NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 04:41 PM) I agree that ID's should be made available for free if need be, but that there needs to be a way to verify that you are who you say you are. I also think the voting machines should have a receipt so that you, the evoter, can verify that it recorded your vote correctly. We are on the same page there. As for the lack of machines in poor wards, aren't they usually run by the Democrats? Why can't they get the machines there? Seriously, if there is a poor ward in Chicago that doesn't have enough voting machines, when the whole state is run by the Democrats, whose fault is that? Honestly, I am not sure how it works now, in terms of getting voting machines in place, but I am pretty sure a lot of discretion is allowed to local county people, or state people. I am saying, less discretion should be allowed. There should be a simple formula used. X number of registered voters in a given polling locality, at Y people per machine, equals Z machines at that location.

QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 06:48 PM) Here's the one problem with the receipt, well at least the one that I see. That receipt has to be left at the polling place or you could easily have the buying of votes, this time with proof of who you voted for. I'm not liking the receipt leaving with the voter. It kind of breaks down the secret ballot. I don't think anyone is saying to leave it with the voter. They see it from the printer, and hand it in with their little card key after reading it. Then its filed.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 12:11 PM) The difference between 15 and 16 is a huge deal. The difference between 16 and 18 isn't a big deal whatsoever. This.

I've been to London on business, once for a nearly month-long stint. Loved London. But I've never technically "lived" there.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 03:47 PM) What's a "one-sided raise in rent"? And do you know who much the Sox currently pay? Meaning one side in the contract could raise the rent without agreement from the other side. I have no idea what they currently pay. By the way, its possible that the buyer of the stadium could be the Sox themselves.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 03:28 PM) A new owner could require a lease extension before buying the facility to make sure they recoup their investment. The current lease expires in 2025. Or they could raise rent. (I dont know how much, if any, the Sox currently pay) Future improvements to the park could be hampered. They can't raise the rent before 2025 unless one of these things is true: 1. The ISFA or the senior owner of the stadium goes through a bankruptcy 2. The contract itself has an allowance for a one-sided raise in rent (which is very, very unlikely) So, I wouldn't worry too much, unless someone buys it and then goes under.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 02:56 PM) The article actually didn't move me in any signifcant direction. Frankly, i'm just happy that Kotsay isn't trying to make too many excuses for his performance this year. Despite his poor performance, the guy does have a reputation of handling himself like a pro. He doesn't seem like the excuses type.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 02:43 PM) Actually, if people don't have enough interest to get up off their a$$es and register and vote on thier own, I don't want them voting. For either side. i want people to know enough about at least ONE thing in the election that they can talk about more than just spouting off Fox or CNN talking points. Although with the saturation of 'facts' from both sides, that is sometimes hard to happen. But if you need a third party to have to come to your door to get you to register, you should just stay home. if you are not interested enough to register, you are not interested enough to vote. And I don't cast it either way, but you can't deny that a majority of the stories about this sort of stuff happen going one way only. You don't hear about Wal-Mart organizing busses to take their employees to vote, but you hear of ACORN and UNIONS rounding up old people and members to go vote enmass. You don't hear about College Young Republicans registering Alex Keaton to vote, but there is alwasy some progressive-leaning group that seems to register Mickey Mouse. And why do Democrats scream the loudest when you try to remove dead people from voter rolls, but not seem to care about getting overseas military ballots on time? The same can be said by the left about the right on the voting machines issues - lack of receipts, lack of oversight, lack of machines in poor wards. That tends to come mostly from the right, just as these voter fraud issues seem to come from the left. These things can all be fixed, if we want to. You can require ID to vote, but make sure its not a poll tax - there are ways to do that. You can make ALL voting machines produce a paper receipt, and allow people to fix their votes if their receipt shows something wrong. You can make sure the allocation of voting machines to polling places is a standing, obvious ration to voting population in all locations.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Sep 27, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) Mark Kotsay thinks that Mark Kotsay wasn't a bust as DH. ‘‘If you look at the whole year from a Mark Kotsay standpoint, it’s been criticism from the get-go,’’ the lefty hitter said. ‘‘I didn’t get off to a good start, I got buried, I slowly got myself out of that hole when the team was having success in the winning portion of the season. But even in that turnaround, there was always talk that we needed a left-handed bat.’‘ ‘‘Hey, you know what? It’s been the whole season. I think I was able to carry myself in a professional manner and realize, ‘Yeah, my success as a whole, if I evaluate my whole year, it’s not nearly where I wanted it to end.’ But I think I battled, I think I fought the whole season.’‘ http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/wh...T-sox27.article I don't see a problem with what he say, and he wasn't saying he was good. He said he battled, and was a professional, and that it didn't end the way he wanted it to. Where in what he said do you get the impression he was saying he was good? I agree with his quote.

For movies, to me, its no contest... Ghostbusters.

I find it hilarious that people keep casting this as the evil left or the evil right. Both sides will have people who, if given the opportunity, will game the system. The key is making the system stronger. That means voter registration AND better oversight of the voting machines.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 11:05 PM) Except for the Bulls, Chicago has had a tough time keeping it going after a wonderful moment. Let's have some perspective here. 1. Chicago is the only city with championships in all four major sports in the past 25 years. 2. You think the Chicago sports scene is dismal now, you must not have been in Chicago very long. Before the Bulls' runs in the 90's, you had a bunch of nothing for decades before that, with the '85 Bears the one exception.

I'd always had great luck with computers, in terms of not ever having any major hardware failures. Then yesterday, I dropped my laptop, and the screen is now toast. I can hook it up to the TV and see the computer itself is fine otherwise, which is a relief. But it doesn't project well on the TV, and I'd be taking up the one TV in the house. So now, I have a debate. I see that they sell replacement screens online - and I found a manual on how to do it. Looks like major surgery. New screen is $80, but a lot of time, and who knows if I'll screw it up. Or, I can buy an external LCD monitor for like $200, and turn my laptop into a desktop. Easy, but I lose portability. Or, since its a 3 year old laptop with s***ty Vista on it, maybe now is the time to just get a new laptop. Anyone every changed out a laptop screen before?

And make the season even longer? No way. Only way its even worth considering is if they cut down the regular season by a week or two to make up the time. We're already looking at playing baseball in Minnesota in mid-October or even later, and then again in late March, which is insane.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 03:06 PM) Balta, prosecution DID happen, and a default judgement was entered, then Holder droppped it because he didn't want to deal with the case. And that part is strange to me. If they were convicted in absentia, then what's the hold-up? At that point, all you have to do is find the guys, and sentence them. Why was that part dropped, if they were already prosecuted? May have been a simple situation of priority. Justice may have decided they had bigger fish to fry. But if that is true, why did the prosecute at all?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 02:46 PM) There's a couple big problems with that. First and foremost...not a single voter from that site has filed a complaint about intimidation. Therefore...there's limited standing with which to bring the case. This is of course not surprising, because the polling place they were at was a largely African American polling place. Furthermore, the part of the law that they'd have to have been charged under without actual intimidation complaints was written in a way so as to allow for prosecution of large scale voter intimidation efforts. There's actually a precedent issue here; the last time it was used to prosecute anyone was decades ago, and it was used to prosecute a large scale, state-wide voter caging effort. Without actual evidence of a conspiracy and without actual complaints of intimidation, it'd have been a nearly impossible case for the DOJ to bring and win. The actual reality is that the armed black panthers at the site were probably doing what they actually said they were doing, trying to in some misguided fashion "protect the black voters at this site from the White man!" to paraphrase a quote. Had anything actually happened involving any of the voters at the site, prosecution probably would have happened. It didn't. If the law is only to cover "large scale" voter intinidation, then... 1. The law should be changed 2. You prosecute for simple intimidation crimes The laws for assault have changed in many states, and some types of assault (and intimidation is often classified under assault) can have the state be the complainant, instead of the victim. The change was intended for use in domestic violence situations, but it has a broader effect. The state should look into this and do their own prosecution. And I'm sorry but, even if that lame excuse is actually true (which I have a hard time believing, but its possible), its still improper and, IMO, should be per se illegal if it isn't already.

There's nothing wrong with rotating guys at DH. If you have, say, 4 OF's who are all good bats, or maybe 2 1B's, its a great way to rest them and have lineup flexibility. There is EVERYTHING wrong with thinking that Kotsay/Jones was a viable replacement for Thome's production. That was Ozzie's call, and it failed.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 01:31 PM) Thus proving that all tea partiers are racist! Man, you do it EVERY time. Amazing. 1. Rex said nothing like that, neither did I. He said THIS SPECIFIC PERSON claims to be a Tea Partier. 2. This particlar Tea Partier, apparently, is racist. So can we please drop the hyperbole?

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) I will say that a google search on him shows a website where he claims to be a founding member of the White Plains Tea Party and he is a member of it according to Facebook. OK, then there it is. I just found it interesting that StrangeSox read an article which did not even contain the phrase "Tea Party", but applied the title to this racist buffoon. Did he know this about the guy from some other research before reading the article?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 01:15 PM) The guy talked about how he was ordered NOT to testify inthe hearings that were against the NBPP in the voter intimidation case, and how one of the bosses outright said that they were not going to bring any case up that was against minorities because minorities could only be intimidated, not the other way around. Also about how he was transferred because he wanted to testify and kept asking why he wasn't allowed to. Essentially shows how racially politicized the Justice Dept has become. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 01:33 PM) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/24...avesty-justice/ Hm. Definitely seems fishy, I'll agree. I remember when that happened, it seemed like pretty blatant intimidation, and there was every reason to prosecute them.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 12:14 PM) So are you arguing that it isn't a plant or that it just doesn't make sense to you? After reading a little it looks like the fundraiser is being done to bust Madigan. The Law states: Any individual, trust, partnership, committee, association, corporation, or any other organization or group of persons which receives or spends more than $3,000 on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate or question of public policy, meets the definition of a political committee and must comply with all provisions of the Illinois Campaign Financing Act, including the filing of campaign disclosure reports. If the Illinois GOP can raise $3000, a campaign committee has to be formed and they need to file appropriate campaign disclosure reports. I think this will force Mr Ryan out of hiding or at least get more information out. I'm saying I don't know if its a plant or not, but that from Madigan's perspective, doing that makes no sense. There's a lot to lose and nothing to gain. There are other possibilities as well, beyond just "he's a Madigan plant" or "he's not a plant at all". Could be some other democrat or party official, could be a GOP thing internal to their own party, could be someone's idea of a joke on this guy... lots of other possibilities.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 12:02 PM) So the media spent time on that, instead of the testimony from Coates about how the Justice Dept was told to not go after minority defendents, specificly the New Black Panther Party. I guess you have to have priorities in the news coverage, eh? I honestly hadn't heard about that - what's the deal?

StrangeSox, did you mean to quote my post and not respond?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 07:20 AM) Cowley's source is Oney and Ozzie Jr. There's a better chance Greg will put Ozzie at fault for anything before him. If those are indeed his sources, then yeah, this theory is a joke. Furthermore, as I recall, Ozzie HIMSELF said multiple times that he made the call on not bringing back Thome. It was his decision, he chose to own it. It failed.

Seeing some of the quotes so far, it seems like Colbert is only partially in character. He's said some more serious things too.