Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 10:54 AM) #1. I never made that conclusion. YOU made it. I pointed out the simple fact that we have put more and more people on to depending on the government, with less and less people actually paying for that. When things go bad for that ever narrowing, and on purpose by Democratic plans, group, things for those dependent people are going to be worse. #2 I am glad that earlier you finally acknowledged that change in philosophy that instead of social programs being a safety net like they are usually, that they are a straight up class warfare money grab. That has been the philosophical change here. The more people that are enslaved into social programs, the less people that can afford to vote against the party that supports them. It has been the trend for 75 years now. Its not about improving people it is about making them unable to move up on their own. If they somehow succeed, they are a part of some sort of evil elite that controls the world, and need to be punished for doing so. Its not some sort of vast right wing conspiracy to keep people poor, it is a left wing one. If you limit opportunities for success, you limit chances to vote against the Democrats. 1. Having fewer people bailed out by the government and more people paying for it would require more people to be able to pay for it. The society that has grown up the last 30-ish years is the opposite...the economic gains since the 1980's, and especially since the mid 90's, have gone to such a small group of people that maintenance of a reasonable standard of living has become more and more difficult. 2. I'm glad you finally acknowledged that the reason you oppose social programs has nothing to do with whether or not they're effective, or whether or not they improve the quality of people's lives, or whether it makes society better off or more equal, it's that you don't want people to vote for Democrats.

Other teams had worse OPS's out of the DH spot than us, so I was surprised to see this statistic about last year's team.

MLB has officially created a new 7 day DL for players with concussion symptoms.

3-6 weeks for Lidge.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 09:51 AM) It's a shot at Rand, though I guess I really don't know ss2k5's opinion of her. At least in my head, I connected that much more to Nietzsche and indirectly to the concepts of Eugenics.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 09:44 AM) Übermenschen producers Really? That's your choice of words here?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 09:34 AM) The more you depend on "spreading the wealth around" aka making people's existence entirely dependent on a narrowing amount of successful people, the worse recessions get and the harder hit those now government/rich dependent classes will be. Not to mention the idea that taxes are going to create a middle class somehow is just insane. We've been doing this for like 75 years now, and all we have done is created a much larger dependent lower class instead of a functioning independent middle class. People don't move up the ladder from "spreading the wealth around". That is a myth. Wait a second...the biggest jolt that the Middle Class ever got was the end of the 2nd world war. That was the largest, most stable middle class we've ever had, and that was associated with a 90% top tier tax rate. As the top tier tax rate has gone down, as regulation of the financial industry has been dismantled, income has become more and more concentrated. Do you really want to argue that the regulatory and tax systems on the top tier are more stringent right now than they were int eh 1950's? There have been peripheral changes (Medicare, environmental legislation) but on straight income and financial shenanigans, it's been the exact opposite direction of what you say it has been. The thing I find jaw-dropping is that you're posting an article about how bad it is that states have to rely literally on the fortunes of less than a thousand people for their income because they so totally skew the nations' income distributions, but your conclusion is "those people should be taxed less and everyone else should be taxed more. That way their incomes go even higher".

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 07:30 PM) I will say that Rose has to kinda cool it with the 3-point shooting and 20 ft jumpers. They haven't been falling at an acceptable rate for a while now. He can get to the basket at will and he should focus more on the mid-range game. A 20 foot jumper is rarely a good shot, but Rose has been up and down with the 3 ball. He hit 2/4 against Sacto and 6/8 the game against the Hawks. He had a cold streak early in March, a couple really good shooting games, then a couple down games.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 09:30 AM) Honestly I hadn't seen that story at all. When I heard the quotes from Obama, all I could think of was that this was a speech Bush would have given in 2001/2/3/4, which would have been derided by most of the MSM. I don't think the media was deriding any speech by Bush about Iraq before the summer of 2003.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 09:27 AM) That doesn't fix the funding problem at all. If anything it builds the house of cards taller. How does "spreading wealth around more evenly" not fix the problem? The problem has nothing to do with the bulk of society being undertaxed, it has everything to do with an incredibly wealthy overclass. Edit: let me say it another way. If a huge fraction of the nation's wealth is concentrated in the hands of only 400 people (which is currently true), then tax effectiveness is always going to be determined by the amount earned by those 400 people. You're not going to solve this problem by taxing the poor more.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 10:22 PM) Sloppy wording, should be reactor vessel. Everything is still inside the containment building. If they've detected plutonium in the soil outside the building, then some of that plutonium has been mobilized from inside the containment "building" to outside of the building. The bulk of the mass is certainly still in the building, but there is a pathway for direct exiting of plutonium into the environment.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 07:34 PM) It is a bad thing when you have built the house of cards on something that volitile. Then the answer is to make it so that 400 people do not have more accumulated wealth than 150 million people, not to tax the 150 million people and let the 400 people off the hook.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 08:25 AM) HAMP hasn't been working as well as hoped, but it's not like they're proposing a better replacement. Considering that HAMP has done absolutely nothing to help the foreclosure mess and has almost certainly shunted hundreds of thousands of people into foreclosure that would not have been there otherwise...I'm not at all convinced that replacing it with "Nothing" is a bad idea. It literally can't make things worse.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 08:07 PM) Let's be clear, this is about EU oil, not US oil. Just sayin'. I'm not sure how anyone with a basic understanding of economics could write this without laughing.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 06:53 PM) A platoon with 2 guys who can combine for a .380 wOBA is bad? Huh? If they make Manny Ramirez look like a quality defender...

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 08:50 AM) $16 mil a year for just seems like a lot of money for Danks. I guess that might be a going rate nowadays but that just seems like a bit of an overpay to me. Which is why that deal hasn't been done yet. If the Sox were willing to offer that kind of deal over say, 6 years, that'd probably be enough to get it done. But we're crazy if we think a pitcher who will get $100 million if he becomes a FA in 2 years is going to extend for $40-$50 million.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 07:08 AM) How the heck is Viciedo making a portion of his $4 million signing bonus this year? Did they spread that bonus out over 4 years as well? I thought it was a once-off bonus that he received before the 2009 season? Yes. That bonus was spread out over the length of the contract.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) Well you were going to have to give up something for a two month rental. That's the position the Sox put themselves in when they decided that Kotsay was a feasible option. The Nats weren't going to give him away. There's a reason he wasn't traded. The Nats can ask for Buster Posey, but they're not likely to get him.

The new GM of the Padres really, really liked some of the guys in the Red Sox system, or else just decided to help out the Red Sox. No, because we weren't going to part with Viciedo for a 2 month rental. Big difference. The Braves might be deep enough to part with Jason Heyward for a 2 month rental, but that doesn't mean its' a smart decision.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 06:43 PM) ld is Hifter! After the first typo...I though you'd committed another Godwin's law violation.

WTF? The leader of the "rebel army" gets appointed to the job after the U.S. starts bombing, and conveniently had spent nearly 20 years living just outside of D.C. with no one knowing what job he had? I'll tell you one thing. I'm sure he didn't get any U.S. military support or training. That'd be crazy talk. Edit: Why do I feel like LF has something to do with this and that's why we haven't seen him much lately?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 06:15 PM) Even when that 5th starter is Phillip Humber? Especially if we're concerned about the weather early in the season, yes. A double header makes things especially hard. Just about every one of our pitchers gets better on extra rest, more than 5 days actually helps these guys. I think there was one who didn't, but it was an iffy comparison, when I looked last year.

Oh, Joy.

QUOTE (flavum @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 05:56 PM) ^ Even better. I'm just a big believer that if you have a crappy 5th starter, and you can skip him without the other four pitching on short rest, you do it. I still hate the idea of using Mr. "Offday" as starter #5.

The Guardian is now running with a statement saying that one of the reactor cores has completely melted down and flowed out of its containment vessel.