ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

I don't know about you, but I am sick to death of watching the Bills get clobbered. Our front office pays lip service to using modern sports management practices, but that's the problem, it's just lip service. I have no confidence in the analytics department when our talent evaluators give us CBs like Heath and Rogers - - even if they get cut. The 2011 CBA now requires all teams to pay a minimum team salary over a 4 year period, so even IF the owner's profit motive put us at a disadvantage in the past, that handicap is gone. [Note that I said IF - - I don't want to get sucked into an argument about whether Ralph is cheap because that's in the past - - this post looks to our future] This year, we have new blood in the front office. Dinosoars like Nix and Gailey (and to a certain extent Ralph) have been replaced by Whaley, Marrone and the Brandon brothers. Six months ago we had a GM who couldn't even keep a simple conference call private, but we now have guys who know about stuff like AOL and Blackberry. Heck, our new offensive coordinator, Hackett, even has a degree in neurobiology. Take heart, fellow Bills fans - - with new blood in the front office, we will eventually improve through the draft. But that takes time, and after missing the playoffs for 13 years, I'm inpatient. So let's take advantage of our newly found technical proficiency to maximize the production of our current talent. Let the Patriots be the dinosoars for a change. You're probably thinking - - well that sounds good, Mr. Smarty Pants, but just how exactly are we supposed to do that? Here's just one example - - check out this article about brain research that Beerball recently posted in a different forum (no offense to Beerball, but he just didn't see the football implications of this new science): http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/experiment-lets-man-use-his-mind-to-control-another-persons-movements/2013/08/29/42bc646c-10bd-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop In short, science can now use one man's brain to control another man's movements. Near the end of the article, it says that with the new gizmo, one guy's brain caused a different guy's body to hit targets he aimed at. Think about that for a minute. No, I mean it, actually THINK about that. We could take a quarterback like Leinart, that nobody else wants and won't cost us much, and control his movements with another QB's brain. The implications of that are astounding. Here's what the new gizmo requires: Geez, if only the NFL was so concerned about head injuries that we could convince them to let us use an experimental "green dot" communications helmet of our own design. The NFL watchdogs might get suspicious if we turned a journeyman like Kolb or washout like Leinart into a star, but nobody knows what to expect from Tuel or EJ. I like their own potential, but we need them to beat the Patriots in less than 10 days. Jim Kelly's body may be ravaged by age and blitzers, but can you imagine how good EJ (or even Tuel) could be if Jim Kelly's brain was controlling their throws? It's a new world - - let's leverage our Hall of Fame QB's mind to take advantage of it and beat the ever livin' snot out of the Patriots for a change! Who's with me?

How about a nice game of chess?

Pretty informative article on the problem of underfunded public pension obligations and possible solutions: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21582282-pensioners-are-pushing-many-cities-and-states-towards-financial-crisis-who-pays-bill

I've never known quite what to make of this:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21582258-it-not-just-detroit-american-cities-and-states-must-promise-less-or-face-disaster

If such a rule exists, it has to be in the CBA. Unfortunately, the complexity of the CBA exceeds my interest in the topic, but I posted a link to the full text of the current CBA above if anybody wants to slog through the part detailing exactly how the salary cap works. It's not obvious to me that dollars carried over from last year sit untouched (how can you say that they weren't part of the dollars already spent this year), but it's certainly possible that there's some arcane rule that says you can't carry over unused salary cap space in two consecutive years. I've never heard of such a rule, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I'm late to the party on this, and not as up to speed on salary cap stuff as I used to be, but does the salary cap rollover rule "fix" the problem of not spending available cap money this year: http://profootballta...-automatically/ http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8016480/nfl-salary-cap-carryover-rewards-smart-management And if you want to slog through the salary cap rules in the CBA to confirm, have at it: http://images.nflpla...les/2011CBA.pdf

You wrote a henway.

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks I was a little nervous about flying (my work sometimes required it), but figured the odds of my particular flight being hijacked when everyone was focused on preventing that type of repeat attack were mighty slim. When they quickly determined that the terrorist pilots had minimal flight training, I felt very safe taking night-time flights, especially for short hops. If you are a terrorist with minimal training, you're going to want to make a daytime attack in good weather so that you can hit your intended target, and with as big a fuel load as possible. Other than that, nothing changed for me.

I don't have a dog (plane? drone?) in this fight, but I'm interested in the topic of how the military is currently using drones, and how that capability is likely to develop. For anyone more interested in reading about this than arguing about it, check out: 1. http://www.fas.org/i...ct/uas_2009.pdf (signed in 2009 by the Secretary of the Air Force and by the USAF Chief of Staff) 2. http://www.flightglo...70120000000taAj (about how the USAF "is trying to ascertain how best to formulate its future unmanned aircraft fleet so that it could operate inside contested airspace") And no less than Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, took this position re the F-35 in 2009: 3. http://www.theglobea.../article581131/

You are assuming that the total amount of unpaid wages at each hospital was $1.5 million, but that may not be correct. It might have been less. The article linked in the OP says: If the hospitals' violation of the NY labor laws was clear, they may have agreed to settle for MORE than the total amount of underpaid wages. Why would they do that? Because going to trial would have exposed them to potential liability for lawyers' fees, court costs and statutory penalties over and above the actual wages they failed to pay. Need proof? http://www.icemiller.com/publication_detail/id/1790/index.aspx http://www.robinsonbrog.com/CM/Articles/Wage-Theft-Protection-Act-4-6-11.html There are plenty of examples of class action suits where lawyers' fees and court costs eat up much of the compensation that individual claimants might otherwise have obtained. But unless you have information not disclosed in the OP's article, you have no idea if this is one of those cases.

I always thought it was kind of strange what Flipper could do - - swimming upright and backwards at the same time. Probably an alien scout using TV transmissions to communicate with its home planet.

We shoulda shot Billy Buffalo from a moving train when we had the chance.

If Chuck Knox was still the coach, and blitzers sometimes ran by Wood to toss the QB around, I bet we'd be wondering how many times Wood could get the QB chucked before Chuck would chuck Wood, if Chuck had the authority to chuck Wood if he could.

I dunno, he might be a good fit. A guy who obtained a trademark registration for a cat litter product might be just what an organization that hasn't made the playoffs in this millenium needs: http://www.trademark...b-78756485.html Think of the additional revenues if the Bills put a Sani-Sorb logo on their uniforms.

Wonder if this affects Littman's role? Littman had a Treasurer and/or CFO title in the organization if I recall correctly, but he's a lawyer. Wasn't Littman second only to Ralph on the Bills organization chart before Russ Brandon was promoted? I have a vague recollection of seeing that somewhere (maybe in the Bills media packet, or on company letterhead?). Not sure if that changed after Russ Brandon was promoted. If Littman is being pushed aside, I wonder if a healthy (lucid?) Ralph would allow that to happen? Makes me wonder about Ralph's health, although I haven't tried to research Littman's age, so it might simply be that Littman wants to step away or reduce his role, or harbored resentment at Russ Brandon being promoted to CEO if Littman wanted the job title. All speculation on my part, but when Ralph's top aide for years was lawyer Littman, who maybe got passed over for the CEO job, and now the CEO brings in his lawyer brother, it makes me wonder about possible in-fighting as Ralph fades further from the scene. Or maybe Littman's role hasn't changed at all - - aren't we still under the cap?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gregg-g-brandon/4/397/556

Maybe the Kama Sutra wasn't part of their curved speculum.

Ya gotta admit, though, it makes for some great pictures - - here's one of my favorites:

With headlamps on Full Bright, she got a free ride.

The 17 year old girl who made the crash video on her cell phone called her MOM about it before she called the police? Darryl must have a sister my momma never told me about (Darlene weren't in Michigan that day).

I figure if God wants me to know something, he's powerful enough to make the message cut through the considerable background noise in my life. But then again, my God's as powerful as, what's the term I'm looking for? Oh yeah, - - - God.

OK, so I have techno-geek tendencies - - I admit it. I saw this one today and liked it, but wondered what percentage of the population had even the slightest clue what it meant: On a bright red background with white letters - - "IF THIS STICKER LOOKS BLUE, YOU'RE DRIVING TOO FAST" Darryl says its must be some kind of a Democrat vs. Republican thing - - maybe somebody here could explain it to him?

WTF?