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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 11:17 AM) Isn't that what I said? Sorry. I read it as he won't be out there due to the way shoulder injuries go. I didn't realized that you meant that he will be back because most shoulder innuries make it back.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 11:13 AM) That bullpen could look impressive rapidly if you've got a Rodon, Cease, and Kimbrel out there. He won't be in the pen. That would put too much stress on his shoulder. He will need to be on a regular routine.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 11:00 AM) If some of the youngsters who are "maybe" folks on the rotation, like Cease, Danish, and Adams, wind up being in the bullpen by 2019 - it could turn around pretty quick. Edit: Oh, and as of right now I think there's a nonzero chance we could see Rodon out there for a stint in 2018, with how shoulder injuries go. Odds are he will pitch for the Sox in 2018.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 11:10 AM) That was a really bad, self-important speech by Franken that basically called his accusers liars. Good riddance. I have no problem with a Sen. Ellison aside from that it opens up another race for a House seat. Still, it'd be great to have the GOP seating a child molester who doesn't believe that women or Muslims should be allowed to serve in government while the Democrats are seating a Muslim who replaced a guy they forced out over sexual misconduct allegations. Really solid juxtaposition there. e: a woman has an even better effect in that regard. Should anyone really be forced out due to allegations? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Shouldn't they be allowed to continue on until either they admit to it or proven guilty in court?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2017 -> 11:14 AM) Another solid piece by Rick Perlstein: The Elephants in the Resistance: Don’t Trust the Anti-Trump Republicans Sen. Jeff Flake and his ilk aren’t the heroes we’re looking for. Trump is a symptom, not a disease. What many people don't realize is that the reason this group is against Trump is that in most cases he is not conservative enough for them. If people don't like what Trump is trying to do, They will really go nuts if this group takes control.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 10:45 AM) Well how long do you think it'll take to build a dominant bullpen ? You absolutely need one to be serious about contending. That means 3 or possibly 4 guys the Sox don't have yet. I know it's pretty illogical to sign RP's to more than 2 or 3 years but the bullpen is my biggest worry for when the Sox start contending. I suppose this year could be all about trying the scrap heap relievers but guys who produce like we had like Robertson, Swarzak and Kahnle are going to be very hard to find. I think they have at least a few. in the minors. Burdi will be one. Probably a couple of the current starters who don't make the rotation such as Fulmer. I think they will need maybe two at most of outside the organization.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 04:42 PM) People on twitter last night were saying Eloy and Kopech straight up for him might not even get the job done. I think he's a bigger risk than people are acknowledging. The culture shock element can't be ignored imo. Ichiro had a singular focus and a great, winning personality in addition to his talents, we'll see if Ohtani is similar. He's had a surprising number of muscle injuries for a guy so young, not to mention the ankle surgery. They need to determine if he is willing to change his training routine.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 02:40 PM) I have parents who are on medicare, and its a f***ing travesty they are going to cut it. The true travesty is the rampant medicare fraud. If they took the money from the cuts and used it to enforce the medicare rules they would probably make enough money to expand it. I've quit jobs because of what they wanted me to do with my medicare charges. I reported them and nothing happened to them, that I know of anyway.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 02:42 PM) I'm sure all of the Boomers who will be voting to cut this will grandfather themselves in to whatever changes they want to make. Well why wouldn't you?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2017 -> 11:35 AM) We've already got our first example of why it's bad to rewrite the tax code of the largest economy in the world over lunch: Passage of Senate Tax Bill Puts R&D Tax Credit in Doubt Unintended consequence of late decision to keep the corporate alternative minimum tax could be loss of some tax breaks; companies push back In their self-imposed* rush to pass this bill last week, they were hand-writing changes to the bill with no analysis whatsoever up until the last minutes. One of the consequences of this was that in buying off Sen. Johnson by giving a tax break to his family's company, they added the Corporate AMT back into the bill. The problem is, though, that they left it at 20%. Which is the same rate as the new corporate tax rate. So why bother taking tax credits and deductions at all if you're going to be paying 20% no matter what? *just like with health care, the real reason for the rush was to ram it through Congress as quickly as possible before anyone could really understand the bill and build political opposition to it. This is what happens when you only have one side pushing something through without a real attempt at a compromise solution. But to be fair, Republicans really didn't want the healthcare revisons and democrats really didn't want the tax revisions.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 01:28 PM) Thinking about it, it appears to be to potentially reset his HoF clock. Good call. The opposition to the "steroid era" seems to be calming down. If he can push the clock back he may get in when people don't care about it any longer.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 12:55 PM) He dosen't just support the idea, he advised Trump to do it. He's as guilty as Trump when people start dying over this. I think that should be recognized. No it's all about putting blame on one person. Like the KW vs. Hahn blame. People have a natural desire to blame someone. When it's usually someone's decision, people rarely make a totally uninfluenced (if that's a word) decision.

QUOTE (Quin @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 12:23 PM) Well, my friends in the IDF despise this. Going to make their jobs more difficult that's for sure.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Dec 6, 2017 -> 12:59 PM) I just read where 53 year old Rafael Palmeiro wants to make a comeback this upcoming 2018 season. Hahn will sign him for his MLB leadership abilities. Hahn likes having a team with ex Cubs on it. Keep up with the injections and it's possible. Better living through chemistry.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 05:03 PM) Get that shoulder fixed Kyle. Apparently, the ankle that was surgically repaired this past year is what has been giving him the most issues still. Not a good sign.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 05:12 PM) I wouldnt even want to see it with anyone at my company. I have tickets for a 1;45 am show on Saturday. Hopefully I dont hear any spoilers on the way in. Last time as I was walking I was talking really loud so as to not hear anyone leaving, but somehow I heard "dead" and immediately thought Han Solo died. ;/ I'm going Thursday for this exact reason.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:28 PM) You are looking at it the wrong way. Small rural states are over represented in the Senate and in the electoral college (much less over represented in the electoral college but the bias is there). California's population is about 12% of the USA's population. Their electoral votes represent a little over 10% of the electoral college. New York has about 6% of the country's population but only 5% of the electoral college votes. Wyoming's population is about .2% of the general population but it has about .55% of the electoral college votes and this trend holds for the lower populated states. That is not what the article presented discussed. The .55% of the electoral college has a much lesser affect than the 10% obviously. But this situation allows the less populated area a representation. Could it be tweaked to be better. Probably. However, the overriding theme is that they deserve the representation that the other proposed processes would not afford.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:35 PM) I believe it is every 10 years corresponding with the census. Correct.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:17 PM) But we don't see that playing out now. Representatives from urban districts don't vote down farm subsidies or water/land/hunting rights. A lot of federal spending that goes to rural communities is more likely to be pushed by Democrats representing urban areas than conservative politicians representing rural ones. One notable example is the opposition to rural projects like TVA--they were proposed and planned and executed by 'coastal elites' like FDR and to this day are opposed by more rural conservative voters. I think at most you could say not that urban voters would vote against those things but that they wouldn't be a priority and maybe not receive the attention they're due. Alabama has major cities and is right at the median in terms of state populations, so that's not a great example. And like BS pointed out, we've already got the Senate. Two Senators for 500k residents in Wyoming, two Senators for 40 million people in California. Why give unequal representation beyond that? What should happen as more and more people move to cities? If we get to say 90% non-rural population, should rural voters still get 25-50% of the say in what our government does or doesn't do? It is not only a question of how people vote it's still about representation. I was not using Alabama as necessarily rural but more about everyone deserves representation. Yes the rural voters should still get that because they deserve to have their issues count. If they have a 1% vote, it won't count.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:12 PM) Those are the rules of the game. But significantly more people wanted Clinton than Trump. So its not factually accurate to say the dislike of Clinton was more than Trump. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_pol..._50_states.html This map shows the problem, someones vote in Wyoming is far more powerful than someone in Illinois. If we want to be fair about elections than a vote in Wyoming shouldnt have 4-5x more impact than a vote in California. Now I understand the fear of just having it be a popular vote, but it should be more fair. Perhaps the rule should be that it is capped at 1.5-2 and therefore larger states would get more electoral votes. This is true. However, the voting power discussion is a poor comparison. They are basing it on how much a person dictates the decision of the state electoral college vote. This is true. A single person in Wyoming does influence the outcome for the state than a single person in California. However, California has 55 electoral votes and Wyoming has 3. So while a single person in Wyoming has more affect on the state vote, they have a far lesser affect on the election due to the vast difference in the electoral votes. The more populist states still have a greater affect on the election.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:03 PM) This is not cool. Rural areas need to be heard as well. They have different problems than urban folks and they are often hand-waved by urbanites. I don't have any solutions regarding that atm but it should be looked into to see how they can be better represented. Exactly.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 12:01 PM) Not really? You can have a proportional representative democracy wherein rural Americans, who comprise 15% of the population, get roughly 15% of the total representation. You'd still have the Senate as well, which massively favors rural voters. I see no reason why some voters should get more or less voting power based on their proximity to their neighbors. People vote, not acreage. You could but that isn't the system we currently have. Here is why. How informed are most people on a topic such as farm subsidies? water, land and hunting rights? The people form the urban areas would always vote against these issues because it doesn't affect them. The people in the rural areas would never get anything from anyone because they would ALWAYS be voted against. These people need representation and would never get it under a straight population vote or the proportional vote you propose. The candidates that would support policies to benefit them wouldn't win. People in this forum have said Alabama is a backward state. Do they not have a right for representation?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:55 AM) Technically more people voted for Clinton than Trump. Correct. but that's not how the voting works. More representative areas voted for Trump. Therefore the candidates need to concentrate their efforts in more areas other than urban, population centers to win.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:18 AM) Look to Wisconsin. 60% control of the state house with only 48% of the vote and likely enough voter suppression to have swung the Presidential vote in that state last year. Pennsylvania, a fairly purple state, has 12 Republican and 5 Democratic representatives in the US House despite Democrats getting 52% of the overall House vote in the state. We're a "representative" democracy in name only. And some of that difference is inherent to the structure of our political system, as even with 100% neutral districting, voting coalitions that pack themselves into dense urban areas are going to be underrepresented compared to rural voters. This is the definition of a representative democracy. The idea is to not let the dense urban areas control everything by pure numbers. Otherwise the rural areas would not have any representation.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 10:59 AM) They will pay dearly for their mistake. Politicians before Trump was elected, were savvy and subtle in their ways to screw over people. They are trying to do it now too by saying bs like you will save 4k on your taxes which is false. With Trump, they are openly saying things like this tax plan benefits the rich, the estate tax repeal only benefits the rich, and if you didn't drink booze and buy hookers, you could be rich too. These politicians have never tasted what it means to be poor and they will absolutely get people out of their homes to vote in the upcoming elections. Generally, people are happy with some crumbs but when you take those crumbs away, they will become desperate. That's the whole idea of elections, if you don't like it, change it. The last election showed that. The dislike of the Clintons was more than the dislike of Trump. Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic there will be better options for the next election. As you said none of these poiliticians are in touch with people.