Balta1701

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 10:23 AM) Adam LaRoche to the DBacks That's a good fit for them. They've struggled with offense from 1b forever it seems like. They said one year deal in your post but no dollars disclosed.

Colts WR Pierre Garcon is apparently Haitian.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 10:16 AM) Yeah, the government did a great job solving that problem And the private sector has?

The problem with that approach is how Paulson did TARP originally. He brought a bunch of banks into the room and insisted that they take the money, so that investors wouldn't learn which banks needed the cash and flee those banks. Turned out that Citi and BofA were in even worse shape and needed a couple hundred bil extra so investors got past that pretty quick, but the objection there is obvious; you can't punish people for taking TARP money when they were forced to take TARP money.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 10:07 AM) I find that to be a very, very, very small concern (that specific scenario). I find it more a concern that, without another serious lefty bat, the every day lineup is too RH heavy. Obviously I agree with that. But the RH heavy bench is another casualty if you don't bring in someone who can bat LH. Not only do you wind up with a RH heavy lineup, you have no LH pinch hitters either.

Kobe is now dealing with back problems. The champs are officially now "Banged up". He played some last night after a serious 3 hour massage and hit the GW shot, but only scored 10.

One other thing to keep in mind is the bench situation. If Kotsay and AJ both start because we're facing a RHP, then that leaves zero LH bats on the bench, assuming the final bench slot goes to someone like Nix or CJ.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 09:08 AM) Because Haiti was already such a disaster BEFORE the quake, not only did that result in so much higher a loss of life, but the consequences after will be so much worse. You now have a couple or three million people with, basically, no clean water supply, no shelter, and a food supply that will run out in a hurry. You have one airport with one long enough runway capable of handling these relief aircraft, so you have a serious supply bottleneck. Roads in Haiti between cities are not fit for normal trucking. Sanitation is near non-existent, in terms of sewers and other systems, in most of Haiti. The coming weeks and months will probably kill as many people as the original event did. Its staggering how bad this is going to be. I hope, really seriously hope, that I am wrong, and the world finds a way to get them back on their feet. One bit of good news is that this area is probably more developed than the area around Aceh was that was hammered in the 04 Sumatra/Andaman event. I doubt those areas even had airports. The roads there were going to be even worse. This area is also going to be closer to the home bases of the U.S. Navy, which has the type of equipment that could be really useful under the circumstances you outline (carriers with helicopters and landing craft.) Another sad thing to note...Haiti was actually starting to slowly see growth in its economy. Last year it was one of only 2 Caribbean nations to show economic growth.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 09:18 AM) And send billions home for pork packages, or trillions for stimulus bills? Depends on how specifically you're going to let me define pork. If you're going to allow me to define it as spending money on something that winds up being a particularly poor investment but which allows some small person/interest to make a killing, then I can come up with quite a few examples.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 09:03 AM) I guess we should have signed him, then included him in an A-Gon trade. (Before anyone thinks that's a great idea...no, we couldn't have done that).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 08:59 AM) Which of course is very close to something like $300,000,000 for your state... Actually, for a lot of them, AT&T, Home Depot, etc., have put $200-$300 million in private pockets of their CEO's as retirement compensation packages.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 08:57 AM) And what are they getting in exchange for it? I vote for your salary while sitting on the corporate board of the company you're running, you vote for my salary on the corporate board of the company I'm running.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 03:48 AM) Does anyone else think the sox will extend Alexi after this year. 2011 is his final year at $1.1M and then hes arb eligible. My guess would be the sox offer him some sort of 3 year 14 mil extension like they gave Tehean. Even in 2012, his first year of arb-eligibility, we're probably not going to be talking about seriously huge $ just yet.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 08:30 AM) How many businesses are given cash in exchange for a vote? I think that pretty much sums up the corporate board pay structure these days.

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) I'd say the Sox should go for Dye... 1 yr 3.5 million or something near that. Mully and Hanley were saying the Cubs are trying to sign Dye... Because then they could finally bench Soriano?

Huff is not a bad move for the Giants. If that's not the going rate for a LH DH now, I don't know what is.

One of the Tennessee TV networks just floated an interesting name of a former UT assistant coach to replace Kiffin: Lovie Smith.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 13, 2010 -> 09:57 PM) I'm not on my PC so it's hard for me to put links up but in a nutshell, Robertson said it's the Haitians fault for striking a deal with the devil so they can gain independance from France, that's why all these disasters happen to them and Limbaugh said Obama will use Haiti for political gain to endear himself to dark and light skinned African-Americans...I'll post links when I get home. Go to the Dem thread if you want to discuss that. I posted them for you.

And, here's the much expected Limbaugh one. Obama's just helping to improve his standing with the "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country". Audio at site, check it out for yourself. Meanwhile, here's the Fox Nation article:

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 13, 2010 -> 10:10 PM) That makes my brain hurt, but it isn't even close to the stupidest thing to come out of that man's mouth. If you multiply the amount of stupidity by the casualty toll of the event he's being offensive about...

Sigh.

Lott would have survived just fine if the Bush's had wanted him to.

Facebook post just now from a guy I went to IU with.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 13, 2010 -> 05:18 PM) I don't think I have ever heard that before. Did that happen with Northridge, for example? I guess we're so programmed in to the "first one" or the "big one" that we don't realize that the aftershocks are that numerous. I knew there always were some, but not to that extent. That's mind boggling, actually. Here's a blurb I found from the SCEC. That's not a 100% every time rule, and there's plenty of variation quake-to-quake in the exact numbers, and some quakes (like very deep ones) will be unique and produce far fewer aftershocks, but if you're letting me say "To first order", then yeah, that's roughly correct.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 13, 2010 -> 04:14 PM) I feel for Griffin, but I have no sympathy for Sterling. That cheapass deserves every losing season he gets I think I was the first to apologize to Blake Griffin in a thread here after the lottery.