Balta1701

A huge thing for me has been switching out some of the other crap I used to eat for lunch (i.e. soup or sandwich or something like that) for just plain old fruit. Guarantees me a couple fruit servings a day and cuts down on a bunch of the other junk

After a tremendous 4 years, Howard Dean announced today he will step down from the DNC at the end of his term in January. Obama ally and Sen. Claire McCaskill is rumored to be on the way to taking that post (While still remaining a senator, a-la Mel Martinez, the DNC figurehead person who goes on the talk shows) while Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand may take over the actual operational details.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 07:42 PM) thats the thing i dont get, you would think there would be a competitive team out there somewhere that could put together a better package than what we are hearing from the Cubs. Someone will, these things always just take time. Last year it started off that the Twins wanted either Hughes + Kennedy from the Yankees or one of Ellsbury/Pedroia from the Red Sox along with other toys. They hung out and neither team met their price, but then another team got itself involved and came through with a multitude of other guys. Patience, Mr. Towers, patience. You're smarter than this.

Summing up the day.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 06:50 PM) When you have to pare payroll in anticipation of selling the team, and you have a few offers on the table, you have to take the best offer. While we may think the Cubs offer is crap, the fact is that the Braves arent a trade partner because Peavy doesnt want Escobar coming to the Padres in the deal, and for whatever reason nobody else is being mentioned as interested(which really boggles my mind), so the cubs might look like the best one out there. I also dont think the Padres are going to be bamboozled in any deal, and I respect Towers, but he may be under orders to take the best offer available. B&B were talking to someone(DeLuca or someone) and the rumor was that the Padres are trying to get payroll down to 40 million by January so they can start the process of selling the team. Who knows, we all might wake up and Houston sweeps in and scoops him up for all we know. If that is the case, then he ought to play for time. The Twins didn't get the offer for Santana that they accepted until much later in the process, and Peavy isn't earning money by doing offseason workouts. The Cubs's offer is so low that it really isn't going to go away or get worse with time. If they got up tomorrow and then said "That's it, time's up" and then a month from now the Padres called the Cubs back and said "Ok, we'll take it", the Cubs would be IDIOTS not to jump at it. But if he plays for time, it's entirely possible someone else will get in on the game.

And...once again.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 04:49 PM) Aaron Cunningham, who profiled as something of a cross between Aaron Rowand and Reed in terms of talent and tools? I think he'll be a major leaguer, but I don't know that he's going to have a significantly higher impact than, say, Ryan Sweeney. If he starts hitting 25-35 homers per season, but most don't see that happening. Altogether last year, between AA, AAA, and the big leagues, Cunningham hit 18 home runs.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 02:59 PM) Should playing for a contender be put into consideration the way MVP is? Just saying, you look past the stats, Lexi won some pretty key games for us. What he did would be impressive for a seasoned vet, let alone a rookie.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 02:03 PM) abolish all token vocab words that made it look like we were doing something. Goodbye color coded terror alert system I'm pretty sure that said goodbye on November 2, 2004.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 03:14 PM) If Gonzalez really is that good, then the real losers in this are the Arizona DBacks. I mean, I'm a huge Dan Haren fan, but giving up Gonzalez(potential superstar) and Quentin(potential superstar), they are dumb. Quentin as we have seen is a stud. Gonzalez from all accounts is a stud. And by stud, I mean, MVP contender types. And Chris Carter. And Aaron Cunningham.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 12:44 PM) Jesus. They lent out another $1T+ OUTSIDE of the TARP protections, and aren't disclosing anything about it? I mean, I can see how we may not be able to immediately know all collateral in detail, but NO information at all? And they are doing this outside the regs? Wow. I mean, really, wow. Actually, I'm pretty sure they're not... but the reason they're not is that our regulatory environment has gotten that weak. Remember, for the last 20 years, and in particular the period from about 1996-2006, the chairman of the federal reserve was treated as a Quentin who's words and decisions could not be questioned. The Fed has stockpiled money by lending at interest, and it's therefore able to lend that money out for whatever it chooses to lend it for. It's $1 trillion or so, therefore, is entirely in its hands. IT's probably noteworthy that the $2 trillion total there also includes the $500 billion buyouts of FNMA and FDMC.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 12:42 PM) Nice. Its a sad day when my estimate of triple the original total has been matched in about a month. I'd say that the $2 trillion took quite a bit longer than a month. A large chunk of that has been the moneys that the Fed has dumped in over the past year.

ESPN.com stirs the pot with a couple more potential names. Man, it's like Oakland's whole system is up in the air. Ryan Sweeney could look really good in Colorado also.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 12:33 PM) The full Fox Sports story has the A's increasing their payroll to $80M and going after Furcal for short and leadoff. Well, that would be a fairly silly way for the A's to spend their money.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 12:14 PM) Hmm, if the A's are planning on competing next year I would think they would need Street, and Gonzalez is a pretty highly touted prospect, seems like the A's are sending over more than I thought they would. The A's are pretty confident right now that they don't need Street, I'd say. Street wasn't any good this year anyway, and they had a couple of other bullpen guys step up and start to fill that role.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 11:51 AM) Empty division titles no longer mean anything to this fan League Championships and World Series are all I really care about I used to hang my hat on division crowns, but honestly who the hell cares anymore if you don't go any further. You know, honestly, I disagree, at least for me personally. This season, with the roster we currently have, I was quite content with the division. Esepcially without Jose and God, I didn't think we were good enough to go for the full boat, and I just didn't want to lose to the Twinkies, and we didn't.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 11:42 AM) The A's have the right idea. They're not falling for this Willy Taveras crap, unless its as a throwin. I have a feeling Matt Murton might be going rocky mountain high which i'd find hilarious. He would be an ideal guy for the Rockies to target. Decent hitter on his own, but also a guy who could be REALLY helped by playing in Coors. I wonder if Chris Carter or Aaron Cunningham winds up in this.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 11:12 AM) The most recent thing I can remember you posting about the NSA is just some people f***ing around when they know they shouldn't, and then later they go to the media seeking attention like "oooh I did such a bad thing." I don't work for them, but I can tell that it wasn't some broad, sweeping policy, it was just people not following the rules. When you come across information on Americans like that, incidentally (and you will, there's no avoiding it) you have a period of time to evaluate what it is and whether it fits your mission, if it does then you keep it, if not you trash it or else you get in trouble. They KNOW that but they chose to toe the line instead. I believe you weren't here when we had the whole big discussion about the NSA wiretapping scandal and what in the world they actually had to be doing. I'm not talking about the spying on people's erotic talks with their significant others, I'm talking about the much bigger program that the President initiated in the first place. The simple reality as I see it is that if they were actually doing anything that could be remotely construed as surveillance related to terrorists, they wouldn't have needed the Bush NSA warrantless program. The only logical reason they could have a need for warrantless wiretapping is if they were trying to obtain information totally unrelated to international or terrorist activities.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 11:03 AM) Basically, what the DHS is (and isn't), and especially what the mission of the NSA is specifically when it relates to Intelligence Oversight laws that have been in place since the early Reagan administration. All the other stuff is true and deserves to be bashed but those 2 specific things have been distorted by the lefty blogosphere to make it sound like something sinister is going on and we've become a police state. The DHS doesn't scare me except in that it's been an incredibly ineffective additional layer of bureaucracy that has made seemingly every organization under it function worse. That could be a result of the leadership of the agency, but i thought it was a terrible idea when it was created, and I still do. The NSA program...well, that's another matter.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 10:54 AM) Those are things specific to his administration and his policies and that goes on his long list of failures along with the ways he politicized it leading up the war in Iraq. I'm mainly talking about the recommendations from the 9-11 commission and looking after the general long-term bureaucratic health of the whole thing, and what he's left for the Obama administration and beyond. It's MUCH better off than it was when he took office, it was such a clusterf*** then it wasn't even funny. A couple of those things you're blowing out of proportion though and it sounds like you're getting your information from the Huffington Post. Which ones am I blowing out of proportion? Were we not flying around people on secret jets between CIA facilities so that no one would know where they are? Are we not holding people at Gitmo and refusing to release them even when their convictions have been overturned? Is the NSA program not designed to gather intelligence from reading the communications of American citizens? And how many times have we heard the phrase "Enhanced interrogation techniques?" That's a euphemism I really hope to never hear again.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 10:51 AM) ok, fair enough. That's still not a small group. To make my argument, How much of a dropoff would there be between Bobby and guy # 20? I'm guessing nothing drastic. To me, looking at that list, you wind up dropping from Jenks to guys like Kevin Gregg, Troy Percival, Billy Wagner, Todd Jones, Huston Street, Takashi Saito, etc. The key point being that once you get past guys around, I dunno, #12 or so, you suddenly start running in to guys with much bigger issues. Significantly higher ERA's, guys who are hurt for 1/2 of the season and who you wind up really needing a backup closer for, guys you just don't trust when they get the ball, guys in danger of losing their closing job, etc.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 10:43 AM) On this topic, it should be noted how well the transition of power is going so far. Bush seems to be pushing hard for a smooth, complete transition. This is a legacy effort, and it may end up being added to his short list of positive accomplishments. Of course, some of that may be because Obama's team has been planning the transition for several months now and they've figured out the questions they need to ask to get ready. On the other hand...it could well be that Bush did learn something 8 years ago. The 9/11 commission report directly links the fact that those attacks happened to the transition process between the 2 administrations and how that cut all of the Al Qaeda stuff out of the loop.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 10:35 AM) Is that small group 15-20 guys? Here's the list of about 30 guys who had 15 or more saves last year, in order of # of saves. I think when you look at the names, you probably put Bobby right around #10 in quality. Francisco Rodriguez Jose Valverde Joakim Soria Brad Lidge Jonathan Papelbon Brian Wilson Mariano Rivera Joe Nathan Kerry Wood Francisco Cordero B.J. Ryan George Sherrill Trevor Hoffman Brian Fuentes Bobby Jenks Kevin Gregg Salomon Torres Troy Percival Billy Wagner Brandon Lyon C.J. Wilson Matt Capps Todd Jones Jon Rauch Huston Street Takashi Saito Ryan Franklin J.J. Putz

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 10, 2008 -> 10:37 AM) I can count them on one hand I think. Many of the things he did right are cancelled out by something else. - Sweeping, long-overdue overhauls of the intel community - Did a whole lot for people with AIDS in Africa - Leadership post 9-11 - eventually unraveled this but I will spot him this anyway ...I think that's about it actually. Um...you may no more about some changes than things I know about (I guess you're talking about Human intelligence focusing at the lower levels or something like that), but from the CIA Black sites to Gitmo to "Enhanced interrogation techniques" to turning the NSA against the country's own citizens to the debacle that has been the creation of the DHS (a bipartisan clusterf*** btw)...I'm not sure how much credit I'm willing to give them on anything in terms of intelligence overhaul. And the AIDS in Africa program could have been done vastly better. Between reinstating the global gag rule, insisting on abstinence-only education in exchange for U.S. funds, and the fact that the money for that program was found thanks to cutting the budgets for things like malaria prevention...I'm not too up on that either.

What in the world? Story about a meeting 4 years ago, where the current Decider met the man who would eventually replace him.