Jake

Kasich–he's basically George Bush, I know what to expect. Jeb Bush–he's basically a slightly more moderate George Bush, I know what to expect. Donald Trump–he's probably the most liberal in the field on issues he'd have a snowball's chance of effecting. In the worst case, he helps lead my party to an upswing in the mid-term. Rubio–I have a hunch that he might be a reasonable person deep down inside. Lindsey Graham–he'd by my top choice if it weren't for the POTUS's ability to more or less singlehandedly decide to wage war. Outside of his Muslim paranoia, he's the most reasonable and moderate of the rest of the field and is someone who I know knows how to make legislation happen in Congress.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 20, 2015 -> 09:36 PM) Don't count "losing" based on polls 4 months before the first vote is cast. Here's October 2007: Howard Dean was leading in Iowa at this point in 2003. While I'm at it, 9iu11ani would eventually spend about $50 million to win 2 delegates. And that doesn't even mention the roller coaster ride of the Republican 2012 race. I think we're almost to the 4th year anniversary of the Herman Cain boomlet. I didn't say that she has lost them, but there is good reason to believe that if those states held elections today, she'd lose. Chances are she isn't intentionally allowing this to happen just because she knows the race is a ways away. Considering Sanders's issues with name recognition, time could arguably be Hillary's enemy. Of course, you might say that she'll ramp up the contrast advertising and rhetoric nearer to the race; that might be right and that might work. The presence and non-presence of Biden in the race is pretty meaningful as well.

Dayan wasn't a miserable MLB player, he just wasn't good enough to make plans to start him. The fact that he can't play good defense was both his downfall as a starter and the reason he's in the minor leagues. If he wasn't a bottom-tier OF and more of just a DH, he'd get a chance because even his offensive disappointments weren't horrible in terms of overall production. But you can't give too many chances to a guy who has to hit way above average just to cover his poor defense. I'd call him up if I needed him, but I wouldn't ever enter a season trying to a find a place for him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 20, 2015 -> 03:40 PM) For a person who is "entitled" to the spot, she's sure been working hard at earning it. A number of writers have been impressed at her campaign organization, she's taking the "Obama" route of getting strong campaigns established in Iowa, NH, and in as many states as possible and ignoring the stupid daily talking points in favor of fundraising, policy proposal release, and organization building. I was particularly intrigued by her proposals on controlling college costs by tying the availability of federal education funding to the performance of graduates and ability of individual colleges to limit cost increases that came out a few weeks ago. Must be demoralizing to her that she's still losing in those states. Of course, her vast resources are clearly paying off elsewhere. I do wonder if she has the ability to people truly excited for her candidacy a la Obama, Sanders, etc. Of course, there is no prerequisite that says your average supporter must be incredibly enthusiastic since most presidents win without that type of support.

The WSJ armed people with a powerful advertising weapon by publishing that, that is for sure. I wonder if Hillary would actually do that, though, since she doesn't want to turn people off to the entire idea of spending.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 03:37 PM) Because in both cases you are asking THEM to take responsibility for someone else's choices. Either abortion or welfare, you still digging into their pockets to pay for it. No, nobody is being asked to pay for somebody's abortion

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:22 PM) His bat doesn't play at third, either. He needs to get better, simple as that. If he doesn't we don't want him ANYWHERE on the diamond. His bat would be fine if you gave it to a player that contributed average defense. The problem, if you think of it in WAR terms, is that he can have a ~1.5 WAR bat and still be a 0 WAR player because of his defense.

This is a great conversation

I just can't believe how little talk there is about how Fiorina out and out lied about what is in those videos. I saw George Stephanopoulos interview her this morning and he told her that those images are not in any of those videos. She just said anyone who claims that hasn't seen the videos and that George needed to go check his facts. But there are plenty of reliable people who have sat through all of those "unedited" videos and have seen no graphic full-formed fetuses wiggling around, etc.

While the USA can largely be described as a country of immigrants, a lot of places in Europe are not historically diverse. And what little diversity there has been in many central and northern European countries has not typically included a great deal of Muslims or non-Europeans. It has been a real challenge there, particularly in terms of how many of these peaceful, supposedly highly progressive areas are now looking at themselves and seeing that being a "melting pot" is hard and it takes a lot of support from the citizen to the government for it to work. It's worth mentioning that not all Muslim countries feel obligated to look out for one another. Saudi Arabia is pretty friendly with the USA, after all. Gulf Arabs tend to feel superior to inland Arabs and to some extent the inverse is true as well. They are not all the same.

Yeah, I don't see why the PD would feel the need to cover up an officer's suicide. And isn't there some decent evidence that the officer did indeed phone in some info about following some guys at that time and place? Can't that be verified? It wouldn't completely rule out a cover-up, but it would be enough for me to assume there's nothing weird going on

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Aug 31, 2015 -> 03:59 PM) Is pedophilia just something you are born with? It's an interesting question. While there is far from any known, conclusive cause just yet, researchers do see pretty good evidence that the primary causes are genetic/prenatal. It is generally thought that pedophiles cannot change their desires towards pre-pubescent children. After years of failure in these conversion therapies, now treatment focuses mainly on stopping offending. It is also worth mentioning that not all child molesters are pedophiles. Pedophiles have a near-exclusive or exclusive attraction to pre-pubescent children. Other child molesters may act for very different reasons.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 05:05 PM) That's not the worst label he's got. "Bush" That's exactly what I was thinking. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 5, 2015 -> 05:16 PM) Trump beats all of the main Dem options head to head according to this poll, including Clinton: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presid...ry-head-to-head I wouldn't read too terribly much into it, given all the recent results that basically flip the numbers. SurveyUSA is a good firm, though.

If you believe that Goodell is unable/unwilling to be fair—which isn't crazy to think—then destroying your phone isn't suspicious, it's keeping you from getting framed.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 05:49 PM) I despise Hillary. That's a fact. So I guess I need to know the limits. Am I allowed to continue blasting her while praising Ben and Trump? But I love women. Like I said my daughters will be surgeons and wife is pharmacist. I believe in women. As far as Hilly though I have a problem with her personality and entitlement. Women are fiction! I'm a womatheist

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 3, 2015 -> 12:23 PM) A first base coach was killed by a line drive foul ball. Was it his fault for not paying attention? Fans have about the same amount of time to react as he did. Great point. And in the case of fans (at least at non-Sox ballparks), it is almost guaranteed to hit somebody even if it whizzes past one particular person

If the perps have been on the run, then someone is going to notice that 1-3 people from their social group are not around. More dangerous might be if they knew that they wouldn't be identified and are therefore just going about their days like usual.

Here's how the NY Times reported on this over a month ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/eu...ngham.html?_r=0

I feel like that's a really minor error in that he almost certainly attended the game and thus came when it ended and she probably didn't know or care whether he was playing.

Is that big spike between 1999 and 2004 9/11? If so, I'm surprised it's not even more of an outlier.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 10:35 AM) Yency Almonte. Kid is pitching pretty damn good. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/p...traderumors.com Hmm, no strikeouts

I do think Fulmer, at least as a starter, has more polishing needed than Rodon. We've seen Rodon struggle with command this year but IMO Fulmer has even more work to do in that regard.

Given the trail of extremely strange behaviors this guy has apparently left behind throughout his entire life, it's really kind of shocking he made it this far without some kind of intervention or something else remarkable happening before he was able to do this. It is sad that it is not difficult for this sort of person to buy a gun and go kill people with it. These are the costs of the freedoms we refuse to live without

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 27, 2015 -> 02:07 PM) Yeah...that sounds really bad. No idea what kind of proof exists but I presume she has a lot of the messages that go with that stuff. I was going to say, one reason I would never say never (aside from the fact that we don't know Rose) is that he doesn't exactly strike you as someone who surrounds himself with the best and the brightest. You would think his brother would have been all over him about stuff like this and would be smarter (since he is the cash train). If rose did this, I hope he loses everything and rots in prison. If he did it, he will not go to prison because the accuser has not pursued criminal charges

You can basically say whatever you want as long as some official communication on the product says that the FDA hasn't validated your claims.