If McGuire or Bonds Get Into HOF, shouldn't Pete Rose?

I was having a conversation with my friend "Buzzy" earlier and he was talking about baseball. As it always does, the conversation came around to steroid use, the hall of fame and previously long standing records. I grew up as a Cincinnati Reds fan. When I was a kid, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and the gang were kings. I can't really condone gambling while participating, but then I think about the people who have already forgiven Bill Belichek and the Patriots. The steroid users and the New England staff were cheating and Rose was gambling. They may get a pass while Rose is tarnished.

I may be biased, but I doubt the MLB will run Bonds and others out of town, never to return, as they did to Rose. I think the numbers should speak for themselves, but unfortunately there is a "yet to be determined" MLB era that will forever be a black eye to the league. I don't think you can do anything but put an asterisk on a whole era of baseball. It's too difficult to compare the numbers.

If I were one of the players who did pretty good, but didn't juice, I would be outraged. I'm not sure who I would be angrier with, the players who brought a cloud over the game, or the league who looked the other way. Just like back in the playground days, the cheaters ruin the game for everyone else.

I don't believe that Rose's gambling has ever effected the out come of a game in which he was participating. That said, his actions did far less damage to baseball than the current parade of players who keep popping up in steroid probes. Is it fair that Pete Rose gets banned for life and these other players walk away with an asterisk? Where's the parity in that?

It's time for professional sports to clean it's own house and restore the integrity of their respective leagues. There is far too much money involved to not have strict enforcement of cheaters. I thought that Commisioner Goodell took a step in the right direction in handling the Patriots videotaping. I just don't think he went far enough. He could have hit them a lot tougher in the wallet. The fines he levied could be recouped by raising t-shirt prices 50 cents. Why wouldn't he park Belichek at home for a season and make an example out of him? I mean come on, Pac Man shoots up a strip club and he's out for just a season. It's not exactly exemplary behavior but again, it's not cheating. In the old west you would get shot under the table for cheating (shhh...don't tell Pac Man). Kidding aside, it does go to show how serious the integrity of the game should be taken.

So, I'll ask again and again and again....Why is Pete Rose forced to watch from the sidelines? I just don't get it...

Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite!

Comcast, and other ISPs advertise with certain upload and download rates, conforming to simple DOCSIS capacity numbers. However, they miscalculated and found that there is more to the Internet than browsing, gopher, and email. Heavy-users broke their excel return-on-investment predictions and marketing campaign promises. Their flat-rate offers simply became too popular for the capacity that was bought and installed.

Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling Acceptable? Not Quite! TorrentFreak

This really echoes the point I've been making for a couple of years now. Charter also uses bandwidth throttling to cheat us of the bandwidth we pay for. I think a class-action lawsuit is an appropriate response to this practice. There is no other way to describe it, other than simple fraud.

Sony and RIAA ripe for a lawsuit

RIAA lawyer states in legal brief that copying songs from CDs to computer for personal use is just as illegal as posting them online.You, too, could be sued for thousands of dollars by the major record companies — even if you've never once illegally downloaded music.That's because at least one lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America, the Big Four record companies' lobbying arm and primary legal weapon, considers the copying of songs from your own CDs to your own computer, for your own personal use, to be just as illegal as posting them online for all to share, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Arizona.

Here's my beef with this whole RIAA crap......If I buy a CD from the Sony/BMG Record Club and pop it into the Sony manufactured CD drive of my Sony Vaio laptop, I might even make a duplicate copy onto some Sony made CD-Rs for good measure, I can't see how the RIAA (representing Sony)could then sue me.....according to them and the courts, merely "enabling" copyright violation is in itself a violation. Why hasn't anyone caught on to this concept? I would like to see an artist sue Sony and the RIAA for "enabling" copyright violations and for not protecting them from said violations.I would go one step further and say that Sony was in fact tantamount in the consortium of companies that developed digital file standards and mp3's themselves. Thus Sony is one example of a copyright violation enabler...Stop and think of how many violations Sony alone has enabled through software and hardware as well as blank media. You could apply this theory backwards into the Eighties when mix tapes were the rage. Who made the best blank tapes and tape recorders....Sony! Can you say Walkman? If you apply the same amounts that Jammie Thomas was slapped with...you get the picture. Bye Bye Sony.....

Read more about what these pinheads had to say...

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Vermont town seeks Bush, Cheney arrests

"Vermont town seeks Bush, Cheney arrests"
By Dave Gram / Associated Press

MONTPELIER, Vt. - President Bush may soon have a new reason to avoid left-leaning Vermont: In one town, activists want him subject to arrest for war crimes.
A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on a town meeting agenda in March that would make Bush and Vice President Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont community."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10614


While I'm generally suspect of anything I read on Michael Moore's website, I had also heard this on the local news as well. Once I was able to contain my gleeful giggling, I found myself amused, yet a bit disturbed. Then I realized that I was more pissed off that Bush has never been here in 8 years than I was about the concept of this ballot initiative.

Ok, I get why he isn't chomping at the bit to visit us, but if I were Republican Governor Jim Douglas, I would be fairly well insulted by this. Is Bush afraid that Howard Dean will jump out of the bushes and give him a "shout"? Granted most people in Vermont don't care for Bush, but there are folks that support his administration. I'm just not sure where they are...

If they want to issue a warrant for their arrest in Brattleboro, I say go for it....I don't think they'll get too far!

Federal Minimum Wage To Increase to $7.25

As you may know, the federal minimum wage will increase from $5.15 to $5.85/hour, which is a 70-cent raise. This will happen again in 2008 and 2009, which by the end will make the new federal minimum wage $7.25/hour by the end of 2009.
Of course, this is being touted as a victory for everyone making the current minimum wage of $5.85, but the reality is that in the long-term it won't mean much and it may even hurt the very people it intends to help. I know that a lot of people will refuse to listen or accept the idea of this, but I truely believe it to be the case and I've saw the evidence first hand while working a minimum wage job myself.

Federal Minimum Wage To Increase to $7.25

Yeah...pass it along to the consumer in the form of higher prices. We couldn't possibly take the hit out of our epotentialy growing corporate profits. God forbid some CEO can't afford to trade up his Hummer this year....and to those in the middle of the wage scale...shut up with your "relative worth crap"...you're already making a decent wage. Raising the standard of living for those at the bottom requires the rest of us to sacrifice. Let some business owners and CEOs live for 120 days on minimum wage, just like the Congessmen who had to live on food stamps. Apparently, you've been drinking the Chamber of Commerce Kool-aid that has had people believing this warped perspective for years. They even have you believing you've "seen it with your own eyes". This is Republican fuzzy math at its worst, and assumes a chain of events that is highly unlikely to happen, because at the end of the day, they still need someone to sweep the sidewalks and bag groceries whether it costs them $5.25 per hour or it costs them $10 per hour. I say put the minimum wage at a reasonable level and then tie it to Congressional pay raises!

Arnold shares his deepest feelings

YTMND - Arnold shares his deepest feelings

This has to rank pretty high up there on the annoying webpages of all time list...but somehow I was still amused for the first 10 seconds or so!