Angels Never Die

I don't like the existence of legal marriage at all (if people want certain legal entanglements, they can establish their own individual contracts,) there's absolutely no reason for government to be involved in romantic relationships. On top of that, I think the legal institution harms a lot of men, and I would advise any man I know against it. With that said, as long as it exists (and it will continue to exist,) it shouldn't discriminate based on gender/sex.

Um how does making birth control like this more easily available say that exactly?

If tylenol is okay for minors to buy OTC, then I don't see why this shouldn't be okay.

The point isn't whether they were the norm or not though, the point is that they should be held to the same legal standards and oversight as secular organizations. Oversight, whether it's in regard to the health code, building code, tax code, etc., should involve just as much scrutiny with churches as it does with everyone else.

Interesting. I'm fervently against churches being classified as 501c3 organizations. I don't know exactly how those types of organizations differ in terms of tax breaks in comparison to other NPO's, but they have no business being 501c3's just because they're churches/religious (there are no charitable requirements in order for a church to qualify as a 501c3, which are primarily for charities.) The government should not be promoting religion. While I don't think churches get as much oversight as many secular NPO's do (actually, I think religious organizations in general get lax oversight in comparison to their secular counterparts,) they're still technically NPO's and shouldn't have any different standards/tax regulations as other NPO's. The problems I have are mainly the double standards in comparison to secular organizations and classifying them as charities just by virtue of them being religious.

WAR, why has thou forsaken Trout?

It's ridiculous that you can't even use it therapeutically.

Okay, the results are incomplete, but how does that make fan reaction relevant? I personally don't care about whether players are to blame for not living up to expectations (if they are though, those expectations would have to be fair in the first place), I don't really look at the game with that perspective. Regardless, I don't see how it's an either/or scenario, the bottom line of a GM's job is to essentially predict what a player is going to do. Some reasons for a player's failure may be harder to predict than others, and you can't expect a GM to be a psychic, but if they continually fail to predict players' performances adequately and maximize their assets adequately, then they're not doing their job well. There's only so much you can attribute to bad luck before it strains credulity.

So a GM shouldn't be judged by their results, but whether most fans agreed with/were excited with their moves at the time?

I gave up on the idea that they weren't doing shit like this a long time ago.

Is this supposed to be surprising?

Well, if he cares about how much money he's going to get it, I imagine he'll just go back to school.

Taking raw pitchers so far. I hope we can develop them well.

I doubt they would have risked anything else.

Is there a scouting report that says Green sits in the 90's? Here's what I could find on Francis from when he was an amateur and pro prospect:

His delivery and frame looks more like Jeff Francis to me than any other names that have been mentioned.

Seems like a good pick.

It's so sad, because in hindsight, I'd trade every single player mentioned during the Cabrera trade talks for him.

Re-building doesn't involve signing big deals to players in their 30's and losing draft picks in the process.

Actually we need him not to get seriously hurt.

I don't think that's a very realistic argument, it's understood how certain things make draft position not that important at times. See Rick Ankiel's eventual draft position and bonus, and realize it didn't cause much players drafted before him to get more money than him, that would be a bargaining tactic that I would think be laughed at because of how naive and ignorant it is the reality of the baseball draft. I've never seen any evidence that what you're saying actually happens, not when everyone knows those players really belonged in the first round.

It's beyond disingenuous to define Harvey's value as a third round pick, he was an undisputed 1st round talent that fell because of his price tag and college commitment (and for Posey, he was a top few round talent as well.) Your argument treats amateur prospects like there's no way to distinguish one from the other, as imperfect as scouting is, you're still going to tend to find the better players higher in the draft more often than not.

I can definitely understand not wanting to overpay amateur prospects, but it was my opinion that we should have just paid Harvey. If a top prospect falls to you at later picks, just pay them, especially if they're a pitcher. I'd just rather us overpay on a number of amateur prospects over the years and have that eventually turn into a good player or two that will be under control for a while, thnn spend much more on some 31 year old free agent that's probably going to decline/disappoint.

Yup. I thought Fielder was probably the wiser choice (not that I thought we were going to get either), but the debate kind of lost its importance the haze of Pujols signing.

It's really starting sink in that Fielder is four years younger than Pujols and signed for a year less. God dammit.