Balta1701

It's very nice to get a 3rd Angels pitcher in there, and hopefully a 4th before the end of the game. Wear that bullpen down some today.

"The dangerous Scott Podsednik". Anaheim's announcers are funny.

Wow, the "Personal Savings rate", the rate of money being put into savings by people, was -.2% in the 4th quarter of 05, meaning that people were spending more than they were saving. Last quarter it was -.5%. In other Words, Americans spent $50 billion more in the first quarter than they saved, through some combination of credit and eating into old savings. Those are not good numbers to run. The GDP number is good, but wages aren't growing at all with the growth, and they're even being outpaced by inflation, to the point that Americans are following the advice of their government and financing expansion on credit cards. This is not a situation that I think we can sustain for long, not with all the buildup of credit already financing this expansion. There either has to start being some real wage growth, or the consumer is just going to have to back off. Especially with that bankruptcy bill thrown in there.

AJ Pierzynski Walks. Joe Crede Strikes out. Why do I get the feeling Anderson's going to get like 4 hits this inning?

QUOTE(T R U @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 08:49 PM) They also had a studly OLine.. as soon as they fix the Texans line youll see just how good DD is He has rushed for over 1,000 yards every year behind that crap line It's also worth noting I think that the Texans still really haven't made any major improvements to that line IMO. Maybe they'll try in the later rounds, but eh...

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 09:07 PM) He was pitching his best baseball of the year in the middle innings. The Angels took very good swings off of him last inning....basically because they adjusted to the pitches. He better be out now though. Somehow pitching the whole 2nd half of the game out of the stretch actually worked for him. Creative, but you gotta do what you gotta do. AJ Walks. Don't say that too often. Make em pay Joe.

QUOTE(chitownsportsfan @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 09:06 PM) How the hell is FG even in this ballgame? He's walked a freaking tightrope all night. And yet he's looking at a quality start. Who knew?

The thing that's bothering me, if I were a Texans fan, I'd be sitting here driving myself insane wondering why the Hell they didn't try to trade down? How much do you think other teams would have given up to get their hands on Bush? Go talk to the Jets, you could have gotten the #3 pick this year, and a couple of future #1's. Or the Packers. Get yourself AJ Hawk & a bunch of other picks. You probably could have found someone to do a Herschel Walker type mortgage to get their hands on Bush. I understand the principle behind that move, but if there's such a huge consensus #1 pick like Reggie Bush, and you decide you're not going to take him, why not get something else as a bonus for passing on him? Hell I bet if nothing else the Saints would have given up something in exchange for swapping picks. And it would have saved the Texans even more money on the contract.

Dye sure looks ok to me.

Did Dye wind up on the ground?

So yeah, that best be the last batter Garcia faces.

Jermaine Dye f***ing MURDERS the Halos that inning.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 09:00 PM) Mac up. Man, that was one incredibly f***ing lucky no-score there. Yowza. Is Thornton unable to pitch tonight still?

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 08:58 PM) Salmon's had some good swings tonight. He looks better at the plate than he has in years. He's barely played in years.

Well that bullpen needs some work anyway. Time to get someone up Ozzie. Freddy should not have the opportunity to give up more than 4 runs.

I had a feeling about this earlier in the week. He may very well help the Texans more than Bush would have, and he'll almost certainly be cheaper. New Orleans is going to get one hell of an arbor day president (That's today) if this report is true.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has released a new estimate for the cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars: $811 billion. 71% of that would be for Iraq. That also assumes troop reductions of about 70% in both theaters by 2010.

So you're saying no one will ever ask if we traded for Carlos Lee again?

Link

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 04:16 PM) Go to France and sing the anthem in English and see what response you get. Why is there so much f***ing sympathy for WILLING law breakers? I don't get it. Remember, I said it's not about coming here, it's about being LEGAL. The real key difference here is in whether or not the laws are just. In this case, the U.S. immigration laws clearly are not. There are seemingly 10+ million positions that were available in this country for workers which our immigration system was unable to fill. You create a legit system for allowing workers into this country to fill those jobs, such that the demand for illegals (aside from in slave labor) actually does go down, and you don't have this problem, and I have vastly less sympathy for these folks. These folks are here because of our laws. We have this problem because of stupid, poorly designed laws that were probably originally written by a bunch of racists. Fix that problem and then you can watch my sympathy dry up.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 02:29 PM) also, does Russia have stealth fighers for sale? if not, we should be able to dominate air combat. Again, the question is not us as much as it is Israel. The U.S. can eliminate anything the Iranians have using stealth, just need enough time to do so. The Israelis could however see this as a major threat...it could remove their ability to pull another Osirak. Of course, the U.S. isn't exactly overflowing with Stealth Fighters either...I don't think we have a full squadron equipped with them even now.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 02:29 PM) not sure about that their tanks and other assault vehicles were woefully outmatched, it had little to do with experience IMO. Ok, you're right on that one, the Iraqi ground army didn't exactly have armor that could match up against an Abrams. But at least their air defense network, that was modern, it just was staffed with people who were terribly trained, and the U.S. cut it apart. It wasn't the technology that failed them in the air.

QUOTE(AbeFroman @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 02:22 PM) If these things are using russian technology, they are doing us a favor. Back in 91 during the first gulf war, I remember a number of retired russian generals warning us that the Iraqi Army had much of the finest Russian technology around. In short, the Iraqi's were predicted to give us a pretty hard time in 1991.... ... somehow, things didn't turn out that way. If we had gone to war with Russia in the 70's or 80's, barring any nuclear deployment, we would have destroyed them. The more money Iran spends on Russian technology, the less they will have for other nefarious purposes. Let them waste it. Just because it is Russian technology doesn't mean it's automatically bad. The biggest problem with the Iraqis was not the technology, it was the training. They simply didn't know how to use most of the things, since most of the people were conscripts forced into the army and taught never to do anything unless they were ordered from above. And furthermore, these things are light years beyond any of the technology we faced in Iraq, except maybe the Mig 29's, and those were the places where the intensive U.S. fighter training really paid off. In the 73 Yom Kippur war, Israel fought using western technology, and their air force was absolutely battered by Russian SAM's. Russian SAM's tore U.S. planes apart in 'Nam too. The only weapons in the world that can defeat these sorts of devices on a regular basis are stealth weapons. That is all.

QUOTE(Felix @ Apr 28, 2006 -> 02:00 PM) Does Thome not get votes for not being a 1B, or what? Maybe I'm just blind, and am the only one who doesn't see him. Cause you know, people turn on the All Star game to see pitchers hitting.

Shell has been working on the "In situ conversion" method you cite for 2 decades thus far. It's been a lot of talk, but it's certainly not workable on a wide scale at least yet. It has not even gone through large scale testing to see how the equipment will hold up. At this point, the estimates for profitability of oil shale say that the price must consistently stay above $70-$95 a barrel (Rand corp, 2005). If Shell gets that to work, then wonderful. But thus far it's still totally unproven in terms of applicability on a large scale.