lostfan

This just in: Wise still blows

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 06:11 PM) What gets really interesting is if ARam is excellent defensively at SS.....and Getz becomes a Theriot type in the lineup. Then you get into an odd place. Would the team actually think about moving Beckham, perhaps for a B.J. Upton type, someone developed who can play CF? I'm thinking it'd have to be someone nearing steeper arb prices. Some team would perhaps throw in pitching as well for Beckham, perhaps out of a need to save $ in the current climate. I'm trying to think of near-star level guys who are due for bigger and bigger raises soon.... isnt Baltimore having trouble with getting Markakis on something long term? No. 6 years 66 million a few weeks back QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 06:15 PM) Not really sure about his contract.. but I would love to get Markakis from them... not likely though. Not a chance. He's the O's franchise player.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 04:31 PM) My point for asking the question is the two are absolutes on a continuum. I want to know what people's views of this are, especially you libs. Seriously. I want to understand where some of your viewpoints come from. All right, I'll bite. I think a society is the most efficient when it functions as a collective unit where everyone has the same goal or concept in mind (I guess loosely defined the well-being of their society). In fact I can't think of a single historical example where this is not the case. Government (at all levels) can accomplish some of these things, for many others, it can't. However, this does not mean that the lowest levels of society (individuals, families, communities) should not be the strongest units. They just need to be provided resources to reach their full potential, and when they can, they'll make the best decisions for that society and find the best way they can contribute to it. Free enterprise with the least amount of government interference possible is the best way to handle the economy, but I also don't think the market is the end-all/be-all to itself and I'm realistic about the government sometimes needing to intervene.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 02:04 PM) Here's a really stupid question. I need to send off my tax returns by tomorrow. I have all my documents in a large A4 size envelope. Am I able to put just 1 42c domestic stamp on it, and it'll get mailed to Austin, Texas, or do I need more than that? It's like an 8 1/2 x 11? It probably costs more than just one stamp, so I'd take it to the post office.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 03:57 PM) I know that. That's why I want some people to answer to it. But I see no one is going to take it seriously... so that in and of itself answers the question. I could answer it in detail but I think you know what I'm going to say if you've read enough of my posts.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 03:38 PM) Congress isn't going to do it either. That'd be too angry and partisan, you know, enforcing the law, and we can't have that. Right, so we're back where we started. Nobody is going to bother, so I'm not going to waste my time caring that much. If you want to basically advocate another time-wasting circus on the scale of Clinton's impeachment trial though, be my guest.

Yes there is a law, but it's based on a constitutional question like all of these procedural laws (e.g. FISA) are. This is still a matter for Congress to resolve. The DoJ is not going to do it.

That's a ludicriously extreme example. If the President shoots someone he gets impeached immediately/goes to criminal court. If he does something unconstitutional he needs to be challenged by Congress or the Supreme Court (SCOTUS did, a few times). Congress should've taken action, for whatever reason they didn't. Bush's own DoJ obviously wasn't going to incriminate itself, Obama's DoJ doesn't want to set any bad precedents. This is why it's not something for the executive branch to decide.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 03:09 PM) Maybe if a Democrat had written a similar article in the previous eight years, things would be nearly as poisionous as they are now... Maybe. Election season was f***ing ridiculous in most places. Everyone was either a fascist or a socialist. edit: also the White House's tone towards Republicans, while still partisan, is a lot different from the previous White House staff's tone towards Democrats from about 2002-2006. But most of the divisiveness seems to come from Congress.

It isn't an absolute yes-or-no question, kap.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 11:49 AM) Isn't that already exactly the case? By every bit of law I've read, if you want to wiretap a U.S. citizen for any purpose, including national security, you at least need to go through the FISA court and receive a FISA warrant declaring that the search is pertinent to national security issues. The problem as I see it isn't that the law is unclear or has a loophole in it. It's that the last administration and seemingly now this one blatantly decided they were going to violate the law and Congress has failed to call them on it/covered their asses with their retroactive immunity. To borrow a phrase from the gun debate...we don't need new laws, we need to enforce the ones on the books. The last administration decided that since Congress didn't give them what they wanted, that they'd take it themselves. The "loophole," if there is one, is that the current administration doesn't want to open the door of prosecuting people from the previous administration. Which I don't really blame them for, because it would turn into a petty b****fest. If that happened, imagine what would happen if the next administration was Republican. I'd hate living here. So, what I'd rather see happen is just have Congress pass a law saying "the executive branch can't do this" even though it's already pretty much understood. To make it harder for someone to break the law again in the future. I admit this probably won't happen, Congress as a body doesn't like to take initiative to do anything.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 10:42 AM) No, in fact, Obama's DOJ is doing the same thing. Oops. We should PROSECUTE them, too! (Like that will ever happen). Yeah I know you couldn't wait to say this, but the linked article didn't even say anything like that. They dismissed a lawsuit against the Bush administration based on reasons stated above. I'll save my indignation for when/if the Obama admin actually breaks the law.

QUOTE (longshot7 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 10:38 AM) The other issues is that the people who perpetrated the warrantless wiretapping in the Bush Admin need to be PROSECUTED - and this is disappointing that it looks like Obama's DOJ won't do that. I mean, the 4th Amendment is pretty clear - people that go around it need to be taught a lesson. The Obama administration made it clear a few weeks ago they had no interest in doing anything like that.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 09:59 AM) I don't know how to say this any other way, but SUV's are what people want. If that's what they want, then make them. Simple supply and demand. I guess we should all just drive those GM segways, right? My only problem with this is that "people" b**** about gas prices when they go back up and I get tired of hearing it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 09:29 AM) It is my opinion that any warrantless wiretapping, domestically, of legal US residents and citizens, is never Constitutionally valid. The Patriot Act, from what I recall, doesn't specifically violates this, but opens the door for that possibility. And frankly I don't care if it is one person or a million, I won't accept that as OK. The state secrets reasoning is valid in so far as anything beyond that, and anything about the details of how things are done that needs to remain secret. I should've also specified that those two statements weren't intended to be read together, FWIW. Illegal is illegal. What we need here is for Congress to step up and close this hole and make a warrant, even in a secret court, mandatory (redundant as that may sound). In fact, I don't really know why they haven't already. It's not a job for the Executive branch though and I think this is one reason why.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 09:05 AM) Lettering on the jerseys? How did this thread get here? Like a dumbass, I keep clicking it, thinking the conversation is about Cutler.

Ok, let me be clear that I don't support warrantless wiretapping and I thought Bush's program was disingenuous. I also agree with the statement that millions of citizens were spied on w/o a warrant is false. But here it looks like people are upset that the DoJ didn't completely denounce the program or what have you. I'm no lawyer but I'm just not seeing how, in this case. They are going off the Patriot act (like it or not, it's the law, something else that was completely overblown BTW) and the state secrets reasoning is valid.

I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to be pissed at based on this article alone. There's just not enough information besides the fact that a different legal route was taken. For one thing, although I think it's pretty evident that someone, somewhere took a couple of extra liberties with the Constitution, the "loss of rights" I always felt was overblown. People aren't having the government randomly break into their house ranand surreptitiously place surveillance equipment into their house or whatever without warrants. They just aren't.

It's a shame more Republicans aren't this reasonable. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/07/fee....gop/index.html

QUOTE (dmbjeff @ Apr 8, 2009 -> 02:13 AM) If they complain it would be for the sub par D and not getting to a gapper that BA could of gotten to. Resulting in a loss. In all seriousness he shouldn't be on the roster, period. He should be AAA fodder at best like last season and come up to fill in at backup roles or in the event of injuries. BA should be the one given a shot due to his excellent D and his pedigree. Give him a chance to prove why he was a high draft pick. Let him breakout, let him become this years Ryan Ludwick. In time, Wise will be gone. And if he proves us all wrong and he can breakout and be a productive MAJOR LEAGUE player, not a minor league one, then great and I and everyone else here will eat crow. I don't mind Wise being on the roster at all. I had no problems when he was coming off the bench last year. It's that he really is not supposed to be starting, let alone leading off.

QUOTE (LZPride08 @ Apr 7, 2009 -> 10:51 PM) These are all terrible, but i dont see how gun crimes gonna go down if the 2nd amendment is entirely stripped away from us the people.. After that happens, the only people with guns will be these criminals I agree with this. Extremes in either direction (less restriction, taking away gun rights) don't have any positive effect.

Actually the more I read this the less I see about anything to flip out over. State secrets are state secrets for a reason which is something that privacy advocates can't get with and never will - there is openness, and then there is damage to national security. It's not really something that can be looked at in a vacuum, but of course it's neatly summarized into a sexy headline "Obama's DoJ Defends Bush-era Wiretapping"

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 7, 2009 -> 08:34 PM) i get that. but at the same time, i think what it amounts to is Obama and his head of the CIA both being outsiders. The CIA doesn't want to lose the power its amassed in the Bush admin, and Obama doesn't want to pick a fight, or stand in the way of the agency, so he's rolling over and letting them get what they want. Gah. NSA actually - what I'll say here (I don't really feel like doing extra research here, after a while all of these expose' type articles start looking the same) is that EO 12333 still applies and the NSA, or any other intelligence agency doesn't arbitrarily spy on US citizens. At least it's not supposed to, if someone gets caught doing that then they're in big trouble.

Yeah it's really not as simple as it's dumbed down to being by the time it reaches the media.

QUOTE (kwolf68 @ Apr 7, 2009 -> 04:20 PM) The crowd should have cheered Wise when he popped out. You know in little league how the worst kid on the team never hits it, always strikes out, but then one game he actually grounds out to the pitcher and everyone erupts? That's sorta like DeWayne Wise is. :lolhitting