Balta1701

Would the Phillies buy insurance?

This makes more sense for the Phitins than for us since they really need a RH bat.

Zero chance he still has the ups

Xavier McDaniel needs to try to block him.

Very small chance they might though

Things he yells don't always make it on posters

Rose already made the poster.

Poster of McGrady.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 04:38 PM) Can the existing power transmission infrastructure handle that? Or are we talking multi-billions/trillions for revamping the whole damn thing? Frankly, the existing power transmission infrastructure can't handle what it's being asked to do right now, and we need to spend on the order of hundreds of billions just to keep it going.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 04:34 PM) From what I understand, they think they can store compressed air underground or even underwater that can be released when the wind stops blowing. Some companies are working on batteries. Some think it can be stored in ice. Here's the remarkable thing though...no one's really going to care if 10% of the power grid is supplied by natural gas for a baseload/suns down/wind's not blowing power level. Especially given unconventional gas resources that we're working on. Even with that though, a combination of solar thermal and a large battery system, say, of the sort that would exist if a large chunk of the population had plug-in hybrid cars...that takes care of a lot of it.

I think any comparison with China's spending on the subject makes the case quite well.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:59 PM) You don't gotta tell me this. The Cubs obviously play a majority of their games during the day so I would watch them, hoping they lose, of course, before the Sox game. I have no faith whatsoever in Will Ohman being able to get out Mauer or Morneau in a key situation. I'll hope for the best but expect the worst. Mauer is 0/3 against him, Morneau is 1/3 with a walk

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:45 PM) We're a long way away at current rates of work towards the solution. We spent a ton of money on short term stimulus that could have gone a long way towards increasing the pace of production or real solutions and actually created long term jobs. Obviously, some of the AGW problem is going to happen no matter what, because its already in the stream. But these technologies are very much capable of being large-scale sources, if we wanted it to be a priority. I totally agree that they'd work if we were committed to doing so...but we're not.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:35 PM) Am I the only one who thinks that shoving metric megatons of a chemical or gas into the bedrock is a lot more likely to cause unknown side effects than simply using less energy? Or setting up solar panels? Honestly...the chemistry of carbonate-rich waters at high pressure in bedrock is something we know quite well. The thing we don't know as well is the permeability of the surrounding rocks...most notably becasue this country's been drilled so much for oil that you can barely walk a few hundred feet without hitting a hole down to bedrock in most places.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) That is one answer, but I'm honestly on the fence about it. Lots to like, lots to not like. What I'd rather do is invest in putting the US in front of the technologies, reap the financial benefits of the exports and inflow of money, and gain energy independence to boot (while drastically reducing pollution). My overall point being, carbon capture is quite literally burying our problems instead of dealing with them. Heck, long-term it's even a potential way of getting what we've already put into the atmosphere out of there...so at some level, it actually does solve a need that green-energy doesn't solve. If it's buried correctly...it can dissolve into untapped groundwater and then react with the surrounding rocks, just using it up.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:26 PM) Nice work, though I don't think Lillibridge is a set deal yet for the bench. I think De Aza has just as good a shot at it. The thing that I think may decide it is the Stealth Elf being out of options, while I believe De Aza has one left

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:23 PM) To me, its burying the problem and asking for the law of unintended consequences to kick in. They way to save more resources, quite simply, is to use less of them. This other stuff is IMO not going to help things. The answer to the discussion of course is applying a fee to carbon emissions and letting the market sort itself out.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 03:15 PM) Carbon capture isn't a real solution. Its another way for people to avoid taking responsibility for their consumption, and living in denial. The only real solutions involve using less (energy and everything else), protecting wild lands, and providing energy from renewable sources. Actually, it could very well be a real solution, even within a decade...the chemistry and physics actually work to make it practical, but we're not there yet, and we have to be quite careful about how it's done (for reasons like those BS outlined). In most cases though, it's basically used as greenwashing; an effort to say that the politicians are doing something when they're really not.

Interesting side-story.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 02:38 PM) There's a reason there's a lot of turnover in the first five years. Tenure is usually given at 4 years, I think. So, if the school is reticent to hand out tenure for whatever reason, they can dump the teacher just short of it and hire on some new teachers. At least, that's what I've heard anecdotally from several teachers in the area. And, honestly, something is broken with the tenure system when it takes a couple of years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove a teacher like this. Flagrant violations of policy and student rights, insubordination and physically harming students and it still took forever. I'm very iffy on the tenure system...yeah, it's broken, yeah it causes problems the way it is...but there's actually a reason why this system exists...because having it be simple to fire a teacher causes problems on its own...a couple parents unhappy with the way a teacher is grading, a personality conflict between a teacher and an administrator, the wrong class of students coming through. The tenure system grew up after the public school system grew up because it wound up being needed.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 02:24 PM) I agree on the fire and police side of things. I also believe that unions are necessary in certain fields of work, but education is not one of them. I do not hate the teaching profession nor do I despise all teachers, I just feel that it is a profession that has been destroyed by their union. The trumpeting of how underpaid they are is a fallacy. I will end my point with my thought that if the teaching profession was so stressful, why do few people leave it once they have gotten in? Actually, there is quite a bit of turnover, especially amongst teachers who just enter the profession. A brief bit of Googling suggests that state-level turnover rates for teachers in their first 5 years typically run ~50%, and those are the years when education systems are spending large sums of money to train and acclimate those teachers. If you poll teachers who leave, reason #1 why they got out of the profession is money, reason #2 is the working environment (which is often a code for how little they're paid given the hours they have to spend), reason #3 is the stress of the job. Those turnover rates in fact fall quite a bit once teachers reach the levels where they become eligible for higher pension levels.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 02:00 PM) Hey, all I said was that we need to improve our parenting in this country. There was a reason I tried to evade your picking at anything in anyone's posts that can possibly be debated - because now we are here. Instead of the issue at hand. No, you actually specifically said...regarding this case..."I would say it makes a strong case for better parenting." in response to a post where I said I could spell out explicitly how better gun regulations would have saved lives here. Let me spell out exactly how stronger gun regulations would have saved lives in this situation. The shooter used a high capacity magazine that was banned under the Assault weapons ban. He didn't have the means or ability to go far out of his way to arm himself. He took the first shot at the Congresswoman, then emptied 30+ rounds into the crowd of assembled people. The moment he stopped to reload, either he struggled to reload correctly or the bystanders just jumped him first. Someone hit him in the head with a chair, and they were able to wrestle him to the ground before he was able to start shooting his second clip. Had he been unable to legally purchase that expanded magazine, he would have only been able to fire 10 shots, rather than 30+. The Assault weapons ban would have saved lives in this case. You can argue with my interpretation if you want, but there is a specific argument as to how a policy change could have affected the shooting spree. I don't think it's unfair to say that if you're going to state that improved parenting could have prevented this shooting, I ask what exactly you're basing that on, and what exactly the parents did wrong? It's entirely possible that in 2 weeks, we'll have a 19 item bullet point list of things they did wrong, but I don't think we have that yet.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 02:02 PM) Yes the benefits are where I think it is debatable that they are overpaid. The initial point was the salary of teachers and my thoughts that they were not underpaid. Do you feel the ability to retire at age 55 with an income of 80% of your average last five years salary with an annual increase of 5% is a sound practice? When the private sector ended this practice, the public sector became much more attractive for specialized employees, most notably teachers. On the administrative side of the governement there are much more egregious instances of overspending but there are not as many instances nor is the dollar amount that great. I am not saying that the lady working at the DMV has a sweet ass set-up. Frankly, yes, I think that in a number of positions, retirement at age 55 is a sound practice. Especially things like police and firefighting, where your body is legitimately being taxed regularly to the point that you're significantly damaging it. 30 years of smoke inhalation and carrying 80 lbs of equipment up stairs is going to put an enormous strain on most bodies. Ditto getting shot at. Ditto having to deal with 8 year olds. In fact, in some of these cases...if they don't retire, they're much less useful to their position than if they stayed on. And if they tried to find other work, they wouldn't be able to...not only because they have no experience at other positions, but because they have the other physical issues to deal with.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 01:47 PM) Alright then, so which is it? If his parents have absolutely no influence over his behavior, I am supposed to believe that Sarah Palin did? I have no problem just taking the guy for being completely crazy. But you can't argue on one hand that our politcal rhetoric is nurturing this sort of violence, and then on the other hand claim his parents had no hand in his development as a person. He's either crazy or he's not. He can't be crazy for purposes of exonerating his parents but deeply capable of being influenced when it comes to political rhetoric. I don't think there's any point that I've said that Sarah Palin had any impact on his behavior and I'm pretty sure I criticized the person in this thread who suggested that. I think my point has always been that the sort of eliminationist rhetoric we've been seeing was inappropriate the whole time...but it's especially inappropriate when viewed in light of these events. It could well be that he was influenced by his parents and I'm sure they'll have more than a few issues to deal with here. That's different than what I've been trying to say though.

Here's this year's Verducci effect list/article.