Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 11:32 AM) Your perception is noticeably divorced from reality. Oreally? Link me the vid of Obama asking other nations to step in. Hell, link me the video of Obama talking about this issue at all in the days after MG went after his people. From what I saw the French and British were the first to call for UN involvement.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 10:59 AM) For once, they are 100% correct. Same thing happens in baseball. Winning a single 7-game series doesn't make you the BEST team in baseball. It makes you the champion of the playoffs. Champion does not equal best team. See the 2006 Cardinals. No one remembers who the best team that year was, they just remember that the Cardinals got hot and won the World Series as an 83-win team. To me that's a stupid way of looking at it, especially when you talk about a 7 game series. A team that is supposedly the best and has the most potential crushes it during the regular season and then loses in the playoffs. Another team struggles in the regular season and then turns it on in the playoffs to win. On the one hand we say, oh well they were a fluke team that got hot, they were not the best. But on the other we somehow accept that the "best" team lost and still consider them the best? How does that work?

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 10:03 AM) VCU is not the best team in the country even if they win the championship. I'm not sure how that is even debatable. I don't think a team that loses in the tournament can be called the "best" team either. I think a team that can win 6 games against all sorts of competition is the best team at the right time.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 09:48 AM) I'm sorry but, that's ridiculous. In Iraq, they had a goal - but it wasn't the goal they stated. They first said "ZOMG WMD WTF BBQ!!!", then it was "Al Qaeda!!!", then it was "Well Saddam was a bad man". Lies, all of them. The real goal was to attempt to take the war on terror to a central location, and in the process, create a democratic allie and stronghold in the region. Basic neo-con stuff. In Libya, the goal is right there for all to see - bomb and patrol to attempt to level the playing field for the rebels to overthrow Qaddafi. Now, people may think that not achievable - I can see that being a good argument. Or they may think we should be doing more, or less. But make no mistake, with Libya, the goals and reasons are much more forthright, and we did it the smart way (actually getting international support, instead of throwing away political capital such that we handicap our future work). Maybe "goal" wasn't the right word. Let's go with "purpose." The purpose was fighting terrorism and like you said, creating a stronghold in the region. We have no such clearly defined purpose in Libya. We have a bunch of different bulls*** justifications. And that's BS that we garnered international support first. My perception is that other nations threw up a fit that no one was doing anything about MG and then we decided we'd act on behalf of the world (yet again). And yeah, look at all that political capital we threw away. No one trusts us anymore! No one is ever going to ask for our help! Bulls***, bulls***, bulls***. Iraq didn't do anything to hurt us in terms of foreign policy. We might have pissed off some citizens of various countries, but in terms of our actual dealings with countries it didn't do anything. Do we view Russia much different because of their actions in Georgia? Do we view the French different because they didn't want to get involved in Iraq? Nope. It's business as usual and always has been.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 07:47 AM) I just can't see how anyone can say with a straight face that this Libya thing is a debacle, but Iraq wasn't. I can see the argument that both are, or that Iraq was but Libya perhaps isn't. I'm guessing the general consensus is the Iraq became a debacle, despite the intentions in the beginning, which is why many think that Libya will also become a debacle. But, at least with Iraq there was a goal. At least the President spoke to the country and the world about that goal. Here was have nothing. We started bombing and a week later the President decides to hold a press conference to defend/explain his decision. I'm guessing it's going to be some confusing tirade about all sorts of topics, so that people can latch onto one sentence and define it as the Obama Doctrine. I'll be going with a we bombed because there's (1) an unstable leader, (2) in a bad part of the world, (3) doing bad things to his own people, (4) and there's American interests at stake.

Who wants to bet that Caterpillar gets a HUGE financial deal out of this (subsidy, tax break in another area, etc.)? In other words, this f***ed up government of ours, where one party protects the rich, and the other party protects the poor, continues to f*** the majority of Americans.

So Mike and Mike on ESPN, one of the dumbest radio shows out there, had a debate this morning about whether the tournament is "good" for deciding who the real "champion" of men's basketball is each year. In essence, Greenberg was arguing that any team can make a run and win, but they wouldn't be the "best" team that year. I for one think that's stupid logic. I understand that teams have bad draws/matchups, that teams get cold and lose a game they would otherwise win, but that's the stakes for everyone, and over the course of six games, those "flukes" are going to even out. If VCU ends up winning the whole thing, then guess what, they ARE the best team because they played the best basketball over the last 3 weeks of the season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 07:43 PM) Again, unless you are a cheating piece of s***, it is impossible to rebuild a program from zero scholarship players to a Big Ten contender overnight. It has to happen a part at a time. I don't remember all of the Sampson history, but is this actually true? I thought the sanctions were a loss of a couple of scholarships (not all) and prohibiting certain recruiting actions. I thought Crean still had a number of guys on scholarship who, his fault or not, left the program. IMO Indiana wasn't in the dire straights people are convincing themselves of. I mean, I have no problem being more patient with Crean because of the uphill battle he had to fight, but it's the complete lack of improvement after year 3 that would really anger me. And the Richmond/Illinois point is a good one. Problem is, of course, that Weber has been on the hot seat from the fan's perspective for at least 2 years. Hell, in 2007-2008, the first year they were a one and done in the tourney, the fire Weber bandwagon started to fill. Crean meanwhile is getting a pass despite having his guys in there.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 06:11 PM) It's tough seeing the biggest scumbag in sports get to another Final 4. UConn better take care of business. I wonder if Kentucky knows where it's going to store Cal's 3rd vacated Final 4 banner... The final four has two "elite" coaches that have been investigated by the NCAA on more than one occasion and two of the best young coaches in the entire sport. Should be interesting.

This made me laugh: http://espn.go.com/chicago/video/clip?id=6263657

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 03:38 PM) This will probably be mentioned one day in Jay Bilas' obituatary. Did he predict the upset or something?

Huge fan of that morris twin pouting and punching the court

While I'm in favor of tax BREAKS for companies, I dunno that I'd go THIS far. What a joke. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business...tml?_r=1&hp

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 11:33 AM) I wonder if they changed the locks too? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...hite-House.html "Zomg! We have, like, the dumbest President EVER. Who walks into a locked door like that? What a dummy! Gawd, can it get any worse? As an American I'm so embarrassed for our country. I bet the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of bumbling idiots. Where's Al Gore when you need him??" - Democrat, circa 2006.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 10:57 AM) You cant say Im wrong when I never mentioned anything about transparency. The end goal of the sanctions were to stop the production of WMD and facilitate the destruction of WMD. The only reason for the need for transparency was that the international community didnt trust him. The mere fact he wasnt transparent, does not mean that the sanctions didnt work. ?? That's why you were wrong. You forgot to include that portion of his requirements. The goal wasn't just to make sure he didn't make any MORE weapons it was to ensure that he didn't have ANY weapons of that caliber, then or now. As to the second bolded part, you don't remember the part where he kicked out the inspectors? Despite being required to let them in whenever they wanted? I'd say that was a pretty blatant violation and since the UN didn't care to enforce the violation, the sanction didn't work.

Rockstar games all suffer from the exact same problem - half way or three quarters of the way through it you just don't care to finish it. It's a grind to complete the game, which sucks because the first 10 or so hours of playing it can be really fun. Mexico was a huge drag in RDR. Take that out and it's the game of the year in 2010. Unfortunately it was brutal. I literally put the game down for about 4 months because I was so bored with it. I'm glad I stuck with it and got to see the ending, but damn it was rough. I really hope with LA Noire they fix that because I can't wait to play it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 09:01 AM) Does anyone actually still believe we invaded Iraq because of WMD's being present there? I don't. I just wanted to dispel the revisionist history that continues to permeate the discussion of the war.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 08:53 AM) The UN is whatever five countries decides it is. The UN has exactly as much credibility as five countries decides it has. And whether you like it or not...in the 60+ years since it was created, the UN has done enough good in the world that it does have a fair amount of credibility, even with people who oppose the UN with regularity. If countries decide to work outside the UN, that is their prerogative...but then other countries have a similar right to work within the UN to stop them, and to use the fact that they're working within the UN to their advantage. I fixed that for you. No one cares what anyone thinks about any given issue except for the five security council countries with veto power. And even then it usually doesn't matter. They have the money and the means to effect what the UN does, so this idea that it's some global governmental body is a joke.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 05:46 PM) Huh. That's an interesting way to read a post that explicitly states not all resolutions are worthless. It's also a pretty terrible conclusion in general because it assumes resolutions are only worthwhile if countries can use them as an excuse to invade, depose the existing leadership/government and subsequently occupy the country for years, even if the country violating the resolution presents no material threat or harm to the invading country. It's almost as if your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises at all. If you're going to argue that it's ok when resolutions are broken because no one got hurt then yeah, resolutions are pretty worthless. What's the point if that person can violate the resolution and expect no retribution? What's the point if the attitude is, well, breaking the rules didn't really hurt anyone, so we'll just let it pass, this time and the seventeenth time.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 05:59 PM) That is actually a good point. The sanctions were in place to prevent Saddam from creating more WMD, it seems that he did not make more WMD, which suggests that the sanctions worked... Wrong. Go read the sanctions/resolutions. That was one requirement. In addition to not building anymore, he was supposed to be open/transparent about everything and actually destroy certain weapons. The problem is we let him go for about a decade without holding him accountable for those requirements.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 05:42 PM) They're worth exactly as much as the people pushing for them decide that they're worth. I agree, which means that 95% of the time it's a PR stunt for countries to be able to say "ohhh! Look what we did! We passed a RESOLUTION, so they'll stop. Will place some sanctions on them. They'll stop!! Of course, if they break 17 of these resolutions, it won't matter, but we passed a RESOLUTION!" The whole thing is a joke. If countries felt strong enough to go after a dictator who is ruthlessly killing his people then they can build a coalition and go for it. They don't need to waste their time with the UN.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 25, 2011 -> 07:20 AM) And just from what I have seen at IU fans so far, after Sampson, they are willing to give Crean the time to do it right. I really haven't see the kind of complaining that accompanied Mike Davis. I think if they're a bottom dweller next year you might start seeing some boo birds come out. My Indiana friends were pretty upset that they weren't very competitive this year and didn't make much of a jump.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 04:44 PM) False dichotomy. Using 17 violations that weren't really affecting anyone to justify a full-scale invasion and decade-long occupation that results in hundreds of thousands dead, a significant portion of the country's infrastructure destroyed and on-going violence, not to mention the billions spent, is totally worthless. Passing a resolution that results in immediate and appropriate action is not. here's a completely left-slanted blog giving a summary of documents that came out last year clearly showing the Bush Admin. focusing on military action in Iraq in early 2001. The rest was just them looking for something to justify it, no matter how transparently terrible the evidence and the arguments were. Again, so resolutions are worthless. I agree.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 04:29 PM) I think history has borne out how terrible of an excuse those violations were as a pretext to a massive invasion and decade-long occupation. So either resolutions are totally worthless (my point), or even if resolutions are worth something, using 17 violations of violations of said resolutions to justify enforcement action isn't appropriate?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 04:02 PM) Those are some incredibly fun edits in your Blix quotes. For an example...it refers to Iraq having "Misplaced" several thousand tons of VX...it suggests that Iraq is clearly hiding anthrax...here is what Blix actually says. Here are Blix's exact words on Iraq's cooperation: He then goes on to ask for "months" to complete the work. If you want to stand by and say we invaded Iraq because of bad bookkeeping in the 1980's on their part...go ahead. That just illustrates how insane the whole war was. Yeah, none of those quotes do anything to negate what the wiki article states. Kinda reinforces the summaries actually. And second, that's your revisionist history again. The point was that Iraq violated something like 17 resolutions before the US got serious about enforcing their violations.