NorthSideSox72

The Eeyore stuff in this thread, stating that this would somehow be against what the Sox do, is cracking me up. How many teams in baseball can point to players they have acquired from Cuba in recent years that match up to the value of Ramirez and Viciedo? The Sox likely won't get Cespedes because the money numbers will probably get stupid. But the Sox have been among the most successful teams (if not th most successful) in recent years with acquiring useful Cuban talent. Hell, some of the journalists out there have even said they see the Sox in on Cespedes and Soler NOT because they heard any info, but because they just know they will be due to their success in Cuba.

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 06:32 AM) http://www.mlbprospectportal.com/2012/01/c...cts-for_14.html Here's another Top 10 list from prospect portal. Well that's an... interesting list. Trayce Thompson #1? Brandon Short and Ozzie Martinez in the top 10? Really?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 12:53 PM) Socio-Economic background has been the biggest indicator for a while now. Obviously there are other factors, but it is the biggest one. No doubt. But within "socio-economic background" are multiple factors as well. It isn't, as I am sure you know, one or two simple issues.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 09:59 AM) Guy threw 90 after not pitching in 6 years. This has zero risk at all. He's only 23 and is obviously an athletic individual. Criticizing is just criticizing for the sake of doing it. To be clear - again - I was not criticizing the signing. At all. I like it. I just question the NRI, which seems silly. But SS2K5 is probably right, it was most likely an incentive to sign at all. He'll throw in one late-spring split squad game for an inning, stay in AZ for extended ST after the team leaves, then head for one of the A-ball squads.

Semien at 11 and Phegley at 20 surprise me. Semien hasn't shown enough yet to warrant that, and Phegley is just such a health disaster.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 09:44 AM) Fascinating data. Achievement gap between White and Black students in school narrowing over time, but is instead replaced by a rapidly growing gap between achievement by students from high-income families and students from poor families. And Illinois, normally a relatively progressive state, makes that situation worse with the way they handle school funding. See Savage Inequalities. Although, those gaps funding-wise have diminished somewhat, so I can't think it is entirely about funding. There have to be other factors here.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 08:41 AM) 100 Greatest Rock Albums of the 90's Ten is definitely up there on that list, for me. Doing a quick scan of albums published in the 90's in my iTunes (and excluding anything not somehow rock/alt/metal/pop), some other albums I might put near or even ahead of Ten (not necessarily in order): RHCP: BloodSugarSexMagik Seal (I) Soundgarden: Badmotorfinger Toad the Wet Sprocket: Fea Alice in Chains: Dirt Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies Live: Throwing Copper Tool: Aenima VAST (I) Ten would be, for me, mixed somewhere into that group. Not sure where, or what order I'd put them all in. Just my opinion.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 08:39 AM) aka "not committing willful and widespread fraud" Well that is certainly the goal - or at least to stop breaking the laws surrounding that per se.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 08:38 AM) Belongs? It is the #2 rock album of the 90's, probably behind Nevermind, and that is heavily influenced by the fact that Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Like it or not, whenever an artist or public figure tragically dies young, suddenly their work becomes more and more acclaimed than while they were living. I'd have to see a list to say for sure if I'd put it at #1. My point was, there is a big difference between best rock albums of the 90's, versus all time. I don't think Ten belongs on the all time one, but they are certainly on the 90's list, in my view.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 08:33 AM) (We're also getting to the part of the race where a national poll actually has a bit of relevance...since we're about 3.5 weeks from "Super Tuesday") National poll still equals irrelevant. At best, it is marketing. It is meaningless for any real purpose, during the primaries AND the general.

Get a room you two. And in terms of the parties and their changes of stance, it is more like a slide than any sort of flip-flop. The 90s' contract with American stuff led to a boom in religious fervor over politics, then 9/11 happened and all of a sudden the party just lurched way the hell to the right. The Dems partially slid with them, though not as far. That's just where the country is at the moment. It will likely start sliding back the other way at some point.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 08:31 AM) I'm not necessarily saying those are my top ten albums ever, its just a few that are clearly superior off the top of my head in a few seconds. And to put Ten in the same class as TDSOTM is just non-sense. It is of course very subjective... but I agree with you here. Now, if you said, the Top 10 rock (in the broad sense) albums of the 90's, then I'd say it belongs easily.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 07:50 AM) Wait, so they're signing him as a position player and not as a pitcher? I have no idea, but if he is a pitcher, then fine - take it the other way. There is a 0% chance he is ready to face major league hitters. Don't get me wrong, I am not against the signing, I just think the NRI to ST is pointless.

I thought Ten was one of the best albums of its genre and time. Then they seemed to go downhill with each successive CD. I had Vs, Vitology, and the one after that (name escapes me), before I finally gave up on them. Each album had fewer and fewer songs that were worth listening to. So I voted "sorta".

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 07:45 AM) Except for the fact that the format of the PPACA was originally an idea from the Heritage foundation. Sort of. There are differences that seem small procedurally, but are huge politically, particularly about who handles aspects of the insurance markets.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 07:43 AM) http://www.csnchicago.com/blog/whitesox-ta...tm_medium=email um... the guy hasn't played organized ball since high school, and he gets a Spring Training invite? I'm not against signing someone like this, but giving him an NRI seems sort of ridiculous. There is a 0% chance he is ready to face major league pitching.

QUOTE (mumbles3k @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 03:08 AM) X2 First Class X-Men Last Stand Wolverine I watched STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE in 3D. They did a pretty good job with it. The action sequences and landscapes look nice. Closeups are a bit of a problem. These converters need to tone it down when it comes to people faces. There's just not that much dimensionality if you're not in an extreme closeup. But on the whole, I'd recommend it. Just seeing a Star Wars movie on the big screen is worth it. I also saw SAFE HOUSE. That movie is a mess. It wants so badly to be a Bourne movie. Unfortunately, it lacks things like intelligence, a cohesive visual style, and an interesting narrative structure. So that leaves impossible to follow action sequences, and lots of people pointing guns at each other. Sorry, not enough to sustain 2 hours. Episode I was such a train wreck of a movie in 2D, I just can't see spending money to see it in 3D. That movie was so very disappointing - awful CGI, some terrible acting, painful dialogue, and outright racism. That film did only two things well: the light saber fight seen with Sidius, Obi Wan and Jin... and the racing scenes. Everything else was the most expensive piece of garbage film ever made to that date.

QUOTE (mumbles3k @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 05:56 PM) But if you take out Knight and Day, we're left with Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma, both of which were crap. So I don't know... Really? I thought 3:10 was one of the better westerns in the past decade, and Walk the Line was pretty good too. Knight and Day was pretty awful, the dialogue was just painful in places, and I thought the acting was as well. Action scenes were nicely done though.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 06:59 PM) That's kind of funny because I just read an article yesterday highlighting how many of the things the Dems hated about Bush policy, they now approve of. Well yeah. The GOP has run way-right in the past decade, and the Dems have begun leaning a bit further right too. Obama, aside from one piece of policy that wasn't even what he originally wanted (health care), has been running in a place that 15 years ago would not even be considered Dem. He'd be around the middle, if not slightly right. The health care act pushes him to lean-left though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 06:52 PM) Wait...what? If you read the article, basically they are saying that the decrease in pace of foreclosures was a waiting game, which will now be released. Pent up actions is what they believe will cause the bump. That said, I am not entirely sure that's true. I think part of the slow-down in foreclosure proceedings has been the result of more procedural caution, combined with an unwillingness to hire loads more staff for jobs that will be shed in a couple-few years. Those things aren't suddenly changing with this settlement being passed. I think any pickup in foreclosure pace will be small, which is both good and bad.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 09:48 PM) You're only looking at 1st round picks though and it's too early to tell on Walker and well this is probably a do or die year for Mitchell. Besides that the last few drafts have already turned out some MLB players, overall the drafting has been much better. Yes, thank you. Also, as I noted in my post, they are still not spending as they should, and that impacts the first round or two the most. Overall quality of result from draft position has been much better '08-'11 then it was for a number of years before then.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 03:55 PM) The issue probably comes in how exactly you bookkeep "Bad" debt here. If the banks are funding partial write-downs in mortgages that are well over the value of the home, then the banks are reducing the value of the debt they hold, but they're not necessarily losing money on the deal because it was likely that some of those underwater mortgages would go bad anyway. Except some will not go bad, as a result of this... and furthermore, if those debts are going bad anyway, it still takes a bunch of money to foreclose. The banks win some and lose some here, same as the borrowers.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 11:01 AM) It does not grant criminal immunity, that was more of a frustrated flail on my part.But the Obama admin has been even worse than the Bush admin at prosecuting any of these many cases of fraud. A lot of the stuff that the SEC would be able to investigate has already exceeded the statute of limitations, unfortunately. This whole mess will be a giant whitewash, with a slap on the wrist for banks literally lying in court to get people wrongly thrown out of their own homes. edit: some of the early formations of the agreement did have broad civil immunity and criminal immunity. as for the other thing, I can't find an email contact, only the ability to post a comment. I was curious what the response would be since I can't evaluate your counter-points myself. So, I was thinking about this while eating lunch (because my life is just a maelstrom of excitement and fun), and I think I see a potential disconnect here. Perhaps the author is thinking that the $26B is actually a government funding to cover this thing. But I don't think that is the case. The money is coming from the banks. In fact, they are also paying a penalty TO the government of $750M, which should more than cover the cost of the investigation and proceedings. That's the only scenario I could think up where the points the author made, might make more sense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 10:09 AM) Settlement info by state Why would you negotiate a settlement of massive, widespread national fraud before you do your investigations? Why is no one going to jail? Well first, they did do some investigation. And this is a civil penalty settlement I believe, not a criminal one (though I admit that when it comes to federal litigation against corporations, I am not fully familiar with the sometimes-subtle line between those things). As for no one going to jail, if I am right, then that is a seperate step. The settlement may include some sort of criminal indemnity I suppose, I don't know, and I haven't read this new link yet. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 10:10 AM) Would you mind if I passed that post on to Yves in an email? Um, I suppose. Just make sure you call me "internet poster", not by my full name, as I don't want to get published on someone's blog about this.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 09:26 AM) Baloney! No one else ever paid that much for that long to a DH, who was/is overweight, slow, can't play defense. Not to mention the #1 draft choice that we surrendered. When the deal with Dunn was made, there was much more that could go wrong than could go right, and it happened. Defending Kenny on this move is ridiculous. You are also the one who thinks KW had a bad decade. Look, there are plenty of reasons to get on Kenny's case. Rios, the Hudson trade, maybe Peavy, handling of the Ozzie situations, poor scouting (though that seems to be improving), the Wilder fiasco, lack of depth in the minors... but the Dunn signing really isn't one of them.