Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 09:05 AM) That is 100% perfect. I am glad to see the team doing the right thing. I was worried we'd rotate him in at DH. Not in green.

It's Rainin' Men.

QUOTE (scenario @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 11:35 PM) Hudson throwing well, but Guillen wants him to begin season as starter in Triple A. Sox manager wants him ready to step in if hole develops in rotation Excellent news!

Ah, I love minor league baseball. I got my tickets for the game I'll be attending at the Cell on the day tickets went on sale, and I wound up in row 20 down the LF line. I knew I wanted to catch the Barons when they came through town this year, so I got tickets yesterday, and I'm in the front row behind the home team dugout.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 12:16 AM) Cubs need to just stop responding to Milton Bradley when he comments on them. It just makes them look bad since everybody thinks Bradley is a nut job, so just ignore him. KW vs. Thomas

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 03:21 AM) One other thing, too: the plight of the Rays and so forth should be considered, but really, teams like the Rays shouldn't be forcing MLB to make major changes anyway. The game runs off big teams in major market cities and it's these teams that keep the league afloat. The most important clubs are the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Cubs, Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Cardinals, Phillies, etc. and fair or not, they just have to come first no matter what. But hopefully the draft issues can be fixed if nothing else. One thing worth considering is that a lot of cities where there is serious population concentration and often serious money can wind up underserved if there isn't a good team there every now and then. Take a look at the teams we've see come out of the wilderness the last few years. Detroit, Tampa. Detroit isn't exactly running like Goldman Sachs here, yet when that team made their run in 2006, suddenly, that really nice, big ballpark that had been nearly empty for a few years was jam-packed. Tigers shirts and hats started appearing places. Etc. The White Sox in 05, the Rays in 08, same effect. Yeah, the Yankees and Red Sox are a major cash cow and it benefits baseball to have them regularly in the postseason, but it is an equal negative for baseball to have the fan bases in Toronto, Baltimore, KC, Pittsburgh, South Florida, San Diego, Oakland., etc., constantly eroding because they're mired at the bottom. Yes, you can blame management in many of these cases, but regardless of where the blame goes, the unsold seats in those parks every year is revenue that baseball isn't getting.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) That's probably why Scott Skiles and Larry Brown gave up on em. Compared with John Salmons and Tyrus Thomas.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 01:18 AM) So this summer I will have an internship that will pay well and I may be looking to invest $500 or so, is this smart and how would one go about this as a beginner? How long will it take before you have an urge/need to access that money? Are you holding any current debt, especially high-interest (credit card) debt? If you have the money accessible, is that going to be an irresistible temptation for you?

And the answer is...the bill actually does. Betcha didn't know that. It does so only on a temporary basis, but it does create one. There's a reason why they only are doing so temporarily, because that model has been tried before and it failed for a very good reason; it gives the insurance companies a place to put the unhealthy/expensive. So it winds up being a budget buster unless you team it with a requirement that the insurance companies can't reject people in some way. At which point, you're back at this bill.

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 06:08 PM) Those guys who have bought authentic Devin Hester or Brian Urlacher jerseys for 300-400 bucks will be wishing that they didn't in about a year or so. Urlacher? He's a borderline HOF candidate. That's a jersey you're going to be seeing around Chicago for a long time, especially if he has 1-2 more legit seasons.

This is an entertaining use of one's facebook account, through Moveon. (You don't have to post it on your profile to watch it).

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 05:08 PM) They will still get used in games, even though they are reassigned. It just means for the most part he will practice with the minor leaguers now. He will still get called to some of the big league games though, I'm sure of it. If I'm right, there's like 14 fields in the Camelback complex, so literally if they want to use them to pinch hit, they're down the sidewalk.

(p.s. I'm just being difficult).

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 04:54 PM) Yea he probably will. Even if you get re-assigned, you can still stick around until the final couple days of ST I believe. I remember a couple years back Gomes (the Brazilian prospect) was re-assigned, but a couple days later he came on to pinch run and play the OF in a game. Minor league ST is a bit away as well. Hell I don't believe rosters have even been set by the org. yet. I don't know if Mitchell will play any games here scheduled, but say a B game.. perhaps. Isn't minor league ST on one of the many other fields in the Camelback Complex?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 04:58 PM) Like not funding them And then issuing 10x of the original value of the pension plan in CDS insurance contracts betting that the plan will go bust.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 04:48 PM) Funny, I'd trust them far and above most government bodies. They'd still fall under the same regulations, only be able to work more effectively within those rules. And to find nice easy ways around them.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 04:40 PM) He apparently hired some high end financial industry folks to study options to come up with something more viable, and wants to go that route. Swell. The only types I'd trust less with a pension plan than Daley.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 03:49 PM) Not very exciting cuts - none of those guys were ever intended to make the team this year. You were expecting Peavy to head to minor league camp?

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 03:51 PM) If it was consensual, why would the parents report it to the police f***ing up both their kid's lives more than it already was. You're trying to apply logic to the behavior of parents who obviously weren't behaving very logically beforehand towards their children

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 03:02 PM) Why all the sudden is the Census this super evil communist plot. I don't remember anyone complaining about it in years past. GWB publicly made statements in 2000 during the campaign that if people didn't want to, they should pass on filling out the census forms.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 02:09 PM) Not without creating a national healthcare system which in this country is a non-starter. I'd be game.

Honestly, between as many things as we've seen demonized in this bill and as many lectures as we've heard about it being 2000 pages of government takeovers, do you actually think it would be possible to write and pass a bill that directly reformed every single thing on your list all at the same time? There's a reason why this one is aimed at reforming insurance companies. Because there's only so many lobbies you can take on at once. If this bill makes things better, then it's worth passing. The phrase "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" applies here.

A woman that Conan randomly started following last week and mentioned on his Twitter is suddenly receiving all sorts of media attention, free stuff, it's helped her pay for her wedding, etc. Sarah Killen, your life has changed.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) Insurance is a necessary thing in this world, to pretend it's not is naive. I'm not giving the insurance companies a free pass in this, they don't deserve one. That said, while there are many things that can be done to reign in insurance companies, attacking them and only them isn't the answer...the doctors, hospitals, and all that lies between, including the drug companies, need to be reformed, too. But what's the one thing that exists in most other markets that doesn't exist in the health insurance market...exactly as you've noted? A downward pressure on pricing. If some product you want gets too expensive, you either shop around or don't buy it. You can't do that in the health care market; you can't exactly decide to not buy heart surgery because it got too expensive (unless we follow the Republican plan /cheapshot). It's even difficult to shop around, if your insurer limits who you can go to. Thus, you're told you need certain amounts of care, and you get it, and the bill is paid for by you indirectly through a lower salary. There is no point at which there is any downward pressure on prices anywhere in the system; it really is divorced at every step from normal capitalist tendencies. The drug companies, doctors, hospitals, yes they need to be reformed. But this bill actually has multiple things in it that do that. It's not perfect and I'm not pretending it is, but steps like comparative effectiveness research, independent pricing committees for Medicare, and an exchange market where people can actually switch insurance if another plan is getting better results at lower costs...those are key steps in that direction, and those downward pressures 2k5 likes to say are impossible are the classic way normal economics would work to start pushing those other industries in the right direction as well.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 01:49 PM) The people who are predictably making a fuss out of the Census and turning it into a political issue (again) amuse me. Fine, don't fill the f***ing thing out, throw it in the trash and ignore the interviewer when they come to find you. Seriously. Do that. Then encourage all your like-minded friends that live near you to do it too. Unfortunately, every time someone listens to you, we spend on average $25 in tax dollars to send a person to ask them to fill it out in person