UConn James

The singer on many of the tracks, Lisa Gerrard, is amazing. And it's not any language, it's vocalizations. It's weird... just as I opened this thread, "Moving On" (the final scene music from LOST) came on my playlist. Giacchino is on another level, and doing it with a type of music that many have brushed aside. The LOST compositions were just epic, and along with the story, the emotion in the score really helped drive that show. On a personal note "Moving On" and the scene it recalls really does have the power to center me / "get my mind right" especially in the past several months with a few passings.

I don't know any of the specifics here, but for a father to fire a son, generally it has to rise above mere incompetence. If the thing was just that he sucked at sales, that usually means a move to middle management where he can't do much harm. And if it were alcohol or drugs, a stay in rehab / treatment would make more sense, given how it works in these families. Instead, he was outright fired and kicked into the street... which gets one thinking theft/embezzlement. Again, this is just reading the tea leaves / between the lines.

Actually, with the new CBA mandating that teams spend 99% of the salary cap --- read: taxable earnings --- on a cap that has increased by $10-15M per year recently, it's not like the state's tax revenue from the Bills revenues have been/will be stuck at a standstill. You'd be hard-pressed to name many businesses that have seen the kind of growth the NFL has produced in the past 20 years. This isn't to be taken to be a ringing endorsement by me for corporate welfare, but if they're going to do this kind of thing for Company X, they should be expected to do it for Company Y. 'Course, I would prefer that they just lower taxes on these businesses and then make them fund their own capital improvements, instead of having to filter the money through the sticky hands of govt, but hey....

"And then... the oral sex!" - MPATHG I hope it would be fully clothed because there've been some wardrobe malfunction/de-pantying moments in the LFL that would have someone up on charges if it were teenage girls....

I wouldn't say this kind of thing is unusual on the team in years past. Just may not have seen black and white. I do remember some postings here from people over the years who have seen the OL and/or QBs doing stuff together. To attribute the success on the field to bonding stuff like this, as is posted below the article-proper, is a little disingenuous. I'd venture to say that every NFL team has some version of this; people get together to eat outside of work and they shoot the stevestojan. It's a nice color piece/vignette.

Big East Headed To [Football-Only C-USA/Mountain-West Merger] Super Conference? Interesting rumor....

Karzai: Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S. What exactly are we still fighting for there then? If he thinks he's buying any goodwill from any side, he's sorely fuggin' mistaken. The Islamics still hate him. And we've spent hundreds of billions and more importantly lost thousands of our soldiers so he could play president and now slap us in the face? Pull out and let them publicly behead Karzai in the Green Zone. Because, to borrow from crayonz, when your head is rolling down a flight of stairs, it's a little too late to realize who your best & true allies have been. You !@#$er!

No pickles??? WTF?!!?

Jesus knew where the sandbar was.

One could say the same for every team. As my father used to say, "you can wish for it in one hand and stevestojan in the other." The D literally blitzed EIGHT in the second half of the Iggles game and couldn't sniff Vick. This team has next to no pass rush, and that blueprint is now out there. And no pass rush doesn't do any favors for the CBs. You know, defenses have been struggling this year WRT how much the league/rules committee has tilted the tables toward offense and scoring. Like him or not, James Harrison was correct; they're not being allowed to play defense anymore and soon it will be tantamount to flag football. But even with that in mind, our D has taken some serious beat-downs from guys who had no business putting up numbers like they did (see: Andy Dalton). I don't have insider knowledge, but he primarily coaches ILB. The ass't head coach title is something that definitely does make the guys look up to you and he has Gailey's ear more than another position coach, but it generally only means that he runs the team if/when the coach isn't there.

Link Geez! People expect me to turn stevestojan into gold for them every day!

Granted, but let's not overlook that these are important venues for things other than football. Stadiums have served as major staging areas in times of natural disaster --- The Superdome during Katrina, a UConn football game was re-scheduled when the state used Rentschler Field during major Hurricane Irene flooding a couple of months ago, only as two examples off the top of my head. God forbid, in the case of nuclear or widespread biological attack, the state/fed government would be using this high-capacity space as treatment centers, etc. It may never have to be used for something like this stuff, but it's a great help to have a facility like that in place if needed. That's why governments generally kick into funding. I suppose they could use eminent domain in times of emergency but an understood "the govt helped pay for this" is a friendlier persuasion. Now, I'm not saying that govt should foot the whole or even most of the bill. But the point here is that stadiums do serve functions other than football.

And here is Herman Cain's proverbial nail in the coffin. There's some leeway for having ones' mind change on a subject over the course of time and/or given some dramatic change in events/facts. But when you're running a campaign to become president, from that moment you have to have a clear message, and it needs to go in one direction and stay in that direction with every word you speak. You need to be fully prepared and come into class with your homework done. That's why Romney's economic/tax plan had so many points, Herman. This stuff is nuanced and while it needs to be simpler, it will fail badly if it's simplistic (see: 9-9-9). People are starting to see that Cain's soup isn't warm enough yet. If he can tune his policy ideas into ones that work, figure out his message and stick to it and isn't so dependent on short soundbites, he could be a major force in a subsequent primary. But considering his age, that may not happen.

Death photo making the rounds on FB (Be warned, it's quite graphic.)

Actually, it's "Vive la France!" "Viva" is Spanish... or a brand of paper towels.

Link Finally some measure of justice for Pan-Am 103.

Link

Whenever I hear about the doings of our Congressional delegation, I am ashamed to live in this state. How about they reduce taxes so people can buy their own !@#$ing diapers without having to filter money through the gov't? I'm going to wake up one day and read about a United Socialist States of America where the potato farmer gives his whole crop to the FDA and gets back a 2-pound box of dehydrated spuds. What the !@#$ have we wrought? How has **** like this been allowed to happen? “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

Unless there's a position to measure cheerleader bra sizes with my tongue, or team equipment manager where I would order underwear and jock straps four sizes too small and put itching powder in their shoulderpads, no deal.

AP: Iran's supreme leader ups fight with Ahmadinejad

"Here, come right in and see for yourselves just how limited our SDI is!!!" Ronald Reagan just rolled over in his grave.

I'd be careful about making any comment WRT that kind of stuff. While it's a generalization for guys who played in that era in the early part of his career, we have NO idea if Kent Hull had issues with that. Unless you know or can reference this as a fact that contributed to his passing, please show some respect until an official cause is released. Using "likely" is a cop-out.

In a sense, yes. Documentation of birth certificates is kept by the various governmental agencies and hospitals. But it's a private public record. Just because it's kept by a gov't/quasi-gov't agency doesn't mean they must/can share it with the press or every Nosy Parker who walks in. Liken it to how Pres. Obama had to consent to have his birth certificate publicly released. Or just the same how not anyone can walk into the dog catcher's office and look at their files of licenses, vaccination records, owner lists, etc. As to the lawsuit's merits, tho, it's crap if the data is true. Actresses by definition put themselves into the public eye, so they lose most rights afforded on "right to privacy" grounds. And falsity is a requirement for libel/slander cases... and that's only if one considers revealing someone's age to be a libel/slander. And while there do seem to be financial/employment implications WRT actresses' ages, that has to do with legal or illegal discriminations on the part of studios and production companies.

I can't put it any better than that. RIP #67

I can confirm that my name is or is not James and I am or am not related to dev/null.