NorthSideSox72

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 02:37 PM) Here's hoping for another strong outing by Jose. Toby Hall making his spring debut. I actually liked what I saw from Armstrong. Still no JO... Ramirez 2b Cabrera SS Thome DH Kong 1B Swisher CF Dye RF Quentin LF Hall C No third baseman? Or maybe Fields and Crede will both be out there, with a leg tied together. I am glad to see that Ramirez is getting such a long look.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 02:05 PM) I'll agree with you on the NL/AL split, but I have to agree with him on the NLF West. Outside of San Francisco, that division is loaded with talent. I could hypothetically see the Padres competing if one or two of their reclamation projects (Prior?) turn out solid for them, but the other 3 teams are just stocked with ridiculous amounts of young talent. I think it's entirely possible that any of those 3 teams could step up this year and be good enough to hang with the best teams in the AL. As I said, I for some reason programmed Arizona into the Central in my head before. I was incorrect on that. The NL west is not as weak as I was originally thinking.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) Another ting to consider: Many say the "redos" would be in June. So, they'd be re-holding the elections on the last day of the primary season. By then, it will most likely be decided. SO, they will poor tons of money into redoing votes that largely will not matter! It won't be decided by then, actually. Neither candidate, barring something truly unexpected, is going to reach the number of delegates needed to win.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) Anyone that thinks Obama's close ties to this guy isn't going to influence the general election just isn't being realistic. For the record, I wasn't saying it wouldn't have an effect on the election. I was saying it wouldn't have an effect on ME. QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) If the whole mantra behind that church was those things, then you're dam right it reflects on you. I would hardly compare this pastor to some things you heard in a homily a few times. I would compare his church to that nutjob's church that protests the funerals and stuff. It seems the whole reason for it being is to preach hate. If I had a friend at either of these churches, they can both go f*** themselves. My point was that this isn't an organization built on those principles - its a church. There is an important distinction there, I'd say. What makes you think the whole reason for its being is to preach hate? And do you really think that Barack Obama, who has actually managed to do an admirable job of not talking about race unless spoken to about it, would spend 20 years attending a church with that as its sole purpose?

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:28 PM) I think Michigan, because they didn't actually have a real primary, will have a re-vote. Florida will not. However, given that Clinton admitted on NPR this week that she reneged on her pledge to not participate in the Michigan and Florida primaries, I don't feel that her delegates should be seated from those states until a consensus candidate is reached. It isn't just Michigan or Florida that broke the rules, she did too and there should be sanctions for it. So a re-vote in MI, and FL just doesn't get seated until there is a concensus candidate? Sounds OK, although I think some Floridians will be upset by that. Of course, they SHOULD be blaming their politicians who got them in that position, but their ire may effect the whole party.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:14 PM) Weak? The NL West? Are you serious? They have the Rockies, who were the 2007 NL Champs. The Diamondbacks, who won the division last year with 90 wins and added a young stud pitcher Dan Haren. And the Padres, who won 89 games in 2007. And weak league? Hardly. In 2007, there were 11 teams that won 88 or more games: 6 in the AL, 5 in the NL. The Giants finished 19 games out of 1st place last year, and there is no chance of them competing in 2008. They wasted their money on Rowand, and if they trade any young talent for Crede, who would amount to a 1 year rental, they are insane. Rockies will be pretty good, so will the D-Backs. I actually for some reason was thinking the D-Backs were in the Cental. But in any case, as I said, SF isn't going to just give up the ghost because they lack the bats to be a great team. People here seem to forget that - teams want to be competitive, even if they aren't likely to win a championship, because it puts people in the seats. And you seriously think that the NL isn't the weaker league?

Kudos to the US House for passing a surveillance bill that does NOT grant immunity to the telecoms. Glad to see they are willing to stick to their guns on something, instead of caving to a weak President. This was the right thing to do. Bush will veto of course, meaning that some of the tools the country needs to protect itself won't be available - Bush yet again weakening the country's defenses. 2009 cannot come soon enough.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 01:00 PM) He can say he profoundly disagrees with him. He'd be f***in insane to not say that. But still, he has followed this guy for 20 years. Why would you continue to follow someone who spews this kind of vitriol if you disagreed with it. Why would you have your kids introduced to this kind of speech? Forget about politics for a second. Forgot about Obama even. If you just had a black friend that attended this church for 20 years and you just heard these sermons from this guy now...would you not be like WTF???? Clearly you're buying what he's selling cause you continue to go there. OK, let's go with the friend scenario. Now, I've been to a lot of masses in my years. I was married in a Catholic church. And I can cite for you any number of things that were said in homily that I find detestable - sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. So, do those sermons reflect on me as a person? This would be a lot different if it were an organization whose themes included those things. But its not. Its not the KKK, or the Black Panthers... its a church. And I'd bet that 90% of what is said is stuff we'd all more or less be OK with.

Trib update on this says it was done for match-up purposes against CLE.

There's been an awful lot of talk in this campaign about how these candidates' acquaintances behave. There is this pastor... there is McCain's "spiritual advisor" and his inflammatory statements... but ultimately, if these people are not in the staff of the candidates, what control do they have over what they say? None, basically. So, how important are these sorts of things? Not very, I'd suggest.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 12:39 PM) I think something like this was proposed earlier, but here is my official MI / FL Delegate Solution: Split MI delegates 55-45 for Clinton. That 70 delegates for Clinton, 58 for Obama (Obama gets all the other delegates that did not voted for Hillary). Maybe even count each delegate as "half" for their punishment. Then take the FL delegates and count them for half as their punishment. Hillary gets 52.5, Obama 33.5, Edwards 6.5. I am not suggesting this as I still believe they should not count. But of all the solutions this is the easiest and most fair. Giving any sort of credence to the results of those two joke primaries would be a travesty for all involved, including FL and MI voters. MI didn't even have anyone on the ballot other than Clinton. Florida assumed it didn't count, and lots of folks voted in the GOP primary. At this point, I think they will both be re-done. I really doubt they "honor" any of the results as is. They'll re-do them, or split them 50-50, or leave the situation as is.

QUOTE(Disco72 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 12:32 PM) Does SF really need to make a deal? They are going to suck either way - why part with young talent (which I'd assume the Sox want) for a guy that probably won't make them better than a last place team. It seems SF only wants to trade their old talent, and there really isn't a fit for those guys on the Sox. SF made some offseason moves for not-young players, and they are in a weak division in a weak league. I think they figure, if they put a team out there that doesn't completely suck, they will be competitive most of the season. More butts in the seats.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 12:05 PM) How's this for financial planning? I moved out here in 2003, looked at the housing market, said to myself "There's no way this market is going to survive where it currently is" so I decided to rent instead of trying to invest in a condo. I've spent several tens of thousands in rent to live out here for several years...but looking at the median house price graph for this region, if I'd bought a condo 4 years ago, and was still holding it today, I'd have essentially no equity because all the money I'd have spent on paying down the mortgage would have been wiped out entirely by the price drop that's happened so far, and I'd be trying to sell the place to avoid being stuck in the "loan is more expensive than the condo" mess that people are getting in. Any additional price drop beyond about this point (and believe me, there will be more) would have knocked it down to the point where I'd have lost more money than what I've lost by renting for several years. The only way I could have done better would have been to buy a place in 04 and sell in 06, but that'd have been me gambling on being able to pick out the market peak before it cratered. Well, you made a smart call. We bought our place in the city in '04. Went up quite a bit, but somewhere late last year, it teetered, then has fallen back a bit. Still a net gain though, so we're fine. Our neughborhood is still growing a lot, so we are fortunate. We'll be buying a house later this year, probably, so we'll probably be disappointed with the sale, but do well on the purchase.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 12:04 PM) What do you mean by this? Well, it seems to me he's changed his affect a bit. Athomeboy brings up the fighter thing, but, I think that's only part of it - he has indeed responded to the attacks much more forcefully and bluntly lately. That's probably helping. But I meant something more than that too. If you see his public demeanor, he's taken on a different style. Less preachy, more to-the-point. Held held a little lower - more piercing in his gaze, less of the head-up analytical thing. Its subtle - not as dramatic as the various identities of Mrs. Clinton - but its still a definite change.

I'm not sure exactly the cause of this, but, if you look at the two tracking polls for the Dem nomination, you see some interesting trends. The Rasmussen 3-day tracking poll, had Obama with a very small lead, going into the 3/4 OH-TX-RI-VT primaries. His lead was in the 1 to 3 point range. Then after the results of 3/4, Clinton jumped ahead - by as much as 6 points (3 days after, in a 3 day poll). Since then however, not only has Clinton's lead vanished, but it appears that Obama is picking up an even larger lead then he had prior to 3/4. He now has an 8 point lead, according to them - which is as large as any lead he's had the entire race. Gallup's poll doesn't show as much of an Obama lead - just 2 points - but the same trend. Obama picking up steam shortly after the 3/4 results soaked in. Is this because of Ferraro? Or Mississippi? Or Clinton's tactics? Or has Obama's slight change in demeanor had an effect? No idea. But its interesting to see.

MB seems to go through this sort of thing every spring. I wouldn't be overly concerned.

On the housing portion of the economic mess... not surprisingly, California is seeing the biggest dips in prices. That market was so absurdly overinflated, this should come as a shock to no one.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 09:48 AM) CPI unch'd. OOOOKKKKKKK! Lower away BOOM BOOM! Looks like the gov't. is trying their damndest to keep BSC from falling into the mid 20's. SOLD! There seems to be a lot of buzz about Bear Stearns - like they may not survive without some sort of bailout. Interestingly, if they do indeed have major issues, that might bring to light some of that swap exposure you have been ranting about. They are a pretty big player in that space.

I think SF will eventually cave and give up Sanchez or something else a little more worthwhile. They need bats worse than the Sox need to get rid of Crede. And its not like there are a ton of options out there. Inge is the only other one, and DET isn't going to give him up for nothing either.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 14, 2008 -> 09:22 AM) Actually this is going to be way worse, because Japan had no inflation. But, unlike Japan's 20 year slow burning semi-recession, the US government actually has a chance to knock out one of the major catalyzing problems - energy costs. I can't say enough times how much I hope that our new leaders come November will realize this.

Even in the days since Clinton's win in OH and draw in TX, the superdelegates have been continuing to back Obama - 9-to-1 in his favor during that stretch. Clinton's lead in supers, once well above 100 before Iowa, continues to shrink. --- On a somewhat related note, if I'm in the Clinton or Obama campaigns right now, I am trying really hard to get Edwards to endorse and campaign in PA. The crowd he works best in, white working class, will probably be the difference maker there. Plus NC follows immediately after PA. And those 30 or so delegates that Edwards carries wouldn't hurt either.

Is Ferraro just a little mentally ill or something? Because reading this clip of her latest statements, she seems to be suffering from fairly acute paranoia, as well as projection. One could make an argument that her original comments weren't as evil as some people took them to be. But... she's now basically saying that it was Obama's fault, and that the Obama camp "engineered" the whole incident. Is she also losing her short term memory?

McCain challenges Dems to release their earmark details. Obama does so shortly after. Clinton referred questions to her Senate office, who hasn't responded. All three say they support the ban on earmarks. Clinton's earmark total in 2007 was 10th among the 100 Senators at $342M.

Should we enshrine people strictly based on their numbers? Of course not. Baseball isn't just numbers, why would the HOF be? Should we enshrine people who probably would have been HOFs before they started cheating? If they cheated, no. Should we enshrine people who are proven to cheat, but didn't admit it? No. Should we enshrine people who admit to cheating? No. Should we only enshirine people who we are as certian as possible did not cheat? Probably, but the whole case has to be taken into account.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 13, 2008 -> 01:24 PM) Is this directed at me? If so, you're spending yr sarcasm on the wrong person. Left or right, you have to consider that Venezuela is one of our major suppliers (behind Canada & Saudi Arabia). It's a pickle. Ideally, Congress and the next Presidential administration will work on energy policy so that we won't be in so many "pickles".