Balta1701

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 11, 2007 -> 02:22 PM) Yes, there is. The Dem guy himself said it in the original article, that if they were going to succeed in getting elected, they needed to reach a wider audience instead of preaching to the choir. When CNN hosts a debate, isn't it CNN, and not also MSNBC and CSPAN? It is one debate, and they just couldn't stand up to the outcry from the nutroots that they would actually have to turn on Fox to watch a debate. Do you think the moderator would stand up there and throw a few one-liners at the candidates between questions? Should the Republicans now not debate unless it is co-hosted by someone other than CNN or ABC? That is just a lame excuse to cave in to the fringe of the party because, as with all fringe elements, they are the loudest. The example is not the Republicans and CNN or ABC, they make plenty of effort to find some sort of balance. The comparison would be to the Republicans holding a debate on Air America radio. The Dems will gain a lot more benefit from finally getting the rest of the media to acknowledge that Fox is a partisan outfit that makes no effort to be anything other than a pro-Republican channel than they will by going on Fox and having them bash the Dems like they did when Fox hosted a Dem. debate in 2003. random link to blog with summary of that event. Fox also reportedly cut away from the debate before the debate that they were hosting was actually over, giving time to their talking heads to begin dissecting it. The first person they had on, who they had to cut away from the actual debate to hear from, was Bill Bennett. No report on how much Bennett had riding on that debate. We have Fox's record from the last debate of making the Dems look bad every way they could. We have Fox still giving air time to Ann Coulter last week. We have Fox making up a story to try to make Sen. Obama look bad. And that's all just in the last couple weeks. The Republicans wouldn't have given a debate to Air America, and the Dems should treat Fox the same way. It is a partisan outlet that does everything they can to make the Dems look bad, and that is how they should be treated.

So, what are the odds that CC starts the season off healthy and Lee misses a month?

Ugh, does the NYT seriously think that replacing Gonzalez would do anything productive? I can think of basically 1 replacement in the entire Bush Administration where the person coming in seems to have been an upgrade; the removal of Rumsfeld. Replace Powell, get Rice Replace Ashcroft, get Mr. "Quaint" Gonzalez. Replace Thompson, Get Chertoff. As long as the same people at the top are making the decisions...replacing the lower-level guys does nothing.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 11, 2007 -> 12:08 PM) Not necessarily. In fact, it doesn't matter whether he'd start elsewhere. I just don't see Mack having a spot on the Sox and feel he'll be moved. The best way to make absolutely certain that Rob Mackowiak never plays CF for the Chicago White Sox again is for Rob Mackowiak to never play for the Chicago White Sox again. He's a nice tool to have around...but good lord, every time I see his name in the lineup, after last season, I'll be swearing to myself, even if it wasn't his fault.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 05:13 PM) Nevada pussy-Democrats can't take a joke? "I'll take my debate and go home! Waaaaaa!" Pluueeeease. Grow a sack, will ya? If they can't handle some snark from Ailes, how are they gonna handle partisan debate in the house? Or all the garbage that comes up during a campaign? The pussification of America continues. Did ya read the word "Excuse"? There's no good reason at all for the Dems to have Fox News and only Fox News host one of their debates. They might as well have Hastert moderate. The Nevada folks were pretty desperately searching for a way out of the debate, and Ailes gave them something they could use as an excuse.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 02:03 PM) When Jenks dropped off 8-10 on his fastball last spring, they said he needed time to get ready. I would imagine Prior, if he makes it without hurting himself to opening day, would be at about 90-93. If he gets back to that speed, he'll be in much better shape than he is now. BUT...just from my memory, he had a long time last year off, then came up to pitch after getting into shape, and I don't recall his fastball being able to hit 90 then either.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 02:01 PM) The White Sox bullpen was the least used in both 2005 and 2006 I believe. One year it was awesome, and the other, not so good, kind of like the rotation both years. Exactly my point; in 05, our bullpen pitched the 2nd fewest innings in baseball...but with the way our starting pitching was throwing, why would you want to go to the bullpen? In 06, our bullpen pitched the fewest innings in baseball, but with the way Cotts, Politte, Logan, Tracey, McCarthy, and even Jenks outside of save situations pitched, why would you want to go to that bullpen. We haven't yet seen what Ozzie would do if he was put in a situation like the Twins had last year; starters who were somewhat inconsistent, but a dominating bullpen.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 01:55 PM) One thing Guillen proved last year is that no matter who the pitcher is, they'll give you at least 6 or 7 innings. The problem with that last year was that the 6th and 7th innings were disasters, and too many times our starter went from 6 innings, 3 runs to 6 1/3 innings, 5 runs. Well, it is worth asking what Ozzie might do if he had a starting pitching staff that was struggling and a bullpen that was dominating. In 05, he had a damn good bullpen and a damn good rotation, to the point that he was usually justified in showing confidence in his starter and leaving him out there for most of the game, no matter how good his bullpen was. In 06, he had struggling starters (the same guys who had succeeded the year before), but he also had guys like Politte, Cotts, Logan, McCarthy, and so on out in the bullpen who had a ton of difficulty keeping teams shut down. If he went to his bullpen in the 6th, that meant Cotts or McCarthy were coming in until late September when callups happened, so that meant he was going to give up at least 1 run, if not more. Ozzie hasn't recently had to deal with struggling starters and a dominating bullpen. Last year, about the only pitcher who wasn't a better option than Cotts was 2nd half Buehrle.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 01:53 PM) Its just funny to me that Prior is getting beat around and the board is lit up talking about how he is done. Buerhle gets lit up for a half a season and is getting lit up again this spring and everyone wants to get him signed long-term. KW better wait. There are more than a couple of scouts that think Buerhle is heading south, although unlike Prior at this point, he could get away with throwing 88 if he can get his command back. A drop of 8-10 mph from your fastball and like 4 straight injury-plagued seasons is, to my eyes, slightly more severe than a drop of 1 mph from your fastball and 6 straight 200+ inning seasons.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 10, 2007 -> 01:31 PM) Singleton said BA laid off a breaking ball off the plate...which will be good for him cause he had some serious trouble. BA sac fly to RF. Good for him. Sounds like Anderson is having a fairly solid game. That's some good stuff to hear.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 11:15 PM) Don't know if this was posted, but Comcast said the package would revolved around Logan. If it's Logan and a middle prospect, go ahead and do it. If the White Sox were to reacquire Rowand and he were to depart as a FA, do people think he could qualify as a Type A free agent and bring the Sox 2 2nd round/better draft picks in return? If we could pull that off, it'd basically be a swap of Logan for a second and a sandwich and an extra year for Anderson in the minors, which might be tolerable if we're not planning on trying out Sisco as a starter.

Looks like the higher-ups in Nevada are even smart enough to use the Dem-bashing by Ailes as an excuse to do what they should have done anyway.

The Politico devotes an article to the "rumors" about Bill Richardson without actually contributing anything useful about whether or not he's done anything inappropriate.

QUOTE(watchtower41 @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 02:01 PM) I could see that. I dont think Tubby is a bad coach, but the pressure is too thick in the bluegrass state. He may not be a bad coach, but there are many different aspects to college coaching; specifically, the actual coaching part, and the recruiting parts. You can be great at one and simply not good enough at the other and your program will suffer. SI had a littel bit on Smith and recruiting a few days ago.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 03:04 PM) Nevada Democratic Party pulls out of scheduled primary presidential debate with Fox News in Reno, Aug 14. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3069.html If that debate is dead, it died a death it deserved. Even if the treatment of the Dems after their debate on Fox in 03 doesn't sell you on that, even all of the other pro-Bush messages don't, even if keeping Ann Coulter on the air doesn't convince you, even if the Obama-Madrassa made up story doesn't give you a reason, here are some excerpts from the Head of Fox News, Roger Ailes, at a speech LAST NIGHT: France is weak, Bill Clinton is a cheater, and Obama is a terrorist. Man, that's the guy who I want hosting my debate! And this is at the same speech where he said how bad it would be if those extremist interest groups were to get the debate canceled or forced-balanced, as they wanted.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 02:10 PM) I'd bet Dems would be investigated significantly more at the local level, simply because cities are often controlled by Dems and a political machine is more likely to exist at city level. It's probably the leakiest sort of corruption, too. (Because it involves so many people in the know.) Whether the difference would be that large is a whole 'nother story. Does Krugman present any data on past investigations? Honeslty, I don't have a clue...the column is behind the NYT subscription wall. As far as I can tell, that study is only partially released, but at least in the data online they don't seem to give tables to allow for comparison with investigations during the Clinton years. If I can log into that site, I'm going to leave that as a comment.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 02:37 PM) Oh good God, I didn't say they should procreate. BLAH!!!!!!!!! I just figured, enough hours in a room together with them "Snarky"-ing each other, and well, you know.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 02:17 PM) Ted Rall and Ann Coulter should go off in a room and out snarky each other - maybe then we would never hear from either of them again. I would hate to imagine that child...

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 01:56 PM) If he's the best bet to put wins on the board, he better be starting in the bigs. Some players can handle "being rushed" (Bonderman certainly has survived). I assume the worst case would be Danks heads north and gets slammed and is repalced in the rotation by someone like Haeger. I would hope that Danks would have the resilience to survive and pull himself together in AAA. If he doesn't, that's a sign he's not the guy Williams thinks he is. Just for reference, McCarthy debuted when he was 21 (Danks is 21 now) and got hit hard. And then he came back from AAA to be lights out down the stretch in 2005. If McCarthy could do it, Danks should be able to as well. I think the worst case for Danks is that if he's rushed he could wind up turning into Gavin Floyd.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 01:45 PM) 2nd DP turned behind Danks ends this afternoon. He just completed his third scoreless inning. If Boone Logan wasn't here and acting like Boone Logan last year, I might be tempted to call Danks this year's ST Boone Logan.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 01:29 PM) Danks is really working his way into the 5th starter mix. I still really don't want to rush this kid...

Seriously, MLB, DirecTV, I know 1 of you is owned by Newscorp and that gives a great comment on your intelligence...but do you really think that if you start waving a red cape at the guys in Congress, just begging them to start talking and actually do something that will make their constituents happy, they won't come charging in? Link.

Paul Krugman's column this mornin', stuck behind the infamous NYT subscription wall, made an interesting point. If the DOJ is firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons, what does that say about the people they're holding onto? Here's the largest excerpt i've been able to find. Mr. Krugman also cites a most interesting study of who the U.S. attorneys are successfully prosecuting on corruption charges. Here's the relevant data on investigations undertaken: It's certainly possible that the Democrats at the state levels are 700% more corrupt than the Republicans, despite the fact that the Republicans had majorities in an awful lot of area of hte country until the last election or two. But that certainly does seem to be an interesting set of things to think about when considering their prosecutor purge.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 01:18 PM) That's a big difference IMO. Compare Coulter to anyone - and there are people like Ted Rall that are worth the comparison... but Molly Ivins might have been bitter or aggravated, but she seemed much more like a crank, and less like Ann Coulter. God I can't stand Ted Rall.

QUOTE(Capn12 @ Mar 9, 2007 -> 12:53 PM) I know, I know...its Spring Training, working on pitches..blah blah blah....but.. Is it too much for one of our guys, just once, to go out there and have some success against Arizona? The last time we played Arizona in the regular season, didn't we absolutely murder them in 1 game? Like it was the 2nd game in a row where Arizona had allowed 11 runs or something like that, back in 05?