lostfan

QUOTE (Cubano @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 11:07 AM) One thing I do not like about USA baseball is the following. This is the year for Fields because he has been in the organization for a while. The White Sox has invested money and time on him. Therefore, it is time for some return in their investment. Having said this, Fields will be given the first shot at 3B and Cora is already echoing this. Viciedo just came into the organization this year and the White Sox have time to send him down. I hope he makes the team even though he is not a starter. If both have similar ST, Fields will be the starter. Well Fields was already "the guy" at 3B before Viciedo got here, Viciedo would have to actively prove that he is better than Fields in order to take over his spot (Quentin did this, and in spades). At the end of the day, if Viciedo shows he belongs at the MLB level, he'll get playing time. But he's 19 (or is he 20 now?), and he'll have to wait his turn, it's rare enough that guys get a crack at MLB at that age as is. Fields had that happen to him too, it sucks for guys to get blocked by a MLB player but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 10:56 AM) I agree that the responses don't help, but at the sametime, the peace treaties and ceasefires haven't stopped bombs from reigning down on their country either. How is a nation supposed to react when it is literally under perpetual missile attack? I think you're blowing this slightly out of proportion, Israel has security problems, but it's not like it has missiles raining down on it every day for months at a time and hundreds of civilians dying. I'm saying, if they really want to not have to do this every 2 years, they need to figure out another solution other than "kill more people." That didn't work for us in Vietnam, didn't work in Iraq, probably won't work for us in Afghanistan if we do that either. So it won't work for them.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 10:56 AM) This is my feeling as well. I think money needs to be spent in some of those areas (particularly energy and infrastructure), but they're not really stimulus items. I'm all about this. The other stuff I can do without.

My semi-educated guess is that the GOP was willing to compromise and put a stimulus through, but they were unwilling to compromise that much on the amount and stood firm against the Democrats who wanted to spend the entire package. If the package was, say, 500 billion with a few tax cuts instead of the bloated 800 billion, I imagine it would've gotten some R's to cross over. If this is the case then I don't know why the Dems were insisting so much on doing it their way (the president can push this, but he can't write the legislation).

People who request read receipts on every e-mail they send. God is that annoying. I always click no.

Y'all should know that zero house Republicans voted for this, for the record.

QUOTE (Nixon @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 02:59 PM) You completely stole BATW's thread. I guess I can't be too hard on you though, it's in your genes. You can probably sue Soxtalk for intellectual property violations.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 10:28 AM) Perhaps Palestinians are especially stupid because their only education is to count how many pieces their school is in. Originally, we had this same problem with Iraqis back in '04. It was mind-blowing to me. "We need to fight the Americans, because they shoot at us!" "Uhh, no, we don't shoot at you, we shoot back at you, if you stop doing that, we'll stop reacting." "Oh. Oh wait look there's another American patrol, open fire" /facepalm

I thought Blu-Ray could do firmware updates? Or maybe the older models don't.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 09:48 AM) Involved in general? Yes. There are things they need to do. Involved as in telling the industry what technologies to move to? No. But the industry asked for it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) I tend to agree with SS2K5 here. I don't think the government should be mandating this sort of thing, the market could handle this on its own. Or it wouldn't, and, there it would be. This is another waste of money. By the way, I am not saying the government shouldn't be involved in certain aspects of regulation of TV. Some of it is necessary. But dictating technology sets should not be part of that. But public TV though? Isn't that where the government should be involved?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 01:32 PM) Which is exactly what I have a problem with. The ONLY reason this is happening is profit. People shouldn't be forced to change their behaviors for no other reason than profit. To me, this is the broadcasting equivilant of emminent domain based on blight. Someone else has come along and decided they can make a better use of your property, and it going to take it from you to do it. If people feel like they really have to have this, the private sector will figure out a way to get it done. Correct me if I'm wrong, but basically anyone who's paying for cable or satellite already doesn't have to worry about conversion, and this applies to people who receive over-the-air (free) signals? So I might be missing something here, but I don't see how people can complain about eminent domain on free stuff, and I don't see how the private sector has or should have anything to do with something like this.

QUOTE (Cubano @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 09:07 PM) You guys follow Fields more than I do. I got a question for you. Prior to his knee problems, was he good defensively or bad? If he was bad, I do not think 3 weeks with Cora would make a big difference. I have read he can not hit fastballs. You can not play in MLB if you can not hit the heat. Just remember, you are what you are. Players do not change much. He was inconsistent, he has raw athletic ability and he made some great plays, but he made a LOT of errors and blew some pretty routine plays that even I could've made. In his rookie season, overall his defense was pretty bad, or below average as Balta said. I don't ever see him being a Gold Glover but some of his problems are correctable, I could see him becoming an average or above-average defender.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 08:44 AM) Watching Hamas and the Israeli military, I get a picture in my head of two dudes standing on either side of a brick wall, both banging their heads against it periodically and acting surprised the wall is still there and they have headaches. That's pretty much how I feel too. I think the Palestinians are pretty stupid, but the Israelis take the bait every single time and it never ends.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 08:33 AM) And if they could do it with a peace movement, it would have happened by now as well. Everytime things get settled down for some amount of time, a missile or an attack ends that, and Israel responds in spades. We have seen these cycle just keep repeating itself. At what point is Israel allowed to respond? To break it down to its most basic level, Israel's overwhelming (and I use that word loosely, because they don't work outside of the short term) responses aren't helping them any more than Hamas's rocket attacks are helping them. The solution to every problem from Israeli conservatives is "drop a few bombs, kill some more, that'll show em." That works when you're fighting the military of another country, but who's the opposing country, and who's the opposing military here?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 10:28 PM) Then why couldn't the Democrats get that kind of air time for the last 8 years? I don't understand what you mean here, when were the Democrats denied airtime when they wanted it?

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 08:21 PM) I love Turkish Coffee. I had some in Kuwait once and it was tooooooooooo strong. Tasted like hot urine (or what I imagine hot urine tastes like).

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 07:31 PM) Sure thing. That may be exactly what it takes and you have to applaud any player that wants to show he belongs in the majors and is willing to work his butt off to prove it. I hope he has what it takes and is the answer to the 3B situation. If he does and Viciedo pans out too then that's a problem I'd welcome.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 07:58 PM) To be fair there is a large peace movement in Israel that get harder and harder to be heard when a large portion of their country lives in a constant state of terror from missiles that can fall from the sky at any second. I'm not denying that the Israelis have legit concerns over terrorist activity within their borders or that they have the right to defend themselves or use military force when they need to. Of course they do. But it's not so cut and dry, if they could've solved the problem purely with military force, this would've been over years ago. These operations don't really help, they only make things worse.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 07:37 PM) Running tally of media appearances by members of Congress over the last few days to discuss the stimulus package. Go ahead...guess which party dominated the discussion. Now, guess which network was the closest to balanced. The GOP SHOULD be pushing back against the stimulus, or at least getting alternate ideas out there. The Dems don't really have to try because if they wanted to, they could pass it easily.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 06:49 PM) The issue I think I'd take with that is that I'm pretty sure by law the only people allowed to put things in your mailbox are your USPS letter carriers. Other services can bring things to your door, but in terms of mail, that's something of an enforced monopoly. But they don't advertise going "hey, we're the USPS, we can mail your letters!" and if I had to guess without being informed, I imagine the cost of stamps doesn't turn a profit for them either. They advertise the services they compete with.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 03:17 PM) Whenever I see somebody driving behind me and dodging back and forth between two lanes every 3 seconds for no apparent reason I like to get just close enough to the car in the other lane so they can't get past either one of us. If the car in the other lane happens to turn, I'll speed up enough to catch up to another car. If the car actually does get around me I like to wave and congratulate them for being the first to stop when I catch up at the next stoplight. lol, I do this too. If you want to pass me (on the expressway), then I'm going to let you, but you have to wait because I'm not about to speed up or slow down just so I can do it. If you act obnoxious then I'll just take longer out of spite. But I always laugh out loud when people drive fast and we end up sitting at the same light for a full minute.

It'd be pretty convenient if the Israelis didn't kill several thousand Palestinians every couple of years, so we could actually have some serious dialogue with the Muslim world for a change instead of having to worry about the lowest common denominator getting in the way all the time. Another thing to consider, the moderate Muslims won't be taken seriously as long as Israel is front and center 24-7 and with every major Israeli operation that ends with no resolution, it gets more and more difficult for them to be heard.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 28, 2009 -> 05:33 PM) Really? I would argue that the USPS advertises because they have solid competition.

Not sure else to post this, but Obama obviously hasn't memorized the layout of the White House yet and tried to go thru a window thinking it was a door. Made me chuckle.