Balta1701

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 12:50 PM) I was just reading the box score of the Twins/Indians game, and I noticed this: Alexei has been dreadfully inconsistent(key word dreadful), but it doesnt seem like KW downgraded the position over the offseason. He just did not upgrade it. We've gotten about the same amount of offense out of the middle infield for a lot less money, FWIW, and at the same time got some player development done hopefully on both of the guys.

How being locked in to a job you might not want so you can't afford to lose your health insurance, or not being able to start a small business because you won't be able to have health insurance, or not being able to work because you're sick, or having health insurance but then being cut off when you actually get sick, or having your employer choose your health insurance, or having no choice in health insurance because 80% of the country is considered "Highly concentrated" and run by only 1 or 2 insurers could possibly be interpreted as having any economic freedom at all is beyond me.

Mercy, the Royals just won't help us out.

Even if Boras is genuinely asking for $50 mil?

Killer game by Gavin today.

The Nats do not sound optimistic.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:53 PM) They are wrong. A decade ago they predicted that mass outsourcing and increased immigration would have lead to massive job creation. At the end of decade we have actually had negative job growth. They also support removing a whole lot of labor laws; definitely no minimum wage or government regulated safe working conditions. The CATO institute is wrong way more than they are correct. I'm not disagreeing that they're wrong more than they're correct. But you're not arguing against their point or doing anything to demonstrate at all to me why they're incorrect. You're just making ad hominem attacks.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:41 PM) The CATO institute is pro-Immigration at all levels. They are total free traders, no borders, no regulation. They basically support anarchy. Doesn't mean they're wrong.

New report from the right-wing CATO institute finds there's about a $180 billion benefit to the economy over 10 years to some form of legalization of illegal immigrants, while conversely there's an $80 billion or so cost for doing nothing.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:28 PM) I'm not sure you can call Brad Johnson circa 03 a game manager. The Bucs threw the ball approx 60% of the time! I'm willing to listen to what the definition of a game manager is, but I don't know how throwing the ball that much would qualify a player as someone who is asked not to make mistakes. But he was 17th in the league in yards gained through the air and 15th in attempts. It's not an open and shut case either way, but I think the point stands; he wasn't exactly tearing the league apart through the air.

QUOTE (SHIPPS @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:25 PM) What did Becks do? Basically a normal day for him.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:00 PM) Great win. Why did Lexi get taken out? Were we up big when he got taken out of the game or did he get hurt? Didn't get hurt that we knew about. Most likely Ozzie wanted to get Lilliputian a little work in a game in case he does need to use him for real at some point.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:06 PM) Bill Clinton was a Democrat. He was pro-outsourcing, embraced the economic race to the bottom (a few trillionaires with billions of peasants), did a whole lot of deregulation, ect. His economy was a complete bubble, which burst. He basically did everything that idiot Greenspan told him to do on the economy. What we got was an unsustainable mess that has now created a situation where there is long term massive unemployment; the US is becoming an economic has been. We don't innovate, we can't produce, we have an economy based around paper pushing and bailouts. The truth is both Clinton and GW Bush were total disasters. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_plummeting_taxes Fed tax revenue is crashing, but we are still wasting money. The deficit this year is going to be 4 times higher than the previous record. Not going to turn this into an economic thread, but the debt grew by over $1 trillion last year. It's going to be $4 trillion this year? That seems like a lot. Is Goldman in trouble again?

David Wright was hit in the head by a Matt Cain pitch and left the game.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:29 PM) And yet it was made during the last Presidential election right here. Basically...if you want to make that argument, give me some reasoning. I can give you reasons why I believe the republicans suck on the economy. Their zeal for deregulation lets business run wild, and that has helped get us the 2002 and 2008 messes. Their tax policy creates concentration of wealth in the hands of people who don't spend it, and thus the increased wealth doesn't stimulate job creation or purchasing, their defense of this health care system is destroying small business. You can go on, and you can make counterpoints to those. You want to explain to me how having the government more involved makes things worse, fine, do so. Expect to then be hit with things like the fact that Medicare's cost growth is well below that of the private sector, other countries do even better, and so on. Please, if you want to explain to me how the steps the government has taken to make end of life issues easier to deal with are a bad thing and how that is driving up healthcare costs, I'm listening.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:07 PM) You make a good argument, and I think Orton would be a good fit for the Vikings. However, in the playoffs the teams with the super running games seemingly always do worse than those teams with good passing attacks. I think there comes a time in every season when you need your quarterback to win a game for you. I don't know if I would trust Orton to do that for a contending team. Still, I think he has a place in the league. I can make the argument against you pretty easily; look at the last couple superbowl winners, other than the Colts. You had the Steelers in there twice and the Giants once. Those teams got there on the strength of their ground game. They had QB's who could make plays, but their QB's didn't carry them. Going back further you hit the Bucs and the Ravens, similarly; running teams, average QB, amazing defenses. On the other hand, you've got the Colts and the Pats, led by HOF QB's, but even then, they had serious defensive and running help in some of those years (the Colts basically beat the Bears on the ground, Corey Dillon did some real damage for NE when he was there, and then there was the NE defense).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:23 PM) Saying that the government is getting more involved in health care, as it has gotten worse according to lots of people, isn't a real great argument for getting them even more involved. I'm just going to hope you realize how silly that statement is. It's about as intelligent as me saying "The last 3 declared recessions all started under Republicans, thus Republicans are terrible for the economy". The government might be making things worse. The Republicans might be absolutely godawful for the Economy. But that's a classic correlation equals causation argument.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:13 PM) I don't have a problem with the private system now when it comes to this. And another thought...really, do you know how much of the current rules are set by the government? A whole ton of them. Not just because of medicare. But because the government is working to try to make things not wind up adversarial. It's not like this is just a "Private" system, outside of the lifetime caps/decisions by insurance companies about whether or not to provide coverage.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:13 PM) I don't have a problem with the private system now when it comes to this. Have you ever had a relative hit the lifetime maximum?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:00 PM) BABIP (for hitters) is my least favorite of all sabermetric stats. My 2 cents. I think it provides some real insight in to the type of hitter you have, and whether or not a hitter is down or up by some amount of luck.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 03:59 PM) What is being lost in the usual stereotyping of the nutjobs as representatives of the mainstream is that a governmental agency will be in charge of your loved ones lives. Even if the vast majority of the time they are going to force/allow treatments, there will be a time where the government is going to sanction the killing of someone. It is just not going to be nearly as often as some would like to indicate it will be. So, let me turn this back to you...how would you advise us to put together a better system? The other option seems to me to have the government encourage everyone to turn a blind eye to these issues. Even in our current disastrous system, the government plays a role here, because it regulates how doctors deal with patients in those scenarios. If society doesn't set some sort of rules here, then you have everyone in tears blaming everyone else for killing people, rather than having these things worked out in some intelligent way.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 03:46 PM) Floyd's era is back under 4.00 on the season. He only trails Buehrle by a quarter of a run now for the best ERA by a starter on the Sox. You chop 1.5 months off of his season and he's what, fighting with Greinke for the Cy?

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 03:47 PM) There is nothing wrong with it, unless you desire to win the Superbowl. Qb's like Orton are good for teams with 8-8 records that are fooling themselves into thinking that the they are serious contenders. The only QB in recent memory that won the Superbowl with an Orton-like set of abilities was Trent Dilfer. I'm not a complete Orton hater, but he's not the kind of guy I would want leading my team for an extended period of time. You put Orton on a team like Minnesota, where there's a star running back and a run-killing defense, and you've got a potentially really solid fit. Esp. if you can come up with a possession WR. Denver doesnt' have either of those.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 03:38 PM) That doesn't mean that necessarily. You can ban caps, but you can also stop certain life saving procedures after a certain point to cut costs. Those two things are not mutually exclusive by any means. For example, everyone is supposed to be guaranteed social security, but it is a pretty standard procedure for people under 65 who can't work to be denied payment the first time they file. While that is true, the issue is...who is making the decision at the time? The status quo is; if you're on Medicare, it's some combination of you, your family, and your doctor, because Medicare doesn't include a lifetime cap. If you're in the private sector system, it's your insurance company. Quite frankly, I think we'll all agree, it's a difficult decision to make for everyone, but there is a point at which you should be stopping treatment. Not necessarily to cut costs, but because it's time. These are difficult issues and the country has struggled with them for decades. How do you deal with the case where the family insists you do everything but the doctor believes it will do nothing but cause the patient a lot of pain? How do you deal with the case where the patient has no hope of recovery? And on and on. There's been an enormous amount of work in the governments, state and national to try to get it right. The Medicare consultation/living will thing is an important step in that. Which is why it's so obnoxious that it's been turned in to this "The guvmint's gonna kill you!" idiocy; it's a total step in the wrong direction. It certainly could make things a lot worse for some people; now they're scared to talk to their doctor about those issues because the government will want to kill them, and they wind up not having their wishes indicated, and so on.

Reggie Jackson you have company!