WCSox

Perhaps you need to look up the definition of the word "after."

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) Some of us believe they should have been higher on that list than Iraq. To bad they aren't as strategically interesting to our government. It's even more interesting considering that Iran produces a lot more oil.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 11:12 AM) Eh you just said the Yanks didnt have top 5 pitching last season and than you say to be a top 5 team you need to 5 pitching. Well last time I checked Id consider the yanks a top 5 team last season. So, the Yankees were better than the White Sox, Angels, Astros, Cardinals, and Braves last season? I'm not even sure that they were better than the Red Sox or Indians. QUOTE(Felix @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 11:59 AM) Thats far from being true. After all, look at the regular season standings and number of playoff appearances in the recent past, then look at the Yankees overall pitching stats. It's a lot easier to win 95 games when your schedule includes numerous "gimme" games against Tortonto, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. The Yankees (or Red Sox) weren't as good as what their regular-season records suggested and were exposed big-time in the playofs. Johnson,their leader in regular-season ERA, got tatooed (6.14 ERA) in the ALDS. Mussina (5.40 ERA) wasn't much better. Oh, and their bullpen was awful as well. (Keep in mind that this was against an Angels offense that aveaged 2.2 runs/game in the ALCS.) And the vaunted Yankees offense averaged a mediocre 4.0 runs/game. Sorry, but that's not a Top 5 team in my book. EDIT: Upon further review, I suppose that it's not really necessary for a Top 5 team to have Top 5 pitching. A good example would be the '97 Indians. (Of course, they also played in a weak division and didn't get hot until late in the season.) My point was that one typically needs very good pitching to be an elite team.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 11:29 AM) No, I'm saying sending 67,000 tons of weapons a year during the 1980s to the same terrorists we're fighting against and then allowing a power vacuum to exist in Afghanistan from 1990 to 1994 does not help a humanitarian crisis. You're right. We should've just let the Soviets impose their will on whomever they wanted.

Which means that this study is complete crap. It's amazing that this "scientist" (1) doesn't bother to take a random sample and (2) can get his biased "study" published in a peer-reviewed journal.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 10:17 AM) And Islamoterrorism made that better how? Well, it stopped the Soviets from slaughtering Arabs and destroying villages. Is that a good enough reason? If you're not happy with the way that the Soviets were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan, would you have preferred that we sent American troops to wage a "proper" head-on war with the Soviets?

QUOTE(Felix @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 08:49 PM) As a vivid Yankee hater, I'll still say that they have one of the better offenses in baseball, and their staff as a whole should suck less than last year. They should be ranked in the top 5 on any power rankings. Huh? How are the Yankees a Top 5 team when their top two starters are WAY past their primes, Wright is never healthy, and the younger ones (Chacon, Small, and Wang) have never thrown 120 innings in the big leagues? And outside of the aging Rivera, their bullpen is wretched. Besides a healthy Pavano, there's little reason to be optimistic about this pitching staff. To be a Top 5 team, you need Top 5 pitching. The Yankees didn't have it last year and are even worse off now.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 08:45 PM) I don't think they should be ranked over Oakland or the Angels. Nor should the Mets or Giants be ranked as high as they are.

Too bad Frank didn't adopt Blum's attitude when he departed. :headshake

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 22, 2006 -> 09:40 AM) No, but the US did fund Islamic terrorist attacks against the Kremlin's interests in Afghanistan. Sure, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and caused a massive humanitarian disaster.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 11:01 PM) Crossfire hasn't been the same since Kinsley and Buchanan left. Or since Ted Turner left either for that matter. Yes, Crossfire was definitely better back in the '80s and '90s. I've always liked Novak, so perhaps I'm somewhat biased. I haven't watched it much over the past few years, so I didn't get the chance to see how (apparently) bad it got towards the end.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 05:31 PM) And the U.S. is pretty happy it didn't launch a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union. Did the Kremlin fund Islamic terrorist attacks against the U.S. and promise to wipe a U.S. ally off the map in the infancy of its nuclear weapons program? Too bad the Brits didn't launch pre-emptive strikes against Japan and Italy, who later weaseled their way out of the treaty and became part of the Axis.

CNN has really gone downhill over the past few years. Since Crossfire dissolved, there's pretty much nothing worth watchcing. Wolf Blitzer is awful. Nancy Grace is a nutcase. Watching Larry King throw softball questions at his guests is a waste of time. Lou Dobbs isn't bad, but he's not exactly the most entertaining personality on TV. Anderson Cooper is decent, but nothing special. Outside of the "CNN Presents" specials, there isn't a whole lot worth watching. They're even screwing up Headline News now with the obnoxious pop culture garbage of "Showbiz Tonight."

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 04:34 PM) But an open doctrine of preemptive warfare is something that was not readily used in the past. Most of Europe is still kicking itself for not launching pre-emptive strikes on Nazi Germany back in the '30s. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait for Iran to fulfill their promise of "wiping Israel off the face of the Earth" before the UN considers the idea of removing the Mullahs.

It's not like pre-emptive strikes against the U.S. are a novel concept. I seem to remember one occurring back in December of 1941.

That midget in Pyongyang cracks me up. What's the matter, little man? Is "Jihad Monkey" in Iran stealing all of your thunder?

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 02:46 PM) An attack on Afghanistan in 1993 would have been pointless given that Al-Qaeda wasn't there yet. I never specifically advocated an attack on Afghanistan in 1993. However, al Qaeda relocated to Afghanistan in 1996 and bombed several U.S. embassies in Africa that summer. Too bad that Clinton was more interested in Monica than bin Laden.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 02:46 PM) heh.. you make me laugh. :sleep

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 01:24 PM) The thing is, with the media hounding every time this guy takes a s***, it really does become more difficult to explain things to the "American People" as a whole. Most don't care enough because it's not "hurting them" unless their family is in Iraq, and therefore wouldn't care to do anything over there. Unfortunately, I agree with you about many (perhaps even most) Americans not giving a crap because it's not directly affecting them right this minute. I think that Bush could've made a stronger case to us if he would've more strongly-emphasized the "bigger picture." But, like you said, whether or not the American public would care is a another matter. Franly, I'm happy that Bush has dismissed the I-don't-care-it's-not-affecting-me attitude that permeates our society. It's the President's job to do what is right, not what is popular. I'm sure that an American invasion of Afghanistan after the failed al Qaeda attack on the WTC in '93 or the U.S.S. Cole or Khobar Towers bombings wouldn't have gone over well with voters here under the previous administration. And look what happened when the Clinton administration decided that al Qaeda "wasn't our problem." I'll take the President who does what he honestly thinks is right over the one who is preoccupied with what the voters think.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 11:16 AM) In addition to Damon, the Sawks lost Mueller, Millar, Bellhorn, Renteria, Olerud, and Mirabelli. They replaced those players with Crisp, Lowell, Snow, Gonzalez, and Pena. I would call that a slightly negative trade off, so the only real upgrades are Beckett and Tavarez. Out of the first six you mentioned, I'd only consider Renteria the really significant loss. Damon's a slightly better hitter than Crisp, but is almost a liability in CF nowadays. Mueller is a solid third baseman with a soild OBP, but doesn't hit for power. Lowell's a much better hitter, assuming that he stays healthy and doesn't repeat last year. Millar's numbers have been going downhill over the past few seasons, so he and Snow are roughly equivalent at this point. Olerud was great 10 years ago, but isn't worth crap now. Bellhorn and Mirabelli are backups. They dropped a lot of aging players on the declne, which was the smart thing to do. Agreed that they took a slight hit offensively, but they got a young stud power pitcher and a very good set-up man. The BoSox needed pitching coming into this season, especially with old, injury-prone fogies like Wells, Schilling, and Wakefield anchoring their rotation. If Lowell returns to pre-2005 form and Beckett is able to pitch 170+ innings, they got better. If not, they got worse.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 11:34 AM) Hm. Well, I certainly haven't been one to label Bush an idiot, or delusional. And I certainly accept, and agree, that the issue of Iraq is much broader than WMDs or the replacement of Saddam's regime. There is a whole plethora of stuff going on there - long term middle east stability, middle term middle east military strategy, logistics, US-related economics (not just oil), oil and resources, Iran (and a list of other countries), Russia and the middle east, etc. etc. Lots going on. Agreed that it was a mistake for Bush to focus on WMDs for so long. Sometimes I get the impression that his administration didn't want him to explain their motives in full because the American public wouldn't really understand and support it. I think that they underestimated our intelligence.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 10:59 AM) Now that is just plain untrue. Rates of violent crime of all sorts are many times over what they were under Saddam (with the exception of the Kurdistan region, which is relatively stable). Those numbers are all over the internet, including through reliable channels. I'l go scrape some up if you'd like (they've been posted here before as well). Of course, the big difference is that people expect random violence in the middle of a war. They don't expect to have their doors broken down and to be rushed off to a torture chamber at 4 am during a time of peace. Nor do they expect to be shelled with sarin by their own government.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 10:28 AM) Well, that's one hell of a twist to the story. I thought this was kind of disturbing... Does the Church of Scientology stalk all of their members?

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 10:41 AM) Now they're being murdered by fellow Iraqi's. Hooray! What a victory! Not in the numbers that they were under Saddam. Ironically, a stable Iraq under Saddam was more of a health risk to the average Iraqi than an unstable Iraq in the middle of a regime change.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Mar 21, 2006 -> 09:54 AM) And would be yours if your son died in this meaningless war. What about all of the Iraqis whose family members were murdered by Saddam? I don't think they see it as "meaningless."