Balta1701

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 07:55 AM) The Cubs will sell out again this year. There might be fewer people going by the end of the year, but all of the tickets will long since be sold, so it won't really matter. But I will say this, if the Sox go to the playoffs again, while the Cubs are playing golf, THEN you might see their attendance fall, to go along with an actual groundswell for change at Wrigley. Didn't you read the article? The Cubs have alread "Sold out". (Not talking about ticket sales)

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 08:10 AM) I wonder how Lovie feels his defense matches up against his old boss. I'm sure Lovie's terrified. I mean, the Lions have 3 top 10 picks in their wide receiving corps. Their offense is just going to dominate!!!

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 09:04 AM) Anybody think it's kinda sad that it takes something like this to get hockey in the news? What, the strike didn't get your attention?

So is this guy related to the late bassist from The Who? If not, well I don't really care.

Since very few people actually are mentionning the awards, I think I will... If U2 was going to win for any of their recent albums, it should have been for "All that you can't leave behind", which was not only a better album than "How to dismantle an atomic bomb", but also had weaker competition (The O Brother where art thou soundtrack won somehow).

QUOTE(G&T @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 09:09 AM) Unfortunately my understanding of economics is essentially nill. My question is what sectors are these jobs in? Are these all manufacturing or government or what? It's great that people have jobs but are incomes generally higher or lower? Both real wages and the median wage have been falling for several years now, the median wage (50% of Americans earn less) has been falling since the last year or two of the Clinton Administration. Real wages...wages after inflation is removed, have been stagnant or declining for at least the last year. According to some estimates, more than 100% of the new jobs created since 2001 have been attributable to the dramatic increases in government spending.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 08:08 AM) Supposedly 10 potential attacks have been stopped since 9/11 http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bus...r.ap/index.html A few years ago the FBI or DOJ or one of those organizations said 100 had been stopped since 9/11.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 07:29 AM) Look, it's no secret that BushCo (thanks Flaxx) had a hard on for Iraq since the "job" didn't get finished in 1991. At the same time, though, my point is that there WERE weapons there - and to say that UNSCOM destroyed them all is lacking in thought at best to downright ignorant. That's all I'm saying. It's like Saddam became righteous, etc. and that is simply not true. That's the only reason I'm even debating this is because it's not as black and white as some folks would make it out to be. No one was suggesting that Saddam had suddenly become Righteous. Rather, that's why had Saddam not complied with the U.N.'s 2002 demand to allow inspectors back in with totally unfettered access, the war would probably have been justified. However, once the inspections regime resumed...and verified that Saddam was not only WMD disarmed but that there was 4 years worth of dust on all of the machines it would have taken for him to restart those programs, the fact that there were no WMD was painfully obvious to anyone willing to listen. I wouldn't have just magically trusted Saddam to not develop them on his own, just like you wouldn't. Which is why the UNMOVIC team needed to be in there to verify they weren't rebuilding any or using that equipment. But it is in no way ignorant to claim that when UNSCOM accounted for over 95% of what was built, and 2 separate teams since then have verified that Iraq was WMD disarmed through UNSCOM and Operation Rommel in '98, Iraq was actually WMD disarmed at the time of the invasion.

WaPo.

Both the CS Monitor and Newsweek are alleging that the Administration has basically continued the so-called "Total Information Awareness" program under different names (they don't agree on the name) despite the fact that it was completely shut down when it was first discussed. The Newsweek one claims that the program is still running but is basically useless because the intelligence agencies are just collecting information taht they can't use, so it winds up being a black hole which is just sucking up money and information without having a clue who it should actually be targeting. And no one seems to really know what's being done with whatever information is collected either.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 07:40 PM) And stop YOUR BULLs*** saying you know that they were destroyed. No one knows what happened. But people who want to pour water all over the current administration want him to get hung so bad, they keep ginning this s*** up. I also think it's more likely then not that Syria has some of the s***. Not all, but some. There's been other collaborated evidence that there were shipments to Syria before the UNSCOM people were let back in the second time. Coicidence? According to BULLs***, I guess so. I'm sorry, but that is simply wrong. Go read the Duelfer report. Up and down the list, it says over and over...Saddam's weapons were destroyed by a combination of his own regime after 1991 and the UNSCOM team. Saddam was hoping that he would be able to restart something if the sanctions regime fell apart...but let's for a moment think about what the cost would be of maintaining a constant inspections regime in Iraq compared to the $400 billion we've arleady spent and the $1-$2 trillion estimates say the war will cost in total. Mr. Duelfer was not lying when he said we were "Almost all wrong". Saddam kept a few things around to restart the programs if sanctions ever fell apart, but these stockpiles you think are there simply weren't. UNSCOM, UNMOVIC, and the ISG all agree on that singular point. Every single piece of evidence out there other than the garbage deliberately leaked out of Feith's clearly politically driven group has shown exactly the same thing.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 10:12 PM) Unfortunately, his idea of "serving the Prince of Peace" is appeasing terrorists wherever they live. Well...he was roughly 30 years ahead of the curve in trying to find a way to weaken their main source of funding.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 09:22 PM) on most of your post. Only thing is that we have no choice but to do everything we can to help Musharaff hang on to power. I shudder to think what might happen if Al Qaeda gets their hands on Paki nukes. Then of course, there's the other side of the token...with Pakistan protecting the man who's probably the single person most responsible for North Korea having the bomb and Iran being potentially on the verge of building one, and probably having the Pakistani government involved in his activities at some level (Khan!). This is one I don't have an easy solution to...if the Bush Admin were to crack down on Pakistan, there could well be a revolution. If we don't crack down on them...then we're proving our own democracy rhetoric to be meaningless. If we do crack down on them, maybe bad people get the bomb, if we don't crack down on them...maybe bad people get the bomb.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 09:02 PM) Also recall that the previous administration had the government of Sudan offer to hand him over and Clinton refused. Simply untrue on all accounts, according to the 9/11 commission's final report.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 04:16 PM) Disarmed how? I'll answer that for you. He moved them. Moved them into the hands of the UNSCOM team, which destroyed them. Agreed.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 05:35 PM) The more you leftists hate Dubya the more I like him. The more you rightists hate Carter....

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 05:43 PM) What has Al Qaeda done since 9-11? Aside from making blustery video tapes they've done a lot of running away, hiding, bleeding and dying. Bush has done more to fight terrorism in 5 minutes than all other Presidents, save Reagan, combined. I dont want to hear it. And blown up a ton of people in Iraq, London, Madrid, Bali, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and a few other places. And watched the U.S. massively increase support for their side in the middle east.

(linky)

L. Harold DeWolf, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dissertation advisor, at Dr. King's funeral.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 11:45 AM) Better than the Spurs? No way. Yeah, their d is improved. Hard to get much worse. But the Spurs have been a top 3 defense year in and year out. Unlike the Mavs, the Spurs are proven. Duncan and Manu are a little banged up right now. But I can almost guarantee you they'll be ready to go come playoff time. Which is bad news for the rest of the West. Yes, but it only takes 1 elbow or turn of an ankle to suddenly make it so that the Spurs will be in deep trouble. And even then...we haven't yet seen the best of the Suns, and it's also always possible for an "unproven" team to beat a proven one...by those standards, the Bulls were pretty unproven when they beat the living Hell out of the Pistons in 91.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 03:14 PM) Saddam was such a nice guy to fully comply with everything. He was a saint and did everything that was asked of him. At least, that is what your research always tells you. :rolly I never said he complied with everything. Resolutions by the U.N. also insisted he stop killing the Kurds, for example. But the simple fact is...after Operation Rommel in '98, Iraq was WMD disarmed. The UNMOVIC team was on the verge of proving it in March of 03, and the ISG confirmed that fact in 2003-2005.

No matter how many times you say it, that doesn't make it true. The UNSCOM inspection team in Iraq accounted for over 95% of Saddams' weapons. The portion they couldn't account for? Well, there was significant tainting of some of the water supplies, a lot of bombing, and a lot of usage over the years. When UNMOViC went back in, they not only went to the storage sites to see if anything had been moved or used (they weren't), they also looked at the equipment which would have been necessary to manufacture the stuff to see if it had been used since the UNSCOM team was in there. It wasn't. There are a lot of known facts working against this guy. They're simply not going to be right no matter how much people want to invade Syria.

Can we at least specify that they were selling missile technology and not nuclear technology? Their nuclear technology came in significant portion from our good friends in Pakistan.

QUOTE(mreye @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 10:26 AM) Juan Williams is on Fox now. He said it was obviously political and in his opinion, Carter crossed the line. Thank God we have these non-partisan, unbiased members of the King family appearing on Fox to tell us how we should feel.

The NFL is investigating and may consider fining Holmgren over his remarks on the officiating. Yeah, that's smart NFL, the entire country scoffs at the officiating in your signature event, and then you decide to go and give them reason to pay attention for even longer! These guys need to talk to Mr. Rove.