Balta1701

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:31 PM) I was gonna say I'd be thrilled if it was the Sox, but Damon is having an average season? Comerica being the reason? Part is Comerica, in that it doesn't play to his strengths like Yankee Stadium (his home OPS is .020 above his road OPS, last season his home OPS was .120 above his road OPS), part of that though is that he's now 36. His road OPS has dropped from .795 in 2009 to .753 in 2010. He's had 2 very good months this season, April and July, with OPS on the month of .890 and .981. But the other 3 months he's been quite bad...including August. .571 OPS in August.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 03:00 PM) Isn't Manny hurt? He's expected off the DL in the next day or two.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:40 PM) The game started and we are in a part of the country where storms come and go. They are UNPREDICTABLE. Yeah, but the point is...this storm wasn't unpredictable. Everyone knew it was coming.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:13 PM) Most teachers get paid that for 10 months worth of work, so factor that in. Plus, 30-50k isn't horrible. I bet 35-40 is average for a college grad. I have friends with 150-200k worth of student loans from undergrad and law school that started at 35-40k. The overall average for a simple college grad right out of school is $46,000 when they're employed. However, once you start getting higher levels of education as are required for teaching certification, or for example, Masters degree level, you're upwards of $55,000. Furthermore, your friends out of law school taking jobs at 35-40k are doing so with the expectation of larger salary growth than is possible in most public school systems.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:06 PM) The teachers have protection, the kids don't. The system is wrong. The basis of your system can't be to protect the worst possible product you have. The results are obvious. That's not what the system is biased to do though, unless you're going to argue that the large majority of teachers are inadequate. The system is currently biased to protect the large majority of teachers. The sacrifice that is made to do that is that yes, it extends protections to underqualified teachers as well. If you're going to argue that the problem is that the majority of teachers are substandard, then we have a totally different discussion; the question we should be talking about is not why we're protecting bad teachers, it's why there are so few good ones.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 02:02 PM) Knowing West he would have ejected Ozzie for showing him up... I don't think he could in that case, even if he'd wanted to. Doesn't the manager have the right to change pitchers pretty much at any point until the lineups are handed in?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 01:59 PM) No it isn't. You are robbing kids of an education, and they have zero recourse for those actions. Improperly dismissed teachers have the court system and a union to fight for them. What do kids have to get their educations back? Hell they don't even have the right to protest at the school to get recourse. I sure don't think that is a coincidence as teachers have gotten more and more protected, that the finished product coming out of our schools has fallen further down the list when compared to the rest of the industrialized world. I don't know how you missed the part where students who would normally get to deal with a good teacher...don't get a good teacher...because that teacher is gone. Those kids don't get their education back either.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 21, 2010 -> 05:50 PM) Blago is a hero. Yup.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 12:33 PM) We're not talking about the 5 day forecast. I'm referring to looking at live radar an hour before the game. Bossard and his crew are excellent at timing when storms will hit and have delayed many games because of the live radar. One bit of it that would have been fun if Linebrink or someone like that had been sent out there is that it would have been an open act of disrespect towards Joe West and his crew. "You tell me the game will happen, but the weatherman says different? I don't trust you."

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 01:03 PM) Tennessee: Still not far enough from Ground Zero Of course not. They need places that are really far away. Like Orange County. That's about as far away as you can get in the lower 48. That's a respectful distance and I'm sure no one would have any trouble with that.

QUOTE (Buehrlesque @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 12:44 PM) I meant for next year. If he doesn't sign anything right now that includes an option for '10, I think some team will give him a major league deal in the off season. I could see it happening sure, but if he doesn't do jack in September, it's going to be non-guaranteed somehow.

Black, Muslim....same difference.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 10:49 AM) I would say kids having their lives ruined by receiving a bad, or no, education is worse than any scenario you presented. Especially when the process annually repeats itself with the same bad teachers. There's a slice you're missing though...Let's say that 10% of the teachers are genuinely bad and need removal/replacement. Yes, that's a bad situation. But...a significantly worse situation is losing a chunk of the other 90%, either to improper firings or to them simply not going into the career in the first place.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 11:46 AM) What makes them different than any other employee out there? They're paid a lot less than they would be in any other industry given the training and time requirements.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 22, 2010 -> 08:08 PM) Am I the only one who remembers the mid to late 80's? Yes.

QUOTE (Buehrlesque @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 11:54 AM) I certainly don't think he will be had for a minor league deal, as was speculated here. Really? If he's clearing waivers, being cut, and not being immediately grabbed, then a minor league contract is entirely plausible. At best maybe a Freddy Garcia, 1 year with an option deal.

Sometimes football writers need to stick to football. I sent an email correction with the right answers. We'll see if he publishes them tomorrow.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 10:08 AM) Mmmm, i dont know that Jason Campbell is a legit QB Yeah, the Redskins have that effect on people.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:58 AM) And at this point, we need another revamping. The rules are causing more harm than good, by a wide margin, in my view. This isn't the 60's, and not every school is Little Rock Central. I'm not disagreeing that there's a need for revamping...I just haven't seen a suggested revamp that I think would be an improvement.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:54 AM) No. The other way around. Ok, I've read through that line about 3-4 more times and I think I get it now.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:48 AM) I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. You don't see how anyone could argue that the Twins are more talented than the Sox?

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:45 AM) I'm sure it's been mentioned in this thread before, but I'm lazy. What is Manny's contract status after this year? He is a free agent with a large deferred salary, and I believe you're not able to offer him arbitration (as if you'd want to anyway).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:26 AM) Every job has elements of risk of being put through B.S. You are swinging a sledgehammer to kill a fly. You think putting in place a system that keeps a whole lot of bad or sub-par teachers on staff at every school, is OK, because it offsets the risk that a teacher might be put into a difficult situation? Where is the value proposition here? Teachers fought hard for these tenure rights for a reason. Throughout the 60's and 70's, the main reasons given for why teachers were fired were "immorality" and "gross immorality" in one unnamed state. Prior to the NEA forcing a strong tenure system on school districts, teachers were regularly fired because, basically, they were unliked. They had the gall to teach evolution, or to be non-white and non-christian, etc. Now maybe I'd be convinced that anti-discrimination laws have filled that hole...but you're flat out not going to convince me that without the tenure system we wouldn't be firing teachers in many places because of pissed off, rich parents. I'm not going to say it doesn't cause harm in other ways...it clearly winds up protecting teachers who should be removed...but these collectively bargained rules didn't just appear out of no where. They appeared because the alternative was a worse mess.

Anyway...it's not just the football excuse that would get used for firing. The other thing that can happen is that you piss off the parents by giving a kid a bad grade. Standing behind a teacher who regularly does that even if the teacher is doing a good job is a tough thing for a school to do as well. Teachers unions didn't become hypersensitive about job security and tenure for no reason.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 23, 2010 -> 09:14 AM) That is a complete load of crap. High Schools don't make a metric f*** ton of money of sports like colleges do, the situation you describe isn't going to be rampant. Besides, the teacher would turn around and sue, all would be exposed, and that would be the end of that. My high school had 1 Ph.D. on the staff. Was kind of cute. Taught chemistry. Football player in my class. I'm sure you can tell how that ends. And it's not like I was at a highly competitive regular championship high school either.