kapkomet

No way. Everyone gets a LOT better except the Sox. No way.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:58 PM) And after the toilet paper joke, yes I REALLY want to hurt you FlaSoxxJim is a Karma Karma Karmeliannnn. (sp wrong on purpose...)

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 07:04 PM) Apparently you're not Jewish. You are so bad.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 06:58 PM) Taking Gene's side on this, fwiw. The "You're Invited" thread title came right out of the publically posted party invitation. I think the kid and her parents are just having dome fun and being creative in preparing for the Bat Mitsvah. Likewise, Gene is having some fun as an outsider looking in on some of that silliness. Where she lives, etc., is all right in the publically posted information. Maybe it's a little insensitive to ridicule something the kid and her family are putting effort and imagination into. But you have to be trying really hard to find anything nefarious or unseemly in that initial post. When you put yourself up on the internet (like SW kid et al.), you invariably open yourself up to review and commentary by a larger audience than you intended. It's worth a lot. Thank you, sir, for understanding where we're coming from as admins, etc.

Soxtalk is in legal jeapordy now. FOR THE RECORD, this is SARCASM. No one is serious.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:28 PM) Unfair comparison. Just like everyone who supports drilling, probably doesn't want to see pipelines and pumps in his backyard, there are better locations for wind and solar plants. Kap, have you been out to west Texas and seen the windmills out on 10? Quite a site, but I wouldn't want to see them on a daily basis out my backyard. Yea... and I agree. However, it's ironic that they scream and scream for alternative fuels - and then when it hits them, uhhhh, no... we can't do that THERE... off shore ...

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:27 PM) I personally hate the Cowboys and I found nothing funny about it. Of course I've always been pretty big on sportsmanship and not showing up your oponents.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 03:56 PM) Yeah I can't understand when all of the rules were towards opening up the game, they signed grinder type players instead of skill players. Really dense IMO. And the other team that I thought would do well is Florida... look at them. Keenan is getting rid of his skill players left and right. There's some dense mofo's as GM's right now.

It's the lack of discipline, not the lack of offense. And, their system sucks.

There's no way Chicago wins the Super Bowl. No way.

The Dallas Stars have 6 people participating in the Olympics. That's pretty good for one NHL team.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:18 PM) What do you find interesting in that post? Perhaps I missed some news snippet about Martha's Vineyard. Did they pitch a fit about offsore wind turbines or something? Yes.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:19 PM) How do you think they refine the oil from prudhoe bay? Pipe it down to New Orleans? Having all the oil in the world sitting in Louisiana and to a lesser extent Texas wouldn't have mattered, we all still would have to go through what we did with the supply. Where it came from, Saudi Arabia, or ANWR, or somewhere else Alaska, or West Texas, it would not have mattered.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:03 PM) Like windmills off the coast of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Oh, no, I forgot the surly drunk from Massachusetts lives there and that would ruin his view of the water from his burka lounger on Hyannisport. Yea, I find that a bit interesting as well. GREEN GREEN GREEN friendly... but it better not effect ME!

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:00 PM) Let's also understand that the American concept of Union is not universal. For example, the workers in Mexico's Maquilla Plants are all Unionized. But the employer picks the Union. If the Union becomes a problem, new companies will not select that Union, and they will see their membership fall. What the union facilitates for the employers is keeping wages down. Each plant negotiates with the union and the plants watch as each one negotiates and they help one another. Good points, which is why I think (if I understand Rex) the point is not a good one. There's a lot more reasons to not shop at Walmart if you choose not to besides the union one.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 05:00 PM) That amount of oil, if available, would have eased the burden on the suppliers in the Gulf after the hurricane. That is absolutely not a fair comparision. Supply of oil had nothing to do with that - it had to do with refinery capacity at that point.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 04:52 PM) Dude, there are a ton of reasons why revenues have increased, and it's not just the tax cuts. First and foremost, the population of the U.S. has significantly increased since the first tax cuts (The working population grows by like 100,000-150,000 a month in this country on average). You increase the tax base by 5 million people, you're going to increase revenues. Furthermore, yes revenues have increased, but at the same time, government expenditures have increased (as has the size of government). The more money government spends by hiring people/letting out contracts/pumping money into the economy, the more the government is going to get back in total revenues. This is Keynesian economics in a nutshell I believe...the government runs a deficit, and it causes economic activity to increase for a time because extra cash is being pumped into the economy. The risk with that sort of economic plan is not the short term, it's the long term - i.e. the Great Society & Vietnam war spending packages were directly linked to the stagflationary economy of the 70's. You cannot just say "Oh revenues have increased, the tax cuts did their job" totally in a vacuum. If you were to do that, I could simply respond by saying "Yes, revenues have increased, but they have increased significantly less than the magnitude of the initial tax cuts, so we must be on the left hand side of the "Laffer curve"." No matter how much either side wants to narrow down the current economy to a slogan or a simple proof, it will not work. There are way too many variables at any given time - this doesn't even consider the dramatic rise in consumer debt encouraged by the fed, or the housing boom, or the refinancing boom, all of which may have dramatically increased revenues by creating jobs but all of which may significantly weaken as interest rates continue to rise (in part because of the massive tax cut related deficits) How many people fall off the payroll at the same time? And secondarily, I thought that there weren't REAL jobs being created? Now which is it? No, tax cuts are not 100% the reason revenues are up, but they did provide a pretty good stimulus into the economy, and that's (at least partly - if not a majority of) why revenues are higher then they were estimated at the time of implementation. It's also why we have a higher GDP then 2.5%, which were the estimates at the time the tax cuts were enacted. (waiting for Tex to jump in and scream about the deficits - which I agree are a problem)

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 03:22 PM) But the moment, I made the decision to never shop at Wal-Mart again was when I found out that they would let their Chinese employees unionize. It's good enough for them but not for us? I just find that unacceptable myself. Why is that? Because China's "union" is the government, and it was a prerequisite for Walmart to locate in China.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 02:57 PM) I think the tax cuts probably had some material positive impact, but not nearly enough given the deficits t put us into. In any case, I think the real estate boom generated a lot more cash to encourage the recovery than any tax cuts did. Actually, that would be a really great study - how much buying power was generated in the consumer markets by the tax cuts, versus the real estate boom? If I was in Grad school for a PhD in anything math or finance/econ or Poli Sci related, I'd be all over that. Money has to go somewhere... there's a huge disseration waiting on just that alone.

These are AWESOME. Damn you do good work.

BTW Flaxx... I wasn't insinuating that you personally are all "gleeful"... sorry to have that appearance. This is a b**** of an issue. I'm more coming at this from a devil's advocate side - I still honestly don't know what to think other then I don't like the thoughts of it, yet, looking for justification.

However, you have to ask yourself the basic question - does CONGRESS even have the authority to grant this anyway? And - I'm no Constitutional lawyer, but under the 4th amendment, it's presumed that a person hasn't given up the rights granted therein. In this case, I would argue that said persons involved in (potential) illegal activity have given up the rights covered in the 4th amendment anyway. So, why is it that the FBI can take my bank s*** anytime they want without a warrant? Because I've given up my rights, by giving my information to a third party. I think the same argument can be made on these phone calls. They've already been (at least suggested that they are) involved in activity that warrants (pardon the word) monitoring. We'll see how the arguments take shape. And a last thought. Federalist 70: (partial) Isn't this an interesting snippet? It's like these guys actually thought about stuff like this. Let's quit parsing words about the formal "declaration of war" - the president was indeed granted "by all means necessary". My point about all this is - you people are looking for a magical bullet to bring Bush down. That's why you're so passionate about it. WE FINALLY GOT THIS ASSHOLE is the mantra I see coming from Libs. They are all too gleeful in this endeavor. I think that I'm uncomfortable with the eavesdropping - but I also think that 99.99999999999% of American's rights are NOT being eroded. This is a call of sensationalism about "MY RIGHTS" when it has nothing to do with "MY RIGHTS". It has to do with some assholes IN OUR COUNTRY plotting terrorist activities. I think that Congress doesn't have to grant explicit authority on these issues. I also think that the Federalist papers (boy I'm glad I remembered this from government classes) sort of highlight some of these thoughts. It's not 100%, no, but it sure seems to me that once you've crossed the line and given opportunity to third parties - you've lost your rights granted under the 4th amendment.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 12:18 AM) My best guess remains that they're attempting to set a precedent about how widely the President's authority can be applied in this case. Think about this...there is nothing at all in the Afghan war resolution which specifically authorizes the President to do these wiretaps...nothing by name at least. Here are the words they've tried to use to justify that program: If the President can find a legal way to apply that statute to this matter, and have either Congress or a court of law agree with him, then there's basically no limit as to the President's power in any matter which could be remotely tied to the war on terror. If you're like Dick Cheney and actually believe that the President is unrestrained during wartime by the U.S. laws, then that's an incredibly useful and powerful precedent to set. The only other thing I can come up with as a possible explanation given that it really does seem to be a blatant violation of the law is that the Republicans are hoping they can use it against the Democrats in 2006 the same way they used the DHS in 2002 - to try to portray the Democrats as weak on the war, when that's hardly the issue at hand at all. No, it's not that kind of an issue... but running around calling for "impeachment" makes it sound that way. The Democrat's problem on this issue is that the President is being TOO OPEN about it. And that's just plain weird. I need to get out of here... you do raise some good points with this post. There's more to this yet to come, because they are "beaming" about this program. It's going to have to come out that we stopped something 100% dead in its tracks for this to have that much justification.

So now it's Walmart's job to give everyone health insurance. And furthermore, it's the socioeconomic class that tends to work in a retail environment... so that's walmart's fault too. Yet, they took some sort of corrective action it sounds like...

QUOTE(Mercy! @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 12:09 AM) For you and everyone who really believes this - how wide an intellectual net are you casting on this subject? Many conservative civil libertarians are appalled. Here's one place you might start, that bastion of Communism, the Wall Street Journal: Wiretap Furor Widens Republican Divide For my part, I do think there is a serious issue here. But, I can't figure out why they are so open about it.