NorthSideSox72

So after a dozen or more different proposals were put to the Governor's desk to fund mass transit, but officially and in negotiations... and after he rejected nearly every one of them because he refused to budge on them... and just as the State Congress finally passes a transit bill... Blago announces a plan to allow senior citizens to ride for free. So let me get this straight. Mass Transit continues to languish and fall apart because you won't sign a transit bill because they cost too much, and you want to add a program that would take tens of millions of dollars OUT of the system? Worst. Governor. Ever.

QUOTE(rowand's rowdies @ Jan 13, 2008 -> 04:07 PM) ya, i love the patriot act, and the internet being regulated. can't wait to be arrested for talking about illegal activities (non terrorist) on my cell phone and over the internet. maybe there can be a pop up saying "you've been arrested". also, anyone who thinks we shouldn't pull out of Iraq immediatly, talk to (1) a current or recently former member of the military (who supports Ron much more than anyone else) ( ) and (2) go enlist to make sure we leave the "right way". I'm sure they will take you, no matter what age. I'm sure the never will be born children and grandchildren and so on of the US military members who will die before we finally leave thank you for your thoughts into why we should not leave right now. And my theory on who should be President, IF NOTHING ELSE, is that it should be the MOST EXPERIENCED (check) and MOST KNOWLEDGABLE (check) person who wants the job. Simply. Also, Alpha Dog is just trying to stir people up and refute everything just to make them mad. I do this, too. But not over the internet like a 9 year old. Just saying. Most experienced? You need to do a little reading. He is nearly the LEAST experienced candidate in the field for both parties. I like some of what Ron Paul brings to the discussion, but, you need to be a little more aware of your facts.

Interesting to see the two different types of players mentioned - players who were bad/disappointing, versus players who were jerks. Seems like there are two different perspectives of fans about what "least favorite". I personally never hate any hatred for guys like Gonzalez, for example. If he's bad and he's playing bad, because he just isn't good enough... then that falls on the organization, the coaches or just circumstance, in my view. On the other hand, players who have the skills but just don't seem to make the effort and/or treat the fans like crap... those are the guys who I blame directly. And how the heck can people have Carlton Fisk as a least favorite player?!

QUOTE(BureauEmployee171 @ Jan 13, 2008 -> 01:09 PM) Listen guys, I'm done with this subject. You need to do your homework on it to be able to understand it & until then I'm just wasting my time and energy preaching to those who A) already do understand this, and B ) don't understand it because they don't understand how economics work. That is my entire argument. I agree fully with Ron Paul's economic policies. Do your homework and you will come to the exact same conclusion as I have and as anyone else with a true and intelligent view of how economics, monetary policies, and fiscal policies intertwine and operate. Until I am convinced you KNOW (which you don't with any intelligent certainty) this stuff, my argument is on hold. Your leap from "I believe his policies will do positive things for the dollar" to "anyone who thinks they won't doesn't know anything" is sort of laughable. Its thunderously arrogant, inaccurate, and basically says that everyone is dumb but you and the other aPaulstles. You want to argue why, great. But, in case you were unaware, there are at least a few people on this board who post regularly in the Buster who WORK in finance and frankly, probably, know a heck of a lot more than you do on this subject.

Jose Canseco Albert Belle Jamie Navarro David Wells

QUOTE(scenario @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 07:40 PM) I wouldn't be surprised to see Bourgeois make the major league roster as a reserve, with the Sox sending Alexei Ramirez to Charlotte to give him full-time at-bats. Ramirez is likely to need experience against better pitching than he faced in Cuba before making a serious contribution at the major league level. It was made pretty clear prior to and after the signing, by his agent and others, that he signed with the White Sox on a major league deal and expected to be on the 25-man roster come Opening Day. He looked for a team that could offer that. There is a 99% chance he's on the major league roster - he won't be starting in Charlotte.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 06:03 PM) Highways are already primarily funded by gasoline taxes. Well, state funds are often diverted that way - are federal? I honestly don't know. And that is better than regular income tax, but, its still not a real use tax. In some ways its better though, because it sort of covers all driving on all roads.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 03:24 PM) Which site? Are people seriously going to follow wite arond to other websites so they can see some really big nipples?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 03:19 PM) Garcia won't be pitching until June at the earliest. I wonder what kind of cash Colon is looking for. I'd give him a contract where he could earn a lot, but it all has to be perfomance based. If teams are questioning the condition of his arm, it may keep the guarantee in the contract he will eventually sign vvery low. As much as I've always liked Colon that would be the only thing that makes sense to me if you are considering him. It would be silly to give him $8 -9 million guaranteed. Agreed on all counts. A 1 year deal, maybe with a 2nd year option, with a low guaranteed salary and escalators based on apperances and performance... I think he'd be a great addition. Danks and Floyd are both such big question marks. I think its likely one of the two has a good 2008 - so maybe its better to just have one on the roster. If he fails, bring up the other. If Contreras or Colon fail, you still have them both there, as well as Egbert and Broadway in the wings.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 03:21 PM) I read me In all seriousness, kap and I had lots of the same profs in college. The two main econ guys where we went to school were on opposite ends of the specturn. One actually was a labor negotiator for a couple of the steel unions back in the day. The other was a right wing guy, who was very much a supply sider. Between those two and our finance prof who was self-proclaimed "to the right of Rush" we got a pretty good exposure to economic theory. You can make a good case for just about any of these things depending on how you want to interpret the facts. My understanding of economic theory, and real world experience is that things like sales taxes and value added taxes are super-regressive based on income brackets. As I see it, the efforts it would take to level out the regressiveness would complicate the system to the point it wouldn't be much different than the one we see now, not to mention the unintended consequences of things like blackmarkets emerging to avoid these taxes. Emergence of alternative markets is certainly an issue. But then, you have income tax evasion of all sorts now as well. One other thing on this - I think that the current system OR a sales-tax based system could benefit from more emphasis on Use Taxes. That is to say, less highway funding from the federal government, and more tolls. Less federal funding of national parks (already happening anyway), and more entrance fees. Things of that nature. I think those types of moves help encourage smarter spending, and allow more local control of things - not to mention promote efficiencies by creating more competition in certain market areas.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 02:05 PM) I have yet to see a proposal that looked anywhere near as "fair" as the system we have now. I have followed these things to the eyeteeth back to the Steve Forbes flat tax FWIW. I guess it depends who you read. I read a few books, years back, that made a pretty good case.

Back to the GOP candidates... The Giuliani ship seems to be taking on water. Senior staffers have been asked to go without pay for a while.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 01:30 PM) Can you justify the American Revolution? The Civil War? WWII? They were all about certain idealogical factors as well. Good conversation. I wish I had a bit more time! Yes, sort of, and yes. I understand collateral damage. And I thought the Afghanistan invasion was a justified. Of course, then we walked out of there early and its been festering every since... I'll tell you what else is a really great discussion in terms of justifying terrible consequences for great ends... what about the American march west? We destroyed a civilization for crying out loud. But without that, there is no U.S. in the modern sense. No event or series of events after founding of the nation (Constitution, Revolutionary War) has had as much of an effect on who and what the U.S. is as the westward expansion to the Pacific.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 01:18 PM) The new roster numbers are here! 62 Jack Egbert 64 Lucas Harrell 48 Scott Linebrink 61 Adam Russell 43 Ehren Wassermann 63 Cole Armstrong 18 Orlando Cabrera 17 Carlos Quentin 30 Nick Swisher Damn. My Wassermann t-shirt has 62 on it. Egbert stole the number. Damn him.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 01:10 PM) Ok, now here is where I make a weird turn. You're exactly right with this post. And tell me something, why is this so wrong? They come over here, they kill 3,000 of our people on our own soil, and now everyone wants to just shrug it off and say, no big deal, we should have left them alone. I struggle with this because I understand the need to let people live their own lives without forcing our way of life on people. I get that. But I also see the need to unlock the seed of "democracy", even if we don't like the outcome, as long as it gives ordinary people a chance to succeed where they may not have before. I also realize that we need to root out the extremeism, yet, no one wants to do the dirty work necessary to do that. It's really a catch-22 in my mind. You may have noted I said "right or wrong, that was their motivation", because I think some good arguments could be made in favor of what they did. But overall, I think the negatives far outweigh the positives. I don't think its entirely out of line to suggest something like it - in fact I think its much more reasonable than th B.S. we were fed. Its just not good enough, in my opinion, to justify the war. Part of the reason is that "they" is key in identification. None of the "they" involved in 9/11 have any connection to Iraq. Furthermore, Iraq was no real threat to us or the rest of the West. So think about what was done. Let's assume we accept, as a nation, that we need to try to do this sort of neo-revolution in the Middle East as a method of protecting ourselves and our interests. And let's further assume it might actually, partially, work. Those are HUGE assumptions I don't necessarily agree with, but let's go with them for now. Even if that is all acceptable... how can you justify, morally, destroying a country and ending tens of thousands of innocent lives in Iraq to achieve it? These are not terrorists (those are killed too of course, but I could care less), I am talking about the tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens who've died. Not only did they have nothing to do with 9/11, they were all-in-all innocent of anything against US interests at all. Can you say that killing 50,000 of them (and spending a trillion dollars, and losing thousands of US soldiers) is justified because of September 11th? I cannot.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 12:55 PM) You're not rich, are you? Um... no. Here is what I am saying. You remove the income taxes. You keep everything else. The tax on income gets distributed as sales taxes. The sales taxes are broken down into, say, half a dozen categories. The lowest categories for necessities are not taxed, or taxed very low. On up the line, to the top category, which would be sin items or luxury items, taxed the highest. You can do that and not have it be a regressive tax. The argument about high income people only spending a little ignores the fact that high income people invest a lot more - cap gains and interest taxation come into play. You can do this and still not penalize people for spending on necessities, thus allowing low income people to continue to live at little or no taxation if they choose. Another benefit to consider of moving taxes from income to sales (in addition to reducing IRS and other overhead, and encouraging investment, thus further increasing tax revenue via cap gains) is that it encourages people with fixed budgets (meaning 90% of the country who aren't uber-rich) to not spend as much on things that tend to get them into financial trouble - luxury items, expensive cars, etc.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 12:31 PM) Actually, we did. Repeatedly. The UNMOVIC team came back and said, in their words, it was "garbage after garbage after garbage." (The CBS article I linked there suggests that the source actually used the word Sh*t) We didn't give all of it, was my point - I am sure we gave some. I recall US Defense Dept people saying, almost with pride, that they had intelligence that the UN did not. Besides, what we did give them was garbage... so what does that say?

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 11:26 AM) The reason for war, in the first instance, was always the strategic threat posed by Saddam because of his proven record of aggression and barbarity, his admitted possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the certain knowledge of his programs to build more. It was the threat he posed to his region, to our allies, and to core U.S. interests that justified going to war this past spring, just as it also would have justified a Clinton administration decision to go to war in 1998. It was why Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, and many other top officials had concluded in the late 1990s that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable menace to his neighbors, to American allies, and ultimately to the United States itself, and therefore had eventually to be removed. It was also why a large number of Democrats, including John Kerry and General Wesley Clark, expressed support for the war last year, before Howard Dean and his roaring left wing of the Democratic party made support for "Bush's war" untenable for Democratic candidates. And one other thing. Saddam was not the reason for the war - never was. He was an excuse, as were WMD and a myriad of other reasons given when WMD showed to be false. The Iraq war was an attempt at a neo-con revolution in the Middle East. They saw the ongoing clash with Islamic Fundamentalists, and decided the best approach to wipiing them out was to set up an anchorhead in the region. This base of operations could be used, not just militarily, but even more so politically, to spread democracy and capitalism, leading to an eventual demise of extremism by way of immersion into an American political schema. Right or wrong, that was clearly their motivation. And Iraq was the perfect target - oil, educated population, bordering many of the key countries in the region, sea port access, lots of open space if needed, a weakened leader (because the UN sanctions and no-fly zones were WORKING), a military in tatters, and some nearby countries willing to help. WMD, Saddam's dicatorship, AQ linkage... those were simply marketing efforts.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 11:21 AM) On this point, bulls***. They had 12 years to "adjust", but they were too busy getting money from the oil for food deal. 12 years? They were inspecting for a period of weeks or months. I am not talking about the UN in general here, or oil-for-food, or any of that other stuff. The UN inspectors were gone for a while, came back and were trying to get their stuff done. And the worst part is, the US kept claiming they had intelligence the UN didn't... WHY?! Why not give it to them then? Arrogance is why, the hallmark of BushCo.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 11:26 AM) I agree with whats below 100%(you and Balta can read the entire article and then tell me how it's all right wing BS) You make your points above now, but if you want to tell me you were preaching that same list above back in March of 2003...sell it somewhere else. Maybe you were against the war, but you didnt know anything about the evidence of WMD's. The only thing we all knew was Saddam had chemical weapons in the past and he said he destroyed them. You believed Saddam...good for you. I'll stop making my comments now in the GOP primary thread. I think we all know everyones sides on the issue. The reason for war, in the first instance, was always the strategic threat posed by Saddam because of his proven record of aggression and barbarity, his admitted possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the certain knowledge of his programs to build more. It was the threat he posed to his region, to our allies, and to core U.S. interests that justified going to war this past spring, just as it also would have justified a Clinton administration decision to go to war in 1998. It was why Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, and many other top officials had concluded in the late 1990s that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable menace to his neighbors, to American allies, and ultimately to the United States itself, and therefore had eventually to be removed. It was also why a large number of Democrats, including John Kerry and General Wesley Clark, expressed support for the war last year, before Howard Dean and his roaring left wing of the Democratic party made support for "Bush's war" untenable for Democratic candidates. You better believe I was preaching the same stuff in 2003. I called B.S. on all those points. I am not saying its not possible I could have been wrong - but don't go trying to paint this false picture that everyone was either for the war and its reasons or against it and guessing. There was plenty of information out there about what was going on. And it all said to me that it was a bad idea. I really don't appreciate being accused of "selling" it like I am some kind if revisionist - I was absolutely against this war, for the reasons I specified, from the beginning.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 11:23 AM) Only the ones with a conscience. OK now hold on a second here. I personally believe that you can get rid of the income tax, and reduce the IRS down to a small fraction its size, and still have a "fair" tax for all income brackets. I like to think I also have a conscience.

B of A buys Countrywide. Not really a surprise, but now its announced.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Jan 11, 2008 -> 08:51 AM) To you and NSSox...you didn't know anything. You guessed. Well, I see what you are saying - but with that same logic, NO ONE KNEW whether or not Saddam had WMD for absolute certainty. What I did know, and what I thought was quite clear, was.... 1. The war was never, ever really about WMD 2. The evidence of WMD was incredibly weak 3. The UN effort was not very good, but was also not given any sort of chance to adjust 4. The excuse they most primarly relied on for WMD and the war was the combination of two "inside" sources who practically screamed "you cannot trust me" Basically, the case for the war looked to me to be paper-thin and not even in the ballpark of enough to go to war. ETA: Its up to you if that means I "KNEW", or "THOUGHT".

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 10, 2008 -> 03:13 PM) The reason this doesn't work is because the working poor spend a far greater percentage of their income on things that would be taxable. The wealthier people don't have to. A gallon of milk is 3.50 if you make 10,000 or 10,000,000 a year. Rarely is the millionaire going to be drinking that much more milk because he can. Clearly any system relying heavily on sales tax needs to have categorized taxation. Necessities (store-bought food, clothing, utilities) would have minimal or no taxation.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 10, 2008 -> 03:27 PM) It will be true on a cyclical basis. Not only would it happen now, it would keep happening everytime we had a decent recession. The metrics involved are the sameones that led to the Great Depression, and many of the large panics and recessions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. You cannot cut spending in a recession and not expect disaster. It just doesn't work that way. The Great Depression was not caused by cuts in government spending. Certainly, once the disaster occurred that resulted in it took hold, then the New Deal used a lot of deficit spending to revive the economy. That sort of drastic action was needed at the time. But government spending levels were not a causation. I would be open to conditions on the balanced budget amendment... 3/4 super-majority to override, or a declaration of War (and only applicable to that spending), for example. You always want to have that last resort option available. But that is what it should be. And there are multiple cycles to look at here. If the government can consistently keep and spend more money, it has more reserves to tackle economic issues. Also, that larger flow of services and jobs to the public would help stave off future recessions or soften them. No doubt this sort of thing would need to be implemented in phases over a long period, but the end result is very positive, in my view.