Balta1701

So, another little bit of good news, at least for now, Pelosi has decided to keep one of the actually positive Republican rules...a term limit for committee chairmen...something that was not in place for the Democrats before 94, which almost certainly contributed to the corruption that developed in that group. Link. So...if anyone reads anything about them trying to get rid of that rule in the future, make sure to point it out. If there's never less attention focused on it, then they can't get rid of a good rule, right?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 6, 2007 -> 10:33 AM) Whether Danks is as good as McCarthy is anyone's guess. The Rangers apparently didn't think so. That's not necessarily true. The Rangers may well have thought that Danks will actually be better than McCarthy, but if you look at things from the Rangers perspective, their "Window" closes in 2008. I know for a fact that Mark Teixeira hits Free Agency after 2008, and as he's a Boras client, he won't be signing any extensions before hitting the open market. On top of that, Michael Young hits Free Agency at the end of 2008 as well, and Hank Blalock hits at the end of 2009. With this roster, their window basically closes at the end of 2008, maybe at the end of 07 if they want to get something by trading Tex and Young. They need pitchers for 2007. Danks probably shouldn't see the big leagues until mid-07 at the very earliest, maybe 08 even better, and who knows how long it would take him to adapt to that level given that it has taken him a little while to adapt at each level he's stopped at. The Rangers wanted someone who could pitch for them right now, and they got that.

QUOTE(winninguglyin83 @ Jan 6, 2007 -> 10:29 AM) We're going young. get ready for it. I'm plenty ready for it, I just don't like the idea of going young by losing Mark Buehrle for draft pick compensation alone when he should be worth significantly more than that in a trade.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Jan 6, 2007 -> 10:10 AM) What do you consider reasonable, with the current going prices of pitchers on the market? Honestly, I don't know, but I want to know if it would take Zito-money for him to sign. Hell, I'd consider the yearly cost of Zito if the contract was quite a bit shorter than 7 years.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jan 6, 2007 -> 07:57 AM) Yeahhhh..No. If Zambrano blew out his arm next year, he wouldnt be getting Zito money. And if anyone would be able to afford Zambrano AND Santana, they wouldnt have much money to put elsewhere. Unless they're in Boston or New York.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jan 6, 2007 -> 09:47 AM) Randy Johnson was nowhere near mediocre in 2005. Just because he didn't win 30 games like Kruk predicted doesn't mean he wasn't that good. Stealing this from the Trib today:

Fine Mark...then do 1 more thing if you like the Fans in Chicago so much. Tell us how much it would take right now for you to sign an extension. Let us judge whether or not you're asking something reasonable.

Link.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 08:46 PM) Maybe they can start by getting this guy to resign from congress, instead of just removing him from a committee. http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/pre...p.php?view=4452 Unfortunately, there's actually very little the Dems can do to get him to resign from Congress until he's actually indicted...right now he isn't, and the whole procedure is hung up in court as a result of the search of his Congressional office and the resulting legal challenge. They've already, at least in the last Congress, stripped him of his committee assignments and put him in a position where all he can do is vote on the floor, but until he's indicted it's hard to actually do more. And you're also over 24 hours late in posting that one.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 07:29 PM) The problem with this is that with the crappy support universities get in this state from our beloved Gov. we depend on earmarks for funding. The system is flawed but if it stops the universities in this state are going to be in worse shape than they are now. I'm sure this is only one example where this is true but it's one I am personally involved in. It's actually true in a surprising number of cases. Things like the Bridge to no where and the guy who said he'd earmark the hell out of the House if he became a committee chairman give earmarks a well-deserved bad name, but for a decent chunk of government it does become really important, they build useful projects, actually-needed bridges, roads, highways, upgrade facilities at universities, pay for sometimes important research, and to top it off, they only wind up being like 1% of the Federal Budget. A hell of a lot more money has been poured into Iraq than will be poured into earmarks for the next few years. But the system has gotten so screwed up that there's just no accountability for what exactly people are earmarking. That's how you get a million dollar earmark to upgrade a bus station as a tourist attraction and the infamous bridge to nowhere while at the same time wiring up universities for the internet and so forth. Hopefully, adding some transparency to the system will provide a major upgrade in this matter, but we'll see. QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 03:31 PM) looks as if Balta has totally bought into the dems bs on this. Will you seriously state that this is not a step in the right direction? Remember when you say I've bought into the B.S. that I'm the one here who thinks that the U.S. government will never fully reform until we totally eliminate lobbyists entirely and switch to a fully publically funded campaign finance system - as long as there are groups giving money to candidates, the system simply will never be clean or representative in any way. But I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The American people as far as I can tell really dislike the entire lobbying setup, which is one of the reasons why society generally has such a low opinion of their government officials; they keep selling out to the highest bidder. These reforms, even with their flaws, are an acknowledgement of that, and a gradual step in the right direction. If we're not going to create a public campaign financing system, then we might as well take a few steps to clean up Delay's mess. Hopefully, the train keeps rolling, and the people keep demanding from their leaders more accountability and less input from lobbyists on the government, and eventually, we can reach a point where the whole stinking system is just swept out of the way. To borrow a phrase, in terms of lobbying reform, this is not the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 07:38 PM) Where is everyone projecting him hitting? 8 or 9, depending on Anderson's performance/balls.

.285, 5 home runs, 32 RBi.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 02:35 PM) And we have prepared for some of them. A lot of California is pretty ready for a quake, much of the US coastlines are in the process of preparations for Tsunami warning systems, etc. Some things like Tornadoes we have already gotten very, very good at dealing with. Actually, I would offer some fairly serious disagreements with this one. In particular, the Los Angeles area is simply no where near prepared for the type of disaster that could strike it. In L.A., there are an absolute ton, probably tens of thousands of multi-decade old, 10 story or so buildings made mainly out of materials like brick and concrete. In the event of a major quake on the San Andreas, these would probably stand up. But in the event of a smaller quake on one of the many faults closer to the city itself...these would be absolutely devastated. They simply will not stand up. And there is no where near the money available to fix all of them, you'd basically be talking about demolishing and rebuilding the whole L.A. area. The good news is...either 100 years will pass without a major quake on one of the specific faults underneath the city and by then everything should have been rebuilt anyway, or the U.S. taxpayer won't have to pay for the demolition costs. And yes, that is deliberately heartless. Beyond that, there is a bunch of stuff up North that could be a real mess. The 89 quake, the Loma Prieta quake/World Series one, actually happened quite a ways away from San Francisco itself. It did not happen on either the San Andreas, which runs off shore from S.F., or the Heyward Fault, which runs through S.F. Bay. Those 2 are still locked and probably are approaching their due date. Most of the "Historic" type structures are being renovated, but the money just isn't there for things like normal residential concrete or brick buildings. And that's not even mentionning the Levee mess up near Sacramento, which just had money appropriated for fixing it last November (You think the Levees around NOLA were bad you should see those). And then of course, there's the potential for a magnitude 8-9 quake demolishing the entire Northwest that I haven't even talked about yet. People like to think that their government is on top of these questions with the geology, but just like in NOLA, the government has repeatedly been unwilling to spend the money to fix the problems. Eventually, they will get absolutely smacked out here. Oh, and the East coast is not prepared at all for a tsunami. I'd talk about that more but I have to run upstairs.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 02:13 PM) "The costs of the death penalty are greater than the costs of life in prison without parole." I have seen this written the other way around. Could somebody please give me a definitive dollar amount for how much each situation costs? No. It depends on each particular state and the way the law is in that state, but in general, I think the consensus is it's quite a bit more expensive to put someone to death. (too old for a link, go to Lexis if you want the paper. http://www.wsba.org/lawyers/groups/committ...blicdefense.htm From the NJ report. http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/committees/njdeath_penalty.asp

Chris Reitsma to the Mariners, 1 year deal with team option.

Ok, so who wants to make the "Detroit just guaranteed themselves a world series" joke and who wants to make the "Detroit just guaranteed that the White Sox will win the world series" joke?

Fox could not possibly have been stupid enough to let that show go. Not with the fan base it has, and especially not with the DVD sales of the show.

Billy Corgan has officially confirmed that there will be both a new Smashing Pumpkins Album and tour in 2007. Yahtzee! The one band I should have seen in the late 90s but never got the chance to... No word yet on who other than Billy and Jimmy Chamberlain will actually be playing with the band. But Hell, on a ton of Pumpkins stuff, those are the only 2 guys you hear anyway, because Corgan would re-record everyone else's stuff.

Does Uribe look like he's gained weight to anyone else?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 12:50 PM) We rarely realize our worst fears, or our greatest hopes. I've always assumed we did pretty damn good, we always do as Americans, but we will beat ourselves up and believe we could have done much, much, better. And we could have. And we will do much, much better if we face this sort of disaster again. And we will face this sort of disaster again, and probably sooner than we think. And it won't be in the same form. Or the same place. And it probably won't even be nice enough to give us a couple day's warning as to the exact time, and we may not even have the years of warning that we had on the NOLA Levees.

Good luck.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 11:47 AM) Some players need the regular ABs. What makes you believe the rest will help? Plus, I'm not certain resting him that much is good for the pitching staff. I seem to be the only one that thinking AJ on the bench for a bunch of games is not a plus for the team. In terms of the pitching staff, some of that depends on Hall's performance...but I don't think I'm the only one who remembers that AJ seemed much less popular with the Staff in 06 than in 05. I mean, if nothing else, they traded for Sandy Alomar Jr., who became Mark Buehrle's personal catcher in the 2nd half of the year. Isn't that at least to some extent a criticism of AJ's pitch calling with Buehrle?

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 5, 2007 -> 11:05 AM) They may turn out to not be as cooperative as they stated, but, this article doesn't say that's happened. It says, basically, that it MIGHT happen. And the 100 hours items were all discussed with the GOP leadership in join conference before Congress even convened. That already is more than the GOP was ever interested in doing. Let's wait a few weeks and see if the Dems really do start to work the minority party into discussions. Link) Seriously though, I understand the move for their first 100 hours, because the Republicans would simply offer up enough amendments and delay enough to push everything past the 100 hour deadline they set, and would then go on TV proclaiming that the Dems had broken all of their promises to pass everything in 100 hours. After the initial legislation surge, then it'll be time to watch and see if they keep that promise.

Well, here we go...at least it's a start. Haven't had enough time to evaluate the actual rules changes Pelosi has passed in the House, but the House Dems have already done at least a few things the Republicans were totally unable to do last year...pass rudimentary lobbying and earmark reform bills. Ethics Reform Earmark reform It doesn't have every possible bit of ethics reform that could have been done, but it has enough that CREW, an organization I think does good work, seems moderately satiated. They also were hoping for an independent ethics panel, which they didn't get with this package, and they want outsiders to be able to file ethics complaints with the House...but even they seem happy with the start.