Useless liberal arguments

That's cause we cured your zenophobe tendencies.

I cannot agree that GWB could ever have obtained a degree from a prestigious university (let alone two) without using family influence, or a proxy or two.

You see, George is not capable of putting a coherent paragraph together, or having an original thought. There is simply no evidence for this. How then could he write a competent essay? (I am assuming here that the material required for these famous universties' final exams nowadays consists of more than just a series of tick boxes).

So I regret I must conclude, McG, regretfully at the risk of upsetting you, that you must be wrong on this point at least.

The President's SAT scores are public knowledge. We know little or nothing in this area about his opponent, mainly because he refuses to release anything pertaining to these records. Wonder why?

As far as I know JW nobody has accused Kerry of getting assistance in his career ladder...as far as I know.

Let me see if I understand you correctly now. The part you find stupid, wrong, and pointless is not the contention that Bin Laden was planning to attack the US. I read your initial post as saying that you do, but from your reply to me, I take it that your beef is with something different. It's with the implication that Bush could and should have used the memo's information to prevent 9/11. If my original understanding of your point was wrong and my current understanding is right, I more or less agree with you on 1), too.

happy to give you the reply you expected McGentrix.....you of course insure that when you post the sort of thread that's expected of you......self fullfilling prophecy.....and classic passive aggressive behavior.........hell though, I'm still on my first cup of coffee...I'll play the game.

One likely explanation is that you have never bothered to search Google for the terms " 'SAT Score', 'John Kerry' ". If you had, you would know that John Kerry's SAT score was 1190, which compares unfavorably with George W. Bush's 1206, but favorably with Bill Clinton's 1032.

No, that's not quite right... Hmmmm... In my reply to you I quoted some of thepoints from the 8/6 PDB. I defy anyone to go back to 8/6/01 and tell me that by reading that brief that we would be attacked as we were. It's obscure information hinting at the desires of an evil terrorist. Bin Laden wanted to attack America? Well, duh. He already had on numerous occasions.

It's the use of the 8/6 PDB as a smoking gun that I find useless.

It's kind of like the whole WMD argument. in March 2003 it was unknown if Saddam had WMD's or not. The UN inspectors had been gone for four years, Saddam was uncooperative with the inspectors and would not allow them to do their jobs to prove he had no more WMD's. To me, and many others, the risk was too great that in his insanity over Israel and the US he may give those WMD's to terrorists. Now we know he had none and we are safer for it.

Hey never mind legality and morality for now.

Seen this? It's about economics and business. As well as competence.

http://www.openlettertothepresident.org/

Yeah, and I scored a 1280, obviously SAT's are vastly overrated.

While free-associating, I thought that McG might enjoy this article by a dear, long time friend of mine. This was published in the Vancouver Sun. As a Canadian, this was one of my favourite recent articles of his:

The NHL must die: Too many teams are paying too much money for a talent pool of middling players; for pro hockey to survive, this trend must be reversed

by Michael Taube and Paul Tuns

A couple of weeks before National Hockey League owners locked out their players, a rumour circulated that some team owners were "seriously considering" starting a new league if the lockout lasted past January.

The rumour, started by an unidentified NHL team owner, is still unsubstantiated. But the idea itself is not necessarily a bad one.

As it stands, the NHL is one of the least profitable sports leagues in existence. The 30 professional hockey teams reportedly lost around $273 million US during the 2002-03 season, according to a disputed, NHL-commissioned paper. The league also suffered a massive cut in its once-lucrative television contract, which will undoubtedly lead to further losses down the road.

The idea of starting a new hockey league could help the owners reverse two trends that have contributed to the NHL's rapid decline over the past decade or so.

Since 1979, the NHL has added 13 new teams,and nearly doubled in size. This includes the four former World Hockey Association squads for the 1979-80 season, as well as nine expansion clubs.

Meanwhile, six NHL teams have shifted cities due to continuing losses, while four teams have declared bankruptcy. In the 1990s, NHL owners greedily sought new owners willing to pay exorbitant expansion fees, utterly blind to the long-term effects it had on the game. A half-dozen new teams required about 120 NHL-calibre players, players that unfortunately don't exist.

Stuck with an economic mess and inferior hockey, the NHL stubbornly refuses to downsize.

Next was the explosion in players' pay. The salary of the average pro hockey player has increased from $271,000 US in 1990-91 to more than $1.8 million in 2002-03. Unfortunately for the NHL, revenue did not also increase sixfold.

The NHL spends about 75 per cent of its revenues on player salaries. That's nearly 20 per cent higher than other sports, including baseball, basketball and football. Now, team owners want to establish a salary cap to keep their spending levels in check, seeing the success of this mechanism to control team expenditures in the National Football League and National Basketball Association.

As far as we are concerned, a salary cap for today's NHL is too little, too late.

The NHL is not a marketable sports league any longer. There are too many teams paying ridiculously high salaries for a talent pool of middle-of-the-road players.

And even though the vast majority of well-paid players lack enough talent and the ability to sustain long-term careers, their artificial market value has skyrocketed. The problem is not the superstar getting $10 million a year, but the third-string winger or fifth defenceman getting $2.5 million. But in an oversized league, a legitimate third liner becomes a recent expansion team's starter who can command big bucks.

While players are allowed to ask for high salaries, and team owners are allowed to give them, the economic calculus is not sustainable. The owners must sense it, the players' union is surely aware of it, and the fans definitely know it.

Team owners could change all this by abandoning the NHL and starting a new pro hockey league. The new league, which we'll call for the sake of this article the PHL, will have to do three things to survive.

First, the PHL must reduce the number of teams by at least five or 10. We suggest returning to the status quo of the 1980s, with 21 teams. The criteria to eliminate teams could be based on financial position, attendance levels, gate receipts and hockey tradition.

The new PHL team owners would buy out the floundering teams for a little less than their expansion fee. Or some teams could simply merge, such as the geographically close Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

Whatever the method, the key is to get the number of teams down to a manageable level. By doing so, second-tier teams such as the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames would be able to put on exciting hockey matches, regain their competitive fire and recapture their glory days.

Second, the PHL must reduce annual salary levels. This wouldn't be too hard to accomplish -- with fewer teams competing for players, there would be less competition to drive up salaries and less need for mediocre players. Therefore, PHL team owners could be more selective when offering salaries to players.

Third, the PHL must, unlike its predecessor, allow the free market to flourish.

For instance, teams that declare bankruptcy must fold, and not be protected by the league.

Team owners must be allowed to spend whatever they want on a player's salary, and not be forced into a restrictive financial environment that includes foolish items like luxury taxes. And if hockey players decide to go on strike, PHL teams must have the right to hire replacement players instead of temporarily closing down the league.

The NHL may be beyond saving, but the PHL can be a great success.

At the very least, perhaps just thinking about how a PHL could be run successfully will lead the NHL to make the necessary improvements before taking the drastic step of ending a century's worth of hockey tradition and starting a league anew.

Vancouver Sun
September 29, 2004
p. A19

I agree with that. There is no reason at all why professional atheletes get the money they do. Endorsements deals I can understand, but not the huge salaries that garner.

So, McG, when those same athletes earn hundreds of millions in television revenues for the teams for which they play, the lion's share should go to the owners? As opposed, say, to those whose skills draw in the spectators and the viewers at home?

Fair enough, I still find a lot of agreement on that reading. A president is always surrounded by a dozen advisors who brief him, every advisor thinks his brief is top priority, and it's only after the fact that the president knows which advisor was right. There are several good reasons to think George W. Bush mishandled 9/11, but I agree this memo isn't one of them.


But it was known that in the views of independent strategy experts, it was not in Iraq's strategic interest hand such weapons to terrorists. At this time, I remember reading several papers who said this on the web page of the US Army's War College. I remember reading several papers who said it was in the strategic interest of the US to become more of a partner and less of a bully in the Gulf region. I don't remember any independent analyst saying that Saddam was planning to give terrorists WMDs, and that a more aggressive course was called for.


That's not how I remember the news in 2002 and 2003. As I remember it, Saddam seemed uncooperative, but didn't forbid anything. With hindsight, given that he didn't indeed possess any WMDs, it isn't even clear to me that he was uncooperative when he said 'we have no WMDs, but we have no record to prove that we don't.'


While Saddam no doubt was wicked, I don't remember anyone important charging him with being insane. Power-hungry -- yes. Murderous -- yes. But not insane.

Think of it as trickle down economics.

If teams don't have to pay out so much, they don't need to take in as much. Ticket prices would go down, commercial prices would go down because TV revenues could go down because the league won't have to charge as much. If commercial rates go down, the price of consumer goods go down. That means more money in the pockets of people who can now afford to go to more games because ticket prices might be reasonable.

Besides, without the owners, those players are unemployed.

Jeeze, you must be livin' in la-la land . . . reduce player salaries and then hold yer breath waitin' for the ticket prices, and the advertising rates to go down. Without the owners, there would still be local interest in sports, and you'd have teams forming just as the Chicago Cubs did in 1868. Green Bay, Wisconsin proves that you don't need multimillinaire owners, and taxpayer rip-offs for stadiums to promote professional sports.

Just more whining on behalf of the wealthy, as though they were alone responsible for the human talents and efforts which they exploit for personal gain.

Dream on McG . . . you're still gonna pay three bucks--or more--for that hotdog at the ball park.

Whining on behalf on the wealthy? That's a joke, right? All those nearly homeless professional atheletes should be pitied!

I like my idea better and I bet it would happen.

I don't pity the athletes, i just recognize the means of production. You are definitely living in dream land if you think the owners would ever voluntarily reduce ticket prices, or that the broadcast networks would reduce advertizing rates. The players get their salaries both from collective bargaining and from individual negotiation. The amounts they receive are recognition of the income they generate for the owners of teams. I have no sympathy for either side when they cry crocodile tears about money. This is simple salary negotiation, and the only ones getting ripped off here are, perhaps, the fans. But they don't have to spend the money if they don't wish to. You'll only get ticket price reductions, and reduction of airtime rates for ads when there is a prolonged and nation-wide boycott of the ball parks. It just ain't gonna happen.

How about projecting the funny adminstration in a positive sense.
?
I mean the noble achievements for the last 8 years.
Start with the last few weeks of Bill Clinton's stewardship/ leadership.
I am here to learn something positive from you for which i will ever be indebted to you.
Rama

"From both sides.
It's ridiculous. I am tired of getting angry at posters
when there are so many issues to be angry at."
spellbound