Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 09:33 AM) Not sure if this was mentioned, anyone else a little disgusted that the RNC would use a picture of an Airplane about to fly into a building to attack Obama as soft on terror? Beat you by 2 days. With a better view of the thing too.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 09:32 AM) It might be in Blago's best interest to let Obama pick his own replacement. Why? In exchange for a pardon?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 08:30 AM) 538 seems to think they are halfway decent. Big 10 maybe not. But with them both showing those numbers, I think it will be interesting to see other polls for OH in the next couple days. Even a good pollster will miss the actual amount by something larger than the margin of error 5% of the time.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Oct 23, 2008 -> 08:24 AM) Larry Hughes is out 6-8 weeks.... is that a bad thing? NO.

QUOTE (earthshiner @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 11:12 PM) 2000 was way better. That offense was explosive. This year was brutal to watch at times. I have never been more frustrated while the sox were in first. I still do not know how this year added up to a playoff spot. It seriously felt like we lost a lot more than we won. I sort of like 2008 better based on the finish down the stretch. In 2000 we had everything wrapped up early, but down the stretch you could really feel like the team was limping along and just hoping that things would magically recover when we hit the playoffs. In 2008, we limped some, but then came storming Back (see: Alexei).

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 07:22 PM) Do you really think they'll let Hamels go three times? Haven't they already announced Blanton as the 4th starter? It makes perfect sense if Hamels can manage though. And Myers's start will be more then servicable. I think that the only thing that stops him from going 3 times is if they have a 2-1 lead or better after 3 games. Hell, if it's 2-1 it's still a judgement call, because putting them up 3-1 with game 5 still in Philly would be damn fine shape for the kill, and having him go in game 5 risks it going 2-2 and losing the home field advantage they'd have stolen. If You're down 2-1 after 3 games, you pitch Hamels in game 4. If you're down 3-0, then it's elimination time, and would you go with Blanton facing a sweep?

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 07:20 PM) These teams are better matched then i ever could of predicted. That being said, i think we'll see a noticeable difference towards the back of the Phillies rotation Cole Hamels in games 1, 4, 7, with the Phillies also at home for games 3 and 5 is a pretty dangerous setup for the Rays.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 08:10 PM) f*** the ratings. This is about BASEBALL HISTORY. Money and greed ruin everything. No one should really care about MLB ratings anyway other than Bud Selig and a couple guys in his office. For the NBA and NFL, ok, their ratings matter more, because they have a shorter season and longer playoffs, so a much greater %age of their revenue comes from playoff ratings and advertisements. The biggest bulk of MLB's revenue is the money raised by playing 162 games and having 35,000 people pay to see them in person while a few hundred thousand or more watch or listen to them.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 05:33 PM) Exactly, you said it right there, you didnt think he would be THIS bad, I predicted he would have one or two decent years, but after that lose any reason to be starting, but who could predict he would be taken out of the Giants rotation in just the second year. I didn't even think we'd be talking about decent years for him though.

If you were out here in an area like the U.S. west coast, there's some interesting Asian ones that you can hit, if you have access to either Japanese/Chinese beers and liquor. Stuff people wouldn't have tried before too. But I'm not sure what you could get your hands on in Bismark, SD. (Mao Tai Jui!)

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 04:59 PM) The Zito signing has no real justification, though one could argue to take some blame off of him for his rationalizing that Zito would be able to keep his #1/2 starter status if he pitched in the NL, I mean did anybody think he would tank THIS badly? Atleast this quickly? Of course, its the risk you take with any FA, or any player in general, sometimes they just fall apart, its baseball. s*** happens. Quite frankly...yeah. I'm not sure I predicted an ERA of 8, but seriously, I though he was falling apart. His fastball was losing 2 mph a year. He'd gone from being a hard thrower to tossing softer than Jamie Moyer within about 3 years, and that was before the Giants signed him.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 04:09 PM) Yea, I figure that I'm paying in for nothing right now. Gives me a great message. "Vote for Democrats...it's the only way to get back the money you pay in to OASDI!"

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 04:06 PM) Before you know it, it will be down to about $75,000 a year. After the damage Bush has done to the economy...in a few years, $75,000 a year might be the top .1% of wage earners

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 04:07 PM) But there's a lot of people (like Balta... ) who don't. Or anyone who's paid in to the system who wouldn't get their money back if 2k5 was allowed to abolish it

You could be America, ca. 1920, and be the dry room.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 10:46 AM) Everyone wants to gripe about entitlement programs, etc.. but its those cheating the system that I worry about more. One thing you're missing is that there are some well funded lobbyists who's job is in no small part to make sure that the IRS is under-manned enough that they can't actually go after some tax cheats, and in particular, the ones with the most money.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 11:23 AM) Thoughts? Even if it's 100% true...how much of the responsibility for his brother's actions/mistakes should we hang on Joe Biden? If my brother gets in trouble with the law, it's not exactly incumbent on me to help make sure that the legal matter gets settled.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 11:27 AM) Here is my Wonder Years moment --- cue dramatic music My dad doesn't know many baseball players... but he knows Don Slaught. I must have been pretty young, because we were watching a game where Slaught was catching for the Pirates, and he t took a foul tip directly off of his wiener. My dad started to bawl laughing, and on that day I realized that watching a man suffer an injury to his groin was absolutely the funniest thing possible. "The ball, his groin, it works on so many levels!"

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 11:28 AM) If they are playing him 37 minutes in the preseason, I worry it'll be 47 during the regular season, and as much as they need Derrick on the floor, you could just grind him into the ground that way. Last night is especially bad too since it does nothing to prepare him for the season considering it was a preseason game, and most of the guys on the floor in the 2nd half for both sides were reserves/scrubs. If I was planning on a title run this year I'd agree with you. I just think that grinding him in to the ground this season isn't a bad thing, because it will set him up better to be stronger at the end of the year in future seasons when he is leading us on title run after title run after title run.

Yay...we get to fill some of that vacant office space!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 11:00 AM) And that because they have such a money advantage, and a substantial lead in the important polls, the best strategy for them right now is an all-out blitz. And even if all they do with those ads is pile up %age points, and go from a 5% win to a 7-8% win (without winning any more states), that helps people down the ticket in competitive races, sets them up for 2010 and 2012 by building organization, and helps push the concept of them having won a massive "Mandate" compared to what GWB had.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 10:33 AM) The Obama campaign is ambitious, but not stupid. They wouldnt dump money into AZ and SC unless they really thought they could win there. What do they know? They know that they have more money than they can possibly spend.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 21, 2008 -> 07:44 PM) It amazes me that we always list these type of contracts for other teams ... then say quickly the Sox would never want the guy. Somebody pointed out a concern Garland was one of the worst pitchers in the league last year. Yet he's gonna get four years at 8 mill a year and we won't offer him anything? Why are these players good enough for other teams and not the Sox? (see posts on CC being fat and arm weary). The issue with that is...most of those deals where you sign a guy to a moderately large contract in the hopes that he'll improve with you or that he'll be that elusive last piece tend to wind up being albatrosses that you want to trade within a year or two. I think guys like Carlos Silva, Gil Meche, etc., come to mind as examples. Unless you have an infinite salary pool, they wind up hurting you in the long run.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 22, 2008 -> 10:28 AM) He's going to play much more basketball this year than he ever has in his life as it is. To play him 37 and a half minutes in a game that doesn't even count is asinine, you should be doing as much as you can to keep him fresh, especially during the preseason. He played 10 more minutes than anybody else on the team last night, stupid. Well...here's the other way of looking at it...he's going to go from playing 40 games last season to 82-90 games this season to hopefully pushing 100+ games in the next couple seasons. This isn't like a baseball pitcher where they're doing something that is unnatural to their body and if they do it too much their shoulder might break down. Push him until he hits the wall, then let him work through the wall.

Mike "Baghdad is just like an open air market in Indiana" Pence comes in at #2? My god, we're totally screwed. Save me Congressman Waxman!