Balta1701

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 20, 2005 -> 04:25 AM) With all the jerk-offs in the administration and in the GOP congress the Kleenex people are already rolling in dough. :headshake Ok...air pollution...triggers my allergies more...thus forcing me to use more Kleenex and Claritin. Eureka! It's a gigantic conspiracy!

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 09:27 PM) Did JFK and LBJ do this as well? Possibly. We know that Nixon did and that's why we have the laws regarding eavesdropping on US Citizens in the first place. Again, it doesn't matter what JFK and LBJ did. The law was passed after their time. Campaign finance laws have changed since the days fo Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as well. You can't just go and say "Well JFK did it" as a legal defense for something if you violate a modern campaign finance law. If a new conspiracy statute appears on the books, you can't just say "Well it was legal 5 years ago" as a justification for why you did it 2 years ago.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 08:27 PM) Ehh I still think their guards suck ass, although Strickland has looked pretty good. They are definitely a top 20 team though, probably top 15. Just based on tonight...all that IU looks like it needs to actually be a top 10 team and genuinely be able to challenge people in the tourney is White and Killingsworth playing well together and healthy. MK has been tearing up games in the lane already on his own. If you stick another big guy in the middle, and allow for rotation between the two, extra fouls to give, another set of hands in the way of shots, that team is just going to own the lane on both ends of the floor. If the guards can make open jumpers, that team will shred a lot of people by just going inside and taking the play if it's open or passing out to the guard open because of the doubleteam. Simple fundamental basketball...but they've got the people to make it work.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 08:48 PM) Echelon and spying on your own people is not something new. The system was built in the 70's, and the biggest upgrad happened under Clintons watch. Only a fool would believe that this is something unique to the evil republicans and their leader George Bush cooked up. Clinton seem to love this spying thing. I guess its okay if a Dem orders the spying I am pretty sure that all US presidents have acted in this manner. They have all had some sort of survelliance in some sort of manner behind the closed doors. Do you really believe that the military under FDR wasnt spying on japanese americans, or that Eisnhower or JFK didnt do the same thing. Come on. The only difference is today we have better technology. What is the difference between those presidents and Bush. Bush admits it. Why because he feels he is doing it for the best interests of the US. Just like all of the presidents before him probably thought. Get over the conspiracy theories and the "OMG MY RIGHTS ARE BEING VIOLATED". Dude, 2 points. 1...can someone prove to me that Clinton didn't go and get FISA warrants for the people who were monitored through that program? Between the establishment of the FISA court and like 2003, there were roughly 0 requests for a warrant from that court which were turned down. Secondly, the Foreign Intelligence Service Act was passed in the late 70's. So what Kennedy did, or Ike Did, or FDR did...none of that matters. The difference between Bush and the others is not that Bush Admits it, it's that what he is doing has since been made illegal. The question here is not the surveillance. I don't care at all about the surveillance. The governnment obviously needs the power to obtain wiretaps, and it would be stupid to suggest that they don't. The problem here is that Bush is openly flaunting the law of the United States. This is not about surveillance, that's just the avenue through which he chose to violate the law. He didn't choose to ask that the law be "Fixed", he didn't go to Congress and ask for authorization, he just decided that the law did not matter because he was the President and they were at war. The Republicans in the late 90's had a saying. I believe it went something like..."It's not the sex, it's the lying." They were right in that saying. Right now, the saying should be "It's not the spying, its the lawbreaking." This is not an issue of wiretapping. This is an issue of open defiance of the laws of this country. You cannot defend this by defending only the wiretapping, and to do so simply ignores the real issue here. You have to defend the President's declaration and the Attorney General's statement that the President is above the law in a time of war. The spying is not the issue at all. The issue is that Bush could not be troubled to go to the FISA court to obtain warrants as spelled out quite specifically under the law, and he didn't want to bother with changing the law, so he just decided to defy the law.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 01:45 PM) The Browns almost beat them Almost doesn't cut it. Against every team this season in every game that mattered, the Colts stepped up and did what they needed to do to win. When teams were dropping 8 guys into coverage, Manning just handed the ball to James every play. That led to some low scoring games, but it also won those games by keeping their defense off the field.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 02:53 PM) However, there is a big difference between running a college football program, and running an offense. Witness: Cam Cameron.

Here is the letter that Sen. Rockefeller wrote in 2003 to the White House expressing his concern over the program. He says he is worried about the program, and he's even more worried about the fact that he can't consult with his staff or anyone else in Congress about it. Edit: Statement by the Senator:

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 03:06 PM) There outta be a law that eliminates adding unrelated items to a bill. And interestingly enough, that law would be passed with a Congressional pay raise, a suspension of Habeus Corpus, and a few tax cuts paper clipped to it.

QUOTE(VAfan @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 01:57 PM) I must say, I should know precisely where Crede is in the arbitration/FA cycle. I'm sure he's not a FA next year, but I assume he would be in 2 years, correct?? That being the case, if Crede eliminates his terrible months, he's going to crack 30 HRs, with an OPS in the mid-.800s. At that point, Boras is going to start demanding $8-10 million/season, and he'd certainly get it the last year of arbitration and the first year of free agency. So a 3/15 deal seems pretty reasonable for the Sox to me. Remember, we can always insure the contract in case Crede's back puts him on the DL. We have Crede for I believe 3 years under arbitration.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 01:54 PM) On a serious side note, what's wrong with a parliamentary system anyway? Maybe that should have its own thread. I'm curous to see what you all think about that. You know, that would be an interesting topic to consider. I'm personally not a huge fan of most parliamentary systems, on the grounds that in general, it tends to set itself up where neither of the major parties has enough votes on its own to form a government, and this winds up putting an excess amount of power in the hands of smaller, often more fringe parties, because they become necessary in order to forge a ruling coalition.

Harry Reid's statement:

Bobby better make sure he's working out...end of October next year he's gonna have a big man to lift into the air again.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 11:33 AM) Not if you look at the stats. Keep in mind, Crede also plays in a great hitter's park. Doesn't Blalock also?

That sound you hear? Yeah, that's the city of Anaheim swearing.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 11:08 AM) A team has to offer KW a "best package" deal first. KW shouldn't just settle for any players thrown his way. Esp. as he offers fair value in his trades [even overpaying in some deals]. KW knows that holding onto Jon for the entire 2006 yr would help the sox chances of repeating--even if it didn't help the sox long term. But the sox don't have to trade Jon if no deals are out there that help the sox. Billy Beane has done it in Oak. holding onto guys in their walk yrs. Yes Beane has held onto people (Tejada), but he's also traded people (Mulder and Hudson), and that Mulder trade will probably make them a very good team for several years too.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 11:18 AM) Good deal, considering what Ramon Hernandez got (4-years, $27.5 million). AJ better stop swinging for the fences though. I'd rather have the Pierzynski who hit less homers but put up a .290 AVG and .330 OBP. If I had to pick I'd pick that one, but I would prefer the AJ who hits with power to merge with the .300 hitting AJ and form one super-duper-monster-Pierzynski

QUOTE(AnthraxFan93 @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 11:10 AM) His numbers should improve this year as well.. AVG wise. Last year was his worst full season with the bat since he got into the big leagues overall, in every category except HR. If he finds a way to put last year's power with the batting average he had 2-3 years ago with the Twinkies, he could be the 1st or 2nd best offensive catcher in baseball.

The LA Angels are disappointed that he will remain in the American League, but happy that he will on average be roughly 2 time zones and 2000 miles away from them.

Our pitching staff just got a lot better for the next 3 years.

Small update:

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 07:17 AM) Washington D.C. should receive the most per person. Because it doesn't have a state apparatus, most of its budget is controlled by the Federal Government. Plus I'm sure that 6 dollar figure also accounts for maintenance of all the special needs that having a capital has. You know, somehow I doubt that, Washington D.C.'s unique in that it doesn't really have a representative in Congress, so it has no one who can really "Bring home" all those federal dollars that other cities get. They're often quite pissed about it. Don't have any numbers to present on this one though.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 19, 2005 -> 08:46 AM) So would that mean, if targeted assasinations of leaders were considered necessary in the President's mind, it would be legal? So what Gonzalez is saying is that those five words absolve the President of every blame possible? This is sounding worse, not better. Targeted assassinations are only banned for this country by executive order, as far as I know. There is no law against them. So, if the President chose to have our armed forces launch a targeted assassination of the leader of another nation, for it to be legal, all he would have to do is issue another executive order first. That is something he can overturn through his power - the President can issue executive orders as long as there is no conflicting law (as there clearly is in this case).

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Dec 18, 2005 -> 09:51 PM) Not saying that it is OK because some Dems knew it was going on, but wondering why they didn't say anything if they thought this was so bad? To get all indignant like they didn't know this was happening is simply pure politics. Sure, Pelosi SAYS she had reservations at the time. You know that is a lie, because if she did, her pure hatred for Bush would have sent her running to the NY Times, or leaking a memo somewhere. Why did they not insist on hearings for this? They insisited for hearings over Iraq, this certainly seems just as important. Well, we haven't heard from every single possible Democrat in the Senate who they might have told yet...but Harry Reid, the guy who was the #2 Democrat in the Senate when this started (2002) and who is now the #1 Democrat in the Senate said on Fox News Sunday that he was only breifed within the last couple months...basically the NYT knew about it more than half a year before Harry Reid did. Feingold is on the Judiciary committee, he didn't know. Biden says he didn't know. Levin says he didn't know. Basically, as far as I can tell from the talk show circuit yesterday...the only real ranking Democrats who haven't said anything are Kennedy, Leahy, and Daschle, and Given that Leahy brought it up while giving the Democrats radio address response to BWB on Saturday, it doesn't seem like he knew (could be wrong in that supposition). Leahy is important, btw, because he's the current Democratic leader on the Senate Judiciary committee...so if anyone was told when the program started, it would have been him or Daschle, and Daschle's long gone. Edit: Jay Rockefeller (WV) is the Dem Chairman on the Intelligence Committee, the one Bush says was briefed. According to the NYT, it seems he has mainly gone about protesting the thing through normal channels...both he and Pelosi have sent protest letters to the President about the program. Edit the second: At the time the program started (2002) the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee was now-retired Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham (Fl). On Nightline last Friday night, he made it very clear he had no idea the program was going on.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Dec 18, 2005 -> 05:25 PM) Stop Edge, stop the Colts. Stop Edge and pressure Manning...stop the Colts offense. (At least for now). Peyton was shredding the Bolts without Edge...until the Chargers started dropping him. He made some absolutely jaw dropping throws in that 2nd half, but the thing that really killed them was that last sack when the score was 19-17 that took the Colts out of field goal range. Without that sack, and the pressure on that drive, stopping Edge wouldn't have done anything but make it a close game. And none of that talks about the Colts Defense...which has to be beat by power IMO. The Chargers ran LT up the middle to win that game. It set up the pass, and Brees was good enough to take advantage. Then again, I still think the Colts in their hearts were torn about whether they really cared about this game, and that cost them too.

For those who haven't yet seen it...Time Magazine has chosen 3 people for their "Persons of the year" award (dammit, it should be people!) Sounds like a pretty good choice to me...continues to try to focus the world's attention on an issue that just can't get enough traction to save the lives which could be easily saved.