lostfan

Those projections were probably made before the city had huge deficits though.

John Danks motherf***er.

I felt like making a thread out of this because this made me laugh out loud a little while ago. I just had this exchange on Facebook with some random dude. His status asked what was your saddest moment as a Bears fan, followed by comments: Me: halfway through the 3rd quarter of Super Bowl 41 when everything came apart at the seams. (one like) Some dude: Yeah that's when Jay Cutler was messing up big time!!!! Me: lol Jay Cutler was a rookie in Denver and played 5 games that year. Some dude (clearly not understanding what he just said and what I just said): LOL. They should of sat him down a long time ago. LOL. Me: That is like saying the Vikings would've won that playoff game in '98 if Adrian Peterson hadn't fumbled.

Seems like I actually agree with a post CC linked from NR, I didn't think that would ever happen. lol. I didn't watch the video but if the author says that's what's in the video then I'll take his word for it.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 08:30 PM) So was more than half this team. Why wasn't there a mass calling for us to dump everyone? There pretty much was...? What are you saying exactly? Are you trying to point out inconsistency in something I've said?

I go out of town for one god damn week and the sprouts of weeds think they are running the show. I come back and see these things grow to 3 feet tall and s***. Why do the weeds always live through droughts, come back when you accidentally step on them, and grow so much faster in fertile soil, while regular plants that I actually want to grow will wither away and die if I sneeze too hard near them?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 06:16 PM) This is about as far into the hypothetical realm as possible, but I wonder how much the imperialism and control and wealth of the European powers wound up being key to the technological revolutions of the 1600's through 1800's, just along the lines of the old "you have to have enough food for everyone before you can sit around and think about how gravity works" setup. Well it did seem to coincide with the discovery of the Western Hemisphere. I don't know that it was necessarily the cause, but I'd have to assume it mattered at least.

More of this from Hudson. Like.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 06:09 PM) Not trying to be too arrogant as a European, but do you really think that every culture has been on an inexorable technological climb, such that this is really the case? I'm saying that hypothetically, had there been some kind of gradual assimilation or co-existence instead of being wiped out by diseases and war, the Indians would've traded with the Europeans, adopted their technology, gone to universities, etc. and wouldn't have just frozen in time like the other statement I was making would suggest.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 02:29 AM) Please respond to Greg Hibbard's post indicating just how not-so-bad Bobby has been this season. Why? You didn't respond to the splits I posted earlier which looked pretty terrible (except June which was beyond awesome, but the others may as well have been from Randy Williams). I am not saying Bobby sucks... I'm saying he has spent more time being bad than being good this season and this outing wasn't any kind of isolated occurrence. At all. Oh, and if Bobby comes in and gives up runs but the offense bails him out, that doesn't mean Bobby (or any reliever) "didn't hurt the team." Potentially, he could have, it just means he got lucky.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) Thing about most societies, including European ones, during the last two millenia, is that they ALL went through waves of technological and societal success, and troughs of near anarchy. In the case of the Americas, people know vaguely of the Incans, Mayans and Aztecs, though often don't know that during those periods, those civilizations were in some ways far more advanced than their European counterparts. But even less well known, is that another wave had started later than those in what is now the American southwest, with the Anasazi and Chaco Cultures. By ~1200 AD, they had a sophisticated and regionally planned road system, complex workings with multiple metals, and agriculture well beyond what most of Europe understood. Then, oddly, around 1250-1300, those cultures basically collapsed. This caused a massive shift of native cultures and tribes between 1300 and 1500 AD, all over the continent, so when Europeans started arriving, many of the tribes they encountered were themselves new to those regions. No one really knows exactly what caused the collapse and shift wave, though drought is considered at least a major factor. Point is, cultures have not tended to be linear in progression for more than a few centuries - they more typically ebb and flow in waves, and a major reason why one conquers another is really just a matter of timing. The Indians the first European settlers encountered were the equivalent of backwoods hicks, but yeah, what you're saying sounds about right. The Indians had advanced societies and major cities but when people hear "Indian" I'd guess they usually think about teepees, bows and arrows, and muscular shirtless warriors (like Indians were really running around in Massachusetts in November with nothing but loincloths and tribal decorations on). However, I do think that talk about how the Europeans arriving here destroyed the Indian culture or how the Indians should "return" to some other way of live is kind of overblown. Besides the wars of conquest, and smallpox and plagues (which weren't nothing by any stretch, but aren't what I'm talking about), the colonists didn't ruin anything just by being here. The settlers took some things from the Indian culture and the Indians took some things from the settlers' culture. Also it's been like 400 years and it's kind of silly to suggest that Indians should be living exactly how they were in 1721 or whatever. They'd be using guns, electricity, driving cars, have running water, and so on, just like we do now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 05:24 PM) One of my most interesting college classes was taking some world history with a prof who actually studied in India and Russia. The guy actually edited textbooks he was so knowledgeable about the areas he studied. That was the first class that really opened my eyes. After that is when I started reading lots of what is called "alternative" history. Speaking of Russia, my co-worker was telling me about how he used to work with a lot of Russian immigrants in VA before he joined the Army. The Russian and some other guy, I guess an American, got into an animated discussion about WWII, and the Russian at one point said "we" (the Russians/Soviets) liberated France by invading Normandy Beach. lol. He said everyone got quiet and started staring at him.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 20, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) This particular aspect of history - European interaction with the AmerInd, and the American march west - has always been a favorite of mine. I've read a ton of books, wrote papers in college. The history children are taught about that time is laughable. In this space, I recommend the book Blood and Thunder, if I had to pick just one. Though that one doesn't cover the early stages of encounter - its more in the 19th century, primarily. I also added this book you guys have been talking about to my Amazon list, I'll have to pick that up soon. Probably the most unfortunate outcome of teaching history that way, where the Indians are marginalized to just an inconvenient obstacle and slavery and oppression of blacks is treated like just another thing that happened a long time ago, is that it builds this illusion of white supremacy (for lack of a better phrase to use). I don't mean white hood and robe and skinhead type of white supremacy, I mean the idea that white Europeans are just naturally better, intelligent, and move advanced than other societies, and always have been, and that explains their position in the world today. In reality, Europeans spent a bunch of time screwing around fighting with each other, oppressing others through religion, being in the Dark Ages, etc. but otherwise weren't any different than other societies. Africans for example had already done some of the sailing accomplishments that the Europeans had centuries ago (going around the Cape of Good Hope, probably finding the New World too). But in history books everything is Euro-centric so it's the Portugese and Spanish that are given credit with all of the discoveries, then it wasn't until the New World made all the colonial powers rich that Europeans really started dominating the world.

I have a Motorola Cliq and I like it, it's not the best phone on the market or anything. My complaint about its keyboard is that the numbers are shared with the QWERTY row so you have to press Alt if you want to type any numbers, twice if you want to type a series of numbers, which is kind of annoying. I've tried its on-screen keyboard and it works decently, but that's not for me.

NSS, make sure you get the most recent edition (2008 I think), he's updated it several times.

I don't know why but I didn't come away with the sense of "omg this is damning" that so many people did when reading part 2. Maybe because I am a contractor already and none of this is really news to me. Even though it didn't say it in the article, one thing I'll say is that contractors aren't inherently prone to corruption or ethics violations. That kind of thing is beat into our heads all the time. The ones in Iraq that got away with a bunch of s*** because of s***ty/no oversight really made a bunch of other people look bad, but when you're dealing with public money one of the fastest ways to damage your reputation and lose a s***load of money is to get a reputation as a cheater who takes money without doing work.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 11:19 PM) It would have been a really interesting history here if it wasn't for smallpox. There is no way that we get the foothold here that we got if there was a significant amount of people around to offer some real resistance. Absolutely. Prior to that the population numbers were pretty comparable. I wouldn't even be sure that the colonies would've actually taken hold.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 10:24 PM) I actually knew lots of the Columbus stuff. I have even watched stuff on the History Channel about all of the different groups that probably "discovered" America before Columbus did, and stuff like the belief that CC probably had a map that one of his relatives passed down to him from a previous voyage to North America. The ones that have really blown my mind are the things about how we were pretty much at war with the Indians for about 4 centuries, how much of the slave trade actually involved the Indians, and how much stuff the natives taught the idiot Europeans. I am about half a dozen pages into the black history stuff, and it is wild how still portray slavery as just kind of happening, but not really how it relates to anything and where it came from, not to mention how much the north was involved in it. Yeah the part that really caught my attention is how the Europeans weren't significantly more advanced than the Indians or the Africans at the time that whites first contacted North America. There was an exchange of technology between the Europeans and the Indians, but the narrative we're taught is that the technologically advanced Europeans came and tried to civilize the poor, backwards Indians, and they stubbornly didn't let that happen so the Europeans were forced to get rid of the savages. That's not how it happened at all. The Indians were just as civilized as the Europeans, the Founding Fathers actually used some concepts of liberty from Indian society for the Declaration of Independence. I guess things are pretty unequal when one side loses 95% of its population from smallpox. The black history stuff is pretty fascinating too, I already knew most of the facts, but it's the way it's just kind of glossed over like slavery was just some sort of random historical event that has nothing to do with the next century that followed. Then they eventually say "oh, and blacks were treated kinda bad so the government decided to make whites treat them better in the 60s and everyone lived happily ever after."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 07:43 PM) You can. I would recommend you go directly to their internet provider with the information you have and tell them your story. That is in violation of their service agreements and they can have them terminated. You could also contact the police if you believe that some more malicious is going on. It is next to impossible to find out exactly who it is without at least going through their service provider though. ^^

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 07:40 PM) I am tearing it up. I just finished Indian history and am into black history. It is incredible. It kinda made me laugh at the debates over things like ID that go on while we still have history books teaching that Columbus discovered America. He was saying how the more American history classes you take, the dumber you get, and that doesn't happen with math, science, language, etc. He really tore into the Columbus myth though. Columbus wasn't a hero... that's not really a strike against him because that was just standard colonial activity back then (kind of like how Lincoln was racist) but our society over the years turned him into a hero for pretty much no reason. And it's pretty unbelievable that I was once taught everyone thought the world was flat and this crazy guy Columbus thought the world was round and wanted to prove it. When in reality, globes were already invented by 1492. lol.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 07:38 PM) So nothing has changed since the 9/11 commission made their recommendations. Yes and no. There's moves made in the right direction, the DNI is a good concept on paper, but the agencies all fight tooth and nail to keep their authority, they aren't voluntarily giving it up. So the DNI still can't do what he wants, the Secretary of Defense probably still has more authority. The only reason any progress was made in the Bush Administration was that Secretary Gates got along well with some of Bush's appointees and I think he still gets along with Obama's appointees. But all it takes is one appointment in the future to undo that progress.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 07:08 PM) Well, you also have the government axiom that if you come in under budget, then you really don't need that money next year either, so you get your budget cut. You have to overspend just to stay the same. That's true, an agency is never going to voluntarily allow its budget to be cut. I've seen this happen.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 19, 2010 -> 06:35 PM) also I didn't think the article took a negative tone on people in the business, just that the system itself needs to be refocused. I didn't really think so either. Everybody was talking about this article at work this morning. "Did you read the WaPo article" etc. But I don't think it said anything really that inflammatory or controversial.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:00 PM) Its ironic we worry so much about what the rest of the world thinks of us and our history, but we aren't even going to let people learn their own history through the different eyes that it happened to. Have you finished Lies My Teacher Told Me? It's like we're afraid to do that for some reason.

Well obviously it didn't tell me much I didn't already know, but where they are talking about the disorganization and duplication of tasks is absolutely true, I thought that was common knowledge and I was surprised the article gave it so much attention. There are a lot of different reasons for that I could name off the top of my head: Turf battles - not just interagency battles, intraagency battles, and these really aren't going away, it's the nature of bureaucracy. One unit/section/organization wants to have control of a certain mission. This means personnel, funding, prestige, etc. Prima donna/alpha mentality - everybody wants to be doing something important and "sexy." Everybody also wants to be relevant, people genuinely believe in their work and they want to be doing something high-speed. This kind of overlaps into other areas too, like where one agency says their files are too important for another agency to see. Are the files really that important, or do you just think they are? Poor organization/overlapping of similar missions - Analysts produce similar products that someone else is doing, but the organization they work for wants it done a certain way. This also creates unnecessary rivalries. Another organization has a similar mission and the first agency takes offense to it and feels like their toes are being stepped on. Profit motive - self-explanatory. Billing positions is the reason private companies are in business so of course they have incentive to be actively adding value, however that's done. This isn't really that big of a problem though IMO and it can be managed.