TheBigHurt35

QUOTE(YASNY @ Feb 23, 2005 -> 02:27 AM) How do you know he's one of the best without roids? He's been on them since for the past 5 years. Barry was a HOF-caliber player before that, although maybe not "one of the best [ever]." It's unfortunate that he felt the need to tarnish his reputation towards the end of his career.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 23, 2005 -> 07:16 AM) Yes I know, but knowing Parcells, if Bledsoe is signed for 2 years, Henson won't be starting til 2007 and that's an IF. Bledsoe is nearly done, but is still FAR ahead of Henson. If I were in Parcells' shoes, I'd rather start a has-been than a never-was.

I see they've began to put the new seats in the club section. Nice...

That probably has to do with the increasing popularity of larger-screen, higher-resolution HDTVs. FWIW, I can see the small print just fine on my old-school 27". More importantly, we can now see more of Robin Meade and Rudi Bakhtiar. B)

Who cares what a bunch of commie wankers from Belgium think? :sleep

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Feb 22, 2005 -> 12:11 PM) I wonder what high profile american lawyer will defend this jackass. No doubt that it will be someone from the ACLU. :rolly

Found two good articles on the web regarding the vilification of the pharmaceutical industry - one from CBS News and an older one from The New Yorker. Both are highly-recommended reading.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 17, 2005 -> 05:12 PM) Makes me glad I live in a red state. No kidding. I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those. I saw quite a few in London and Edinburgh this past fall and agree that they're functional in over-crowded cities. But the thought of actually purchasing one causes my penis to shrink.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 21, 2005 -> 09:13 AM) Well then, which sanctions are you talking about? Because it seems that there were a lot of different sanctions passed by congress in the mid to late 90s. The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 20, 2005 -> 11:28 AM) Actually, the sanctions bill of which you speak did not attack countries at all but rather companies. And it was unrelated to oil but rather weapons system related development. You are incorrect. These sanctions very much were related to oil. This legislation (introduced by Alfonse D'Amato) was an extension of the oil embargo against Iran, which was ineffective because most of Europe didn't recognize it. You are correct, however, in that the purpose of limiting Iran's petroleum industry was to limit their funding for weapons systems. These companies do most of their business in their own nations (Total S.A. in France, Gazprom in Russia, and Petronas in Malaysia) and with others who also did not recognize America's oil embargo. Therefore, these sanctions would have, by far, the greatest effect on these economies. That would explain why most of Europe (Germany, in particular) went ballistic when the legislation was introduced. Fortunately for Europe and Asia, Clinton's watered-down version of this bill and his refusal to enforce the sanctions (through his ridiculous "national security" waiver) ensured that these "sanctions" would never be enforced. In 1997, Washington Post reported that the three aforementioned oil companies invested $2 billion in an oil field off the coast of Iran and Clinton did nothing about it. The following year, he waived all sanctions against these oil companies. It was nothing short of political grandstanding on Clinton's part to give voters the impressions that he was "tough on terrorism." BTW, I find it interesting that liberals claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq simply to procure oil. At their pre-war height, Iraq only produced 2.6% of the world's oil supply. An oil-driven invasion makes little sense, given the cost of going to war with nation known to have used chemical and biological weapons in the past. Invading an African oil-producing country (such as Nigeria) would've cost a hell of a lot less. I think it's obvious that our European and Asian counterparts are significantly more oil-hungry, given that... a. We were the only ones willing to boycott Iranian oil sales. b. Other nations (such as France and Russia) fought against the aforementioned sanctions and actively encouraged Iranian oil development. c. The French and Russians pressed to lift UN-imposed oil production caps in Iraq in the mid/late '90s, while we opposed it. Clearly, they have a much stronger interest in Iraqi oil than we do. Oh, I have no doubt that Clinton recognized the problems. Unfortunately, he was completely inept when it came time to actually deal with them.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 20, 2005 -> 12:04 AM) Maybe the worst of it comes around to a party that tried to handcuff a President's foreign policy because they were too busy trying to get him impeached for a blowjob. No, I think the worst of it is that the Republican-controlled Congress allowed Clinton to pass a "sanctions" bill to stop countries from purchasing petroleum from Iran and that Clinton didn't even bother to enforce the provisions of his own bill. He had bipartisan support to put sanctions on Iran and then allowed that terror state to keep on raking in money from oil sales. Like I've said before, Clinton did a good job addressig many domestic issues (balancing the budget, welfare reform, etc.), but was the worst foreign policy president that we've had a in a long time.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 11:56 PM) For the most part North Korea was not seriously in weapons production mode for the bulk of the rest of the Clinton administration. The CIA has estimated that North Korea had at least one nuclear weapon back in the mid-90's. Forgive me, but I'll trust their intelligence reports over your opinion. No, the Clinton Administration made some sort of non-enforceable loose agreement with the North Koreans and essentially looked the other way while their clandestine nuke program proliferated. North Korea admitted in October of '02 that they had "been secretly developing nuclear weapons for years in violation of international agreements" (Washington Post, 10/17/02, p. A01). In other words, it happened right under Clinton's nose. In 1998, U.S. intelligence reported "a huge secret underground complex in North Korea" and estimated that "about 15,000 North Koreans are at work on a vast, secret underground nuclear facility" (New York Times, 8/17/98, p. A1). What did Clinton do about this? Nothing. So much for the effectiveness of Bill's "warm relations" with the rogue regime of Kim Jung Il. Like al Qaeda, Clinton brushed the North Korean situation under the rug for the next president to deal with.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 03:08 PM) They knew of the sideeffects and instead of informing the public they did nothing. Uh, wrong. They pulled the drug from the market when the post-launch follow-up studies showed potential cardiac issues in a small fraction of patients. Vioxx went through about 8-10 years of clinical trials in humans and significant FDA scrutiny. Merck played by the rules and doesn't deserved to be demonized.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 10:37 AM) Wholly apart from the drug ad issue, I think alcohol advertizing has it's own problems. Yep. Aside from what they're selling, they use sex to do it. You think the FDA would allow a Viagra commercial featuring the Coors twins?

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 11:07 AM) Actually most political analysts with any expertise on the Korean peninsula that I have read have said that N Korea started its Uranium Enrichment program in earnest in 2001. That's funny, then why did the Clinton Administration have to come to an "agreement" with North Korea all the way back in 1994? And why did this agreement involve "internationally-monitored containment and eventual rollback" of its nuclear capability (Washington Post, 10/19/94, p. A22) if they were 8 years away from having a weapon? Sounds to me like they were pretty damn close in '94. In late 2001, the CIA reported that North Korea had likely had one or two nuclear weapons back in the mid-1990s. Hell, they already had a functioning nuclear reactor way back in 1989!

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 12:28 PM) So don't blame Clinton for it when it was FBI bureaucracy that decided they wouldn't stop the attack. I'm not. I'm blaming him for doing next to nothing after the attack that occurred only a month into his first term. After the Oklahoma City and Centennial Park bombings, Clinton allowed Janet Reno to stifle the FBI in their attempts to conduct wiretaps on suspected terrorists (something that they could already do with domestic organized crime members) under the guise of "protecting civil liberties." Airport security was also allowed to remain woefully inadequate. Clinton's "sanctions" against countries who did petroleum-related business with terrorist-aider Iran were a complete joke. Billy Boy put a "loophole" in that deal where he could executively decide to forego these sanctions when in it was in the country's "national interest" (a decision he made on his own). The result was that these sanctions were never implemented and countries like Russia, France, and Germany continued to do business with Iran. Clinton didn't even bother pressuring the Saudis into allowing the FBI to question the suspects in the Khobar Towers bombing (where over a hundred of our troops were murdered). Apparently the Saudis had something to hide... one of their own citizens (some guy named Osama bin Laden) was behind it. The Saudis simply asassinated the culprits so that the FBI couldn't get any damning information out of them. Clinton's actions towards fighting terrorism in the '90s were woefully inadequate. One can argue that other Presidents also ignored the issue but, by the mid-90s, all the signs pointing towards 9/11 were there. More should've been done. I actually agree with you on this one. The Israelis are certainly not without significant blame. As I've told you before, I have a Palestinian friend from Ramallah and know all-too-well the injustices committed by the Israeli army. Our government needs to take a more "fair and balanced" approach to dealing with both sides.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 10:40 AM) That Bin Laden story is entirely an urban legend. CIA agents had loctaed bin Laden in a small campsite in Afghanistan in the late '90s, but weren't given the go-ahead to blow it up because a prince from one of the smaller countries on the Arabian Peninsula (I want to say it was Bahrain or the UAE) was also present. The White House didn't want to deal with the fallout of murdering an Arabic royal (despite the fact that he was meeting with a known international terrorist).

QUOTE(YASNY @ Feb 19, 2005 -> 10:33 AM) The only reason Clinton "awakened" to the situation was to attempt to get the Lewinski situation off the front pages of the newspapers. I wouldn't say he followed up on it in any way shape or form ... considering that Bin Laden would have been handed to him if he was willing to accept the offer. Yeah, no kidding! Clinton did nothing after al Qaeda blew a five-story hole in the bottom of WTC Tower 1 in early '93 (he didn't even visit the site afterwards), so giving him "credit" for addressing terrorism is nothing short of laughable. And let's not forget how he allowed North Korea to run an underground (literally) nuke program under cover of the fake "agreement" bartered by Jimmy Carter, of all people. Clinton did a good job of balancing the budget and was instrumental in welfare reform, but he was more or less illiterate in the field of foreign policy. Agreed that Reagan and Bush probably should've done more, yet both had to deal with the Soviets. However, Reagan did bomb terrorist-enabler Ghadaffi into submission.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 10:23 PM) Why? What do you mean, "why"? Maybe because, like tobacco, alcohol has very negative effects on one's health with little benefit? Hell, at least presecription drugs have some important medical use.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 10:34 PM) Sometimes, the smartest move is to let them continue to fundraise. Watching the money rather than stopping it can be an incredibly effective mechanism to unravel the scope and players of a particular organization. I think that's an incredibly poor way to handle the situation. How long is France going to "watch" money from their country fund the deaths of little kids in Israel? Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I agree with your general statement, but you phrase it in an incredibly negative way. Our government certainly didn't "put their heads in the sand" when it came to dealing with Axis powers during WWII and curbing the spread of Communism from the nuclear superpower Soviet Union afterwards. Oh, and let's not forget about Cuba and the other "lesser" rogue nations that the US has dealt with since WWII. Outside of Clinton doing nothing about al Qaeda in the '90s, I think it's safe to say that the US government has fought the "most important" battles since WWII.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 10:00 PM) The whole "ask your doctor about [insert drug here]..." direct-marketing culture is problematic. It's good for consumers to be educated and informed about options, but the incessant ads shoved down our throats tell us to march in to our doctor's office and WE TELL HIM what he should be prescribing us. If he disagrees, we go find another doctor, and so on, until we find one that will give us the drugs the TV told us WE NEED (of course, we neglected to listen to the 2-minute litany of possible side effects that are almost as bad as the original condition). At that stage, we are essentially self-medicating, and as we are seeing that can mean trouble. Wasn't it until only recently that the FDA would allow prescription drugs to be advertised on TV?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 10:06 PM) They'd be fairly amused, I'm sure, and chalk it up to national penis envy. Canadians have penises?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 09:50 PM) Ach, I think it's acceptable for a Canuck to not know the term (you do have like 30 words for "snow" though, right? ). It would be a fairly foreign concept up your way. Down this way, however, we're swimming in 'em. I'm going to head over to a Toronto Argonauts message board and insult the Canadian government ad nauseam ("to a ridiculous extreme," for those who never read). You think they'll appreciate my comments?

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 09:01 PM) They oughta pull em off direct marketing though. I got a problem with the advertisement of prescription medication to mass markets. If you can't advertise tobacco, you shouldn't be able to advertise a product with a potential side effect of kidney failure if taken in recommended doses. Not that I necessarily disagree, but then alcohol ads would have to be pulled as well.

QUOTE(winodj @ Feb 18, 2005 -> 08:51 PM) Because Chirac won't refer to Hezbollah as terrorists doesn't mean that France doesn't consider them such. Why wouldn't they want to? At the very least, it'd keep organizations in their country from funding terrorist organizations. Or is the French government not concerned with fighting terrorism? This is classic French appease-the-enemy-and-hope-they'll-spare-Paris-when-they-try-to-take-over-the-world logic. It didn't work with Hitler and it won't work with al Qaeda/Hammas/Hezbollah. I agree that the French have undertaken some positive work in fighting terrorism within their own borders, but allowing France-based charities to fund Hezbollah is a big step backwards. Also agree that Imus is an asshat. Years of drug and alcohol abuse have clearly turned his brain into mush. Classic!