lostfan

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 04:24 PM) Clarification: Generally, I don't mean this stuff for this board. 95% of the people here are somewhat intelligent. But the overall reflection of these people in the media, etc. astounds me. When I say "they", generally I mean a general broad brush, not soxtalk posters because at least even when I disagree with you all, it's somewhat intelligent most of the time. kap, when you start making sense or speaking logically, it makes it hard to call you out.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) I remember Biden being held up as 'an amazing' pick at the time around here. The Democrat posters were very defiant when confronted with facts that Biden is an idiot. They actually got extremely angry when he was criticized or mocked. When compared directly to Sarah Palin.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 02:32 PM) It amazes me, STILL, reading this stuff how it all gets "it doesn't really matter what Biden/Obama/etc. say" but when GWB said like things, they were "Bushisms". Even in this very thread there is a huge double standard. Democrats = genius Republicans = stupid For saying the same things! Deliberate misperceptions of reality amaze me even more. Don't people on this board pretty much laugh at Biden unanimously? Hell, during the campaign people were even complaining about it in the Dem thread.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) It's not really arbitrary, though. It's a recent historical price of oil, not a hypothetical situation. I don't know if its the same sort of obliviousness as Bush not knowing that gas had reached $4. Biden's point was still correct and his incorrect number doesn't indicate a huge detachment from what 99% of Americans are dealing with every day. That's the point I was trying to make.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 01:01 PM) The $190/barrel price is the incorrect part. Never got above $150. It's just an arbitrary number he threw out there to make his point though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 11:19 AM) Here's another if Bush had said it... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews Remember the slack Bush caught for not knowing what prices were? How about being over $40 per barrel wrong? This man has no clue. This link is taking a pretty long time to load for me, but I can't see what he said in the section you quoted being incorrect. In so many words, he said oil prices fall, Russia's revenues drop, they're not in a position of strength. What exactly is wrong with him saying that?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 09:23 AM) The intelligence and law enforcement agencies were notorious for this. FBI, CIA, ATF, USSS, DEA, NSA et al were hugely competitive with one another, didn't like to share information, and were in different departments of government entirely. DHS was supposed to help that get better, but from what I have heard, DHS didn't do squat for that purpose. The improvements made, I am told, are more from within those agencies, on a one-to-one basis. DHS is another animal altogether. I'm talking mainly about the agencies that fall under the Director of National Intelligence that used to have to fight each other all the time. What helped a great deal was having a really sharp ex-CIA guy (Gates) heading up the DoD, so he had a full understanding of budget issues and how things worked from all sides. Right now, the interagency cooperation and culture is based on the personality of these guys. This is all still very new, and it'll be the first change of administration. Keeping Gates was a good precedent to set.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 09:09 AM) 100% agree. The biggest problem with our federal government is none of the agencies is set up to cooperate with the others that are related. Their budgets are separate, as are their workloads. Its actually a disincentive to work together, because they are more worried about their budget numbers, than their productivity. The intelligence community was like that until recently. It still kind of is but it's not as bad. I wrote a paper on this topic actually.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 08:36 AM) Google "Bush meets with Democrats." There are a ton of hits. He had to when they were in control of Congress. I honestly can't think of any times where he did that when they were the minority party (brief bipartisan spirit after 9-11 excluded).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 08:34 AM) I agree with that. But I also think that it is silly to expect Republicians to see out thier agenda in the same breath. Why are they being vilified for doing exactly what the Democrats are doing? I'm not vilifying the Republicans here. I just think the theatrics are annoying.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2009 -> 08:08 AM) Bush did the exact same thing for eight years and was ripped for it. I would say that turnabout would be fair play. If you believe that, fine, I guess. It's pretty pointless to try to change your mind and vice versa. Personally I think it's kinda silly to expect a president with a near-supermajority in Congress to defer to the minority party to the point where he's actually instituting their policies, but hey to each his own I guess.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 10:59 PM) Doesn't that work the other way? Why is the assumption that the Repubs should capitulate to Obama? For the same reason people assume the Democrats should capitulate to the Republicans. The perception of what bipartisanship should be is pretty absurd. The party that's in power is going to get more of what it wants, naturally. Why should it be any other way?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 07:16 PM) The same could be said to Obama who flat out said he wasn't going to do what the republicians wanted... How exactly is that compromise and negotiation? What the Republicans want is pretty much the opposite of what he wants, why would he do that? He's the president. "negotiation" means you land somewhere in the middle, and they actually did give concessions to the Republicans.

QUOTE (hawksfan61 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 05:55 PM) Feedback and buy in? So what, its fairly obvious to me that Obama had little to no hand in writing this bill. This was written behind closed doors in Pelosi's office by her and her lackeys, some bi-partisanship. I don't care if its bi-partisan, frankly I don't blame the Democrats for saying piss off we won, we got the majority, we don't need you. Obama needs to stop with this bi-parisanship nonsense though. Having people over for tea and cake does not mean they are given access to the forming of a bill. Obama's mistake here is letting the two assclowns in Congress run wild with this thing, its making him look bad because he has to defend things I frankly don't think he even wants, and its giving Republicans a lot of ammunition to beat this thing up. This is true, but there's a fine line there, because I'm almost certain he's thinking about how Clinton tried to push his own ideas through Congress early in his administration and it didn't work. At the end of the day Capitol Hill is running the show, too.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 04:52 PM) So 2 wrongs make a right? ^^

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 04:20 PM) Let me ask you this. If the opposition President had met with you regarding a bill that you disagreed with the vast majority of, would you vote for it because a small part of it was something you liked? Would the President meeting with you honestly change your mind if you still thought in your heart that most of bill was wrong? I don't get how stuff a few bones into a trillion dollar bill is supposed to placate a party that disagrees with the huge premise of the bill. To me, it doesn't make a difference. If you believe the bill is going to do more harm than good, you should vote against it. Then vote against it and abandon the theatrics and stop pretending like you actually want to compromise. I have no issues with that.

I'm not going to call any of you out directly, but some of you need to dial the obnoxiousness down a notch.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 03:20 PM) And, for the first time in years (about 4 years I think), I am home sick from work. If I was "sick", this would be great. Unfortunately, I am actually sick and feeling like crap, so I'm stuck inside. Dammit. A couple years ago when I was still active duty I had something wrong with me so I went to the doctor and got quarters (meaning stay home) for 48 hours, I went back to my office to let them know and give them the paperwork. On my way out my boss was like "ahh, quarters, you're so lucky." I laughed (a little so as to avoid puking) and said "lucky? Are you kidding? I'm actually sick, this blows. Believe me, I'd rather be at work."

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 11:06 AM) No, not really. In fact, I think his idea of "small government" was part of the reason Obama thinks he can spend his way out of this recession to the tune of $1T. In that area alone, GWB was a colossal failure. Of course there's more... but the point I keep making over and over is that THEY ALL SUCK. And I think that Obama is the biggest fraud and double standard president we have seen for a long, long time. As long as he doesn't lie under oath, I will at least respect him more then I do BJ Clinton. btw I know you're not a Bush fan, I was asking that sarcastically cuz Sqwert phrased his post to make it sound like you liked him when of course you don't.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 02:35 PM) And where did you get this telling the GOP "I won"? I must have missed that. A few days ago he pretty much blasted the GOP for being uncooperative on the stimulus bill, and in so many words he said the Democrats won, so that's how things are going to be.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 02:30 PM) The loopholes in interrogation methods. The method of standing up for what Nancy Pelosi wrote for him in the House version of the "stimulus" - telling House GOP "I won". Yea, some change. Some outreach. There's a lot more but the point's the same. If one was to accept that at face value they'd have to just about completely ignore everything else he's said and all his attempts at bipartisanship except that one speech he gave when he was pissed off because he extended his hand, but it got bitten. Besides that he's really been bending over backwards to cooperate with the GOP, the left is even starting to complain that he's doing it too much, to think otherwise is to just ignore reality.

QUOTE (MO2005 @ Feb 10, 2009 -> 12:35 PM) Yeah and did you look at the rest of the teams stats down the stretch besides Alexei and Thome? Yes. They sucked. What's this got to do with Wise, though? Seriously. Wise's history of being good is about 2 weeks long. After that he has a long track record of mediocrity in the minors. This is not being hard on him, it's the truth.

Sounds ever so familiar.

QUOTE (MO2005 @ Feb 9, 2009 -> 06:20 PM) I can't believe all you guys pushing Wise to the curb like this. He only had some of our biggest hits last season when we needed someone to come through. I don't recall any of our players that are still on this team minus Thome's homer in the one game playoff having huge hits. It's funny how people all the time jump on and off the bandwagon with a player. Who can tell me down the stretch who had bigger hits than Wise? Good lord. Did you actually look at his stats down the stretch?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 9, 2009 -> 09:46 PM) Then don't go around screaming "CHANGE" and "TRUST ME" and all that bulls***, knowing f***ing damn well he wouldn't keep his promise. Gee, no different then anyone else, imagine that. I have a hard time getting indignant about a politician's duplicity. That's like getting mad at a baby because they cry too much. What do you think they're going to do?