BigSqwert

Amazing how much racism and hatred there is among fellow soxtalkers.

Anyone know how long the pre-order price will be available before they sell for regular price? Is it up until the item is available?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2280623 CHICAGO -- Chicago Cubs pitcher Mark Prior voided the final year of his contract, making him eligible for salary arbitration. The right-hander's agent, John Boggs, said Wednesday that Prior notified the team of his decision on Nov. 29. Prior's deal, agreed to in 2001 after he was drafted, allowed him to void the contract after 2004 or 2005, but only if he had accumulated enough service time to be eligible for arbitration. He just missed having enough service time after 2004. His first contract had called for a $2.75 million salary next year, and he will earn far more because of arbitration. Prior went 11-7 in 2005, posting a 3.67 ERA. The 25-year-old had 188 strikeouts against 59 walks in 167.2 innings of work. Prior has only topped the 200-inning mark once in his career, and that was in 2003.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 03:43 PM) Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans expect 2006 to be a good year along with 49% of Democrats. Wonder how excited Republicans will be after this Abrahamoff disaster. From everything I have read it looks like mostly Republicans will look bad after this is all said and done.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 06:01 PM) ThinkProgress has a very nice, succinct, yet detailed summary of almost all of the tentacles of this scandal. Great site. CNN mentioned it earlier tonight while I was on the treadmill at the gym.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:09 PM) That's probably accurate, and I'd say that it probably won't go higher than that, even if they win 99 games again. What's the season ticket-holder base projected to be? Maybe 20,000? They'd need to average 37,000/game to get 3 million. Something tells me that they won't average 17,000 walk-ups per game. Season tickets are around 20K right now. Then you have single game ticket pre-sales. After that you factor the walkups. We had about 12 sell-outs last year. I'm sure there will be at least 15-20 this year.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 12:50 PM) Thanks for the answer!

QUOTE(Steff @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 12:19 PM) If they don't know already they they are idiots. Is the game 2 ring ceremony an official announcement or rumor? I forgot.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 1, 2006 -> 05:45 PM) the NSA seems to have been willing to share the info obtained by these intercepts with a wide variety of other federal agencies, just as was done back in the 70's before Congress created the FISA courts. Big deal. As long as you have nothing to hide why would you care?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Dec 29, 2005 -> 10:28 AM) For the 10 cents its worth. BRUUUUUUUUUCE Levine stated that there is a lot of interest in Contreras, and that he thought the Phillies had Abreau on the table for Contreras at one point. Now conjecture and bulls*** aside, Contreras pitched like a number 1 for the second half of the season and into the playoffs. A team would give up a lot of this type of pitcher. If we do dump Contreras and people believe he has finally turned the corner, man if Abreau is on the table, what else is on the table. I don't know. Would be cool to get a stud in return for Jose but I'm not sure how many teams will give up a lot for a guy who will be a FA after this season. If we can do a sign and trade that's another story.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 03:23 PM) I just don't see us going with a 6 man rotation. Our bullpen needs help and we have an arm to spare. K Dubs is not done. I think you're right.

QUOTE(ChWRoCk2 @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 03:15 PM) Mccarthy still could use some more games out of the bullpen, i dont think hes ready right now He really started hitting his stride during his last stint from AAA.

I still would rather have Bmac in the rotation over Vazquez. Now it looks like that won't happen.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 28, 2005 -> 03:00 PM) BTW, just my two cents, but this makes me hate the Vazquez trade now. Any chance KW moves Jose now or does a sign and deal with Jon?

I kind of like being under the radar like last year. The team that makes the best moves each year (according to the experts) ususally doesn't wind up being the best team. But I won't complain about the moves we've made so far.

I grew up watching Ozzie play but I honestly can say I don't think he is hall of fame material. Maybe after the three-peat he can get in as a manager?

OBAMA!!!

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 25, 2005 -> 01:13 PM) The President and the DOD now admit they've been spying on thousands of people in this country for simply exercising their constitutional rights. Oh snap kapkomet, I guess it's a little more than 4 people after all.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 25, 2005 -> 01:22 AM) "THOUSANDS"? Yea. Whatever. And why the Quakers? Seriously. Why? Seeing that you actually have the list on who is being wiretapped and it only has 4 people on it I guess I should apologize. Also, I wasn't the one who brought up the Quakers so I cannot respond to that.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 24, 2005 -> 05:37 PM) Now how have YOU personally lost your rights again? Why do you insist on a selfish perspective like that? "How does it affect ME as an individual? Because if it doesn't affect me personally than I don't care. Who cares if it affects thousands of other law-abiding Americans because I only matter." Great attitude!

Great article from The Nation. Posted on 12/20/2005: The Hidden State Steps Forward Jonathan Schell When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the National Security Agency to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens without seeking court permission, as is indisputably required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978, he faced a decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He admitted it. But instead of expressing regret, he took full ownership of the deed, stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had in fact renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it and--going even more boldly on the offensive--that those who had made his law-breaking known had committed a "shameful act." As justification, he offered two arguments, one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The derisory one was that Congress, by authorizing him to use force after September 11, had authorized him to suspend FISA, although that law is unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has Bush informed the members of a supposedly co-equal branch of government of what, unbeknownst to themselves, they were thinking when they cast their vote. The alarming argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses "inherent" authority to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA at his whim and in secret, then what law can he not suspend? What need is there, for example, to pass or not pass the Patriot Act if any or all of its provisions can be secretly exceeded by the President? Bush's choice marks a watershed in the evolution of his Administration. Previously when it was caught engaging in disgraceful, illegal or merely mistaken or incompetent behavior, he would simply deny it. "We have found the weapons of mass destruction!" "We do not torture!" However, further developments in the torture matter revealed a shift. Even as he denied the existence of torture, he and his officials began to defend his right to order it. His Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, refused at his confirmation hearings to state that the torture called waterboarding, in which someone is brought to the edge of drowning, was prohibited. Then when Senator John McCain sponsored a bill prohibiting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, Bush threatened to veto the legislation to which it was attached. It was only in the face of majority votes in both houses against such treatment that he retreated from his claim. But in the wiretapping matter, he has so far exhibited no such vacillation. Secret law-breaking has been supplanted by brazen law-breaking. The difference is critical. If abuses of power are kept secret, there is still the possibility that, when exposed, they will be stopped. But if they are exposed and still permitted to continue, then every remedy has failed, and the abuse is permanently ratified. In this case, what will be ratified is a presidency that has risen above the law. The danger is not abstract or merely symbolic. Bush's abuses of presidential power are the most extensive in American history. He has launched an aggressive war ("war of choice," in today's euphemism) on false grounds. He has presided over a system of torture and sought to legitimize it by specious definitions of the word. He has asserted a wholesale right to lock up American citizens and others indefinitely without any legal showing or the right to see a lawyer or anyone else. He has kidnapped people in foreign countries and sent them to other countries, where they were tortured. In rationalizing these and other acts, his officials have laid claim to the unlimited, uncheckable and unreviewable powers he has asserted in the wiretapping case. He has tried to drop a thick shroud of secrecy over these and other actions. There is a name for a system of government that wages aggressive war, deceives its citizens, violates their rights, abuses power and breaks the law, rejects judicial and legislative checks on itself, claims power without limit, tortures prisoners and acts in secret. It is dictatorship. The Administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form. Until recently, these were developing and growing in the twilight world of secrecy. Even within the executive branch itself, Bush seemed to govern outside the normally constituted channels of the Cabinet and to rely on what Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff has called a "cabal." Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported the same thing. Cabinet meetings were for show. Real decisions were made elsewhere, out of sight. Another White House official, John DiIulio, has commented that there was "a complete lack of a policy apparatus" in the White House. "What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm." As in many Communist states, a highly centralized party, in this case the Republican Party, was beginning to forge a parallel apparatus at the heart of government, a semi-hidden state-within-a-state, by which the real decisions were made. With Bush's defense of his wiretapping, the hidden state has stepped into the open. The deeper challenge Bush has thrown down, therefore, is whether the country wants to embrace the new form of government he is creating by executive fiat or to continue with the old constitutional form. He is now in effect saying, "Yes, I am above the law--I am the law, which is nothing more than what I and my hired lawyers say it is--and if you don't like it, I dare you to do something about it." Members of Congress have no choice but to accept the challenge. They did so once before, when Richard Nixon, who said, "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal," posed a similar threat to the Constitution. The only possible answer is to inform Bush forthwith that if he continues in his defiance, he will be impeached. If Congress accepts his usurpation of its legislative power, they will be no Congress and might as well stop meeting. Either the President must uphold the laws of the United States, which are Congress's laws, or he must leave office.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 24, 2005 -> 04:43 PM) YOUR rights won't be taken away. They already have been. Whether it is me specifically, which I will never know, or another American citizen, our rights have already been violated. What part of that don't you get?

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 24, 2005 -> 12:24 PM) If people of Polish ( Im Polish ) descent were known to be plotting and committing acts of terrorism then I would have absolutely no problems with Law Enforcement profiling Polish people. If they ran my record they'd see Im a card-carrying Republican, NRA member, military guy and go "next". Wait, I just thought of something, every time a polak gets behind the wheel of a car he commits an act of terrorism. Seriously though, if people would stop whining about Law Enforcement and just co-operate with them then life would be a lot easier. Some people here make it sound like Law Enforcement has nothing better to do than harass people just for the sake of harassing them. Just seems anti-American to support the government s***ting all over the constitution and violating our civil rights. Thousands of good Americans died for us to have those rights and now we could care less about them.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 10:10 PM) If the shoe fits... If they listen to someone who's innocent once, and nothing comes of it, I bet that's done and over. If you have nothing to hide, it doesn't matter much. You would have loved Communist Russia. Sounds like your kind of place. They'd even check your mail for you before you had a chance to read it. But as long as you had nothing to hide no problem. Better yet, why don't you let me listen in on all of your phone conversations starting today? Just in case. You never know who's a terrorist. I want to be able to help my country whenever I can. You don't have a problem with that do you?

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 23, 2005 -> 03:21 PM) Im so sick of hearing about racial profiling. I look at it as common freekin sense. If the people who are committing terrorism are young Middle Eastern males then it makes sense to focus your investigations on them. Same goes for Young Black Males and random acts of criminality. Im sorry if it looks bad but thats just facts of life. I wonder how gung ho you would be if instead of Middle Eastern American males they were targeting the males of you or your family's ethinicity. Might not be as dissmissive and apologetic about wire taps and the like.