NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 21, 2010 -> 12:16 AM) I am suffering from some India belly right now. LOL, I believe they call it Delhi Belly. I went through it too, despite being careful about what I ate and drank. But it just takes a tiny bit of something, and the bacteria present in the food and water there is just different than what you are tuned to here. I lost like 8 pounds in a week while I went through that.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:24 PM) It'd probably be pretty funny if you looked at my posts on Alexei's defense last year (which at the time were accurate) and what I think of him this year. Complete 180, because his defensive game has done a complete 180. It wasn't just me either, even notoriously sunshiny guys like 2K5 were saying "he is physically gifted but as long as he is a bonehead it will keep him from being elite." Yup, I was dead wrong on that one. After his 2009, I was concerned that Alexei wasn't making progress defensively. But he was far better in 2010, for whatever combination of reasons.

QUOTE (rockren @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 10:41 PM) I think what management is afraid of is the drop-off in calling the game behind the plate. If Flowers was given the shot from day 1...I don't think there would be much of a drop off it all from AJ offensively. Sure there would be a drop-off in average, but Flowers power at the Cell would be an upgrade over AJ IMHO. Guys like Castro, and even Lucy, should be able to help Flowers with the game calling aspect, if he's willing to learn. Castro has been around quite a while in the majors, and Lucy has been noted for years as being a guy that pitchers love to work with.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:37 PM) He is completely 100% spineless. The things he could do and fix, he ran away from. QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:46 PM) totally agree Yeah, I get the impression that Quinn is probably pretty clean, but he just seems to be in a job he's overwhelmed by. He doesn't have what it takes to be effective at it. Brady is probably a smarter, tougher guy, but he's also scary-extreme on the right. Whitney it is.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 07:25 PM) The ads in the Donelley/Walorski race actually have me considering a third party or not punching anything in their race. It has been embarrassing. Last Gov election in IL, I made the one and only "message" vote I've ever entered for any election. Blago vs Baar-Topinka, I just couldn't bring myself to vote for either one. I voted Green, and so did almost 10% of IL, as I recall. I may have to do the same again this year.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 06:22 PM) Shack and Greg for sure. I'd even put Heads on that list. Carry on... Greg? Seriously? He's already talking about how badly the Twins will beat the Sox for the next decade.

Once this has been up for a while, I'll devise a point system, and see what it tells us.

So, you are voting for a house rep and/or Senator soon (I certainly HOPE you are all voting). Which are the most important, second most important and third most important characteristics in your US Senator or House Rep?

Pick your poison.

I don't know where to put this, but I feel it needs attention. I was reading up on some political races today, and it was just mind-boggling how awful the ads are that people running for high office are running. Just a few examples... --Sharon Angle's campaign puts out a ridiculous ad about Reid being busy in a conga line with supermodels while Nevadans suffer through unemployment. They show a picture of Reid holding the outstretched arms of a woman, unseen other than her arms. Problem? The pic is a doctored image, and the woman in the original picture is the First Lady, showing off her arms at a speech about physical fitness. Even stranger, the ad was pulled because of copyright infringement. More hilariousness of advertising here. --House Rep Cory Gardner runs an add hitting their opponent, Betsy Markey, for voting for a huge Obama budget, that they characterize as disastrous. Problem? She in fact voted against it, but Mass rep Ed Markey (another Markey unrelated) voted for it. Nice research. . --Jack Conway, in his race against Rand Paul, published the now infamous "aquabuddha" ad, digging up an obscure statement Paul made 30 years ago, says he's not really a Christian. Watch the video here. Now, combine these ads with the utter stupidity of O'Donnell and other candidates we've seen lately, and one thing seems clear to me. These candidates aren't insulting each other. They are insulting me. And every other voter. I realize, obviously, this isn't really new. Its just worse, every cycle. And now there is so much more money flowing into these campaigns, thanks to Congress' inaction on campaign finance and SOCTUS's bizarre decision that coprorations are voters... its just making me ill. Again, I realize, not really new - just worsening. So... I ask my fellow Busterites... and let's see if this can stay non-partisan for a bit... what to do about it? What's the solution here?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 11:45 AM) And I feel the same way about the chronic homers. I admit I haven't been Mr sunshine of late. But don't act as if I'm one of the guys who declared the season over 10 games in back in April. I gave Ozzie and KW the benefit of the doubt back in March when it was clear to most that the rotating DH was a potential disaster in waiting. I even stood behind the despicable Teahen extension. Both were/are spectacular fails and criticism is warranted. But I can get over that. What I can't get over is the fact that we have a GM that refuses to learn from past mistakes. Consistently ignoring the future to "go for it" every year no matter how many times we come up short. Other than the Rios claim, KW has been brutal the last three years. This is not opinion to me, but a cold fact. One year can be dismissed as a fluke. Three years is a trend. But yeah, if I'm supposed to be the board version of Hawk Harrelson or a ranger clone because of 2005 then go ahead and ignore me. Cuz that s*** ain't happening. Other than Ranger and elrockinmt, I don't know of anyone who posts here that fits your description of a chronic homer.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 09:26 AM) In fairness, I asked myself the same thing in Game 1 of the 2000 ALDS in the top of the 10th. Some follks fled the Cell like it was on fire. And that is embarrassing too.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:36 AM) I don't think that's it either...because Christine isn't going to win, barring an epic meltdown on the other guy. For a certain segment of the country, that is the case, because America has turned it's back on its Christian roots in their eyes. It's not what that says about the country as a whole...it's what that says about that part of the country, which I would call the Tea Party, and what it says about their promoters. By the way, I want to re-post her last line in that bit: How could anyone vote for her with a straight face?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:35 AM) I think a better analogy is that the view of the direction of this country is so bad right now that even that sounds more palatable than what we have now. It is viewed as the lesser of the evils. You think the answer to fixing the country is choosing ignorance? Sorry, but that looks to me like a step backwards, no forwards.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:40 AM) Have you not read the articles I've read, or are you looking for something different that this? I was reading articles yesterday, didn't see this one. Thanks.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 11:29 PM) Ugh on Melky. Why do the Sox add players who just make me feel blah all over? Just say no to Melky. Yankee fans poured out of the stadium the last two nights. It made me realize when you've won as many pennants as they have, this just doesn't cut it. Down 5 in the ninth and they are long gone. It tells me that Yankees fans are spoiled brats. Seriously, unless you are ill or have an emergency or something... who walks out of a playoff game?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 07:44 AM) I think a large part of it was that they thought he just wasn't ready, he's only been a manager in the minors for a couple years and he's never dealt with major league managing in any capacity. I wonder if they won't try to get him on as a bench coach to get him up to the big league level. If he's willing to even do that. One thing that I have noticed in all the articles about this, is that no one is even asking what Sandberg is thinking right now. No one seems to be reaching out to him, or, they are and he isn't responding. He may not take this well.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 07:51 AM) I thought about that remark for a while and in particular how NSS thought it was jaw-droppingly stupid, but I think there's another point here. The farthest right wing of the Republican Party, which I would consider the Tea Party, doesn't consider the concept of "Separation of church and state" to be something in the constitution. Their justification is that although there is the establishment clause, you could conceivably do all the Christian government things that they want to do without establishing an official religion if you were to interpret that clause a certain way. If you took that clause in the way they'd take it, you could have an official nationwide communion time at 3:00 every sunday, but as long as you didn't pass a law saying that everyone had to be Catholic, you'd still be ok because you hadn't actually violated the text saying you can't establish an official religion. Obviously, I don't buy into that line of thinking, but my point is that while you may think that was an insane response by Christine, that is a perfectly normal response for a certain segment of the country...the farthest reaches of the activist religious right...which I would say overlaps perfectly with the Tea Party. They say these things all the time, they write books on these things, the media just doesn't cover it because when they do cover it, it makes them look foolish, and we can't have that done to such a mainstream movement. Hell, the Exalted leader endorsed exactly that opinion yesterday. The difference here isn't that it's what she thinks or what she doesn't know...it's that she wasn't careful enough to cover up her language with code words like most of the candidates who appeal to that portion of the party. Its ignorance, no matter how you want to color it.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 06:48 AM) 12 of 16 AL wild card winners have been from the east. Not really my point, I was saying things don't last forever. That's one thing that has been pretty constant in this game, over time, teams ebb and flow in terms of how strong they are. The Yankees are sort of the one exception to that rule. But BOS for example, had decades of awfulness, before a relatively recent renaissance. BAL was a big time team for quite a while, their suckage is relatively recent too. Things change. You can't just say the AL East gets the wildcard forever, that simply won't happen.

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 06:20 PM) http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/...ague-staff.html Joe McEwing will manage Birmingham. Ever Magallanes to be a roving infield coach. From the same article... interesting, someone in PHT recently suggested we needed some ex Twins on the club... now ex Twins catcher Laudner is going to be a coach in the Sox org.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 04:05 PM) Well, here's the biggest problem...most of those bad lenders are long since gone and out of business. There's probably a few left, like Countrywide, which is BofA's nightmare now, but there's no originators left from the boom to go after. The only people left to go after are the people who approved the loan and then packaged and sold it...aka, the big banks. If the originator is gone, the mortgage was taken on by another financial entity, and yes, they then assume the risks. But I think you are vastly overstating who is gone now. The banks who originated the loans are mostly still around, though some have been acquired. And the big banks are only a part of who approved the loans. Furthermore, the securitization process is handled by a different type of financial than the mortgages. Buck stops with the underwriter in most of these cases, and the underwriter will always still exist - just might be they were acquired. I think what we will see is some new names of financials that are foreign to many people. Underwriting specialists. Thing is, most of those firms live and breath their own protections, so I'm guessing things won't be as bad as is being characterized here. And yes, the mortgage writers will get a ton of flack too, because the underwriters will say "well, the writer said the lender had X qualifications, and they didn't". There will be a whole lot of finger-pointing. But ultimately through all of this, what still bleeds all the way to the investors is risk of choice. These instruments are not guaranteed in any way. The mortgages themselves are not even guarantees. So I'll bet that you will see many of these lawsuits fail or fade, or settlements made for relatively small sums.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) I wouldn't say he's a bargain, that's taking it to the other extreme. The big problem with baseball contracts, though not Buehrle's, is that they are generally back loaded when in reality, most players play well during the first years of the contract (when they are cheap) and they inevitably turn to mediocrity a few years into the contract, when they get expensive. I think it's a flawed line of thinking, but teams are willing to do is so they can get their most bang for the buck this year and basically pay off their credit card bill 3 years down the line. Its the "Yankees will take him later" model. Yeah, bargain is an overstatement, you are probably right. But I think he's certainly living up to price value.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 04:00 PM) Just saying we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on small sample sizes in the AFL, especially the offensive numbers. Definitely true. A full AFL session is better than a few games, but even that should be taken with a grain of salt. Its good to see, but nothing earth-shattering.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 03:16 PM) I got the impression that you thought the banks really weren't facing much in the way of systemic risk of lawsuits at all, whether they came from the mortgageholders or the investors. probably my mistake. We get a hint in the article of what the conditions are, that the holders feel are being violated: So no one is looking for an unwind, no one is looking for anything earth-shattering. They are looking for better records and docs (easy to fix), and then looking to put onto the bad lenders the obligations of underwriting. What this will do is focus the badness on those parties who wrote and specifically underwrote bad loans, that they were aware of or obviously should have been aware of being bad in the first place. That will end in a narrow set of parties paying big, the MBS securities remaining intact, and the security bundlers having to just keep better records and use better trustee conventions. That's my take anyway.

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 03:37 PM) It was the easy decision. Not surprised. Also I think Ryno will have a better shot to succeed elsewhere. The easy decision would have been Sandberg.