Balta1701

I covered Acadia, Shenandoah, and most of the Blue Ridge Parkway on this most recent trip, in addition to the National Mall and the historic districts in downtown Philadelphia which the Park Service also manages.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Jul 29, 2012 -> 07:10 PM) ESPN has exclusive rights. Games started after 6 p.m. E.T. cannot be shown out of market. They just hate it when people watch their networks.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 23, 2012 -> 09:52 AM) Penn State should have lost all its home games this season. Dont give the stupid a chance to rally around the team. The one thing they were clearly trying to do was to avoid punishing the current players who had no idea about this when they signed up, and I can tolerate that. Penn State can have games, the money from those games just goes to fund independent sex-abuse agencies.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) It doesn't make a difference honestly. People who are going to vote, will vote. Those who won't, don't. I went back and looked it up. We had four weeks of early voting last time around at the courthouse, where if you went up to the Clerks office you could cast a ballot. 188 hours of early voting in total. Plus the absentee ballot considerations, and the mobile balloting. That is in addition to the 12 hours the polls are open on election day (6am to 6pm local time. That is 200 hours of time over the period over four weeks, plus three days. The turnout for the 2010 election? Barely over 20% of registered voters. If people aren't interested in voting or choose not to vote, we can lecture them and complain, that's fine. But what we should not do is respond by denying people who actually want to vote any practical way of doing so.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 10:57 PM) I don't see how having to rely on Taj more would make him easier to trade. I think if we sign Thomas, he will be a garbage time player for us for 1 year as we develop him, sort of like Jimmy was last year for us. After that, Boozer gets amnestied and Mirotic comes over. We'll have a rotation of Mirotic/Thomas, making Taj expendable. Saves money and hopefully gets us a nice piece back. Removing Taj isn't the issue. The issue is...they're simply not going to replace Taj with a guy who played as a garbage time player this year, unless they give up and rebuild.

So...is that worse than the team going away for a full year?

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 10:39 PM) Nah, I consider him all but a goner. The signing of Nasty Naz makes it elementary. The interesting thing to me now is Malcolm Thomas. Bulls fans are clamoring for the Bulls to sign him, he's young and shows promise, but he plays PF...if he were to sign here he'd get minimal playing time unless Booz or Taj get injured. It's possible to sign him for depth and use Taj as an expendable trade piece then if Thomas pans out but...I don't know. The only way that things would work out where the Bulls could trade Taj is if Noah is out for a substantial portion of next season, thus making it so that Taj plays 25 mpg and 15-20 minutes are available for the UDFA.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 10:28 PM) Not for Ozzie. You might have to add the word "Deportes" (SP).

That seems like a pretty hefty fine for an athletic dept.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 10:25 PM) I hadn't noticed, but I imagine playing starters minutes will get him into shape fast. Nothing builds stamina like repetition. That would not happen if he were to remain in Chicago, of course.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 10:05 PM) He finally found his wind at the end of the year and was contributing solid minutes, but for the first half of the season he was horrific. Thibs had him on an extremely short leash, he was good for an instant foul as soon as he entered the game. I was really disappointed in Asik this past season, I expected better. If "Not being able to be in shape" hurt him this season, it might well hurt him next year too if he's backing off on workouts to avoid getting hurt before his contract is finalized.

Bump in the road. You're never as good as you are when you go 7-2 or 8-3 in the game surrounding the break, and not as bad as you are in an 0/5 streak.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 11:33 AM) Unscrupulous Democrats (ABC News) tries to blame batman movie shooting on Tea Party. Later is forced to retract false news report that batman shooting was an attack from the "Tea Party". http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/0...ion-129568.html I don't know if it should have been Brian Ross or if he was just reading someone else's work, but that's the easiest "fire someone" you'll ever see.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 19, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) Their claim was and remains completely unsubstantiated and contradicted by others who were actually there. The burden of proof is on them and they failed to provide any evidence. There was more. They provided details in their book that didn't stand up to one iota of scrutiny. One of their claims was that Kerry was lying when he said he was ordered to go into Cambodia, because you couldn't get to Cambodia from Vietnam at the time since the U.S. had put a chain/warning sign across the Vietnam/Cambodia border on the Mekong river so that boats wouldn't accidentally cross into Cambodia. Of course, if you look at a map, the Mekong river in that area is a delta, which means that there were a half dozen or so migrating channels, so if the warning sign, it was a deliberate deception from the government to cover up boats going into Cambodia along the multitude of channels. But the most basic level of scrutiny was never applied to their claims...it was 100% "Horse race, how does this effect the race" coverage. No investigation of veracity. (Running a blog as a geologist in 2004, when that book came out, the first thing you do is go to the maps. And then you say..."this is complete BS).

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jul 19, 2012 -> 05:58 PM) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bus...ice_controversy It was based a lot more than some discovered files that found its way to Dan Rather. This story really pissed me off, both at CBS and because this provided the perfect way to make sure no more questions were ever actually asked. It took 8 years to really cover what happened in a quality way. It's worth your time to register for this story if you want the backside description of what happened with that report.

And somehow, Boston only gained 1 game.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 07:41 PM) Thank god. $15 mil in year three for a guy that didn't even play 15 MPG for us this year would have been beyond absurd. As long as they keep Gibson it's an acceptable loss, and he's simply more valuable to the Rockets than to the Bulls.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 11:40 AM) It's funny. Ryan has to be considering trying to re-sign Liriano (if they want to compete for the AL Central anytime soon), because he's far and away their best pitcher now. Unfortunately, the Mauer and Morneau contracts make that close to impossible. With how inconsistent he is, I don't know how you could risk committing long-term money to him.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 07:20 PM) I felt like he seemed to regress because we got to see him out on the floor for longer stretches several more times than we were used to, in more important times than we used to. He averaged 2 more mpg, but with both Noah and Boozer actually being healthy for the full season, it seems like a stretch to say that he got longer stretches/more important stretches than the year beforehand.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 05:54 PM) They did a poor job of spending that money. The concept of moving HanRam to 3rd didn't seem nearly as crazy as moving Miguel Cabrera there.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 07:11 PM) Good for him. Also good that the Sox aren't paying him that much money. If he's healthy it's a solid deal. The odds of him being healthy all 3 years seem low. Also supposedly includes a full NTC.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jul 20, 2012 -> 09:53 PM) I have to say, I think I have an issue with early voting. Not absentee, just early voting. If this country had a national holiday on election day I might agree.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 07:49 PM) I just find it odd that something like this happens with all the stink about the UN Arms Treaty talk going on right now (which is gonna cause a HUGE stink soon)...kind of a CIA "false flag" scenario IMO...like a healthy Andrew Breitbart dropping dead of natural causes at 43 (who said he had bad video of Barry)...and I'll stop now with my other theories. This was really written?

QUOTE (northside sawx @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:21 PM) Look for a guy wearing a gas mask and kevlar, dressed in all black. And aim for the head Do you remember the North Hollywood shootout? 2 men in body armor held police at bay for nearly an hour while firing weapons. They had no armor over their face, and were being shot at by dozens of police. It took an hour for police to actually hit them in a place that could wound them around their armor. Why? Because "Aim for the head" under ideal circumstances isn't easy, you aim center of mass for a reason, you're less likely to miss, the head is a small target compared to center of mass. Now, even assume ideal circumstances, except you are under fire yourself. Thus, you don't have time to stand in front of the shooter and take aim, if you try to do that you die. You have to get off a shot quickly. Now, assume that the responder doesn't have the training of a police officer to get off a shot quickly. Now the scenario is even worse. Then, add in any other situation. Like a cramped hallway, or an explosive device, crowds of people screaming and trying to take cover or get away, in this case tear gas and darkness. What you just described is a hollywood scene, it isn't real life.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 22, 2012 -> 05:54 PM) I know he looked like he regressed in his 2nd season, but there's a good reason for that: Lockout season, no training camp, no summer league. Unfortunately, the $15 million 3rd year + extra big chunk of luxury tax gamble on him improving in that regard was just too big of a gamble. You should also add "Recovering from broken leg" to your list.