Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 07:15 AM) Senate starting their changes to the package. Currently being discussed: added funds to highway, mass transit and water infrastructure projects (from Dems), and mortgage and housing market incentives (from GOP). Because the only way out of this is to re-inflate the bubble!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 08:20 AM) I think people are getting at the two key aspects - one, that a lot of this stuff may not be a stimulus at all (based on timing, or lack of direct effect), and two that its dangerous to lump all this stuff together (even if individually, they may be good things). Question for all of you who keep saying "This isn't stimulus". What exactly do you think a government stimulus is?

QUOTE (jenks45monster @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 06:32 AM) Why does everybody think Allen is too high? He is pretty comparable to a Ryan Howard type player (High K rate, raw power, heritage). I wouldn't be surprised if he does actually become a Howard clone (If he pans out). You guys wouldn't take Ryan Howard on our team? It's the lack of walks.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 07:23 AM) No, his quote was even better: Gotta love it, DNA tests dont matter now Well, at some level it's sort of a fair point. Especially in a criminal case, it might be darn hard to actually establish that the evidence here wasn't contaminated. McNamee, an admitted criminal with motivation to shift blame to other people, had them in his possession, presumably for years. In a civil case, I think it's probably the nail in the coffin of Clemens's defamation suit. And in the public eye as well. I have difficulty though seeing how this could be useful in any criminal prosecution.

Jameer Nelson dislocates shoulder, Magic lose to Mavs. MRI for him tomorrow. Ok Magic, seriously, you could have used Hinrich before...if Nelson's out for any length of time, now you really need him. Make us a fair offer.

Stolen from Brad DeLong:

Judd Gregg, R-NH is now the official nominee for the Commerce department job. This is happening despite the fact that the Democratic governor of NH has promised to place a Republican in that chair, rather than a Democrat. Gregg will be the 3rd Republican in Obama's cabinet, the most members of the opposing party in any President's cabinet since FDR. In response to yet another act of Bipartisanship, the Republicans found a way to change a few of their votes on other bills so that they could say they'd given a negative number of votes to the stimulus package.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 06:23 PM) I don't care whose view of the economy is, its wrong. If things are really as bad as they are saying they are, then we don't need to be waiting until the economy is projected to be into recovery to fix things. All that tells me is this plan again has nothing to do with a stimulus program. This is the federal government equivalent of golden parachute for decades of being inefficient. We all know how poorly run many of the feds programs are, so what are we going to do? Expand them by about 250,000 employees. I'd rather seem them hand the $800 billion to failing banks. It has a better chance of making it into the economy in, oh I don't know, the next 2 years... You'd be the first one to point out normally that the Fed has already dispensed $2.5 trillion or so if you count the fed's balance sheet and the 1st part of the bailout. Anyway...I'm just going to keep firing Keynes back at you. To first order, the efficiency of the program does not matter at all. What matters is that the government is the only group with the power to pursue an inflationary track right now, in the midst of what is rapidly turning towards a deflationary spiral. If the government doesn't do this, there's simply no reason to expect a recovery.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 03:36 PM) I do agree that even without Bynum the Lakers are still the best team in the west. The west has really fallen off this year (although the Spurs are always lurking). But as far as beating one of the Celtics/Cavs/Magic, they most definitely need a 100% Bynum. And that's simply not going to happen. Hollinger: Anyone want a hard nosed defense oriented SF who can play some bigger guys than him or even on occasion survive at the PF spot and who has a good amount of playoff experience? All I want is an expiring deal, i don't even need the draft pick.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 06:12 PM) Im not sure you understand what rendition is. Rendition means that the US goes into another country like Italy, kidnaps an Italian citizen and takes them to a third country for interrogation (such as Afghanistan.) Or, takes them to the U.S. or another country to face a legitimate tribunal.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 05:59 PM) Even then it sets a very dangerous precedent. If the US can kidnap foreign citizens, can foreign countries kidnap US citizens? You could certainly argue that this program is wrong, and that it is the U.S. imperially imposing its will on other countries. But to suggest it's a continuation of the Extraordinary rendition program of the Bush Administration, where we capture people wherever and we ship them off to some prison that doesn't exist so that the CIA can torture them or we ship them to Egypt so they can do the dirty work for us is a joke. Regarding your actual point, in a just world, there'd be no need for this program. In an unjust world, I'll judge on a case by case basis. For example, I can think of a number of Americans who I'd have no problem if a foreign government seized to bring to trial. Kissinger, Cheney, etc. On the other hand, I can think of a number of people who might have some sort of official government protection who I wouldn't mind at all if the U.S. got their hands on them and brought them to a legitimate tribunal. Bin Laden and company are an example there. As are the people running the show in Darfur.

Sometimes I love you guys on the right and in the right wing media. You really don't make it all that hard. 2 programs, same word. One of them directly relates to torture, one of them involves grabbing people to bring them to trial. The grabbing people to bring them to international tribunals are left in tact. Because the word is the same, therefore, they both must be left in tact.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 05:31 PM) So Barack is going to wait two and a half years to get a real fix for the economy. Boy that's some emergency. Seriously, I'm not going to deal with the logic here...I'm just going to point out; right now, this is the Republican view of the economy.

Oh, by the way, casting one "Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A." as the voice of the President in the new Monsters vs. Aliens movie? Now that's casting with Balls. And Jack Bauer as the military adviser? I might have to watch that just for the voices.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 03:44 PM) with pk, aj, fields, cq, and dye all being avg at best defensively, we might need ba out there We won the division last year with Griffey, Wise, and Swisher being some of our main starting CF's. Frankly, even Owens will be an upgrade defensively.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 03:57 PM) Some lady with 6 kids already just had octuplets (yea fertility drugs!). I just saw a media report and I guess the lady has no job, isn't married, and has 14 kids now. LOL She intends to support them through the talk show circuit. I'm not kidding. It seems no one can figure out why in the world any fertility company would be willing to actually implant 8 embryos in her given her financial situation. One thing I will say on the matter posed in the thread...right now, we still laugh at this, hahahahaha, those crazy Greens, always trying to control us, they're just like the Chinese. The scary thing is...barring changes in the way we use energy, we may wind up all making that choice anyway, because there really is only so much that can be supported based on a fossil fuel infrastructure, and we're rapidly bumping up against those levels.

The CBO has put out an analysis of the version of the Stimulus package the Senate is taking up. As currently written, 78% of it is out the door 18 months after passage. Clearly, the Democrats are totally refusing to listen to the suggestions of Republicans. I'd personally like to see that amount decrease slightly as more long-term infrastructure (rail, electrical) investments are inserted.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 01:54 PM) My liver appreciates that you didn't choose to phrase that "for most of the past 8 years..." Consider it a birthday present.

QUOTE (False Alarm @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 01:24 PM) goldstein is not a numbers guy. yes, he works for BP, but if you read his stuff and his chats, he pays little attention to BP's advanced metrics. these rankings are his, and he weighs scouting reports, discussions with scouts, and his own observations quite a bit more heavily than statistics. he was recruited to BP from BA and is kinda the anti-BP in some ways. i guarantee you he's not running any complex formulas or algorithms or anything like that. incidentally, nate silver has done a PECOTA-based projection of prospects for BP the last few years that might be more along the lines of what you're thinking balta. was always kinda interesting to compare em with goldstein's more scouting-based lists. doubt silver'll write those articles this year, though, since he's pretty much abandoned writing about baseball. In that case, if we're still focusing on Silverio...the question for any particular person doing rankings is going to be...what does he judge that player's age to actually be and how is he weighting that? Pablo Ozuna wound up #8 on BA's lists a few years back because everyone thought he was 2-3 years younger than he actually was. If he's actually seen the kid and thinks he projects highly, then that's one thing. If he's projecting from what he knows and taking the age at face value, that's another.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 01:17 PM) I'm still bitter. I'll give you Forte, Hester and a couple of the guys on defense. And yes, the Lions Suck. Bitter is fine, saying that other teams have done better is fine, saying that the Bears have sucked in particular at the offensive skilled positions is fine, but suggesting that the Bears are one of the worst in the league in the draft just doesn't follow from what they've done over the years. At worst, they're average, solid on the D-side and weak on the O-side.

From the "The bonuses are necessary to retain top talent because there's no one to replace them" category:

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 01:08 PM) Given our track record? The wrong guy. Really? The Bears never get the right pick? Aren't you confusing them with say, the Lions?

Obama to order much needed review/overhaul of the "Sure you food is (blah) safe" FDA. And there is talk of genuine criminal conspiracy charges against the people who kept shipping food they knew was contaminated. 2 weeks ago...these guys would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. The company would have closed, sold off its assets to a different company doing exactly the same thing, everyone would have been rehired under a new name, and business would go on as usual.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 12:30 PM) I love how Obama can vilify an entire industry for the bonuses and perks they are getting, but then can go out and hire tax cheats and people engaged in pay for play to be in his cabinet. Wall Street supposedly doing this because it doesn't get it, what does that make Obama? I'll still say I can buy Geithner's mistake as a potentially honest mistake, that he may just not have understood/read the memo from the IMF saying that they weren't withholding any of the Social Security/Medicare taxes, including the business-paid portion. That's a fairly weird setup they have there, so I can live with that. Daschle's "Mistake" here just strikes me as more insidious. Not only did he make the mistake, but he made the mistake on something that appears to have almost been a favor to him by something approaching a lobbying organization. And he made that mistake because he was used to riding in a private vehicle from his time in Congress and not having to pay for it? Doesn't the former Senate Majority Leader deal with the occasional accountant?

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Feb 2, 2009 -> 12:09 PM) Agreed. Really don't have a clue, but I'd be guessing there must be significant doubt about his viability as a catcher, possibly putting him in a comparison pool with 1B's and DH types. If it is, in fact, statistically based, it would be interesting to see the algorithm's or multipliers they use to quantify such doubt/degree of doubt. I'll bet that they used defensive metrics in that evaluation, i.e. can he stay at catcher, and that probably dragged him down a lot. But, if it's true that last year was his first year behind the plate, there's another reason why the metrics might miss a useful factor...that he hadn't done it before.