Balta1701

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 12:43 PM) You know, I'm a political independent, and historically, one of the reasons I voted for GOP candidates is the idea of LESS government in MY business. They preach freedoms. But there is an awful lot of unamerican, unconstitutional and freedom-diminishing crap going on under this administration and this congress. The idea that 80k people can't fly, most of them for no good reason and with no redress, is frightening, and it should frighten all of us regardless of party affiliation. I think one of the problems with creating any redress has been the fact that in terms of political-minded folks who have been targeted, as far as I can tell they've been exclusively on the left. Anti-war folks, Cat Stevens, this guy, hell even Ted Kennedy. Throw into that the fact that the ACLU has filed a lawsuit insisting the government provide a way to get off the list, and you once again have all the usual suspects lined up on each side. You don't see Jonah Goldberg or Bill O'Reilly unable to fly because their names resemble someone on that list. If you did, then all of a sudden I bet they'd find a reason to fix it. Right now it's just those crazy anti-war liberals trying to rob the government of another vital tool that it needs to fight the war on terror, or at least that seems to be how enough important people evaluate it such that nothing changes.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 12:28 PM) That's just... awful. I thought they put some sort of formal process in place back in '02 to address your presence on the list? What ever happened with that? CNet news last month...There's no getting off that no fly list.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 12:24 PM) EDIT: And you CANNOT discout the fact that the Bears were winning 14-7 at halftime vs the Colts in the pre-season. Dude, I'd say you can discount that very readily...the Colts were what, 0-5 in the preseason? Right before a 13 game regular season winning streak? Their offense didn't really get in gear for the first few games of the season either.

Some more talk about the "Baker Plan", and more details. If they were going to pay the old landowners a fair price, demolish the homes, clean up the land, and then sell the land at a fair price (i.e. the government is on the hook only for the price of the cleanup, and if they do a fair job then perhaps they even turn a profit on the back end of the sale, this would be a fair deal. But here, the government is not only funding the cleanup, it's leaving the people who lost their homes still mired in significant amounts of debt, and at the same time selling the land to real estate businesses at a discount beyond what even the government bought it for. You could make this program work right, but at least based on the description in the NY Times, it at least still sounds like it's designed to be a handout to whatever real estate group is friendliest with whoever winds up running the program. Sadly, even if this program was set up to bilk the taxpayers into financing profits for real estate conglomerates, and at the same time it left homeowners on the hook for 40% of the cost of their destroyed houses, that'd still be better than the "SOL" we've given them thus far.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 12:08 PM) Yes, I sure wonder how he got on the list. Oh, wait. No I don't. If you can't jail or kill people for speaking their minds, I guess you can still inconvenience the s*** out of them by not lettting them travel freely in their own country anymore. Should we start taking bets as to whether or not his phone and email have been tapped?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 12:03 PM) ok WHO grabbed my ass That was me, sorry.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:49 AM) Toronto. LOL! They're the same ones giving out free heroin to bums also if memory serves. Idiots. Hey, if it works, why should we care what they have to do? If it gets people off of the streets and gives aid workers a chance to treat them, I don't care if the behavior to get them in there is a little underhanded. What I would care about would be the drops in hospital visits, the drops in lawbreaking...things which would produce real savings for a taxpayer.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:53 AM) Agreed that the Church's rules about contraception are silly in some ways, but most of the Catholics I know use them anyway. And, as I said, it's not like the Catholic Church has their own secret police who survey that goings-on in bedrooms in Africa. Except for that one dastardly omnipotent being!

James Moore, the guy who wrote the book "Bush's Brain" about Karl Rove, has apparantely been on our nation's no-fly list for over a year now. He can't get off, and no one will tell him why he's on it. But Bill Clinton had all his opponents audited!

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 10:42 AM) True story... because the title of this thread is so long, it shows up on the main board as "You know what I really f***..." I'm going to be laughing at that All day now....

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:42 AM) I still think they have alot more holes than can be covered up by signing big names. Their pitching rotation, aside from Pedro, is still pretty damn weak. That's been enough for the Yankees to win the AL East for several years. The Mets are also younger, which lets them afford more "Big name signings".

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:34 AM) His stock will never be this high with this much momentum going his way. If he stays it gives all the people to pick you apart and undervalue you. Leinart would have been the 1st pick in the draft last year. He stayed and he will lose money. How much, I don't know, but he will not be the first overall pick and will not get first overall pick bonus money or contract. He would be a fool to stay. With Texas having the 1st pick and still having David Carr, I'd think they'd be much more in the market for Reggie Bush unless someone traded for that pick in order to take Young. Leinart has moved down in the draft by being taken this year, and has lost money. But I could very easily see Young being taken 2nd or later this year depending on what type of QB the Saints decide they want (Pocket passer or pocket passer who can run?) If Vince were to stay, I can't see anyone right now who could pass him to take the #1 spot in the 2007 draft, barring the usual injuries of course, can you?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:06 AM) Considering the concern with Crede's back and Baltimore's reluctance to sign or trade for players with the slightest health question, I would be shocked if they were interested in him. And yet they asked about Prior? And traded for Sosa? And don't want to trade Bedard?

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 11:19 AM) Unless the Notre Dame defense magically finds a bunch of starter calibur players with speed, they aren't going to be the #2 team in the nation next year. At least some of hte people @ ESPN have said that's exactly what they've been recruiting, TIFWIW.

JTA News.

Link

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 10:13 AM) I still laugh when I think of that game! I'm still absolutely furious. Not as much at our kickoff coverage on the Miracle as I am at Wade Phillips for playing Johnson when Johnson was 1-3 that season while Flutie was like 10-2 or something ridiculout like that.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 09:50 AM) General consensus is that the BEST situation for a child to be raised is in a loving and nurturing heterosexual male/female relationship. Actually, at least based on the info of the APA, I'm not sure that's true...there is some data saying that many homosexual couples are just as fit to be parents as hetersoexual couples, and that their children are just as fit emotionally as children of heterosexual couples.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 09:49 AM) Those numbers are better sign than we've had in any other recent January, unless we didn't have a Christmas season in the years immediately prior to those particular Januarys. Like I said, that doesn't really mean anything yet...it could just mean that companies are holding onto their temporary workers for 1 week longer to handle gift cards, or it could even be an artifact of the fact that Christmas fell on a weekend so temporary worker layoffs didn't register yet. The fact that they're great doesn't tell you that much - i n Jan of 02, our nation's job growth went through the roof for 1 month, but it didn't mean anything aside from the fact that during the Christmas season temporary worker hiring was exceptionally low, so there were fewer temporary workers to lay off than the seasonal adjustments expected, so the numbers came out as job growth when the entire number was due to the lack of layoffs due to the lack of hiring the previous winter. I'm not saying they're a bad sign, but you can't take 1 week's numbers during an exceptionally volatile period with high seasonal adjustments as a sign of really anything.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 09:51 AM) I agree. Thank God the republicans control the purse strings at the federal level. Yeah, thank God the Republicans aren't overrun by cronies in major industries who would want to get a slice of that pie. Also thank God that they clearly learned their lessons in Iraq about how cronyism can dismantle a reconstruction project, so surely they'll do a better job th is time.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 10:08 AM) I just read that Sharon has been declared clinically dead. Where did you hear that @? The Pope was declared dead by the 24 hour news networks at least 1 or 2 times in the week running up to his death, so could you give us a source?

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 08:36 AM) Agreed. I've always enjoyed watching Flutie play, but he wasn't going to take an NFL to the promised land. That "buffoon Jim McMahon" did accomplish that. I don't know about that...that 1st year he played with the Bills he had a real shot, until Wade Phillips started Rob Johnson against the Colts in game 16 of the season, then saw Johnson tear up the Colts backups, and decided to start Johnson in game 1 of the playoffs against Tennessee. You'll remember that game as the music city miracle. But what I remember of that game is that the Bills offense looked totally off kilter with Johnson in there. Something like a dozen false start penalties killing drives. The Bills dominated that game, except for the work of Jevan Kearse. They should have won it easily, but Johnson sabotaged that team through his suckiness, while Flutie sat on the bench. Tennessee went on to be 1 yard from winning the Super Bowl, and the Bills should have won that game with ease even without that b*tch Frank Wycheck.

Indy's offense has shown repeatedly that it is beatable if you're able to both get pressure on the QB and stop the run with your front 4-5 guys. That's what the Chargers did this year, that's been the 1 thing the Patriots did all those times, etc. The Bears have a front 4 which can do exactly that. They can get pressure on manning and at the same time slow Edge down, which allows them to drop 6-7 guys into pass coverage so that Peyton can't just pick them apart. The Bears might not be able to totally shut down the Colts (even the Pats and Chargers didn't do that) but they sure could slow them down. The question then becomes...what can Grossman do against the Colts defense? And Honestly, my answer is: I don't have a clue. With Orton playing I think the Bears would lose, because the Colts have enough defense that they could stack 7-8 guys up front to slow the run, and they don't give up easy scores due to turnovers. But with Grossman? Can Grossman push back a safety or two into deep pass coverage and let Jones and Benson get an extra .5-1 yard per carry? He very well could, and he very well could make some more accurate passes on 3rd down. But I don't know yet, I just haven't seen enough of him.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 4, 2006 -> 11:34 PM) I really dont think Young can stay after this game. He just flat out dominated, and he almost always looks to pass first and run second. He will be very good in the NFL, if I was Houston I would trade Carr and draft Young. They have a good RB core, they have Andre Johnson, they in no way can hurt their franchise by drafting Young. He is going to be a Texas hero, if they pass on him and he does well, they will never live it down. Even if Young doesnt pan out, the fan base will understand far more. Bush looks like a smaller S. Alexander. Some of those Texas lineman look real good, I could be real happy with the Bears getting one. Well, after screaming to the Texas fans "We'll be back" while holding a fancy trophy last night in the Rose Bowl, it would sure be one heck of a flip flop.

QUOTE(Dam8610 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 06:36 AM) What was the compensation for the Jets? Nothing's been agreed yet.