to get that hard to pump, expensive oil out of the ground". Money talks, bulls*** walks. If we fund to keep the oil flowing, those money hungry emirs will keep it coming.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 02:45 AM) Yeah, it doesn't phase or much surprise me that the Pentagon felt the need to write a vaguely threatening letter, but I'd agree they have better and more important things to do. The cartoon pretty much nails the sentiments doming from the administration though. It's about the level of compassion you'd expect from the guys who would rather threaten soldiers with punishment and loss of death benefits if they use the good body armor that they paid for themselves instead of using the crappy stuff the military provides them. That same crappy armour that saved Woodruff's life? That s***ty stuff? It's amazing the rhetoric, from both sides, of the spectrum here.

Wow. 1,100 + days, and United is finally out of bankruptcy. That's pretty phenominal for an airline, especially in this environment. I know, because I worked for a bankrupt airline that emerged from bankruptcy. United. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11126203/

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 06:07 PM) I believe you can opt out of SS benefits. That's nice. You can opt out of rec'ving the benefits, but you still have to pay in.

I'm shocked. Where's all the "this is Bush's fault" posts?

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 03:39 AM) He better be, he's probably gonna be on the short list for VP candidates in 08. Oh and to Kap, if you were listening, he was producing ideas, solutions, plans. More than I've heard from the average opposition response in a decade of paying attention. I just got home - I was out tonight and missed it all. I tivo'd it though so I'll watch it later this week.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2006 -> 09:52 PM) There is a new law somewhere in committee at the federal level right now to more fully disclose executive pay to the public. Real compensation, non-cash included, is to be given out in plain language terms. This could help give the markets more complete information on just how much profit companies are throwing away at a small handful of people. Stocks will suffer for it. Boards will force companies to tighten up on that. At least, thats the theory anyway. Not sure where the law/reg is right now. Anyone got more on that? I know that GAAP (Accounting regulations) is changing so that all options, etc. for executives are reported. Part of S-OX has some of those requirements as well.

QUOTE(Wong & Owens @ Jan 31, 2006 -> 08:36 PM) I don't know, does a person realistically have that much better a chance here than in Britain, for example? Maybe it is true, I certainly believe we have the greatest country in the world. But it won't last, not given the current trends. The sooner people stop with the red/blue, left/right bulls***, and the more they wake up and realize that none of them(well, very few of them at least) are doing their jobs, the quicker we can change things. It's a "broadbrush" statement, for sure, but "a rising tide raises all boats?" Give me a f***ing break. An unpredictable break, for a change, would be even better. That I can agree with.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2006 -> 07:30 PM) Flaxx and I have completed our debate. I just wanted to say thank you to Jim for an excellent debate. You sir are very well read, and a pleasure to argue with. You sir, are a pain in the ass, I mean, a pleasure to argue with.