iamshack

Louisville +9 and OSU - 2.5?

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 12:41 PM) I've been at spring training and have seen every game but one. It's been a blast. Maybe seeing these guys day in and day out has clouded my mind but I'm feeling way better about the team than I did before spring training started. I'm not worried about Dunn. He should be pretty much back to his old self. He won't hit for a great average and he will strike out a lot, no doubt. Until late, he was making great contact and not striking out at all. But he'll do the Adam Dunn things we expected last year. At spring training you can get pretty close to the players. I like Adam Dunn. He's a nice guy. He has fun. He seems to love the game. I'm pulling for him more than ever. Gordon Beckham is very serious and seems to be very determined to improve and hit the way he thinks he should. His work ethic is something else. To watch him at 2B day in and day out has been a joy. He makes those occasional outstanding plays that just have you going "Wow!". Often when he's not in there and a ball gets past Saladino or Garcia or whomever, I always think, "Beckham would have had that". I look for him to have a good year. Konerko started out so bad and I was a little worried. But the hits started coming and he has been tearing it up, though still homerless. Not worried though. The homers will come. Escobar was a surprise. He has hit so consistently well and has displayed a little power even. His fielding has been decent. The pitching has been good, even great at times.The guys who matter anyway. Each of the starters have had impressive starts, especially Sale, Humber and Peavy. No worries at all about Sale as a starter. Brian Bruney surprised me. He's been good all spring. He's in great shape and not that it means anything, but he's too a real nice guy. I like him. Young guys who have impressed besides Escobar have been Jordan Danks (well, not exactly young) and Trayce Thompson. Thompson has made much better contact than I expected to see. He's smooth in the field and has a good arm. Seeing him homer yesterday was awesome! As for Ventura as a manager, it's tough to say from seeing spring training games. I'm not worried though. I feel good about him. I like this team. Thanks for the report, BigEd!

Yeah, having Beckham return to form would probably please me the most.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Mar 30, 2012 -> 11:53 AM) It's White Sox baseball, so I'll be watching. Simple as that. Since I have no expectations, it should be a pretty enjoyable season no matter what. Sort of strange. +1

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:52 PM) Im actually quite good on the grill, it's just finding the time (I only have one of the smaller Weber grills, so doing the amount of chicken I usually cook at once, around 5 pounds, takes a few hours usually including prep and clean up while boiling takes 30 mins max). I love to marinade chicken breasts in lemon juice and fresh garlic over night then grilling it, so tender and tasty, great for fajitas. My apartment makes these "diet" meals which are tupperware containers with brown rice and cut up boiled chicken that you can pull out to make an individual meal, which is where the fried rice/meal 2 comes from typically. The usual way of eating it is cooking the eggs on the side and microwaving the tupperware container then adding cottage cheese and spices to taste. Another suggestion is making homemade soup....you can make a big pot of it with a bunch of vegetables and some stew meat and it can last you for 6-8 meals. Takes 2 hours or so... That's probably the most economical and efficient way to tackle it, although it does get repetitive.

QUOTE (sunofgold @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 03:22 PM) Dan Johnson still sticking around? Going to accept minor league contract and not ask to be released? I thought that he would bolt to another team if he didn't make our team. Well, I take that as good news. Not a bad player to have at AAA as an insurance player. Perhaps he realizes that his best chance to make a MLB team is still with the White Sox. He's no stranger to the minor leagues.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 12:29 PM) If people want to be treated equally as intelligent human beings, perhaps they should drop the "sins of the father" act. Unfortunately this rings a little hollow now that you've had your spin of the wheel and it's my turn to spin...

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 11:36 AM) Good points, and I hope so as well. I just get tired of the double standards for racism in this country. About a week ago, a guy I know on Facebook mentioned a story about Rihanna posting a racist picture on her Twitter account. It was mocking Chris Brown's new girlfriend, who is Filipino or something, using rice cakes. There was almost no backlash. He said that if someone like Taylor Swift had done something similar, she'd be forced to make a public apology, dropped from her label, etc. And I couldn't help but agree. I understand your frustration, and it is lame that there is a double standard that we face, but I think this is probably one of those prices the historically oppressive group has to pay (and is not going to receive a whole lot of pity for).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:13 AM) To clarify, that it should have been his legal duty to extricate himself from that conflict, as it should have been Martin's legal duty to extricate himself from that conflict. I think we went into detail about why that is particularly important something like 15 pages ago and I don't wish to retype. Yeah, the thread has been flowing in all sorts of directions and issues have been addressed and re-addressed with different hypotheticals several times and so it's just hard to reference certain comments. The problem is, and what Jenks has been stating over and over again, is that this law does not inversely remove a duty to retreat from the common law self-defense doctrine by making it legal to stand your ground when faced with a great bodily harm or the commission of a forcible felony. The duty to retreat still exists if the elements of the common law self-defense doctrine weren't met, and the stand your ground law does not apply if the elements were not met. There really is no difference. All this does is allow Zimmerman to argue the SYG law, but absent that codification, he would simply be arguing the self-defense doctrine in common law. The legal duty to extricate themselves from the conflict still exists whether or not the SYG codification exists; they are not mutually exclusive. Fact patterns that arise that involve such shaky evidence that we literally only know that two men were involved in an altercation and one of them is dead and the survivor has not been charged does not change any of that. It just means we can't ascertain with any certainty whether or not Zimmerman illegally killed Martin.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:07 AM) It wouldn't be hard at all to figure out whether the "lacerations" were caused by his head hitting the ground. And I still say that him having a duty to retreat even at that moment would have been darn important, but hey, at least we've been over it. But we don't have sufficient evidence that Martin inflicted the head lacerations. How do we know Zimmerman didn't fall off balance and hit his head? As for the duty to retreat, I'm not sure at what moment you mean.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:06 AM) After briefly glancing through Florida statutes this morning, felony assault/felony battery seems to require either a real intent to do permanent harm or involvement of something that could be determined to be a weapon. If a guy's head hit the ground by force, I'd imagine a prosecutor would know that they could win felony charges and try to get the defendant to plead out to the misdemeanor charge in exchange for a guilty plea. Unfortunately, we don't know that with any certainty whatsoever. With what we currently know about head injuries and brain trauma, I think your point is a better one now than it might have been even ten years ago (that inflicting head injuries could be construed as potential deadly force), but I don't think the witness testimony they have now is solid enough to establish that Martin was pounding Zimmerman's head on the sidewalk. What we have is lacerations (which, let's face it, is a nasty sounding term for "cuts" on the back of Zimmerman's head), and someone who might have seen Martin on top of Zimmerman banging Zimmerman's head on the ground. I think what Jenks has been saying, however, is that there is nothing in this law that gives Zimmerman any more immunity than already existed under the self-defense doctrine in common law. The problem here is the investigation, whether it was botched or not, has not yielded evidence solid enough to apply either the codified law or the self-defense doctrine because we don't know who started the altercation or what even happened during the altercation.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 09:32 PM) Or felony. Depends on the assault. For the purposes of this discussion, it would have to be aggravated.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:55 PM) Isn't assault a felony? Misdemeanor.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 03:53 PM) Jenks, I believe you are incorrect. From Florida: 776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: (1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or Kidnapping is a forcible felony. There if I believe force is necessary to prevent the kidnapping of another person, I can use deadly force. That is right from the statute, which is why I created the fact pattern, explicitly based on what the law allows. The law allows me to shoot someone if I think they are kidnapping someone. The key word is imminent. Imminent is pretty tough to prove, as I recall. Imminent, at least in a legal standard, means basically "it is happening now." Not "I thought he might do it, or it looked like he might do it," but "he actually was about to start doing it, and this was the only choice I had." Notice the law does not state that the person believes the commission of a forcible felony was imminent. It states that the commission of the forcible felony WAS imminent. The only thing about what the person believes that matters is that he believes the force was necessary. The obvious conundrum here is how does one prove the forcible felony was actually imminent if I broke it up by using deadly force and prevented it from actually occurring? Well, the law wants to see some action taken by the offender which made it clear the forcible felony was actually imminent. Examples of such would be "he pointed his weapon at me and was in the act of placing his finger on the trigger," or "he ripped off my clothes and was about to enter me," or "she grabbed my son and was about to place him into her running vehicle." There must be some very clear evidence that the felony was actually about to occur, not that the intervenor simply believed it was possible it might occur or even that it was probable to occur. Up until that point, the law expects you to take other measures. Only when it is obvious that the felony was actually about to occur (thus the use of the word "imminent"), is the use of deadly force allowed. I have yet to see evidence which shows that a forcible felony was imminent. Was Zimmerman acting really shady? Yes. Were his actions illegal? Quite possibly. From what we know now, did either Martin or Zimmerman do anything which would allow the other to use deadly force? No. I truly don't think there is anything wrong with the law. I think we have a fact pattern where the police failed and the prosecutors are failing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:51 PM) From my point of view...if he doesn't have the gun, he never starts this. The psychology on what having the ability to kill does to a person is pretty clear, they're consistently more aggressive toward conflict. Take the gun away, and he doesn't get out of his car pissed off at the fact that "These assholes always get away". I dunno...you may be right, but never underestimate the behavior of the small percentage of the biggest idiots out there...

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:48 PM) It's pretty obvious that everyone here, at least I think everyone here, disagrees with the vagueness of the law in question...and it's complicating the matter. But the fact is, the law exists...but that's also why they let trained lawyers and judges make the decisions on this sort of thing...unfortunately, i think even they are handcuffed when it comes to this because of the law as it's written. This isn't a matter of the law being vague, IMO, but rather of this being a bizarre fact pattern, which is the result of Zimmerman being an idiot and doing things that are bound to eventually cause something ugly to happen. No law that I can really think of could have prevented at the very least, there being a nasty altercation here where someone got seriously injured.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:46 PM) And if that's the case (and I think it is), then I conclude that the concealed carry laws also have to be thrown in with things that should face reform. I'm not a big guns person (neither for or against them too strongly)... I'm chalking this up to Zimmerman being an idiot more so than this being any failure of the law.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) Based on the law that exists and is in effect...it matters very much. Look, we all hate the law, but it's still the law. And that's that. You can't just choose to ignore it because you disagree with it. I vehemently disagree with laws that say I cannot walk into a Lamborghini dealership and drive out with a Countach model for free...but they exist...so I don't ignore them. I really don't hate the law, honestly...I just think this is not the proper application of it....this is a situation which would be difficult to convict Zimmerman without more evidence whether the SYG law was codified or not.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:13 PM) Wow, this is interesting. So now a neighborhood watch should hide and call the police? That's exactly what the voters in Florida were sick of when they passed this law. They gave potential crime VICTIMS the opportunity to go do something about it! Yeah, it hasn't really worked out. Are we really going to accept as fact the testimony of Martin's girlfriend? Would we Zimmerman's? I don't see how Zimmerman gets a fair trial. Notice it's called Neighborhood Watch, and not Neighborhood Vigilante Justice, or Neighborhood Cops. As I have always understood them, Neighborhood Watch programs have always encouraged awareness and to take an interest in the members of your community. One unintended consequence of the programs is you often get the guy who failed the police academy test or some overzealous person calling the police every time someone sneezes loudly or thinks it's their duty to get up in everyone's business. The preliminary facts seem to suggest Zimmerman was one of these people. As for the Florida law, I think the victim they had in mind was probably someone being attacked or raped or mugged, not someone that was playing police officer and stalking "suspicious" teenagers.

I f***ing hate the plyo workout from P90X just because it is so repetitively grueling...but man, I always love how I feel afterwards. They actually toned down the plyo workout for P90X2...it's shorter and less repetitive, but still gets your heart and lungs going pretty well. I like the adjustments they made.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 11:12 AM) Reed hasn't looked all that great so far in camp, so I am not sure they give him the closing job... yet. I can't see them having the stones to give it to anyone but Thornton, which worries me. Edit: Maybe they just go by committee at first. That's what I would do.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 10:03 AM) No, because the human brain is full of imperfections and very much prone to false reasoning. Yeah, absolutely. But we've evolved a certain way for a reason...because in the past, certain experiences have dictated certain probabilities. I'm not saying you should always do what your instincts tell you to do. I'm saying you shouldn't immediately dismiss them because it might equate to political incorrectness.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 09:27 AM) But this case highlights why racist profiling is dumb and ineffective That's an interesting thing as well...don't you think it's a bit naive or foolish to dismiss what your biologically-evolved instincts tell you in an effort to be more politically correct?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:24 AM) There's logs of what he called in floating around out there that can be google'd up. He called in a bunch of dumb bulls*** like kids playing basketball in the street, noisy parties and suspicious vehicles playing loud music (because criminals love to announce themselves?). But most importantly, "they" would have been back at their father's house, eating skittles and drinking ice tea and playing Xbox. Regardless of legality, Zimmerman created this situation. I think we all had a guy in our neighborhood like this growing up, and most people resent him, rather than respect and appreciate him. Even the police laugh at him, because he wants to be them. Again, to Y2H and Milk, even if it is not illegal to carry weapons and follow suspicious people around, would you admit that doing so exponentially increases the odds of something ugly happening? And even if that doesn't mean Zimmerman should be charged or convicted of anything, can you at least understand why many of us would resent his actions in this whole situation?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 07:45 AM) Kinda sad that he's getting "Rewarded" for the crap he threw up there last year. How bout we earn this one? Well, honestly, if you had to bet, at the end of the year, which Sox starter will have the best year? If you say Floyd, I can live with that too, but I think if you were truly betting money, you'd put your money on Danksy.