caulfield12

This is all about Rogers' relationship with Curtis Granderson. I think he's obsessed with figuring out a way to bring him back to Chicago...unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense. The part that's the most mind-boggling, though, is the idea of bringing in Raul Ibanez and playing him at 1B. If we're going to be a .500 team next year, we might as well do that with Viciedo, Morel, Beckham and Sale rather than a bunch of veteran journeymen like Ibanez, Teahen, Vizquel, Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay. I know Ibanez was very dangerous 2-3 seasons ago, but his best years have obviously passed and he's uber expensive. This wouldn't be a case of picking up an undervalued/injured player like a Jermaine Dye or Dustin Hermanson on the cheap.

The new Resident Evil is one of the better ones for taking advantage of all the possibilities with 3D, compared to about 85% of the other 3D projects I've seen since then. Glad they held off on "retrofitting" this Potter and are waiting to unveil it with the final one next July.

Always have been a huge fan of Uribe, can't ever think of saying a bad word about him. He's one of the players I advocated bringing back on a number of occasions. As far as the comparison with Linebrink, it's just different for a starting player (which he was for most of his Sox career) versus a middle reliever or set-up guy. I get it, Linebrink 2008=Uribe 2004/05, but you have to take into account that Uribe made some huge plays for our WS winning team. If nothing else, that buys him permanent folk hero status. I don't think very many care about barely getting in to the playoffs in 2008, and certainly his performance in 09 and 10 was comparatively worse than Uribe because Juan ALSO was one of the most important ingredients at stabilizing the left side of the INF after Crede went down in 08. Basically, that year's OMar Vizquel.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 18, 2010 -> 11:53 AM) I found this on facebook, and thought it might be fun. We haven't done a book thread in while, so besides this, it'd be interesting to see what people are reading. Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here... Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte [i]4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling[/i] 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma -Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (I did read Holy Blood, Holy Grail instead) 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving aka Simon Burch 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens[/b] 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Inferno - Dante 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 51, about half...the one that sticks out for me is War and Peace, I have to read that book sometime

But there is one scene that was added, the dancing scene, which wasn't in the book but many moviegoers and reviewers have found absolutely one of the best parts of the new movie. I think that must be one of the few additions to the movies that weren't in the book/s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/sports/b...vestors.html?hp Thought this was very interesting. If I was one of those "dot com" or Facebook multi-millionaires, I would really love to approach the Sox and get involved in something like this...or running a minor league team in one of the five "A" level classifications. I wonder how many more "investors" will pop up in terms of competition and how many will actually make a profit? Having lived in Colombia for one year, the north coast (Cartagena/Baranquilla) would be the other main area that's undertapped...Orlando Cabrera and the Renteria brothers came out of there. Or maybe Panama, with the likes of Mo Rivera and Carlos Lee....probably too much competition already in the D.R. Or maybe even here in China, although I think that would be ultra-complicated with the government. I know the Yankees, Dodgers, Angels, Mariners and Red Sox all have varying degrees of involvement. And I remember a team, I think it was the Pirates, signing a couple of Indian or Pakistani cricket players and attempting to convert them. Anyone know how that experiment is going?

To that earlier list of Ventura, Thomas and McDowell, you can also add the nearly-ready Alex Fernandez, who unfortunately had his career ended by injuries just like another young starter of that era, Jason Bere. The White Sox have really suffered with both Brian Anderson and Joe Borchard failing. If both those players make it and become stars, we wouldn't be having this conversation in all likelihood.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 01:33 PM) Ensure a second term for the incumbent and then fade away? Couldn't you add Ralph Nader's run in 2000 to that list as well? Arguably, Gore won anyway, but those Nader votes definitely tipped it to Bush. Palin's "Tea Party" led to losses in Delaware and Nevada in the Senate, as well as Colorado. Miller didn't even win in her home state. Hilary Clinton has a better chance of being president in 2012 than Palin does.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 16, 2010 -> 10:19 PM) The White Sox have, like, 5 #2 starters right now. It may not be a #2 comparable to the likes of Cole Hamels or Matt Cain, but it's a hell of a lot better than Scott Baker. Except Baker's no longer the #2 for the Twins, he's the 4th guy, pretty much tied with Blackburn and Slowey. Ahead of him are Liriano, Pavano, Duensing and probably Kyle Gibson...although Gibson will probably be in the minors for 2-3 more months.

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ Nov 15, 2010 -> 10:28 PM) My God, I just watched Antichrist. I don't even know what to say. Fascinating, but absolutely obscene. I can't believe Blockbuster even carries this. Do they also carry The Human Centipede?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/...cut-the-deficit 16 different articles with suggestions for cutting the deficity and an interactive PDF that allows anyone to go through line by line with different projections out into the future with the consequences of your cuts, both short-term and long-term felt like I was watching that movie "Dave" again with Kevin Kline, but its kinda cool I swear to God, if Obama lets both tax cuts continue, I'll be the first to volunteer and help whoever will run against him...but not even he is that tone deaf I think. I like Senator Warner's proposal, extending the tax cuts for the middle class, cutting the "rich" income level down to $ 1 million or less (personally, I think it should be no more than $500,000) and letting those tax cuts expire in 2-3 years down the, but, most importantly, putting in at least $650 billion of pro-business oriented cuts/credits that would engage corporate American in developing a plan that's suitable and will actually create jobs and more certainty going forward. I hate that stupid argument about how all the small business owners are going to be killed. Point of fact, only 2% of businesses/taxpayers would possibly be affected, and that's something like $700 per month at the most, we're not even talking about losing half an employee. If he really had guts (Obama), he'd let both of them expire and fight the GOP tooth and nail about the upper income brackets, but he made such a big deal about the tax break for the bottom 98% that he couldn't conceivably do that. And I don't think he wants to be the president who "raised taxes" (letting the cuts expire and going to Clinton levels, when we were actually balancing the budget) because he won't get any credit for lowering the deficit or balancing the budget if the unemployment rate remains in the 8's or 9's. It's possible to be pro-business without caving on the tax cuts for the rich, they're not mutually exclusive. Millions of dollars from private hedge fund managers went to the GOP this last election cycle to protect their tax rates going forward...you have Erskine Bowles making $350K+ per year on the board of a Wall Street bank telling middle class Americans they can go screw themselves and by the way, work for an extra 4 years with less benefits. The fact of the matter is that while life expectancy has risen, it has certainly not risen for blue collar/labor/industrial workers during the last 20 years.

I can't remember if 500 Days (of Summer) was 09 or this year...but that's another movie in the Scott Pilgrim genre (minus the cartoon/fighting elements) that was pretty enjoyable. I think it's one of those movies that's either sort of appreciated or loved, especially depending on your feelings for Z. Deschanel. Kick-Ass also has similar stylistic points, but my God that movie is violent (moreso than Machete, arguably), especially with such a young teenager starring in the role. But it has kind of put her on the map. Anyone heard anything about Black Swan, the new Natalie Portman movie?

Not to mention Anthony Webster (to Rangers in Everett deal) and Jeremy Reed as part of the Garcia deal. Heck, going back further, I remember a time in the 80's when I was excited about Kenny Williams and Jimmy Hurst.

Talking about morals...many companies that have to do business in China are forced to give up proprietary information in order to do business or open up a factory or sell their products to the growing Chinese domestic market. So, as a company, you eschew that market at your own risk...otoh, it's a death sentence, because eventually the Chinese will copy all your products and make them for half the price, two years later a "new" Chinese company arrives on the scene and you're no longer needed. Goodbye, here's the door. How would an American company fight that? Look at the google.cn battle, for example. Some German companies like Siemens have been trying to fight, but it's a hard one because the world is now starting to revolve around doing business with China. You can see the current administration and SE Asia pinning their hopes on India and the US as a counterbalance. The example of doing business in Latin America, it's one of those things you can argue that "American business practices" should be imposed, sure. But the culture of the "buscones" or "middle men" doesn't just exist if foreign countries, look at all those same situations with agents and unsavory recruiters and boosters getting involved with college athletics, the summer basketball camps and Reggie Bush or Cam Newton come to mind immediately. You don't think there's money changing hands there in the same ways it was in the Dominican, you're crazy. It's simply because baseball is the only way out for many Latin youngsters that don't play soccer (especially in the Dominican)...and buscones have a strangehold on access to the talent. Think of it like stock brokers. Twenty years ago, there was no etrade or ameritrade or programs that could allow you to circumvent the process. You absolutely HAD to pay someone else if you wanted to buy a stock. Well the same way with signing any good player in Latin America.

Well, there was also a tremendous amount of revenue coming in from capital gains taxes during those years too...and I think the defense spending levelled off (remember the idea of a "peace dividend" at the end of Cold War?), but I'd have to look at the actual figures again, seems like they went down or at least didn't continue their previous 1981-1992 rate of increase but I could be wrong.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 09:46 AM) See that everyone. GW's fault. Not the baby boomers soon to retire and the lack of workers to fill their place. GW. LMFAO! So the Baby Boomers aging over the last 30 years is the cause of the deficit? Sure. This is from the Heritage Foundation •President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion. (probably because he had to rescue the carmakers, AIG, half the banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) •President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course. (wow, and all those bankers are so thankful) •President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund. (the CBO says the new health care plan will SAVE $700 million, guess they forgot that part) •President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it. (Obama's school reforms are more Republican than Democrat) •President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent. (shame that we are trying to help the middle class that Reagan, Bush and Bush Jr. tried to destroy) •President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend. (WHAT???????)

There's no way a billionaire should be paying the same in SS deductions as someone at $106,500. That's insane. They're proposing getting rid of the deductions for mortgages and health insurance (I think) but it feels to me like the majority of burden is still on the middle class. Of course, the rich will seize on this indexing/means testing as a way to make it about populism, "stealing" or redistributing from the upper class and give to the poor...but we won't even have much of a middle class left in 10-20 years the way things are going right now. Let's face it, SS is funded for 20-30 years and there's currently a $2.5 trillion surplus in that area...if they wouldn't keep borrowing from it. So basically, we're all being told we'll have to work until we're 69 or take reduced benefits because 1) Bush's tax cuts that weren't offset by any spending decreases or cost controls, 2) the unfunded Medicare prescription plan that was written by the pharmaceutical industry AND 3) two wars that are making us less safe and costing thousands of lives...we pull back our troops from AFGH, that's $300,000,000 right there. But you know they'll seize on this silly earmarks issue, when the GOP to this day won't give them up. I don't think DeMint will get 24 votes to move it forward on the agenda.

It's funny...I don't know if his story is symptomatic of the real estate boom or bust or the companion story for Wall Street: Club Burn Never Sleeps. At one point, the guy had something like six houses in Phoenix, and then the gay bar. It seems he really got in over his head and got desperate for money. Not the first time, it won't be the last time. Just shows what financial pressure and/or greed will do to you. He still could have made millions of dollars in the game of baseball and now he'll end like Ethan Suplee in Unstoppable. The guy had child support payments, supposedly a $570,000 loss on his club (disputed), undoubtedly some real estate losses and quoted a $7.25/hour salary on court documents. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/sports/Depo...or-Gay-Bar.html Still not as bad as former 1989 Michigan and NBA star Rumeal Robinson, who, among other things, sold his mom's house from under her... http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5548218

Very early Top 10 List for 2010 (especially considering that I haven't seen many indie/art house type movies since I've been in Thailand and China virtually the entire year) Note, this also isn't an "Oscar List" per se, just my favorites, fwiw. I haven't seen Inside Job, Waiting for Superman, I started watching Animal Kingdom on the net but the bootleg copy, the Australian accents are very tough to pick up because of the distortion. 1. Inception 2. The Social Network 3. How to Train Your Dragon 4. The Town 5. Toy Story 3 6. Winter's Bone 7. Shutter Island 8. Unstoppable (see review below) 9. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (for creativity) 10. Despicable Me and Megamind (haven't seen Megamind yet, but I've heard they are very similar "anti-hero" movies, saw Despicable Me in 3D and thought it was very well done) As far as Unstoppable goes, I read one review that spent thousands of words criticizing Tony Scott's erratic and choppy, let's say testosterone-laden film style. I don't know what the hell happened, I guess this dude was sitting in the front five rows, but I thought it was a very good action movie, right up there with Inception, but obviously not so intellectual or twisting in terms of the plot. I never once felt sick to my stomach or disoriented or annoyed with the film...so I chalk this up entirely to the reviewer's sitting too close to the screen. Chris Pine shows signs of having a lot more acting chops than the likes of Freddie Prinze, Jr., or Josh Hartnett. He really held his own against one of my favorite all-time actors, Denzel Washington. Rosario Dawson was also strong in a supporting role, another fave of mine. Another common thread in the reviews is the timeliness of this movie. That it reflects the crossroads of American history, especially since it's taking place mostly in Pennsylvania and similar Rust Belt cities...these cities were once the heart of manufacturing, but the jobs have basically disappeared. It doesn't belabor the management/suits as the bad guys (except for Kevin Dunn's character), but it does put forth the idea of the selfless American hero as perhaps something that's disappearing, American exceptionalism, whatever you want to call it. In that sense, it was a bit like Seabiscuit or the Russell Crowe boxing movie, with the heroes being on the ropes but not down for the count, so to speak. In some ways, it also reminded me of the Spielberg movie Duel, it's a VERY simplistic plot, obviously....but it keeps you guessing and almost on the edge of your seat for most of the movie once the suspense starts building with the train getting lose.

They're all about the same issue....how will it be possible to cut the deficit while simultaneously lowering taxes and NOT severing defense or entitlements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html?hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07rich.html?hp

There's just no way we got after Martinez. The budget numbers don't work for him, even with Konerko and AJ not brought back. They especially won't work if they're trying to extend Danks.

For further reference on this point, see movie Patriot, THE...although the history is way off, the general idea or conception is basically right. And yes, Mel Gibson's an ass.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 11:59 AM) It depends on how you count charitable. The U.S. gives the most but the U.S. is also the wealthiest by far. When you ratio the total amount given to indicators of how wealthy the nation is, the U.S. drops significantly down the list. But does that study take into consideration charitable donations to churches, which is a HUGE percentage of total charitable giving in the US? I haven't looked at the methodology, but it LOOKS like from the title that it's talking about donations/assistance to NGO's, or possibly organizations like US AID? I guess it depends on the definition of "development assistance." To qualify as official development assistance (ODA), a contribution must contain three elements: 1.) be undertaken by the official sector (that is, a government or government agency); 2.) with promotion of economic development and welfare as the main objective; and 3.) at concessional financial terms (that is, with favorable loan terms.) Thus, by definition, ODA does not include private donations. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the countries giving the highest amounts of money (in absolute terms) are as follows:[1] 1. United States - $28.67 billion 2. France - $12.43 billion 3. Germany - $11.98 billion 4. United Kingdom - $11.50 billion 5. Japan - $9.48 billion 6. Spain - $6.57 billion 7. Netherlands - $6.43 billion 8. Sweden - $4.55 billion 9. Norway - $4.09 billion 10. Canada - $4.01 billion According to The NonProfit Times, Americans donated $240.92 billion to charity during 2002, up 1 percent from 2001. Total giving represented 2.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). It has remained above 2 percent since 1999. Corporate donations grew 10.5 percent (8.8 percent when adjusted for inflation) from the revised 2001 estimate of $11.03 billion (The NonProfit Times, Posted July 1, 2003). Donations from living individuals remained the largest portion of the giving pie, representing more than 76 percent of all giving. Donations by foundations (not including corporate foundations) experienced a 1.2 percent decline (-2.7 after adjusting for inflation). Donations to foundations fell even more dropping an estimated 14.3 percent (-15.6 percent after inflation.) (ibid). The single largest sector that received donations were religious organizations. They received $84.28 billion, representing 35 percent of the total estimated giving in 2002. The next largest sector remained educational institutions, though donations to such organizations decreased 1.1 percent (dropping 2.6 percent after inflation). Education represented 13.1 percent of all estimated donations (ibid). The third were health organizations. Fourth were human services which represented 7.7 percent of donations. 5) Arts and cultural organizations, 6) Public-society benefit organizations, 7) Environmental organizations, 8) International affairs (e.g. peace and human rights organizations) (ibid). Figure 7 below gives a summary of where the donations went.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 5, 2010 -> 07:15 AM) Conservatives are all racist white people who hate minorities and f**s! They want to keep as much money as possible and game the system however they can! They do everything in their power to find loop holes and tax shelters, and still b**** about taxes! They trick gullible middle and lower class whites into supporting their largess and voting for policies that actively hurt their own situation while benefiting the rich! See, we can all come up with ridiculous, stupid, unproductive stereotypes. F--- the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove and Rupert Murdoch, lol. Actually, it's quite genius, to convince the middle class that trickle down economics will actually create jobs and stimulate the economy. Well, I guess if we just wipe out every regulatory agency the "free market" will regulate itself and...oops!!!