Balta1701

QUOTE(kevin57 @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 12:15 PM) Is the new leader considered a reformer, that is, reducing lobbyists' influence and limiting earmarks? In the mid 90's...Boehner was so into lobbying reform that he was handing out checks from the tobacco lobby on the House floor. Out of the 3 candidates, he has a big lead in number of his former staffers working as K street lobbyists (14 for Boehner, 3 for Blunt, 2 for Shadeeg).

I heart rhetoric.

The Hill on Boehner's lobbyist connections.

"The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting." - Roll Call.

QUOTE(Gldfinger5 @ Feb 2, 2006 -> 07:19 AM) Speaking of Borchard, does anybody else see him as a a possible Adam Dunn type? I don't think he could put up as many HRs, but I see a similarity. I would love for him to turn into an Adam Dunn type...or even a Rob Deer type (remember him?). He hasn't even gotten that far yet. Let's hope he will.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 10:08 PM) Here is whats going to happen.... Borchard will get the job than Dye will get so many spider bites he will be out for 2 months in which time Joe Borchard will hit 25 HR's with a .315 avg. And than he will keep the job and finish with 40 HR's a .310 avg with a .400 OBP.... also having 160 K's and he will win RoY/MVP. Ive said it so it must be true. You've also said one thing which is impossible. Borch is ineligible for the ROY. Way too much playing time already.

I wonder, if KW were to think about this sort of deal...if he might do one of his classic "I'll make the deal if you include $x million" sort of moves, given how expensive Abreu's contract is. I'm still going to sit here and think that no matter what happens, if anything, it would not happen if the Sox did not have a way penciled in to give Mark Buehrle a contract extension and bonus. I have enough confidence in KW right now to believe that one. One other thing I think I like about the concept...we have Abreu for several years...so it's entirely possible to let Sweeney sit in the minors for another 2 years, let Abreu hit 35 home runs a year in the Cell, and then move Abreu 2 years from now when Sweeney is ready to bring in another big-time player.

QUOTE(Balance @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 08:11 PM) Then they should talk about Hillary. Bill Clinton is no longer the president, yet he still serves as a rallying point for the right wing nuts. If Bill is doing something inappropriate, it reflects directly on Hillary. For example, Tom Delay's family managed to conveniently wind up with high paying jobs funded by his donors in his campaigns for several years before people started paying attention. Does the fact that it was his family doing it and not him mean that it doesn't reflect on him?

There are some states where I just wouldn't expect to see anything like that even come close to passing...

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 09:43 PM) Hey.... remember that part of the speech everyone loved about lowering our dependence on foreign oil 75% over the next 25 years? Yeah, not so much... http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington...shington_nation You know quite literally what happened? Some of those folks @ Opec came forwards and said today, to paraphrase..."Well, if you're going to cut the amount of oil you need, then we're not going to invest as much in infrastructure to get that hard to pump, expensive oil out of the ground".

I'm curious to see what the spectrum of reactions to this are, particularly from the left. This Monday, the Washington Post ran this editorial cartoon by one of its artists named Tom Toles, showing a man lying in bed seemingly with all 4 of his limbs blown off, and a "Dr. Rumsfeld" saying his condition was now battle-hardened. The Joint Chiefs of Staff found this cartoon so reprehensible that they sent a letter of protest to the Post describing the cartoon as "reprehensible" but not asking for any specific actions to be taken in reply. For my part, I believe that the cartoon in question appeared in my LAT one morning this week (I can't remember which day honestly, I don't take careful notes of these things), and I remember finding it pretty tasteless. So, bunch of questions; on the comic itself, should the Post have run it in the first place? Should it do anything in response? On the Joint Chiefs...is it appropriate for the military to officially protest the expression of opinions in ways it finds "reprehensible", or should the military stand by and say nothing so as to avoid intruding on the press?

QUOTE(DukeNukeEm @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 03:38 PM) f*** you... thats like 40 popups You know, sometimes Firefox frustrates me...it has lately had a nasty habit of slowing down my computer or even crashing it when I'm running Word at the same time...then I hear things like that, and remember why I started using it. I didn't have a clue there were popups.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 02:53 PM) And where would we put that army? Neither Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan would allow it for obvious political reasons. I'll buy the argument that invading Iran might've been the better strategy. Then again, Saddam was absolutely going out of his way to make the world believe that he was hiding something. Therefore, it's difficult to say that one regime was a greater threat than the other. It won't take U.S. forces to bring Iran to their knees. The Israelis are capable of handling them themselves. And given the rhetoric coming out of Tehran, they also have more than enough motive at this point. The Europeans are also on our side in the Iran issue and could be involved as well. Iran will be dealt with, one way or another. Um...first of all...Kuwait has recently allowed the U.S. to put an army on its territory. That's sort of how we got into Iraq. Secondly...none of those countries shares a border with Iran. Kuwait's the only one even close, but to do that we'd have had to march across Iraq anyway. Iran does share a significant border with Turkey, and given sufficient international support for the operation and the fact that the only thing which stopped us from using them to invade Iraq was the fact that like 90% of their population despised that war, they would be a prime candidate.

Charges against Sheehan dropped...Capitol police say they "Screwed up".

QUOTE(KWs OK for Me @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:35 PM) We have no right handed power off the bench. That is my only real concern about the bench. Other than that its great and versatile, I love how many multi-position players we have. Borchard is at least a switch hitter.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:25 PM) The biggest problem I see is that back in the 60's, I believe, they took the social security funds, which were at a surplus, and put those into the general funds. Um, they're basically still doing exactly that. Social Security will be running a surplus until roughly 2017 give or take a year or two. Right now, that surplus is being used to purchase bonds from the General fund. But because this is the government buying bonds from itself...it doesn't count in the total "National Debt" or yearly deficit totals or whatever you want to call them. Those bonds make up the Social Security Trust Fund...basically a big pile of U.S. government debt that is held by the Social Security Administration. So every extra dollar right now which has come into the government through Social Security taxes has in fact been spent by the general fund. There are just papers saying that the general fund will pay them back when the balance moves to the other side. The whole idea of a "Lockbox" was to have the government stop spending the extra SS dollars in the general fund and instead hold onto that money to try to make the hit on the general fund easier when the baby boom retirement does hit in full force.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:26 PM) That a church is like a family--and that it should be handled internally because it's really no one else's business. Not a compelling argument. So if my brother were to mysteriously disappear...it's no one else's business? Hmm...Jerry...time for you to panic!

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:20 PM) Israel should have taken out Iranian facilities a long time ago. When the proper intelligence became availble, they just should have circumvented the entire sanctions/negotiations practice and forcibly destroyed Iran's capabilities. Who cares about criticism? The entire Middle East, in addition almost the entire planet, could care less about Israel as it is. Better than looking over your shoulder at some f***ing lunactic promoting your annihilation. As far as I know...the proper intelligence probably still isn't available. We've never found any cite at which Iran has enriched uranium beyond what is necessary for electricity production. Had anyone known of a site where they were doing so...feeding that intel to the IAEA would put Iran at a horrible disadvantage. That even assumes of course that it would be possible for Israel to actually pull off the strike, given that Iran seems to have built their program in a dispersed manner with buildings made as strongly as they could in order to protect against an Israeli strike.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:12 PM) I feel the same way, but a Catholic friend said that she felt it should be handled by the church hierarchy. And I wondered if anyone else shared that. . . So what was her argument? That the separation of church and state in the constitution implies that the U.S. and its states can't police the church, but that the churches should be treated as their own state-like entities?

QUOTE(WCSox @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 01:08 PM) I have little doubt that building U.S.-friendly coalition in the bordering country to Iran was always part of the plan. The CIA has known about their nuclear ambitions for a long time. Say what you want about oil, but a nation that is CLEARLY trying to build nuclear weapons and has publically called for the destruction of Israel needs to be stopped. I'm hoping that sanctions will work and that it won't come to an armed conflict, but we're dealing with a head of state that's a complete lunatic. Which is why it would have been nice to still have an army available which could at least make a credible threat towards Iran, in the way that our buildup in Kuwait forced Saddam to allow the UNMOVIC team into Iraq to verify that he was in fact WMD Disarmed in early 2003. It would have been very nice to be able to sit there in Kuwait and say "Iran...stop this immediately or it will mean war". Right now, we can say "Iran, stop this immediately or we'll put sanctions on you, but not so many sanctions that you'll stop selling oil or so many that you'll really notice them." One of those is going to be more effective than the other.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 12:43 PM) Is it illegal to blackmail someone for their vote? Well...with this Congress...

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 12:36 PM) I want to keep my money also, can I do that too? Only if many others don't get to keep their money. You know, I'm fairly sad I missed the SS discussions that I'm sure went on around here last year before I joined. I bet those were entertaining.

And yeah...those troops in Iraq aren't doing anything right now. They're just having a happy vacation sitting next to their tanks. All of their equipment is in prime condition, and they're very well rested. If needed to, they could easily jump across the border, conquer Iran, and have yet another nation throw flowers on us and give us oil.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Feb 1, 2006 -> 11:23 AM) It's our scheduled Sunday night viewing...EVERY Sunday night. Same here, although I'll readily admit I usually laugh a lot more at Family Guy. (You shot me in both knees and set me on fire.)

Personally, if you ask me about our bench, I'm just happy that we've upgraded the abilities of the people on it. Mack, Ozuna, Borch >> Ozuna, Harris, Perez. Just having better guys when Ozzie plays the infamous "Sunday Lineup" will probably win us a few more games. Especially considering how often Ozzie plays his backups.