NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 03:09 PM) Jeesh...you and Balta have minds like freaking steel traps. How do you read all this stuff? And secondly, how do you retain it? I love data of all kinds. But really, the outdoors happens to be one of my passions, so I do a lot of reading and discussion on related topics. Same goes for finance, technology, law, the Sox, and some other areas of interest or my career. I'd bet you have some areas you have that kind of knowledge too.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) How many banks will fail today? I don't know, but I'm in a prediction market and shorted 125- a few weeks ago. Probably a good chance I close and make some money on that today. Current count: 120. There were 5 last week, 9 the week before.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 02:36 PM) If burning someone in effigy is terrorism, then I don't want to live in this country any more. The charge "terrorism" is a difficult beast. We think of it in terms of global terror, because of events since 9/11. But state criminal law has had that category on the books for a long, long time, and the precise use of it varies from state to state.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 02:32 PM) Via TPM- That's a bit much. Actually, I think that could even be potentially criminal. Depends on the statutes as written, but, I could see that being something like assault (threats to life are assault), or possibly something lower level in the terrorism/mob action category.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 01:30 PM) So where do you suppose this moon water is going to go? One of the major reasons they wanted to look for water was to see if there was extractable supply for human use on the moon. We're talking about people staying on the moon for more than a few days.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 01:25 PM) Based on what I know, this is false. If I'm not mistaken, oil does replenish itself from deep in the earth via fossilizing plant material, it just takes a long time. Once again, the human factor "we are all that matters" has to be taken into account here. What I mean by that is, while we may not have billions of years to live...the Earth does. And will. Well, the oil thing is a tangent, but I want to point out that the current usage rate of oil that can be extracted without making it both obscenely expensive and environmentally disastrous, the supply is not at all unlimited. The regeneration is painstakingly slow, and results in miniscule amounts of material. Its not a never-ending supply of reasonably priced oil.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?s=...t&p=2041874 I wouldn't have thought to look in the blanket MLB thread.

News report

Surprised I didn't see this posted (unless I missed it). Wilson Betemit has been signed by the Royals.

Anyone else catch 30 Rock last night? They had these two quick shots of a show called "Sports Shouting" that were just awesome. For extra entertainment, pause the show at that point, and look at the crawl text on the screen.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 09:31 AM) There are coyotes in the city of Chicago. They eat rats, mice, possum and racoons which all of which are major issues in the city. They also do not want to live in my house or garage. I welcome the coyotes. BTW, I am not a fan of cats or small dogs, they freak me out. Actually all smaller animals seem to scare me more than larger ones. Yeah, I tend to agree - they are predators for things we don't want and that are overpopulated. They will also, unfortunately, occasionally take small pets - but that is rare, and people can take precautions. But what will happen more and more, and is already happening in the burbs where coyote are more common now, is that people are freaking out about not only pets, but also their kids. Mind you, their kid is more likely to be killed by a racoon (or a rat or other disease carrying animal), but, a recent news story will make things worse - a woman in Canada was actually killed by coyotes. They think it is probably the first human death by coyote in modern recorded history for the US and Canada. So again, very, very, very, very rare - but that's all it takes for some folks to get into a panic. I really wish those people would focus on things that are actually likely to hurt their children, but, oh well.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 10:48 PM) I would like to see them take a risk and go up to $120M. Give those starters some more confidence. Having a starting 4 like this at trying to be cheap at the same time is like Culter trying to work with the Bears O. Having one of the highest payrolls in baseball is being cheap? Also, its not about "risk", per se. You'd have to find that $25M somewhere. If you can't generate it in revenue, you'd have to cut your costs (and I don't see how they can cut non-player costs by that much without major consequences), or you'd have to take on debt (because the team already plows back all its profits, give or take). These just aren't scenarios that will work.

QUOTE (flavum @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 02:45 PM) http://www.mlb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?si...perwin_surwin_1 Cassel bad again. Danks--2 bb, 2 runs. You're not kidding - Cassel goes 0.2, gives up 6 ER, walking 4 and striking out none. ERA at 8.80 in the AFL so far. Danks 1-3 plus 2 BB, 2 RBI, 3 R. Still looking good. Morel 3-5, he's hitting .400 in the AFL so far. I think he's very likely trade bait. Retherford with a hit, run and RBI. He had slumped badly, but after being off for 6 days (was he hurt?), his last two games are: 2-6 plus 3 BB.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 01:44 PM) The solution? Ban the 24/7 news cycle. Everyone can have their primetime slots, but that's it. The reason there's so much bias is that the MSM has to create news in order to keep people watching all day/night long. To do that you need charasmatic people that can speak non-stop on any given subject for a long period of time, which means they're going to have to share how they feel about it. Ted Turner should be jailed for introducing America to cable tv news. It's easily one of the worst "inventions" of the last 20 years. I actually think you could easily find 24/7 worth of news - but doing so would be very expensive (you'd need a LOT more actual journalists), and more to the point, would be boring for the intellectually soft crowd who sits in front of a TV all day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 12:12 PM) at the end of the day, all news is opinion to one degree or another. Sort of. News reporting cannot ever remove bias entirely, because its reported by human beings. But you can make an effort to get close to objectivity, and most of the MSM has given up even trying.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 11:46 AM) When CNN did that they earned the label "Communist News Network" for reporting actual news that didn't jibe with the administration's official lines. CNN is probably the closest to center of any of the network news. However, they chose to get super fluffy the last few years, and their website has a lot less news material than others. During the elections, I preferred CNN, though.

The best way to fight the trend of these stations doing so little news reporting, is for a competitor to crop up that does in fact report news. There are some bright spots here and there, but they are on the web or in print, not on TV. Or if they are on TV like PBS, they don't have the resources to truly be a global news presence. My prediction: BBC will parlay their continued expansion in the US into a full-blown US news channel, to compete with the existing MSM. And I'd probably watch it.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 10:06 AM) Add Kevin Dubler to your list. Very bad results, but great promise. I'd wager that Phegley's two years away at the least, with Gonzalez coming in at about 3 years. I've been following Dubler, he's an AAP for me. He's had two consecutive very disappointing seasons. He's dug himself a serious hole. If he doesn't look pretty damn good in A ball in 2010, I think he's done.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 10:24 AM) The military's change was far more comprehensive than the surge, that's something the Bill Kristol types still fail to understand. Also there is really no comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq. You said in two sentences what took me three grafs. Nicely done.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 09:51 AM) It probably means adding 30,000 troops instead of 40,000. It doesn't mean we're leaving anytime soon. More specifically, I get the impression it isn't about troop LEVELS, its about usage and strategy. The "surge" in Iraq worked not because there were more troops, but because of a big shift in strategy. I think Obama is looking for that right set of good ideas to implement and get a similar result. Of course, that was a different scenario with some coincidental political changes in Iraq, but the military change was indeed part of the reason why violence went down so much. I don't particularly care if its 30k or 40k, that's not important here, really. Also, related, we need to get more of our guys our of Iraq faster, if we are going to do this right. Sending troops to Afghanistan means, for many of them, a 3rd or even 4th tour in the region, and that has to wear them down a bit. That concerns me.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 09:33 AM) Foreclosures in Illinois went up though. Who other than Chase is hiring? Jobless claims were basically a wash with revisions. And how many people are just moving between programs? The gov't guarantees 90% of the mortgage mkt. = Not good. Yeah that's an odd thing lately, is that Illinois, including Chicago, haven't seemed to flatten out in the housing market as well as other states. Chicago didn't have nearly the bubble that a lot of other large cities did, so their dip was more shallow, but I thought that would also mean a quicker stabilization. But that hasn't been the case. Also interesting in Chicago, the single family home market is recovering faster than the condo/townhome market, but that isn't as much of a surprise - too much condo capacity built up in the last few years in the city, particularly south loop.

Jobless claims fall more than expected for last week. Foreclosures fall for 3rd straight month. More lenders hiring more mortgage officers. More lenders using federal program to ease foreclosures, and re-do loans. All reported today.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Nov 11, 2009 -> 05:34 PM) Actually O-Cab wanted to stay. KW told him to stay away though because they would make his life miserable by benching him if he decided to accept arbitration. He did? He talked some s*** after he left about the club, didn't sound to me like he enjoyed his time here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 11, 2009 -> 05:40 PM) So if you can't call winning elections a statement on a party anymore, how about polls? http://www.gallup.com/poll/124226/Republic...-2010-Vote.aspx Sentiment is definitely turning. People wanted change, they got some change, but they also got an economic disaster. That is always the fastest way to change parties in power. Not surprising.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 11, 2009 -> 05:38 PM) So the EPA has changed a whole lot and is still censoring employees work That's actually a pretty good illustration of how the EPA is, in fact, different. BushCo tended to squash things entirely, or change scientific papers to meet non-scientific political goals. In this case, the EPA told those people they can post all they want, just not under the auspices of the EPA. Not only is that amazingly lax, but most other employers wouldn't allow it. If you had made a YouTube video ridiculing your company's efforts, you'd probably be fired. So yeah, this is a good sign, IMO, that things are definitely different. Now, if you want a sign of something bad with the EPA, go back to that article CKnolls posted about the supposed pending removal of the economic analysis folks at EPA. That, if true (and I have seen nothing saying it actually happened), would make me upset, and i said so at the time.