PTS

In my imaginary world, you are either Team Obama or Team Tea Party. You can't be in the middle. The two sides decide to peacefully separate from each other forming two distinct nations. The Obama Nation becomes a democracy with emphasis on social welfare. The Tea Party Nation becomes a constitutional republic with emphasis on free markets. Which country would succeed in one year? 10 years? 100 years? Is there any question?

In case you missed it, US Soccer finally grew some balls this past weekend and fired Bob Bradley. He has been replaced by Jurgen Klinsmann. Full Press Conference From Monday I think this is a huge step in the right direction especially since Klinsmann will have a hand in restructuring the youth game and how we develop players. US plays Mexico next Wednesday at 9pm at Lincoln Financial Field in Philly. ESPN2 will carry the game.

What you said. Taxes in WNY are terrible. If Upstate broke away from NYC and was able to lower taxes significantly, Buffalo would thrive. But that will never happen. Taxes will continue to go up and people will continue to go out.

I have always been an huge Adu supporter and never liked him being banished from the USMNT program. From a team that struggles with scoring goals, Freddy has always had a knack for creating goals. He is and will continue to be the most skilled player in the US Program and a good manager has to find a way to make use of that skill. I've heard people with far more soccer knowledge then myself say that the US system would have ruined a player like Lionel Messi. US Soccer prefers to select/develop well-rounded players over skilled players. Compared to the teams they played or would have played in the World Cup? Yes. England was good but highly overrated. Slovenia, Algeria, Ghana and Uruguay are teams the US should beat consistently. If they were in another group with different knock-out stage opponents, I might have been happy with a Round of 16 appearance but they should have done much better with the favorable matchups they got. I'm still pissed off about last night's game. I don't care who the opponent is, you don't blow 2-0 leads in soccer. Bob Bradley has managed to do it twice in the finals of a major tournament. The guy plain and simply has to go. As soon he put Bornstein in, I knew we were in trouble. All four Mexican goals came on his side. Bradley should have realized that mistake and pulled him at halftime. Mexico figured out our weakness at the back and abused it. What might have been if Dolo never went down.

The issue was and has been that a real coach like Klinsmann wants full authority over the entire mens program. USSF and Sunil refuse to give that control up because they believe in their system. The system worked bringing American soccer to the level it's at today compared to 25 years ago but as you mentioned, it's now treading water.

The Rose Bowl won't give US any home-field advantage. It will probably be 90% Mexican supporters. I went to the last REAL Gold Cup Final in 2007 in Chicago. It was 80/20 in fan support there in favor of the Mexicans. This tournament is run by CONCACAF and they don't take US supporter groups into consideration when they sell tickets. That said, Mexico hasn't beaten the USMNT First Squad in over 11 years on US Soil. Let's hope that continues Saturday night. It's a direct product of coaching. The talent of US players have vastly outgrown the tactical level of US coaches. Most retired US Nationals have been saying this for the past five years. USSF needs to bring in a top-level European coach and this team would be far better than it already is. I'm still convinced that they would have made the semifinals of the World Cup last year had they had a even slightly better coach. They had the easiest group and easiest path into the semis. Poor gameday decisions haunted the team.

It's showing up on my FSC channel guide. I have DirecTV.

Don't get me wrong, I like my women skinny but yeah, eat something for God's sake! She would be much hotter if she gained 10-15 pounds.

Right now we have Matthews as our first preference. Specifically the part of Matthews that is in Union County with the better schools. We did like Waxhaw because of the size of the lots but I could see accessibility being an issue to that area. Some parts were definitely located better than others. As for Fort Mill, we love their crazy low taxes but didn't really see a house we really liked.

You are preaching to the choir my man! Maui is my heaven on earth. Just need to add some zeros to the end of my bank account to make it happen. Looking in Union county and just over the border in SC. We are trying to stay clear Mecklenberg County because of the higher taxes (but still really low compared to what I'm paying now). Definitely drove by these guys just south of the Charlotte area. No joke, saw a hick tanning on his trailer's "deck" with his rifle/shotgun off to the side.

I was one of those guys growing up that always thought I'd never leave Buffalo. I've traveled the world more than enough to see many alternatives but rarely did I think I'd leave the WNY area. The closest I came was after my freshman year at UB when I was about to transfer to ASU in Phoenix. That never materialized because I got offered a great job at the age of 19. My family is here, my wife is from here, I started my business here and we just had our first child recently. And we both live and die with the Sabres and Bills. I don't know what happened but about 2-3 months ago my wife and I both decided it was time for something better, something more. I'm sure the winter weather had a lot to do with it but after looking at a few options, we decided Charlotte was an area we'd like to consider. Two weeks ago we went on a family road trip to Florida to my in-law's place. We decided to stop in Charlotte on the way down and back to look at homes with a realtor we hooked up with earlier. We always say Buffalo's a great place to raise a family (and I agree it is) but after driving through the neighborhoods and towns in the suburbs of Charlotte, I gotta say I was floored at how much more Charlotte has to offer. We absolutely loved it. Then you can start adding stuff like low home prices, bigger homes, and taxes that are a fraction of what we pay in NYS. This quickly became a no brainer. So right now we are scrambling to sell our house ASAP so my wife can transfer within her company to an immediate opening. They plan to have more openings in the next 12 months but we don't want to wait. As for my business, it's so portable I could run it from Maui if I needed to. I'm sure there are many former WNYers down there that post here, how are you enjoying life down there? We're concentrating our search to the Fort Mill, Waxhaw and Matthews area.

Really, because I don't remember having lunch with you? Pegula can handle losing 10-20 million a year without it affecting him. Would owning a small-market NFL team make sense? I guess I have no idea how much the Bills make/loss, but if owning the Bills affects him owning the Sabres in any way, I'm against it. I hope there really is another group that would make more sense.

Seattle has the best MLS fans hands down. It's on par with major European clubs, I'm pretty sure guys like Beckham have said the same. When you see QWest Field during a Sounders game, you think you were warped into Manchester or Chelsea's stadium. US Soccer needs to play in Seattle.

One step forward, two steps back. That's your Buffalo Bills. There is no silver lining in this loss. It hurts and it's demoralizing to a team that needs to shed itself of being a perennial loser.

Man, now you guys are scaring me from having the surgery! I'm definitely going to do some more research. I believe there is a new form of LASIKs (Allegerto Wave) which I heard is safer but I'll need to dig for more info.

My eyes have been getting worse each year and it's gotten to the point where I've had enough. I hate wearing glasses or contacts and I am definitely considering LASIK surgery. I know Fichte and Atwal are the two big players when it comes to this surgery. I'm sure a few of my fellow TBDers have had this surgery. Any recommendations?

Funny. I was watching CNN on Wednesday and they had a whole post-election segment on how the Tea Party successfully elected 86% of their candidates. Don't let those facts get in your way of pointing out the six losers.

While I can't go all conner on you and post links to pointless websites/articles, if you are a student of US Political History you would know that conservative politicians have done more and will continue to do more for minorities than their liberal counterparts. OCinBuffalo already touched on it: There our two types of liberals, the Elitists and those that follow them. The problem is the Elitists will never allow their minions to get to their level because they need these people to feel like they are suffering and then place the blame of that suffering on conservatives. An abused social welfare system does exactly that. It keeps people down and makes it tough for them to live the American Dream. Unfortunately they don't understand that the system they think is in place to protect them is the real culprit of their plight.

Actually I haven't, what's the title? Is he the guy on Sirius Patriot? I've listened to a few of his shows I think.

I would venture to say everything Obama is doing is based on theoretical beliefs. So what's more likely to cause racism? Hiring an unqualified person to fill some quota or allowing people and businesses to hire whomever they see fit based on the notion that the vast majority will hire the best candidate available. I own my own business and if I pass up on a great prospect because he or she is not this or that when it comes to race or color, it's my loss at the end of the day and my competitors gain. It's 2010 and good people will find good jobs. Obviously true free market is theoretical but I much rather be closer to that dream then whatever Obama's dream is.

I'd bet my house, wife and newborn that there is 10x more racism coming from groups on the left than there is or ever was in the Tea Party. There is no racism in a true free-market, capitalist society because when you want to be the best and make the most money, you hire the best people ... regardless of color, race or religion. Socialism fosters racism, capitalism does away with it.

I definitely consider myself a Tea Party backer and here are my quick thoughts on the party: 1. It is not going away anytime soon, if ever. If anything, I can see it getting larger. 2. It will push the Republican Party back to fiscal conservatism. Too many RINOs out there. 3. It will push the Democratic Party back toward the center. Obama and his crew have taken that party to the extreme left and that is not good for the country or their party.

Thanks for letting me know that my casual review of young people posting on Twitter last night was in deed professional research.

Are you referring to yourself and people like you. Last night I spent hours on Twitter reading how misinformed the Obama leftists are, specifically the younger generations. I was so saddened and bothered as a human being that the youth of this nation are so warped into believing everything our current President and his administration are doing.

Obviously others have already pointed out your ineptness but my God, how can you post your GM tidbit and make it seem like it's something to be proud of. GM is a failed company. The only reason the IPO will be so high is because the unions got a HUGE stake of the new GM and their very survival depends on this IPO.