Balta1701

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 06:16 PM) I dont know, but "mild strain" certainly sounds better than "tear." Also, was it ACL or MCL? I have a cold and my ears are all messed. Call me crazy if people know better, but i'm pretty sure that the only way you're going to tell the difference between a sprain and a partially/fully torn ligament is with the MRI.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 06:20 PM) well when you accuse Obama of wanting to teach kindergartners about sex, an out and out lie, you forfeit any possibility of a clean campaign. I used to think I liked McCain more than the other candidates, but now I'm not so sure. He's backtracked on anything he's accomplished the past 8 years, he's probably more of a warhawk than Bush, and quite possibly stupider. An unbelievable combination. Frankly I disagree. I think McCain isn't nearly as, well, how to put this politely, slow, as our current President. But I think that makes him more dangerous in a sense. Bush is just numb to so much it seems, it takes a complete disaster (katrina) to penetrate the bubble he's wrapped around his head, and that has helped give the other people in his administration (Cheney) such a chance to take control of things. John McCain isn't going to be like that. He knows what he wants to do. The problem is...the things he wants to do. He might well be more effective at getting them done than GWB is. And that scares me a lot.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 05:23 PM) That’s just calling something the same thing, something different. But you know you can’t put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” I can agree it's a fair point that the expression can be judged as sexist. Perhaps it's one of those that should be retired. But I wonder...if the Obama campaign flipped out at a remark like that...wouldn't they be accused already of having played the race card?

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 03:38 PM) To be honest, is anyone worse than Blagojevich? You're asking a guy in the wrong state. When you start comparing crap from one species to another, does it really matter which species it comes from? What usually matters more is you don't exactly want it writing your budget/stuck to your shoes.

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 02:21 PM) I thought they stopped running that after he retired No, you only thought that because all of the competitors tested positive for banned substances, so the winner was actually this guy:

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 03:30 PM) Or Blagojevich taking charter jets to Springfield every day because he didnt want to stay in the governers mansion. "Sarah Palin is not worse than Blagojevich!" If Illinois wasn't already Obama country for a few other reasons...that's the kind of slogan that I'd love to see the RNC run with.

Well, this is somewhat surprising. Lance Armstrong is pulling a Michael Jordan Brett Favre

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 02:27 PM) One more thing, I don't like the fact that Alexei was bunting, but maybe OZ was auditioning Alexei for the 2 hole with that call. Too bad he failed miserably. Because the guy we currently have in the 2 hole is dominating in his bunting ability?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 02:00 PM) honestly i really don't care anymore if you guys think your team only loses because of 'dirty tricks'. it's a bizarre excuse making complex that distracts the Democrat party from the actual reasons they lose presidential elections. And it's the complete disconnection from reality that has made the Republican party so ineffective at running the government. Just like here. Data? What data. I don't see any data. No one ever does polls after a debate. Nobody. I refuse to believe they exist.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) Maybe you thought they won, most people didn't. But of course the only reason Gore or Kerry lost was because it was 'stolen' from them *sigh* Oh for crying out loud, there is objective data on this. In 2004 John Kerry was the first candidate I believe ever to come out in Gallup's polling data having won all 3 debates and then lose the election. Al Gore came out in the debate polling having recorded a win in 2/3, and then the media went off on him after the RNC put out a video of him "Sigh"ing.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 01:41 PM) Not sure about that; I can only think of two in which the debates are generally acknowledged to have had a significant influence: 1960 (Nixon looking shifty-eyed and sweaty on TV) and 1976 (Ford's "no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" gaffe). I mean, I think they're important. But so are a lot of other things. Kerry won all 3 debates against Bush according to the after debate polls. People who watched the 2000 debates thought Gore won, people who tuned in for the post-debate coverage were convinced by the liberals in the media that Bush won. They have an impact, but they're usually not the decisive turning point.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 01:24 PM) presidential elections are usually won or lost during the debates When was the last time this was actually true?

There's a beautifully illustrative point from a discussion involving Paul Begala and a McCain person this morning. Now, the big problem here shoudl be obvious. This is a case where there is an objective reality. Sarah Palin was a supporter of this project until well after it became a national joke, and only decided to drop support for it after the government had declared it wouldn't spend the money. You can distract all you want by pointing at Obama's votes on the issue, by bringing up other earmarks, whatever. The simple fact is this...Sarah Palin keeps bringing up her opposition to this project, and frankly, she is lying. She is doing so over and over and over again. There is an objective fact here. No one can possibly dispute the timeline. It's simple reality. But instead of saying that, the press asks "Why can't Senator Obama make this stick". Begala is right here, they can't make it stick because CNN and the other networks treat it the way we see here. A McCain supporter denies the reality, says "We still have 56 days to talk about this back and forth" and CNN just pretends its an issue up for discussion. You catch Senator Obama or Biden blatantly lying or in a gaffe, whatever, call them on it. But when the media refuses to explain simple facts because pointing out that the claim of one side is blatantly false, when the media treats the most blatant of distortions as something up for discussion rather than just saying "This is flat out false", then it is not doing anyone a favor, and it's not helping the side that just happens to, at least in this case, be on the side of the facts.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 12:58 PM) And we keep letting lefty hitters beat our righty pitchers in big situations. But hey, at least we let Wassermann face Anderson on Sunday. That .432 career average by lefties off of Ehren is deceiving. You're forgetting...Ehren's BA versus lefties went down that at bat.

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 11:07 AM) So, basically, no one really knows for sure if he's eligible for post season? Read all the posts seems like everyone is guessing? Basically any one on the 40 man roster can be eligible for the postseason if we have an injury, and we have plenty of injuries. So he's eiligible, but no one has a clue if he'll be on it or not.

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 11:30 AM) it's hard to win a game when you don't get a hit just sayin Didn't the Dodgers do it a couple months ago?

So Burnett hasn't allowed a hit through 4? Blast. Not a positive start.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 09:21 AM) I'm pretty sure playoff rosters consist of the 25-man roster as of 8/31, plus anybody on the DL or bereavement lists, etc. as of that date. If somebody from the 25 man gets hurt after 8/31 and is injured at the start of a series, a team can add a sub for that player. Playoff rosters can be reset series by series, subject to the same rules. And since they maneuvered Crede on to the 25 man roster before Sept. 1, and Linebrink was on the DL, and now Q is, they've got at least 2 spots open that they can play with, which means that they can do pretty much anything they want with those last few spots

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 07:39 AM) the problem is it wasnt HER saying "thanks, but no thanks" it was the congress who told the people representing Alaska "thanks, but no thanks". She herself even said that there were a lot of misconceptions about the bridge, but it wasnt worth the battle. In my book, saying you lost the battle isnt saying you pulled the project. It's admitting defeat. And you cant be defeated if you weren't for it. And she still kept a good portion of the federal funds, she just spent them elsewhere.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 9, 2008 -> 04:41 AM) If I keep hearing from you how bad the press has got, that means it used to be good, no? SO when did this shift occur? Around the 80s? Post watergate maybe. And but so the press gets very liberal. Our Cronkites are gone. Despite this gigantic asset that the democrats have, they get dominated in the white house for 12 years, lose their senate majority a few times, then lose their forty year majority in the house? And for 12 years that majority, they also get another 8 years in the white house. A small note here. I don't really think I mind the lack of a Walter Cronkite as much as I mind the lack of a Woodward/Bernstein. That goes for Woodward and Bernstein these days as well.

This ought to make us all feel happy.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 07:23 PM) Tampa might just not make the playoffs At worst they're 5 games up on the Sox in the Wild Card and 7.5 up on the Twinkies, so unless both of those teams can gain all that ground back and more, they've almost sewn the WC up.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 06:22 PM) http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/tags/brit_hume Unfortunately, linking to MMFA isn't going to prove anything no matter how well they document things.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 05:24 PM) And why is that? Because they knew they had a rich uncle that would cover their mistakes. Having Uncle Sam there to sell this crap to, only perpetuated the cycle of doom. If these agencies weren't there, the banking industry as a whole wouldn't have endangered their entire existance the way they did knowing they had a golden parachute. Would there be individual banks that pushed the envelope, sure. But for comparisions sake, how many companies actually pulled an Enron when no one was there to rescue them? You can count them on one hand. Finally, you aren't going to change my opinion with the "OMG, what if everyone did the worst possible thing they could do in a situation scenarios." You can't remove one piece of the puzzle and just assume everthing else would stay in a vaccum. The economy is dynamic. It doesn't work that way. I don't believe in the nationalization of much of anything because I believe 100% that the government is by far the least effecient form (in general) of commerce on the planet today. They have zero incentive to get anything right and every incentive to take more taxpayer money, since their entire existance depends on us thinking they serve some vital function. Nit pick out single examples and odd scenarios if you like, but my basic understanding of economics doesn't follow that idea that government is better. Heck our own founding fathers warned us about government. You know what, after a little bit of thinking, I'm starting to agree with you, partially at least. You might well be right that if the GSE's didn't exist at all, then the banks might not have pushed as much risk out there as they did, because they might not have had the government backing them up. I think that we'd probably have a bigger problem in terms of some of the banks that were that stupid going under, and we might well be bailing out the whole banking industry already instead of just parts of it, but well. The interesting thing I think I noticed here is that it seems we might both agree that what happened with the GSE's was actually the worst option possible for everyone except a few shareholders, lobbyists, and Congressmen. If they'd stayed fully public entities like they started off, then they never would have begun taking on bigger and bigger piles of more and more questionable mortgages, because the government was setting the standards and never was getting in on the Alt-A mortgage game. If they'd never existed....then the banks out there would be a lot bigger, but they'd also be absorbing a lot more of the risk on their own and we wouldn't have to worry about such things as whether or not the Chinese would stop buying our dollars if we didn't bail them out. The worst possible situation is the one that we let develop, where we partially privatized those GSE's and let the lobbyists turn themselves loose to write the rules governing them, such that the risks behind any mortgage they took out were taken public but all the profits were allowed to go private.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 8, 2008 -> 06:34 PM) Oh, as for his third point? yeah, we all know that the media overwhelmingly donate to and vote republican. Try again, Glen. Wow, you managed to go on one hell of a rant there without addressing the subject at all. Why is Brit Hume for example allowed to anchor a news show whereas Olbermann is not? I have no problem with Olbermann being removed. I think it's a fair response to some of his actions during the conventions. But that doesn't explain why an other network gets to run out a far right guy, call him an anchor, and have no one complain at all. The only time anyone raises a stink is when it's a left-leaning person on the air doing so. Scarborough doesn't get his time in the morning cut back (at least not yet) after his behavior at the convention which was just as bad as KO's. An extra liberal gets a show and suddenly the mainstream press freaks out over how partisan the networks are getting. Glenn Beck gets a show and then even guest hosts on CNN fairly often and no one bats an eye except at his low ratings. Obama tries to boycott Fox News for basically trying to paint him as a muslim extremist, and oooh, he's hurting himself with those voters. McCain's campaign threatens MSNBC, and oh, that's just him taking on the media, go get em John!