Balta1701

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) Anyway I was kind of underwhelmed by this list. A lot of those thing I have no problem at all with them spending money on. Ok bottled water, sure (but $600k is like having a nickel fall out of your pocket). I think we need to either start a "Congressional Brita Filter Program" or a "recycle your plastic water bottle" program. Maybe if we did something crazy like put a price on carbon, that would do it...oh, wait...yeah.

Anyway, for you folks, Democrat Charlie Rangel appears to be facing official ethics charges.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 05:54 PM) I'd like to see AJ re-sign. He's much more than a bat and a glove. Besides, my kids want Pierzynski jerseys for their birthdays. If I'm going to spend the money, I hope it means something next year. I'm getting more and more a feeling that AJ will wind up back next year... But I'm getting that feeling because I don't get the impression that any other MLB team will be interested in dealing with him unless he's basically making the minimum.

NSS, I'm too lazy to find where you said that you thought that there would be a comprehensive energy bill pushed through Congress this year. It's officially dead. And it's dead for probably the next decade. Maybe more. Seriously...Natural Gas vehicles? Natural gas vehicles is 1 of the 4 key planks?

A serious point here... Let's hypothetically say we do exactly as the post here would suggest. We cut Congressional expenditures by 50%. Cut back on the number of staff and the quality of staff. Remove every office perk we can find. Replace as many people with unpaid interns as we can. And God help you if you think you're going home to your family in Oregon while we're on recess. We're already in a situation where lobbyists practically run everything anyway. They write bills, they take the best congresspeople and hire them for monster salaries a year after convincing that Congressperson to push through their greatest bill that makes them billions. Is "making Congress's lives harder" really going to be worth the money saved? All you're going to do is lose the few good people you have, whether they're actually in Congress or working on their staffs, because it'll get even harder to afford that life. Conversely...I could make an entirely serious argument that we'd save a crapload of money in the end if we paid Congresspeople 10x as much as we currently do, because they'd have much less need/interest to sell their souls to big Pharma in the 2003 Medicare Drug benefit bill like Billy Tauzin did.

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 02:10 PM) I am serious. Lets see what the dude's got, stick him out there for a couple games and if he can shut the door, you've got a closer for the next few years. We tried to stick him out there in the game at Minny that Jenks blew and he was rattled enough that Alexei came to the mound to try to calm him down and he looked like he almost bit Lexi's head off.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 02:45 PM) Really? I may be a selective listener, but when I hear about the labor discussion, all I hear each side talk about is $$$$$$. I've never heard a player say this is about the fans, I only hear we want the percentage of revenue that we deserve. And the owners only want to keep their profits the same or increase them. I've heard them say 1 thing about the fans...that the fans don't want 4 crappy preseason games and would be happier with an 18 game schedule. They're right.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 09:45 PM) Best player from the '08 draft. No doubt in my mind. And I can't help but feel good that the Pirates and their fans FINALLY have not one but two (McCutchen being the other) legitimate future superstar players to embrace and build around. Those fans deserve it. Stark.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 02:29 PM) Yep http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/07/on...obama_last.html God I hate prime time press conferences.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 11:47 AM) How do you justify the audience affirming very audibly her comments about first refraining from helping the farmer? Are they racist? Just asking... Well, the video totally disagrees with you, if you allow the originally edited setup of the story in. The audience started repeating "all right, all right" a couple of times from the moment she set the story up The part in bold is the part in the original edited clip. They were approving of the story in the exact same way that they were approving of the earlier setup. Go watch the clip.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 05:00 PM) Chris Paul joins the list of "superstars" who have no rivalry instinct of beating the best. I now hate him and the Miami Threegos Bah...he's in a somewhat unique situation of a team that has been desperately trying to dump salary around him rather than trying to get better. That's gotta count as a check in his box...his team isn't really shooting to win

QUOTE (Ranger @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 08:44 PM) Totally disagree with this on a baseball level. How many teams do you honestly think would've handled Jenks differently? Most teams give a closer of his track record a number of opportunities. I would argue that there isn't a single organization that would've pulled the plug on him yet if they were given the exact same personnel. Well, Ranger, the best comparison we probably have is someone like Lidge or Hoffman, both of whom have long records of closing, big contracts, and have struggled this year. Hoffmann is no longer closing for the Brewers, although I will grant he's been worse than Jenks. Lidge is on and off for the Phils as closer. They've tried DLing him, giving him breaks, moving others in, etc. But there is one big difference..the Phils don't have an obvious replacement in their middle relief. The Sox do. If the Phils had anyone that they had a shred of confidence in, Lidge would have lost his job long ago. The Brewers don't exactly have an obvious option either, but they stopped having Hoffmann close anyway.

If nothing else, I'm sure they'll stop trusting random edited videos posted by Breitbart. Just like they stopped trusting that Breitbart guy after it was revealed how horribly edited the ACORN videos were.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 06:27 PM) WTF? Why? Jose Bautista is about as flukish as you can get. Because all you really want him for is 2-2.5 months.

The AP is reporting that Vilsack has offered her the job back.

QUOTE (girlslikebaseballtoo#26 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:56 PM) I'm like BFF with Mike Tyson and Jet Li ...So I'll have it handled! hahaha There's nothing good that can come from being BFF with Mike Tyson. Not even boxing skills. Unless you count crazy tattoos as an unambiguous good.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:38 PM) We can give him a maximum pay reduction of 20% of his 2012 salary so we'd have to pay him at the very least $2M that year but I believe we are under no real obligation to pay him any more than that (like any other pre-arb player). If he's a good major league player by that time I'm sure they'd give him a little more than they absolutely must. Or...if he's a legit major leaguer by then...that's time to work on an extension.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:34 PM) Well it's pretty much the entire thread so I'll just change the topic name and if necessary split the other one off into another thread to re-start it if that's what we want to do. I think enough Admins have been hanging out in here that if we really thought it was important we'd have done it.

QUOTE (girlslikebaseballtoo#26 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:41 PM) If they made fun of me I would round house kick someone!! haha ..Jusss kidding!!! Just hope that Chuck Norris doesn't decide to make fun of you.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:35 PM) Eh? I'm just saying Chase wouldn't want somebody hacking into his account and posting stupid crap. If that happens and it ends up on deadspin, he looks dumb even though he didn't do anything. That's what I mean by "being careful". Dude, Green.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:28 PM) you have to be especially careful when taking Chase into account due to who employs him. Because those White Sox, they're just jerks. Right Chase?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:28 PM) I suppose....there seemed to be a lot more interest in Teix than Fielder...probably due to the increased value placed on pre-arb players these days. Part of that is his ability to play the field, part of that is the booming 1b salary, part of that is Fielder's conditioning, but honestly, they ought to hold out for a similar package and if they don't get it, they don't need to move him. That team still could compete next year.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:23 PM) Wow at the turn in this thread..... To everything turn turn turn

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:19 PM) The difference is the Braves had a deep system and a desire to win that particular year. The Brewers have a huge need for arms and no chance to contend this year, and no ability to keep both Prince and Braun. A better barometer would probably be what the Angels gave up to get Teix from the Braves. The Braves didn't expect to keep Tex either. The Brewers are in the Rangers spot in this scenario. The unnamed team acquiring Fielder is the team that would be gunning for the pennant this year and having to give up a ton.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 21, 2010 -> 04:14 PM) Again, how many people out there are left that don't know that unprotected sex causes AIDS? For once, that's data I can't find. I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher than you thought though. Even without that though, I think most everyone knows that Advil is a painkiller, but that doesn't mean that I don't see Advil commercials reminding me of that.