UConn James

You mean to say that Bush's Weather Machine® can't be jury-rigged to change the trajectory of an object heading toward us? Pssshaw!

They've come down a little hard with yellows and reds in the tournament. If I heard right, this was a FIFA mandate to call the games much stricter. I think the original point is that soccer refs, in comparison, have much more power to sway a match than refs in other sports. Humans are imperfect, even refs. In football, a bad call usually results in a 5- or 15-yard penalty and it can kill a single drive. In basketball, a bad call sends someone to the free throw line for a chance at 2 points. Soccer's refereeing system, tho, is set up that an imperfect call results in removing a player from your field for the duration; your team must go into a defensive shell and hope it can hang on, many times not. And it's entirely up to the ref to decide what constitutes desert of a red or yellow card. Simply put, the penalty system in soccer sucks. I think it's this and the equally subjective offsides rule in soccer. That just never made sense to me how they work that. Beasley's goal yesterday was waved off b/c McBride was screening the view of the goalie and it was called back b/c offsides includes 'interference with the goalie'. HE WAS JUST STANDING THERE!!!! Soccer could be a lot more exciting if the FIFA rules committee pulled its head out.

Anything can happen when this one game is for all the marbles. I'm thinking a Game 7 for the Cup will be good for hockey, too. Especially this season.

Oilers tonight played fundamentally great hockey. Passes were crisp, they never stopped/went into a defensive shell and tried to sit on the lead. Attack, attack, attack --- I love that. This is what happens when your back's against the wall. Hope they didn't just blow their wads, tho. If it can't be the Sabres....

If the Bills win a SB, it will be 99 percent attributable to the players, multiple levels of coaches and the current GM. They are the ones who coordinate everything done that year. I'll give TD the 1 percent just b/c he provided a pretty good example of how not to run the organization. As an analogy (which are dangerous on this board, don't you know): Joe Blow is building a stone wall, is 1/3 completed and it's about ready to keel over b/c he uses the wrong techniques of fitting stone. He gets fired by the homeowner. If I take that wall down but reuse the stones in different combinations and create a masterpiece that's entered in Better Homes and Gardens, does Joe Blow deserve any credit?

I think it may have something to do with the Penguins possibly moving and we're on the short list. Perhaps people want to show that Hartford can still drum up some support for the NHL. I've been rooting for Edmonton since the Sabres lost..

Yup. Mangold would've been pushing Teague out by the middle of the season anyway. This just speeded up that process.

Last season Lindell showed what he can do once he got over a shoulder injury that threw off his technique and got an excellent LS. 83% including 3/3 from 50+. His KOs also improved by almost 2 yards per kick. Edinger was 14/23 from over 30 yards away for Minn. So, the question is, did you follow the team at all last year or are you carrying talking points over from last offseason? Or are you arguing for exploding the entire team, even the center of a top STs unit, b/c we changed GMs and said kicker used to kick for our new coach? I would advise you to read my first sig line and take it to heart.

Bush to create largest marine sanctuary After some very unflattering articles in Field&Stream a couple of years ago about the admin's policies (both in terms of conservation and environmental) in some of the larger continental national parks, it's a great thing that was announced today. Didn't have to be done, and certainly not on such a scale... but now there is some promise in protecting a good many endangered species there. Good job for all involved on making this happen.

I don't think Crayola® offers this color yet....

If we blow up each other here on earth, do we really deserve to go to another planet and f--- that place up too? And, so 40 people can watch the Earth either explode in a fireball or go dark, then interbreed into beings that resemble Mr. Hawking?

Three words --- Weekend at Bernie's.

.... And why not get a job at the carnival?

This is exactly the mentality that's had Lieberman re-elected how many times? I mean, watch his latest ads now that he's facing someone in the primary. The man basically comes out and says, 'I know I don't represent the views of the majority of the voters of Connecticut, but vote for me anyway!' Any rational person might think it's a stupid strategy, but hey, it's worked.

The macrocosm view of 'Which party would you like to see win' means next to nothing.

This is all --- repeat ALL --- posturing and drama for the upcoming contract (re)negotiations. And you know what? I hate drama. Especially one that's directed by Drew Rosenass. Show up or not, the Buffalo Bills are more than Willis McGahee. Maybe he'll find that out someday.

Back in the '60s in East Hartford, there was a problem that a lot of people's cats were disappearing. (Well, some people see that as a problem ). So, one day, this kid my father knew.... his mother was cleaning up his room and found a drawer with wads of money in it, and bear in mind this was back in the day when a nickel went a long way. Turns out, he would shoot cats with his BB gun and sell them to a Chinese restaurant in the area. Yes, people, stereotypes don't always come from thin air.

There are a LOT of kids playing it these days. Who knows if they'll stick with it or move to other sports, but the numbers have gone up dramatically. I took my 6-y.o. nephew to some of his games last month when bro & s-i-l were at drill weekend. He scored 6 goals in one game. Granted they're playing the cluster offense.... He got in trouble for trash-talking the other team. After one of his break-aways, he walked up to a kid on the other team (the Yellow Tigers) and said, "Who's the tiger NOW?!?!?"

She's much better looking than that picture, especially her hair not in a part. Personality and class is what makes her a true 10, tho.

Do we have to sing "Shiny, Happy People Holding Hands" 24/7 too? Or can I just hum?

I'm reminded of that quote, "No one is ever as stupid as the person who owned your house before you." Every time I look down my crawl space, I shake my head and say WTF?!?!

Wacka spouting off that I'm "a liberal" just like CTM is a Nazi, and KRC is a Communist. What else is new? The Providence media (especially Alison Bologna on Ch. 10! ) has done a good job covering the story. I dunno. But I do think it would be appropriate for every pol to just stop using the phrase "African-American" in an off-the-cuff manner b/c past performance shows it's like asking for trouble. Yes, he was arrested in a neighborhood whose population is close to 100% black, but why did he go out of the way to add race into the mix? The context here is that he doesn't want special treatment. In the Trent Lott case, he made similar usage, yet the (inadvertant, in the middle of chatting up an outgoing Senator at a party; I gave him a pass) context made it out to some people like he supported continuation of segregation back in the day. He paid a political price. Kennedy might too; the most recent polls have that 46% support his return to Congress, 47% say he should step down, 7% undecided, in a state he's won convincingly a few times. He claims that 10 out of the 12 police said they couldn't smell alcohol on him. Is that similar to how 4 out of 5 dentists recommend Trident®?

Or, you could take that out of quotes, b/c those are not the words he said. The real quote is Kennedy saying he should be treated exactly like someone from that neighborhood would be were they in the same circumstance, which is a rather standard response. (I'm not arguing here whether he is.) Tantamount to quoting the president as saying, "I sent 2,000 of our kids to be murdered in Iraq b/c of our SNAFU, but I'm not sorry!" after those speeches last year. Take liberties, break out the thesaurus for a few words, and you've got fantastic headlines to sell at the newsstand, yeah? The NYDN is a rag, pure and simple; if you want to promote better discussion, use a better source.

Yeah, I was going to say 10 p.m. too. That seems to be a reasonable middle ground. 'Course, I'm usually outta there when the mosquitos start showing up in hoards.

Maybe this is a topic for the Consumer Forum...? I'm looking for a dehumdifier my ownself, as our dinosaur sh--box would get about 4 drops in a weekend. Got a Kenmore humidifier at Sears for this past winter that worked great, but the reverse process is a different animal. Anyone know a good model? As for the worst product.... Hmm. That would be the Canon S400 printer I bought back in 2001 for ~$70. It worked all right for about a month when I was printing something most every day and then when it stopped getting frequent use, the black cartridge wouldn't print. Tried everything in the maintainence stuff, even a new cartridge and still nothing. It's now collecting dust in the attic. I've also heard bad stuff about the Maytag washing machines that supposedly use less water (b/c there's water that always stays inside a shell in the machine).... Long story short, sludge/mold/bacteria builds up in there. The sh-- of it is, Maytag alledgedly knew about this before they put it on the market.