Balta1701

I think pigs may very well be flying somewhere today. Why? Right Now, Congress is about to shoot down an amendment offered by Senator Tom Coburn which actually has received support both from Instapundit and from Daily Kos. What does the amendment do? If it passes, it will kill the "Don Young Way" bridge and the other bridge in Alaska to the island with 50 people, and it would transfer the money to rebuild a bridge in New Orleans. Congress is going to brutally vote this bill down. Why? Because no Congressperson wants to have his or her own pork projects treated the same way as those obnoxious ones given to Alaska. They rely on these funds to keep themselves in office, and they're not going to give them up without a fight. Keep an eye on the voting rolls in these sorts of fights. They're good things to base your next round of donations or votes on. I believe that it looks like only a handfull of Senators actually voted yes on the thing. Tom Coburn (R-OK) Russ Feingold (D-WI) Jon Kyl (R-AZ) Jim DeMint (R-SC) David Vitter (R-LA) Mary Landrieu (D-LA) John Sununu (R-NH) Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Richard Burr (R-NC) Wayne Allard (R-CO) Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Evan Bayh (D-IN) Mike DeWine (R-OH) Kent Conrad (D-ND) George Allen (R-VA) Russ Feingold will probably be a Democratic Presidential Candidate in 2008. He just helped his case in my book. Edit: When both the Sierra Club and the Club For Growth are actually on the same page on a bill...wow. Congress is really hoping we won't notice this thing going down in flames. Edit 2: That's the final list. Hi Evan!

QUOTE(jasonxctf @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 02:57 PM) so if Carl Everett wants to pull his kids out of the 2nd grade Dinosaur lesson or talking about Pangea that's ok?? the danger in letting the parents win here, is where does it stop. what if a family doesnt like a book their kid has to read, or doesnt agree with the way math or reading is taught... (and there is a lot of fights going on about reading teaching styles) THe other issue at hand is the disruption to the classroom that is caused by having to stop everyone from learning until little Johnny and his ears are safely out of distance. My wife had a Jehovah Witness Kid a few years ago. A bigger nightmare, you can not imagine. They even had the nerve to bring in a book on how and what to teach their kid. Like she has the time or the ability to customize learning styles and programs for 25 different 2nd graders. Parents.... I think there's a pretty major difference between allowing parents to pull their kids out of a class on some specific variety of tolerance and allowing parents to pull their kids out of an actual educational class which is required for graduation from high school. Can anyone around here give me a good reason why this sort of "education" would be something that would fit into a standardized test? I can't think of one.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 02:03 PM) All of the dirt on Jordan didn't come out 'til way after the fact. Excuse me? what about the gambling trip right in the middle of the playoffs one year?

I found this to be a very interesting article, in the whole "I don't agree with what you have to say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" vein. As you can probably guess, I don't harbor any love for the guy's positions. But given that this is a non-academic field that we're talking about here, I can't see any reason why the guy's kid should be forced to go through that "education" if his family disagrees with it.

QUOTE(iWiN4PreP @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 12:40 PM) "Houston we have a problem" . The actual line spoken in real life was "We've had a problem"

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 12:38 PM) Also remember many of these same Dems who felt lying to Congress wasn't important now feel that lying about these leaks is pretty damned important all of the sudden, and we haven't had anyone even under oath yet. Actually quite a few people have testified under oath before Fitzgerald. Bush and Cheney did not testify under oath, but virtually everyone else on the list has done so.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 12:18 PM) Id rather focus on the fundamental weaking of the nations defenses that went on during Clintons watch. The gutting of the military & the restrictions placed on the intelligence agencies to name a couple of things. Here is a link to a few graphs of spending on defense. There was a slight decrease (roughly $25 billion a year) during the early clinton years, but overall, from the start of Bush 1, military spending basically remained constant. Ok, now that's one I'm not going to let you get away with. According to the 9/11 commission report, the first good evidence about the ID of the Cole attackers started coming out of Yemen in mid-to-late November, 2000. The CIA gave a preliminary report to the president in late December, 2000, saying that they had connected the bombing to 1 person they believed to be connected to Al Qaeda, but the President didn't feel he would be able to go forward with an attack based only on a preliminary report. When the Bush Administration took over, Mr. Clarke immediately requested a principles-level meeting on Al Qaeda, one of the goals of which was to decide "when and how . . . to respond to the attack on the USS Cole.” The CIA gradually began to believe their case was stronger during the next few months, but during the entire period up until 9/11, there was never any real decision or discussion about what exactly do to in response to the Cole.

Anyone wanna buy a mug shot?

My question in reply to Nuke would be whether or not the Army is being totally honest when it says it is at "107% of it's Goal" in terms of re-enlistment. We already know that when the Army really started having major misses in terms of it's monthly recruiting goal of over 8000 troops a month, last June it just decided to reduce its recruiting goal to 6700 soldiers per month, thereby leaving it with fewer misses and smaller overall misses being reported in the press. Does anyone know for sure that the military hasn't done the same thing with re-enlistments? Also, to what (if any) extent have stop-loss orders kept this number from dropping?

Despite all the efforts of many on the right to blame only local officials in New Orleans and Louisiana for the pathetic response to Hurricane Katrina by the government, in the past 2 days, testimony by Congress seems to have completely undercut those explanations. First, yesterday we had Micheal Chertoff, head of the DHS (and Brownie's boss), seemingly stepping partially outside of the spin controlled line and saying things like this: Of course, since he's still a government official, he still tried to cover his own arse and that of the President, but it seems that there's a new willingness to place blame on Brownie for failing to do a heck of a job. On top of Chertoff's words, today we have something even more damning...testimony by a person further down the line, the FEMA Regional Director for the area hit by Katrina, basically saying that FEMA wouldn't give hiim an answer and he basically ended up on his own.

QUOTE(Steff @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 10:41 AM) Didn't read this all to see if it's here (sorry if it is) but here's Scott's 3 year totals against Houston.. vs. HOU 149 23 43 7 2 7 18 13 0 3 0 18 3 .289 .346 .503 .849 13 BBs, 18 steals (3 CS), and 7 HRs Not too bad. My 1 worry along those lines is that Scotty probably hasn't seen Pettitte's move, and he's got one that rivals Buehrle. But given all the rest we've gotten during this postseason, and the fact that he was moving on the Angels pitchers repeatedly, I think we do have a shot at a very successful running game. Ausmus was throwing out runners at about a .315 clip this year, which was only slightly better than Bengie Molina's numbers.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 10:05 AM) More insight into the black depths of Cheney's bionic baboon heart. Wait, so which is it, a bionic heart or a baboon? "Do you realize that because of you this city is being overrun by baboons?" "Well, isnt' that the fault of the voters?"

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 10:20 AM) Exactly Also another reason to like this World Series. 2005 payrolls And just think...something like $17 million of that goes to Clemens.

QUOTE(mreye @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 10:11 AM) What is Houston's nickname? Wikipedia.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 10:05 AM) I'm sure it was Wilkerson's loyalty to Powell that kept him from speaking up earlier, but bettter late than ever Powell is reportedly quite angry with Wilkerson for coming forward. As Avarosis responds...

My keys to this series: 1. Starting pitching continues being quality. They don't need to throw CG shutouts every game. But a quality start a game is almost a necessity. 2. Manufacturing runs. There are 2 ways we are going to score on the Stros. Every so often, someone will get on base. It's pretty much unavoidable. Someone will get a hit, or take a walk. When this happens, we must turn that baserunner into a run. The "Get him on, get him over, get him in" philosophy is the perfect one to take into a series against pitching like the Stros have. Take your runs 1 at a time and you can pile up enough to win if your pitching keeps it up. 3. Occasional power. At some point...the Stros pitchers will leave a ball somewhere that you can hit it. Every pitcher does it. If we don't miss those pitches, and we do turn them into runs, then we'll basically be unstoppable. I think that if the pitching holds up, the real key is probably #2. That's how we've won games all the time this year. I just keep thinking about that Boston game where we got guys on 2nd and 3rd with no outs and Pods and Gooch both squeeze bunted to drive in the runs. That's the kind of thing we need to do...expect that they can pitch their way out of any jam if we try to go for too much and take what is given.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 09:40 AM) At least Carl will only get a chance to swing at crap in the dirt in 4 out of the 7 possible games. Get it right...2 out of the 4 games.

The Rally Crede never thought he could shoot down a German plane, but last year he proved himself wrong.

Man, thank God this guy was nice enough to tell us this when we still have a chance to remove these guys from office with an upcoming election in the next few months.

The Rally Crede cuts down trees, he eats his lunch, he goes to the lavatory. On Wednesdays he goes shopping, and has buttered scones for tea.

Unlike Stone Phillips and Steven Colbert...Mike North does not have sufficient Gravitas.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 05:08 AM) How about you all save some of your self-rightous indignation until it is proven to be true. The media HAS been know to embellish things a bit now and then. If it is true, then it is a bad thing. A very bad thing. I think in this case, it's pretty hard to argue with what the videotape purportedly shows. They even have the names of some of the people doing the reading. LA Times.

QUOTE(rangercal @ Oct 20, 2005 -> 03:54 AM) Is this the end of the braves 14 yr run? Im thinking behind david wright, The mets are going to break that streak. A lot depends on what the other teams do in the offseason. It sure seems like the Marlins have a good chance at taking a step backwards this offseason, with Burnett leaving, Beckett unable to stay healthy, Todd Jones leaving, and the team placing 26th in attendence (and reportedly losing quite a bit of money in the process). The Phillies are a decent team with some major question marks...in particular what the Hell do they do at 1b? They figure out a way to turn that mess into something useful and they could be in good shape next year. Although they could lose Wagner. The Mets are on their way up, but who knows what they'll do this offseason. Beltran is a big question mark. There are rumors they'll make another play for Manny. Can Cliff Floyd stay healthy? What do they do with Mike Cameron? And then there's the Nats, who may very well have a decent chunk of cash to spend next year, if they're sitting on a new ownership group and a deal for a new ballpark. This may throw that division wide open. Now the question is...how good is Bobby Cox really?

I think overall if you look just in terms of having faced pitchers before, the Sox are at a fairly distinct advantage because Pettitte and Clemens both spent good amounts of time in the AL. Aside from a few scattered people, the Stros haven't faced much of our pitching staff, so our guys should be almost completely new to them aside from what they can see on tape.

Viz has seen these guys quite a few times. Bagwell...4/10, 1 hr Ausmus, 2/8 Biggio 1/8, 1 hr Berkman, 1/6 Ensberg, 3/6, 2 hr Lamb, 2/2, 1 hr Overall, the Astros hit Viz at a .250 clip.