Taro T

Except that I actually saw (far too many of) his skits back in the late '70's and early '80's and when he came back on the show w/ the Stuart Smiley era crud. Actually, he wasn't funny in 'Trading Places' either. His Air America rants bordered on Randi Rhodes venomous as well. So, how exactly does your inane post show how I think? If anything, it seems to indicate, once again, how you don't appear to.

Why does the fact that you post you don't know his stuff but yet like it not surprise me?

Yeah, because his "the '70's were the 'Me decade', what will the '80's be? They'll be the AL FRANKEN DECADE" was friggin' hilarious. You are correct, some of the best SNL material occurred when he was on the payroll there. Considering the schlock that he put out as an actor, (Franken & Davis skits, Stuart Smiley, his Weekend Update commentary) I really doubt much of the good stuff was his. Or maybe he just gave the good stuff to other actors, and in his infinite humility decided to keep the cruddy stuff for himself.

Due to the roads being an absolute disaster currently, I have no intention of making the typically 1:30 drive. I've heard the storm is easing in Buffalo, so if I was starting from near Buffalo, I'd be going. I have a pair of seats in the 300's inside the blue line on the Sabres' bench side. For a donation of $40 to this site, I will have them left at will call. (Face value for the pair is $152.) Send me a PM if interested. (Yes, the offer is legit, and no, Scott did not put me up to it. Sorry for the short notice, but I just got back a few minutes ago.)

Actually, Caroline was on MtP right before Pelosi was. Watching the 1st interview, I commented to my wife that this was an example of why I missed Russert so much. Brokaw would ask her a tough question, allow her to sidestep it, and then move on to his next question. There was never a single probing followup Q nor a redirect to actually answer the original question. And then Pelosi came on, and Brokaw still didn't ask a probing followup question. But this time he didn't need to, Pelosi would mangle the 1st one w/out any need for followup. She had some gems such as the Catholic Church doesn't have a position on when life begins and natural gas isn't a fossil fuel. (And she will STILL be 2 heartbeats away from the Presidency. THAT is scary.) CKS is definitely smarter than the average bear from her clan. That is about the only thing I can come up w/ as a positive if she is annointed Senator. I'd actually prefer to see Slaughter get the nod, but she came out today endorsing Caroline. So once again Upstate NY will get an even weaker voice.

He is making a "chicken wing soup". Clearly he doesn't want properly cooked wings. As you said, to each his own.

Writing comprehension a little low today Deb?

Can't speak for anyone else, but it's not just that they are losing or how they are losing; it's the way this whole season shaped up. Heading into the season, I was kind of down because I didn't think they had a team good enough to take advantage of a REALLY easy schedule. That 4-0 start w/ something we haven't seen in what seems like forever (4th quarter come from behind wins, yeah those were against bad teams, but they were wins that they should have been able to build on) and what appeared at the time as wins against quality opponents (a Seattle team albeit w/ limited WR's and the Jags at home), made me start to believe they actually were good enough to take advantage of the schedule. After the 4-0 start, I expected at least 1 loss in the next 2, quite likely 2 L's, so the win against a weary and hard luck SD team also indicated the team might actually take advantage of the schedule. Then the 1st Dolfelon debacle takes place. How do you keep going to an injured McGee covering Ginn all game long? Even if you don't think McKelvin can cover him, or double teaming him, or whatever will work, you have to at least try something else as Terrance at 80% was not good enough to get it done. Against Cleveland, you finally get Trent to look good and then you decide being in 50 yard field goal range is close enough in freezing weather against the wind. Then the stinker against the 9ers. Well at least we get the Fish on a 22 degree high wind day. Or maybe not. It's not so much that they're ~500 again. It's that they had the perfect storm of reasonable schedule and great start that actually looked like they might not go 0-for-the-millenium. (I guess they still have 991 left to get off the schnide.)

What was the deal w/ JP looking over his right shoulder after finishing every sentence for the 1st half of the PC?

For me, the issue isn't so much that she's a novice or very liberal or a Kennedy (she actually comes across far more intellegently in interviews than most of the clan). The issue is more that while she will be learning the job, she will also be (hopefully) trying to get up to speed on upstate issues while the financial sector meltdown (centered on downstate) will consume an inordinate amount of her time and energy as she tries to get up to speed on that. At a time when WNY's limited influence in DC wanes ever further, I don't see her appointment helping in that matter. I think it would be very good if Higgins were put into that position, but I don't see it happening. Although I'd probably never vote for her as Senator, given the fact that the appointee will be a liberal democrat, I'd probably like to see Slaughter get nominated for the slot. Again, given the constraints of who will be nominated for what, if Caroline were given a position in the Federal government, I'd prefer to see her heading Education.

OK, they have the right to say anything, they simply should have the good taste not to use that right.

Ah, so if a couple that wasn't planning on having a child end up finding one on the way and decide to keep it, they are disallowed from entering into the discussion on the legal status of abortion because they haven't adopted an additional child. And the implication of your 2nd bolded sentence is that it is better to be dead than to be living in an orphanage. Look, you said flat out to begin this discussion that the only people that should be allowed to express an opinion that differs from yours on this matter are those that have adopted a child. The relative merits of the morning after pill have very little to do with the 1st amendment rights of pro-lifers.

Truly they would. 100% of the time. Because no one is ever living close to paycheck to paycheck nor might they ever fear losing their job for a rather spurious reason. The fact that someone cares about babies doesn't necessarily translate into their having the resources to care for them. How would you propose that someone who has fallen on hard times and can't support their current family (regardless of structure) go out and adopt a child simply because they believe that abortion is morally reprehensible?

What do I mean by an "additional child"? I mean one more than they had prior to adopting a child. Is that really that hard to understand? We are in a discussion about unplanned / unwanted children and you are honestly asking how somebody that has a child would have one of their own rather than someone elses? Again, your view is painfully clear that the only people allowed into the discussion if they don't agree with you are the people that have enough money to afford to adopt a child. [Edit] And, to make it explicitly clear for you, even for those people that don't have any children at all because they can't afford to raise a child, an adopted child would be an "additional child".

No, you were clear the 1st time as well. Anyone that can't afford to raise an additional child obtained through adoption does not deserve to have a say in the discussion unless they are pro-abortion. That may not have been your intent, but that is what it amounts to: if you have not adopted a child (for whatever reason) you don't have the right to state that abortion should be illegal. That is crystal clear.

Absolutely.

Nope. One would have to be pretty friggin' pathetic to lie about something this trivial. (Of course, posting here does tend to indicate that there is a higher likelihood of being pretty friggin' pathetic than that of the general population. So I see the source of your distrust, Mr. 88. )

I'd say that those groups are interested in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, they simply choose a rather naive (and extremely ineffective) method to prevent unwanted pregnancies. There's far too much distrust (and hatred) in the vocal groups of their antithesis for them to actively work together. Heck, there's distrust (probably not the right word, but contempt seems too severe) between those situated towards the middle as well. As an example, while I don't believe that you are at the extreme end of the pro-choice spectrum, though you are on that side of the fence, you explicitly refer to those that oppose abortion as "anti-choice" rather than either "anti-abortion" or "pro-life". Simply opposing abortion isn't opposing "choice" per se, it's opposing one particular choice. And for whatever it's worth, the vocal pro-choice crowd does a very poor job of publicising that they support adoption (if in fact the hardliners do support it). Also, I agree with you that education and contraception are very important tools to reduce unwanted pregnancies. I think we'd also agree that adoption is a much better result of an unwanted pregnancy than is abortion.

You answered 33 out of 33 correctly — 100.00 % Average score for this quiz during December: 74.8% Average score: 74.8%

Ah, yes. You have nothing against those who oppose abortion, you simply don't believe those people should be allowed to express their 1st amendment rights unless they have adopted a child. How very reconstruction South Carolina of you.

Dean, why does being opposed to abortion necessarily imply an opposition to contraception? While I will admit that there are people that oppose both, there are MANY people that are fine w/ contraception but opposed to abortion. I'd actually be extremely surprised if the number of pro-contraception but anti-abortion advocates weren't in the millions in this country alone.

Congrats on the new baby. It's probably the lack of sleep that's making you think this way, but if you're going to be only watching games you know the outcome of, there's a good chance you aren't going to have much interest in watching even the fast forwarded version. Not knowing how it turns out is what makes it entertaining. Even if all you know is that the Bills win, it still ends up a "what's the point of even bothering" excercise. (And this coming from someone who has over 90% of the Bills games since 1990 on tape / dvr (even more if you don't count Greggggggg's 1st season w/ no tapes). It's kind of cool watching them beat the Raiders in '90 (either game), it's not quite the same watching them beat this year's Raiders 20 minutes after the game ends.)

D*mn, you can come up w/ something intentionally funny once in a while.

Purely out of curiosity, primarily because you would have far more access to the studies than I (if they exist), have you seen any where that relationship is analyzed and how the leads and lags of tuition and loan availability relate to each other? PS - I really will read that paper you sent me, unfortunately I probably won't get a chance to read it until I'm on an airplane heading for my mother-in-law's house at Christmas. (3 planes and 14 hours should get me through most of it.)