Balta1701

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 02:35 PM) Starting rotation question marks are Peavy, Jackson, and I'll throw in Buehrle. Konerko regressing would offset Dunn addition somewhat. Beckham should be a whole lot better, but who else is it realistic to see improvement from offensively? Carlos Quentin.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 02:26 PM) Well no other reason than not wanting go around him with Dunn and Konerko hitting next. I don't think pitchers really think about who's on deck as much as we'd like to believe they do. Konerko had an MVP caliber season last year, he put up better numbers last year than Dunn is likely to this year, and Dunn is a good candidate if you need a strikeout. None of that made Rios a better hitter last year, nor will it do so this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 02:20 PM) I think he has a much better chance at being Rios from May with Dunn and Konerko hitting behing him, instead of someone like AJ. Rios was quite a bit worse in teh 3 spot last year than he was further down in the order. (Likely because Ozzie bumped him upwards after his hot streak...but the point is, there's no reason from his stats last year to think having the big bat behind him will help.)

How do we define "Too big"? JR needs to make more money?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 11:21 AM) So I am looking to cut some month to month costs and am thinking about buying a DVR from an electronics store. Do they differ at all from just renting one from Comcast? I can't speak to comcast...but the big benefit of renting them from DirecTV rather than buying your own is that when (not if) they crap out after a couple years, DirecTV pays for the replacement, not me. In about 8 years with DTV, I've probably had 4 receivers crap out. Maybe more.

If no one else is going to do it, I should...as good as Rose was on the offensive end for the last 5 minutes, he was matched by Luol Deng on the defensive side.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 11:08 AM) Knicks lost their 6th straight game. Now 3 games under .500. Only 2.5 games from 8th place and a potential first round showdown with the Bulls. Only 3.5 games ahead of 9th place, only 2 games behind 6th place though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2011 -> 10:05 AM) I know I am lonely on this island, but I would love to see Dunn hit 4th with Rios in front of him, getting protected. The Rios from May last year, sure.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 09:44 PM) I think there is a lot more momentum behind wind, solar, and geothermal than you guys are realizing. Maybe I have a different perspective than some of you because I am involved in the energy industry, but the momentum is real. A lot of the more progressive states out west have aggressive RPS's, and this is driving a lot of private investment. As more projects are developed, the processes get refined, and the costs drop. I think a real key will be when the public consumers, who are a real driving force for these renewables, start getting the bills for these projects. How consumers will react when they have to put their money where their mouths have been will be interesting to see. There will certainly be some growing pains, and some steps backward at times, but I don't think renewables are going to stagnate like some seem to believe. The failure rates on a typical renewable development project were in the 70% range for the past few years, but we're starting to see that drop down closer to 50% as companies and investors get better at anticipating pitfalls and other problems. I interviewed for a management position last week in our renewables department, where I'd be managing a lot of the contracts for our projects while they are in the development stage. I doubt I will get the job, since it is a bit of a reach for me at this stage in my career, but from the research I did to prepare and the answers to my questions I asked, there is all the work we can handle over the next several years, and I don't anticipate that changing anytime soon. While all of that is good...I think, especially with iffy government policy, we're playing catchup already. Best example of that is the fact that we're already paying $3.50/gallon again, and we've barely caught up to the 2007 GDP level.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 07:34 PM) My reason is that he probably wants to remain nestled somewhere in the Midwest, hence the Big 10 schools. The top two Big 10 schools now (Michigan State/Ohio State) and the school Stevens probably grew up a fan of (Indiana). And the other four are what I would call the Big 4 in college hoops that he would have to seriously consider. I excluded Kentucky because they will be on probation when that job opens up. And Duke looks like it might be the job opening up first. I figure, Coach K wants to get 1,000 wins and then he will call it quits. But that's still three or four years away, and even then, you would have to figure Duke would hire from either within the program or a former Duke guy. I personally believe he will be in the Big 10 eventually. If there was a guarantee that NBA basketball would happen next year...Coach K to the Lakers might be a possibility, but he's not leaving Duke only to have a lockout happen.

Well, you gotta admit, Butler always makes things interesting.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 05:34 PM) I think this would be the right time to NUKE_CLEVELAND that would briefly make it warmer, then rapidly make it colder (nuclear winter).

Talks between Republicans and Democrats at a full-year budget agreement appear to have broken down. There are 13 days left until the latest supplemental appropriations bill expires and the government shuts down if a deal is not reached.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:36 PM) I have asthma now too. That's what happens when you get pneumonia more then once in your life. I hate it. But, I'm not blaming oil and coal companies for it... (I'm ribbing you on that... I've never really thought about it before). I'm just not sure you'll get the efficiency gains that you think you will (you being pluralistic here). If government policy was lined up correctly, I think we'd beat those efficiency gains. More realistic though...I think government policy will continue to stagnate, the private sector will make some moves in that direction but it'll flounder (just like you're saying wind is doing right now), and the end result will be repeated economic busts. Every time the global economy tries to grow, demand for fuel and energy is going to try to go up, and it's going to be overwhelmed with a price spike.

No...there's a key difference between the moral equivalence examples/Godwin's law violations and the moral equivalence here. In the examples you give, you're judging future/current actions based on past actions. In comparing it to Syria, Bahrain, Cote d'Ivoire, etc., the actual argument is that the U.S. is justifying a war based on humanitarian concerns in the case where other, much more dire humanitarian situations exist at the exact same time. It's choosing which one to go after.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:13 PM) Not sure where you got the info, but Humber is the 5th starter and Marquez is in the pen, they are both making the squad until Peavy is back. 1 spot left - for the Millibridge. Until Peavy is actually put on the 15 day DL, I wouldn't rule out him heading north with the team.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:08 PM) But, the Volt takes CO2... electricity generation. So you post that not counting electric car battery generation... that means you have a fallacy of logic there, IMO. You can't look at it that way. So what do you do? And the point of tying this to health care costs? Because of what? That's a HUGE leap. You know, I've always wondered why ... (oh snap... I think I just came up with a new freaking invention... I'm almost serious... ) okay, so I'll hold that thought a moment. But it's an idea of energy consumption in a standard house. And the materials made for car batteries are AWFUL for the environment, and I'm not sure they last as long as people claim. We simply don't know yet despite all of the "tests" that say otherwise. To me, it's a dream world of no CO2 and no nuclear. What's renewable? Solar? That is pretty much going by the wayside. And don't tell me wind energy, I've seen how that works (it doesn't, which is why it's starting to get abandoned). I didn't count electricity for battery filling because that is the 1 new electricity consumption we need, and I don't have the numbers for that. I have seen the numbers repeatedly for how much room there is for cuts just off of efficiency and energy recovery. Electricity in cars is so much more efficient than using oil that it will put some extra load on there, but probably not more than you'd save by increased efficiency. And I know you don't buy it, but as an actual asthmatic, let me tell you, health care costs because of coal and oil use are huge. Let alone the water pollution from the mining that costs taxpayers billions per year, some of us spend a ton of money dealing with the stuff in the air. Pick your study, almost all of them estimate that the decrease in deaths per year if we could get the particles from fossil fuel use out of the air would be in the thousands to tens of thousands.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:13 PM) You eliminate all "moral equivalancies" (which you cannot do, by the way - you're only doing that to shield yourself from any real idealogy invloved in this action)... to support "democratic movements" in the Middle East? Geesh. I still have not heard from our jackass president, who ordered our troops into another theatre, a real reason why we're doing this. Humanitarian? Right? Oil? Right? Kill MQ? Right? Leave him in power but bomb the piss out of him just because? Right? So what ARE we really doing? Just as long as we can remove moral equivalancies from past actions, this is all good. Right? F***, I don't like this. Either I have to disagree with everything I've said in this thread or I have to agree with Kap.

Bronson Arroyo has mono.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:04 PM) According to Accuweather, the average high/low in Cleveland for 4/1 is 52/33 and 4/15 is 57/38. Not much of a difference, and anyone in Chicago knows the average temperatures mean nothing this time of year. I would imagine having the Indians start out on the road for a week or two would be good news for them, but the bottom line is as far as weather goes, you're pretty much dealing with the same issues, obviously a little smaller, but not enough for forcing warm market or dome teams into a full week or two of home games to start every season. The 7 degree difference in average low is huge because it goes from 1 degree above the melting point of ice to 8.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 04:00 PM) Not in the levels these guys are getting. They are pretty much at ground zero of a nuclear bomb. Actually, that's not the levels they're getting. Ground zero of a nuclear bomb is like hanging out close to the remnants of the Chernobyl fuel pile. These guys are getting lethal doses, but "immediately lethal" is several orders of magnitude higher.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 03:54 PM) Okay, I'll turn the conversation a bit from the "insults". Are you against nuclear? Are you against CO2? What are you for for energy policy? And what does that do to you as an indivdual? My brush was more broader (hugely so) of what you seemed to be driving at - I know you're against C02, and you seem to be against nuclear, yet, as "modern humanity", we pretty much have to go back pre industrial age to make a difference. I think that renewables can cover the global energy needs within 50 years if governments commit to them, and I think it can happen at energy prices comparable with the levels we're paying now. I think we could be well on our way in 10 years if we ever got government policy out of the toilet. The technology exists right now, the only thing that isn't there is the manufacturing capacity. I think if you're going for nuclear, with the amount of money it costs, you're much, much better off focusing on renewable development, and you avoid the likelihood of something like what's happening in Japan right now. I think electric cars working with those systems can cover a huge fraction of transportation needs, especially with increased rail development (the hard part is freight hauling by trucks...because I struggle to see how you can cover long-distance trucking with batteries. Hence the need for improving rail). I think if you do those you see significant drops in health care costs. I also think that you can, without any loss in livelihood, cut ~30% from the per capita electricity consumption in this country (not counting electric car battery charging) just by eliminating wasted electricity. I really don't care if you need a little bit of oil or a little bit of gas development as a backup/freight fuel or to provide better baseload capacity. That's why I'm such a fan of the Volt.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) Where the hell did you get that? You haven't heard that one? That's been around since the Greece bailout, when everyone realized the next potential countries on the list were Ireland, Portugal, and then the big guy being spain. And potentially Italy subbing in as a different I. "Going under" is a little different than "requiring a bailout" though...the issue is that the funds the EU has been using to fund these bailouts probably isnt' enough to cover Spain.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 03:49 PM) So are you, but you just link it to your own beliefs and mock everyone else. The whole point of your perceived "insult" is for all of the back and forth, unless we die, the answer's wrong for the "environment". Utopian beliefs and altruistic crap doesn't change that. This is fundamentally untrue about everything I've said and you ought to know it. I can't tell if you do or if you just stopped caring.