Balta1701

QUOTE (Texsox @ Oct 14, 2008 -> 04:54 AM) Do we really want another William Clinton in office? After the last 8 years, I'll take the adulterer who runs the government fairly well over the faithful husband who runs the country in to the ground.

QUOTE (tommy @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 11:32 PM) Didn't Alexei start couple of games out in CF this year? I don't remember me linking him in the outfield, neither did Ozzie. Alexei started the first 2 games of the season in CF, with the memorable OF of Swisher, Ramirez, Dye. In game 3, after Alexei struggled the first 2 games, we put this guy Carlos Quentin in to LF. It was nearly 2 months before Q sat for a day. He was good.

So, is it time yet to admit that Secretary Paulson doesn't know any better than you or I do how to do his job? Let's just go over the last 2 or so key months. Paulson decides he's going to teach everyone a lesson and let Lehman Bros. fall. While this seems like a good idea on the surface, if you had any understanding at all of the Credit Default Swap interconnections between all of these firms, which you'd sort of expect maybe a SecTreas would learn something about, then you never let that happen because it will blow everyone else up. Suddenly, AIG blows up from these credit default swaps, and Merrill winds up in the hands of BofA. So you nationalize AIG, without having a clue how much they're worth or how over their head they are on those default swaps. They blow through $50 billion of the $60 billion bailout you give them in less than a month, and they embarrass you by holding fancy retreats on the public dollar. The market implodes suddenly after everyone realizes how over their heads they are on the Lehman bros. CDS linkages and how at risk they are over every other company they have them for. Paulson yanks a plan off the shelf for a gigantic bailout, 2 weeks after saying "no more bailouts for anyone" and pretends they intended to do that all along. Problem is, his bailout isn't targeting the new problem, it's pretending the CDS problem doesn't exist and trying to solve the mortgage problem. Oh, and his bailout package is so stupidly designed (no one gets authority but me!) that Congress scoffs at it and rejects the first attempt to pass it, with his own party leading the way on the rejection. Paulson goes before Congress and publicly says that everyone who thinks there's a better way of doing this bailout, buying equity in firms or using the money in different ways, simply doesn't understand the situation. He gets the bailout passed with an additional $200 billion in tax breaks thrown in as a sweetener, then sits around for another couple weeks trying to figure out what the Hell to do with the money he's been given. Meanwhile, the market tanks while he twiddles his thumbs trying to solve the mortgage mess, when it's not the mortgage mess that's driving the situation any more. Finally, Europe, led by Brown, figures out that Paulson isn't going to fix this, comes up with a trillion Euro bailout package of its own, the markets take a huge deep breath and say "Yay, someone is doing something right!" and then Paulson suddenly snaps to it and decides he's going to do exactly what he said he'd never do 2 weeks ago, again.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 05:21 PM) We and Houston are of course the 3rd and 4th largest markets, and we were 3rd to last in all-time ratings. Boston and Colorado last year were last. Outside of MLB offices, the number of people who reasonably should care about World Series ratings should be very close to zero. Compared to the other sports, playoff TV ratings make up a dramatically smaller fraction of their expected revenue. Baseball's finances and health should be judged by 1 thing and 1 thing alone; attendance figures.

Oh God sometimes I miss this district...

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 05:06 PM) I think thats a better strategy than RCP's in or out crap. Well of course it's better. Problem is, it requires a significant amount of work/intelligence to figure out how to do those correctly.

Oklahoma, Where the Wind Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 04:54 PM) Rasmussen has kind of been a hold out for Obama in FL, for him to have a lead like is a clear signal. Also, RCP doesn't count Research 2000 polls and 538 does... so we'll see if there is anything there. Silver et al. take every bit of data they can get, but what they try to do is say "This poll is typically more friendly to BO than the others" or "This poll was done by Fox" and skew/weight them accordingly after looking at as many of the crosstabs as they can.

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 03:28 PM) What she did may have been bad, it may have been ruled to be excessive/abusive, but it is legal and it happens everywhere. Actually, by Alaska law, it's not actually legal whether or not it happens everywhere, if I understand things. The thing that will probably make the difference though as I understand it is that the AG up there is either one of her appointees or is totally in Governor Palin's pocket and isn't going to do anything that would make her angry, like bring actual charges against her. You could say that it's legal in the "Alberto Gonzalez" sense. It's possible that someone will bring charges against her in civil court over this matter.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) Can someone explain the bounce today? Was it confidence stemming from the meetings over the weekend or were there concrete numbers that came out? The Eurozone basically decided it was going to put somewhere over a trillion Euros in to buying shares of their struggling banks, and Secretary Paulson sort of got his head out of his rear and said he was going to maybe do some of the same stuff with the $700 billion the U.S. gave him (although he still intends to convert most of it to gold coins, build a giant tower, and swim in them).

BJ Upton trying to make the White Sox pitching staff feel better about itself.

There are alternative ideas that could be done also. For example...just actually reward people for showing up, even if they don't cast a vote for the top office. Take an extra $20 out of everyone's taxes once every 4 years. Rebate that to the person if they show up and vote. Wouldn't you make sure you showed up if there was something else in it for you?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 01:12 PM) I've mentioned before that Obama's positive X factor is that wave of newly registered/invogorated voters. They are a tough group to predict. The interesting thing I'd say is, if you believe what Gallup seems to be saying about what happens when they base their likely voter model on what people say over the phone...they may well actually exist.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 02:06 PM) Gotta be 35. 14 & 56 have not earned it yet, IMO. 56 hasn't earned it yet, but 14 has to be really, really close. He's what, #3 on our all time team home run list? I can't get Baseball-reference to load lately so I can't check but he's got to be around that.

QUOTE (jenks45monster @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 11:10 AM) I think it will go #'s 35, 13, and 56. I'd love to see Thome's number 25 being retired by us too (although he hasn't been with us that long, I think he deserves recognition of a great career), I don't see it happening. I think 14 comes between 13 and 56.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 12:42 PM) There are all sorts of swing and other factors involved, that included. What I am getting at is, what is NOT reflected in the polls? That is what I am theorizing about. I think most other factors are already in those numbers. Well, see, that's interesting. Because at least this year, one would sort of expect that the things "not reflected in the polls" might be things that would benefit Obama more than McCain. For example, if there was a non-trivial increase in turnout amongst young people or African Americans compared to a normal year, a pollster standardizing his data based on likely voter models using inputs from 2004 might very well miss that. On the other hand, a lack of enthusiasm on the Republican side for Senator McCain might well wind up depressing his turnout. There's always the cell phone thing there as well. And Obama's ground game vs. McCain's total lack of a ground game. I'm citing Kos here but it's the Democrat thread so I'm ok... ...Turns out that Gallup this year is putting out 2 different versions of its likely voter model, sort of with this in mind. Prior to this week they'd been just publishing their "Registered voter" results because you couldn't tell how likely some people were. In other words...if they apply the 2004 results to 2008, they get a closer race than what they're polling now. That's version 2. On the other hand, if they ignore what happened in 2004 and use what they've been hearing on the phone as a way of calibrating their likely voter model (i.e. how likely are you to vote in this election as a question), their likely voter screen winds up widening the gap quite a bit. So, if this election is a repeat of 2004 in terms of what groups turn out and in what numbers, then you're right and it's a closer race than the tracking polls see. Interestingly, I think this is how Zogby does his tracking poll, he normalizes everything by the makeup of the electorate in the last election. On the other hand, if the Obama campaign truly is doing something new and can bring new voters to the polls, then it will be a lot wider than you predicted.

Going for the one day post gain record as well?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 12:51 PM) I don't know Ohio's laws, Sqwert says they didn't have early voting before. They DID have some districts (specifically, low income areas, as I've read) that had way too few machines, and absurdly long lines. IMO, I think you generally have to err on the side of getting as many votes in as possible, when it comes to deciding on keeping polls open a little longer. I fail to see the harm in doing so anyway. Electing Democrats, of course.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 10:39 AM) Why do people get upset when courts try and allow people to get to vote? Because, unfortunately, the groups of people who typically don't vote have a strong statistical habit of favoring one party over another. Especially if you control for the fact that the areas where poor people live, those trends are exacerbated...if you can keep large numbers of those people from voting by making it more difficult to vote, you can win an election for that particular party. And hence, one party supports more people voting, and one party supports having as few people vote as possible.

Here's the current list of retirees via Whitesox.com. Yeah, 35 is next. No contest.

Is 35 retired officially yet?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 13, 2008 -> 11:11 AM) Then why does one party get all of the blame when something does pass, when it is just as bipartisian of an effort, such as the 91-8 vote for allowing Freddie and Fannie more free reign? Because there's no simple calculation for who runs any particular bill. Give you an example...a large majority of the House and Senate voted for the Iraq war, clearly a bipartisan clusterf*ck. But people will correctly laugh in your face if you call that a Democrat-ran bill. On the other hand, McCain-Feingold had solid support as well, but it was sort of done while a good number of Republicans, including the President, were holding their nose and hoping that the Supreme Court would overturn parts of it, and so this gets cited as one example of McCain's Maverickiness.

Paul Krugman wins the "Nobel Prize" (Slightly renamed) in Economics.

Here's another pretty catch from over the weekend. The Washington Post's definition of tossup/lean McCain/lean Obama.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 11, 2008 -> 06:36 PM) Beckett is as clutch a playoff pitcher that there is in baseball,can't see him give up many more than he already has,the Red Sox will show the youngsters from Tampa that the post season is a whole different beast,don't matter what you did in the regular season,put up or shut up time.Bosox in 6 and Im being generous. Cliff Floyd says "That's 5".