Balta1701

If Nix takes 2b, he'd be excellent by most accounts so far. AJ is bad on throwing. But he keeps the ball in front of him.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 05:32 PM) That's just f***ing ignorant. Can Josh Kroeger play CF? Because he's yet to play even an inning out there this spring. It seems to me that the Sox would want to get him some looks out there if he were capable given how great he's looked at the plate. If Kroeger keeps hitting like this and he can at least be an adequate CF I'm game.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 04:27 PM) im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word) I believe you can just use "Socialist" as an adjective on its own, you do not need to add the IC suffix to make it an adjective.

QUOTE (whitesoxbrian @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) Pace is always hurt. He's practically played nothing in 2 years. At this point, we can't sign him and take chances. He played 14 games last year. You're correct he was out the couple years beforehand...started 9 games the previous 2 years.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 03:50 PM) Crystal Pepsi was a disaster. A delicious disaster.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) Duaner sanchez is another one of those "thank god that trade didn't go through" guys wasn't he also suspended for PEDs? or am i thinking about someone else Guillermo Mota got a suspension while a member of the Mets. Alex Sanchez was the first player suspended, he was a journeyman infielder. Link.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 03:00 PM) Either way, I think they are both decent solutions, but I just think our team benefits greatly having Brian manning CF since we insist on playing both Dye and Q out of position.... It doesn't work the best for our lineup, but if we wanted to focus on strong defense up the middle to balance out Fields, Dye, and Konerko on the corners, the best defense we could put out there appears to be: Alexei: SS Anderson: CF Nix: 2b. Plugging anyone else in at short is probably going to set us back some on defense, based solely on statements about Alexei from the organization. Beckham's probably the next in line there, and frankly I can't speak to his defense. Anyone we swap in to CF would be a significant downgrade. I haven't seen much of them, but previous reports have Nix being a remarkably good defender at 2b. Swapping in Getz or Lillibridge would likely be a step backwards from there.

A member of the American National Socialist party, who was reportedly "Very upset" (his wife's words) about Mr. Obama becoming the President, was shot and killed by his wife in Maine in December. This wouldn't be that remarkable, except it appears he had the materials to make a dirty bomb available in his home.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 01:31 PM) right, I'm just saying we shouldn't move him to CF, he's more valuable as is. I think Alexei should move a bit north. Wrigley?

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 12:46 PM) I can see a mild resemblance, but not "OMG" type stuff. Some of it was the camera angle I'm sure. Really freaked me out for a second.

One of our local media outlets last night interviewed this guy, who they identified as a UC Irvine prof. Before they did so, they showed a couple pictures of him, and I though "My God, how did they cure Michael J. Fox?"

Mouse sees cheese...mouse takes cheese... .cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url('http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png') !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;} The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c In Cramer We Trust Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Political Humor Economic Crisis You are 100% correct. Jon Stewart was wrong that Jim Cramer recommended buying Bear Stears stock the week before he collapsed, and he apologizes in that video. He then provides you the video from 5 days beforehand where he directly says to BUY BEAR STEARNS STOCK. And where a few weeks beforehand, he virtually begs people to buy Bear's stock.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 10:17 AM) No. I am saying that when dealing with a complex system that is broken in multiple key and related ways, if a true all-at-once overhaul isn't realistic (which it is not here, for cost reasons among others), then you need to try to fix a few things at a time. You go with what will work long term, even though it may not work well short term. And when you implement those things, you see where the bad parts fall out, and then deal with the biggest pain points (again addressing them with long term solutions). You keep doing this until you have your cohesive system. Whether you like how I'm going to reword it or not, your argument is that we should just keep going for quick-fixes that sound good because actually fixing the problems are too hard, and you hope that you can build something solid out of the quick-fixes. Without some hard data saying that the quick fixes will make a positive difference rather than going all NCLB on us and making things worse, I find that logic flawed, and I think the data that is out there backs my case up.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 10:05 AM) And sometimes, you need to increase the turbidity to extract the crap. So basically your argument is that we should keep trying things whether or not they fail? Even if they're entirely likely to make things worse in schools for both students and teachers? Just want to throw some more data in to this discussion. Again, not saying it is something that can't work. I'm saying someone needs to give me an argument as to why it will work if applied in this case, especially if I can cite examples of places where it has been tried and abandoned.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:46 AM) The system is most certainly littered with different contending problems. That shouldn't stop you from fixing some of it though, and then addressing more as time goes on. You cannot realistically rebuild the whole thing in one shot. That's not what I was trying to suggest though. The issue I'm trying to make is that the system is so fundamentally broken that things that could be good reforms can easily wind up screwing up/backfiring because they will only work in a functioning system. I'll try to give you a specific example other than NCLB. Merit pay for teachers. Seems like a no-brainer, right? If a teacher is sucking, they should get paid less. But of course it's more complicated than that. Not just how you measure the suckiness of the teacher, which has a whole host of factors like the type of students, the quality of equipment, etc., coming in to the classroom, there's every reason to think that a merit-pay system could easily drive people away from the profession entirely, thus driving the overall quality of teaching downwards year after year as people don't want to risk having their pay cut because they get a bad set of students some year. It's not that you're not trying to fix it. It's not that the idea itself is bad. It's that the messes are so entrenched that they literally take what could be a positive fix and turn it in to a negative. That describes NCLB's testing program to the letter, and it could easily describe other proposed good ideas.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:41 AM) He had better just keep his mouth shut about the markets today. You guys are priceless.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:27 AM) Heh. Looks like a good start to me, but he has some uphill battles ahead of him. I meant...Obama introduced his education policy and the markets have soared. Based on the standard set for the last month, the stock markets must love Obama's education policy like nobody's business.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 10, 2009 -> 09:24 AM) I think that goes to how merit pay is implemented. You don't allocate merit award moneys to schools based purely on performance against a large pool, you take into consideration funding levels, student population and their issues, and have at least some money going to every school regardless of school-wide performance. Also, you need to be careful how you measure "performance". There you've hit the rub on all of these. All of those things...improved standards for standardized tests, merit pay for teachers, etc., can be good ideas in the right scenario. But there are so many other underlying problems so deeply rooted in the makeup of the education system...from the inequalities of the private/public school systems to the inequalities created by how they're funded through property taxes (amongst many others), that everything so far winds up being a band-aid on a gaping wound. Things that can be wonderful policies on paper, like say, better and more thorough standardized testing, can so easily be destroyed by the current system that I'm not sure any of these things will actually make a difference. Just look at what happened to NCLB. It was created. Then it was under-funded. Then schools realized that the goals were unreachable. Then schools started teaching only to the tests. Then states started dramatically lowering testing standards so that they wouldn't lose federal moneys. And the only end result seems to have been that nothing changed except more class time was wasted on preparing for the tests that would make or break the school's funding for the year.

So, Obama's education policy is a gigantic success?

If he'd go to our AAA team, sure. I don't know why we'd want him for the big league squad when we already have relievers who are pitching better than him.

DWade misses a layup at the buzzer. How often does that happen? These guys have to be exhausted. Seriously, you want to win this game, rotate Hinrich and Thomas in for a few minutes.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 07:31 PM) I know lol He missed those FT's on purpose. Can we find someone to guard Marion? I don't care if he's in Toronto, someone guard him this time.

And Wade misses 2 down the stretch...Salmons fouled...wow. How does that actually happen? Wade has that good of a game and then boink.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 07:13 PM) Question: how many embryos just "die" because of in vitro? I don't know what those numbers are, but as I said, the only change in today's move is changing the funding. So what did it really change? Nothing. Link, US News

And a travel on Gordon...blah