Jake

Went to a lecture from a climatologist yesterday. She was showing us projections showing that North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Middle East will be facing huge decreases in precipitation in the next 50 years. Most of the world will be getting wetter, but of course those places...of course not.

Glad to have him.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 10:21 AM) So let's make bad things happen to innocent people! If the concern here was just to make the roads safer they'd be going after cell phone use 10 times as hard as they are drinking. Not saying they wont, it's already kind of started, but people like their phones for now and haven't been brainwashed into thinking they are murderers for reading a text. Of course, they aren't innocent. The whole problem is that as one becomes drunk, they lose agency. You no longer make decisions the same way (you do it worse), you don't make decisions as quickly, you don't react, you lose coordination, etc. etc. We're a progressive society that is mostly happy for you to live your life this way. But since you are licensed to drive around a rolling killing machine, we have decided you need to have something approximating your very best motor skills and judgment when you operate that vehicle. It isn't, "I'm only guilty if I cause harm because I was drunk." That assumes that one of your drunk driving events was different from another. You made a bad call the time you hit somebody and not the time you didn't. This isn't the case. You were always equally likely to kill somebody, the circumstances around you just changed the time you killed somebody. In many places, getting caught driving drunk is a life changing act and it should be. My older brother got a DUI and lost his license for all purposes for 60 days while he had to submit to random breathalyzer tests, then got a restricted license that required him to operate only vehicles with a breathalyzer attached to the ignition -- a system that cost 200 to install and 50 per month to maintain -- for two years. He lost around $10,000 after paying fines, lawyer, and drunk driving classes that allowed his sentence and other punishments to be as "slight" as they were. If I weren't willing to drive him to work for 60 days, he would have had to quit his job. ...and I'm okay with that. It's extremely easy to not drive drunk. The risk involved in driving drunk is colossal compared to the already-high risks associated with driving a car. I also lost a brother in a drunk driving accident that he caused -- I wish he would have gotten a DUI, too, because maybe he wouldn't have decided that it wasn't a problem to drive drunk until you get into an accident, because that's how we learn our limits. I'll put it in libertarian terms, because I know it means more to you. We have agreed as a society that driving a car requires some level of aptitude. It isn't a ton, you basically need to just be an adult, know the law sorta well, and drive for 10 minutes with a state worker without scaring the s*** out of them. These are the minimal restraints we need on motor transport to make sure we don't have pure calamity. Allowing drunk people to drive erases all of that - not only are they no longer rational actors that are able to make decisions for their own good, this infringes upon my right to be alive. Allowing drunk drivers to persist until something bad happens is like inciting a riot: if you start a riot for no reason, that's bad! This is a basic restriction on free speech. We aren't dealing in speech here, but we are dealing in breaking the social trust that keeps this entire thing together. Or to think of this in another way... Roughly 40% of all traffic deaths involve drunk drivers. 20% of transport drivers tested after an accident are drunk. 30% of all Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related accident before they die In 1979, when nationwide changes began to enforce DUI laws without the prerequisite of an accident, there 50,000 traffic deaths, 60% of which were caused by drunk drivers. In 2012, there were 34,000 traffic deaths, between 1/3 and 40% were caused by drunk drivers (data collection is incomplete since people aren't happy to just admit they were drunk). That already looks great -- now consider that American cars drove twice as many miles on aggregate. If you eliminate drunk driving, you have eliminated the bulk of the inherent risk of death when driving. Our society relies on driving to function, especially given our terrible infrastructure and lack of public transport options. Of course, we still do much, much worse in all regards, total per capita and alcohol-related traffic deaths, compared to places like the UK and Australia.

I think a lot of scouts aren't high on Johnson's ceiling and don't see him getting lefties out at the next level due to lack of third pitch. Of course, development of third pitch is why he's gotten as good as he is now so we can assume it has been chronically underrated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/d..._n_4651700.html? 16-year-old black kid in Philly walking around with HS basketball teammates, gets stopped and frisked, is accused of resisting arrest. He now has a ruptured testicle that he says he received while an arresting officer brutalizing his genitals. His legal team is trying to clear the charges of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and reckless endangerment as he says they are false. The boys were exiting the bus to enter their gym and were bundled up with team-issued scarves, gloves, hats. One of the boys made "a snide remark" to the police officer and they all scurried away. Police officer reported they were all wearing ski masks, which was false. Victim/suspect ran for a moment, thought better of it, and stopped. Should have kept running. After spending 8 hours in jail, his parents bailed him out and got him emergency surgery. Arresting officer has had multiple complaints of making baseless arrests.

The biggest trigger to repeated drunk driving is doing it without having something bad happen. This is why it's illegal. It hopefully stops anyone from doing it once, but if they do, it drastically increases the chance of "something bad" happening without increasing the chance somebody dies.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 08:36 PM) Do you really believe LeBron is not capable of 29-30 ppg? That was the whole point of leaving Cleveland. So that he wouldn't have to do that and lead the team in every other category. Durant is spectacular. I'm not hating at all. But he's not LeBron and probably never will be. I was just clarifying your argument, which is that LBJ foregoes his own stats to increase the team's overall scoring, which makes perfect sense

I think J4L was arguing that LBJ forfeits scoring opportunities for himself in favor of teamwide efficiency, something he thinks Durant contributes to less, despite perhaps being able to score more himself

Gosh, he'll hardly have any left

I don't know why you would ever want to give a 30+ year old pitcher a long free agent contract. These almost never work out, especially beyond the first season

After living in the South for a few years and having decided the weather was the main positive of that location, I started to hate it. I miss winter. It can be inconvenient and sometimes worse than inconvenient, but it just feels right to me. Four distinct seasons. I love it.

I'm glad it's going to be in cold weather - why can you play in NY/Chicago/Green Bay/etc. one weekend but not two weeks later? It is much more exciting to see people play in "bad" weather

Here's some fun Steamer projections: http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?...0&sort=22,d Eaton as top position player with 2.3 WAR Alexei 2.1 ...Phegley 1.2 ...Beckham 1.1 ...Dayan 0.9 ...ADA .9 ...Davidson .9 Oliver (assumes every player is full time, while Steamer tries to prognosticate playing time/injuries): http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?...0&sort=22,d Eaton, top dog again: 3.4 WAR Avisail: 2.9 WAR Phegs: 2.8 (you can see how much your last MiLB season factors in between Phegs and Avi) ADA: 2.8 Semien: 2.6 Flowers: 2.2 Jake Elmore: 2.2 Alexei: 2.2 Leury: 2.1 Gillaspie: 1.7 A few guys making all their hay on defense in there Steamer for pitchers: Sale - 4.6 WAR, 3.17 FIP Quintana - 2.7 WAR, 4.05 FIP Danks - 1.3 WAR, 4.42 FIP E. Johnson - 1.1 WAR, 4.43 FIP Jones - .8 WAR, 3.34 FIP

Yankees projected starters this year and their 2013 WAR/ERA Kuroda - 3.8 / 3.31 CC Sabathia - 2.7 / 4.78 Masahiro Tanaka - Ivan Nova - 2.5 / 3.10 David Phelps - 1.1 / 4.98 They're hoping Nova is legit, hoping something other than Phelps appears for the 5 slot, hoping Tanaka is good right away, hoping Sabathia rallies way back, and hoping Kuroda doesn't age

Not a good story unless he was masturbating

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 10:09 AM) Yeesh. If Hoffman gets hurt and barely pitches some team is still going to take him in the 1st round. I was thinking more along the lines of "I, Hahn, who has only one first round pick and it is at number 3"

I had PRP therapy, didn't do s***. It's a very non-clinically proven procedure and they're still trying to figure when it helps and when it doesn't.

Jeff Hoffman - 6.89 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.26 WHIP, 3.20 ERA am I missing something here? I don't care how talented you are, you have to pitch better than that for me to take you at 3. That K rate needs to be at 9 or better this season

Tanaka to Rangers? Sounds like we need a new thread

If it was theft, then the Indians are Robin Hood

Rose returns late and we win the 'ship

I think Trea Turner looks like a special player. Hoffman has not impressed me. He has to have a really big year or else he's more like a 2nd rounder to me.

QUOTE (Bigsoxhurt35 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 08:30 PM) Hey guys, long time sox fan. Just found this site from woods of Ypres. Been looking for a great sox board. I'm the only sox fan here in charleston,sc. Grew up in ohio though and Frank Thomas was my favorite player so I picked the sox. Meanwhile all my friends liked the tigers and Indians. Just telling ya a little about me so you don't think I'm a troll lol. Excited for this season finally with a young core of players to look forward to the future. Wish we got tanaka but at least we tried. It's all I ask for. Still wishing we trade for a catcher. I know Wieters was on the block but he's probably too costly and a boras client so no extension could be worked out likely. Hope we can flip De Aza for a catcher. Can't stomach any of his little league base running. Welcome!

This was the time of year last year where I was getting sour on Groce too. The team was really with the program by the end of the season, which tells me he was coaching them up -- it just takes some time.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 08:27 PM) For home protection get a shotgun. Mossberg or Remington 870 would be perfect. Won't go through walls, great effect and it's a billion times easier to aim if you actually need to use it. You don't want to go pouring 9mm rounds through drywall, that's how bad things happen. If you absolutely must go handgun I very highly recommend the .45 Sig. I own one myself, lovely little thing. This is actually very good advice. A novice or a person that is simply nervous or aiming at a moving target is liable to unload a clip and not hit anyone. You won't miss with an unchoked shotgun