Jake

You don't trade Q or Santiago to make room for Rienzo. You trade to get an equally proficient offensive player because you know you have a competent pitcher to replace Q/Santiago, but don't have a competent hitter at virtually any position.

May have seen the last of Melton as a Bear

Looking like absolute s***. Good coaching by Pitt as well

Was choosing between Carolina DEF and NYG DEF. Picked Carolina. Yeeeuss

s***, Pittsburgh is practically in Ohio!

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 22, 2013 -> 10:46 AM) When society as a whole is paying for it, there is still a finite supply. If it takes 25% of the available supply to keep him healthy, and that same 25% can keep 100 other people health, who gets the care? Do you tell the 100 people that they can't get what they need because his care is so extreme and expensive that he has used it all up? Because it will happen. There is only so much money, time and facilities to go around, and those may be shrinking as less people decide to become doctors. For one, more people are deciding to become doctors by every measure. More apply, more enroll, more matriculate. Your market-based approach doesn't make sense because there isn't a finite supply of healthcare in the American context. We have the resources to care for everyone for as much as they need. This is evidenced by the fact that we spend more per person on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Letting the free markets run wild has, of course, led to a horrifying inefficiency in our expenditures...but we could start to take care of that too. If you're really worried about doctors...we could also start to prioritize our education spending and make the process of becoming a doctor (or college educated in general) much less expensive. I was shocked when I applied to a Canadian college and was offered a $12k/year scholarship; I thought this was a complete non-starter, I'd never be able to afford it. Woops! That actually covers all costs for an international student at a top-rated university! And yes, that even includes housing. The best part is that if I decide to go there (why oh why did I decide to study American politics? It appears Canadians don't give a s*** about my specialty) I also get in on that free healthcare. Why should Canada do better than us on this stuff? They're not even the only ones...we're pretty much the worst in the Western world. Ideology is holding us back from everyone having a better, healthier, happier life.

This is why so many countries with the means don't like to leave healthcare to the markets. The markets don't have morals, for better and for worse. A greater overall economic good can be achieved by stringing kids like this along, allowing them to die if he strains things too much. Only public policy interventions can prevent the injustice that is leaving healthcare (which should be seen as an inalienable right) to market conditions. Of course, even in the most benign of circumstances, the cornerstone of market philosophy is that our desire for a thing is measured by how much we're willing to pay for it. So, in market theory, this young man doesn't want life enough as evidenced by his not paying for it.

LOL, I'm confused Do you really think the only appeal of living in Chicago is evading death and/or working at McDonald's? There's one very simple advantage to living in a city staring you in the face: why do you think we are all gathered here on Soxtalk.com?

The Tigers are about to be in some deep s*** salary-wise. If they somehow got Cano, that would be a tacit admission that Scherzer, VMart, AJax, and possibly even Miguel are on the way out once they need to get paid.

It wouldn't blow my mind if we brought Jesse back on a 1-year deal to help him get his stock up. That would probably be only because he really liked it here, though. He'd probably rather do that on a contending team otherwise.

If I'm just some guy selling my gun, I'm not responsible to find the background of the person buying it from me.

In Duke's defense, we just talked about what you're accusing him of not too long ago re:police. He said that police are an example of the necessary functions of government. When I'm arguing with people, I like to establish where we are on common ground. Duke and I agree that there should be government. The devil is in the details.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Sep 19, 2013 -> 06:10 PM) It sounds like you have a bit of a problem with cars? Don't like the civilized world where we have nice things like cars that allow to make those kinda of trip? Rather live ina country where that isn't even an option? Great! Africa will take you I'm sure. You'll live a nice progressive lifestyle until you're burned alive for being a witch. Not really - I think access to cars is really important, which is why I hesitate to endorse too many hurdles to full licensing. Cars are one of the 20th century's greatest innovations in terms of the way it democratized travel and access. If I can just get a car...my possibilities for employment, residence, and knowledge are much expanded. My response to your post is meant to say that while the many ways to get to many places is mind boggling and in most cases will require travel by car, those myriad possibilities are not what make us drive more miles than our international peers. It is because, even when population density is equal, we choose travel by car instead of public transport for everyday, largely short-distance, activities. Where I'm living now, Memphis, is a great example. There are 1 million people here. There is public transport available, though I'd imagine the average city of 1 million people in Europe has more accessible and functional options. Nobody uses that public transport, though. It isn't the cost, not really the convenience, it is just force of habit and culture. In this town, there is a racial aspect to why people don't use public transport. The people on the buses are black. The people in the cars are white. If we could increase the use of public transport, we'd increase the safety on the roads and reduce the environmental impact. Likewise, we'd probably improve race relations while the increased use of public transport would spur more development of the public transit system.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Sep 19, 2013 -> 05:37 PM) A big place that is almost entirely populated has near infinite possibilities for travel. How many cities with 100,000 or more people are there within a day drive from Chicago? Rockford, Gary (NW Indiana), Aurora, Naperville, Milwaukee, Madison, Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, Joliet, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Quad Cities. And from those places individually how many 100,000 pop cities are there within a days drive? Let's pick Indianapolis (and we wont even repeat cities from the first list): Evansville, Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Springfield OH, Toledo. So let's say you've gotta make a two stop trip from Chicago, there are 144 possible routes ONLY COUNTING MAJOR CITIES. And that is one sub region, of one region, of one half of the USA. Yea, I doubt trains or bicycles can cover those kinds of travel needs. Of course, people driving everywhere they can think of to and from Chicago don't make up the majority of miles driven. It's just people going to work.

I think it's a horrible trade for the Colts

I added a swipe to my phone in light of this thread. Did facial recognition for a bit, it worked really well, but I don't feel like looking myself in the eye every time I unlock my phone

My impression of the gripes by these app developers is that they cannot "develop" their way through the problems because there are insurmountable (to anyone but Apple) problems with the OS.

The whole problem is acting like the state of Illinois is the entity to do this. State governments are f***ing stupid in the 21st century and work much worse than federal governments. They consistently f*** up every responsibility that they have, while nobody knows why they have those responsibilities (education standards, healthcare) instead of other entities (local governments? federal government?). Their means of collecting the money to fix these things are meager and without fail are regressive and harmful to the lower earners of the states. We have a high amount of agreement in the USA that progressive taxation is a good and fair thing while the norm in state governance is a flat tax. There's no way I want state governments running new mental health services when they can't do anything already. No state governments are working well. We need to reduce the responsibilities given to them, not increase them.

I'm interested in your support of police, Duke, since many people I know to have largely similar political beliefs to you generally are highly ANTI-police and see them as being used as part of a general police state. They seem to both dislike the institution and the people in it (I know their beliefs so well because I have several friends who are constantly posting examples of cop-induced violence on my Facebook news feed). On a totally unrelated note, you should be aware that "the true intent" as basis for legal or political thought regarding the Constitution is a hotly debated subject. There are endless discussions about this; whether it should be considered, if it should supercede "the text" or only apply when the text is unclear, etc. The founders were addressing a completely different set of problems (ie, the need for a huge expansion of federal power at the time) and could not have foreseen many of the different things that would affect us politically and otherwise. It's always funny how scholars/judges/laymen will agree on the previous point but not on how that should inform our interpretation of the Constitution.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Deadspin. Just thought I'd throw that in there. I spend lots of time on Deadspin/Gawker/Lifehacker/Gizmodo

Honestly, the thing that Deadspin is doing to piss me off is the constant stuff about concussions. They are just beating Goodell over the head with this stuff, criticizing every new policy, etc. I am okay with talking about the concussion problem. Unfortunately, the more we learn about concussions the more the issue (CTE, not concussions in general) appears to be unavoidable. Rules about hits may not reduce concussions at all and Deadspin is happy to point this out. Helmets do almost nothing to reduce concussions. Deadspin is happy to point that out. The current state of research indicates that most of the damaging blows do not cause actual concussions. Much like we think of with a boxer, the accumulation of sub-concussive blows over time is what causes this problem. So, Deadspin says they are anti-concussions (basically), but they are not anti-NFL (not to be confused with anti-Goodell). NFL fans make up a big part of their users. The more we learn about CTE, unfortunately, the more it appears the only way to reduce this risk significantly enough is to stop playing football. I can entertain THIS conversation, but Deadspin won't. They're just flinging s***.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 12:00 PM) I'm an over researcher as well, and with two new tv's to buy i've been all over the internet. My one concern was looking at a brand like Vizio when I know they are budget. I went with my old standard in Samsung. I have had very good experiences with Vizio - but I have to add that I am anything but an experienced or especially informed TV buyer. QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 03:08 PM) Like Dirsync, WS-trust or WS-fed and all of microsofts bulls*** google chat is free and handy and tons of people use it. Google Chat/Hangouts works for me.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 11:14 AM) Glad everyone's a critic. Perhaps I should have pointed out this part and how accurate and spot on I felt it was Yes, there are some details in that paragraph that are surely incorrect, but it's pretty spot on and fits the Sox. That was definitely not a paragraph I had a problem with -- though I feel the fact that he left out our recent WS win (which many casual baseball fans may have forgotten) made that paragraph seem unnecessarily bleak. We aren't a franchise that hasn't had any success. We're just one that is in a bad spot right now, not a 100 year bad spot like some other clubs QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 02:57 PM) I'm sorry to mods for direction this could take. But, there is much of Chicago political history and "urban renewal" that supports the authors take over yours. Chicagos neighborhoods aren't the way they are because of preference. Yes, there is a long history of public policy that has made Chicago the most segregated city in the USA and it has been that way for a long time, even when there were other cities using legal segregation tactics.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 10:28 AM) First of all, what exactly is a "vast minority"? 49.99 percent? No system is going to be perfect, but clearly we are tipped too far in the direction of having people who need to be under some sort of mental health care that aren't getting it. All I'm trying to say is that I don't think institutionalization is the answer for every person with mental health issues. Maybe the problem is that right now institutionalization is our only option so we shy away from getting help for people because of that stigma. I have no problem with having things like waiting periods, but no amount of gun laws is going to change criminals abilities to get them. Better mental health will change (some) people's desires to commit criminal acts in the first place. 22% of Americans claim they personally own a gun, according to Pew Research in 2010. 37% say someone in their household owns a gun. Both numbers have been trending downwards for about 50 years and I recall hearing 18% in the past year -- can't find the cite for that though. In the 1960s, gun owners were over half the population. Now it is a relatively small group of people, smaller than the 26% of Americans that have diagnosable mental illnesses (diagnosable implies that it is severe enough to be worth diagnosing, as we now understand many mental illnesses to occur on a spectrum).

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 09:46 AM) Most people don't need to be institutionalized long term. Most just need to be admitted somewhere to get diagnosed, get initial treatment, and then get on regular medication. It's not like we need to have a million people living in mental hospitals long term in order to help the problem. Most people, like those that aren't mentally ill? Sure. Recidivism in psychiatric hospitals is astronomical. Not only is the norm for a person who is institutionalized to return up to 10 more times, it is more common for a person institutionalized once to return 20 times than not to return ever again. It is an observed phenomenon that people who are not suffering mental illnesses (ie having some sort of emotional breakdown) often develop debilitating mental illnesses during involuntary commitments at mental institutions. It is ugly, ugly stuff and isn't to be taken lightly. The person that is depressed and needs to see a psychiatrist is not the person we're worried about here. QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Sep 18, 2013 -> 09:57 AM) So we're going to take away the rights of all Americans in order to avoid taking rights away from a small percentage of Americans? Gotta love that logic. ??? Making it harder to buy guns for the vast minority of gun owners or taking away all of the rights of people who have or seem to have a mental illness? The mass killings have spurred on debate that has done nothing but further entrench dangerous gun policy while increasing the stigmatization of mental illness that prevents good care or (more importantly) acceptance of mental illness by the general public