Balta1701

QUOTE (Texsox @ Feb 24, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) Basically the population of Des Plaines or Downers Grove is staying behind. The problem will of course be...what will that residual force be doing, and what happens when they come under attack?

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Feb 24, 2009 -> 02:51 PM) Personally, I think Carter will be the the biggest loss especially with the power we look to lose in the next few years. The difference is...we gave up Cunningham and got Richar. We gave up Carter...and...um...you're worried about power?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 24, 2009 -> 09:32 AM) Plus why would we want to trade him if he hits 45 homers? Cause Viciedo's going for 50.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 24, 2009 -> 09:25 AM) really? do we that quickly forget all he's done for us over the years? God no. Just not going to pretend anyone would want him right now. He'll be a 1 year, $12 million contract at the end of next season. If someone offers something valuable for him, I'd consider it. And there's another bit of thought to that statement....I'd really like to see a ton of production from Konerko this year. Because that would, you know, win a ton of ballgames.

2nd deepest bear market in market history.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 07:27 PM) Just as long as our government controls everything, the money doesn't mean anything. I believe you've just justified spending another trillion or two invading another country.

That's great Paulie. We appreciate it. Go hit 45 homers this season so someone wants you.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 04:58 PM) It does very well for the extremes, and is tough on the middle. We also do very well with public health. Our overall ability to stop the spread of disease is amazing. We have excellent sanitation. But if you are a middle class person without insurance, you lose twice. Too "rich" for any government assistance; too poor to afford what Doctors charge. Oven with insurance, the co-pays and deductibles are brutal. Not to mention the disastrous impact the current system has on the Business environment in the U.S. and on the federal budget.

Secretary Number 3! Locke was once considered a rising star in the Democratic party, gave the 2003 response to the "16 words" SOTU address, but gave up his governorship in 2003 and has been working as described since then. It's been reported that one of the factors in his departure was threats against his family.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 02:25 PM) Nix is out of options right? So I take Nix and Lilli and option BA back down since he still has one, and I send Wise to the bus stop. Nix signed a minor league deal with us. He'd have to pass through waivers to be sent to AAA, but unless he puts up ridiculous numbers in the spring the odds are almost certain he'd do that, since he did so already. And if he puts up ridiculous numbers in the spring, then why are we sending him down?

QUOTE (Fotop @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 01:16 PM) I haven't seen many recent mocks (what's a good place for updated mock drafts, btw?) but I think one of the tackles will fall - call it a hunch I suppose. If one doesn't, the Bears are in trouble in my opinion. There's no lights out safety they can nab in this draft, due to Mays and Major Wright going back to school and 1st rd WRs are typically a losing proposition (Harvin being the most likely one to be picked here and he scares the bejesus out of me). Sanchez won't fall that far, so there goes the QB of the future pick. The BPA at that point will likely be an end, be it Tyson Jackson or Michael Johnson, which as you point out does not fit one of the Bears many needs. A Linebacker wouldn't be a terrible idea, but Cushing, Malaluga, Curry, and likely Laurinitis will all be gone by then. If one of the USCers drops (doubtful) I suppose I'd put them on the short list. Another RB? It's a thought, as many teams are showing you need 2 RBs these days (Moreno or Wells could be had), but again there are much larger needs for the Bears. So basically if the tackles are gone, you have to consider trading down, and I'd be ok with that. I think someone has to drop. There's only so many picks in front of them.

Clearly, the only way around this problem is larger retention bonuses.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 01:19 PM) I don't disagree with you, but defaulting on the loan essentially means that the bank has 0 chance to recoup losses on a loan because the collateral is worth considerably less than it was when the loan was issued, no? So if the homeowner who might be in danger of default (but a helping hand could keep him on track), wouldn't that same helping hand in turn help the banks as well? The claim that 2k5 is making is, as far as I understand it, no, because the bank that owned the loan would then have to take the write down, and the banks have made so many of these crappy loans that most of them don't have the money to cover the write down. But if the bank forecloses on it, then sells the house off to another bidder, instead of still having the loan on its books, the bank now has the actual funds from selling off that home on its books, and thus the zombie bank is kept alive for a while because it gets extra funds in to its system, while another, better-shape bank takes on the new loan. The overall loss to the whole system and to the economy may be greater, but to that specific, zombie bank, the extra funds could be more important.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) Nah, Gathright’s a freak athletically, Owens is just a guy who runs really fast. Both aren’t very good ball players. As for the bench scenario, I think we should go with 12 pitchers. We have enough depth in the organization that this move can be justified, especially because Carrasco, Richard, Russell, and Poreda/Marquez can pitch multiple innings pretty much every time out. Ideally, the bench would go something like Kroege, Stewart, Betemit, Getz, but in reality, I think we’re going to see Stewart, Betemit, Lillibridge, and Anderson. The problem being is that we don’t have a whole lot of pop coming off the bench. In the past, we could bring in a guy like Ross Gload and think we have a decent shot of extra-base hit every once in a while, but the real weakness’ll be trusting Stewart to give us anything offensively. Brian Anderson had 21 extra base hits last year. Ross Gload had 21 extra base hits last year. Wilson Betemit had 19 extra base hits last year. Brian Anderson had 181 at bats last year. Wilson Betemit had 189 at bats last year. Ross Gload had 388 at bats last year. In 2006 with the White Sox, Gload got 156 at bats and put up 13 extra base hits.

Senate GOP rejects Obama's $75 billion housing reform plan as too expensive, responds with $300 billion housing purchase subsidy plan.

Yay! I've restarted the Anderson wars!

Senator Bunning's office issues a half-hearted apology.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 12:48 PM) and if, for example, harden gets hurt, marshall sux, bradley gets hurt, theyre bullpen blows, there isnt much they can do come the trade deadline. they have vitters and thats about it. itll be tough for them to get anything. then again, hendry always seems to be able to trade garbage and get players in return (ramirez, lee, harden, garciaparra, etc) This year, it'll probably depend on whether or not their new owner is willing to take on additional salary. I'll guarantee you people will be available for scraps if you'll take on a contract or two.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 11:27 AM) Oh no, Keynesian is the only way to go. The government is the only thing big enough to save us to keep us from going into a deflationary cycle we can't get out of. Is that right, Balta? We could try another round of tax cuts and bank deregulation. I haven't seen any problems that could possibly be associated with those actions.

It's only a blurb, but today's Tribune sets up the scenario of Lillibridge, Betemit, Owens, Wise, and a catcher making the team, 12 pitchers being carried, and Anderson going back to AAA.

Wait, did i read that right?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 07:27 AM) Any mortgage saving bill should exclude speculators as much as possible, as a start. But no matter how you do it, I think it needs to be a painful process for those going through it. I know that sounds bad, but, you can't make this easy, or people will go right back to making the same mistakes. So, give them an out, but make sure its an uncomfortable out, so that they and everyone they know sees how painful it is to get in over their heads. So, if say, the only one who had the authority to forcibly rewrite a mortgage was a bankruptcy judge, such that things have already gotten so bad for you that you're already in bankruptcy and the only question now is whether or not you can keep your house, is that uncomfortable enough for you?

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 06:53 AM) It's been a while since I read up on this, but there is a belief among some scientists that there was a massive "tectonic shift" in which the entire crust "shifted" as one. Moving a then tropical Antarctica to the south poll. I havent seen much scientific proof of this though. This is something called an inertial interchange event. It happens because the Earth is not a perfect sphere. Because it spins fairly fast around its axis, it actually bulges out slightly at the equator (you need a satellite to actually measure this). Because of this bulge, it is gravitationally unstable to have a positive density anomaly sitting at the pole. If you generate a positive density anomaly in the mantle and have it rise up near the pole, if it's large enough, it will cause the earth to rotate some number of degrees to bring that anomaly closer to the equator and bring the planet back in to gravitational balance. The rotation might actually be quite fast, on hte order of hundreds to thousands of years, and catastrophic at that, but there's a problem with trying to use one of those to explain atlantis. The earth's magnetic field is controlled by the liquid outer core. The outer core is actually disconnected from the solid mantle, meaning if there's an inertial interchange event, the mantle spins, but the core doesn't. The core keeps doing what it's doing; generating a magnetic field. If there is an IIE, the earth's magnetic field would jump significantly. Because rocks being deposited on the earth and especially rocks forming at the bottom of the ocean record the direction of the magnetic field at the time, we can safely rule out an IIE within the last several hundred million years. It's possible that they happened in the Cambrian/late Neoproterozoic, some 500-1000 million years ago, but in terms of moving around a civilization, unless the city was built by trilobites, there's simply no means for the planet to move something to the poles from a more reasonable climate that quickly.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 22, 2009 -> 05:18 PM) Eh, nevermind the blunt and borderline crass bit of reality there, but why on earth would he think Obama would nominate a conservative judge? Because if the Democrats filibuster a judge, it's evil. If the Democrats nominate a judge, he needs 60 votes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 23, 2009 -> 07:50 AM) You would have to convince an entire culture to shift how they move. This country is 100% about the car. Unless you can change that, you are going to have a really tough time pitching anything that isn't automotive related. People want to be able to jump into their cars and go. This is an important thing to keep in mind and it's something that's been pervasive in the posts here so far...rail isn't just something that you stick in and suddenly it's going to make everything better, it's a piece of infrastructure around which growth has to occur. It has to be available and good quality and reliable, and then it needs time to grow in to people's lives where they can trust it. You need to have a certain level of density around the rail for it to work. If I want to take the train to Vegas, for example, I need to be able to get to the train station, get on to the train, get to my destination, and then be able to get from the end terminal to whichever hotel I'm staying at. If I'm in the NY area, there has to be a stop near me, it has to go where I want to go, it has to do so with a limited # of connections, etc. This nation has a number of corridors that would work perfectly for high speed rail. But it will take time and a lot of money for this nation to grow around any rail system that is built. If you build an unreliable system, a system that doesn't get the funding it needs and never gets integrated in to people's lives, you wind up with the Amtrak spiral, where the quality of service is so low that no one takes it so it never gets the funding roads do and therefore the quality stays low and no one takes it.