NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Dec 20, 2008 -> 03:39 PM) The carbon credit purchasing scheme is completely hilarious. A total scam. In its current form, yes. If done properly, no. Even in its current form, there is nothing per se wrong with people buying carbon credits. They just need to know what they really are. They don't actually cancel out or remove their pollution, in any direct way. Planting more trees or building solar cells are good things to do, but their ties to your individual pollution are so indirect that it cannot function as a real market. Now, if they can have a real, national-level auction market system, it could be real and useful.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 20, 2008 -> 03:51 PM) What was his inherited runners/scored from last season? That's not a very good measure for closers. When used properly, Jenks will almost always come in just for the 9th, or the closing inning. The few times he didn't are aberrant and would skew the data oddly. That measure is really only useful for non-closing relievers. For a closer, the ultimate measure is Save % (not gross total), and then behind that are your normal performance numbers - ERA, WHIP, K/9, etc.

This argument has played out here many times, on many other players. A player does well through the minors, then for whatever reason, reaches a certain level (AAA, AA) and has a bad season. This always prompts people to fall into one of two camps: --He reached a peak and just isn't going to be that good --He had a bad year (or an injury), and is likely to bounce back People in both camps are each right, some of the time. So brushing off either one is silly. Instead, here is the question - how do you determine which is the case, with an individual player? Also of note - this type of player is exactly the kind of talent that KW likes to pick up.

Again, as has been coming up regularly... Obama is doing exactly what he said he'd do - be politically inclusive with his cabinet, close circle, etc. If anyone really thought that Obama would be surrounding himself entirely with far-left liberals, then they were either not paying attention (wishful thinking), or they were Republicans trying to scare people about an Obama Presidency.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 01:21 PM) I'd love to have him. Not sure what you would do with Getz, who I'm very high on. Agreed, for the right deal, I'd love to add Hudson. I also like Getz, but I'm sure they could find a place for him, or trade him to someone who could.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 12:39 PM) My issue with this statement is that the longer we go on after having passed TARP, the more the data comes out showing that not only was the "crisis" dramatically overstated (the consumer lending markets were no where near "frozen" as we were told), but on top of it, the TARP funds have been so badly wasted by the Treasury Dept. that it's hard to believe that if there had been a real crisis they would have made a difference. You keep talking about the TARP funds as a banking bailout, as if it were about saving the banking industry. That way, you can compare it to, say, the auto industry. But that is not the case, and that key difference is what you seem to be missing. That difference is that the US could survive with the auto industry in serious distress. The US economy could NOT survive with the financial industry in the same level of distress, because the entire economy is predicated on its strength. They are just not remotely the same.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 11:53 AM) I found this pretty classy. You don't see this kind of respect shown very often in politics. Bush sure didn't see it when he got into office, that is for sure. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=08...;show_article=1 I've been impressed all along with the transition efforts of Bush and Obama, particularly Bush.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 14, 2008 -> 11:02 AM) Another frustrating aspect of this is the punishment of success. Look at Ford. Note that these bailout discussions are all about GM and Chrysler, because Ford doesn't need it (at least not nearly as badly). Ford was in a bad way about 5 years ago, and look what they did: --Leaned their staff numbers --Beat the other American car companies to the hybrid market --Put themselves, now, at the TOP of the quality lists, right there with Toyota and Honda Now, I am sure it hurt along the way for Ford. People lost jobs, etc. But they struggled their way out, and are now much more successful than the other 2 of the Big 3. And what do they get? They get to see their competitors given an advantage by the government that they never got. And sure enough... $17.4B from the TARP fund will go to GM and Chrysler in the form of loans. They need to show viability by March 31, or will be forced to repay immediately, which is of course a joke because then they couldn't pay for it anyway. Ford gets nothing.

G-Rod to give his first post-arrest press conference at 2pm Chicago time today, at the Thompson Center, downtown. Should be interesting.

Franken now leading by 150 votes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 11:04 AM) Actually it sounds the opposite, there is WAY too much supply. This bottom might last a lot longer than I thought. A contango crude market really means there is a ton of extra supply. If demand is that low, the supply just gets pushed back further into the calendar until either the supply falls under demand enough to eat up the glut, or that demand starts to rebound enough to eat up the extra supply. Heck I read the other day about a supertanker floating off of some country holding 50 million gallons of oil because there was no where to sell it. That's sort of what I was getting at - too much supply now, combined with no desire/ability to store, so we've been plummeting. So when we reach a certain point, where we are much closer to direct throughput of supply, the price is likely to bounce more severely. A hard bounce if you will. But as you say, with demand so low, that bounce may be pretty far off into the future. Its just that there may not be much flexibility to handle when the demand does increase. ETA: Regarding these traders saying it was oversold, that does seem different than what you are saying. Not sure why they see it that way, they know more than I do.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2008 -> 08:02 AM) An interesting phenomenon has developed over the last week or so in the crude oil. It seems no one out there has the financing and/or money to store, crude oil. Because of this there is about a 7.00 per barrel difference between the Jan contract which expires today, and the Feb, which still goes another month. Apparently the 1000 barrels times the $35 per barrel price of the contract is too high for people to get financed, even though they could sell the next contract for $42 or about a 30% profit in a month. There is also a lack of available storage place left because crude demand has fallen so quickly, and people have stored so much of it waiting for demand and prices to come back up. That's very interesting. I have to admit, I was well off on the oil bottom - I figured it would dip into the 50's, but stabilize in the 60's. Now its dipping into the 30's. That said, talking to some traders, this price level of oil seems way oversold. Maybe the storage issue you mention is part of that. If that's the case, I think you'd see an extra-steep spike in price soon, because there is less "cushion" in the supply now. Also, if some problem were to occur in the supply chain, it would have a much more immediate and severe effect, if there is a lot less oil being stored.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 11:41 PM) Well the snow started to fall here at about 11pm, it's accumulating rather quick like and the flakes about the size of sand-dollars. Its coming down in the city now at that fast pace too, and I saw a flash of lightning I think. Thundersnow starting. At least its snow, which is better than sleet/freezing rain/ice that is still a threat. Snow is less dangerous. Going to be an interesting Friday AM commute for some. Luckily I'm off this week and sitting at home.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 09:14 PM) Link Interesting thought. But its wrong for the same reason its wrong for executives (which I have seen you yourself complain about) - you are rewarding bad behavior. I'll pass.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 05:04 PM) Did KW cause the Economic depression just so the white sox could win a world series? ///////////////g////r/////e//////e//////n//// Absolutely. Here is how it went... Wilder and his cronies propped up the economy with their lavish spending on "stuff"... KW finds, out, takes the blank check away, and Wilder goes down... Less money in the luxury economy trickles down... Voila! Recession!

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 05:04 PM) ha, it was a joke north side. The article was a joke? Or Sqwert saying he likes Cesca was a joke?

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 01:39 PM) I totally agree, I heard so many brokeback joker jokes after he was selected. I totally trust Nolan's judgement at this point. If he feels Murphy(shudder) is the man for the job, I will agree The Batman film series as a whole, under multiple directors, has had a knack for turning actors into success in roles that seemed outside their strengths. I mean, I recall the laughter from most circles of the idea of Mr. Mom playing Batman in the first film, but he turned out to be pretty good for it. Jim Carrey was an excellent Riddler IMO, though the film itself was mostly garbage. Ledger really made his role work well too.

QUOTE (BobDylan @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 07:34 AM) It's not the genre that transfer's well, it's never the genre. It's the storyteller/filmmaker that translate it well. Video game movies are trash right now, yes, and I'm not sure why I'm going to defend them here because I'm against it as well, but to assume that there is no wiggle room to improve is silly. I mean, for every good comic book movie, there are 10 behind it that are awful. To shut off an entire genre because nothing good has come out of it yet isn't right. Ask Stephen King why. Somewhat aside from the point, the main reason why I don't like these (comic book adaptations and video game adaptations) movies is because they carry no substance. It's not impossible to give them substance, but I'm still waiting for it. I enjoy entertainment, so I go and see most of the movies, but I don't praise them because I have yet to see one that is, in any way, special. And even if I do see one that is great, I won't praise the genre, I'll praise that one single movie. I mostly call for these movies to die because they (Hollywood) don't treat them as sotires, but rather a genre. If, instead, they picked movies that are truly good stories and films instead of what they think people want to see, the movie industry and movies, at least in terms of quality, would improve greatly. Well, to be clear, I was only dismissing the films of the genre to date - not its future. It may improve. And while I agree with your general point that the genre isn't as important as other aspects, I do think it has some effect. Taken as a whole, sort of on a net basis, some genres do better than others in film. Some printed word genres just have more or less difficult dynamics to put to screen and screenplay. Also, I think that "substance" is a highly relative and subjective term. I think the basic storyline of most comic book films is indeed quite simple, but that doesn't mean it lacks substance necessarily. I felt that The Dark Knight had quite a bit of substance, as did Batman Begins.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 18, 2008 -> 02:42 PM) This Cesca fellow cracks me up. Of all the stupid things Bush has said and done, that isn't even on the radar. Talk about overanalyzing and overparsing someone's words.

I think this "constipation" as someone referred to it is a natural consequence of the belt-tightening. I think, for the first time in a long time (if ever), we're going to see a significant downturn in the value "paid" (monetarily or through trade) of experienced players. Teams will hold on to their young talent with a tighter grip, and be less likely to sign big free agents. Salaries will drop for new contracts, others will be renegotiated. And I also agree with something else said earlier - this should be the Sox in a very good position after 2009, with all the big money coming off payroll that offseason. Unfortunately for all of us waiting for news, this means that much of the sign and trade type news will come slowly, and later than normal, in the offseason.

So this one writer, Heyman, says the Sox might be a possibility for Garland. Not a rumor, no source, no other writers agreeing. Just one guy saying he could be a possibility. I'd say this is beyond thin. But for the sake of discussion, I'd like to see Garland on the south side as a 4/5 starter, for the right price. Problem is, it won't be the right price, Garland would hesitate to come back to Chicago, and the feeling may be mutual for the Sox. Plus, if we pay JG some 8 or 10 mil a year, that precludes any free agent signings for CF or elsewhere, and pretty much requires we trade Dye. Overall, it would need to be a super-cheap deal for this to be worth it.

QUOTE (Jimbo's Drinker @ Dec 17, 2008 -> 01:13 PM) Wake me up when the Sox actually do someting relevant. QUOTE (Jimbo's Drinker @ Dec 17, 2008 -> 08:55 PM) Why is this thread still open, it a whole fuss about nothing> When you go to a movie theater, do you walk into the showings of movies that don't interest you and yell at the screen about how stupid the movie is?

So the current suitors for O-Cab are KC, OAK and ATL, yes? What are their relative draft positions?

L Madigan's bid with the IL SC to declare Blago unfit for execution of office... Denied.

I've enjoyed a number of comic book film adaptations - the genre seems to translate pretty well. Video game to movie, on the other hand... has anything been made in that genre that hasn't been laughable garbage?