Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 6, 2008 -> 11:21 AM) The idea that one accident 40 years ago controls energy policy to some extent is just silly. Fine. How about one 2 weeks ago? Are you seriously going to somehow try to argue that oil spills should not be a major concern? If there had been 1 oil spill in the last 40 years we might have something to talk about. But they spill regularly, especially in these sorts of OCS areas you want to hit.

Now that's a team that knows how to go hard after a top draft pick.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 6, 2008 -> 10:57 AM) I mean in mass. Like they would have in Kuwait. The areas in and around Hammond are just...ugh.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 6, 2008 -> 09:04 AM) McCain–Feingold my ass. Strike McCain off that. I think I pointed out earlir (maybe in another tread) all the loop holes that the McCain campaign and the RNC are using to get around finance laws. Honestly though, it's sort of hard for either side to complain about "Loopholes". But there's a difference between using loopholes and what this smells of.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 6, 2008 -> 08:37 AM) Yeah, sure. Assuming gas prices would still be low we'd just be delaying the inevitable. We've been talking about reducing foreign oil dependency since the Carter administration and have made effectively zero progress since our economy is still pretty much structured around oil consumpition. We don't take it seriously until our wallets start punching us in the balls, and if oil went back to $1.80 tomorrow, we'd forget all about this by next spring. If we are going to drill here... fine, as long as we're not f***ing up the environment. But there needs to be some kind of hard incentive to do something else. So, how exactly do you plan to pull off this drilling without f***ing up the environment? The areas that are the most prime drilling locations are either locations that are right in hurricane alley or are difficult to control locations off of the Pacific seaboard near California, where simple drilling (not a wreck, just drilling the ocean floor) caused a pretty large spill back in the 60's which led to the implementation of the drilling moratorium in the first place.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 6, 2008 -> 08:07 AM) Family, I have a great gift for you today. I've written you all a check for 22,500 dollars. Consequently, if you all don't donate 22,500 to McCain's campaign I'll switch you. I love you, family. Well, I'll give the media credit...the angry crazy TPM bloggers who were responsible for basically breaking the entire DOJ scandal open thought something smelled fishy, and now more people are starting to get in on the game. Nothing definitive yet, but more and more of these names are smelling fishy.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 07:27 PM) OK sarcasm aside, that is what the Republicans want to do... but whatever, it sounds better to just attack everything. When exactly did they start supporting alternative energy?

No idea where to put this, but it has to go somewhere. Paris Hilton responds to John McCain. See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die The frightening thing is...she has a better energy policy than McCain or Bush.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 05:51 PM) Pay close attention to the Hess Corporation (an oil company), the Rocchio family, and the RNC / John McCain. Something is a bit fishy. Have been since yesterday. Not convinced anything will come of it at all. I wouldn't be surprised if similar things had happened with a non-trivial number of Bush bundlers. Given that you can give people money as a "gift" without reporting it on your taxes or showing it anywhere, that seems like a difficult case to make, ever.

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 04:11 PM) Ok but Drew hasnt kept up his hitting, its dropped 20 points sine begining of last month. So far nothing to believe Ortiz will come back strong either, dont even think he is fully healthy. I mean we can agree to disagree, but to me that lineup looks very mediocre now. If Ortiz isn't healthy and Drew starts slumping, then they're in a heap of trouble.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 01:56 PM) sorry, couldn't resist (Gunshots ring out)

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 03:46 PM) Well who says Ortiz will get any better, because he was lousy before the injury. Not to mention he said he heard something pop or whatever his last at bat. And why Bay is a nice player and all he just doesnt bring the presence of a Manny. In my opinion that lineup just got a lot easier to go through. If Ortiz is out...yes. Manny is just ridiculous when he's healthy and we all know that. But if Drew keeps hitting, and Ortiz comes back strong, and Bay keeps up what he was doing, that's a better lineup than what they had last year with Drew struggling and just Manny and Ortiz in the middle there.

If the Red Sox would do what they did with Renteria and pay for like 1/2 of his salary, I'd be interested, but not at current prices. The problem with that though is that the Red Sox got a highly ranked prospect at the time (Marte) for Renteria by including so much money, and I'd rather not give up either Fields or Poreda for a guy like Lugo.

D Backs to extend Haren.

This is interesting. Couple people put together an analysis of correlation between voting patterns and sales of "O" magazine, while trying to account for all of the other relevant demographic information, to see if they could get a look at how much Oprah's endorsement helped Senator Obama in the primaries. They concluded it was pretty darn important, controlling for everything they could think of.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 12:49 PM) All this would basically happen long before the object actually reached the sun right? Like it would get locked into the gravitational pull when it got really close, and it would be so hot it would turn into plasma or whatever. I would have to imagine there have been other objects that hit the sun before though. Comets, asteroids, etc, those sorts of things probably pretty commonly hit the sun once their orbit is disturbed enough. Right now, we have no container that would not melt before it actually reached the surface of the sun. If you sent something in with enough momentum, it would start entering the sun's corona and then melt/vaporize depending on exactly the phase, and then the material would wind up dispersed around through thermal diffusion (The sun's corona sits at somewhere around a million degrees) and the magnetic fields/winds that move through that region. Basically, if you take a planet and slam it in to the sun, or an asteroid, etc., it will have enough thermal inertia to make it through and actually hit the sun's surface. But something small, like a rocket ship filled with a couple thousand tons of waste...that'd probably just burn up on entry and get scattered pretty easily.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 12:40 PM) That map doesn't have pop stretching down to my part of Illinois, and I don't know any locals that call it soda. Edit: Now that I visit the webpage, it just shows both soda and pop overlapping my area, which is still inaccurate but not as bad. Here is one done a few years ago, much larger sample, by county and percentage.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) Seriously though ridiculous logistics aside, what does happen when something collides with the sun? Basically nothing right? The sun is so large it wouldn't even notice. The containers would burn up, everything would react with something, and it would mix in and dilute if you had the trajectory right. Just make sure it doesn't bounce off of some layer.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 11:43 AM) It's about $10,000 per pound to get something into orbit. To break orbit would require more energy ($$$). According to wikipedia, the average nuclear reactor produces 25-30 tonnes (3 m^3) per year of solid waste. That's about 55,000 lbs, or $550,000,000 per year per reactor just to get it into orbit. And we're still not addressing the potential environmental disaster. Not to mention the 2500 metric tonnes of spent fuel rods and 100 million gallons of liquid that we've already generated.

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 02:31 AM) Should be noted both the Red Sox and Yankees also lost last night, which can be important when it comes to the wildcard. I really think losing Manny will hurt the Redsox and might allow for the AL Wildcard to come out of the Central assuming we right the ship and the Twins stay competitive. The problem with that line of thinking is...when you consider their DL roster...they basically traded Manny for both Ortiz and Bay, because they just got Ortiz back after either having him in a terrible slump or injured for all but like 2 weeks of the season so far.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 07:39 AM) With the relapse of injury problems, a thought just hit me. Usually if a Borass guy can't get a whole lot of years, they take a one year deal so that they could re-explore the market in a year. Any thoughts about something like a one year 7-10 million dollar deal to bring Joe back for 2009? Here's my question...what do the doctors think? I'm really not surprised Joe's having back issues again this year, it's still been only 1 year or so since he actually had the surgery, and within 6 months or so after the surgery he was already pushing himself to get back to baseball. Think of people who try to rush back from Tommy John or any other major surgery, they tend to come back but then wind up feeling a little more pain then having to shut themselves down to heal a bit. The question is...is Crede's back problem now just related to his back stiffening up after all the work he's loaded on it trying to rehab, or is it actually continuing to degenerate?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 5, 2008 -> 07:19 AM) That. Ben Stein may be a smart guy, but he doesn't appear to understand the futures markets. There's more than a few things Ben Stein doesn't understand.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Aug 4, 2008 -> 05:32 PM) Absolutely. If he were available and the asking price was decent, he'd be a guy you'd have to look at considering Coop's track record. If he doesn't pan out, fine. We don't lose much. But if he does, then we've got another potential ace on our staff. I'd imagine it'll take one more year of this kind of struggling before the Reds seriously start thinking about moving him. He has to still have an option left next year right?

I think this ESPN article is important and it updates us on all those dealings we heard about back in June when personnel were moved around. It clearly indicates that Dave Wilder is under federal investigation for potential fraud, Wilder is not commenting at present, and a couple of White Sox scouts were fired because of this matter.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Aug 4, 2008 -> 05:25 PM) Not to leave the discussion without throwing an idea out. If we want to make this investment, how about funding items that will allow individuals to not use fossil fuels. Much like the tobacco industry had to fund anti-smoking campaigns, require the oil companies to put in programs that loosen dependence on fossil fuels. Allow them to escape any wind fall profits tax by funding university research on alternative fuels. And give them the rights to the research results royalty free so they can continue in business. I would be totally thrilled with that and I'm pretty sure it's been proposed more than a few times. It's not in Senator Obama's plan online. I think that's a vastly better use of the "windfall tax" than sending out more money to people. R&D spending by energy companies has been basically flat over the last decade despite their soaring profits, and I think we might all be able to agree that fact needs to change.