WCSox

As long as they actually make the effort to regulate the sale (unlike, say, California), I have no problem with it.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 4, 2006 -> 08:35 AM) The dude's a Republican lobbyist and was part of the K Street project. There's really no other way to spin it. Spinning it is saying that his PAC gave a little money to Democratic candidates four years ago and using the "They All Do It" defense. I wouldn't be surprised if a Dem gets fingered. And if he or she does, nail their ass to the wall. I know that GOPers are going to get fingered. And their asses ought go right up alongside em. But the guy is a Republican lobbyist. Which meant he was peddling influence with the GOP, not the other way around. I know that. I was making a generalization about the media. If 60 members of Congress have been implicated, I'll bet that at least a few of them are Dems. But I agree that the majority will probably be Reps.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 4, 2006 -> 07:51 AM) For a guy making $12.5 million, his ERA being higher than the league ERA the last 2 seasons is a little disconcerning. If those aren't considered underachieving years for Javier Vazquez, what would be? His ERA has been worse than league average, so you must be saying since he hasn't underachieved in your eyes he's a little bit below average starter. I think that he's much better than the "average" starting pitcher. Agreed that his ERA has been higher than it should've over the past couple years, but one could've said the same thing about Contreras' numbers in NY. And, IMO, both Vazquez and Contreras have much better stuff than the average pitcher and, thus, have a greater upside (we saw Contreras' in the second half of last year). That doesn't guarantee anything, but I'd rather have Vazquez at the bottom of my rotation than the typical Sox pitching prospect that never pans out... even if he is over-paid.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jan 4, 2006 -> 08:19 AM) You can check that ignorant ASSumption And you can blow it out your ass, honey, because I don't really care what goes on in your family. Fair enough. Women are whiners and whores and I won't bother trying to justify that generalization. IMO, it would be more fair to blame the paltry percentage of the guilty parties than throw the entire organization under the bus. At the very least, it would avoid insulting the vast majority of Catholics all over the world. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jan 4, 2006 -> 08:10 AM) It's all green and sarcastic until it's someone in your family that's effected. As far as I'm concerned.. all the good deeds don't mean s*** when they cover up for ONE pedophile. And it hasn't been a "few".. unless your definition of a "few" is a "few THOUSAND" accused.. I'm sorry that someone in your family has been effected and I was livid with the Vatican when the scandal broke. There's absolutely no excuse for what happened. But that doesn't justify bad-mouthing the entire Catholic Church. That's just irresponsible and spiteful.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 07:26 PM) From everything I have read it looks like mostly Republicans will look bad after this is all said and done. Funny how the media tends to spin everything that way, isn't it?

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 06:42 PM) http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060103/en_tv_eo/18055 What a bunch of fascist whiners. They can openly condemn a cartoon but yet the same organization hides systematic rape, molestation and abuse for over 40 years from all authorities & puts priests into new parishes so they can harm children all over again. f***ing hypocritical bastards. You're right. A few pedophiles and corrupt administrators over a 40-year period represent the entire Catholic Church. They're all a bunch of evil, child-molesting fascists who don't do any good for this world. Despite your hatred for the Church, I agree that it's stupid of them to whine about South Park. They make fun of everybody. And after the scandals, the Catholic League is in no position to complain.

What a shocker! So, how long now until the Israelis bomb their nuclear facilities?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 08:36 PM) Vazquez is a huge question mark Jim! He's had two underachieving seasons in a row, and now he's going to a great hitters park in the AL. I've seen enough of him the last few years to know he's not even close to being a guaranteed above average starter. If 200 innings a year is that important, why not just sign someone like Jeff Weaver, and keep the best prospect in our system? Sorry, but I have to agree with Jim here. Vazquez is a durable workhorse who would be a decent #2 pitcher on a lot of teams. What you call "two underachieving years" (4.91 and 4.42 ERA) I call "one underachieving year with very solid career numbers outside of it and an excelltn #5 pitcher for any team." Weaver would also be a very good #5 on most teams, but Vazquez has better stuff and more upside.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 04:27 PM) You love to argue just to argue dont you. I find it amusing that when I disagree with some people here, I'm classified as "argumentative." Would you prefer a response of, "Yes, sir" next time? :rolly Rowand was traded mostly because he was the most expendable starter. He's a very good defensive player but has been disappointing as a hitter. And, given that he already has a few years of major-league experience, it's doubtful that his hitting will improve substantially. There's no question that Anderson is a very promising young player and that he's far enough along in his development that Ozzie and KW are willing to give him the starting CF position and the 9th spot in the order. However, success at AA and AAA doesn't necessarily translate into success in the majors. I get the impression that a lot of people here think that Anderson is going to come busting out of the gate this year and will hit .300 with 30 HRs. That may happen eventually, but probably not in '06. Even if Anderson is "KW's favorite" (I'm not sure that he is, but I'll take your word for it), that doesn't mean that Kenny's going to throw him out there just to see how he develops. The Sox are the defending world champs and their first priority right now is repeating, not developing players. I'm sure that KW liked Rowand a lot (plays great defense, great teammate, good person), but he didn't hesitate to deal him for a prolific hitter.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 03:54 PM) Where did you get young voters? Who said anything about them? Grassroots does not mean getting young voters - it means building campaigns, money and motivation from the local level, and from individual voters. You are correct by definition. However, college campuses are where a very large chunk of grassroots campaigns are begun and also where Dean got the majority of his support, percentage-wise, during the '04 primaries. The Dems already have a very strong presence in OR and WA (CO as well, but to a lesser extent). Conservatives are far and few between in places like Portland and Eugene. They need to focus more on IN, OH, MO, and KS than a place like MT. Agreed about TX and AZ, though.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 02:51 PM) Then why would he choose Aaron as the piece that was expendable. Probably because Rowand's offensive numbers were pedestrian (and unlikely to improve) and because Pods could play CF if they really needed him to. And it's likely that KW didn't want to get rid of the defensive studs in his infield. And they have nobody in the minors ready to play C in the majors right now. Hell, I don't even know if there's anybody at 3B, SS, or 2B that's ready to make the jump at this point. Even without BA, Rowand was the logical choice. Which of the starters are you going to trade away before him? Crede? A.J.? Uribe? Tad? No way.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 03:50 PM) You're acting like this is a Presidential year. It's not. I understand that, but it's the same party. People in Small Town America are less likely to vote for their state and local Democratic candidates if Howard Dean is on the evening news saying that, "some of them [Republicans] have never worked an honest day in their lives."

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 03:35 PM) I don't think I like saying the Argon would "Slowly settle towards the bottom of the hole"...but aside from that you're correct. Well, OK, the gases would equlibribrate and there would be a differing distribution. Better?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 03:21 PM) First of all, I keep saying that a few hundred feet probably wouldn't do much - you have the normal, temperature/entropy related scattering which is working against the gravitational effects. Secondly, we're not talking about sticking those gases together and winding up with pure O2 on 1 side and pure CO on the other side, we'd be talking about maybe a very small increase in the concentrations of each component on their respective sides. If CO was a trace component, you could get a bigger effect, but you're still not going to come out with a pure component at the end. When I say Fractionation, I'm saying simply a change in the ratio between 2 components. Any detectable change, no matter how small, would count. You need significantly large columns, or repeated steps, to produce large fractionations using this technique. I think we're talking about two different things. Since the air is mostly (~ 80%)nitrogen gas, let's assume that a 300-foot hole in the ground contains pure nitrogen. If somebody displaced 50% of that nitrogen volume with argon via a pump, I was thinking that the argon would slowly settle towards the bottom of the hole. Of course, the Ar content wouldn't be anywhere near 100% at the bottom, but it'd be measurably higher than at the top. That's all I was saying.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 02:24 PM) and I think that Dean's grass roots initiatives are causing things to change from the bottom up. Combine that with the continued fracturing of the Repuplican party and the Bush administration's continuing tendency to step right into the big piles of it, and I think things will be better for the Dems this time next year. All that said, however, the Dems still have a serious lack of leadership to spearhead their initiatives. Dean is a great engineer but a lousy voice, and Kerry just looks like a complainer-at-large. IMO, Dean does more damange to the Dems than good. Energizing young voters is important, but (1) most young people don't vote and (2) his rhetoric alienates moderates. The Dems have to appeal to all of those dumb, pickup-driving hicks in the flyover states and Howard Dean isn't going to accomplish that.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 02:58 PM) No, you're actually quite right. In fact, with Argon, the difference would be bigger than the difference between CO and O2, since O2 has a molecular weight of 32 and CO is 28, so the difference between Ar and O2 would be larger than the difference between O2 and Co. But again, you need a fairly long column to do this. What puzzles me somewhat is that the percent difference mass between those gases isn't exactly enormous... Difference between Ar and O2: 25% Difference between O2 and CO: 14% Based on the math, it doesn't make sense that would be able to fractionate Ar from O2 over a height of a few hundred feet, but not O2 from CO. Sorry, I'm getting off topic here...

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 02:22 PM) If the mine covered significant vertical distances, then you could have seen a fractionation between the different gases due to gravity and their molecular weights (depending on non-ideality of the gas - probably negligible here). But you'd probably need several kilometers of distance in order to really see an effect, something we certainly don't have here. If you gave me perfectly ideal mixtures of CO, CO2, O2, and N2...just based on their molecular weights CO and N2 would migrate to the top of the column, O2 and especially CO2 would move towards the bottom, but again, you need a long path for this to actually be seen. That's probably true, given that the actual verical distance is only a couple hundred feet. Then again, even relatively low levels of CO are bad news for the respiratory system. I've always been under the impression that Ar is significantly more dense than molecular oxygen, despite the fact that the molecular masses are in the same ballpark (40 vs. 32). If you pumped a bunch of argon into a mine, I get the feeling that one would be able to measure a difference in concentration between the top and bottom. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 10:09 AM) CO, N2, and O2 are all in the same ballpark, density-wise. What makes CO the major killer it is is that it preferentially and irreversibly binds to O2 uptake sites on red blood cells. I was trying to determine if there would be more or less CO towards the bottom of the mine, but it appears that the distribution should be more or less even. That would be bad news, given that the CO level as too high for the rescue workers last night. I hate to say it, but I'd be very surprised if anybody survived. QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:19 PM) NPR yesterday also said there were 9 different roof collapse events in that mine in 2005. Talk about an accident waiting to happen, and the insignificant wrist slaps they got for all those violations. Unfortunately, I imagine that things are 10 times worse in a place like China where safety isn't taken seriously and the government gets away with doing whatever they want.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 01:18 PM) He traded our starting CF'er because he had that much confidence in BA. I don't dispute the fact that KW has a lot of confidence in BA. But I think that deal had a lot more to do with Thome than BA. Let's be frank (pun intended): The Sox needed more power with Thomas and Everett on their way out.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:28 AM) Personally, I don't think the Astros are as sold on Taveras as WCSox. He was benched during the NLCS, and the Astros need a little more punch in their line-up, something Taveras most likely wouldn't provide even if he hired Jose Canseco as his personal trainer. If the Astros are looking for more power in their lineup, Taveras certainly isn't the guy.

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:37 AM) I heard closer to 23,000...how would we officially find out? Or would we? Don't know how we'd be able to find out if they didn't announce it, but 23,000 is certainly encouraging. If it's true, maybe 2.8 or 2.9 million paid would be very possible.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) Season tickets are around 20K right now. Then you have single game ticket pre-sales. After that you factor the walkups. We had about 12 sell-outs last year. I'm sure there will be at least 15-20 this year. That sounds like a fair number.

QUOTE(rudylaw @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 10:35 AM) I think a 37,000 average is too high for the south side. World Series or not. I can see 33,000. Which puts us at 2.7 or so. That's probably accurate, and I'd say that it probably won't go higher than that, even if they win 99 games again. What's the season ticket-holder base projected to be? Maybe 20,000? They'd need to average 37,000/game to get 3 million. Something tells me that they won't average 17,000 walk-ups per game.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 3, 2006 -> 10:37 AM) A lot of people seemed worried about losing Contreras and not getting anything in return. How about letting Contreras pitch out the season, and if he doesn't re-sign, take the money set aside for re-signing him and go after another free-agent, or take another financially challenged teams salary dump. Letting Contreras walk doesn't necessarily mean getting nothing for him. I agree that this is the best approach. Outside of a rookie in CF and the need for maybe another lefty in the 'pen, the Sox can afford to hold off at this point and keep their 6 legitimate starters. Let's see how Contreras (and the rest of the team) does in the first half. If Jose pitches poorly in the first half and, say, Anderson isn't hitting or Hermanson goes on the DL, he can be trade bait. If not, the Sox can ride Jose through the playoffs again.