Balta1701

So, it usually does take a while for the USGS to give final intensity numbers on seismic events, but at least based on the preliminary numbers, some people are starting to conclude that this test was actuallya dud. (It is really, really hard to build a 1 kiloton nuclear device. A plutonium bomb should produce about a 20 kiloton blast at minimum...because you need to have enough plutonium there to achieve critical mass and a fission chain.)

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 11:05 AM) I wouldn't mind seeing him get some starts this spring. You never know... If we're going to pencil him into the bullpen, he should stay in the bullpen. Don't dick around in the spring...if we're following the BMac path with him, then start him off in the bullpen, work him out of the bullpen, and give him enough innings out of the bullpen. If we're going to trade away 2 starters and pencil him in for a role in the rotation, that's different. If someone gets hurt, we have another backup option at AAA already in Broadway who we can call up next year if we wind up needing him. If we start him in the bullpen, he pencils in as the 7th starter, not the 6th.

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 10:48 AM) knuckleballers out of the pen scare me -- too many walks and if that floater don't drop...see ya I would have said the exact same thing before we saw Haeger succeed quite well out of the bullpen in September.

QUOTE(Jeckle2000 @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 10:46 AM) Why do you have Thome hitting cleanup... HE'S NOT A CLEANUP HITTER! Or did his pathetic 2nd half not drill that home enough... In the #4 hole, Jim Thome's career #'s: G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG Batting #4 - 1853 379 527 95 9 161 411 409 556 2 3 .284 .414 .606 In 2006, in the 4 hole: Batting #4 - 85 14 22 4 0 6 18 26 27 0 0 .259 .430 .518 That's still an OPS of .948 out of the 4 hole in only 85 at bats.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 10:07 AM) After the failed experiments in the pen this year, there is no way Tracey and Haeger start the year there. One of the two is definitely possible, but not both of them. Haeger brings a whole new dimension to the pen compared to Tracey. After the way he pitched out of the pen to finish the year, I think it's going to be pretty darn hard for Haeger to not land himself one of those bullpen spots.

QUOTE(knightni @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 09:44 AM) I feel bad for Brady Quinn because he's going to the Raiders. Hey, there are still what, 4 teams without a win? Tampa Bay might have a need for him too.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 05:13 AM) There's just something about him, on the sidelines or on the field, that screams out to me that he's going to be a hell of a QB in the future. After yesterday's game, saying Rivers looks like a good QB is like saying after yesterday that the Bears look good.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 09:05 AM) I'm always so shocked that To Kill a Mockingbird is on those lists. I think that's just one of the best American novels I've read. It promotes the damnable idea that we shouldn't lynch blacks for being black. Of course it should be burnt. We have to protect the children!

So, here's my overall thinking on any ARod deal. The 1 thing no team in the AL can afford to do if they acquire ARod is make the Yankees a better team. If the Yankees want to trade ARod, the deal has to hurt the Yankees on paper, because they're not dealing him for his numbers, they're dealing him for not coming through in the playoffs. If you send both a starting pitcher and Crede and maybe a AAA player to the Yankees for ARod, you're making the Yankees a better team. By a lot. If they want to trade him, they have to trade him at a loss to themselves, exactly as Texas did, in the hopes that they'll get better by not having to deal with him or his contract. In other words, they want to deal him...we can't give them Crede + Garcia + more. It's just too much...that sort of deal would solve some of our problems, but it would also make the Yankees nearly unstoppable.

Charlier Haeger has already earned himself at least a bullpen spot next year, if not a starting spot depending on what deals KW makes. I wouldn't be totally surprised if Tracey wound up in the big leagues also, if he has a good spring training. I could very easily see KW signing a bunch of righties (maybe including Hermanson) to minor league deals this offseason, tossing them into ST, and seeing who comes out on top, as he did with the lefties last year. Or he could also wind up as the top backup/bullpen guy if we decide to carry 12 pitchers, which is always a possibility. I do think we need to find 1 reliable, moderately experienced righty setup man. Otherwise, we'll be down to Haeger and the lefties coming out of the bullpen any day that MMac can't go. I also have a sneaking suspicion that we may see Cotts gone and Logan starting the year with the big league squad next year, but that's another matter. QUOTE(WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 08:27 AM) I'd like to get get a good setup guy. I would like to have somebody that I can trust in case Bobby goes down or is ineffective. I don't know about Bobby's long term value. Mike MacDougal and Matt Thornton say hi. QUOTE(redandwhite @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 08:42 AM) I really want the White Sox to go after J.C. Romero to be a lefty specialist.. Man, those are some of the most ridiculous lefty/right splits I've ever seen. V. Lefties: .202 .298 .303 .601 V. Righties .382 .455 .578 1.033 On a different team, as a pure Loogy, that'd be tolerable...but with Ozzie, you just know he wouldn't be used to face only lefties, he'd be given full innings, and he'd wind up being lit up. We've seen for 3 years how Ozzie uses pitchers...we may as well accept that and find pitchers that work well with him.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 08:50 AM) With the complete lack of hard currency they have, and the lack of a dependable delivery system, it wa sa big deal for them to SHOW they could do it. We have known for a long time they have the materials and ability, now its a done deal. Slight but important edit; they don't have a reliable delivery system to hit the U.S. They have repeatedly shot missiles over Japan IIRC.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 05:24 AM) And what more would you have liked Kolb to have done? You seem to be implying that 'they knew and did nothing'. Conmsidering that at that point nothing illegal had been known to be done, there wasn't too much Kolb could have done. Maybe he yelled at him, maybe he simply admonished him to be more carefull. However, since he told the (former) page to go tell all, my guess is that he wasn't nice to Foley. But again, what would you have wanted Kolb to do? Run to the papers? 'Out' him to the papers? At some point, Foley is an adult responsible for his own actions. For someone who hates it when conservatives on here paint with a broad brush, you seem to be using a spray gun trying to get all Republicans here. The same thing Hastert should have done. Take it to the whole committee overseeing the Congressional Page program. Ask them to look into things. Or at least have someone take a few steps to make sure that it didn't go any farther than where it was. Just because taking it public and screaming "Pedophile!" from rooftops wasn't a good option doesn't mean there weren't other things that could have been done behind the scenes to make sure worse things hadn't happened and didn't happen afterwards.

All books that do not worship the one true messiah should be burned.

QUOTE(AbeFroman @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 08:26 AM) Can someone the significance of a nuclear test? We've known for at least two years now that North Korea has at least one nuke. So what difference does it make if they test it? I'm sure we'll see all kinds of diplomatic responses now... but what good does waiting until after they test it do? Remember the Type-o-Dong 2? The missle that could hit the U.S. mainland but fizzled out over the summer? Now we know that those things work. And so does everyone else, including potential buyers.

USGS web site. A magnitude 4 event is supposedly equivalent to a blast of slightly over 1 kiloton in size.

So, this is one case where the topic title says it all. AP Link. CNN Link. The BBC ran with unconfirmed reports of a seismic event of roughly a magnitude of 3.5 occuring in the North of the country. Because bomb explosions produce a different sort of seismic signature from a normal earthquake, it will be possible at some point to confirm whether or not this report is true and whether or not it was an explosion. This follows several days of rumors and threats from the North suggesting they were on the verge of conducting a test.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 02:37 PM) Us bears fans PWNing Wite and another poster's Bills (I forgot who it is).. priceless. Attention: Demarcus Ware is a beast. That is all. That'd probably be me as the other poster, but I don't really mind, all I was hoping to see from the Bills this season was a sign that they were actually on the way up rather than the way down, and we've already seen that. The only way the Bills had a shot was if the Bears didn't take them seriously...right now the Bears are way better than the Bills. The Bills have a shot to be real good in a year or two.

QUOTE(AirScott @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 01:09 PM) uuuhh...I don't think I ever implied I was "throwing up" at the idea of A-Rod for that price...nope, didn't happen. no implication that I was throwing up at the idea. but having A-Rod for as much as we're paying Konerko, Thome and Vazquez? that is ovulicious. We're only paying Thome abotu $6-$7 million a year. We got a truckload of cash from the Phillies.

So, seriously, Cowboys/Eagles is "The game of the year"? Yeesh.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 01:02 PM) No. I've been saying since after week 2 that I think the Bears are the team in the NFC to beat. I just thought I'd post my opinion on here. After last week...I think almost everyone who watches the NFL thought the exact same thing.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 12:57 PM) The Bears are indeed the best team in football. So doing that to the defending NFC Champs last weekend didn't convince you but doing this to a team that missed the playoffs last year did?

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 12:20 PM) I did too. And then he threw 14 INTs. I also dislike Terrence McGee. If he gets beat again...wtf do I care, he's been beaten like 4 times today and it's cost the Bills like 21 points. All I can do is hope they get on the board. Not much more. Coming into this game, the only way the Bills would have had a shot is if the Bears were sloppy all week and wound up not caring. Turns out they were ready. The Bills are on their way up. The Bears are at the top right now. This was bound to happen as long as the Bears weren't hung over. They're just a better team. Hopefully the young Bills learn something from this pounding. Sometimes you have to be pounded a few times before you can learn to pound on others.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 04:58 AM) lol... maybe it's just me, but we LIVE and BREATHE on planet earth and can't agree on the history of OUR planet. How much good could a few home videos and some snap shots do for our understanding of a planet millions of miles away? (that being said, I'm sure they'll do a lot of good...lol) Um, those who actually pay attention seem to agree about a lot of things about our planet's history. It's around 4.5 billion years old, life evolved on it very early, oxygen developed around 2.5 billion years ago, multicellular life after that, hard parts evolved around 550 ma, oceanic crust tends to subduct underneath other crust when it gets older than about 250 million years, 251 million years ago 98% of the genera on earth went extinct, 65 million years ago there was a large impact, etc, and on and on and on. Mars, we don't even know close to that much.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 10:10 AM) Obama won't run. He has said clearly, numerous times, he won't. And for a guy like him, that sort of "word" is is reputation. If he goes against it, be buries the very thing he would use as his "in". But...he's also attending steak fry's in Iowa with Tom Harkin.