Taro T

The bad news for him is they look like Rosie O'Donnell and smell like Roseanne Barr. May he rot in hell a loooooong time.

Good question. Per NBC News he is apparently helping draft the remarks himself. (Yes, David Gregory basically stated that and no, I don't know why.)

Apparently Obama will give a speech in a few minutes stating that Osama is dead. Cool.

Back in '85 according to TBN polls, a lot of fans wanted the Bills to take Flutie w/ the #1 overall pick. (IIRC, Felser was pushing hard for that pick as well. I know somebody at the Snooze was in favor of it, my apologies to Larry if I have him confused w/ a different writer.) Having that #1 overall pick would have been much better than the guy they chose.

To say that QB wasn't an addressed priority in '83 is simply false and didn't take into consideration what players were available in that draft. Hunter was far and away the best tight end coming out that year (no other tight ends went in the 1st 2 rounds) and the Bills' tight end at the time was Mark Brammer (who was serviceable) and his backup was Buster Barnett (who wasn't). When the Bills 'passed' on Kelly at 12, there was only 1 team left to pick before they got to pick again and there were still FOUR 'can't miss' quarterbacks left in the draft (Kelly, Eason, O'Brien, and Marino). Even if the Lions had taken 1 of those guys, there were still 3 others on the board. And the fact of the matter is, the Lions felt comfortable enough w/ Danielson and crew that they didn't take a QB. The Lions chose a fullback. It was much riskier to take Kelly at 12, and hope that Hunter was there at 14 than to go the other way round. Fergie was getting long in the tooth back in '83, and the Bills expected that they'd gotten their franchise QB for a year or 2 down the road when they picked Kelly. That he bolted for the USFL made the choice look pretty bad and made the Hunter pick look better. While technically, Kelly wasn't their 1st pick, I'd say it was close enough to put an asterisk next to that 51 years and counting.

But I don't think the general public will see this 'we've all got better things to do than worry about a birth certificate ... hey, let's talk about a birth certificate' as a leadership issue. I think they will see this as more of a reminiscence back to the Clinton years. (By that, I'm referring to the general perception back then of people that 'Clinton's doing a great job and Republicans hate his simply for being Clinton.' Regardless of what reality was.) I think they'll see it as 'these crazy Republicans were all over him to release his birth certificate and now he did and they start picking on him once again.' Because I doubt that the general public sees the distinction between the Republicans and the Tea Party and the 'birthers'. That's what it looks to me like Obama & his handlers are hoping for / expecting with the way this has (and likely will) play out. This is set up to be able to claim 'no matter what we do, they'll always criticize us, even when we do what they want.' He knows he won't get to pass anything he'd hope to pass from here through the next election. This is all 'do whatever it takes' to win again. Yeah, there's no leadership there. But that's not even on the radar now. And while those criticizing it as showing a demonstration of no leadership are correct. But it isn't about doing the job, it's about getting the emotional response from the electorate in 19 or so months. One needs to have priorities. And if Republicans are seen as keeping this (non-)issue alive, it WILL work to his advantage.

You answered your own question.

The slug is gone. They don't wear it at all. This summer the last traces of it (scoreboard, merchandise stands, etc.) will be erased from the rink. I've even heard talk that people that show up to the rink wearing one will be charged an extra 2 bucks / beer.

Reffing wasn't great, but that isn't what caused the Sabres to lose.

Keeping spending where it's at did seem to be part of your plan; if it isn't, cool. I'd like to see a lot (the majority) of corporate loopholes closed, but would also like to see the nominal rate dropped. Raising taxes on the 'super wealthy' won't come close to balancing the budget unless spending is significantly curtailed and/or you have a much broader definition of the 'super wealthy' than is predominant.

:huh:

It would be so friggin' nice if these guys could break the whole debate back into a 2-3 part question. (And actually agree to 'reasonable' answers. Yeah, I know a significant portion of the issue is nobody is willing to agree on what 'reasonable' is.) 1. What percentage of GDP should the government spend? Obama says 25% (1/4 of the total). Ryan says head towards 20% for now (1/5 of total). Me, I'd like to see it closer to 18% (roughly 1/6) but understand they'd have to get to 20% before they could get lower. 2. If they could agree to that, then the follow up questions are: how to distribute that from 'the wealthy,' 'the middle class,' and 'the poor;' (and the foreigners(?)) and how much gets paid for today (current taxes) & how much gets paid tomorrow (debt). And those would theoretically be easier to answer than simply 'how much do we spend in flat out trillions.' Because if they would actually come up with an agreement that 'we'll spend X%' then the debate moves to 'how do we grow the GDP' rather than 'how do we increase revenues to pay for everything we want.' You want more money to spend on your pet projects, then grow the !@#$ing economy. Yeah, I know it will NEVER happen, but there's my 'I've got a dream' dream.

While the logic is sound, it doesn't look like any network executives agree w/ it. Me, I could see either Bills-Bears or Bills-Broncs having similar/better ratings compared to some of the others like TB/KC or NO/Oak.

Not a shocking proposal, but pretty idiotic on the whole.

Sheesh, no love nationally for that annual classis Bills-Lions slugfest? How shocking.

Mandating 'nutritious, sensible school lunches' is a great way to start under-nourishing kids. As you would be hard pressed to find kids that would be willing to eat the crud that passes for school lunches more than 2-3 times / week. My gut feel is that any attempt at mandating school lunches would probably result in kids consuming additional empty calories as they hit the candy machines to fill up after eating 3 or so bites of what they were supposed to be eating. I'd also be interested in seeing some stats on which income levels produce which percentages of the 'fat' kids. My guess is the lower deciles are overrepresented. If that's the case, what good would fines produce? This looks more like a money grab by the lunch provider (supported by well meaning dolts) than anything else.

Crozier had serious health issues during his Sabres' tenure. He DIDN'T lead the team to the playoffs in '73 - he split that year w/ Dryden (because of his stomach problems) and Dryden got the 1st 2 starts in the playoffs. In '75, again due to health issues, he was the effectively the backup behind Bromley and then Desi. He came in in relief for Desi in the 1st game against Moe-ray-all and started the next 2 until he got yanked in game 3. He played games 3 & 6 in the Finals. When HEALTHY, even at his age, he was better than Dryden, Bromley, Daley, Desi, etc. but he wasn't healthy often enough to say he 'led' the team. They were better w/ him in the net than the others, but he just simply wasn't able to be there often enough. Barrasso looked GREAT his 1st 2 years in Buffalo. And then people figured out that the 5 hole was ALWAYS open, and he didn't look nearly as good in Buffalo ever again. (By the time he was traded, he was giving up over 4 gpg.) He bore down while in Pittsburgh after his daughter got sick, but even then the success he had in Pittsburgh was due to Lemieux & crew far more than it was due to him. You already know the answer to your 2nd round question, so I won't bother w/ that one. And you don't expect Miller to be better than Hasek? No !@#$ing **** Sherlock. Dom was (arguably) the best goalie ever. If the criticism is that he isn't better than Dom, I can't argue w/ that. But I wouldn't say anybody else was better than him either.

Restricting is MUCH different than eliminating. Considering there is noone on either side of the table looking out for the taxpayer during negotiations, I am just disappointed that it took this long for this correction to occur. I am also disappointed that it isn't happening in NY as well. There has to be a rationalization to the way benes are provided moving forward. Let the public workers get fair salaries up front (which they still get to do under the WI law) but don't let them hide huge costs under the table. Workers currently getting pensions should continue getting them, but public workers that are younger should be on 403b's. And to keep public salaries 'fair' with what their output is worth, perhaps they should get big raises to account for some of the lost value of their future benes. And give the workers the RIGHT to choose whether to pay union dues or not. If the union leadership is truly working for them and providing a value to them, they'd be fools not to pay the dues, right? My guess is though, when the dues become optional, a lot of workers won't see the value they supposedly are receiving.

Interesting how he and Walker are both from Wisconsin. With Madison as liberal as it is, wouldn't have seen this being the origin of movements for fiscal sanity.

1st off, they aren't cutting out collective bargaining. They're limiting its scope to salary and not to perks. The unions can still collectively bargain, they just don't get to negotiate clauses such as an individual's state pension will be based on the actual salary collected in the last 3 years of employment regardless of how much overtime, sick time, and vacation is included in that baseline. And I haven't heard many (any?) people complain about Soros backing Dems. Am I to assume you are opposed to that because he's rich like the Koch Brothers or are you in favor of it because he gives to leftist causes? And the bolded items in your last paragraph are about the only things I've seen you post that I'd agree with. Glad to see you finally got one right.

Not since the early '80's. That's the Jennings you're thinking of. The Vezina is awarded to the netminder that the GM's think is the best.

Wow, now Enroth isn't getting compared to Dom, he's getting compared to Ken Dryden? Big difference between the 2. Dryden was highly touted and the Habs wanted him sooner than they got him. Habs wanted Dryden in their system and he balked and went to Cornell. Habs had a good goalie in Vachon and a servicable backup in Myre but neither had the potential of Dryden. Vachon had missed the playoffs for the 1st time in nearly forever the previous year. Dryden came up and didn't lose a game in the RS. The guy was a monster sizewise for his era and won 6 SC's in 8 seasons. And really, Miller doesn't belong in conversation with Crozier at the tail end of his career w/ serious stomach problems, Fuhr at the end of his career, Tommy 5 Hole in the Sabres portion of his career, Edwards, & Sauve? I would like to see how Enroth reacts to shooters 'having a book on him' before I annoint him the Sabres' "next superstar goalie." He has very good reactions and a quick glove. I'd like to see shooters not take advantage of his size for more than a handful of games before we put his # in the rafters. Right now he looks to be a very capable backup, and if Miller isn't minimum 95%, I'd rather have him between the pipes; but that's all it is for now.

And drooling Americans.

Well the EPA has considered adding ethylene to the list of carcinogens simply because it ripens fruit. (Fortunately that didn't get very far.) So some of their other decisions haven't been terribly surprising. Though I still haven't seen any legitimate justification from them for regulating CO2 other than Bush misstating in a debate against Gore that CO2 (rather than CO) was a pollutant.

Uh, did you see the 4th goal against the Caps? Box score says Gragnani scored it, so it was a double deflection that scored the game winner, just like last night.