Texsox

Actually I think a couple of these guys will make the 25.

Isn't this the fifth poll this off season and the second one this week? Did the 5th starter cause us to be sitting home during the playoffs? No. How about this question, which two or three of these guys might find a home in our bull pen?

Nuke, For you that's a mil spec cheese grater / shoe shiner and $199.99 not $19.99. We can't buy the cheap Chinese version. We need a made in the USA, from specific alloys, that will produce a specific shine. And you must provide replacement parts for 20 years. And you must provide detailed traceablity on all materials used. Personnel files on all employees, and anything else we come up with. Spring training? I'd rather post here then watch guys who will never make the roster run around. Those games are pathetic in person, worse on tv, even worse on tape delay. I would rather they replay games from the season to get everyone fired up for the start.

It was a group of print reporters and Les Grobstein (WLS? WLUP?) was the only guy there with a tape recorder. It became an instant hit. Steve Dahl played it about 100 times. I still laugh my ass off. Poor Lee. "I think my baby is a Cubs fan." "why" "I saw him reading the sports pages and he had the newspaper upside down. It was the only way the Cubs would be on top." "Let's lose two today!" Between innings of a doubleheader when everyone around me assumed I was a Cub fan. That can be so cool. If you are sitting around Cub fans and say "the Cubs suck." they get feisty. if you say "we suck" they will comiserate.

except a good flogging Turn the thing on when it's in your mouth. I love mine. When I'm camping, and have to use a manual toothbrush, I feel like my teeth aren't as clean. See how white my teeth are

If you have a logo, http://www.cafepress.com will offer a wide variety of products with no upfront cost to anyone. I have used them before and what is nice they will produce anything from coffee cups to t-shirts, mouse pads to panties.

Then would everyone who said they would still be Sox fans regardless of location just stop going to MLB games? Pick up the newspaper and the only coverage is the Cubs. Would 1.6 million less people watch MLB in person in Chicago? Is is a pointless excercise. I was looking at some history of NBA franchises and without fail once they left a city, fans turned to other teams. Usually based on media coverage.

Hmmm. What would we do.

Someone wake me if we ever do something official that involves our 25 man roster.

I'm still thinking Rauch is going to find success in the bullpen not as a starter. I would feel a lot better about this season if we were wondering what to do with these guys because we had a solid 1-5.

Steff the answer to "Can any guy be that stupid?" is Always YES It's in our genes. Just when you think man*kind (re: not humankind) has done the stupidist thing, yet some guy, it is always a guy, comes along and does something dumber. Look at the Darwin Award "winners" it's never a woman who ties a couple dozen weather baloons to a Sears lawn chair and hosts himself 20,000 feet into the air with a bb gun to bring himself down. Nothing is idiot proof. Once you create something idiot proof, nature comes along and creates a better idiot.

Are you saying the founding fathers not want the south to boost their numbers? The founding fathers had already solved that issue via strong individual states and the electoral college. I guess you are also saying that slaves should not have been able to vote? Cause what you are saying here is: If the South keeps bringing in slaves the slaves will have a huge voting voice and we do not want that. The founding fathers didn't want too many black people from voting? This is like claiming today that California has too many people so we should count Californians as 3/5th. So from the beginning the founding fathers were plotting to keep the south from becoming more powerful then the north? Did the south have too many women also? The founding fathers did not receive God like powers and devine intervention. They made errors and they could not forsee future events. It was a great document to begin a nation but not perfect. We should not be afraid to amend and keep our government relevant to the times we live.

f*** you capn, slinging mud is how I feel better about myself. You Oidiot. I am so glad Raffie was here to stick up for Brazil. I wish he had been a little more articulate about it. As Americans we do have a repuation world wide as ugly pigs who think our dollars give us a right to step on any litle country we want to. Hey, maybe it does. Each of those planes that land from the US carry 300 or so passengers. Each will spend over $1,000 on their vacation. Imagine, at a minimum, $300,000 is being transported to Brazil's economy. No wonder while Raffi is fighting the good fight, Rio tourism officials are busy handing out free t-shirts and professing their love for the US tourist. And I agree thanks SS2k4 (I hope the series ends this year at 2k4) for getting there ahead of us. It was my first mod notification and I was away. Damn I was feeling useful

Nope you can pretty much give the President here the finger (many have) and nothing will happen. And we extend that right to our visitors. Works for us and last time I looked if we put up a fence around America and a fence around Brazil I'll bet your fence is the one people are trying to get away from and our is the one they want to get to.

all they needed were a few nice parks, decent employment, and everything would have been fine. They did not need any parenting classes or b.s. like that,

And with Billy Wagner coming in to close all those games that Roger and Andy throw . . . oops one of the best closers is now in Philly so the Astros could save a few dollars. Since I selected the Astros as my NL team I have to see all the problems, it's in my genes.

Marketing has a lot to do with that. Funny but my Made in Tennessee (I guess we count them) Kawasaki had more US content than some Harleys. I do not have a auto assembly plant close by but I can get see almost every low end stereo (Delco, Panasonic), windshield wipers, motors, seat belt assemblies, dashboard assemblies, brake systems, seats, seat heaters, automatic starters, openers, etc. being made within an hour of my house. Most of these are European and Asian companies who came here as a direct result of NAFTA.

GHost, don't ask Nuke if a Dem is an embarassment, we know how he will anser that. Nuke, was Nixon an embarrasement for Watergate and was Reagan an embarrasement for Iran-Contra and huge defecits?

Actually our economy has been sheding low skill and lower paying jobs and replacing them with higher skills and higher paying jobs. And it is a natural process in a free economy. How many of you continued to buy vinyl records because people would be out of work who manufacture them? Pity the buggy whip manufacturer before him. Just try and get a damn hat properly cleaned and blocked. Is the milkman still deliverying to your neighborhood? Don't forget to tip the coal and icemen when they deliver. By-the-way the milkman is your IT tech. The vinyl record guy is a network admin. The coal man is the import-export clerk at Federal Express. And companies outsource not just overseas, they also outsource locally. Vertically intergrrated companies are a thing of the past. Flat organizational charts and a manufacturing flow that brings raw materials just in time and gets the product out the door in the shortest amount of time is in. I've watched vacuums being assembled from raw materials that were at 7 different plants hours before.

The Maquillas (Twin Plant US_Mexico operations) are hurting. China has become both a boom to US companies who are supplying goods, services, manufacturing know how and equipment, and a major problem as plants leave Mexico for China. Half our US companies salivate at a 1,000,000,000 Chinese buying Big Macs, Coke, Nike, etc. the other half life in fear of the cheap imports. Half the US can't wait for giant HDTVs for $1,000 the other half bemoan looking for a new job because the Zeniths of the world are gone. I followed some manufacuring down here to the border. This is a unique micro-economic climate. The cliche is when the US catches a cold, Mexico catches pneumonia. The US is a service and intellectual property economy. Manufacturing is rapidly going away which is a problem in a few areas. National security is threatened when we do not have enough Tool and Die Workers or Machinists to build war machines. This isn't anything new. Look at textiles. From the northeast, to the cotton belt, to Mexico, to El Salvador, etc.

IT IS more complicated than that. There are different requirements based on country of origin. For example you may have X percent of the sub assembly made in Asia but X+% made in a NAFTA country and still be labeled as Made in USA. That is why we have so many Japanese companies located on the Tex-Mex border. They could avoid some tariffs on imports by locating in NAFTA countries. If you take 80% non NAFTA sub assemblies and do final assembly in the US, you may still have tariff issues. You may also get tagged with "Made in the USA with Foreign Materials" or something to that effect. It is a huge issue down here with companies trying to balance what Made in USA is worth. It seems it is worth more on different products. With textiles it means diddly squat, that zero, nada, absolutely worthless. Which is why this area lost much of Levi's, Dickies, Converse, Vanity Fair, and a couple other's production to South America and beyond. In some cases the distribution and warehousing stayed here. Other products there are small benefits and the manufacturer will try and source in NAFTA countries. To help the manufactures Mexico changed their laws to allow US subassemblies to remain in their country longer, easing the inventory costs and allowing US manufacturing to compete on a more even playing field.

AK47 vs M-16?

Hell we have to import baseball and hockey players.

Here's a view of the cockpit