lostfan

The funny thing about all of this to me is the fact that the 49ers play a base 3-4 so they would need someone with strong pass-rushing ability, something Briggs hasn't even shown since he's been in the NFL. Granted, he's not really asked to blitz much, but still, we know Urlacher can do it, Briggs not so much. The Bears' system plays to Briggs's strengths and it works quite well, but his skill set is limited. They would've been paying franchise player money to him and I have no idea why they'd be going after him in the first place, he would've just been average there.

You know, every politician lies, or at the very least makes exaggerations. It really depends what's being lied about that makes it so bad. Kilpatrick messing around with someone other than his wife I really don't care about that much and it's different from Spitzer's problems but even still Kilpatrick created his own situation so he doesn't have much to complain about.

I had actually started kinda listening to Carville last night on AC 360 to be fair but I changed the channel when he started implying Obama was trying to sabotage the elections in FL and MI and glossed over the fact that Hillary was ok with the DNC's decision until just a few weeks ago. I really can't stand hearing that kind of nonsense.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Mar 25, 2008 -> 01:19 AM) I'd give Paxson one more year. He saw what happens when you're reluctant to trade players, even for Kobe who's a bonafide top 5 player ever. Paxson deserves credit for resurrecting this franchise from the laughingstock of the NBA thanks to Krause, but he also deserves every bit of blame for not having the balls to do what he needs to do and hanging onto his overrated low-ceiling players.

It's really not that big of an issue to me whether she "misremembered" or not but to me it just brings more attention to the fact that she's been exaggerating her foreign policy experience and that's supposedly a major advantage over Obama. She really doesn't have that much foreign policy experience.

It should be noted that 1995 was an anomaly, correct? I don't remember, all baseball from 1994 on to about 1999 or 2000 is fuzzy to me at best, the only thing I can clearly remember is Kerry Wood's 20-K game and obviously the home run chase.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 08:50 PM) By White Sox upper management (which includes Ozzie and the coaching staff). Those are the only people that do overrate him, and they are the people in charge of personnel decisions, which is why I'm a bit upset about the entire situation. And he's overrated because, as a big leaguer, he HAS sucked and yet he's essentially been handed the leadoff spot given that he can produce a clean bill of health. He's worked his ass off, surely, but Andy Gonzalez worked his ass off too and he was DFA'ed and picked up by Cleveland in the offseason. That is why he's overrated, and that's why I'm a bit flustered by this whole situation. If Owens had shown any type of power whatsoever to this point in his career, I wouldn't be nearly as upset about the situation, because then the Sox would have a great situation to deal with here. As it is, the best player between Owens and Anderson is likely to ride the bench/be sent to AAA/be dealt. Owens hasn't sucked anywhere near as bad as Gonzalez IMO. For whatever it's worth, which isn't really a whole lot, Owens's OPS has been above .800 most of this spring, if not all of it. He hasn't been drawing many walks though.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:46 PM) once the ball is thrown it's completely out of the pitchers' hands is incorrect. Well, you know, technically it is...

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 08:40 PM) The majority of the time its discussed it is geared towards the minority end of it. Hell, look through this thread. People like lostfan saying that affirmative action worked because she graduated with honors without mentioning the person who didnt get in. Yeah I have to disagree with that, actually the only time I ever hear anything about affirmative action is when people complain about how it doesn't work, and rightfully so. See the post I just made above. Besides, if we don't KNOW that Michelle Obama pushed somebody out of getting in the school (meaning she otherwise wouldn't have qualified on her own merit, also something else we wouldn't know) why would we speculate about the person who didn't get in?

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 08:25 PM) Thats what quotas are. If they just let everyone in then there would be no need for affirmative action. Affirmative action is set up to reserve spots for minority candidates that werent qualified enough to get in on there own. Its not like there are two entry piles: white and affirmative action. If a minority was qualified based on their accomplishments they would get in on their own. So basically, if she got in because of affirmative action than one person that was more qualified didnt get in. Now Im not disagreeing with you that it worked for her in the sense that she used the opportunity to the fullest and did well there, that obviously isnt whats being debated, its that someone who was more qualified missed out on going to school there. I would also like to point out that I am very aware of how the process works because my brother who is 18 months older than me had to go to Western Illinois even though he had already gotten into U of I and got a letter saying they regretted to inform him that the school had not reached their obligatory racial quotas at the time of his acceptance but he was welcome to apply the following semester. No, that's not entirely true... does the system allow that to happen? Yes. Is that necessarily the goal of the program? No. It's more of an unintended consequence. Ok let's say we have to employ 10 guys, but affirmative action laws say we need to employ at least 2 minority workers. If we can find 2 workers that are perfectly qualified on their own accord, then no harm no foul, nobody's being disqualified from anything. Hell we can even hire 3, 4, it doesn't matter. The problem is when you can't, or when you start running out. Then you get into a situation where you're actually competing with other people who need to fill that quota too and we might even end up having to pay them more money to convince them to work for us. Then not only are we employing substandard candidates, we're giving them preferential treatment. That's how affirmative action, in its current form, creates more problems than it solves. It's not really intended to be racist but it can actually cause the injustices it's supposed to fix.

I have to respect Kilpatrick standing his ground but if he really doesn't know what the problem is then I wouldn't know what to tell him.

Haha, I thought they'd be wasting their time. I guess not. Nicely played, at least Angelo has done one thing right this offseason besides getting Briggs back.

QUOTE(Vance Law @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:30 PM) If there's one thing that has me semi-optimistic about Anderson starting (aside from the obvious he's had an awesome spring) it's that Jerry Owens has all of ONE stolen base this spring. Hopefully that gives Ozzie enough pause to think Owens isn't fully healthy, and therefore worthless. The reason he hasn't been stealing bases this spring is b/c he's not going to overexert himself and get hurt trying to steal bases in the spring when he has no reason to prove he can do it.

I'm not actually even convinced she meant to say "I haven't been proud of my country." I know what the exact quote is, but I've seen/read about her giving basically that same speech a few other times, and they all have the same theme. She goes from talking about being disillusioned with American politics to how her husband's campaign makes her feel proud of American politics because of all the energy and passion and everything. Nowhere does she imply "I"ve never really liked America until now" so I'm thinking that one time is the anomaly and she crossed up her words.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:22 PM) Yahoo and CNN will often use the same AP article. I know, and it probably got updated to include the party name a few hours after I saw it.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:18 PM) http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/17/ryan.ap/ this AP article? seems to say Republican in the first sentence. It was on Yahoo, only reason I remember is because I was reading the trolls posting on what used to be Yahoo's message boards talking about it.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:17 PM) Her end results have no bearing on whatever test scores she had prior to entrance. She could have folded like a cheap lawnchair come test time. Her tests could have been middle of the road or bottom of the heap, we don't know. But if they were, then at the time of entrance, she WAS less qualified (by the only testing standard they use). None of this is anything we know, btw, and there isn't any credible way for us to find out either. She could've bombed her tests, she could've aced them, who knows.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 06:12 PM) The national papers that picked up Ryan's story sure mentioned it. My buddy in the DC area made sure to call me and let me know he noticed that it was a Republican who got busted in Illinois. I just replied that he was a crook, regardless of party, but thanks for noticing. I don't doubt that, I also don't doubt there are articles that mention Kilpatrick's party. After all, it's how I found out, it's not like I did any research or anything special. But yeah like I said the media is biased, even when you factor in Fox News and conservative talk radio it just tips the scale, but doesn't even it.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 05:45 PM) If she did get in because of AA that doesnt have to mean she was unqualified but it does however mean that she got in ahead of someone more qualified and that person didnt get in because of her. Its this train of thought that is the problem with affirmative action. If she qualifies she deserved to get in, regardless of what race she is and whether she got in because of AA. End of story IMO. I think she decisively showed everyone that too. Here's where the argument fails - yes, if by during the process of meeting a quota you have to admit less qualified minority candidates over more qualified white students in order to comply. That is the problem with affirmative action and I agree with you 100%. But to say that everyone who gets in because of AA squeezes out a more qualified white student means that no AA students are actually qualified which then means that minority students are, by default, less qualified than white students. Obviously this isn't true as demonstrated by Mrs. Obama.

Yeah he was a Democrat but what's it matter really? I would say that not focusing on his party affiliation shows less bias and not more. The original AP article about George Ryan's corruption conviction didn't even mention that he was a Republican at all so it's not like the media is going out of its way to favor Democrats here. (Side note: of course now, 1-2 years later I have no way of backing up this statement.) If you're arguing that the media is biased in favor of liberals more often than not than yeah I agree. But not based off of this.

*pats self on back*

QUOTE(Disco72 @ Mar 24, 2008 -> 04:24 PM) Some fans have definitely held him accountable; others continue to blame Ozzie, Kenny, and the Wicked Witch of the West for his struggles. Again, the positive side here is that it appears that all is good this Spring, which is good for the Sox and good for fans that want to watch good, winning baseball. (By the way, I have to be the slowest to 150 posts in history...it only took 5 years!) Well... I still disagree with starting Erstad over Anderson and I'm convinced the end result would've been better than Erstad, not that those numbers would've been difficult to exceed though. For that I blame Ozzie. But yeah otherwise mostly everything else is Anderson's fault, from just plain not putting up the numbers to not being dedicated enough to put in the work to being a b**** and throwing himself pity parties. But it looks like that chapter of his life is over, thankfully.

Whether she got in because of AA or not I highly doubt Mrs. Obama was so egregiously unqualified that she denied a would-be deserving white student from getting in. All you have to do is look at the end result, I mean it's not like she is some hood rat from 63rd street, she graduated with honors from some of the best schools in the country. That to me makes this entire argument irrelevant, and it's why I haven't chimed in until now.

I think McCain has a pretty good grasp on how to handle the war on a tactical level, i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan in the short term, but I am not really convinced he has an overall strategy that will accomplish anything, much like the Republican Party's been doing in Bush's second term. Just... uhh... stay the course and... well we'll cross that bridge when we get there ok guys? And IMO that's the reason McCain's statement(s) is(are) a cause for concern. Militant Islam isn't some unified world movement that we can just confront one-on-one like the Cold War, and hell, even that wasn't actually working like that under the surface. These are things I'd hope a leader would know and if McCain is elected I hope somebody sets him straight because I don't like the alternative. For the record I think the reverse is true for Obama, he has a good overall understanding of the "big picture", who the players are, how to engage/confront them, and what the desired end state is but he doesn't really know the ins and outs very well.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 19, 2008 -> 09:28 AM) Kinda like the 100 year war "myth"? Every single day that statement is blown TOTALLY out of context... if he doesn't wish he never said it, he should be. He probably thought it was ok to put that qualifier on the end but he should've known better in this sound-bite driven media.