Balta1701

And there's things that you do when you're campaigning. -Joe Lieberman, 2006.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 07:17 PM) The sad thing is, you know what the defense is going to be at these scumbags trials... She was drunk and it was consensual?

Now I'm quite certain you can't do 2 letters at once, and I'm pretty sure that image does M, N, and S

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 07:20 PM) Lol. Yup room for everyone under the Democratic umbrella... "He's with us on everything but the war" - Harry Reid, 2006. So, if he's not with us on our major international policy issues, he's not with us on our major domestic policy issue, what exactly is left that he's with us on?

I'm quite certain Zoroaster would oppose it.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 05:12 PM) You know that is ironic, because genetically speaking XX would make him a her. Anyoen with that much THC in their system might well think that they were for a time.

QUOTE (striker62704 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) You have to expect at least one risky pickup from KW this offseason. Rios doesn't count?

X X - I believe if you looked into his eyes once, you could literally see that.

Without having been there...how exactly do you tell if it's rape versus consensual? If the person is screaming help that's obvious, but the description here doesn't describe exactly what the passers-by saw.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 02:21 PM) Because Lamont wasn't going to be able to win, and half a senator is better than no senator. yes he would have.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 01:06 PM) We'll take a lot of other species down with us, though, and the billions of years of evolution it took to produce those particular lines. So? Natural selection is impressive. Mass extinctions have happened before, and except for right after the end-Permian, life has recovered and diversified into totally new species to fill the suddenly available niches within a couple million years. As long as we don't leave the planet a clicking radioactive wasteland, life will be fine, long term at least. What we need to concern ourselves with is exactly what we need to concern ourselves with in terms of the climate; the relaxation time. We need to care about the impacts while we're here. If it takes life a couple million years to recover from a mass extinction, unless we've got a couple million years to spare it doesn't make much sense to drive an extinction event. IF it takes the planet on the order of a few tens of thousands of years to react to changes in atmospheric CO2, it doesn't make much sense to dramatically change that quantity unless we don't care about timescales less than that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 01:04 PM) Without the NIH and it's funding and grants, we wouldn't have most of the medical advances we do. Oh, and let's not forget the BILLIONS in basic research done in universities and government labs that it's all based on, too. The reality is we're actually getting the exact same scenario that he's threatening us with as the horrible end. Drug companies have been churning out fewer and fewer drugs from year to year over the past decade, and its not because patent laws have gotten stricter or anything. It's because they've basically focused on coming up with only the highest profitable drugs and products, things that aren't actually cures for anything but give you lifetime treatments that you can get a whole lot of people, preferably on Medicare (Since they can afford it) taking for a period of decades. There's no profit in developing a vaccine for AIDS, or modernizing the flu vaccine system. There's lots of profit in finding a way to keep your E.D. treatment behind a patent wall. Those billiions in R&D he talks about go to the drugs you see on TV, not to the things that might benefit society the most.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 12:54 PM) Ask Estrada how his cloture vote turned out? Oh wait..he didn't get a cloture vote. God forbid the first Supreme Court Hispanic be a Republican pick. Ask Durbin he was the point man on this injustice. I thought affirmative action was a bad thing and that we were supposed to live in a racially-blind world?

That didn't take long at all.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:30 AM) That's laughable, Mr. Cloture on court appointees (which is EXPLICITLY not constutitional unlike cloture on other issues, not that I agree with it being used for EITHER party). It's probably also worth noting that there were more cloture votes on Judges during the Clinton years than during the Bush years. If the Filibuster is treated like it was in the 60's, where you actually had to do something to hold up a bill, then it'd be far more interesting. It's the fact that it can now be applied without doing anything that totally shakes up the system.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:33 AM) It's not anyone's political fault, but don't be stupid enough to promise 80 million vaccines if it cannot be done. This fits his "I will fix the world's issues" mantra all too well. It will be done. It'll just be done by Jan 1 because the virus took a little longer to culture.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:21 AM) You're telling me a good argument couldn't be made, or you are just saying you disagree? Because personally, I pretty much agree with you, but I think you could certainly argue that what Tony LaRussa has done (as opposed maybe to Torre or Cox) is pretty damn remarkable considering some of the rosters he's had over the years. And looking at what Bill Parcels has done in the NFL Is pretty amazing as well. I think there are some situations where the matchup between the coach and the team is perfect and it really does help (i.e. 2005 white sox) but otherwise, take your examples. LaRussa has won when he's had really good teams. Even in 2006 when his cardinals sucked in the regualr season, they were a lot healthier down the stretch and in the playoffs. Bill Parcells did some amazing things but he also built some amazing rosters. Belichek, ditto. Guy was run out of Cleveland and literally destroyed the franchise before he got his hands on Tom Brady, those linebackers, and some digital recording equipment. I really just don't feel like a great coach is a fix for a beat up roster or a roster with a lot of holes, unless that coach tries to run a scheme that perfectly fits his roster while another coach was refusing to.

unless I think I can take 15 more powerpoint crashes in 20 minutes like I had last night, I think it's time to try Windows 7.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:15 AM) I tend to think you could make an argument for both... And I tend to think the exact opposite. There really is no such thing as a super-coach who you can hire and suddenly make every come up wins. You can have the right coach for the right mix of players, you can have some coaches/players who don't work together and some who do, but unless a manager is totally clueless, switching coaches really doesn't do what some people would like to think it does.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:08 AM) He did help that is true. But he was at best the third best pitcher on that team. He pitched poorly in the ALDS and ALCS. He did well in the WS sweep, which they would have won without him. We can differ on whether he is worth 105 million bucks but in my opinion he is not, nor is he close. An obvious alternative is to think about what the Red Sox might have spent that money on had they not signed Daisuke. There were a number of candidates. Johan is the obvious answer. They could also have been able to prevent the Yanks from signing either CC or Tex last offseason if their offers had been $20 mil over 8 years higher.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 10:01 AM) I don't disagree that the profit motivation and the public health motivations don't always work well together, and that should be addressed. I jsut disagree that this is "Obama's fault" or "Bush's fault". Well, it is the closest I could come to blaming it on politics.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 09:50 AM) That isn't a valid reason for blaming the President. That's a valid reason for blaming the drug companies. Well, I can take it one step further and note that it's a symptom of the problem that is a private, for-profit health care system; if something's not extremely profitable (i.e. e.d. drugs) then there's no money going in to it, which is exactly the system we've decided so far that we want in this country. That is a public policy decision, and it was the explicit policy of the last administration. Anyway, yeah I'm stretching, but this is one of those things I think is actually really important in the health care debate so I do like to highlight it. The Pharmaceutical companies waste enormous sums on finding ways around patent protections, on commercials trying to sell people drugs they don't really need, etc., and meanwhile research funds for things that might legitimately help people, cut costs, or save lives has for the most part dried up because doing those things isn't as profitable. This is a key flaw in the private system.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 09:44 AM) I didn't say I like the GOP approach either. Their approach is basically no approach at all. The Dem approach has been 100 different approaches. Either model in the world of private business would result in running said business into the ground. So basically you've accepted my premise that the only way to fix the system is to make health care public. Yay.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2009 -> 09:42 AM) It is patently absurd to blame Obama or Bush for slowness of getting out flu vaccines. Actually I can come up with a totally valid reason for doing so. The flu vaccine production system has been desperately in need of modernization for years, decades probably. There are new technologies that could be applied that would likely produce vaccine faster or cheaper. But because the flu vaccine isn't hugely profitable like, you know, drugs that help you have sex, there's no money going from the private sector into developing new production methods. At some point, the government either ought to step in and pay to upgrade the system or the government ought to mandate that someone else should pay for it. But instead, we get viagra. Lots and lots of viagra. And commercials for it. Anyway, that's a different rant.

it's also not a secret that the 60 vote supermajority required for everything passing the Senate is also a new development over the last 10 years or so, and especially the last 3.