NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 28, 2015 -> 05:35 PM) But Caulfield, does any candidate excite you and make you all happy about the future? I'm a bit scared of Trump, but I tell you the economy is in such a shambles and almost everybody agrees there's no hope for ever having a boon again, I almost would be willing to let Trump try as a last resort. There's no $$$ in America; no prosperity right now, just exorbitant costs of everything with a serious illness threatening to wipe each one of us (except the totally wealthy) out. For some reasons corporations current goals are to pay one person -- the CEO -- about 40 million a year and pay everybody else pennies. What a weird country/world. Have you see his tax plan? Tax cuts for the poor, also tax cuts (big ones) for the wealthy. And his promised plan for how to cover the costs doesn't even come close to actually covering it, so really what he is suggesting is just "tax cuts for everyone!" without doing anything to cut spending or add revenue, so he just wants to run up giant deficits. That's not even touching on the fact that he spent all this time saying "hedge fund managers will hate me", then handed them a giant tax cut.

New videos posted to the YouTube channel, including Zangari, Zavala, Stephens, Feliz and others from the AZL. Here it is. AZL footage is hard to come by - MLB Pipeline asked our permission to use our videos and pictures from AZL for this reason. We are fortunate to have these, from Kim Contreras. One of the videos is the last out of the AZL Championship series. Nothing interesting prospect-wise, but kind of fun to watch the celebration. You can subscribe to the channel as well, and get an email whenever new stuff goes up. We should have some stuff from Great Falls soon as well. We now have video up of over 50 current White Sox prospects.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 28, 2015 -> 02:18 PM) i don't know, and i hope i am wrong but at this time, if it was a decision i had to make today, i would question the prospect of Trey being a everyday 3b at the majors. 2015 - avg 259 hrs 7 hits 123 k's 114 total ab's 474 http://www.baseball-reference.com/register...id=michal000tre but with his total ab, compared to hits and k's. plus add his homerun total not a good formula of what the fo expects from a everyday 3b. A few things to keep in mind... 1. Trey was 20 years old this year, making him 2+ years younger than the average player at his level 2. His K rate went down from 27.8% last year to 21.4% this year, a substantial drop 3. Power generally develops later, especially for prep signees like Trey, and he hit 35 doubles this year in 532 PA (vs 27 in 579 last year) so he's hitting the ball hard 4. His walk rate went up too, to a nice 9.4%. That's a good sign for a hitter who is quite young for his level. 5. Trey had just 56 games of rookie ball despite being a teenager and hitting just .236 there 6. I think you are significantly overestimating a major league average 3B. The average dude is somewhere around .750 in the majors, or a little below. He's been very challenged assignment-wise, yet he has improved pretty much across the board against much more mature competition. I am not saying he's a definite starting 3B in the majors, but indications are quite positive so far.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 28, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) ref Trey Michalczewski, i really hope that i am wrong, but i really don't see him improving on his hitting, esp hitting what is a typical power hitting position. like i said, i hope i am wrong. What makes you think that?

QUOTE (Dunt @ Sep 28, 2015 -> 09:16 AM) Shooting for that 8th pick. That will get you in range for a guy like Banks. There is virtually no way to tell what a given pick will get you in 2016. The key is to get to 10th or better so that your pick is protected. Beyond that, this far from the draft, the difference between 8th and 9th (for example) is near zero.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 25, 2015 -> 04:07 PM) How come Obama's presidency has been stock full of these government shutdown incidents? Growing old. Our country needs something good to happen. The pope's visit wasn't enough. This country is really in the doldrums right now economically and culturally. I just can't get over your bizarre takes lately. Obama's Presidency? This is Congress - which is even more dysfunctional than the White House. Nothing is even reaching the President's desk.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 25, 2015 -> 04:05 PM) I can stop, but I'm far from the only person questioning severely this whole thing. http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/25/clock-ki...ly-traumatized/ Do you seriously not understand the difference between "questioning" (which no one is criticizing), and simply saying "the hoax" the way you have as if it were fact? When there is still no actual evidence of such a thing? Saying it over and over doesn't make it more true.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 25, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) Not how the government retirement accounts work. Hm. It doesn't buy mutual funds?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 12:06 PM) Still not regretting this decision. Probably half the people who smoke will never have serious health problems as a result. Doesn't mean it was a good risk-reward decision. I'm glad you got lucky, but make not mistake, that is what happened. I'd buy back in right now if I were you. By the way, not sure if it is occurred to you, but your gains are only partially made by price increases. I assume you have stocks in your mutual funds that pay dividends? By selling, you'll lose at least one cycle of those dividends across the board.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 04:28 PM) A lot of smart people got fooled by the Ahmed hoax. The kid and his family wins, being on every talk show known to man. Remember, school rules may be awful but they are the same everywhere now. Remember the little kid accosted n suspended cause his pop tart looked like a gun? How bout the kid who wrote a story about shooting a dinosauer with a gun?? That kid was suspended and treated like a criminal. This is happening all over. This was a media creation story and Ahmed's 20 minutes of fame are slowing ticking away. He's close to being old news unless daddy does something stupid. http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/21/did-amer...-and-his-clock/ Again... zero evidence. None. Stop it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 02:31 PM) The Sox have an interesting road to make. From all indications there are a boat load of talented Cubans on the open market, or about to be. If they decide this is their year to blow through the caps (and if they are scouting EJM, they are at least thinking about it) they could absolutely load up their farm system in a hurry with talented young players. That's part of the story, but there is more to it than that. If you are going to blow through your limit, you need to make sure you have a BIG slate of talent who will sign if you do. What you absolutely don't want to do, is blow through on one guy, and miss out on the rest. That's the worst case scenario. So you not only need to make that decision, you need to have a bunch of deals reliably lined up before you make the leap.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 12:47 PM) Speaking of Cuban's, did Eddy Julio Martinez go back to Cuba or something? There was a ton of fire around him during the Jul 2 signings, and now nothing. EJM has been doing workouts with clubs for weeks now. I'd expect a signing soon, probably to a team already over their Intl limit for the year. But the Sox are still mentioned among the teams tracking him and interested. Outside shot probably, but not zero chance.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 11:48 AM) Statistically speaking, their fraud at best caused serious respiratory problems for a number of people and, odds are, resulted in some deaths. While I agree with the fairly well-proven theory that smog and fumes increase risk for those issues, I think it is an enormous stretch to pin blame for deaths on some one manufacturer of vehicles, even if they deliberately skirted the regulations. I think VW should be hit very hard, and they will be, but I certainly hope you aren't suggesting they be gone-after for some sort of homicide.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 03:50 PM) Great. Thanks! This may or may not help, but I once was in a house with extended family that they had built. It was on a pretty big property, and there was some solid bedrock pretty shallow under parts of the lot. When they had the foundation dug, the construction company pulverized the rocks they dug up, and basically made them into a conglomerate concrete, and just molded that to be their countertops. Adds some labor costs, but removes all the material costs, and gave them something that looked like a less-shiny terrazo with the toughness of concrete. Kind of a neat idea.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 10:11 AM) Fiorina didn't ruin HP. The end of the PC market ruined HP. The meme that she did it is lazy at best. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 10:16 AM) Dell has circled the exact same drain. If you think back to even 10 year ago and all of the names that were on PC's then, they are pretty much all gone. The market came and went. While this is all true, the decision to acquire Compaq probably wasn't the best idea ever.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 08:28 AM) I didn't say she was guilty, just what it looks like to me. I can see both sides of this. he is just an innocent little Muslim school boy who was preyed upon by racist school admins, or that he was manipulated by family to provoke a response and got one even bigger than any of them had hoped for. Or something in between. Can you imagine that any of those are possible? I know StrangeSox sure can't, this kid is as pure as ivory soap in his eyes, he can't even imagine that something nefarious could be going on. Certainly both possible. Though I'll point out again, either way, I don't see blaming the kid here as making much sense. I also think that, as SS has somewhat said, no matter which it is, the police and school have control over their reactions and they did a pretty poor job of it.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 08:00 AM) "So I’m not jealous, I’m kinda like—it’s like he’s standing for me.” Think like a detective here. What you have established is motive - but you have literally zero evidence of any crime (in terms of a setup or hoax or intentional act). Not even circumstantially. You can't just create a crime out of thin air purely based on motive. People all have selfish motives that are aided by any number of acts, but rarely have they done something to act upon them.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 04:54 PM) or this looks more and more like a setup, whereby they are using Ahmed to avenge the sister's slight. What in anything she said even begins to indicate a setup?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 04:47 PM) Ahmed's sister: School looks worse and worse.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 03:38 PM) I have faith but do not think this story is as cut and dried as the media portrayed it. Nobody is demanding the full story in the media. Nobody is being fair to the police/school. http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dalla...ident/72647922/ Do me a favor. Google some stories about the Mayor of Irving, TX. She's a pretty demonstrated racist, and I'd say she isn't the best source on this.

You HAVE to have a huge ego to even contemplate a run for President, and even larger to potentially pull it off. Nature of the beast. All these guys and gals have big egos, though some (Trump comes to mind) have ones that are extra-large even compared to their candidate cohorts. Make no mistake though, even the ones who seem most unassuming in public (like maybe Carson or Huckabee or Sanders) are greatly driven by ego.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 11:32 AM) So how about a law that makes a company liable for the losses shareholders suffer due to wrongdoing by the company? These laws exist in many countries, including most in Europe. The US version of the corporate veil is much harder to pierce, which can be good and bad.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 11:05 AM) My point - which clearly wasn't articulated well - was "investor relied on prior performance of company" does not, in all cases, shield that investor from liability (see Ponzi schemes). I'm not saying that VW shareholders would or even could have gains clawed back. Poorly worded on my part. Gotcha. Of course this is kind of a moot topic anyway, as what happens here is the company's stock tanks, so there are no profits to claw back. Then you get into the possibilty of the company being sued - not just by vehicles owners which is already happening - but by shareholders for being duped. VM faces massive fines, owner lawsuits for loss of value, shareholder lawsuits for loss of worth, loss of money due to inability to sell cars held in stock, recall and re-engineering costs for existing AND new cars, and gigantic reputational damage. This is a massive company who has gone from reasonably successful into a pit of despair in a period of days, all because some people decided to put some illegal code into the software system.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 11:14 AM) There were shutdowns during 6 of Reagan's 8 years in office, though they totaled up to only 14 days. The last two shutdowns occurred with Clinton and Obama in office and those two totaled up to 27 days. So at the national level, Democrats have not been willing to cause as much damage with their shutdowns. As to the state level shutdowns ss2k mentioned, the one in Indiana was a legislative walkout that prevented a specific bill from getting passed. It didn't stop government work and stop employees from getting paid the way the Federal shutdowns have. (Although I do still think it was wrong of them to walk out like that.) All good points. Also agree that the walk-outs, while they did not stop government work in the same way, were pretty stupid.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 23, 2015 -> 10:46 AM) Not to get off of a tangent here, but the most analogous investor situation is a Ponzi scheme. When Ponzi schemes ultimately blow up and end up in insolvency proceedings (bankruptcy, receivership, etc.), the innocent investor can still be forced to disgorge their profit. Now, obviously VW is not a Ponzi scheme, but there are real word examples of investors disgorging profit when the company was engaging in illegal activity to earn that profit... I don't think that is analagous at all. VW is a publically traded company. Rules around stock, common or preferred, offer a broad shield to the investors. Basically, unless they had material knowledge of the ongoing fraud, they have no liability.