Balta1701

Hmph. Interesting. Quite a bit more about Senator McCain in there than I thought there would be. There were a couple lines in there that actually felt fairly personal, in particular the hit at McCain's questioning his patriotism.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 05:45 PM) I'd rather take my chances with Richard. Rogers almost 1.60 WHIP is scary, and his 188 hits over 161 innings doesn't scream "big game pitcher" All we need to do is find him a more clear sticky adhesive for his hand.

Why are there still seats in the upper deck open?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 05:45 PM) they don't. thats why they are trying to sneak Bush in on Monday and McCain goes on the last day (of course). If GW doesn't go to the convention as to attend to executive duties, McCain won't object. For even more fun, they're sending Cheney to Georgia and Azerbaijan after he speaks on Monday per the current schedule. They won't even let him be in the country.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 05:35 PM) Someone rose an interesting point the other day. Post-9/11, George Bush had the IDEAL time to say "we need to ride our selves of this oil that supports terrorism. For the sake of America, we are going to put forth a plan...." Of course he didnt do that. But the point was that you need to make it a national priority before America as a whole will rise up RIght now you getbits here and bits there. But you need to put it int he front. The really sad thing? Over and Over, Bush has actually used the right language. 06 SOTU speech I think, America is addicted to oil. Lots of decent goals and policy proposals in 07. And then oil hits $4, and like a heroin addict, we're suddenly on to "Drill here, Drill now!".

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 03:40 PM) And how will he do it? I'll use Kennedy's speech at Rice for reference. Most of his speech, all on the moon mission, was spent spelling out why his deadline was possible. He wasn't exactly saying that Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was the way to go, he couldn't go in to any more details about the rocket other than the fact that a Saturn had been tested the day before, etc., but he still set the goal. It's not his job right now to declare how, but to say it's possible and maybe throw together a few details.

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 03:59 PM) I still have no idea what happened with him. He went from a defensive wiz, a threat to steal anytime, and an emerging bat to horrible in all aspects. I do understand he got caught with the roids or whatever which would explain the declining bat, but not so much him becoming a miserable defense player. Think about some of the borderline other players who've been caught, not just the big boys. Guy like Alex Sanchez, the first guy caught, fringe major leaguer, not a big guy, but might get some help in terms of quickness and muscle reaction speed. Take those away and suddenly you're a step slower on defense and your range is less.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 04:03 PM) Uribe is also probably the streakiest player I've ever seen in my life. And his streaks are always in April and September, according to his lifetime splits. It's quite wierd.

The fastest growing protest group at the DNC may well have been found...their cause...bringing back Crystal pepsi.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 01:04 PM) Papelbon, Valverde, Soria, Sherril, Gregg, Wood, Capps, Saito. All been made full time closers within 3 seasons. Those teams didnt have hard times finding closers. I would argue that Poreda may be our closer in waiting. But on the other hand....look at how much teams like Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta, Milwaukee, etc. have struggled to find a reliable closer for years, even in some cases despite a couple trades and a lot of money thrown at marginal FA's.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 12:51 PM) Not really. I still don't like Uribe. For 80% of the year that's right. But somehow, like magic...his numbers in Sept...better than you'd expect. Split G AB HR RBI BA OPS tOPS+ April/March 143 480 14 73 0.273 0.751 111 May 141 510 10 40 0.233 0.631 78 June 154 571 16 79 0.249 0.692 93 July 155 505 17 68 0.21 0.622 74 August 199 687 19 87 0.25 0.699 94 Sept/Oct 168 600 33 100 0.295 0.892 145 Whether that's because the quality of pitching goes down when the call ups happen or because he's good in a pennant race, it's a regular feature of Uribe that he has a good month of September.

TIFWIW

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 12:59 PM) Right, that's what he was saying, and I'm sure it's all not in context or anything. If the Dems had this sort of run of weather related luck, wouldn't there be more than a few folks out there saying how those godless dems had pissed off a deity or two?

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 10:31 AM) It's not even particularly debatable that changing climate (in this case, warming tropical waters) affects hurricanes. Warm tropical waters are the driving force behind hurricanes. What remains debatable - in a smoke and mirrors sort of way - is whether or not any single storm was stronger or any single season more active as a result of climate change. It's analogous to the Big Tobacco legal argument that even though there is a highly significant statistical population-wide correlation between smoking and the incidence of cancer, it is very difficult to demonstrate that a specific person's smoking was the cause of that person's illness. You both are missing one key point here. Even disregarding all the possible impacts that changing the climate has on hurricane numbers and intensity...climate change has another impact that is an even greater danger to NOLA, and to every other coastal city in the world...sea level. You raise sea level by another 2, 3, 5 meters in the next 50 years or so, or get really unlucky and have one of those ice caps catastrophically go, and suddenly New Orleans goes from being 30 feet below sea level to 50 feet below sea level, and a 5 foot storm surge goes from being no threat to the levee system to being a major threat to overtop them. Sea level goes up a bit more and it further swamps the wetlands that used to be the natural storm surge barrier.

Actually, the cat in that picture was surgically altered to show wings. The real winged cats were judged to not be cute enough for public consumption.

TIFWIW

FWIW, it's seems Fox News is reporting this mornin' that the President's schedule for Monday is now considered up in the air, as is his presence at the convention at all, depending on what the storm decides to do. Video hosted @ this left-leaning blog.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 10:10 AM) There was a major opportunity after Katrina - like a Chicago fire type opportunity. A chance to NOT rebuild in the lowlying areas, condense the city rebuild into more protectable areas, and have a renaissance in NO. Unfortunately, the political will was not there to do that, so we're back to square 1. Don't worry. Thanks to climate change, I somehow doubt that Katrina will be your last chance to do that if that's what you want to do.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 10:07 AM) Isn't New Madrid strike-slip? It produced an earthquake in the 8's, and a shallow one that produced major damage. The New Madrid system is a different beast than all of the ones on the west coast, in that it's an intra-plate system. To first order, you can think of the earth as a bunch of big slabs of rock that produce earthquakes when they slide next to each other or underneath each other. The New Madrid system doesn't fit in to that, because it sits right in the middle of one of those plates. It actually sits in an old, failed rift system that formed one of the several times that north America tried to rift apart and failed. That movement, combined with subsidence, glacial rebound, and various other factors has left stress built up in the crust in that area that still hasn't totally subsided. That's important to understand, because unlike the San Andreas or the Cascadia faults, there's not just one type of fault in that region. It's a complex system of thrust, normal, and strike slip faults, all of which can shift around to produce events. A portion of the key zone that caused the major 1811 events seems to be a combination of both a thrust fault and a strike slip system that is split by the thrust fault. If you look at the map here, the parts parallel to the mississippi are strike-slip zones, while the left handed crook in the seismic epicenters is a step-over where the fault turns in to a reverse/thrust fault (same basic meaning). Based on a little bit of reading, and based on descriptions of the ground moving upwards in 1811 and rerouting the river (Something that typically wouldn't be expected in a purely strike slip event) I'd say the thrust part of the fault is the one that drove the 1811 events.

Bit of an aside, but it sure looks like Northern Florida, the same areas flooded by Fay, are in a shooting gallery next week as well from Hanna. Quick hypothetical. Let's say we've got Gustav hitting NOLA, we've got Hanna hitting Florida, and we've got the RNC all at the same time. Where does CNN send Anderson Cooper?

Time Magazine sat down with an interview with the new, non-Mavericky John McCain. They seemed to come away pretty shocked at how things had changed with the guy.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 09:27 AM) Isnt that the one that caused the Alaska 9.1 or whatever it was earlier in the 20th century? Not exactly...it sort of is the exact same type of fault, but it's 2 different plates subducting. The Juan de Fuca plate is subducting under NW USA, and the Pacific plate is subducting under Alaska. There is another San Andreas style strike slip fault that sits between the northern edge of the Cascadia subduction zone and the Aleutian/Alaskan subduction zone...it's just a lot less well known than the San Andreas. But those subduction zones...those are the ones that can produce the really, really big ones.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 08:03 AM) 6.1 seems pretty strong to me, but what do I know? For any area along a subduction zone...if you're having problems with a 6.1, it's probably a good idea to just move. The fault system offshore of the Pacific Coast of the US north of the San Andreas is the kind of fault that can produce the gargantuan magnitude 9+ events.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2008 -> 04:26 AM) Here's the "uncompassionate" person who comes along and says, you built a f***ing city 30 feet below sea level and then wonder why it floods when a hurricane comes? New Orleans shouldn't even BE THERE anymore, but whatever. Is it worth noting that a big part of the reason why New Orleans now sits 30 feet below sea level is the way we've treated the environment in that area? You have a combination of rising sea levels thanks to the changing climate and rapidly subsiding land due to the fact that sediment is no longer being deposited on the site of the city. Let me fire back another uncompassionate reply. The Mississippi river and its tributaries have now had 2 separate 500 year flood events within the space of 2 decades. This strongly suggests that what we thought was a 500 year event no longer is a 500 year event, but is more like a 20 year event, and we should really, really be scared of what a 500 year event can do in the new climate environment. Why exactly aren't we evacuating the devastated cities along those rivers in Iowa?

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 27, 2008 -> 07:40 PM) Boy I hope you are right. As much as Florida needs to avoid big hurricanes for a while after what happened to them in 2004 and 2005, New Orleans needs to avoid them for about a decade. With the state of those levees...more than a decade. The only right way to do it is a complete rebuild. Combined with a full scale effort to replenish the natural wetlands off-shore. And this time, I don't think we'll have to worry that much about helping out afterwards. I think that city will be a ghost town by Sunday.