Balta1701

Kennedy to publish posthumous memoir, talks about the Presidential run(s), Chappaquidick, etc.

Really, I was away for like a week, I've been up since 3:00 a.m. my time, and yet I'm still here!

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 04:31 PM) hmmm...and what if the Sox face the Dodgers in the World Series? The Dodgers will have a solid DH.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:31 PM) There's no doubt that he will be the starting SS in 2010 and I am guessing Beckham stays at 3B, but i see more of a chance for Beckham to move to another IF position than Alexei moving. I still wonder where Viciedo with his 39 errors is it fits in? Viciedo looks like he'll be 2011 at the earliest. Maybe later.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 03:15 PM) Why does everybody think this? Just because of our rotation? It adds Peavy which is great but everything else is the same. We're under .500 with this rotation. So Peavy goes 17-3 and we're going to be 9-10 over .500? Hope so. Can anyone think of anything that has happened on the Sox this year that has cost the starters wins?

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:32 PM) Chicago better get the El, Dan Ryan and O'Hare ready for an international influx. That's kind of the point, isn't it?

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 11:12 AM) Apparently Kahn, Joventut and Rubio had an agreement in place on Saturday and Rubio went back on that and Joventut reluctantly and pissed off, let him go to Baracelona. It seems to me Rubio doesn't want to play for the Wolves. He also gets 2 years to watch and see whether or not they're able to build anything resembling a quality team up there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 12:32 PM) http://www.scrivener.net/2009/08/krugman-v...ficits-and.html And since the rest of the world has demonstrated repeatedly how much more efficient and how much better at cost control a public or even single-payer health care system is, you've clearly switched your argument to suddenly be in favor of socialized medicine as the only solution. Welcome to the party!

There are plenty of rare metals on earth. The problem is...like a lot of things...there aren't always a lot of cheap rare metals on earth. Getting to them and concentrating them will take energy. If energy is coming from fossil fuels, and thus is non-renewable and gets more expensive the more you need...then you have a metals shortage. If you can generate energy renewably...then using up that energy to do difficult things like concentrating metals from low grade ore deposits isn't such a big deal. It all comes back to energy.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:24 PM) So I guess the Braves don't look so silly for dumping the overrated Kotchman for LaRoche. LaRoche's SLG is higher than Kotchman's OPS since the trade. His career OPS with Atlanta is up around .850, his OPS with Pittsburgh is around .810. Maybe he just likes being a brave?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 08:40 PM) That's a pretty interesting take. So they want to make money off of people in a late position, milk them for everything they can, and ONLY then will they give them help, but at a substantial cost? What a f***ed up world we live in. That's pretty much what I was arguing a page ago, I think. You should add 1 more thing...also, they get the government to foot a part of the bill somehow.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 08:38 PM) and apparently a lot of "fear mongering" Americans agree with me. And I can cite polling data to say that a lot more Americans agree with me. Especially if you tell them some of the things actually in the bill, rather than screaming "Death Panels!" "Immy-gants!" Etc., which has been so bloody effective over the last month or so. Of course...that's data.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 08:44 PM) And that's close to you? Is it going away from you? I can't get it to load, but I'll try again. Yeah, it's not going to threaten me, but breathing around here has been a disaster. I'm somewhat glad I'm escaping tomorrow for a couple days.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 08:17 PM) You should know that... but I think there's times where you get so wrapped up in a position, that it can't possibly be wrong, huh? And I'm the only one????

If you can get that link I posted above to load, the fire is right at the transmission towers right now. Those towers provide basically cell phone reception for half of los angeles, some 20+ radio stations, all local TV for L.A., and so on. There's also a very nice observatory there that is under threat.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 07:52 PM) Which ones? Beckham is a rookie that has been adjusted to, and perhaps is getting tired. Thome/Konerko/Dye are all old and it's late in the season, Quentin has been battling injuries all year, A.J. has been fine, Pods is coming back to earth as we'd all expect, Rios isn't very good, Nix isn't either, Ramirez at SS has been a failed experiment. I'm not overwhelming surprised by a single player in this lineup who is struggling right now. You just gave a list of people who have been underperforming and then gave excuses for each of them. One or two guys having down seasons I can understand. All of those things happening together...that's not supposed to happen.

Hard to say. That may have just been a dream. A dream of falconing.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 07:29 PM) But then again, I've worked in the medical indistry, so I'm stupid, I guess. It's just what my own two eyes saw. As I told Y2HH, the plural of anecdote is not "Data".

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 07:05 PM) I don't quite understand how so many people blame the players when the team is not really all that close to a playoff team. If you just barely miss the playoffs, it's because either the manager screwed it up and was the culprit behind a few losses, or the players just didn't perform down the stretch. However, in a season like this, when the team is below .500 and not very close to a playoff team, it's because you don't have good enough players. And if you don't have good enough players, it's the general managers fault, period. I still think we have a bright future, but this year not so much. Because a number of the players flat out should be doing better than they currently are.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 07:19 PM) It's not the BIGGEST thing, but it is a damn big component. Honestly, you can't measure the truest of impacts of this for several reasons. One, out of court settlements that never even get to court. Two, defensive medicine is what's taught because that's what they have to do to avoid lawsuits. You'd have to retrain. Three, oh, so he offered it, but the only way he would keep it is if the Republicans gave him the public option free and clear. Come on. That's no real carrot, and you know it. So basically your argument is that Obama made the biggest concession he could make, something that would make a huge difference, and it wasn't nearly enough, so the Republicans should give him nothing in return. I love negotiating with you guys. "As soon as you give up everything you want, you can have a vote or two". This Factcheck piece from a few years ago IMO does a good job of compiling the responses to your claim that it's even a remotely significant part.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 07:10 PM) Yes, that would be McAllen. Different issue altogether. But it fits your argument, and it's liberal, and it's a way to prove that government is the only solution. You win. No, it's not proof, it's evidence, something you're not offering. You're sitting there repeating the claim that the biggest thing driving up health care costs is doctors ordering extra tests while worrying about malpractice suits. No one out there other than the far right believes that at all, even in the most restrictive states there hasn't been anything more than a percent cut in the growth of health care expenditures after those laws were passed, there is data out there saying that malpractice expensive have gone down significantly relative to inflation over the last 10 years, and the President was, correctly, more than willing to offer that up as the first concession to try to get the Republicans on board (which of course will never happen).

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 06:56 PM) Really? And guess what... it works, where it's not watered down by a bunch of other crap. But it's not NEARLY enough to get the cost out of the system. Yup, I should really go back and re-post that article where El Paso TX and the city right next to it are some of the highest and lowest per-capita health care cost cities in the country respectively, despite both sitting under Texas's highly restrictive malpractice lawsuit limits, because obviously the point wasn't made the first time the data was presented and the anecdotes continued to prevail.

QUOTE (CSF @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 06:36 PM) Another rough outing for Dexter Carter with Fort Wayne: 3.2 IP, 4 runs, 5 hits, 3 BB, 2 K's. His ERA is now at 12.86 since leaving Kanny. And Poreda continues to suffer from crappy control: 4 IP, 2 runs, 1 hit, 6 BB, 3 K's. His ERA now at 7.57 since joining Portland. Man, whatever we were doing to make those guys look so good we need to keep it up.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 06:39 PM) They will NOT prevent lawsuits related to that. That's my point. Except for the fact that 38 states already prevent that and that was one of the first concessions the President offered that the Republicans scoffed at...so basically except for 100% of the available evidence, I'd agree with you.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 30, 2009 -> 06:32 PM) Good. The more, the merrier. And it's happening on the other side as well. Just wait until the lawyers get their hands on the doctors who take orders from the government to cut tests and orders and have no recourse to lawsuits when they come back and say that they were ordered by the government to cut tests. You talk about a gigantic hole and payback to a certain group of assholes. So let's see, you argue on one hand that the threat of malpractice suits is the main driver of increasing costs because it drives over-testing, and then on the other hand you argue that it'd be a terrible thing if the government cut back on testing and then prevented lawsuits associated with failing to do so.