Texsox

Trade him while his value is high! I'll bet he will really appreciate that hometown discount he gave to stay a Sox. dumb ass.

I wonder what happens when a team trades all of their highest value players and keeps their lowest value players. How many have won championships?

Instead of talking about people you "see", let's look at the numbers, Here, the average salary is less than $7 per hour. This could be someone just off public aid. Medium skill worker. They will not qualify for Medicade or Food assistance. $14,000 annual salary. After taxes like Social Security, etc. they will clear about $12,000 then a decent rent on a one bedroom here will set them back about $6,000 per year leaving $6,000 then electric, water, heating, telephone will set them back at least $2,500 per year leaving $3,500 then let's eat some food, buy some cleaning supplies, another $40 per week or $2,000 leaving $1,500 now let's fill up the tank on the car once a week, $30 x 52 week or $1,600 oops I guess this is where they buy the nice car, clothes, get their nails done, and pay for health care. This is the challenge that people face who want to stop having the government pay for everything. This is the challenge that people have who are trying to do the right thing. They don't magically jump to $25,000 jobs.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 11:50 AM) What did White Sox fans do to improve their names? You hit the nail on the head. One bad apple doesn't mean all members of a similar group have to taken action to improve themselves. Perhaps frats can improve themselves by finally allowing atheists, agnostics, and homosexuals to join their group. Oh wait, that's something the boy scouts should consider to improve themselves. And we do. Our Learning for Life programs, our Soccer and Scouting Program. Our Venturing Programs. Explorer Posts. Sea Scouts, and Air Scouts are all open to the groups you mention. So you are free to join.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 11:24 AM) TEx, how many minimum wage people you know that smoke? Not a cheap habit. And drink? Eat fast food? All not cheap. I do alot of work for a local food bank. When I am there delivering stuff, I see some of the people who are there picking up food for free. Some have nice cars. And I mean NICE cars. Some have huge rings on their fingers. And I laugh at the ones sporting those huge-ass painted nails that are like 3" long or something. Those are not cheap to get, and how the hell do you do ANYTHING with claws like that? Choices. I also never said there wasn't a problem. My wife works for an insurance comapny and I still think it is expensive. Government run single payer isn't the way to fix it. We have had threads about this before. You need to do many things to fix it. Tort reform to keep malpractice insurancee in line, weed out bad doctors to help the malpractice stuff and find a way to entice drug companies to maybe CURE something in stead of maintain among others. People also need to make better choices. Stop eating crap food, excercise if you can, stop smoking or cut down on bad habits and stop having kids you can't afford (it's not like you can return them). It is not easy, as we can all see from our Biggest Loser thread. But as I try to tell my kids, choices you make now will effect you for the rest of your lives. Be a dumbass in school because you think it is 'cool' can screw with you forever in the form of lower paying jobs and less opportunities in life. Yep, these people live large on $15,000 per year! GMAB. Yep and the people I know are working two and three jobs. When one of my Scouts passed away last year his medical bills came to over $150,000. The parents were both working full time and he took side jobs every weekend. No time for their kids, they were always working. They will continue to work the rest of their lives to cover those bills. No chance to buy a home. Probably will never own a car, or at least not for a long time. You see people in the stores, I know them. I'm in their homes and they in mine. But fine, find your examples and then pretend that is the majority.

I did laugh at Life of Brian btw.

$28,000 per year. 20% or more of your take home pay for health insurance. Plus the poor are far more likely to have poor diets, poor primary health care, etc. Perhaps we learned a lesson from the Influenza outbreak that when massive amounts of poor people are sick, trhe wealthy people die also. Sorry I got the salaries wrong. It still doesn't address the people who are making $7 or $8 per hour. We know that raising salaries would be a disaster for business, it comes up everytime the DEMs start talking about raising minimum wage. So we'd have those people spending 50% or more of their income on medical insurance. No problem there.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 09:20 AM) Not everyone cares about those, but also not everyone's goals are to trash other peoples property or cause bodily harm to other people. Drinking is a norm in college whether you are part of an organization or not, being greek does not cause someone to become a bad person, in fact I would argue it does the opposite. very well said. There are some problems, and from talking to adults that are still involved in several Sororities and Fraternities, it has been a long time project to push chapters to focus more on what makes a "good person" and, just a hint, the stupid adults don't think it's providing an opportunity to get drunk all the time. Sadly, the tone is set when instead of requiring many hours of community service when you pledge, the challenge is how much humiliation and alcohol you can withstand. Perhaps the most significant change to the great name of Greek society would be if people saw pledges spending hours painting a homeless shelter or investing time in area schools helping to mentor kids. Instead we see and hear a far different experience. But just imagine if you went to your fraternity brothers and suggested instead of drinking with the pledges, cleaning a local park would allow you to better judge the character of your potential brothers. Values? You decide.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 09:04 AM) They actually do alot of things that dont get nearly as much press. The amount of money given to charities, working with underpriveleged children, helping the elderly, volunteering for the homeless, even helping habitat for humanity. Many brothers of mine went to third world countries to volunteer for the fraternity, of course those dont get any press. I work for the Boy Scouts, we perform tens of millions of hours of service worldwide, and we rarely get any press either. And of course, when we do something unusual, (re: bad) we get plenty of press. That's what interests people.

So tell me, what behaviors can't you perform when sober that you can perform drunk? Perhaps reading? What will fraternities do to improve their name? If that question signifies I am a hater, or calling out fraternities, y'all have a reading problem and a massive chip on your shoulders. I serve up a soft easy question so you can brag about your community service, and you attack? And for the record geniuses, I've been working to bring a Chapter or Alpha Phi Omega to my campus. Sorry, as a rule, it isn't a party Fraternity so y'all probably wouldn't be interested, it is more service orientated, with a strong Scouting influence. And you wonder why people don't notice your community service, couple things. Number one, you will get all fired up to defend your drinking and partying, not so much the service. Lots of drunkin threads, but have you ever once came on here and bragged about a project? I guess that may tell you where your priorities and values lay.

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 01:10 AM) Really? Okay, how about the thousands of dollars that fraternities (and sororities) raise for charity each year. For example, my fraternity raised $10,000+ for St. Jude Children's Hospital this year alone. I guarantee that's more than most "independent" organizations raise for charity ever year. Plus, factor in the donations to other philanthropies and the participation in community service (Habitat for Humanity mainly for my fraternity) as well as things like partaking in Race for the Cure and Relay for Life (two philanthropies for cancer research), and fraternities do a lot more good than the average organization on campus. Also, at most schools (at least in the SEC), greek life tends to dominate student government and other prominent organizations like that. I'm not saying you have to be in a fraternity/sorority to be involved, but it's true: most involvement is from those in a greek organization. I am involved in SGA, am helping run a campaign for my fraternity brother who's running for SGA president next year, and am a member of our student alumni organization (which, not to brag, but more as a point of reference: it's pretty difficult to get in). So what if we like to get really drunk when we party? That's so stereotypical, but I'll agree that it's true. But really, is that such a bad thing when we do so much good to the surrounding community. And no, I'm not condoning what these kids did to this hotel room. But if you're gonna call out fraternities like that, I want you to realize how much good really does come from them. Wow, perhaps you were too drunk to read my question? What in my question pissed you off so much? How did I call out fraternities?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Feb 21, 2008 -> 10:39 AM) And you can have decent healthcare, just buy it. Easier said then done. Even an inexpensive family policy will set you back $800 per month. That's about $5 per hour for someone working a 40 hour job. Take Alpha's business for example. I am certain he is paying his people as well as he can. IIRC most are making less than $10 per hour. Makes it tough for either Alpha or his employee to afford insurance. I faced the same problem with my business. I managed to put together a volume discount with a clinic so each employee had access to a Doctor for their family. But anything requiring hospitalization would have crushed them. And his business is the backbone of our economy. He's not going to outsource to China or Mexico, he's going to keep employing people in his neighborhood. I am certain he would love to build a team that stays together and grows his business. Without solving this health care issue, he's going to have a revolving door of employees who need those benefits. His better employees will leave after he has invested in their training. When one of his employees finds themselves in the emergency room, their bill we be spread over all of ours. I'm not saying necessarily that it has to be the government providing the solution, but we're heading into a major problem in this country and I see this as an opportunity to support small business and help them grow.

This is the clearest example of a bias. There is almost no reason to talk about the GOP primaries, except to watch McCain march to victory. This keeps him in the news and getting some coverage. The media can't stand covering a REP

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Feb 21, 2008 -> 10:58 AM) Just giving fraternities everywhere a bad name. And what will fraternities do to improve their name?

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Feb 22, 2008 -> 03:15 PM) No, I just want to be fair. So people seem to be ripping Clinton for high priced advisors and lots of dough nuts. When you are underperforming, there will be closer scrutiny. OBbviously her campaign has made mistakes. But to base support on who is spending less money on doughnuts, is probably a dosservice to our political process.

It takes months after the campaign for a campaign to audit and fully itemize their expenses. It really is unfair to compare what one campaign codes something versus another. One might lump polling into the number. One may have an adviser as an independent contractor and he pays all his expenses, another may have one as an employee and he's getting his expenses paid and that may show up under airfare and hotel. Stuff like that. Plus, I doubt it would change anyone's opinion about a candidate. If you knew Obama spent $100 million on advisers, would you suddenly switch parties and support Huckabee?

We need $12,000 per year health insurance premiums so Alpha can really grow his business. We need a health care system where a 50 year old man can work 32 years, get layed off and lose half his saving when he is injured (my father-in-law). But hey he deserved it for working twenty years for the same company and not being a Malaysian who took his job. The large companies that could afford to insure their employees are moving jobs overseas. When Americans can work at a small company and not worry about their children coughing in the middle of the night, we start to fix our economy.

The the whole family to see Obama. My daughter the Huckabee supporter, my son, the Ron Paul supporter, and myself. We got there early and wound up in about the 8trh or 9th row. Standing about 20' from Obama. Couple impressions. First off, one of our local politicians made a great slip of the tongue. He meant to say, Obama marched with the immigrants, instead he said he marched with the ignorants I laughed and thought of Kap. Then a note to the campaign: If you are going to have someone introduce the candidate, make certain they know the candidates name. Unless I am mistaken, he is not Ba-rak-A Ob-ama or Ba-rak-O Ob-ama. Otherwise thirty minutes or so of the standard stump speech he has been giving. Probably tossed in a couple more Spanish phrases then normal, but everyone does. Talked a lot about education and the need for a VA Hospital in South Texas. We have over 50,000 Veterans living down here and in the winter is swells to over 75,000, yet our Veterans need to drive 5 hours to San Antonio to receive care. Overall, he connected well with the audience, seemed as genuine as someone could be in this situation, and I would not mind seeing him get the Dem nominee.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 21, 2008 -> 08:18 AM) I was thinking it was cheap for a pitcher who put up the numbers that Colon did during his prime. I think it would provide a carrot, er cheeseburger, for him to chase this year. I had to go back and read, you said mutual option, that would probably be in the ballpark. For some reason I was thinking that it would be either a team or a player option, and that would not work. I could also see a team option at $13 and a player option at $8 with a release number of $1 or similar. All figures in millions

Here, the gamers are some of the biggest groups on campus.

OK, next shot, 130 miles up in space, moving satellite, moving ship, nothing but fuel tank. Zinnnnnng Boom! 500 pts But we can't have decent health care for all Americans

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 15, 2008 -> 09:01 AM) Pretty much, and this to me is pretty black and white. I know the libs out there will scream CIVIL LIBERTIES all day long, but this is not about that, and way deep down, they know it, but it doesn't help their "cause" of making the EVIL Republican agenda spin the world around. Suddenly you trust the government and want to bring it more into our lives. Hell, let's have them move in. There is a balance between giving the government toal access to our private lives and keeping them totally out. Thankfully we have leaders on both sides keeping either agenda from taking over.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Feb 14, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) Anyone find it amusing that the trial lawyers who are trying to prosecute the phone companies for helping the government are some of the biggest contributors to the Democrats? And I don't mean trial lawyers in a generic sense, I mean that 66 lawyers trying to sue has donated over 1.5 million to 44 Dems! http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaC...ial_lawyer_cash I thought they stood for 'change'? That's what I love the most about Republican donors, they give money to candidates who they disagree with These lawyers should donate money to people that disagree with their views. Geez, for lawyers they are pretty dumb.

That option sounds just too high.

It would be difficult to become an alcoholic without drinking, and we all know that the chances of cheating on your girlfriend increases with alcohol. That's usually the first excuse that comes out, "but I waaaas drunk". Then "she came on to me". But for some, getting really drunk is the only way they can have fun. I respect that. I wonder if they are drinking to forget or to remember?