NorthSideSox72

I believe Mark was the only guy who won in 2010 and also 2011 in the AL.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 08:23 AM) By making what is going to happen anyway...happen. Edit: the correct quote...from a fairly knowledgeable Vulcan, is..."Since it is logical to conclude you will kill us in any event, I choose not to cooperate." How can you not see that this deal means a Greek recovery over a period of years from this recession, versus a departure and collapse will mean a recovery in decades, if ever? How can you not see how not taking the deal is making things worse? And all the while, even if taking the deal and not taking it are the same (as you seem to believe), taking the deal does a lot less damage to the rest of the euro zone and the world.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 08:07 AM) There was a considerable amount of time between the story coming out and it being widely reported because it wasn't coming from "reputable sources". Politico is generally going to get a little more traction than the friggin National Enquirer, and so it should. Either way, it happened and was all over the press in both cases. Hell, if you will recall, I hated Edwards all along, so I am the last guy who would defend him. But his story ran a LOT in the national press, after a few days went buy and the Enquirer's story could be backed up by some believable evidence.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 09:09 PM) Again, you still haven't given a reason why that won't happen anyway, or any way by which the every 3 month new bailout scheme has a way out. Further austerity should help give the Greek government the right incentives to fix what they can, and thus roll back those measures over time. But, quite simply, you have a better chance of digging yourself out of a 6 foot hole than a 12 foot hole. And Greece becoming cheaper to do business? Not at all. Part of "cheap" to do business is stability and low risk - and a Greek nation teetering on default will attract NO busiiness because of the risks. Furthermore, if it does end up just defaulting on all debt and starting over, they have very little capital to work with to get their government operating again. Or do things like build roads, or anything else that businesses may need. Do you see where this is going? Not taking the deal makes the road back to economic strength much MORE difficult. And then there is the issue that, even if Greece does by some miracle break out of the EZ, default, and then eventually rise from the ashes... a generation will have passed. I don't understand how you can see not taking the deal as a good thing, or a better thing, or even the same thing as taking it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 06:53 AM) Newt? LOL, we all know who he meant I think (Edwards), and of course we heard all about that one. So I have no idea what he is referring to as some sort of cover-up. Unless maybe he really did mean Newt? Or some Democrat other than Edwards?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 03:18 PM) The people are already rioting from previous austerity measures and previous austerity measures have pushed unemployment in Greece to 17% while failing to do anything about the status of its debt. There's ample reason to believe that these further austerity measures will simply increase unemployment further, which will then make the part of the debt not written off even more onerous. Thus, requiring another bailout step and another series of austerity measures to put more people out of work next year. And so on. Ridicule Greece if you want...this bailout deal doesn't solve the problem unless the world's economy magically decides to start growing everywhere. It kicks the can down the road again, and the people have figured that out. I guess I disagree. A lot. The people in Greece have had issues with work for a long time. I've known people who do business over there - there is a sense of entitlement and lack of work ethic that is part of the pathos, which makes France look like the US. Businesses over there can't find people who are willing to work a full week, or a full day. They are far too dependent on the government. Conservatives think that is an issue here, but it is miniscule compared to Greece. And if they don't take this deal, where do you think that leaves them? They can no longer service their debt load. They will end up defaulting left and right, the government will break down, and things will be much, much worse. I am amazed people think that is somehow a better alternative. What that country needs is a rescue combined with a swift kick in the ass, but the President doesn't want that because he is afraid of his own people.

Also, this latest Greece episode is laughable. The Euro zone decides to give Greece a whole bunch of money, and cut their debt in half, in exchange for further austerity and tax measures. Greek leadership says OK. Then Greek President goes on TV and says he wants to put it to a vote with his people. Oops. Greece may decide to vote itself into financial oblivion.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 02:35 PM) This is from southsidesox feature. For s tarter s , Manto i s no fan of on-ba s e percentage, partly becau s e he believe s it s empha s i s on wal k s doe s not ta k e into account that a ba s e-on-ball s i s not alway s a de s ired or productive re s ult. While di s mi s s ing run s created, Manto offered hi s own s tati s tical category: "run s produced" -- mea s ured by adding run s and RBI, s ubtracting home run s from that total and dividing that number by game s played. "Do we want Ja s on Bay wal k ing if a pitch i s an inch out s ide and there' s a man on third? I'm not s o s ure. There' s a time to wal k and a time to under s tand what' s going on." - Feb. 16, 2006 Seriously this is what he just promoted to hitting coach. Someone who after all the Moneyball, Saber, Theo, stuff he hired this dude who subscribes to 1960 baseball strategy. Doesnt believe in OBP and walks, are u kidding me. Get ready for the Corey Patterson approach to hitting on the southside friends, stay in attack made, always be ready to swing, make a lot of outs, and for god's sake dont walk (get on base). What a clown. Read that carefully. I see only one actual quote from Manto, and two grafs of descriptive text by the author. We have no idea here what Manto actually thinks of OBP. So keep that in mind before driving off a cliff. But if he does like that formula, I can understand it. And I won't jump on him about it until I see his changes in action. Plus I doubt he actually dislikes walks - he is saying that a walk is not always as good as a hit. And not only is he right on that, but it does get at one of the major problems of this team in 2011, which is the lack of clutch hitting. If the team is hesitant in those situations, they may walk more, but they don't really get it done. This sort of philosophical change might just be what the team needs.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) We have the 2010 Escape, non-hybrid (mr. fancy pants). I love it. Big enough for me (a "husky" guy) and not too big for my wife. We do lots of camping/road trips and while it gets just ok mileage (20-22), the space for the two of us + dog is perfect. The thing about the car seats in the back is interesting. I never thought about that before. We might run into the same problem in a few years. I hadn't thought it would be an issue when we bought it - I mean, its an SUV, and it didn't look that small back there. But those baby seats, particularly the rear-facing ones used for the first year or two, really take up some space. We had to put our daughter's seat in the middle of the back bench, so that it wasn't up against the seat in front of it. And now that she is in the child seat facing forward, her legs kick the seat in front of her is she raises them at all. It was a surprise to us too. We've been very happy with the car other than that.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 11:08 AM) You are in the absolute minority that thinks that. 95% of baseball hates the idea. This is not hyperbole. It's why hard-slotting isn't even close to becoming reality. Thankfully. Always helpful to pull numbers out of the air. If you mean 95% of the baseball community, or fans, then there is zero chance you are right. If you mean 95% of players and former players, then it might be right, for the simple reason that they want more money. For baseball as a whole, and fans, hard-slotting offers a lot more pluses than minuses. It demonstrably levels the playing field for smaller market teams, it prevents larger market teams from poaching signability problem players in later rounds, and it takes away a lot of the games played around the draft that end up being more politics and money than baseball. Seems obvious to me it is an improvement.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the small market teams are not competing, they will be able to compensate for this by having higher draft picks. Meanwhile, the big market teams will not be drafting kids later in the rounds that fell for signability reasons. I agree. Hard slotting helps small market teams a lot more than it hurts them.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 10:08 AM) Those smart cars freak me out when I am driving next to them. They look like golf carts in the road that could swerve in front of me at any time. I saw one on 90 on the way to my softball game and moved two lanes over because I didnt want to be anywhere near it. The smart car, as marketed in the US, is one of the biggest fails in recent automotive history. You rarely see them even in Chicago, and not at all outside of big cities. The concept was smart - small, fuel efficient, inexpensive grocery-getter and commuter car. But in reality, it doesn't make sense to buy. If gets 20 less MPG than the Prius, 10 less than many other hybrids, and costs MORE than many of them. All for a less safe car.

Like Y2HH said, get the car you need. If you are looking small and fuel efficient, remember, you have a kid now. You need the space in the back seat, as those car seats take up amazing amounts of it for such a small child. Some small cars have excellent rear leg room for that - the Prius for example, is surprisingly roomy inside. Others not. So whatever you buy, take the baby seat with you and stick it in the back, to make sure it works, with the front seats in the spots you will have them. We drive a 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid - it is an SUV, but a smallish one, and gets around 30 mpg. We like it, but are trading it in, because oddly enough, the rear leg room is really not enough for kid seats if there are two (if one, you can put it in the middle, and it isn't so bad). Some of the cars we are looking at that have MORE leg room in the back than our SUV include the Toyota Prius, Ford Fusion (Hybrid, but the regular one should be the same or even bigger), Honda Civic (Hybrid, but again, same as regular), and Toyota Camry (hybrid or not). As for fuel efficient, how much that matters depends on your driving. If you put 100 miles a month on it, honestly, a few points of MPG don't matter much. If you put a thousand a month on it, it starts to matter a lot. Hybrids are a nice choice, but keep in mind that for many models, the tax rebates no longer apply. Price difference for hybrid vs non-hybrid varies, so your payback period varies. Could be a year, could be five years. Just look at the cost and the fuel savings, do some math, see what makes sense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 08:37 AM) brb, busting teachers union. "its Halloween? hadn't noticed. el has same # zombies as usual."

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 11:54 PM) Unless someone is a banker or lawyer I don't see how too many people would fit in this category. I only wear suits to weddings and job interviews. Sales people, and many company execs. Politicians, even minor local ones. Some government officials.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 08:26 AM) ...and Rham is too busy txting to help, yo. And that makes it extra-awesome. We should have had a caption contest in here for this picture.

CME Group now saying publically, MF Global is in violation of the CFTC and CME rules pertaining to seperation of customer and proprietary funds. This was not an accounting mistake - the money was mixed. People will be going to jail.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 08:04 AM) This doesn't seem very nice of them. Wow. Best case scenario is they had bad accounting controls, and just need to "find" it. Worst case, they used customer funds to shore up prop investments. The latter would be horrifically bad, and likely result in criminal prosecutions.

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Oct 29, 2011 -> 03:30 PM) Elias Rankings came out for Type A and Type B free agents. It sucks that Buehrle just missed being a Type A free agent. We could of gotten an extra 1st or 2nd round draft pick if he didn't tail off at the end of the year. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/09/2010...s-rankings.html Just to clarify here... these are NOT the Elias rankings, and this is NOT official. This is a projection based on reverse engineering of what they think the forumulae are, and it was already discussed a few weeks ago. So we do not yet know if MB will be Type A or B.

QUOTE (mcgrad70 @ Oct 29, 2011 -> 09:46 PM) And that would have necessarily been a bad thing? We would have had another team. QUOTE (mcgrad70 @ Oct 29, 2011 -> 09:50 PM) The blind loyalty to this owner is astounding. What what would these people act like if they got an owner in here that was in it to win it. Sports ownership is supposed to be a rich man's toy - not their meal ticket. We have the same problem with too many of the owners in this city. I don't think I've ever pulled out this card, but this is the time and place... are you actually a Cubs fan? Because you seem to truly despise everything Sox. You even say it would have been not so bad if they left, and that the city would have gotten another team (which, by the way, I am not so sure of). And you really seem to have an irrationally over the top hatred of JR, to the point where you are divorced from reality.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 08:49 PM) The Huffington Post Zombie section caption was "Why Zombie not eat Rahm Emmanuel? He just sitting right there." I like the facial expression of the only other non-zombie in the shot. He's like "Rahm... for the love of God, please help us!"

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 07:46 AM) Yeah, this one is going to be real fun. They are getting suspended pretty much everywhere, and it turns out the deal with Interactive Brokers died because MF can't account for a bunch of money. This really sucks for many of the people that work there. The brokerage side of the business, retail and institutional, was actually making money and doing fine. This is purely about the foreign and sovereign debt plays they made. I know a few folks over there from back in the EDF Man days.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 07:34 PM) I still think Gingrich has a chance. I would like to see him debate Obama. In some ways, I like Gingrich better than any of the other candidates. I think he is very sharp, he has a track record of working across the aisle, and he's very legislatively savvy. Of course he is also the biggest asshole amongst the den of assholes.

I admit I had this one wrong, and I still think it wasn't a great idea. But the bullpen does look pretty damn good right now, and can still look good trading Thornton and plugging in Santiago. Reed is a near-lock for the pen. Santos, Crain, Frasor, Ohman, Santiago and Reed are all set. Axelrod or Stewart for the long man post. And still leaves a few good relief arms in Charlotte. The bullpen should not be a problem in 2012, barring injuries or multiple unusually bad seasons career-wise. But I think that $3.5M could have been better used.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 05:33 PM) Supposedly Politico has been working on that story for at least 10 days...and the Cain Campaign has completely bumbled the response while Politico was working it up. I think that is the key here. His denials may not be due to any sort of guilt - I think the Cainpaign is just a collection of inexperienced people who were not ready for the sudden rise into the spotlight, and they, like he, are stumbling pretty badly. Cain will fade like Perry and Bachmann did. Gingrich might be the next flavor of the month.