Jake

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 07:07 PM) No, what's hilarious, again, is that people keep citing "improvement" as some sort of reason to keep him around. The guy is maybe a genius, setting the bar so incredibly low for himself and the program that he may actually convince people to keep him around. We are not just losing games, we aren't being remotely competitive against a terrible Big Ten slate. It's really humorous just how bad they are, losing 3 conference games by an average of 28 games. Barring a bowl game appearance(lol), there's zero reason to go forward with who we all know is the wrong guy by now. It seems like there is little choice as a fan but to disengage. The team, the staff, and the program aren't worthy of close attention. I'll check the scores and I might turn the game on if there's absolutely nothing to do. I can't get worked up about Beckman because the program is s*** and I just can't care. No coach could bring us back in any decent span of time. I just don't care anymore. I hope they decide to do a thing and make it fun again. Get another Juice Williams into the program just so I can see how many receivers' fingers (referees and defenders are fine too) he can break or something. Groce walked into a better situation, but he took it and ran with it. Illinois basketball was such a bummer. While the season was up and down (most will be when you play in the B1G), I hadn't felt so proud to be U of I fan in a long time after that NCAA Tourney game. We played our asses off, maximized the talent on the floor, and arguably deserved a victory. The team was a real team and belonged there. The run in the B1G Tourney was very fun as well. Add the exciting recruitment and I can't wait for basketball to get going. Illinois football has made a habit of minimizing talent, losing its best recruits to discipline and academic issues, and just generally being a giant disappointment. I'm not f***ing with that anymore. I get enough of it with the Bears, who are much more fun.

I heard them call Wong's name as I was laying in bed, about to fall asleep. I started thinking about all the guys they have on the playoff roster that weren't on the MLB roster until late in the season (Wacha, Martinez). I thought, it's great to get all your talent on the roster for the stretch run, but not screwing up their development in the year. But then...I thought, is it bad to replace veterans with guys with such little experience? Then Wong got picked off. Adron Chambers was cackling in his house somewhere. Also, Jonny Gomes hit that home run and I couldn't help but think, "for a team to win a World Series, you need a guy like Jonny Gomes to have a great season for you." Gomes isn't amazing, but the best teams always have guys like that playing over their heads.

Zotero. Zotero. You will forget EasyBib as mere child's play.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 07:57 PM) This post is full of irony. I assume this has something to do with taxes and how some people shouldn't have to pay so much when they don't get as much measurable benefit in return

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 07:33 PM) The vast majority of people lose massive amounts of money on health care. They pay in way more than they take out. That is the entire idea. Most of us give away money. This is why many of us see healthcare as a service the government should provide. In a free market system, the government is the only entity that can/would logically make what would under other circumstances seem to be a bad investment. Nobody else has an interest in providing essential services like this unless the provider benefits more than the beneficiary. This is not the case with the government. Another case is research - research will be limited in the free market to the kinds of research that may ultimately make somebody money. The researcher needs to get a patent or something out of it, or the investor (who, in rare circumstances, is also the researcher) has to believe there can be tangible, financial benefits. I met with prominent European conservative Roger Scruton, and one of his ideas for how the government ought to be involved in "saving the planet" is in research. He reasons that the research needed to truly revolutionize our energy consumption will be lengthy and will be financially irresponsible for any private entity. Further, a planet-saving discovery ought not be privately owned since cheap and wide distribution will be absolutely necessary. Therefore, he says, governments should be granting massive amounts of money to universities to get these things done. To a large extent, that is the entire reasoning behind the public school. The government provides the school because it must be universally available and it is difficult to profit from if it must be universally available. Beyond that, schools (and universities in particular) will move away from their missions of education and enrichment of humanity if they must also turn a profit. There is practically no government support of public universities (and progressively less to primary and secondary schools), causing them to reprioritize budget over quality, but this is the general idea behind public education and why it thrived once upon a time. Services that enrich humanity, must be universally available, and are dubious propositions for profit need government involvement. The single payer system that so many of us advocate even theoretically allow for the best parts of free markets to remain: drug companies still exist and must try to innovate new drugs, most health providers remain private and must compete on their merits and prices (though I am dubious as to whether this is a public good), and consumers still have to act like consumers, yet without extreme burdens for serious illnesses and unnecessary burdens for preventative and maintenance care.

I'm the guy playing against the team with Calvin Johnson. Yuck

Wow, Stafford. What a ballsy play

Well, starting RG3 over Vick seems like a good move so far. Other than that, this has been a tough week in both of my leagues in terms of byes

I think St. Louis Cardinals are the ones who know the most pain. I mean, just listen to them

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 09:43 AM) True. I no longer can track how many days I have worn a set of contact lenses on a calendar, it takes my phone and an app. oh! awesome idea!

Nobody is going to argue that there is bound to be some correlation between income and intelligence, but income is about as useful to measure intelligence as skin color is useful to predict criminality (not very useful)

There is not support for allowing hospitals to deny care - this is because we feel like we shouldn't have the ability to heal sick people and withhold it. Given that, we need to have a better system for distributing care than "poor people show up in emergency room" poor being used loosely here, since many healthcare is too expensive for many people that I would never consider poor

I think if he left his feet on the ground, it isn't called. Craig might have been safe, too, though.

I'm going to say that we don't know anything about this guy. Basically, his public statements tell us that he believes in swinging at good pitches and taking bad ones. Great. We know he'd make a great little league parent. Beyond that, everything is TBD

I'm a big fan of Turner. Lots and lots of skills. Lots of things would have to go wrong for him not to be a decent player. Sky's the limit if most things go right. Would be a huge challenge for player development, because this isn't just a raw toolsy guy. However, he will need some guidance (in all likelihood) to find his identity at the plate, especially as his body matures. He would be a guy that absolutely cannot post horrific numbers somewhere ala Hawkins, Mitchell

It isn't that a bundle of prospects wouldn't be a nice return for Quintana. The thing is, older players can get you bundles of prospects (Garza, for instance). What a young pitcher can get you that free agency and veterans can't get you is another young MLB player. A player like Lawrie isn't typically available except for another young player that has that kind of potential payoff. You can think of other guys. Even Gordon Beckham never seemed like he ought to be traded because the value of a non-horrible, young, talented MLB player is high.

Wow. I forgot Damaso and Blum. BLUM! I'm most disappointed that I forgot Blum. Damaso wasn't as important to that team as he was to other Sox teams, so I can see why I forgot him. Jeez, I suck. I just watched that home run yesterday on youtube.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 02:34 PM) Best defensive DH of all time is Rafael Palmeiro. I raise you Mark Kotsay

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 26, 2013 -> 10:33 AM) Just got my first smart phone. This s*** is amazing, yo. Prepare to open up the app store whenever you are facing a problem. I remember getting a package in the mail and opening up the app store to see about a knife. Yep, that happened

I'm not at all interested in having Samardzija on my team and I don't think they should get anything too good for him in trade

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 01:22 PM) DJ Williams and 2016 G Zach Norvell are unofficially visiting as well, huge weekend for recruiting. Surprising to me that they have other recruits coming at the same time, I wouldn't want Cliff to feel like our attention is divided

I believe in JFG

Pitch recognition is affected a great deal by mechanics and approach. Viciedo's pitch recognition magically gets better when he keeps his weight back on his load step. This is because it gives his body and hands the chance to adjust to the pitch. When he or anyone else can't keep their weight back, there is usually just one pitch they can hit (whichever one they are timed for). Your mental approach will also affect pitch recognition. A guy with a really aggressive mindset will do poorly adjusting to offspeed pitches. If you back it off too much, you won't hit fastballs. Guys that struggle to hit fastballs will get so aggressive, trying to catch up to heaters, that they start swinging at bulls*** offspeed stuff because they are cheating so much mentally. There are so many things that affect pitch recognition that it is really fairly difficult to tell if a guy has it or not. Bad mechanics, approach, etc. can easily overshadow these things. If guys have bad mechanics, bad approach, and still rake, that probably means they have excellent pitch recognition.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 09:18 AM) She had been on the job for a matter of weeks, she was paid like $26k so it's not like she's the brightest person in the department , and she claims that she was never told anything about talking with the media (a claim I believe given she's a call center employee). Ohhhh, so people making less money aren't very smart. This will make my evaluations of people much easier

Seems like this guy's philosophy is geared towards solving a problem that we don't have.