Jake

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2013 -> 11:01 AM) WTF? What civilization on Earth are we talking about that "has no understanding of war"? They certainly needed some time to understand what kind of war it was they were fighting. Tribal conflict was just that -- tribal. They didn't realize that this other enemy (or, for a while in some circumstances an ally) from across the ocean would look at every human being on this continent as an enemy. They're thinking that Tribe X, Y, Z are all sovereign entities and not unlike the Europeans. Europeans just saw "Indians." I think if Native Americans had some way of perceiving that the goal of Europeans was total conquest of lands more numerous than they could have fathomed, things might have been different. So while Native American groups knew all about fighting "wars," there was nothing so imperial before. I don't believe they could have guessed what kind of goal was being pursued by Europeans nor could they have collectively realized that they needed each other, all of each other, to oppose this group.

I'd really like Castro and would easily part with either Santiago or Quintana to get him. He doesn't have to hit as well as he did last year to be really worth it. Have Flowers back him up and you have a really nice catching tandem. Castro would catch a bunch and you let Flowers go against the toughest lefties, where he should have some success. If Houston doesn't think they can compete before Castro hits FA or not until he's about to become a FA, send him over here. The marginal gain at the C position would be astronomical. Having a young lefty bat in the middle of the order for the next several years would make the lineup really quite scary. Imagine having a middle of the lineup is some order including: -Abreu -Avisail -Castro -Viciedo and then, you're looking at guys like Alexei, ADA, and Semien for the top/bottom in the near term. A lot of talent and not very much age among that crew.

To quote Adam Dunn when asked if AJP is an asshole, "no more of an asshole than anyone else"

I'm all for covering the desert in the southwest with solar panels and redoing the power grid to accommodate the new power source

The kind of production that 15 million bucks will get you in three years may make Danks look like an amazing contract

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Dec 6, 2013 -> 08:24 PM) Also found this at MLBTR... "Right-hander Matt Albers has already received at least one two-year contract offer from an interested team, Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. Albers has received interest from several clubs, and Hoynes reports that one of those teams is from the AL Central, possibly the Tigers or White Sox. The Indians have discussed a one-year deal with Albers and Hoynes speculates that the righty could take the shorter contract in order to help his value for next winter, provided he gets the right price." Anyone think the Sox are interested? I don't think we would be anymore, after bringing in Belisario

My friends like to call it "Whole Paycheck"

I also found this sort of data incredibly difficult to find, so I won't claim it as unassailable. There was a great deal of land redistribution in the early years of post-apartheid era, so who knows what effect that had on the economy

We are in the perfect position to hold onto him instead of trading him at his lowest value of his career

this reflects annual growth in the positive throughout the transition

I kinda thought Jenks was being sarcastic

Then we elect guys like Dick Cheney who still thinks he did the right thing in voting against sanctioning the apartheid regime

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 4, 2013 -> 02:44 PM) The iPhone4 wasn't built poorly at all, it simply wasn't built to be a baseball, which is something it's not. If I threw my watch around like people throw their phones around, it'd shatter/break, too. They're not baseballs, footballs, wrenches, or freebees, people...they're phones, mostly made of metal and glass these days, ie, not meant to be dropped or thrown against walls. I've seen phones of all types with shattered screens, and that has nothing to do with build quality, it has to everything to do with the people using them, and a bit of luck. If you're prone to breaking them, put it in a case. I've seen iPhone 4's survive 2 story drops off a balcony, only to shatter from a 7 inch drop. I've had every iPhone since the original, I don't use cases and have yet to break a single one of them. Apple graciously replaced both free of charge (not something they normally do with AppleCare, though I suspect they were especially generous because I was willing to purchase their warranty) because they admitted to me that it was an error of theirs and a great deal of people were having that problem. Between that and the antenna issue, that's probably the closest to a "dud" that they've put out. The "free replacement" became unofficial policy for that device, which at least shows you that they were willing to go to great lengths to make good on their mistake. No big deal. Also, as I said, they were in cases each time that they broke. Once was in the case they gave me for dicking up the antenna business and the other was an Otterbox. It's no big thing, the current phones aren't doing it because they presumably learned their lesson.

PK is backup C, Dunn is fourth OF. Problem solved. Carry 14 pitchers

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 6, 2013 -> 09:51 AM) according to his profile he was last visiting the site in late august That establishes a correlation with the play of the Sox

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 6, 2013 -> 08:45 AM) It had very big problems, which they've outright admitted. Are you honestly THAT biased that you're pretending it's always worked just fine? No. It clearly wasn't working for people. I'm just noting that I could never replicate the problems and I was using the federal website because Illinois inexplicably didn't make their own. My worst experience so far is with the insurance companies themselves, trying to figure out what certain services and drugs will cost on their plans. On the bright side, all indications are that I will be paying half as much for those things in exchange for a ~10% increase in premiums and unchanged deductible

This team has 3 players on it that can only play first base and another (Keppinger) that is one lost half-step from being only a first baseman. I'd feel more comfortable with the PK signing if we had a DH or other bench players that were more capable defensively. We're looking at a situation where we'll have a bench with only one potentially useful pinch runner, for instance. Seems to me that we'll end up having to release Jordan Danks for this and IMO he's actually more important than PK

I'd say he's just a notch below Alshon Jeffery(ies)

Also, serious question -- Duke's arguments sound a lot like this article from the John Birch Society. I'm curious if you have read it. I won't engage in the "fellow traveler" arguments that JBS tries to use against Mandela (if you have ever thought a positive thing about communists, you're a genocidal maniac), but I came across it and was genuinely curious.

The top political issue that Mandela was trying to achieve at the time he turned towards violent tactics (and the ones he was directly involved in were quite deliberately targeted to minimize the loss of human life). How much blood lost to get blacks voting rights in the USA? 650,000 lives lost. And, of course, let's not even get into some of the reasons the apartheid regime felt so comfortable in their position. Couldn't have had anything to do with the USA backing them because the black majority that wanted voting rights and, ultimately, full political rights also had (gasp!!!) Marxist sympathies

He tried to lead a violent revolution. I think people "let him off the hook" because he revolted against one of the most despicable regimes in recent history. The thing that showed that he was more than a bloodthirsty war leader was his conduct as a political leader. There was widespread fear that that the reformed regime would turn around and really give it back to the white minorities. Instead, he came out and used his political capital to try to bring people together, avert further violence, and simply move on. He came back as a person that was profoundly unbitter for a person that spent 27 years in prison at the hands of his greatest enemy. He made overtures to former apartheid officials in shows of solidarity rather than retribution. It is really quite impressive. As far as his "terrorist" activities, he spent around 15-20 years involved in widespread, yet quite ineffectual nonviolent protests with important backing from Indians that were associated with Ghandi. ANC was constantly considered far too pragmatic and useless due to its resistance to militancy. This is why Mandela left them for the MK, saying this: When he was offered release from prison in 1988 with the condition that he must swear to forego violence, he refused. He said he would renounce violence as soon as the government did. They didn't like those conditions. He stayed in prison. He always insisted that violence was a last-ditch tactic to be used defensively, and his own actions did quite a good job of exemplifying that. The ANC and MK at times got away from him, especially while he was in prison, and he was ultimately one to face some criticism from those groups for being too "soft" and conciliatory. The ultimate thing that makes people respect him is that he stuck to his word. He didn't take over South Africa and enact violence, he didn't go kill his old oppressors. He said violence was a defensive measure against tyranny and he meant it. He ended up sensing the great extent of his own power due to society's love of him and he left office, despite knowing he could practically enact his own will. He had a reputation for being such a staunch believer in democracy that he would cooperate with ideas he deeply disliked if he knew that they had popular support. Today's South Africa is quite far from perfect, but stands out in Africa as a well-run place.

There are times when you stop pursuing the animal because you just drive it to fearfully run from you until it takes its last gasp. If you wait a while, perhaps overnight, it will lie down and relax as it perishes. I don't hunt because I don't particularly like either one of those outcomes, but yeah, that's the logic. SF1's situation was obviously different from that as well

Robin Ventura was a damn fine player and if he's going to be here, you've got to make the third base spot his to lose

I haven't had a problem the entire time I've used the thing

FWIW, the FCC said yesterday that ISPs can charge Netflix and others for their use of bandwidth, so I wouldn't expect Netflix to support a higher-bandwidth format any time soon