NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 10:21 AM) You are asking a guy to participate "in character" about a somewhat serious topic. You cant a take a word that comes out of his mouth seriously. I watched about 3 minutes of it and it just was uncomfortable. OK, so you are saying it doesn't make sense for him to testify before Congress about it in character. I get it now. Yeah, I think I agree, but I'd have to see it myself.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 10:01 AM) What purpose does Colbert bring to the conversation? He's a liberal in conservatives clothing. Most of his bits are actually MOCKING the GOP. I just dont get it. Its called parody. Also, you are aware he is there to talk about the jobs plan, because he participated in it, right? I'm not sure what you are asking here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 09:47 AM) Being in a multiple person race against an incumbent at this very moment myself, the logic is quite simple. First of all, if you are a strong incumbent, you are going to have a massive monetary and name advantage over a challenger. The worst possible scenario in that sort of situation is to have multiple challengers. A person who is in office is pretty much guaranteed a certain level of support. The more you can delude the rest of the pool, the easier it is for even a not popular incumbent to win. In a primary sort of situation, a plant from the opposite party can not only delude the potential challengers pool, but it can also force them to spend resources they don't have. If that plant wins, they do as they were supposed to and not become a challenge to the person they are "supporting". I have never met a candidate that hid from cameras. I don't know what this guys status is, but the fact he is hiding from the biggest columnist in the City of Chicago really makes me wonder. If you really wanted to take down Michael Madigan, why in the hell wouldn't you utilize the #1 person in the state who has been fighting him publicly for years? I'd love to hear another scenario that makes better sense. There is still a flaw in the motive. Think this through. There are two scenarios with the GOP side of that race. Either the GOP actually wants to take a real shot with a real candidate, or they have decided its not worth the resources. If the former is true, then this plant's presence is useless, he won't have a chance anyway, so the big candidate does nothing different. If the latter is true, then Madigan could care less who they nominate. Either way, there is no reason for him to be there. It does absolutely nothing to benefit Madigan in either scenario. Furthermore, planting a candidate across party lines is beyond stupid, if you are creating a fake. Because that would only matter if the GOP actually cared about the race, and if they did, the fake would be found out. There is no gain in this at all, and a lot to lose. And again, I am not saying candidates aren't sometimes planted - both by opposing party AND same party for various reasons. But I see no reason for the GOP or the Dems, in this case, to do it, because there is no gain in either scenario.

It bugs me a lot that Ozzie is saying this s*** during the season. One way or another, a lot of these players will be back in 2011, and it can't make them happy to see this going on while they are still playing. It would bother me less if this was November.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 09:06 AM) You can say what you want about Kass. You can say it doesn't matter if the GOP didn't nominate anyone. You can also say it makes no sense. I don't have the answers...I don't follow the s*** all that much. But if you had a neighbor, running for state rep...you would know. If you were running for state rep...you would make it known. Your parents would be proud and spouting off your talking points. Your face would be out there. Your credentials. If he started working for the city straight out of H.S., I'm assuming he didn't go to college. Is he even fit to run for office? I don't really know the reason for a plant, maybe just to waste money? I just know this stinks to high heaven and whether it came from Kass or Mary Mitchell, it's typical Chicago politics. Same kind of stuff that happened to my buddy when they put a plant in the primary to get him to spend his money. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75895 It even discusses in the article linked how "In 2002, McCarthy faced a Republican named Joel Herrick who also didn't lift a finger to campaign. In fact, he avoided publicity. What does that tell you?" Byplacing someone on the ballot, the Democrats dissuade credible Republicans from jumping into the race. It's legal, of course, but dishonest. Unethical. Incumbents shouldn't need these silly training wheels. Let them face voters on their own. By the way, if you live in the 37th district, please consider my friend Jeff. http://jeffjunkas.com/ I agree it seems odd, no doubt. And I am not at all saying that it couldn't or wouldn't happen. What I am saying is, there is no motive in this case. The only person who'd have to spend more money is Madigan. The GOP isn't going to dump a bunch of money there, unless they had a candidate that had any kind of real shot at it.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 08:19 AM) John Kass wrote a good article on this yesterday. "Cynical me. I wondered if Ryan was a Madigan plant, an easy setup, taking space on the ballot so the warlord of Madiganistan wouldn't have a Latino opponent in the increasingly Hispanic district on the Southwest Side." "Hoping to meet with the elusive Patrick John Ryan myself, I got up before dawn and drove to the 4300 block of West 78th Street, where he lives with his parents, according to state records. A Democratic pol warned me that my search would be futile. "Now that you're looking for this Ryan kid, Mike will have him buried in some office and you'll never see him," he said. Now, that's cynical. I figured the neighborhood would be festooned with "Vote for Ryan!" signs, maybe even some banners declaring: "P.J. in the House!" But there were no signs on his block. Not even in front of his own home. Not one measly little sign." "We said our goodbyes, and I didn't even mention the lack of lawn signs. But I did tell them I planned to talk to the neighbors. "He's a wonderful young man, very kind, nice to everybody," said neighbor Mary Jo Bardan, who owns her own business. "His mom and dad are great. We call his dad the mayor of the block. He organizes all the block parties." And the son? "P.J. went to St. Rita," Bardan said. "And he started working for the city when he got out of high school." So what do you think of him challenging Boss Madigan in the November election? "What?" she asked. "He's running? Running for what?" 1. Kass has been on a singular crusade - Daley - for quite some time. Now with Daley retiring, he's looking for new targets. I'd be cautious what you take from his writing. 2. Whether or not a Latino candidate, or anyone else, was nominated by the GOP, doesn't really matter. And if it did, the GOP would make sure to expose some fake candidate anyway. There is no motivation on Madigan's part to do this, so, why the ruse? Conspiracy theories are only believable if the conspirators actually get something out of the conspiracy. Madigan gains nothing from this, and could lose something, so it makes no sense.

QUOTE (Fotop @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 10:04 PM) US to Mumbai? Yeah that's rough. What carrier are you flying? My suggestion would either be Singapore Airlines or Qatar Airlines if you have a choice. They blow the US carriers (namely AA and United) out of the water. Better than British Airways in my opinion, as well. Lie flat seats are always nice - the ones on the new Singapore Airlines planes (basically any of the airbuses 360 and 380 I believe) are HUGE. Again, there's no comparison, except for Qatar from what I hear, but I've never flown them. Good point about the water as well, just make sure you've got easy exit from your seat if you're drinking a ton of water for obvious reasons. Haha. I will also recommend using a tiny travel toothbrush mid-flight - if you're flying business they usually provide these for you or you can pick them up in the lounge pre-flight. Gives you a reason to get up and walk around, makes you feel less scummy toward the end of the flight, and furthermore, should refresh you a bit if you need to be awake. Mumbai can be flown direct from JFK or IAD. Delhi direct from JFK or ORD. If I ever have to trek back there again, I'll find a way to fly direct from the states.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 06:02 PM) Shocking. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/23/docume...-iraq-november/ No surprise there. Its been pretty well known for a while that Rusmfeld and the other neo-con hawks that Bush surrounded himself with were looking for a reason to do Iraq. Its still, to this day, amazing to me that the public didn't see it in 2002 and 2003 during the run-up. A lot of evidence was already right there to see.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 24, 2010 -> 07:37 AM) Blatantly racist Tea Party candidate in New York (no, not Paladino this time). Those are Eliot's words, but he's quoting him favorably. Tea Party? The words Tea Party don't even appear in that article. It appears he's a racist, so I hope he loses, and it seems like he will. But let's be clear - there is no mention that he is in any way affiliated with the Tea Party. The GOP who backed him, though, may want to re-think that decision.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 11:26 PM) I am not sure wither, but nobody in the Illinois Republican party knows who this guy is or has ever seen him. All i can think of is that he is keeping any real challengers off the ballot should someone decide to try for it? More likely, the GOP didn't farm out looking for a candidate, because, what's the point? But some guy, a Republican apparently, decided on his own to take a shot. So here he is.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 04:24 PM) Ripken? He won the 2 gold gloves right after Ozzie won his...and was only stopped from winning more by the reign of golden terror promulgated by one Omar Vizquel. QUOTE (The Critic @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) Just for conversation, fielding percentaes during each guy's Gold Glove years: Trammel .980, .983, .979, .980 Yount .969 Guillen .977 Griffin .960 Fernandez .987, .979, .981, .992 Ripken .986, .984 I realize other factors go into this, such as range, arm strength, etc., but the %s suggest that Ozzie wasn't light years ahead of anyone except maybe Yount and Griffin. However, their bats may have made them more valuable overall than Ozzie. I liked Ozzie as a player, but I never thought I was seeing a game-changing defensive player. FPct was always high for Rip, but his range was bad, he got to far, far fewer plays than his peers. Ozzie was a better defensive SS than those guys, though maybe not Fernandez. Ripken won a gold glove because he was Ripken.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) Wondering if anyone else noticed this? Been discussed in the Ozzie/KW thread, I assume its the same quote from the Trib.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 04:20 PM) In the mid-80's, I remember these guys as the better SS in the AL: Robin Yount Cal Ripken Alan Trammell Tony Fernandez Rick Burleson Alfredo Griffin Defensively? Hell no. Yount , Trammel, Ripken... those guys were not at Ozzie's level with the glove.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 03:35 PM) I heard this morning that Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan actually has a 'challenger' in his district, a Republican with the name of John Patrick Ryan. But the problem is that noone in the Illinois Republican Party knows who that is, and he hasn't established a campaign office or held any fundraisers or events. Could he be a fake candidate slated to run so that Madigan doesn't really have to campaign? His district is pretty safe for him, so unless some phenom came out of the woodwork, he wouldn't have anythign to worry about, so wonder what is going on there. Oh, GOP State Chair Pat Brady is holding a fundraiser for him so hopefully he can find out! http://www.docstoc.com/docs/55166505/Patri...nRyanFundraiser Isn't John Patrick Ryan the full name of the main character in the Clancy novels?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 11:28 AM) Im not too worried about falling asleep on the plane, since it will happen even if I just woke up. Planes and car rides knock me out better than NyQuil. The biggest problem that I have seen thus far is the dates in which I have been led to believe that I need to fly in on. They say "early January" and so I take that as the first week of January, which falls into that blanket of Holiday travel which triples the price of tickets. I envy you. I've been sent overseas on business numerous times, and I have rarely ever been able to sleep on the plane. I once did a 3-flight, 29 hour nightmare trip to India on business, didn't sleep once. Worse, I got to the hotel at like noon, so I had to keep myself up another 7 or 8 hours to not be totally whacked out for the next day. That sucked.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 08:57 AM) Who the hell cares if he was or wasn't a good hitter? What does that have to do with anything now? If that mattered why did he hire s***ty hitters like Walker and Cora on his staff? Walker was actually pretty good for a while, until he had a broken arm, then an aneurism, which eventually ended his career.

Latest from Trib - like the DH decision, KW leaving this up to Ozzie.

Sox officially pick up Thornton's option for 2011 - $3M.

Any overnight flight, do everything humanly possible to get some sleep. As stated by others. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 07:38 PM) KLM and Northwest sharecode, so it would be the same flight. I've flown to Amsterdam a few times always on KLM. They fly 747s over and are usually early. Also they don't use the US airlines policy on serving alcohol during the flight. You can suck back as many as you'd like, comp. The best bet is to use Orbitz. See what's cheapest and book through the airline website. If you don't mind making stops, yahoo travel can get you a deal as well. Actually, NW and KLM both operate flights from the US to Amsterdam, and yes, they code share - though that was before Delta bought NWA, so I am not sure how that works anymore.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 02:19 PM) Is he the Giant Douche or the Sh*t Sandwich? We are sort of mirroring South Park ATM. This Gov election in IL looks to be as bad as last time, and that was atrocious (Blago v Baar-Topinka). I seriously could not stomach voting for either of those bufoons, I ended up voting Green. Apparently a lot of other people had the same gag reflex, because the Greens (for the first time ever in IL) got enough votes to become a qualifying party, to receive more money in the next election. I may have to go that route again.

LOL, here is what having O'Donnell win the DE primary has done. If Castle had won, he'd have a 55-37 edge over Coons (D). With O'Donnell as the nominee, she is trailing Coons 55-39. Article.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 12:55 PM) So I am going to study abroad in Rotterdam, netherlands and will be leaving early January. Any advice when, where, to buy tickets? Any advice on who to fly? Would it be best to fly into Amsterdam instead and then take a train? Any Dvice is welcome. Thanks everyone. Schiphol (Amsterdam) is a major airport for overseas flights, which means you will have multiple airlines flying there from ORD or other airports stateside, and that means cheaper fares usually. I've never flown KLM, but Northwest used to fly there direct from Chicago, and I'd bet AA or UAL does too - all three of those would be fine to fly on. Just find the cheapest fare.

QUOTE (Real @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 11:36 AM) Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Cowley was on the score this morning and was told by an unnamed Sox player that Kenny and Ozzie had another fight at the end of last month, and at one point Kenny told Ozzie "You're done." I'd believe it, though its Cowley, so its hard to say how much of that is really true.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 11:12 AM) The cubs need to thinking about Quade as the guy right now as he is doing a nice job....what about Girardi to the Sox?????? I was thinking Quade to the Sox, since Sandberg is still pretty much the guy for the Cubs job.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 11:09 AM) I don't see how you can say 2005 wasn't a fluke at this point. I don't get why people get mad at those of us who call it a fluke. It doesn't make 2005 not feel great, it doesn't change the fact that the championship was earned, and it doesn't cheapen what happened at all. But 2005 was still a fluke. This is all about what "fluke" means. If you think it means the 2005 team somehow got lucky, then you are delusional. The team that went 1st place wire to wire, won 99 games and went 11-1 in the post-season was without a doubt the best team in baseball in 2005. Now, if by "fluke" you mean that 2005 was an unexpected and/or unlikely event compared to other seasons for the Sox, then obviously yes, it was a fluke. Lots of key players had career years, most specifically in the pitching staff.