Jake

There's no fairness in that unless distribution of money is fair. The original distribution of currency was so unfair that the current distribution, even if more fair than it once was (not to say that is fairer than it ever has been, because that is not the case) is still unfair. Judging our desires by our willingness to pay only makes sense if we all have had equal opportunities to earn money. That isn't the case. Associating money with freedom means our freedom is measured by how much money we have. It is an injustice that it is already the case, why make that more true? You're not "free" to buy things if you're not as "free" to earn money as everyone else. Given the long history of asymmetrical distributions of wealth, it is clear that not everyone is free to pursue money and thus not free to buy things. If the things you buy can now include freedom, you just take freedom away from people with less money.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 01:36 PM) Would you guys do Santiago + Keppinger for Headley? No. Santiago will be more valuable than Headley this year and probably every successive year, is under team control, and is cheap. Headley is an old free agent to be that has been worth top talent for a period of about 6 months of his life. I'm happy to have Headley on the team, but I'm not sure if I'd even give up Rienzo-caliber players for him. I'm guessing there is some team that will give up more than that, especially if they hold on to Headley until the deadline.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 09:05 AM) Looking for a laptop or desktop? Either/or, really. I don't have a desktop currently, but my laptop is going to need replacing in the near future as well. I'm just kind of surveying the market and will jump on a good deal if I can find one on one or the other.

Shame on the government for trying to make sure everyone can have medical care. How is it that giving people the opportunity to literally be alive is somehow subordinate to "jobs legislation"? I put jobs legislation in quotes since the government has to do things that Republicans don't like in order to create jobs and is thus just a straw man for Republicans to talk about anyway

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 09:56 AM) There are always unintended consequences. A couple requirements for a successful tax plan. Above all else, it must raise money to run the government. The problem with sin taxes, (expensive cars, boats, cigarettes, liquor) is if people stop buying those items, it eliminates jobs and doesn't raise money to run the government. I agree that we have too many hidden taxes. Gasoline taxes are incredible, every tourist area tacks on surcharges for hotel rooms and rental cars (hey, who doesn't like out of towners paying extra taxes in your town?) The graduated income tax is about as fair of a system as can be divised. A lesson that SS2k5 taught me years ago. the amounts and where it jumps up is the debate in my eyes. Sin taxes just hammer poor people, usually. Someone addicted to cigarettes and is just scraping by isn't going to add to their stress by not smoking. They're just going to have give even more of their income to the habit. The same with taxing Cadillacs, etc. Middle class people want that s*** and they reach to get certain status items. You tax the money when it is earned and/or take all that is left when they die

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 11:11 AM) http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report...ars_764582.html Just shows you that we aren't spending nearly enough on education and research.

His average fastball velocity dropped 2mph from 2011 to 2012 and dropped .2 more in 2013. This screams, "high ERAs are not bad luck!" to me

Nobody said that, it's actually much better. J'Marcus Webb rated as our best, and his aggregate rating over 16 games would put him as our 5th best this year. PFF does say, though, that our line is still bad at pass blocking. Jay was "under pressure" in 38.7% of his dropbacks this year. Peyton Manning (whose line is on the opposite end of the spectrum) was under pressure on 21% of dropbacks. This is actually a portion of a percent higher than the past two years, but much lower than 2010 when it was off the charts (43%). He was at 22% in Denver as well, btw, and 28% in his first year in Chi-town. Another way to look at it is pass blocking efficiency for our line. On 45.7% of dropbacks, Jay was hurried, hit, or sacked. 22% for Manning. What might really blow your mind is that almost half these hurries/hits/sacks came from Jordan Mills. Replace Mills with an average player (roughly the level of play from Webb last year, fwiw) and our pass blocking rating goes to middle of the pack for the league. This statistic is even worse than Arizona, whose PFF rating is actually much worse than ours. PFF gives relative weights to hurries, hits, and sacks. Jay has been hit and sacked relatively little given the amount of pressures and hurries he's had, which is likely due to scheme and decision-making. Our line seems better because 1. The majority of the bad is concentrated on one player and 2. we have an o-coordinator that can scheme to cover up our weaknesses.

Jesus, that's really bad. Francisco Liriano would be a 100 million dollar man on this market

What I will now refer to as "tough luck" league - 2nd most points scored, 3-4 record

I'd be interested to hear Buddy Bell or someone comment on that. (Trayce)

Don't talk about the line as proof that you can rebuild things quickly. PFF ranks us second to worst in pass blocking (6th best at run block, though). The bottom 3 on pass blocking: Long, Bushrod, Mills in that order. Mills being the worst as well as PFF's worst tackle in football. He leads the league in QB hurries surrendered by a fairly large margin; Bushrod is 10th worst and Mills has allowed twice as many. Slauson has been our best lineman, according to their stats, with nobody else having a markedly positive impact. The only thing that you can improve right away is your coaching staff, it seems, which has been good enough to cover up a really iffy line.

I hope to get a Mac whenever I can afford one. Very sad that my MBP pooped out. I think Mac OS X is the absolute best operating system. If anyone wants to get rid of their Mac for cheap, hit me up

Jay is an excellent fit and is, honestly, a lot like Rich Gannon - they act like him having a bigger arm than Gannon simply makes him "different" than Gannon. Jay happens to be highly talented. Sweet. He's a great fit for the offense we're running. I'm sure they'll consider everything, but it will be very difficult to sell letting the best QB we've ever had go with so many other veteran assets on offense. If I'm letting Jay go, I'm probably cutting Forte as well and going with Bush for the near future. You sure as s*** aren't going to stick a rookie on an offense with so many high-salaried stars

I'm not convinced that Headley would outproduce Gillaspie by very much

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 01:57 PM) Everything creates jobs. Sometimes I hate myself because I cant remember this one economist, but basically the idea was that everything adds to the pie. That a criminal is a job creator because criminals = police, security systems, jails, judges, lawyers, etc. of course.... that means the system will be vulnerable to changes in the amount of criminals. the "market correction" if our prison systems collapsed due to the release of a huge portion of inmate would be extremely painful

What do folks think of Carnegie - basically, he felt (maybe I should say "he said") that the most immoral thing a rich person could do is hold onto money. His hope is that all such people would invest the money into their communities. In his case, he did a great deal of that and it is the only thing that has allowed history to have any kindness in judging him. He knew that he could never convince anyone to do this, so he advocated for a very, very steep estate tax: he didn't think you should pass much at all down to your children, just a little security and by no means a fortune.

At least we can all agree that Detroit not winning is the prime outcome. Things get more difficult for them with each coming year

This might be a stretch, but I'd like to go with Chris Beck. There have been some big question marks about his production vs peripherals, so I think he is a good candidate to really put it into overdrive and grab some starts in MLB at the end of the year.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) ...and speaking on this thread, this is actually a very interesting subject. I know quite a few people that view me as rich, and I'm really not, but it would be impossible to convince them of that. In comparison, it may appear that way, but a lot of the reality behind it is overlooked. First, my wife is a stay at home mom, we have two kids, etc. Outside of my mortgage, I have no debt. Now, an interesting thing about Facebook, Twitter, and other such social media is it allows us to do is silently observe people. It doesn't take long for me to realize why I'm viewed as rich because I always seem to have money, while they view themselves as poor. All one needs to do is look at their timeline to see where they spend all their money ... which is eating out seemingly EVERY DAY. The last place I ate out at was Buffalo Wild Wings...29$. Meanwhile, I see picture after picture of these "poor" people at Blackhawks games, Bears games, restaurants, etc... Yes, I'm rich then. Because I don't spend more than I make. The worst part ... when your success is attributed to luck. Yes, my company pays me what they pay me because I'm lucky. That's what it is. There is actually a lot of research demonstrating the relative opposite of what you're describing (but exactly what you're embodying in your observation). When we "silently observe people" via Facebook, we see the best possible version of their life. People think their friends on facebook are happier and richer than they really are. This is because they will post pictures from the Blackhawks game, but not of the ramen for dinner/breakfast or the trailer they live in, etc. If people with little money want to save up to see hockey games, so be it. At some point, many people realize the system is going to f*** them and they just want to squeeze some happiness out of their existence. If I was told it wouldn't be financially prudent to ever go to pro sports games, eat out, etc. I'd spend "frivolously" to make sure it did happen when I could make it happen.

You don't spend just because you feel bad if you don't spend $X. Our available money will determine how much we can spend, but not how much we will. Hahn isn't going to hand out/take on crap contracts just to make sure we hit our budget ceiling. It just gives him the flexibility to spend the maximum appropriate amount on a given player.

McCown is smart and tough. He's not afraid of the spotlight or the pressure and is reasonably good at not making backbreaking mistakes because of it. His mistakes will be due to the deficiencies in his talent. There are too many weapons on offense to try to tear it down and roll the dice on a random rookie QB. It almost never makes sense to "rebuild" in the NFL anyway since it typically can be done in very short order

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1889carnegie.asp Andrew Carnegie

I would definitely try to sign him. I'd offer a lot. I wouldn't, necessarily, offer the most. If, for instance, we can push the Cubs into giving a catcher $20 million for 5 years...that sounds great to me.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 10:11 AM) supposed to be released this afternoon. Emery has a press conference scheduled for around 1:30, Trestman at 12:30 They've suggested that word on the MRI will come sometime after those press conferences