Balta1701

Les and it's not really close.

2k5, found an interesting read for you on the effectiveness of border controls if you have the time (it's a good 30 page+ document from the World Bank on flu epidemic containment properties). The conclusions that affect our discussion are; border controls can have a significant delaying impact on the entrance and intensity of a flu outbreak. But a 90% closure is only weakly effective. You literally need to get up above 99% control of the people entering your country, including border crossings and airports, and combine that with a full scale school closing and immediate, heavy treatment program if you want to do more than delay the peak of the flu hitting by more than a week. A 90% effective closure of the borders buys you an extra 10 days to develop a vaccine before the true peak of the flu hits. That's the data they're looking at regarding closing the border. You have to know in advance that it's going to be absolutely a devastating outbreak, because to have a big enough impact that it actually delays the flu by more than a week, and thus buys you time to manufacture an effective vaccine or implement better treatment methods, you have to shut down all inbound air travel and close the border to keep well over 90% of the people currently crossing from entering. For a cost-benefit analysis, it has to be an absolute disaster of the worst sense. Worse than 1918, before it becomes a reasonable option.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ May 1, 2009 -> 12:00 PM) Wasn't he injured part of the season? What would his Runs Scored be if he played 162 games or wasn't on the DL? 100? 110?? It wasn't just the DL trip...he basically couldn't run effectively for the last 2.5 months of the season, and it took away his best weapon. Which is of course, part of the problem...he lost his best weapon and has been too hurt to have it back.

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 1, 2009 -> 11:56 AM) He could nominate a centrist and you (conservatives) would still call the nominee a liberal judicial activist. What we need is a Roberts...someone who can play the centrist in his confirmation hearings and make all the supposed moderates swoon but who gets on the court and instantly turns in to the farthest-left guy on there.

Has anyone informed Q that he needs to back up Pods on every routine fly ball, just in case he loses it in the lights?

QUOTE (lostfan @ May 1, 2009 -> 11:53 AM) I'm surprised that so far people think Mackowiak was better than Swisher out there. Some of our votes may have had some sarcasm in them.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 1, 2009 -> 11:47 AM) I guess it depends on how much you value defense. The difference between their bats at this point is greater than the difference between their defensive performances. Lillibridge is just hitting that bad.

To protect capitalism and its interests, I went with Mackowiak.

Here's Simmons's article on that game.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 1, 2009 -> 09:49 AM) Frost/Nixon or Changeling this weekend? Neither. I'm just blocking off like 8 hours on Saturday night and assuming it's filled by Bulls/Celtics game 7.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 1, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) Yeah but what if he reverts back to his 2005 form? Just pretend for a second that the last 3 years never happened, Scott Podsednik is coming off a season in which he hit .290 with a .351, 50+ stolen bases and led his team to a World Series Championship! Why wouldn't you hit him leadoff? Ugh, nostalgia can make people wacky. There's a bit of actual logic that could argue for him leading off...specifically, he can take a walk and work a pitcher as well as anyone on this team other than Thome. Right now, Fields is struggling in the 2 hole, we want Getz up there, you can put Getz and Pods in there, esp. against a righty, and you work a pitcher fairly hard for the first inning. Pods probably can still give you a .320-.330 OBP, which is at least a big upgrade from what we're getting from Lilli and company, and he's going to put the ball in play more than Fields is doing right now.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ May 1, 2009 -> 09:40 AM) Singer hasnt been involved since X-Men 2 And X-2 was damn good while X-3 was awful.

QUOTE (rangercal @ May 1, 2009 -> 09:41 AM) I agree Balta. I actually thought of the same comparison. The bulls fan in me wants Rondo to get 1 game, the basketball fan in me would not mind if the NBA overlooked it, the logical side of me knows that Rondo should get 1 game, the realist in me realizes the NBA will not punish Rondo. If the Celts had won that game I'd bet just about anything he's out for game 1 against the magic.

QUOTE (rangercal @ May 1, 2009 -> 09:37 AM) 5 of Espn's top 10 plays of the day were from the game. lol Well, just count the total number of plays from all sports yesterday and 3/4 of them had to come from that game right?

Robert Horry got 2 games for this one, in the playoffs.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ May 1, 2009 -> 08:22 AM) Disagreed. Salmons isn't young and if he keeps playing like he did before getting injured, we're going to let him go or waste a lot of cap space on him. Deng still sucks until further notice, Tyrus is still Tyrus and Derrick, minus one play is allergic to defense. We are a lot farther away than what people think. Some commentary on Rose's D last night:

Talkbulls poll: How many overtimes will we get in game 7?

Mark, don't follow the lights. Go MB!

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ Apr 30, 2009 -> 11:20 PM) <!--quoteo(post=1882199:date=May 1, 2009 -> 12:18 AM:name=BearSox)-->QUOTE (BearSox @ May 1, 2009 -> 12:18 AM) <!--quotec-->Give me a break. MSNBC is extremely hateful and will continually attack anyone who disagrees with them and refuse to insult Obama. There's a reason why they are in the s***ter. How many "news" channels will let people like Janeane Garofalo come on and call hundreds of thousands of people racists and stupid rednecks, without being challanged? It's not even close, and if you are trying to make them the same, you're the delusional one. Garafalo lol! What a sell-out being for on a Fox tv show. And Fox for having her on. Not to mention that her character is endlessly annoying.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 30, 2009 -> 09:58 PM) He better if the Bulls want to win that game. This silliness tonight, as exciting as it was, ain't gonna cut it in a game 7 road game. The guy who fouled out early in game 5 had fresh legs for game 6 and went off for 51. BG7 fouled out early in game 6.

QUOTE (rangercal @ May 1, 2009 -> 08:59 AM) Really, this needs Swirsky's call. If you haven't heard it, find a way to. ESPN actually ran it over that highlight.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ May 1, 2009 -> 07:49 AM) One thing I'd lie to say, the Bulls aren't that bad of a defensive team. They're actually pretty decent. What they are terrible at is rebounding. They are godawful. Like worse in the league. If it wasn't for all those second chance points they allow, guys like Big Baby and Kendrick Perkins would look like their normal average selves. Thing is, the stats really don't agree with you. The Bulls were a middle-of-the pack team this year in rebounding. They'd have their good days and they'd have their really bad days. And I'd be willing to bet they got significantly better as the season when on and Noah got in to shape and Vinny Del Coacho suddenly couldn't use his small lineup because Gooden was hurt or traded. What the stats do say though is that Boston was the 2nd most effective team in the league at rebounding this year in terms of %age of rebounds available. They're not the same team right now, obviously, without KG and Powe, but let's give credit where credit is due. The Celtics are an excellently coached team. They are always in good rebounding position. The Bulls are a horribly coached team, and they rely on athleticism to make up for it, and they do a decent but not spectacular job of it.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ May 1, 2009 -> 06:55 AM) I could not get over how bad of a coach VDN is. The inbouds plays had no creativity at all. I am not a huge NBA fan but you can inbounds the ball into the backcourt can't you? The Bulls are a better team than the Celtics right now. It would be a shame for them to lose. Rondo is a nice player that is being made into a legend becasue nobody is doing anythign about it. Somebody needs to challenge him at least a little. A couple things about those 2 inbounds plays the Bulls ran...the first one, Gordon isolated on Pierce. it's probably going to work 15% of the time. That 15% it'll look great. The other 85% it's going to look exactly like that did. The 2nd one...Ok, I can understand putting the ball in Miller's hands to start the play or during the play, but why would you put the ball in Miller's hands out by midcourt when you're not setting up anything with him? A give and go, where Rose passes in to Miller and Miller immediately gives the ball up to someone who's driving to the open-lane because Davis followed Miller, that might have worked. Giving someone else the ball and trying to get the ball to Miller downlow, sure, could certainly work and has given Boston matchup problems already. But giving Miller the ball with no screen, no clear immediate guy to pass to, and so far away from the basket that even Gordon wouldn't have taken the shot? That's just remarkably silly.

QUOTE (rangercal @ May 1, 2009 -> 08:41 AM) Best playoff series of all time? Ranks up there. But not #1 because it is the first round. Best first round series of all time? This just leapfrogged Sea-Den and GSW-Dal in my book. So I would say yes. Outside of the 1st round, what series can you name that have been better? The Reggie Miller vs. NY series is the only one that comes to my mind as challenging it in the last 15 years.