Balta1701

QUOTE(AssHatSoxFan @ Feb 4, 2007 -> 06:55 PM) does anyone think if we had david woodley or tony eason we could have won this game? maybe those rex = worst super bowl QB comparisons were right Don't kid yourself, this game was won and lost in the trenches. The Bears couldn't get anywhere near Manning.

Now this is how you hold one hell of a debate on a morning show (Link) -Sen. John McCain Versus: -Senator John McCain, 47 seconds later.

Best reply i could offer.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 3, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) I sure hope you're not labeling me in that bunch... I was trying to figure out what Balta was saying because I couldn't tell. Even if there is some underhandedness or lobbying or whatever involved in this...it appears that Gov. Perry just made a decision that may save quite a few lives of the population of his state, and all he had to do was annoy the same small group of religious folk who delayed the approval of that vaccine for a number of years. At least as far as I can tell, he deserves quite a bit of applause.

Welcome to the Hall, Thurman. You sure made them all pay for passing on you in the draft. Linkity. (Michael Irvin, Bruce Matthews, Roger Wehrli, Charlie Sanders, and Gene Hickerson will be joining him)

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Feb 3, 2007 -> 12:19 PM) My God, this game is freaking horrible!! They can't go more than 30 seconds without blowing the whistle for something. Neither team can get ANY kind of rhythm which is making the game sloppy as hell. If the referees would just let them play, everything would take care of itself. I can't remember both teams getting so consistently screwed with BS calls in one game. The only BBall game I actually got to in person while @ IU was exactly like that. OSU @ IU. Just a ridiculous number of fouls called. Got to see Bobby Knight kick over a chair.

:::Thunderous applause:::

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Feb 2, 2007 -> 07:18 PM) Certainly the violence has increased, but those were the warnings 3 years ago. At that time, my impression of the Democratic position was that they would never condone a policy that led to utter chaos. But I don't believe a (relatively) fast pullout could avoid that. Even where the militias are loyal, they are unprepared and may be overwhelmed without the air support they receive now. The question becomes, which is the best of the bad options? As much as this war has been a disaster, I'm inclined to think that some 1-2 year withdrawal plan might be the worst plan of all going forward. But that seems to be the new consensus among the Democrats. Personally, I think that's actually one of the better options, depending on how its done. If you accept that we've made a mess and it's going to collapse into a full civil war anyway, which I do, then the questions are; what can America do to protect itself in that event, and what can we do to mitigate the negative consequences of it on the people. Couple of points on the standard dem position (a slow pullout over 1-2 years, which again I'm not sure I agree with, too slow for my taste). If you go back to the Murtha plan, which has been out there for over a year now, his suggestion was not to completely leave the region, but to back off to Kuwait and form sort of a "Rapid deployment" force. Presumably, given that airpower is America's biggest strength by far, some combination of airpower and air-mobile abilities would be used to protect whatever side we choose to support as the government in the mess that follows our pullout, so even if that plan were followed, the goal would be to do so while still leaving the Iraqi government something to hang onto.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Feb 2, 2007 -> 06:42 PM) But, how have things changed? Isn't this exactly the scenario that Dems were worried about 3 years ago? Isn't this the scenario that all clear-thinking people were worried about? Where's the new information? My discomfort with the Dems' consensus is that I am not at all convinced that a US pullout will not lead to a bloodbath. And I admit that I don't know if that's worse than the 'slow death' taking place now; but I don't imagine it will be much better, and it will certainly be more horrid. Which is not to say I support the escalation/surge/20kmoretroops proposal, which strikes me as yet another half-ass strategy. Just that I'm disappointed in each direction. Honestly, the sad thing is I think you'er right...there is simply no strategy that will work. In fact, if you read the summary of the Iraq NIE that was released today, that's exactly what it says; pulling out won't work, and more troops won't work. The thing you ask about, what has changed in 3 years, is the sheer amount of violence. There has been an ungodly increase in the violence in that country since 2004, and there has been a similar increase in the sectarian violence as well. 3 years ago, additional troops could possibly have helped quell the violence as it was increasing. Think of it this way, in 2004, 130-140,000 American troops was not enough to control the country, but more troops might have been a decent suggestion, because the margins were much smaller; upping the troops then might have given the U.S. enough forces to quell that level of violence. But since then, the violence has gone up by a factor of roughly 3-4. An increase of 15% in troop levels might have had an impact against lower levels of violence, but the whole thing has blown up so badly since then that anything less than a full 100-200% increase in American forces simply won't be enough. And that might not even do it. To my eyes, though, I think what I just said was wrong; that was the argument for why increasing troops in 04 might have worked and why it won't work now. Personally, I think the whole adventure was doomed from the moment it was thought up in the late 90's, and being stuck where we are now was the inevitable result of the choices we made. In other words, I don't think that a "Surge" in 04 would have worked either.

Parque signs a minor league deal with the Mariners and gets an invite to Spring Training.

Brett Favre will play again next season.

QUOTE(Balance @ Feb 2, 2007 -> 08:57 AM) Anger issues? Maybe I just haven't seen it, but the only Al Franken I've seen in the public eye has been rather measured and even-keeled. Witty and sarcastic, sure, but not pathologically angry by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the stuff between Al and Fox News or Al and O'Reilly has frankly been over the top. I believe that a few years ago there was either a report or video or something of Franken verbally berating some of the Fox people at a dinner (just doing this from memory, don't recall all the details). And I'm sure that Franken and O'Reilly had a major sparring match on CSpan at one point.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 2, 2007 -> 07:23 AM) Seriously though, I'd agree with those lists except flip-flop Guiliani and McCain. Considering Guiliani hasn't said a word about his interest in the presidency and hasn't really been 'public' since the last election, I'm shocked he's still so high in the polls. That's major name power. Out of any candidate he has the most experience leading a government in tough times. He can ride his 9/11 experience all the way to the white house I think. Giuliani hasn't said a word? He was probably the first out of anyone to form an exploratory committee...did so all the way back in November. And on top of th at, his entire early campaign strategy was leaked in a document someone left in a hotel room a few weeks back. And I hope to g*d that Rudy can't ride his 9/11 experience, because his 9/11 experience was overall pretty poor. It's not exactly great planning to put your city's emergency management office in the world trade center (which was already a target once), nor is it great management to not spend the money to have your firefighters have working radios, nor is it great management to wind up with ungodly corrupt people standing next to you on SNL the month after the attacks when at the same time that guy is using a city-rented apartment overlooking ground zero as a love nest, etc. If Rudy's campaign is a success and is based on his response to 9/11, it's because people are letting what they want to remember about 9/11 cover up their judgement, since aside from rhetoric, his work in NY responding to and preparing for 9/11 has an awful lot of holes. If he's elected based solely on policy issues, I'd be a lot happier than if he was elected campaigning based on his 9/11 actions.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 03:54 PM) Yep, those stats just look awful. There is no way someone is going to tell me Terrero is better than Mack, Pods and Ozuna (I could buy into Owens). Nor are you going to convince me that Erstad will be worse than all of them. you know the interesting thing? before now I never actually looked at Terrero's minor league stats...he hasn't seen much playing time in the big leagues the last couple years, but he tore up AAA last year. .318, 16 home runs, .927 OPS.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 04:12 PM) I have had problems with XP on my computer for a while. I have missing cabinet files, can open winzip files because of CRC errors etc., certain games won't work, so I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and buy the Premium Version of Vista. If you know any college students, seriously, consider asking them to purchase a copy for you @ their bookstores. Most students can purchase 1 copy of any microsoft software at very reduced (i.e. $5) prices (make sure they won't need to buy a copy of it for themselves though).

Just was at a seminar with a person wearing a Wisconsin sweater. I smiled.

There were at least a few ESPN types who have been saying that the wrist injury really got under Oden's skin a little bit (pun intended) to the point where he is concerned about getting out and getting his chance at a contract before he has another chance to get hurt.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 02:15 PM) then who's president right now! no wonder Iraq is messed up, no one is running things. you should email the New York times or someone else in the media with this groundbreaking information you have. Dude, by all accounts, Al Gore received more votes in 2000 than George W. Bush. In other words, the Rove plan in 2000 failed to achieve the narrow electoral majority that it was able to get in 2004. Bush was placed in office if for no other reason than the existence of the Electoral college, which as far as I can tell was not part of the Rove plan.

Here's an interesting, 10 year old bit of Obamania that I think shines a worthwhile light on his early years in Chicago.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 01:10 PM) Reason why Erstad is a waste and shouldn't be considered for anything other than minor league assignment is summed up perfectly by Nate Silver. Not because of the money so much, but the opportunity cost of playing time for Ryan Sweeney, Brian Anderson and Josh Fields is too much. As Silver says, we're better off giving an opportunity to these guys and see if they fail or not than giving an aging veteran who just doesn't have it anymore anymore PT. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=164 So, 1 question...you're citing a statistic which says that Luis Terrero would be a better outfield performer than Mackowiak, Podsednik, Owens, or Ozuna. So in other words, why should I trust it?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 12:50 PM) We probably should define center. Generally, candidates can view an election as having three groups. The first are their strongest supporters who will vote for them regardless. There are a bunch of them here, even though they won't admit it, but they will vote for the candidate from their party regardless. So those two groups are spoken for, they are either voting for or against you and there is very little you can do to win/lose those votes. The fight becomes for the "undecided" or "middle" group. Who can sway the most out of that group. Substitute policies, sports teams in the two team city, or Coke vs. Pepsi. The concept is accurate. Interestingly enough, that has not been the strategy of Karl Rove in the last 2 Presidential elections at all, in fact, Mr. Rove's strategy has been to specifically state that the strategy you outline is wrong. Rove's strategy was to turn out the base and try to get 50%+1 voters out of the base, and it succeeded in electing GWB 1 time, and came very very close a 2nd. Rove did not care at all that Kerry beat Mr. Bush significantly in so-called "Independent" or swing voters, because he turned out enough of his base to get a win.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 12:16 PM) Kerry flip flopped because he was gung-ho for the war and then later said he never was for it and had always been against it. Had he pulled a Hillary and said, look I was for it but this douche messed it up and I think we need a new strategy. If he had done this we'd prolly have a moron leading our 'international pariah' of a country. Actually, I think you're pretty much wrong in that assessment. When Mr. Kerry voted for the war resolution, his speech on his vote was hardly "Gung-ho". If you can get through it without falling asleep, Here's the original speech Kerry gave on his vote. Here's the key part, if you don't want to read the whole thing: That said, yeah, Kerry still would have been much, much better off if he had just come out and said he was wrong. He probably doesn't even believe he was wrong in the war vote, because he feels like he explained everything in that speech, and honestly he did. But that doesn't fix the fact, to my eyes and to a lot of peopel's eyes, that his vote on the war was the wrong vote at the time, and he should have known better.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 12:03 PM) "The Center" doesn't exsist in American politics anymore. To get anywhere today you have to be in line with one party or another, or risk alienating them both, and being left out in the cold. I disagree. I think that there actually is something of a center in American politics; in almost every issue, you can find one side, or another, or a balance of the two, where a huge majority of Americans will agree with you. The problem is...the very vocal people have a habit of not liking those positions. For example; on Iraq, there is strong support on the part of a huge majority of the American people for beginning to draw down American troops very soon and having some sort of deadline within a year or two where the majority are out. On abortion, the "Safe, legal, and rare" setup seems to poll very strongly; most people don't want it banned, but want it to be as rare as possible. On taxes, in general, most Americans think that the government wastes too much money and is too corrupt. And so on. So in other words, if you were to find the exact median voter on an issue, he or she would fall somehwere on the spectrum, but the issue winds up being that the media and politicians often refuse to acknowledge those majorities.

He's good enough, he's smart enough, and doggoneit, the people of Minnesota like him.

Something I'd like to say clearly for anyone who's willing to listen: Thinking that more troops in Iraq would be a good idea in 2004 does not mean that you must continue to think more troops would be a good idea 3 years later. Situations can, you know, change. And they have. For the worse. Thinking that a troop increase in Iraq would be ok if it was tied to a specific plan for withdrawal, or benchmarks, or something else, does not mean that you think a troop increase in Iraq would be great without those benchmarks. That is all.