Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 01:16 PM) That's kinda short for a PF. He's almost aSF at that point. If THAT's the case, than Rose is the pick. Well, to be fair, I wouldn't rule out him picking up another inch or two before he's all the way done either. He's only 19.

So who takes over the title now of "Best veteran NBA player never to win a championship" now that KG has one? (by saying Veteran I'm deliberately excluding James and Paul and other biblical sounding names that came from that 03 draft class and after). The guys I see are Brand, Nash, Dirk, TMac, maybe Yao's getting there, Iverson, Kidd, anyone have a favorite?

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 12:54 PM) They also lacked agressiveness from Pasol & Odom. Gasol needs to learn to bang in the low post. He never will learn that. It's just not part of his game. He is not a banger, and when he tries to be, he gets hurt.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 10:30 AM) it's possible, but I believe a great deal of them are in Colorado and they dont want their landscape marked with these massize digging sites and processing plants. They reference areas of Canada as an example of how nasty they look. While "How they look" is a problem, it's actually not nearly the biggest problem with oil shale refining. The 3 biggest problems with oil shale are what we call EROI, CO2, and H2O. The first one, EROI, is an acronym for energy return on investment. Basically, the idea is that you have to put some energy in to get energy out. For oil, it's usually quite high. Some wells gush simply by being tapped, others take just a little bit of water pumped in to get the oil out, then there are additional amounts consumed in the transportation process (Hence the use of huge supertankers; it pushes this ratio up by increasing the efficiency of transport) and during the refining process. For Oil, it typically is something like 5 to 1, depending on the quality of the oil and the ease of extraction, meaning for every 6 barrels of oil you produce, you get to put 5 of them on the market. For oil shale however, the energy costs are much larger. Mining expends vastly more energy than simply pumping. You are transporting far more material. The refining process is vastly more energy intensive because you have to do the heating steps that were done for free in the earth in producing oil. The factories required to process the material are much larger and much more costly, and the problems of dealing with solids instead of liquids mean that your equipment wears out much faster. For Oil shale, the ratio can drop by a factor of 2 to 3, meaning that if you want to get 2 barrels of oil out, you often have to put 1 barrel of oil worth of energy in. While this is still useful, it is therefore much less profitable per barrel and it therefore does a lot more damage. Every so often some company comes out with a statement that they've developed a method to improve on this problem, but either it usually hits up against the 3rd problem or it winds up simply not working. The second of those problems, CO2, follows from the first. If the EROI is dramatically lower for oil shale than for oil, then if we did the thought experiment of asking "What would happen to global CO2 emissions if we got all of the current gasoline from oil shale instead of oil", the answer is that you increase the world's CO2 emissions by something like 50%. This is the easiest way to get tropical rainforests at the poles within a few hundred years. The third of those is actually the biggest problem in terms of economics...water. Oil shale processing takes a ridiculous amount of water. Several barrels of water are used up per barrel of oil produced. This is basically required for every method that's out there. The areas in Western Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, etc., where the Green River formation, the largest oil shale body on earth, is found, are incredibly dry. There is already more demand for water in these areas than there is water around. There simply isn't enough water to process the stuff. No one has really come up with a practical means around this problem without dumping in enormous amounts of energy to transport water or to transport the material to an area where there is more water available, and as the west dries out due to global warming, it's only going to get worse, a problem that would be exacerbated by use of more oil shale..

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 10:05 AM) Thats a really fair post, and agree with the Ram assessment, however part of me thinks Lexi is on a steak here, and will come back down to earth. If he doesn't, outstanding, Williams found a real gem, but not sure if thats realistic at this point. It's June 18th. More than a month to determine where we stand. By then, you will have a much better idea where we stand with Lexi, as well as if Durham is really having a bounce back season, and is still healthy. I'm in agreement on the idea that Alexei may just be on a hot streak here...but here's my counterpoint. Even if he is on a hot streak, even if his numbers do come back down to earth as Ozzie throws Uribe in and disrupts Alexei's rhythm or whatever...if Alexei can put up numbers anywhere close to what he's been putting up since May 1, hitting say around .300, with solid speed, making good contact, good defense...etc...then maybe Durham is an upgrade because he's a little more patient at the plate and so on, but that upgrade would be so small that I wouldn't want to give up anything of value for him, and I'd rather have Alexei get the playing time in the middle infield since we've got Lexi for 3 years after this one.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 08:49 AM) I could be wrong, but with both being FA's after the season, I just don't see either one moving to another position in the middle of the season. It is a decent thought though. I have brought it up before, but it didn't catch much fan fare. What about Durham? He probably is going to retire after the season, and is on the last year of his deal. He has had a great bounce back season, hitting .286 with a .372 OBP. With Roberts probably on the market, Durham could be a very nice cheap option for this club, similar to the Iguchi deal last year. Lexi moves to the super sub role, but could still get a ton of time. With Konerko and Thome banged up and probably needing time off down the road, Swish moves to 1b/DH, and Lexi plays in CF. On top of that, Ray will need some time off, getting Lexi time at 2B, and could even give Cabrera some time off at SS. You could still get Lexi starts 2-3 times a week. Here's the thing though...if you drop April from Alexei's numbers and just assume that those first 33 at bats were the time he needed to adapt to the league...he's actually performing at Durham's level. He's just hitting out of his mind right now. In May and June, Alexei's hitting .346, with a .375 OBP and a .889 OPS. He may not walk as much as Durham, but he's hitting with a hell of a lot more power and he's making up for the OBP by almost never striking out. His numbers may come back to earth, frankly I have no idea, but I don't know why we'd want to either give up something of any value at all to push Alexei to the bench nor do I know why we'd want to take Alexei's bat out fo the lineup if he can give us anywhere close to this kind of performance.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 09:37 AM) Probably Richar + at least one pitcher who is near MLB-ready i.e. Egbert/Broadway. The Orioles need starting pitching. They have no use whatsoever for outfielders since Markakis is a perennial All-Star, there is a good chance Jones will be as well, and Luke Scott is solid and is eventually going to be replaced by a plus prospect whose name I forget. So they have no use for Anderson at all unless he's just tossed in the deal. I think frankly you're dramatically underestimating what it will take for this team to get Roberts from the Orioles. The price someone quoted a few days ago was one of Danks/Floyd, plus Alexei, plus another player, which is probably closer to true. If I'm in the Orioles' GM's seat, Here's who the Sox have that would interest me, in order. Quentin (I'd do Roberts straight up for him). Danks Floyd Alexei Poreda Swisher Broadway Richar Anderson Potential throw-ins like Cook. If I'm not getting 2 of the top 5 on that list (Unless you're willing to trade that Quentin guy, he seems pretty good), then you're not getting Roberts.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 09:20 AM) Furcal has had a lot of injury problems the last few years, that is a cause for concern Furcal is also seemingly out until the All-Star Break.

Don't have time to sit on on this, but would like to hear a summary if anyone does.

Let's make quick work of them Mark.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 08:19 AM) my personal choice would be Chone Figgins, if available. The Angels could use some more pitching... the question is do we sacrifice someone like Contreras for Figgins, and hope one of Broadway/Richard/Massett/Egbert could step in his place? EDIT: Looking at it again, with the emergence of Saunders and Santana, the Angels don't really need someone like Contreras. Contreras is the obvious person to trade from the pitching staff this offseason if we're trying to clear a spot. The way he's pitching I'm becoming less convinced that we need to move him, we're in a place where we could hold him and offer arbitration and either get him for 1 more year for comparatively cheap or we wind up with 2 draft picks since he's rapidly pitching himself back on to the A list. But, if we're going to trade Jose, there are a few teams I absolutely don't want us talking to. The Angels, the Red Sox, the D-Rays, the Cubs, and the usual AL Central competitors. I don't care if they're offering up a better deal than anyone else, they better offer up an ungodly ransom before we have Jose pitching against us in the ALCS.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 06:16 AM) I will wait for Balta or FlaSoxx or some other scientist to pipe in, but, I am thinking that the overall impact of a small amount of water vapor is a lot less negative than the chemical soup that currently comes out of cars. Pumping out water vapor is a fun one, because it's effects can be quite variable. Right now we're so concerned about CO2 because CO2 is what we're pumping up at the most rapid rate, and because additional CO2 has a relatively simple effect. Water vapor though can do several things, it can be a greenhouse gas that warms up the planet, but it can also condense in to clouds that reflect energy off the tops. Overall I think the effect of pumping out water vapor is probably going to be negligible since water cycles in and out of the atmosphere so easy already on its own. You'd have to drain a reasonable part of the ocean to make a real difference in the atmosphere by dumping water vapor in. Hydrogen gas, on the other hand, is another matter. It can potentially do a number of things to the atmosphere, including damaging the ozone layer by serving as a catalyst for breaking down ozone, and reacting with oxygen to produce water at levels in the atmosphere that were usually dry. See the link I put on the first page for more on that.

I voted. Should I bother answering and giving any sort of discussion also?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 07:42 AM) Why is it that nothing has happened in the last 25 years down there at NASA? I mean, I guess they keep building more and more onto the international spacestation, and they keep sending orbiters and probes and what not to distant planets, but still. It’s been 40 years since we were last on the moon. 40! Wouldn’t the next step have been to build some sort of base on the moon? Use that as a jumping off point to reach Mars? Mathematically...the moon as a base is an abjectly awful "Jumping off point" to get to Mars. The problem with that concept is...any time you move against a gravity field it requires energy and therefore fuel. If you leave the earth's gravity, it takes energy and therefore fuel. Once you're out of the Earth's gravity, the hardest part is over, you just have to have the right course and enough supplies. But if you drop down to the moon, then you have to have the fuel to get out of the moon's gravity available on the moon. Unless you can find a rocket fuel source on the moon, which basically means we need a fusion reactor that works, then you've made it vastly harder. You now have to shoot the fuel you need to get out of the moon's gravity out of the earth's gravity, dramatically increasing the mass you need to do the job. It's just a bad way to do things. This of course is why this is such a key part of President Bush's "Mars" program.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 18, 2008 -> 06:06 AM) I still don't get it. I mean, obviously, I see that the GOP is again being stupid about this and doing everything possible to keep us in the stone age. But what specific senator are you saying made the difference here? I'm using group guilt here on any of the ones with the letter "R" after their name. Wasn't singling out anyone in particular. If the pro-vote was up in the 57 range then you could point at the candidates, but right now, I'm just blaming the oil party.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 17, 2008 -> 07:16 PM) Any idea who it is? Take a good guess. Hmmm...which side of the aisle might uniformly oppose any extension or expansion of tax credits for any sort of renewable energy? (The non-voting 4 would not have made a difference).

Holy cow, where did this come from?

And of course...Jason Michaels does it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 17, 2008 -> 04:41 PM) That Crede at bat really looms large, as we had the chance to blow this game wide open. Now, Pirates are in good position to tie the game up again. And Jason Michaels is up...

Doumit works a long walk and Suddenly Javy's control is weak...

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 17, 2008 -> 05:27 PM) So Dye's really played in 31 straight games? Actually I haven't updated for today yet. 32 straight starts as far as I can tell.

Dye comes through, doubles in 2 runs. 2nd and 3rd, 1 out.

Thome walks, bases loaded, 1 out, JD up.

Q goes down 0-2 on 2 swinging strikes and works a walk.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 17, 2008 -> 05:15 PM) What type of velocity does Gameday show for Vazquez last inning? WCIU's gun had his fastball at 85 mph. For his fastball, 90, 93, 93, 93, 92