Balta1701

QUOTE(BearSox @ Mar 21, 2008 -> 10:30 AM) they would have made more. We weren't going to invade Japan because the amount of lives it would cost would be way too high. Here is a nice little article about Japanese code and how you should never surrender: http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwari...ldiersurr_2.htm The problem with this interpretation is that there is a lot more complexity than what you're admitting to. Yes, by all accounts, the Japanese code ruled out surrender during that war, and that was seen throughout the campaign. But there are more than a few reports that say that despite the code, the Emperor and several other high members of the leadership had all they were willing to take after the firebombings and defeat after defeat. After all, if the code says never surrender, why would a larger bomb, which honestly did significantly less damage than the Tokyo firebombings, be able to overturn that? If they hadn't had some thinking along those lines in the first place, then the bomb wouldn't have made a difference. And we still shouldn't underestimate the part that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and their complete destrcution of the Japanese forces there played in the decision.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 21, 2008 -> 09:28 AM) Absolutely, and many scholars feel neither was necessary and Japan was already days or weeks away from surrender. But, wtf, if you're spending $2 billion (that's $23 billion of today's crappy dollars) and employing 130,000 people to build some bombs, you're sure as $hit going to use them to bomb somebody. On the other hand, there are probably an equal number of scholars who have come to the opposite conclusion, that the atomic bombings were key in both bringing the Russians in to the war and in helping sidetrack the military leaders who wanted to keep the war going at all costs. I think the first one clearly served a purpose. It's not as certain that the 2nd one did, because from some reports the news about what had truly happened in Hiroshima took a few days to get out and filter back to the leadership, by which time the Russians had already invaded Manchuria and Nagasaki had been bombed. There was a legit coup attempt on the night before the Emperor's surrender broadcast was to be aired, which another smaller bombing raid disrupted, but let's not pretend it wasn't touch and go there for a while. Harry Truman said ater the war that he would have dropped the bomb again knowing what he knew at the time, but wouldn't have done so if he'd known what he knew at the end of his presidency. It's a damn complicated question.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 21, 2008 -> 07:03 AM) You beat me to it. I think we just learned Obama's VP. I think there are three reasons why Richardson will make a great VP... 1) Experience (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. Secretary of Energy) 2) Personality 3) Latinos. I heard a while abck that there is a beliefe that if Hillary is not elected, the Latinos might actually vote for McCain. I dont knwo the reasoning, but htat is what i heard. So, a Richardson VP would shut that down. He may make a great VP, but I don't think this endorsement suggests that he's guaranteed the spot. If he'd endorsed him a few weeks back when it might have mattered more electorally, I would tend to agree more. But this strikes me more as the cutting-your-losses type of endorsement.

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 08:11 PM) I guess calling Michelle Obama a racist, and saying Barack was proud to have the support of the black panthers wasn't enough. It is the filibuster. At some level, the only rule that really survives is the personal attack one here I think. Barring anything truly bad.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 07:10 PM) I was accusing him of a ridiculous degree of PC-ness not being racist. Please stop the name-calling and try to pretend you matured past 11 years old Despite the rules being more open here...name calling on either side is not permitted...please keep an eye on the personal attacks, before someone who actually has the power to get annoyed by this statement shows up. This has been a nice thread, it'd be a shame to watch it closed.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 07:02 PM) Am I a bit "cynical" about this to think that this might actually HELP him with some sympathy vote? It will depend on the back story behind this.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 05:33 PM) They happened Jan 9, Feb 21, Mar 14. Three separate events by 3 separate people. For reference, according to TPM, those 3 dates are:

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 06:58 PM) Well, this passport thing should knock this story off the press for a while. Reality should have knocked it off before Fox even put it up. Edit: or, did you mean the Wright story?

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 06:54 PM) Do you think they just casually look at their own site now and then to check up on things, or do they monitor it often? That wasn't something that just got put up there and was removed the next day. it was up there for a while, they knew about it, and removed it about the time of his speech. Anyone here this from the messiah? http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4s45v_ob...ite-person_news He utters the phrase 'typical white person'. Oh man, can you imagin if Hillary said something about the 'typical black person'? Oh boy. You're alleging that they police some 600,000 or so profiles manually every few days?

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 06:41 PM) I am fully aware of what I said. Do you think they are not a rqacist organization? Or that many, many people who simply by hearing or seeing that name would not reach that same conclusion? No. That's not the problem. The problem is that there are something like a million of those endorsement pages on the Obama website, they're open to anyone and anyone can make them. It's not policed and not verified by anyone other than the users of the site. Sean Hannity could have made that site to make Obama look bad. In fact, it turns out, in response to the Black Panther Support, Sean Hannity has come out and said he supports Obama on that page. Pretty remarkable, I never figured Hannity would follow the Black Panthers' lead so directly.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 05:27 PM) Could it be the Dodgers: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...0033/1050/rss15 Uribe actually to my eyes at least makes some sense for the Dodgers just based on his style of play...as the Dodgers have been pretty limited on power out of most of their positions the last few years and have had to rely on hits and manufacturing runs. Even though Uribe may not produce in the OBP/BA departments, he would be a right handed powerful bat, and that would be a fit for them.

QUOTE(lostfan @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 03:41 PM) Damn is it just a coincidence that someone gave me the link to this site today at like the same time this thread got started? No. Matt Drudge rules our world.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 03:30 PM) Beane and KW have made several trades in the past, so I suppose it's possible. A career .271 hitter with a little pop (avg 14 HR a year over the past 3 seasons - probably closer to 20 at the Cell) certainly would be a nice upgrade. I don't think I'd be willing to give up much to get him though. I think Alexei is going to be just fine as our 2B - although is OCab is just a 1 year rental, I'm sure Alexei would be moving to SS next year, in which case we'd need a 2B again. Why did we get rid of Iguchi, again? He wasn't the flashiest, but you knew what to expect from him. A pretty decent glove, some pop, a fairly good batting avg & OBP, some good speed, and he didn't cause any problems. Just went about and did his job. He was able to advance a runner, seemed to run the bases well. I don't get it. Iguchi was a free agent last season and probably wouldn't have been resigned. And we have no need of a 2nd baseman right now...we traded our best hitting prospect last season in order to acquire a young guy who can play 2nd base...he's just a little hurt right now.

At least he didn't pick the final four of all #1's like IIRC some candidate for something did a few years back.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 12:49 PM) Richar looks healthy to me. He's been playing good D with a lot of range. Just a couple days ago, he made a great sliding catch on a shallow flyball in no-mans land. And he has looked real good at the plate. His bat is a little slow now, but in a few days I predict to see him tearing the cover off the ball. He may have looked healthy, but his back is bothering him enough that they're sending him for an MRI on it. That worries me.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 09:28 AM) Missing the point. A country's government should be afraid of its people - not the other way around. The more freedoms a people have, the less power a government has, and that is key to the security of a free state (ref 2A). The freedom of ownership of arms is a major part of that - not the end and whole of it. Its integral to the continuing freedoms we enjoy. To my eyes, this simply makes no sense in the modern era. Having an armed populace does not in any way make the government more afraid of the people today...because the government is so much better armed. If the government felt the urge to execute every American (and could convince the army to go along with it) it wouldn't matter at all whether or not you had your small arms. Yes, it is an additional power denied to the government and I understand that. However, pretending that the 2nd Amendment is going to keep George from declaring himself King George the 2nd doesn't make sense to me, and hence, I don't see how you can consider it integral to anything. If the right to bear arms went away tomorrow and every gun in the nation magically vanished, aside from denying a few people the ability to go hunting and making a few areas more dangerous to travel because of actual wildlife, the impact on most people's lives would be practically zero, and the government wouldn't suddenly be more able to decide to become oppressive and start listening in on all my phone calls or something like that.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 08:40 AM) It is to secure a free state from the tyranny of its own government, like the colonists did from England. So that if the government gets too oppressive, the citizens cn protect themselves. Because my .22 is going to be able to stand up to a couple of Abrams tanks and a few B-2's.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 08:02 AM) I'm not saying that it is (bad), but to some, all these "revelations" that are just now breaking is all interesting timing, is all I'm saying. 10/1 odds says its because the Obama campaign has gotten sick of her camp leaking and forcing as many negative thread lines through the media as they have the last month or so, and is starting to push the same sort of things on her.

I doubt JR would say that. And I thank God that JR runs franchises better than the Milwaukee Bucks.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 05:05 AM) It should be Richar & Ramirez. From what I've seen this spring (and a lot of last year w/ Richar), they are both better then Uribe. I've said this in a couple of other threads, but Richar and Ramirez should platoon and Ramirez should get playing time in CF/LF/SS as well. I'm starting to like the concept more & more, I just wish Danny would get healthy first. I don't want him up in the big leagues trying to catch up with a Verlander fastball with a bad back.

Haslem we learned today is going to have surgery pretty soon also

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Mar 19, 2008 -> 07:52 PM) The system restore didn't solve the problem. I also downloaded the newest version of Windows Media Player in case it would install a part that was missing. That also didn't help. Not sure what else to do. If I had to guess, I'd imagine you deleted part of the driver that affects your sound card in some way. If you can find the listing of the brand/type you have, you might be able to google the name of that product and find an updated driver for it that you could install. Or, if you got desperate, a Windows re-install might reload everything if you had the ability to do that from hard disks.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Mar 19, 2008 -> 06:50 PM) Will that also put back all of the useless crap that I deleted? It might. You might have to redelete a few things.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Mar 19, 2008 -> 06:42 PM) About two weeks ago, I went to the Add/Remove Programs application and deleted a few things that seemed to be useless. Unfortunately, I think I deleted something that affected the sound on my computer. My speakers no longer play any sound, and I also can't hear sound when I plug headphones directly into the computer tower. When I play a song on itunes, the song moves along but I hear nothing, and videos play in Windows Media Player, but again there's no sound. Anybody know what I might've deleted, and how to fix it? Is it possible that you have a system restore point that survives from that time? You can find the system restore option under system tools/accessories in your start menu.

Don't think I saw this posted anywhere. If someone else did...je suis desole.