Balta1701

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 4, 2009 -> 01:52 PM) But if you put those two together, I don't see anything great. Put Noah next to Bosh or Boozer and you might have something. If only Carlos Boozer was actually healthy most of the time, he would be a interesting commodity. If Tyrus and Noah can each add just a little bit of weight/strength, and we are smart about how we use either the MLE or Aaron Gray, I still think TT/Noah can work as an excellent front court. The problems are; 1. Our coaches refuse to play TT, and think that the small lineup is the way to go under all circumstances... and 2., the biggest guys (Dwight Howard) can just outmuscle us, and we're not good enough on offense yet to use our quickness to either draw them away from the basket or get them in foul trouble. I still think what we have in these 2 guys can work excellently well alongside Rose, Deng, and Gordon, I think we saw some of that working effectively this year (particularly as Rose develops as a distributor of the ball)...but if we're always going to bench TT, or if we're not smart about how we run things, then finding someone else is better than trying it our way. I'd love to see that lineup develop together for 5 years, but it doesn't work if you think Rose is better at guarding PF's than Thomas.

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:36 PM) From what I've read, that only covers about 15% of Brazil's oil needs. Sure, it's a start, but how practical is it? It's not...currently. The only thing that is going to be a practical fuel is something that can be produced in massive quantities across large amounts of territory with a very high rate of recovery of energy. Corn is produced in massive quantities across large amounts of territory, but the energy recovery is ridiculously poor, because all you get is 1-2 ears of corn per stalk, 95% of the stored energy in the plant is lost. Sugar cane produces a much higher rate of energy recovery, but you can't grow it across large areas. What you need to do is take something like a corn plant and turn the plant itself in to ethanol if you want that to be your fuel. This is why people keep talking about switchgrass...basically you go out to the deserts, mow them, and you've got cellusoic material that regrows quickly that you could convert in to your fuel. We just can't do it yet. The other alternative is biology...if you can adapt some bugs, like algae, to grow under the right conditions, you might be able to get around that by just giving the algae carbon and sunlight and some other nutrients and let them cook. The one other way to do it is to take the energy from a different renewable source...i.e. the sun or the wind...and store it, either in a battery, a capacitor, or yes, even as hydrogen if you can generate enough of it, and thus you get around that problem that we can't yet convert cellulose to ethanol. That's why I'm such a big fan of the Chevy Volt...I think that battery storage is the quickest and cheapest way to eliminate a huge fraction of our oil importation for transportation purposes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2009 -> 01:00 PM) Boy that sounds familiar... Reminds me a lot of corn-based ethanol...except this one's been going on longer.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 4, 2009 -> 10:33 AM) We can pull uranium out of the oceans. I'm not sure how renewable it is, but its an enormous source of fuel. Expensive, though. The Japanese and French have been reprocessing nuclear fuel for a while now, so that cuts down on wastes. Balta, what are your thoughts on Yucca? I might have asked in another thread, but don't remember seeing a reply. You can pull gold out of the oceans too. You just have to expend an enormous amount of energy to do it. More energy than you get by grabbing the uranium or more money than you'd get by selling the gold. Uranium is like a fossil fuel in that sense...it's available because there are actions that the earth has done in the past that have concentrated it enough to make it economically viable. You'd get a hell of a lot of gold and uranium and lots of other heavy metals if you could extract every little bit of them from the Sierra Nevadas, for example. The problem is it takes an enormous amount of energy to do that. We're lucky in that processes the earth has done has made it possible to use them. If you can come up with a semi-infinite energy source, then you can get the uranium out of the oceans...but then what do you need the uranium for? The Yucca Mountain case is a fascinating one. What most people don't know about the nuclear industry is that decades ago the U.S. government promised it would find a way to dispose of the waste from running these power plants. So far, it hasn't done so, and the power plants have done the storage...but they have billed the government to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for that storage. The weird reality is...without that giant subsidy relating to the waste, nuclear power simply isn't profitable. Nuclear power wouldn't exist in this country without the government subsidizing the waste. Always found that weird. Yucca mountain is an absolute mess. It reminds me an awful lot in spirit of things the government has done like the Levee system around New Orleans. We don't know everything about the materials the U.S. wants to use in constructing the long-term storage things they have there (classified)...but it really does strike me as a boondoggle of the highest order. Here's the basic story...the government needed to find some place to put this stuff. They happened to have a mountain sitting on the side of their already contaminated Nevada Test site, where they'd blown up bombs for decades, so they grabbed it as a convenient spot. Currently it has some advantages...it has very low population, very low rainfall. The mess is when you get in to the details...because this stuff is nuclear waste, it's going to be hazardous for on the order of hundreds of thousands of years. Less than 20,000 years ago, there were large lakes in this area and the water table was much higher...high enough that it would have soaked the canisters they want to use To actually have this thing work, you need to be able to seal the stuff off for longer than the lifespan of the radioactivity. But since things like climate cycles and tectonics change on timescales that are less than the radioactivity, you're asking us to do a predictive problem that is just impossible. If you sort of ignore those things, you can ram through the waste depository, build it, ship stuff there (that's a whole different can of worms), and hope for the best, and it's entirely possible that you wind up ok, and you never have, for example, a category 3 hurricane hitting those levees that you never bothered to do the correct work on. Really, it's an impossible problem. There's no where on earth that you can guarantee a stable climatic and tectonic environment for the lifespan of the stuff. If you're going to put it somewhere, Yucca is probably safer than the way it currently is stored all around the country haphazardly...but I don't want to be in Las Vegas after it turns out that we underestimated something in the climate or tectonic system. Putting it there is asking for trouble. Not putting it there is asking for trouble. Really have no idea what to say other than that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 4, 2009 -> 10:24 AM) Don't forget newquelar Nuclear is not a sustainable/renewable fuel source.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) The article says that too. Of course it did, they spoke to Glenn Greenwald.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:46 AM) What I don't understand is why does Ozzie consider DHing someone giving him a rest, but then needs to rest Thome who only DH's? Because different bodies can take different amounts of punishment. Thome's a 38 year old with nearly 550 home runs on his record who's had a bad back for a while and who's body is just starting to wear down. Konerko and Dye are a fair amount younger and haven't necessarily taken the same duration of punishment, although different people break down from different amounts. Go 2-3 years down the road...if Konerko's bat doesn't drop off, you'll want him at DH and getting a few games of rest the same as how you use Thome now. I have zero problems with Ozzie giving Thome extra rest, esp. against lefties, and moving Konerko or JD to DH for those games. I thought the last couple years we should have done that more often.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:41 AM) The Time article I posted a few posts back basically says that. Decriminalizing drugs in Portugal has made usage go down, not up. Different societies handle things differently though. Just because Portugal saw rates go down doesn't mean that in the U.S. case they might not go up...especially if the market develops in certain ways.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:37 AM) The problem is your opening assumption. People don't avoid heroin because its illegal; people avoid heroin because something in their brain says "hey, injecting myself is probably a bad idea." Usage rates do not go up when drugs are decriminalized or made legal. So you get all the benefits you listed with negligible costs. I tried to do it as a worst case scenario. It's entirely possible some people do avoid harder drugs because of the illegality. In the best case scenario you're right, and there are no negative consequences at all to blanket legalization. But it's a hard sell on that point to me...it's entirely possible that demand could increase once the threat of law enforcement goes away, or once companies exist who are turning a profit based on usage suddenly find that they have the money to encourage people to use the stuff and get hooked.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:32 AM) We're a slumping team (both sides of the game) in a crappy division. Yes, giving up is the most logical solution. And we're also banged up, and not because our guys are old (except for Thome's injury), but instead because of some freak things happening like a run of HBP's. White flag time.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:23 AM) One of the big knocks on Bailey is that he isn't very coachable. He's a talent, that's for sure. Didn't they say the same thing about Gavin in Philly?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:29 AM) He's a danger whether we call it legal or illegal. He's still kicked up on goofballs either way. Here's my point...let's assume for a moment that the number of people high on goofballs goes up by 50% if it's made legal. At the same time though...the fact that it is suddenly legal means that the stuff can be grown, shipped, sold legally. And hell, taxed. Suddenly the Taliban loses their main source of funding. Suddenly the L.A. gangs and the Mexican cartels are broken because the money flowing through them is rapidly shifted to legal means of production. The Mexican government suddenly is more stable and the gangs are battered and gone. Maybe crime on the street drops. The number of people incarcerated drops dramatically, while maybe more people go in to treatment, but a ton of money is saved. Which one does more damage to society? There are a ton of indirect costs either way. I don't know the answer...I'm just trying to say that there are a lot of negatives not being taken in to account if you focus solely on the number of addicts.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:25 AM) Particularly interesting that its the 9th doing this, as they tend to be a very left-leaning circuit. That's one of those little things put out there after one or two decisions 5+ years ago that really isn't well supported by the facts. Hell, Jay "torture memo" Bybee is on the 9th circuit, at least until he's impeached. Here's a wee bit of support for that.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:16 AM) IMO, there is a huge difference between legalizing marijuana, and legalizing hard drugs like coke and meth. This is for at least two reasons: 1. Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. are much, much more addictive than mary jane could dream of being. This lures people into unhealthy lifestyles, and we all pay the bill. 2. Marijuana doesn't create the public safety issue the other drugs do. Simply put, does a guy stoned on a joint scare you? Of course not. Does a guy up on an 8 ball scare you? It probably does, and should. A person on hard drugs is a danger to others. A pot head really isn't. The question in reply is...how much of the additional danger associated with a person on harder drugs is related to the fact that those drugs are illegal? They're more addictive and we pay the bill...but which bill is higher...the bill associated with the illegal trade of those drugs + the cost to society of locking away those people + all the other costs of keeping them illegal, or the costs to society of providing treatment along with the negative costs of people using the things in the case of widespread legalization? Really have no idea which is the case, but that's the counterpoint there...people are doing the things anyway, and if we're worried about unhealthy lifestyles, having them do the things illegally, where it can feed things like the Afghan war, the Mexican wars, gang revenue, etc., may make society a lot worse.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:01 AM) My belief, is that in a "America First" economy, trickle down economics really CAN work because you have people to pay. The problem with the economy as it stands, we pay for goods, the money goes to the company, they send that money to cheap labor overseas. It's a broken system. If we can keep jobs HERE, we all thrive. Money gets into an internal loop. In a real working global system, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. How things should happen is that items are manufactured where they're cheapest; where they can be shipped cheaply to market and the raw materials can be had the cheapest. That's how an ideal globalized economy should work...if an area has an exceptional amount of some resource, or is particularly well educated in a certain field, etc., then it can and should become the strongest in that field. The problem I have with globalization is that the key winds up being distortion in laws right now...that's what winds up making it a bad deal for so many. Things are manufactured in China not because China has enormous resources of oil and iron to provide the raw materials, it's manufactured there because it is far easier to exploit the workers and the environment...they can get a lot more out of the workers for a limited cost...and the governments are lobbied heavily to not make rules that would make things more equitable...so instead of businesses moving somewhere because the resources they need are cheaper, they move somewhere because they can write the laws easier somewhere.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ May 4, 2009 -> 04:55 AM) They may have been investigating Pablo Escobar on a tip that he was running kilos of cocaine out of Bromley Hall, but all they ended up with after a year and gosh knows how much $$$$, was two dozen college kids and 180 grams of pot. If you can't label Operation Thunder Strike a piddling drizzle after that, when and how does law enforcement ever get held accountable for how they spend our tax (and in this case tuition) dollars? Do they get a total pass based on noble intentions? This is of course part of the problem that entities like the police (another example is schoolteachers) always have to deal with in cries for accountability. Let's assume that the whole thing was a well-intentioned mistake. Naturally, there's calls for accountability. But if we assume they thought they had something a lot bigger...what do they do the next time someone tells them about a major drug smuggling ring? Do they investigate it fully or do they back off completely? Maybe that one is actually Pablo Escobar. Police run in to this all the time when they pull their weapon and fire. There's always an investigation, if someone makes a mistake and a person dies there's always going to be calls for accountability, but you also don't want the police so scared to do their job that they get hurt or they're rendered ineffective by the fear of prosecution later. I don't have a solution in this case and haven't given it enough thought to form an opinion...just wanted to throw it out there.

One man wound up paralyzed from the waist down. Dallas's special teams coach is slated for surgery today for a couple of fractured vertebrae. At least 1 player wound up with a concussion (Kicker out of USC).

Have a day Bartolo

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 4, 2009 -> 05:57 AM) More likely... Roberts sees a chance to cash in... They said the exact same thing repeatedly about Canseco. And he wound up being right on so many... Just remember...it's not just the person writing the book who's looking to cash in here. The people breaking the rules have plenty of incentive to cash in as well.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ May 4, 2009 -> 07:24 AM) So, corporations are evil, right? LOL. What I mean is this happens every few years, every administration, hell in every state for that matter. New administration comes in, promises it's finally going to be the one cracking down on tax cheats, finding corruption, coming up with this wonderful new source of revenue that every previous administration ignored. Either because their math is wrong or because the lobbyists are just better than they are, it never happens.

On this one, I'll believe it when I see it.

Someone bench fields for a day or two, please. Play Konerko at 1b and Betemit at 3b.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 3, 2009 -> 01:59 PM) Balta I'm not a molecular biologist or anything, but I think your guess is close enough. If that's the case, then I wonder whether any precautions are somewhat foolish, since it turns out that you can't predict at all which ones are going to flare back up. You put all the effort in to improving your vaccine and then suddenly you find its worthless and it explodes.

Alexei with 2 hits tonight including that double.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 3, 2009 -> 05:30 PM) PK slowed down. WTF is going on? as bad as this game has been, the sox have had their chances to score. And on top of it...it hasn't been because of the replacements that we haven't scored.