Balta1701

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 03:35 PM) So who's the odd man out when Rose comes back? Hopefully someone wants Rip or Kirk, if not I hope they just release Rip. I only say that because Kirk has a 2 year contract. There doesn't need to be any odd man out. They have extra roster spots right now, and since they've waited, they still have enough room to add a minimum salary player in addition to Rose while remaining under the hard cap.

While I'm at it, slightly different topic, but still guns...the old SYG law. This of course just repeats a number of studies done on these laws previously which found the same result. When people are armed on the streets, there's no large increase in successful self-defenses, but there's a substantial body count from all the other situations the guns get pulled.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:38 PM) I agree. That's why I said some of them are radical. However, in many of the post he refers to the primary reason is to keep the federal government from taking too much control of everything. That's he calls many posters "government lovers" or says many poster equate government with God. One remarkable thing pt...I think almost everyone here would agree with your sentiment in this post: QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:23 PM) Duke's post are very radical however I still agree with his main point. Federal government should not have too much control or regulation in general. This is just one issue but it applies to everything. I certainly would also...and I'd be one of the ones called government-lovers by Duke. There's a lot of places, particularly at the state and local levels, where things could be improved by reducing government interference. Take some time and go through the number of licenses that municipalities have for different types of businesses and you've got great examples. My standard tends to be...I want a good reason before I demand government action. Its a cost-benefit calculation in my view. Just to take this case...when the cost of having people armed with assault style rifles is 20 dead kids...and I can't fathom a single benefit other than some vague "You're ready if the US Army comes after you!"...I lean quite strongly towards a strong regulation.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) That had to do with Chris' perceived contract demands. Trust me, I understand why people worrry about him as he's a huge part(the biggest part) of our franchise going forward but I think people are just trying to find things to be worried about when it comes to Sale. I just don't think there's any more injury concern with Chris than there is with any other pitcher in the bigs. I still think there was a lot of injury worry in teams, particularly the Royals, passing on him, although I'm never going to find the source that said so.

I found this to be a really cool look at the average value of a first round draft pick for comparison with the value of signing a player that costs you that pick.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:25 PM) This was also that little scare this season where the Sox entertained the idea of moving him to relief permanently because they were concerned with his future. That speaks volumes, too. If we really want to get into it, there's also his dropping to 14th in the draft when his performance, velocity, and Lefthandness had him in the top 5 on most people's draft boards.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:19 PM) And we're just working with assumptions that skinny guys can't be durable I take it? Correct, because if there's data out there on correlations between weight and pitching durability, I haven't seen it, but I also haven't seen anything ruling it out.

Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) returned to the Senate today for the first time since suffering a stroke last year.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 02:04 PM) I'm not a big fan of "Godwin's Law." It serves to separate the evils of the Nazi regime as some other-wordly horror, something un-human. I'm a big fan of Godwin's law, and here's a great example of why. The normal use of nazi references are as a trump card to establish that whatever your political opponent is proposing is truly the greatest evil of all time. But the real counter is...just because the nazis did something doesn't mean it's the greatest evil of all time. This is a perfect case. How many societies have disarmed themselves, by choice, over time? How many societies in this modern age have vastly fewer guns than us? And how many of them have wound up committing great evil on that scale? The great evils we see today may even be happening in the more well armed states (the civil wars in the middle east, the slaughter in the balkans, the fighting in africa). One case where the Nazis did something doesn't mean that doing that single thing will suddenly start causing your population to kill the jews. Taking away the guns from a population doesn't mean the population has no method for redress against its leadership.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 12:41 PM) UH OH HE BROUGHT UP SLAVERY, I MUST BE WRONG. The Nazi's took guns away in the 30's, then went on the slaughter the Jews. Sorry dude, but the Holocaust in the caboose on the liberal pity train, you cannot top that one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 01:05 PM) I've always thought that his arm motion is a much safer angle for his slider than coming over the top would be. I think some people just believe that coming from an angle like that automatically makes you an injury risk, and I just don't believe that to be the case. Obviously every pitcher is an injury risk but Sale is no more so than any other guy imo. Any other wafer thin guy throwing 96 mph with a real solid slider, perhaps.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 10:22 AM) If Emery is in charge of the personnel, how come Lovie is getting blamed for the lack of talent on the offensive line? The offensive staff went into last season saying they could make the O-line work, that the problem was in no small part that Martz's system put the linemen on islands alone, with no help. Frankly, this is not incorrect. Pay attention to the O-Line in a New Orleans game, and every single play there is a TE or RB who gives a chip or provides a 2nd block on the defenses best pass rusher. That's how they keep Brees clean and upright, and the Martz offense never ever ever did that, because that RB and TE needed to be moving down the field. That offense might still work when you have Orlando Pace in his prime at LT, but it was killing Cutler. Furthermore, you can also help the Line with playcalling; adding in slants, quick throws, screens, rollouts away from the line to break up the pass rush, draw plays, etc. So, Tice kept saying they could make this O-Line work if they had a better system. By the time the first Packers game rolled around, it was clear that not a single thing had changed. Every single play, either Webb or Carimi was faced up on an island against Matthews, and he did what will happen any time you put Clay Matthews singled up against any lineman and then try to throw the ball down the field every play. The QB got killed. No rollouts, no quick slants or in routes, crappy screen game, never ever any help delivered from a chip on the side of the rusher, and that just kept going. A better system, actually doing what their own words said they'd do, might have legitimately helped, but it was never tried. I don't know who to hang that on. Jay Cutler may just really, really like throwing the ball down the field. Tice and Lovie may simply not have heard the words spoken by Tice and Lovie. They may have changed their plans for some reason during TC. Emery may have legitimately made a mistake in having confidence in Carimi, who was Omiyale bad in pass protection this year. But I have zero trouble hanging a ton of blame on Tice and Lovie for the state of the O-line and protection this year. Their own words explained how they'd do better...and that was out the window by game 1.

Long but worth your time piece really laying out the research on the connection between Pb exposure, primarily from leaded-gasoline, developmental damage in young children, and the crime wave of the 70's-80's. Probably particularly worth thinking about if you own an older house that might still have some residual Pb contamination or if you're moving into an urban area where the contamination built up over time. Also a message worth remembering in terms of how environmentalist movements may have produced substantial economic gains over time and could continue to do so in the future through cleanup of other contaminants like Hg.

There is another actual potential use for the extended, talking filibuster. Without it, you run into the situation in the House currently, where the minority has zero leverage to bring any legislation to the floor. Give you a couple examples from this week; the House utterly failed to even consider a Hurricane Sandy relief package and let the Violence Against Women Act expire, despite both having been passed by the Senate, because the minority has zero leverage in forcing bills or amendments to bills to the floor for a vote. There are way too many block points in the Senate, I'll be the first to agree with that. The current plan is a good upgrade to try...force a talking filibuster where people have to be on the floor to do so and cannot be off fundraising, remove the filibuster of the motion to proceed (so that legislation cannot be filibustered twice), get rid of the filibuster of executive branch nominees (or just limit the number of nominees voted on), but maintain the ability of the minority to have leverage over what happens on the floor.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 09:34 AM) Balta, I don't think we've been watching the same Bears team this year. Cutler has been running out of the pocket and scrambling for yards a ton. Just looked through the stats. Cutler had 66% as many rushing attempts as Andrew Luck and Christian Ponder, 75% as many as Rodgers, and the same number as Jake Locker, who missed 5 games. His rushing attempts are also similar to guys like Sam Bradford, Josh Freeman, Matthew Stafford. Cutler is more effective at getting yards per attempt than the latter names on those lists, but he's not getting out of the pocket and running nearly as much as "Mobile" QB's, particularly given the number of broken plays his line gave him.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 08:56 AM) Right, because they want to force him to pay child support so she doesnt need state aid. If the situation with her has become so bad that the state is trying to force me to pay for a child, then I just became a surprise dad and its time to invest in that relationship personally as well as financially. And if he did this kind of donation 100 times?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 08:54 AM) Disagree on both. Hell, just the last game they were praising his ability to get out move away from pressure. The problem is he hates throwing it away and that brings a lot of unwarranted sacks. But then there are the games like against the Giants where it doesnt matter how fast his feet are or how fast the decision was, he was going to get killed. Cutler has the ability to get out of the pocket and use his feet, but for whatever reason, it was so rarely used that at this point I just discount it. If someone can retrain him to do that, great. If that was discouraged in the Bears' system for some insane reason and a new OC makes it happen again, great. But in the GM's shoes, I can't go into the season assuming that. I would have to assume that Jay Cutler is a pocket passer with a strong arm who loves to throw down the field and needs time to throw. That's the guy we've seen the last 3 years, and the Bears can't try to win games based on what Cutler might have the ability to do any more, they have to plan for what he actually does.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 07:50 AM) Rodgers is playing behind a pretty bad group in Green Bay. Not Bears bad, but pretty damn bad. I think that the Bears have to accept that at this point in his career, one of Cutler's flaws, perhaps his biggest flaw, is how he deals with pressure. He has no ability whatsoever to do so. He can't avoid it, he doesn't use his feet, his body has been made into a concussion prone one, his decision making is slow, and his arm motion is slow, all of which combine to generate extra pressure if the line doesn't hold. Rodgers responds to pressure by getting the ball out quicker, Cutler responds to pressure by getting pissed at his line. It drives me nuts, but I can't change that and the GM can't change that. That means the GM's only 2 options would be...switching QB's, which is a lot harder said than done, or making sure Cutler doesn't face the same kind of pressure Rodgers does.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 3, 2013 -> 08:35 AM) His motion and arm slot have always left him as a question mark, much like Strausburg. Body type probably goes on that list as well.

I don't see how anyone is going to support the plaintiffs here, but I might imagine that this is a gray area in the law in some states that could need to be cleaned up, particularly if he just answered an online ad of some sort in a way that isn't regulated.

No idea on actually getting in there. Did run into Wimpy in the bullpen sports bar area about 15 years ago (before it was open to the field).

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 2, 2013 -> 04:32 PM) You'd think he'd be in there ahead of Rienzo at this point. Or I would think, anyway. Eh, there's pluses and minuses. When i saw them both pitch, Castro had a clearly better fastball, but Rienzo was only reaching AA for the first time, while Castro had already had a year of struggles at AAA and was repeating AA. So Castro pitched better, but that wasn't unexpected. Plus, they're almost the same age, so Castro has more experience at higher levels. With their experience i'd probably have given Rienzo the edge based on his performance in the 2nd half, but the worry there is the 50 game suspension he also drew.

I'll stick this one in here for now. Thanks to the deal struck last night, the U.S. is now on pace for $348 billion or so in austerity measures at the federal level compared to last year alone. This is just over 2% of GDP...a larger than the 1.5% of GDP cuts that have sent the UK back into recession. That's assuming the Sequester cuts happen in some fashion of course, they're about 1/4 of that total.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 2, 2013 -> 03:51 PM) So, 600 out of the ~7.2 million teachers. Again, might as well build that bunker to stay out of the cross fire. Wow...so 600 is all they'll ever sign up? 2 weeks go by, they register 600, at a random site in Ohio, and then shut down? Well, that sounds like a pretty silly program on their parts, but thank God you informed me that they're shutting it down so rapidly and no one else following the lead, because I wouldn't want one of those 600 around anyone in my family. At least it's only 600 and no other fools will try to think it's a good idea to bring a gun into a classroom.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 2, 2013 -> 03:10 PM) I'd make sure he can handle 200-ish innings a year first. If he does that in 2013 without a huge drop-off, then I think they've got someone they should extend as soon as possible. Of course he's more expensive then, but still nowhere near free agency, and I think the lost money to wait a year is worth it in this case. To be fair though...even if he had a huge dropoff, that might not be telling. Justin Verlander had what I'd call a huge dropoff in his 3rd full season, 11-17, 4.84 ERA. If he has a big performance dropoff, I wouldn't call that unexpected. What I want to see him do this year is get to 200 innings and do so with no complaints of elbow soreness or anything like that.