Balta1701

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 17, 2006 -> 08:01 AM) Which begs this question for me: who, aside from McCain, can the GOP put up in 2008 who isn't part of this recent socially-conservative, fiscally reckless movement in that party? Who would they put on the ballot that might be considered at least somewhat moderate, or somewhat in the small government mold of the Republicans of old? Depends on who runs. Guys like Frist, Allen...they seem to have really bought into the Bush-worshipping. Gingrich, who's still sort of a dark-horse right now, might have a legit shot at it (He finished 3rd in that SCLC straw poll) and he's certainly managed to stay away from some of the Bush-worshipping. Guiliani might have a shot just based on his name, but then some other part of the party would have to outgun the socially conservative side (Rudy = not anti-gay enough and pro choice IIRC).

They got 1 letter. Hell, it was probably written by the guy in jail.

Wonder what sort of drugs he had in his system in order to do that.

11-16 here. Had a s***ty morning but nailed the evening games. I knew Syracuse was going down in that game. Shoulda picked a second 5-12 though.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 17, 2006 -> 05:01 AM) Bledsoe actually wasn't that bad for us last season. He just actually needs an offensive line to protect him. When Flozell "The Hotel" Adams went down, so did our chances. That's exactly how it was with the Bills too. The guy's got a great arm, but he's a statue with a damn slow release. You put him in front of a solid O-Line and he'll make Peerless Price look like a pro-bowler (while still taking 2-3 sacks per game). You put him in front of a weakened offensive line, he'll take 5-6 sacks per game, and never complete a darn thing no matter who his receivers are.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 05:03 PM) Kevin Walker is the greatest spring training pitcher in the history of major league baseball. He earned himself a callup later in the year baed soley on his great performance in spring training last year. Now he's pulling the same s*** with the Rangers, now he could very well make the opening day roster because that bastard knows how to strike out minor leaguers in March. He had an ERA of 5.23 last spring.

Higher up than I expected. Hope he works out well there.

UCLA up 20 now...Belmont has 2 points in the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half.

So, the American Research Group polled on this issue, and found Americans actually favoring Censure for Bush on this issue by a narrow margin within the 95% confidence Interval margin of error. Interestingly, in polling just independents, more independents support impeachment of this president than support censure.

That would be more than Kevin Walker helped us all last season.

UCLA up 12 at the half.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 04:14 PM) Shouldn't that be enough for the Cubs to just say HELL NO. I'm still trying to figure out why the Cubs would need another backup outfielder.

The Republicans today blocked in I believe nearly-unanimous votes 2 attempts by the Democrats to require and fund X-Ray and Radiation scans of 100% of the items coming in through U.S. ports. 1 of those amendments would have cost roughly $1.25 billion, $300 million of which would have gone to replacing and upgrading emergency communications equipment along the gulf coast. The other merely covered scanning & X-Raying at ports.

Bush announced his replacement for Norton today: Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. As usual, his environmental record is, shall we say, pro-business (Knight-Ridder piece hosted by Common Dreams) Interesting press release from the League of Conservation Voters.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 03:34 PM) I haven't seen many updates. Does anyone know if any bullpen arms are being looked at for the Sox besides Logan? IIRC, There's only THREE fricki'' guys in the bullpen now in Jenks, Cotts, and Politte. It's funnmy how great the offseason started, and now with this, Scotts' supposed shoulder problem, Hermy's back gone, and even a possible problem with Count (not definite, but let's put this into perspective), it's now looking to be really horrible. Brandon McCarthy is another pretty good bullpen arm right now.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 02:12 PM) That sets the stage for mate selection by females based on elaborate courtship rituals or ritualized fighting between males. Ideally the winning suitor is demonstrating some manifestation of the "fitness" of his genes, ane female choice in pairing with that individual will, again ideally, result in the passing of those fit genes to the offspring and an increased likelyhood that the females own selfish genes will benefit by being passed by these fit offspring to the next generation. You know, I'm gonna have to disagree with a significant portion of this, at least when it applies to humans. I think that in many cases, our evolution has driven us along a different path. For a lion or something like that, yeah there's a strong selective pressure for males to spread themselves as wide as possible, something interesting has happened in humanity. In most species...while the young are unable to fully fend for themselves, many of them are born much better prepared to live than humans. Think about your average cow or deer or something like that. They're able to walk within a few minutes of birth. Humans can't walk for literally years after they are born. Now, why is this? Well, the answer is in your head. Specifically, it's your brain. In most species, there's a selective pressure to remain inside the mother as long as possible, because the more developed the youth is, the better it will be able to survive on its own. But in humanity, there was a selective pressure of another sort...the drive towards larger brains due (IMO) to the development of communication. The fact is, developing a large brain is not an easy thing to do evolutionarily. It causes all sorts of problems, from the brain displacing the back molars on each side of your mouth (wisdom teeth) to the brain consuming a ton of energy. Another of these effects...the larger your brain is, the harder it is for you to get out of the birth canal. So, what's the solution to this problem? Simple. You come out earlier, and let most of your development happen outside of the mother. That's about the only way you could do it in fact, you can't just have the mother die. But that creates a problem...you have for literally years this big-brained, awkward infant which is totally unable to fend for itself. It can't walk for months, find food on its own for years, defend itself for decades. This is a problem, even for a male. If my goal is to make sure my offspring survive, I have 2 choices. I can either spread myself as widely as possible, which only works if some of my offspring are able to survive. But if I do so, and leave after the mother is pregnant/gives birth to find someone else, that's going to leave the mother, and more importantly the child, extremely exposed. The mother will have difficulty finding food because she needs to care for the infant, and she'll have even more difficulty both finding food and protecting the infant at the same time. In fact, it's quite likely that 1 of the 2 will wind up dying. Now, if I'm a male, this is a bad thing. If I knock up 10 women and then split, each of those 10 would be at a major risk of having their kid die. And the more our brains develop...the more helpless the children are that the time of birth, and the more likely they are to wind up dying. But, on the other hand, let's say the male sticks around. The male will wind up producing less total offspring, yes. Maybe I only wind up with 5. But while I only start off with 5, each of those 5 winds up well fed because I can find food while the mother cares for the infant, and they survive longer because I'm able to protect the mother and infant from predation while the mother is taking care of the child. Result? In 1 case, maybe all 5 survive, while in the other case, maybe I get lucky and 1-2 survive. Thanks to the fact that humanity's brains are so big, there is in fact a strong selective pressure towards the development of a society and compact family units. Why? Protection for these little infants who can't do anything. In fact, the wider I spread my network of males, the safer things will get for the infants. If I have 10 males and 10 females living in a community, and all of them can communicate, then the males can protect the females whether or not they're currently carrying children. So in this case, there's actually a strong selective pressure for the males to stick around. We do see some things like this in other species. There are animals who are actually good parents, which develop nests and have parents that stick around for a significant portion of the development of the children. In these cases, there's usually a strong selection like I described above...keeping the male around allows for a much higher survival rate of the infants. While it doesn't seem obvious when compared with the ways things like lions work, in our case, it actually is almost certainly the better way.

Marquette down 8 with under 5 to go. Make that 10, possibly 11 soon. Marquette is really running out of time.

What. A. Shot. Wow.

If all the games currently going ended right now, I would be 2-5 in my first 7 picks.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 01:58 PM) Quite the optimist. I'd like to just say that I HOPE your predictions are right, because if they are, we're highly likely to repeat! Yes, I'm being an optimist...but I love the way this team is built on paper, I think we've dramatically upgraded since last year, and I think that we've done so without sacrificing the character of that team. The only move we made in the offseason I'm uncertain about is the Vazquez move, but we'll see what Cooper can do with him. Thome, Mack, the lineup changes...all are damn good moves to me, and I think we're better from each of them. And no matter how many times people say our pitching staff was just a bunch of 1-year wonders last year...that's not what I see when I look at those guys. A few changes like bringing in AJ, letting Garland and Buehrle grow up, and having Jose finally figure out how to throw strikes...those are things which helped last year, and they're still here this year.

1. Scott Podsednik - 140 G, .305 90 SB, 22 CS 2. Juan Uribe - .278 19 HR, 85 RBI 3. Jim Thome - 150 G, .270 40 HR, 105 RBI 4. Paul Konerko - .305 45 HR, 135 RBI, top 3 in MVP voting 5. Jermaine Dye - .265 27 HR, 85 RBI, at least 1 stint on the DL 6. Tadahito Iguchi - .280 20 HR, 80 RBI 7. AJ Pierzynski - .285 15 HR, 62 RBI 8. Joe Crede - .280 25 HR, 80 RBI 9. Brian Anderson - .265 17 HR, 52 RBI Mark Buehrle: 20-8 3.08 ERA Freddy Garcia: 14-10 4.05 ERA Jon Garland: 18-10 3.40 ERA Jose Contreras: 19-6 3.00 ERA Javier Vazquez: 13-10 4.40 ERA Brandon McCarthy: 8-3 3.55 ERA. Brandon makes at least 8 starts during the year. Bobby Jenks: 45 saves 2.30 ERA, in top 3 in AL in Saves. Dustin Hermanson: 0-1 5.75 ERA, only makes a few appearances during the year. Neal Cotts: 4-0, ERA under 2 again. Cliff Politte: 4-3, ERA 3.05 ERA. Sox break through and win 100 games or more, carried by the combination of quality starting pitching and an offense that finds itself in the top 5 in the AL. Konerko avoids the sluggish start of last year, listens to Thome, looks to drive the ball for the whole season, and has an absolute monster year. Mark Buehrle finally wins 20, and has one hell of a challenge for the Cy Young award from Jose Contreras and Santana. (A pitcher has won 20 games for the first time in like every year since the 80's. This is MB's year. He'd have been there last year had his mechanics not gone off for a month.) Javier Vazquez will be Jeckle and Hyde. He'll come out and have dynamite games, but then he'll have games where he can't keep anything in the park. Pitching in the Cell will hurt him as he gives up a lot of fly balls. Joe Crede will finally put the slumps to a rest, as his back will force him to keep his shoulders closed while swinging, much like last year. The Sox will continue to be a damn good team in 1 run games, which will help Bobby Jenks pile up the saves. Brian Anderson will show promise, and will be somewhere in the top 5 of the ROY voting, depending on how the other guys (Liriano, that Japanese catcher in Seattle, a couple of the Angels young guys) do. He will have a lower average than ARow, but hit more home runs. AJ's Average will go up by quite a bit from last year. Just as Garland won 12 games in a row for 3 years, he'll start winning 18 games each year. Rob Machowiak will get at least 350 at bats. Jim Thome plays like a man on a mission down the stretch. He winds up wearing a nice shiny ring next year. The White Sox rework his contract next offseason reducing his salary slightly in 2007 and 2008, but giving him a guaranteed 2009 year. Non-Sox prediction: Frank Thomas will playing games for the A's in April. By September, the A's will wish they hadn't started playing Frank Thomas in April.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 06:49 AM) I'm kind of nervous to see how this will play out. A lot of people are picking against them; I hope they can use that as motivation to go out and keep the momentum going from the past couple weeks. San Diego State's a good team, and I want to see Killingsworth expose their weak inside defense and Wilmont to come out angry after Saturday. If we can get the win tonight, there's a good chance we can prolong the Davis exit for a few more games. IU's been Jeckle and Hyde basically since I first started going there, probably even before that. They'll get out there and show up and sometimes even beat a team that they shouldnt' beat, then they'll get hot and win a few of those, then they'll lose focus and get embarassed by someone. We've been playing well lately, that's at least a good sign, and they've made their way through a damn tough Big Ten conference this year....I put us in the Sweet 16.

So it seems a dunk in the Fla/S. Alabama game literally screwed up the height of the backboard.

QUOTE(The Bones @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 12:26 PM) This Winthrop-Tennessee game is pretty entertaining so far. 18-17 Winthrop just less than 11 minutes left in the 1st half. Man, I had Tennessee going out early, but not this early.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 16, 2006 -> 12:20 PM) Nevada=underrated. They're also a 5 seed, which means they have a target on their backs. Seriously, this year was damn hard to pick the 5-12 upset. Oh great...the yearly gigantic surge of Coach K commercials has begun. Note to self, don't buy a Chevy.