Balta1701

QUOTE(Steve Bartman's my idol @ Nov 23, 2005 -> 09:06 AM) "If one leaves aside homes and real estate" While I understand the point you're making, I think it's insanity to leave aside homes and real estate when discussing the net worth of the Average American, for the simple reason that for almost every American who has been working to build up capital for years, the single biggest investment they have is actually their home. And furthermore, virtually all of the economic growth of the past few years has been due to increases in the price of people's homes or increases in the debt taken on by people through refinancing of mortgages or second mortgages.

Hmmm...you know what comes to my mind when I read this? Think about what the Marlins just did. The Marlins just spent $4.5 million, got 30 home runs from Delgado 1 year, and got 2 prospects out of it. Now that my friends is how a GM can build a franchise. Wow.

So...it appears that this "Dog" has finally passed away. I know not what else to say.

QUOTE(whitesoxin' @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 04:47 PM) I'm watching "The Sports List" on FSN right now and it's reliving the top 10 greatest moments in March Madness History. #5 is Bryce Drew's game winner versus Old Miss. Now I'm ready for college basketball season. I still remember where I was when that happened. I was in Yan Wolfman's physics class at Portage High School. A couple of the guys in that class convinced Mr. Wolfman to turn the game on while we were working on a problem set. When the shot went in...Our whole class erupted. Simultaneously...every other classroom on the same floor of the building as me erupted as well.

Since Chavez gets so much well-deserved bad press, I think this article deserves some note.

QUOTE(knightni @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 04:39 PM) Ramirez and Guererro back to back? Yipes. Would that actually be scarier than Ramirez and Ortiz back to back? I dunno.

LOL, now that's talent.

Murray Waas, a particularly good writer at the The National Journal has filed a fairly interesting report on a PDB (president's daily briefing) given to President Bush and others on Sept. 21st, 2001, which basically stated that as far as the intelligence communities were concerned, there was no connection at all between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Thus far, the Administration has refused to provide this PDB to Congress, and didn't even acknowledge its existence until last summer. Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, are reportedly going to make an effort to force the White House to provide the PDB to Congress when the next session begins. If this PDB does include what this article says it does include...it would be particularly key in that it would throw a huge wrench into any argument that the Congress had the same information as the White House when the Congress voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in 2002.

QUOTE(timotime @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 04:15 PM) i had no idea the sox will not draft bora$$'s clients. do a lot of agents have that kind of rep among organizations? Actually there's quite a few teams that won't draft Boras's guys. Guys he signs who stand to be top-10 draft picks have a habit of falling completely out of the first round while they wait for the Dodgers or the Yankees or someone like that to pony up the cash.

I can't believe that Cleveland would be able to offer him more green than the dozen other teams in need of a closer or expensive set up man. But then again, I wouldn't mind seeing Cleveland overspend on a relief pitcher.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 02:13 PM) I wish the sox would have went after him, just imagine our bullpen after wagner would be in it. He's going to get something like $10 mil a year for 3-4 years. That'd practically buy us Konerko.

Oh come on, you're saying that the A-Team one was better than the Stewie Episode this weekend? Not even close. That last one was amazing. Go Check Knight's Avatar if you want to know one of the many reasons why. "You know, somewhere in this state right now Jeb Bush is eating a live puppy" -Stewie

Anyone know if they'll make any plans to get Blum to the Cell to give him a ring at some point? At least a couple of the Red Sox guys (Derek Lowe, etc.) made it a point to return to Boston to get a ring for their series.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 01:57 PM) Crede struggled with the bat for 1 month of the season - May, where he was just godawful, putting up like a .520 OPS for the month, or something horrible like that - and then he was hurt in early August to the point where he couldn't play and his back was effecting his swing. Call me overly optimistic, call it the Boras effect, call it still being caught up in the playoffs - I see Crede as a .275 30 80 .800 player next year with excellent defense. 2 months. He hit a whopping .108, with a .320 OPS (You read that right) during his injury-shortened August. If you remove those 2 months using your magical calculating powers, Crede would have been a .310 hitter last year, and I'm too lazy to figure out the OPS, but it would have been good. Out of anyone in the AL with more than 50 at bats in September, Crede had the highest OPS. The kid can be really good. He just needs to stop those damn month long slumps. Somehow.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 01:31 PM) You don't. You're exactly right, Neal is to good and to valuable in the pen to even attempt to try and make him a starter at this point. If you want to understand why Neal Cotts is so bloody valuable right now exactly where he is...go look at that contract that the Cubs gave to Scott Eyre. Then go look at how Eyre's numbers in the NL last year compared to Cotts's numbers in the AL.

QUOTE(timotime @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 12:38 PM) why's the payoff so small? 200K isnt s*** to someone like PK who makes that much with the swing of a bat. Yeah, but to a ton of the other key guys on this team...Podsednik, Crede, the Widge, Blum, Jenks, Probably BMac and BA also (I don't know about partial season guys)...that's a pretty big hunk of cash. The major league minimum was about $400k last year, and we had several young guys making just about that much.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 01:24 PM) Here's a question... Every year gas prices jump at labor day because of "increased demand" Tomorrow is the unquestioned busiest travel day of the year? Do cars run on stuffing at Thanksgiving? Cuz gas prices never react to meet the "increased demand" Yes, it's the busiest travel day of the year...but I don't believe it's the busiest day for oil consumption. It's the biggest in terms of numbers moving. But a lot of those are carpools, or packed planes, or whole families going places. Plus, there's no increased demand because of people using air conditioners at the same time.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 01:14 PM) That's why Iraq really won't be a big negative for the Dems. Don't underestimate how much it could hurt any Democratic Candidate to not be able to offer up a firm plan of his own for how to get out of Iraq when his opponent offers up some version of "I support Mr. Bush and want to stay the course." You cannot just assume it won't be a negative.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 12:12 PM) We have already long passed the worst of things economically. The economy is doing pretty amazing considering what energy and commodities are at. If it hasn't collapsed now, it isn't going to. Basically it will take an indictment of Bush or Cheney, or a terrorist attack to take the focus off of Iraq IMO. Caveat: I wouldn't say that if it hasn't collapsed it's not going to, just because right now we haven't a clue what's going to happen as the "Froth" in the housing market begins to dissipate over the next few years. If it were to happen rapidly...it could do serious damage to the economy (hopefully Bush's pick for the Fed chair is smart enough to keep his eye focused strongly on the housing sector, and I think he is...the goal right now I think is to hope for a soft landing on that front, which won't do serious damage to people's pocketbooks.)

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 10:18 AM) murtha asked clinton to pull out of somalia... which clinton did... and bin laden later pointed to this as "emboldening" his fighters... some hawk Are you saying that there were no Republicans who demanded Clinton pull out of Somalia?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 09:40 AM) Umm this part was kind of important and renders the rest of the negotiations useless. I would say targeting people voting, the police, medical personel responding to a bombing etc would all fall under that category. They have been targeting anyone and everyone, not JUST military personel. Of course "They" have...if by they you mean everyone in Iraq who's currently trying to blow anyone up. But if I understand that correctly, the Iraqi leadership gave endorsement to actions solely against the U.S. forces there. So as long as you're not targeting Iraqis....

Jesus...they not only called for a pullout timetable...um...Link...

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 07:47 AM) Great trade for the RS if you ask me. Although, what happened to Hanley being untouchable? Do you think that was just Theo's opinion? I think it was some combination of the signing of Renteria, the poor season by Ramirez, and the talk about his "work ethic" that removed that tag. Remember, the guy was one of the top couple prospects listed by BA last year...he's fallen pretty far pretty fast.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 04:43 PM) Wow, how many do you think would be dying if the American miitary pulled out and all the terrorists stopped attacking US troops? See, now that is the real question...if we pulled out, would it leave the Iraqis totally defenseless and would the state fall apart, or would the Iraqis be able to step forwards at all? There are plenty of groups that could seize power if we were gone and probably actually enforce a stronger hold than we've got...the Badr corps (the militia of the SCIRI...one of the main Shi'a parties) has already been able to enforce some order in the southern part, the Kurdish militias could probably hold things together in the north...leaving, as usual, the Sunni question. One could make an argument that the U.S., by keeping troops there, is only making the situation far worse. First, we're a major target for the insurgents and our presence there just keeps creating more and more of them. Second, we're occasionally working to try to prevent the Shia from using Saddam's tactics to break apart the Sunnis (when the western press finds out about things). Third, one could also say that the Iraqi troops and police have no real reason to step forwards, risk their lives, and do the hard job of actually trying to restore order when they can just lay back, be lazy, and let the U.S. troops pick up the slack and risk their own lives. I don't know whether or not that's the truth, and we probably won't know until Bush is forced to pull out the majority of the U.S. forces to try to prevent a total disaster for the Republicans next November.

Well, I guess it's kind of news that he's so high ranking...but if you gave a thread to every one of these...based on the sheer number of claims we've seen, you'd have more threads on this topic than we do on the Rally Crede.