Balta1701

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:53 PM) But nonetheless, there are ways to draft the law to prevent those situations and be fair to all americans. The problem is that when its all or nothing, the likely outcome is nothing. Its better to give in and get the majority of what you want, then to get nothing. Also, and this in my opinion is important, because once people begin to become more comfortable with the idea, it will be easier to create other laws that may be more encompassing. But generally the first laws on an area are much narrower. If you can't reform the health insurance industry at this level, then you literally cannot do anything at the national level.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:48 PM) Just curious, but do people think Alexis Ramirez has lived up to expectations? Was he projected to be more than what he is at the plate? Certainly his glove has, but offensively? For a 4 year, $6 million deal, yeah he's exceeded expectations. After 2008 I really did expect more from him with the bat than we've seen, but he was so good with the bat in 2008 that he set himself a high standard. Since then though, he's become more than expected with the glove.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 04:07 PM) Strange Sox, Once again, that issue can be resolved. The law could easily state that if your insurance is tied to your employer, that when you are terminated you can still continue to get the same coverage for the same price. The law actually said this for a long time, it was called the "COBRA" plan. However, the biggest problem is that unemployed people generally cannot afford $20,000 on average for a family of 4, and when the employer contribution, which is 90% of that, goes away, that's it. Edit: Also, the insurers had to be forced to do that by the government for a reason, because it had the same catch-22. If people were generally healthy, they wouldn't pay that kind of money on their own. If people had a sick kid, and they lost their job, they'd do whatever they could to hold onto that insurance.

175 innings for Sale. 600 PA's for Viciedo. That's all. Just play them.

QUOTE (Cali @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 02:56 PM) I really hope that was strictly an Ozzie thing. Respecting veterans (and Latin veterans like Omar) too much and seemingly having issues with Rookies. As a rookie manager I would HOPE Robin would have sympathy. Especially with his slow start from his past.... The real worry here is that Fukudome is a classic fast starter. .979 OPS in April, career for him, and then .750's and below the rest of the year. He comes out on fire every year and consistently forced Cubs like Colvin to the bench because how can you not play a bat that hot? Then suddenly he cools off, becomes an average/below average hitter again, but then it takes another month before he starts losing playing time, and the guy that got benched for him is now completely out of rhythm.

Only 1 missed day for Rios is good, I guess (assuming he actually wants to be int he lineup this year).

Jason Isringhausen made the Angels.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 12:23 PM) Teddy Greenstein ‏ @TeddyGreenstein Rip is "gametime," but as long as he's cleared medically and gets thru warmups OK, he will play tonight. #bulls Anything tweeted lately about the MVP? I'm not expecting tonight, but OKC on Sunday and Houston on Monday is a tough B2B without him.

Great, and since the stuff I said on that issue got ignored a couple days ago and now people are back to pretending I somehow said the Democrats **** don't stink, I'll re-quote myself. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 06:11 PM) But the other side here is that a person who doesn't decide their jurisprudence (at least in the biggest cases) based on anything other than the prevailing political beliefs of their appointing party will not reach the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy was the last one like that you'll see. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 06:14 PM) There really is something that seems off if the way this country is governed is grandfathered in based on which party's President was in power when 5 of the justices were appointed versus which party's president was in power when 4 of the justices were appointed. (Especially if that grandfathering decides the next president, but somehow I feel like that's digressing). IF that's the way it's going to be then there ought to be at least term limits on the court so that the court can shift as society shifts more readily. QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 06:16 PM) I agree 100%...this is exactly what I was attempting to convey...but since you did it better, I'll just use this. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:03 PM) Correct, which of course means it'll never happen, and we're stuck with the current system, so we may as well start nominating justices when they're in their 30's to give us the best chance of them never leaving. Plus, short paper trail. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:17 PM) I doubt it plots on a line...but sure seems that way. For exactly that reason. Roberts, Kagan, Alito, and Sotomayor were all between 50 and 55 when they were nominated. We've got those 4 there for what, 25+ years barring a genuine early retirement? Let's just say this...no one is appointing a 65 year old justice at the height of his or her career any more, no matter how deserving.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:45 AM) That's exactly how I see it...and it's exactly how every last one of their arguments are being framed. As I'm not an expert, and I'm only basing my opinion on what I know/understand, there was a legal way of doing this, and the way they actually did it. They had 2 constitutional options. 1. Be Republicans. 2. Have a 5-4 Democratic appointed majority on the court.

I don't recall exactly where we had that last discussion on copyrights so I'm sticking this here. Amazon.com sales by decade a book was published. That gigantic gap after 1920 is the extra protection granted to copyright holders thanks to Disney. That's somewhat remarkable.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:42 AM) Meh. I am not remotely worried about Viciedo's long-term future. He will definitely be a major-league hitter, but the question is whether he's merely above-average or Vlad Guerrero in the end. Either way, we shouldn't judge based on spring training. He's just turned 23 so have a boatload of patience. I'm extremely worried about Viciedo's future, because he tends to be a slow starter anyway, and this team has an annoying history of rapidly turning people who start off struggling into platoon players because the veteran on the bench needs his at-bats.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:44 AM) The kicker is McCourt got to keep half of the parking lots. http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_...ohnson-group-2b McCourt gets to keep "ownership" of the lots but he doesn't get any of the lot gate revenues. He gets an ownership stake in the parking which can be sold, but which will only have value if the land is redeveloped. If the Dodgers stay at Chavez Ravine forever, his shares are worthless. If they redevelop that site into housing and move elsewhere, his shares are worth a fortune.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:32 AM) I'd day Taj because of his draft position. It is much harder to find a guy in that spot. If it wasn't for Noah or Boozer, he'd be a starter and probably would be 15/9 kind of guy. For the hype of Jo when he came out of college, he never really has taken any step forward offensively to separate himself from the pack. You know what? My answer is going to be "depends on what Noah shows up in the playoffs". If we get the Healthy Noah who can win a game or so in a big series on his own just by pulling down 18 boards or so, I'll take that pick...but the injuries have really hurt here. The guy who showed up in November of 2010...stellar, but he's been gradually trying to get back to that level for a while now. If he's just rounding into condition this year and struggling with the lack of a preseason and the compressed schedule I can believe that, but then he has to kick high gear on the playoffs. The November 2010 Noah was a dominant center, then he had that injury. If we still had the pre-injury Noah this wouldn't be a tough question.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:29 AM) I'm convinced Balta is employed by UT to solely post on Soxtalk. I've gotten a disturbing amount of work done here this week despite these threads.

Google created self driving car with legally blind driver.

An enjoyable look at the importance of the corner-3 ball to offenses. The reason I probably wound up liking this so much, of course, is that it winds up concluding "Tom Thibodeau is scary."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:13 AM) Right. Just like late term abortion isn't a slippery slope... Ok, it probably isn't.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:04 AM) The problem is, as I see it, one method is legal, and one is not. And for the purpose of disclaimer, I'm not an tax code expert, nor a constitutional expert. Our tax code is so complex that issues like this arise BECAUSE it's so complex. What I am is a home owner that can tell you the differences in added taxes I now have versus when I didn't own a home...and the write off doesn't come CLOSE to off setting the added amount of my money that's being sucked up by various government entities. But you're making a fundamental difference here...you are lumping together "Various government entitites". Does the Federal government enforce property taxes? No. That is a state/local level issue as far as everything I have known. The Federal government can step in and choose to offset a portion of that payment if it wants, just as it can also offset a portion of the interest being paid to a private company in that purchase. Here's a quick tax-related look at how the "Federal income tax" is affected by the mortgage interest deductions...it neglects the state level ones and only deals with the Federal ones.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:04 AM) And there you go. Thanks to the continued liberal erasing of economic rights, now we are to this point. We had the right took away to make economic decisions, this is just the government taking away another one. Some days I think Ron Paul is the only sane one out there. I love how you responded with nothing but a slogan. You have every right to continue being uninsured with this act, to get sick, and to die without treatment. No one has taken any rights away from you. You just have to pay a tax.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:02 AM) But I thought they weren't doing enforcement? Of that clause. Here's their full legal interpretation on it. There is a lot of stuff for the IRS to do here, maintaining databases, maintaining status of plans which are eligible, but that's actually one of the dirty little secrets of the law, if you refuse to pay that, there is currently no enforcement mechanism. Some might argue that totally undermines the law (it does), but it also keeps anyone from saying that the IRS threw them in jail because they refused to pay the mandate.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 10:57 AM) So what exactly would IRS agents be doing with Obamacare then? Link. IRS Press release summing up the wide variety of tax law changes included in the bill.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 10:54 AM) government groups deciding on how to decide life or death matters turns into death panels. In this case, taxes turns into we can take whatever we want and force you to take whatever we want. Yes or no. If the PPACA is found constitutional...can people choose to not purchase insurance? Because if you answer "Yes", then people are not being "Forced" to do anything.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 10:55 AM) http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/was...bamacare/416051 Yeah, because that has anything to do with actually having an enforcement mechanism.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 10:50 AM) You haven't made a valid point to respond too. The (simplified) point you are attempting to make is that if you purchase a home, you pay less in federal tax as an incentive to ease the burden on the home owner...so by that same token, if they increased taxes on everyone, and then provided tax *credits* for purchasing private health care, that it's the same. First and foremost, that's not what they did. Second, the mortgage example is an incentive that slightly lowers taxes in one area because it will now be imposed in other area(s) you weren't previously paying into at all. The other is a blanket tax offset...where if you get taxed 700$ a year, earmarked for Heath Care expenses, and IF you buy private insurance, you get it all back in the form of tax credits...which is a refund, not a write off. And so basically, they did something that is structurally exactly identical. They raise the income tax by $695, and then offset it with a $695 credit that you receive if you purchase the private insurance. They changed the terms. A refund versus a write-off. Fundamentally it is the exact same thing. The only difference is that they spelled out the mechanism in one bill rather than doing so independently. There's no plausible standard by which doing one of these can be constitutional and doing the other is an unconstitutional impingment on freedom. Either the government has the right to incentivize certain purchases or it doesn't.