Jake

It's okay that this story has gotten so much attention because of the fact it was caught on film. That's just how people work. You can't help but empathize when you actually see it rather than hear it. There are lots of terrible murders, but you usually have them conveyed as mere facts that have gotten all too familiar. This one got me especially because I once spent some time with a TV news station and everything about the scene felt familiar. I didn't watch the killer's own video, but I saw a screen grab of what I believe is probably the first frame of the video. Just the photog, reporter, and person being interviewed. I've seen that 100 times. It's insane. There's a screen grab of the killer from the news channel's footage when the camera hit the ground that is particularly terrifying.

Local news report near Roanoke VA was interrupted by gunman shooting cameraman, reporter to death. Person being interviewed is reportedly in surgery. The live feed gives a glimpse of the gunman, who was dressed in black and still holding his pistol towards the victims when the camera hit the ground.

I've been wondering about this and there's nothing very obvious with this. First of all, let's give some props to the Sox for sticking with Sanchez. He was really bad for about twice as long as the look that Micah Johnson got, but they kept him out there and he caught fire. We're now approaching a point where Sanchez has been hitting really well for as long as he had hit really badly. Fluke? Maybe, but Carlos has hit at every level. I think he can realistically be a league average bat (which is great for a defense-oriented 2B). So many question marks: - Can Sanchez cut it defensively at SS? Particularly, is he more valuable at 2B where he's definitely an above average defender or SS where he could be below average (maybe he's better than that, I don't know). - Can Saladino cut it defensively at SS? He has more arm than Sanchez and has more of the size you look for, but I haven't seen him there so I don't know. We have also seen Saladino look excellent defensively at 3B. - What are the options with Micah Johnson? You don't want him to spend too much more time in the minors, though you could feasibly start him there next year. If you keep Sanchez at 2B...what do you do with Micah? We have a strong anti-Micah-OF contingent here and there honestly isn't an obvious opening at those positions anyway. His bat didn't look great in the MLB (though he wasn't horrible by any stretch) and he hasn't looked like that elite base stealer in quite a while. Are you going to move heaven and earth for this kid? - Can any of these guys hit? I think Saladino is the biggest question mark here. He's a smart hitter but he has a relatively spotty minor league track record. After his quick start, he has fallen back to earth pretty hard. I don't think any are sure bets to be starter-quality bats, though. I've seen enough of Saladino and Sanchez to know that they can be players worth having on the strength of their defense at 3B/2B respectively without their bats actually reaching their potential. Johnson, on the other hand, has to hit enough better than the other two to make up for his poor defense. Overall, you're looking at three guys who could each be average or better major leaguers but also could each be journeymen or worse. None have sky high upsides. Only one has a clearly defined position and that's because he's terrible at that position. It's a case of the team needing good talent evaluators to just figure this out.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:26 AM) Pretty much every interview I have ever heard on this topic is something to the effect of the coaching staff knows what changes it wants to make, but until the player is open to making them, it doesn't matter. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 21, 2015 -> 06:49 PM) I think it is more then that. Even when a player is open to them, it isn't necessarily easy to just change something you have severe muscle memory towards. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You can't take someone and totally recreate their swing. And sometimes you just can't get whatever they are trying to do to work. By and large, most of what they are at that point is set, so the changes tend to be minor. Approaches are something you can absolutely work on though (again, easier said then done). I think the ability to make changes is a talent in and of itself. Like Chisoxfn says, it's not always quite as simple as desire, even if desire is an important piece of the puzzle. In the brief time I spent around high-level amateurs and college/pro scouts, I remember being surprised and kind of frustrated about what a premium they put into seeing a player adjust and improve. I watched a kid at a recruiting camp enter the thing looking basically like s***, but he so quickly adapted to a few suggestions given by instructors that by the end of the 5-day event there was a crowd around his BP sessions. And it wasn't so much that they were great BP sessions, but that everyone was talking about how quickly he was able to implement meaningful advice. To make changes, you definitely have to have the desire, which not everyone does. Arrogance would be the biggest factor there. You also have to be smart; you need to understand what you're being told and why it makes sense. You need the type of athletic competence that allows you to feel and notice the intricacies of what you're doing. Some guys are successful because they basically just picked up a bat and were naturally good at hitting. If you do that for the first 20+ years of your life, with only trivial coaching changes throughout, you may have never developed or never had the sense of their own body to make real changes to their mechanics.

Since people like the idea of deterrence and clearly gun ownership doesn't prevent robberies (case in point). If running away from armed homeowner doesn't keep you from getting shot, why would a home invader not just start a shootout? The burglar clearly didn't intend to use the firearm, just as something to spook anyone inside. He figures that if he runs away he might go to jail but at least he isn't getting shot. When people try to convince folks like me that being armed is a powerful deterrent, they usually emphasize that an encounter like the one being described doesn't have to end violently. But now apparently it does and should. To be clear, I don't think the case we're talking about is 100% cut and dry or some example of the most egregious poor judgment or malice. But guns aren't toys and to the extent I'm willing to say that we should have them in our society, I expect more than the level of discretion any old person who might be handed a gun would have. This is why you hear some people horrified at how easy it is to procure a gun. You don't want it to both be easy to get a gun and have legal interpretations that assume the least from those who might try to use them justifiably.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2015 -> 07:56 PM) If someone had just had a gun on me, it is hard to say any "fear" would be gone that quickly, nor am I sure that a reasonable person would be able to switch gears that quickly. A trained police officer, I can see that being a standard. A homeowner? Not so much. Sounds like an argument against using guns for home defense

If I had to decide on the homeowner's fate, I'd be trying to see whether it seemed that he fired the fatal shots out of fear or out of anger. The way it is being described makes it seem like he continued to fire not because he thought he was still in danger, but because he was pissed they were getting away.

I doubt any better human being has been elected POTUS than Jimmy Carter

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 20, 2015 -> 01:41 PM) I get that. I just don't think that should lead us to a conclusion of "fire everyone. I'd start with others first. The dumbest thing IMO is to just fire KW and assume much will change. The man in charge gets the glory and the blame, but it's a highly collaborative job. When a guy has done poorly at it, some of the blame goes to his underlings. With that said, that means the guy in charge either doesn't know who to fire or doesn't know who to hire. So part of the "benefit" of cleaning house is not just losing the boss, but you're losing the guys who were quietly killing you.

For the record, at last measure 54% of Libyans said they liked American leadership, double their opinion of China and Russia. 75% said they appreciated US intervention in their civil war.

Most precedent suggest that for nuclear disarmament, treaties work well and sanctions work poorly

I found the expert testimony by MIT nuclear arms expert James Walsh very helpful. It was recommended to me in an article in Tablet Magazine, a publication that targets solely Jewish readers. I don't know if that makes Walsh pro-Jewish interests in particular or anything like that, just that a reasonable person who is skeptical of the deal from the Israeli point of view thought this was a good document. Bear in mind it was given before any deal had been announced. His aim was to provide a framework to evaluate an agreement, giving among other things some insight into what is practical, what is necessary, and what past experience tells us is effective. He introduces the evaluation criteria with this: Here are the guidelines provided: A. Does an agreement substantially advance the objective of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon? He emphasizes that there cannot be an agreement that doesn't involve risk. B. Is the agreement sustainable? He clarifies that this means the agreement has to be reasonably likely to be complied with by all actors. He says you will only achieve this if the agreement produces clear benefits for Iran that will make their domestic politics favor compliance. C. Using simple, broad measures, how does an agreement compare to the status quo? Suggested ways of answering this question is to look at break out time, the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran, and the number of places and activities that are for the first time being investigated. D. Avoid myopically focusing on any single number. He says past agreements have fallen apart because of domestic fights over specific parts of the agreements that are only one part of the overall equation. He believes "Iran's nuclear future is essentially a political question, and so ignoring the political variables and instead focusing on a narrow technical issue is likely to yield a flawed evaluation." E. Adopt a "whole of agreement" approach. Basically the flipside of D. He says to "resist the strong and natural temptation to cherry pick or focus on one aspect of the agreement." F. How does the agreement compare with other successful (and unsuccessful) nuclear agreements? Self-explanatory. G. How does an agreement compare to the other alternative for dealing with Iran's nuclear program? He says those alternatives are doing nothing, imposing new sanctions, use of military force, and walking away from negotiations and hoping Iran will return to the table with more concessions. The principle here is to emphasize not just the hypothetical world with the agreement, but the realistic one without it. H. Assessment should avoid making perfect the enemy of the good. Says there are always people who cannot fathom an agreement that doesn't handle certain things perfectly. Points to fact that previous, highly successful agreements had serious problems and risks. Made a point that no other nuclear agreement has involved any other sorts of issues like human rights, terrorism, etc. Points out potential unintended consequences of far-reaching suggestions such as complete dismantlement leading nuclear scientists to look for work elsewhere, potentially in other hostile nations while complete dismantlement would likely offer no extra benefit for the West. And here are what he calls minimum requirements for an agreement: 1. Adherence to what might be called Additional Protocol “Plus,” that is, Iran would implement the requirements of the AP but go beyond the AP in terms of the level of transparency provided for some period of time 2. Adherence to the revised Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements to its safeguards agreement 3. Changing the design for the Arak reactor 4. No reprocessing 5. Limits on the level of enrichment 6. Limits of the number of centrifuges 7. Limits on the types of centrifuges that operate 8. Limits on the size of the material stockpile 9. Limits on the composition of the material stockpile 10. Iran must resolve all outstanding issues with the IAEA, and the agency certifies that it is satisfied with the results of its inquiry. 11. Prompt but reciprocally proportioned sanctions relief 12. A process for the timely investigation of alleged violations 13. Provision for the reintroduction of sanctions following a material breach of the agreement by Iran Here is another nugget, emphases in original. There's a ton of other good stuff I couldn't include for the sake of (relative) brevity. Pertinent to today's news is that Fisher emphasizes trusting IAEA's expertise, citing their track record along with the USA. He also cautions against the desire to want unfettered access to all potentially interesting sites in the country, something that would be expensive to implement, unlikely to make a meaningful impact, and that no reasonable nation would ever agree to. Says Iran is the most watched country in the world and that it is exceedingly unlikely they could implement a nuclear program without being noticed. Is optimistic since some older agreements were implemented back when nobody with a straight face would even ask to be able to visit a military facility and now we're quibbling over how many and how often.

It is not fair to assume that Soto would necessarily keep up his production if playing more frequently, being exposed to less favorable matchups, etc. I think Soto has played well enough that if he was physically more able to play every day, he'd probably be getting more playing time

No better way to rid our society of rape than to rape those who commit crimes and then, in many cases, allow both rapist and newfound rape victim enter society after serving their time

The government isn't some kind of corporation (yet) and is instead made up of real people. While the legislators are not exactly regular people, the folks who would come to your house to take your guns or whatever else are, in fact, very regular people (I'm thinking soldiers here) and the kind who would be least likely to comply with orders to take people's weapons or whatever else away from them. This is not to mention the fact that it seems quite unlikely that our society would ever agree upon anything enough to put up an effective armed rebellion, even on a small scale. I think you'd be more likely to need weapons to defend your homeland from foreign enemies than you would the government. In that case, the government would presumably be happy to distribute weapons as needed

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 04:21 PM) In other words no one would give us anything at all for Bonifacio, even if he we picked up money. Daryl Van Schouwen ‏@CST_soxvan 24m24 minutes ago White Sox requested waivers on Emilio Bonifacio for purpose of granting unconditional release. Bonifacio (.167) was DFA'd Sunday. Why would they? Every team knew that we'd grant him his release and then they could sign him for league minimum

I think allowing for exceptions shows that the person allowing for them sees that this issue lies on a moral spectrum. As I understand it, Jenks thinks there's enough morally wrong with abortion that doing so for "selfish" reasons (my term) like simply not wanting to have a baby at this time in one's life is not justifiable. But in the cases of those exceptions, there's enough harm to the mother that forcing her to carry the pregnancy to term is potentially a larger moral problem than proactively getting an abortion early on in the process. I explain it this way because it allows us to see each other as reasoning in somewhat the same way. The other way to think of it is in the "always wrong" vs. "always okay" binary, which is that one side sees it as 100% the worst moral act there is and the other sees it as basically free of any moral baggage. But I think that people who are pro-choice also feel that there is a morally problematic aspect to abortions; that is, getting an abortion is morally "worse" than, say, using a condom to avoid getting pregnant even if such a person believes that neither is a very serious moral violation. The living cells that die in an abortion are certainly more human than, for instance, those a woman passes during her menstrual cycle. You can admit that is true without believing that the newly-conceived cells are totally the moral equivalent of a newborn child. I think most though not all pro-choice people would see something morally wrong with a hypothetical woman who constantly gets pregnant and then has abortions (I kind of doubt such a thing happens or is medically likely to work) even if they would oppose restricting a person's right to do that. So at least the way I think about the potential contradiction people see in the "no abortions except..." position is that those who take that position understand that abortion is on a spectrum of morally problematic acts. They differ from me because they would place abortion on that spectrum near the most important moral problems. Still, because there is a range of moral issues, those people understand that there can be a justification for the procedure, just that the justification has to be substantial to overcome how serious it is ethically. This is actually why sometimes I am scared by the binary thinking. "Once [something], it's a human baby and I am against aborting it" is a reasonable position that I think everyone is forced to take. The thing that I dislike is when it becomes "before [something], an abortion is okay, but after [something], it's cold-blooded murder." If you think that way, then any legal outcome other than one that matches yours is either total overkill (too zealous of a ban) or is permissive of cold-blooded murder (too loose of a ban). If I think that you shouldn't perform abortions after 20 weeks, I have to understand that there is probably no significant difference between 20 weeks and 20 weeks plus 1 day. It's a little bit worse, enough that by 22 weeks it's quite a bit worse. But it's not magically the same thing as strangling a healthy newborn to death, so I understand that I can advocate against this 22 week procedure without losing my mind over the fact that it is legal. For the record, the timeframes used are just examples, not necessarily my opinion. Since we've brought up the death penalty, it can be a useful foil. I'm against the death penalty, but I'm also living in a society that uses it. I don't think it's necessarily murder, but I do think it's wrong. I want to help my society stop doing it because I think it's wrong. But I understand that I am morally more comfortable with someone like the Aurora theater shooter being deliberately killed than I am some person who didn't murder people. So I can say that murderers deserve severe punishments for their wrongs, but that I don't believe any wrong justifies execution. Still, I am willing to concede that executions are far more justified for murderers than they are for petty thieves or randomly chosen people. While the abortion argument is definitely not directly comparable, in terms of moral quandaries most of us can also say that killing a baby is definitely worse than killing a fetus which is worse than killing a zygote, etc.

It's worth bearing in mind that while you hear about most foreign aid as a dollar figure, much of it is actually distributed as American-made goods. For instance, there was a lot of chatter about American funding of Egypt a few years ago and how it should stop. The fact was that the $X we were "giving" Egypt came in the form of tanks made by a private contractor in the US, meaning the money was going to support a US company and the government was just deciding what to do with the goods produced from that support. With that said, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea to reconsider some of the funds. The jobs justification only kind of works, since for the amount of money being spent in the previous example you were getting a tiny number of jobs compared to what you'd have if you specifically earmarked the same dollar amount for creating middle class jobs from public works projects or some such. At the same time, it's worth bearing in mind that you can buy compliance and to a lesser extent good will in foreign countries and you can do so with amounts of money that seem tiny in the context of the federal budget. So you have to consider what sorts of foreign policy implications you'd face and whether it's a better idea to just throw a little money away in the name of stability. Every situation is so unique and idiosyncratic that there's no way to say that all of the aid or none of the aid should be cut.

My general take is that we don't need to be rushing to replace him out there, but I wouldn't decide to avoid an opportunity to get an excellent defensive CF just because we have Adam. He could potentially be a really good LF and definitely has the bat to play a corner.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 09:04 AM) This isn't accurate. I can tell you without a doubt that he had a different approach and swing early this year, versus 2014. Saw it myself, talked with him about it, talked with a scout about it. At least in May anyway, he was aiming RCF, had changed his hands in his stance and stride, changed his location in the box. And it occasionally flashed success, but now he's either slid back into bad habits, and/or pitchers have the book on him and he can't adjust. Changes were made. They haven't worked. Happens a lot, sadly. Glad to hear they were working with him.

At least he didn't pretend his account was hacked again

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 07:44 PM) He is just a bad hitter. I doubt anyone has ever turned it around to be a productive MLB player after hitting as poorly as he has the last two years repeating AAA. Something did change when he got traded to us, though. He was flawed when we got him to be sure, but he regressed majorly while repeating a level and in ways that aren't league dependent (contact rate). When we traded for him, there was no good reason to think he wouldn't stick as a major league player, even if there were reasonable doubts as to whether he'd be a long-term starting caliber player. I don't know if he's got some mental stuff going as some suggested, or he's had some sort of physical regression, or he just caught some of the White Sox black magic that makes perfectly okay players forget how to hit.

One thing of interest is that if Biden did catch on in the Dem race, it would probably have the effect of making Sanders's candidacy much more legitimate. From the looks of things when it comes to polling, Biden is most liked by the most centrist/conservative liberals. Those people currently go for Clinton (or in some cases, they say they will vote Biden even though he hasn't announced). There's a non-insane scenario in which Biden making a serious bid and Sanders continuing to get a little momentum makes it a competitive three-person race

Can't believe you'd let the kid play like absolute dogs*** for two straight years before even considering making big changes to his swing

The mistake some are making is assuming that the very limited sample of offensive numbers we have from Saladino are very informative. That first callup usually generates some really strange hitting numbers at some point in time. I would especially shy away from assuming we know if he's this bad or this good in terms of overall production. If he hits well or badly for a week it will drastically change his season numbers. With that said, some of the same goes for the defense. He's clearly good over there, but we don't have good evidence that he's really something like one of the few best defensive 3B in the game. There's lot to be encouraged about, though, because regardless of the statistics the eye test tells us that he's at least an above average defender over there.