JUGGERNAUT

For those arguing short vs long term you can't go less than your best in a year in which your payroll is the highest it's ever been. The pen right now: Shingo - strong vs LH, & RH Marte - strong vs LH, could be strong vs RH Hermanson - strong vs RH, weak vs LH Vizcaino - strong vs LH, weak vs RH Politte - strong vs RH, weak vs LH Cotts - better vs LH, than RH Adkins - better vs RH, than LH Cotts is needed more in the pen than Adkins.

QUOTE: "Wages do not cause sales. Sales are needed to provide wages. Wages do not cause revenue. Revenue drives wages," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. I can't resist weighing in on this. First off the Dems have shown how much they care about labor. The GOP had a proposal to raise the min wage over 18 months? That's like asking a baby to take candy. The Dems should have voted for that proposal. It's a start & it had more GOP support than their own. Perhaps they think they can things done through filibusters Oh Mr Enzi, can I slap you silly? Wages provide productivity, productivity provides sales, sales generate revenue, & revenue - operating costs generate profits. You learn that in economics 101. For a business with a conscience that cares more about employing workers than reaping profits it's cyclical. The profits are then fed back to expand productivity either through expansion or improved wages. A happy worker always produces more than an unhappy one. Now Mr Enzi you might be surprised to know that under GOP leadership the US has experienced it's greatest growth in it's trade deficit. What does that mean Mr Enzi? It means that in order to maintain profits more US companies have decided to shift wages from US citizens to foreigners. It doesn't matter if it's outsourcing, insourcing or any derivative thereof. It's a fact and the rate of growth in that shift is alarming. So Mr Enzi let me complete the picture for modern economics 101 for you: revenue - operating costs generate profits. Operating costs are reduced by shifting productivity from citizens to non-citizens. Less jobs available to citizens results in lower wages for jobs by citizens. Lower wages for jobs by citizens results in lower tax revenue & lower disposable income by citizens. Lower tax revenue & lower disposable income results in a shrinking market. A shrinking market means less $ for national defense. Less $ for national defense means a weaker nation. The bottomline Mr Enzi, is that $5.15/hr is not keeping jobs in the hands of citizens. We can't even make magentic ribbons to support our troops for pete's sake. Those are made in China. So the belief that $6.15/hr is going to have an adverse effect on jobs is ridiculous. It's only effect will be to reduce profits for those companies who have no other choice but to employ citizens (service jobs). It's only effect will be to raise tax revenue & disposable income dollars to strengthen the marketplace. Thanks to GOP leadership & Dem leadership who seems to not give a s*** "Made in America" is a meaningless statement in this world. All that the world values is "Bought in America". Raising the minimum wage helps that. Unless of course you might want to get off your fat arse & do something to make "Made in America" mean something again. Heaven's forbid you should consider a bill to that effect. BTW for all you lovers of the global economy do you care that your medical & tax records are going overseas to be processed? Do you care that violates your privacy rights? Do you even care about privacy rights? Oh, why do I bother?

They are all crooks. If I were on that jury I would say the only honest businessman is one who hasn't been caught. Convict the guys having the greatest wealth to set an example to the rest.

Who said anything about fine? I said adequate. Which is another way of saying a slight dropoff from the person he's replacing. It's been said that Harris is arguably the best pure athlete on the team. Guys like him usually make the best utility players. If not Harris then who? Let's here your options. Keep them real. The Sox don't have a few million to trade for Polanco.

I disagree. I really think it's sink or swim. Either it's going to gel as you say & win 95 games like in 2000 or it's going to sink & finish near or below 500. To win 95 games win are looking at 70 wins from the starters & 25 from the pen. Seventy wins from the starters is an avg of 14 wins a starter. That isn't going to happen unless El Duque can give the Sox 25+ starts. What are the odds of that happening? Without El Duque Contreras is bumped to #3 & expected to win against Milwood, Silva, & Bonderman. I don't like those odds. One of the things I'd like someone to ask KW is if he had known Detroit was going to sign Maggs does he still trade Lee? I don't buy the theory that keeping Lee means nothing else. It means no Pods, Vizc, & Hermanson. There was still $ left from the Val, & Maggs departures to sign the rest.

All good links to which I have re-assessed my opinion of Comiskey: he's even a bigger scumbag than I thought. First the Eddie situation. The 10K bonus looks to be a myth. It was probably 1K. Still that represents roughly 20% of Eddie's salary in both yrs. The link on the baseball cards is what makes me believe it was 1K. Since Eddie failed to earn it both yrs it would make sense there would be no mention of it on his card. With respect to 1917 the facts strongly suggest that Eddie just came up short. But 1919 is a different story. There is mention of Eddie having a sore arm after 9/5 but there is no mention that the the two week layoff that followed was justified. Keep in mind in a day & age where they are pitching as many as 350 innings in a season a 2 wk layoff is out of the ordinary. With respect to 1919 the facts strongly suggest that Eddie was indeed denied a reasonable chance to win the bonus. Yes he had two more opps to get it down after 9/19/19 but two more starts before hand would have greatly increased his chances of reaching 30 wins. The Jackson interview makes me think even less of Comiskey. Jackson was not just another player. To baseball fans his stature was like that of Griffey in his prime. A true baseball fan would never ignore Jackson. Comiskey did. If I had been the owner of the Sox & Jackson wanted to talk to me I would have made time for him no matter what I was doing. Comiskey either knew the Fix was in or feared the mob or both. Probably both. So he decided to just ignore it, reap the Series revenue, & plan for next year. A greedy miserly scumbag is what he was. I just want to add that as a Sox fan I will not stop sending MLB e-mails yearly stating that Shoeless Joe Jackson deserves to be in the HOF & that Selig should once & for all issue a statement as follows: "Even though Judge Landis' ruling in the early 1920's might have been the best thing for the game at the time it wrecked the lives of some very honorable Chicago White Sox players. The most storied one being Shoeless Joe Jackson. It is the consensus of MLB that his play in the 1919 World Series was exemplary & that he tried his hardest to help his team win against all odds. For this he should be commended. I can not heal the wounds of the past but I can heal the wounds of his legacy for years to come. Effective immediately I am reinstating Shoeless Joe Jackson back into MLB making him eligible for the HOF." One of these days MLB will get it in their minds that fans care as much about the past time of the game as they do the present day. This would be a major media story that would have the eyes fixed upon baseball around the nation. This year would be ideal in light of the steroid scandal/controversy rocking baseball today.

KNOCK OFF THE NEGATIVITY! IT's ONLY ST! Sheesh! Is it every Sox fan's god given right to b**** & moan all season about how awful Sox players are? Can't you guys just try to spend 2 months at least thinking of a brighter side? I care more about Contreras & Garland producing 20-25 winnable starts then what their era is. These guys are going to have God awful days were their era will skyrocket. But as long as they keep those days in single digits they will help the Sox far more than they hurt them.

QUOTE: If all of their signings work out, the White Sox will have a shot at winning the division. If none of the signings work out, they'll probably finish fourth. At least they frame the Sox as real contenders. A pattern is emerging over all this reports: The Sox got fleeced in the Lee for Pods trade. We the fans can point to Vizcaino & the PTBNL but the nation will see this as Lee for Pods. I can't argue with that. I'm sorry but Lee was not making so much $ to where it justifies a salary purge. If that was the primary motive then Koney should have been moved instead. 16M/2yr for Lee after his breakout year is not unreasonable. He was the team's best road warrior. Considering the Sox were 7gms under on the road that only amplifys his importance. Lee was a big reason why the Sox were still in contention after Maggs & Thomas went down. We can't recover the past so we have to move on. Pods hit 328 on the road in 2003 & 274 on the road in 2004. That leads me to believe the glass is 1/2 full with this player. I look at the numbers & I see a player who has great potential to hit 300+ at the Cell this year. Maybe these analysts should look at his hit chart. He's going to hit the ball deep in the gaps many times & at the Cell with his speed he might be able to stretch those to triples. On the road I expect him to hit 280-290 because he's a rookie in the AL. That should give him a slight advantage. Right now I'm more concerned about Contreras. He still looks clueless on the mound. So much talent & so little upstairs. Sounds an awful lot like Garland.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I'm trying to figure this one out. A 40 yr old babysitter? What happened to "if there are any problems call us?" Isn't that standard operating procedure for babysitters? I know I use that line a lot. I would think a baby not being able to stop crying after you change it's diaper & feed it suffices as a problem. Why for heaven's sake is this women thinking it's ok to put duct tape over a 19 month old baby? It's not ok to do that to an adult but the chemicals in the tape alone pose an even greater threat to the child. Again it's standard operating procedure to allow the child to cry itself to sleep. If you can't stand it then you put the child in a crib in their room & turn the baby monitor low. You can barely hear the child cry then & if the crying stops you get off your arse & check on the kid. We take so much for granted. Maybe we should have licensing for baby sitters like we do driving. You can't assume any more that people are brought up with strong common sense.

I'm not surprised but keep in mind this is a consensus report. Some states are far better off than others. However I'm not sure if the rest of the world is fairing much better. I read a report recently that Hong Kong is busting at the seams infrastructure wise & some other Chinese territories are not fairing much better. The biggest problem I see in the US is that patch & pray is making some people very wealthy. Corruption is inherent in that system.

Anxious to see the skills center in LF. IMO, that's going to be cool! I think we all agree that more things have to fall into place for the Sox than the Twins for the Sox to win the division. If that's Neyer's main point he's correct. Perhaps he should have just said that if overall the Sox prove to be healthier this season than the Twins the Sox have a legitimate shot at winning the division. Because that's really what it all comes down to. Our optimism as fans is based on the assumption of good health. Our history as fans is dealing with the reality of bad health. Yet it makes no sense for us to lower our expectations on the belief that the Sox are more likely to suffer health-wise each year than the Twins. What bothers me the most about these health scenarios is most of these writers ignore the depth charts. http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/depth-charts http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/teams/depth-chart/CHW http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/teams/depth-chart/MIN We have more proven depth in the pen, the rotation, & in the IF than Minny. They have the edge on us in the OF. IMO, we are more capable of winning games if we suffer losses in our pen, rotation, or IF than Minny is. That's why I'm more optimistic this year than previous. Make no mistake about it. The 05 team at full strength is not better than the 04 team at full strength. But the 04 team at 3/4s strength is worse than this 05 team at 3/4s strength. Since the Sox have been fielding mostly 3/4s strength teams since 2001 I think that's a big plus.

This is the shift the burden to the fund managers/banks/investment houses option which I favor. Under this option the govt takes the SS reserve & splits it up into chunks which it then offers into bid contracts for the nation's & the world's fund managers. This is equivalent to the govt investing the SS reserve into CD accounts. The bid process allows these companies to offer their best rate of return on the CD's. We are probably looking at each contract having a value in 10's of billions for a reserve in the trillions. Obviously the bid process would weed out those companies who are not cash strong enough to greatly reduce the risk to the govt. Since this $ would not be protected by the FDIC there would be severe regulation associated with the contracts. Essentially if a company could not meet it's cash requirement for the CD when the term expires all assets of the company & it's directors would be surrendered to the government. No room for foul play or cooking of books. The banks don't like this option because it puts them against one another to provide the government the best rate of return. They absorb the risk of investing that $ over the term of the contract to insure their profitability. Without question the bidding process will impact the financial markets. We are talking a huge amount of money. But I am willing to accept the govts visual hand in manipulating those markets in exchange for the govt earning far greater interest on the SS reserve. That interest can then be used to keep up with COL increases to SS. I likewise like the idea of rich people being able to opt out of SS. This is easy to vacilitate. Allow the government to keep their SS checks in exchange for a 2 for 1 write off on their taxes. If you give back the 2K you expect to get from SS, you can then use that as a 4K write off on your taxes. For those who say the money is too large to manage that way again you can grow the bid contracts to scale over time. For example. We now receive a yearly update as to what we have paid into SS & what we can expect to get out. Allow SS contributors the right to elect to choose a % of their funds to higher interest options. The govt can then size the bid contracts based on the size of the pot Americans choose. It goes w/out saying that the government would need to pass laws preventing fund managers from suing it over unfair bid processes. With 10's of billions at stake per contract this would be an inevitable consequence & the government would need to protect itself before hand. This is the biggest argument against this option. You essentially accept the government's ability to make use of a visible hand to manipulate financial markets while giving up most recourses to challenge that. In face of the global economy where all things scale to cheapest labor, minimal service, highest cost to sustain best profits, I'm not as big a fan of free-markets as I once was. I'm even favor of greater distribution of wealth at the expense of fm principles.

There are two issues with this that the democrats do not seem to understand or choose to ignore. The one is that the current growth rate of SS funds is abysmal. Thus the interest earned is not helping to pay for the cost. The second is that the government can not hire a fund manager who will manage these funds to seek the greatest rate of return. There is no way to do this without providing a major competitive advantage to that fund manager. That's illegal & would open up govt to lawsuits by other fund managers. We are talking trillions. So the only alternative is to allow individuals the ability to seek fund managers to manage that money. This is simply an extension of what is happening in 401K's today where the majority of the funds are invested in stocks & funds that carry some element of risk. The problem of course is how to pay for that transition. Hiking the salary cap for paying ss taxes is not a long term solution to this problem. It simply helps ease the pain on the system. Increasing the retirement age to reflect modern life expectancy is a better long term solution but won't address the baby boomers. The general principle behind SS is that those paying in outnumber those paying out & as a result the SS reserve is always in a surplus. Its the surplus that allows young workers the ability to divert some of their funds to higher interest managed accounts. The problem with this is that the US govt has been borrowing from the SS reserve for years & so no one wants to admit to just how much cash exist in that reserve. Yet there is a solution to this dilemma in either case if the government just uses it's head. Bush is focusing on these managed accounts for young workers. He should focus them on those who are soon to exit. Why? Because those workers will begin drawing out of the system soon. Instead of affecting new accounts & future accounts you narrow the scope to near term accounts. That makes more sense. If you are expect to payout 2K a yr for account A in 5 yrs then allowing that person to divest that 2K now to a higher yld places less burden on the system. The person of course assumes the risk assoc with the higher yld'g account. The surplus should be sufficient to handle this kind of divestiture from a narrower scope. As more of these accounts create higher ylds for the near term workers the government can then begin to control costs in the SS payout. The goal is for the yld to exceed the COL increase built into the SS system today. If that's the case the govt would save on the COL increase for each of these accounts. That helps to slow growth of the SS debt burden. As that growth is slowed the surplus should rise allowing the scope to be expanded. That is the free-market shift the burden to the individual option. There is another. I'll explain that seperately.

There is nothing in Harris' past (ML + ml) that suggests that is likely to happen. If happens so what? You're not looking at the alternative. The alternative is giving a struggling Crede the ab or leaving him on. If you manage your team in fear of what could happen you are asking for a loss. You should manage your team in hope of what could happen. I think everyone would agree that replacing Crede in cl & late situations with Harris either at the plate or on the base pads increases the Sox chances of scoring a run. Likewise I think everyone could agree that those odds overshadow the possibility of Harris commiting an error when he takes the field. Harris' speed is not something that should be forgotten lightly. As for whether Harris can play 3B it all comes down to the throw. Uribe has proven to the Sox he can both field the position & make the throw. My understanding is that Harris' biggest weakness as a CF is his arm. So I'm not certain he can consistently make the throw. Let's not forget that we are debating this primarily because of Crede's past failure. Crede is young enough to where there should not be an overt need to spell him that often. Ramirez had 547 AB in 145G, Crede had 490AB in 144G. If Crede can finally produce consistently then the primary need to replace him would be to gain an edge in foot speed. Who better to serve that role than Harris? Uribe's fielding #'s: G, %, RF, ZR 2004 CWS 2B 77G .984 5.21 .792 2004 CWS 3B 27G .965 2.73 .804 2004 CWS SS 38G .983 5.29 .881 Crede's: 2004 CWS 3B 144G .965 2.43 .741 Harris: 2001 Bal CF 8G 1.000 2.73 .938 2002 CWS CF 6G 1.000 4.62 1.000 2002 CWS 2B 38G .985 5.32 .865 2003 CWS 2B 12G 1.000 4.69 .846 2004 CWS 2B 92G .990 5.16 .822 2003 CWS CF 61G .977 2.99 .912 2004 CWS CF 29G .982 2.26 .855 Rowand: 2004 CWS CF 126G .980 2.63 .921 For close & late the ideal situation would be for Harris to take over for Crede. When you look at his CF & 2B #'s you come to the conclusion he should be able to adequately replace Crede at 3B. Crede is no where near a GG & we should stop thinking of him in that context. Again considering that Bal started him as a CF I have to believe he can make the throw. When you look at Harris in the context of a super-sub then you can ignore his pathetic #'s vs LH because as a manager you can control those matchups. A solid hitter vs RH, excellent foot speed, quality backup at 2B, & an adequate backup for CF, SS, & possibly 3B. I wouldn't be quick to trade him if I were KW.

Excellent site! Gracias! http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/Pcicoe101.htm http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/VCHA01919.htm 4-24-1919 At STL A W 5- 2 2-0 Cicotte Sothoron 4-29-1919 At DET A W 3- 1 5-1 Cicotte Ehmke 5- 4-1919 Vs STL A W 4- 2 7-2 Cicotte Sothoron 5- 8-1919 At CLE A W 4- 1 10-2 Cicotte 5-14-1919 Vs BOS A W 1- 0 13-4 Cicotte Mays 5-18-1919 Vs PHI A W 1- 0 15-6 Cicotte Perry 5-23-1919 Vs NY A W 5- 0 18-6 Cicotte Shawkey 5-27-1919 Vs WAS A W 4- 3 21-7 Cicotte Harper 5-31-1919 Vs CLE A W 5- 2 24-7 Cicotte Phillips 6- 5-1919 At NY A W 5- 1 25-11 Cicotte Shore 6-10-1919 At BOS A W 5- 3 26-13 Cicotte Ruth 6-14-1919 At PHI A W 6- 3 28-15 Cicotte Rogers 6-18-1919 At WAS A L 0- 2 30-16 Cicotte Shaw 6-23-1919 Vs CLE A L 2- 3 32-19 Cicotte Bagby 6-27-1919 At STL A L 1- 4 33-22 Cicotte Weilman 6-30-1919 At CLE A W 5- 2 35-23 Cicotte Bagby 7- 4-1919 Vs DET A W 8- 1 38-24 Cicotte Boland 7- 7-1919 Vs DET A W 8- 3 41-25 Cicotte Ehmke 7-11-1919 Vs PHI A W 7- 1 45-25 Cicotte Perry 7-15-1919 Vs BOS A W 3- 1 48-26 Cicotte James 7-20-1919 Vs NY A W 2- 1 51-28 Cicotte Shore 7-24-1919 Vs STL A W 1- 0 54-29 Cicotte 7-29-1919 At NY A L 1-10 55-32 Cicotte 8- 8-2-1919 At BOS A L 3- 5 57-34 Cicotte Musser 8- 7-1919 At PHI A W 2- 1 59-35 Cicotte Perry 8-10-1919 At WAS A W 1- 0 61-38 Cicotte Shaw 8-14-1919 Vs BOS A L 6-15 62-39 Cicotte Russell 8-20-1919 Vs WAS A W 10- 3 68-39 Cicotte 8-23-1919 Vs NY A W 10- 2 71-39 Cicotte 8-29-1919 At CLE A W 3- 2 75-40 Cicotte Caldwell 9- 1-1919 2 At DET A W 5- 1 77-42 Cicotte Boland 9- 5-1919 Vs CLE A W 9- 1 78-43 Cicotte Myers 9-19-1919 At BOS A W 3- 2 87-46 Cicotte Hoyt 9-24-1919 Vs STL A W 6- 5 88-48 Cicotte 9-28-1919 Vs DET A L 9-10 88-52 Cicotte Ayers The basis for the claim is the absense of starts from 9-5 to 9-19. There is no mention of Eddie being hurt after winning 9-1 & therefore there are at least two start opportunitites there for Eddie to earn that bonus. If you can find a reference to his being hurt then I will accept your claim. Otherwise it seems as if Comiskey purposefully skipped his starts. With respect to Shoeless Joe's confession it's a question of what you choose to believe. There are other historical references that suggest Joe was coerced into that confession. The belief is that they convinced Joe that he would be allowed to continue to play baseball if he confessed & would never play baseball again if he didn't. Joe was an illiterate. His signature on the so-called confession was just an X. I choose to believe that is an accurate portrayal of what happens. You can choose to look upon the events separately or take them as a whole. I'm not going to ignore their numbers in the series itself: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f...LAYERstats.html Jackson, Weaver, & Schalk all hit over .300 in the series. A stark contrast to the rest. That's the strongest evidence that they were not in on the fix. 1918 deserves mention because it involves the city's beloved Cubs. http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Tlz0uAE...es+thrown&hl=en http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/VCHN31918.htm http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/UPCHN01918.htm 4 losses by 1 run, & 2 wins by 3 & 2 runs. Vaughn, Tyler, & Douglas.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor The difference is night & day between the two parks. Hits: Cell #3, Milller Park #17; HR: Cell #1, Miller Park #19, R: Cell #3, Miller #11 http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/stadium?team=mil - look at the dimensions (342, 374, 400, 378, 356). The acorn top shape means more of the OF is at greater lengths than the Cell (330,377,400,372,335). Finally if you look at his hit data: http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb...5392&statType=1 Take a look at the outs near the wall. Those are HR's & 3B's at the Cell. You can make similar observations of Dye, & AJP as well. http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb...3679&statType=1 http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb...0229&statType=1 Any one who thinks Pacific Bell is not tailor made for Bonds needs to do their hmwk. About 40% of his HR's are in the 309-364 area in RF. I stand by my claim that both Pods & AJP will hit 300+ at the Cell this year.

You can't teach that & you can't groom that. That's original. Way to go AJ! Maybe you could offer $100 for any HR off a Twin pitcher as well?

Small minded thinking like that is what keeps the team at 2nd. Having a regular at SS who is more than adequate at 3B is a plus. Especially when your 3B is sub-par. Having a solid bat v RH with excellent speed that can play SS is a plus. Say what you want about Harris but he has proven to be a very capable hitter vs RH. Consider close & late: Crede gets a hit. Oz can replace with Harris which greatly increases the possibility of a SB & an RISP situation. That's the difference betw winning & losing. Crede is sucking all game. Replacing him with Harris again increases the odds of the Sox gettting an RISP situation. Uribe will most likely never play 3B other than to spell Crede or replace him in the field in close & late situations. That's not going to have any effect on Uribe's ability to play SS. Harris will be used to spell both Uribe & Igs. That's the best option the Sox have for all scenarios.

Spanglish any one? It's America's new standard. Do you think that would ever happen in China?

That makes no sense at all. The bottom line is losing Thomas costs 3.5M & retaining Thomas costs an addtional 6.5M. If Thomas has a good year there is no way JR will just let him walk to save 6.5M. Likewise you are not looking at what Thomas means to the Sox long term. There is no player on the team now nor in the ml's that is expected to approach any where near Frank's OBP. If OBP is the most important stat to a team built on pitching & defense then Thomas might be the most valuable hitter on this team. Those who think the Sox will keep Koney are living in a dream world. When JD Drew gets 55/5, Koney is gone. There will be some team willing to overspend on a long term deal for Koney's homers. The Sox are not going to sign Koney to a 5 yr deal for that kind of money. When Koney goes Thomas will be the only MVP capable player on the team. Being able to lock him up for 18/3 + incentives is a no-brainer.

Reading between the lines in today's articles it seems that KW & Oz are leaning towards the idea of keeping Harris on the roster as a backup for CF, SS, & 2B. Assuming Harris can prove to be adequate D at those positions I approve of this move. Having a solid bat vs RH with excellent speed on the bench is a major plus for any team. The additions of both Raines & Pods will greatly improve Harris ability to steal bases. Keeping Harris negates the need for a backup IF & opens the possibility of either adding Burke or a 12th arm. Either option makes the Sox a better team.

There is no question in my mind that if Frank has a good year JR is going to re-negotiate a reasonable contract extension for Frank. If you get past the reporters Frank & JR might have one of the best owner-player relationships in all of professional sports. I could see 18/3 + incentives as being reasonable.

I don't think any one can argue with the fact that Bush is certainly a man of action. This is what most distinquishes him from his father. His father would have preferred to ride out his presidency & enjoy two terms having made more friends then enemies & not riling any feathers. This Bush cares little for that. He has a strong sense of values on just about every issue & is not shy to act upon them. I disagreed with his decision to go to war with Iraq because I didn't think we could afford it (blood & money). However; he understood the power of symbolism more so than I did. That's why he held strong to the date of the interim government last Jun & he held strong to the election date this year. Members of the press seem to think both were holllow dates but Bush knew better. He had a sense that if the Middle East could witness an election in Iraq the desire for democracy would spread like wildfire. That's what we are seeing now. Regardless of whether a nation is primarily Christian, Muslim, or secularist most people will seek democracy when it seems to real to them. My biggest problem with Bush is that he's forgotten his compassionate conservatism when it comes to the capitalism. Where is the compassion in the global economy? Where are the unions? Where is collective bargaining? Where are the principles of anti-trust and competition? Case in point I recently trekked down to Daytona for the Great American Race. Many cars had yellow, pink, & flag decorated magnetic ribbons on their cars in support of the troops. I stopped at a store to buy one, but when I read Made in China on it I decided to log on to the web site that accepts donations to help purchase light-weight bullet proof vests for our troops. At the same time I took notice that Publix owns about 7 out of every 10 plots for grocery stores in the state. In a nation moving towards 350 million people does it make sense to scale the anti-trust laws to global dimensions or would the nation be better served to scale them to a state level? Technology allows the little guy to be more competitve. Why don't our anti-trust laws reflect this? Why do we only have a choice between Comcast, Dish, & Direct-TV for subscriber TV services in Chicago? I'm sure a little guy can provide just as good a service at a better price. This is what irks me the most about Bush but I never had great hopes that he was the man to change it. He simply doesn't care about anti-trust laws or the little guy in business. Bush will probably go down as the most influential president towards global democratization since Wilson but under his watch the world is seeing the development of the biggest monopolies ever. Not in the sense of their being no opportunities but rather their being no realistic opportunities. Who can compete with the Wal-Marts & the Targets of the world when they have the plots & the distribution networks designed to get them the best price possible for retail merchandise? This is why I say the anti-trust laws need to be updated. Land ownership & lease rights are the most valuable aspect of doing business in the US today. The government should watchdog it to insure that competition exists in that respect in all 50 states. Not just the nation as a whole.

Capitalism does not know the definitions of culture, tradition, or honor. It's a system that by it's very nature consolidates all aspects of civilization down to that which can be mass produced cheaply. Language is no exception. What good is America's right to free speech if that right is governed by capitalist principles? Every nation on the planet is going to face this same dilemma. The nature of capitalism is very much like that of the Borg. Assimilate new cultures, make use of that which can be profitable, & discard the rest. The only thing that stands in it's way is democracy & regulation to protect that which capitalism sees no value in.

As long as KW is at the helm if the Sox are within sniffing distance of a div crown prospects are nothing more than chips to be used in trades. Some think that's sad but it's true. It puts a greater burden on KW to scout better than most when it comes to looking for new talent. The Sox have become a revolving door. I can't fault KW. The fact is that outside of Buehrle the organization has not produced one bonified star in the pitching dept. The last one was Foulke & he came over in the white flag trade. Min has done a much better job at getting more out of thier farm system in the pitching dept than the Sox. That's forced KW to give up more to compete.