Balta1701

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Nov 5, 2006 -> 08:27 PM) If you don't think pressuring leaders of Iraq to issue a verdict before Tuesday didn't happen, you're incredibly naive. So, if people really needed more proof as to whether or not there was a non-trivial element of "Get this out before the U.S. election" to the timing, Here ya go. In other words, they weren't even actually ready to release the verdict, but it needed to be on the headlines today. Anyway, not that it matters, it's still a good thing he's out of power, and the Iraq war has still been an absolute and total disaster, and just like all the other magic bullets that were supposed to Fix Iraq, we'll be lucky if all this does is leave that country with the current status quo instead of making things worse again.

So, it seems that the GOP has come up with a brand new technique to make people not vote for the Democrats. The NRCC seems to have pumped about $2 million into a robo-call system for this election. Now, I bet that almost everyone has gotten robotic calls before an election (last one I got was from Al Gore), but a majority of the people who receive those calls just hang up on them, including me. So what is the NRCC doing differently? They've set up a system where the call starts with something that makes it sound like they're talking about the Democratic candidate in a race. "Hi, I'd like to talk to you about Tammy Duckworth...", or something like that. If you listen to the full message, you hear a call that spends time bashing the Democratic candidate. But if you don't listen to the whole call and hang up, you think you're getting a call from the Democrat. But here's the real kicker...if you hang up early...they seem to have the system programmed to constantly call people back, up to several dozen times. So the phone keeps ringing and the voter keeps hearing "Hi, I'd like to talk to you about candidate x", so that the people receiving the calls are furious with that Democratic candidate. New Hampshire, New Jersey, Philly, and a bunch of other states have been hit with this one int he last few days. Supposedly something like 50 Congressional campaigns have been targeted.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Nov 6, 2006 -> 05:27 AM) What was the quote from the beginning of the year? "Brian could hit .230 and it wouldn't matter as long as he plays defense" or something along those lines? When the f*** did those expectations change? When Ozzie decided he would rather play the worst defensive CF in baseball every time there was a righty on the mound despite the fact that the other guy didn't hit any better than Anderson in the 2nd half.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 3, 2006 -> 08:55 AM) They both show a 4.4% unemployment rate. At least based on that BLS page, the only one that actually produces an employment rate is the Household survey. The Establishment/Payroll survey only produces a number of jobs created/lost during that month - it records the numbers given by businesses, and applies a few statistics to get number of jobs created/lost. Here is the establishment survey data. As far as I can tell, it doesn't give anything resembling a rate, because it doesn't have any information in it about the size of the labor force - that's not what it measures, it only measures the number of jobs created/lost, not hte total number looking for work. As I understand it, both of those surveys should give numbers about the jobs created per month. One does so by asking businesses, one does so by surveying households. But only the household survey can give an unemployment rate, because it is the only one that finds out how many people are out there looking for work, the business survey only is asking businesses. So, my problem is, the 1 piece of data that both of them collect which should be comparable, the number of jobs created or lost per month, is totally divergent between the two. One says 93, one says 437. Those are huge differences, at least to my eyes. One of them has the job market shrinking relative to population growth, the other has it massively growing. Anyway, I'm out.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Nov 3, 2006 -> 08:50 AM) The GOP led Congress doesn't even give Democrats a real voice here. Maybe the Democrats won't either, but you know what? I'm sick of thinking that unacceptable is good enough because the other people might be unacceptable too. Nobody gets an automatic vote from me. They have to earn it. And there's very little that the GOP leadership has ever done in the last two years to earn my vote. If nothing else, hopefully the Dems will get rid of some of the outrageous maneuvers the GOP has pulled the past few years. Keeping bills open forever in order to coerce their own party into voting their way (the Medicare insurance company bailout bill being the prime example), holding votes in the middle of the night, absolutely destroying bills in conference committee and making sure that the Dems have no say in conference whatsoever, preventing any and all investigations, etc. Somehow I doubt it though, each successive majority seems to set new standards for low-level behavior when they control how the House is run...the Repub majority formed in part because the Repubs complained about the Dems tactics in the early 90's, like keeping votes open for too long, then they did the same thing and took it about 5 steps farther. I bet there will be enough people who decide to "Give the GOP a taste of their own parliamentary practices" that it'll look just as bad in the House.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 3, 2006 -> 08:28 AM) Which survey said 437,000? The main one traders follow said only 92K plus the upward revisions of August and Sept. The Household survey, which is the one the unemployment rate (4.4%) is based off of. Here's the data. Seasonally adjusted numbers...the labor force increased by 199,000 september to October. 238,000 people who were previously unemployed found employment, which, combined with the 199,000 increase in labor force, led to an increase of 437,000 jobs. That is the number of jobs that the survey recorded, and that is why the unemployment rate declined by .2%. I simply can't see how those 2 surveys can possibly both be showing me the same thing - one shows an increase of 93,000 jobs, the other shows a .2% drop in unemployment because of an increase of 437,000 in employment over the previous month. I may also have to cut this debate short, as I'm heading off to Owens' Valley here in a little while.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 3, 2006 -> 08:19 AM) Of course it isn't... I mean we can't possibly be creating jobs and raising tax revenues after a tax decrease... that just isn't possible!?!?!? No, what's not possible is that we created 93,000 jobs in October and 437,000 jobs in October depending on which survey you look at.

Since the GOP only thread has joined in the Pelosi-bashing, I think this has become a Worthy piece to post.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 3, 2006 -> 07:54 AM) Rex, you think that a Democratic Congress WANTS to work with the President? No personal offense, here... but what the f*** planet are you on? Look at the constant negativity and personal crap that's spewed every day from the Democrats... and they want to work with this president? Come on. And it doesn't flow both ways?

And yet those monthly job numbers are barely enough to keep up with population growth. Those 2 surveys are showing totally different things at this point. The household survey shows a seasonally adjusted increase in employment of 437,000 between September and October, while the other (larger and generally considered to be more accurate) survey only showed a 92,000 increase. Something is dreadfully wrong with one of those 2 numbers. They're not even close.

If this team moves Anderson, they will wind up regretting it.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) I wonder who will go after him. Angels could use a bat but I still don't think he'd be a good fit there specifically because he'd totally clog up the basepaths (plus I think they are going to spend big bucks to get there bat). Mariners could use a DH with some pop and obviously Oakland could keep him or a team like the Orioles could go for a veteran. Truly I don't see that many teams in the AL that would really have the need for big Frank. Both playoff teams in the AL Central could use a right handed power bat who takes a lot of walks.

What the?

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 11:46 PM) I personally find the issue a focal point of an increasingly vocal group of athiests who seemingly regard themselves as superior to those who believe in organized religion. It's their condescending tone which I find unbearable to follow. To be fair, because I'm not a religious man myself, those who preach the gospel and reference it in everyday life deserve just as much criticism. Do you seriously find that it is only athiests who speak to the other side with any sort of condescention? As far as my experience goes, I've run into people from all walks of life who are 100% convinced that their beliefs are the right ones, and since I disagree, I'm a lesser person than they are (whether or not they think I'm going to hell). Athiests just seem to wind up with more of the scorn, IMO, because there are fewer people who agree with them, making them the wierd "other" that you notice because they're not like the majority.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm even not voting straight ticket. Really dislike the guy the Dems are running for Insurance Commissioner out here, IIRC.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) Trading Thome is an idiotic move and isn't going to happen. How did all those right handed dominant Sox teams do a few years ago? Don't we face more right handers than left handers? Oh yeah, trading Thome isn't going to happen. He was the second best hitter on the team last year only becasue Dye was playing out of his mind, and Thome was also protecting him when he was in the 4th spot. But I guess I'll just never change the opinion of those with a selective second half memory who won't let the damn stats get in their way. Perhaps more important than any of that, I believe Jim Thome's contract still has a no-trade clause, am I correct? Last year he had to waive his no-trade clause in order to come to the White Sox, but he was only willing to do so with the White Sox and Indians.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 2, 2006 -> 08:53 AM) Israel has been taken to the matt for closing off areas when their soldiers were kidnapped or when they were attacked from those areas, and now its a bad thing when we don't do the samething? I can understand believing in one way or the other, but pick a side and stay with it, please. Either its OK to hold an area hostage looking for your troops or its not. I was sort of not trying to deal with that part of it, hence the phrase "So, again, I'm not sure at all that it's the wrong thing to do to lift the seige". I'm more concerned with the fact that it seems like our forces are basically being held at the whim of Muqtada al Sadr.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 02:58 PM) Limbaugh can apologize the same day apparently, unlike Kerry. Limbaugh didn't apologize until like 3 days later. The day after, he said he'd apologize if he was wrong, and the media reported that as an apology. 3 days later when he did apologize for saying Fox was off his medication, he also alleged that Fox had taken too much medication in order to make himself look worse for the ad.

Kerry's next attempted apology (written statement version)

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 12:54 PM) If only I had seen your post, then I may have occupied the last 15 minutes of my life with something more useful. As far as I can tell, having a player be arbitration-eligible is basically the same thing as the team having an option on him...the team basically gets to decide whether they want him back or not. The only difference is he might become even more expensive in arbitration, since contracts don't go down there.

George W. Bush was so absolutely outraged by Mr. Limbaugh's statements about a man suffering from a horrific disease that he was a guest on Mr. Limbaugh's show today. The Words "Michael J. Fox, Stem Cells, Parkinsons disease", etc. all somehow managed to not come up in the conversation at all.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 11:19 AM) Here's the dilemma dealing with Minaya -- he'll likely demand Vazquez for a significant package. Anyone seriously believe Williams would trade him when you consider Garcia's impending FA status? It either comes down to New York paying more for an additional year of Javier, or paying less for one season Garcia. All extension talk aside. Only condition I'd consider trading Vazquez is if Heilman AND Pelfrey are included. If we're losing one of our best pitchers, it better be worthwhile. Minaya doesn't like it he can overpay for Zito or offer less for Garcia and negotiate an extension. If I understadn the deal correctly, Vazquez only has 1 more guaranteed year on his contract as well, and 2008 is an option year...an expensive option also. Such that the White Sox may find some benefit in actually moving him instead of having no choice but to pick up something like a $12 million option for a 5th starter.

His manager was also the insane guy running the South Side organization.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Nov 1, 2006 -> 11:55 AM) Roto is saying it hasn't been confirmed as steroids. MLB suspended RHP Guillermo Mota 50 games for violating the joint drug prevention and treatment program. The statement didn't say whether it was steroids. If it was, it would explain how his velocity, which had been down in Cleveland, suddenly climbed upon his signing with the Mets. Mota, a free agent, was set for a nice payday after such a successful run in New York, but he may have to settle for an incentive-laden one-year deal now. The suspension will take effect at the beginning of next season. As I understand it, MLB's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program has different suspension levels for different things. Failing to take a required test gives a 15 to 25 day suspension, using specific prohibited substances (non-steroids) gives a 15 to 30 day suspension, and a steroid positive test will give 50 days (all on the first test). So in other words, if I'm reading this policy correctly, 50 days = positive steroid test. Other banned substances do not start off at 50.

So, I'm not yet sure whether or not this is a big deal, but it's probably worth noting. A little over a week ago, a U.S. soldier was kidnapped somewhere in Iraq. The U.S. military responded by basically closing off Sadr city, the Shi'ite slums in Baghdad controlled by the Madhi army. The U.S. held that area basically under seige for a week, undertaking searches, keeping the Madhi Army indoors (which may have allowed a few large bombs to go off in that area), and so on. Well, yesterday, Iraqi P.M. Maliki finally got fed up and ordered the U.S. to remove the checkpoints and the blockade. And, without having found the captured soldier (or the other death squad leader they were reportedly looking for) the U.S. agreed and lifted the seige. So, again, I'm not sure at all that it's the wrong thing to do to lift the seige, but if the U.S. genuinely believes that a captured U.S. soldier is being held somewhere in that area, didn't we just cede control over U.S. security and forces to another country? Full WaPo link.