Balta1701

Topic re-opened. Be Excellent to each other. That's an order.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 05:02 PM) This Arizona team is horrible. Shame, too. Had such an amazingly looking bright future in 2006-2007. Horrible front-office decision after another. I can see why KC fans temper their enthusiasm when it comes to their GOAT farm. What exactly did Arizona's front office do wrong? I can understand the Byrnes deal and the Quentin trade being bad moves, but the Quentin trade also enabled them to bring in Haren. Should they have dumped Chris Young, or at least not signed him? He was part of that amazingly bright future. Who else did they trade away who has gone on to success, and were they not in the Haren trade? Arizona's team right now is the problem with the "Firesale". You might load up on great prospects, but great prospects don't turn you into a champion.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) Not sure where to put this... But did you guys get emails that Epsilon's database was hacked? A lot of email addresses were stolen, but supposedly no personal information (riiight). I have gotten emails from Chase bank and now from my company, explaining that my email address may have been stolen... Best to be monitoring your credit reports/scores closely... I've gotten the same email from Kroger and from something else too.

Cool it guys...still the filibuster, but that's more than crossing the personal attack line. Edit: thread pruned of the stuff you guys should know better than. Threat gets a bit of a "cooldown" break at least.

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QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 12:33 PM) Except they want to eliminate the health care reform. So really, they are proposing we eliminate Medicare and replace it with the expensive health system of 3 years ago. You're missing the point. Forcing people to buy insurance from a private company is unconstitutional, even if you give people tax credits or funding to pay for that insurance. What we should do instead is eliminate Medicare, and use the money to give people credits or funding to buy insurance from a private company. Of course, you'd have to require people to purchase insurance to receive those credits. See?

Several of Mike Huckabee's former top campaign assistants have now signed on with other candidates. This could be a sign that the former governor will forego the 2012 race.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 12:21 PM) GOP budget proposal Ironically, he's essentially proposing eliminating Medicare for people over 65 and replacing it with what Obamacare sets up for people under 65.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 10:30 AM) http://www.amazon.com/Twins-Enterprise-Chi...7349&sr=1-8 From "Twins Enterprise"? WTF?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 09:55 AM) My number of 3x is far exaggerated...however, I've read studies showing that hybrid owners drive far more. And as both NSS and I stated...hybrid ownership correlating with miles driven is exactly what you should expect from the economics. It doesn't mean that hybrid ownership causes additional driving.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 09:37 AM) I can't disagree with you here, however, I've seen reports that show that people driving more fuel efficient cars/hybrids tend to drive something like 3x MORE than an average person without a fuel efficient vehicle...sort of nullifying any perceived gains. Yes, our cars and trucks are getting more MPG, and are far more efficient than in years past, yet we are using the same amount of oil or more? That's not adding up. The fact that your chart shows US oil production has declined since the 1960's sort of illustrates that we are even MORE dependent on foreign oil now than ever before, does it not? Also, I'm not certain here, but does that graph only count the people? What I mean is I've read that we are using more oil due to shipping, trucking, factories, etc...does that graph of our oil consumption include all of that, too? I think we'd both like to see the same things here, instead or the typical modern government method of doing things. Make promises about energy dependence, but do nothing but continue to subsidize dirty energy companies while giving a pittance of money for R&D for future energy tech...that's what I see happening...so I'm forced to call their bluff. Yes, oil consumption numbers per capita come from the raw data, it doesn't matter how it is used. I checked about half a dozen sites before I found a graph I liked, all showed the same thing...it's domestic production + imports divided by population, and that has remained roughly constant over the past 30-40 years. Second point...I have a hard time believing that hybrid vehicle drivers would actually drive 3x as much as a non-hybrid vehicle driver just because of the numbers...3x the average american's driving distance would be 30,000-35,000 miles a year, which would mean most Priuses would have 200,000-300,000 miles on them at this point. I think your numbers have to be slightly off there... However, I would fully expect there to be a correlation between increasing driving distance and hybrid vehicle purchases...but not for the causality you give, where the ownership of the hybrid causes increased consumption. I'd expect it is the reverse...if you ask "Which group of the population would benefit most economically from owning a hybrid vehicle", the answer is "People who drive an awful lot while in cities". They'd save the most money by pushing up their MPG. A lot of them would be driving the miles whether or not they had a hybrid, and therefore they extract the maximum amount of savings through that purchase.

To switch out of sarcasm mode...there is something to saying that our efforts to improve fuel efficiency have in fact succeeded. To show that, all one needs to do is look at a graph of per capita oil consumption in the U.S. since the 1970's oil busts. U.S. per capita oil consumption has been pretty much flat since the start of the environmental movement. There have been a few wiggles, especially associated with the 2008 price spike, but overall, the growth in oil imports in this country have been driven by 2 factors. 1. Population growth 2. The fact that U.S. oil production peaked in the late 1960's and has been declining ever since. I'm not going to dispute your characterization that the only way things will get better from here is if somehow we were to find politicians who weren't totally bought out by dirty energy...I only wanted to illustrate that it was possible to make an impact if you actually could find the political will.

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QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 09:23 AM) Making attainable promises and making off the wall ridiculous promises are two different things. It's common in our current political landscape to just say the things your followers want to hear, such as we will get Bin Laden, or there are WMD's in Iraq, or this health bill will lower costs, or we will be 30% less dependent on foreign oil in a mere 14 years. First of all, that bill will lower health care costs. Second...seriously, where the f*** is Bin Laden?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 07:40 PM) Man, y'all really need to peep Sons of Sam Horn if you get a chance. Ain't nothin' on earth funnier than pissed off Red Sox fans. They make me look like Scott Merkin. The Rangers took their asses to school. If they (Rangers) get solid/good SP, they're going to be awfully tough. Their lineup and bullpen are as good or better as any in baseball. You know, if the White Sox signed a free agent to a $140 million deal, and on the 3rd day of the season he was hitting 7th...I'd either be really, really impressed by our lineup, or really annoyed with that player.

Can we officially designate April to be "Junk shot" month?

USA Today salary numbers are out.

Ok, it's a bit early to call it this...but USA Today has a point. For all the pitching dominance last year, this weekend was ridiculous for the lack of pitching. The AL's OPS last year was .734. For the first 3 games, it was .768.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 10:23 PM) I won't make the obvious: "how can you have time to make thousands of posts to an internet board about the white sox, but not have $200 to watch the games" comment. Gone through grad school lately?

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 12:34 AM) I just want Ozzie to know his players better. You've been here for this long and still don't know Alexei isn't a great bunter (sure he'll get one down from time to time, but is not consistent enough) Pierre, Vizquel are the best bunters on your team. An inning or so later, Pierre dropped down a bunt and advanced Vizquel, and I had much less problem with it.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 08:35 PM) Butterflies? He sucks. Phillip Humber wouldn't even be on this roster if Peavy were healthy. Actually, he probably would be.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 05:01 PM) Pedro Alvarez would probably strike out 9 out of 10 times facing Marmol. He's now 1/3 against him with 1 k.

QUOTE (dpd9189 @ Apr 2, 2011 -> 04:20 PM) Caught the end, Marmol is fn nasty. One of the few bright spots for the Cubs along with Castro. Marmol and Castro just combined to blow today's save.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 04:52 PM) How can people have thousands of posts on here, live out of town and NOT have Extra Innings? $200 is a lot of money.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Apr 3, 2011 -> 04:44 PM) Someone needs to teach Ramirez how to bunt. If he hasn't gotten it down coming out of his 4th spring training with the White Sox, it's not happening.