Balta1701

The more time goes on, the more I like having Thome - Konerko - Dye, for a couple reasons. 1. It spreads out the lefties more - you put Thome at the end and he's 3 guys behind Pods, and right next to AJ. 2. It massively increases PK's chances for RBI's through Thome drawing walks. 3. It gives our best 2 hitters the best protection we can offer (If Thome or Konerko bats 5th, we better hope Crede, Iguchi, or AJ turn into 25+ home run guys, or they can just pitch around our 5th place hitter). 4. Thome and Konerko are bigger threats than Dye, and the closer they are to the front of the order, the more times they'll hit this season.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 09:20 AM) 2 out of 3 blue states and the other borderline. Sounds like a plan to me. Well, the destruction of New Orleans has almost certainly turned Louisiana into a hard red state, so congrats.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 09:18 AM) So, why wasn't it a big deal then? Why didn't the media jump on on that with both feet like they are now? Where was liberal voice when Clinton was trashing the Constitution? Based on the testimony of George Tenet before Congress, Echelon was a fundamentally different animal than what George W. Bush's program entails. Specifically, for the Echelon program...the FISA Law was actually followed. For every person who's information was gathered, a FISA warrant was obtained. Link.

Don't you mean Dennis Kucinich? Gary Kucinich was Dennis's brother, and as far as Google is telling me, he never ran for anything beyond Cleveland Mayor. I could be wrong though.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 08:18 AM) Which is exactly my point. It would be REALLY expensive, as it should be. No more making the rest of the country pay for someone's stupid choice to live in a sub-sea level flood plain. Time to abandon California, New York, and Florida.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 08:14 AM) That's weird, why did the CIA just call and ask me for everyones IP adresses??? Oh Crap. Why do I get the feeling I should start all my emails and phone calls with the phrase "F*ck the NSA"?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 05:40 AM) I was looking at some murder stats and it seems plus or minus 18,000 people are murdered each year in America. How about publishing that story like they do the Iraq totals? That works out to about 50 per day. Population of The United States: ~300,000,000 Population of Iraq: ~ (slightly less than) 30,000,000 According to Bush, approximate number killed in Iraq due to the war: 30,000 in 2.5 years. That of course excludes all of the other murder rates, the individual deaths/killings unrelated to the bombings and war which simply aren't reported, things like killings during robberies or kidnappings for ransom.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 08:11 AM) So, if you take a subway somewhere and you don't have a weapon in your bag, nothing happens to you and you're allowed to go on your way. For the sake of argument, let's say that there is no expectation of privacy in phone or e-mail conversations anymore. If you're not plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge via conversations with your buddy in Saudi Arabia, what exactly do you have to worry about? Just curious. The reason you have to worry about this sort of surveillance, specifically warrantless surveillance, is that there is no way to know how the information obtained under the surveillance will be used. If a FISA warrant is successfully obtained, like it is over 99% of the time it is requested, then that means a court somewhere judged on some unknown grounds that there was reason for there to be surveillance. In other words, it's not just surveillance for the Hell of it. The Feds are looking for specific information, and there are rules in place for what information they can obtain and use. On the other hand, without a warrant, there's no limit to the information which can be obtained through domestic spying. This is the Watergate type stuff...if the Feds don't have to get a warrant, what exactly is out there which stops them from saying that the election of John Kerry would be a threat to national security that must be stopped? If they don't have to go out there and get a warrant...actually prove to someone that there's some plausible reason why the government wants data from a specific source, then there's no limits at all to the data which can be collected. What's to stop 1 company from making a discovery, emailing schematics for it, the NSA getting their hands on those schematics, and them being secretly passed on to a person contributing to the party in power? I'd like to believe these things are impossible, but we know from the 1970's that they've already happened once when the Feds were given the power to look into anything they wanted. Information is a very powerful thing, and if you give people the ability to acquire and use information without restrictions, then you can't just assume that the people with that power will decide that they have restrictions and follow them.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 08:46 AM) No no no, we are talking about Andytheclown, not Bingo the Clown. HEEEEYYYYYY KIDS! (Oh wait, that's Binky the Clown. Dag nabit)

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jan 6, 2006 -> 08:27 AM) This should speed up the Tejada talks with the Sox since now the O's are going to need a real major league outfielder after acquiring Patterson. So you're telling me they're in the market for Borchard?

Hmmm, according to a Random blurb in the LA Times about police activity during the Rose Bowl...there's a strong suggestion that Pasadena is starting to plan for the death of the BCS and the birth of a 1 game post bowl playoff.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 10:10 PM) Missed FG's does not mean defensive battle all the time. In fact, in that game it meant horrible kickers. I agree it always seems much more entertaining to have offenses and defenses fighting to determine the end of the game than inaccurate field goal kickers. 1 miss, maybe even 2 misses are tolerable, but eventually you just start hanging your head. Especially in college OT, when they practically start you off in FG range, and you can literally go 3 and out and still kick.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 05:11 PM) Its weird because I have the same feeling. I thought all this talk of Tejada playing for the Sox was mostly BS, then KW says what he says and I think there's a chance he does. Manny said on espn.com that he's staying in Boston, so if he's telling the truth, that rules out one Tejada destination. I wouldnt' say Manny staying totally rules it out, the Red Sox still need a short stop, would like to dump Clement, and have both cash and prospects that could help make things happen. It's not likely, but it's still possible.

Have there actually been any Count to Philly rumors?

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 08:43 PM) Really goes against what Manny said in an ESPN article today. ESPNdeportes

QUOTE(Felix @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 09:10 PM) Well, the team got very lucky last year, and its unlikely that they will be as lucky next year. When you win 99 out of 162 games during that long of a season, eventually it's more than luck. We got lucky when catchers interference wasn't called on AJ in Game 3 against the Angels. We got unlucky when that ball was bounced off the wall in game 3 against the Astros and was ruled a home run when it should have been a double. We got lucky when Mark Buehrle's foot popped and it turned out to not be seriuos. We got unlucky when we got a monster DH back, and he wound up back on the DL. We got lucky when this 17th round draft pick suddenly discovered that no one could hit him. We got unlucky when he stopped throwing his changeup. Etc. That team was a very well built team. Yes, it had some luck. But it had both good and bad luck. And most of the good luck was either made by the team or implied by the plan the team was built around (i.e. we were lucky people stayed healthy, but on the other hand we had 3 starting pitchers well under 30 and a total of 6 starters ready to go, we had 2 backup closers, we had a young team overall which helped them stay healthy longer, etc.)

Seems Robertson is also considering building a Christian facility on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

College football games I've seen and remember? I dunno, probably top 10. But how many games does that include? Surprisingly few.

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 07:28 PM) http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/...1649.shtml?s=et this link kind of applies to both threads I posted it in... sorry if it isn't.. upon further review..... I googled some names out of this article and these guys were arrested, BUT... all their targets were in Europe... so the wiretapping is correct, the plot /targets media agenga is suspect... but consider the sourse right... newsmax... Of course, even if their targets were in the U.S., the NSA would have been fully within their legal rights to spy on those folks however much they wanted, because, once again...they're not US Citizens. But of course, there's always the question of whether or not these guys actually knew waht they were doing, or whether they were planning to say, go after the brooklyn bridge with blowtorches or something idiotic like that.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 03:59 PM) On paper, they addressed their needs and at the time like Edgar Renteria > Orlando Cabrera. They still got 95 wins, but injuries and a bunch of crap happened in that locker room. I think we win 95, make it to the ALCS and lose in 6. But that's why they play the games. Oh, I get it now. But at the same time, they still had only 3 reliable people in their bullpen coming into the season (Foulke, Timlin, and Embree), and their starting pitching was significantly down from the year before through the losses of Pedro and Lowe. They added Clement, who basically last year did exactly what he did every other year (with ERA adjustments for moving between leagues), and Wells, who is certainly getting up there in years, and they made no effort to plan for Schilling having any difficulty at all recovering from his injury.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 03:55 PM) I'm going with 95 simply because I thought Boston improved themselves over the prior year and s*** just happens.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 03:53 PM) Where did Brady go to college again? Wherever Charlie Weis was teaching.

Steve Smith and Tedy Bruschi have shared the NFL's Comeback player of the Year award.

Shaun Alexander has won the NFL's MVP award., ending Peyton Manning's 2 year streak.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jan 5, 2006 -> 02:57 PM) I read them, great info. I read everything except the game-by-game pitcher summaries, which would be useful if I needed to do the same analysis, but which I'm just going to trust were done correctly and pay attention to the conclusions...a useful technique when evaluating large datasets in a limited amount of time.