Balta1701

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Dec 30, 2008 -> 07:48 AM) Al Gore read this got up and kicked his dog. Only if he really, really likes kicking his dog for some reason.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 30, 2008 -> 09:47 AM) The soap opera rolls on... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1230657827...=googlenews_wsj That's what I get for typing that bit about the Senate refusing to seat him. Blah. You win.

Blagojevich is going to defy basically everyone out there and name a person to that Senate Seat it apperas. Roland Burris. The Senate Dems have already unanimously said that the would refuse to seat anyone named to that spot by Blagojevich, so he's now putting them on the spot it would appear. Wonder how much it cost.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 05:19 PM) With the Patriots after Weiss. No, he was their DC after Crennel.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 05:11 PM) 3rd round pick is still pretty valuable. Who do they go after that is better than Mangini though? BTW, I think he would make a great OC with the Bears. Let's see...Lovie Smith...with OC Mangini, DC Crennel, and D-Line coach Marinelli. The all-star coaching lineup for the Bears. Somehow, I just don't see them spending the $ on that.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 04:45 PM) Pretty much. The biggest problem though IMHO, is they didn't have enough weapons and on top of that, they lost a high pick because of that trade. Since they missed the playoffs it'll only be a 3rd round pick I think. Given the issues they had with Pennington over the years, he'd probably constantly have been looking over his shoulder in NY. With a new stadium, etc., it was still the right move for them to make.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 02:35 PM) I wouldn't put anything past the Dolphins, they're an AFC sleeper team. They can beat Baltimore and Pittsburgh; but, might have problems with Tennessee. At about 7:00 PST last night, I'd have said that the 2 dogs that scare me the most are Philadelphia and San Diego, because each of them piled up the losses this year when their key running back was struggling with injuries, and last night LT looked as good as he'd looked all season. Then he wound up with a hamstring injury, so I'm backed to being scared of Philly in the East because they have Westbrook healthy.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 01:20 PM) Right, so I shouldn't move to a cold weather climate place anytime soon then? Actually, buying up land in Baffin Island/Greenland right now might well be an excellent move.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 09:59 AM) we can quibble but the entire o-line blows and beekman is hardly a building block type of guy. Hardly a building block guy? He started in his 2nd season at LG and was a fairly good steal of a draft pick in that regard, performed well enough that he wasn't a revolving door in his first full season. That's exactly the kind of guy you want as a building block, because you expect him to get better with time.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 09:54 AM) I dunno what the salary cap ramifications would be, but I would cut Urlacher, Harris, Ogunleye, and Vasher. That's $25 mil in salary for essentially replacement level guys. The issue with the NFL cap is that you cut those guys and you're probably still paying them. Given how recently they were extended (Harris and Urlacher in particular) you're probably paying them even more next year to cut them than to keep them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 29, 2008 -> 09:45 AM) What do you do with the defense next year? So many of the big money players seemed to regress this year. Is is the coaching or the players? Realistically...if it's the players, then there's little the Bears can do, because they've committed good money to a number of those guys and you really can't cut guys like Harris or Tillman or probably Vasher right now without hurting your cap situation. All you can do right now is add a draftee at a position, maybe fill in the Safety slot with someone new, and try changing the coaching, because it's going to be almost impossible to overhaul those players.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Dec 28, 2008 -> 06:40 PM) Damn it, Penny could have been had for $5 million? I liked the idea of seeing what he could do over here... If we're already over budget, and the Dodgers didn't want Penny for something like $8 million, then that's well beyond what I'd want to pay for him.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 28, 2008 -> 01:36 PM) That's where he would have to get creative. Cut the players you think are expendable and get the young guys in there to replace them. The most popular one seems to be the Vasher/Graham swap. Maybe let go of Ogunleye and give Anderson the other DE spot. That DE move would be really bad. Anderson is not an every down DE, no matter how much Babich wants to use him on running downs. He really ought to be a passing down specialist. After the year he's had, I'm not sure of the cap implications of dropping Vasher, but if it saves a decent chunk you'd have to. I'd imagine that since he was only extended recently though that it probably won't save much until at least 2010 if you drop him.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 28, 2008 -> 01:11 PM) If I'm Jerry Angelo, I'd trade all my draft picks for players. Boldin, McNabb, O and D linemen, etc. Some of those would be intelligent moves...but those kind of trades would eat up a lot of cap space.

In case you missed it, one of the worst environmental disasters in recent memory just hit the state of Tennessee. A giant retaining pond/dam made out of coal mining and burning residues gave way, creating a monstrous flood of coal ash and dust that poured down the rivers in TN. In terms of volume, it's several times the volume of the Exxon-Valdez spill, and although it's not oil, the stuff it's made of may well be significantly more toxic. Eventually, the material will drain in to waterways that are used for drinking water, and eventually it'll start making its way to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Here is some footage of the devastation.

Gotta retain top talent. They shouldn't be punished for the failures of upper management. Those bonuses are totally fine. I dunno, I'm sure there's 1 or 2 more I get every time I point out someone else's golden parachute.

I believe I pointed out a few months ago that after the whooping the Republicans were going to take in November, their first chance to set their direction for the future was going to be the RNC chair election, just as the DNC Chair election in 04 helped re-orient the Dems by putting Dean in that role and bringing more resources to the forgotten areas. That this race might be a good window in to what the Republicans might try to do to recover from the pounding they were going to get. As far as I can tell, the 2 candidates for that spot that I actually know about other than Michael Steele are this guy and This guy, a member of a Whites only country club until September. At least from my perspective, I'm moderately unimpressed thus far.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 27, 2008 -> 12:39 PM) Can you imagine if TV money dried up in this economy what the Yanks would do? How does TV remain able to pay the Yanks the kind of cash they do? Well, first of all, they own the network. That helps. But overall, yeah, I'd expect TV dollars to decline this year compared to last year. Difference is...it's not every year that a team gets a new Yankee Stadium to help pump up the revenue from ticket sales.

Ice caps continue melting at rates much higher than predicted in the conservative/somewhat politicized IPCC reports, causing sea level rise to continue to accelerate.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 26, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) There are a lot of things I worry about with this team, but John Danks isn't one of them. He's young, he's left handed, he has great stuff, and best of all perhaps, he has that indescribable "it" that great athletes tend to have. I have no concern he'll handle the pressure to "prove it again" in 2009 quite well. Doesn't get much more pressure packed than a 1 game playoff, and he pitched the best game of his life under those circumstances. I worry about the # of innings he threw last year.

I believe it's now 8 dead. Now 9. Genuine horrific massacre.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Dec 25, 2008 -> 07:08 AM) Unleashing a few more vices is also problematic for me. I've always felt we will fail from within. Question is... at what level is it government's job to make sure we can't make a mistake by banning things, rather than taking steps to give people a chance to do what they want to do? (perhaps while also providing ways to fix things if people do make mistakes)

Applause again for fair knight

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 24, 2008 -> 03:21 PM) ^^^^ Some change we have here. There is some change. They didn't do anything wrong. That's totally new.

Wow. 8 years and they still haven't figured out how to do the most basic things. Of course, there's another issue. They may wellnot be able to reverse their decision after granting it. Once a pardon is granted it can't be revoked, the issue is how far they got along in processing the documents. We'll wait for some more constitutional interpretation in a few days.