UConn James

Better in the sense that they're not managed by Matt Millen.

Yep. And I didn't need to go back to view the tape. They said it was CGI as it was shown. The MSM really loves to bend over backward to find things to be offended about.

My grandfather always taught me not to match wits with unarmed people.... But against my better judgment, I'll ask again for a straight answer. What construes the "negative" that you'd like to be expressed about China?

Criticism = Postive? What's your definition of "negative" things about China? Do you want them to say the bathroom stalls in the "Water Bubble" are too small? That the opening ceremony was absolute garbage? The pollution (they have mentioned that lots in the lead-up to the Games)? Their possibly underage athletes (one of my examples above that they have voiced allegations of cheating)? What signifies "negative" if not criticisms?

Dude, it's kind of become the color analyst's job to root for both teams. And I think you need to give attribution for that exact quote to Randy Cross. Then, the Chinese team was grossly overmatched on paper by the US squad. The intent there was probably that he was hoping for a well-matched game... as blow-outs are kind of boring. If sportscasters could go back and edit their comments, I'm sure he'd change the wording, but it's live teevee. How many times in your day do you wish you could do the same?

You're laboring in misapprehension. I didn't say you were making those claims. Do you question loyalty when Steve Tasker says what a great play Tom Brady had? Seriously, you expect the announcers to be blatant homers? They typically gush/chide on equal terms about whoever is competing. Did you watch gymnastics last night? They were talking about Romania's once-dominant teams and the differences b/w then and now. They had the story of the 33-year-old German emmigre pummel vaulter and her son with leukemia who was treated there, then gushed when she qualified for the finals. They were talking about the Chinese and how their program has gotten very good, and they voiced that the US coaches were questioning the Chinese athletes' age (really, several of them for sure look under 14), saying that in Caroli's experience in "authoritarian states like China" (he once coached in an eastern bloc country) they routinely doctor passports/records. How is that lauding "our opponents"? Not to mention the Bush interview last night ~8:30 where Costas asked the president whether in the talks with China's prez, he'd brought up China's "atrocious human rights record," the Chinese decline of Joey Cheek's visa due to his Tibet support, etc. Is that an example of your stance there's been "[nothing] negative about China"? Perhaps you missed how everyone in the NBC studio was cheering like crazy at the end of the swimming relay last night? (BTW, that was just a brilliant display. Ten feet to go and the US anchor was behind by about an arm-length, he closes the gap and gets a WR by an unheard-of 4 seconds. Simply awesome!) That was just in a couple of hours that I saw. There's been plenty of criticism out there. It's been acknowledged. To mention it more than they do would be beating a dead horse... This is the Olympics, not a G-8 summit. You may be watching, but I don't think you're paying attention.

Well, let's put it this way. As a guest, do you walk into someone's home and say, "Pretty nice place you got here" or do you beat them over the head and tell them they should get all new appliances and coordinating cabinets and they need to paint the spare bedroom? It's called decorum. In case you didn't get whacked with the cluestick, this is tantamount to China's coming-out party, their moment to shine. Or would you just have the Games held in (pro)Western countries? They are an unbelievably fast-growing country with rising influence in the geopolitical and world economic sphere. If you don't like it, there's not much we can do about it, so we'd better get used to certain realities. Like several of our political leaders there have said, it's not a zero-sum relationship --- a growing China is a good thing for the US. And again, I don't know what coverage you've been watching, but there's been plenty of criticism re: human rights, political strong-arming vis-a-vis Tibet, etc. The important thing is to encourage them to change, not whack them over the head and hope they'll change. Finally, this is the Olympics. The Chinese have built a very nice venue. The Olympics always has been about promoting the city where they're held. From Athens to Salt Lake to Sydney to Atlanta. Do you get similarly chagrined when you see Rick Steeves gushing about Italy or Iran or South Korea? The Games aren't supposed to be about highlighting political differences, tho that's the tack some seem to have taken. Christ, people. Sit back and enjoy the competition.

I'd add the Jets to that list. In fact, b/w them, KC, and Minn (if Jackson continues to struggle) I could see JP on Gang Green next year. I think they're realizing Clemens isn't the answer, Pennington's gone, JP has a man-crush on Favre so they'd mesh well, JP'd get some tutelage, and then when Brett ends the soap opera and retires for real, he'll be the top competitor (doubt they will give him the job, considering). Further, JP knows the division (will have special knowledge of a team they'll play twice), will have a chip on his shoulder re: the Bills, and has played well vs. the Jets in the past, so Mangina might be thinking he can fix JP. I think he'd even take less money to go into that situation. A lot of stars align, but then, UFA is a phenomenon all to itself.

To put it a little bit plainer: No way in hell!

Better'n the Lions that's for sure. I wish him the best of luck except against the Bills.

Yeah, that kind of is what OTA signals are like for the digital transition right now. Digital is a finicky B word --- you either get a signal (might be pixelated/jumpy if it's ~50-55% (also, while you might get snow and not lose audio with analog, in digital audio is the first thing to go)) or you get nothing. It eases my mind a bit that even in the flatlandish WNY you're having similar problems as I am in the hills and valleys here. Put up two new deep fringe design antennas on my roof this spring to go with the converter box, and it's just perplexing at times what comes in and what doesn't. I might get Boston (~55 miles away) in at 4 p.m. in the middle of a thunderstorm, and won't get Providence (~35 miles). Sometimes I don't get Boston, but I do get Hartford (~30 miles) off of the back of the antenna. In the early mornings, I sometimes get a very strong signal on two strong-output channels out of Boston, but the rest of the day, it just does a wave back and forth from 0%-30%-80%, never locking in. Strong signal? Wait a few minutes --- it will change. To be sure, you get a great picture with digital... when it works. Most stations aren't done tinkering with their signals, tho. The technology for digital teevee has been around for 25 years now and we're just now doing a transition and we're still tinkering around with "tin can" tuners rather than good silicon ones that've been around for 10 years now, b/c companies want to get rid of their old stock before giving us something that works well.

You forgot the part about turning the Gatorade in wine.

Yeah, I don't think the humble pie taste was quite out of his mouth. And that's something I'm happy to hear. Also, it kind of goes along with Marv's ol' "Act like you've been there before."

I'm not a Kool-Aid drinker, but... Talking about a QB who "won't throw the ball deep," you don't mention that the alternative is a QB whose only trick is to throw the ball deep (and by the camp reports I've read, he's still in this sole mindset), and who gets sacked a good deal waiting for his receivers to get deep/separation. It's nice when it works and it'll get you a lot of oohs and aahs, but when you live by the deep ball, you die by the deep ball (or, the lack of it once you face teams with talent at CB). In itself, it is not a winning phenomenon in the NFL. I don't know about Edwards... we're gonna see what he's got and there's probably going to be a few minor bumps in the road. But I know enough about JP, even tho he may have gotten a raw deal with MM, that's not something for which we need to spend another season to be "fair" to him, whatever that means in the league of Not For Long. He's a great option as a reliever, but you need consistency in a starter. Should we follow you to the office on Monday morning and criticize how slow you are to file those papers... and, Christ, what about all those coffeebreaks!?! Maybe your company should hire a real professional like Tim the intern who may not have sh-- for know-how, but he sure has a lot of pep. Way to treat Edwards the same way you lament that Losman was treated a few years ago.

If it were me, instead of laughing it off, I would have finished the anthem myself at the top of my lungs. It's not right to just let it die off like that, uncompleted at the most important part. Maybe Phelps is a little embarrassed by his voice... Last Olympics he had those Invisaligns(?) and despite that company's ad copy, he sounded just like he had a mouthful of plastic. Listened to some of his interview and it still sounds weird.

Fixed.

WHAM 1180 audio link.

The feed just cut out to some fool who's desperately trying to keep on those people who were listening to the game. I guess they don't have rights to air the game. Try this. WHAM 1180.

Fez, everything I've seen indicates this, too, was a random attack by a madman. He killed one male relative of a volleyball coach, and wounded an accompanying female relative as well as the Chinese guide. It may indeed have been predicated on some ultra-nationalist going after Americans before he killed himself. Chinese media has been doing a lot 'Us vs. Them'-type stuff. I don't think it was a predatory, tho, just opportunistic for a loonie, and more evidence that people who rely on police to keep them safe (even at the Olympic levels) are just as loonie. Police get there after the fact --- personal protection is mostly self-help. Strange, there was a time when you went abroad that being an American meant no one f---ed with you, especially in the Ford years. I forget where it was, but a country had abducted a group of Americans and Ford had the diplomats in the Oval Office and gave them 24 hours to release them. In 24 hours, the diplomats came back offering some deal or other and Ford said it was too late. One of our warships came in, guns blazing, teams worked through the city shooting anyone who raised a finger, got the hostages and shot all the captors, got back to the ship, and as they were leaving the harbor with everyone safe on board, they dropped bombs and laid waste. For quite a while, few people f--ked with the Americans. Today, wherever you go, it's as if we have to apologize for our mere presence.

Speaking as someone in a family with quite a few police/LE.... sad to say I agree. You grant a lot of leeway for actions that come out of the heat of the moment encounters/real jeopardy for personal safety. But more and more, as power has gone a little more unquestioned and employment standards have dropped, we see the kind of results. Cops firing tasers it seems more to try out their new toys than as a next-to-last means (have heard several of those relatives, including my brother who's a cop in a fairly large city in this state, say, 'You just wouldn't believe how many sh--heads carry a badge, many through nepotism.'), several in this region recently who have chased motorcycles (when many depts' policy is no-chase, for good reason) and wound up killing innocents in wrecks, the beatings that you can recall from videos (not nearly always the full story, but the breadth of the beatings goes overboard), pumping suspects with 100 bullets. This is yet another example... quite similar to what happened in Ruby Ridge with the ATF. And the officers who conducted this raid were 100% unapologetic. Shot a dog in the back as it was running away! (If it were my dog, it would take everything I had not to respond in like kind). Sorry, but the Constitution doesn't grant this kind of power that has only gotten more brazen b/c it goes largely w/o consequences other than big municipal payouts b/c it's attributed to the chain of command or something similar to the 'fog of war.' True, they have a tough job with a lot of stress. Most truly care deeply about the community they serve. And don't expect it to get any easier for police as times get more and more desperate. But it's the aggregate of sh-- like this that doesn't help their cause. My brother has seriously thought about quitting --- the daycare bill for two children is $640/week while he makes $700/week. After taxes, car, insurance, gas, etc. it actually costs money to go to work. Only way you can get slightly ahead is massive amounts of overtime, and you kill your marriage/family life that way.

I could find no references to Ted Thompson's dog being killed by angry fans. I did, however, find that such was the story for a long time about Dan Devine's dog, a Packers coach in the '70s. This article tells the real story. It was "bastage," you dunce!

Everywhere he's gone since the Pats (and he even did it there to a degree), Parcells has done the whole "Hey, let's get the ol' band back together!!" thing. There's times it worked and many more times where trying to recapture the past blew up in his face. Chadwick is "a QB who doesn't make mistakes"... until you lay a finger on him. My-yami's gonna suck so bad! 0-16 is possible.

Ark, You might start here. Fill in your street address and it will give you a read-out of the digital channels that you might expect to pull in. (In my experience, antennaweb is a little on the conservative side... I'm in NE CT in a "low signal spot" and for some stations/directions that's true, but I get in some Boston stations all the same). With an indoor antenna, your range is somewhat limited, but roughly, the Rochester stations' towers are ~7 miles away and broadcasting 7 stations, so it should be OK with just the rabbit ears... in fact, being so close, that's probably ideal; a larger outdoor antenna can overload your tuner. 'Course, every place's reception is different, but in WNY, it starts getting flatland-ish, which is ideal. I started a thread in the consumer forum about my outdoor antenna odyssey. ("Digital is a finicky B word!") The digital transition is pretty sweet in a lot of ways and it has a lot of promise (esp. if/when companies put out more sensitive tuners rather than the cheapo "tin can" CECB ones they're using to get rid of their old stock while silicone tuners for some time now have been shown to be much better for signal). For people who just want a clear picture but don't really care for the content or cost of cable, it does the job. Do post your results here.

Granted. But their biggest problem on O the last several years has been the weakness at QB. Everybody knew that if you hit Chadwick, he got rattled and his play suffered. And if you kept hitting Chadwick, he'd go in a shell to try to protect his va-jay-jay. Jests still lack a breakout RB, but it's much easier to produce that with a good OL like they've built. This is the scenario I worried about. Addition of Favre doesn't automatically mean we lose, especially since it's a 22-player game, but it doesn't make it any easier. We went from knowing exactly how to shut down their O to having to beware a gunslinger who can damage you when he's on his game.

I've said before so I'm not going to waste time on a troll, but, probably all of them. There's been a chorus line --- one after another --- of posters who come here, spout pretty much the same drivel with the same tactics, make an idiot of themselves or get banned. Note, curiously, how there's always one poster at a time (despite such shakeup) that bears the standard at PPP for out-and-out socialism. ----- Interesting article in the NYT about something that is concrete. Voting registration change in the past four years. Link. Can't say I'm surprised by this. The pendulum has swung back a little bit, but even then many voters are just going unaffiliated b/c they don't fundamentally identify with either of the Big Two. And yet, they just pick and choose among those rather than support third parties, b/c they don't identify with them either. Some readings: 1. Bush and 'socially-conservative/financially spendthrift' Republicans have really screwed that once-proud party. They now stand for so many things that they don't stand for anything: 'Illegals Out!' vs. 'Illegals provide cheap labor'; Tax cuts in an era of deficit finance vs. financial responsibility; et cetera. 2. The time is ripe for a third party that can actually build a consensus, but they've got a tough row to hoe in getting choked out by the media and fund-raising. There's a lot of people who just want govt to function w/o having to donate millions just to be heard. Fat chance of that! And so, we've got a lot of people who have been disillusioned and that anything just short of armed revolution can't really change the labyrinth that is the federal govt, no matter what letter is next to the leaders' names. I think at his point, they're working 50 hours a week, coming home, eating, watching AI, going to bed, wash, rinse and repeat. That, or waiting for a "MARS ATTACKS!" scenario: "They blew up Congress!"