cabiness42

How long does pot stay in your system compared to how long its effects last? You can't show up to work drunk because it impairs your performance. If a Monday morning drug test shows that you smoked a joint Friday night and it's way past affecting you, are there grounds to fire you in a state where pot is legal?

This X 100. The extremes of both parties dominate the primary process. I'm not sure how easy the "rig" can be though. The big problem is that independents/moderates tend not to vote in primaries, which leaves the people voting in the primaries as being pretty extreme, which leads to extremist candidates getting nominated, which in turn drives more independents/moderates away from the primaries. Maybe having single instead of separate primaries where candidates from both parties are on the ballot and the independent/moderate voter can vote for a Republican for President and a Democrat for Governor (or vice versa) would get independents/moderates more involved in the primary process and lead to better candidates??? I know I personally voted in the Republican primary this year solely to support Lugar over Murdock, but that meant I didn't get to vote on the Democratic nominee to run against my congressman, and ended up not voting for the Democratic candidate because I didn't like her.

A drastic, ballsy trade would be great, but it's hard to bank on that. As for the budget, I'm not so much concerned about the dollars on FA contracts as I am the years. You can justify the money that Josh Hamilton will get for 2013 and maybe a couple years after that, but that's going to be a terrible contract down the road. If there's a guy out there who will go for bigger dollars at fewer years, I'd go after him.

I could always make the 5-mile trek to that game if tickets are reasonable and you want company.

If you think that one of the two major party candidates is significantly worse than the other AND you live in a swing state, then voting 3rd party is probably a bad idea. Neither of those conditions applied to me, so I was fine with voting for Johnson as a protest vote.

Advice to Republicans for 2016: 1. Above all else, remember that getting elected President and controlling the Senate is about winning independent voters in CO, FL, IN, OH, MO, NC, NH, NV and VA. Everything you do/say as early as the very beginning of the primary season has to be with that in mind. 2. Being pro-life is fine, but concede some exceptions for mother's life/rape and for god's sake don't ever stray off the prepared script when discussing the issue. Having some exceptions you (and by you, I mean your donors) object to in pro-life legislation is much better than having no pro-life legislation at all because you didn't get elected. 3. If you happen to be against gay marriage, never ever campaign on that issue, and when asked about it, mention that your focus is on economic and national security issues. 4. Give up defending tax breaks for the rich. It's a losing issue no matter how much you believe it will, or how much it might actually, stimulate the economy.

I hear there's like a dozen .380 OBP guys just begging for teams to sign them.

Please fill us in. Also, is Eric The Silly Ass still on that show? I really hated him when he was a fill in for Mike & Mike and was glad to see him leave.

Oh yeah, Rios got him by one point at the end. Dunn is getting every team's best lefty reliever in the clutch situations. Kinda like Fielder, Mauer, and Gordon are always going to get Donnie Veal in those situations.

It was 4th among Sox regulars, and one of the three better is already gone, so the Sox really need to look at upgrading the other five or they will have a lineup where nobody ever gets on base. If the Sox had five other guys in the lineup with an OBP over .350, then yes, I'd look into replacing Dunn, but his OBP, while subpar by Dunn's standards, is valuable to the Sox right now. And for every time Dunn strikes out with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs, Konerko/Rios ground into two double plays.

I also voted for Gary, but the numbers I saw this morning were that he didn't even make 1%.

Ozzie is not eligible to be President.

Nate the first one I've seen do a comprehensive study of how accurate all of the various polls have been historically, and factored in their historical biases into his equations. He actually gives more weight to polls that are historically more accurate. On the very last day before the election he flipped Florida from Romney having a 55.6% chance of winning to Obama having a 50.3% chance of winning, and look how that is the one state still too close to call, and he was right on the rest of the states. There is always the chance that one or more of the polls he uses acquires some new flaw that he can't account for, and there's always the chance that something major happens at the last minute to sway voters after it's too late for polling to pick that up, but his methodology is extremely solid.

Strikeout totals and batting average have little to do with a hitter's value, and I'm not 100% certain you can get a free agent guaranteed to put up an .800+ OPS for much less.

My biggest worry is that if the Sox sign McCarthy, teams will KNOW that we need to unload Gavin and will lowball offers. Would be nice to be able to get both deals worked out at the exact same time though I realize that's difficult to pull off.

This is from four years ago, but I think we need to be reminded of the effect that stupid people can have on the outcome: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-octo...the-stupid-vote

OK against the Bears is excellent compared to other QBs. The Bears D gets 2-3 turnovers a game but none against Rodgers. Plus, even on possessions where the Packers don't score, they rarely go 3-and-out so they're moving the ball and changing field position. Yes, the Packers D kills Cutler, but Cutler never gets to work with a short field against them either.

Matthews is a beast, but it's really Green Bay's offense and special teams that kill the Bears. Their offense never turns the ball over and their punter neutralizes Hester. The Bears offense never gets a short field to work with, unlike every other opponent where the Bears have a couple 10-yard scoring drives and/or the defense just goes ahead and scores. The Bears could very well end up 13-3 with two losses to Green Bay and lose the division on tiebreaker.

Yeah, the BC and Wake games will drag the computer rating down, but the USC game will bring it back up a bit. It's not going to matter a whole lot in the big picture. Alabama is in the NC game for sure if they win out, and either Oregon or Kansas State would be in ahead of ND if they win out. ND needs losses, and Oregon is the only team I see that might lose a game.

If somebody came to me and wanted to put money on Romney at 5-1, I'd take that bet.

I would put 49ers ahead of Houston for sure and maybe even Atlanta. Might put the Packers up there too. They're on a roll right now and the losses to Indy and Seattle don't look quite as bad as they did at the time.

I'm actually with you on that one, I was just trying to explain the logic in the move. Maybe if you can get him for 1-year $6M with an option you take that chance, but not for any more than that. It really depends on how good of a deal for Floyd there is out there and what other pitcher options there are. I don't really like the idea of having to rely on BOTH Quintana and Santiago and would rather see the two of them competing for the #5 spot with the other going to AAA as insurance.

The Sox don't get anything in return for not getting Brandon McCarthy, but if they sign McCarthy they can get something in return for trading Gavin Floyd. Plus, you can probably get McCarthy on a 1-2 year deal with an option, so you have him longer than 2013 whereas Gavin is a free agent after 2013. This is all assuming that the price and performance of McCarthy are both comparable to Floyd. In addition, signing McCarthy takes him away from another team which adds another suitor for Floyd.

In the Indy area people waited in line for 2+ hours to vote when the lines will be minimal on Tuesday. A lot of people referenced a fear of some kind of freak last-minute weather/car breakdown that would prevent them from voting Tuesday.

You can make a qualifying offer to any free agent that was with your team for the entire season (so Liriano and Myers don't count), but the qualifying offer has to be $13.3M, regardless of how much the player made last year. So players that don't figure to get anywhere near that much, such as AJ, will not receive a qualifying offer. The Sox would have made one to Peavy if they hadn't gotten his deal worked out before the deadline. In theory, they could make the offer to Youkilis, but he had an option for $12M so not picking up his option and then turning around and offering him $13.3M wouldn't have made much sense.