Balta1701

There are enough "Rush haters" amongst the Rock & Roll hall of fame people that it will probably be a long time before they get in, if ever. And I'm not totally sure that's a bad thing.

QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 02:49 PM) Say, thanks for digging this up while I was away. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Look at that. According to those gaudy numbers, Thome has pretty much been scalding the ball off of everyone. .322 first half, .321 second half? My gosh he is amazing. But lets look a bit further, in the power numbers, the ones that should be consistently HIGH, seeing that hes our/was our #3 hitter. April 10 HR, May 10 HR's while hitting pretty "good" about .300. Well June came and he dropped badly, hitting 5 homers, and his average at .260. Thats ok I guess for all the Thome apologists out there, but you cant have a .260 hitter in the #3 hole, while another guy is hitting .300 plus. In July, he gets his homers up a bit to 8 HR's, and his RBI's to 17. August wasnt good at all again, he dipped to 3 homers, and only 10 RBI. Boy did we need him in August too. There are only a couple games left in the season, and Thome has 6 homers this month, and 15 RBI. According to ESPN, Thome hit .298 before the break, and .279 after the break. Before the Break, he had 30 homers and 77 rbi. For sure on MVP pace. After the Break, he had only 12 homers and 30 rbi. Take from that what you will. Man, those are some prime examples of cherry picking data and taking way too small of sample sizes with no context. Yes, Jim's RBI are down in the 2nd half, and especially in August. Know why? Because Scott Podsednik put up a .284 OBP in August, so Jim almost never had RBI chances. Yes, his HR were down that month, but he also hit 9 doubles, and hit .329. Yes, Jim's home runs are down in the 2nd half. But he also has more doubles in the 2nd half than in the first half in 100 fewer at bats. Yes his RBI are down, but how much of that is Scott Podsednik's terrible 2nd half? His OBP is higher in the 2nd half than in the first, so he's walking more and striking out less. If you want to cherry pick data...Jermaine Dye only hit .265 in May, and only had 16 RBI that month. Man, he must have been hurting us badly then right? Of course, I neglected to mention the 8 home runs or the 1.035 OPS there. Or the .250 Average and 12 RBI for JD in September? When you take a full sample set, like a player's career, and start breaking it down by seasons, you'll find some that are good and some that are bad compared to the player's average. When you break it down even more, into months and weeks, you get into sample sizes that are barely statistically significant. You're going to find months when Jim hits less home runs because a few more bounced off the wall and wound up as doubles. Or because fewer people pitched to him. Just as you will with every hitter.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 01:33 PM) The biggest problem with Chicago;s overall rapid transit system is much of the infrastructure is aging quickly and isn't able to be fully utilized because it is literally crumbling. So...can someone explain to me how spending all the money on security improvements, new stadia, police overtime, and so forth is worth the extra billions it would cost beyond simply spending the money to improve the transit system?

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 01:13 PM) McD's may offer breakfast all day long soon. That'd be pimp, as that's the only thing I like there. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,214758,00.html YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

Do we have to keep going back and forth on this?

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 09:25 AM) God I f***ing hate strep throat! Before I had that...I never got a sore throat. Since the first time I had it...every time I get even the slightest cold, my throat gets sore as all Hell. The first time I had it was also the day of the Northridge earthquake.

Judge throws Pennsylvania's Green party nominee off the ballot after too many of his signatures were found to be faked.

Enough said.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 12:49 AM) At one point is the pitcher accountable? Think about the performance of guys like Kip Wells, Jon Garland, and to some extent Mark Buehrle under Jerry Manuel, and you'll have a good answer to that question.

QUOTE(samclemens @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 08:51 AM) true, kerry and those guys have been duking it out ever since kerry ratted (no other word for it) on his fellow soldiers in 'nam. they have always hated him, and will do anything to destroy him, because, lets face it, his ratting was a big contributor to the animosity towards vets when they came home. it never mattered to me whether or not kerry was telling the truth. he crossed the line when he ratted his fellow soldiers out for political clout and fame. in a way, he kind of reaped what he sowed. maybe it wouldnt have been such a monumental issue if he hadnt brought up his service in 'nam every other word he spoke during his campaign. on a side note, had anyone ever seen the debate that occurred in the early '70s between john kerry and the head of the vietnam vet association (cant remember his name)? its a fascinating debate, im sure theres a link for it somewhere on the net but i dont have time to find it. can anyone help with that? It was Kerry Vs. John O'Neil, another Swift Boat captain, who just happened to be paid by the Nixon Admin. to go out and Smear Kerry at all costs, who also just happened to be the head of the Swift Boat Vets for truth. I think this link should work for you.

QUOTE(Yoda @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 07:15 PM) Look at the Marlins! They play in the NL East. A division dominated by the Braves till this season. Yet they have won 2 World Series titles since they came to being back in the early 90’s. $$$ is not always the solution and IMO the Florida Marlins are a good example of that. The Marlins don't have 2 teams spending $350 million between them sitting ahead of them. And even given how good the Marlins' scouting department is...you can also note how the highest payroll team in each league was the first to clinch a playoff spot.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 25, 2006 -> 05:57 AM) The whole Swift Boat thing left me with a very tainted view of these. When even Veterans don't have a problem ripping on the awards, I guess John Q. Public shouldn't have that great of a view. Personally, I think that if you let the Swift Boat liars convince you of anything other than the fact that they were willing to do anything and say anything to keep Mr. Kerry from getting into office, you're learning the wrong message from them. Kerry could have won 7 Congressional Medals of Honor and they'd have said that that medal had no meaning. He could have been nothing but a torso and they'd have said his wounds were faked.

PETA does more damage to the cause of animal rights than any other organization in the country.

QUOTE(GoRowand33 @ Sep 23, 2006 -> 11:21 PM) I feel like the olympics have failed to bring in money like it should have to other cities The last Olympic games which was actually able to turn a profit for the city hosting it, IIRC, was the 1984 games in Los Angeles, which was run with significant chunks of private money funding almost everything. Officially, for example, the city of Atlanta made a profit of about $10 million on the 96 games...but they spent about $1 billion on infrastructure improvements. And that's before the 9/11 attacks and the huge increases in the security budgets that had to come afterwards...new costs which have gotten to the point where it's nearly impossible for a small country, like Greece, to afford to pay for it.

So, back in April, the government completed a "National Intelligence Estimate" which it began in 2004 looking at the status of global terrorism. This estimate is a summation of reports from 16 different intelligence gathering agencies. Basically it's the opinion of the entire U.S. government's information gathering apparatus. According to the NYT, which has about a dozen sources on the contents of this document, here is what it says.

Bulls got Ben Wallace!

Trevor Hoffman is now the all time saves leader.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 09:17 PM) I would say move him if we can get anything decent for him. His stuff isnt that impressive anyway, and now he isnt fooling anyone. No matter how bad this year has been, I would be very surprised if we couldnt' get something useful for Cotts...a lefty reliever who is still cheap and has put up an ERA of 2 in a season? Man, I can think of 30 teams that could use that.

QUOTE(samclemens @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 04:48 PM) you are misunderstanding the point i was making. im not blaming clinton for the '93 WTC bombing, im saying that, the embassy bombings in africa and the USS Cole were all obvious warnings, which he did zippo about.See what I mean? It's all Clinton's fault for not responding for the Cole attack. Yet, somehow, it's forgotten that the Bush Administration also failed to respond for to the Cole bombing. And it is also forgotten that Clinton did attempt a response to the embassy bombings. And, once again, the 9/11 commission examined the available evidence about the purported offer by Sudan, and found none of it credible. In hindsight, the Clinton Administration was clearly at fault for not taking Bin Laden's group seriuosly enough. They were at fault for not addressing obvious security issues, such as at the airports, and they were at fault for not pushing harder on every front. But all we hear is "clinton was horribly weak on terrorism!" and "Clinton did zippo about those obvious warnings". Because that's all that matters...how much blame can be put on Clinton. QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 08:17 PM) Tex, since it didn't happen, you can't really sayfor sure.However, in his one attempt, the Republican LEADERSHIP praised his efforts.Sure, there are always some on each side that differ, but the bulk praised his efforts. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/...8attack-us.html And yes, there were his detractors, but who is this guy anyway? Was Bill afraid of the opinion of Dan Coats? Right wing CNS News article from 98. Operation Rommel in 98 certainly seems to have faced significant "Wag the Dog" type criticism, from the top Republicans in Congress. According to the Media Research Center, polls also showed that 30% of Americans believed the "Wag the Dog" scenario after Clinton's attacks on Afghanistan and the Sudan. Arlen Specter was also supposedly on the "Wag the Dog" list about that attack as well.

QUOTE(samclemens @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 01:42 PM) ...so do you have any comment on what was actually said in the interview? Yes. There's plenty I could say. But at some point, I'd just wind up banging my head against a wall here. You guys and the rest of the Fox News crowd want to blame Clinton 100%, and ignore everything that doesn't fit that case. I could go point by point here, but I'm heading out in about 5 minutes. There's an ungodly amount of blame for 9/11, so much so that no one in their right mind really cares exactly who is actually at fault. If it's 60-40 Bush or 60-40 Clinton, I really don't care. Both sides made a ton of mistakes, and both sides should be judged based on them.

And on the other hand, any left-leaning page you go to proclaims Clinton Smacking Down Fox News over the way they've dealt with the whole 9/11 issue. Amazing how everything always fits in with however you've already decided to interpret things.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Sep 23, 2006 -> 04:49 PM) Well the Colts play the Jags tomorrow sans Vinatieri, Sanders, Stokley, and Simon. With or without any of those guys...I still think the game will 100% be decided on whether or not Peyton Manning has learned how to change up his game plans to deal with a pass rush. Every team that has beaten him the last few years has gotten huge amounts of pressure on him up front. Patriots, Chargers, Steelers, all did the same thing. Don't let Manning have time to take 7 step drops and pick you apart. Eventually, usually around the late 3rd quarter, Manning realizes he's losing and switches for a drive or two to a short, 3 step drop passing game along with some draw plays, and winds up scoring a touchdown, but it's usually not enough. Until he learns that sometimes he can't do exactly the same thing every game...it won't matter if he has all 4 of those guys, or none of them, etc.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'll trade another election defeat happily for Bin Laden and Zawahiri's heads.

QUOTE(beautox @ Sep 22, 2006 -> 10:32 AM) Agreed if we can't extend him move him, no team will be getting draft picks for FAs anymore. Supposedly many things like that get tossed around every year in the negotiations for new CBA's. Hopefully that one won't wind up being in the final agreement.