NorthSideSox72

QUOTE(BHAMBARONS @ Feb 4, 2007 -> 10:35 PM) Keep safe NUKE BHam- While I do indeed appreciate your support, I lost that election long ago. I think you can use a new sign now.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Feb 4, 2007 -> 12:57 PM) right. i forgot. steff doesnt think people are allowed to have opinions. QUOTE(Steff @ Feb 4, 2007 -> 01:51 PM) If you're going to type cast me, get it right. Steff thinks people are allowed to have whatever they want to have, and doesn't attack them when they do. And she also doesn't cry to the higher up's when she feels wronged... And regarding your earlier response, for those comprehensively challenged, I did not offer support for MAKING all females get vaccinated. Let's just end this mini-thread right there, please. Please stick to the topic, not the posters, so that we can keep the thread open. This is a delicate topic - let's all try be sensitive to other views.

This is now the single discussion thread. Nuke's actual Diary thread, he will start, pin and close, to keep it intact. This is where we can discuss and respond.

Stay safe. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Oh wait, thats the Marines, isn't it? In any case, we'll all be happy when you return in one piece.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Feb 3, 2007 -> 05:36 PM) I believe it is some business magazine or something owned by Bentley-Forbes, or so I was told. They will be doing a feature on me and a friend of mine who are doing well as young entrepraneurs and leading our business class in school. Can anyone tell me anything they know about this magazine? Its a chain of regional and local business papers/magazines. There is a Chicago one - Crain's Chicago Business. There is also the NY one cited above. Crain's Chicago is good stuff.

QUOTE(soxwon @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 05:10 PM) Right now ill rank the contenders 1 Obama 2 Hillary 3 Edwards 4 Biden GOP 1 Mccain 2 guliani 3 romney 4 huckabee 5 brownback just my opinion, who differs? Biden is zero. Richardson is 4th, in my view. Biden and Vlisack will be non-factors.

In.

The center is not a "mythical construct". Its where most of the country lies. And the thing is, if you have been studying poli sci for a while as I and others here have, you'll find that the two parties used to be much closer to that center and each other than they are now. Heck, it used to be a joke among Europeans, that we have a 2-party 1-party system. Not any more. And as I've said before, I suspect that whichever party fields a candidate NOT in the depths of their party line, and closer to center, will win the 2008 Prez election. I think the tide is turning against the extremism amongst many of the "swing" voters, and they want someone not at the far ends of the spectrum.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 01:25 PM) Since when is standing by a bad decision something we covet in a leader? There is a difference in changing your mind on a daily basis and changing your mind when new information becomes available, or if your original idea isn't panning out. Are we treading on dangerous ground when we do not allow elected leaders to adjust the sails? Isn't it a bit of insanity to think we always make the right decision the first time? Numerous reasons for this problem. For one, the two people we had in the 2004 election for President were both studies in going to an extreme for no good reason. Bush's adamant denial of reality, and Kerry's spineless noodleing on every issue. Another problem is of course that the parties themselves have gotten so far from center, that the debate has become mired in flith with no substance at all. Yet another reason, since 9/11, we are faced as a nation with a new reality, one which has no easy answer (despite the intellectually lazy efforts by some to find one).

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 10:43 AM) He is a smart guy. And he kinda looks like a Senator. Or Mr. Magoo, not sure which. I think he looks kind of like The Joker from Batman, but with glasses...

Al Franken is going to run for U.S. Senate out of Minnesota. Thoughts? This should be fun...

QUOTE(Damen @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 08:32 AM) ...for Corporations, who can afford to donate millions to lobbyists. ...and for individuals, who take that option way too quickly, when they see Joe Slickhair, attorney at law, on the TV. Fortunately, the laws for individuals were tightened up semi-recently. But it should still be more of a last resort than it often is. I would agree though that for corporations, the laws are waaaaaaaaaay too lenient, whereas for individuals, they are getting closer to where they should be. And I agree SS2K5, if you offer a pension at all, that should be guaranteed to the last dollar of the business. If you don't want that risk as a business, then go the 401k route or don't do anything at all. On a related note, personal savings by Americans reached a 74 year low in 2006. Lowest since the Depression. These things are interrelated, of course. People are way too apt to spend all their money instead of saving or investing some. There is a significant chunk of the country that now sees things like TV's as a "need". There is nothing wrong with buying a nice TV of course, but don't buy one, ring up more credit card debt than you can handle, then wave the white flag of bankruptcy and say "do-over!"

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 01:58 AM) A lot of Latin America is leaning to the left lately. They are running away from us, like everyone else.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:08 PM) http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.../701310347/1003 If U.S. Airways can afford to buy Delta Airlines for 10 billion........including 5 billion in cash........then how is it that they can get dump their pension liability ( worth 3 billion ) on the taxpayers? What a rip off. The bankruptcy laws are still too lenient, that's why.

QUOTE(fathom @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 12:43 AM) Nope, I'm pretty confident of my observation regarding Dye in the outfield. Dye had an amazing year with the bat last season, but his defense was mediocre. Mediocre isn't bad when you compare it to the horses*** we have in LF. QUOTE(qwerty @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 03:46 AM) Dye is nothing out there defensively compared to before his leg was shattered... which is very understandable. Last year dye's arm was more accurate than in 2005. The 2005 season dye would over throw the cut off man almost daily. I agree with you about his lack of charging the ball... he basically will wait until the ball rolls to his glove. Personally i don't believe teams are very scared of running on dye... if anything it should be seen as an oppurtunity. I agree with both of you, he isn't agressive towards the ball. But regarding his arm, I wanted to point out the play last year where he got to a soft single along the right field line, slipped to one knee in the wet grass, saw the guy going for 2, and gunned him down with a sidearm/submarine throw from one knee (or just getting off that knee, not sure). His arm is still above average in strength and accuracy. He's just lost some speed and footing.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 12:44 PM) Which is why having Ozuna, a well below average MLB defensive outfielder, as our main back-up is inexcusable. He cost us a few games early last season with his bad defense. It's just stunning to me that we didn't do jacks*** this offseason to upgrade any part of our LF situation. That's what Mack is for - LF. If you really need a righty bat here and there, then go with Ozuna as a PH. I think we are really reaching if our concern is "righty backup outfielder". That's way, way down the list of concerns, behind things like starting pitching, starting pitching, starting pitching, Juan Uribe, leadoff hitter, CF situation, defense in general, Ozzie's managing, injuries, young bullpen, and a few dozen other things.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 01:42 PM) He also supports teaching creationism on an equal weight with evolution. Interesting. Huckabee now in a freefall. See, I wish I had more time to research these guys. So many candidates this year, and I really haven't looked at the issues for some of these candidates yet. I will make sure to find the time before Iowa, though.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 01:36 PM) Mike Huckabee on a Federal Hate Amendment. Hm. Well, that takes my opinion of him down a notch or two.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 01:07 PM) I'd like to welcome somemore members to the "surge" flip-flops club. There are indeed quite a few pathetic flips in there. But I fail to see how Hagel flip-flopped. He said then, and says now, that he was OK with the war, just not the way it was handled. I'd say he has been remarkably consistent, in fact.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:59 AM) Welcome to the race, Senator Biden! Welcome back to the Senate, Senator Biden! Wow. Most candidates take a little longer to destroy their own campaigns...

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:49 AM) Here's the big problem I see in the Republican field (well, other than Bush's Iraq debacle...ok, second biggest problem, with a big gap between the first 2) the couple candidates who would have the best shot (looking 20 months out) in the General might have real difficulty with the Republican primaries. Giuliani, for example, has a ton of name recognition and so forth, but how many Republicans are going to vote in the primaries for a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate? Romney is running into similar problems. Their primary may well wind up producing a candidate like Brownback because he plays to the base quite well (aka the Karl Rove strategy) I think the GOP is going to adjust tactics. The "base" of the GOP had become the Christian Right. But their power is diminishing a bit (not a lot, a bit), and they I am sure see the reality that most folks want a more centered candidate right now. So, I think the person who makes it out of the GOP process will not be a social crusader like Brownback - they will be slightly less socially conservative (though not as liberal as Giuliani perhaps), and harken back more to the classic GOP principles that the party abandoned lately - small government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, states rights.

QUOTE(Iwritecode @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:05 AM) Well, the truth is that our house is getting too small and not in the greatest shape. In a perfect world, I could get a loan to make the repairs on the house, have the repairs up the value of the house enough so that I could sell it and make enough to pay off the mortgage and the loan and then basically start over with another bigger house. The problem is that I'm not sure the value that would be added to the house would actually be greater than the cost of the repairs. That is a financial reach. Even if you are confident that the repairs would up the value enough, you are still taking away some or all that equity with debt, not to mention paying more interest, thus upping your cost of living. Plus the risk involved - what if the repairs cost more than anticipated, or you cannot finish them for some reason? Just be careful, and think twice or three times before going over 90%.

QUOTE(Pale Hose Jon @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 09:27 AM) I believe that he is referencing his vote in a resolution against the war during his time in the Illinois legislature. I searched for that before I posted, but I couldn't find any info on that. Maybe I didn't dig far enough. I'd be curious to see if he actually did vote on such a thing. QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 09:27 AM) How else would he write that? People here were for or against the war then, but they didn't vote for it. What it does show is he has free reign to claim almost anything. Of course every reporter worth their Selectric will be trying to uncover some objective evidence that he supported the war effort. There is a subtle grammatical difference between "opposed" and "was opposed to". If he was against he war, he "was opposed to" it. If he actually voted or did something against it, then he "opposed" it. That is the savvy marketing I was referring to.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 08:30 AM) Lower earning, through higher wages, means less paid in taxes, which means less revenue for the government. It does cause debt. Higher wages does not mean less paid in taxes. In fact, if in theory the higher minimum wage results in fewer people at higher wages (assuming an approximately static overall payroll), taxes would either remain constant or possibly go up as family units push past certain rate thresholds.

I think its interesting, the way he is positioning his "history" about the war. He says he "opposed" the effort in 2002, giving the impression he voted against it - which of course he did not, since he was not in Congress yet at that point. Subtle conditioning of the truth there.