NorthSideSox72

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 08:14 AM) BTW, I do want to point out one thing that the writer of this article completely neglects is that dispite being government regulated Com-Ed is still a business, and as such they do pay taxes. All these chartiable contributions are is tax write-offs, and as such have exactly zero effect on their bottomline, and exactly zero effect on what your electricity costs in the end. This is not the case. Just because they get a tax write-off, that doesn't mean it doesn't effect the cost of electricity. The money is still coming out of consumers' pockets - its just not going in to ComEd's profits. It does in fact causes a direct cost to the consumer.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 08:07 AM) That is really besides the point. Just because they know it would be DOA on his desk, doesn't mean that the Dems have to work with anyone to get it there. All those promises of cooperation and bipartisianship are already flying out the window to fit their agenda, no matter what guise they are hidden under. I think you've gone well past what has actually transpired - though they may indeed not cooperate with Bush at all. Even if they try, though, and it doesn't work, whose fault is it? Anyway, they just started. The GOP was in power for 12 years. Maybe we can give this new Congress a year or two, and get some perspective on what they are able to accomplish. So far, overall, I think they've done some positive things.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 08:03 AM) I think the number was something like 22% IIRC. That's exactly where I was going. People don't seem to realize that there are unintended consiquences of regulations. The US/state/local governments make that same decesion everyday with your tax money. Should we get them out of the arts business as well? By the time they collect taxes, they are way more ineffecient with your money than any business ever would be. I don't believe the federal government should be funding arts in any case. State and local, that's different - then its a maybe, with some restraint. I have a choice in government representation, and I have a choice as a consumer in a competitive market. In the case of electricity, I have no choice. Therefore, they should not be spending my money on anything other than creating electricity. Just my opinion.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 07:57 AM) That's where the procedural changes come in... It used to take 60% to move tax matters, now it only takes 50% +1. They can force anything they want onto the President's desk now. The size of the majority doesn't matter as long as the Dems vote as a block. Bush would undoubtedly veto and rollback of recent tax cuts, or any addition of new taxes. One thing people should keep in mind about this procedural change - it had to be done for PAYGO to work. Here is why. PAYGO says you need funding for any initiative to be declared and established before a program is passed (among other things). So if Congress, in their infinite wisdom, passes more programs than they have funding, they would HAVE to increase revenue in some way. But if the program itself only passed with, say, 55% of the house, but tax increases required 60%, then you'd be in a sort of purgatory - program passed, but it would be unfunded. Sort of a weird thing, but its true. And if this forces Congress to not pass programs it can't fund, then its great. If on the other hand, they pass stuff anyway and it goes unfunded, that's idiotic. Its also possible it would result in actual tax increases, which would also be bad. I really hope that the result is option 1 - fiscal discipline.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 07:54 AM) The reason their getting nailed by higher rates is because of a rate freeze they are coming out of, which didn't allow for smaller gradual increases. Now they are looking at bigger, more immediate increases. Its more of quality regulation at work. I do agree that the rate freeze is a bad idea. Heck, even the Speaker of the Illinois House agrees with that, but the majority of the house wants to look good to their constituents and don't care if it hurts everyone later. The solution isn't more regulation - its LESS regulation.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2007 -> 07:30 AM) I can't believe ComEd in the post Enron/Refco era is getting ripped for giving back to the community. This is how capitalistic corporate efforts are supposed to run, and now they are wrong for it? ComEd isn't corporate - that is the problem. Corporate is being a business in the free market. Electricity, in Illinois, isn't a free market. Therefore, ComEd is more like a government entity than a private firm, in many ways. And as I noted, if I wanted my money to go to the arts (which I do, to some extent), then I sure as heck don't want the electric company doing that for me. I'll do it myself, which will be more efficient and more of my choice. And again, of ComEd had competition, then fine - let the free market decide. If they can turn a profit, give me electricity at a fair price and still afford King Tut, then I am OK with that.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 08:47 PM) Yea, that sounds about right. I know this idea is kind of radical, but I would support us looking into breaking up Iraq into 3 smaller countries, one for each major ethnic group. That could make things even worse though, they might start invading each other. The UK did that with India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. It was quite painful at the time, but eventually, it sort of worked. Weird thing is, India still has a lot of Muslims, and Pakistan has a fair number of non-Muslims (but its still majority Muslim). India has been a model for religious peace, but Bangladesh has been an economic failure, and Pakistan is constantly dancing on the edge of falling to extremists. So, using that historical model, there could be some positive and some negative to the idea. I still think the best possible plan involves the U.S. pulling back into, and working with, Kurdistan - which would become its own nation. Turkey and Iran don't like the idea of an independent Kurdistan because of the ethnic Kurds within their own borders, and fears of guerilla action. But, U.S. presence there would negate some of that effect. Further, with US security forces much more dense in Kurdistan, and a relatively (key word: relatively) stable nation to go home to, many Kurds in Turkey and Iran would likely "come home". The rest or Iraq can find its own way to whatever end it wants to, but at least the new Iraq and Kurdistan would both have oil reserves. The US would just want to trade assurances of stability for pipeline access from Turkey to get the oil out.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 08:34 PM) Actually I'd like to hear from Nuke to see if the situation over there is better than the media tells us. Hopefully it is. Nuke will be giving us some diary entries, which will be quite cool. I think you will get differing opinions on things over there. For me personally, I know two military folks and one journalist who have spent a lot of time over there. They all describe the situation as some form of miserable or another. Yes, there are the occasional good stories. But they seem to be the exception to the rule.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 06:31 PM) the Dems only have a slight majority in the Senate. they won't get the large tax increases they want. if they try to push legislation for huge tax increases the republicans should filibuster. While I am sure there are exceptions, I find it unlikely that the newly-crowned Dems will want to waste their political capital on a PR drain like a tax increase.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 04:43 PM) Fair enough. Another point. Shouldn't those companies that have a monopoly be among the greatest proponents of the community good and set the best example of corporate behavior? In other words shouldn't they be the examples for other companies to follow? Best corporate behavior: ideally, yes. Community good? Not if the cost is passed on to customers. If you are a single-provider utility, you are by nature a poor choice to redstribute wealth. Therefore, anything you do in that vein, no matter how well-intentioned, is a poor use of resources.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 05:32 PM) Definately separate from the SOTU. This address will be almost fully about Iraq. The SOTU will be in late January, and from what we've heard so far, the rumor is he'll be talking about energy independence again for like the 5th straight year, and he'll probably spend a lot of time either trying to work with or infuriate the new Congress, depending on what he wants to do. Last year's SOTU was hilarious. He preached all this energy independence stuff, sounded great, and then not 30 minutes later the white house spokesperson said, basicaly, that he didn't mean it. Classic.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 04:20 PM) If you learned that the Public Utilities Board, or whatever over site there is in Illinois, mandated that a portion of their profits be returned to the community in this way, would that change your mind? No.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 01:10 PM) There was a time when giving back to the community was valued, held in high esteem. Where personal involvement with charities was considered a noble thing. Sadly, I guess that has gone away. Do you know how many civic and cultural opportunities would fold if not for these donations? From sports leagues to fine art exhibits. I still value it. But ComEd is a monopoly, and therefore, I have no consumer influence over their spending. Therefore, I cannot endorse it without competition.

Let me throw this out there. If electricity were de-monopolized and competition was actually allowed in the market, then I would be OK with ComEd donating to whomever the heck they wanted. Its their choice in the competitive market place, and it would be my choice as a consumer who to buy from. Such competition would also, importantly, allow me to choose a company that produced a higher precentage of its power from renewable and/or green sources. Or, I could just choose the cheapest one. Either way, good for all consumers. So the problem here really, is the monopoly. Electricity needs to be commoditized more effectively, at the consumer level (as opposed to now, where it is only partially commoditized, and at the corporate/government entity level only).

So, Bush is going to give a speech on Wednesday evening setting out a "new plan" for Iraq. Here are some discussion questions... --Will you watch the speech? --What do people think it will include and not include? --Which of those things do people think will be effective, if any? --If you were him, right now, what would you do for Iraq?

While other candidates are using well-located announcements and Congressional issue stands to make them stand out from the crowd, Gov. Richardson seems to be playing the foreign policy route. After bringing a North Korean delegation to Santa Fe last month to talk nukes, he is now in Sudan trying to get UN peacekeepers access to Darfur. I am not sure if either meeting will actually work, but, he is making a clear distinction between political mediation (which he obviously favors) and going the tough-guy route.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 7, 2007 -> 11:16 PM) The news anchor chick who is on the LCI news service out of Europe. OH MY GOD!!! I think maybe you've missed the point of STRANGE crushes. What would be strange is anyone who did NOT find that frenchie attractive.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 8, 2007 -> 06:15 AM) That's all nice , but really not what I asked. I am talking about manpower, supplies etc for the after the fact response that everyone is ridiculing. How many people should be dedicated to waiting for a disaster to happen, so that they are able to respond instantly? How much food, water, temporary shelter should we have stored up for disasters like this? How many meals should we be able to supply on a moments notice? Where should it be stored? Just taking LA's disaster, we are talking about around a million people. Even if we are just talking about month, where and how would we keep 30 million meals, and the technical ability to get them to a million people in less than 3 days? Or if you are talking about a place like LA, with a much greater metro area, how should we prepare for that? In this case we would be talking about something like 250-300 million meals if we are to feed the LA metro area for just a month in the case of a disaster which destroyed the infastructure (which is coming). If you want to get into keeping people out of the way of a disaster, should the government already be moving people out of cities like San Fransisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City, etc where we know that huge disasters are going to happen? All of those places are more are not an "if?", they are a "when?". If you want to be technicial about it, we have had a little over 100 years notice that there will be a huge quake in California along the Pacific Coast, but no one seems to be leaving. In fact more people are moving in. How do we handle people who refuse to leave, or even enter disaster areas? If you guys want to take the easy route, and say we can't be ready for any so don't prepare at all, then that's fine. But I think its short-sighted. The examples of fault lines in CA and flooding in NOLA are really not comparable, for the reasons I stated earlier (and other ones). You cannot displace a region of people. You can, however, be smart with certain high-risk areas. As for your series of questions on planning, I will answer them later. But there are definitely logical answers to all of them. Not perfect ones - but ones a lot better than anything that was actually done in prepping for Katrina.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2007 -> 06:20 PM) I think my point may have eluded you. My point is that it shouldn't be a story at all that a country has potential plans to attack Iran. The U.S. probably has 87 versions of that plan. Israel probably has just about as many. That's what general staffs do, they come up with contingency plans so that in the event the politicians make that decision, they aren't starting from scratch. The thing that would be worth reporting would be something beyond the plan being drawn up. If, for example, a leader went around for 6 months saying how they needed to invade some country, that makes the plans that much more newsworthy. Or if there was some additional level of preparation, like training on mock targets or a call-up of reserve forces or something like that. I just don't see how its does anything to report 5 times in 2 years that "Israel has plans to attack Iran". Especially when nothing happened the other 4 times the same thing was reported. Whose point eluded who? My interperetation of "plans" in this case is more than just military scenarios like you describe. I think the story they are getting at here is that the "plan" is something on the table at a high level. also note that the article discusses the air force training for this, just as you say would be interesting. And I'm pretty sure that ain't happening in Myanmar. Also, for the most part (Iran aside), most countries don't have leaders "saying they needed to invade some country" for 6 months, even when they are planning it. That would be idiotic. And I'm thinking there is a good chance it still will happen. Your argument about it not having happened yet, and so its a non-story, misses a key element. The fact that Israel, being fairly smart, wouldn't use such an option until they were reasonably sure of two things: Iran being on the verge of actually making a weapon, and the rest of the world not acting. So, the fact that they haven't acted yet means exactly zero.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2007 -> 05:57 PM) Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the general staff in Myanmar had some sort of plan for an airstrike on Iran. Doesn't mean that it's actually going to happen. And that is an excellent comparison. Israel has a history of preemptive military action, they have the military hardware to do it, and they would likely have U.S. support (tacit). Somehow, I don't think Myanmar can say the same.

Further question - what do we know about Owens' defense? I saw him play a game in Tucson last spring, and watched a couple games this year he played in, and he seemed pretty solid out there. How would people describe his defensive skills?

New article up on chisox site today. Now Kenny is using the press to try to get Juan to contact him, given the conflicting reports. Still not out of the woods yet.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2007 -> 03:48 PM) I'm going to step back from actually discussing the report and go after the source here. And More from the right-wing Pajamas Media. This is just a Rupert Murdoch owned paper either trying to sell papers or rattle the sabre on its own, I'd say. I don't find the nuclear aspect likely, but I do think that the general idea of them having a plan of this type is not at all far-fetched.

So, the Sunday Times (UK) had an article discussing a supposed plan drawn up and trained on by the Israeli Air Force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. So, three questions come to mind... 1. Do we believe that Israel would do something like this? 2. If so, what is the trigger? Do they wait until they have intel about weapons development? Or attack prior to that? 3. If this did happen, nuclear or conventional, what do people think would be the cascade of events after?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 7, 2007 -> 03:21 PM) The problem with that argument though is that you can make it about a significant number of cities within the U.S. Yes, New Orleans faces a major storm hitting it on average every 50 years or so, with minor storms more often. The Los Angeles and San Francisco areas will each face a major earthquake every 100-150 years or so on average (major being 1906 scale), with minor, Northridge/Loma Prieta scale events every decade. Every 300 years or so (plus or minus about 300, and the last one was about 300 years ago), the Pacific Northwest will face a Sumatra-scale earthquake which will absolutely destroy that area. Every 100 or 200 years or so, the regions around Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier will be put in major jeopardy due to eruptions of those volcanoes. Every 50 years or so, we can probably expect New York City to wind up under water from a Hurricane. I think the reality of the situation is there's just no way that we can start abandoning cities that are at risk, because if we go down that road, there's no where to put people. Everyone looks at what happened to New Orleans, and now it seems like a logical suggestion to pull out of there because of the things you cite, and clearly it's been shown to be the most at-risk city in the coutnry right? Well, I'd disagree with that. In fact, I'd say it's probably a lot easier to make New Orleans relatively safe from the waters around it than it is to make Los Angeles safe from the multitude of fault lines that run right through it, or San Fran safe from the 2 fault lines that run right through it. This is a classic problem in Geology actually...people have a habit of living right where they are at the most risk, because it is geologic risk that actually creates nice environments. The LA Basin is a great environment because of the rapidly rising mountain ranges next to it. Louisiana is a great place to put a port because of the Mississippi river. Tehran sits right on a fault line that could destroy it at any day, but it's there because the faulting has provided that area with mountains which give the area water resources that otherwise wouldn't be there. And so on. There is no easy solution. But I will say this...if it seems like a good idea to just end the lifetime of New Orleans because we don't want to spend the money to build a decent levee system, then it's time to start evacuating LA and SF, because sometime in the next few hundred years, and probably a lot sooner, it's going to cost a hell of a lot more to fix these cities than it would to build those levees. Of course, if you want to go that far, you could. But you cannot mitigate ALL risk of disaster. NOLA is a much different situation than, say, LA, for some very important reasons. One, the area in NOLA that is at that particularly high risk of inundation is a few square miles - VERY small. On the other hand, the areas that might have damage from major faults would take up a substantial portion of the country. Sure, all of the Gulf coast is a hurricane risk. But living below sea level and surrounded on 3 sides by water? That is a specific, fixable thing that we have an opportunity to address, that will save lives and money in the future. We don't have to live in the extremes. The alternatives should not be "let them rebuild wherever they want" or "not let anyone build in places of natural risk". We should be smart. When an opportunity like this, with a relatively low national impact, can be enacted in such a way that lives and money can be saved, we should take that opportunity. Heck, with the number of people who have left NOLA permanently, this should be very doable.