Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 26, 2010 -> 08:18 AM) Who was going to pay the billion dollars for it? How did Boston pay for their stadium?

QUOTE (fathom @ May 25, 2010 -> 09:42 PM) they're definitely an upper echelon team. Really, no they're not.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 25, 2010 -> 09:07 PM) 50, no 100, no, 1,000 EXXON's! No, wait, this just in... 10,000! OMG! And you don't even take a second to think "Why don't we have an exact number" yet? Because, in the Exxon-Valdez legal case, the amount of oil that was spilled was a major argument against Exxon. BP has zero interest in telling how much oil there actually is spilling. It's probably about an Exxon every 3-4 days by the most believable estimates I've seen. But...BP isn't going to measure something that would cost them money unless they're required to. If they did, then that number could be used against them in court. So...exactly as you'd want, BP is protecting itself. And of course, you try to insult me for this since I can't give a perfect estimate, and if I said "The government should measure it" (They should) then you'd scream "Socialism!" Whatever anyone says or does...assumption #1 for you...BP's the good guy.

QUOTE (joeynach @ May 25, 2010 -> 06:13 PM) Ok thats true. But let Paulie play through it. His presence in the middle of the lineup forces pitchers to pitch around him, walk him, and gets others better pitches to hit. Kotsay is a clown. A 34 year old can't be allowed a day off and has to play through it?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 25, 2010 -> 06:12 PM) Either demote RRRRRRRrandy or have Torres be a throw in a trade. Torres isn't a lefty, and there's really no point in giving him up as a throw-in right now; we're not likely to be bringing people in as the season currently stands. If Jenks or Putz are moved later in the year, that creates a role for him.

GMA and Philippe Cousteau Jr. took a dive into the spill 25 miles from the coast or so, a long ways from the main site, and they got some impressive footage of what those underwater dispersed plumes actually look like, and where those other 10 or so Exxon's that you can't see at the surface are hiding.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 25, 2010 -> 06:04 PM) Yes but many relief pitchers outside of NY won't make it because the voters don't respect closers. Give an example of a closer you think should make it but won't for this reason.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 25, 2010 -> 05:45 PM) But seriously, lets say Buehrle gets 1 more All-Star game, 1 more ring, and lets say he throws another no-no...would that get him in if he had around 200 wins? Frankly, I don't think it should. Mike Mussina would have 70 more wins, 5 all star appearances (Same as Buehrle), 7 gold gloves, 6 finishes in the top 5 in the Cy Young voting (Buehrle's been there once) and a 20 win season, and I don't think that should get him in.

Steve LaTourette (R-OH) on the House floor commenting on the Fox campaign that got Alpha Dog riled up there.

QUOTE (joeynach @ May 25, 2010 -> 05:29 PM) So is there any reason our best hitter in Konerko is out of the lineup tonite. I really hope its an injury or hes not feeling well or something because if this is another Ozzie matchup giving Kotsay the start becuase the pitcher is a Righty then I will crap myself. Anyone know why Konerko not in the lineup and the .190 hitting Kotsay is playing 1B? Konerko's been scuffling. He's hitting .180 over his last 10 games. Last time he had an "off day" as far as I can tell, other than offdays/rainouts, was in the last Toronto series.

Ellsbury will be heading back to CF for the Red Sox, even though Cameron is just about to come off the DL. It certainly sounds like the Red Sox have almost zero confidence in Cameron's ability to stay healthy for the rest of the season, if they're making this move. Cameron's believed to be a much better defensive CF than Ellsbury based on most of the metrics and based on the eye test as well, and he hasn't played anywhere but CF since 2000 except for a stint with the Mets in 2005. I know others disagree with me on this one...but if the Sox go into full firesale mode, and Boston wins a couple more games to pull close to the Yankees for the wild card...that's a team that could both benefit from and afford to take on Rios.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 25, 2010 -> 05:05 PM) I'm staring to worry about Jones - seems like he's trying to crank every swing out of the park. He was doing that even when he was hitting well. I think that's his swing. He's basically been doing that for years, from what I remember of his good years in Atlanta. I think his timing is a bit off right now, honestly. You can tell when he gets a ball out over the plate...for the last week or so it's a popup straight back every time. I think the odds are good he'll snap back pretty soon.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 25, 2010 -> 05:07 PM) best 39th round pick ever Who? You can't be talking about Buehrle, he went in the 38th.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:36 PM) Well, sure, because ultimately, BP (and any contractors) are responsible for this. There's no one else to blame for Katrina. Frankly though, leaving BP in charge and responsible reminds me of the exact mistake 2k5 was saying wasn't a problem in 2005...to little centralized control. When you have a multi-state disaster like this, almost any organization you name other than the federal government is going to wind up doing a crappy job of organizing the response, because no one else can marshal all of the available resources. In 2005, FEMA tried to leave things to local control, and you wound up with no law enforcement agency knowing what the other was doing, you wound up with people on bridges around NOLA shooting people trying to escape, you wound up with no coordination of evacuations or even of getting supplies in. It was "state's rights" in a disaster scenario; every local organization was overwhelmed. That's exactly the point that you need a national organization...someone that can take a call from a local sheriff who has 50 people trapped on rooftops and then send that information to the U.S. military who happens to have landing craft in that area, and then tell the military to take them to the emergency hospital being established somewhere 50 miles away. (Of course, the very notion that national control in 2005 might have been a benefit was challenged here quite vehemently when I argued it then). In this one, you could have a central organization coordinating boats to calculate the magnitude of the spill, the directionality of it, monitoring where the currents are going, making sure that boats you take control of have appropriate safety equipment (btw, I can all but guarantee you that the taxpayers will wind up covering the fishermen's health care costs in some way), making sure the fishermen you take control of have access to some sort of payment so their families can eat, making sure you have a coherent plan for control boom deployment (it's been incredibly haphazard, especially in the areas where oil is now making landfall), perhaps even coming up with radical plans for removal like burning effected marshlands, making sure that the chemical dispersants used were the most effective ones possible, saying "let's do all we can to plug this thing and we'll take the liability if it fails", etc.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:31 PM) The 2014 super bowl will be held outdoors in the new Giants/Jets stadium. I guess Chicago could be in the running one day. The good news about NJ beating out Tampa? If you're going to the Super Bowl, you won't be pressured into volunteering your time to clean up oil from the beaches.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:54 PM) Stadium is too small. Green Bay has enough seats I think. They're not putting the Super Bowl in a stadium without significant luxury boxes.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:34 PM) If a lack of government was the answer, Somalia would be the fastest growing economy in the world right now. And if Government were the answer, China would be the fastest growing...wait a second...

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:19 PM) Kotsay getting a lot of at bats.. He's putting up a >.800 OPS in May.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 25, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) I love the part where the federal government is perfectly willing to sit this one out. Seriously, why do we have oversight and agencies like the EPA and FEMA anymore? It's a complete waste of money. Oh, so NOW you have a problem with the Federal government not responding to a disaster. I thought that New Orleans BP was supposed to be able to handle it by itself.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 25, 2010 -> 01:32 PM) that's what I am thinking. I wish I could just hook up the Flip Cam to an external hard drive. No way you could set something up to upload completed files to an online storage service?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ May 25, 2010 -> 02:11 PM) http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/inco...te-sector_N.htm Well, that's what happens when you yank the floor out from the economy and push unemployment to 10%.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 25, 2010 -> 02:04 PM) Man, I can't wait until there's government oversight into the national healthcare sys...oh wait... Because keeping it private has worked just as well as letting BP manage its own drilling.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 25, 2010 -> 01:34 PM) How many hundreds of billions of dollars is this going to cost us? Defense spending doesn't count.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ May 25, 2010 -> 01:25 PM) MT shoud be there as well if his elbow holds up. It's always hard to get in there as a reliever when there are others racking up saves. Rivera's there by default, Valverde and Soriano have ERA's under 1.4, Rauch has 10 saves and an ERA of 2.65, Andrew Bailey has an ERA of 1.02 and a ROY award. If you start looking past closers and just as relievers, Will Ohman hasn't given up a run in 14 innings, Tony Sipp (Cle) has a 1.52 ERA, and this Sergio Santos dude has an 0.52 ERA.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 24, 2010 -> 01:17 PM) Way too much executive power, imo. It's probably worth noting that Elena Kagan has writings on this issue in the past that suggest she would be favorable towards a line-item veto.