teke184

Legit question: Since, if I'm not mistaken, the full story of the corporate accounting scandals was not public at that point --- wouldn't that news, alone, have driven the country back into a recession? I can only imagine it would have had a chilling impact on investment. Seems like 9/11 was just pouring on the problems financially. -=Mike Without 9/11, it may not have caused a recession but assuredly would have caused the huge drops in the Dow we've seen since then. It would have made stock investments much riskier overnight, which would have caused many people to sell out while they could and depress the value of the entire stock market. The main changes that would happen would be that companies couldn't count on offering new shares of stock to the public to generate money but, instead, getting loans. This would be tougher for some companies than others, as Dunn and Bradstreet had already rated a lot of companies like K-Mart as "Junk Bonds", meaning an inordinately high risk would be taken by lending them money and that they'd have to pay interest on their loans MUCH higher than the average company would.

"Reaganomics" as a positive experience? Now I've heard everything.... If you think "Reaganomics" was so bad, explain to me how it was worse than the "Malaise Days" of Jimmy Carter, with over 10% interest annually while the average person's salary was probably growing 4% during that same time. By all accounts, the economy was completely in the shitter in the late 70s. The only good thing I've EVER heard about the economy at that time was that any investments made in that time period that paid interest (bonds, CDs, etc.) were locked into double-digit interest, which was only good because the interest rates dropped so drastically during the Reagan years and it was impossible to get that kind of interest on any normal investments.

ahem... DOH!

Useless fact #1- The make-or-break point of the Miami-Florida State tiebreaker in my game is 46 points. At that point or below, I get the tiebreaker. Above that, Phoenixrising gets it. Useless fact #2- The make-or-break point for tiebreaker #2 between me and Phoenixrising, Brad Smith's performance, is 300 yards. However, those won't be important because... Important fact #1- Phoenixrising and I differ on an odd number of games. The only games in which Phoenix and I differ are: Arizona State vs. Northwestern Washington State vs Colorado Wyoming vs. Texas A&M Georgia Tech vs. Clemson Boston College vs. Penn State My choices are all on the left and Phoenixrising's are on the right.

This is another semantics argument waiting to happen... This country has ALWAYS lived on deficit economies, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. The country would borrow a ton of money, pay it back over decades then, around the time the country was solvent, they'd go out and borrow even MORE money. On top of that, it's unfair to treat all deficit figures as straight dollar amounts because the strength of the dollar has changed over time. A 2004 dollar can't buy what a 1945 dollar could because of the inflation in currency over the course of 60 years. The deficit as a percentage of a year's Gross Domestic Product (everything produced in a country) is a much better indicator than straight dollar amounts because the total amount of the budget helps account for inflation. The following graph from the University of California at Berkeley's Economics classes, a conservative think tank if there ever was one </sarcasm>, shows the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that was either in surplus or in deficit over the last 100+ years. As you can see, the country had been running deficits almost continually since the days of Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, with about 30 straight years of deficits starting with Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency in the mid-1960s. While the percentage of the deficits had grown under the Reagan years, deficits were hardly a new thing and having them GREATLY offset the economic turmoil of the 1970s, which started due to Lyndon Johnson deciding to have his cake (pass the Great Society programs) and eat it too (fight the Vietnam War) in the mid-60s. Things reached a head under Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, as inflation had reached staggering heights and the average worker's pay wasn't increasing at the same rate as the Cost Of Living. (Cost Of Living is the yearly change in the cost of buying standard necessities, such as milk and bread, due to inflation's effect on the value of a dollar) Reagan's economic plan, while derided even by his own VP (Bush Sr.) as "voodoo economics", did what no one thought was possible anymore and stimulated HUGE growth in the economy without creating double-digit inflation at the same time. That put the skids on inflation and, in 1982, jump-started a dead economy into 9 years of near-continuous growth then, after one no-growth period and one negative growth period, ten more years of growth at the end of Bush Sr.'s term and throughout Clinton's entire eight-year term. While it would be pretentious to say that Reagan's economic policies are fully responsible for the growth, his policies DID help turn around an economy that had been hurting for about 15 years. The turnaround created opportunities that people took advantage of and were very successful as a result.

By pure economic terms, we did NOT have a recession in the early 1990s. A recession, by definition, has two consecutive quarters of negative growth. I had the numbers back when I took Econ 201 and it was minimal growth for one quarter (a fraction of a percent, IIRC) and low negative percentage growth for another quarter before resuming strong growth. By those definitions, we had nearly 20 years of strong growth from 1982 (the low point of the Reagan economy) to late 2001 (The aftermath of 9/11). The economy was already slowing down in 2000, right before the Florida election quagmire, but I don't believe it actually went into negative growth until 9/11, which was due to massive changes that happened overnight including hugely increased security costs, the disappearance of tourism in many areas for months, etc. It also didn't help that the Dot Com bubble burst as well as major scandals involving Tyco, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, and Enron being exposed. The former pretty much wrecked the economy of Silicon Valley and the latter four have had a huge impact on business and accounting practices. Enron was also the ringleader in schemes to induce power shortages of the Western US in 2000, which spiked energy prices and had a significant negative economic impact on the whole country. (Raising energy prices artifically harms EVERYONE in the country because the cost-of-business for every transaction goes up as a result. Also, for those who want to blame Bush for Enron and other companies, keep in mind that they'd been cooking the books for YEARS before it caught up with them during the Bush administration.)

You're one of the few. Have fun worshipping this day's Calvin Coolidge. -=Mike Warren G. Harding is more appropriate... both were surrounded by schemers and crooks on all levels and resulted in tons of indictments. Coincidentally, BOTH had a great economy throughout their presidencies as well, although only one of them is seen as beloved by anyone.

It's too early to decide if LSU had a great comeback or if OSU choked... I'm an LSU fan and, from what OSU showed me, they are better than anyone expected them to be. As such, in 6 months it may be considered a great LSU comeback against a great but underrated OSU rather than LSU choking for 3 quarters before OSU choked in the 4th and in OT.

Oh Christ, can you be a little more hysterical? I fucking carry around a "concealed weapon" with me; does that mean I'M up to no good? Like he would tell a cop he was "chasing girls" if he was trying to kill someone. Come the fuck on. If the kid truly violated his parole by uh, running... or even carrying a concealed weapon (if that violates parole in Florida---I'm not an expert on their legal system), then fine. Arrest the fucker for being a moron. But if you're just insinuating the kid was up to some horrible deed because he had a freaking pocket knife on him, get serious for a second. There's a "pocket knife" and then there's a knife with a four-inch blade. All the pocket knives *I* ever had topped out at about two and a half inches. A four-inch blade is long enough to be considered a concealed weapon except under VERY specific circumstances. While I can't find a specific example in Florida law concerning the length of a knife, I found this one in California law. - California Revised Statutes, 18-12-101

When this little fucker ends up behind bars again, I'd like to think that Vince McMahon of all people would be able to sue Tate's lawyer for libel over the claims that Tate "accidentally" killed that 6-year old with a wrestling move. Excuse me for not being more sympathetic, but this case was turned into a public relations nightmare for the prosecutors, Governor Jeb Bush, and the wrestling industry as a whole because no one could grasp the concept that Tate may have *gasp* KILLED THAT GIRL IN COLD BLOOD. EDIT- Okay, maybe he wasn't caught doing something HORRIBLE but the fact that he was up to no good and caught with a concealed weapon should be enough to show that he wasn't an innocent like he was portrayed to be.

Major recent changes: New Mexico went from a fairly strong Kerry state in mid-August (Kerry 50 to 42) to a Bush-leaning state (Bush 45 to 41) Florida went from a weak Bush lead (Bush 46, Kerry 45) to a decent Bush lead (Bush 48, Kerry 44) Missouri went from a tie (49% each) to a Bush lead (Bush 49, Kerry 45) Pennsylvania went from a strong Kerry lead (Kerry 53, Bush 44) to a slim Bush lead (Bush 47, Kerry 46) Minnesota, Iowa, and Colorado are all now tied. These were leaning Kerry recently. Bush made big gains in New Jersey but doesn't appear to have a chance. (It went from Kerry 47, Bush 38 to Kerry 50, Bush 46) Kerry has taken the lead in Tennesee, which was a tie until recently. Wisconsin is pratically a tie, although Kerry had 52% there recently. In addition, this is what the Webmaster has to say: "We have four new polls today, one of them significant. Bush and Kerry are now tied in Minnesota. This is bad news for Kerry. He should have been way ahead there. It is now clear that July was a good month for Kerry. He led the entire month. August has been a good month for Bush. He is definitely ahead now. No two ways about it. The other polls are in California, Michigan, and New Jersey, all of which still show Kerry in front."

As Sean Hannity, of all people, has said, this election is very simililar to the 1945 British Parliament elections in Great Britain. Winston Churchill's platform was "I'm a great war-time leader" while Clement Atlee's platform was "I'm a great peace-time leader." Considering that World War II was all but over at this time, the people voted for Atlee and his party, which knocked one of the greatest leaders in history out of office. The parallel is that Bush is widely seen as the better war-time leader (treating the War On Terror as a war) while Kerry is seen to be a better peace-time leader than Bush (as in "The War On Terror" is not our top priority). Kerry's done himself no favors by the way he's handled things. His Senate record and anti-war activities do not lend himself well to security issues. He beat himself against a wall with that, as Kerry can't offer anything better than what Bush is already doing when it comes to the War On Terror. HOWEVER, Kerry could possibly get a voter swing in his favor by making the race about homefront issues. He hasn't done this for the most part except for bitching about the loss of jobs under Bush. If he could run a positive campaign about what he could do on the homefront that *is consistant with his previous stances*, he could win. That being said, I don't think he's going to pull it off and it does NOT have anything to do with either candidate. The terrorist attacks in Russia, particularly the school hostage crisis, has put such an emphasis on The War On Terror and Homeland Security that it will be hard for Kerry to make anything else the focus of the campaign.

How come no Delirious on DVD? Don't know for sure, but it hasn't been available on VHS in years. It's the only reason why I still haven't destroyed my old bootleg containing Delerious, RAW, and Eddie Murphy's Best of SNL. Oh, BTW, I voted for Delerious because it had a better flow than RAW. Besides that, the recurring bits between the two tended to be better in it than in RAW. Example- Gay Honeymooners, Mr. T, and Michael Jackson in Delerious vs. the Mr. T Jedi Mind Trick, "I'll moonwalk all up and down your ass!", and "I can't go to San Francisco... they've got a 24-hour homo watch for me at the airport!" The one piece I'm a little divided on is drunken Mr. Murphy at the family barbecue ("Gus, you married a bigfoot, didn't ya?") vs. drunken Mr. Murphy talking about how poor he was ("I used to wear a Twister suit to school! Right hand blue! Left foot red! It was a goddamn game to these kids!").

You don't know jack... Tom Pritchard is a smaller guy who Cornette managed for years. I haven't seen anything that suggests he hates smaller wrestlers. I would suspect he has no power as far as determining who gets called up when. Johnny Ace and Kevin Kelly were more responsible for signing the first group of OVW guys than Pritchard. There have been quite a few smaller guys getting signed recently. The reason why hosses get signed and called up too fast is because Vince likes hosses, plain and simple. Dr. Tom Pritchard and Bruce Pritchard (Brother Love) had a long history of being involved with the old Mid-South territory and Paul Boesch in Houston. Bruce was actually a Boesch employee until Vince McMahon bought Boesch out in 1987 and Bruce was brought into the Titan hierarchy. Mid-South in particular was the epitome of a big-man's territory and Bruce has, with some of his decisions, made it known that he prefers big slugs to cruisers. It may be a stretch to lump Tom in with Bruce but I don't particularly like either one of them.

It was Itzack Rabin (spelling incorrect), but Netenyahu was probably his successor. Right on with the point, though. What I'm finding funny is the whole "Only Nixon could go to China" thing that Ariel Sharon has going on. Only a guy who has had his long-term far-right positions on the conflict with the Palestinians could advocate a pull-out from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

He didn't necessarily have to be Leviathan in the WWE, but covering up that body 90% of the time just makes him look like Big Bubba Rogers 2000. He just looks like a generic big-man right now and, if he wasn't standing next to Ric Flair and Triple H to get "the rub", no one would give a shit about him.

A politics-free Cornette is godly... OVW has been the best wrestling show on TV for the last couple years. He also got more out of the OVW guys on the WWE roster than WWE has, by far, since he knows how to mask weaknesses. Agreed. Cornette combined his old-school mentality with long-term booking and booking AROUND the weaknesses of his talent to put together a show which, for the most part, is top notch. Batista isn't very good in the ring? Have him mainly wrestle squashes against two cruisers and/or do run-ins. Horshu sucks in the ring? Make him Johnny Ace's spokesperson in OVW and have him cut promos to the effect of "Anyone who goes against me will NEVER make it in the WWE". Brock Lesnar has no charisma and Sheldon Benjamin looks too skinny to be taken seriously? Make them a tag team so that they cover each other's weaknesses. In all fairness, in his first few months in the company, Batista did squash cruiserweights and various midcarders all the time. He didn't get over in the slightest, I guess OVW fans and WWE fans are different. So I don't know how WWE has "exposed" Batista. He got to take out Goldberg, dominate Shawn Michaels for 10 minutes (before jobbing, but he got a lot of offense in) and was portrayed as a monster. How is that different than how Cornette booked him? And Luther is starting to talk more and more on SD. I'm sure that will only increase with his program with Eddy Batista's WWE debut came as "Deacon Batista", the sidekick to a guy whose most famous quality was the ability to get a "D-Von touched me!" chant started. Not a particularly great start, no matter WHAT they did with him in the ring. Gimmick aside, putting Batista in a suit (as he's worn for both Deacon Batista and Evolution) takes away from him, as he has a chiseled body and is heavily tattooed. Making him grow hair didn't help either, as it takes away from the "freak" image he'd cultivated.

A politics-free Cornette is godly... OVW has been the best wrestling show on TV for the last couple years. He also got more out of the OVW guys on the WWE roster than WWE has, by far, since he knows how to mask weaknesses. Agreed. Cornette combined his old-school mentality with long-term booking and booking AROUND the weaknesses of his talent to put together a show which, for the most part, is top notch. Batista isn't very good in the ring? Have him mainly wrestle squashes against two cruisers and/or do run-ins. Horshu sucks in the ring? Make him Johnny Ace's spokesperson in OVW and have him cut promos to the effect of "Anyone who goes against me will NEVER make it in the WWE". Brock Lesnar has no charisma and Sheldon Benjamin looks too skinny to be taken seriously? Make them a tag team so that they cover each other's weaknesses.

What about "Zsaszhole" or "Zsaszholistic"?

Baylor made it into the Big 12 over Houston for pure political reasons from what I've heard. (IIRC, former Texas Governor Ann Richards had ties to Baylor and the Big 8 had to take them in addition to Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech in order to minimize potential political roadblocks to the new Big 12.) They'd have to have another team lined up to take their place and, the way things are looking, the only team in the Big 12's footprint that could bring anything to the conference are either TCU, which has gone through 3 conferences in about 5 years, and Arkansas, which is currently a part of the SEC. Personally, I don't see Arkansas bolting for the Big 12 unless their cut of the revenue increases and I don't think that a majority of the Big 12 would want to deal with TCU.

What call was that? OSU's touchback after LSU tied the game with less than a minute left in the 4th quarter. OSU's kick returner got the ball in the end zone, started running, then stopped and kneeled the ball after one of his defenders stopped him. The only problem was that he stepped out of the end zone and onto the goal line, meaning that it should have been a safety instead of a touchback.

Well pardon me, I was in the friggin' South end zone watching the game and couldn't hear ESPN from there. HOWEVER, that still doesn't change the fact that there were blown calls on BOTH sides, including one that should have put LSU up by 2 with seconds left in the 4th quarter.

OSU should have gotten a fucking safety on that last kickoff return... Fucker STEPPED ON THE LINE of the end zone before he kneeled it. PS- Those WEREN'T SEC refs AFAIK. In non-conference games, refs tend to be from neutral conferences.

More proof that Michael Vick is the most overhyped player in the NFL since... shit, HAS there ever been a more overhyped player than Vick?

Technically, Chechnya ISN'T a country... it's in the same international limbo that Taiwan was in for so long because both are considered to be rebellious provinces.