southsider2k5

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 10:58 PM) It’s likely. I’d be willing to bet 25% percent of most MLB rosters have at least a cursory pass through waivers. Try near 100%.

What is your big quest here?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 04:09 PM) ^ this. When I come in this thread and post something that I think might be interesting, I flag where the source is because otherwise people won't pay attention. I post stuff from Fox News in here the same way: I flag where it's from so that you folks might actually see whether there's anything interesting in it. Complete with labels... Yeah, that makes it much different than Fox.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 04:07 PM) No, the difference is that you and I have totally different definitions of "Individual freedom". For me, I don't see much freedom in a system where: I have no choice of which insurer to use, it's chosen by my company I have no choice of plans, they're offered by my company I really don't get to choose a doctor; I get a list of 2 or 3 in-network places and I need a referral to go anywhere else. If I lose my job, I have no ability to get insurance at all because the individual market is the worst of the worst, no one can get coverage there My company really has no choice in insurers, since the markets for 80% of the country basically meet the definition of a monopoly If I actually get sick, the insurance company does everything humanly possible to avoid spending money on me There really is shockingly little "Individual freedom" in this system. The only freedom right now is the freedom for insurers to find creative new ways to drop people. Look dude, I don't know where you got the idea that freedom means free from consequences, but it doesn't. Freedom of speech means that people have the ability to preach hate. Freedom of religion means that people are allowed to preach racism and sexism. Freedom of the press means that media outlets are able to compromise criminal investigations. Individual freedom has never meant the best case scenario for everyone involved. It means each person is able to act in their own best interests. Just because the choices might not be ideal, doesn't mean you don't have freedoms.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 10:38 AM) I'd put him through waivers, and try to work something out. If not his best value for this team is not in the minors, but in the pen. He's actually fairly solid through 3 innings of work. You could bet your life that he has been put through waivers already.

QUOTE (son of a rude @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 02:04 PM) If we consistently got 30k+ crowds, we would be right behind Boston in spending imo. What some people forget is that Jerry makes a buttload of cash off of parking. Teams like the Cubs don't have that luxury. Do the Sox keep that money, or does that go to the Illinois Sports Authority?

Wow. 9.58 isn't even human.

Well the bright side is that this one is on the road, where we actually have finished a couple of them this year.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 01:11 AM) Just wondering if you have ever referred to the Southern Poverty Law center as the left-wing Southern Poverty Law center, or if you only feel it necessary to point out any rightward tilt? speaking of ad hominem attacks...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:39 PM) Basically...if you want to make that argument, give me some reasoning. I can give you reasons why I believe the republicans suck on the economy. Their zeal for deregulation lets business run wild, and that has helped get us the 2002 and 2008 messes. Their tax policy creates concentration of wealth in the hands of people who don't spend it, and thus the increased wealth doesn't stimulate job creation or purchasing, their defense of this health care system is destroying small business. You can go on, and you can make counterpoints to those. You want to explain to me how having the government more involved makes things worse, fine, do so. Expect to then be hit with things like the fact that Medicare's cost growth is well below that of the private sector, other countries do even better, and so on. Please, if you want to explain to me how the steps the government has taken to make end of life issues easier to deal with are a bad thing and how that is driving up healthcare costs, I'm listening. That's where you and I differ. Costs are secondary to me. I value individual freedom more than costs. You have no problem turning your life over to the federal government. I do.

Oh my god, Becky look at Trey Hillman's butt.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 04:49 PM) Who the f*** would abandon a burrito? The bastards should rot in hell.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 11:03 PM) If Freddy doesn't do so well on Tuesday, does anybody else think we see Hudson in a sox uniform this year, perhaps replacing Contreras once Peavy returns? We have two starts to fill before Peavy gets back. After that, we don't need the fifth starter until September. It is possible.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:26 PM) I'm just going to hope you realize how silly that statement is. It's about as intelligent as me saying "The last 3 declared recessions all started under Republicans, thus Republicans are terrible for the economy". The government might be making things worse. The Republicans might be absolutely godawful for the Economy. But that's a classic correlation equals causation argument. And yet it was made during the last Presidential election right here.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:22 PM) And another thought...really, do you know how much of the current rules are set by the government? A whole ton of them. Not just because of medicare. But because the government is working to try to make things not wind up adversarial. It's not like this is just a "Private" system, outside of the lifetime caps/decisions by insurance companies about whether or not to provide coverage. Saying that the government is getting more involved in health care, as it has gotten worse according to lots of people, isn't a real great argument for getting them even more involved.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:18 PM) Have you ever had a relative hit the lifetime maximum? Yes

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:12 PM) So, let me turn this back to you...how would you advise us to put together a better system? The other option seems to me to have the government encourage everyone to turn a blind eye to these issues. Even in our current disastrous system, the government plays a role here, because it regulates how doctors deal with patients in those scenarios. If society doesn't set some sort of rules here, then you have everyone in tears blaming everyone else for killing people, rather than having these things worked out in some intelligent way. I don't have a problem with the private system now when it comes to this.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 06:05 PM) That's the status quo though. Insurance companies already have been dealing with issues like this for decades (not that I'm using that to make them sound evil, just stating a fact). It's a very difficult thing to have to think about, but the nutjobs have really dumbed this one down. The point is that this issue isn't just being made up, like the left wing nutjobs are trying to convince the country.

GAVIN GORDO NIX

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:52 PM) While that is true, the issue is...who is making the decision at the time? The status quo is; if you're on Medicare, it's some combination of you, your family, and your doctor, because Medicare doesn't include a lifetime cap. If you're in the private sector system, it's your insurance company. Quite frankly, I think we'll all agree, it's a difficult decision to make for everyone, but there is a point at which you should be stopping treatment. Not necessarily to cut costs, but because it's time. These are difficult issues and the country has struggled with them for decades. How do you deal with the case where the family insists you do everything but the doctor believes it will do nothing but cause the patient a lot of pain? How do you deal with the case where the patient has no hope of recovery? And on and on. There's been an enormous amount of work in the governments, state and national to try to get it right. The Medicare consultation/living will thing is an important step in that. Which is why it's so obnoxious that it's been turned in to this "The guvmint's gonna kill you!" idiocy; it's a total step in the wrong direction. It certainly could make things a lot worse for some people; now they're scared to talk to their doctor about those issues because the government will want to kill them, and they wind up not having their wishes indicated, and so on. What is being lost in the usual stereotyping of the nutjobs as representatives of the mainstream is that a governmental agency will be in charge of your loved ones lives. Even if the vast majority of the time they are going to force/allow treatments, there will be a time where the government is going to sanction the killing of someone. It is just not going to be nearly as often as some would like to indicate it will be.

7-2 Tribe over Twins in bottom of 7th Tigers and Royals just getting under way.

Floyd's era is back under 4.00 on the season. He only trails Buehrle by a quarter of a run now for the best ERA by a starter on the Sox.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 05:34 PM) Here's the other side of the token though...one of Obama's 8 reform planks, or whatever you want to call them, is the elimination of lifetime cost ceilings by law. That basically would, by law, be banning "Death panels" by the current interpretation. That doesn't mean that necessarily. You can ban caps, but you can also stop certain life saving procedures after a certain point to cut costs. Those two things are not mutually exclusive by any means. For example, everyone is supposed to be guaranteed social security, but it is a pretty standard procedure for people under 65 who can't work to be denied payment the first time they file.

Congrats Jimmy

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 13, 2009 -> 02:38 AM) I don't have kids, yet my tax dollars pay for other kids schools. Since I'm not in school, I'm being penalized. When I didn't own a car, my tax dollars paid for roads I didn't drive on. Since I'm not driving, I'm being penalized. Your tax dollars currently fund several single payer health programs that you do not participate in. Yet you pay for them and are therefore being penalized for not using them. All this proposal does is level the playing field. Giving you access to health coverage if you can't afford a private plan. I don't understand the "taking away your freedom" argument. It seems rather tenuous at best. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 13, 2009 -> 03:50 PM) The interesting thing is why the federal road system, specifically the interestate system was developed in the first place. Not to mention, I don't accept prior erosions of economic freedoms as justifications for future ones. To me that is circular logic. Its like my three year old saying that I let her stay up an hour let when friends were over, so she gets to stay up late every night. I notice no one took up the challenge on the interstate system, and it is kind of an interesting segue into what people who put a higher value on individual freedoms are worried about here. The original rationale behind the national interstate system was to provide the American military a way to move troops and equiptment around quickly in the case of an invasion. Instead it has become a crumbing system that no one can afford to maintain, and it no longer serves the purpose it was really built for. Going back to our national education system as a justification for national health care is also scary to me, because that system is pretty much in complete failure, especially for the people it is supposed to be helping the most, the poor and the disadvantaged. The more kids that have ended up in public schools, and the more legislation of our system by Washington, the further the US has fallen down when compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Yeah, again, not really inspiring a lot of confidence for the eventual government takeover of health care.