Balta1701

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 11:24 AM) Sorta my point, fewer people are working, yet the economy is doing "great." I don't know that I would see it that way. Actually, I would disagree slightly...thanks to a year of job growth, albiet sluggish growth, there are actually more people working now than there were before the recession. Whether or not there's a higher percentage of the workforce employed...well, that's a matter to discuss with those heavily distorted unemployment percentages I've ripped on before. The reason why there are surprisingly few people who would say that the economy is doing "Great" is that over each of the past several years, the median income in this country has decreased (started in like 99-00 I believe). What that means is that if you take the person who has 50% of the U.S. population earning less than him, and 50% earning greater than him, each of the last few years, that exactly average person has made less money than the year before, even without adjusting for inflation. This basically means that percentage wise, there are more people making lower amounts of money every year of the last 6 than there were the year before. So on average, the lower income people are winding up slightly worse off every year...and when you throw in inflation into that mix, it looks even worse.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 12:42 PM) 221 IP 18 Wins 86 ER 47 BB 3.50 ERA - 26 years old 223.2 IP 21 wins 86 ER 43 BB 3.48 ERA- 32 years old One of these players just won the Cy Young award, the other just got locked up for below market price. And the below market price one was about 1 home run by Garret Anderson, or 1 or 2 more good games away from making a real challenge for that Cy Young award too. Oh, and he gets a pretty ring.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 11:16 AM) What would be interesting to find out is if the Sox and Contreras are still negotiating an extension. Well, like a week ago supposedly all negotiations between Garland's people and the Sox were completely shut down, so about the only way you're gonna learn that fact is to mind-meld with Kenny.

The Baltimore sun is reporting this is done...

QUOTE(quickman @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 10:43 AM) Your right dick, and I humbly say I am was wrong. Money talks and now the sox are over budget. anyone think Mcarthy will now be traded? If that happens, we better be getting one of the top 5 players in baseball back. I'll be absolutely furious if he is traded, unless he's having some sort of arm problems we don't know about. I'd rather have lost Konerko, Garland, or Buehrle than trade BMac.

Does anyone else think that this suggests KW may seriously be considering running a 6 man rotation for at least a month or so?

Best part of this news: No more Garland trade threads! Worst part: Bring on the Contreras Trade threads! Oh, and in the eyes of my fiancee, our team just got a lot "cuter" for next year. I'm not sure if that's good or bad yet.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 10:32 AM) OK,not that I agree with this or actually think it is going to happen, but with KW you never know, does he completely blindside everyone and decide as a lefty he has zero chance to resign MB and he trades him? If it brings us back Pujols, I'm game. Otherwise...well, I never thought KW could give me a reason to burn him in effigy... Otherwise, I think this may massively help us in resigning MB just because it keeps the staff together longer.

QUOTE(Felix @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 10:27 AM) I really didn't see this coming. This means that McCarthy is likely pitching out of the pen.. something I don't really want to see, especially because I don't think Garland will pitch as well as he did last year. Oh well, time will tell I guess. It is a bargin considering the current pitching market. Brandon McCarthy WILL be in the starting rotation next year. You may hear wierd reports about a hostage situation in spring training involving Ozzie or Cooper, but it will be done.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 10:22 AM) I'm pretty sure you can trade a new FA signee before either May 1 or June 1 of the next season. Don't you mean "You can't"?

YES! Thank you KW. Our pitching staff is in tact for at least 2 years. I'm overjoyed. Even though we now have 6 starters. And that's I think a pretty fair number for JG considering what other pitchers have been getting...in a few years it'll look like a bargain. Now KW just needs to figure out what to do with that 6th starter (Vazquez for someone else's middle infield prospect?) and make sure Mark Buehrle is signed through 2020.

It is worth a lot if the Sunnis and Allawi's Shi'ites listen to the U.N. I doubt they will, but if it gives even 1 of them a reason not to fight us...

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 05:59 PM) Oh, I agree 100%. But boy, the bashers are sure quick to say (our current president) is the "WORST EVER". And there was of course no one who ever said that same thing about Clinton Clearly it looks like the usage of that phrase has become more common in the last few years, but compared to Bush 1, the Clinton Administration saw its usage go through the Roof, and Bush 2 has seen increases beyond that. Some of that, of course, may be the result of the proliferation of Media over the last few years as the internet grows, and there are probably a dozen other things to control for, but people were certainly saying it about Clinton too.

There are a few other possible considerations too...the U.N. fund in question was composed of $590 million in donations, altogether there was something liek $15 billion guaranteed and $12 billion delivered in tsunami aid, it's very likely that the U.N. would have had a hand in organizing how other aid was delivered...whether or not those funds came from other donations I don't know, but that's one logical thing to consider. There are, as noted above, other questions about what could be considered "Administrative" costs...i don't know about identifying bodies, but keeping casualty lists, organizing shipments of supplies to remote regions, organizing donor conferences, all those things could be considered potential administrative costs as well. And 18% would not be good, but it would not be horrific either. For example, the Christian Children's fund, the one you hear about whenever you watch commercials on the History Channel, spends something like 15-20% of their donations on administrative costs. The Salvation Army is somewhere in teh same range. 33% would be pretty damn inefficient if they were only doing the exact same sorts of things as the other charities, but then again, I still don't have a good answer as to what they're administering.

First of all, if you want to appear credible on this, at least learn how to spell "Tsunami". It's not that hard of a word to look up. Secondly, Here is a source for the article, from UPI. Also wasn't hard to find. Third, the UPI article says it's somewhere between 18 and 32%, not firmly 1/3, I don't know what the FT article says because you didn't excerpt it, and I don't have a subscription.

QUOTE(TLAK @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 04:28 PM) Did they say if it was his picture or his fingerprints?

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 04:16 PM) ........and 1979. Just ask my dad who still b****es and complains about it. Nuke is correct here, there was another set of shortages in 79...I believe they were caused in large part by the revolution in Iran essentially shutting off that nation's production (correct me if I'm wrong).

QUOTE(qwerty @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 01:43 PM) I fully believe curry would have not lasted here past this season either way... healthy or not. Curry did not want to be here and skiles clearly didn't like him. That is a combination that doesn't work very well. Plain and simple paxson needed a back up plan that is not malik allen. Well, that's not what I'd consider the biggest problem...if Pax had done a sign and trade with Curry, but the heart condition had never occurred...he'd have been coming off his best season since he was drafted, looking like a near all-star at tiimes in scoring in the paint, and being a big, solid guy. How many teams would have given up a lot more than we gave up to get a guy like that on their team?

Has anyone given any thought, when discussing Paxson, to the fact that one of Pax's biggest scoring threats from last year, and one of his key players, suddenly came down with a totally unexpected heart condition, which dramatically reduced the amount of size and depth we had inside, and may have set us back a full year in building a team?

QUOTE(robinventura23 @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 11:36 AM) So now the question is...can we scratch Texas off the list of potential teams Garland will be traded to? If I were them, I'd still be looking to add starting pitching, but they may very well think they're set with Eaton and Millwood fronting that rotation and their series of bats. They may be right too, with the Angels still treading water they may have a shot at that division, if people on Oakland keep having injury problems.

A truly fair and balanced poll from Fox News.

QUOTE(spiderman @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 11:39 AM) I hear too that the program isn't good, but the people who tell me this are so far left, they wouldn't give Bush credit for anything. Saying that, can you expand on what's wrong with the program ? Are there any good things in it ? What specifically needs to be fixed, etc ? Thanks! Well, one obvious thing implied by his post would have been to fully-fund the program and its mandates, but we're long since past the point where that would happen at the federal level. There are also a few other insane portions of that bill which I can already tell you need to be changed just from what I know about it...the bill for example requires something ridiculous like a 100% graduation rate by sometime about 10 years from now otherwise the schools will be classified as failing, that is obviously going to need to change. The point of NCLB was supposedly to try to fight against failing schools by forcing the schools to make their lowest level students pass or face losing funding. What this article seems to make clear, along with the rudimentary early data, is that schools are doing exactly that, but at the expense of all of their other students - if the entire goal is making sure a specified percentage of students graduate, then you just assume like 75% of your students will have no problem and focus all your extra resources on the ones at the margins where you can make a difference. The problem with that of course is that you hurt the 75% at the same time as you're helping the marginal ones that you wind up graduating. Is there a solution? I'm honestly not sure...there has to be a balance between spending resources on people at the top of their classes so that they're prepared to blaze their way through colleges and wind up leading fields in research and industry and trying to get everyone through high school, but I'm not sure where that balance is, and at least this early evidence suggests that NCLB is too focused on the lower end, to the point of doing actual harm to the upper end.

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 11:10 AM) No, no. That's good, constructive political analysis. Call Clinton a rapist -- that'll get people to change their minds, for sure. Whatever happened banning for unwarranted personal attacks? If I understood things correctly, that's why they created this new sub-forum, so that people could go off and be as nasty as necessary (within the obvious limits of course, no running around pantsless calling people fascists and saying they all mated with Bill O'Reilly on Christmas or anything like that)

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 11:01 AM) The Cubs bullpen is going to be much better than it was last season. As much as I dislike Pierre, he's still a much better leadoff hitter than anything they had last season. Tejada will absolutely destroy the ball at Wrigley, and it wouldn't shock me to see their 3-4-5 all hit between 35 and 40 homers. As much as I think Bedard's overrated, I've long thought that Prior's hype doesn't match his productivity. The Cubs pitching would keep them in games, but their offense would be extremely good next year. I would probably agree with Fathom that the Cubs offense could make things interesting next year if the deal went through as written up there, but that's only because I've spent the last 2 seasons being disappointed by Prior, and I'm at the point where I don't think the Cubs are going to get a full, solid season from him anyway. Getting Tejada and bedard basically for Prior and a little bit more would really be a steal for them, IMO. Edit: Let me add this too...if Carpenter, Rolen, and Edmunds manage to stay healthy for most of the season next year, then that division will be wrapped up in August, assuming of course that Albert stays healthy as well.

QUOTE(JimH @ Dec 27, 2005 -> 10:58 AM) Jason, what are you hearing on the Dodgers front? Anything in the papers? Are they going hard after Jeff Weaver or do you suspect something else? The LAT keeps saying that they want to add another starting pitcher and they are "Negotiating" with Boras, but they've gone no farther than saying Weaver is a possibility, and they always line up the other possiblities, from Garland to Billingsly, whenever they write about that 5th starter spot.