diehardtwinsfan

That's just it Brock, those parents are within their rights in what is a supposedly free country to be stupid. And the problem with forced vaccination is that those children with weak immune systems end up getting them more often than they don't. That risk is all on those parents, not on you or me. If vaccines are as safe as the medical industry claims, then all of the children who got the measles vaccines have nothing to worry about, right? The only ones at risk are the ones that chose to not vaccinate your children, which should be a decision between them and their doctor. If it's just stupid, it takes care of itself, but if by chance they actually knew what they were doing, then suddenly we are the ones who are stupid. It isn't the state's place to tell us how we should medically treat ourselves or our children. As soon as it becomes that, it essentially gets handed over to lobbyists, and what is and is not in your or my best interest gets decided not by a doctor, but by a lawmaker. I'll pass on that. The whole point in living in a free country is freedom to make these kinds of decisions.

Pretty much this, though I think there's value in AAA in that this polish is something that you can learn from. Plenty of that in the majors. But yeah, guys can flat out dominate AAA and then be terrible in the majors. It happens all the time, though I think the Billy Beane philosophy here is probably more true than we like to admit (i.e., no such thing as AAAA players, just guys who need more time to figure it out). As for who comes up, I think need is a huge factor. That's why Buxton is up right now and Sano isn't. Pedigree helps too. There's a lot of things that don't show up in the stat lines that can help as well. ABW is a decent example here. He's likely to benefit more from spending a year at each level then a guy like Sano who has a much better approach at the plate.

If you pull up it's wiki page, proponents of uranium decay dating come right out and say it doesn't work with young samples (i.e. less than 2 million years). It's entire premise assumes an old earth, and it's then used to prove it. That's the definition of circular reasoning. What that means is that we have no control group to actually verify it's accuracy. I'm not sure how anyone can say with any certainty that it's 'reliable' given that it's purely theoretical and cannot accurately date anything whose date is absolutely known. Is there good theory behind it? Sure. But it doesn't prove what people say it proves. That issue aside, as it's not what I want to argue, is that your dismissal of anyone who doesn't believe it's reliable goes right into what I was saying earlier about not even understanding the basics of any argument. It's not fringe that someone recognizes this. Even it's proponents do. They simply ignore it. The same is true with climate change. There's plenty of interesting arguments on both sides of that debate, but at the end of the day, people usually have their mind made up long before they look at it.

Me thinks that at the end of the day, if you got rid of bad parents, there wouldn't be any society. The real problem is that everyone thinks that everyone else is a bad parent while ignoring their own problems.

There's actually quite a bit of ink spilled on this. Essentially it comes down to an uncaused cause. Whether that's God, a singularity, the big bang, or who knows what else, everything has a cause. That's what our laws of science tell us. But here we are in a universe that began, which his not in dispute. What caused it? It's a problem that both atheists, theists, and everyone in between have. I call it God. You call it something different, but it's an uncaused cause that you still need to explain.

Again, this is all distorted. I don't think anyone doubts that climate change exists. What is up for debate is whether or not it is man made, and there's plenty of science supporting both sides of the argument. One volcanic eruption can send more greenhouse gases into the air than years worth of human production. Heck, there are studies pointing indicating that cow farts contribute to it, not to mention things such as solar cycles and how they affect climate that we barely understand. The issue at hand is when you get extreme points of view arguing a point that crowds out those of us in the middle who are perfectly fine with reasonable controls in place to leave our children a relatively clean planet. Those extremes exist more for reasons of greed than practicality. As for your second point, this is something that goes far beyond an old earth/young earth debate. I'd be willing to bet most people in this forum don't understand both sides of the argument. It's often easy to dismiss someone's viewpoint as idiotic, and not worth a thought, whether that's creation, vaccines, GMO, environmentalism, etc. No one even bothers to attempt to understand the other side. They just demonize it and move on.

When we are talking straw men and denying science, a lot of this is exactly that. What is really at stake here is freedoms. The problem isn't with the science behind GMO's, it's that the science is hardly complete. Long term health concerns haven't been adequately addressed and to be quite honest, people have the right to decide to not be someone else's test subject. And while we are on the topic of science, let's not sit and pretend that science used to prove something is good has on many occasions been proved later to be blatantly false (look at trans-fats and their health benefits for example). Add to this the fact that GMO producers have gone out of their way to be able hide their use in common products. I really don't care if you want to consume GMO products. I do care that I don't have the right to not buy them, because I have no means of identifying them thanks to a lobbying group that has successfully bought our politicians. I do care that this is the type of genetic engineering that could quite accidentally create a scenario right out of a Michael Crighton book, and no one is asking the right questions, as the people we would hope are asking them are the ones that are profiting by ignoring them. Flouride is another one. You use it to kill things in water that cause nasty diseases such as dysentery. On the flip side, it's a carcinogen and isn't easily processed by the human body and linked to a number of longer term nasty issues. Is it a tradeoff? Sure, should you and I be telling everyone that they have to consume this? Is it wrong for people who don't want to consume it to seek another option? The problem here is simply assuming they are nut cases and going on oppressing them. They are well within their rights (right or wrong, it really isn't ours to decide) to say they don't want to consume fluoride. And vaccines... Same issue. You have an industry that profits royally from them, who has successfully lobbied the government to exempt them from all civil reciprocity for the efficacy and side effects their products, and is actively using the same government to force it's people to buy their products, some of which aren't really medically necessary (such as chickenpox) or have some serious efficacy concerns (such as HPV). Not to mention that vaccines can have side effects (what those are is up for debate, but there's plenty of it out there). It's not their right to tell you or I how to vaccinate ourselves, that's a decision between me and my doctor. If I choose to not vaccinate myself or my children, that's my risk, and if these vaccines work as advertised, I'm not really exposing those who chose to vaccinate themselves to any real risk, am I? The only one I expose is myself, and I shouldn't have to hide behind religious reasons to avoid this. This is where politics has gone horribly wrong. A choice between Republican and Democrat is a choice as to which institution gets to run your life. The problem is that neither are too terribly concerned with the idea that I should be the one to run my life. That's why they both need to go.

I'm not quite sure I agree here Brock. There's a huge difference between rule of the law that takes the rights away from someone who has abused his/her rights and abortion. An unborn child hurt no one. A murderer, on the other hand, did. I really fail to understand how people cannot see that distinction. I get that an unborn child that places its mother's life in danger needs to be aborted, and honestly I think that's a bit of a red herring as I don't know any pro-life people who would say that it shouldn't. Especially since in most of those situations (like an ectopic pregnancy for instance), the unborn child will die as well. That said, I think for justice to be just, you need to have a system in place that takes the rights away from the abuser in the same manner in which they abused their rights. I also think that the cost to execute them argument stems from other problems that also need solving, and to some extent are very solvable, but it's often easier to simply point out this 'problem' as an excuse to not solve it than to tackle the greater problems. That said, I do think the biggest issue against the death penalty is the one Dave echoed earlier. Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt has put plenty of innocent people behind bars. I do think that we should have a different standard today for the DP, requiring forensics/DNA to tie a victim, the weapon, and the supposed murder together before you can even talk DP. I don't think that it's unreasonable to have an even higher standard before it even comes into discussion.

First off, the idea that only Catholics were against Roe V Wade is blatantly false. Sorry, that's a hot button issue among A LOT of Christians. That may have been true in your circles, but hardly true among Christians as a whole. I won't argue with it that it's used to rile the base up. Really, in reality, just about everything these days (on both sides of the aisle) is designed for that purpose.

Dave, Gomez was a bit of a different scenario altogether. He needed development time and the Twins had Span who had emerged. Lest we forget, Gomez didn't exactly hit the ground running in Milwaukee. He was completely redundant. Swapping him for Hardy at a position of need, also up the middle, was a wise move. Getting rid of hardy for hoey on the other hand...

People that desire power are the ones least qualified to have it.

The problem with abortion is that it seems that all of the rhetoric ignores the most obvious questions: 1) Is the unborn child alive? 2) What rights does it have under the constitution? I'm a Libertarian (ex Republican) who will occasionally vote for them when they present a good candidate (see Ron Paul), but I still have quite a few Republican friends/family. I'd hard pressed to find even one that would ban an abortion in a case where the mother's life is in danger such as an ectopic pregnancy, and that comes from someone who has met his fair share of Right to Life members. Sure, there may be one or two out there, but to pretend that they speak for the majority or even for a decent sized minority is rather disingenuous and flat out inflammatory. This really gets into the heart of my problems with politics in general. It's been much like a grander scale of what Twins Daily threads turned into during the last few seasons where no one is actually listening to each other, just yelling louder. The worst part is that both major parties know this and have done everything they can to fan the flames because they know it's in their best interest. Politicians aren't in the market to solve our nations problems. They are in the market to further polarize the voters to keep them in their nice cushy seats. Even today's compromises do little to solve problems. Look at ACA. It didn't solve the problem that medical providers have zero competition for their services so they can charge what they want. It didn't get rid of barriers to entry in the field, and it took no one's hands out of the cookie jar. It simply forced everyone to get insured and added a few subsidies, while doing nothing about the ever rising cost of medicine. About all it did was allow the uninsurable to get insurance. It accomplished what just about every compromise accomplishes today: kick the can down the road and let someone else deal with the problem. That, unfortunately, is what most of every 'solution' in today's political climate does. At best, it solves a problem for their corporate sponsors. In reality, the real problems still exist.

I'd have never done Ramos for Capps. I'd still do Meyer for Span. It was a smart move, even if Meyer doesn't turn out to the prospect we were hoping. There's always risk with these types of deals, that's the reason you can get a guy with Meyer's ceiling for Denard Span.

ouch. I think I'll go back to not watching the game.

This will be interesting given they have a rumored deal with Wander Javier for their allotment and have several other deals supposedly in place. Really curious how it plays out.

I'm pretty skeptical here. I suspect they are looking to trade pitching for a bat.

I really hope it isn't May. I'd like to believe that Milone has generated enough value to fetch a decent spec or some significant international dollars. I'd much rather roll with May.

Kepler is on the 40 man, so I'm guessing he's probably the next guy up if they call someone up. Sano is on the 40 man as well, but he's not an OF.

Vargas is a prospect himself. I think he needs time, and I don't think it's in the team's best interest, both short and long term to simply cast prospects aside the moment they struggle.

Personally, in camp 1, as I suspect AAA is coming soon. He's not really being blocked there. Though I think you've distorted what Axisa said just a bit. He's not claiming that the Twins didn't give permission, just that it's possible they didn't. He also mentions the fact that Sano was already there, and as such MLB may not have chosen him.

Gordon wasn't my personal favorite in the draft last year, but I think we are a bit spoiled by Buxton. He's 19 and holding his own in the MWL. Yeah, he's not doing a Buxton, but he's not doing horribly, and given his age relative to the league, I think that's encouraging. At this rate, he'll be finishing up AA before he's allowed to buy a drink.

Hmmm... Maybe Meyer needs to go P90X this offseason.

I would think at one point that this would tax the pen unnecessarily. I do think it would be very nice to have 4 guys who are shut down types in the back of the pen. The early 2000s Twins had a pen like that. It makes it easy to win games when you have a lead. Not quite sure I'd dump a starter doing well though. But if through the rotation, you remove one of the poorer starters in that way, I think the pen would be fine.

They should be doing this when KC is in town. I'm to the point where I no longer care about fan voting.

Sano is being blocked at Rochester by Ryan Wheeler. I'd have to think that at some time in the very near future, Sano will be playing at Rochester. Not quite sure about MLB. I wouldn't mind it if Miguel got 100 or so at bats in Rochester. There really isn't a player he can replace at the ML level short of moving a bunch of guys around. It was a bit easier to justify with Buxton given what we've had in CF of late, but with Sano, I think he's up when there's an injury, and if he succeeds, you'll see a trade of Plouffe to make room.... hopefully for that coveted catcher