Balta1701

Whether or not it is the right situation for the MLB team this year, at least Ozzie is correct on one thing: Anderson and Sweeney need to be playing every single day right now, because the odds are we're going to wind up needing both of them in the OF next season. Good to hear some positive words about BA as well.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:46 AM) Listen... it amazes me as late as LATE in 2000, Clinton was saying EXACTLY the same thing Bush did on the WMD's. So what happened to them? Balta, I know you've drummed up 1,000's of articles telling us that Saddam had to of destroyed them, but come on... why would you believe that, in reality? My reasoning, and this was back before the war, was fairly simple, I think. The UNSCOM team was able to account for over 95% of the materials Saddam made. They destroyed a huge amount of it, and they were able to track where things were moved to and what happened to most of them (a lot of them were simply dumped after the first war or bombed during that war). The rest...well, the place was a warzone. Now, that was by no means proof that Saddam was disarmed. And had Saddam refused to allow the inspections regime to resume, or had he interfered with the inspections regime when it resumed, that would have been justification for a war. But in 2002, Saddam agreed to allow the UN inspections teams back in under the UNMOVIC team. When they went in, they found the equipment that would have been needed to manufacture additional weapons covered with 3 years of dust. They found the facilities they had sealed off still sealed off. They took some of the intel the U.S. had about where the weapons were supposed to be, went to those places, and wound up calling the U.S. intel "Garbage". Up and down the list, they basically couldn't find a single sign of an active weapons program. Every single thing they saw was consistent with Saddam having shut down the programs and with UNSCOM having dismantled the remaining fragments. If the U.S. had let the inspectors do their jobs to their conclusion, no matter what anyone in the U.S. believed, no matter what Mr. Clinton believed, they would have found Saddam to be disarmed. The evidence was right on the table in early 03 for anyone who cared to look.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:39 AM) Edit: and Balta just made my point for me... note the word RESUME in his post. Well, you know what they say. Fool me once, shame on, shame on you... .... .... .... .... Fool, you can't get fooled again. Too many of these sorts of flubs and Obama really should take a hit. Mr. Bush deserved to take a much bigger hit for his gaffes than he ever really took, Howard Dean took a gigantic hit for a few of his gaffes and those hits followed him even when he made correct points. Obama's had a bit of a rough month or two, and it's starting to even drag on his poll numbers. He really does need to step up the quality of the campaign he's running here.

Well, I think we can safely say this is the first "Here we go again" moment for Moore's upcoming film "Sicko". Somehow, I bet that there were people fairly high up in the government just salivating over this when they realized they could go after Mr. Moore for violations of the Cuban embargo. Best marketing Moore could possibly get.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:35 AM) They've been using that excuse since May 2003, though. Yes, but no one either smart or in any sort of official position has been using that dodge. It's been confined to the dark reaches of Hannity and Limbaugh for the most part, even the majority of the Fox News folks don't push it any more because they know there's just no evidence at all for it. But yet, one of the Republican Pres. Candidates just alleged that exact thing with no evidence. I find that noteworthy.

Ok, based on this thread, I'm going to resume making a thread every time Mr. Bush embarasses himself or the country verbally. I think I'll start with the one with the queen a couple days ago.

Kick ass Jose.

Anderson 1/3 with 2 walks, 2 runs scored, and 2 strikeouts. Fields 1/5.

Well done John. They finally helped you out.

QUOTE(caulfield12 @ May 9, 2007 -> 05:21 PM) From now on, every pitch in batting practice should be low and away. They should be fined $1000 for every ball they pull on the ground instead of hitting it to the opposite field. The Lou Brown method. 30 pushups for every popup. While on the field. Run it out, then 30 pushups before you're allowed back in the dugout.

QUOTE(caulfield12 @ May 9, 2007 -> 05:13 PM) Hopefully Sweeney really learns something from being around Erstad for some time this year. Stay Grindy.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ May 9, 2007 -> 12:23 PM) Take the question metaphorically and 'fire' him from his unofficial spokesperson for all things black, quit putting him on talk shows and quit shoving microphones in front of his mouth. Turn your literal filters off for a moment and you may actually get a clue. If the media would stop putting him on TV, then they couldn't spend nearly as much time being angry at the media for putting him on TV.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ May 9, 2007 -> 11:41 AM) I disagree. I'd say the opposite. The White Sox as an entire organization do most things well, but suck at a few specific things. It'd be really, really tough for a bad organization to be competitive in its division every single year and to stay that way without falling back and rebuilding for a while. What were the rankings for wins since 2000? I could have swore we're near the top of that chart, behind like the Yankees and Braves or something like that.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ May 9, 2007 -> 11:12 AM) E-85 does burn cleaner, no? Compared to an equal amount of gasoline burned, yes. But whether or not that makes a difference depends on the scale you're looking at. Allow me to illustrate. If I'm a human being who's main concern is global climate change, then when thinking about the ethanol debate, my only concern is the total energy budget. I simply want to know...if I take corn, harvest it, and distill it into ethanol, is there a net gain of energy when I compare the energy inputs in fertilizing, harvesting, distilling, and transporting compared with the same budget for oil. If ethanol provides an advantage, then it is a benefit. If not, then it is only good for developing systems that can be used if another ethanol source is brought on line other than corn. From this perspective, the question is not whether E-85 burns cleaner, but whether the amount of E-85 + the amount of fuel expended to produce the E-85 is cleaner than the amount of fuel that could be burned alone. But, if I'm the mayor of a city with air pollution problems. Let's call this city Chiangeles, I have an additional potential concern; air pollution. For me, if I put x number of cars on the road, they use y gallons of gasoline, and emit z amount of pollution. If I judge that z is too high, then I have to find some way to decrease either x or y. If I can replace 10% of the fuel consumed in my city with something that burns cleaner, then I have a way to attack that local air pollution problem. All of the energy consumed in creating ethanol is used up in places like Iowa, where there are a lot less people, so I don't care if the skies there are polluted. Even if there is a net energy loss, I have shifted some of the pollution out of my city by using up energy outside the city to manufacture a cleaner fuel that can be shipped in, and that's something I'd be willing to pay a price for.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 9, 2007 -> 10:45 AM) I see you have a ton of knowledge about how the draft and draft picks work in MLB. It would be really nice to be able to trade picks in the MLB draft someday, IMO.

Hi Kenny!

QUOTE(Cknolls @ May 9, 2007 -> 10:18 AM) At one point in time statistics showed silicon breast implants affected the health of the woman. They were banned, lawyers got rich, companies went bankrupt, people lost jobs. Silicon breast implants are now said to be safe for the woman. Who was/is right? Actually, the evidence is still out there that they're not 100% healthful. Some companies just have good lobbyists. And also there are occasional advances in technology that can move some products from the unsafe realm to the safe realm. I am aware of no advance in technology that can make cigarettes, or while we're at it, the specific types of trans-fatty acids under discussion, safe.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ May 9, 2007 -> 09:19 AM) Almost every Sox pitcher seems to have lost velocity or not been as fast as advertised. There are very few things you can point at that reflect directly on a coach, but I think that this trend, which I think we've all seen, reflects directly on either Cooper and his throwing program for these guys or on the Sox's strength and conditioning coach, whoever that is.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ May 9, 2007 -> 07:24 AM) Al Sharpton is such a joke. Why he's considered the voice of any one or any group is beyond me. The news media loves to put Al Sharpton on the air and then spend a lot of time complaining about why Al Sharpton gets time on the air given what he does with that time. Spend a little bit of time thinking about that.

How is Mr. Owens looking at the plate this year?

Big Jim took 60 BP swings yesterday and did not re-injure himself. He is expected to go on a minor league rehab assignment this weekend and hopefully will be in the lineup next Tuesday against the Yankees. Toby Hall is also expected to start a minor league rehab assignment this weekend.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt @ May 8, 2007 -> 08:53 PM) Not if he gets reinjured the same week (or night) he comes back. I said "Best case scenario". Worst case scenario is obviously him coming back too soon and reaggrivating the thing. Thome took 60 swings yesterday. The Sox are penciling him in against the Yankees next Tuesday in Chicago.

Stay Grindy, John. QUOTE(BearSox @ May 9, 2007 -> 06:42 AM) can someone with smarts look up where Danks ranks in run support compared to the rest of the pitchers in the league? Out of starting pitchers with at least 20 IP, Javier Vazquez is 54th in run support (5.17). Jose Contreras is 89th (4.31). Mark Buehrle is 93rd (4.21). Jon Garland is 101st (3.92). John Danks is 126th (1.26). 127 pitchers qualified as starting pitchers with 20+ innings pitched. Only Anthony Reyes of the Cardinals has received worse run support than John Danks.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ May 8, 2007 -> 06:25 PM) I thought that the E85 was really a load of crap, with the lower mpg from it and the expenditure of fuel just to make it? I know politically it sounds great, but is it really that good of an alternative? (serious questions) So, these are incredibly complex questions, and honestly, there really isn't that great of an answer to them yet. The fact is, producing ethanol from corn is a fairly inefficient process. If you were to take away all of the subsidies for ethanol and all of the laws requiring its usage, there would be very little reason for the U.S. to produce ethanol at all; getting the energy from oil is vastly cheaper. The important question though is...how much of an energy benefit does one gain by harvesting corn and turning it into ethanol, and honestly, I don't know what the answer is, because I have seen people make claims on both sides depending on what their bias is. It takes a lot of energy to harvest corn and refine it into ethanol, and that cuts back on the value of it. The main argument in favor of building up an ethanol industry which makes sense to me is that it is being done so that if a better means of producing ethanol, perhaps from something like switchgrass, comes along, it can be implemented on a larger scale more rapidly once the technology is in place. One of the big reasons that E-85 has become popular is that it is a nice marketing gimmick. If I understand the story correctly, about a decade ago, the automakers were able to get a loophole inserted in some fuel efficiency law that allowed them to avoid having to clean up their cars in other ways if they made cars capable of running on flex-fuels, like E-85. My Civic can't run ethanol, because ethanol can degrade certain types of parts over time. So they made a few cheap alterations to the vehicles to get under those rules, and it turned out that in the last year or two, the auto companies realized they could market that as a benefit to sell more vehicles once Congress mandated increasing ethanol production.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ May 8, 2007 -> 06:23 PM) Are you referring to Disney's lawyers? You know it.