Balta1701

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 08:16 PM) Hawpe would be disappointing to say the least. Considering they didn't have interest in him after he was DFA'd and considering the disappointment he was all of last year, it'd be really unfortunate if he ended up starting in RF on opening day. Well, he still put up an .821 OPS against LHP last year. Weird thing is, he hits lefty. So like Quentin, he hits the guy the from the same side better than the other side. Ozzie, of course, would hit him against RHP and Quentin against LHP.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 09:06 PM) Derek Jeter and Juan Pierre both played in the 2003 World Series. Derek Jeter's team lost to Juan Pierre's team in the 2003 World Series.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 07:57 PM) I can't speak for anybody else, but I don't want Quentin gone. I just want them to remove him from the outfield, because he hurts the team out there. I really don't want the 2008 Quentin to be gone. Such an incredible performance. I seriously worry he's already gone though. I have zero interest to see the 2010 Quentin again.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:37 PM) No Mitchell today. Hope he's feeling ok.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 05:10 PM) I don't even know what Prop 19 is. And how do you know the rallies for it don't include TEa Partiers? Prop 19: Legalizing it in CA. I'm sure a handful of Libertarians do get out and support it, but compared with the intensity that the Tea Party comes out on so many other issues...the rallies in favor of 19 have been weak overall, and as far as I can tell from the Google, the issue has been non-existent at the Anti-Obama Tea Party rallies that have happened in CA.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 05:03 PM) Seems like the smart thing would be to try to wedge between the candidates and the partiers. Try to appeal to the movement in areas like social issues where they would agree with the Dems at least in part, and then try to illustrate NOT how the TP-endorsed candidates are crazy because they are conservative, but that the are just plain crazy, and not actually defending liberty at all. Where exactly then is the Tea Party rally in favor of prop 19? This is 100% the most classic libertarian argument that can possibly be made, happening in the state with the largest population. If there is any issue that should provoke a surge of tea party libertarian support, it's right there.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 04:56 PM) I agree that the ELF comparison is broken, as that is terrorism. But, I side with Mike on the fact that you are only choosing to see the aspects of the Tea Party that are led by the Palin crowd. Unfortunately for those who are not in that camp, their movement has been co-opted, and the top line voices are the ones the press can easily (and lazily) get to: Limbaugh, Palin, some of the crazy candidates they are running (O'Donnell, Angle, etc.). So while its true that the current people PULLING the Tea Party movement under their belt, that is not the same as saying they ARE the Tea Party movement. They're not the tea party movement...but the tea party movement doesn't appear unless they get involved. On issue after issue, the Tea Party gets riled up on classic Republican issues, classic republican talking points, and they show up when a Republican leader or Fox News calls on them to do so. You want another great example? Take a look at the tea party victories. Every single time, what has been the sin that has gotten a politician in trouble with the Tea Party? It wasn't supporting Bush's Massive expansion of Medicare in 2003, it wasn't earmarks, it wasn't anything like that...it has been people who voted with the Democrats too often. It has been being too centrist. The Races in Utah, Deleware, Florida, Alaska, New England, everywhere that there is a "tea party uprising!" candidate, the Tea Party candidate won because the Tea Party didn't want them ever working with Democrats. Mike Castle, Robert Bennett, Danny Tarkanian, Charlie Crist, and on and on. Hell, Lisa Murkowski is in the right-right wing of the Republican Party and she was replaced by a Tea Party candidate on the argument that she worked with the Democrats too often.

QUOTE (striker @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:37 PM) Agreed. People also forget that Kenny wasn't just planning to acquire Jackson, that he intended to flip him and that didn't happen. It is what it is. I'm looking forward to him pitching in 2011. Bah, this is one of the weakest arguments in the bunch. If KW got stuck with Edwin Jackson and didn't actually want him because he misread another GM, then that should be a fireable offense. If you're going to trade for Edwin Jackson, yes, you might be open to dealing him again if another team offers a better offer, but there's no reason to finalize the deal with Arizona if you didn't actually want to accept the guy. You can wait until Washington gives the yay or nay before pulling the trigger and send it in as a 3 way deal. "Kenny really didn't want Jackson but he got stuck with him" is not a defense of KW, it's an indictment.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 04:24 PM) Great, ELF falls almost exclusively under the democratic platform. Therefore the Democrats are now militant environmentalists, using your standards. And again, read my prior post, the Tea Party isn't an organized coherent national movement. They aren't going to organize nationally to protest anything. The only place they are considered "one" is by the left-wing in this country who wants to label them as any derogatory stereotype that they can so that they can be diminished and silenced. I know this particular example fits into your narrative which you work so hard to push, so you won't agree, but this goes back to Kaps rant months ago, about what goes on in the buster. Hate is OK if it is directed at anything right wing. Even if it is the same stereotyping and offensive stuff that wouldn't be allowed to be directed towards other minority groups. Quite the opposite, it is encouraged and excused here. No one else gets away with it, and it irritates me to no end that a few here can. Now look, no one is out arguing that the Tea Party is doing anything illegal. That breaks your argument right there; if you argued that there was no distinction between the ELF and the Democratic party, you're going to anger people because you're accusing everyone on the left of terrorism. No one is trying to hate you guys here. This is exactly my point. It vehemently offends the Tea Party when someone points out that their policy prescriptions fit entirely within the Republican Party and that they don't care about any issues that the Republican party doesn't care about. This is not a smear, this is not saying that all tea partiers burn down abortion clinics, this is a policy-based argument. You argue that the Tea Party is an advocate for liberty and is a totally independent organization from the Republican Party. Yet, the Tea Party only seems to appear when the National Republican Party takes a strong, well funded, TV and Radio supported position against an issue. The Tea Party surged against health care because the Republicans surged against it. The Tea Party surged against the Stimulus and the Republicans surged against it. The Tea Party was silent on Finreg and the Republicans didn't want to go out on TV arguing that the banks needed fewer restrictions. The Tea Party is silent on foreclosure fraud despite massive violations of property rights at the hands of the banks. You argue that there is no nationally organized Tea Party...yet the concept of a Nationally Organized tea party movement is exactly what we're seeing. When Mike Castle is on pace to win his election with ease, a single endorsement from Sarah Palin suddenly turns the race into a Tea Party race, until that candidate collapses after the primary and everyone suddenly doesn't want their hands dirty. You take strong offense at the notion that the Tea Party and the Republican Party are the same thing. I understand that...but it's not a smear unless you view the Tea Party the same way you view ELF. I'd say I'm equally frustrated here because...the fact that you guys are offended by the idea that we view the Tea Party as simply the activist segment of the Republican Party is declared practically hate speech and something that should be off limits.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:19 PM) Unequivocally yes! Very good, we can take a single vote as counting for the majority right?

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:14 PM) http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/more-disgrace...ilitary-voters/ http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/inept-pjm-rea...-but-doj-didnt/ If we replaced "military voters" with any other issue, the idea that the executive branch should be doing random checks of the behavior of state governments would outrage people about the crazy President and his lackey needing to control everything.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:04 PM) So I see, sniff, sniff. Time for this thread to officially endorse Prop. 19?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 03:00 PM) I don't think there was ever intended to be some sort of big singular goal for the group, back to the original rant which started it all. I don't think they were supposed to be anything but a loud voice to Washington saying that people are upset and not happy about the way things were going in our nation, and in our political system. I honestly believe that they whole idea was to be divorced from the parties, because they didn't want their message to be subjugated and bastardized, just like it has been by a vocal few, and all too happily used against it to the detriment of the original ideals. And the problem we keep focusing on, and the reason that this matter infuriates us so much is...these people are unhappy about the way things are going in our nation, and their solution is to say repeatedly that they're not part of any party, and then fit entirely under the umbrella of one party, adopt the beliefs of one party, and then get angry when my side points out "but you're almost entirely in that party!" They want to be divorced from parties, and yet adopt 95% of the Republican platform. Then, when the Republicans decide on a policy, the Tea party manages to find a way to follow that policy decision exactly. Aside from the Arizona immigration example, I can give you another one; Wall Street reform. The Tea Party, if it really hated the bailouts, should have been all over that issue. Even if they didn't fully agree with the Obama proposal, dismantling the system that led to the bailouts should have been an issue that would have put thousands in the streets. They should have been out demanding stronger Wall Street reform such that the bank bailouts would never happen again, but that would have interfered with the interests of the Republican Party and the financial entities (like AFP) that fund the Tea party, so Finreg went through without a whimper of protest. (and yes, it's the Dem thread so I can link to a liberal blog and you can't complain). Or, here's another one...the banks openly violating the law by foreclosing on thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, kicking hard working Americans out of their homes, without proper standing or documentation? Basically a bunch of banks trampling on individual property rights and contract standing? That does nothing either.

Missouri has the most meth labs of any state. In 2004 there were more than twice as many labs broken up in Missouri as there were in Iowa.

This appears to have the stamp of an official announcement from the 2 companies and is therefore not a rumor.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 12:06 PM) If I took a loose knit group of people, say "environmentalists" and picked one sect of them to represent the whole, say ELF, you wouldn't have any problem with that? If I held an environmental rally and my keynote speaker was a guy who advocated killing loggers, you'd have every reason to smear the attendees. This was a serious problem for our side in 2003...for the anti-Iraq-war rallies, because the only group doing the organizing was ANSWER because no national group or national leader was willing to step up. I never liked that, even though we were right at the time and wound up being proven so.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 11:28 AM) IMO it's the money, especially the 2011 portion of that. I'm no f***ing genius, but I could have guaranteed you in December of 2009 that there would be better options than Juan Pierre on the FA market over the 2010-11 offseason for less money. So now that we have the list of 2010-2011 FA's, who is a better option?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 11:29 AM) Just because someone puts them up, doesn't mean people respond to them. Polls tell you exactly that much. Huh?

This is what you call a buried lede. The Washington Post caught up with the guy that Dick Cheney shot a few years ago. This is how the article ends after 4 pages. It's a little stunning.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Oct 14, 2010 -> 07:44 AM) Great episode. I knew what was going to happen when the turned to Bin Laden, and I still laughed. I would think there will be complaints about the episode, but if you're watching South Park nothing should offend you. Frankly, yeah, i sat there at that point and said "Ok, this bothers me a lot and people are going to be pissed about this one".

Here's the problem with labeling a guy as a bust because he's not a dominant player out of the 14th slot in the draft. Even the top 10 picks have a legitimate "out of football within 5 years" bust rate of above 30%. Pick a draft from a few years ago, go back, and see the kind of guys there. Yes, in every draft you'll find an Adrian Peterson and a Jake Long in the top 10, that's why those picks are highly valued, but you can't ignore the fact that even if you wind up with the #1 pick, there's a pretty darn good shot that you'll be overpaying a guy who won't be your best player at that position in 3 years. So you want to land a star when you draft at #14. You're correct in hoping so. But any team that wins on every pick in their first round for 3-4 years in a row is a Super Bowl caliber team. If a guy taken at #14 winds up as a solid starter at some position, I think you count that as a win. The number of legitimate stars taken at #14 in the past decade or so that I saw after looking was 1: Revis by the Jets. I saw a number of good players, like Shockey, Bunkley, Tommie Harris, and some number of failures too: Kenyatta Walker, Michael Haynes. You want to wind up getting the Revis, but drafting at 14, there has been 1 of him in the last decade. BTW, the Bears have drafted at #14 3 times in the past decade. That might bias my sample, and that's really weird.

Now that I think about it more...I kinda like how this series shapes up for the Rangers in pitching matchups. They start off with home field, even though they don't have God Lee ready early. They get 2 games at home, facing Captain Cheeseburger and either Hughes or Pettitte, however the Yankees go. Then they have Lee ready for game 3 on extra rest. If the Rangers win 1 of the first 2 games, they go back to Yankee Stadium tied 1-1, having lost home field advantage but having Lee on the mound for game 3 with a very good shot to take it right back. Then, they have to win 1 of the next 3 games, with AJ Burnett likely pitching game 4 and game 6 in Texas, in order to set up Cliff Lee for the Game 7 kill. If the Rangers win both games at home, they go to Yankee Stadium with the Yankees having to beat Cliff Lee to avoid the 3-0 deficit. Basically, the Yankees need to win the first 2 games of this series in Texas if they want to neutralize Lee.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 09:41 PM) Mitchell went 0-3, 2 Ks, and 1 BB. Ewww. He still played in the game.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 06:58 PM) Really? You know I am a Hoosier. How much more help do you think I need? Although I appreciate the Indiana insult...I feel it appropriate to note that several states have significantly worse Meth problems than you. Missoura is at the top of the list, Tennessee is around #2.

You know, I actually came up with a point on this matter that I don't think anyone has brought up before. A number of people have floated the idea that Edwin Jackson is still tradeable this offseason as a justification for this move, and frankly, I've scoffed at it, on the grounds that we're not going to get anything near the value of a young rotation-ready starting pitcher for him. What occurred to me is that we've actually seen what we get in a deal like it would take to trade Jackson before. We've got a pitcher coming off an indifferent season, with a better season in his rearview mirror, a salary close to $10 million, some playoff experience, 1 year left on his contract, an overall ERA in the low to mid 4's, a FIP in the same range, was originally a fairly highly touted prospect who never fully lived up to that billing. You know who we traded that fit that description exactly? Jon Garland, pre-2008, who we dealt for Orlando Cabrera. At the time, I think that looked like a pretty fair deal overall. The Sox filled a position player need and got an extra draft pick out of it. However, look at what we had to take back. A guy with 1 year left on his contract, $8 million or so in salary, and we had to practically threaten him to get him to not accept arbitration. I think that's a pretty good comparison. Jackson may have slightly more demand than JG because he throws a higher velocity 4 seamer, but their salaries and performance is similar overall, and Jackson has the added negative of having already been dumped unceremoniously by 3 teams in the past year. If we're looking to trade him, I think that's the kind of deal we'd wind up with; we're not getting some young stud back for him, we're getting someone else's expensive piece.