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Which made them a great match, since from what I've seen/read/heard, he also sounds like a positively awful human being.
Based on how things have gone so far, my preferred resolution would be for the earth to open up and swallow both of them.
Too risky. Their unkillable zombie forms might dig themselves out someday. They need to be launched into the heart of the sun.
Nuke them from orbit. Only way to be sure.
I've a huge amount of tolerance for many flaws and sins in others, but hypocrisy is particularly repellent to me. If I could re-build Dante's Inferno, hypocrites would earn a greater "prominence".
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Dante was hardly lenient on the hypocrites; they ended up in circle 8. The only lower circle was for "Traitors," you know, like Judas and Satan.
I actually like hypocrisy - it has a civilising effect. If you force hypocrites to choose, it's not their behaviour they'll change.
Concur.
Is this from the "Nieporent defends people I find repellent, I find the McCourts repellent, ergo, Nieporent will defend the McCourts" school of anti-libertarian straw man logic?
True, but they had to share it with a whole lot of other frauds like politicians.
Brutus and Judas were in the innermost circle and, while I assumed they were there for being history's greatest betrayers, my prof pointed out to me they were also suicides.
Guess I'm not in tune with the morals of higher civilization.
But it would be nice if someone could provide me with a first-class lifestyle. Would it be wrong for me to ask for such and condemn Jamie for expecting the same?
Right - I think the saying goes that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. At it's best, hypocrisy is simply failing to live up to the own standards one has - at least there's an attempt there to have higher standards. At its worst, hypocrisy is lip service to high standards without having them. I still think that's preferable to the advocacy of lower standards.
Then again, they were lower than the heretics, blasphemers, and violent offenders. Dante just really, really hated Fraud of any kind.
Except that if there is no penalty for simply paying lip service to high standards as you put it, while your actions actually conform to lower standards, then that is effectively advocacy of those lower standards. There is simply no way in which hypocrisy is a good thing.
Cassius, the third dude in Satan's mouth, had one of his men kill him, which I don't guess counts as suicide. There was a separate circle for suicides (violence towards self); they were with the butchers (violence towards others) and blasphemers (violence towards god).
I don't believe calling out hypocrites is advocating for lower standards. But then I never thought to give extra credit for the initial lie followed up by the hypocrite inevitably reaching those low standards.
Marriage contracts should be nothing more than slightly modified partnership agreements with clauses for health. If we didn't have all this nonsense about holy ceremonies in with a secular contractual arrangement, then we wouldn't have this nonsense where gays and lesbians or polygamous marriages weren't allowed.
i've actually defended mccourt as an owner of the dodgers. his personal life is something i can't speak to. but if i had to hazard an opinion, i'd say the mccourts seem to be pretty run-of-the-mill mega-rich jerks. it's just that their warts are having a harsh light shone on them through this litigation.
It's from my theory that cutthroat scumbags with no morals like the McCourts are far more likely to succeed in societies with limited regulation so libertarianism would be a utopia for them. So of course those are the type of wonderful capitalists Nieporent would defend.
It might not hurt them this year, but you may want to take a look at San Diego for the sort of damage a divorce can cause to a team. It could be even worse in the case of the Dodgers, since the McCourts seem to have bought the team with a whole lot of debt, and may have been taking some liberties in terms of personal purchases that they were routing through the team's books.
What specific regulations do you think would have prevented the McCourts from becoming successful?
Ones banning cutthroat scumbags from owning property.
ya, i'm aware of the problems in s.d. ... but the dodgers produce a much stronger revenue stream. the damage might not be the same, and who knows what assets the mccourts are hiding from each other. that's my optimistic take, anyway.
y'know, beelzebub -- oops, beelzebud -- has been pretty quiet about this. i think he's happy to see the L.A. franchise a little weaker than the juggernaut it used to be under the o'malleys. all that has to happen now to keep him really smiling is to see steinboss kick the bucket and the boys run the yanks into the ground.
And people wonder why Szym is so quick to close political threads. This is trolling, pure and simple, and I'm not a libertarian. And this is not the first time you've done this. Between you randomly attacking people and ideas not in the thread (this isn't the first time you've done it) and Andy trying to hijack half of baseball posts so he has a place to talk about whatever political book he just happened to finish reading, it's a wonder the Powers That Be aren't simply crushing all political threads at the start.
There is very good political discussion at FireDogLake for those with a progressive bent, much better than Daily Kos or HuffPo or (sadly) 538's discussion area.
Marriage contracts should be nothing more than slightly modified partnership agreements with clauses for health. If we didn't have all this nonsense about holy ceremonies in with a secular contractual arrangement, then we wouldn't have this nonsense where gays and lesbians or polygamous marriages weren't allowed.
Disagree as to the nature of marriage, but, how about at least having a penalty for breach of contract for marriage?
Why can one party breach the terms of the agreement, e.g. adultery, and then walk away w/o penalty through no fault divorce? Treating marriage like an actual binding contract would be a step up from the current practice.
I believe marriage should only be disolvable for fault (adultery, abuse, drug addiction, etc.), or through mutual agreement, and the party that has cause (i.e. the wronged party) should get the lions share of the marital assets.
i.e. if Mr. CEO or hedge fund manager wants to trade in his wife for a younger model and ditch his kids, she's gets 80% of their assets, regardless of prenups. Prenups should not be binding in divorce for fault.
And you can't divorce without fault or mutual agreement, so if one party want to divorce and remarry, the vindictive spouse can stop them forever? And can keep living off the other party's assets as they are "married"? And if a marriage is irretrievably broken, then neither party can find anyone new, or else they lose the assets?
Sounds like a well-thought-out plan.
EDIT: Go watch "War of the Roses." Richard Gere, Kathleen Turner, Danny Devito. Good stuff.
Do I really have to scour Frank McCourt's decades of business dealings to find examples where he has skirted the normal bounds of morality?
And you can't divorce without fault or mutual agreement, so if one party want to divorce and remarry, the vindictive spouse can stop them forever? And can keep living off the other party's assets as they are "married"? And if a marriage is irretrievably broken, then neither party can find anyone new, or else they lose the assets?
Sounds like a well-thought-out plan.
No, I think emotional abuse is abuse.
There's no "other party's assets" once you're married, it's all joint. If a marriage is irretrievably broken, you reach an agreement, divide up the assets and move on.
If one party wants out, for no good reason, they suffer the loss of assets. Instead of 50:50, they only get 20% or 30%.
Do you not care about the negative consequences this will have for women, or is that part of the plan?
LOL. Yeah, the FireBaggers are notable exemplars of reasonable discourse.
You do realize the hell that will cause, don't you? Spouses looking to get the dirt on the other, false accusations, etc., all to find a "good reason" so that they can get most of the assets.
Thus it is with the religious, where the sanctity of marriage trumps the wellbeing of its participants.
Isn't that the way it works right now? He gets 25%, she gets 25% and the lawyers get 50%...
I'm sure I would waste a fair amount on stupid ####, but man you can sure help a lot of people with that kind of dough. Too bad that is seldom the main focus for people this lucky.
Or maybe in a libertarian paradise incompetents who need political connections to be successful become failures, because politicians won't have the power or ability to manipulate city regulations to squeeze out existing owners, and can't give sweetheart zoning waivers and city deals to dramatically and instantly increase property values for favored citizens.
Does anyone read Dilbert anymore?
In a recent series the pointyhaired boss was killed in an office accident (he was launched out of the ductwork), his former subordinates arrive at his funeral bearing stakes- just in case the afterlife rejects him, they realize that his widow overhears them talking, and they begin to apologize, but she cuts them off, "hey did anyone remember to bring a mallet?"
The last effort in NY's legislature to implement no-fault divorce blew up because the news broke that the drive was being organized by state senators who were friends- one was going through a nasty divorce (he had been married for 15 years or so, had kids, wanted to dump his wife for a younger woman- you know the drill) and in NY a spouse can still contest a divorce (they can't really defeat it- but they can drafting it out- FOR YEARS- if they really want to- and this senator's future ex-wife was in full drag it out mode), and distribution is "equitable"- which is presumed to be 50/50- but not always - depending on how bad someone's conduct is the split can go from 50/50 of marital property to 75/25 or even 100/0.
Well this family values Senator was having a problem, it looked like he wouldn't be able to make his wife go away before the next campaign season started up, she wanted quite a bit more than 50%, and it was all starting to impact his career (and possibly his relationship with his future trophy wife), but he couldn't propose a bill, so two friends did it for him, and starting cutting deals with everyone in sight to try to get them on board...
I don't think NY State Senators have ever shown such initiative in advancing a bill the Majority leader had no interest in*, well, ever, but they got support, they got the majority leader to acquiesce, they got a Legislature from the other house to sponsor a bill...
and then the Senator's wife's lawyer (and other lawyers) started talking to the media (did they really think the NY divorce bar was going to take this lying down?)
Oops.
*In NYS the legislators are essentially useless, only 3 people matter, the Governor, the Majority Leader in the House, the Majority leader in the Senate, no swing votes, no coalitions, it's really a bad joke.
And how would that be different than the current system?
It's a contract. If you want specific things upon the dissolution of the partnership other than what you would receive if you and your partner had instead jointly opened a Quizno's, then put them in the contract in the first place.
Well, not political sites are.
But as noted, talking about how awesome progressives are and how conservatives and libertarians are murderers is on-topic for that site.
Excellent point, although I think the better answer to that problem is to imprison the politicians who screw over the general public in favor of a select few rather than eliminating the regulations completely.
If people took the institution more seriously, the well-being of the participants would improve.
You'll find from most surveys and studies that divorced people are actually not any happier post divorce, and women in particular suffer badly financially.
Well, prepare those 530+ indictments, then, to start.
Every political system has it's major flaws, even the best of them. Lots of politicians going to prison would at least be good entertainment.
Marriage is a contract entered in to by the lovestruck and naiive, and I think that penalties for mistakes should be minimized
Does spending time in prison make people less likely to be sent back?
Yeah, but at least he's only signed for 5 years (or so, can't be bothered to check cots), and not 50.
I know it's anecdotal, but my parents - who didn't even ever fight - are infinitely happier now, and have been since the divorce 25 years ago. It was the best thing that ever happened to them. (The church, of course, forced my mother to have the thing anulled, which was traumatic for her. Worse than the divorce at the time by far.)
Well you could save time and go for the solution proposed by Pratchett in the Last Continent.
Marriage is a contract entered in to by the lovestruck and naiive, and I think that penalties for mistakes should be minimized
If they were done as a matter of course, they would eventually become pretty boilerplate, like a renter's agreement or your contract with your cell phone company.
The quicker we separate, for once and for all, the religious ceremony of marriage from the contractual aspects of marriage that the government is concerned with, the quicker we can stop having these ridiculous debates about "defense" of marriage. It's bad for government and it's bad for the religions themselves - if the government only recognizes the civil process of a marriage, then religions can be free to withhold or grant their religious ceremonies to whoever they darn well please. If Catholics decide that people can marry pie, more power to them, so long as that ceremony only has religious authority in their eyes.
Absofreakinglutely.
/Rock
Great idea. That will just kill off the idea of marriage faster as most people will avoid marrying and just live together.
I'd spend half of it on cigareets [sic], whiskey, and wild, wild women.
The other half, I'd probably waste.
It virtually guarentees a race to the bottom. The lawyers (and private detectives) get richer.
To be clear, I am not saying that would be necessarily be worse overall, just that there are a whole host of problems with your proposal that need to be balanced.
As for the McCourt saga, I am reminded of Elvis Costello's lines about Lord and Lady Muck.
The problem is, it's woefully mis-defined. What the Constitution calls for is the government to stay out of religion; i.e. no state church, no civil preference or disabilities based on religion, etc.
It does not call for religion to stay out of government. People have every right to vote their religious beliefs, and try to have their moral conviction enacted as law. Religious leaders have every right to pronounce which policies are consistent with, and which policies contradict their religions tenets.
That's how the US and UK got rid of slavery. It was also a major factor in the Civil Rights movement in the 50's and 60's.
Marriage isn't contractual. Defining marriage as contractual doesn't make it so. There will never be a contractual resolution to gay marriage because neither side of the debate understans marriage in terms of a contract. Howeve if we come to a contractual resolution to the issue it will signal a seismic shift in how we understand ourselves from which our civilization will not recover.
Marriage isn't contractual. Defining marriage as contractual doesn't make it so. There will never be a contractual resolution to gay marriage because neither side of the debate understans marriage in terms of a contract. Howeve if we come to a contractual resolution to the issue it will signal a seismic shift in how we understand ourselves from which our civilization will not recover.
I love Gaelan's posts :-)
2 outta 3 ain't bad
This is some deeply funny ####, made funnier by the fact that the poster believes it earnestly.
I thought that looked weird. Michael Douglas is the name we're looking for here.
There's definitely truth to what Gaelan says. The world would be a better place if we could get people to think about what they should do, rather than what they have todo; what action causes the maximum good, rather than what action is my minimal obligation.
The challenge is, how to get actual people to buy in.
What makes it truly amusing is that a model of mutual recognition detailing reciprocity of rights and responsibilities IS A CONTRACT.
Ethical life is a content-free term, devoid of any meaning. At least as used here.
The part about replacing the contract metaphor with discussions of the ethical life, mutual recognition, etc, though, has a long history in philosophical thought - contemporary readers of classical Greek philosophy, of Hegel and Kojeve, typically hold such views. I think they're significantly right.
I don't even understand Gaelans posts.
That's because Gaelan is obsessed with ethics and justice Mr. Wall Street.
I'm obsessed with ethics and justice as well. Nothing is more ethical than win if you can lose if you must but always cheat.
ITT: Ignorant people pretend to be attorneys.
Aside from betraying a failure of imagination, your use of "ethical life" is still content-free.
Yes, but I think I'm going to want to net play all my games with him from now on...
As used in this thread, "ethical life" has absolutely no meaning beyond, "behavior I approve of." At least you stopped playing lawyer... progress is good.
Here's my take.
Let's say I'm an English conversation teacher in Japan, teaching adults. In the course of teaching, I meet an attractive female student. She likes me, I like her, we're about the same age, over the course of some school-related parties and events we grow closer, until eventually we fall in love and start seeing each other privately. We eventually get married, have kids, and live happy, fulfilled lives.
Morally, I've done nothing wrong. Ethically, I'm on less secure ground.
(Note: this situation is entirely hypothetical. I'm not married, nor working in English conversation schools, nor dating a student.)
This is a good example.
Long story short, ethics are situational. What is ethical behaviour depends mainly on one's profession, although other factors can play into it.
Morals, on the other hand, purport to be universal, and apply to all persons.
Loving someone and wishing to spend your life with them isn't, in and of itself, a contractual matter.
However, marriages as relevant to the state is a purely contractual matter.
Government recognition of marriages was instituted for mostly harmless, well-meaning reasons. And yet, by giving governments purview over these purely private matters, the results have been extremely dark - the act of allowing government to accede to legitimacy of marriages as a general principle is the same act that allows government to take away legitimacy of marriages.
This I disagree with, Dan.
If you believe in a religious/spiritual concept of marriage, there is absolutely nothing the state can do to take away the legitimacy of marriage. The civil marriage has no effect on the actual marital union. For me, a civil divorce would have no effect on my marital status, or my freedom to marry.
The state doesn't own marriage, so it can't delegitimize it. The worst it can do is call things that aren't marriage, marriage, rendering the civil definition meaningless. This wouldn't make actual married people unmarried, and it wouldn't make people who cannot marry, married.
All that a contract is, at its heart, is a mutual promise. I will give you X, and you will give me Y. Think of the traditional wedding vows. They are promises that husband and wife make to one another. I suppose that if you are religious, you're also making a promise to God. That, however, is an "extra" promise, not a required one, unless we're going to suggest that atheists can't legitimately marry.
The idea is not that individuals should be forced to reject all of the emotional/spiritual aspects of marriage, but that the government should not be regulating emotional and spiritual aspects of our lives. As an atheist, this seems like a really big deal, but for a religious person, it seems like it should be even more so. Why would any religious person of any stripe want to allow the government to become an authority on spiritual matters?
Unless of course, the goal was to impose a particular set of religious ideas onto everyone.
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