Soxbadger

I actually feel the opposite of fathom. Given the fact that Rickets havent been inclined to spend and dont have the type of cash other richer owners have, I expect them to be bargain hunting for their GM. Since 2006 Ricketts has lost over half his total nw (2.6 bil in 2006, around 1 bil in 2009). I cant find further figures, but Ive always believed that selling to the Rickets was to ensure that the Cubs did not have a huge spending owner.

And because its next years draft you can really hurt yourself as you dont know if its a high or low pick.

Agree, much better athlete than what I thought hed be. Could be a pleasant surprise.

Rock, I completely agree that unlike Tebow, Pryor can actually play a different position and be useful. I think 3 is a slight reach, but compared to Tebow as a 1 its good value.

Flowers ability has been surprising. After everyone has been panning him I figured hed be terrible.

I guess if Tebow is a 1st, Pryor being a 3rd isnt all that bad. Still think they are overvaluing these type of players.

First and foremost this is an argument about why my death penalty stance has nothing to do with abortion. Whether or not abortion is right or wrong, has nothing to do with my death penalty stance. I do not support the death penalty because there is to much risk of mistake. That means that if we caught Hitler we could have used the death penalty because there was no mistake. I simply believe that there undoubtedly will be a time when an innocent man is put to death. That to me is not okay. That being said, I will now discuss the abortion topic which is entirely unrelated. Im neither a Dr. nor a scientist, so any information that I would have would be entirely based on another persons research. Im not sure what relevance this has, my opinion consistently has been "leave it to the scientists/drs", Im not an expert, nor would I ever claim to be. Nope thats not what Im saying at all, and you already knew it. When something has been "alive" you have a different set of rules to declare it "no longer alive". When something has never been alive (aka fetus) the first step is for it actually to be alive before it is deed. A person in a vegetative was alive, therefore a Dr determines when they are no longer living. The "dependence" method is only to determine when something comes into being, not when something that has been alive is no longer alive. Its pretty simple: Baby born breathes air = LIVING Fetus inside mother, entirely dependent on mother for survival, can not even survive if c-section and in nicu = not living Area in between, gray, to be left to scientists and drs. She miscarried and almost died. But it was never anything more than a fetus, it was the equivalent of the blood she lost. But in order for something to be considered dead, it has to have first been alive. Part of being alive is things like, breathing air, ability to survive on its own (even if its for less than a minute) are what differentiate a fetus from a person in a coma or low functioning human. They may not be able to survive for an hour, but they could surely survive a few minutes. Could a fetus? No. In order to be dead, it must have lived. A rock is not dead because it never lived. Now granted, human cells are living. Therefore technically when I bleed part of me is dead, but we dont call people who get nose jobs murderers, because well, there nose is nothing but a part of them, which they are free to do whatever they want with.

Its easy to always trade things when your not in competition. KW has to balance the Sox winning with the value. As for the ridiculousness of Rasmus v Stewart, people started knocking KW the day Hudson took the mound for AZ. Im surprised as anyone that Rasmus isnt doing well, but maybe there was a reason that STL didnt want him anymore.

Correct me if Im wrong, but your boy traded Stewart for Rasmus. Or are you going to rewrite history that he never had Stewart and couldnt have kept him? (edit) Steve, Its just as ridiculous as j4l claiming that somehow his boy could have signed Danks. Absolutely no evidence to suggest it being true.

Best GM in baseball gave up up a 160 era + for a 76 ops +. Its limited sample size but im pretty sure if the roles were reversed youd be calling Kenny the dumbest man alive. As for Danks, might as well trade him because no way are the Sox giving him 5 years.

Lets hope that the people of Libya are able to put together a govt that gives them a chance at a better life. Cautiously optimistic, but history shows revolutions can have unintended consequences.

Minnesota used to sell beer when they played at the Metrodome.

Jenks, Unfortunately that isnt my argument about death penalty. Argument on death penalty: Humans are imperfect therefore death penalty could kill someone innocent. Id rather not kill an innocent person. Argument on abortion: Potential life is not life. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Jenks, I have done the research, which is why my first post says at X months. Meaning whatever the scientific community agrees on. And as I said, if science changes, I agree that we need to change our policies. So if 22 weeks is new number, then no abortion after 4.5 months. = Just because my position is consistent and based on rational science, does not mean I am "ignorant". If anything your position is ignorant because you absolutely wont even discuss my argument: "What rights does a non-living entity have." Its simple to keep showing me a time line of a baby being developed, but its no more persuasive than going down to the Museum of Science and Industry as a 6 year old and seeing the wall of fetuses and how they progress. So if youd like to argue why a non-living entity deserves protection, feel free. If you want to argue that a 3 day old fetus can survive on its own, feel free. But quite frankly if you think im going to change my position because babies are cute and cuddly and therefore deserve a law that makes no scientific sense, you are barking up the wrong tree. The fetus depends on its mother to live. Until it can survive on its own, its not alive. Lets take this to a personal anecdote. When I was a kid my mom was pregnant. She miscarried. It was never my brother/sister because it was never alive, it never existed. Under your argument, that was my brother/sister who was deserving of the same rights and protection as my actual living sister. Not really very convincing.

I dont see how its laughable as your own post supported my statement. IE Can not live on its own. I can make a robot that has arms, fingers, feet and hands, that looks really cute and cuddly, but its not a human, its not alive. Once again, complex development= not able to survive on its own. I get that people are emotional about cute little babies and no one wants to imagine their child being ripped apart by a vacuum cleaner. But until the fetus can survive on its own, there is (imo) no good reason to protect it. Potential life is not the same as actual life. If it was it would be a crime to masturbate because youd be killing billions of potential life forms.

Jenks, Its nothing more than science. A fetus prior to X months is not a human, therefore it is entitled to no more rights than my sperm are. If the fetus can not survive on its own, its entirely up to the host whether or not it wants to allow the fetus to survive and thus the mother has final say. Once the fetus is viable outside of the womb, I absolutely would be against abortion (except in cases of rape, incest or mothers health). If science was to advance and allow a fetus at 1 second to be able to be taken out of a womb and survive on its own, that would entirely change the discussion.

Okay, most reasonable people would love the US to attempt to have a more balanced budget and not run a huge deficit every year. Ill be the first person to argue that a deficit so far hasnt hurt the US, but id rather err on the side of caution and not run trillions in the red.

I wont say this article is 100% correct, but these are some of the reasons why I could never vote for Perry; http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/seven-w...-131634517.html Going through the list: 1) I could live with. 2) Horrific idea, completely erodes the idea of checks and balances. The way to override a SC vote is an Amendment, which requires not only the legislature but people of the US to support it. 3) Not really sure the ramifications of this. 4) Personally disagree, although reasonable people could see differently on this one. 5) Good luck with this, Im sure everyone would love the US budget to always be balanced, it just isnt going to happen. 6) I cant support anyone who really believes this. I can live with marriage being a state right, but I can not live with the federal govt telling states who they can or can not marry. 7) Again cant support anyone who believes this. I could be persuaded to have abortion be a state right, but I cant be persuaded to allow the federal govt to tell states that they cant allow abortion. The biggest problem I have with Perry is that he wants to vastly increase govt power when it comes to social areas, whereas I want to vastly decrease govt power in social areas. I do not think the govt has a right to tell a person how to live, as long as it does not hurt anyone else. Its simple utility, if me marrying a man doesnt hurt anyone, the govt has no right to stop me. Abortion you can at least argue that the fetus is being hurt.

That does really suck.

No but in 5 minutes I can type the following sentences: Wisconsin research spending Wisconsin athletic spending Wisconsin athletic revenue Big 10 academic/research spending (I actually had read the Michigan article a few days ago it had been linked through a WV board) CIC academic/research spending

lol 5 minutes? I was on the phone while I got that information, doesnt take that long to put a sentence into google.

http://www.cic.net/Home/AboutCIC/CICUniversities.aspx That is up for debate. Many people believe that the CIC (Big 10 + University of Chicago) get a unequal share of govt research funding do their collaborative nature. Im not 100% sure how it works, but the amount of money the Big 10 gets compared to every other conference does seem to give credence to that argument. Once again, no school is going to risk billions of dollars for an increase of less than $10mil per year. The only reason Nebraska brought a lot of money was that the Big 10 going to 12 allowed them to add a championship game. The next schools will not bring that. http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_...1cc4c002e0.html So in my opinion if Wisconsin left the Big 10 it would lose a considerable amount of academic prestige and academic funding.

It isnt all about football money. If a community college wanted into the Big 10 and could bring in more revenue than Nebraska, they wouldnt consider it. The reason why, athletic money is chump change to research money. The Big 10 is far more than just athletics, if anything the CIC and research is a bigger part of the school than athletics. Athletics are on tv so casual observers think that it plays a far bigger role. Lets look at Wisconsin: http://host.madison.com/sports/college/art...1cc4c002e0.html Total Athletic Budget (all sports) $88.368 million http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_co...l-tell-you.html Total Athletic Revenue (all sports) $93,452,334 http://www.news.wisc.edu/18499 Total research spending : In excess of of $1billion. Research has 10x more spending, so if you dont think its a big deal who is involved in the CIC and how the Big 10 can get their research funding, you are completely ignoring just how much money these schools put into research/academics. I feel dirty but here is a Michigan fan's write up on just how much money the Big 10 spends on research: http://mgoblog.com/diaries/academic-dollar...e-and-b1g-sweep Im pretty sure that the Big 10 spends more money than Ivy League on research (according to those figures) and if I can still do math, its almost 2x as much.

Didnt miss that mistake.

Well this game is going to be tough.