EvilMonkey

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2010 -> 06:25 PM) In 2008 the Mexican government voted unanimously to decriminalize illegal immigration. Amnesty International, of course, has issued reports about how the police in Mexico regularly harass immigrants in that country despite the law. Of course, we already decided that Amnesty doesn't do anything in Mexico, so that link doesn't really exist. They issue press releases. They are good at doing that.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 22, 2010 -> 10:33 AM) It's been a month now and there has been no improvement in the gulf. Where the f*** is Obama and the government? Obama is either out playing golf or on a 'date-night' with his wife.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) Or, to parody your side...they need a bigger check made out to them. You must be happy you have a stellar politician like Rand Paul making your side look so impressive these days. Nice how you take one fringe guy and he suddenly represents the whole party. Do we even need to go down the Dem side of things? Like the guy who has been lying about his military record for decades? Or Sestak who claims the White House made him a job offer to not oppose Specter, WHICH IS A CRIME! Clean your own house first, it is far dirtier right now.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2010 -> 12:18 PM) Nice of him to ignore the immigration reform Mexico did last year. Mexico now has essentially no penalties for illegal immigration. Did you even bother to click the link I posted, with Calderon talking to Wolf Blitzer? Not sure where you got your info, but the link has words coming right out of the Mexican President's own mouth.

Jones

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 21, 2010 -> 06:15 PM) Except we do this: All the time, to lots of countries. I get it, Calderon's stance on this is hypocritical and misses the fact that the mess is mostly the doing of his country. I agree with that. But I also have no problem with him criticizing AZ's law for what it is - awful policy. You have to HEAR him being hypocritical to truely appreciate it. I know, it is clips from Rush, but seriously, kisten to just the clips he plays from Calderon and Wolf Blitzer. Too funny.

Well whaddaya know. A Hollywood type put his money where his activism lies, and is trying to do something about the spill. http://www.mediaite.com/online/kevin-costn...gulf-of-mexico/ Interesting if these work.

http://mcclintock.house.gov/2010/05/respon...-calderon.shtml

konerko

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 20, 2010 -> 08:25 AM) Turns out the L.A. DWP actually owns those plants. For Arizona to do anything, they'd have to seize those plants by force. Owns PART of the plants. if it is a minority part, they can be outvoted by the majority when it comes to where to sell electricity to. I like how at the end of that they tried to place nice and still welcome the Arizona tourist dollars.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 20, 2010 -> 09:27 AM) "While the number of emergency departments (EDs) across the country has decreased, the number of ED visits has increased. As a result, EDs are experiencing higher patient volume and overcrowding, and patients seeking care are experiencing longer wait times," they added. There's some interesting things written there but not commented on or highlighted. So, why is ER patient volume increasing? You answered your very first question with the blurb you posted. Number of ER's goes down, so number of people going to the remaining ones goes up.

QUOTE (zenryan @ May 20, 2010 -> 11:21 AM) It's going to be interesting to see the reactions when the paper trail becomes strong that Lance Armstrong cheated. They have been trying to nail him for a decade, especially France, you would think they would have done it by now if it was there.

Then momma doesn't belong here. Michelle should have asked why her momma was breaking the law?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2010 -> 03:54 PM) Or like the one that its possible to enforce this law without being that. No faith in people, all faith in the all-mighty government.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/m...h-with-boycott/ Yeah, that's a boycott with some real conviction behind it, for sure.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2010 -> 01:36 PM) Acting in its citizens interest = closing down a large number of electricity generating plants to spite L.A. Shipping jobs to California and Nevada, that'll show those hippy angelinos! You act like they can't sell their power elsewhere, or that LA is such a huge customer of theirs that the loss of them would destroy the power generation capacity. Neither one is true. There have also been calls from San Diego City Council to boycott AZ, and then subsequent emails and calls from the 2 million+ Arizonians that go to San dioego each summer saying 'sorry, not this year'. The hoteliers have made an ad saying please don't listen to our city council, we love you (and your tourist dollars!).

QUOTE (Tex @ May 19, 2010 -> 12:32 PM) I do not believe a law that will result some of their citizens having to carry citizenship papers is looking out for all their interest. Perhaps you mean passing a law looking out for the intersts of white citizens. Tex, i can't recall, but does the law say what form(s) of ID would meet their requirements?

Obama will host Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and his wife, Margarita Zavala, and about 200 other “invited” guests tonight for his second state dinner. Wanna bet that they are checking ID's? RACISTS!!!!!

Rios

I play in charity tournaments around here all the time. There is a company called Chicago Charitable Games that runs games from Joliet to Tinley all the time. Played this sunday. Entered two $25+5 sit-n-goes and a $40 bounty tournament, 100 entry max. Got 4th on both sng's and middle of the pack on the bounty tourney. Also run a home game every 6 weeks or so, $20 a head.

Rios

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 16, 2010 -> 06:38 PM) Man oh man, 60 minutes just absolutely ripped apart BP and Transocean. The blowout preventer has a large rubber gasket that is a key part of it. a month before the explosion, there was an accident that damaged the gasket. One of their workers reported rubber shards coming back up in the drilling mud. Those shards were ignored. One of the control boxes on the blowout preventer was having issues the whole month, that should have had the company shut down drilling and repair it. They chose not to. Safety doors on the rig that were supposed to contain explosions were ripped off their hinges by explosions. The day of the explosion, BP decided to cut corners and pull back on the drilling mud pressure in the well to make it faster and more cost-effective to access the oil. They had on a whistleblower discussing a different BP platform in the gulf, and he was reporting, based on documentation, that 95% of the plans for that rig were inappropriately handled and he was fired for trying to make an issue of it. If a company is cutting corners and covering it up and it is standard operating procedure...then, yeah. So they had rules and procedures in place, they weren't followed and were blatantly ignored, so the answer is to create even more rules for them to ignore and not follow! if the negligence parts are true, I agree, time for some massive criminal prosecution to occur. (see, it does happen once in a while)

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 16, 2010 -> 04:54 PM) In either case...BP and the people supporting offshore drilling (which, as the President said, is now perfectly safe) have no interest in regulation. They have no interest in meeting the required environmental statements right now, they have no interest in new regulations like the up-to-date blowout preventers that the rest of the world uses which the 2001 energy task force decided were unnecessary. Either one could have done it. Both would have been better. If you proposed new regulations, BP would have lobbied against them. If you tried to enforce the current regulations, BP would lobby against it. We're seeing EXACTLY that as the labor department tries to enforce rules that are already on the books about workplace safety and the Chamber of Commerce is furious and loading up to elect Republicans so that doesn't happen. So because they would lobby against it if you DID enforce regulations that do exist, you shouldn't enforce them at all? That sure sounds like what you are saying. Why try to enforce them since they wil fight it anyway. Enforce what you have first. Then, if that doesn't work, go on to plan B. And did you conveniently miss the point where Obama was BP's biggest recipient the last few years? How's that working out for him and BP? Seems like BP got excused from a lot of the existing rules while under Obama';s watch, rules which just may have prevented this. Sounds like Freddie and Fanny but with oil instead of junk mortgages. On a different note, anyone here ever try to type on a netbook after typing on a regular laptop or keyboard? My typing is bad enough, these posts take 3x as long having to go back and fix all the red-lined words when I use this little thing.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 16, 2010 -> 03:44 PM) Which is why I had my post earlier about the conundrum we have: Deregulation clearly does not work. Regulation doesn't work when its not effectively enforced. What is the public left to do? Deregulation doesn't mean the removal of ALL regulations. You can't accurately tell if the ones in place work because they are not properly enforcing them. Enforce the ones you have first, THEN you can assess if you need more. But you can't just say the current rules don't work because we aren't enforcing them.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 16, 2010 -> 03:42 PM) But you just demonstrated that lack of regulation you said wasn't at fault! I said lack of regulations didnt cause the explosion. Lack of enforcement of the current regulations (you surely can't be arguing that there are NONE) caused the oversight of the non-working systems, which happened under a Democratic admin, not Bush.