NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 03:35 PM) Rio de Janeiro (2006) -- 37.7 murders per 100,000 Chicago (2006) -- ~15 murders per 100,000 Look at some of this other information: 2006 -- 1,060 criminals were killed in Rio by the police. In a city roughly double the size of Chicago 2006 -- 347 criminals were killed by the police in the entire USA. I'm sure the disparity would only extend further if other crime rates are taken into consideration. I'm also going to guess, even without proof, that their corruption issues make ours look tame. And its gotten a lot worse in Rio the last year or two, so those numbers will jump further. Security/crime issues are what will likely kill off Rio's chances.

Pods' first game in Charlotte: 0-4 with a strikeout, and an error in CF

Neither Florida team gets any level of fan support, which makes it hilarious that they both want new stadiums. Last night there were all of 3000 people in the stands, and half were Sox fans. Florida should lose at least one team, if not both.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 10:10 AM) I think it's all about scale. It's MUCH easier to build high speed rail in countries like Japan, because it's a much smaller country. It's would be like running a total high speed rail network in say... California, which would be possible. And in Europe, the countries are the size of American states. So, the scale is VERY different. To create a true high speed rail system coast to coast, city to city, would cost an unfathomable amount of money. I would argue parts of our current system were only cost efficient to build in the 1800's because they used cheap immigrant labor. Good luck trying that today. Size as cost is part of it. You also have to keep in mind the legal differences - in order to acquire land for right of way in this country, you have to go through painstaking negotiations, and then pay a lot of money for it, due to the takings clause of 5A. And yet another factor is that Europe has been developing their current system for decades. And yet another factor is that the spending in European countries by the government is much higher as a portion of the economy, as goes with their much higher levels of taxation. And yet another factor is the cultural setting in this country built around cars, and therefore the proportion of money spent on highways and roads, relative to rail, is so much higher, and its hard to change that.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 10:00 AM) meh It would be orders of magnitude more expensive and more time-consuming to go full boat on this - acquiring new right of way property, planning, testing, constructing new rail, buying new equipment, etc. It would be great in the end, but cost a fortune. The future of real, new, super-high speed rail will be in having some regional legs built here and there, and work up to it. And actually, you can still use existing rail to go up to 150mph if you upgrade it this way, and then slowly buy new engines that can do that. We don't have hundreds of billions of dollars laying around to build an all new, truely super-high speed rail network around Chicago.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 09:48 AM) it was just a joke based on stereotypes. exactly.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 09:51 AM) Where are we getting the 110mph figure from? Is that all that these so called "high speed" rail options are going to offer? What a gip. How about getting a true high speed rail option. Obama prefers improving existing rail lines to allow for the max speed the equipment can handle - 110 mph. Right now many of the rail segments only allow 70 or 80 or whatever. Going this way is cheaper and faster than building entirely new rail, acquiring right of ways, etc. I tend to agree with him.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 08:46 AM) Good news is, under the new Texas law, there wouldnt be an illegal immigration problem. They'd allow all their residents to own assult weapons (dont you dare infringe their gun rights!) and the law would allow you to shot to kill and illegals. This is a very Kaperbole post, but from the other side. Homerbole? Maybe Lefterbole?

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) It would only be faster in the "check-in to walk-out" sense. Departure to arrival is faster by plane, but it takes FOREVER to check in. Well... duh. Planes go a lot faster than 110 mph. Besides, the only useful measure of travel time from A to B is including everything - you can't fly on an airline but skip all the check in, security and baggage nonsense. Also, I addressed this topic in my first post. Here is an example. If you want to travel to, say, LaCrosse, by plane. The flight itself is only an hour, but if you have to be there 90 minutes ahead to deal with everything, and have to deal with baggage on the back end, etc., now its a 3 hour trip. On the current Amtrak line, Chicago to LaCrosse is about 4.5 hours, but would be 3.5 with the improvements. So they'd be very close in terms of actual time - 3 versus 3.5.

My opinion of Scott Merkin just went up a notch.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 08:13 AM) Oh Milton Bradley will be quite a treat to watch this summer, no doubt. However, the suspension talk is kind of bogus, the umpire is claiming Bradley made contact with him and that is not the case. His reputation is fueling the suspension talk. I love how Lou just let him do it and didnt even go out there to back him up From what I read, the bills of their caps made contact. Kind of lame for "contact". But regardless of that part, I think its hilarious that he got ejected after his first at bat at Wrigley Field. He couldn't even make it through a whole game.

I have a pair of shoes with those zip laces (the kind you just cinch up with a bracket, they are made of kevlar or something). Anyway, one broke, so Salomon sent me a replacement quick-lace. The directions that came with them are the most bizarre instructions I have ever seen. Here is a direct quote (misspellings and all) of Step 3 of the procedure... That's it - that is the whole step. I can't even tell what that means. Burn it? Oh, and, this is accompanied by a tiny little black and white image of such poor quality that I cannot tell what I am looking at. Who gets paid to do stuff like this?

So, its not even 2 complete weeks into the season, and already Milton Bradley has... --Injured his groin and missed games --Made at least a couple laughably bad plays in the OF that I have seen --Gotten ejected for arguing with an umpire, and will face suspension LOL, oh yeah, he's reformed.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 06:47 PM) The funniest thing is, Rick Perry never said those words. Yet, look at the flames fly. But I didn't know about the Supreme Court decision, which is good to know. This was a more or less typical sensationalist thing. He did actually say those words, but he couched it in so many caveats that it was obvious no one was seriously considering it. But the press will turn anything then can into something big, loud and simple - TEXAS GOVERNOR WANTS TO SECEDE!!! Yeah not really. I do think he was a bit classless to even hint at it, since it was clearly disingenuous. But this is not that big a deal.

In answer to the question about what we'd get for the money... the Trib updated their article, and it says that for the entire Chicago hub network improvements on all five of those lines, would be $8B. You'd get rail service that was faster than driving and possibly even flying, and cheaper than flying and possibly than driving, to all those cities.

QUOTE (IamPabloOzuna @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 10:58 PM) Here I am.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 07:01 PM) wouldn't shutting down an entire lane for bus use completely cause traffic chaos? the roads seem bad enough without taking away a lane. Read the article. The bus will use the shoulder, where no cars currently ride.

Is there any more annoying audio experience in professional sports than being at a Rays game? Out of rhythm cowbells and the dolcet tones of someone slowly killing a trombone player. Oh yeah, that's some good stuff.

LOL, I swear, I have the touch. Every time I say something good about someone on here, in game, they fall apart. Shirek was getting shelled in the third when I just checked again.

I'm listening to the radio for the W-S game, never done that before. The announcer, going solo, is actually pretty good. Shirek gives up his first hit, which follows an E6 by Paiml, so now 2nd and 3rd with no out in the bottom of the 3rd.

Shirek with 2 perfect innings so far, he threw 6 innings of shutout in his first game. Jordan Danks led off the game with a homer.

So I just read something on the way home, and its related. Pace (Chicago's suburban bus service) is going to start special express bus services using dedicated lanes, for suburbs - to - city transit. The first pilot will be a bus along I-55, that gets exclusive access to a lane on the left shoulder. It would cut an hour off round trip commutes, and is much cheaper and faster to implement than a new train line. I was psyched when I first read the article, and still sort of am. Great idea. But then I saw this: Because Daley couldn't get the city council to pass congestion charging for the city in time to meet a deadline, the area lost $150M that could have gotten all these and more in place right away. That pissed me off a bit. Still though, the idea is solid, and I can see it being very successful with a very small investment. Link to article. This kind of thing, little efforts at making mass transit better for more people, are just great.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 03:47 PM) Talent always wins out in the end. BA and Getz just aren't as good...Beckham is the only one in the organization with the confidence to do it. You can't be afraid of failure as a baseball player...and Gordon isn't. If anything, I think he needs to have a little struggle to realize that he's not quite as good as he thinks he is. If you look at players like Rowand and Crede, they struggled over and over again until they became regulars. But, if you have the talent and ability, there will always be a place for you at the next level. Actually, no, it doesn't always win out in the end. If it did, it would always be the highest draft picks and best early-minors performers that are MLB stars, but that is not the case. This is one of many reasons why we need to see him get some experience under his belt.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 03:49 PM) Should be some interesting pitching tonight. 2 guys looking to make the ML roster soon that have been pretty disappointing in McCulloch and Marquez. And two guys who are a little too old for their leagues that are pretty solid pitchers in Leesman and Shirek. I expect both of those guys to move up a level by midseason, Shirek to AA and Leesman to High-A. Neither Shirek nor Leesman are "old" for their league. And more important than actual age is experience level anyway. Shirek has just one year of pro ball (2008 in Kanny) plus a tiny 6 inning stint his draft year (2007), so he's at A+ even a little early, having skipped rookie ball. He's "old" at 23 because he was drafted later for various reasons. Considering all that, he's ahead of the curve right now as far as I am concerned. Leesman was only drafted last year, and is 22 at High A after pitching a grand total of 3 games in 2008. He's at High A with 3 games' experience. Neither are old in any useful sense. I understand numeric age is important too, but when you are talking about a 21 year old versus a 22 year old (or 22 versus 23), by far what is more important is experience.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 03:47 PM) I like the idea a lot, but we've blown all our money an crap we didn't need. can it be done for the 13 billion set aside? if so go for it. if it's going to end up being 100 billion, probably not a good idea. I guess it depends on how much high speed rail we get for $13,000,000,0000 as to whether i support the project. yea thats what i'm trying to say Makes sense, and I agree. If $13B gets you 20 minutes' faster service to Detroit and that's it, then it clearly isn't worth it. And it certainly is subject to this funding issue like everything else. I said before, I really was hoping that more of the stimulus bill money was going to just a few true national priorities that would also create jobs and have direct positive return. Specifically, alternative energy, transportation infrastructure (including rail in a big way), and technology fields where we can get ahead of the curve and innovate. Unfortunately, those things were lost in a sea of throw-in-all-my-wishes in Congress, and we got a big pot of small stuff instead.