Texsox

What factors would you look for in what team you play for? I already said money, money, and more money. But if things were close I would consider playing time, who the organization had in the minors, the manager, my future team mates, contender, stadium suits my game, year round living options, golf courses, but only if the money was good. So I would probably be looking for teams in the south (sorry Sox).

If I were him, I'd keep in shape for a stretch run signing. What are his options if someone comes a calling?

There is a general problem with lists like this, you really have clumps of teams basically tied then they break them down. Splitting hairs. I like the rotation but until guys get to camp and you see what kind of shape they are in. It's 50% past history, 30% projection, and 20% luck.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jan 12, 2015 -> 11:03 AM) really lets look at it from a different point of view. how would this forum be if everyone is a "yes sir" and must follow the mods point of view. here it was a brawl on a saturday night and the next day it was the emotions were gone. difference of opinion helps conversation. the other thing, the posters here knows their stuff, no pulling wool over there eyes. IMHO it would be terrible especially in the 'buster. On your last point one thing we worry about is a kind of group think sets in and certain things are accepted and if you do not it will get beat into you. So again IMHO guys like Greg that continue to defend Ozzie are good. The stats and visual sets are both necessary. The optimists and the pessimists. The carnivores and the herbivores. I especially appreciate the herbivores because it leaves more tasty animals for hungry Texans to bbq.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 09:29 PM) The guns that are purchased legally and then "stolen". So, not much of a chain of command. That is a problem and really conflicts with my usual punish the guilty not the victim. I really wish there was a way of sorting the two. I do think there should be some sort of limit. Common sense comes into play. No one has a gun stolen every week for years. While not perfect and I'd have several complaints about it a limit on how many guns you can own at one time and each stolen gun reduces your total allowed would be interesting to explore. I really dislike punishing innocent people but it gets frustrating not being able to sort the guilty from the victims.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 12, 2015 -> 09:23 AM) I found Soxtalk before WSI and never looked for anything else. The way you guys talk about it is intriguing, though -- sometimes I want to start posting there just to see how long it takes me to get banned. I believe one thing that has really helped Soxtalk are the disagreements behind the scenes about who and what should be allowed and what needs to end. By the time anything is actually done someone has to really cross everyone's lines, and looking at mod list, you know we never agree on anything. I remember being the lone holdout on banning one poster. I sent him a PM and he basically told me to f*** off. I would sometimes post over there and really thought I would be banned in 2005. One of their posters kept predicting the Sox would miss the playoffs. One of the mods threatened that if the team made the playoffs he would be banned and if they missed he could stay. I posted they had that really backwards, why keep a guy around saying "I told you so" when the board would be semi-suicidal after such a collapse? Ban him if he was right. A couple people immediately posted goodbye messages to me but they never got around to banning. I think I still have an account there but I haven't been there in years.

Depending on the weight and size over nighting a part would still put you way ahead cost-wise.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 6, 2015 -> 09:37 AM) What a load of crap. Baseball ignored this for generations. That isn't our fault. That it the fault of baseball and even the writers who ignored it in order to not burn bridges and sources. Now the writers are frustrated because their ballots are screwed up with too many players because of the divide on how to handle the steroid era. Just because baseball made mistakes in the past, also doesn't mean it is OK to keep making them. Just because we don't know who did in the past, doesn't mean we can punish the ones we know did, and the ones we know, that they knew, they were cheating the system. This false equivalency between the good ol' days and today doesn't fly with me. There is a clear divide between the drugs of the modern era and things like amphetamines of the old days. Baseball made its bed, it can sleep in it. I really believe there needs to be an exhibit about this era and the players who achieved amazing results. I'd even like to see baseball accept some of the responsibility. Not a hall of shame, but recognize what has become a major chapter in baseball history. I would also include guys like Pete Rose in a similar section.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 07:45 PM) I had intended on posting this exact post, except "I hate all of you" instead of "f*** all of you guys" I hate you Tex Another power hungry social climbing moderator Newcomers I challenge you to write a post in every forum around here before the end of January. There are conversations that range from thought provoking to Y2HH and I just yelling and him not making sense; from funny to poignant. The season hasn't started and it's a great time to really get to know the folks around here.

As a joke when asked who would fill in the charitable works after religion is eradicated you picked someone who clearly believes in God. LOL what a great sense of humor. How funny. Find a current quote where Gates says he doesn't believe in God. After having a child and being involved in charities around the world he has shifted from agnostic to believing. I guess if your wife was a believer you will change like you believe Gates has. I don't think he is doing it because of his wife. You also predicted that after religion is wiped out that people would fill that void. Yet you can't explain why those people aren't already doing charitable deeds. To ignore all the good deeds that people do as part of their faith is silly. I at least admitted that people form perverted religious views and harm people. You even refuse to admit that churches do good works around the world.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 04:13 PM) In Knoxville TN, and I believe here as well, there are "nuisance" laws, where they've shut down businesses without the business committing a crime specifically because many crimes are committed there. They were regularly used against bars that often had people arrested for selling drugs, bars that commonly had fights, and a "glassware/smoking supplies" dealer that was basically selling all the legal accessories that go along with marijuana use but never actually selling the weed themselves. Those are actually fairly useful tools for law enforcement because it means that business owners can't just "look the other way" when they know things are regularly happening on their property, they need to have some level of control over it. You can legitimately quarrel with how they're used, but this is quite standard in the parts of the country where I've lived. Good point. The difference I see in your examples is in the case of the bars, crimes were happening in the business. In the gun shop examples straw buyers were then reselling the guns elsewhere, not on the premises. I agree that law enforcement should be investigating the crap out of that gun dealer, but that should result in finding violations.

keep trying. You never answered, who is going to fill the void of good works after religion is ended and why aren't they doing it now?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 05:35 PM) Actually he doesn't, if you actually read his comment he calls it "moral", because he doesn't believe. I'm sorry if this isn't clear enough for you. He also sends his children to a Catholic school. Face it you pulled a s***ty example out of your ass that supports my argument.

Care to tell me why religion is keeping you from making charitable donations? Care to explain to me why anyone is stopped from doing that? ou say nature abhors a vacuum and other will rush in. Why would people suddenly start donating who don't do so now?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 05:30 PM) No. It as actually meant as a joke, it's good to see you could see past those religious blinders and see the joke. Oh, wait. As stated, if the churches weren't stealing money from old people with false promises, that money would still exist and possibly be used even better. Keep spinning. Face it you gave the worst possible example. Bill Gates donates because of his religious beliefs. As do a lot of other people. Who has blinders on?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 05:25 PM) Bill Gates. Are you referring to the billionaire Bill Gates? Thank you! from wikipedia.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 04:17 PM) Edit: Post removed, I'm done with this conversation, and it cements my feelings on religion and how useless it is. If all religion disappeared tomorrow the world would be a better place, not to mention more intelligent. Who will do all the charity work that churches do around the globe? You are totally dismissing all of that. We will also be better off when non religion is removed from the world. That would be the 388 murders that you non religious types committed in Chicago last year.

I tend to agree with you. But without knowing the prices, the store location, there could be other factors at play. I'll bet more graffiti artists buy their paint at WalMart than some local store. Does that mean WalMart knowingly allows them to buy paint, or they just sell a crap load of paint? Regardless, my main point stays, punish criminals not honest citizens. And criminals in this country must be convicted of a crime. I'm not really comfortable with closing companies down with anecdotal evidence, no matter how compelling.

And those sales can be traced to the original buyer and those straw buyers need to be prosecuted.

That would be my guess as well. Although it could be equally valid to write that "Straw buyers are walking into that store and purchasing their guns there because of price, location, . . . " You wrote it in a very pejorative manner. I believe, perhaps naively, in the American right of innocent until proven guilty. Even when it is inconvenient.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 03:38 PM) I'm pretty sure I'm the one saying "The huge majority of the Islamic community are denouncing these attacks so it's silly to say that they're not", are you crossing me up with the other people here? Oops sorry, I was. And it seemed strange. Which is why I went back. Sorry.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 03:31 PM) Actually with the recent Dallas ones we're not 100% sure. According to multiple reports there are no active pumping operations in the area of the epicenters of those recent quakes, which makes connecting to them tenuous. There are plenty of other ones directly connected to wastewater disposal and now a few directly connected to fracking as well. There's no need to exaggerate. You're painting all earthquakes with the same broad brush. You can paint all people with the same brush but not this? Come on Brian. I believe we can't paint anything with the same broad brush. Not religions, not gun owners, and not earthquakes. Especially people.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 02:10 PM) By your rational, nobody should have to take responsibility for anything, ever, be it religious or otherwise. Wrong. So very wrong. Just the opposite. All law abiding persons should denounce all criminals. It shouldn't matter if the criminal identifies some group you happen to belong to. Your rational is only denounce those criminals that self identify with something you believe in. Other than that, it's cool. No need to get involved. Let someone else get involved.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 02:03 PM) Actually a very apt comparison. The fact that you make that statement without finding out what I've actually written and said about the subject is not an indictment of me, it's an indictment of you. I was assuming you would be in the anti-fracking community or I have your beliefs way wrong. But should you be tainted with the same broad stroke since you are all geologists? There are classrooms all over that believe fracking is OK. Come on, you must really believe that it's ok. Did you publish that in the past couple days after the Dallas tremors? You must denounce it daily and if the leaders of geology don't also do that, you should consider a different way of life.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2015 -> 02:54 PM) Because they're selling guns and there's virtually no level of carnage that will cause a gun dealer to be shut down. And if we could get rid of a lot of that trash, it would literally save thousands of lives per year and it'd leave me a lot less to complain about. I could find ways to be ok with that. But if all people give me is the choice between the lunacy we have right now and banning outright, I'm going to pick the one with hundreds of thousands fewer corpses. So, when I hear "this is too complex" as a reply in some form, my answer is going to be "ok, here's the simplest way to do it." So this dealer is making thousands of illegal sales and no one will shut them down? Wow. Any other criminal enterprises on that level operate in the open and don't get shut down?