Balta1701

CNN currently says 15 at the high school.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 05:09 PM) Is four out of a total of 100 very good? 30 teams. Divide 100 by 30, and each team should have on average just under 4 people on that list, if they were evenly distributed. So I'd say the Sox are slightly above average in terms of total number...but given that all of the guys the Sox have on there are below rank 45, i'd say our average rank isn't very good.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 02:50 PM) Colorado's scrubs 4 Chicago's scrubs 3 Wait, when did Pinella's team take the field?

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 02:45 PM) Coolest thing on a plane was when I flew to Alaska last year and we were flying right next to the Northern Lights. It was amazing to look out the window and see green formations moving about. Looking out a window over the Sea of Japan as the sun just starts to peak up.

I'm fairly surprised Danks is that low. He was 59th in the 2006 edition, which means he only jumped a couple spots despite moving a year closer to the big leagues. BA must have soured on him somewhat.

QUOTE(Felix @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 10:54 AM) That's one way to replace Darrent Williams. Scary tandem there in Denver.. But on the other hand...once again Denver has taken away people from it's backfield. They're left with Mike Bell back there now, right? A 1-year player who was undrafted a year ago? With a 2nd year starting QB in front of them? And that OT is a former first round pick, although I can't tell how much he's played since ESPN's OL stats aren't that great. Shanahan really has confidence in his ability to take whatever parts he can get and turn them into quality runners and O-Linemen, doesn't he? And Bly is 1 year away from Free Agency to boot.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 09:49 AM) Was it last year that Buehrle thought he broke his ankle or whatever it was? Or was that before the 2005 season? Before 2005. With the magical 2 day recovery period.

I'm afraid I really don't know which thread to stick this into. So here's my best guess. Colorado last year passed one of the most stringent anti-illegal-immigrant packages in the nation. Made it hard for even U.S. citizens to get ID's, harsh penalties, etc. This has apparently led to quite a dramatic worker shortage within the state, to the point that crops are rotting in the fields, construction companies can't find workers, etc. The solution Colorado's about to try? You guessed it...Convict labor! Yippee!

The Washington Post is staying with this story, despite the media blackout.

NYT (albiet based mainly on anonymous sources): US Had doubts about North Korean Uranium Drive Here's the Post's version, with a much more excerptible header:

The NFL, by a long shot. The sheer complexity of the plays in that game, where you are trying to set up unique ways to move around 11 people every single snap is unrivaled in any of the other sports.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 1, 2007 -> 05:47 AM) As I understood it, it is a part of the standard baseball contract. It is an MLB thing. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that from when Ponson got released. I believe you're right that a behavior clause is sort of a standard out built into almost every contract, but I think it's also worth noting that the Yankees would have had a similar clause for Giambi, and despite the size of his contract and the 1.5 years or so worth of complete suckiness related to coming off of the steroids, it seems they didn't think they had a strong enough case to use it.

So, I guess someone actually has to put some comparison data to this problem, and I guess that for some reason, it always winds up being the scientist. You guys never help a guy be lazy, do you? Anyway, every 5 years, the DOE does a statistical survey of average energy consumption per household across the U.S. The last one was published in 2001; they performed another survey last year, but those numbers will not be published until this summer, so you'll pardon me if the numbers I'm comparing here are 5 years old; they are the best that the DOE has published so far. If someone reminds me like in July perhaps I can do this analysis again. Please note that 1 kilowatt hour = 3413 BTU. In your head, if you want to evaluate these numbers, just sort of think whether the average household uses more or less energy in 2006 than in 2001 (my guess is more based on the increasing average size of new households, but I have no way to prove that without data). According to the Original press release from the Tennessee Policy Center (which as we pointed out earlier is not recognized by anyone as an actual group ) Al Gore's house used 221,000 KWH last year. According to Mr. Gore's electric bill, which was obtained by a local news station (Here), Mr Gore's household used about 190,000 KWH of electricity in 1 December to December period last year. Assuming that his house is 10,000 square feet (press reports keep saying it is over 10,000 square feet, but I've been unable to find an exact number through about 2 min on Google). Using those numbers, that translates to an energy usage for Mr. Gore's family last year of 65059.6 BTU/Square Foot of house space. Now, any person with a hint of rationality is going to realize that it doesn't cost as much energy to heat a 500 square foot apartment as it does to heat/cool a 10,000 square foot home, so comparing Mr. Gore's total energy usage to the average american's total energy usage is simply stupid. Normalizing by the square footage of the house seems to me to be a good step. When one takes that step, and compares with the 2001 data, the average household in 2001 uses 46700 BTU/square foot of space. In other words, per square foot, Mr. Gore uses 1.39 times the normal amount of electricity, which first of all is hardly a factor of 20. But there is even more complexity to this data. Mr. Gore's household is in Tennessee, and the data is happily divided into regions of the country. It turns out, possibly as a function of either the climate or of the availability of other fuel sources (electricity vs. Gas, for example) Out of all of the divisions surveyed within the U.S., this area of the country, within the East South Central division of the South region...uses by far the most electricity on average. The electricity usage throughout the South is high, and this particular region is the highest. In fact, the electricity usage by this region per household is 150%, or 1.5 times the national average. Based on the 2001 numbers, Mr. Gore's house uses 1.39 times the normal amount of energy per square foot, and the average house in that area consumes 1.5 times the average national amount of electricty overall. Furthermore, the average house in that area consumed 157 million BTU's of electricity during the survey period. Mr. Gore's total consumption of electricity for his house was 650 million BTU. Therefore, Mr. Gore's house used a factor of 4 times the electricity of the average household in that area...but of course, it's worth asking what the average square footage in that region is. Honestly, despite searching, I have been unable to find this data within that compilation, so I can't give you that answer, but ask yourself this; do you think it is greater than or less than 2500 square feet? There are some issues I am unable to resolve without actually getting my hands on Mr. Gore's full utility bill, specifically, I am unable to break down his usage between natural gas and electricity, so it is difficult to determine exactly how Mr. Gore's household compares in every single aspect (most notably gas usage) To be completely fair, it is also worth noting that according to that data, the average household energy use per square foot should decline as the size of the house increases, which is to be expected as not all energy goes to heating/cooling, and Mr. Gore's household does not show as significant of a drop as one would expect. However, this is where the further complexities come in, as Mr. Gore's family also runs multiple home offices in their household, which usually generates some extra consumption based on added appliances, along with having extra people around. Mr. Gore also has a guest house on his property. And, Mr. Gore appears to, due to him having been Vice President, have extra people around, if nothing else for security. And finally, Mr. Gore's house has also been under renovation within the past year, which I have difficulty believing does not consume additional energy. So, overall, there are 2 issues here; critics of Mr. Gore can feel free to pick one. The first one would be; is Mr. Gore carbon-neutral or not? Based on his purchasing of green power from the TVA and his purchasing of carbon offsets which fund renewable energy, I believe he is following his own advice. The best objection I've heard to this so far is "B.S", so I'll leave it at that. In terms of Mr. Gore's house, is his house large? Yes. Significantly. Compared to other houses of that size, does Mr. Gore's house use more energy? Yes, but the margin is much, much slimmer than the factor of 20 or so which the original press release gave, some of this can possibly be explained by the specific circumstances of renovations and activity at the lcation. And compared per square foot with the houses in that area, or in fact throughout the rest of the country, is Mr. Gore's house using more energy? Based on the energy department data, for 2001, the answer appears to be no. Link 1 Link 2. Spreadsheet 1 Spreadsheet 2.

OH COME ON NANCY NOW THAT'S B.S.

Sometimes it's nice when stories are leaky. SI has more on what exactly the documents may show about Matthews. It doesnt' look pretty, or surprising given his year last year.

Supposedly the First U.S. Marine wounded in the Iraq invasion has come out of the closet as a homosexual and will be marching, on 1 leg it seems, to advocate the end of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 03:14 PM) Well now its thundering outside and its hailing. This is a new one for me. Sometime during my life I would like to experience thundersnow. I've gone through thundering and hailing (dad kept the insurance check on the car, but we got a new roof out of that).

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 11:49 AM) Teaching these kids to brush their teeth would have helped, but the damn government probably dropped the ball on that too. I assume that you never got a cavity when you were a kid?

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 04:23 PM) I think I saw Ted Nugent Chopped Liver for sale in Jackson, MI once. I cleaned the carpeting in a hotel room after Ted Nugent stayed there once. It was disappointingly clean.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 03:31 PM) Perhaps YOU should read what I wrote. Gore's own response stated that he buys carbon credits for whatever other pollution he creates and can't offset with his new light bulbs, etc. THAT action, the buying of credits so you can still go on polluting like before only with a supposedly clearer conscience, is what I posted about. HE is still using power, creating pollution, but by spending some money, can CLAIM to be carbon neutral. Bull. So STFU until you can master basic reading skills yourself. Just out of curiosity, do you actually understand how those credit systems work? Seriously? Because the entire objection I've seen throughout this thread to the fact that he is spending money on investments that go directly into the replacement of high-greenhouse-gas emitting systems with renewables has been to say "Bull" or "B.S." Which somehow, to my eyes, just leaves me wanting, oh, a little evidence? And that calling of BS is also done entirely without noting that buying Carbon offsets is exactly the thing Mr. Gore advocates for everyone, and also without noting the fact that the power he's purchasing for that house (at a rate something like 30% higher according to one source, although I haven't seen the actual TVA bills) is also coming largely/entirely from renewable sources established in that area. No one is saying we need to go back to the stone age on this. Not me, not Mr. Gore, not anyone with a shred of understanding of the problem. No one is saying you can't be rich, live in luxury, or can't drive. But what is being said is that if you're going to do those things, you simply need to do them in a responsible way, through things like purchasing carbon offsets to fund the construction and operation of renewable systems or to develop systems for CO2 sequestration.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 11:28 AM) One thing that would help would be to cut some of the paperwork and red tape involved for the health professionals. But, since it's government...that won't happen. It's not just the government that leads to the enormous boatloads of paperwork within the medical industry, a big part of it is the complexity of the private insurance industry, where each company has its own set of rules and requirements for things that need to be filled out, steps that are valid for each group, etc.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 11:04 AM) You could see that same positive effect and then some, if we just adjusted our immigration laws to match the economic realities. To my eyes, this data, if correct, would be much more an argument against the "Kick them all out" philosophy that a significant minority of the U.S. seems to espouse, rather than an argument against fixing the laws so as to allow them to be here but in some sort of legal fashion.

I dunno, maybe I'm in a "Thank you sir may I have another!" kinda mood today, but here's some more gasoline to toss on filibuster fires today. 2 different studies regarding illegal immigration and its effects on America have come out in the last week, based on U.S. Census data, with some fairly surprising results. First, a study by a UC Davis researcher found that the current immigration status has actually had the effect of pushing the wages of native-born Americans Upwards, instead of downwards. The article does present some objectiosn, and the study author's counter to those objections as well. And secondly, a different study by a UC Irvine Sociologist found that illegal immigrants currently have a much lower incarceration rate than virtually any other native born group of Americans.

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Feb 28, 2007 -> 10:35 AM) It looks like another one of those "How do you deal with the poor?" issues. I don't know what the answer would be. It sounds like there are a lot of children she is taking care of without the proper finances/education (it sounds like the desire to make things better is there). We need to find a way to deal with the root of the problem rather than one of the many results of it (overloaded Medicare system, etc). This is one of those many, many cases where a little bit of prevention will go exponentially far towards cutting costs in the long run, but unfortunately, that's not how we've designed our health system. Our health system has been designed to deal with things when they crop up, not to give people the ability to prevent them from cropping up. Therefore, we arrange for people to be charged pretty large bills, all things considered, for issues that could be taken care of by catching things early. Here is a prime example. This is exactly what the whole Health Savings Account (HSA) concept advocates actually; people are taken care of when the largest things happen through catastrophic insurance policies, but when small things crop up, people are discouraged from taking care of them because the charge out of their own pocket winds up being almost as bad as the charge for something much more serious.

Salon.com is reporting that the now 8 federal prosecutors who have been pushed out of their positions by the Bush administration are coming out and actually saying that the Bush Admin. pushed them out for political reasons which had nothing to do with performance. (one of the prosecutors pushed out was the person who took the lead on the Duke Cunningham investigation, another was on the Bonds case, etc.) Most of them appear to have been temporarily replaced by Republicans who are generally inexperienced in legal matters.