Balta1701

Mitt Rmoney hired a foreign policy adviser who worked under John Bolton at the U.N. Ideal fit for the campaign's foreign policy areas, where they've mostly brought back people from the Bush administration. This adviser also happened to be gay. Under Republican pressure, this spokesman has now been asked to resign...solely because he was gay.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 1, 2012 -> 05:16 PM) Any recommendations for Yosemite day hikes? You in good enough shape to do Half Dome?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 1, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) The Magic are pretty much the worse team in the playoffs. The Pacers have already inexplicably lost game 1 at home and didn't look good at all save for one quarter in game 2. They're supposed to scare the Heat? And that's assuming they win their current series. Nobody was talking about the Celtics, who more than have their hands full with the Hawks right now, beating the Bulls until Rose went down. Well, I was, but that was on the grounds that Rose might get hurt again.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 1, 2012 -> 04:27 PM) Spent a couple days last weekend solo hiking in NW New Mexico and SE Arizona, specifically the Peloncillo and Chiricahua Mountains. Mostly off-trail. Saw some really nice archaelogical sites, and assorted other cool stuff. I highly recommend that area if you truly want to get away from humanity for a while. Sorry I didn't get back to you on that.

Popovich is Coach of the Year, Thibs comes in 2nd.

Apparently the President is hosting a campaign event in Afghanistan and has another national-address styled event scheduled for tonight, on the 1 year anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 1, 2012 -> 03:01 PM) HOME. 7:00 PM. Gracias.

is this a home game or a road game, and when does it start?

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 1, 2012 -> 02:11 PM) It is technically 3rd behind NY and Honolulu, primarily because median income in SF is higher...at least in Honolulu's case...I've been contacted by company there and I'm just curious how far I should even let the process go prior to discussing the salary range...I usually don't mention it, but when it comes to CA companies, their housing is so ridiculous that it is a much larger issue than it is normally... If it's a quality company based there, they would have to take that into account on their standard offer to new employees.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 1, 2012 -> 12:53 PM) Know how you cut down on Juan Pierre's base-running outs? By not signing Juan Pierre. This tells you how rough the state of the Phillies OF is right now

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 1, 2012 -> 11:12 AM) This thread has now hit Caulfield overdrive, which is 10 steps faster than Maximum overdrive. Please fasten your seatbelt, and prepare for news articles from every corner of the earth. Thank you. It's gone plaid!

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 1, 2012 -> 10:57 AM) Or a s***ty Cubs team. Every. Year. One nice thing about the Sox/Cubs matchup...even if one team (or both) are terrible, they both step it up and play like it's a playoff series. Not just because of the fans, but you can feel there's more intensity on the field. Those games are always hard fought.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 1, 2012 -> 10:54 AM) Interleague would be much better if they focused that extra 3 games on teams that don't come to US Cellular often enough. I can handle less Cubs to see matchups against San Francisco, Washington, Miami, Arizona, etc. You gotta remember though that for every good series, you also get a stinker. You get a down Padres team or a Pirates team or something like that.

I get why they'd do it, but man, I like having those 6 a year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 1, 2012 -> 10:44 AM) I think it is a great idea, you just have to hope the white house doesn't deem it a vertical monopoly like Standard Oil. More specifically, you have no reaction to the statement that it is not possible to appropriately hedge against price variations on the open market? The writer isn't wrong in one sense...Delta Airlines has no more business running an oil refinery than Pepsico had running a brand of restaurants. They don't have the expertise in running it, they're going to have to bring in a whole lot of people to do so at high cost. This seems like something basic that the financial industry ought to be able to do. The only way I could get around that is if the state subsidy is really so huge, but again, why wouldn't a firm with experience running oil refineries be able to take thsoe subsidies and restart the facility at a lower cost because of built-in expertise?

This probably counts as the most thought-provoking thing I've read this morning and I'm going to also be interested to see if any of the financialtypes here try to smack it down.

MLB has issued Delmon Young a 7 day suspension.

The first of the month is a great day to update your AAP Pages (or to start a new one).

The first of the month is a great time to update your AAP pages!

If it bothers you that much, pick a Sun-Times advertiser and send them a polite email informing them of the comments, then wait a few days and see if they respond.

The Sox started Castro off conservatively this year, dropping him back to AA ball into the Birmingham rotation. So far, he's given up a ton of runs, but the peripherals actually look a lot better than his overall performance. ERA: 4.65, 1-1 record, 35 hits in 31 innings, 21 runs (16 earned), 3 HR, 7 BB, 26 K's. Lots of strikeouts, good K/BB ratio, hasn't given up a ton of hits (opponents hitting .282 against him), 1.00 GO/AO ratio. Everything seems good in the peripherals but the performance isn't there. Makes one wonder if that couldn't be more of an issue with the defense letting him down in a few games, especially with 5 unearned runs in 5 starts. Some local writeup:

A blurb on Molina from the locals:

Nestor Molina was assigned to be the "Ace" in double-A Birmingham, clearly the top prospect in their rotation. His April stats are pretty good, but would be "Very good" if it wasn't for the classic "one bad start". 3.56 ERA against him, 3-1 record, 0.91 GO/AO ratio, sparkling 23/3 K/BB ratio. 30.1 innings, 38 hits, 3 HR, batters currently hitting .306 against him. One bad start where he gave up 9 hits, 5 ER, and 1 HR. If it weren't for that start, his ERA would be sitting at 2.45.

Walker got off to a fast middle of the month after a very slow first few games, assigned to class A Kannapolis, but slowed down considerably at the last week again. Very streaky so far. Walker went 3 for his first 19 with 11 K's, but then started piling up the hits. On April 22, he was hitting .300, but has followed that up with a 1/17 stretch in his last 5 games. By far the most troublesome stat is 31 K's in 77 AB's. Not possible to put up good numbers when you do that, but as this thread should show, he's raw and that's the thing he will need to fix before being a big league quality player. Overall stats, hitting .247/.337/.338/.675, 5 2b, 1 3b, 11 BB's, 8/13 on steals.

Saladino was assigned to BHam, where he is their starting shortstop. He got off to a very slow start in April but has been on fire to finish the month (17 for his last 41, after going 5 for his first 44). Finished the month hitting .259/.406/.376/.782, 1 HR, 2 2b, 2 3b. 7/8 stealing, 18 BB and 20 K on the month (18 BB in 103 PA's being particularly good). He also had a nice interview on NPR to start off the month.