Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 01:19 PM) Im sure the implication was that instead of spending $1bil on Libya, why not spend $1bil on the US. correct

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 01:18 PM) Let's be 100% specific...he was declared in material breach of resolution 1554 because the U.S. was given the right to declare him in material breach for virtually anything...including not having complete enough documentation that it had destroyed its weapons. Iraq was required to hand over all of its documents regarding its weapons programs and submit to full inspections. In early December 2002, Iraq handed over somewhere over 10,000 documents. Based on the fact that those documents were incomplete and did not show things that U.S. intelligence believed to be true, Iraq was declared in breach of 1554. However, Iraq was declared in breach of resolution 1554 based on U.S. intelligence...intelligence that was false. The way the resolution was written, the U.S. alone was given the right to determine whether Iraq was in material breach of the resolution, and no other country was given the right to challenge that determination. The U.S. made that determination before the inspectors hit the ground, based on the fact that Saddam's document declaration did not show things that U.S. intelligence *Knew* to be true about Iraq's weapons program. In other words, the U.S. declared Iraq in breach of 1554 based on false intelligence. The inspectors hit the ground in early 2003 and were in fact given unfettered access to Iraq's weapons sites. They found nothing that hadn't been declared before and that the items sealed when the 1998 inspectors were moved out had not been touched and were covered with 5 years of dust. They did find some missiles that were in breach of treaty obligations, and Iraq allowed the inspectors to destroy those missiles. The inspectors reported, repeatedly, that they had a complete record of compliance from the Iraqis, they found no evidence Iraq had restarted its weapons programs, and they found no evidence of Iraqi storage of older banned weapons. Iraq was declared in breach of 1554 based on U.S. intelligence statements. Iraq was judged to be deceiving the inspectors based on U.S. intelligence estimates. Those estimates could not be reviewed by any outside group or challenged by Iraq. The declaration that Iraq was in breach, and the full invasion, was motivated by intelligence that was complete B.S. Iraq did not continue defying resolution 1554, except in the sense that the U.S. was allowed to declare that they were defying it. Since most, if not all, of what you say is completely wrong, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nation...Resolution_1441 As to what Blix ACTUALLY said (and what they found) : Also, this nonsense about the US intelligence being the only intelligence used is bulls***. But continue your revisionist history. Most of the world thought THAT portion (WMD) of the case for war was accurate. I have no problem with you saying the pretense for war based on some Al Qaeda link was weak, but you're simply wrong here. The entire point is that the UN passed these stupid resolutions as if they mean anything. They don't, unless the "adults" decide that the "kids" have gone too far.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 10:46 AM) How many small business are truly competing with big box online retailers? and how many small mom and pop stores are really going to be saved here? They're on equal footing with big box stores anyway (in terms of people having to pay sales tax) so it's not like a new stream of clientele is going to be coming through the door. If anything, this law screws the small mom and pop internet stores out there that may or may not have a presence in Illinois. Now their one perk for consumers is gone.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 24, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) Sovereignty is a tricky issue, if Libya was not part of the UN, I think you would have a great argument that Libya has the right to treat criminals however they want. But once Libya voluntarily joined the UN and accepted the Geneva Convention, they were bound to that rule of law. In essence they voluntarily contracted away their rights to certain sovereignty issues. Thus when the UN passes a binding resolution on Libya, Libya is bound by their own agreement with the UN. Once Libya refused to accept the terms of the UN, the UN was free to enforce the terms as it saw fit. Here is an article about one of the new cabinet members for the revolutionaries, Ali Tarhouni http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/af...tml?_r=1&hp That is one of the first articles that has come out about who will be part of the new Libyan govt. Obviously we must look at it with a little suspicion, as Im sure they wanted their first representative to seem extremely West friendly. But it seems hopeful that if Libya can successfully bring down Gaddafi, that they have a chance for a freer future. Interesting since this is precisely what happened in the Iraq war. Resolutions were past, Saddam continued breaking them, and the UN failed to enforce anything until Bush decided enough was enough. We learned later that he had gotten rid of most of the WMD's we (and others) thought he had, but that's hindsight for you. [note: that's not an argument for/against the war, so lets not open that bag] As to your question Tex, my biggest problem is that we somehow feel justified in going half way across the world to intervene in a civil war in the name of saving innocent lives, spending billions in the process, yet we fail to respond in a similar fashion to our own internal wars here at home. Why not spend some of those resources going into the ghettos in just about every metro area and finally rid society of gangs, which are probably the cause of more murders than Ghadaffi?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) What's he doing "pallin' around with terrorists?" He's a head of state. Rumsfeld was pallin' around with Saddam years ago too. If it was a meeting 2 weeks ago after he started killing his own people, then I could see a reason to point at McCain. Otherwise this is just another "OMG the GOP are so dumb" blog post.

Reading this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...k-missiles.html amazes me. Craziness. I'm watching The Pacific and Ken Burns: The War right now, which makes all this modern technology seem that much more impressive.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Mar 23, 2011 -> 10:56 AM) Number one coca bean producer in the world by a large margin. Not really on par with oil.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) Too bad he wasn't elected instead of Obama. via He used the word "interesting" to describe him, what's wrong with that?

Does the Ivory Coast provide the world with a much demanded commodity? If not I don't think it's very comparable. I've stayed away from this thread because I noticed it got a little ridiculous. IMO comparing wars or reasons for those wars is dumb. Iraq and Libya are two completely different situations brought about by different acts, in different time periods, for different reasons (also, the revisionist history being retold was pretty hilarious). I see no reason why we're assisting (leading) the fight in Libya, regardless of the actions going on there. It's a waste of military resources. It's more money/time/manpower being spent on a part of the world that needs to be left alone. I don't care that the Arab countries (i.e., the rich ruling Arabs that benefit from their ties to the west, but not necessarily the citizens of those countries who probably continue to see us as the aggressor bringing the holy war against them) are supposedly for it. I'm all about us getting involved in situations in order to protect our assets/friends. Here we have none of that. I say again, wtf can't we let someone else play the worlds police if that's what the majority of the UN wants? We dabble too much in the world and it nearly always comes back to bite us in the ass. And shockingly, the coalition is already starting to fall apart, meaning we either pick up and leave (won't happen) or we decide to continue taking action on our own (which will). Edit: forgot to add the link about the coalition.

Speaking of that asshole, here's a good read: http://deadspin.com/#!5784437/bruce-pe...eated-a-monster

I love too how he got 950k in severance. What a joke of a country we live in.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 22, 2011 -> 10:25 AM) http://livingsocial.com/deals/30020?ref=pe...amp;rpi=8593587 Click the link above. Some place out of Naperville is offering this deal through the Living Social website. That's literally what I pay for fertilizer alone, and this is applied by pros three times with weed control and seeding. Anyway, I just thought I'd share it. I'm gonna grab this. Sounds like an awesome deal.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 22, 2011 -> 09:17 AM) This phrase appears in the AD's statement on the Pearl firing: WTF did Pearl do in March? If I recall correctly, that's when the NCAA report came out. It found additional violations that Pearl never disclosed to anyone, including the school (allegedly).

My votes were "no" and "do nothing." I fail to see why we're in this mess. Let some other world power play the worlds police for a turn. We need to start focusing on problems within our borders, not beyond them.

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Mar 20, 2011 -> 09:58 PM) I don't think that's necessarily a fair assessment, especially to Mike Davis who really had a pretty good season. Lack of effort is always the first thing fans blame and coaches seem to like to pin bad performances on it as well (I guess because it is theoretically correctable while lack of talent isn't). I don't think I can be labeled as an apologist for Weber or Illinois, and I have to say that I think they had decent tournament run. Beating UNLV was an actual accomplishment and they played decently against Kansas in a hostile atmosphere for most of the game. The final score is lopsided, but I think if you watched the game you wouldn't think Illinois should be embarrassed by their performance against a very good Kansas team. Overall, I think the season probably was a disappointment -- a sweet sixteen berth seems like it would have been fair bar to set. Illinois failed to do that mostly because they didn't play well enough in the regular season to get a favorable seeding. But I have to admit they were a better team than I thought they were. Sweet 16 should have been a minimum for this team. They had 4 seniors, the reigning freshman of the year and a blue chip recruit (headcase or not). At the start of the season McCamey looked like an all-american candidate, then he forgot how to play basketball. Davis has been better down the stretch, but he was absent most of the big ten season. Tisdale...well, it's Tisdale. Skilled, good shooter, blah blah. In his 4 years his hack-first defense has cost Illinois too many games to remember. His major contribution to the program was eating a 5k calorie a day diet. Cole I actually think became a really solid reserve/6th man. He's the glue guy that a good team needs. I wouldn't mind him back for one more year. Great win against UNLV and a solid effort tonight, no doubt. That's why it's so upsetting. They show flashes of being a really, really good team. They could have folded (as expected) after the first 5 minutes. But they didn't. They could have folded the 3-4 times Kansas stretched the lead, but they didn't. Kudos for that. But had they been playing with the energy and drive they showed in the last two games throughout the season they would have had a better seed with a realistic shot of going far in the tournament. Instead they played down to their competition and went like 1-9 in games decided in the last few minutes. At some point its not skill that wins you those games, it's desire and hunger. They simply did not have that. I'm guessing if you asked Weber about this year he'd say it was his most difficult at Illinois (in terms of dealing with the team). I don't think there was ever much of a "team." I think it was different factions that just played together. Next year will be interesting. Not one senior on the roster if my memory is right.

annnnnnnnnd, they're done. f*** you seniors. Way to wait until the last 2 games of your careers to give a s***.

mccamey RUN OVER. no charge

AGAIN with the drive and no foul. WHAT THE f***

christ. literally climbed over the guys back and gets the and one.

how was that not a foul on richardson's drive?

Last season McCamey would try and take over the game. But he's not even looking for his shot.

illinois taking it to the rim, drawing contact, and not getting the foul calls.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 20, 2011 -> 08:19 PM) Couldn't be less surprised at what happened to Purdue, never bought what they were selling. Needed Robbie Hummel, and even then, I'm not sure how much noise they'd have made in the tournament. Not sure why he was crying on the bench either, he'll be back next year to play with a roster vastly inferior to the one they have this year! Illinois playing pretty solid D, but the offense (mccamey) hasn't shown up to play. Kansas is just killing them inside.

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Mar 20, 2011 -> 08:12 PM) Here's hoping you didn't take it. I think Self is going to take vengeance on Illinois for the crap they threw at him (the way the AD treated him on the way out, the mock funeral).... The funeral thing has taken on a life of its own. It wasn't even directed at Self. It was weber's way of getting his team (and the fans) to stop b****ing about Self leaving and to move on. Clearly it worked.

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 18, 2011 -> 08:50 PM) Not going to comment on it, but I see my boy Richmond got suspended for the game tonight. I wondered why he hasn't been in. Any idea what happened?