southsider2k5

I also would like to highlight that contract that Hafner signed. Wow. There is the danger of signing a pretty young player to a long term deal. Especially if you have a guy with an injury history like TCQ, you really have to be careful.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 17, 2008 -> 07:05 AM) You should've finished reading his post because everything what you just said is exactly what he said : For the record I applied for a passport a few weeks ago, it took me maybe like 6 days to get it and my birth certificate came back a couple of days later. I expected it to take weeks. That's kinda what I was getting at. Everything he described was our government, so I am not sure the distinction he was trying draw between that and socialism.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 08:23 PM) Whats wrong with socialism is govt corruption and the fact that govt control leads to bureaucracy which leads to inefficiency. If you have to get anything done in Chicago you understand what a nightmare it is to have to work with Cook County or the City. You can call them and no one ever responds, you can get transferred to no where, you can fill out form after form and get nothing accomplished. Since there is no real "bottom line" there is no way to judge what costs should be. For example lets look at the Cook County Recorder. Right now it costs about $50 to record a deed (thats 3 pages for the most part). Its not because it costs that much to scan the document and store it, its because part of that money goes to fund other things because some services run by the govt have very little cost. For example you can get all the permits on a building for something ridiculous like 10 cents a page even though thats much more labor intensive and takes longer. Why? Because there is nothing to control what costs are, there is no competition on building permit searches or on recording deeds. You have to go there, so if they say it costs 50 dollars you pay 50, if they say 100 you pay 100, since the govt controls it and there is no competition there is no way to structure the pricing system and eventually the consumer gets hammered. Capitalism generally provides for the lowest prices, the problem is systems where you cant allow a truly free market for one reason or another. In those situations some times the govt has to guide the market but I think it should be like Obama's idea where govt insurance is just an alternative to regular medical insurance (thus in theory should actually increase competition and decrease costs). At least thats my theory on it. (Edit) And I dont watch CNN, if I wanted to know that Eurasia has always been Oceana's enemy I could just write the news myself. You lost me in the very first sentence. I really don't know of many people who feel that our government isn't rife with ineffeciencies and many feel plenty corrupt. Ask someone who has tried to get a passport, social security, had a tax audit, applied for citizenship, etc, how well our government works.

This is your chance. This is the guy who knew the crash was coming after the internet bubble and made a bunch of money during the 2001-2002 when the markets fell apart.

QUOTE (Mr. Showtime @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 05:37 PM) I'm sure it's an ambassador or senior vice president in charge of Denis Savard operations. Which again tells me a complete change of Regime is going on behind the scenes. Tallon is either going to be fired soon, or he has already been effectively nuetered.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 05:47 PM) I didn't say i had a problem with im not voting. And he WILl be allowed to vote, using the provisional ballots like every one else in his situation. But why trying to kill the messenger? It doesn't change what Obama said. I don't care if it was Ann f-ing Coulter that asked the question, it still doesn't change his answer. Its ironic that only the message mattered when people where questioning Al Gore... Now the message doesn't matter and we are back on the messenger. Ah, yeah, I can feel the change all right...

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) He's 15 and AMAZING. Search Celtic Thunder and Puppy Love on YouTube. You are soooo lucky you already gave up that man card!

CJ's questions have been sent to him, still a chance to get your questions in for Sergio!

All right, the questions have been sent to CJ, I will post the interview when we hear back. Thanks to all, and don't forget to contribute questions for some of our Sergio Miranda interview! As a special teaser, we are trying to set up more of these interviews with some of the guys. Stay tuned!

What a stupid move. Why the hell would you fire a coach four games into a season that way overachieved last year? If he was on thin ice, he should have been fired in the offseason so that a coach could have time to teach his systems to the players over the course of a training camp. Now they have to learn a whole new system 4 games in? Dumb.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 09:38 AM) Well I guess as the say in Missouri, show me. Show me how Obama's plan is going to be fundamentally different. Im pretty sure you are talking about the whole idea of tax credits and how people who pay no taxes could theoretically get credits and therefore be paid by the govt. The problem is that I have never actually seen the policy so I dont really know the truthiness of those statements. I myself believe that it is most likely an exaggeration and the policy will allow credits up until the tax payer reaches 0, thus you could have taxes reduced to 0 by the credits, but could not actually get paid by the govt. I looked at the Obama website to try and find the answers but all I could find was: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/ But once again Im not sure how this differs from any of the other tax credits or tax loopholes that currently are available to the public. As I already posted, under the current tax code the bottom 50% pay 3% of taxes. Even if Obama's taxes were to make the bottom 50% pay 0 in taxes that would equal a 3% decrease in tax revenues. Im not exactly seeing the fundamental difference here, its not like under McCains plan the bottom 50% pay 50% or even 25%, they will pay roughly 3%. Again you are stuck on the very bottom of taxpayers. I am looking at the 2nd and 3rd quintiles here. This is where the biggest changes are supposed to be. Including the bottom quintile in your number skews them because they already are paying a negative tax rate. The reason you can find exact answers for Obama's tax policy is because they don't exist. We are going to battle with what he has said in speeches and the like. He has yet to outline exactly what the percentages will be and exactly where the cutoffs will fall. I guess I am taking Obama at his word, so that is probably my first mistake. There is always the pretty obvious change that he pulls a Bill Clinton and goes back on his middle class taxcut promises.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 09:17 AM) The system of the progressive tax does not change that it remains a progressive tax. And here is my question, how is Obama's plan any different than whats currently going on? http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxand...taxburden06.htm So its actually much worse than the 50% paying for the other 50%. Its more like the top 5% pay for over 60% of America, and under Obama's plan that will most likely increase to something like the top 5% pay for the top 70%. Once again, not really such a drastic change that you can label Obama as a Socialist while at the same time having a straight face and not calling Bush or McCain one. But then again I dont call any of them Socialists for their tax policies, their ideas start to blend with Socialism on a variety of other issues, but taxes is one where every politician has pretty much the same beliefs. So its fine to call them all Socialists, it just makes no sense to only call Obama one. Again the change comes in the middle when half of the country is not paying taxes. At least on the Bush side of thing he has attempted to flatten out the rates at the top, so it is hard to accuse him of being for this kind of thing.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 16, 2008 -> 08:54 AM) /sigh I swear I already posted that Progressive Tax is not Socialism. Is anyone even going to read that post about how McCain uses the exact same Progressive Tax in his tax ideas? So either both Obama and McCain are Socialists (which would be using the term wrong) or neither are (which would be using the term correctly.) I have yet to see Obama nor McCain differentiate themselves on this issue. Both McCain and Obama will have the highest tax rate at the highest income ie PROGRESSIVE TAX. Neither McCain nor Obama are going to get up there and argue for a FLAT or FAIR Tax. This is not pure Socialism, Socialism would be more along the lines of Universal Health Care and Bank bailouts, in which the Govt owns the means of production or owns the services. The problem is most American's dont even understand Communism, Socialism, or Capitalism. And the reason why no one cares is because both McCain and Obama have socialist ideas. The most Socialist of them all is the Govt changing the principal on loans (a McCain idea) as that would be directly having the govt own property and change the value of property with out the market having any say as to the value and directly interfering with capitalism. Another socialist idea is to prevent immigration (more Republican than Democrat) as workers are nothing more than the supply of a good, so when the govt interferes with supply it creates artificial demand (ie American workers are paid more than they would on the open market) this artificial demand creates artificial costs and therefore raises the wage of the worker. Thus why does it matter if Obama is called a socialist when McCain is also a socialist? Not to mention Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, advocated progressive tax because most economists understand that a flat tax may not even be possible. Here is an excerpt from Wealth of Nations, Chapter II: http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c2-article-1-ss3.htm But what would Adam Smith know about capitalism, he must have been a socialist too? Nice change of pace, but it isn't the tax itself that draws these charges. It is the fact that under his plan almost half of the country would pay taxes to the other half. THAT is what draws these charges. You can have both a progressive tax system AND one that includes the second quintile of taxpayers paying SOMETHING.

I don't think this one has been done before, but it might be fun... What nicknames do you have, or did you used to have, and what are the stories behind them? I'll even start up... all through HS and college I was known as Crash. Most people had no idea why... When I was a Jr in HS, I got a job at a local country club through my best friend at the time. I worked in the pro shop. One of the duty's we had was to clean the golf carts and take them back to the bin to plug them in to re-charge. The path was a backwards C shaped path around the proshop and garage to the back entrance where the carts sat when they weren't being used. My first day on the job when my buddy was showing me how to clean them and where to take them, he has me hop on another cart to follow him back to put them away. I slam on the go peddle and slide out of the curve and smack right into the Pro's conversion van, with him and his assistant watching me. Instead of firing me or yelling, he just calmly looks at my buddy and tells him. "Let's teach Crash here how to properly drive a cart."

So this might be the best possible scenario for the Hawks right now with Khabi playing really well... Could he have some trade value finally?

Or they could always find him a spot in one of the winter leagues...

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 12:40 PM) Hence why I said "kinds of people." This isn't my argument, I backed out a couple of pages ago out of disinterest. I have avoided most of the arguement because both campaigns have run the exact campaigns they have accused the others of running. This has been by far the dirtiest and most negative campaign I have ever seen by both candidates. There has been more innuendo, guilt by association, and cheap scare tactics used by both parties than I care to think of.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 12:29 PM) These are the kind of people we're talking about here... I thought we were supposed to make a distinction between supports and the candidates themselves? I can't tell you how many times I have been told that exact same ideal on this very board. Or do I get to start holding Barack Obama responsible for everything AHB saids?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 12:17 PM) They've seriously even got you buying in to that Bull now? Call me crazy, but it makes me wonder when after screaming about election/voter fraud for seven years, the Democrats are suddenly OK with it. They seem to now be OK with everything they accused Bush of just a few short years ago. The best part of all being there is really no way to see how much fraud is in the system because there is no way to check for it at the polls. Plus if they do disquailfy votes, there is always the "disenfranchisement" arguement. Its a win-win. Then again, I didn't register to vote 73 times, so I don't have a problem with some checks and balances in our electoral system.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 14, 2008 -> 11:23 AM) There are some good points there, and I agree with you in general. but one clarification - the bottom bracket (44% or whatever the number will be) will not be paying INCOME taxes. They will still be paying all sorts of other taxes. Income taxes are by and far the biggest revenue source of the federal government, which just so happens to be the largest employer and landowner in the United States. Most of the other taxes you are looking are either asset based, which again skews towards the middle and upper classes, or usage based. Either way, you can't convince me that someone in the 40th income percentile doesn't need to be paying income taxes. It is literally a massive redistribution of wealth when almost exactly half of the country will be paying zero or near zero in income taxes. My biggest problem with it all is that in the midst of the this redistribution, we as the half of the country left paying taxes, will be losing an estimated 10-15% of that purchasing power by the waste factor of our federal government ineffeciencies up and down the board. It would be smarter just to walk over to a neighbors and hand my income tax portion over to someone who is collecting as much as I am paying.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 10:10 AM) While attention will be given to picking up the cutter, IMHO what is more important is something the organization cannot teach, a gunslinger attitude and a ton of nerve. That, is the biggest difference in Javy and Danks. Not the quality and type of pitches, but the ability to throw them under pressure.And iut cannot be taught. You may get better with exposure, but 90% you either have or you don't. They seem to have taught it to Garland and Floyd.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 10:15 AM) Yikes. Talk about overreacting. Not like Wahlberg makes good movies anyway that he would need to promote. Keep producing Entourage. Not to mention he is giving SNL free promos and using the South Park formula to get people to watch the show Controversy+pissed off people=high ratings.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 10:23 AM) When Obama was getting massive crowds in the primaries and in Europe the conservatives on here kept saying how it didn't matter. Apparently crowd size matters now. I would say how many of those Europeans are going to vote, but with ACORN around, anything is possible.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 15, 2008 -> 10:05 AM) It is normal to experiment, and if you are intrigued by liberals, you may wish to vote Democratic once Not only have I voted for Democrats, I have campaigned for and endorsed them.

Chavez could really be in trouble. You might find this story interesting. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...ugo-Chavez.html