Chilly

The ol' "Big Post Count = Bad" line of thinking. Pretty original thought there, right before attempting to call one out about not having original thoughts. I'm sitting here shaking in my boots. <-- See, that's me hiding. You call my view of the draft simplistic, all while you are unwilling to admit that player values are relative. Just FYI: You're the one that started going off about Ramius in this thread, I simply replied to it. Don't let that stand in the way of a good rant, though.

The media always gets pissy when they perceive people aren't reacting fast enough for them to pump out news on it.

Looks like Jason Jones will have to go back to The Daily Show.

Taking this one step further, then: Does the Wall Street Journal have an incentive to try to get our public officials to publicly react to actions sooner?

I forget, what diplomatic creds did you say the editors at the WSJ have again?

I'm changing my list. #1 this year is WRamius.

Oh AKC, you just can't stop posting on this, can you? Another episode of "Open Mouth, Insert Foot" awaits. If you want to talk about "false representations of the facts", lets get it all out on the table, shall we? You have absolutely zero facts about the emulation of anything. Your "study" meant nothing. Weren't you just talking about not having "false representations of the facts"? Strange, I could have sworn you were. In any event, I haven't seen your critics say that the Bills shouldn't have taken Harris or Wilfork over Evans, or Ngata over Whitner (who, by the way, isn't a RB or WR). I'm interested in this idea of a "WR crowd", seeing as I haven't seen a single person advocate the Lions strategy of taking a WR every year - but rather only when the Bills have needed it. I believe you were just talking above about "false misrepresentations of the facts". If you're so concerned with that, why did you chop off the rest of the quote? The whole thing was: "Just because there is no clear cut #1 does NOT mean that the draft is WR weak. There are quite a handful of WRs that will go in the 1st and second rounds." Here is where your simplistic view of draft values takes effect. The idea that no WRs went in the first round doesn't necessarily mean that the WR class was weak. When deciding whom to draft, it is necessary to look at the overall group of players available, and the drop-off from one player to the next. In this WR class, there were many players that were pretty close to each other (10 WRs all went in the 2nd round). However, there was no standout WR who really separated himself from the pack last year. In other positions, there was a much smaller group of players that had separated themselves from the pack. This does not mean that the NFL GMs must have thought the draft was weak, but rather could have been that there was better value drafting a different player, and waiting to take a WR later when a run started. It could mean that the class was weak, and it could also have indicated a solid all-around class with no standouts (not exactly weak). You're assuming the first, when we don't know whether that is true or not. Not a surprise though, since throughout this whole debate you've been assuming things. Its funny that you choose this quote as an attempt to prove poor draft understanding, when he's correct - its possible the Bills did have a WR or two rated higher than the pundits, and picking someone in relation to draft values to other teams is what determines a reach, not what the pundits say. As it turns out, they didn't, but no one on this board knew whether they did or didn't at that time. If your theory was correct that they overvalue WRs, they would have. Even funnier, since that quote was entirely true. Scott didn't code the Ignore User feature for everyone, he purchased the board software which includes the feature. He should be thanked for his hard work, but thanking him for the ignore feature is a bit silly. I don't suspect you'll understand the difference, though.

Congrats, you discovered a typo.

My "Eh" there was meant as like a "Meh"... no one important, just a long-time pundit.

Eh, long-time pundit: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/20/obam...a-game-changer/

Indeed, and I was making fun of your grammar in order to agitate you.

Read Gregen's piece this morning eh?

Incorrect, Tom already said he wouldn't, and I wouldn't either.

1.) Plax 2.) Welker 3.) Williams/Cotchery (tie) 5.) Bowe

What a self-fellating way to write an article about polling. "Look at me, I know better than Hillary!" In any event, she does touch some of the basis of the misconceptions about polling rampant in America. The problem is a basic misunderstanding of what polls are, and aren't. They are a best estimate of current public opinion trends in America, which means they do not predict the outcome of close races. They indicate overall trends within the population, not a "OMG MCCAIN IS UP TODAY, OMG OBAMA IS UP TOMORROW" level of detail. They are based upon past turnout, so fluctuation in turnout numbers will cause them to be inaccurate. It takes time to do a poll, they cannot reflect shifts in a 24-time period accurately. There is also the problem that the media doesn't really ever talk about the polling methods of different people. The one Reuters continues to buy, Zogby, uses a self-selecting sample over the internet to do his polls - it doesn't get much more unreliable than that. She doesn't exactly help the cause though with her concluding paragraph: Viewing polls in such a way is flat out useless. I also think her view on exit polling is frankly a bit funny. You can't flat out predict how the results are going to go for a state with no results in yet, and the media is usually quick to jump the gun on calling it. However, they are extremely useful to see who voted for whom and why. For a more in depth view on exit polling, Mark Blumenthal has a good article on the limitations of exit polling.

Incorrect. If you look at overall defection rates, its at historical levels. Currently, the race is at what it was always going to be: a battle for the swing votes. They are breaking in about even thirds right now, which gives the Republicans an advantage (even though Democratic party affiliation and registration levels is always higher, Republicans do a better job with turnout and defection). If Obama can win over this middle group, he'll win. If not, he'll lose. His biggest issue is that the Economic issue has slipped from breaking to him to breaking for McCain - hence the latest ad campaign by Obama. If he can win that issue, he'll get some of those swing voters back.

Read the article this afternoon and passed it along to some friends - interesting stuff, enjoyed it.

Very bad news for Obama indeed, but not all that unexpected. I had a conversation a bit ago with a friend of mine that Obama really needs to make the economic issue his issue. Lo and behold, I did a couple Google searches about Obama and the Economy, and that seems like his new gameplan. I'll be interested to see if it works - it appears to be the best way to gain the swing vote which is breaking in 3rds at the moment, and will decide the election.

Who was doing the ridiculing? Do they have a background in foreign policy and diplomacy?

What are stronger statements, as you put it, going to do to Russia? For that matter, what would sanctions do to Russia?

So he was going to write angry letters to Russia?

What, in your opinion, was Bush going to do about any of this?

Wow.... immature? That quote seems perfectly fine.

Well, one of the things that has been reported with the departure of Levy is that Jauron's influence has gone up. I would venture to guess that it Jauron has a say in everything, as he should (since he's the coach and implementing the systems).

That I'm also not sure of, which is why I removed it from the quote. I believe that both are somehow involved (the Bills and NFL decide jointly somehow), but I'm not sure who has what authority, if one has the official say and the other doesn't, etc.