Balta1701

Ken Griffey Jr. is finally coming off the DL.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ May 11, 2006 -> 02:55 PM) The Sox aren't skipping Garland's start, from what I understand. Garland Versus Santana has been pretty damn good before as well.

So let's see...last year, he gets caught using steroids, and suddenly the next season is his best ever? Yea... I really hate that I'm going to have to boo and taunt this guy if he ever shows up in a ballgame.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2006 -> 02:04 PM) I give up, he is a real sweet guy who is just mistranslated. He's not a sweet guy at all. The U.S. shouldn't trust him, and it damn well better find a way to keep his country from getting the bomb 10 years from now. None of that mean he's going to launch a preemptive attack on Israel tomorrow, or the next day, or any day within his term in office.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ May 11, 2006 -> 01:25 PM) Montero has the honor of being one of the first players suspended by MLB for steriod use last season. Oh you're kidding me. Great, we brought up a juicer?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2006 -> 01:16 PM) Cole's translation is biased and his motives are horses***. He is an apologist for all things crazy. I am sure that he would translate Ossama Bin Laden video as a guy who said he is sorry for the towers falling. Here is the original arabic. srail ghiyam-e mossalahaane bar zed-e mamaalek-e eslami nemoodeh ast va bar doval va mamaalek-eeslami ghal-o-gham aan lazem ast. Here is the translation from the Institute for Imam Khomeini. Israel has declared armed struggle against Islamic countries and its destruction is a must for all governments and nations of Islam. Maybe the history professor knows more farsi than I, but I dont think he knows more than the rest of the world. He is just putting his bulls*** slant on it, just like he does with all of his crazy terrorist do no wrong crap. Here are 2 more attempts at translating the whole paragraph of Ahmadinejad's speech. In both of them, if you read the full thing and don't focus on that 1 clause alone, it becomes clear that the clause you're questioning is taken as happening the same way as the overthrow of the Shah.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:57 AM) \ Massively misinterpreted? Are you serious? Ahmadinejad has repeatedly spoken out against Israel and provoked a world outcry in October when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Do you really think this means that he is pushing for elections to remove the jews from israel. Or to the fact that he wants them wiped ou. Come on now. You cant sugar coat the Iranian president. "wiped off the map" is the most specific mistranslation. In fact, that particular phrase doesn't even exist in Farsi. Here's a different translation, with context, from Professor Cole (U Michigan) The one quick question you should ask yourself with a quote like that is...how American does it sound? To me, the phrase "Wiped off the map" makes perfect sense and I know its exact meaning, but that is a slang American phrase. Without the context, its direct translation would basically be me literally taking a map and cleaning it. In other words, the exact same slang phrase would have to exist in Farsi for that to be what Ahmadinejad said, and given how unique slang is in this country, the odds of that boggle my mind. This guy is not a good guy, but we're going to get ourselves into trouble if we let the wrong people doing translations make policy for us.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) This is nothing new. This guy was on one show last week talking one way, while his president talks another. One is a direct letter to the president, and this is something from a lower level guy. This is smoke and mirrors to keep things moving so they can keep the status quo going on. The President of Iran doesnt think Israel should exist. He questioned its existance in the previous letter, in all of his ramblings. He belongs to a religious sect that believes that when a war between the arabs and jews happen that Mohammed will come to save the world. He is insane. I see Iran getting a nuke, then lobbing it over to Israel and waiting for Mohammed to save them. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not in command of Iran's military, so even if he wanted to do that, he'd have a bit of a problem...Ayatollah Khameni is actually at the top. Secondly, I believe that his statement that he doesn't want to see Israel exist has been massively misinterpreted. Most people have bought into him saying that Iran would attack Israel with that remark. I think that other translations have strongly suggested he was actually quoting something Khomeni said about the Soviet Union...saying basically that he hoped it would vanish from time or something to that effect. Basically it was a statement calling for something akin to regime change...his words were almost a direct quote from Khomeni, and Khomeni had no intention of attacking the Soviets when he said them. He's not a nice guy, and yes he is a holocaust denier, etc., but thus far, the evidence doesn't show him willing to launch an aggressive war against Israel.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:32 AM) this guy is a bullpen guy, which makes me believe that BMAC will be starting on monday, and maybe after that. He'll be starting on Tuesday now.

QUOTE(WCSox @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:34 AM) Is this just speculation or is somebody reporting that he interviewed? I've heard it rumored in more than 1 place today, so if it is just speculation, it's being speculated in a lot of places. But supposedly the Royals do have a decent stack of candidates, so it's not written in stone.

QUOTE(YASNY @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:21 AM) I'm sorry, but our founding fathers were smarter than that. They build a city without expecting permanent residents? C'mon. I think what they may not have expected was the decay of urban centers that hit in the latter part of the 20th century as the wealthier landowners migrated to the suburbs. If D.C. had a wealthy population living within its borders such that it could charge those folks a fair tax rate & afford infrastructure like most of the country, this wouldn't be a problem. But as it stands now, most major cities are in fact large costs in terms of government expenditures...the states make their tax money in the suburbs. That is both the problem with D.C. and the reason why no state wants it...MD and VA are happy to get the tax revenues from the suburbs of D.C., but they don't want to spend the money on the city itself, so there's basically just no real revenue source for the city except the federal government. And since the Feds don't pay property taxes on their land, and D.C. has had no person in Congress to lobby on its behalf, D.C. winds up constantly strapped for cash for basic needs. That's the big problem here.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 11, 2006 -> 11:25 AM) Yeah I'm sure they didn't plan the mass population Washington, D.C has. James Madison proposed 1 house member for every 30,000 people in the country I believe. That was rejected but everything else was passed eventually if I remember right for the Bill of Rights. Could anyone imagine one representitive for every 30,000 citizens. How many illegal alien representatives would there be, haha. Since illegal immigrants are by definition not citizens, 0.

During the Cuban missile crisis, Nikita Kruschev sent 2 letters within 2 days to Kennedy, one saying the Russians would remove the missiles if the U.S. pledged not to invade Cuba, and another saying the Russians would remove the missiles if the U.S. removed its missiles from Turkey. The Kennedy admin. decided to ignore the 2nd letter and accepted the offer from the first letter. The Iranians may have learned a lesson from that. It appears that one of Ayatollah Khameni's representatives has sent a 2nd letter to the U.S., which both decries some U.S. actions but also offers more sound basis for negotiations than the rambling letter that Ahmadinjad's sent to Bush a few days ago.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:53 AM) Quick question on this. With all this logging, are they listening in to calls or just quantifying who call who and how many times? How can you find out if they are listening to your calls? Based on this report, I think the way to find out if they're logging your calls is to find out if your phone company is participating in the program. If they are, I think the answer is yes, the government has your call records. Some of those helpful bloggers are starting to call up their companies and ask if they're participating. Verizon thus far is saying emphatically they're not a part of it, and USA Today says Qwest refused to participate. If you have AT&T/SBC for your phone service though, along with a bunch of others, the answer looks to be yes. And from what I can tell, it looks like they're at least doing some processing on the content of the calls, otherwise this program doesn't do anything. So there's probably not a physical person listening to your call unless something you say triggers some sort of electronic alarm for something that they're looking out for. QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:56 AM) Whatever. Echelon, TIA, I don't really care. This particular thing is absolutely dead wrong. if Echeclon was similar, then it was dead wrong too. The Echelon program was basically, as far as I understand it, a worldwide effort to intercept communications for U.S. intelligence purposes. Basically, the NSA could intercept anything they wanted as long as it didn't have either side of the call going to a U.S. citizen. If 1 side was a U.S. citizen, the government still needed a FISA warrant.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:50 AM) Seriously? With lobbies and bribery running rampant all of the government why would anyone ask a question about this? Heck I would say the chances of this happening today are probably better than they were 230 years ago. I still can't see how there's the connection between D.C. having an actual representative and lobbying and bribing running around? D.C. not having one hasn't exactly stopped bribery from running rampant. As far as I see, this just creates 2 more representatives to suck up lobbyist dollars, one of which covers citizens who were unrepresented beforehand?

Good for him. Now someone tell me he can perform better than Adkins or Walker?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:46 AM) Seems more like a scaled down TIA than an Echelon to me. And Congress denied funding for TIA. Maybe that is why this program has been secret? Actually it sounds exactly like Echelon to me, except Echelon directed at U.S. citizens with no FISA warrant.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:44 AM) And historically it has always been known to be that way. It prevents one group of people from receiving potential favor simply because they were lucky enough to have the capital in their backyard. If we are going to takeaway that, we might as well move the capital to somewhere more militarily sound in the middle of the country. I understand that's why the Capitol was originally put where it currently sits, but can you give me an example of how that's actually a major concern today?

And the #1 threat in America...BEARS!

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2006 -> 10:38 AM) I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by this... Doesn't anyone remember Echelon? Former CIA director and current Presidential Medal of Freedom winner George Tenet, testifying under oath before Congress in 2000.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2006 -> 09:59 AM) I guess the whole history of having the capital of the country in a nuetral area is getting tossed aside then? I don't think that's worth having the district's residents having no voice in matters that directly concern them, or having no ability to have a Congressperson bring back money to the district, or work on its behalf, etc.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 11, 2006 -> 09:50 AM) Chances are it'd be 1 Republican and 1 Democrat, not much of a difference but I guess I'm for it. Which is why they're adding one to Utah...you can't add a certain Dem seat without the Repubs being pissed, so they'll add one to both spots, and that way D.C. finally gets some sort of voice.

QUOTE(CardsJimEdmonds15 @ May 11, 2006 -> 09:24 AM) Pujols 18 HR Montage Rooney...

Congratulations!!!

This would, IMO, be a very nice thing to see.