Balta1701

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 03:06 PM) Yes, that Rommel, but spelling it the way I did is and always will be funnier in light of where we live. I figured it had to be some Germanic version of spelling his name that I didn't know.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 02:55 PM) That is awesome, and it needs to catch on around Chicago. Ah, now me gets.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) under Rahmel. Um, Rommel?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:44 AM) When these appointed positions can be ran as fiefdoms with no oversight except by the President and have the effect of making 'rules' that are de facto laws without congressional approval, you will never get it streamlined. Except for when Congress approved the positions and their abilities to create rules. And when Congress gets to evaluate them. It's a really fun game actually. Congress passes the buck on writing rules, so that they can drag the process out, pull in more lobbying money, still pretend that it has no responsibility, then complain and blame the executive branch when the executive branch tries to use the authority Congress granted to it.

NCAA President endorses a 2 game, 4 team playoff.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 11:25 AM) And you seem to be assuming that everyone over there is a potential terrorist, just waiting for that one little slight to push them over the edge. It doesn't have to be everyone. It just has to be 1.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:59 AM) Now, to the point, desecrating the bodies of foreign fighters does NOT matter in relation to angering terrorists. This was the original point we responded too, and the ONLY point we responded too. We said nothing of the fact that it won't help win the "hearts and minds of the local population", because it wasn't what we were responding too in the first place. So you moved the posts from angering/inciting terrorists to the local population. Changing the context in which our original statements were made was unfair. No, it's not unfair. Right here you've made the classic, obvious mistake of assuming that the total number of terrorists or people willing to kill Americans is a constant. It isn't. My first statement was that American soldiers will die because of this. My second statement was that the Abu Ghraib videos were key parts of taking people who might not like us and otherwise convincing them to pick up weapons. The people who are already in Al Qaeda, yeah, they aren't going to change their feelings based on this. But the guy who is deciding whether to hide an Al Qaeda member in his home, or the 18 year old kid deciding whether to pick up the AK 47 and go after the Americans, those are the ones this matters for. This isn't changing the context. That is the single biggest key to understanding how to "Win" these conflicts we've gotten ourselves into. When you inflame the local population, you hurt your chances of winning, you create enemies for yourself, and your soldiers die. The other option would be to stop fighting these types of wars.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:41 AM) And progressives would be telling us to ignore it as merely the "fringe" terrorists performing those types of acts, and that any hatred/animosity towards the citizens of X country generally would be wrong. So, the Afghan people are justified in conducting military acts against Americans in response?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 10:15 AM) I never said I condone what was done, but we need not pretend it's why they're angry, either. Applying bit of logic to the situation is all that's necessary. The people that did this are idiots and I wasn't making an excuse for these idiots...but ironically, you ARE making an excuse for the terrorists by that same token. Point is, they don't need an excuse to be angry, they already are, and have been for eons. So they're always going to be angry and thus it doesn't matter if we do anything that pisses them off, but it's also worth having hundreds of our soldiers die to try to change the fact that they're always pissed off. Seriously, if we want to pretend that desecrating the bodies of foreign fighters doesn't matter, then we should stop getting involved in wars where winning the "Hearts and minds" of the local population is so important.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 09:44 AM) Pretty much, they get outraged at anything/everything, so of course they'd be outraged at this. But let's stop pretending they wouldn't have been outraged anyway, even if this never happened...and that's exactly what people are doing right now. That doesn't mean we have to help! And that's not an excuse at all!

QUOTE (farmteam @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 10:47 PM) A loss like this can't be unexpected. You can't expect to win when you play like s*** pretty much the entire game. Jim Jackson said it best when it seemed like the entire team was just a step slow. There wasn't any of the energy that's been our trademark this year. Pick it up, move on, and go for the W in Columbus. I'd call that a classic trap game. Bigger game coming up in a few days, weaker opponent, young team, at home, coming off 3 big wins earlier in the month. Underestimate the opponent, don't come in ready to play, maybe party a bit too much during the week, etc. It happens.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 08:58 AM) Dan Bernstein @dan_bernstein WBBM Newsradio reports Starlin Castro still being interviewed by police. They began questioning him last night. So he's been under bright lights, no sleep, for 12+ hours?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 13, 2012 -> 04:08 AM) Uh, no. Ozzie benched Ramirez about 4 games into the season and he didn't get another shot until Uribe was hitting so poorly that HE needed to be benched. I believe Uribe got hurt, not benched. When Uribe came back healthy he then took over 3b.

QUOTE (OZZIE_FAN_69 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 10:18 PM) Whatever happened to Mitchell? Kid fell off the face of the Earth after that injury. For a kid who was raw coming in, losing a year when he did was awful. Now instead of 2 years of growth, he had a full year of rehab and then a year of trying to recover.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 09:28 PM) I really hope people aren't judging this guy off one game. Too late. He's Dunn.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 05:39 PM) "The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion" Instead, some of the largest subsidies the government provides are the subsidies for moderate/large homes.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 05:11 PM) Slightly bummed that Luke Scott signed with the Rays today. Was hoping that he was on our radar as the last OF/Dunn insurance/LHPH, but I imagine that $5M + incentives was a bit steep for those duties, given our budget. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised he was able to get so much coming off last season, but lefties with power will always get paid, I suppose. We weren't signing another DH or OF. Just no way.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 04:14 PM) Point one. In order to have labor, you have to have an investor class willing to invest. Criminalizing profits isn't going to create jobs. So how did we manage to for decades have much smaller levels of corporate profits as a share of the economy, higher wages, better living standards, and yet still have plenty of increases in innovation/investment/productivity? We pulled that off for decades. Then, at about 1980, we stopped. We have a much bigger investor class, and what we've seen as a result is much more inefficient allocation of investable resources (I have $8 trillion in houses to sell you if you don't believe me).

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 04:40 PM) Because they weren't before. More than a few people in Iraq admitted they were inflamed by the Abu Ghraib videos. This kind of stuff really, really matters, at the street level, in turning people who don't like us into people who are trying to kill us.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 04:02 PM) At any rate, WHY WHY WHY haven't the Marlins signed Juan Pierre yet? What gives? Rowand was bad enough, but...just saying. Ozzie tweeted today that he couldn't believe a "Juan Pierce" wasn't signed yet. I'm guessing there's a misspellink.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 03:23 PM) Buyout options? Who in baseball does that? Any time a guy gets his release, there's usually some sort of small savings for the club. He might be the kind willing to sit on the bench to collect his full $54 million, but it can't hurt to ask.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) Obviously, predicting which prospects to develop and which to trade away is a judgement call, and continuously picking the wrong ones can get your organization in trouble. I think the most important thing about the costs of these failed prospects is that they don't drag your entire team down with them if they do fail. Let's just say, hypothetically, Beckham officially becomes a bust after another disappointing season this year. He will have only made approximately 7-8% of Adam Dunn's total contract over his 4 years here. But there's another thing you're investing in them...time. If Dunn starts off the first 2 months of this season with a .575 OPS, he's likely to take a seat on the bench again, and maybe you start looking at buyout options. He should have sat last year. If Beckham does that, you're going to keep playing him because you're trying to develop him. And he'll be taking playing time that could go to potentially developing other guys.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 02:43 PM) Who would profit from turning one $100,000 union job into two $50,000 union jobs? The business owner, who now sees a substantial increase in productivity and decrease in labor costs.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 02:27 PM) Actually that changed at least in Illinois. You are allowed to make half of your benefit in wages and still receive your full benefit. That's expensive but really, really smart too.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 02:14 PM) I wouldn't say 100%. Thornton did give up the pitch that was hit to the warning track that Pierre missed. Whatever the case, Thornton and Crain aren't closers. Reed should close until he proves he can't. They're not closers but aside from the Juan Pierre debacle last year, neither of them have had the shot full time. I wouldn't mind Reed, but I'm not going to complain strongly if one of the other 2 beats him out. You get 20 saves out of Jessie Crain in the first half and suddenly he's a much more valuable trade piece.