Balta1701

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 09:25 PM) To the death you will defend this piece of s*** because for like a month he was your poster boy for that compromise scam being used to kill America. No, I'm just admiring how every single post of yours makes you look even worse.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 08:58 PM) God I love seeing that fat piece of s*** flounder. Beautiful, bonus points for being the liberal's little pet Republican too. Making Chris Christie look dignified and honorable by comparison might not be easy, but you pulled it off with flying colors.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 05:59 PM) Damn if the Bulls could get actual pieces for he and Hinrich? Wow. 2nd round pick and an expiring equal dollar contract is my hope

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 04:46 PM) I edited my previous post because I forgot Jake brought up a purposed 2/20 restructured deal for Pep in this hypothetical scenario. IF they can actually restructure that much of the deal into bonus money and his cap hit is only 10M each year I'd have to think about it. 20M in reverted into bonus money just seems insane. There ought to be some way to make this work if the cap hit for cutting him is $7 million. Make it wind up $10 million this year, add in a bit more new money and a slightly smaller cap hit next year and he can call it a career.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 04:20 PM) This is a product of the last 10 years, which is nothing in terms of time for infrastructure planning. It's approximately right at the bottom of infrastructure spending as share of GDP and right around at the time when everything was reaching obsolescence everywhere.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 03:02 PM) I also think that Elon Musk's idea of above-ground tube systems (hyperloop), which will be much faster and much cheaper to operate than HSR, are a better long term plan anyway. Can be operated using mostly solar energy from the tubes themselves, equipment is cheaper, land acquisition is easier in some ways, it is much cheaper to build and dynamic trip costs are much lower. It just makes so much sense. If you want to go full-leap, that is a better way to go than HSR, IMO. Just so it's said, pretty much all of this isn't true. And one more link for good measure.

Rockets showing interest in Dunleavy.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 02:55 PM) However, China's government probably has no hesitation in simply plowing right over those properties. That becomes much more difficult (though not impossible) in the US. Acquiring right-of-ways for any new lines is a huge obstacle in this country. They need to focus on using the land they already have access to, to a great extent. And "The land already accessible" is often terrible for HSR because you can't, you know, make sharp turns.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:35 PM) The problem is that the population density out there is nil compared to many other places in the world that have high speed rail. The thing you have to view it as is hitting areas that aren't well suited for either air travel or car travel. Denver to Chicago is probably best served by air travel, but Chicago to Detroit/Indy/Milwaukee/St. Louis, you spend 4x the time at airport security as you do in the air. Same thing on the U.S. East coast, where the population density is the highest in the country and you have large cities that would be ideally connected by HSR. San Francisco, Las Vegas, L.A., and San Diego makes sense as well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:38 PM) China 352.5 people per square mile US 79.5 people per square mile Which should mean that the U.S. actually has a whole lot fewer difficulties with "lots of people living on the land we need" as well. Both countries have large geographic obstacles, but if you want to build something new in China there's probably something already sitting there you have to demolish.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 02:15 PM) If the Sox pull off what many here regard as "The Impossible" and sign Tanaka, does that change anyone's perception of the Sox chance to win this season? Or does everyone leave 2014 as "work in progress"? Where does that leave the rotation? Sale Tanaka Danks Quntana Johnson Rienzo and Paulino and the other minimal signing guys? I'd actually wait on that until I saw how the rotation shook out. It sure seemed like they signed Paulino with the intention of him actually playing based on everything said here.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:18 PM) This. There is absolutely no excuse. I'd say there's lots of excuses that add up to the full reason.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:17 PM) Well, couldn't you spend the money "set aside" for rookies, knowing you'll clear up the money for their salary after June 1? edit: this is actually a question, I don't know the answer. Generally no, I think teams also have to set aside that money before the draft.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 08:24 AM) seriously, right? follow up: EMS responders delayed by bridge closing http://www.northjersey.com/fortlee/GWB_lan...n_Fort_Lee.html I know we've heard about the angry white-hating guy and his Chicago-style politics...but this is gorgeous. This is the most Chicago-style-politics thing I've heard about in the news in a long time.

Zero points?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 01:09 PM) Japan is how big compared to the US though. And it certainly doesn't have the sprawling suburban model that we do. UK/France it took one tunnel. You're not building 1000-3000 mile lines like you would here. The bolded paragraph is also a huge issue. How long did it take to get the pink line up and running here in Chicago? And the infrastructure was basically already there. I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but I just don't think our situation is comparable to anywhere else. China though is comparable in size to the U.S. and has obstacles that in some cases make ours look small and weak. They're getting it done better than we are also. Whether it's mountains or size of the country or climate conditions or a tongue of the ocean, other countries keep doing this and we can't.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 12:36 PM) What other country can compare to the geographic obstacles we have? We put things off too long, and there's plenty of work to be done, but I don't think it's very easy to compare Europe or Asia to the US. I think a lot of them can. Japan, for example, is a geographic nightmare. UK/France has a large salt water body between them. This is one place where you might be able to blame a lot of government-related things so you should like it. It's insanely expensive to build infrastructure in the U.S. compared with the rest of the world. Building the same train in the U.S. costs like 3x or more what it costs in Japan, and they're a much bigger earthquake risk to boot. It's probably a lot of factors. Local/provincial issues (I'm not moving my house!), tax issues, feifdoms, environmental requirements, lots of power in the hands of local issues/leaders (my richest constituents use that road every day, how can you put a train line across it), unions, the federal/state budgeting processes, and I'm sure you can add to it. Of course, one counter-point is that it might be easiest to make things like that happen in a country with an extremely strong central government that can shove people out of the way...which fits very well with why China is able to pull off a variety of projects like this today at dramatically lower costs than we can. That may not be the model we want to follow either.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 11:07 AM) Well you have the other June 1 cuts to pick from. Those guys are rarely worth spending several million dollars on. There's a reason they're being cut at that point - it's that they're not ready for the season or something like that.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 08:20 PM) If they cut him after June 1, then the cap hit is only about $4M. That amount of dead space much more manageable. Just something to think about. But that would leave them unable to spend that money in March when free agency actually opens. They'd get the dregs in June.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 05:20 PM) 9.8M in cap room is substantial cap money. That very well could be enough to upgrade over Peppers, and add another piece to the defense. The problem is...$7.5 million in dead space this year is a lot of money too.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 06:26 PM) SF seemed to be more convenient but my experience is pretty limited San Francisco you mean? It is quite a bit more convenient than the trains in Chicago, IMO, because the city is so much more dense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 03:19 PM) Great for Frank. This is validation of exactly how incredible of a hitter the guy was. Also 16 people didn't vote for Greg Maddux. Seriously? Awful. More than Biggio missing by 2 votes, Maddux being left off of 16 ballots means there are 16 writers out there who need to be b**** slapped. Where does that leave his percentage compared to the other all-time guys?

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 03:10 PM) There was a time when it looked like Sox had very little chance of landing Abreu. When was this? I think we all saw him declare and said "oh this makes a ton of sense".

Perhaps just celebrating the new hall of fame class.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 02:45 PM) So Thomas is the only slugger from the roid era that I can think of to get in. Might be the only one ever. Alomar and Ripken are the only others who would come close. Ken Griffey Jr.