Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 08:49 AM) That's not what they meant. A one year freeze, assuming raises kick in afterwards at typical percentages, saves money in year one AND years foward. The only reason that wouldn't apply is if future raises were larger than what we typically scheduled to make up for the freeze. That can't be right, look at how the math works out. It starts at $2 billion next year. If you compound $2 billion with 3-4% increases per year, and sum over them, you don't get to $28 billion over 5 or $60 billion over 10. You get ~$10 billion over 5 years. You'd have to be getting 51% year over year raises on that $2 billion sum for it to save $28 billion over 5 years.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 05:17 AM) I wrote this on another board. He was a "winner" in Chicago even though quite often he really had nothing to do with those wins at all. Now he is losing games even though he is not responsible for those losses at all. That's just really ironic. This is another reason why there's often way too much focus on QB play in the last 10 years or so. Too much focus on the QB Play? Come on LF. The QB is literally the decider in this league. The problem with your statement is how you define "Focus". Orton is having a good statistical season, where would that team be if it was starting Tebow for example? How many teams have had their performance this year directly tied to their QB's performance? The Bills started getting good games from Fitzpatrick and suddenly went from being a laughingstock to looking good. Colt McCoy comes in for the injured scrubs and suddenly Cleveland stomps the Patriots. Troy Smith comes in and suddenly the Niners can win games. Peyton Manning is probably the only reason the Colts have won a game this season. Sam Bradford. Philip Rivers. Etc.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 05:28 AM) There's a group I'm in on Facebook called "Derrick Rose is better than Rajon Rondo." At this point there's no point in even saying that anymore. Rose completely blows Rondo out of the water, and I don't know how someone with a straight face can say Rondo is better. I think that's real simple actually...Rondo can defend other guards, I'm not sure Rose can yet.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 05:08 AM) And, since the whole goal is supposed to be to increase transparency, is this really going to help? No, if it has any effect it will be negative... democratic governments will become MORE secretive, not less. Western nations aren't the ones who need to be getting picked on anyway. What happens in Russia to someone who comes forward with honest-to-god evidence of corruption? Prison. China? If you even think about it, prison. Iran? Prison, then they murder your family in front of you, then you are executed. See where this is going... yeah, America has its problems with confronting actually wrongdoing by the government (see: half the Bush administration) but then again Manning leaked a bunch of s*** that served no practical purpose for the public to see. Now, this is actually a topic that interests me and that I can legitimately respond to. Although I'm not convinced either way...the argument on the other side is that if a government realizes that its classification operation has simply become too big, if the numbers of people who have some level of security clearance that could allow them to access this number of documents is in the millions...even law enforcement penalties won't be enough to prevent large leaks of data. The 2 responses can be...classifying things further, which will potentially restrict information flow to people who actually need it, or opening up things that really don't need to be classified...like most of the documents in the Iraq and Afghanistan war files, for example. This pile, I'm not sure that I'd call them classified as much as I'd call them private...at the level of personal emails and such. So, I'm not sure they really tell me that much.

Bring more.

We need to give you the antidote soon.

Unless you really are hiding something...explosive...

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 06:37 PM) That seems like an incredibly light punishment after the $75,000 fines being handed out recently for helmet to helmet contact. I really think they didn't want to deal with the "How could you suspend player xxx and not suspend Richard Seymour for that shot on Ben" question.

Irvin Kershner, who directed a movie called "The Empire Strikes Back", died at age 87,.

Johnson and Finnegan both get $25,000 fines for that brawl yesterday. No suspension

This strikes me as potentially much more interesting than the diplomatic cables we've gotten so far.

QUOTE (knightni @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 04:54 PM) Why do you want to do that? Beckham should not be traded unless you get a sure thing in return. Rasmus has potential, but he's not a sure thing. His "K to games played" ratio is pretty eye-opening. Because there's probably nothing else on our roster that could be traded straight up for Rasmus in a fair deal?

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 05:52 PM) I have never used the word "tranche" in a sentence in my life, and now I must do so. I stole it from a previous political conversation...the "2nd tranche of the TARP dollars".

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 05:44 PM) Quite true actually. It is all of that Jewish blood in me. Stop giving away the results of your DNA tests. The TSA may be listening.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 11:11 AM) Obama to announce pay freeze for federal employees Somehow the GOP will find fault in this even though they're all about cutting spending. "The V Chip and School Uniform phase of his presidency."

Perhaps you're in on it with them!

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 04:21 PM) Anyone know if the Sox plan on going to arbitration with Alexei or are possibly going to offer him a multi-year deal? Well, the Sox don't have to go to arbitration with Alexei...if he opted out of the guaranteed part of his contract, the Sox got the rights to sign him for somethign like $3 million this year. Next year and the year after are arbitration years, I believe.

I get the feeling the Astros still think they can compete this year.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 03:22 PM) Locations of certain defenses, specific diplomatic strategies, something that might affect the relationship with country A as a result of working with country B. Who knows. He's let go of 2 "rounds" of documents thus far. I'm guessing he's got more in his pocket, but maybe not. I can see how it's plausible that there could be something major in the next heap...I'm just surprised that if they had something like that, it wouldn't be released in the first tranche to make sure it gets attention.

Now who's responsible for the wars of the world!

Several of those thousand dollar jackets purchasedon your credit card might do so though.

Quick, send 2k5 to nordstrom!

It also removes them from possibly being in the running for the other veteran SS on the market.

Obviously your first mistake is shopping at Nordstrum.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 02:45 PM) Not many people knew Iran had that kind of capability. Link