Balta1701

QUOTE(winninguglyin83 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 06:03 PM) but probably not by the Twinkies Well, there is always the matter of them getting a new stadium at long last...who knows what that will do to their payroll. They probably wouldn't keep Johan anyway...but that's a factor we should all avoid forgetting.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 05:31 PM) It's very possible, and perhaps likely, Koch was a 'roider. It's not a witch hunt though. I'll confess, until I learned about his other condition, if I had to pick any player to play on the White Sox who i thought had juiced, it would have been Koch, based on the other reasons people gave here. But after hearing about the condition his whole family is suffering from, I'm leaning towards giving him the benefit of the doubt, or at least throwing him into the void of other guys who we have no idea about. I mean, some sort of wierd degradational environment-related condition starts to make his entire family sick, God only knows what toxin it really is, and I'm supposed to be surprised that his fastball falls apart? And you certainly can't blame the steroids for that other condition, because his whole family suffered from it. With what it sounds like struck his family, I'm moderately surprised he could even throw a ball, let alone get his fastball above 90 mph.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 02:23 PM) Ugh, same money as Erstad. He would have been such a perfect fit for the Sox 4th OF spot. He has 2 things going for him that we know for certain Erstad can not provide, he's right handed and he hits for power. Well, the big question is...do you want an outfielder to back up Anderson or do you want an outfielder to back up/Platoon with Podsednik? I think the organization answered, at least at some level, that question by which one they picked. But yeah, I would also add that Kenny's history of liking Erstad and his "intangibles" and so forth probably played into that choice also.

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 03:42 PM) I wouldn't go so far as to take Curry, but I agree that I just don't see the Gasol move for the Bulls. Honestly, in my mind, if the Bulls make a move, it needs to be the move that puts them over the top in the East. Gasol is a scorer, but isn't a great defender. Unless Garnett is available, I don't want the Bulls to make a move just for the hell of making a move. But, the "Just for the hell of making a move" issue...right now the Bulls have a large expiring Contract in the form of PJ Brown. $8 million or so. That is an asset that the Bulls simply will not have in the next few years, barring something really big involving this team. Furthermore, the Bulls have a draft pick of unknown position in the Greg Oden draft, and I would argue that right now, an unknown potential lottery pick has more value than the same pick at a known position unless it winds up being outside the top 2 (stockpiling lottery balls). In other words, right now, the Bulls have 2 major tradeable assets that they simply will not have a year from now and may not have again for a long time. There is some good reason to make a move just to make a move.

Al Franken will leave his Air America Radio show on Feb. 14th to launch the exploratory process for a run for the U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota in 2008.

Preston Wilson signs a 1 year, $1 million deal to return to the Cardinals next season.

Here is the Wikipedia entry:

With their performances last year, none of them earned the right to be the opening day starter this year. Therefore, I say we send Haeger out against Captain Cheeseburger to open the season.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 12:34 PM) For $150 million they had better done AT LEAST that. I guess $150 million doesn't go as far as it used to. You do realize the actual price tag was something like $6 million, correct? The $150 million house that was in the news last week was a gigantic resort home in the middle of Montana (presumably not purchased by any of the Democratic candidates. Maybe Kerry).

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 01:41 PM) We didn't negotiate with them?! I seem to remember us signing a treaty with them in 1994 saying they wouldn't produce nukes in exchange for various concessions. Thats a treaty that they broke just as soon as it suited them. Neither side lived up to the obligations in that treaty. The U.S. was obligated to begin construction of 2 light water (hard to use for weapons production) nuclear reactors in North Korea that they could use for power instead of their older, better for weapons production reactors, and the Congress scuttled funding for that in 1995.

I'm working on a 3.5 year old laptop, and I'm due for an upgrade if I can ever afford it, so that'll presumably be a Vista machine if I ever get that far.

Nerd that I am, I think this was just beautiful...

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 11:14 AM) Top 5 Like there was seriously any doubt as to who was going to be on top in this thread.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 09:57 AM) I wonder how this will look when John Edwards starts talking about the haves and the havenots, and how he is trying to look out for the working man? http://www.carolinajournal.com/ I am sure the environmentalists will eb thrilled as well, with all the forest being chopped down to make room for his massive new house, and all the energy it will take to heat that monstrosity. But hey, he's just looking out for the little guy. Elizabeth Edwards's blog

TheRealMcCain.com

The only guy in our bullpen who doesn't strike me as right now potentially able to hand off from the 8th inning to Jenks is whoever the 2nd lefty winds up being. Aardsma, Masset, MMac, Thor...all of them have the stuff to be very, very good out there. Hopefully, they all step it up this season.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 09:51 PM) What other use would a country like Iran have for nukes? It has no neighbors which are now capable of striking it, it has no major enemies at all except for the United States and the only reason we're their enemies is because of their own activities. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and was essentially dismantled by the U.N. sanctions and inspection regimes. It's military was in shambles, all the money it had was going to Saddam, and it was in no condition to defend itself. The U.S. invaded Iraq. North Korea actually had an active nuclear program, and admitted it publically in the fall of 2002. In early 2003 the U.S. detected the atmospheric signatures of the North Koreans reprocessing their fuel rods to access the plutonium for a bomb. The U.S. invaded Iraq. I don't know, if I'm Iran, I take the message from this series of events that if I want to be safe from the Americans, who have repeatedly threatened the existence of my government, I sure don't want to be the country America thinks it can invade.

Hammerhead, you and I have been watching some totally different games this year.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 07:23 PM) This is where the problem lies. The current islamofascist regime in Iran doesn't care a whit if they are destroyed after the fact. Their single overriding priority in life is the destruction of Isreal. This is not a rational enemy like the Soviets were. Can you provide us any concrete evidence of actual actions by the Iranian government which suggest that this is the case? They have massively advanced their political position in the Middle East by almost every one of their actions, from support for Hezbollah to their nuclear efforts, and have done so while the strategic positions of both the U.S. and Israel have turned dramatically worse with limited harm coming to the position of their regime. It looks to me like Iran has behaved as a vastly more cunning state-actor than the U.S. has in that region; the U.S. has removed 2 of the 3 potential threats to Iran and bogged itself down in a bloody civil war while Iran's strategic position has skyrocketed (along with oil profits) Can you point to me some evidence of the Iranian state actually acting as a rogue, non-rational nation willing to give up its own power and wealth to move against Israel?

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 07:34 PM) In that regard I was very fortunate. My dad is an accountant and my grandparents chipped in with a great deal of money know-how also. Well where I went to school it was Applied ECONOMICS........ It was called economics where I went for high school. One of the most pointless classes I ever had to take. I made like $60,000 in a mock stock-market investing exercise, then got lazy, dumped everything into AOL, and spent the rest of the class reading.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 04:01 PM) if it was a Republican it's national news, i can gaurantee you that. I love this. Totally unable to provide an example, but your only evidence is a guarantee based on how your gut feels. A very great man once created a word for that. "Truthiness". For reference, how many people here remember the case of the Spokane Mayor Jim West, a vehemently anti-Gay Republican mayor who was found to have attempted to seduce a man he thought was 18 years old and who was accused of having molested a couple of Boy Scouts several years beforehand? Certainly slipped my mind until I started googling for a counter-example. My memory certainly doesn't make it into a national scandal.

Ok, that's it, I think it's finally time for Tiger Woods and Roger Federer to have a duel of some sort. Lance Armstrong will moderate.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 07:27 AM) I actually almost like this team moreso without him than I do with him. When Big Ben shows up and plays 100%, he can still take over a game. I honestly think he's been taking it easy for a big part of this season so far though. The last 2 games, Dallas and Miami, were big games, and he showed up big in both of them. I'm hoping that's the Ben we see come playoff time.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jan 28, 2007 -> 02:37 PM) Erstad was told he'd be seeing a lot of PT from all accounts. Those AB's have to come from either LF or CF. We know the amount of AB's Gload got. Small but important note...the White Sox also do have a righty in Right field, and Erstad could back him up as well. I know he didn't need it last year, but I for one wouldn't complain at all about JD getting a handful of games off this year beyond what he was given off last year (mostly because Mack was in CF every game....)

Here's one for you Republicans on Reid...it's a pretty complex piece about how Sen. Reid may have purchased some land through dealings I honestly don't understand from people that had an interest in legislation Senator Reid has been pushing for the last decade or so. Link.