Taro T

Debbie, I worked for the last 10 years in Geneva (before going out on my own 1 year ago) and don't know of a single employer there that pays $10/hr without benefits. Do you mind my asking who your friend worked for in Geneva? I will grant you that the Ra-cha-cha economy is not where I would like to see it, but it is NOT the disaster that you make it out to be. I also don't know how to break it to you, but the genius who brought Ra-cha-cha the Fast Ferry is one of your beloved Dems. Had the SOB asked ANYONE at Simon to look into the economics of the project, they would have pointed out to him that there was no way in heck that the thing would be successful without it getting a license to have a casino on board. The jackhole blew ~$40MM on a dream with NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that it could be successful. By the way, there is a lot left to go back to. With all due respect, I think you have no idea whatsoever what you are talking about.

Mickey, I do not believe that you are correct in that statement. Granted, I have only been posting here for ~8 months, but I have not seen that sentiment posted here.

Of the teams that will / might make the playoffs, my preferences for Sabres opponents currently would go as follows: TB Philly Atlanta Rangers Montreal Carolina NJ Ottawa

The Missouri government has a $9T debt? No wonder they don't want to shell out $8.99 a pop.

I'm certain that you didn't mean it too, but your post comes across as sounding like you think it is ok for the minority party to demonstrate leadership and provide ideas for 2 months every 2 years.

Dean, I understand that this is your favourite chant, but how many times do I have to remind you that "Ooh, aah, ... " typically ends in "Sabres on the golf course". This is an unacceptable chant. Check out TSR for acceptable ones. With any luck, the Sabres have several months before they are thinking about hitting the links.

Thanks. Actually, the document referred to in the news article is linked in BiB's thread.

Can anyone else get this link to work? It doesn't seem to work from my computer.

Sterilized at the very least.

So, the US uses naval and air bases in the UAE (and Saudi Arabia) for free? Cool. No wonder they wanted to infiltrate our ports and kill us all!

That's the $29MM question. I don't know what the consequences would be, but am willing to predict they won't be what the "reformers" intend them to be.

No, no, it's not bribery because the politician ALWAYS supports the position that the donator supports PRIOR to the donation. The money given to the politician is simply money given to support a person who holds the same position that the lobbyist / donor supports and help that person get (re)elected. Because the lobbyist knows what a wonderful job congresscritter x is doing and it is just a terrific coincidence that the lobbyist may be asked to help in drafting / formulating legislation. It's just another way that we have the best elected officials that money can buy. (Apologies to Mel Brooks.)

Hasn't it always meant that? I would actually like to see the full text of his comments because it seems to me he was referring to "lobbying reform" in general, not the 527's in particular. But getting back to your previous comment, lobbying / campaign / whatever you want to call it reform is ALWAYS about protecting incumbents. Limiting the amount of money that can be spent by challengers (which is a big part of what 527's accomplish) is always considered a good idea by those in power.

I'll try. The league bowed to fan pressure in '70 and brought home team whites into the league along with Buffalo and Vancouver. The league bowed to equipment manager pressure in '03 and made home team darks the norm so teams could travel with just 1 (white) set of uni's on road trips. (Regardless of whether the home team wears their normal (dark) uni's or their alternate (dark) uni's, the visitor will wear white, unless the game is in Montreal where the alternates are white.)

I forgot to add in my original reply to you that I hope your increased posting of late is an indication that your battle is going well.

Cool. Did the results of your poll on the other board end up the way you expected?

I will not dispute your claim that UAE supports Hamas, (I didn't know that they did, but of Middle Eastern countries, Israel is the only one that I would be surprised to hear that they were supporting Hamas.) I'm not certain what the Taliban supporting al Qaeda has to do w/ UAE nor DPW. I know the Commission report states that there were [EDIT:possible] contacts between al Qaeda and UAE prior to 9/11/01 and that Pakistan made contact w/ Taliban for the US post-9/11, but I could not find where the UAE contacted al Qaeda post-9/11. Perhaps you could provide a link so I could learn details of this meeting? UAE supports several US Navy functions in the region and have been an ally in Afghanistan. I do not see where telling them to blank themselves is in the US's interest.

Or does anyone want to take a guess at how many US companies will be required to comply with foreign laws containing provisions similar to those on page 4? (All grandfathered companies "controlling critical infrastructure" have to be US controlled / owned within 5 years.) As an aside, if this bill passes, does that mean that ALL cargo must be inspected? If so, have they figured out what will constitute "inspection" because my understanding is that not all cargo is currently inspected? At least we don't look like racists with this one (excepting (and it's a big exception) the "Special Rule" for "Specified Port Terminals" Why that has to stay in here now that DPW has stated they won't take control of the US ports is beyond me.) (Oh, wait a minute, we do look like racists. ) If that was gone, we'd just look like people that think "free trade" is great for others, but not for the US. Either way, can we possibly appear more hypocritical?

That's NEWT, not mute!

Definition of "emergency" would send this into another gray area. Would losing the "chatter" about an attack that may be weeks away by losing track of a chain of conversations constitute an "emergency"? I would say that under several circumstances it could. Do you have an idea of how many communications like this we are talking about? (I do not which is why I am asking.) If we are talking a handful per week, then it wouldn't be terribly onerous to meet this requirement. If we are talking 100's or 1,000's, I could definitely see this becoming a paperwork nightmare. I do appreciate your attempts to help me understand the legalese of this issue.

That is really sad that he missed seeing his # in the rafters by so little. I never got to see him play as he was slightly before my time, but I remember him coaching in Atlanta and his Lite Beer commercial. It was a classic. RIP Boom Boom.

Mickey, I'd like to discuss a different issue. I still see a glaring hole in the FISA procedures which I do not know of a way to get around without giving the executive branch waaay too much authority. That is, FISA does not address wire taps, intercepts, or whatever you want to call them that may be required to keep tracking an agent of a foreign power between the time the individual becomes a suspected terrorist and when the (deputy) AG actually "authorizes" the wire tap. Your posts lead me to believe that you believe these are acceptable under FISA, I still don't see that. I recall your post stating that the AG certification is simply a notification and I agree with that. However, I still do not see anything in the statute that allows for surveillance prior to AG authorization. Based on the manner of how quickly these people change phones and change contacts, I can see the US not acting (listening) during this gray time providing an extreme advantage to the bad guys. If I am misreading something in the statute, can you please point out to me what it is I am missing / misreading? If I am not misreading something, I can understand why the executive wants to work outside of FISA. Although the information gathered is to be used for national security interests, the govt. DOES try to prosecute suspected terrorists (the guys from Lackawana, Jose P., etc.). If the information used to prosecute the suspected terrorists was obtained based off of information obtained during the FISA gray time, wouldn't a good lawyer manage to get everything after that thrown out? I know he would attempt to get everything thrown out, I don't know if he'd be successful. Perhaps you could shed some insight on that. If FISA isn't applicable, and the taps fall under executive priviledge then the information wouldn't get tossed out. (At least not for having been obtained "illegally".) You are right that this is a very serious issue. The only way I see to cover the "gray time" is to give much lower level people the authority to authorize these taps, which WILL result in a lot of the abuse that you suspect is already ongoing. I can not say that that is remotely a good solution to this problem.

Tenny, did you get stood up at the alter by a long necked woman? You seem to have quite a fetish / aversion about necks.

So you have the Sports Package, but not Center Ice? If that's what you have, I know that's the way MLB works for the various regional sports networks (I only get NY games and ESPN games), so I'm not too surprised the NHL does that w/ CI. If you have both, I really don't understand why they blacked you out and would definitely recommend calling your provider. Sorry to hear you couldn't watch the game.

Basically by giving people like Bin Laden "proof" that all Americans are xenophobic idiots that do view all Arabs as terrorists. Most people (realizing you weren't among them) didn't seem to have a problem with foreigners managing port terminals when they were run by Brits, Danes, Japanese, Singaporeans, and even the Chinese. The US looks very bad over this one and I am embarrassed about this. CTM and KRC are far more eloquent regarding this issue (see posts 74, 80, and 76 and several others (BiB's as well) in this thread) than I am.