UConn James

Agreed for the most part. I don't like Jake Gyllenhall as an actor. I don't know what it is --- too brooding, maybe. From "Proof" to "Love and Other Drugs." It's milder in "Source Code." Suspension of disbelief is a major necessity for this. I was a huge fan of how LOST handled time travel, and I'm loving "Doctor Who." "Source Code" tried to set a serious tone and the best the dude could come up with was (I'll go to yellow-font for possible spoiler discussion) how a light bulb has a faint glow right after you turn it off. That was so cheap. Stupid to suggest that apparently plugging into a victim's brain would lead to an interactive world that this person never saw in the first place. How could Seth have known about the white van? I'm sorry, but you can't get something from nothing. The more I think about the science behind it, the more it's a total sham. At least LOST was able to explain its time manipulations, even if it was mythology-heavy. Not to mention its cop-out of the original timeline (and a violation of usual time travel "Whatever Happened, [always] Happened" rule) that led into its take on alternate realities, one in which Goodwin seems ready to do the honorable thing and keep their word while the characters apparently can live out their lives (whether real or not --- the precognitive flashes of the giant mirror ball would suggest to me that this 'reality' was a figment of Colter's brain), and one in which it appears Colter will continue serving his country as long as this program can keep his brain going. Its ethical considerations are also highly questionable. Colter's body was being used post-'death' (or was it? his eyes and shoulders sure seemed active) without giving him a chance to communicate with his father, even if only through text messages? Forcing him to achieve this forgiveness through a questionable reality? Boo! Using body parts without expressed authorization? Not cool.

We've got a new owner?!? (Nix and Gailey may be new, but make no mistake that everything still goes through Ralph & Co.)

The "no trades until draft day" rule is probably going to make the draft unwatchable. I can see it now.... And even if teams could trade players (or if a gentleman's agreement is reached to trade Kolb for a box of tape once a CBA is signed), this rumor smacks of a team that learned diddly squat from the RJ trade. [pause] So on that note, it's entirely plausible --- even probable!

Give this a read.

I make a motion that this thread be closed. There's nothing in it that was not covered in the original uniform thread, which is where this probably should have been merged at the start. And now it has hopelessly devolved to posters kvetching about what the title is currently versus what the original thread title was.

I wrote when the weather gets nicer --- with a R --- for good reason!

H20, with that blasphemous sentence, you just gave Muhammad Abdul Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad an excuse to behead some poor schmoe. --- It's OK for Muslims to call Christ a minor prophet. Nobody in the West blinks twice. But that's different. They can say things like that, but others can't say similar things about theirs. Why are they so brutal to others' religions, yet so sensitive about their own? For a good deal of them, it seems like their faith is so timid that it can't accept the least bit of criticism before they break out the dull machetes to silence any questioners. That's not religion, it's barbarism. A true religion can stand withstand the criticism of anybody. Religion is just an excuse their leaders use to motivate and explain away acts of (usually politically-motivated) barbarity.

Are you guys hellbent on giving Bill in NYC convulsions every year?

Farming is THE most dangerous occupation in the U.S. More deaths on the job than any other. OSHA, federal/state regulations up the yin-yang. No one's proposing that farming come to an end. What about construction workers? Bomb disposal techs? You do a job, you take a risk. You sign on the dotted line. You gamble that the opportunity cost is worth the risk. Yep, there should be more resources for NFL vets who're suffering from playing-related injuries, but that's up to the new CBA.

I rather think the administration wants to sweep causality and all of Mexico under the rug at the moment. They might have to explain the ATF's Project Gunrunner. CBS News has been hitting this story hard the past couple of weeks. For those who haven't heard, the ATF has been funneling fully- and semi-automatic weapons across the border directly into the hands of drug cartels, to the tune of $10M in stimulus funds and some estimates at $100M total. One border agent is all but confirmed to have been killed with one of these weapons. By all their other actions, including yanking the head of the ATF out of Congressional hearings, cover-up has been their tack so far. I'm sure some stimulus or ATF czar will commit sepuku/hari kari and then be set up with a nice job in the private sector. Not saying that this has been the sole cause of the violence --- in fact, the cartels get the vast majority of their weapons from Central American countries according to cables published on Wikileaks rather than from the U.S. as Obama would have everyone believe (in fact, they've probably gotten more from the U.S. government than from private smugglers) --- but it sure can't help. Drug money fuels it all.

If they were meant to be debuted at the NFL Draft, it would have said the NFL Draft. As I wrote in the original thread, they will doubtless be revealed at a seat-purchasing event when the weather gets nicer --- and I'm not putting a moral judgment on this, just stating it as a fact of business. IIRC, the current monstrosities saw the turf in mid-May back in 2002. I don't know how the labor situation will affect it, tho. Without players to walk around in them until a new CBA is reached, it's questionable whether the team would postpone or just go ahead and debut them in a showcase display.

Metallica. They especially own it on "As we walk into this restaurant..." line. Seeger's version is very wimpy; it sounds better as an angry song.

But then, their status as athletes would likely mean they have employment and health insurance, rather than Medicaid.

Well, let's see... if you're "poor" but you smoke and overeat, maybe if you stop doing those things, you'd be less "poor" and more able to pay for your own fecking insurance rather than sucking off the govt teat.

Actually, the belief in God among "the science community" is pretty high. Link. I've seen other polls that put the number in the mid-60%s. A good deal of the rest are simply agnostic, not atheist. There's a certain segment of religious zealots that enjoy saying 'SCIENCE BAD! / SCIENTISTS GODLESS!' so much that they and others start to believe their own words. Is it the Evolution / Creationism thing? Because a lot of actual scientists --- even Darwin himself, according to the article --- are able to believe in evolution and believe that God created the universe. Mind you, they might not bag on Biblical Creationism / Garden of Eden, but that is a myth by definition. No one was there to record those events; it's an old story of how humanity came to be, that has been proven scientifically false. Doesn't mean they deny the existence of God, just human beings' interpretations of God's methods. Their belief would probably be traced back to the Big Bang and what caused that, where the molecules came from, as their own version of Genesis.

OK, so that's not a one-foot challenge. Yikes. Seriously bad break for Matt.... But it might depend on where exactly the cut is. If it's on the heel, it might not affect him greatly. If it's near the toes, that'll be tough. I've read that men are better able to handle pain in short spurts, whereas women are physically able to endure drawn-out pain. This would seem to correspond with traditional roles vis-a-vis an ability to block out pain during the furtive moments in hunting-gathering, and for women, in childbirth.

I'm sure that no major star would've even considered this. Too much chance that it becomes a political meme, like the book has, and that star will still have to find work in liberal Hollywood afterward. Maybe Tom Selleck, but he's not anything like a "movie star" these days --- pretty much typecast as a 'vet policeman who does things his own way.' As it stands, I don't think it's a bad cast. There's some up-and-coming names in there and something like this could put them in the limelight. Look at Jeremy Renner before "The Hurt Locker" or Bradley Cooper before "The Hangover." There's a couple of "LOST" vets in there, too! There is a core bunch that will drive this movie along, at least in cult status, in the same vein as "V for Vendetta." BTW, this is part 1 of 2. That will definitely mean double- or triple-viewing for Rand devotees.

+1. I forget if I mentioned that.

That is one of the knocks on him. Injuries probably played a part as there was a misdiagnosis at FSU. The reviews say he doesn't have world-class throwing power, but he can get the ball where he needs it. It's not like he has "50 yards or fewer" stamped on his arm. He does have good throwing footwork and accuracy. As has been written, kind of a tougher Chad Pennington, but Ponder also has a similar game to Fitz, which may play into his favor for the Bills. I trust Chan to know what he's looking for in a QB and what he can work with. If it's Ponder, OK. If it's a tradeback and Gabbert, OK. If it's another 7th-rounder and Fitz as the clear #1 going forward (at least until next year's speculation starts), that's OK too. Gailey brought a lot to the offense last season that has been missing in Buffalo for a long time --- namely the idea that we have an offense that can make plays and move the chains. Back to Ponder, tho... not having a rocket arm isn't necessarily too big a drawback in today's dink-and-dunk NFL. Pennington's arm was a known commodity and he was picked in the mid-1st, iirc. Bear in mind also that it's possible for his arm to develop. Hate to use the Tom Brady example again, but when he entered the league there was no way he could throw deep like he has the past few years. People wisecrack various reasons for that, of course, but it can be developed cleanly with hard work.

+1. The Tammy Faye make-up got toned down as well.

In my view, Obama has been great for equality, vis-a-vis proving that a black president can be just as bad as any white president we've ever had.

Didn't notice it. How panoramic was the shot? I believe they have used those perches in a few of the Redemption challenges --- definitely for the grappling hook one. And the tile-match this week, was it a stump or the stone dais? They seem to have an affinity for raising up the contestants. If it is a standing challenge, this might not be a problem for Matt as long as he has one good leg. Remember that Sarita is hurting too, in the facial region, which can do a number on balance. I mean that in the sense that you can often put pain in an extremity out of mind for a time and it can be managed in short bursts. But facial pain is constant, it's got a short receptor path to the brain and is not ignored easily. That said, there wasn't any mention this week of Sarita's possible infection (much more likely that she's just a neurotic hypochondriac like so many other women). What's the engineering on that, tho? Do they switch to smaller pegs after a set amount of time? Or, to borrow from the late Senator Ted Stevens' description of the Internet, is it a series of tubes whose outer layers can drop down, say, a half-inch at a time? Really have to wonder whether the crew pay attention to physical ailments and design challenges that can possibly trip someone up. Like in this case, they might have been planning a different one, but when they heard Matt had a foot injury --- Hppt! We're doing a how long can you stand challenge! It does provide a little extra drama.

Let's see if it is a challenge that will require a lot of foot movement in a speed game. Several of them haven't. There was the tile-match, grappling hook-puzzle one, the lock one, the only one that required a lot of walking back and forth and was time-sensitive was the domino challenge with Russell. There's not a lot of space at the Redmeption arena, so there's more cerebral and placement-dependent contests there rather than true physical challenges like there are in the game. How bad would that suck to have lasted all that time only to lose to Sarita, who has been next to worthless in challenges in the game?

Well that would be different. Since they don't vote in the Dem bloc, they would demand that person's ball-sack in a paper bag (see: Trent Lott).