Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 08:40 AM) I like the idea of letting that has been floating around of Maryland absorbing most of what is left of the DC and only important federal buildings remain as independent property. There's a big reason that hasn't happened yet. Virginia and Maryland are thrilled to take up the DC Suburbs, suburbs are the areas that generate taxes to fund state govenrnments because the high income people live there. The actual city limits are the sink for money...so to get either state to include that area, you need to convince that state to spend a bunch of their tax dollars there. Neither state will ever agree to that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 08:40 AM) BP pays a huge dividend (>6%), despite the recent fall in share price, they are currently trading at around a 9 multiple. However, this can be VERY bad for them, as they will be on the hook for all the cleanup costs, and any/all fines incurred. This may decimate their stock as well as force them to cut that hefty dividend. Only time will tell. But as it stands right now, even if the stock goes down, if they don't slash that dividend, that's a 6% annual return, try finding that in any money market, savings account or CD. Bah, if I were really worried I'd have sold it by now. What's much, much, much more likely is that any fines or settlements get hung up in court for 20 years, and eventually get stripped down to virtually nothing by some combination of a pro-business supreme court and the next "Drill baby drill" congress, while most of the costs for destroying one of the most important fisheries, tourist destinations, and shipping lines in the U.S. gets eaten up by the government. Considering that's exactly what happened after Prince William Sound, I think it's a safe prediction.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 10:19 PM) Or it could mean we pay a lot of money for pretty s***ty work by our federal government. Or, you could get paid even more money by a bank and keep repeatedly trying to destroy the world!

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 07:17 PM) LMAO. That's just f***ing ignorant. I might disagree, but the D-Backs owner is a major Republican donor in the state of AZ, the kind of guy who could have made a difference if he'd opposed the law.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 12:20 AM) It's a pretty bad time to be a BP shareholder though. s***. Maybe I should have sold that BP stock.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 12:24 AM) Oh, something I found amusing. While I was shopping for cellphone chargers I saw some pretty blatant greenwashing. They were selling secondary chargers, the kind you charge and then plug in to charge your phone, but they were trying to market them as "green power" or "environmentally friendly" or some silly s***. I understand that the general public is made up of idiots, but geez, there's limits. You still have to plug the thing into the wall before you can use it! I know a person who has a solar cell cell-phone charger. Made by Raytheon, even. They were giving them out to Caltech grads at job interviews.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:51 PM) out of curiosity, wouldn't that just get overturned too. I don't see how the Constitution requires you to be able to give money in secret to support a campaign. I may disagree with their legal argument, but at least I can understand the legal argument behind Citizens United. The inclusion of forcing funders to acknowledge themselves and say "I'm Goldman Sachs and I approve this message" seems like a good workaround that could really limit what corporate spenders are allowed to do. That's just the Congress exercising control over the contents of the ads. You can't run misleading ads, you can't run ads for prescription drugs without acknowledging the side effects, you can't run an ad for your own campaign without saying who you are and that you support it, why can you give to the chamber of commerce and have them run an ad for you without having them acknowledge who's paying for the ad?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:42 PM) THANK GOD! Rios at leadoff now? It'll be Kotsay or Vizquel is my guess.

QUOTE (kane0730 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:38 PM) The 3 in the 7th were a complete gift. So were their first 2.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) I'm assuming that Jenks doesn't still have an ERA near 5 and a WHIP near 2 at the deadline, as he most likely won't. If his WHIP is around 1.4 or 1.5 then, there will likely be some interest. Jenks will need to go a couple months with a WHIP well below 1.5 to get his season numbers down to that. Do you think that's likely? And if so, why would we move him then?

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) HUZZAH!! If Quentin is out...Juan Pierre benched likely means Kotsay is in the lineup.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:31 PM) What did we miss? Konerked.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:22 PM) Somebody who is desperate for a bullpen arm at the deadline and doesn't mind burning $3M. The Red Sox claimed Wagner last year for approximately the same amount. Wagner was actually showing signs of getting better, and was coming back from an injury. Wagner was also a type A free agent. Jenks isn't likely to be offered arbitration next year.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:17 PM) I think it's very possible that he doesn't finish the year in Chicago. Unless you mean Charlotte...who out there would take him?

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:17 PM) who hates the astros and nationals? 1. Astros Fans. 2. Expos fans. 3. Puerto Rico fans. 4. Baltimore fans. 5. Elijah Dukes.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 05:06 PM) I really like that Gavin seemed to be getting back to form. I like that G had a good game on the road, which is really important for him

Well, that got exciting after I left.

Keith, Re: your facebook question. Yes, the technology to prevent a blowout has improved. However, there are 2 things in this situation. First, BP supposedly wasn't using all of the automatic shutoff technology that is available and in use elsewhere. My guess is that it all isn't required by regulation, and thus some of it isn't installed there. Secondly, some of it has just seemingly flat-out not worked. There is supposed to be at least 1 shutoff system on there that they keep trying to trip using submersibles, but it just has failed.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:31 PM) He will be a starter when we trade Konerko. yeah that's happening.

Thank you Jones for taking that walk, just to avoid a 4 pitch inning.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:26 PM) Harden was only getting to 91-92 mph for the Cubs last year. He's one of the more suspicious pitchers with regards to performance enhancers in a long time. Damn Oakland A's! Really Fathom? You can't find any other reason why Harden might have suffered a significant velocity drop? Like say, injury? I'm not ruling it out, but you gotta give us better than that.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:28 PM) Why couldn't we have Adam LaRoche instead of Mark Kotsay? Probably because he would like to start?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:24 PM) Green Zone looks decent. Didn't that come out last year?

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:21 PM) Next time someone uses Spring Training stats to judge a hitter/pitcher, they should be forced to watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants...1 and 2! But April stats...those are GOLDZ!

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 29, 2010 -> 03:19 PM) 95 mph tops In other words, the gun is probably 3 mph slow, because that dude's usually throwing 98.