southsider2k5

Is it just me, or has this years Big Dance been incredibly boring? There have been no real big upsets, and there isn't a single double digit seed in the Sweet Sixteen. Besides the VCU game and the couple of OT games, there really wasn't even many close games. I don't know if it was the fact that only 6 mid majors made the tournament, or what, but this year has been way too predictable for the high seeds, and that really has my interest at about zero. At one point Saturday I was watching the Bulls instead of the tourney. Anyone else feel the same way?

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 18, 2007 -> 03:16 PM) Talk about a series of questionable roster moves -- if Anderson and Sisco are in AAA and Floyd is in the bullpen or starting rotation, I'll seriously have to question our organization. No way!

FWIW, Farmer really stressed that Danks "ran out of gas" in the 4th inning everytime he talked about his outing. Both kids sounded like they pitched well, except for the one Danks inning. There is nothing but good stuff that comes from both guys pitching this well.

http://hillaryspot.nationalreview.com/post...mI5ODg2OTc3Yzc=

Damn ND is getting whipped!

QUOTE(maggsmaggs @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 02:33 PM) Even though many on this board, including myself, hate prancer, we can all agree that when he is on his game and stealing bases, this team is so much better. That's pretty much where I am. Its too bad the hate from Pods pretty much comes from the Ozzie love for him, that's too bad. When the guy is on, he could be a huge key to this team.

Yeah well, your mother icehole!

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 02:16 PM) Where's that :fyou smilie?

That's bulls*** and you know it, and nothing you say will make me change my mind! oh wait...

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 01:33 PM) Is that all of Canada or just Niagra Falls? I thought you had to have a passport no matter what now? Or do you have to have a passport to get back into the states? There's something weird about it and I don't remember what it is. I think right now it is just for flying IIRC.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 12:24 PM) I agree that it works now for the poor, but if it doesn't work for the higher earners and if something migt be done in the future to correct that then I'm tr4ying to figure out a way basically keep the poor in that same tax-free situation while giving the top 60% something better. Not that anybody's going to be asking my opinion. And that's probably a pretty good thing. My honest answer would be this, the only way to lessen the total tax burden would be to make the government a more effecient place. Things like making it hard to add spending measures as riders to bills, the line item veto, figuring out a way to streamline and eliminate duplicate and ineffecient government agencies etc., are the types of steps we need. Taxes are only a function of how big the government wants to be. You have to cut spending to really stop the taxes for the real taxpayers. QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 12:42 PM) A lot of this argument could be eliminated nicely if we went away from income taxes entirely, and went to use taxes. Even better, make those use taxes proportionate to two dynamics - level of need (i.e. clothing and groceries should have lower tax rates than entertainment), and total cost impact (i.e. as pollution gets worse and our dependence on oil gets more dangerous, taxes on gas should go up). Use taxes put the tax ball entirely in the court of taxpayers and their decisions. And as for the forthcoming argument that this takes much of the highest earners' income out of the system, I do think you need to keep capital gains and interest taxation in the puzzle, at least for now. Just don't raise those under any circumstances. Any usage based tax would be a tax increase for the lowest tax payers.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 11:43 AM) As is the response. I'm not faulting anybody for being successful. And I'd like nothing better than to go the Fair Tax route rather than the current system, modified with some sort of voucher system to address its regressive nature and the burden it would otherwise impose on the poor. I'll say this as clearly as I know how... This is the fairest individual tax system you will ever find. There are loopholes that need to be closed, and much more so on the corporate side, but all in all, the system works pretty well. The only thing I would like to see is another simplification of the code, and the reduction of the IRS, but that is another story. The poorest taxpayers, are not taxpayers at all. In fact they actually come out ahead because of tax credits like the EIC. I have sited the link a bunch of times, usually when this very topic comes up, so it should be at least a memory to most people. The lowest quintile of tax payers, has a net negative tax rate, and the second to lowest quintile has a tax effective rate of zero. You can't get a much better situation than the bottom 40% of taxpayers paying nothing.

The most important part of the article for those who insist on spreading BS about the payroll.

I kinda figured that would be the reply. The article is pretty techinical and statistical, but it makes the points in detail with tons of sources. http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/02/07/ala...ution-heresies/

http://www.americanshareholders.com/blog/2...i-dont-think-so

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 03:04 PM) You're all being dense on purpose I know, but it is irksome. 2 months into an administration ≠ 6 years into an administration. Alberto Gonzales took over the AGs office on Februrary 3, 2005, while Reno served the whole eight years under Clinton. Does a new AG deserve to decide who he wants on his staff, or should he have been stuck with all of the DAs?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 07:31 PM) SI Dowd also had some evidence that Rose bet against his team at times, but didn't think the evidence was strong enough to put into his report. He also said at one point if he wasn't on a time schedule, he thought he could have proven Rose bet against the Reds at times.

QUOTE(Damen @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 11:12 PM) Did Janet Reno lie to Congress? No. Gonzalez did. That would probably be the more accurate bottom line. Hey so did Bill, and apparently that's totally cool. QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Mar 16, 2007 -> 01:43 AM) There are now four GOP US Senators that have said "no confidence" or "he should resign" regarding our current Attorney General. John Sununu - NH Norm Coleman - MN Gordon Smith - OR Chuck Hagel - NE Depending on how the lying to Congress stuff goes, I agree with them. Granted I am curious who is stealing personal emails and distributing them to the press, but lying to Congress is a crime, at least in my eyes, and deserves to be treated as such. QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 09:24 PM) The bottom line. Bill Clinton lies better then George Bush. /thread 100% yes.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 11:00 PM) I Don't ask how I can tell its Steven

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 08:45 PM) My best guess is he doesn't. In effect, he forces the universe to find another way to balance itself. Perhaps somebody else dies? Claire? Maybe Sun's baby? Maybe even Claire's baby Aaron? I can't find any logic why Claire would get the boot. But the two babies, the way I figure it is, the universe kicks one person off (Charlie) to make room for another. If Charlie doesn't die like he's supposed to, the universe will be forced to kick somebody off who is still fresh, young or not even born (Sun's kid). Since Aaron is already born, he may have a pre-determined path that the universe has given him already. Since Sun's kid isn't born yet, my guess is that's who goes in Charlie's place. Aaron is so getting kidnapped at one point or another. You can see that one coming a mile away.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) I don't see where it is cherrypicking to respond to the people who said the current sacking is 'exactly what Clinton did' to go and actually find out what exactly Clinton did do in terms of firing U.S. attorneys in the middle of their term. There was obviously a reason to fire the dude who choked the reporter, and I guess biting your stripper is a no-no as well (I'll file that away as useful information). In the current situations, the reasons do not seem to be as legitimate, do they? You are totally right. They should have just fired all of them instead of the ones who weren't doing their political bidding and replaced them with all shills, instead of hiding the guys who you really wanted fired in with the guys who were just political chum. It isn't exactly what Clinton did, as the WSJ notes about as well as I have seen, the Bush team just did an amateur job here at something the Clinton's were masters at.... http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110009784 QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 11:17 AM) Except in 1 case, the opposition had 0 power, and in the other case, they had an awful lot of power. And in 1 case, the media did it's job. Oh I know. Investigating Clinton bad, investigating Bush good.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 12:47 PM) The red headed guy released an album, called Red, and it is actually very good. It's of the crooner variety, but he nailed it down. The studio must have really cleaned him up, because he was not that good on the show. I actually really like the old crooners and old jazz, and he is not even in the same area code.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 12:35 PM) I think the tradition started with Scott Savol. Scott though makes Sanjaya look like Sinatra. There was also the red-headed Sinatra style singer a couple of years ago, and Chicken Little last year.

QUOTE(WhiteSoxFan1 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 11:11 AM) Maybe I have a horrible taste, and maybe im blinded by biasness, but I thought his performance this past week and 3 weeks ago "waiting on the world" were pretty good. No they were not vocal range masterpeices, but I like his style for some reason. Despite being low pitched, hes always in pitch and has a soothing voice. Maybe he is out of his league for what they are looking for with absolute tremendous range and energetic singing, but to say he absolutly sucks and cannot sing is abserd in my eyes. Its kinda like saying any major league athlete sucks. Compared to you and I, he is way better, as compared to the rest of the finalists, he sucks. I know it seems to be tradition, and probably on purpose, where they bring one person who just absolutely does not belong with the rest, and this year it is Sanjaya. He needs to go, and the sooner the better.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 15, 2007 -> 11:11 AM) Am I supposed to have a clue what that means? I can give you a description of quadrupole splitting (one of the things you measure when you use a Mossbauer spectrometer on Fe), but that one is over my head. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quadruplewitching.asp What is means for the market is a ton more volatility as people use the primary market to hedge against their moves in the derivatives that are expiring. You tend to get big violent swings as more people are trading than usual, and moves in the stock directly affect the prices of their derivatives. Wiki had the definition for triple witching, but that is kind of outdated with the intro of Single Stock Futures (SSFs) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_witching_hour