NorthSideSox72

Decisions required by PK14 and Putz by midnight tonight, so we should hear something today.

QUOTE (The Gooch @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 11:50 AM) It was pretty good. I wished I had seen it in 3D QUOTE (The Gooch @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 11:57 AM) I haven't seen one yet. I am against them for the most part too as I have always preferred an interesting plot to special effects Eh?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 30, 2010 -> 07:54 AM) That can't be right, look at how the math works out. It starts at $2 billion next year. If you compound $2 billion with 3-4% increases per year, and sum over them, you don't get to $28 billion over 5 or $60 billion over 10. You get ~$10 billion over 5 years. You'd have to be getting 51% year over year raises on that $2 billion sum for it to save $28 billion over 5 years. Well, its more like $12B over 5, but still, you are right that it doesn't add up. The wording there is funny though - its hard to tell what they mean in terms of how long the freezes last. If its $28B over 5 and $60B over 10, then that pretty much means the freezes do NOT continue past year 5. But the $28B over 5 number means it would have to be more than 1 year. So how many years it he freeze? Somewhere in the 2 to 5 year range, apparently.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 29, 2010 -> 11:39 AM) A 10 year freeze on federal wages? That doesn't even start to sound like smart politics. Let alone policy. At least I'm sure we won't hear about how the Obama administration doesn't negotiate with Republicans again, right? Because they caved on something stupid that they'd want without being asked to do so. That's not what they meant. A one year freeze, assuming raises kick in afterwards at typical percentages, saves money in year one AND years foward. The only reason that wouldn't apply is if future raises were larger than what we typically scheduled to make up for the freeze.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Nov 27, 2010 -> 03:33 PM) Woo 6-0. Real games start Wednesday at UNI. Northern Illinois, thank you for Jake Anderson. I would say Creighton was a "real" game. The other 5 wins though, yeah, those were patsies.

QUOTE (Soxy @ Nov 27, 2010 -> 01:34 PM) So, I stupidly volunteered to puppy sit for a colleague while she went home for Turkey day. It has been a nightmare. She failed to mention until I literally was walking out the door with the dog that it wasn't housebroken. I have spent the whole weekend cleaning up dog pee and poo (except that has been a race because the stupid thing tries to eat it asap which grosses me out). I would drop it off at the boarders--but it hasn't had its bordatella shots so they wouldn't take it. Additionally it has been terrorizing my poor dogs. The big dumb one has been hiding on my bed the whole time and looking all sadly at me. And, I didn't realize until it had happened multiple times, but the puppy kept peeing on that dogs' bed. So, it looks like I will be buying her a new bed (it was almost time anyway) and shampooing my carpets over my Christmas vacation. Ugh. So much for my lovely nice long weekend. That's where I'd collect the poop in some tupperware, bring it to the dog's house when your "colleague returns, dump it on the carpet, and fail to mention it until you are walking out the door again. Seriously, that is beyond s***ty.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 02:20 PM) I saw that Koji Uehara wasn't offered arbitration. Maybe this is that bullpen arm we need. The guy struck out 11/9 last year and walked only 1/9 with a 2.86 ERA. He also closed out some games. I don't know what he plans on doing (maybe he'll go back to Japan?), but I think he's going to get interest from a good amount of teams. Wheeler also wasn't offered, he may be another candidate to look at.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 11:51 AM) Thank you! The people proposing a true "rebuilding" are nuts. It's a total crapshoot and if a huge portion of the players you acquire in trades (from selling off your veterans) and select in the draft don't develop into major league players, then it will be a long and painful process. Furthermore, I'm not even sure if KW and his front office could handle such a task. Also, I don't know how anyone can advocate "rebuilding" when we have a starting rotation like ours. You don't have a 1-5 like ours very often and when you do you go for it. The talk of rebuiling is sort of silly. For one thing, KW doesn't do that, because he can't. If there are no butts in seats, there is no money for a decent payroll. He has to field a competitive team basically every year. Doing otherwise would mire the team in mediocrity for a long, long time. For another, some people keep talking about this team needing major overhaul... this was an 88 win team in a division that is usually won with 88-90 wins. And they won 88 games with absolute garbage at DH, a closer who fell apart, and losing their best SP for most of the season. You need one more very good bat to improve the DH slot (directly or indirectly if the bat is an OF), you need to try to bring back Paulie or do something else good at 1B, and make one good bullpen move, and this team is probably already good for 90 wins plus barring major injuries.

Also, in news that sounds bad but is actually good for the current economy overall, new home sales dropped another 8%, 28% YOY, and is now down 80% from the peak of the boom. Story here. New homes need to stay like that for another few years, hopefully. Then as the market strengthens, it should start to rebound.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 09:03 AM) Lowest Weekly unemployment claims number since before the Lehman/AIG apocalypse. Still high though. Wow, that's a big drop. Especially staggering when you consider the expectation was for it to go up, to 442k from 440k. Also, 425k is generally seen as an important boundary, where typically below that line means real job growth. This is the first report to be this low since June 2008. I'd assume since it was such a big drop, it will rebound up a bit next period. But the general trend line has been going down for 3-4 months now, after staying more or less flat for the 6 months prior. Good to see.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 08:41 AM) She's a complete moron who is going out of her way to get the spotlight. It's sort of hard to ignore her. Reality shows, Dancing with the Stars, Fox News, books, etc. She's everywhere...spewing her ignorance. And that's clearly her marketing style - deluge. Put her name and face in front of people so constantly that they just sort of assume she's the one for the nomination. Of course, history indicates that most of the time, the person seemingly in the lead before the primaries start, usually isn't the one who wins the nomination.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 08:25 AM) haha...That's exactly what she said. How dare she use Mrs Obama's own words against her. Now I'm not rooting for Palin here, I hope she is not seeking the presidency, but you libs are out of control. Let it go. It's unbelievable how tingly she makes you all feel. She's not a viable candidate in the general anyway. Last couple polls I saw for theoretical elections, even with Obama's favoribility as low as its ever been, he still beats Palin by 8-10 points.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 07:29 AM) And...just like a lot of the national guys...this board has also been wrong about things too. I believe I said that, though I used the word "bulls***" instead.

Also, I've merged the multiple Dunn threads.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 24, 2010 -> 06:49 AM) I would doubt that. Yeah that ain't happenin'. No team will sign him to a contract like that.

No one is saying SoxTalk is somehow preternatural in identifying trades, or that there isn't a lot of bulls*** here. What we are saying - and its 100% true - is that there are multiple people on this board with inside sources within the Sox, and their inside info has been posted here and then verified multiple times in the past. And yes, at times, the board has gotten local or even national press attention for it.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 07:43 PM) So you would penalize an innocent child for the crime of their parents? You would create a class of people that potentially would have no country to call home. I refuse to penalize an innocent child just because their parents walked across a fictitious border that was created to try and preserve entitlement for others. In my opinion we should accept all who seek a better life in our country. I feel that the least I can do is try and provide the same opportunity to others that was provided to me. It would be nice if everyone could have our lifestyle, but its not possible to make that happen all at once. Immigration has to be managed, or you will destroy what you seek to give. This is reality, not fantasy. Besides, a child born here to parents from country X would have citizenship in country X, from what I understand most countries' laws to be. I obviously don't know all 200-some of them, but that is the common way of doing things.

QUOTE (lord chas @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 07:41 PM) who are the teams that have interest in AJ? I'm guessing very few, which is why the Sox are making this move. They will offer him a contract in the $4-5M range, with a 2nd year option. AJ will look elsewhere, and probably not do better, so he'll come back. And if he does turn it down, or he takes too long to decide, the Sox will try for Olivo. If both fail, its Flowers time, or possible some trade we haven't even considered yet.

To anwer your questions Soxbadger... I would vote for a Constitutional Amendment that made it such that a child born in the US is a US citizen if and only if the child was born to a parent who was here legally.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 03:18 PM) I disagree, while I think its ultimately unlikely to succeed, I definitely think that immigration issues are going to become major focal points of certain campaigns. Furthermore, the fact that people even are willing to consider something that I believe is so fundamentally un-American makes me believe that certain perspectives have already been warped. I hope that it dies quickly, but I think that there are people out there that genuinely believe that this is an acceptable idea. Certainly immigration will be a major issue in general, and yes, some people believe this is an acceptable idea. I am in fact one of them. But this particular effort can't succeed, its just not viable. So I'd worry more about immigration laws that are not obviously unconstitutional, than this particular effort.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 02:55 PM) Everyone who wants to be a US citizen should be free to become one. Everyone who is born in the US is a citizen. This will be a battle for the soul of America. That's a little melodramatic. This won't even make it to the President's desk, let alone be a battle for our souls. Its unconstitutional, and there is zero chance an amendment will survive, so its all just theater.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 02:10 PM) Racist! Alright seriously, could you stop with the hyperbole? No one is saying that, at all. I'd love it if we could have a discussion in here without people turning everything into an extreme. Yes, I know that was in green, but you are clearly trying to say the only opposition to this is that its somehow racist.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 02:08 PM) And it pretty well mirrors the drop after expiration of the tax credit. Yes. The YOY line, in this case, is meaningless in terms of current trend or projection.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 01:52 PM) This is awful reporting. The Sox have offers out to bats on the free agent market, but certainly not Victor Martinez. If there was an offer of this size out to a slugger, which I have no idea of offer size, I can say with almost 100% certainty its not VMART. I hate how one "source" names us and then 100 more run with it like its fact. I wish someone would fact check one of these days. I don't think its impossible they made an offer or at least had discussions. I do think its improbable that the offer was anything at that level.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 23, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) The reason why I ask is...I'd answer "Yes, of course", because of my opinion of the relationship between the Tea Party and the rest of the party, as I outlined earlier. Frankly, if there was a Republican who spoke out strongly against that sort of bill, I'd say there's a good chance they'd face a "Tea party" primary challenge in 2012. Yes they would. But they don't have to speak out against it, because they know this is a non-starter. Its a show-the-flag sort of thing.