Diskono

paul253, I think we might be talking about two completely different things. First of all, I never said that I know any of the facts, I thought that was obvious when I said "I'm not really sure if its wrong or not." I never said that I know how much time they spend on parking tickets, or if that number is too high or not. Anyway, none of that is really relevant to what I was trying to say. My point is that, regardless of whether or not its true, many people DO believe that MPD does not have its priorities straight. They will continue to believe that, whether you like it or not...yelling at them and telling them that they're wrong isn't going to change anybody's mind. If anything, it will make them think "my my, aren't we defensive?" and probably reinforce it further. And I completely agree that the police should not be lying to me and giving them false hope when they report a crime. But again, that's beside the point. To give an analogy, my work requires me to research and implement solutions to my customer's technical problems. If my customer calls and asks if something they want to do is possible, I tell them that I'll look into it and get back to them. If I can't find a solution, I need to call them and tell them that it's not doable, or else I upset (and potentially lose) customers. Similarly, a police department is a service, and the people are its customers whose problems (like a stolen ipod) they are there to solve. Even if there's no news, you need to follow up. That's just basic customer service. I'm not asking them to catch every criminal, I'm asking them to call me back and say "Sorry, we can't find the guy who took your ipod, but let us know if you find out anything new that might help." The complaints I'm reading here make it sound like theft reports just get filed away, never to be seen again. Because of this, you get stories that go like: Person A: So I went to Milwaukee last week, and my car stereo was stolen! Person B: Oh no! Did you tell the police? A: Yeah, filed a report. Haven't heard anything. They must have their hands full, catching those dangerous jaywalkers! B: Oh, those crazy Milwaukee cops. Hahaha! Re: jaywalking not being illegal - who cares. The other violations that you mentioned are what 99% of the world would consider either jaywalking, or something equally ridiculous. By saying "but jaywalking isn't illegal!", you're just arguing semantics. And if I ever do get a ticket for crossing a street with a red light, I'm going to make fun of that police department mercilessly until the day I die. They don't, never said they do. Not arguing that it's true. That's exactly why I put "knowledge" in quotation marks - no idea if its true, but people think it is. Not sure what you're getting at here. You haven't thought about it, so its impossible for anybody else to have?

I can't find any statistics on MPD parking tickets issued, so I'm not really sure if its wrong or not. Regardless, I don't think that was the point - I think what he was getting at was that MPD spends too much time dealing with relatively unimportant things, and not issues that citizens care about. Replace parking tickets with jaywalking, expired license plates, harassing people for having the wrong color skin, whatever - it doesn't really matter. Again, we're talking about public perception here - if MPD did a better job of simply acting like they care (as opposed to being the Big Lebowski cop), we might not be having this discussion. Even if its just a call back to say "unfortunately, we haven't been able to find anything". People appreciate that sort of thing, it makes them feel like they're not just talking to a wall when they report crimes. I don't know if you're affiliated with MPD or not, but if so, the angry/defensive attitude isn't helping. I live in Madison, but even out here, it's common "knowledge" that Milwaukee cops only care about parking tickets and jaywalking. So either that's true, or MPD is bad at public relations. Either way, it's their own fault, not the general public's. Hating people for having an opinion isn't cool.

Does getting shot at a couple of times automatically make them good at their jobs or something? It makes it a dangerous job, sure, but we already know that. Anyway, its pretty harsh to "despise" people who have a negative perception of the police department. The perception is VERY widespread, and there's probably a good reason for it. Instead of telling all of these people that they're wrong, how about listening to the concerns and trying to fix the problems?

Also in Madison is TDS and AT&T DSL. Pretty much any residential internet service will have frequent outages and ridiculously long hold times, so you might as well just go for whichever one offers the most bandwidth for the least money. You get ESPN3 access via Charter, so that may be a consideration for you too. If you don't mind spending a little more, Charter Business cable service is good. When you call the support number, an actual tech who knows how to fix stuff will answer the phone. I don't think it costs that much more than residential service, but you probably can't get the same package deals.

Yep. There are a bunch more teams now, so more pitchers are needed. I'd bet that the number of guys capable of throwing 300+ innings is roughly the same as it always has been, but they're spread pretty thin now.

Joe Posnanski wrote about other flukey HR seasons the other day. He had Davey Johnson at #1, but said Bautista could be there, depending on how the rest of his career goes.

In transfer fees, sure. But in terms of actual salary, Chelsea have to be way ahead of everybody except maybe those two in Manchester. Fun fact: Chelsea wouldn't exist today if Fulham hadn't declined an offer to move to Stamford Bridge.

If you guys think Starlin Castro is good, wait til you see his little brother, Maro Trotsky.

Or Pedro Cerrano, of course.

That's not what I was saying. In hindsight, he obviously did. But the gap in ability between the two players really isn't that wide - 90% of the time, the difference between the two alone wouldn't have won or lost a game. I also think it's very possible (perhaps likely?) that the US would have looked like an entirely different side later in the game had Ricardo Clark stayed on. Clark had a terrible 30 minutes, but that doesn't make him a terrible player. Just throwing out a guess here, but Edu was injured most of the year and hadn't played much up until that point in 2010, so Bradley's rationale may have been that he wasn't ready to go 90 minutes just a few days after playing most of the gave v Algeria. I don't agree with that decision (better to have Edu start, go as long as he can, and sub off in necessary), but that one decision certainly isn't sack-worthy.

http://www.football-lineu..._Qualifying_2010/fixture To be honest, I think that the impact of formations are overblown for the most part. Sure, it can make a difference in terms of team selection, but is a not-quite-match-fit Maurice Edu (on 3 days rest) really that huge of an upgrade over anybody else in the squad? I doubt it. Regardless of that, I don't really notice any particular patterns of one formation being consistently more successful than the other. Overall, I feel that USA has performed pretty well, considering that we only have a handful of players good enough to start in top European leagues. re: Klinsmann, I'm not really sure what the USSF's obsession is. Is it just because he was a big name in his playing days, or does being "not American" automatically make him better? His managerial track record is not very good, his teams have generally underachieved, and I'd tend to think Bradley would be a better candidate for just about any job. I think we dodged a bullet in not hiring him in '06.

I wouldn't be too ashamed of being compared to those players through age 23 - Gentry had a WHIP under 1.2, Carmona was a Cy Young candidate, and Bere was an All-Star. The rest of their careers didn't go so well (though Gentry continued to be very solid until he had elbow problems), but that's not something a similarity score can predict.

I don't think it's fair to say that it was stupid to play a 4-4-2 in those games - the team won plenty of games leading up to the World Cup using 4-4-2 tactics, and won plenty of games using a 4-5-1 as well. They also lost games playing both formations. But that's one thing I like about Bradley - he's great at in-game changes. He'll change tactics if something isn't working, and stick the original plan if it is (or at least looks like it will). Obviously, starting Ricardo Clark v Ghana was a mistake - I know I complained about it when the lineup was announced. But that's my only real complaint, and let's be fair, he did correct it very quickly. Again, I don't think he's perfect for us, but are there any better options out there? The only coaches I can think of that are clear upgrades already have jobs...better jobs than USA national team manager. If a better option becomes available, and Bradley doesn't look like the answer, we could always let him go.

Interesting, I've had the impression that most fans are very happy with Bob Bradley's performance. He's definitely not perfect, but I think he's gotten a lot better, and has mostly learned from mistakes. The only (out of work) coach I can think of that would be a definitely upgrade is Martin O'Neill, and I'm not sure if he'd be interested.

I hadn't really paid attention to the Dodgers this season, but listening to national talk radio the past week or so, you would think Manny Ramirez was hitting like Carlos Gomez this season. So I looked up his numbers. .311/.405/.510 Ok.