Balta1701

I seriously Can't wait until this guy's in jail. He'd probably already be there had the DOJ not done that search of his Congressional office last year - that's kept this case tied up in court for months, so that the indictments haven't yet come down.

QUOTE(NUKE @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 04:51 PM) Much as I love Bush and the Republicans, one of the things that REALLY pisses me off about them and the oil companies is the massive subsidies they get from the government for all means of whatever. Time has come to take that cash away from them ( I think they make enough now ) and transfer it into a crash alternative energy program. This makes good sense from both an environmental standpoint as well as a national security standpoint. If the Democrats have 2 brain cells to bounce off each other they'll forget about this socialist windfall tax idea of theirs and take away their fat government subsidies away instead. Nuke, I could not possibly agree more. Suddenly I feel so dirty...

Rep Goode's office (or at least one of them) today: Link

QUOTE(Reddy @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 04:09 PM) why would he do that? not like he wants dems to win in 08... if he had 'waved his hands and made oil skyrocket' it would have severely hurt the GOP The few people who do think that think that the story is that Bush pushes oil higher whenever he can to please his corporate masters but then arranges a drop in oil prices in the fall in order to help his party win elections because see, the President's got oil prices down. Of course, oil prices are cyclical in exactly that way because of the more expensive blends used in the summertime to avoid evaporation of gasoline in summer temperatures which can be a major contributor to air pollution, but for some reason the people who believe that it's all Bush's doing and those who shoot them down are the ones who keep getting heard. By the way, should I toss in the "warmest year in recorded history" prediction and do an anthropogenic climate change nudge nudge wink wink here?

So let's see, thus far, this deal works out for the Yankees as: The D-Backs get: Brad Halsey Dioner Navarro Javier Vazquez Something in the neighborhood of $9 million in the first deal Roughly $2 million in this deal The Yankees get: Luis Vizcaino Ross Ohlendorf (10-8 with a 3.29 ERA at Double-A Tennessee last season, made southern league all-star game) Alberto Gonzalez (a 24-year-old right-handed hitting SS, batted .290 in 129 games with Tennessee with six homers, 50 RBI and 20 doubles, supposedly solid defense, and is currently serving as the Attorney General of the United States) and potentially Steven Jackson (8-11 with a 2.65 ERA in 24 starts at Tennessee) 2 years of mediocre pitching from Randy Johnson, and 1 beaten up cameraman. Yeah, I'd say the D-Backs made out pretty well in that. Especially when you replace Javy with Chris Young. Still, I wouldn't have made the deal to get Johnson back.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 02:33 PM) It says alot when Barbossa takes the last second shot for the suns, and Arenas does for the Wiz. John Paxson and Steve Kerr = MVP's. Booyeah!!

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 02:40 PM) I dont know. I think this is a guy who is a better closer than an SP. Plus he had shoulder problems at the end of last year, I dont know if I feel comfortable with him carrying even more innings. That may well prove to be the case, that he's a better closer than a starting pitcher, but when you do the math, you're looking at a guy who pitches 60 innings versus a guy who pitches 200 innings. If the performance levels are similar, in almost every case, the starter who gives you 200 innings would be more valuable and useful. That's the logic, and it's pretty sound. The question will be whether or not Papelbon can give a decent performance as a starter. If he comes out and puts up an ERA in the Josh Beckett range, then clearly he isn't fit for the rotation. As much trouble as Boston has had with their starting rotation the last few years, I'd say its' a reasonable gamble. As the White Sox have proved, it isn't ungodly difficult to find a decent closer if you look in the right places (Shingo, Hermanson, and Jenks all filling that role in 05, the White Sox have probably 5 people who could close in 07, etc.) And anyway, shoulder problems can crop up from a multitude of things. Some pitchers seem better able to handle short bursts every other day than they do working long amounts every 5th-6th day. Think Smoltz and his surgery issues...he was better off in the bullpen right after the surgery, then moved back to the rotation once he was healthier.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 02:30 PM) God damn man, they have a guy who is arguably the best closer in the game, and they're trying to put him in the starting rotation? That closer-by-committee crap could be the difference between 90 and 95 wins. So could having a Papelbon in the rotation.

Doug Mientkiewicz reportedly about to sign with the Yankees. Probably not a bad move for them, with the bats they have in that lineup, they can probably afford to basically be an NL team and have an automatic out in the 9th spot for some games, as long as it gets Giambi off of 1st.

So, as far as I can tell you guys actually are wrong...Contreras, Garland, and Vazquez do not hit FA all at the same time. Jose hits after 2009...this is the first year of his 3 year deal. The first year of Garland's 3 year deal was last year. Both Garland and Vazquez hit FA at the end of 2008, and they still have JC for 2009.

Mark Loretta signs a 1 year, $2.5 million deal with the Astros. Will serve as basically an infield utilitiy man/backup for BGO.

QUOTE(Iwritecode @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 10:48 AM) OK, one thing I want to know... Is an actual Madden disc with porn on it or was there an actual porn disc inside the package? One would think the kid at least looked at the top of the disc before he started playing it. Presumably, the disk would probably have to have had the madden label on it for anyone to give this story enough credibility to publish.

According to one Arab news source, the actual noose that hung Saddam has ended up in the hands of Muqtada al-Sadr. And a Kuwaiti businessman is trying to buy it from him.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 10:29 AM) So having a rate increase ceiling means that postal workers take a pay cut? That's sure the way the article makes it seem, when in fact, what it does is force them to have to become more efficient, in their operating systems and hiring practices. I work with the PO every day in running my printshop, and let me tell you, they suck. Just about everyone at the 2 I go to should be fired. Half don't know beans about bulk mailing, which is less than I know! Most are very indifferent or rude and customer service seems like an oxymoron. And the stories I hear from my mother-in-law, who works at the Gary processing center? Oh boy. 20/20 should go do a hidden camera story there if even 10% of what she tells me are true. Gimme a break, that's the first story that popped up when I googled the bill to see what the focus of it actually was, and at least it outlined what the actual goal of the reform bill was (clearly not to give the President authority to open mail under whatever it defines as "exigent circumstances.") Anywho, flipping topics again, since I had a different article I wanted to post anyway. On October 19th, 2006, George W. Bush signed a bill requiring the White House to appoint a "Policy Coordinator" for North Korea within 60 days. It has currently been 79 days since Mr. Bush signed that bill into law. The position remains unfilled.

Keith Ellison approaches Rep. Goode on the House floor this morning, and appears to introduce himself with a cordial handshake (video at link)

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 10:05 AM) Shh... hopefully it will take 11 years to come out, and I will safely be the POTUS. Is your daddy friends with Jim Baker too?

It never ends. In late December, before departing forever, the Republican Congress passed a "postal reform bill" which, among other things, adjusts some of the ways postal workers are taken care of and streamlines the process for postal service price increases. Here's a negative piece on it from the Postal workers union, in case you want to read more about what is actually in the bill. Mr. Bush signed the bill on December 20th. Of course, while he was busily affixing his signature, the White House also issued a signing statement to go along with it. In that signing statement, the White House asserted that, once again seemingly in contravention of the law, in emergency circumstances the White House has the ability to seize and read the mail of anyone it wants without a warrant. The White House also casually failed to define what it means by emergency circumstances, so we could be talking about a letter bomb, or just being at yellow alert.

After 216 years...America finally has a woman serving as speaker of the House.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 4, 2007 -> 06:25 AM) Also to be fair, I think most Senate races look at the canditates a little closer than the "examination" Obama got during his run. Because of the carpetbagging nutcase he ran against, he pretty much got a free pass into the Senate. Trust me, something like that would have been used against him, even in a school board race. So, you're saying you covered up some, how shall we put it, "youthful indescretions" in your campaign?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jan 3, 2007 -> 05:59 PM) How long will Russell last in the draft? Top 15? He's quite studly... He actually may have a shot to even go before Quinn, given how the 2 have played this season. It may well depend on who the Raiders like better at the Combine.

Neal Cotts signed a 1 year, $850,000 deal with the Cubs today.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 3, 2007 -> 04:39 PM) i haven't ugraded from DVD yet. i haven't ugraded from VHS yet. We have any BETA users who can top me here?

Link with another one, also Yahoo.

So, it's pretty hard to read this and not immediately have the thought 2016 pop into your head. (Oh, and he's a Colbert guy too)

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Jan 3, 2007 -> 04:18 PM) not All of the final numbers from 2006 are not yet available, but I can give you some numbers from the first part of 2006. Also, when comparing the "18 month" point (i.e. the year and a half right after a national election, not including the final few months), for each of the past 4 election cycles, the amount given to the DCCC, DSCC, and DNC by small donors has increased for each organization in each successive cycle. From the data I'm looking at, this is not the case with the Republican organizations, which saw significant declines in small donor activity between 2004 and 2006. It's also worth noting that comparison in all of these cases can and will be difficult due to the changing of the laws after the McCain Feingold act, which banned soft money donations after 2002, and the rise of outside 527 or 501c organizations like Moveon, Actblue, the Swift Boat liars, the NRA, and so on, which can contribute significantly to elections and may receive much larger chunks of their funding from small donors, the data for which I simply don't have and am probably too lazy to look up right now.