JUGGERNAUT

I agreed with that. As much as SOX fans lament with Judy/Jon he has been very consistent. So that gives fans & Ozzie in particular the ability to count on Jon to deliver our minimal expectation while maintaining our hopes that he will have a breakout year for us. Jon's potential always gives us hope!

You can't simply ignore the existence of Jihad International. It exists. It has hdqtrs. It has camps training in every nation & it has gangs in every nation. in many nations including Pakistan & India it controls the local politics. It's very adept at weaving it's way through free nations. You have to address that somehow. I agree that DSWM citizens should not put people on a watch list. My reason for doing is simple: Freedom of the American people outweighs the risk of any American person commiting an act of terrorism. Until I see a wealth of evidence to suggest otherwise there is no need to curtail that freedom. But when it comes to foreigners it's not the same. They are not American citizens. They may or may not believe in America's freedom & democracy. They have little to no connection with the American government. Thus the risk is much higher. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the risk of a foreigner commiting an act of terrorism outweighs the freedom of foreigners in America. But even if that's the case those freedoms should only be curtailed when absolutely neccessary & that act should occur with extreme caution. Profiling foreigners is one way of doing that.

This is generally related. We as a nation are becoming a society of knee-jerkers. It's represented by our electors. America represents freedom & democracy above all else. At least it used to. That was the whole point. That's what made it a driving capitalist force & one of the freeest nations on the planet. Law & order was confined to that which was essential & minimal to maintian civilization & government & increase standard of living & quality of life. That was the founding principles of this nation. If our founders were alive today each & every one of them would argue in favor of evangelical rights. They never intended for government to be so intrusive that it would violate the wishes of 99% of students, faculty, & parents serviced by a school so that the wishes of 1% could be met. God forbid that a terrorist act be in commited by self-proclaimed Christians. The knee-jerk reaction to that would be to consider Christians speech & actions terrorist related activities no longer desired. In the past 40 years America has gone from being a nation that cheerishes freedom to one that fears it. All of these knee-jerk reactions are indicative of that. It's crazy. Our founders would call us pansies. They were rebels & revolutionaries that founght for freedom & democracy. In doing so they lived amongst those who supported their enemies. They didn't impose knee-jerk laws for search & destroy missions on those persons. Instead they sought to win their hearts & minds to their side. Where is America's program to do that? Where is the program to convert terrorists? The KGB did not stop terrorism in the USSR & the Patriot Act won't do it here either. They are simply knee-jerk reactions that do nothing to impact the cause of terrorism. Why do terrorists exist & why does recruitment grow? That's what we should be focused on. That's what we should be trying to address.

A good reason why I am an unhappy GOP voter: "He could get up to 25 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000." That's crazy. The FBI acknowledge there was no terrorist connection. Any one with a brain can tell that this was an inadvertent action. Just because it was an airplane doesn't mean people should go nuts. The best analogy I can think of in this is a person running a red light. Their action may cause an accident. If his action had caused any damage to the plane or the passengers then he should be held liable for that. The same he would if his running a red light caused an accident with a tour bus. The Patriot Act goes to far on a lot of things. What was needed was an Act to allow the government to setup activities similar to the KGB to spy & prosecute FOREIGNERS. With respect to domestic terrorism it's a different scenario entirely. McVeigh was not a member of a terrorist organization. He was a misguided person directed by drug dealers. They had a vice against the FBI & McVeigh had a vice against certain government institutions. Since the act he repented, showed remorse, asked for forgivness, & welcomed death as a consequence for his actions. On a domestic level the Patriot Act should apply to purchases of dangerous products. Products that can easily be used to fashion a bomb like the nitrogen compound in fertilzer. But again, even that application should be exercised with great caution. Apparently many in the GOP forgot that. Apparently their own individualistic ideas of what is required to make America safe has gotten in the way of their beliefs in freedom & democracy. Since the Patriot Act is NOT good for business maybe they will come to their capitalistic senses if nothing else.

If you sign AJP then there is no need to keep Burke. So he goes. If you sign Iguchi, then Harris becomes a backup. I believe the CWS will go with 12 pitchers to protect against Hernandez, Contreras, & Garland. The potential of that combo is great but so is the risk of any of the 3 not having 5+ IP in a game. Considering they will receive about 80+ starts betw them you need the 12th arm. That leaves only 4 bench players: Harris, Davis, Everett, & utility IF It's hard to believe Jurassic will be riding the pine but both him & Thomas are bigger health risks next year so it's a good situation to have. I still hope KW pulls the trigger on Cairo for the u IF position because the pickings are getting slim.

Lineup: 1. Pods LF 2. Iguchi 2B 3. Rowand/Thomas DH 4. Konerko 1B 5. Dye RF 6. Everett/Rowand CF 7. AJ C 8. Uribe SS 9. Crede 3B Considering the 2 yr avg's of 1-2 that's an unbelievable 90+ SB's! More than many teams! Think of how much pressure that will put on opposing pitchers, C's & IFers! Definitely the way to go. If either should fail then you can swap them with Uribe. Hopefully both will not fail. When Thomas is not playing Rowand deserves the 3 spot. He's earned it. Dye has put up MVP numbers before so he deserves the 5 spot. But if any of them should struggle I really view 5-6 as interchangeable. Rowand could move to 4 with a hot bat, & Koney could fall to 6 with a cold one. This is a really flexible lineup to afford Ozzie that luxury.

It's not an either/or choice. They are completely unrelated. Getting Iguchi has no impact on getting AJP. The CWS have the money to sign both. But KW is not going to sign a player at a price that is far beyond reasonable. I think all of the signings this off-season including Garcia & Uribe meet that principle. Based on performance alone AJP is worth at least 3 times more than Davis. Even if you factor in Davis' potential AJP is worth 2 times more than Davis. So any contract in the neighborhood of 2-3M/yr would be reasonable. Hopefully AJP sees it that way. I likewise hope that he's considering the intangible that no other team can offer him: a chance to beat his old team. Beat them when they play, & beat them out of the post-season. Think of the personal satisfaction he would feel in out-playing Mauer & helping the CWS win a division. As the MC commercial goes, that's priceless.

The problem I have with Rowand in CF is that he plays like Griffey. He never exercises caution with respect to his body when making a play. It's a great thing to watch but it's not a good thing for a team seeking to win a division. If you asked which player I would be willing to risk more in terms of health it's Pods. I want Rowand healthy all year long. This is very important at the Cell. For those who attend the games or watch I TV I believe there are more wall/fence plays there than anywhere else. I know I've never been to a game where there hasn't been at least 3 such plays. So if Pods is capable of playing CF then I would much prefer Rowand to play LF.

Where do you stand politically? Liberterian, GOP (Republican), DEM (Democrat) So often those of us who weigh in on politics are misunderstood or stereo-typed based on a single post on a single issue. I thought it would be helpful to provide a thread that would help clear that up. Personally speaking, at present I am an UnHappy GOP voter. I'm not happy with the party on some issues but content with it on other. Generally speaking I am more of a LIB but they don't allow room in their platform for compromise or transition from where we are now to what they desire. Until they do I can't take them serious. You can provide a transition platform without compromising general principles as long as you define it as such. The party refuses to do this. That gives me a choice between GOP & DEM. I was born a DEM voter based on group association in the neighborhood I group up in. But as I have grown older I have moved closer to the GOP. If you asked why it's because of the shift in platforms between the 2 parties. If you compared the GOP & DEM platforms to that of the LIB platform the GOP has more in common with it. Both desire smaller less intrusive government in the every day lives of people. The anti-socialist design. The general principle of the libertarian platform is that socially majority rules. Not politically or government wise, but socially. That means that government should be set up such that the majority opinion of most citizens direct the social behavior of the society. There is no such thing as the tyranny of the majority in a democracy. It's an imaginary foe created solely to push socialism. Socialism is the engineering of society based on a minority group's idea of a universal code of behavior. It is analogous to organized religion enriched with political power. With respect to Europe moral relativism has replaced religion as the main factor in driving it's socialism. It's simply an exchange of one group's views for another. Europe used to discriminate against heathens or others who shared a different philosophy of life. Now it's replaced heathens with Christians. The reason there is no such thing as the tyranny of the majority in a democracy is because as long as a government provides a free speech right & a right to be heard to every individual then no one can claim not having the opportunity to influence the majority. If the majority of persons control the government through a democratic voting process then tyranny can only exist if a minority group control the ability to influence that vote such that any other voice is silenced. As long as any individual as a right to free speech & a right to be heard by the masses tyranny can not exist. Let me likewise distinguish between the majority & mob rules. Majority opinion is arrived at through commerce & peaceful debate. Mob rules is not. Mob rules is achieved through coercion with fear of consequences so severe that free speech & right to be heard are suspended w/in the mob. That is not government. That is coercive anarchy. It is ridiculous to define government based on the grievous history of mob rules. I can go on & on, but I think you get the point. In summary both LIB's & GOP's hold the same philosophy: government is best served & implemented at a local level. The federal level should only exist for that which is trully essential & neccessary for society to function. DEM's/socialists believe in just the opposite. It's sad really, because there is no party devoted to strengthening the power & influence of unions. This was the primary reason why the DEM party became dominant in the urban cities. Without the union of DEM's & labor we would not have any where near the benefits we have today. But today the DEMs have sold their souls to global capitalism & moral relativism. The unions are simply along for the ride with a rapid rate of decline in both their power & influence. Meanwhile in most emerging markets or markets experience growth of 5%+ unions are all but non-existant. How many DEM's without power have spoken out about that in the last 15 yrs? There was one. Gephardt. In his campaign against Bush he spoke about it & won my vote. Too bad he didn't get the nomination. But in 2004 even he said nothing. If there is no growth in unions overseas then they will continue to decline here & when they are gone for good democracy will be a myth. It will be a lesser of evils controlled by capitalists who care nothing about the standard of living or quality of life of most Americans. Much worse than it is today.

You Da Man! Gracias!

Green: I think NYY owe LAD an apology. The 72-hr window for Green to sign a contract extension with AZD is not going well. The sides are very much apart. There is no way that 10 team trade would ever have gone down without Green being apart of it. If the AZD can't sign him to an extension the trade's off. Vazquez: There are too many suitors in the NL for Vazquez's services for him to choose an AL team. Since $ is not a part of the choice for Vazquez I think KW got it right in believing the NL is where he wants to be. Perez: I hope we all learned a good lesson with this. When it concerns pitching & LAD if the guy is any good they aren't going to let him go. We should have assumed he would sign with them from the start. It was just a waiting game based on what Clement was going to get. Nothing more. Iguchi: The NY Post reports that he's very close to signing with the White Sox. I like this move very much. In fact the entire off-season has been as if KW has adopted my philosophy: pitching first, defense second, hitting third. It's like buying gas. Pay premium for the car you appreciate & need the most (pitching). Pay silver for the car you can't do without (defense). Pay regular for anything else (hitting). What's more I like the overall strategy for attendance gain. Buehrle's success draws more fans than Koney's. Garcia's success will draw more fans than Lee's. Hernandez's success will draw more fans than Ordonez's. Garland's success will draw more fans than Valentin's. If you can put together a rotation that can manage 70-75 wins consistently year after year then you are going to draw more fans. That will mean more to the fan base than having 5 guys who hit 20-30/250-300/75-100.

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?act=UserCP&CODE=04 The options are 5..40 in increments of 5 for both posts/topic & topics/forum. I think that's outdated with respect to broadband usage. Having options of 20..100 in increments of 10 would be better.

Chisoxfn, if it seemed like I was advocating the feature to be disabled that was a misunderstanding. I agree the ignore feature is helpful & even supported a temporary usage of it. I even included always as an option. But I added that generally speaking I would hope most who on this board who cheerish the principle of free speech & the right to be heard that is associated with it would exercise caution before using it.

Comments: max posts / page, max topics/page = 40, 40 Can we make this 100, 100? This would be more practical with broadband. If any one knows how to get a quote tree to work in a post please pass it on. IMHO, I think overall ignore lists are good on a temporary basis. That does help cool things down when they get heated betw users. That can happen any where in any forum including Pale Hose itself. But long term they equate to discrimination by one user vs. another. It's placing discimination as a higher value than free speech. I view free speech not just as the right to say what you want but more important the right to be heard as well. My advice then would be to include a time attribute with the ignore list. When you add someone to it, include how long you want to ignore them: 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, always. I would think in most case 3 days-1 week would cool things done. When the time expires the person would be automatically removed from the list.

I'm going for the pot being 1/2 full as opposed to empty. KW made offers to Iguchi & AJP. Until I hear otherwise I'm assuming they are going to be CWS in 2005. I've not heard anything about other teams making them an offer. Only that they had an interest. With that in mind this is my lineup: 1-Iguchi 2-Pods 3-Thomas/Rowand 4-Koney 5-Rowand/Everett 6-Dye 7-AJP 8-Uribe 9-Crede Add to that a rotation of 1-Garcia 2-Buerhle 3-Hernandez 4-Contreras 5-Garland And a much improved BP with specialists who can completely shutdown LH or RH hitters (but not both ) & if this is the 2005 team the CWS should be the favorite to win the ALC. Of course that's always based on everybody being healthy & able to play at their best 5 out of 6 months at least.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but there is no visible difference between +/- quotes. They seem to function the same. Neither function generates a history of quotes in a post. This is not a complaint because we never had that feature before. That I was aware of. So it's just an FYI. At other invision boards I visit I've seen it work differently. When you quote a post it generates quotes for every reference in that post. You can create a quote tree this way in a post. If you select the - it will only quote the most reference in the post. Again, just an FYI. The site's faster & easier on the eyes. Keep up the good work! Thanks!

It's a 2-step process. First hit the quote button. It will turn red with a -. Then hit reply.

He actually had a decent column yesterday. It seems he's always been in love with Farve. I read the whole story in the papers last week. Here's the highlights: 1-Mariotti claimed great ratings. Station manager said they were OK. Essentially anything was better than Rome's syndicated national show. They will replace Mariotti's show with locals. 2-Mariotti always left 45 min & finished the show with a taping he made earlier. This was to accomodate Around the Horn. This pissed just about everybody off at both the local & national levels. 3-The station mgr is convinced that a full live local broadcast will beat Mariotti's ratings. They are eager to get started.

Who else is hitting #4 for the AZD in 2005?

These reports about AZD are very much maligned. As the worst team in MLB in 2004 they still drew about 2,519,560 fans. Good for 15th. They have paid their entrance dues into the league & will now be keeping most of the media revenue dollars. They are no where near close to being the next expos. They ranked 16th in total revenue in 2003 & didn't slip much further in 2004. In 2005 they will see a major jump in their media revenues. Think of it this way. If they keep Vazquez then they traded RJ a #1 for Vazquez a #1 & a #4 hitter in S Green. That's pretty good. The Glaus signing was insane. I agree. They would have been much better off signing Koskie. But this front office seems to lock in on players it really wants & that's a hit or miss proposition. That aren't thinking about risk. Only gain. Sink or swim ... no floating.

Maggs is no longer the player he once was. His agent has avoided physicals & tryouts in Dec (the busiest off-season month). That's a sure sign he's trying to avoid the injury risk issue. Maggs will sign with a team that is solid in RF but has the extra cash to take the risk. If he can play at all the Cubs certainly come to mind. But if you had to do the odds I would say there is less than a 50% chance Maggs can play a full season in 2005 & less than a 30% chance he's close to 300/30/100. So when considering those odds vs Jermaine Dye, Dye is a much lower risk with a better expected production level. Dye 2005 is definitely an upgrade over Maggs 2005. Lee will be missed. You can knock his defense all you want, but he made wall plays & he showed a good arm. He never lacked effort. He was becoming a more patient hitter & that was driving up his production both at home & on the road. The Brewers are luckly to have him. I will look forward to him being a much bigger CubKilla force now. But the White Sox did upgrade the total OF. With the additional of Pods the White Sox have upgraded all OF positions defensively. That's what they wanted. When you move the fences in you need guys who can make wall catches. Rowand, Pods, & Dye are those guys. With the move all 3 positions now feature strong arms that should help cut down the total bases of the opposition. Yes Pods went from 313 to 244 & saw a similar drop in his OBP as a result. But he still managed to steal 70 bases last year. Up 25 from the year before. The White Sox are a +59 in stolen bases now & project to beat Min in that dept by 30. Does it make a difference? Absolutely! The stolen base is one of the most humilitating actions in baseball for team on the field. If everybody does their job to the best of their ability in theory a runner can not steal a base. So when it happens someone didn't perform at their best. That gets inside a pitcher's head. Even if it doesn't result in a run scored in the inning it still results in more pitches thrown under the highest amount of stress. Do it often enough & a pitcher will leave early. This is also why I hope Kenny does sing Iguchi. Two expert base-stealers at the top of the order would make the White Sox the favorites to win the ALC. That kind of pressure faced 4/5 times a game is going to greatly weardown the opposition. Even if both hit 250, with an OBP of 330, they are still going to have a major impact. Especially in the ALC where the pitching for the most part is weak.

There is no way it could be 40 pds! For Uribe that's a gain of 25%! It's just not possible in the 3 months since the season ended. I could see 10-15 pds. He should be able to lose that. I can't see KW signing him to a 3 yr contract without this issue being brought up. I'm sure he's dieting as you read this. I've got no problem with Uribe. He struggled horribly in Jul (I think) but then bounced back. I hope he can do better in 2005. What I like about the AJP reports is that Kenny didn't try to deny anything or cookie coat it. Instead he took the route of giving him a third chance. That keeps the stigma in place & keeps his price down. Less teams will be willing to do that. Of course they probably have a better C situation than the CWS. In any case this strategy helps me to believe KW will land him soon.

Me like the fast reply option a lot! About time. The D'Backs come away smoking. I don't see why you can't see it. In exchange for RJ they get 17M, S Green, Javier Vazquez, & Halsley. Who wouldn't make that trade? Apparently if Vazquez can't play for the NYY's then he wants to return to the NL. So that makes the Phillies the prime target if doesn't want to play for AZD.

Re-sorting to Webster's to provide a basis That's almost as good as choosing text book science over published research papers. I'll see your posts next year! Enjoy! Be Safe! Don't drink & drive!

gobs***e / gobshyte - potty-mouth; undesirable person.