Balta1701

Peavy throwing a lot of pitches, slowly, early.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 08:30 PM) Sad, another year of 84-78 and a sucky draft pick It would be quite pleasant right now to get to 6 games over.

Pierre was only safe because of a good slide

Great leadoff runner on second in the first and playing for 1 run with the bunt

Would have been a great play if Castro could have aimed the throw

Aww, thibs's first pitch was in the dirt. Jakes kid threw a better pitch.

Bring it Jake

Stupid wciu. Even my wife thinks the Cubs announcers suck.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 07:59 PM) Pujols does so much for mentally handicapped kids down in St. Louis it is ridiculous. I assume you mean that their treatment facility is just outside of LF and so he keeps hitting the kids with HR balls?

QUOTE (farmteam @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 06:50 PM) I'm obviously biased since I lived in Bloomington for four years, but West Lafayette really does smell awful. Damn city keeps trying to kill me.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 07:10 PM) "But everybody agrees that playing just 59 minor-league games after an All-American college career didn't prepare Beckham for how to handle adversity. It prepared him to expect a career free of it." I heard Frank talk about this last year on Comcast. "He was brought up too soon". It makes me ? whether Sale may be better off in the minors. I don't think there's any question about it for sale at this point.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 05:51 PM) What if we stay as is for the next 5-10 years? How do you define "As-is"? Constant unemployment would still involve significant GDP and business growth. Constant GDP would require further severe erosion in employment. The former would close the gap somewhat, because pensions would produce non-zero returns over that period. The latter...well, that's your "stop caring about pension underfunding and care about the unemployed people rioting in the streets" situation.

I see we've had a surge of ripping him and calling him fat and lazy posts.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 05:07 PM) Another depressing study on pension deficits: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498037 Now, it's not given in here...so I have to ask..."How are they defining fully funded"? Are they stating that assets must match liabilities to the pension? Because, while in the long run this in theory does need to happen...we're still in a depressed market state. Those pension plans are still working to recover their losses from the 2008 debacle...but if the economy is able to grow at a rate that say, begins to reduce unemployment, that should have a strong stabilizing effect on those same pension funds. Over the last 25 years, public employee pension plans have averaged 8.8% return, while over the 2007-2010 period they averaged about 0.4%. If you try to be concerned about pension plan funding at the bottom of the market, you're going to have a pension plan that is overfunded if the market ever recovers. Again, the bigger problem here is the economy as a whole producing this drag. There are certainly still issues in pension systems, but they're much smaller than would appear based on a standard of "Fully funding pensions based on the mid-2011 gap".

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 05:07 PM) Just curious, do you think he's going to stay this way all season? Because I highly doubt it. Problem is...we could have said the same thing on May 1.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 05:03 PM) It's something like $1M/day they're not producing (general rule-of-thumb) Thankfully there is no such thing as externality costs to climate change.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:57 PM) Fair enough, but the AP article makes it seem like plants don't do any maintenance at all. Fort Calhoun and Cooper are in danger of flooding. Both are on the Missouri river. http://iowaindependent.com/57641/flood-wat...ot-yet-critical Last I read, Ft. Calhoun, the one that was really at risk of flooding, has successfully been shut down and probably will remain that way for much of the year. That's not what I read in the AP article. The way I read it was...maintenance is lagging, the plants are getting older, and the NRC is turning the other way rather than requiring the level of maintenance that should be necessary in safely operating plants that are aging.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:54 PM) Wow! I didn't know fracking created rainbows! I'm trying to figure out if I should spend a few hours pumping natural gas into the air and then pushing different amounts of light through to see if natural gas leaking out of the ground on a sunny day can actually produce a rainbow, but I suspect somehow there's a downside.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:46 PM) Well that was to illustrate that they're spending a ton of money on safety (and security). There's a classic technique here though...it's to overwhelm a person with numbers that they don't have any context for. They're spending "$5 billion in year x" and the amount they've spent has gone up every year. Well duh, with aging plants the amounts you spend on maintenance should go up. Is $5 billion a lot? I have no idea, and I have no basis even in the NEI's full letter to evaluate whether that is a high rate of maintenance or a lagging rate of maintenance at thsoe facilities. It's like telling me "Adam Dunn is making $14 million a season" and asking me what place the White Sox are in.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:35 PM) Well, yeah, that's part of the reason it shouldn't be too hard to get DV enough AB's. We need to get rid of Pierre or Teahen to make it happen, and Teahen is the more costly alternative. It's the "I have to play him everyday" part of Ozzie's defense that's the most irksome. Time to have an injury faked? Send Teahen on "vacation" to Charlotte for awhile? Teahen going on the DL doesn't create that many at bats for Viciedo, especially since Morel would just "Not" get benched as often against RHP ad 3b.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:12 PM) Yeah, but Ozzie doesn't make the decisions, which is my point. I think at some point Kenny has to say "to Hell with Ozzie", and do what's right for the team, not for Ozzie's golden boy. That's the real problem here. It sure seems like Ozzie is the one making the decisions, and that KW's only recourses are "hang on until I get permission to fire Ozzie" or "Resign".

QUOTE (Real @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:10 PM) Would you guys be upset if Viciedo was brought up the day after super 2 deadline? I'm just not sure any more. it'd basically be giving away this season for the Super 2 deadline...but he might not make enough of a difference to turn this team into winners this season.

This morning's XKCD comic referenced Joe Biden so I'll stick this here. By my count, it took the internet 16 hours to produce a website dedicated to finding 500 still frames of Joe Biden eating a sandwich.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 04:03 PM) Dorf (law professor) with some comments on the Walmart decision: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2011/06/some-obse...-mart-case.html Wasn't that discussion in the Dem thread?

New FDA Rules about to come in force requiring restaurants with more than 20 locations nationwide to display calorie information on menus. Note...just display...no requirements for changing ingredients, whatever. Just display. In response, all sorts of restaurants are looking to find ways to produce lower calorie options and add them to their menus. Just because of information disclosure.