lostfan

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 10:35 AM) I don't think the conspiracy denies that the buildings were hit by planes, but instead denies that the plane impacts were why the buildings went down; especially with building 7, which didn't collapse until later in the day. I was going to add this. A LOT of people don't buy the official government explanation of the collapse of Building 7. I know also a lot of people don't necessarily think things were necessarily orchestrated by the government, but feel that the 9-11 commission wasn't adequate and wasn't able to do a proper investigation, only enough to come to an inoffensive, politically correct conclusion.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 10:26 AM) What would Reagan do about climate change? The idolatry of Reagan by today's conservatives is pretty ironic because some of the things he did when he was actually president because they were practical things to do (raising taxes, pulling Marines out of Beirut after the barracks bombing, paying lip service to evangelicals but otherwise ignoring them) would make him an apostate Republican (or at best a RINO) today. But he has this mythical status now so facts don't carry much currency.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 10:56 PM) I don't think he has a choice if he's going for work. Yeah, I know. lol. I hope they help him out with COLA or per diem or whatever you'd call it.

I heard Moscow is ridiculously expensive and for anyone that wants to go to Russia, go to St. Petersburg instead.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 09:15 PM) Brent Lillibridge at least has some semblance of talent. Andy Gonzalez blew donkey balls. Whenever I hear Andy Gonzalez and talent in the same sentence I think of Hawk's rambling of nonsensical s*** "man, Andy Gonzalez, he's such a talented ballplayer..." Kind of hard to believe anyone ever actually said that.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 12:47 AM) Even bad players go through hot streaks. See: Wise, Dewayne

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 08:02 PM) I'd be curious to hear from the 9-11 group on here. What and why do you believe? That is one I can't get behind at all. I'll borrow from my paragraph above If it was really a government-orchestrated conspiracy to get us to go to war it is probably the sloppiest and dumbest goal of a conspiracy of all time, because there's been no net benefit from it whatsoever.

I normally go out of my way to avoid acknowledging she exists, personally.

I know he was way, way past his prime, but it's still a very sad day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 08:00 PM) I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 10:26 AM) Latest Tweet about the Gulf Oil Spill from Scary Sarah: W. T. F. Even if you believe that drilling for more oil is a good idea - which an argument can be made for - how can you possibly take this idiot and her views seriously? I mean, this is the kind of thing a 12 year old says. What possible twisted logic is she using to say that somehow this spill is justification for more drilling? My God, I don't know if there is a scarier thing in politics right now than the fact that some people actually support this woman. lol at Xtreme Greenies. The "extremist" position was that carelessly allowing more drilling offshore and in ANWR was dangerous and something really bad might happen like... I don't know... this? It's kind of tacky and overly simplistic for anybody to be claiming to be vindicated as a result of this, but if anybody is vindicated, it's them, not her.

If this is even considered I'd give up on Kenny.

there's a Facebook page called "plugging the Gulf oil leak with the works of Ayn Rand"

I think most of us figured, going into the season, that this offense would be pretty bad. I wasn't any exception, but this offense has been even worse than I thought it'd be. The part that hurts isn't really that I thought questionable acquisitions Teahen would underperform, I thought we'd be able to survive that. It's been guys like Quentin and Beckham, that we counted as close to sure things, basically performing like they don't belong on an MLB roster for weeks and weeks. Add to that Buehrle, Peavy, and Floyd all performing well below average so far and we've really dug ourselves a hole that I can't see ourselves getting out of. Even if they get red-hot in the middle of June, I just don't see it. The team I'm looking at is going to get another top 10 pick in the draft at this rate.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 09:17 AM) Don't worry, Americans aren't the only ones who love crazy conspiracy theories. I have a client who still tells me that the "fog" at the Russian airport where the Polish president's plane crashed was not actually fog. No, it was from smoke bombs set off by the Russians to purposely make the plane go down. Arabs have some pretty hilarious conspiracy theories. This one guy asked me once if I was a Jew, and when I started to laugh at him he said somebody told him that all Americans in Iraq were actually Jews from Israel wearing U.S. military uniforms and the entire war was all a massive manipulation on the part of the Israelis. Another one asked if we (U.S. troops) were leaving Iraq soon and I said I wish, but no. Then he said oh that's a relief because I thought you were just going to put Saddam back in charge and leave. I said that was funny as hell, and asked why the f*** would we do something like that? He was like oh, yeah I guess I didn't think of that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 1, 2010 -> 02:42 PM) The more I have read about FDR in the time period of 1939 to Dec 6, 1941, the less I agree with that. He talked over and over again about needing the one incident to be able to break down the isolationist movement in the US, and he had been taking us step by step to war, without most of the country realizing it. He himself was busted by the one and only Chicago Tribune days before the Japanese attack that there would need to be millions of troops sent to Europe to defeat Hitler, and that meant us. Everything indicates he wanted it to happen. FDR even lied about the events of a couple of our incidents in the Atlantic with the Nazi's to try to make the case for war more palatable to America. FDR also knew by ordering an oil embargo against Japan, they would have to start attacking either the Dutch East Indies (Britain) or the USSR, which had already been attacked by Germany, to find an oil supply. Heck reading some of the things that FDR and Churchill were talking about during that time period that have been released, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he knew Pearl Harbor was coming ahead of time. I think all of what you've said is more due to the idea that FDR probably read the situation and figured war was inevitable, and wanted to shape American entry into the war on his own terms but the political environment at the time left him unable to do so. The Japanese, also, were giving him a really hard time because on the surface in front of everyone else they were talking peace, saying that war can be avoided etc., but in their diplomatic cables they were talking about the possibility of war. FDR did know that, but it's not like he could publicly talk about it. As Balta pointed out, Japan just made a really bad strategic reading of the United States' intentions towards them and reacted accodingly. I don't think the fact that Pearl Harbor happened to be politically convenient for him necessarily means he knew about it ahead of time and wanted it to happen. The information was actually ready and there, but it was nowhere near ready enough to actually be useful to FDR.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 04:51 PM) What's really fun is when you quit letting your kids win and they still beat you. My wife raced my 3-year old son up the stairs last night and didn't let him win and my son cried. I told him to go sit his ass down and get over himself. lol. None of that s*** in my house.

Balta does have a point even if he's pinning it on the usual suspects. Its a lot of people's faults, really. A couple of months ago there were some proposed cuts to Chicago public schools since the city is broke and everybody was up in arms saying that should be sacred etc., as if they haven't already done everything else to avoid it. Leaving aside the obvious corruption for a minute to deal with economic reality, ask those people who volunteers to pay more taxes to keep the schools open until the outlook improves? You get crickets.

Posted on my Facebook status: "You know a hockey team is popular when you have black people suddenly caring about it"

I don't think I really disagree with Kap, but it's still really dumb.

Cut some fresh chives from my garden and put it in some salad with some fried onion crispy things. Mmmmmm

QUOTE (WCSox @ May 31, 2010 -> 05:09 PM) (1) There's no evidence that Beckham is "mentally fragile." (2) There's currently nobody in-house to replace Beckham (Vizquel has an even lower OPS+) (3) There's no point in wasting Beckham's options if there's no better option to replace hit bat in the lineup. He didn't say Beckham was mentally fragile. edit: nm he already said it

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 31, 2010 -> 04:29 PM) I doubt any of them involved conspiracy, but if I had to pick one, it would have to be FDR and Pearl Harbor. The information was there and had been collected, but a decision had been made some decades before, prior to FDR being president, to de-prioritize funding for cryptographic intelligence. So they had these messages and couldn't really do anything with them, although they had a vague understanding that something big was about to go down, that Japan was strongly considering war, but didn't know when exactly. The code was eventually broken, but it took time and a lot of work. The NSA said in a post-mortem (the NSA didn't get founded until 1952) that if the Army and Navy had been given more resources they'd have cracked the code a lot sooner. FDR really did go out of his way to portray America as an innocent victim that was deliberately deceived by the Japanese Empire though, and the government wasn't caught completely by surprise, but that was mostly to drum up public support, not really a part of any conspiracy.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 31, 2010 -> 03:13 PM) The one reason it's a little tasteless is because he's on "vacation" in Chicago. FWIW, it's not worth the "outrage", but I can see why some consider it a bit tacky. True I guess but I would only be pissed off if he slept in, had a BBQ, and played some basketball and otherwise ignored the day.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 31, 2010 -> 03:11 PM) Oh, I know - racism, bigotry, greed, waste, diahrrea, , crumbling infastructure, God, and everything else horrible wouldn't exist but for the Republicans. Exactly, why have you spent so much time denying it?