southsider2k5

So they pay into the system for a couple of years, and then they spend their golden years drawing out. Its just like any of the progressive taxes, they will take out of it much more than they pay into it based on their expected income levels.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ May 22, 2007 -> 02:57 PM) I wish the girls I dumped in High School just yelled at me from their window. Lucky guy. Also, my Meadow/Michael Corleone comparison from last month is looking stronger every week. Now that would be a kickass ending. I always thought she would be the one to end up in the family business somehow. You could always tell AJ wasn't cut out for it.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ May 22, 2007 -> 02:49 PM) I agree. But I don't think it will a gangland war. David Chase has always been an advocate againt those cliches. I think Phil and his NY crew will go down...but not with a shout, but with a whisper. A Steven King biblical ending... Interesting. The best Phil part of that episode wasn't all his bluster, it was him hiding in his upstairs room shouting down to the street at Tony like a jilted dumped high school girl.

QUOTE(Steff @ May 22, 2007 -> 02:37 PM) There wont be a NY family to cooperate against soon.... It seems like they are heading down that road sometimes, but wouldn't that be pretty cliche for a gangster series? Do they do the final shootout at the tollbooth as well? Who knows. Hopefully they come up with a better ending that a shootout with the NY mob.

I debated adding to this thread or starting a whole new one, but in the end I figured this would work here. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18659716/

QUOTE(Damen @ May 22, 2007 -> 11:42 AM) Walking into the light, while both dressed in black. Good catch. I missed that. QUOTE(Steff @ May 22, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) Or perhaps a terror attack...? Interesting. I hadn't thought of that angle at all. I was thinking they would use that cooperation as a wedge to try to get him to cooperate against the New York family when they inevitably pinch Tony on the RICO charges.

An interesting note from the "For the love of statistics" category. The Sox are actually rated #7 in the ESPN RPI category, 4 spots ahead of their latest power-ranking. Their 22-19 record is actually three better than the Pythagarin expected record of 19-22. Their .517 strength of schedule is good for 3rd in all of baseball, and #1 in the AL.

Anyone else interested in playing? There are still a few people I have not heard from, but it seems like we only have about 10 firm committments!

QUOTE(iamshack @ May 22, 2007 -> 02:05 PM) Are you that naive that you believe the CBS radio or MSNBC gave a rats ass what he said? No. They were worried about advertisers pulling out of the show. The racial slurs may be what got Imus canned, but the end result is the same. Piss off enough readers and you'll be gone. It's all about the $. And I'm sorry, but let's not compare Jay to Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern (the inevitable next comparison), because those people actually have a following. No one likes Jay Mariotti. Have you ever heard anyone say they actually like his columns? Rarely. Hey you were the one who started comparing him to Don Imus, slap your own hand for that stuff. Regardless the point remains, people are reading his s***, and they are talking about it, which is more than the ST can say about most of its columnists. If there are people talking about, that means people are reading it, which means someone is buying that psuedo-tabloid newspaper. Burying your head in the sand to this, doesn't change the fact that this is exactly what keeps guys like this employed.

Did I miss Jay Mariotti call Ken Harrelson a "nappy headed ho" along there somewhere, because that is what it took for Don Imus to get fired. It wasn't pissing people off, it was using racial slurs. Those two analogies aren't even close. Besides, Rush Limbaugh has been pissing off people for about 20 years now, when does he get booted off of the air?

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ May 22, 2007 -> 01:47 PM) Take marketing 101 and get back to me. Bingo... Even bad publicity is better than none at all. It means someone is reading the no-talent assclown, or else no one would be talking about him.

Nah, its the usual. People are going to go out of their way to not admit they were wrong, because the all important message board props go out of the window then. You have to pull whatever you can to make sure that you are right. BTW, what is the conversion rate for being right on a message board now adays? Its about one right prediction to a Schrutebuck, correct? The problem is that if you admit you are wrong, its minus one thousand Schrutebucks, and then your Soxtalk-cred is over.

The whole newspaper industry is down as a whole. The Sun Times is no different than anywhere else in that regards. Their problems are coming from a corrupt owner more than Jay Mariotti.

QUOTE(iamshack @ May 22, 2007 -> 12:34 PM) Mike Lupica is 7 times the journalist Mariotti ever will be. Again, no one thought Mariotti would be gone from am 1000 either. You know why Kotex-boy got canned from AM 1000? His ratings sucked. No one listened to that show on the radio, so they fired him. The guy is still selling newspapers, so he isn't going anywhere until that changes.

Mike Lupica made a career out of trashing a much more powerful George Steinbrenner/New York Yankees franchise since Kotex-boy was living in his mom's basement. This happens nationwide everyday, we just notice this guy more because he writes in Chicago. Nothing is going to change, unless he crosses an invisable line.

Social Security would be a huge one that is missing from your list. Plus you act like that list isn't much... Of the top 5 budget expendatures for the United States, 4 of them are entitlement programs. (medicare/caid, SSI, unemployment/welfare) Those are vital lifelines for a lot of people, and they are also no equipped for a huge influx of people. Its either going to take a major funding increase, or a cut in benefits to the people who can't afford it. If you start throwing 12 million more people into these programs, they are going to collapse.... And that's why no one is talking about them. If the politicians were telling the truth about the explosion of entitlement programs we were about to see, then this bill would be rightfully DOA.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ May 22, 2007 -> 11:15 AM) You know what I noticed though with all this Mariotti stuff and Ozzie's call-in and AJ/Buehrle and what not? All of a sudden our offense woke up. Just an observation. Remember when I said this is all a calculation by Ozzie to get the attention away from the anemic offense right before the Cubs series? These things always seem to happen when something bad is going on. I swear the White Sox are using the media to deflect attention away from their problems.

QUOTE(Y2HH @ May 22, 2007 -> 09:58 AM) Good catch. If it actually meant something, and I hope it did, I hope we see something come of it. With this show you never know, but you always have to pay attention for those kind of details. Those are always the little things that come back later.

That was a great moment

Well it sure looks like we got an even trade out of this deal...

I think it will be one of Tony's big character flaws that determines the show ending.

It was nice to see the Sox kick the s*** out of a very good pitcher in Joe Blanton, and take advantage of some opportunities on offense. I think you are slowly seeing the confidence come back to our hitters.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ May 22, 2007 -> 08:55 AM) unfortunately he is playing right into Mariotti's little game. You could see todays column from a mile away, Mariotti loves exposure that Hawk gives him. No one ever accused Hawk of being the sharpest crayon in the box.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ May 22, 2007 -> 09:07 AM) Amnesty may be bad, but the alternative is worse IMO. We have 12 million illegal residents in this country. The vast majority are here to live peacefully and within the law once they get here. If we don't do something to legalize their status, we're left with two alternatives. We can kick out 12 million people - provided we can find them, at an enormous cost and energy to our country. Or we can do nothing, which is what we're doing now. This allows us to maintain an underclass of workers without protection, without decent pay, and that are going to need to suckle on the teat of our social services because of their workplace situation. Actually I would argue the opposite is going to happen. Once these people are legalized, there is going to be a HUGE influx of 12 million new people utilizing social services that they never had used before, because they had no legal standing to them. Its one of the costs of this bill that no one seems to be mentioning.

Judging by the hints in the previews, I wonder if we find out that Paulie has been the one playing both sides of the fence with the NY crew? There have been little hints all along about Tony really starting to hate him, and it would be an easy sell for a whacking. The AJ suicide scene was really powerful. It really got you wondering if it would happen, until Tony got home. The scene where Tony evened the score for Meadow was vintage Soprano's action. We haven't seen a beatdown like that for a while now. Finally the one foreshadow that I didn't see anyone mention was the very end where Tony and AJ walk into the light together...