Balta1701

Does anyone else think that the Yankees with Crede + Garcia >>>>> the Yankees with ARod?

Here's the question I have for folks here: how comfortable are we with a quasi-rookie leadoff hitter/LF next year? (Stick Milledge next to Anderson and suddenly we have a great defensive outfield, with potentially a ton of speed and good power in LF)

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:54 AM) And again, as I said, dinner is fine - its face time. Also, a hundred people all donating 2k is fine. I could care less about either one. If that was all it was, was $200,000 from 100 employees of Exxon Mobil (INDIVIDUALLY, it needs to come from them, not the company), then that's all fine and dandy. It won't be enough to influence them. And either way, its then a choice, not blackmail or such things. So in other words, you have no problem at all with the current system, because that is exactly how it works. There are some small details that are different, but you're telling me you have no problem with the general principle. I totally disagree.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:35 AM) I don't agree. If Lobbyists raise millions, fine. Where does it go? Because if it ends up with a politician in ANY way, then make it illegal, and the penalty is forfeiture of office. Real simple. And I don't think raising money is evil - just leave it as raising money from the PEOPLE individually. This is really not a hard thing to enforce. I think that is where many of the current laws are going wrong - people go around them. The answers to that are so simple: make the laws direct and to the point and absolute, make the penalties high, and put an enforcement mechanism in place that will actually be used. Those are the missing pieces. But you're missing the one key point...the people giving the money will always, always have an agenda of their own. Especially when you get to big donors, they are donating that money for a reason. If you simply ban the ability of one person to give it directly after raising it from others, then all that person has to do is be the one who hosts the dinner with the politician where all his rich friends show up, which is basically how most of these donations work today anyway. And even if somehow you found a way to ban politicians from having dinner with donors, then politicians will still know which industries are their heavy donors, what their heavy donors want, and so on. If I'm working for an oil company, and I give $2000 to a candidate, do you think that candidate and their workers are too blind to tell where their money is coming from? Any system where people are allowed to contribute directly to a candidate is going to give you the same problem. There is just no way around it. People aren't breaking the law right now, they're following it to the letter, and still industries and wealthy donors are able to arrange it so that their voices are heard a lot more than mine.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) If it's properly imposed, the death penalty accomplishes all of those things. Its too bad our society doesn't have the guts to bury those who deserve it. It sure fails on the rehabilitate part.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:24 AM) Then those laws need to... I don't know... BE ENFORCED. If you can convince 50 of your friends to donate, then fine. I have zero problem with that. Now, if you are talking about "shifting" money or anything that results in ANY more money than the 2k per individual going to anyone candidate, then the hammer needs to come down. Seriously, even if you do all of that, including banning moving campaign funds between different committees...there are still going to be way too many ways for corruption to sneak into the system, politicians will still spend 90% of their time raising funds, and lobbyists will still be in the business of offering up campaign contributions in the millions to people who will support the bills they write. And if you raise the limits at all, it gets even worse. The only way the system of campaign contributions and lobbyists will be fixed is to kill it completely. There is no tweak you can make, there is no hidden trick, there is no magic fix you can make that will suddenly make the system un-corrupt. As long as part of a politician's job includes raising money from anyone, then the system will be broken.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:00 AM) I personally couldn't care less if we have 5 righties, 5 lefites or 5 guys who throw with their feet, as long as they're quality starting pitchers. Like I said before though, Mark is the last starter I want to trade besides Brandon. I think he's the most likely to rebound but obviously his contract has become a huge issue now. I am really interested to see what starter goes in this offseason, cause I honestly think you could make a decent case for all of them(the starting 5 from 06). On talent alone, I want to see Buehrle, McCarthy, and Garland in this rotation for the next 5 years or more. But sadly, we can't just evaluate talent alone until we know whether or not it's even possible to keep Buehrle. If it would take a $15 million a year for 5 years deal to get Buehrle to sign right now...which is pretty close to what Oswalt got for example (5 years 73 million) and I wouldn't rule out as being what he could ask for, then at some point you have to get something for Buehrle and that is the end of the story.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 11:01 AM) --Individual contributions to candidates should be limited to a relatively low number, perhaps 2k or 5k per person. Corporations should never be allowed to make any contributions at all. Not-for-profits and lobbying organizations, same thing, not allowed to contribute. If corporations or NFP's want to get TIME from candidates, since they represent large swaths of the population, that is fine. By the way, this financing part isn't difficult to track. Each person (by SS#) contributes to a given candidate (who registers for a TIN as an NFP of sorts). The database can be scraped, and run against transactional information. Also, funds used for anything campaign-related need to be segregated and trackable. Donations by candidates to their own accounts can ONLY be matching to what they earn via government input or the individual donations. Interestingly/Sadly enough, this is basically how the system is structured right now. There is a limit of $2000 currently in individual contributions to a particular candidate. Corporations are not actually allowed to give any sort of direct assistance to any campaign, including either money or the usage of any of a corporation's equipment. What basically happens though is that corporations and really, really rich people get around these limits by arranging along with lobbyists for donations from wealthy donors to be bundled...such that you can become a Bush Ranger if you can find some convenient way through either your employees or friends to get 49 people to contribute that $2000 along with you. There is also some ability on the part of candidates to shift money donated from one campaign to another once it reaches a certian point, through a variety of methods. And almost all individual campaign donations are already tracked and available online, at places like opensecrets.org. In other words, I think what you're proposing is basically the current system at the federal level, or if you up the limit to $5000, it's even less stringent.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 10:50 AM) And we can't trade Buehrle yet...nothing to do with resigning or money, but because he's a lefty. If the Sox trade MB and insert Brandon, that's 5 RHSP. We can't do that. Now, if the Sox trade 2 pitchers and they sign a Ted Lilly, then, maybe. The White Sox with 5 right handers in its rotation > the White Sox with a lefty for 2007 who walks away because someone offers Buehrle a better deal in the offseason (thus leaving the Sox, you guessed it, 4 righties in their rotation, 5 if Garcia is somehow kept). Buehrle's contract situation should be the overriding thread from which all decisions about the pitching staff are spun.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 10:10 AM) I'm definitely excited about this rotation come next year though. No real reason why, just a quiet feeling of confidence I have that this rotation will bounce back something amazing next year. If Contreras stays healthy, he's going to be good(and all we as fans can do is hope)...I gotta hunch Buehrle's going to come back stronger than ever, Garland will be solid again, Vazquez will be comfortable, seeing as how he's not being traded in an offseason since 2002, and then there's McCarthy(who you and I both like a lot). Not totally sure who said it, but someone here a few months ago speculated that one of the things with Buehrle and Garland in 06 might have been the fact that they are finally growing up...they're used to being able to take it easy in the offseason, but when they were hit with the 05 workload and a shorter period of rest at the same time as they both got another year older, suddenly they just weren't as ready to get started the next season. Garland then took a while to get the feeling back while Buehrle ran out of gas. I'm sort of hoping that if they do come back (hopefully with a new contract for Buehrle), we'll discover that they decided to turn it up a notch this offseason to overcome the fact that they are getting a little older & can't just rely on pure athleticism.

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 09:44 AM) No more silly electronic voting. Silly electronic voting = electronic voting without a paper trail.

QUOTE(GreatScott82 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 08:38 AM) B. Crede and Garcia would be on the last years of their contracts anyways. Joe Crede is under the White Sox's control until the end of 2008. Not 2007.

Full public financing of campaigns and elimination of individual or corporate donations to parties or candidates.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 06:52 AM) More than a few things, number one, I believe we need someone who could unite the country, not further divide them. We need someone with Reagan's or (early version) Bill Clinton pr abilities. The biggest magic that happened with Reagan was making us feel better about our future and our ability to overcome adversity. We had the embarrassment of Nixon, the clumsiness of Ford in W.I.N., and the paralysis of Carter. Then Reagan comes riding in, literally, bigger than life and gives us back our swagger. With the terrorism threat, we need someone who can give us back our swagger. Hillary aint it. The current administration has plenty of swagger. The problem is they're a little short, on, oh, let's call it the competence department.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 08:19 AM) More accurately my first step would be to reform campaign financing. And I'll raise my hand in agreement on that one as well.

QUOTE(xxx @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 07:47 PM) If Jermaine Dye ever got dealt, I would be the first one calling jor KW's job... Picturing KW holding onto a 73 year old Jermaine Dye...

I'm stealing this one, but it's too good:

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 04:28 PM) Wow, your out in the middle of nowhere. I was just through that area a month ago. Balta, what do you think of Owens Valley ever getting its water back. I saw an article about them still fighting just recently since you LA people stole it all They're never going to get all of it back, but it would certainly be nice if they could get enough to get the Owens river flowing again. A few projects have actually managed to succeed in getting a few drops out of L.A. Mono Lake is ever so slowly going back up a little bit...and a few years ago they began irrigating the now dry Owens lake, because the dust from it was a major component of the air pollution out here (seriously, the clean air act made L.A. give up a little bit of its water). And anyway, it's not like L.A. is the only area out here that has stolen water. Mexico would love to get a few more drops of the Colorado River, but that ain't happening, and then there's the whole mess with Lake Powell on top of that. Water resources are going to be some of the most interesting and volatile debates in the next century as populations continue to increase and climate patterns shift rapidly.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 05:34 PM) Where's the conspiracy posts that Cheney got him in the "witness protection" (ahem... ;) ) program the day before he died? When you have the ability to Pardon a prisoner, why bother with that mess?

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 03:42 PM) That way you don't have this joke where an 83-win team gets in like this year, or an 82-win team like last year. Yeah, those teams are jokes. They don't have a shot to beat anyone.

QUOTE(bmags @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 03:53 PM) agh, what a difference a year makes... last year: "we have all our starters locked up for like, ever! ANd all we have to worry about is crede" this year: "PANIC!!!!" I don't personally remember thinking that...I was pretty worried about watching our starting pitching evaporate last year before we got Garland and Contreras signed. But even still, here's the difference between last year and this year: We're not the defending world series champions any more. We're a team coming off missing the playoffs now. If we were looking at making 1 last gasp and shooting for a 3-peat, I could understand being willing to watch some really key people walk away after loading up on the rings, and then shooting for a quick rebuilding cycle. But we're not, we wound up with a single ring, and next year, once the Yankees add in another pitcher, the Red Sox make a few more moves, and Verlander, Zumaya, Miller, Liriano, Mauer, Morneau, Marte, Sizemore, Garko, and the whole other bunch get another year of experience, the AL and even just the Central is going to be even tougher, and it's only going to get tougher from there. We simply can not afford to have guys like Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, Mark Buehrle, Tad Iguchi, Freddy Garcia, and so on, walk away without receiving compensation. The only way that works is if we want to give up for a few years, fall well below .500, and pick up a few top-10 draft picks, which I don't consider to be a reasonable option.. And beyond that, we can't sign them all. We can sign some of them, but we need youth to replace the rest. Some of these guys need to be moved for youth. We need to find ways to get a few inexpensive players in there so that we have the money to spend on the expensive ones. And trying to be sentimental, or just saying that because a guy put up a great season there's no possible way he should be moved even if he has only 1 year left on his contract is just an invitation to wind up with 1/2 of our team making $12 million a year and the other half filled with players who should be in AA.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 03:10 PM) What are the odds that any replacement could do better than Dye in 2007? If the goal is trying to win the WS, you keep Dye. If KW had the attitude that trading players with expiring contracts is a must after 2004, Konerko would have been somewhere else in 2005, and so probably would be the WS trophy. But again, that's not the question at all. The question is this: what are the odds that Dye's replacement (Sweeney?) and whoever we were able to get by trading Dye and whoever we spent Dye's $6 million salary and the salary of whoever is replaced by getting more talent through the trade would be better than Dye in 2007, and of course, beyond. That is a much more detailed question than the way people are trying to make it out to be. Yes, KW does not trade all of his players with expiring contracts. But think of the difference after 2005...after 05, we basically had Konerko to resign. Everyone else was either under our control or on their way out anyway (Thomas, Everett). At the end of 2007, we have 4 guys with expiring contracts. That is a much bigger issue, and a hell of a lot more money. The simple fact is this; the White Sox need to be sellers right now. They need to sell at least 1 starting pitcher, if not more, depending on what they get back. But beyond that, the White Sox need to use the fact that they can be sellers right now to solidify the other spots in their order for the future, either by freeing up money to extend the contracts of people or by finding other players that can be plugged in for the guys who may be leaving. I just don't want to see us sign Buehrle and Crede this offseason, then watch Garcia, Iguchi, and Dye all walk, and suddenly be forced to put Haegar into the rotation even if he sucks this year, an infield of Crede, Uribe, Cintron, and Konerko, an outfield of Fields, Anderson, and Sweeney, and still somehow a $100 million payroll.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 03:09 PM) Another absentee ballot for me as I will be in the middle of the Mojave Desert on election day. All Republicans for me with the exception of Lipinski for Congress. Want to know the scary thing? I'll be right out there that weekend as well. Field trip through part of the Mojave & Owens Valley.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 02:25 PM) http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/20/poll.08/index.html CNN 2008 Presidential Poll Hillary Rodham Clinton 51% John McCain 43% There's a lot more interesting detail in that poll. First: Second...both of those polls are within the margin of error the same, since this was only a 500 person poll, and presumably they'd have to ask the question in different ways for different groups, so those are going to wind up being some pretty small sample sizes. But anyway, it's still nice to see someone, anyone, polling on the same order as the news media's patron saint of independence, John McCain.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Oct 23, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) Here's a good bumper sticker: I Never Change My Mind -- I'm a Republican Nice to know that Republicans form their opinion at an early age and never, ever, change them. That would be flip flopping or going back on their word. Incorrect Tex. They're not in favor of staying the course, and they've never been in favor of staying the course. The Republicans are adapting to win, and they've always been adapting to win.