UConn James

It's traditionally a 1-year notice. That's been for wholesale change --- e.g. Bucs' creamsicle to pewter or Broncos orange to navy. For a historical jersey that the team has used before there might be an exception granted. Especially as it's in the current wardrobe room. IIRC from the ESPN UniWatch blog, I believe the Jets were granted one when they went retro, b/c the design was already in use as throwbacks.

Translation: Ralph gives Russ a buffalo nickel and says, "Now, don't spend it all in one place!"

Scrapping the navy blue abortions should be a symbolic part of the overhaul. A whole 'We are leaving this decade behind.' As such, the throwbacks have WIDE popular approval, and their legal stuff/trademark/copyright and design is already done. No fuss, no muss. It would be a relatively simple switch.

Taken in Vain : New London's Folly

Only, at the current rate of losing, this one might cost $80M / ~$32M guaranteed. Don't quite get the people who root to get the #1 pick. It's just as good odds of finding a good player at #10-15 as #1-5, and it doesn't totally screw over the cap. Look how much MW cost, both in real dollars and who could've been signed with that unusable money. If you get the #1 pick, if there isn't a FOR-SURE player, you trade down.

Yeah. Much better to leave the corporate whoring to the studio broadcasters during pregame, halftime and postgame. Can they make the SUBWAY signage on the CBS sportsdesk any bigger? It might help drown out Boomer and Shannon Sharpe guffawing on stage right. (This applies to Shannon only when his speech is decipherable. Which is about 20 percent, give or take.)

True, that. The only thing the past three changes in coaching staff has done is brought new faces to call time-outs, waste challenge flags. To wit, under Gregg, Mularky, and Jauron: CBs all this while have still played 10 yards off of the LOS. The lines all this while have been filled with mostly dreck. LB depth has been atrocious the past 10 years. No consistent pass attack, and a 'power rushing' style that largely gets overpowered itself. A great deal of resources and roster space has been put into STs... ~10% of the game The same type of coaches have been hired and/or their differences haven't been great enough to produce new/better schemes and results from what they're given. Nothing has really changed because change is not wanted. Truth hurts, but for this team to really start getting better, Ralph needs to go. Most everything else will follow.

Hmm. Someone had better send Nike, Reebok, et al. a memo about this....

This has all the hallmarks of someone who voted 'Present' 129 times in the Illinois legislature. When you're the Commander-in-Thief, you really ought to either sh-- or get off the pot. Our soldiers have been fighting and dying for a year there, buying time waiting for a strategy as AQ/Taliban/insurgents have taken more hold of the country. Word is that 10 different plans were presented, and apparently he's passed on all of them. Here's a very effective exit strategy. It's worked in the Revolution, the Civil War, WWII, Korea, et al. and by and large it kept working right up until one of the major parties in the U.S. became a bunch of pussies afraid to hit people who deserve to be hit and who are more interested in getting patted on the back by Old Europe at G-8 parties than doing what needs to be done to protect ourselves. Here's the exit strategy that had worked so well: WIN.

Hands-down, the Maine lobster plates. Even with the new design. Had 'em for a while myself on my first car commuting to college. Classic.

NYDN: ABC reporting that Hasan tried to contact Al-Qaeda: Intelligence services had been watching Hasan for months The hammer drops. Thanks for playing, Steely. Your consolation prize is a FAIL stamp set.

America is obsessed with crime and punishment. And for all that, we keep making the same choices. Release offenders to burgle, rape, diddle children and murder once more. Ninety percent of crime is committed by 10 percent of the population. As it currently functions, it's a big revolving door. If you were to lock up the 10 percent permanent-like, lawyers and judges will not have many clients left. With ordinary catch-and-release keeping so many judges and lawyers in a job / in high demand, imagine what this has the potential to do! Also, make it illegal for anyone to defend themselves. (Don't have too much further to go in this regard). I hate what this country is fast becoming.

The Randy Quaid character in that movie is very much where I am as a fan of this team.

It's mine. As for the corroborating proof, I can tell you there's a picture of Abraham Lincoln on it.

Have to say that if I were the owner of an establishment approached by Pizza Hut, Domino's, etc. to film them substituting their food for my recipes within my own walls, it would have to be an exorbitant check, such that I could move to Bermuda for the rest of my life. Any establishment that would do that to their customers has no pride and no class.

I long ago went through all of the steps, but decided to go back and hang out in Anger for a while.

The more time passes, the more my personal respect for MM has grown. Not especially talking about his play-calling / gadget plays... but given the meager givens of Ralph Wilson (and TD giving him about 2 inches of leash), he didn't do that horribly for someone who had no experience. Now he's gone on to success in Atlanta. When brought in, he tried to ignore the dump that OBD is, thought if he could just clean up a bit at a time, it would get better. But old man Wilson kept piling up dishes, shitting the bed, and refusing to pay for some new paint and a refrigerator that works. I've seen the Bills through this metaphor for a while now... it's like Dickens' "Little Dorrit." Ralph is that old guy on the street that used to have a nice well-groomed Victorian, that quickly went into disrepair through lack of will to maintain it. Any time now, it'll be ready to fall over. Brandon is just the latest who wanted a job/title badly enough to want to stay in said dump. I don't really blame him. In fact, it seems that for the first time in a while for this club, he's addressing the lines within the means that he's given. He showed some backbone in the JP holdouts. He can adequately run the business/COO side. As for your list, might think a bit about Nix. He was brought in very shortly (I think it was a few weeks) before the draft. As such, the sheer tonnage of what has accumulated post-Wade should not fall on him. And that may have been the very first signal of changes to come. As ever, Ralph likes to promote from within, and Nix is now within. From the things I've read, Nix has a good reputation --- ran the drafts in SD which produced Tomlinson, Merriman, etc. that built them into a winner. Promoting Nix to be the de-facto GM wouldn't be a terrible move. The issue will be whether he gets an adequate amount of control.

And Julia Roberts used to make pizza there when she was younger.

And yet, with his amount of roster control/management after 4 seasons, DJ should be expected to have built a team close to what he wants/needs to run his scheme. DJ's scheme is Uninspired / Second Half Collapse. That is part of the head coach's job description --- to gather players, use in a combination of their abilities and your plan. He's totally failed in that regard.

We don't even deserve a garbage-time score.

The last two games only prove that the Bills can eek out victories against teams/QBs that gift-wrap the football and give them away as presents.

For any non-violent/non-libelous speech, I would mostly agree, if you're talking about "get in trouble" meaning being jailed by the gov't or sued for pure opinion. In the first case, the First Amendment is our protection against being jailed for speech / writings; in the second, the courts settle it out. But if you mean that there should never be real-world effects for speech, I sincerely disagree. Even though a lot of people understand it that way, that's not exactly the gist of the First Amendment (I realize you did not invoke the FA, but allow me to draw out an argument). As Garrison Keillor wrote, "Freedom of speech is like the freedom to jump off your roof and fly. You can try it, but there will be consequences." There is no protection against being fired, being ostracized, or other such societal and business consequences. In the same way that Goodell has suspended players for legal problems in the interest of promoting the league's image, this is a slap in the face against 10% of the NFL's possible fan base. Whatever its true $ impact is, the speech can do nothing but hurt the business as a whole. Let's say the CEO (or, hell, a plant worker) of a Fortune 500 company goes on the Today Show and says that all women are stupid, crazy c---s. He insults 50% of the population and he should not "get in trouble" with the company b/c of what he said!!?? No way. There will --- and there ought to --- be consequences. For ordinary persons, think and say what you want on your own time and your own dime. For public personalities, think what you want, but disparaging remarks that have a reasonable means of being publicized (like a Twitter account) are fair game for the role you're paid handsomely by a company to fill..

Even the "judgment calls" like pass interference, etc. should be reviewable. Other than for verbal taunting and even that should use sound replays --- directly referencing Andre Reed's penalty in the '99 Miami playoff game. As long as it remains non-reviewable, it's a free pass for shenanigans. Whether that's jobbing one team as personal/league payback, helping out the home team, 'sympathy !@#$' situations ala Marino's final year, favoring a high-ranked team to preserve legitimacy of the Bull-Chit Bowl Championship Series, refs throwing a game (as much as they'll all deny, deny, deny, this does happen), helping to make it a 'more competitive game' to keep viewership up, etc. There's all kinds of pressures and they come from a lot of different sources. The state of officiating in all leagues is horrendous. Back in the day, the call was as the call was, no matter how mad anyone got about it or how obvious it was wrong. It's the advent of quality video replay that allows for more nearly accurate officiating and to remove bias from games. Until nearly everything is reviewable, the system is suspect.

No. If you did, Sharpton and Jackson would say you're a racist.

You know, I don't want to touch this case specifically b/c it's about as clear as the water in the Charles River.... But I will say that this phenomenon of accusation - recanting/proved hoax has happened time out of mind. Some really didn't happen, but for some victims, PTSD can do strange things to the brain. The guilty pleas aren't surprising. That's how the justice system works. Too many times, people who didn't do something they're accused of plead guilty for lesser sentences to avoid prosecution and putting their lives in the balance with, as DC Tom says, "12 people who were stupid enough to not know how to get out of jury duty" and with much bigger sentences. This is not even to speak of the phenomenon of people who are perfectly innocent confessing after being in the interrogation room --- some people just crack and come to believe that they actually did whatever they're being charged with. It's weird but it happens. Last point, twenty'll get you one that hate-mongers Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson won't have anything to say. Maybe a high-pitched, "That's different!"