Taro T

So you would like to see the economy go down, so that class warfare begins / escalates? I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean, but it's late and I'm tired and that's what I am taking from your message.

How are you defining "class struggle"? Back to SDS's q, I doubt anyone gets fired over it as no one at MSNBC seems to understand why they are the last place channel. It probably has something to do w/ little things like that or Olbermann stating the day Hillary addressed the convention that Hillary would support Obama because of some joke McCain supposedly made about Chelsea when Chelsea was a teen. Funny, I thought she'd support him because they are BOTH democrats.

Does anybody else see shades of David Souter in this selection?

You've stated before that you don't want McCain to be President and don't want any republican to win this election. In the post I originally responded to you, you called McCain Bluefire's candidate. Implying that Obama is your candidate; did I infer that incorrectly? Perhaps I should have stated "Mike and those on the left" rather than Mike and others from the left. Either way, I'd expect anyone that doesn't want McCain AND wants Obama should be very happy with this pick as McCain "just threw away the election". Doesn't that lead to the outcome you'd prefer?

I was referring directly to Mike's claim that this "candidate just threw away the election". I didn't mean to imply any of the "talking heads" from the media or either side had said it was a terrible choice. Again, if she IS a horrible choice as a running mate, I'd expect Mike and others from the left thinking that she was a great choice. It seems to me that he doesn't necessarily think that McCain threw the election away.

It's not 1/2 the Republican party going "huh, who?" right now; it's 90% of it; and 95% of the Dems are doing the same thing. It doesn't appear that Obama's crew had much of an inkling that this choice was coming, or the 1st statement out of the campaign wouldn't have been "cool, experience, or lack thereof, is now officially off the table". Obama and Biden were much more "presidential" in their statement, not surprisingly. I'd be interested in reading what Darin has to say about her, as he probably has actually heard of her; unlike most of the posters in this thread. It is definitely an interesting pick and it has done one thing McCain wanted, it got last night's speech nearly totally off the radar. I'm a little confused though about 1 thing in this thread. If this does, in fact, torpedo McCain's chances why do most of the Democratic candidate supporters seem upset by this? Shouldn't you be elated at this choice? The people on the left and right already have their minds made up. Who wins this one is the one that gets the most independents and Reagan democrats to come over to their side. At 1st glance, this looks like a good choice for McCain. She gave a good speech and would appear to have the right background to help McCain make inroads with Hillary supporters. On the surface, both candidates made good choices for VP.

I'm not sure how the experience card is completely off the table. Obama hasn't increased his experience any with this choice nor has McCain decreased his. For Obama to hit McCain on the VP's lack of experience, he has to highlight his own lack of experience. I'd expect when the McCain camp does hit Obama on experience, if Palin's experience comes up in response, that they will focus on her having been a governor (albeit for a short time and for a "small" state). It'll be interesting to see what Hillary voters think of this. As that is clearly who he's pandering to.

You're probably right in that the speech seeming weaker than his typical speeches probably won't matter when you've got the cult of personality already forming/ formed around him. Watching CNN after the speech, I thought the chick in the blue (Campbell Brown?) was going to have to excuse herself as she could barely contain the moans of ecstasy she was clearly experiencing. Obama has been campaigning as an "agent for change", a new type of politician, and able to work across the aisle, for the past 10 or so months. The attacks on McCain sure did look an awful lot like a typical liberal Democratic politician. It'll be interesting to see how his "message of change" holds up in what is looking to be set up as a pretty good old-fashioned mud-slinging donnybrook. If he can maintain the aura of change, he wins; if he comes across as more of the same-old same-old, then the Dems have found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again.

My bad. Forgot about Kay.

Unfortunately the only one mentioned to date to be under consideration is Carly Fiorina. It's bad enough we have politicians in office, I really don't want to see a marketer in the #2 slot.

Totally depends on how they get there. If they end up injury depleted and going on a 4-0 run to make it into the playoffs (that last win also knocking the Cheatriots* out) and end up losing to a 14-2 Colts team, then yeah, considering it's been 8 years, that is acceptable. If they end up on the wrong end of another homerun throw forward after having had a huge lead late in that game, after having had a huge lead in the division only to lose it in December, then probably not.

I don't think he plays in an older age group in the other league, but he plays against a higher caliber of competition. It now is looking like that defending league champ team grabbed the other Pony league ringer, so this team grabbed a ringer of their own. Heck of a way to teach sportsmanship to 8-10 year olds.

That definitely flips around opinion on who is in the right on this one. The original article didn't mention that the pitcher was a mid-season addition. So it does look like the league is actually a developmental league and it was/is trying to keep the skill levels comparable across the age groups. I wonder what other details are missing out of this version of the story.

I guess it doesn't really matter, considering they didn't bother to count all the delegates anyhow. Probably. But now he has the cover of "hey, you saw my speech; A'm behind this guy 100%". I'd expect that speech gives Obama a bit of a bounce. It'll be interesting to see how Obama's speech goes over tomorrow. I'm still not sure why he's giving the speech infront of Greek columns.

Question: Louisiana has/had 67 votes and gave 43 to Obama and 7 to Clinton. What the frig happened to the other 17?

I remember seeing Bruce beat Elliot on occassion, but for the life of me can't remember a single time Bruce ever beat Bosselli. (Not that he played them often.) Bosselli always seemed to me the one guy that owned Bruce. It doesn't take away from your point though.

What makes you think it's an act?

It's absolutely assinine not to let the kid pitch. But, a couple of things don't add up in this. I've never heard of a "developmental" league where the teams go out and recruit players. That stuff happens in "travel" leagues. This clearly isn't a developmental league. Someone in the article mentioned moving the kid up an age bracket, that seems to have been the simplest solution to the problem had it been done before the season started, or right when it became obvious he was too good for the kids around him. Assuming his fielding and hitting are reasonable, and if he's throwing 40 mph heat w/ control @ 9, I'd have to assume they are, then he'd probably get more out of competing against kids he's not blowing away as well. The kid should have been pitching in a higher age level at the start of the season. Gee, I wonder why it became an issue 8 games in.

If that's mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Sounds a little high for median.

Fair enough. At any rate, a change in tax policy of that magnitude would NOT put accountants out of business, regardless of what people might expect.

Would you propose the transaction tax be levied at each transaction in the creation of goods, or only for finished goods? Also, would services supplied to a manufacturer / producer be taxed, or would those get taxed only at the finished goods transaction? It'd be real interesting watching how the shift in tax policy effected the vertical integration of companies and how it effected foreign / domestic production. I agree that everyone on this board will be probably be deceased before a tax policy shift of that magnitude gets enacted.

Lori, excellent post. (Gee, there's a surprise.) And a thanks to Tim for starting this discussion. (Who'd've thunk it? There is still room on this board for legitimate discussions. ) My concern in Tim's posts, and one which I hope he will come back and expound upon / clarify is what he meant by (paraphrasing here) "the NFL is taking note of the size of the local media presence"? There have been several legitimate reasons given for why the WNY print media presence was small at this game (although it does appear that, as has been addressed, Tim overlooked your favorite Chuck Pollock). I see several legitimate reasons for the Toronto media to step up their NFL coverage including: it's the glamour sport in the US, and if Canada has a glamour city, TO is definitely it; they have had little to no 1st hand coverage of the NFL in the past; it probably is cheaper to cover a 5 month / year sport that only plays once / week rather than 7 month / year sports that play every day if they are looking to cut production costs. None of these reasons has anything to do with a diminished following of the Bills in WNY. They, for the most part, deal with the economics of running a printed newspaper. I am troubled that the NFL would be bringing this into their determination on whether to support a small market's viability in anything more than a cursory manner. As you mentioned, this trimming back of expenses at newspapers is not limited to WNY, nor is it limited to small markets. E.g., NYC papers have trimmed back on their reporters' travel to cover other sports as well. I haven't been one of the ones overly worried that the Bills will pack up and find the nearest Mayflower when Ralph passes on. Comments such as Tim's do make me a slight bit more nervous. Which again, is why I'd really like to read an expansion of Mr. Graham's thoughts on that.

After THIS post, I am done w/ this thread. You are the one starting this thread. You are the one asking the questions. And you are the one seemingly claiming that God doesn't exist. That would put the onus on you. But as I've stated, far too many times, YOU can't prove God doesn't exist; just as I can't prove that He does exist. (Science isn't equipped to prove, nor disprove, the existance of God. ) YOU are making a claim that something is true - namely that God doesn't exist. By your own words, that puts the onus on YOU. You've written that the question of whether the Christian God exists "has a myriad of claims and certainties... its either true or false, one or the other people", well if it has certainties and is obviously true or false, why don't you enlighten us and explain how His existance is false? I have never written that you are politically incorrect. That statement appears to be another one of the strawmen you have consistantly set up apparently trying to draw someone into a pissing match w/ you. Why in the world should I have a discussion about religion at WORK? You obviously haven't been in the working world very long, if at all. The whole premise of this thread is that you are curious about Christianity but then you have the audacity to tell me how I should be living as a Christian?!?!? You know absolutely nothing about me, you don't even know which particular religion I follow, but you know how I should profess and express MY faith. As I stated at the beginning of this post, I am done w/ this thread. PS - I don't know anything at all about you, so how am I supposed to tell you whether or not you will be going to hell? Even if I did know you, that's not my call to make. For not believing in Jesus, I doubt that gets you eternal damnation.

You would be wrong thinking that I agree that faith in God is a failing argument. You would also be wrong in thinking that I agree that the Christian religion is necessarily "dangerous". As I have stated on several occassions, science is not currently equipped to answer the question as to whether God exists. That does NOT mean that He doesn't exist, it simply means that we cannot use science to "prove" that He does or does not exist. You are looking for something that we (humanity) currently are not capable of. We are continuously expanding our capabilities. Will we ever be able to "prove" God exists? I don't know. Maybe. Whether we do or don't doesn't really bother me much one way or the other. I'm not certain why you think you are going to hell for using your "brain and logic". Nor, for that matter, do I understand why you think that God doesn't want you to use your brain. Regardless, I think I am done w/ this thread.

Yeah, because in the Church of Global Warming, it is all about "common sense and being honest with yourself". It's not about additional money in the apostles' pockets nor is it about additional governmental control of the masses. Nope, it's none of that. It's entirely about "honesty". Science would never be taken as a matter of "faith" nor used as an instrument by the leaders to further their own ends. I do agree with you that science SHOULD be about common sense and searching for truth / honesty, and also that it oftentimes is. But there are and have been many instances where science isn't nearly as pure as we would like it to be. Back more to point, science isn't remotely advanced enough to posit whether God does or does not exist. I doubt it will be close to that point within either of our grandchildren's lifetimes. In 2008, it is still a question that must be answered via "faith". As for your request for me to explain my beliefs, I've already stated that a single message board post would not come close to summing them up. There is really little reason for me to attempt to summarize it, as we both know that anything I post will display both "faith" on my part and will entail providing a summation of MY interpretation of actions and events I have witnessed and participated in. You have stated that you want it presented "in a way that makes sense", but you have exhibited a hostility to faith. I don't see how, short of an extremely long disertation, that I can even begin to do that; and, quite honestly, I truly doubt that I am remotely eloquant enough to fully explain myself on this matter even in that setting. I also have doubts regarding how open minded you'd be to attempt to understand what I attempted to say and where I was coming from. You want "proof", I don't have it for you. But I do have it for myself, for me that is enough. I don't need to proselytize, I am comfortable both in my faith AND my quest for knowledge. Are you? We do agree on the "go Bills" sentiment.