Jake

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 12:09 PM) Well said Jake, you've always been my favorite poster. (mostly for your use of THIS IS REAL) optimists unite

saint, I think you're on the right track. You want to work hard, you've thought a lot about your life, you have a vision of what you want. Go for it. I'd suggest that you know exactly what your priorities are and the order in which they matter to you...and then frequently quiz yourself on why they are what they are and why there are ordered that way. Mix the short term and the long term. Right now you're setting some short term aside (weed) to get the long term stuff in order. Sweet. You will probably have plenty of time for short term pleasures once you get a new job or whatever else you want to do. I certainly wouldn't say that you should slave away and abstain yourself from all of life's pleasures just for such and so thing unless it REALLY meant that much to you. I imagine that you can be a pretty happy guy with your gig as a security guard, even if you would also like to own a restaurant. You have to find a balance between going towards that longer term, more risky goal (like owning a business) and not wasting your whole life on it and missing out on all the fun. Only you can make these judgments. @weed discussion I had the chance to live with my brother for a while this summer for reasons not particularly important. He loves to smoke weed. He does it almost daily, if not multiple times daily. He makes 100k/year managing a retail store. He usually smokes before work. He usually smokes after work. He is also a rising star in his company. I see him do some dumb s*** because of weed, but it really isn't at tremendous peril to his livelihood. Eating up all his food or not having a six pack anymore or not joining a book club, etc are worthy concessions in his estimation and that's cool with him. Personally, I'd rather occupy my time with other things than weed...but I'm not out-earning him or necessarily contributing better to society. Hell, I blow more money on buying craft beers than he does on weed (not an alcoholic though, sorry). Anyways, yeah I just think weed is something that can be incorporated into your life if you do it right. QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 05:01 PM) There are also several successful people on here in alot of different arenas. There is good advice on this board in many different facets of life. This message board is far and away the best special interest board I frequent for topics that are anything other than the special interest.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:46 AM) I don't think he was the best choice for the #3 spot. The season is long and the second half Dunn was a shell of what you would consider a 3 hole hitter. The man had a .729 OPS with a .302 OBP for the second half of the season. So no matter what algorithm you use to optimize your lineup, Adam Dunn doesn't belong in the 3 hole. It makes sense only when you have a flaming hot PK batting after him. You don't have to throw Adam Dunn strikes when you have the human DP batting after him without a threat of anything more than a slap single.

Why in the flying f*** would Miami trade for A-Rod, even at 10-20% of his salary?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 10:30 AM) Oh god. If you disagree with Obama, it's because you're a subtle racist! If you don't vote for Obama, it's because you hate black people. That's the line of thinking in this "study." I don't know that the study is wrong... It just says that racists don't like Obama. People that aren't racists like his "American Dream" story and see him as American for it while racists (expectedly) don't. Nothing too interesting, really. Racists prefer the white guy, cool. It would be far more informative to see how widespread racist perceptions are but it's damn near impossible to measure.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:25 PM) http://www.romneytaxplan.com/ heh brilliant

There would be quite a benefit to having ESPN stalking our every move for the entire duration of A-Rod's tenure here. Imagine the Youk stuff but times 100 and without a previous manager to blame. A question would be whether you could see him moving to 1B/DH/OF at the end of that contract if he needs to or if it keeps him healthier. Right now his bat seems to have declined more quickly than his fielding, but then again this year may be a blip on the map. Hard to say with all time great players and its hard to say with known substance users. QUOTE (That funky motion @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 09:21 PM) Doesn't Arod have a NTC? Does it matter, considering the entire city hates him?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 09:21 PM) Going to Lawrence on Saturday. Chances I see Greg? 100%

I wonder how much coin we're giving Hawk. On one hand I feel like the money doesn't mean much to him, but on the other I think he would want the distinction of making a lot of money.

In my experience, the best part of knowing someone from the Dakotas is that they'll tell you about every person of significance from the Dakotas. iViva la Erstad!

Didn't I see it acknowledged that had their request for extra security been meet, they still didn't stand a chance at preventing loss of life?

If they can sell out at higher prices, I can't really fault them for making the price higher.

If they can sell out at higher prices, I can't really fault them for making the price higher.

Clarifying to people that don't understand the concept of non-state commissioned media that we have such a thing is important. As a non-religious government, we don't support the views of those that want to say mean things about Islam. We support positive messages, if anything. These things need clarifying when it might save lives (even if it has nothing to do with the Libya deaths, it still caused a violent reaction generally). We don't have to comment on everything, but it makes sense to clarify that the USA doesn't hate Muslims when much of the Muslim world hears that the USA is releasing movies about how Mohammed is an adulterer and whatever else.

This Libya stuff is so stupid to argue, it is only happening because it is an alternative to finding out the specifics of the Romney tax plan. Both plans will run a deficit, but they know people would rather have some benefits with their deficit rather than cut benefits and retain deficit. What happened in Libya was tragic, it is terrible for people to be murdered. How Mitt Romney could ever have enough information (especially in the moments immediately afterwards) to judge whether the President was acting appropriately using the most sophisticated intelligence organizations in the world is beyond me. He simply has no basis to critique the President beyond his own intuition. He lacks the intelligence data that leads to finding these events to be acts of terror vs random vs both, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 12:19 PM) ^^ QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 12:21 PM) I wish I could say that was some clever word play, but it was a German's bombed pearl harbor moment. lol, to think I gave you that much credit

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 11:55 AM) The problem with that debate is that both VP's need to conform to the parties views. Ryan's policies and voting history are so different than the republican platform for this election. That's certainly a tension, but since Ryan (perhaps reluctantly) articulated the party's views and Biden's views are basically those of his party I still found it much more useful. I saw it noted that the VP debate could be a preview of a presidential debate in 2016 -- I didn't believe it before, but afterwards I can see that happen. I love Biden, but I wonder if the much-maligned from the right aggressiveness would indeed be polarizing. Whether it is their own doing or not, things like the economy are almost certain to get better during an Obama second term so one wonders if any Democrat would have an easy time running on their predecessor's record. For instance, Moody's forecasts that without some sort of new manipulation, 12 million jobs will be created by 2016 (nice promise, Romney! staying the course will produce your jobs promise). If Biden runs and says "we created 12 million jobs in our second term!" how do you beat that?

I found the VP debate to much more constructive in terms of the discussion of policy and after watching last night's debate I really appreciate Biden calling Ryan out constantly for lying or not giving out details. Ryan was generally more detailed and Biden likewise...and it made the BO/JB ticket look better. It particularly made Ryan look bad when in the midst of his details, he awkwardly tried to explain why he would not give details on his tax policy.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:52 AM) This Mittens loves mentioning his time as Mass. Gov. and how he worked with Dems, Obama should just flat out ask him why he isn't contesting his state. BTW, when is the last time a former Gov. of a state didn't carry his state in a presidential election? Probably a long time ago I would guess. Not sure, but Al Gore did not win TN where he served as Senator.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:26 AM) It's too bad our "democracy" only allows for two candidates. Proportional voting like damn near the rest of the world would allow other parties to get more of a voice. In this case, you could have a libertarian party matter since they could simply cooperate in Congress with Repubs on relevant issues and with Dems on others. I have a feeling libertarians could take up 15%+ in a system that allowed for proportional representation. I've said this before, but our system is not a democracy by any stetch. It is a republic that has (almost) completely democratic voting for representatives. We don't do popular votes on legislation and therefore are not a democracy. QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:28 AM) I'm still waiting on Romney's policy specifics for the economy, cant his party put them out today or something since he only said "it will work" again on tv. Doing the math, he's reducing all taxes (his words) increasing spending in key areas and somehow that reduces the deficit? I dont understand how anyone can believe that. I also dont understand how he can say he's a great business-runner with a straight face. You grew up with money, made investments for awhile and then took a bailout. It doesn't make any sense to me, but he's just going up there saying it because people are attracted to the idea of less taxes. He is saying "trickle down economics" without saying it. "How does the budget balance, Mitt?" "More jobs/revenue because I cut taxes...but also, this is not trickle down economics because we know that doesn't work"

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:14 AM) 1. Obama won, almost as handily as Romney won the first one. 2. Candy Crowley was clearly in the bag for Obama and Romney did in fact get screwed by the moderator multiple times. Although really, Obama would have won anyway. 3. This town hall format is obviously much better for Obama than Romney. 4. For all the general perception that Romney is a results-oriented business guy and Obama is a big talker... Obama provided a heck of a lot more specifics for policy in the debate than Romney has. Mitt needs to add a lot more details to his plans if he plans to make a better case. 5. Neither candidate provided a real or useful answer to the questions about Benghazi. Obama got angry at the end, for good reason I suppose, but that didn't answer the original question whatsoever. Obama didn't answer to the failure in the agency's decision making, and Romney did nothing more than try to make it seem like Obama didn't care. Those are both loser arguments. I think some of the snap polling bore this out, but the town hall plays up the perception that BO relates to people better. It is one thing to relate through a TV camera, but I certainly get a sense that seeing BO talk to the question-askers makes him look much more like he cares about them than Romney. Whether one actually cares more than the other....who knows, it really doesn't matter. I believe Romney is going to continue to be vague so no one gets scared of his plans. When you have no specifics, there are no specific people that are going to get disenchanted. This goes perfectly with his general anti- campaign, just stand there and be a general alternative to the incumbent. The Benghazi question could have been a good one for Romney, but like you said he totally went at it the wrong way and it made Obama look good. He looked like a good leader with true concern for his decisions (especially when they might result in loss of life)...while true IMO, Romney could have prevented that from coming through if he had framed his response in a way that was far more specific and instead made Obama look incompetent instead of just trying to make him look careless/without remorse.

Who cares about OBL, didn't you guys know that 9/11 was an inside job? /libertarianfriends

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 07:49 AM) "I mean we have a lot of plays, it’s a new system, and the defense, you know,’’ Marco Belinelli said. "Everything is new for me, and I don’t want to use that as an excuse, but it’s maybe two weeks that we’ve played all together." Through four preseason games, Belinelli is struggling with averages of 5.5 points and 1.5 steals on 30.4 percent shooting. I particularly adore this quote, because Sly Belinelli is basically saying that playing defense sucks. Yep, it's different. Now he has to play offense while very tired because he can't rest on defense. My favorite basketball coaches always preached that you blow it all out on defense and rest on offense. It's brilliant because no one wants to rest on offense, they want to score! If they can't rest on D, and they won't rest on O.....people are working hard.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:32 PM) It's the T-Wolves. What did you expect? Besides, that was just your way of saying "look at this awesome guy I just picked up in fantasy basketball" without coming right out and saying it. Nate Robinson > all ....?

I think we can say our bench players benefit from Luol, but you can't say Luol is a bench player. That would imply that we have yet another player at his position that is enough better than him to start in his place.