Balta1701

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 07:22 PM) Would you rather see the banking sector go under? Wouldn't it be entertaining to find out? I'll give the standard, boiler plate, communist democrat answer on this one for now. If these financial institutions and investment banks are going to be bailed out by the taxpayer like banks, then they ought to be regulated like banks, have similar disclosure requirements to banks, be required to provide some measure of funding for insurance like banks, etc.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 07:11 PM) It's funny, but he's throwing harder than I've seen in the last few years. Knot out of his shoulder? Angels pitching coach doing things a different way (we know well that Cooper pushes control over velocity with a lot of these guys)? Simple rest? (remember how his fastball came to life after 10 days off in the playoffs)

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 06:29 PM) I like the hire as well, congrats guys. He's not really a homerun hire in my eyes, but he's a solid coach that will IU back in the top 20 each season and keep his nose clean. With the talent that has come out of Indiana (the state) the last few years that IU has missed on, just having a solid coach, being clean, and being in the top 25 ought to give the team a shot at a real good tourney run fairly often.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 05:59 PM) the only criticism i'd have of crean is his tournament performance. no doubt he had a great run with dwyane wade in 03, but outside of that his teams have been meh at best when it comes to tournament play. now, there could be reasons for that i'm not aware of because i don't follow closely, but outside of 03 there's nothing really distinguished about his team's tournament performances. From this alum's perspective...after the embarrassment that has been this season, I'll take a guy who doesn't have a bunch of championships under his belt as long as he's a solid guy who can help rebuild that program. I just don't want another story coming out that makes me shake my head.

So, this hasn't been revealed as an April Fool's joke yet has it?

Survey USA Polls Indiana (Finally!)

QUOTE(Texsox @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 03:21 PM) True story, I just watched my first episode of Sopranos. God, out of popular shows these days, you name it and the odds are I haven't seen an episode (Sunday night on Fox, 24, and The Daily Show/Colbert Report excluded)

Seriously? Sweet!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 02:36 PM) As I've said before, while I am OK with them helping Bear Stearns out of a hole, I think their needs to be real consequences for the executives when this happens. This is what other civilized capitalist countries do, and the US should as well. Well, depends on how you define consequences. The execs holding stock lost a lot, but there are still people walking away with several tens of million dollars in shares and termination fees. Did they break any laws? With as lax as the regulatory environment in this country currently is, I'd say that's highly doubtful. The consequences are that they're no longer billionaires, just multi-millionaires.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) While both ways it is intentional and subject to an interference call, if he goes in with his legs and feet, there still can be at least a little doubt about "intention". When you reach and grab a leg, there is no doubt. The umpire made the correct call. If it were the other way around and an Indian sliding and grabbing Cabrera and interference wasn't called, this board would have been as up in arms as Hawk would have been yesterday. Just out of curiosity, when is the last time this board, or really any board, got up in arms about a no call on an interference play at 2nd base? There are some plays that you never get up in arms about unless it's unbelievably obvious or a guy gets hurt. If an Indian did that against us and it broke up a DP, we'd probably have been pissed at Uribe for not getting the job done. A similar one is the "Tagging 2nd on a double play turn" call. Probably could call that on half or more of double plays, but no one ever gets pissed when it's not called.

According to CNBC, the Treasury Secretary told the NY Fed Chair that the Treasury Department would in essence take care of any losses that the Federal Reserve took on the Bear Sterns bailout package. So there you have it. When you take out a bad mortgage and lose your house, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do. When you run a company in to the ground, don't worry, the taxpayers will take care of it, feel free to move on and run a couple other companies in to the ground. As long as you sell your stock when the price is high, you're set.

Not totally sure which thread to stick this in, but oh yes, it must go somewhere, It may belong in several threads.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 01:46 PM) What is todays date people? That depends...has the email with today's date been sent backwards in time or not?

Ugh, I already have seen that sort of stuff in the spam I get. I still get spam from like 2005 delivered, and it hops in to the wrong place in my inbox and is sometimes hard to find. Darn you Googles!

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 11:04 AM) Based on my rough math (10M in Chicagoland area, 7.5 tons/ person/ year), this area puts out about 208000 tons of CO2 a day, or 8700 tons an hour. This wasn't even a 10% reduction. One of the biggest wastes I see on a regular basis are the open freezers and refrigerators in grocery stores. Do these really need to be wide open like that? If you're referring to the horizontal freezers, like the ones in the foreground of this picture, that's actually not a big waste, because of thermodynamics. What happens in these freezers is that the air they cool has its density increased, via the temperature change. Basically, at constant pressure, if you decrease the temperature of a gas, you are going to decrease its density. This sets up a normal density gradient; i.e. you have warmer air above the freezers and cooler air below them. In this case, the air will not convect. And diffusion of heat, especially in air, is a slow process compared to convection. If you keep a normal density gradient, then you have very little problem with wasted energy. The freezers in the background are another story...they are vertical. When these do their job, they set up, across the door, a gradient between cold air on one side and warm air on the other. When you open the door, you're guaranteed to get air flow, because the 2 parcels of air will have different temperatures and therefore different densities. The air in the cooler will sink and will flow out the bottom if the door is opened. This is why the door is important...it allows the freezer to do its job...and this is why you shouldnt' stand with your refrigerator door open, because it induces convection. The only bad setup will be a cooler with no door but with a vertical setup. Although, this could be done well, if you introduce the cold air at the top of the cooler, expect it to flow down, and then pump the air out at the bottom of the cooler, you could set up an artificial barrier that would do the job.

QUOTE(bmags @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 08:17 AM) I'm only reading surveyUSA at this point. I find it intriguing that both Rass and SUSA show essentially the same number for Obama right now in that state, but the difference lies entirely in where they put HRC.

Any chance the PTBNL is Cain or Lincecum, if people perform?

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 31, 2008 -> 08:42 PM) What happened? It seems that if a manager shouts a message to a catcher to deliver to a pitcher, an umpire can count that as a visit to the mound by the coach even though no coach ever left the dugout. Wierd.

LOL, this game has gotten so wierd that the Braves announcer is now reading a comment on rule 8.06.

There is something terribly enjoyable about having Damaso Marte melt down in the 9th inning.

A "Day of the week" effect in the daily tracking polls?

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Mar 31, 2008 -> 05:24 PM) To be fair, Cleveland is one of the better teams against left handed pitchers. It might not be so much the fact that Rogers is a soft thrower but moreso he is a lefty. The last 2 years, Hafner has actually been slightly better against lefties than righties. Sizemore was terrible in 06 against lefties but figured things out in 07 and actually had a higher BA against lefties (somewhat lower slugging though).

Have a cell phone, but it's on my family's account back home, they get a big bundle with minutes they never use, and I only use it to make free long distance phone calls, I never carry it with me. Also using a 25 year old TV set.

QUOTE(Vance Law @ Mar 31, 2008 -> 04:55 PM) Vizcaino had an excellent 3.73 ERA in his one season with the Sox. From my memories of that season, and they're pretty detailed, I think his ERA that year was almost useless. As others have pointed out, a lot of the up part of his ERA that season was given up in a couple of games where Ozzie did push him longer than he should have because he had no other option after 2 innings and the rest of the bullpen was used up. On the other hand, he had a very strong force pushing his ERA down: the rest of the bullpen. Every time any pitcher got in trouble, Cotts, Politte, Hermanson, or Jenks came in and stranded those runners. It's the same reason Damaso Marte put up a 3.77 ERA in the pen that year despite having a disgusting 1.72 WHIP.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 31, 2008 -> 10:51 AM) As a follow-up on Sadr's army striking out, there now appears to be a ceasefire in place. This is good news. Here's an interesting twist, though. The attempts by the Iraqi government to put down the rebellion were a failure, but, guess who succeeded in getting Sadr to back down? Iran. Lots of implications here. Lots to be concerned about. Very interesting in any case. It's also worth noting who exactly got whom to back down. It appears, for example, that Maliki's people were the ones asking for a cease fire, and in fact were the ones who went to Iran to try to get a cease fire.