NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 4, 2010 -> 12:04 PM) pretty much. but Turd Sandwich has already promised to raise taxes, so i won't vote for him. maybe i'll just vote for Giant Douche even though he's, well, a Giant Douche. This is definitely a bad set of choices, but amazingly, not the worst we've seen. The last IL Gov election featured Blago and Judy Baar-Topinka. I chose death (I actually chose the Green Party, which 9% of Illinoisans also chose, for probably the same reasons).

If the Sox do go into serious fire sale mode, I wouldn't mind seeing Donny up here for a bit. But only long enough for Flowers to get back on track, and shake off the manipulation he's been put under lately. Once he's got it going, he's the guy. Lucy is a probable backup for next year, and I'd be OK with him in that role.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 08:07 PM) Any advice for a beginner investor? Im looking to invest about $1000-3000 this summer. Ive been using mint.com lately and Im thinking of using optionhouse.com for trades because it is really cheap and the first 100 trades are free.. Any stocks anyone would recommend? Any websites? Any general info? Ive been trying to follow the stock market day to day more often to see whats doing well and what isnt, anything I should be looking for in particular? optionshouse.com, I would highly recommend, when you do decide to open an account somewhere. Its a great site. As to what to invest in, I will just say two things. One: diversify. Don't dump it all in on stock. Spread it out, or use ETF's or mutual funds. Two: decide your timeline and risk tolerance. If its money you just want to protect and have earn a little, then go lower risk stuff - value stocks with high dividends, or bond funds. If your timeline is longer, you can stomach more risk.

QUOTE (hogan873 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 12:35 PM) No, since Kotsay doesn't pitch. I appreciate the smartassedness, but Kotsay is absolutely brutal in the 5-hole. He's a serviceable back-up 1B, and it's unfortunate that he can't be used as he would be more useful. I agree with the fact that the rotation has sucked. I was just saying that the offense, and factors within, have sucked as well. People here were worried about the rotating DH, Teahen, Pierre, and the bullpen, as the primary concerns. As it turns out, the bullpen has been pretty good (though Williams sucks and Jenks has been heart attack central), Pierre is getting it together, Teahen has been meh offensively and bad defensively, and the rotating DH of Kotsay and Jones has not been the big problem in the lineup. Instead, its mostly the starting rotation, and guys like Beckham and Quentin who we thought would do well, that are causing the biggest problems.

QUOTE (champs2005 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 09:59 AM) That's it. Uncle. It aint fun anymore. I throw in the towel. I can muster any semblamce of enthusiasm during Konerko and Rios bat or Thornton or Santos pitches. Floyd now 2-6 Buehrle a 180 degree turn since perfect game Peavy looking nothing like he used to Q, Beckham, Alexi with the ugliest swings on the most hittable pitches AJ never taking a pitch and having that look on his face that says I dont give a f**k anymore and what that means for the "clubhouse chemistry" Running Kotsay out there every day in the 5-spot Watching them scratchnig and clawing for one or two lousy runs and knowing the opponents will put them up in bunches easily. All the talk of trades, rebuilding, etc I mean I never thought that everything had to break right for this team to do well, but EVERYTHING has broke wrong. It's a team wide SLUMP SEASON! IM SO DISAPPOINTED IN THESE WHITE SOX!!!!!!! Merging this with the already-existing and sure-to-grow towel throwing thread.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 09:53 AM) So, it's not reasonable to say that Rosie the Riveter types were "fighting" the Nazi's too? I admitted it was a poor choice of words, but it's not like she was embellishing to the point of flat out lying like the recent guys about Vietnam. I think she meant to say that he died participating in the fight against Nazism, so to be called that is an insult. Smart choice of words? No. A big deal? No. I agree its not a huge deal, but let's be honest - she outright lied. Her father died in the 50's, and never fought in that theater. To make any claim whatsoever about him dying fighting Hitler is just not reality.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 09:37 AM) Still...after 4-5 occurrences of a formerly 1/year or 1/5 year event within the space of less than a year, you can't rule out the possibility that there's been a fundamental shift in the probability of that event happening. Of course you can't rule it out - you can't rule it out even if it were just two in a year. What I said was, you can't draw any reasonable CONCLUSION from it. There is a much greater chance of it being an aberration than a trend, and in any case, you couldn't see a trend at this point. To put it in terms you would use, and agree with, you can't look at a partial season of hurricanes in one year and draw any sort of meaningful conclusion about a particularly large or small number of them. You need more data than that, otherwise you are just pulling conclusions out of your ass.

You cannot associate the frequency of a black swan event, over a very short period, with any sort of trend. If over 5 or 10 years, you start seeing a big increase in no-hitters and perfect games, then maybe its meaningful. But to look at the 19th, 20th, and maybe 21st events of something happening in about a MILLION games played, and try to draw any sort of conclusion from it, just isn't meaningful.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) This one drives me crazy. With all of the people, time, and equiptment needed to undertake this operation, NO ONE has made a first hand account of either doing it, or seeing it done. Not to mention that thousands of people SAW the first plane hit, and millions saw the the second one hit.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 08:41 AM) The question I have in reply is how much the fines are limited based on the limitations on the books, and that's going to be a matter for the courts to figure out. And BP is already working hard to make sure that every case coming out of this geyser winds up before a favorable judge (having a favorable judge in the Exxon case was a huge, huge, huge advantage to Exxon; for example, it helped them dramatically curtail the amount of stuff they had to disclose by slapping extremely stringent deadlines and requirements on the plaintiffs discovery phase). Well obviously BP is protecting itself, that's normal. As for the limits on fines, I don't know what they are.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 08:40 AM) After A.J gets traded i wouldn't mind giving Lucy the job for a month or two until Flowers gets back on track. We won't be in contention, so why not reward the guy for his years of service? Might not be a bad idea, because it will also get him some good major league experience for being the backup C next season.

Flowers has struggled in AAA and is jut now starting to get his swing back to where it was, from what I've read. Now is the worst possible moment to bring him up to the majors. I would like to see Hudson, Torres and Gartrell. In September, add in Flowers if he has picked up the pace in AAA (Lucy if not), and maybe a couple others (possibly even Morel).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2010 -> 08:01 AM) Anything that can be filibustered will be. Obama can do some fines, but we've already seen what happens in Congress when you try to raise the liability cap. If you do some reading on this, you will find that debarment does not require any Congressional action whatsoever. Its an agency call. Fines and penalties can also be done without Congress. The ONLY part I mentioned that requires Congress is the liability restriction, and if you listen to the noise right now, you'll find that has got pretty good bipartisan support.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 09:27 PM) The only conspiracy that I could possibly buy into with regards to 911 is if Flight 93 crashed or if it was shot down. Honestly, given the situation, I don't see why you don't just come out and say "it was shot down" if it was. People would have understood it under those circumstances, and the blowback would have been minimal. On the other hand, if just one pilot or tower controller or witness had shown that the White House tried to cover it up, that would have been pretty big damage. So I don't see the net gain in covering that up.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 05:00 PM) http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bps-dismal-safety...ory?id=10763042 That's good work there, BP. I said before, I got dismissed, and I'll say it again. The US gov't is going to do a deep debarment of BP in the near future, in addition to slamming them with a wide array of fines and penalties, and probably removing the liability protections they are shielded by. Its the only way, politically, for Obama to survive this.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 07:19 PM) Sarah Palin gets twice as much attention from liberals screaming about her then anything else. I admit I fell into that. I try to ignore her, I mostly do, but occasionally she gets to me. QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 07:20 PM) I normally go out of my way to avoid acknowledging she exists, personally. I should do that more often.

Kanny beat Greeneville 12-3 already. Colligan 4-5 and on fire right now (12 for his last 22), numerous multi-hit games, Collop a decent outing, Dubler continues to start at C over Gonzalez. B-Ham up 2-0 on Tennessee in the 2nd. Long pitching. W-S @ Potomac at 6:03pm CT, Nate Jones starting Charlotte @ Pawtucket, 7:05pm CT, no starter announced yet

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 01:15 PM) 24 year old in AA for the 3rd year in a row with a 1.37 WHIP. Right now, not looking too good. Just got promoted to AAA, BTW.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 12:18 PM) What's the chance the Sox draft Morgado in the 2nd round again? I have a question about this. If a team drafts a player but is unable to sign them, do they get some sort of protected right to draft him again the next year? I ask because I was thinking, couldn't players and agents otherwise just ignore teams they don't like one year, and then wait to go out the next year?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 01:04 PM) And now let's imagine there's 6 teams. So, you try to come up with different levels, and you figure out rapidly that you can't...you wind up with ridiculous splits like 2 teams in 1 league who always play each other and 4 in another. No matter how you want to look at it, you've let your major, overarching principle of "teaching them a lesson" go, and so I can keep coming up with scenarios that will make the rules you require more and more complex/unworkable. Which is a damn good argument for this and similar rules being downright silly. Max runs per inning, to make the game move along and let players get their at-bats, fine. But any of this other stuff to take away the winning/losing aspect is not only a bad idea for the reasons Y2HH and I have stated, its also just not realistic. Let them play, let some games get out of hand, and rely on coaches and parents to teach their kids that everyone wins and loses at times, and how to move on from that. Win with class, lose with class.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 11:50 AM) I don't buy it. Where at that time of the year when you're gonna read or hear about 5757456537634 different rumors and most people are going to flip out, good or bad. This team is 9.5 games out of first place. They're not looking to add a past his prime, injury prone 3B (can he even play the position anymore?) as some feeble attempt of "getting back" in the race. 8.5

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 11:01 AM) Quentin's a power hitter...we need him for his ability to drive in runs. Getting a couple of bloop hits to right field isn't fixing the problems with him. His problem is every time he hits the ball to LF, it's off the end of the bat. Thus, he needs to continue to work on making himself comfortable at the plate, and I'm optimistic that his leg kick is a step in the right direction. Watching the game last night, he looks to me like he may be starting to do that (drive the ball with some authority). I wouldn't be surprised if he was about to start hitting well.

LOL, check out the picture of Lowell on that article. Its perfect for the context. He looks like someone ran over his dog.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 09:45 AM) Which is, of course, why she'll be the 2012 nominee. I doubt that. She'd get some support - if she even runs - but she won't win the nomination. She'd get crushed in the general, and I think the Republican leadership realizes that.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 2, 2010 -> 09:38 AM) If you make the assumption that all drilling onshore is safer then that would be a reasonable conclusion. You're obviously right though, drilling beyond the arctic circle has its own set of challenges (we had a small leak from the pipeline up there a couple weeks ago). I probably overreacted a bit in this case, but I truly despise Palin. More so than Bush, or even Glenn Beck. She personifies everything that has gone horribly awry on the right in the past decade or two - she embraces ignorance, she has no substance, she parrots social conservatism coated in sugary narrative to make bigotry seem somehow helpful, she harps on fiscal responsibility yet led her state in a way that was quite the opposite, and she has shown zero interest in the basic concepts of fact, science, or compromise. She is the perfect example of what has decimated the party I once supported.