Balta1701

I think if you went back far enough you could probably find me predicting that one in February.

I think we're gradually inching closer to the next (hopefully last) land mine in the credit mess...the implosion of all of these stupid credit card programs that the banks have been printing faster than the U.S. has printed T-Bills over the last 20 years.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) Shark bait sounds good to me. Oh wait. We're the bad US. These people did nothing wrong, and now we've tourtered them all and poisoned every one of them forever. I mean, this is a totally black and white issue, right?!!! We've designed a system of justice in our country where we'd rather have 10 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man go to jail. You guys would like to take the innocent guy and feed him to the sharks, just in case. Seems pretty black and white to me.

Lucy Harris smart smart smart, smart smart smart smart smart....

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 08:31 AM) If they don't get Burnett, they seem determined to take Lowe...still waiting word from Mussina this week on his plans. I think both of these deals will end up being disasters for the Yankees, especially if they go 5 years with Burnett, or even 4. So.... Sabathia Wang Burnett Chamberlain Mussina/Lowe With Hughes and Kennedy still in the background. That's a solid rotation...if they can pull off the #1 guy. If someone else steals their #1 guy, then they're in for some worry again.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 08:55 AM) Bottled water is not very green. What do you think happens to all those plastic bottles and caps? Well, from my end, they get recycled if I ever use the stuff. But you'll note, I was pointing at Brita's continuing greening, rather than saying anything positive about bottled water.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 19, 2008 -> 07:17 AM) I've been on the fence as far as universal/socialized insurance is concerned and I still am, but I've been saying that this UAW/GM situation is probably good ammo for the "pro" people. That's what we've been saying since companies like Toyota started deciding to put their manufacturing facilities in Canada rather than the U.S. because it allowed them to save boatloads on their health care costs.

Begcich now has a 2400 vote lead in Alaska. This is important, as anything less than a 1600 or so lead would trigger an automatic, state-funded recount. The Stevens campaign would have to take from its legal defense funds to pay for a recount if the margin is greater than that.

He could have hit .200 for the last month and if he'd been playing he'd have won.

You people and your money....

QUOTE (WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 11:11 AM) Closer is by far the most overrated position in baseball. I would gladly trade Jenks. I think the Closer position is remarkable in that it's unbelievably overrated as long as you have a decent one.

IF there ever was a definition of the phrase "tallest midget", here it is. No one in the AL wanted or deserved this award.

QUOTE (shipps @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 10:33 AM) Bob Dylan was not a good singer.One of the greatest songwriters but not a good singer. But you've got to agree you can apply the word "Unique" to his voice.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 10:09 AM) so if Biden resigned, and it stood at 49-49 until January, who is the majority leader? Harry Reid. The same thing would be true if, say, another Senator resigned or passed away on the Dem side as well. That is how the Senate Governing resolution was written at the start of this session. Harry Reid is the majority leader for this session of the Senate.

QUOTE (shipps @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 09:55 AM) Interesting but Javys strength and biggest selling point is that he will eat up a bunch of innings and stay healthy One of the biggest things determining the success of a closer seems to be their mental makeup and how they handle pressure late in games.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 07:25 PM) You've been hanging out with some pretty bad people if you're at Gitmo. You are aware that something like 2/3 of the people we've interned at Gitmo as suspected terrorists/enemy combatants have already been released without charges right? A lot of them wound up there because they were picked up in large sweeps where we put out reward money for "anyone associated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban" and so everyone pointed at the guy next to them and said "That guy is Taliban, give me my reward". With a lot of the guys who have come through there, we have no idea who they actually are or what they were actually doing. Beyond that, some of them are still held there just because we don't have a country that wants to take them back, despite being declared fully innocent of all charges as well. Because you don't want your government to suddenly have to deal with people that the U.S. tortured.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 09:37 AM) no the US shouldn't unless these are US ships getting ganked. maybe the UN can setup a anti-pirate fighting force, this is something they could do. The U.N. would then need other nations to give control over their navies to the international body. I'm not sure how many other nations would go along with that.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Nov 18, 2008 -> 09:23 AM) I don't think that this has been discussed here.. but while Obama has resigned from the Senate, I don't think Biden has. Good reason why too... Senate was 51-49 before the elections. New Senate doesn't take office until January. With Obama's resignation, it stands at 50-49. If Biden resigned, it would be 49-49 and thus a tie. Cheney then becomes the tie breaker and pushes control back to the Republicans until January. Just an interesting tidbit. Actually...no it doesn't. At least in terms of being able to run things. The only time that it was ever structured so that vote-flipping or vote changing mid-session would result in a change of leadership in the Senate was in 2000, when it was actually tied 50/50. This year, just like in the other Senates, changing 1 or 2 seats doesn't change who winds up running the machinery of the Senate.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 09:12 PM) the Bills now have to win 5 of their next 6 to make the playoffs...it's not impossible, but it's not likely in the least. KC and San Fran are winnable games, and then Miami goes up to Buffalo, so that could be 3, but 3 against KC, Denver, and New England, including 2 on the road, looks hard as hell. I won't count on it. It was good to see Lynch actually have a good game, and Steve Johnson had a good game as well...they still just aren't a real good offensive team yet. Hopefully a nice tight end is brought in during the offseason to help out, because Royal just isn't that good and neither Schouman nor Fine seem like anything more than backups. You will not be a winning football team for very long with a -10 giveaway/takeaway ratio.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 06:31 PM) Whoa. I am not necessarily a fan of Gitmo, but I really wish he waited until he was President and presumably receives "the rest of the story". I am thinking, guessing, hoping, that there is more information that Obama does not have that may come into this decision. So basically, I wish he would slow the f*** down and stfu until he has a couple days in office. There is no information that I can imagine being handed to him that would justify his maintaining of an illegal torture facility to hold prisoners outside of U.S. jurisdiction without a fair trial indefinitely. If you want to follow the laws, you simply can not keep them there without a fair trial forever as we've been trying to do. The reason he can say this now is that there's really no ambiguity there. It can not stay.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 06:13 PM) Silveiro is 20+? I thought he was 17? A big part of the rumored scandal involving the latin American players was that the scout would write down a younger age for a guy who was actually older (i.e. write down 16 for a 19 year old) and thus the team would spend more money on a signing bonus for the kid because he was so highly developed at a young age. The crooked scout would then pocket a good chunk of the signing bonus, and the kid would burn out pretty quick in the minor leagues. At least, based on press accounts.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 04:10 PM) I can't imagine teams like the Yankees or Red Sox are going to pin their hopes on him being their starting RF or 3B as soon as 2009. But...both of them have moderately expensive 3b's right now.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 05:23 PM) As in no TV and no Movies for 5 years? No way, wouldnt happen. The last movie was in 2002, and Enterprise left the air in May of 2005. So there will have been roughly a 4 year gap by the time this movie comes out.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 17, 2008 -> 05:56 PM) You will never get good regulation under the system we have set up. It is too fragmented, disjointed, and contradictory. Which is, of course, exactly how the people who benefited from the building of the bubble wanted it. At this point, I think I'm willing to follow along with ideas for a complete overhaul of the regulatory environment. Not just changing a few laws, but doing something like you advocate and starting from scratch. I'd be interested in hearing other ideas though, but I hope some of those will come with time.

Brita will finally start recycling their water filters starting in January, supposedly. Thus making them that much greener than bottled water.