RobertR

Claiming that you can't contribute to a stadium because you're not making any money, might not technically be a crime if you don't say it under oath. It's not perjury. OTOH, it might be considered fraud. Lying/making misleading statements in order to obtain a financial advantage is certainly immoral, if not illegal. And, it's something taxpayers should know about. Especially since I doubt the Marlins/Rays/MLB/Sports are going to stop putting their hand out for government help anytime soon. Exposing someone misleading the government about their financial situation is in the public interest. Whether it's someone collecting unemployment fraudulently or literally getting an advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars over the lifetime of a stadium. Robert

I'm no lawyer, but I'd suspect that there's a pretty good defense for the paper and leaker under various "whistle blower" laws. The Marlins look to be especially egregious. It's very much a newspaper function to expose if an industry is collecting millions/billions from taxpayers through false claims. Even if no law has technically been broken. Robert

To bring up an earlier question about English films being remade in other countries, this fall you can see A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop, which is a remake of Blood Simple. Robert

EdgarDiazRocks gets the credit for the Once Upon a Time in the West reminder. I haven't read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It's pretty low on my list, honestly. But, the general concensus is that the books aren't great, although they do capture the new millenium well and Lisbeth Salander is rightly seen as a distinct modern heroine. Robert

At this point, I'm kind of looking forward to see if Parra can make a go of it in the bullpen. He's shown that he can't get through 6. But, he has good enough stuff, that maybe coming in for an inning (and being an emergency starter) is a role that he can succeed in. Generally, the bullpen is the destination for failed starters, and there's certainly enough that made a living there that a one month audition for Parra might be instructive. Robert

So I've heard. I hear rumors that it's going to get a theatrical release in October. Even so, I expect I'll just wait until it makes it's way to Netflix. I've got plenty of horror movies in line for Halloween anyways. Robert

Gwynn has problems staying on the field. Maybe it's just bad luck, but it's certainly a red flag for anyone that wants to rely on him in any role at this point. Of course, Gomez just has no clue. I don't know if it's lack of instruction, stubbornness, or if he just doesn't have the instincts, but he has little going for him other than unrefined tools. I don't know how good Cain is going to be, but you can see the guy has a plan at the plate. That's one of the reasons I'm fairly bullish on Cain as a long term answer. Cain won't sustain this current BA, but I do see him being able to adapt and avoid a huge crash ala Gomez, Francoeur, etc. Robert

Or you can make your daughter president of the team. Robert

If I have to name one, it's London Calling by The Clash. But, I'd put Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan, After the Gold Rush by Neil Young, and Live at Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash in close proximity. Robert

I'll add [Rec] to my recently watched list. One of the better modern horror films I've seen recently, although if you have an aversion to first person "shakey cam" you'll probably have problems with this movie. It's one of those "people trapped in a location, things get bad" setups, only this time with zombies/infected people. It's fast paced, has a likable lead, only really slows down briefly in the middle to get to know some of the characters, has some genuine scares (and some cheap jump scares), what I think is an interesting twist as to the source of the zombies, and a really good ending. Remade as Quarantine, which I understand was nowhere near as good. Robert

Anybody else as amused as I am by the internet reaction to the trailer for Black Swan. Apparently all it takes to get men interested in an arty, ballet movie is to have two good looking actresses kiss. I expect they'll all be disappointed when they find out that it is indeed an arty, ballet movie. Robert

About time you got around to Once Upon a Time in the West. Leone is no Kurosawa, but he's quite good in his own right. You might want to check out Once Upon a Time in America. Stuff, I've seen lately. The Wolfman There's stuff in here I like. The handsome art direction. Some of the atmosphere. The monster design. Hugo Weaving. The insane asylum sequence. But, in the end, a whole bunch just doesn't work. The mystery is too obvious. Lawrence Talbot isn't sympathetic enough. The love story doesn't really work. And instead of trying to stay classy, if goes for a full on monster rally style climax. Too bad as I have an awful lot of affection for the original. Where the Wild Things Are Lots of stuff I like, but in the end I just thought it was too obvious and didn't hit the right balance of whimsical to go along with the "growing up is hard, but necessary" theme. Zombieland A fun romp, but it's no Shaun of the Dead. The biggest issues likely being that the third act makes little sense and it lacks a sense of danger. Woody Harrelson is a riot though and there's a killer cameo, but it's a trifle. Kick-Ass I liked it, but ultimately think it doesn't quite know what it's trying to say, substituting style and cleverness for a coherent whole. Then again, that's Mark Millar for you. Big Daddy and Hit Girl are simultaneously the best and worst things that happen to the movie. (Nic Cage is a riot though, especially when he pulls out his Adam West impression.) It's fun, it's colorful in the right way, there are good performances, the action is well staged, but I don't think it really stands up to closer examination. Hot Tub Time Machine Hit and miss for me. A big miss is that they really fail to get the 80s setting right. Yeah, it's a comedy, but something like Back to the Future actually paid attention to when it was set beyond cheap gags. The characters are all underdeveloped and the actors are relied upon to make some spotty material work. Workmanlike would be my take on it. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I'm not as wild about it as some, but I think it's a really solid film with a great performance by Noomi Rapace as the title character. The setting of the story is important, as the story plays upon themes of hidden family/national secrets and cultural misogyny, and the harsh seasons and lighting are reflected in some of the harshness of the story. It's a story that's very of the place, and I really liked that. In general, I liked the mystery that was set up, although the steps to the solution seemed contrived in places. I'm not sure if Lisbeth Salander's character really makes sense either. Still, a really solid, interesting film. Robert

Yeah, they'll take a hit without Fielder. And Hart will probably regress a bit. But, there's room for better years at C, SS, LF, and CF, improved defense, and improved pitching. Even without Fielder, it's unlikely that the offense will be worse than average. Robert

I don't mind if Bush walks, but he's been solidly above replacement level and durable other than the freak incident of getting hit by a ball while pitching. Considering the Brewers really only have 3 starting pitchers that have been above replacement level, he's been someone that's been more of a help than a hurt. Gallardo, Wolf, ???, ???, and Parra/Narveson isn't promising for 2011. Now, I don't think the Brewers have to sign Bush, after all what Bush did when healthy in 2008 to 2010 isn't necessarily the same as what can be expected from 2011 and forward. But, if he's willing to sign a reasonable deal, I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with him coming back next year either. Robert

Yeah, Wakamatsu is certainly not entirely to blame for the disaster that the Mariners' season is. Plenty of blame to go around. Short term decisions that backfired. Almost everybody playing worse than last year. And some massive question marks of just about everyone not named Ichiro, Felix Hernandez, Gutierrez, and Cliff Lee. That said, beyond the play on the field, the clubhouse was clearly a disaster as well. And it seemed to have been made worse by Wakamatsu. The Mariners didn't just fail to win, they've been embarassing off the field as well. You might get another chance if you're only embarassing in one area, but if you're bad in both you probably deserve the heave ho. Say what you will about Melvin, but he's never had a season while GM of the Brewers that's been a disaster in all those areas. Robert

I love what Cain is doing early, but he's going to regress a bit at some point and likely will need a day off at some point. No team is helped by not fielding the best 25 man roster it can. If the manager can't manage the roster, then we'll complain, but a month and a half of Jim Edmonds for a solid, cost controlled, backup outfielder is more value than I ever expected in return. There's very little not to like about the deal. Robert

I'm seeing Neil Young Friday at the Riverside. I'm expecting a top notch show. Robert

Yeah, I'd like to see Cain show more power, but he's not Tony Gwynn Jr. either. I don't think a .350/.420 obp/slg line would be anything to complain about and that seems like something he could do. Especially since he seems to have a good working knowledge of the strike zone. Yeah, he might not have enough power to last, but there's a good chance he could become a classic "power comes last" player. It's a good thing that he has all the other pieces of his game already in good shape. Robert

I'm surprised that Cain is still behind Gamel. And Braddock. Broad range of skills, plays a premium defensive position, has bounced back strongly from injury, and is very easy to project into the starting lineup in 2011. We still don't know where Gamel is going to play at the big league level due to questions about his defense and that absolutely reflects on the value of his bat. And I think people underrate just how much a good centerfielder is worth and how rare they are. There are all of 6 centerfielders in baseball with an OPS over .800 that qualify for the batting title, 11 with an OPS over .750, so Cain has a great chance to fall in the above average group offensively with solid defense. And, I don't think I've ever seen anyone question Cain's attitude, work ethic, etc. That's potentially a very valuable player. Robert

Yeah, I've never seen a storm like yesterday's either. Just one of those things that's beyond anyone's expectations for engineering. Lucky for the Brewers they were out of town. The roof doesn't do you a whole lot of good when there's flooding. Going back, theBruce44 and I are in agreement that porous pavement and pavers for runoff reduction is probably going to be the next big thing for Milwaukee. I doubt even they would have helped yesterday, but I certainly could see them making a difference in a normal year. The City of Milwaukee redoing it's alleys with porous pavement certainly could make a difference for the total amount of runoff. Especially when you consider how many acres of alleys, parking lots, etc. there are. I expect we'll be hearing more about Green Roofs too shortly. Robert

Probably because there's no real valid reason to exclude Mark Cuban. "We're afraid he'd spend a lot of money" doesn't seem like a very convincing argument to put in front of a bankruptcy judge. Especially since MLB has done a lot to lionize Steinbrenner recently. Robert

Nope, it'll be Jim Edmonds getting most of the starts because we have to see what the youngster can do. No, it will be "we have to play the veterans to preserve the integrity of the pennant chase". Failing to take into account that it's because of poor play by many veterans that the Brewers aren't in the pennant chase in the first place. Robert

I think the biggest issue is showing that there's a consistent standard that the high bidders don't meet. Given that ownership has been awarded to Tom Hicks, the McCourts, Jeff Loria, and Wendy Selig-Prieb, I'm not sure there's a real high standard that's been applied. Robert

My understanding is that in milwaukee these 2 are 1. no illegal connections, the stormwater is intended to go into the sanitary sewer. That is what makes the deep tunnel a necessity and also why mmsd has to to some dumping. They dump the combined sewage and rain water. This sewage dumping at least somewhat contributes to milwaukee area beaches being closed for high e. coli. levels. Separating the 2 sewers now would be a big ugly project. No, there are two areas. There's the combined sewer area, about 5% of the total area, and there are areas of separate sanitary and storm sewers that were built later. You can see the map at http://v3.mmsd.com/AboutUs.aspx Obviously, the combined sewers are the biggest problem. But there are enough leaking sewers and illegal hookups in the other 95% of the area that it's probably where MMSD will get the most bang for their buck. Fix things like roots penetrating the sewers, cracked manholes, bad seals, etc. It's relatively simple to install some flow monitors and see if you can determine where the worst sources of infiltration are. I do agree that the idea of separating the combined and sanitary sewers would be prohibitively expensive. You'd have to tear up every street and reroute and separate every household connection. Considering how many utilities are buried now, I'm not even sure if it's really possible to find a route through that maze for two sewers. While the deep tunnels need specialized equipment, they're relatively easy to design as they're below all the rest of the utilities, you don't have to tear up streets, you don't have to figure out every connection, etc. Build a couple of drop shafts with gates, start your tunneling machine, and remove your tunneling machine at the other end. Now, it's more complicated than I make it sound for actual engineering and construction, but that's the basic concept. Obviously there are some issues with the Deep Tunnels, but, in general, I think they'd still be chosen if we had to do it all over again. Part of it is also how you define success vs. failure. Pretty much every time it rained and snow melted in the Spring you'd have an overflow. Something like 50 to 80 times a year. I think the average now is something like 2.5 times. Now, obviously, we'd all like it to be zero, and I expect with the projects that MMSD has coming on line and some cooperative weather we'll see some years with zero overflows in the near future. And, if you live in the combined sewer area, there certainly are options to help out. I'd recommend MMSD's rain barrel and rain garden programs. The use of porous pavement so that there's more infiltration in parking lots, sidewalkes, etc. is also a sound one that I expect that we'll hear more about in the coming years. Robert

Why do I suspect that behaving antagonistically towards a Federal Bankruptcy Judge is perhaps not the smartest course of action? Robert