IlliniBob72

I'm not an economist, so I listen to those that are. http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/11/news/economy/greenspan/ Alan Greenspan is optimistic about the economy, so I hope you aren't offended when I put more stock in his opinion than I do yours. There's no spin about that, is there? No s*** jobs were lost, Vince. There was a recession. A recession that many economists give a start date of before Bush took over. People don't blame Hoover for the Great Depression starting because the seeds were planted years before he took office. They blame him for letting it last so long. Well, the recession is ending, or at least so says people who know more about it than you or me. And people will get angry about anything, especially when politicians tell them they ought to be angry, ignoring facts. Hell, people got angry about an official calling someone "n****rdly". Dumb people are quick to anger. And whether you feel my views on the tax cuts are myopic or not, I doubt you can state that what I said is untrue.

The low classes do not pay taxes. That is a fact. And that was what the dems were b****ing about. People who make so little money that they end up paying zero taxes were being left out and getting no money back. Well, no s***, they pay no taxes so they get no benefit from the tax cut. I will write more later. Must get out the door to work. The job that is starting to pick up from the optimistic economy.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Personally, I don't give a f*** about what Bush did in 1972. Well, that's not true. I only care so much as to worry that other dumbf***s, present company excluded of course, do care and will vote the man out of office. I don't know what other's situations are, but mine are so that all I care about is the policies and actions of the government, and I agree with those of the current administration. Fighting terrorism overseas seems to me to be the only reasonable course of action in that arena. As a matter of fact, I haven't heard any other courses of action suggested. The Democratic candidates were all for the course followed, until it came time to run for office. The economy? The economy is making a comeback, as most every indicator shows. The class warfare bulls*** spewed by the Democratic opposition is ridiculous. Only a true politician could b**** about people who don't pay taxes not getting a tax cut, as Democrats did. I'm also sick and tired of hearing Dems b**** about people making money. They sound like Communists, "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs." If I do have a gripe, it's with the outlandish spending of the Bush administration, but surely the Dems won't be cutting spending. So, I can support a guy who is attacking terrorism, putting more money in my pocket, is turning around the economy, and spending boatloads of dollars, or a guy who will probably send America back into a shell and hope for the best, revoke economic policies that are working, and in the process will spend a fleet of boatloads of dollars. To me, the choice is obvious. So, you want to make your decisions based on morals? Well, good luck. Bush, as people claim, was a coke snorting, drunk driving, shirker. The alternative, Kerry, is a gigallo, alleged adulterer, alleged enough so that his second wife demanded a prenup, backs policies and jumps off them to suit his political needs, and participated in very questionable activities after Vietnam. As a matter of fact, perhaps America's most morally pure president was Jimmy Carter. How'd that guy work out?

Some guy says he was there, a few more say he wasn't. Of course the first guy is lying. As was the officer who issued his honorable discharge. And the guy who issued his paychecks for showing up. I'm also certain that if a few more guys show up to say they served with him they will be accused of lying for money or something. Bush has been criticized for not visiting dead soldiers, and then criticized more harshly for visiting living soldiers. No matter what the guy does, he will be criticized for it. It's an election year...it's to be expected.

What kind of changes are people seeing over last year's returns with the tax cuts and all? Bigger return or about the same?

I hope I don't look too stupid, but the hell is it he's selling? What's a WIPO?

It was a pretty decent movie, but I don't understand it when I read online message boards with posts saying the movie changed their lives. I, too, felt the best scene was the discussion about the Smurfs. I consider myself somewhat smart, but it took me much investigation to come close to making any sense of the ending. Too confusing.

Question here. Are military helicopters silent? I just wonder because those guys didn't appear to be that far off yet were moving around like they had no clue an attack helicopter was hovering a hundred yards away. Maybe if it was at night they thought they were pretty well concealed. Was funny to see the camera roving and then the guy pops out from behind the truck and then see the camera zoom to the spot. Kind of like a cartoon, though I realize it is much more serious than that.

I read about this in SI some time ago. Truly disgusting. I have vowed that my sons will not be allowed to attend any overnight sports camps when they grow up. If they go to an out of town game, they'll be sleeping in our hotel room.

Watch out, Mathew. Talking sense and logic about KW is liable to get you lynched. And if KW traded Cotts, Borchard, or Honel, he'd be hauled off to the insane asylum.

This is nothing new. Did anyone really not know that Saddam and the U.S. would come to blows eventually? Hell, Clinton was bombing them every other month. There are plans in the works for every contingency with many different foes. It is no surprise that Iraq and Saddam would have been foremost among them. France and Germany had war plans for each other over a full decade before WWI began.

I usually just read history books, Civil War mainly. Bruce Catton is an excellent author, not dry and is easy to read. For a great historical novel, read Gore Vidal's Lincoln. My favorite fiction books were Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, Anthem by Ayn Rand, and The Daughter of Time by Josephine Fey. For the life of me, I can't figure out how Mark Twain is/was so popular. I could never finish Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.

That's not necessarily true. There's a riverboat casino in East Peoria and world famous Big Al's strip club in downtown Peoria. Other than that, there ain't much.

What is the President supposed to do about this? Pull a Robin Hood and steal from the rich and give to the poor? What it sounds like you want is a redistribution of wealth like a Communist regime. This is a free market society, there's only so much that can be done.

That's pretty presumptuous (sp?) and insulting. How about choice C, I just didn't know. While I like to consider myself well-informed, I never heard all those things. The facts making the rounds on national media was a bunch of doofuses couldn't figure out a standard butterfly ballot, then Gore wanted a recount but only in the heavily Democratic counties, then lawsuits were filed, etc. I'm not going to defend voter fraud, but it does happen all the time. Believe me, I'm from Chicago! I actually had a precinct captain pick me up from work and drive me to the polling station on the condition I vote democratic. The democratic machine in Chicago is the most corrupt organization imaginable. JFK had Illinois gift-wrapped for him by Old Man Daley. It all needs to be cleaned up.

That isn't unheard of either. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote in 1824, I believe, yet John Quincy Adams was elected president. I don't understand the bitterness about Bush's victory. Even after the Florida recount was completed after the fact, it was found thatBush won. Besides, how is it Bush's fault that these alleged Gore voters were too stupid to figure out a butterfly ballot. The same type of ballot used in Chicago and Illinois for years.

As s much as I would love to agree with this, I can't. It's wrong. I know that Abraham Lincoln, for one, won with a minority of the vote. In fact, when he won in 1860 he got only about 40% of the vote. Of course, he wasn't even on the ballot in the southern states, but that's neither here nor there.

As Colin Powell said (I'm paraphrasing) "There weren't any JFKs sitting around waiting to take over from Saddam". Sometimes the devil you know is preferable to the devil you don't know, I guess.

Exactly. We cut and run then and it was a huge mistake. Yet, there are people who want us to do the same now. You can't win with some people.

I had heard that there were links between Mohammed Atta and Iraq, but I have no reason to doubt you. But like I said, that is irrelevant. Let's face it, the Middle East is a problem spot and the Neo-Cons feel that they have a solution. These people are not psychotic maniacs. They are all a lot smarter than any of us and are a whole lot more knowledgable about foreign policy than any of us. I do not believe they are all twirling their moustaches thinking of new ways to ruin the world. They have what they believe is a solution to a problem for the United States. A problem for which solutions are in short supply. The only solutions I've heard are the neo-cons and Apu's apology and cash payment solution. I have no reason to feel their solution won't work. Surely it's worth a try moreso than Apu's. I doubt very much that anyone in the Administration had any knowledge of 9/11. Not sure if that's what you're implying by saying it was convenient. I just find it interesting that people will make that accusation when many believe that FDR had prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor and let it happen. FDR is widely held as one of our top 5 presidents regardless.

How can anyone with half a brain say that we didn't go after Iraq because of 9/11? So Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Well, there are many people with sources who will disagree with that, but lets pretend for the sake of argument that Iraq was blameless. So what? If I've got two neighbors that threaten over and over to burn my house down and one eventually succeeds in burning my garage down, I should go after the guy who burned my garage and ignore the other guy whose intentions are the same?? Why fight Hitler? He didn't bomb Pearl Harbor. In today's day and age where you've got individuals who with a little help can kill and murder countless numbers of Americans for no other offense than being Americans, you've got to take out the people willing to help them. To believe that Iraq didn't have means or desire to help hurt Americans is silly. Besides Apu, until you come up with a better solution than your previously stated solution of begging for forgiveness and handing out huge cash payouts, your b****ing about Bush is just empty griping. If, as you stated, Iraq got rid of it's WMDs in the mid-90's, then not only Bush was fooled, but Clinton, Britain, and the UN was fooled. Can't blame Bush for that, if it's true, which I doubt. If everyone in the world believed it to be true, and Bush acted on it, that doesn't make him a fool or a liar. If the world believed it, it's solely because Saddam wanted the world to believe it. He's more at fault than anybody.

What a joke. Idiots like these who bring these lawsuits should have to pay the taxpayers back for the court time wasted. The husband wants $30,000 because his wife hurt her foot? Some how her having her foot in a cast keeps her from talking to and comforting him? No wonder the people of the Middle East hate us.

The draft should be reinstated for manpower purposes only. The idea of reinstating the draft for political purposes or to change thinking is a crock of bulls***. And that is the main reason the idea has even been resurrected. Dems hope that reinstituting the draft would make the war more unpopular. Making people consider the fact that they may be called to service before supporting their country's military actions? All you're doing then is trying to ferret out the people with no moral courage or strength. I guarantee you that those people don't give a s*** about much of anything, so it's a waste of time. Following that way of thinking, people should stop wanting firemen to extinguish their burning houses because they themselves don't want to be firemen? Soldiers are people who have volunteered their services to the country to fight its battles and wars and protect it. That is what they were hired for and they do it superbly. There are many jobs that are dangerous, yet they need to be done, and people expect them to be done. I don't want to be a policeman, yet I expect policemen to go after the bad guys. I don't think the fact that many people don't want to be policemen should lessen what is expected from them.

Kind of, Nuke. I'm from the Clearing neighborhood. Grew up near 63rd and Austin.

Jenny McCarthy grew up in a neighboring parish from me and went to h.s. down the street from me. I often wonder how many times we rode the same CTA bus.