Balta1701

Quit judging me!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) Dude is essentially a Hall of Famer. I think you can call that one justified. Except for the use of the word "Dude" to describe him. I don't think that he counts as one any more.

Obviously because I am o ne.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) NASA is a waste of money at that point. If you are going to have it, fund it. If not, close it down, and sell the technology and projects to the private sector. Halfassing it is a completely waste of time, money, and probably lives. Well, there's really not many lives at risk, the only thing that will be running is the ISS and we won't be doing the launching ourselves anyway.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 08:30 AM) To avoid losing subscriptions, to avoid controversy, QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:34 AM) Those are exactly the same thing I'm saying. You don't think "Fear of reprisal" and "Threats" carries a different connotation from "I might lose a subscriber"?

There's a big piece that you're missing though...the study compares the price for contracting out to the price for having the same task done by long-term government employees. What you're asking is again a different question - I'm not trying to argue that the government sector is always more efficient than the private sector, that'd be silly, and that's what I think you're getting out of that because of your statements that "There is usually a reason why this is contracted out". Almost every case that they discuss is a case where the contracting out happens by choice, not because the government is incapable of doing so. DOD maintenance and logistics. State Department Security. Security at medium-level government facilities. Human Resources and oversight of contracts. Operations at West Point. "Simple" IRS collection cases. TSA screenings. Management and upgrading of Coast Guard facilities and equipment. Intelligence gathering. Almost every single case they cite in their survey is a case where the Federal government used to do a function using its own employees but then, sometime between the 1980's and now, decided that it would be cheaper based on some estimate to outsource the function to a private company. They are not doing anything that the government doesn't have the capacity to do, the government is stopping doing a function, laying off the people who are doing it, and adding an outside company to do the function on the grounds that some estimate says it would be cheaper and because the mantra of this era is that the private sector is more efficient. In almost every one of those cases, the federal government is performing the service, there is an estimate saying it would be cheaper to outsource this function, and then the function winds up being substantially more expensive once outsourced.

To avoid losing subscriptions, to avoid controversy, to cause controversy and get its name put forwards, because business/editorial staffs don't think very much, to win a free ipad, etc.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:21 AM) Because Andrew Sullivan told me so, Balta. So in other words, it's a WAG.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:19 AM) Well the thing is they're censoring out of fear or reprisal from her nutty adherents, not because they've actually made threats beforehand. How are you judging that this is the motivation for the people at these papers making this decision?

Must be talking to me.

To put it another way...the Planetary program just completed a "Decadal survey" budgeting and trying to plan for their next decade of missions. There are a couple major missions and then smaller "Discovery" and "New Frontiers" missions, of the sort that have been going to Mars and asteroids lately. Here's an estimated cost of those missions per year. The black line is the 10 year budgetary projection based on continuing growth from the 2011 budget. The red curve I drew is approximately what happens with the Obama long-term discretionary spending freeze. The GOP budget slashes on top of that. Basically, the Obama budget would end almost everything NASA does except for a handful of contracts. And the GOP budget thinks that is too much.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 09:03 AM) I don't believe for a second that Chris Sale and Sergio Santos have gotten comfortable. There is nothing that shows anything like that. Can you say with certainty that Sergio's problems are all physical and not mental?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 08:55 AM) The kids here? The kids who have time after time saved this team from the Dunn's and Rios's of the team? Nah, f*** that. That is crap. Sometimes kids can get a little too comfortable, that I do buy. I just don't like this being done in the press.

Keep away.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 08:28 AM) Hopefully they get this project off of the ground close to the time table. Not a chance in hell. Budget cuts at NASA are way, way, way too deep for that to happen. Under the President's budget we're already dramatically cutting back, to the point where flagship planetary missions (i.e. Galileo, Cassini, Hubble/JWST) are things of the past. Same effect in this system...the President's budget won't get this done on this schedule. And that's the President's budget...not a deficit reduction agreement.

QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 14, 2011 -> 09:16 PM) But these are people involved in the scandal . . . Corporations are people too, my friend.

Lieberman and one of the ladies from Maine, Collins (I think)? are actually putting serious effort into trying to get the government to stop funding crap like that under the guise of anti-terrorism education

At least we can stop having threads about how we need to fix the 2013 rotation, right?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 01:30 AM) It'd be a lot funnier if we weren't primed to finish 15+ games out of 1st place. It'd be a lot less funny if we didn't have the exact same effect happening regarding the invincible Tigers and their upcoming 18 year division crown run.

Not the time to be saying this dude.

QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 08:14 AM) Take five starters like MB and you have a playoff team year after year. And you'll rack up world series saves like Mariano.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 12:47 AM) Way to throw Sale & Santos under the bus, your two best young pitchers. It might be that they need thrown under the bus a little bit sometimes...Not sure this was the correct way to do it though, a little too public for my taste.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 14, 2011 -> 11:34 PM) I thought it was his fielding that got rid of him. You might have tolerated that if he'd hit 6 HR in his first 50 PA's, but you're right. He couldn't field at all. It's just ridiculous to use those 50 PA's as somehow an indictment of anything.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 07:56 AM) I'm a huge Danks fan, but if 1) someone will take Rios and all or most of his contract with Danks and 2) Buehrle can be re-signed, then I'm all for it. Best-case scenario for the Sox is a massive pitching fail for the Yankees and/or Red Sox in October. It's probably just as hard, if not harder, to move Rios + Danks than it is to move Danks alone. Rios + Danks is a $22 million payday next year, Rios alone is $12 million.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 15, 2011 -> 08:15 AM) And they would both wait until after next season when Hamels/Cain hit the market. Rios? Yeah, not happening. Really, there's nothing stopping either of those teams from doing both.