NorthSideSox72

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 02:32 PM) Up next: Caucus in Wyoming (Obama owns caucuses) and the Mississippi primary (Do i need to explain that one?) Yeah, the more I look at it, the next 4 states... WY (3/8) MS (3/11) PA (4/22) Guam (5/3) All look pretty darn good for Obama. PA will be a dogfight, but he should dominate the other states. Then after that on 5/6 are NC and IN - Obama should take NC (barring an Edwards endorsement of Clinton), and Clinton will take IN.

On Tuesday March 4th, the following primaries are up... Texas (193 delegates) Ohio (141) Rhode Island (21) Vermont (15) Big day all around. Polls are close in Ohio and closer in Texas. NSS's predictions... Texas: Obama +3 Ohio: Clinton +5 RI: Clinton +3 VT: Obama +20 Clinton's smarmy scare tactic ads give her a little bump, making TX really close, and allowing her to take Ohio. Obama manages to still win Texas (barely), wins big in VT. Rhode Island is a close race. Depending on how the caucus part of TX falls out, these results are a near-draw in terms of delegates. Clinton stays alive.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) Actually if she won both big that would pretty much make it a tie. A tie with momentum in her corner - that would make her the presumptive frontrunner. I doubt either one wins anything BIG tomorrow anyway. They will be close races. In fact, what the heck, I'll start a Texas/Ohio thread and put my picks in there.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 02:29 PM) Now, as I said before, if Clinton wins both tomorrow, then all bets are off, again. And while I'm not quite the conspirist that AngelsDaddy is, when Clinton clean sweeps this thing tomorrow, it might be Obama that loses 11 in a row. If Clinton wins both, she can stay in. But it doesn't exactly make her the frontrunner. Obama will win VT big, and RI will be close. Then there is Mississippi, where Obama is bound to do quite well, and then there is a month-long gap. That's a war of attrition. And Obama was far more cash to win that war with. Clinton needs to win both to stay alive. She'd have to win both BIG to be the frontrunner.

QUOTE(ChiSox_Sonix @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 01:57 PM) BA's certainly getting a lot of PT to prove himself early on Him, Uribe, Crede... all being showed off for trade.

Latest non-Zogby, non-ARG and non-Fox polls that have at least 500 respondants for TX and OH (per request)... TEXAS... Rasmussen (3/02, 710 LV) Obama: 48% Clinton: 47% Survey USA (3/01-3/02, 840 LV) Obama: 49% Clinton: 48% WFAA/Belo (2/28-3/1, 730 LV) Obama: 46% Clinton: 46% M-D Star Telegram (2/27-29, 625 LV) Obama: 46% Clinton: 45% So basically, Texas is really, really, really close. Obama might have a very slight lead, but its statistically insignificant. OHIO... Rasmussen (3/2, 858 LV) Clinton: 50% Obama: 44% Survey USA (3/1-2, 873 LV) Clinton: 54% Obama: 44% Quinnipiac (2/27-3/2, 799 LV) Clinton: 47% Obama: 43% Plain Dealer (2/27-29, 625 LV) Clinton: 47% Obama: 43% So Ohio, Clinton has a lead somewhere in the 4 to 6 point range (then there is the S USA outlier), so I'd say that's pretty narrow.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 09:55 AM) The county does more things than people give it credit for. If you go to "City Hall", 50% of it is county. Places like the Cook County Recorder, Cook County Hospital, etc are all paid with County money. The Cook County court system (not just the jails but the entire system) is paid by Cook County. And I really dont think people who live in Kenilworth, Wilmette, consider themselves to be part of Chicago, and I really doubt that they will be moving to Indiana in the near future. You talk about Old Orchard, but look at Northbrook Court. Its built on Lake Cook Road, but on the Cook side therefore meaning that it has higher sales tax. The nicer car dealerships are on the Cook County side (Cadillac, Bentley) when they could easily move 2 blocks north and have their customers play Lake County sales tax... People pay a premium to live in Cook County, they are free to move if they dont like it. A lot of of the county services can and should be fee-based for cost. I am not talking about law enforcement here, since that wouldn't work - but all the other adminstrative crap. If it costs X dollars to get some given document from the recorder, that is what it should cost in user fees. If the hospital cannot operate on a balanced budget, then they need to restructure or get out of the business.

QUOTE(bmags @ Mar 2, 2008 -> 09:44 PM) So when the police are graded on how many cases they can get to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor on how many he can convict, how many times is good police work circumvented in way of career ambitions? just a thought... I can't speak for departments everywhere, but I can say that its been my experience around a number of them that they are not graded on "how many cases they can get to the prosecutor". That would be a dangerous precedent for exactly the reasons you highlight. Now, maybe you could grade cops on how many of the cases they DO send up actually get a conviction or plea deal, versus how many are thrown out or lose in court. But even that would probably not be very fair.

Well this is hands-down one of the most disgusting threads I've seen in a while.

QUOTE(AngelasDaddy0427 @ Mar 2, 2008 -> 10:17 AM) Apparently it's all over the net. Obama really did contact the Canadians and the CTV story was completely true... This is the nail in the coffin for Obama. He was a huge underdog before that this make it impossible. Your posts remind me of someone. Who was that Iraqi, Saddam's guy who would go on the TV during the invasion and tell everyone that Iraq was winning...

The worst part is that its the County. The taxes that go to the state or the city, though still somewhat wasteful, at least goes to worthwhile services more often than not. The county, other than the jails, provides almost nothing of use for that tax money. What they do put money into could be done by private industry soooooo much more efficiently.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 07:58 PM) What manager hits & runs with an 0-2 count and a windmill at the plate? Dude. ITS SPRING TRAINING! This is where players try all kinds of stuff to get ready for the season. Its why it has "training" in the title.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 04:25 PM) Thats why I am so harsh with my comments. For me, this isn't the 1st time he has been bad in Spring. In the intersquad game he hit the backstop once, Eldred ripped a double off him, MIGUEL NEGRON had a real solid basehit off him, and Cole Armstrong took him to the warning track. He was incredibly wild, and behind in almost every count. He looks EXACTLY like he did in 2007, which isn't going to work for this club. The bullpen has been upgraded this winter(on paper at least). He no longer is needed to be a set up man. Unless an injury happens, you already pretty much have locks for the pen in Jenks-Dotel-Linebrink-Thornton-Logan. IMO Wass should be a total lock, but the Sox don't seem to feel that way, so you probably have the last two spots coming down to Wasserman/Masset/Macdougal/Broadway. I'll take Wasserman for the short work in the 6th and 7th, and Broadway for long work. I agree completely. If MacD makes this team over Wassermann, I will not be happy. I just fear that, because he's experienced and expensive, they'll keep MacD around.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 04:19 PM) There is no way he should make this squad, and you could say that before the Spring. If anyone needed to come out strong out of the gates this spring it was Mac, and he has totally s*** the bed. Didn't you say a few days ago that he looked pretty bad in intrasquad too?

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 03:59 PM) It's not. The markets took a beating today. Actually it is - look at the S&P. The ticker says it dropped 90% of its value. It wasn't THAT bad a day.

Quentin with his first hit for the Sox, Uribe with a double to score him and Liefer - 4-0 Sox.

MacDougal in to pitch. THis should be interesting. I'll be very curious to hear Tony's description of his inning.

I was just happy to see MB appearing to have no ill effects from his soreness. 2 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K. Stats aren't too important, but it appears he is at least healthy.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 03:18 PM) How should I describe the CDS market then? Put a value on it. You can't. You could take a flyer on it... figure an appoximate categorized breakdown of the grades of instruments and indicies into percentages of the total notional, break the notional out to those segments, apply the expected attributable default rate for each rating level to each notional segment, then re-add the resulting values to a sum. That gives you the amount of expected risk exposure. And that is more relevant here than actual "value", since valuation is so vague in the world of swaps anyway. That risk number gives you an idea of the par value of the defaulted instruments that are likely to result in an exercise of the contingent put leg of the swap. Furthering that, you can probably figure that some of those puts will not properly cash settle as swap receivers fail to deliver. That's where swap clearing houses, just now coming on to the scene, come into play. CME has one going live shortly, I believe. It provides mitigation of that risk, and that's the next thing you'll see - swaps will started to be cleared via these entities. That will take the risk down further. So you see, the CDS exposure and lack of regulation is indeed a bit scary, but its not the looming global economy-killer you characterize it to be.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 03:08 PM) i dont loathe the man... i'm in his freaking camp now. i wouldn't be if i loathed him. and it's scary because they care about him for all the wrong reasons. and he knows that, and he manipulates that. look, i'm not saying that i'm worried that Obama will turn out to be satan in disguise, i'm saying that this kind of mentality is scary in GENERAL. I'm applying it to the whole, not just specifically Obama. What do you mean "care about him for all the wrong reasons?" What are the wrong reasons, in your estimation?

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 02:15 PM) http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6497/garfieldhf9.jpg I don't know why, but, the one that starts with "There's something wrong with my pants" has me in laughing fits now. Its just too funny.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 02:38 PM) no. no i didn't. i believed in the guy and i worked for him but it was because of his ideas/policies/etc - not because he was a great speaker and he didn't use emotionally charged language to rile people up like a preacher and he didn't have this kind of, like i said, fanatical devotion. Dude, seriously... Edwards spoke very much like a preacher in his stump speeches. A different kind of preacher maybe than Obama, but still... the whole son-of-a-millworker schtick and talking about wronging rights? He did very much the same stuff. He just wasn't as successful with it.

I personally love the fact that Obama, and for that matter Clinton and other candidates, are getting so much attention this year. And I love that the voter turnout has been so huge. I mean, I think its excellent that so many people are so passionate about politics, which is one heck of a lot more important than a lot of the other B.S. that people are usually fanatical about. Why people are put off by this is beyond me. Now, if you are talking about BLIND faith, that's different. But don't fool yourselves into thinking that because someone is passionate about a candidate, that means they must be following them blindly. I am sure that is sometimes the case, and sometimes not.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 01:58 PM) You can't be serious with that number can you? See my response to him. The $50T might be the "notional" value total - the total value of all instruments being protected via a CDS contract. Saying that there is $50T of exposure in CDS' out there is like saying that the total par value of all bonds is the same as exposure to them. Its not at all accurate.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Feb 29, 2008 -> 01:45 PM) Nearly $50 trillion CDS CDO and levered loans out there. Try to avoid the boulder folks. You keep using that number for CDS', but its completely misleading. That's the NOTIONAL exposure. Even worst case, only a very small number of the bonds being protected will default and see a contingent action resulting in exercise. So the REAL exposure is a much, much smaller number.