Balta1701

And now we have yet another reason, beyond screwing up his career and his trade value, why I wish Joe Crede had listened to the team's medical advice a year ago in October instead of Boras's advice and had the surgery done then; we might not have to keep having this discussion.

So, like a couple months back, Larry Flynt started dropping hints that his magazine had something explosive on someone in the Senate, and at least casually suggested it was a Republican. I doubt it's true, but hey, this is the internet, and the Filibuster to boot, so I can rumor-monger all I want. BigHeadDC, which as far as I can tell is one of those online gossip rag type places (and which has already botched "exclusives" in the past) , is trying to connect Lott's resignation to Flynt's statement through some male escort.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 03:24 PM) I'd also argue that with the more fossil fuels and carbon dioxide that's being emitted now than say 100 years ago, that we're heating up the globe faster than at any time ever before. Because I know enough about this issue, I'll chime in here. No, we are not heating up the world faster than at any time ever before, and I can give 1 concrete example and a couple possible examples. The concrete example is at the end of the Marinoan glaciation, something like 600 million years ago. This was the last glaciation to cover the entire planet with a block of ice, if we understand the geology well enough (this is something that probably has happened 4-5 times in geologic history). When one of these "Snowball earth" events forms, then the ice has a high enough albedo that it should be stable forever without some other force impinging; the planet would reflect too much light to warm up. But, it turns out that about 10 million years of volcanism puts enough CO2 into the air to warm the planet up enough to get rid of the ice even in an ice-world. When you break apart a snowball earth event, you may rapidly go from a complete ice block to a hyper-greenhouse world where all that CO2 is still in the atmosphere but suddenly the albedo drops to normal levels as all the land reappears. That's an awful big temperature increase in a very short time period (Maybe on the order of hundreds of years or less). There is thought to be so much energy in the atmosphere from this sort of event that the term for the storms it creates is actually "Hypercanes". It's also possible to get rapid warming in other ways. For example, a massive release of methane locked in permafrost or in the ocean could accomplish a large warming on a rapid scale. We've seen rapid releases of methane from lakes, and that happens on a timescale of a day. A large event from an ocean could take anywhere from 1 year to 10's of thousands of years, depending on what the driving force was. So, it's possible that the earth has warmed up at this rate before in geologic history. And I'd say it's likely it has. The key issue remains not what we're doing to the earth, but what we're doing to a climatic system that we've adapted our civilization to. The earth will survive us almost no matter what we do.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 02:23 PM) You'd think... but it seems like there's always more to the perverbial puzzle. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) I really think there's more to it - as all the Re-pube-licans are resigning en masse. And it's not just for lobby money. Well, there is one other part to it...a lot of them haven't been in the minority for a long time, and they're looking at being even more solidly in the minority come the next election, so they really won't be able to do a lot of the things they'd want to do. It takes a different type person to be an effective representative from the minority when your priority goes from being enacting your legislation and earmarks to trying to prevent the majority from doing the same thing, and a lot of the retirees just don't want to deal with it.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 01:42 PM) And what do you consider the Angels offer of Kendrick/Willits/Mathis? You're assuming that the Angels actually make that offer. The reason people keep calling us a dark horse is this; if any of these teams actually make the offer they could make, we'll lose. We make an offer that is fair from us and is the best we can do. But these teams have gone insane in holding onto their prospects come Hell or High Water, and if they keep that up, then we might have a chance. If the Halos decide that no more than 1 of Wood, Kendrick, Adenhart, Mathis, or Willits can go, or if the Dodgers say only 1 of their guys can go because the rest are untouchable, or if the Yankees won't put up Hughes or Joba or Tabata, then we might slip in because of other teams' stupidity.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 11:44 AM) The question I have is at what price could LA have signed him? They went to 90, 15 over the Sox. Could they have gotten him for 85? 80? 75? Seems like they left a lot of money on the table. Not exactly certain what the numbers are...but I believe there's a non-trivial difference in the highest income tax rates between Illinois and California, and that might make up part of the difference.

Well, at least we finally will get to see him as a closer, like people have been asking about for the last 5 years.

QUOTE(Chet Lemon @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 10:15 AM) Hell yes! I'm w/ Huckabee on this one. Outside of the oil industry, can anyone name anyone who's actually opposed to Huckabee on this?

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Nov 25, 2007 -> 08:38 PM) The Pats did not play well at all. There were a few penalties, Brady seemed pretty off all game (but obviously still good enough), and the defense was vulnerable over the middle all game. And the Eagles played a hell of a game too. Tells you a little bit about how good the Pats are. It seems that beating the Pats is possible... But, you need a couple things to happen. First, you need to make virtually zero mistakes. Second, you need to be a good team to start with. And third, you need a bit of luck. The Eagles qualified on the 2nd, but on 1 and 3 they took a bit of a hit. They didn't have McNabb, and Feeley had those 2 big INT's. It's impressive that they made it that close.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 07:09 AM) I like the idea, but I'd like to see his exact game plan. We a re pretty oil dependent country. not exactly sure on how he plans to get us energy independent in 10 years. Here's his issues page on the subject. It's pretty much detail-free, but has all the same platitudes.

QUOTE(jasonxctf @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 07:57 AM) I would love to see what the annual oil consumption is of this country. Maybe our goal by 2010 is to reduce this by 5%. I would love to see what the annual import oil consumption is of this country. Maybe our goal by 2015 is to reduce this by 15%. Via the Energy Information Agency, a very useful energy data clearinghouse.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 08:47 AM) You just can't beat Onion animal stories. Here's one of my old favorites. My all-time favorite.

The Wife Adores A Christmas Story. I'm becoming more a fan of "Its a wonderful life" with age.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 26, 2007 -> 09:02 AM) Its not a matter of "if" its a matter of who they get for Santana. Minnesota has to make a deal during the winter when his value is at its highest. They can' t lose their two biggest franchise stars for nothing in back to back years. As a person in the same division as the Twins...I wouldn't complain at all if they held onto him. They'd set themselves back 5 years.

QUOTE(max power @ Nov 25, 2007 -> 01:51 PM) We can just move owens to CF, assuming we sign another one, and one of the other bench players can take a corner spot. No dilemma there. Owens was competent in center. Hmm, that isn't a terrible option. Ok, I think I might be able to live with Mack as the last option off the bench. Does anyone yet have an idea on how Jason would look as a full platoon guy, who gets put in both the IF and OF? Because it would be great to have a RH hitting guy who could play RF if Dye needed a day off or a day at DH.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 04:17 PM) Bulls without Deng look done. I wonder if Skiles will be on the hot seat soon, or how about Paxson even? If this doesn't right itself ASAP, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Skiles gone at the end of the year. He has what, 1 more year on his contract after this one? This roster should be an NBA Finals caliber roster in the east, and they're acting like they're playing for the #1 pick.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 02:51 PM) $.79 for a 20oz I paid $.77/each for a couple of 2 liters at CVS on Friday.

If we go with a 12 man pitching staff, which I think is likely at this point, here's how the bench seems to shape up. We basically have 4 bench slots to give out with a 12 man staff. Things I wouldn't mind seeing: Pablo, who can back up a couple of positions (None terribly well defensively) who's main job will probably be a platoon in LF with Owens. Bourgeois - right hand hitting, IF utility guy Backup Catcher - Hall Those are the 3 guys we currently have. That leaves me seeing 2 potential needs; a guy who can play CF, and/or a lefty. Can Bourgeois play CF? Anyone know? We already know Mack can't. He's not a terrible option, but even if we sign him, it still leaves a bench that doesn't look complete to my eyes.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 03:43 PM) By no means am I advocating a Cameron signing. I'm just saying steroids =! amphetamines nor is there real correlation. In the past, that might have been true. However, now, both are clearly banned by MLB and are tested for. At some level now they're treated the same. So if you're willing to break one rule, why not break a second? If you're willing to test positive twice for one thing, why not a third time, or why not a first time for another thing? I might be more interested in Dukes at this point than in Cameron.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 03:43 PM) Well it would fit with the "under the radar", but it wouldn't have not gone public by now. Borass lives on leaks. Now that part is certainly true. If the Sox had contacted Jones, then at least there would have been leaks of a "mystery team" or something offering whatever, in an attempt to stimulate further bidding.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 24, 2007 -> 03:25 PM) What? Amphetamines have been a part of the game forever. Steroids are a relatively new thing, and exponentially a greater percentage in recent years. All sorts of players have used amphetamines and I don't think there's much correlation there. Just stating the opposing view. I don't know whether or not Cameron is a juicer or whether or not you're trying to hint at that, but that's my two cents about amphetamines-steroids connected. Either way...his next positive test is a 50 game suspension. And he didn't seem smart enough to avoid them after his first positive test, right before hitting the FA market. I mean, seriously, if you're a FA, ending the season on a slump hurts you vastly less than a suspension, and yet he still kept doing the stuff. How can you possibly fail to account for that if you're trying to decide on how to spend tens of millions of dollars?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Nov 23, 2007 -> 01:28 PM) iPod question here: It appears my iPod battery has gone to the s***ter. I can barely listen to the thing for 45 minutes without the power completely failing on me. Anyways, I'd rather save myself the hastle of having to buy a whole new iPod and get all the songs onto that iPod, but when I went to Best Buy, I only got a vague answer as to how I could get a new battery in there -- something along the lines of, "we don't do it and neither does Apple but there are some people out there who do do it." Anyone have any experiences with this before? Any recommendations as to where I could get a new battery, or if I should just say "f*** it" and go and get a new 8-GB (which I believe holds 2000 songs, perfect for me). So, I have a 4 gb nano, and the screen was destroyed in Mexico about a year ago. Couple months back I found a couple of Caltech students who were running a small business repairing those things, and they basically took a screen from some older, damaged nano and replaced mine. You do have to be specific on the model, but there are certainly people out there who do those things. I would suggest simply googling "Ipod battery replacement" or calling around to a couple of the more local electronics shops in your area. it's possible to do it yourself (There are kits out there) or you could find someone else to do it for a smaller fee. I spent $40 replacing my screen, and that was a lot less than what a new one would have cost me.

He's been caught abusing 2x now, and was stupid enough to not learn from the first positive test. I really don't want to be the team that gets caught when he gets his 3rd.