Balta1701

QUOTE(JohnCangelosi @ Dec 20, 2007 -> 12:19 PM) Doesn't anyone else see how Prior's body (and notably, legs) have shrunk considerably since the end of the 2004 season??? Don't you guys think he is one of the guys who was clearly juicing and now has nothing left since he can't juice any longer?? The guy has nothing left. The only guy that shrunk more after the 04 season was Giambi. Colon or Garcia's probability of success vs. Prior in 2008 is about a million percent better, and we all know what big risks those two guys are. Out of all the people who were nontendered, if we're giving that roster spot to anyone, I'd still prefer McPherson.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Dec 20, 2007 -> 11:51 AM) what's the FISA bill and why does it need to be passed? The original need of the FISA bill stems from a ruling by the secret FISA court, which we have not seen despite efforts of the ACLU. In some way, it restricted the ability of the NSA to intercept signals involving fully overseas communications if those communications happened to travel on a path that took them through the United States. In theory, the President should have unlimited power to wiretap anyone outside of the U.S. who's not a U.S. citizen or someone protected by the U.S. constitution without having to obtain any sort of warrant, even from the FISA court, but that ruling, based on one interpretation of the law, would have limited that power presumably by requiring a FISA warrant if the communication traveled through U.S. wires. Again, I'm a bit sketchy there, because the ruling is secret. Therefore, there is some logic that a bill amending FISA to allow warrantless wiretaps between 2 people outside of the country who happen to talk on a line that runs through the U.S. is necessary and in fact should be passed. A bill was passed over the summer doing so, but it was fitted with a 6 month expiration date because of the strong debate about the other clauses that the administration wanted included. However, the Bush Administration, as always, wants about 800x that many things included in their bill. By far the single most controversial provision is one that the Senate and Harry Reid specifically keeps trying to include, a provision which brought about a mutiny and filibuster by Chris Dodd. That provision would provide amnesty to any telecom company which violated the law in any form as a part of the Administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping scheme that was uncovered in 2005, and in any other warrantless surveillance that we haven't learned about yet. Right now there are several lawsuits starting to work their way through the court system that may well be our best chance to figure out what exactly the Administration was doing for 6 years when there was no oversight, and all of those would be shut down if that clause was maintained. Beyond that, there are other specific issues regarding privacy concerns that I don't think anyone has a good summary of, in no small part because the documents driving some of the debate are being kept secret even from many Senators. I think that's a good summary of the issues. On one side, there is a need to pass something before Feb. to keep that fix to the FISA law. On the other hand, there is at least a small group adamantly opposed to giving immunity to the telecom companies for past lawbreaking.

Giving this a thread here since there were at least a few people who seemed to want him earlier this offseason. Jenkins signs a 2 year, $13 million deal with the Phils. Option for a 3rd year if he gets enough plate appearances.

Papelbon's dog eats world series ending ball.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2007 -> 10:56 AM) For being the guy who gets uppidty when people miss your posts, you might want to read up a little higher Damn, totally missed that. Somehow read the one above and below it too.

Tom Tancredo to drop out of the Presidential race today, presumably to spend more time with his family rounding up illegal immigrants.

Romney appears to be caught completely inventing a story about his father marching with Dr. King.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 20, 2007 -> 06:42 AM) Because Kissinger is so deeply entrenched in the NWO. The random Nazi doesn't worry me. The military/idustrial complex and NWO does. Link

Well, Clemens hasn't bothered speaking at all in the week since the report came out, so why shouldn't someone go after him?

Memories...

QUOTE(bigruss22 @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 07:05 PM) Zero fun sir. For my next trick, I'm turning this thread, INTO FUNK!

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 07:01 PM) Big Ben injured his foot last night, so you might get your wish here. Bulls play Friday and Saturday after a day off tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised if Ben sits out those games. I like Gray backing up Smith though, he seems like a nice guy to bring off the bench. Starting, I'd understand Smith, but I'm crazy enough to want Noah and Tyrus starting right now.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 06:12 PM) Hah, that's my quote! But honestly, many people still think San Diego is his first choice, but if he were to sign there, he woud have to take less, especially since the Padres just signed another reclamation project last week.... For Prior, the question may well not be how much people will sign him for, but who will offer him a 1 year deal instead of 2

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 06:57 PM) Wow, shocking. The Celtics play a real team, at home, and lose to Detroit. Yeah the Celtics are good, but I'm not even convinced they are actually better than Detroit yet, and can beat them in a playoff series. Maybe people will shut up about a Celtic team that has just taken advantage of an easy schedule so far. Oh, and nice win Bulls. 10/10/5 for Aaron Gray? Wow, and Tyrus looks better too. A decent part of me would be really happy right now to see a few games to see what a rotation of Tyrus, Gray, Noah, and Smith a little bit off the bench would look like.

Mark Buehrle has a full no trade clause for the year 2008.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 02:30 PM) I don't like a mandate, but tax incentives are a great way to boost our energy independence. People can write off all kinds of things, I think they should be able to write off stuff like solar panels. Companies that make major strides to cutting energy consumption or cutting down reliance of certain types of fuel could also get a break. As long as that company is producing its energy through fossil fuels, sure. They can have tax incentives then.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 02:42 PM) So why can't sweeney be the White Sox CF/leadoff hitter during the 2008 season? At least have a chance to be? Do most see him as a 4A player and he really isn't a major league starter? I'd love to see him as a major league hitter, but he isn't there yet. Counting the injuries, he regressed last year compared to the year before, which is a bad sign when you're repeating AAA in a hitters park. His power still hasn't developed and he seemed to have some swing issues. He has put up a .350 or so OBP in each of the last 2 years, but last year he only hit .270 and his Slugging dropped by 50 points, taking his OPS from 800 to 750. He gets off to a hot start at Charlotte ok, I'd be happy to bring him up, but I really want to see something positive from him in AAA before bringing him to the big leagues again.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 02:04 PM) I think certain people, the strictest opponents of steroid use and steroid users mainly, put too much "emphasis" on the Vincent memo. It certainly would have been nice if MLB had put as much emphasis on the memo in the 90's as we're forced to do these days. But then, the letter of the rule is the letter of the rule, whether or not it's enforced.

You know that's funny.

Any idea who controls this decision? The team or the radio station? Because I'd like to send a thank you email.

Is Gameday Audio for this year on sale yet? They just made a sale. After last year I was considering not buying this year. This is intelligent marketing.

I think we can all assume that this story means that the torture document and video destruction is proceeding at a good pace. (Joke stolen from tapped)

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 11:10 AM) I've heard the total opposite, and that the readings on that site were off the whole season. I don't know if I saw a gun I was happy with all of last season. I will say that the numbers on MLB's gameday at least seemed to do 1 thing; they seemed to be comparable from game to game. So if you thought a guy was throwing harder one game than another or harder one pitch than another, Gameday at least reflected that. It's entirely possible they were all off by 2-3 mph all year, but at least they struck me as comparable from 1 game to another.

Well, on a different though related subject, this is also interesting. Clearly, the only solution to this is about $20 billion a year in subsidies for the fossil fuel companies. How else will they stay competitive with this sort of innovation? And thankfully, we're not turning those fossil fuel subsidies into research credits or anything, because all that would do is spur more innovation of this sort and cut the cost of renewables even further. And thank Goodness the Republicans filibustered the bill that required electric companies to generate some fraction of their electricity through renewables, because otherwise there'd be even more incentive to manufacture these things faster.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 19, 2007 -> 10:37 AM) Don't get me wrong - I was actually not trying to make a true slippery slope argument. I was in fact saying there is a line, that is a good thing - I just think the line is a little off the mark in this specific case. I would not want to make an all-or-none argument out of this at all. Given what I believe about the energy and climate situations in this country, I think this is a totally appropriate place to put the line. It inconveniences very few people and the potential benefits are large, even if the majority of people were switching anyway. There would always be a decent chunk of people who did not make the change if the government didn't mandate it, and the benefits of every single bulb are big enough for me to not complain.