cabiness42

Trading Alexei for anything less than a Top 50 prospect who is within a year of contributing at the major league level would be insane.

Right, but Mexico was also arguably the best 2nd place team in the draw. Only other 2nd place teams I could see giving them a game are Chile and maybe the US on a good day.

I would say bring him in at about 60' if they are behind, or after 90' if tied. If the US has a lead, then just let him rest up for the QF.

I don't have the time to look this up right now, but I think there are court precedents that spell out that 1st amendment religious freedoms do not supersede basic preservation of life. Parents have been jailed for failing to seek appropriate medical attention for their kids and hiding behind religious freedom. Also, there is a free market risk with going too far in asserting religious freedom. If there really is such a thing as a sizable private JW owned company and they actually try to provide health insurance that does not cover things like blood transfusions, I think they have a hard time finding many non-JW people to work there. While I'm not trying to downgrade the necessity of birth control, it clearly isn't as critical as something like a blood transfusion, plus there are plenty of resources for securing birth control aside from via insurance (Planned Parenthood, etc.), so I don't see Hobby Lobby losing a lot of employees over this decision.

Well, for one, a blood transfusion is in most cases a necessary life-saving procedure. I'm not aware of any situations where birth control pills are a requirement to save a life.

This year's games are being played at 1/4/7 pm Rio time for the first two group stage games and at 1/5 pm local time for the third group stage game and the knockout round. If 2018 follows the same schedule, with Moscow being 8 hours ahead of EDT in the summer, games will be at 5/8/11 am EDT and then 5/9 am EDT. Qatar is only one hour behind Moscow, so this is our last chance to see afternoon games for a long time (unless of course 2022 gets moved to the US).

This part makes sense: Wendy's is way, way better than McDonald's but far less popular.

There are people who eat for free several times a week doing this.

Don't really need Medicare for all. Just need to open up the Federal Employee health care plan (which is essentially a giant exchange) to all employers and all individuals. Then require employers to pay a certain dollar amount toward employee plans, based on the total number of wage/salary dollars the company pays out, OR pay into a Federal pool that is used to cover low income people.

Makes sense to me. If the government thinks that anything, in this case low or no cost birth control, is important, then the onus is really on the government to provide it and not to force private companies to subsidize it.

The extent of the "sell-off" should be about the return value more than anything else. The only player that really needs to be traded is Dunn because he has an expiring contract. Beckham is only under team control through 2015 so he is probably next in line to go, but even with him you have to get good value for him. Don't just dump him just for the sake of dumping him. As for guys like Ramirez, Danks and Viciedo, they are under team control beyond 2015 so you really have to get good value in order to trade them. They can absolutely contribute to a championship team in 2015-16 (though I'm still not 100% sold on Viciedo). If Hahn gets really good offers for these guys, then he should make those deals, and as a result this year's team is probably a 70-75 win team. If he doesn't get really good offers for these guys, then he shouldn't trade them and this year's team is probably a 75-80 win team. The plan shouldn't be to try to win as many games as possible this year, nor should the plan be to lose as many games as possible this year. The plan should be to set the team up in the best possible situation for 2015-16, which may or may not involve trading a lot of current players depending on the market.

There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

Any reason to think Africa won't be totally eliminated today?

Isn't every problem?

Mexico: It was a foul in the box, and a stupid one at that since the guy didn't even have the ball anymore. Costa Rica: Nice job on the shootout. Was nice to see after all those painful misses yesterday by Brazil and Chile.

Career vs Buehrle: Viciedo 2-3 Ramirez 1-3 Konerko 1-3, K DeAza 1-4, BB LGarcia 0-3 Flowers 0-3 Dunn 0-4, K

Team A finished first in a group containing Urugray, Italy and England Team B finished second in a group containing Colombia, Ivory Coast and Japan You bet on Team A every time.

Wait, the Cubs moved a Sunday home because of a parade? What a f***ing joke.

"Marquette" is an old Native American term for "Notre Dame wait listed"

Colombia at -116 would have been a gift.

Right after Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams make out in public.

Notre Dakota: the OTHER UND.

Dan McNeil is a lowlife drug addict. Radio stations are enabling him by continuing to pay him.

I am predicting South American wins in both games today.

Con somebody message me when this thread resumes being about draft picks???