LowerCaseRepublican

Clemens is amazing. However, I didn't need BB2N giving me a 3-5 minute Jeff Brantley promo on how his hips, legs and arms help him pitch. It's getting to be overkill.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 05:54 PM) It wouldn't be an LCR post without the rantings of some leftist website being presented to us as "facts". :rolly Yeah with clear citations to reports from DEA Judges, the Institute of Medicine, etc. Who knew the DEA and the medical establishment were extreme leftists? When you can't defeat the facts, just lambast the messenger. Sorry, Nuke. It isn't going to work this time.

Guillen/Mariotti thread, por favor. Gracias. -Your friendly neighborhood mod.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 02:28 PM) If Ozzie actually gets suspended for his remarks about Mariotti, will that be like a first for a columnist to actually have an effect on a team? What I'm getting at is that Jay is no longer content with just irritating the s*** out of every club in Chicago, now he's actually going to screw with the team's management? He doesn't irritate every club in Chicago. I mean -- When did he ever write a column detracting the Chicago Rush?! And Mornonittii? WTF?

QUOTE(minors @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 12:59 PM) This has to be dissapointing for liberals this war is justified. I'm sure glad that 2000+ soldiers died so a small amount of some rusted out, non-usable shells were found! The war was built on, at best, incompetence in the use of stove-piped intelligence from questionable sources. At worst, it was an overt lie to get us involved in a war. Stress Disorder Seen Soaring Among Returning Troops David Goldstein, Knight Ridder, Tuesday, June 20, 2006 The Department of Veterans Affairs is on a pace to see nearly 20,000 new cases of post-combat stress this year among service members who've served in Iraq or Afghanistan, more than six times the number of cases that officials had expected. The latest report on patient visits to VA medical facilities shows that nearly 5,000 service members were initially diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder during the first three months of this year, on top of nearly 5,000 new diagnoses that the VA had reported for the last three months of 2005. The VA had predicted that it would see 2,900 new cases in fiscal 2006, which runs from Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2006. The VA declined to comment Monday. "The demand for mental health is not going down," said Cathy Wiblemo, the deputy director for mental health services at the American Legion. "It's definitely going up." Knight Ridder reported last month that the VA had dramatically underestimated the number of service members who would return from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder. The new report drew immediate criticism from some in Congress. "Frankly, I don't think that VA's budget planned for this number of new veterans with mental health concerns," Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, a member of the House Veteran's Affairs Committee, said in a statement. Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can cause serious psychiatric and social problems. Combat, a plane crash or other traumatic experiences can trigger it. Untreated, it can lead to drug addiction, homelessness and other social problems. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been particularly stressful because they involve urban warfare amid civilians who are hard to distinguish from the enemy. There are no front lines or safe areas, and the enemy uses improvised bombs and ambushes. A statement from the Democratic members of the House VA Committee said that even as the number of post-traumatic stress disorder cases increased, the VA had cut back the number of PTSD therapy sessions for veterans by 25 percent in the last 10 years. In a related issue, the Government Accountability Office recently found that the Pentagon didn't seek further mental-health treatment for eight out of 10 soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan who showed signs of post-combat stress. William Winkenwerder Jr., the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, responded that the GAO report was "flawed." -- With all the dead, the people missing limbs, the mental disorders, the physical problems -- I'm so damn glad that we spent all of that life and money so we could have found a few non-functional shells that we've already known were there and our own intelligence said were not useable. Man, I feel justified already!

Yet nothing for the team that instigates it with the 2 HBP. Anderson getting hit, I understand. It sent a message that even with the drubbing the Cards received, they were going to put up a fight. Ozuna getting nailed was just an accident, a poorly timed accident. But this "Your players get hit yet you can't respond!" crap is infuriating. Selig should just go back to ruining the Brewers instead of doing it to all of baseball. This 'warning' system is fatally flawed and the reasons it is in place is because Selig is an idiot, but too many major leaguers now have no fear of the pitch inside. If they get hit with a breaking ball on the ass, they're ready to charge the mound. Hell, Kendall charged the mound and he didn't even get hit. With so many moronic hotheads with million dollar bodies and nickel brains out there, ready to throw down at the hit of a 53 mph eephus pitch to the ass, Selig had to do something and came up with this terrible way of trying to manage games without fights/brawls. Let the game go back to the way it was originally played and let them police themselves.

Kinda surprised nobody mentioned that this is a bi-partisan effort (Hinchey being a Democrat and Rohrabacher being a Republican) as well. Not only is compassionate medical marijuana laws a step in the right direction but some good bipartisanship as well. And Soxbadger, you're dead on with your history of the de-legalization of marijuana. If you ever want some hilarity, read some of the famous statements made by Harry Anslinger (the guy who was the first unofficial "drug czar" during the McCarthy era) They're so insane that they're hysterically funny.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 11:07 AM) Sorry, but I wouldn't be bragging about that email. Exactly! We have a winnar! Not only was the e-mail so poor with the insults used, it merely plays into the stereotype put forth by Mariotti regarding Sox fans. But then again we're all first base coach assaulting, players' wife smacking, swearing blue collar trash, right?. And none of this is directed at you, YAS -- I just wanted to quote your post about not bragging about the e-mail because I completely agree and I didn't want to make two posts one after another in this thread. Mariotti is a f***ing idiot. As a fan, you have the opportunity to -- get this -- it is a truly novel idea...don't read his columns! Turn off the TV when he's on ESPN! We all know the guy is so full of s*** even the whites of his eyes are brown. There's no reason to run about with a persecution complex because some dips*** columnist decides to write a poorly written column bashing the Sox. Everybody writing him hate mail, scrutinizing every word Mariotti says only serves to keep him in business. People who love him will always read it -- but people who hate him are giving him circulation power by picking up the paper, reading his columns online etc. Ignore him because he really jumped the shark a long time ago. And again, regarding the e-mail that started this thread. It wasn't cool. It wasn't edgy and/or funny. The guy didn't have the balls to use his own e-mail address and back up his sophomoric, childish, nigh-brain dead vitriol with his own name.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jun 21, 2006 -> 10:26 PM) I think the states should end their open defiance of federal law and prosecute people who break the f***ing law. YEAH! Let's send SWAT teams in to arrest AIDS, glaucoma and cancer patients who use medical marijuana to increase their desire to eat food and keep things down! (and lower the pressure on their eyes for glaucoma patients) They're some real hardcore criminals who need jail to teach them what medications to take! And with mandatory minimum sentences, they'll be either dead from the disease or in jail for a very long time. Since they can't be released early (thanks mandatory minimums for simple posession!), that means that actual, VIOLENT criminals get released (rapists, murderers, etc.) because there isn't enough room in the jails to house non-violent drug war victims and actual violent criminals. Drug Enforcement Agency's Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young concluded: "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care." Some med marijuana facts: http://drugwarfacts.com/medicalm.htm

Next week, Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) will offer an amendment later this month to the Science, State, and Justice spending bill to forbid the U.S. Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from spending any federal tax dollars to target and prosecute patients who possess or use medicinal cannabis in compliance with their state laws (currently 11 states) This got 161 votes last year from Congress but needs more before it'll pass. The Hinchey/Rohrabacher amendment would not change the status of medical marijuana under federal law. Rather, it will simply protect those medical marijuana patients who live in states that explicitly permit the use of medicinal cannabis when sanctioned by a physician. The use of marijuana as medicine is a public health issue; it should not be part of the war on drugs. More than 80 state and national health care organizations, including the American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association and The New England Journal of Medicine, support immediate, legal patient access to medical cannabis.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 06:27 PM) minors, find a better way to say things. That's all I'll say. Next, I think the country was founded on both theocracy and religion. They wanted a balance of both. I think you'll find evidence that supports both. Yes, Puritans of the 1600's with fundamentalism. America was founded as a nation (and not the conglomeration of colonies) during the Enlightenment. So it was a lot of Deism (God is like the watchmaker who merely made it and now doesn't do anything to interfere), humanist tendencies of logic/reason and people who really questioned the established religions of the time. It seems like they wanted the wall of separation between church and state to be there not only to stop state instituted religion/religious ideology from taking hold but also to prevent things like in Stalin's Russia (I know, an anachronistic analogy but it works for the point) where the church is expressly persecuted by the government into near extinction. They saw what a religion infused in the government could do (i.e. England) and were in opposition to it and the threat it had to the Freemason, Deist and Enlightenment principles they wanted to establish. That way those who wanted to pray to whatever person they wanted to and it wouldn't have their doctrine infused in government policy (not to mention government not being able to really crack down on any religions who expressed the legal point of view the government may not like)

QUOTE(minors @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 05:55 PM) Another quality liberal post. One thing is interesting though when I call someone a liberal they get upset why is that? I know when I am called Conservative I take it as a complement. I will not calm down. My uncle has done more than you ever have or ever will. What have you ever done to serve you country I bet not one damn thing. Don't ever tell me what to do, you are real pathetic. Knock it off with the personal insults around here folks, that goes for everybody. As for being called 'liberal', most people don't throw themselves behind one of two choices in the seemingly bichromatic political system in the US.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 05:46 PM) The WaPo has had a look at the book and has a review up, with some interesting quotes. Here's their last paragraph: Kinda sounds like the book I just finished A Question of Torture. From the reports in the book with FBI members, a lot of the FBI are pissed at the quasi-extralegal (let's call them what they are -- torture) tactics being used by MI and CIA. They (FBI agents) said that the FBI's methods of non-coercive "getting a relationship with the suspect" method was much more effective at eliciting accurate information than the CIA/MI methods of sensory deprivation, hooding, water boarding and the other means of psychological torture used on detainees.

QUOTE(samclemens @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 05:11 PM) this is another pethetic and shameless attempt by sheehan to grab headlines, since she used up all her points by pimping out her deceased son No more pimped out than the references to fetuses by the Christian right. No more pimped out than Terri Schaivo by the 'pro-life' movement. No more pimped out than the irrational hobgoblin of gay marriage destroying Western civilization. No more pimped out than John Walsh using the death of his son to get two TV shows and going on his own national crusade. No more pimped out than the tired, lame-ass non-issue of flag burning amendments to get peoples' minds off of actual issues.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_...lice_phone_data Basically they did an end around on subpoenas and civil liberties protections to gather information in an illegal fashion. Gotta love the government with their seemingly unchecked power (not to mention the anti-terror legislation being used in non-terrorist cases as mentioned in the article) and the ability to slime anybody who questions it as a supporter of Al Qaeda and wants to see the terrorists blow up things. Third parties giving evidence to the gov't on their own = Constitutional Third parties acting at the request of and as an agent for the gov't and getting evidence = not Constitutional But what shall we expect when we've got a Congress, administration and government with the mindset so aptly put into words by Don Rumsfeld (source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...061901090.html_ "I find it strange the laws apply to me."

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 03:35 PM) And we all know what goes with Doritos... Low self-esteem, anime and tats of Japanese characters?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 03:08 PM) Of course. But seriously, that's why the stories get more outrageous and the claims are worse in nature. Bad, horrific news sells, good and wholesome doesn't. They're not necessarily liberal or conservative -- for the most part, they're just lazy. Most stations just put two talking heads on who scream at each other for 10-20 minutes. Afterwards, nothing is resolved and both are thanked for their time. Re: liberal media, I go back to an interview with Bill Kristol: "I admit it", Kristol told the New Yorker, "The liberal media were never that powerful and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Rich Bond, former chair of the RNC said: "There's some strategy to it [bashing the liberal media]. I'm a coach of kids' basketball and Little League teams. If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is work the refs. Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one." (to work the ref is to yell and scream about unfairness on every penalty so the ref will think twice before blowing the whistle)

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 02:53 PM) Well, then maybe you should accept the Flying Spaghetti Monster as your savior. Pastafarians, unite! May you be touched by his noodly appendage.

QUOTE(minors @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 02:47 PM) Again I came up from a military family my uncle was sent to Vietnam just 2 months after joining the military to be a mechanic but that Liberal son-of a b**** Johnson needed extra troops so the higher ups rigged a Generals jeep so the breaks wouldn't work he took it out on the course he crashed it so his sentence was to serve in Vietnam and get 6 months training. Well Johnson cuts his training to 10 days. He goes over to Vietnam and while coming back from a mission he noticed 5 snipers ready to take out the entire platoon and shoots the snipers they were able to fire one bullet which killed him. And all my mom and her family got back was him in a box with some f***ing liberal hippies calling him a pig oh and a purple heart and a I am sorry letter from that bastard Johnson. Now that is unfair but they didn't go out protesting there are other ways to express themselves without doing it for there own self gain. You're not going to get any argument from me that Vietnam was wrong, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident most likely never took place, et al. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dept. of Defense all had such hardons for proxy wars they even wanted to blow up US passenger jets over Cuba to blame Cuba so we could fight Communists during the JFK administration. Sheehan, Military Families Against the War, et al. are trying to make it so the terrible situation that happened with the death of your uncle doesn't happen to more people. They don't want more people to face that tragedy, because even 1 is too many.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 02:05 PM) Aren't there a ton of Katrina "refugees" living in Houston? God was using this storm to make them feel more at home.

QUOTE(minors @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 02:15 PM) And she is someone that the Liberal media can go gaga over. Answer me one question why aren't the mothers of other victims who are trying to honor their sons and daughters name get mentioning in the media it is because they don't support the liberal theme which is anti war. Rule number in the liberal playbook is if it is a republican idea then it has to be wrong. How can you say Iraq was wrong we took down terrorist regime which lets not kid ourselves had a lot to do with 9/11 and other terrorist acts. Except for the well established fact that fundamentalist Muslims were oppressed by Saddam's regime, that Saddam was incredibly secular in his regime, that the intelligence saying there was a connection between Saddam and bin Laden was totally debunked...then yeah, they had a lot to do with each other. And don't get me wrong, Saddam was a bad guy. But it is difficult to whine about Saddam when we had such an instrumental role in empowering him and equipping him to take out so many people. http://www.bushflash.com/thanks.html http://www.progressive.org/node/1866/print http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4901538 -- more anti-war mothers Or how about: http://www.mfaw.org.uk/ Military families against the war (UK version) http://www.gsfp.org/ - Gold Star Families for Peace (US version of military families against the war) There's plenty of anti-war mothers who have been marching. Sheehan only got attention because of Camp Casey when she was the lone person camped out there demanding answers.

http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/ A film that takes Scientology and changes it from the "HAHAHAHA, they believe in a big space alien named Xenu...yadda, yadda, yadda." and turns it into -- "Holy crap, this is a murderous, thieving, fraudulent, amoral cult." http://whyaretheydead.net for more information.

QUOTE(minors @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 01:18 PM) Yeah because one is trying to help which he has done and doing something good with his name. The other is f***ed in the head and is ruining her brave son's name. She's gotten some soldiers to question and helped in the development of a larger debate on the issue of Iraq and our being there. In doing so, she's probably stopped some death from occuring (i.e. people who deserted and people who didn't sign up because they saw what was going on) If you're going to state that: a. lost a child b. went on a national crusade to deal with the cause of what killed the child c. stopped some quantifiable amount of death Is a good thing for John Walsh, then it must be a good thing for Sheehan. They're both attention whores -- and they're both trying to hold people accountable for their actions and cut down on the amount of bloodshed.

She's trying to stop having other people suffer the same loss that she had to go through (and that's pretty obviously caused her more than a bit of mental trauma) I just find it funny that people claim she's an attention whore (which, she is to some extent) yet they fail to denote it on other occasions. Nobody comes out and says "Hey, there's John Walsh! What an attention whore using the death of his own son to start his own TV shows, go on the talk show circuit and become a national voice in the public arena about a topical current event issue!"

Hey Ben, stick to writing the Nixon speeches. The chasm of logic between "We don't teach the Bible in schools" and the result of "That means there's school shootings, etc." is asinine at best and at worst spurious. Christians aren't being pushed around for being Christians -- a vocal minority of Christians are being dealt with in the legal sphere because they tend to go for violating the establishment clause. And not knowing that the US was not founded as a religious nation -- that's just ignorance. http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm Stein should really check out the research in books like The Way We Never Were -- i.e. teen pregnancy being the highest during the 1950s etc. There were no "good old days". It is merely a propaganda ploy to be wielded by moralists and people with a persecution complex. He does an excellent job of misrepresenting the opposition (i.e. anybody who challenges the fundamentalist Christians must want an explicitly atheist country) and serving up platitudes that fall apart upon closer inspection.