Rex Kickass

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Sep 20, 2007 -> 03:47 PM) As long as the Dems are still willing to allow themselves to get steamrolled, what's for the Republicans not to like? I wish Reid would grow some stones and shut the Senate down until he can get an up or down vote on something. If Reid can't get 60 votes to end debate on a bill guaranteeing troops half the rest they were guaranteed two years ago, he should force the GOP to actually filibuster and show the country what the Republicans are blocking.

6 armed cops, 1 guy with a book. Sorry, I have a hard time seeing a scenario where tazing is appropriate.

You're the one that seems to think that the Clinton fundraising scandal is being glossed over. Alan B Fabian was the National Finance Co Chair and key fundraiser for the Romney campaign. He was also indicted for 23 counts of fraud in Maryland last month, about the same time as the Hsu story broke. Hillary Clinton returned both the money donated by Hsu, but also the money raised by him. Romney returned the $2300 donation that Fabian made, but none of the other money raised by him. If you search Fabian and Romney in Google News search you come up with 36 hits, half of them blogs. If you search Hsu and Clinton in Google News search you come up with 3,545 hits, clearly swept under the rug because Hillary runs as a Democrat. Compared to the Larry Craig story, the Hsu story WAS swept under the rug. But not because Hillary is a Democrat, but because given the choice between a fundraising scandal, and a politician soliciting sex in a bathroom - most Americans are tuning in to see what happens between men's room stall walls, and not between the lines in a campaign's ledger sheet.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Sep 18, 2007 -> 10:51 AM) Then why does Olbermann bother with Fox Noise as he calls it? IS it because O' Reilly's 3:00 A.M repeat still beats his 8:00 P.M. first showing? He is just as bad as the guys on FOX. I agree Hannity is a big boob and a lot of times I turn that show off because I am embarassed for him. Actually, that's not been true for a year. In the last couple weeks, Olbermann has been climbing to within 50,000 viewers of O'Reilly in the 25-54 demo, and actually beating the Fox juggernaut in the key advertising demos for the first time on September 7. Although, O'Reilly is still showing total viewership more than double that of Olbermann, Countdown is averaging nearly a million viewers a night at 8PM, about two years ago - Olbermann was lucky to see 400,000 viewers a night.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Sep 18, 2007 -> 09:21 PM) If Obama, or any candidate for that matter, wants to figure out a way to fund new programs, they should figure out how to roll back the budget and bloated government spending. Where do they roll back? Social programs might be tough to cut. As it is, the Section 8 housing money was only budgeted enough money to cover 11 months of the grant programs it offers 12 months of the year. A lot of landlords are getting stiffed their money this month.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Sep 18, 2007 -> 09:00 PM) Of course it is important, if I was in charge of a MSM newsroom it would be a big story. They may be a little gun shy to cover it because they know that Dems are also involved in fund raising scandals, so they probably consider it best to ignore. We'll see, I wouldn't be suprised if this becomes the new huge story and proof of the "GOP culture of corruption" if Romney wins a few primaries. Great, so fundraising scandals are big stories. So you should clearly know who Alan B Fabian is. Who is he?

So you're saying that covering a Presidential candidate's plan by listing the details of the plan and quoting the candidate explaining why she thinks its a good plan is considered biased coverage? Maybe when the critical response becomes a little more articulated than Romney and Rudy trotting out the "HillaryCare" buzzword again, there'll be more criticism to cover. The bulk of the criticism on this plan has come from the left so far, actually. You didn't ask for an article that portrayed a candidate in any sort of positive or negative light as a basis of the policy initiative that he or she espouses. You asked for an article that contained criticism over a specific initiative that a specific candidate asked for. I provided that. So if Clinton's dirty money was important, what about Romney's? http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6818837 P.S. Do you know who Alan B. Fabian is?

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Sep 18, 2007 -> 07:05 PM) Please post a link to this article that criticizes Clinton's health plan. Also, there is no way a mistake by a Dem gets the same coverage. Hillary Clinton takes 800k in contributions (and is pals with) some guy forcing people to give donations, and is a blatant rip off artist. Half a day news. Some gay Republican is charged with a misdemeanor lewd conduct, BOOM! top news for atleast a month. Republican says "maccaca" or whatever the hell that is and it's news for months, top news. Hillary Clinton makes racist jokes about Indians and Ghandi. Nothing. There's a billion more examples. News rooms are 90% Democrat, and they support Democrats and attack Republicans. It fits there world view. Yes, they think they are objective, but they are not even close. You know what? Thats fine, but you also need to realize that a right wing news station was eventually going to come along and counter balance. FOX has tons of viewers sick of only pro-Democrat news, they are very successful because they offer an alternative view. Deal with it. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/18/hea...care/index.html The bottom half of the article and then there are two decent size paragraphs near the top that talk about her last foray in this field and why her initiative was killed off in 93-94. Your comparison to Clinton/Hsu and Larry Craig isn't a valid one. Story One: A Clinton fundraiser turned out to be a crook, there was weirdness around his actions and he tried to run from the law. Clinton returns the money raised by Hsu. Clinton shuts up about it, the story dies. Story Two: Larry Craig gets arrested for soliciting sex in an airport bathroom, keeps it under wraps for two months, and when it leaks out - goes out of his way to proclaim his innocence after pleading guilty in court, resigns and then publicly floats the idea of rescinding his resignation, goes to court to fight his guilty plea and does more to keep this story in the news than anyone else involved. The story initially floats longer than it should because the man in question actively votes and encourages intolerance towards the team he bats for, at least part of the time. Then it keeps floating because the good Senator doesn't know how to keep a low profile after. BTW: Larry Craig was also the co-chair for the Romney campaign. Speaking of Mitt, how many of his fundraisers are under indictment these days?

Every detail that I've heard, in regards to Obama, about closing loopholes and rolling back previous tax cuts has to do with the magic salary of 250K annually.

That is a great song.

Yeah, I kinda think of them as the White Stripes with talent. I think this album is really well constructed for a first effort, but their live show blows it away.

Pls listen to this band. I don't think I've ever really been a fan of a band until I saw these guys - the Gay Blades. I have now watched them live for the eighth or ninth time this year. They just put out a record - "Ghosts" - as far as an unsigned, doing it completely on their own, band goes - this is an incredibly polished and well constructed album. http://www.myspace.com/gayblades

Tony Larussa as White Sox manager 1983: 99-63 1984: 74-88 Shouldn't that line be, LaRussa would never have allowed the Sox to collapse - again?

Last night I went record shopping and found "Infinity Within" by Dee-Lite for $1.99. The album nobody heard. That album is sooooo good.

What's irritating about this is that the new Bush plan is the original surge plan's completion and its being signaled a shift in strategy when in reality, its not a shift at all.

It's actually a smart move for a campaign to take. I'm surprised more candidates don't do this.

What I love about the administration's "new" plan is that it's actually the old plan. These 5 brigades to be sent home? Always were going to be sent home. There's nobody to replace them in the rotation. Actually, I rather like Obama's plan as I understand it. Phase out combat troops over the next 16 months, bringing home 1 or 2 brigades a month starting now, and keep a reduced residual force in Iraq to help rebuild a state apparatus capable of national reconciliation. Using the flag of the UN to internationalize the situation and actually help make matters better. Sounds like a better plan to me.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 01:05 PM) So if Hillary wins the Presidency, God help us all, will she take Ted Stevens list of who she should nominate for a key position? GOP nominates an AG that is knowingly offensive to the Dems. Dems: This guy is not a pick we can live with. GOP echochamber: Anyone George Bush would have picked would get railroaded. Dems: Here are some people that worked with Republican administrations that we think would be a fine person to do the job. GOP echochamber: How dare you suggest someone? That's the President's perogative. My brain hurts.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 03:15 PM) You won't wait less - you will wait more, while various forms and rules are translated, or people struggle with it, and there are more forms to sift through, and someone else's language isn't on there, etc. Just like hammerhead said earlier. If you expect people to speak English, then not only do we wait less in line, but we all pay less in taxes. I am waiting now for someone to suggest we have "readers" at all government facilities to tell people what forms say, in case they are illiterate. Because it makes exactly the same sense as what is being suggested here. The majority of people should not have to pay extra money and wait longer in line because the minority refuse to learn English. If they both happen to know Spanish, great, it makes no difference to me. But to put that immense cost on the government is just an incredibly inefficient idea. You have "readers" available now. I don't see the huge expense in making sure that say 10% or 20% of a government branch office staff is bilingual. You aren't necessarily increasing staff, you're just diversifying the staff you have.

Obama's plan is kinda good.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 08:03 PM) If you had the skills and experience to be a CEO, would you take a pay CUT to go into a much more difficult, intense, and thankless job, where you have very little control over your finances, yet have to guide a major corporation through bankruptcy? Or would you take the other job that paid more, and offered less headaches and more control? Think about this for a second. We are talking about post 9-11 airlines. Many of these companies were left for dead, for many of the reasons that Rex outlined. I don't think you guys realize that those mitigating circumstances make it harder to get someone to lead you through bankruptcy, not easier. By harder to find someone, I mean you are going to have to pay them a crapload more money to enter into a situation that might not even exsist a short time into the future. Who in their right mind would take that job without the opportunity of somekind of significant reward? I have yet to hear one person say that they would take the CEO job with the airline teetering on the verge of liquidation instead of the nice safe job that paid more money. Everyone wants to pick apart details and come up with slightly different scenarios while missing the big point. You are not going to find a CEO to work in that situation for the same price as they could get a much better job for. Period. Its naive to think otherwise. Funny you should mention that. At United, the CEO did take a paycut of about 15% to show he was serious about turning the airline around. Symbolic really, because it was about 100K a year savings to the company - but upon emergence, the CEO received a 300K bonus - equivalent to a raise of 30% for that year and 1% of United's total stock. In fact about 150 million of the 1.8 billion dollar market cap on UAL went to 400 board members and managers. The workers, who all took paycuts of 25-40 percent? They got nothing.

Ordinarily, I'd agree that the President should get the nominee of his perogative. However, Ted Olson is another admitted partisan. Given the atmosphere at Justice has become so political, hiring someone like Ted Olson would be basically saying that this atmosphere that turned DOJ into something awful over the last few years is still acceptable. Gonzales should have and could have been impeached, I think it's only right that the Senate actually start using some of its oversight powers to reign in a department gone awry. Denying this nomination is the first step in that direction.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 04:34 PM) You should check out some samples of some early Pink Floyd and see if that gives a good representation of the actual track Did you just seriously equate 50 Cent to Pink Floyd? Cause there's a hell of a lot more innovation that went even into the most boring of Pink Floyd's work (read: The Division Bell) than ever went in 50 Cent's hip-pop. Pink Floyd created to make music. 50 created to make money. Although both efforts might be fun to listen to, there is a huge difference between what each person did on a basic motivational level.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 04:15 PM) Why would they discuss it? Who the hell wants to hear about that? Lots of people in metropolitan areas who are sick of 90 minute commutes that should only take 30 minutes?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 02:57 PM) Would you feel better as an employee in the unemployment line as the company went through a court-ordered liquidation sale? No but I would feel better if I worked at Delta, where most of the emergence bonus went to rank and file employees. Of course Delta, which also asked its flight attendants and pilots and mechanics to take pay cuts didn't take an adversarial position with its labor. Perhaps because its leadership realized that its crew doing the day to day operations were as vital to the airline's success as the CEO or someone on the board was. In fact, relations were warm enough that Labor stood up and fought with Delta against a hostile takeover bid by US Airways. In the case of this bankruptcy, Delta worked with its labor unions to save the airline and the organization generally has a rather warm relationship with its unions. Now Northwest is actually cutting 10% of its scheduled flights on a monthly basis because they're having a hard time finding enough pilots to fly their planes. My point is organized labor is an easy scapegoat for why someone goes into bankruptcy. A bad relationship with labor organizations has a lot to do with poor management as well. And most of the CEO's who ran these airlines out of bankruptcy often helped put them in the crapper to begin with.