NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 6, 2011 -> 12:43 PM) And if they hold firm on the debt ceiling, for example? I'm not 100% sure that's a bad thing anyway, I'm sort of on the fence. But still, that decision will be coming up in a month or two... if I'm in the camp that it has to be raised, I probably wait until right after that is done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 6, 2011 -> 12:40 PM) The response that they keep getting is "We'll shut down the entire Senate if you bypass us." Which...one person can do. If I'm Obama, I take that chance. Legislation is basically at a standstill anyway, so no big loss.

Palin is the worst nightmare for the GOP. She is effective enough riling up the anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-freedom crowd that is pulling the GOP to the right, that could maybe get the nomination. But since she will alienate anyone remotely moderate or independent, she is fully unelectable in the general.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 6, 2011 -> 12:21 PM) Peter Diamond, the Nobel Prize Winning economist who President Obama nominated to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has announced that he is withdrawing his name from consideration, after over a year of having his nomination sitting in the Senate without ever coming up for a vote. Thankfully, since we're at full employment right now, there's no obvious need for a guy who won his nobel prize working on issues of unemployment and employer/employee mismatch in that organization. That seat has now been unfilled for several years. Thankfully again, there has been no economic turmoil or major decisions made by the Federal Reserve Board over the last few years. I'm kind of surprised that ObamaCo, and before him BushCo, when confronted with this sort of B.S., didn't do an end-around. If they won't nominate that person, fine. Hire them on in a non-nomination position to provide exactly the role he would have anyway, except without the specific constitutional authorities. Leave that authority with whatever figurehead is temporarily running that agency line, who just rubber-stamps everything.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:12 AM) It was a BBC program first, and longer! Agreed, though, some of the best television I've ever seen. Their "When We Left Earth" series was fantastic as well. If you like documentaries like that, there was another one I thought was just as good as the Planet Earth series from BBC (but different - less science, more history)... its the Ken Burns documentary "National Parks: The nation's best idea". Also ran on PBS, a while back. Fantastic stuff.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 6, 2011 -> 09:00 AM) Has anyone looked to see if more people are getting cancer these days, or is it that medicine has allowed us to detect cancer better? I'd imagine it's the former, but I'd be curious to see how much screening/getting checked more often increases those numbers. Like, all cancers? Not sure, but I'd imagine someone keeps track of that number.

Two observations on cell phones and radiation... 1. With cell phones and all the other various radio and radio-like transmissions saturating the air in modern times, is anyone really surprised it would start having some detrimental effects? 2. Despite major breakthroughs for treating and preventing cancer, certain types of cancer continue to increase in frequency... let's ask this really simple question. If you wanted to give someone cancer, what's the easiest and most certain way to do it? Now, look around you, wherever you are at this moment. Look at all the things around you that produce some sort of radiation, and ask yourself how many of those things were around, say, 30-40 years ago. That gives you the answer to the mystery. Any one device has very low radiation... but we aren't around any one device, are we?

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jun 6, 2011 -> 12:02 AM) I'd say Wild Thing if it wasn't so overused. He's an Aussie, right? Marmol-like stats... Shane Marmolroo?

QUOTE (WHITESOXRANDY @ Jun 5, 2011 -> 05:16 PM) And, your point is ? My point is that the Sox have nothing in the minor leagues. They might as well scrap the whole thing for what it's worth. The Sox might have one player that maybe could be an impact player at the Major League level one day. That's it. It's a worthless farm system. Viciedo is the only one right now that might have a memorable big league career. And, he isn't even a slam dunk to do that. The Sox whole minor league stable isn't worth 1 legit A rated prospect. It's a joke. Thanks for that Mr. Hyperbole. The system is bad, one of the worst, but here's the thing... the worst systems in the league still have multiple guys that will likely make it, and even the best systems are 98% garbage. No need to use such ridiculous statements to make the point that the system is disappointing.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 03:01 PM) And how will looking completely lost vs a lefty help? It's gotten past the point of letting him play through the slump, plain and simple. We need to win ball games now, and until he fixes his approach and starts hitting the ball, he can't be playing everyday, and especially not vs lefties. I'm not saying outright bench, but no more blind faith that he will snap out of it eventually. We aren't talking about some fringe guy just out of the minors here. This is one of the most prolific power hitters in the past decade. There is no such thing as "past the point of letting him play through it", unless we think he's done for, which I don't think is the case. You play him until he gets out of it. Sitting on the bench only prolongs the pain and gives him fewer good-Dunn days in the Sox lineup for the season. Not to say you don't give him a day off here and there, but this is a game after an off day. You play your starting lineup, and let guys like Dunn and Rios play through it until they get better. Dunn is far too valuable to become a platoon player, and I am damn near 100% sure he will come out of this, so I would play him full time until he does.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 11:54 AM) So to make a long story short here's what happened to me last summer: had my wallet stolen at a bar by a girl who proceeded to run out before we could confront her. Her friend didn't immediately leave and my buddy knew who it was. Nothing ever happened I cancelled everything right away, but I lost 50 or so bucks and had to go through the hassle of getting new cards, new ID all of that. Now, just got a call today that all my cards were found in an apartment of two tennants who were just kicked out. One of the names was the girl who was the friend who was there that night. So is it even worth it for me to press charges? And is there anything I can even do? It was a really s***ty situation and was a major inconvenience and there's a lot of me that would love to get back at them. At the same time, i'm not really going to gain anything so I don't know if I should just go get my stuff and move on and forget it. For me, I'd do a police report. Chances are they won't bother to chase them down, but, I'd feel better having done it. That's just me though, some people would consider that a jerk move. I believe the whole justice system works better when they have a real reflection of what is going on.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 02:27 PM) Odd timing considering his recent slump. Have you looked at the catchers W-S is running out there so far? Also, I'd guess this means Gonzalez or someone else is pushing up from extended ST and they didn't want to send that player to A+.

Its really hard not to like Mark.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 02:17 PM) Michael Blanke has been promoted to Winston-Salem. Good - the catching situation in W-S was a giant black hole anyway, a couple filler guys hitting .200 or worse. Now, who catches at Kanny? Do they give Dubler full time play? Not likely. Gonzalez maybe? Or demote Bour to Kanny?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) YAY! No Dunn! @whitesox Chicago White Sox Tonight's #WhiteSox lineup vs. DET: pierre7, ram6, qDH, pk3, aj2, rios8, lilli9, beck4, morel, 5, buehrle1 I assume your YAY is sarcastic? Dunn needs to hit his way out of this slump, sitting on the bench after an off day isn't going to help anything.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 01:24 PM) So I was given an offer from a company to oversee their operations in a certain business outlet of which nobody at the company has a clue how to deal with (so right away I am in the drivers seat) and I can make a substantial amount of money doing. The issue is.... I was offered a base salary and generous bonus' and commissions on quotas to meet which I like. However, If I don't make a quota (which in this line of business, can be very difficult as the customer can get the product in numerous different ways other than in the configuration of how he would like me to sell it) he had proposed taking deduction out of my BASE SALARY for any quotas not met. I had let him know that I will not accept this He had then proposed that any quota not met will then be deducted out of a future commission check had the quota been met for that respective month, saying that he wants to make sure that they are not wasting their $ on my base salary, training, etc. (even though he knows that my current job has a HIGHER base salary than what I would make there, I am obviously not content with that if I am deciding to leave.) Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Deducting a commission based quota out of a base salary or even a future commission check? WTF? I was always under the assumption that you get paid for what you sell but I do not know if this is something new that I have never heard of. If they are taking ungained commission amounts out of your base, then its not really a base salary at all - its a straight commission paid job, and they are trying to make it seem like something else. I'd be leery of someone trying to pull such a trick.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) I just read something on wikipedia about federal student loans, and part of it was some study about how much school debt people should be paying in terms of percentage of their income per month. The max recommended was 8%. I laughed. My wife and I spend about 25%. And unless we want to pay back the loans for 30 years (and spend an extra 60-70k+ in interest to the government), we're stuck at that until our incomes go up. Just another reason if you're middle class in this country you are f***ed. My wife left grad school with about 40k total student loan debt from undergrad and grad. The loans then became active, and had an interest rate of like 3.5%. After 3 years paying on time, it dropped to 1.75%, and that's what its at now. Its basically free money on an inflation-based model. I would never want to pay that off early, unless I had no other debts to pay off (I wish). The payments are over, I think, 20 years. Really low payments. What sort of interest are you folks paying on student loans?

Chrysler was clearly the worse off company, compared to GM or Ford. I would have split the difference - bail out GM with an equity deal like we did (accompanied with a complete no-bonus clean-out of their CEO and a few other execs, which we really didn't do), and let Chrysler fend for themselves, sell pieces, or die off.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:43 AM) Your comparison to TARP is supposed to convince the vocal minority that it isn't the Communist Fascist Kenyan taking over more of the economy? No, its supposed to show that the government can take smart action that benefits itself AND the economy if it is open to taking some chances.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) State EPA's? Yes, plus US EPA... not sure of any others that would be significant.

LOL at that being nationalizing. Its business. Scrape up cheap assets to re-sell later, grant some to private or public use which takes surplus out of circulation... its much more stimulative with better multipliers than the other garbage we did, not to mention that like TARP, the government could make some of the money back and be out of the business over a period of like a decade.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:31 AM) But that has nothing at all to do with the rate at which foreclosures were processed through the system. Relative to distressed sales, the tax credits had the exact same effect that price erosion would have had...bringing low-level buyers into the market. I'm impressed here...you're so desperate to blame the government for everything that you've actually got me defending the Housing Tax credit, which was a terrible program and a bad waste of government money. I still think that, if we were going to use taxpayer dollars at all to stimulate the housing market... that instead of using those tax credits and temporary construction jobs, the government should have just flat out bought property directly in a targeted way, with a pass-off and sell-off for various purposes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:26 AM) -Assuming that nothing else goes wrong. Assuming certain specific things, yes. Some things can and will go wrong. But even if the economy in general starts to tank in a big way again, that still only briefly delays what I see as the inevitable. The only thing that makes it go out a decade is a depression-level collapse, which I do not anticipate happening.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 09:10 AM) Swiping a graph. If you project forwards along a line, we'll be through the glut of distressed sales sometime in the range of 2020. Looks more like 2015 to me, to get back to a 2007-ish or early 2008-ish level, which is what I'd consider "normal" levels. But yeah, its a few years off to get to that point. Just keep in mind that they don't necessarily need to be all the way back to normal for my predicted events to occur. With the huge drops in new homes being built, and continued population increase, the level at which the surplus becomes very low can come pretty quickly, and the demand side will increase as I noted earlier. The uptick I mentioned likely won't happen this year or next, but some time in the couple years after that I think the likelihood starts to go up pretty quickly.

Despite having a couple very bad outings in the past week or two, Remenowsky's ERA is still in the 2's. But even better: 27.2 IP, 9 H, 3 BB, 39 K. That's 0.98 BB/9, 12.69 K/9, and 13.00 K:BB. AvgA is .165. I sure hope he sees Charlotte this year.