cooperstown

Wrong. Freidel was moved up to varsity about 10 games into the season and played SS fulltime from there on. Clarkson was moved up from freshman to JV when Freidel moved up (think he was actually showing up for some JV games already at that point when those games did not conflict with freshman games, but wasn't seeing any playing time) and started fulltime on JV from there on. Nice fielder who hit okay. The younger Fredel is no where close to Clarkson or Elliott and he did not make the Colonels. I think your assessment of Elliott is a bit high at this point.

Because it's an mindset the Bengals have endorsed many times in the past?

Preaching to the choir . . . . :irked:

And you'll do this how?

It would only be a guess on my part and you don't need that. Call the IRS toll free at 1-800-829-1040.

It IS that bad. There are a lot of people commiserating with you. But it WILL turn around. Best of luck to you. :thumb:

You got a whole lot further than I did. So I guess I don't even qualify to be a fry cook. The other problem now in looking at that list is knowing which schools (mostly smaller ones) have/don't have a baseball program.

Well, I probably shouldn't have been asking personal questions anyways. My apologies. The Ramsey course is a good one. Good people sometimes run into credit problems. That is not what caused this mess. The problem was that too much credit was being offered to the wrong people from the get-go.

Off topic, but I'll take a "wild" guess you voted for McCain. Thus my comment referencing him. This economy is not just going to suddenly fix itself. It's a nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen. If you don't think some kind of stimulus package is not the right answer, suggest to me a viable alternative.

The problem was not that there was credit being issued, but that it was being issued to unqualified people. You ever personally defaulted on a loan or credit card (I'm guessing/hoping not since my scenario requires this )? You were a good risk. Extending credit to you was the right and smart thing to do for that business/bank and the economy as a whole. Same applies to me. The problem arose when credit was issued to people who simply had no business being offered credit. When rough times hit, these people defaulted on loans they shouldn't have even had. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Credit, in and of itself, is not a terrible thing. Far from it. It's a good thing when used properly. My guess is that you're sitting in a nice house right now reading this brilliant prose I typed because you were properly offered credit.

Assuming, of course, that not everyone works equally. If you have a super set of parents and everyone, or even most everyone, pitches in and does their share to raise money, then you'd be better off having it go to the "general" account since she'd get credit for almost the full amount, right?

Maybe I'm too much of a tough guy. I look at it like this: You lay out all the criteria to be on the team to the players at the time they officially make the team - rules on practices, grades, behavior, games, etc... Amongst all the responsibilities/rules for each player is the REQUIREMENT (not OPTION) to participate in fundraising events. If the parents/player don't abide by it, then the kid doesn't need to be on the team. If the parents don't like the rule, too bad. We all live by some rules and laws we don't particularly like. Just part of life.

I believe that is the other option, if I understand the law correctly. BTW, this is not anything new. The IRS has had the law for several years. It's just very infrequently (and illogically) enforced.

High school coaches will always deal with this type of complaining. "Billy is playing more than my Johnny even though Johnny is way better." "Coach doesn't like Johnny as much as Billy, so Johnny isn't playing as much." Billy had an older brother that played for coach, so he favors Billy over Johnny." And on and on. Now you can add another possible gripe (fundraising issues) to the list. Just part of the (your) job unfortunately. Doesn't make it right, it's just a sad reality.

There isn't a politician alive right now that would be recommending anything other than deepening public debt right now, as well as intelligently extending credit to the private side. Again, it's fair to debate at what level is required to remove us from this recession. I've seen enough of your posts to know you are extremely informed and intelligent about political/economic matters, but you need to remove your "anti-Obama" blinders (I own a pair myself ) for just a moment because you know full well McCain would be recommending some substantial stimulus spending himself right now.

You start putting the country in a "saving mode" and we'll all know firsthand what the Great Depression was all about. That is why interest rates are so low - to discourage saving and get money flowing through the economy again. Obviously there needs to some better scrutinizing by the banks as to whom they offer credit, but extending credit to the proper people/businesses is absolutely critical to remove us from the mess we're in,

Banks are very extremely chosey with whom they give loans to these days - probably to the point now of going overboard. These new loan guidelines being used by the banks are greatly limiting the people that are able to purchase a new car. It really isn't practical (as another poster suggested) that all new car purchases be made only in cash. You do that and it'll completely destroy the auto industry and take down huge sections of the banking industry also.

Market forces at work again. :creepy::confused:

Marvin is hardly blameless for the Bengals' current woeful state. Bad players that play for a bad head coach who coaches for a horrific organization. And it'll be the exact same tune next year. How the Bengals manage to accomplish this in an NFL environment that is specifically designed to help the weaker franchises pull themselves out of quicksand is truly amazing. Got to give them credit for remaining consistently pathetic for so long . . . .

-- Dow: If you guys finish this out winning three in a row, or even two of three, how much will it show that improvement has been made, versus covering up improvements that still need to be made? Absolutely legitimate question. Very disappointing reaction and answer by Lewis. He seems to have bought into Mike Brown's program more and more with each passing season.

1) Oil prices (caused in part by speculative and unregulated oil commodities traders) 2) Credit crunch 3) Highly questionable and speculative investment practices by banks/fund managers 4) Natural market forces - what goes up (economy/stock market) eventually comes back down. You just hope it doesn't come crashing down like it has.

So, I'm curious - if you are assign some blame to the media for exacerbating the extent of the recession and bear stock market, do they also get credit for helping the Dow hit an all-time high of 14,000+ just over a year ago and corporate profits going through the roof these past few years? I simply am not a believer that the media caused/hastened/deepened the recession or stock market plunge. They simply reported on it, as they also reported on it when things were so very rosy the past few years. Should they ignore this current story simply because it is negative? There is no financial incentive for them whatsoever to paint a more dire picture than what truly exists. Proof of this? Check out the stock market prices and profits (or lack of them) for some of the biggest media conglomerates. In fact, the media didn't really report us as being in a "recession" until the past few months when, in fact, we officially entered into a recession as far back as December 2007. If there was some causual effect between the media's (false or exaggerated) reporting and us actually entering into a recession, why did the media stories not precede this December date?

Aren't you doing just that? (at least to some degree).

Well, these "victims" (your term, not mine) have all paid pay taxes (assuming we're talking about public schools here), so not exactly sure what the "free" comment is all about. And public school or private, this wasn't really the issue anyways. This is an issue about trying to raise some additional funds to supplement the cost of playing the school sport. Volunteers who worked certain events had a portion of the profit of these events applied directly to their child's account (assuming each child had to raise "X" number of dollars). IRS law says that the money raised has to be applied to a general team account and not a specific player's account. And thus the issue of some volunteers doing all the work to raise money that goes to the entire team and not just their child, while others sit back and watch others do the work for their child. Not sure what your "victims" comment has to do with this issue . . . .

Holmes is going to beat A LOT of teams by 18 . . . and a whole lot more.