NorthSideSox72

I like the 2nd article. But the 1st one is more appropriately aimed at the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes.

The areas where refineries would be built (in some cases on top of old ones) are usually where there is already heavy industry. No oil company is going to build a refinery in Winnetka. NIMBY isn't such a huge issue. There are large swaths of derelict industrial space in SE Chicago, Gary, Whiting, etc., for example, that are right on the lake (port access for oil) and that would be ideal. I really don't think NIMBY is the issue. The issue is that its expensive to build new capacity, and as someone else said, the image of them building more is that they aren't moving forward to alternative energy. I favor large scale investment in alternatives, but I ALSO think that some addition to refining capacity, and some upgrades to EXISTING drilled fields in and around the US, are smart investments.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 09:23 AM) The way you can tell this is true is by the slide in people who view Obama as honest or trustworthy, and the rise in the people who view him negatively. This will only continue as the campaign trudges along, and he makes more mistakes. I certainly see what you and Kap are getting at, and it is happening. From the Dems' perspective, I am not sure its as negative as the media portrays it. People have short memories and shorter attention spans. But most importantly, if Hillary uses all the GOP ammo on Obama now, I think that actually makes it harder for McCain to use some of those issues later. Either way, it pisses me off to see Clinton continue to flap around like this, when she just cannot win. The only way she wins is a back room deal with the remaining supers, and if that happens, against the wishes of voters, the Dems are fully aware of what kind of long term damage that does to the party. As big as the Clintons are, the party is bigger.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:08 AM) The governor is NOT for Hillary. He is a republican, Mitch Daniels. Evan Bayh is appearing with her at every single stop she makes in Indiana, and is the former governor, maybe that is where the confusion is? Anyways, I really think Hillary will blow out Obama in Indiana, winning by more than she did in PA. The demographics here are HUGE for her. Hell there is a good portion of the state that still has Klan memberships... they aren't voting for Obama. One thing to remember in NW Indiana, yes Obama is kind of the "hometown" guy, but the unions are full of the "white/undereducated" category that has been breaking big towards Clinton. I could be wrong, but I don't think he will do that well here. I must have been thinking of some other governor. Anyway, I think those union guys are one of the two reasons Obama is even still in this thing. They would normally be Clintonites, except that some of those unions endorsed Barack. That plus the Chicago effect. I think he takes the northern indiana urban areas by 20%, Indianapolis by 10%, and the college towns like South Bend and Lafayette by 20%. Clinton takes the rest of the state by like 30%+, and Clinton ekes out a win. That's my barely educated guess at this point.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:25 AM) It will be interesting to say the least. I think Indiana depends on turnout in rural areas. There is a HUGE divide between rural Indiana and urban Indiana. I'll bet Obama carries NW IN by 20 points. Once you get into Indy and Ft Wayne, things might change. There is big support for Hillary in the uneducated white population, which is a very large portion of the state. These are also the types of people who aren't going to be the easiest to poll either. Obama will probably get beat 2:1 or even 3:1 in these areas, if I had to guess. There are some minority populations centers in IN, but it isn't much. They are mainly concentrated in the cities and are much easier to get ahold of. I think Indiana will suprise towards Clinton. I don't think a Clinton win is a surprise in Indiana. She was carrying huge leads there until recently, she's got Bayh and the Governor in her corner, and its a state that as you say has large swaths of population tailor made for her. The surprise would be a Obama win, which I think is possible but unlikely. Obama picked up some union endorsements, and has a few house reps in those rural areas for him. Plus he should get a small bump being semi-local in the northern part of the state particularly (Chicago TV markets). But ultimately, I think he keeps it close but loses by 5 or 7 points. Add that to a 10 point win in NC, and he pretty much wipes out Clinton's gains in PA, and its back to where it was. Which of course favors Obama. This thing is basically over, unless Clinton can win IN and NC convincingly.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 08:53 AM) When I bought my house a few years back, gas was still under $2.00/gallon. I lowered my commute from 52 miles each way to 36 each way,thinking that would be a good thing. I tried to find closer, but even houses in the s***ty neighborhoods up here cost $50,000 MORE than what I paid for, PLUS were smaller and crappier. The nicer houses were all a lot more and figuring gas at between $2 and $3 per gallon was still not worth the additional expense. However at $10, I may have to redo the math. If it hits $10, I think I just get a cot and sleep in the store all week. What you are alluding to are market factors that are some nice side effects of this - less sprawl, more centralization of urban areas. That helps the environment, not to mention allows for greater use of public transit. We're in the process of looking for a house too. I'd be either working from home or working downtown, so all I need is to be close to Metra, but the wife works in Northbrook. We had cast a pretty wide net for houses previously, but now, we are narrowing the circle quite a bit, in part becuase of gas prices.

Latest polls from RCP... NORTH CAROLINA (leaving out ARG and Zogby garbage polls), post-PA in bold... PPP, 4/26-27 (1121 LV): Obama +12 S-USA, 4/19-21 (734 LV): Obama +9 Insider, 4/14 (541 LV): Obama +15 LAT, 4/10-14 (691 LV): Obama +13 INDIANA, post-PA in bold, cross-PA in italics S-USA, 4/25-27 (628 LV): Clinton +9 R2000, 4/23-24 (400 LV): Obama +1 Indy, 4/20-23 (535 LV): Obama +3 Downs, 4/14-16 (578 LV): Obama +5 NC seems to be running along as it has been for weeks or months. Obama with a 10-ish point lead. IN is very interesting though. Clinton had huge leads up until early April, when Obama started appearing there - her lead dwindled, and eventually, Obama took leads in the polls. Then PA happened, and the results are very inconsistent among the polls. Indy Star was done over that period, and R2000 right after, and they seem to indicate Obama leads, albeit very narrow ones. Then along comes Survey USA, saying Clinton has a 9 point lead. So, is that an outlier as it appears to be? Or has sentiment really shifted that dramatically in a day or two?

SUSA seems to be an huge outlier for IN. No other poll shows a Clinton lead, let alone a 10 point lead. By the way fathom, there is an Indiana primary thread, which I will rename the IN/NC thread, where you can find these poll results. I'll put some of the latest ones up there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 06:50 AM) More good news for McCain. It seems that the longer this goes on, the less likely that people backing one of the Dem candidates are likely to vote for the other if they are the nominee. People have short attention spans. Come June when the Dems have a nominee, given a few weeks to cool down over the decision, the middle and left of the party will all fall in line behind the candidate in question. But, and I think this is among the key reasons why the Dems will pick Obama... the independents and moderates consistently favor Obama over Clinton, polls have shown. That group will have some defections either way, but particularly so among Obama supporters.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 09:18 PM) You can't get much more Flip-Floppy than this... McCain Strongly Rejected Long-Term Iraq Presence: "Bring Them All Home" I'm actually going to defend McCain here. That isn't a flip-flop. Its right in line with what McCain has said all along, which is that he wants the US to stay until Iraq stabilizes, then he wants all significant military presence taken home over time. So yes, that means no permanent presence, but yes, it also means they may stay a long time because of that tricky "stable" part of the argument. Its funny because, his stance puts him out of line with both the hawks and the liberals.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 29, 2008 -> 06:37 AM) You'd be surprised how untrue that actually is. It takes a very small movement in supply or demand in energies to create wild price fluxuations. The oil crisis of the 70's was brought about by only a 15% reduction in supply, which led to a tripling/quadrupling of prices. If supply had only fallen by say 10%, what is to say that prices would have only doubled? Its not a big leap a faith to think that a very small supply increase from anywhere (not just Alaska) could have moderated price increases greatly. I will need to go find the articles, but as I've read before in the WSJ and elsewhere, the projections are that the ANWR field(s) would maybe add less than a half percent to the current US internal flow of oil. And that would translate into, at best, about a penny per gallon. Plus as I understand it, the biggest choke point is refining capacity. That needs to be addressed. But ultimately, the only real long term solution is to get away from oil to the extent possible. And if its made a priority, that could be done, to very positive results for the economy.

OK, the sarcasm and snark in this thread is getting a bit much. Can we tone it down a bit? I personally have no problem with the ID requirement, as long as ID's are available to the poor free of charge. You can't charge for a right - that is a poll tax. As for disabled people and what not, a good guideline should be that whatever level of ease already exists for voting, should exist for getting an ID. You'll never line that up perfectly, but it you are reasonably close, then that should be fine.

Please, lets not get to where we have to delete posts and suspend people. Rag on Uribe's play all you want, but lets leave his family and what not out of the discussion.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) When did I say it was good? I said it was better than his manager. I responded to a post that said Ozzie was ARod offensively compared to Uribe. He may not be good, but it is safe to say he's better than he has shown so far this year. He's also better than Ramirez. Ramirez has barely gotten to see any major league pitching. The guy has had 30 at bats. Uribe has been terrible offensively for years now, and this year so far, he's been even worse than his usual bad. Its time for Ramirez to start getting his at bats and learning the pitching. I think its likely he'll get to be a pretty good hitter, given the chance. If not, then they move on to Richar. In any case, with Uribe being so bad, there is no reason not to give Ramirez the chance at this point.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 07:47 AM) It was interesting. I watched bits and pieces around another show. He seemed to hold his own pretty well, and effectively ducked the questions that he didn't want to answer. There was nothing earthshattering. The interesting duck was when he asked him about his assertation that he was a person who worked on bi-partisian issues and to give an example of an important piece of legislation that he crossed the aisle on. Hm. Weird he would duck that one (bi-partisan issues), because he has done that - with McCain even. Maybe that's why he didn't want to bring it up? I'm actually not sure if the bill those two did together ever passed. That may also be the reason for ducking it - maybe all his joint bill attempts have failed to pass?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2008 -> 06:35 AM) Did anyone else catch the highlights of the correspondents dinner with George Bush? He was pretty darned funny, especially when he was explaining why the Presidential candidates weren't there... Hillary was ducking sniper fire, and Obama was in church... I read some of the highlights, but they lose their charm when written in an article. Those dinners are usually pretty funny. I'd also be curious how the Obama 1-on-1 with Chris Wallace went last night - did anyone get to see that?

QUOTE (gosox41 @ Apr 27, 2008 -> 08:30 PM) While the Sox are scoring more runs this year and they do have a lot more patience at the plate, this teams batting average is bad and concerns me. For all of 2007 the team had a poor batting average and this year they are pretty much the same. What I don't get is how a team that can have so many proven hitters continuously have such a sucky team batting average for such an extended period. Outside of Uribe, all the hitters in our everyday lineup have career batting averages exceeding .244, but there we are as a team. If this keeps up, the Sox will be not make the playoffs. I doubt Danks and Floyd will maintain their current pace. I'm not saying I don't like the walks and watching the hitters work the count, but why can't this team hit for a higher average? Or to think it it another way, if this team can maintain it's pace of walks and the team batting average increase, this team will score a ton of runs and then I'd really be excited about this team. Bob The fact that this team is scoring as much as they are (3rd in the league in runs), and while only hitting .244 (last in the league), is a big encouraging sign to me. Look at the lineup. 2 starters are hitting above their career averages - Dye and AJP. Meanwhile, 6 of them are hitting not just below their averages, but WAY below them (note I leave Quentin out as the 9th guy, with no career to really look back on). Chances are, they lineup average will go up a fair amount as the season goes on. If they continue to be effective at timely hitting, and their averages do indeed go up, then that's a great thing.

Well, they just sent down MacD, and it looks like most of his contract will turn out to be thrown away. Not released, but still, he spent most of 2007 in Charlotte, and he's back there again.

Wassermann has been called up to the big club. That didn't take long. Mike MacDougal has been optioned (his last option) to Charlotte, due to his lack of control and possibly Ozzie's lack of confidence in MacDougal. Wassermann's final AAA numbers for 2008: 8 games 7.2 IP 26 batters faced no runs no hits 3 BB 10 K 0.00 ERA 0.38 WHIP Needless to say, he was doing pretty well. Hopefully he can put up numbers in Chicago similar to (or better than) he did in 2007. If he does, he'll be a nice upgrade for the bullpen.

Glad to see this move. Should have happened after spring training.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 01:00 PM) Obama's CAMP. David Plouffe is Barack Obama's campaign manager. Imagine McCain's campaign guy saying "the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for John McCain in November based on race are probably firmly in Obama's camp already." OK. Putting aside for the moment that it was brought up by the media and not Obama's camp, I'll play along. I'm imagining it... and I'm not seeing the big deal. In fact, I think that's a statement of the obvious. If people are voting based on race, then the choice is already made.

QUOTE (shipps @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 12:27 PM) No based on his career.From the start I havent been a fan of Nicks abilities or the lack there of.The only thing that has been a surprise to me is coming from him is that he hasnt struck out as much as I thought he would. He's got a big OBP, which is exactly what I wanted from him in that position. The hitting will get better, he's not likely to be .230-something for the year.

Durham (8-12) @ Charlotte (10-9), 6:15pm CDT, Tomo Ohka (0-3, 5.64) starts for Charlotte Montgommery (9-13) @ B-Ham (11-11), 7:05pm CDT, Cassel (0-1, 2.29) goes for the Barons Winston-Salem (9-8) @ Wilmington (8-12), 5:05pm CDT, Poreda (0-1, 2.35) starts for the Hogs Lake County (15-7) @ Kanny (10-12), 6:05pm CDT, Carter (3-0, 1.96) gets the start for Kanny

QUOTE (shipps @ Apr 26, 2008 -> 11:25 AM) I wonder when the league will put to use the scouting report on Swisher,throw him strikes because he isnt very skilled at hitting the baseball. Based on 3 weeks of play?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Apr 25, 2008 -> 07:00 PM) Obama camp plays the race card first against John. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20080425_7012.php No, the reporter played the race card. And heck, Obama wasn't even involved here.