Balta1701

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 05:39 PM) MLB.com has a new, enhanced gameday. It's cool, you should check it out. They now have pitch speed and a 3-D batter. It's very cute, but I don't like the fact that the normal game/season stats are only available in classic gameday (button at the top left to switch back and forth). And one of these days I'm going to watch a game with gameday on and see how accurate their pitch locations are. I wasn't hugely confident in how they had them on classic gameday. Edit: and its stats are just as screwed up as the old version. How exactly can Magglio Ordonez strike out to end the first inning and then lead off the 2nd inning with a double?

Neifi Perez is in at short for the Kitties today with Guillen at 1st for Casey. That's really, really bad for the Tigers.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 02:42 PM) Until 2007? The Mets game could be postponed, because of the rain there. So, according to NBC in New York, Lidle was not rated to fly a plane using instruments, and was only supposed to fly with good visibility.

You say "Magic is a simple explanation" but then totally ignore the reality of the point. Magic is alive with HIV while many are dead precisely because he has had the ability and the desire to deal with the problems created by his condition. In other words, it is possible for you to do a hell of a lot of damage to your body and still survive it if you stop doing the damage at some point, correct the problems, and then also get lucky. Who knows what age these people will wind up dying at. Some of them will be smart enough to try to help their bodies recover through some method. Some will just get lucky. But that doesn't mean that it does no damage at all. The "it didn't hurt this guy so it clearly isn't a problem" logic you're trying to use is an example of the Post Hoc fallacy...because Canseco and Arnold are not dead, therefore steroid use can not kill.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 12:51 PM) I'm actually going to counterpoint myself here... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15215574/ Estimating the actual death toll in Iraq is of course difficult. The numbers used from reliable media reports is more like 50k. But then, only a fraction of the deaths will actually be reported. But what fraction? This study used other methods, which may also have material bias. So, just to be clear... the number may not be 655k. It may be 200k, or 400k, or 800k. Hard to tell. But logic, and looking at the way the various stats are derived, put it into the hundreds of thousands in any case. My reason for posting the article wasn't the specific number - it was the generally large amounts of human destruction. Just to be clear. The key question in this study to determine whether or not it is biased is whether or not the majority of Iraqi people can be counted on to give honest replies when they are asked about their family members and deaths. This study seems to have done everything the right way. They took a large sample size, larger than the one used for the 2004 study that estimated about 100k were dead at that time. They selected their sampling targets randomly, and wound up not including Fallujah this time (which they sampled last time but threw out before publishing). They dropped 3 clusters from their analysis that failed statistical tests. They're giving you 655k as the most likely number, and based on statistics, that's the most likely one from their data. There is some finite probability that just by random chance it is slightly off, but based on their data, if you did this same study 100 times, assuming it is not biased by people not answering the questions truthfully, you would come up with a number between about 400,000 and 800,000 95 times. It's probably also worth noting that this is a very standard techinque of accounting for casualties, in places like Iraq before the U.S. invasion and in Darfur now those same sorts of numbers have been used to make the case against specific goverments or regimes.

CNN: An aircraft has crashed into the middle of a brick luxury high-rise residential building on Manhattan's Upper East Side at 72nd Street and York Avenue, police officials said. The building is very close to the East River. There was no word on casualties as firefighters battled the flames that shot up from several windows in the middle of the building. The Federal Aviation Administration has said a "general aviation" aircraft had hit the building. A North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) spokesperson, which monitors air traffic, told CNN that it had not been tracking the aircraft. Witness Sarah Steiner told CNN that fires were burning on the ground. "It looks like the plane just flew into someone's living room there." (Watch the orange flames ravage the apartment -- 1:50) "It looks as if the aircraft didn't go into the building but fell down," she said. "It may be part of the debris burning on the ground." Steiner said that when she arrived, she saw fire shooting out of two windows on the 30th floor of the 50-story building. Video from the scene shows at least three apartments in the high-rise fully engulfed in flames.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 11:18 AM) You are still not addressing the financial lag that I was referring to (and I think Balta was as well). It isn't about taxes. The lag is in the fact that if people took out cash or lowered their payments, then the positive net cash going into the economy from those people is spread out over a few years. As the money fades and cannot be replaced like salaries can, then the economy begins to fizzle. Further added to that is the 2 to 5 year window for people falling out of ARM mortgages and selling their homes on the quick, as mentioned before. I think this is what I was trying to say; the element of time which is specifically involved in the housing market more than any other, and that's the point I was trying to make earlier. Yes, Housing starts are down. However, that does not mean that all housing construction work has ceased, nor does that mean that the housing construction market has fully declined to the point where it is in equilibrium with the amount of houses being started right now. This is of course because of the amount of time it takes to complete a house after it is started. Housing starts can decrease at one time and it will take a while for it to wind its way through the economy. I'll give an example from the last month's data: Privately Owned housing starts in August of 06 were 19.8% lower than in August of 05. However, privately owned housing completions in August were only 4.4% lower than in August of 05, because there was still a high level of housing starts until recently. The decrease in housing starts will only truly begin to hit the employment market when the housing completions start catching up with the decrease in housing starts. That 20% decrease in housing starts in August will eventually show up in the number of housing completions, and this will continue to be a drag on the work force in the housing industry over a long time, and the long-term impact has the potential to be much larger than the short term impact.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 11:00 AM) Except since the Clinton policy was never actually funded, it was really a "no carrot policy" either. In 2001, after administrative transition in the US, the policy changed again by removing the word carrot. Eh, there's a half dozen points I could make on that if I wanted to...but I just found it amusing that the straight-shooter will one day point fingers and then say the next day that we shouldn't be pointing fingers.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 10:42 AM) The counselor we use the most happens to be a Senior VP at a bank here, the other is a CPA with one of the better accounting firms. Still creepy? Are there any Congressmen involved?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 10:20 AM) Two things. #1, interest rates were low because a government program, the federal reserve bank, lowered them. #2 If housing is such a huge key to the economy, how can we have a quickly falling budget deficit which has been factored downwards at least twice now in the last year? Also if this is such a huge force, how are tax receipts growing so quickly, while the housing markets is seeing declines like it hasn't seen in a long time? You know as well as I do that the housing market is a totally different beast from the normal economy, in that the economy in many parts can react vastly more rapidly than the housing market. First, the new housing construction market is always going to be a lagging indicator of the state of the housing market, because housing units do not just pop up overnight. It takes months or years for houses that begin to be constructed to hit the market, and it's not exactly a logical move to begin construction on a house and then stop halfway just because there's a downturn in the market, so the jobs in the construction of housing created during the boom won't just all vanish this month because prices started to go down. Secondly, the housing market can take years to adapt to a downturn in housing prices, because not everyone is interested in selling their house simultaneously. Because of the fact that downturns in the housing market only effect a limited number of people at any given time, the duration of the downturn is going to play a very large role in how big of an impact is has on the economy as a whole. A short correction or a soft-landing will have a much more reduced impact than a long period of stagnation in the housing market, because it would only effect the people who were selling at that specific time. Third, at least thus far, the real estate and housing companies have been taking extraordinary steps to try to make sure they are able to sell the houses they currently have, steps which do not show up in housing prices and which have in fact served to provide some measure of economic stimulus on their own. Things like giving away timeshares and new cars to go along with the purchase of a house at a particular price. In other words, its entirely possible that the economy will weather a temporary downturn in housing prices. But the longer and more extreme it is, the more effect it will have on the economy as a whole.

So, the Washington Post has a nice summary of how the Foley scandal actually appeared. First, the person who had the emails over a year ago and was sending them to whatever press organization they could may have been a Democrat. They were first leaked to the St. Pete Times and the Miami Herald by someone on the staff of Rep. Rodney Alexander (La.), a Republican...but Rep. Alexander changed parties in 2004, so there may still be some Democrats on his staff, and Harpers magazine says that the person they received the emails from 5 months ago was a Democrat. But, for those who are saying "how did Pelosi and Reid plan this so that it was an October Surprise" or whatever garbage that was, this same person seems to have successively tried to leak the emails to the Miami Herald, the St. Petersberg Times, Harpers Magazine, and maybe was the same source as for CREW and the couple of bloggers who did see them, without having any luck in getting someone to pay attention. Then, it seems that several other sources, these who are unquestionably Republicans, also got their hands on the emails and were very disturbed by them. It was these folks who leaked the emails to ABC, and who were finally able to get them published. So, there was at least a couple Democrats involved in leaking the emails originally, but they were attempting to leak the emails for literally a full year before someone, in ABC, finally decided they were worth publishing. But ABC did not publish those emails until they received them from a second source, which ABC has insisted was a Republican. When Mr. Foley was confronted with the content of those emails, he promptly resigned. The next day, a couple of pages, one a Democrat and one a Republican, sent the really nasty stuff to ABC, which they published as well. There is no possible way anyone could view this as a Democratic setup, even on just the timing. There were people trying to leak these documents to the Press for over a year, but the Press felt they couldn't confirm them so they couldn't publish them. When ABC got them from a source they decided to trust, perhaps because that source was a Republican, they published them, at which point Foley immediately resigned.

McCain, 10/11/06, NBC Today I think this is the wrong time for us to be engaging in finger pointing when in this crucial time, we need the world and Americans united in going to the United Nations to bring about sanctions against North Korea. McCain, 10/10/06, press conference: We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another. Now we’re facing the consequences of the failed Clinton administration policies. McCain, 10/10/06, Hannity & Colmes: The fact is that it is a failure of the Clinton administration policies that I was heavily involved in at the time that have caused us to be in the situation we’re in today.

QUOTE(AbeFroman @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 09:54 AM) I think we can all agree that lending practices in the past 10 years have greatly loosened. 25 years ago, you couldn't get a mortgage unless you could put 20% down. Today, its a much different story. I agree that there is nothing illegal about them in safe hands. However, all of these idiots who aren't smart about everything are going to have a massive affect on the national economy. Its no just a microeconomic problem.... These loans, and the subsequent problems that follow have a Macroeconomic affect. GDP will fall, responsible home buyers will suffer if they sell now because of the bubble that has built up in real estate values. Its just simple economics. It affects everyone. Beyond just the housing value drops, something like 12% of the U.S. economy in recent years was fueled through the housing industry; construction of new homes, upgrades of them funded through low-interest rate home equity loans, and so on. As the manufacturing sector has died and the service sector has avoided raising pay rates, a very large portion of the growth in wages and jobs has come thanks to the housing boom. Cut that off, and it hurts the economy even more.

Uribe's 2004 month-by-month splits are really remarkable: By Day/Month AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB HBP SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS April 61 10 24 3 0 3 10 4 1 10 2 1 .393 .439 .590 1.029 May 109 21 33 6 3 4 6 10 0 16 5 1 .303 .361 .523 .884 June 108 17 24 10 1 4 19 8 0 26 0 2 .222 .276 .444 .720 July 57 5 7 0 0 2 5 4 1 13 0 3 .123 .190 .228 .418 August 76 12 22 3 2 5 17 2 1 15 1 2 .289 .305 .579 .884 September 85 17 30 9 0 5 17 3 0 14 1 2 .353 .371 .635 1.006 October 6 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 .333 .429 .333 .762 He had 2 months that were outstanding, mixed in with a lot of inconsistency. Compare that with Crede's 2006 splits: April 80 15 25 7 0 4 16 5 2 4 0 0 .313 .360 .550 .910 May 102 9 30 4 0 4 17 6 0 11 0 0 .294 .324 .451 .775 June 88 21 25 5 0 6 21 3 1 11 0 1 .284 .312 .545 .857 July 89 11 25 4 0 8 17 2 3 11 0 0 .281 .316 .596 .911 August 107 15 35 9 0 6 16 4 0 12 0 1 .327 .351 .579 .931 September 78 5 14 2 0 2 7 8 1 9 0 0 .179 .264 .282 .546 Crede didn't have the absolute peak months that Uribe had, but he was far more consistent until his back flared up in September.

Last night during the ALCS Game, in about the middle of the game: The 3 in the booth are talking about Jim Leyland and how important a manager can be to winning. How he set a winning attitude, etc. Brennaman tosses out something to the effect of "I can think of a manager who won a world series with the Cincinnati Reds who was pretty good as well" Lou Pinella: "Yeah, we were pretty good. I like winning" Steve Lyons immediately tosses out: "Then why did you take that Tampa Bay job!?" A few seconds of really, really awkward silence follows, before Thom tries to cover for Pinella by saying the management promised to build more and so on.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 02:36 PM) What about Governator Arnold? Why isnt he dead? Magic Johnson contracted HIV, but is not yet dead. Therefore, the HIV Virus can not kill anyone.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 09:18 PM) Gotcha. Still, 12 mill seems like an awful lot for Hunter considering the Twins are still going to have payroll restrictions even if they raise payroll a bit. Don't forget the new stadium they finally managed to talk the state out of. Now's not the time they want to appear too cheap, especially if there are a few fans who still like Hunter (Jim would know that better than me).

So why exactly are we putting ARod at 3rd base now?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 04:08 PM) So it's hang the bastard (read: he MUST resign) now, but 20 years ago, it wasn't. Hypocrites. Well, I was under 5 20 years ago, but here's the question; did that guy you're talking about have any specific leadership positions within the party that he maintained?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 01:05 PM) Another random thought here.... if it isn't OK to group the radical Islamists as represently all Islam, why is it OK to paint all repubs are being a part of this scandal? Guys like Hastert I understand, but unless Dems are calling the entire party coverup artists and child molesters, this should be affecting anyone except the few people who have been named, right? For the same reason you asked about the other guy...because Hastert (and Boehner and Reynolds) actually has a leadership position within the party, he only retains that position as long as he has the support of a majority of those within the Congress. If he were to be removed from his leadership position, a-la Trent Lott, it would be a sign of disapproval on the part of his constituents in his party who vote for him for that position. His retaining that position is either tacit approval of his actions or a belief that his actions are not serious enough for his removal from that position. A better metaphor would be to discuss a state where the radical islamist party has won an election and therefore has shown that it has the support of a majority of the people, i.e. Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

Daisuke Matsuzaka has permission to start looking for employment with MLB.

The Twins have picked up Torii Hunter's $12 million option for 2007.

I wasn't talking about Social Security. Compared to Medicare, Social Security is perfectly fine. We only have a Social Security problem in the sense that we have a general fund problem - because we're running a deficit right now, we're not saving up money like we are supposed to in order to deal with that program. Medicare on the other hand is an absolute disaster and shows no signs of getting better without serious and massive health care reform.

Ok, I see your point on the things that would help better and agree with you (although, would this president actually use a line-item veto?) that those would work better. I am still going to argue though that the deficit right now is a major concern, not as much because of the size of it now, but because of the size of it in the future. In my view, we're sitting there staring at a bill which is guaranteed to come up in a few years to pay for the baby-boom retirement. There's simply no way around it...we aren't going to be able to suddenly deny them health care after taxing them for Medicare for all those years. That bill is going to come whether we like it or not. So here's the metaphor...you've just bought something, say a car, that you don't have to pay for until the start of 2008. Do you a.) save up money in 2007 to make those payments easier, or b.) pretend you don't have that bill coming up, and keep spending and spending and spending in 2007?