Balta1701

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 06:57 PM) Have to think about that for a bit. Somewhere in there, I think they have been brainwashed/rationalized their behavior for a greater cause as part of a "holy war". So it falls into a "gray" area as to what you define as "war". Like I said, need to think a bit about it. And there's my problem with that - this guy could, for whatever reason, have decided that he was doing the same thing. Standard white terrorist with easy to purchase weapons who wants a body count. Anyway, just makes it hard to draw the dividing line people want to draw. Much more grey than any easy answer - other than the commonality of a heavily armed guy.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:45 PM) In my opinion, depends on how you define it. You can have "mental illnesses" that create long-term issues, or you can (in my opinion), have events in your life that perhaps cause a drastic shift to your mental health which in my opinion could make you mentally ill. I separate conflicts of war from other scenarios because in that case, you are not being unique (presuming you are performing your act consistent with how a soldier should perform it). To just randomly murder other people is not a sane act and anyone that does such a thing clearly has a mental inbalance (at that point in time). A whole seperate question as to whether it should / could have been identified earlier and actions prevented. Lots of things unknown as it relates to this particular perpetrator. Would you describe the 9/11 hijackers or the Paris attackers as mentally ill? (nonsarcastic question).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:56 PM) Carlos Rodon has a career total of 55 2/3 IP in the minor leagues, including the 13+ he pitched down there this year. The fact that he has struggle with consistency is only a surprise in that it hasn't been MORE often, not how often it has happened. But, he had 100 more collegiate innings than Chris Sale. QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 04:28 PM) It seemed Rodon started to get his s*** together after he got passed the Spring Training portion of his season this year. I think next year he'd really take a leap forward if he's not broken. Unfortunately that's a big if at this point. Like I said earlier, I didn't see him having any evidence of getting his S*** together - I saw the same sort of occasionally dominant run we've seen down the stretch the last 2 years. But on August 26, he went out against Detroit, gave up 5 runs and a couple HR. A few weeks of occasional dominance when the slider is on, then bad games he can't overcome when he doesn't have his best stuff.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:32 PM) that's very heavily due to suicide rates, right? Link By that statement they're counting just violent crime, not including suicides.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:26 PM) I agree. Whether he had shown signs earlier is anyone's guess except those close to him, and there doesn't seem to be many of them, but he was 64, apparently had a successful career, and was living an easy life. If he was mentally ill for a long time he sure was able to hide it pretty well. and overcome. He doesn't seem to fit the profile, which is another scary thing. Depends on what you define as the profile. White Male who owns guns checks a lot of them. Also worth noting - people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of gun violence than the perpetrators of such violence.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:17 PM) Trump's a lousy guy but I thought he gave a nice speech today. Trump will find out the president has no control over s*** like this. Obama couldn't prevent this bulls***; neither can Trump. I disagree with your guys' harshness on a day like today. The world needs to be kinder, gentler. And have more silencers.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 03:12 PM) You seem like a good guy but that seemed to be a classless post on a day like this. Why post that? Trump is a prick and all that, but he doesn't want all those people killed by a gunman. As of right now, later this week the Republican Congress is scheduled to vote in favor of a bill that would have allowed this shooter more access to silencers. Imagine this except people can't tell which direction the gunshots are coming from because they're not as loud.

This is the 4th time since it was originally published in 2014 that the Onion has rerun this article verbatim, with the exception of changing out the city, casualty numbers, and photos.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 10:08 AM) The surgery obviously changes thing, but Rodon had a stretch where he was a true ace, shutting down 1st place lineups. He has had a similar stretch each of the 3 seasons he's been in the big leagues though. 2015 over his last 8 starts, 1.91 ERA. 2016 7 start stretch at the beginning of August - 1.85 ERA. To me he's still basically the same pitcher he came up as. When his "Stuff" is working he's absolutely dominant, but no pitcher ever maintains their fastball and slider through the entire season. Rodon gets into month-ish grooves when he has good control of both of them and maybe even the change tags along those games, but those stretches come when he's overpowering with stuff. No one can possibly say that pre-injury Rodon didn't have dominant stuff, he has as good of a slider as anyone in the game and a mid 90s fastball. He just doesn't have any way to win games on days when he doesn't have his dominating stuff.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 10:04 AM) The fact that he is 64 years old and has no criminal record at all is already a big overcoming of the typical odds in profile of this type of shooter. That's not how it's been described. It's a little vague but it sounds like there have been "incidents without convictions" - they've referred to him as being "Known to law enforcement". That would be consistent with something like domestic violence, which is often a common thread in these profiles.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 09:40 AM) Done deal, Mitch starts

A lot of promise from pitchers not named Rodon and a helluva trade for Quintana. A promising start for Moncada who looks better than I thought he'd look, a rough year for Anderson, a promising year for Garcia but not sure we want to keep him. Big league club seems to be running better than it was. No obvious signs of major improvement to how the minor leagues are run - guys are still being pushed aggressively and struggling for unexplained reasons.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 07:56 AM) No doubt they picked a poor lame duck QB. The top 2 WRs going down early didn't help him much though. Ironically, they probably coulda signed Kaepernick and a Terrell Pryor or Pierre Garcon and wound up with a far better setup for less money.

Struggling to process this one. Guy was shooting a high powered rifle out the window of Mandalay Bay 30something floor into a crowd across the street. I've stayed at that hotel. Would have had to reload multiple times and basically have an arsenal there. Deadliest mass shooting we've had yet, surpassing Pulse.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 29, 2017 -> 12:35 PM) An Alabama Senate race should not be this close, but Roy Moore is an unhinged fundamentalist lunatic so An organization founded by Moore hosted a couple "Secession day" celebrations at the facility they run in the last 10 years. His opponent prosecuted the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing culprits. It's 2017. The Secession Day guy is leading this poll.

The 2018 Republican Senate Budget Resolution removes the requirement that bills be scored by the Congressional Budget Office before they are voted on.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Sep 29, 2017 -> 11:23 AM) Moncada, Jimenez, and Robert (not to mention Rodon, Kopech, and Hansen) all have the potential to be that player, and all are already in the system. I hope the Top 5 pick the Sox get in this upcoming draft adds to that list. At this point I cannot tell you how disappointed and surprised I will be if Jiminez is not a monster.

So, Patriots fans gathering to burn Patriots gear is flag-burning right?

QUOTE (whitesoxjr27 @ Sep 28, 2017 -> 05:11 PM) What are your predictions for the cubs? I think one and done but i could be way off. They get the Nats in round 1 right? That's gonna be a heckuva series. The Cubs have been hitting the crap out of the ball and are back to having dynamite pitching since July 1. Post all star break they've scored the most runs in baseball and 2nd best ERA in the NL.

Do I do it? Yeah I'm doing it. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 10:49 AM) He certainly hasn't opened it up much or he wouldn't have even bothered warming up. This was a last second thing. Just remember how extra cautious the White Sox have been with injuries this season. If there was any hint of anything being wrong with Rodon prior to 20 minutes before last night's game, he wouldn't have even tried warming up. But the proof will be in the pudding. You will hear the MRI came up with nothing structural, but Rodon will be shelved for the time being. Anyway, counting on Rodon to contribute to the next White Sox competitive team right now is a gamble. Hopefully between Fulmer and Rodon we can at least get 1 starting pitcher out of those 2 drafts. I wonder if Rodon might be able to pull things together out of the bullpen, that slider might be really effective in short bursts.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 28, 2017 -> 09:03 AM) You think China prefers the s***storm to a stable but poor state? That they'd prefer sanctions to just being able to be their supplier? That makes zero sense. Of course they don't want a collapse, which is exactly why they might invade. Yes, I think they prefer this situation 100%. And their invasion of a nuclear armed country collapses the government and leaves the entire population immediately dependent on China for support and order assuming the Chinese army isn't vaporized, I think that's obvious.

I think your statement that NK isn't helpful to china if they cause global S*** storms is exactly the opposite of reality. We've had a great example over the past 6 months (and I think there's probably a post of me in the Trump thread from December saying this would happen). Donald Trump came into office all ready to declare China a currency manipulator and take other actions to limit trade with them. Donald Trump had an actual dictator challenge him to a d*** measuring contest, and the only way he could get that guy to back down was to deal with China. Donald Trump immediately dropped basically every challenge he was suggesting about trade with China because he had to win that D*** measuring contest. China doesn't want a collapse of the NK state, they don't want to deal with those refugees, and they are 100% happy to let the US come begging hat in hand to them to get stronger sanctions on the Korean government.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2017 -> 04:37 PM) The big problem is that his next two years are arb years and I can't see the Sox giving him a contract that respects those historicals, but still be able to front load a deal. If some odd principle of "respecting historicals" is their biggest priority, then they should trade him this winter for the best price they can get. He won't have higher value than he will with 2 years left under contract coming off a dominant season and we can always use the playing time to try other guys out. If such a rule is that important, then we can sign him to a 4-5 year deal after 2019 if he's still hitting then, or go after a comparable player on the FA market.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 27, 2017 -> 05:35 PM) There is a great tweet thread by a professor at UChicago where he dives into some of these concepts. I dont understand how they can be throwing out a plan like this while saying it will trickle down to the middle class and lower. People arent stupid enough to believe that right>? Like I said - if the Republicans try to actually remove deductions that are large enough to partially pay for these cuts, they will lose all their votes in Congress. That's why there are no details about how they'll balance the large tax bracket cuts by eliminating deductions. That's the essence of tax reform - you get some good and some bad. It's easy to announce the good, but you only actually have a plan if you also have a list of what you're going to take away. They don't have that. They don't have any legislative plan. It's 100% as easy as saying we'll cut health care costs and cover everyone via magic, or we'll create a national health care system starting tomorrow - unless you do the hard work of crafting a policy you have no plan. They have had a year to work on this, to answer the hard parts, and they don't have any of the hard parts except removing the state income tax deduction, which directly hits states represented by 50 House Republicans and is 1% of the amount they want to cut. They still have $5 trillion in tax increases they need to find to call this anything close to reform. That leaves 2 options. They cut taxes on everyone and go back to "Deficits don't matter" until January of (god willing) 2021 when suddenly the deficit will be crushing and hideous and awful again and totally the responsibility of Democrats to fix, or they'll fail to pass anything. In the former case, that's what Republicans usually do and usually want. The deficit is a horrible thing when it's a Demycrat deficit, but it's ok now since there's a Republican in office. (interestingly, since the Federal Reserve has raised rates with inflation missing the mark 6 years in a row, some additional deficit spending won't be that bad still. Not particularly effective in a stimulus sense since it would be giving money to people like Donald Trump who are terrible at business, but after 6 years of inflation being too low it would actually still push some job growth. Since they'd have to make it a 10 year tax break, in a few years it would probably go the other way and the Fed would raise interest rates to offset that growth, but it would speed us up getting to that point.).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2017 -> 04:39 PM) I can't imagine the line is very long to be Donald Trumps PR guy right now. I can't figure out how the line is long to be anyone in his administration, but that's assuming people are humans first. The guy who was in charge of this beautiful 9 page, detail-less document is Jewish and had to stand behind Donald Trump while he defended people chanting "Jews will not replace us", then put out a lovely statement about how hard it was to deal with that but getting true tax reform done was such a great priority for him that he was ok with a little Nazism. The end result is this document, and apparently Donald Trump was so mad about his statement that he cost himself a shot at a job on the Federal Reserve.