Taro T

I don't think he plays in an older age group in the other league, but he plays against a higher caliber of competition. It now is looking like that defending league champ team grabbed the other Pony league ringer, so this team grabbed a ringer of their own. Heck of a way to teach sportsmanship to 8-10 year olds.

That definitely flips around opinion on who is in the right on this one. The original article didn't mention that the pitcher was a mid-season addition. So it does look like the league is actually a developmental league and it was/is trying to keep the skill levels comparable across the age groups. I wonder what other details are missing out of this version of the story.

I guess it doesn't really matter, considering they didn't bother to count all the delegates anyhow. Probably. But now he has the cover of "hey, you saw my speech; A'm behind this guy 100%". I'd expect that speech gives Obama a bit of a bounce. It'll be interesting to see how Obama's speech goes over tomorrow. I'm still not sure why he's giving the speech infront of Greek columns.

Question: Louisiana has/had 67 votes and gave 43 to Obama and 7 to Clinton. What the frig happened to the other 17?

I remember seeing Bruce beat Elliot on occassion, but for the life of me can't remember a single time Bruce ever beat Bosselli. (Not that he played them often.) Bosselli always seemed to me the one guy that owned Bruce. It doesn't take away from your point though.

What makes you think it's an act?

It's absolutely assinine not to let the kid pitch. But, a couple of things don't add up in this. I've never heard of a "developmental" league where the teams go out and recruit players. That stuff happens in "travel" leagues. This clearly isn't a developmental league. Someone in the article mentioned moving the kid up an age bracket, that seems to have been the simplest solution to the problem had it been done before the season started, or right when it became obvious he was too good for the kids around him. Assuming his fielding and hitting are reasonable, and if he's throwing 40 mph heat w/ control @ 9, I'd have to assume they are, then he'd probably get more out of competing against kids he's not blowing away as well. The kid should have been pitching in a higher age level at the start of the season. Gee, I wonder why it became an issue 8 games in.

If that's mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Sounds a little high for median.

Fair enough. At any rate, a change in tax policy of that magnitude would NOT put accountants out of business, regardless of what people might expect.

Would you propose the transaction tax be levied at each transaction in the creation of goods, or only for finished goods? Also, would services supplied to a manufacturer / producer be taxed, or would those get taxed only at the finished goods transaction? It'd be real interesting watching how the shift in tax policy effected the vertical integration of companies and how it effected foreign / domestic production. I agree that everyone on this board will be probably be deceased before a tax policy shift of that magnitude gets enacted.

Lori, excellent post. (Gee, there's a surprise.) And a thanks to Tim for starting this discussion. (Who'd've thunk it? There is still room on this board for legitimate discussions. ) My concern in Tim's posts, and one which I hope he will come back and expound upon / clarify is what he meant by (paraphrasing here) "the NFL is taking note of the size of the local media presence"? There have been several legitimate reasons given for why the WNY print media presence was small at this game (although it does appear that, as has been addressed, Tim overlooked your favorite Chuck Pollock). I see several legitimate reasons for the Toronto media to step up their NFL coverage including: it's the glamour sport in the US, and if Canada has a glamour city, TO is definitely it; they have had little to no 1st hand coverage of the NFL in the past; it probably is cheaper to cover a 5 month / year sport that only plays once / week rather than 7 month / year sports that play every day if they are looking to cut production costs. None of these reasons has anything to do with a diminished following of the Bills in WNY. They, for the most part, deal with the economics of running a printed newspaper. I am troubled that the NFL would be bringing this into their determination on whether to support a small market's viability in anything more than a cursory manner. As you mentioned, this trimming back of expenses at newspapers is not limited to WNY, nor is it limited to small markets. E.g., NYC papers have trimmed back on their reporters' travel to cover other sports as well. I haven't been one of the ones overly worried that the Bills will pack up and find the nearest Mayflower when Ralph passes on. Comments such as Tim's do make me a slight bit more nervous. Which again, is why I'd really like to read an expansion of Mr. Graham's thoughts on that.

After THIS post, I am done w/ this thread. You are the one starting this thread. You are the one asking the questions. And you are the one seemingly claiming that God doesn't exist. That would put the onus on you. But as I've stated, far too many times, YOU can't prove God doesn't exist; just as I can't prove that He does exist. (Science isn't equipped to prove, nor disprove, the existance of God. ) YOU are making a claim that something is true - namely that God doesn't exist. By your own words, that puts the onus on YOU. You've written that the question of whether the Christian God exists "has a myriad of claims and certainties... its either true or false, one or the other people", well if it has certainties and is obviously true or false, why don't you enlighten us and explain how His existance is false? I have never written that you are politically incorrect. That statement appears to be another one of the strawmen you have consistantly set up apparently trying to draw someone into a pissing match w/ you. Why in the world should I have a discussion about religion at WORK? You obviously haven't been in the working world very long, if at all. The whole premise of this thread is that you are curious about Christianity but then you have the audacity to tell me how I should be living as a Christian?!?!? You know absolutely nothing about me, you don't even know which particular religion I follow, but you know how I should profess and express MY faith. As I stated at the beginning of this post, I am done w/ this thread. PS - I don't know anything at all about you, so how am I supposed to tell you whether or not you will be going to hell? Even if I did know you, that's not my call to make. For not believing in Jesus, I doubt that gets you eternal damnation.

You would be wrong thinking that I agree that faith in God is a failing argument. You would also be wrong in thinking that I agree that the Christian religion is necessarily "dangerous". As I have stated on several occassions, science is not currently equipped to answer the question as to whether God exists. That does NOT mean that He doesn't exist, it simply means that we cannot use science to "prove" that He does or does not exist. You are looking for something that we (humanity) currently are not capable of. We are continuously expanding our capabilities. Will we ever be able to "prove" God exists? I don't know. Maybe. Whether we do or don't doesn't really bother me much one way or the other. I'm not certain why you think you are going to hell for using your "brain and logic". Nor, for that matter, do I understand why you think that God doesn't want you to use your brain. Regardless, I think I am done w/ this thread.

Yeah, because in the Church of Global Warming, it is all about "common sense and being honest with yourself". It's not about additional money in the apostles' pockets nor is it about additional governmental control of the masses. Nope, it's none of that. It's entirely about "honesty". Science would never be taken as a matter of "faith" nor used as an instrument by the leaders to further their own ends. I do agree with you that science SHOULD be about common sense and searching for truth / honesty, and also that it oftentimes is. But there are and have been many instances where science isn't nearly as pure as we would like it to be. Back more to point, science isn't remotely advanced enough to posit whether God does or does not exist. I doubt it will be close to that point within either of our grandchildren's lifetimes. In 2008, it is still a question that must be answered via "faith". As for your request for me to explain my beliefs, I've already stated that a single message board post would not come close to summing them up. There is really little reason for me to attempt to summarize it, as we both know that anything I post will display both "faith" on my part and will entail providing a summation of MY interpretation of actions and events I have witnessed and participated in. You have stated that you want it presented "in a way that makes sense", but you have exhibited a hostility to faith. I don't see how, short of an extremely long disertation, that I can even begin to do that; and, quite honestly, I truly doubt that I am remotely eloquant enough to fully explain myself on this matter even in that setting. I also have doubts regarding how open minded you'd be to attempt to understand what I attempted to say and where I was coming from. You want "proof", I don't have it for you. But I do have it for myself, for me that is enough. I don't need to proselytize, I am comfortable both in my faith AND my quest for knowledge. Are you? We do agree on the "go Bills" sentiment.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being prepared for a crisis (provided the preparations don't end up like a Jonestown revival ). That stated, I just don't see us at the end of days at this time. Primarily because I don't see myself as being important enough to be one of the ones around when the sh*t does finally hit the fan. Throughout history, every generation (in almost every culture) has had its reason to believe a crisis of biblical proportions was imminent. So far they've all been wrong as far as the destruction being species wide, although that's been small consolation to a group that's been exterminated more or less. Eventually someone will be right, I just don't see myself as being fortunate (or more likely unfortunate) enough to be there when it does go down. (Of course, my powers of prognostication aren't exactly top notch, so it probably all goes down on Thursday. ) The most probable reason it all hasn't gone down yet, is He hasn't wanted it to. He's pulled us back from the brink when we've gotten too far. I expect He will do it again, I just don't know how He'll keep us around and I'm quite certain we won't realize that He helped us out again. He's had the whole show running for over 4B years, why get bored now when He's only had us around for 5-10k years? We almost definitely have the technology to wipe ourselves out, I don't think He'll let us do it, at least not now. Besides, Nostradamus says it's not supposed to go down for another 2000.

I've read this thread with interest. It's quite apparent that you have made up your mind that He doesn't. I'm not quite certain why you seem to need to get others to agree with your position. While science and religion are mutually exclusive in their methods, there is no reason that a person cannot believe in scientific principals and God. More specifically, there is no reason a person can't be both a scientist and a Christian. I've seen in this thread, the strawman set up that God is claimed to be omniscient and omnipresent in all ways that we would understand, so therefore he MUST know what is going to happen tomorrow and that freewill somehow doesn't / can't exist. I don't deny that there are some who believe this, but I expect they are vastly in the minority. While that seems to be the God that you want Christians to worship and believe in, apparently to be able to call out / knock down their faith; I doubt that you would have many / any of the Christians and other religious people in this thread even agree amongst themselves to exactly what His powers are and how they are manifested. I consider myself to believe in God (I've seen too much in this world to NOT believe that God does exist) and also a scientist (well, engineer, more precisely). I don't believe the Bible's version of Adam and Eve, but I do believe God created us through some sort of evolutionary process that started w/ something similar to the Big Bang. I see no reason not to try to continue to understand our world as fully as possible, understanding how the world works helps bring us closer to understanding how God set it all up brings us closer to Him as we find out it's all a heck of a lot more complex than any of us could have imagined. My full thoughts on God and science can't be summed up particularily well in a single message board post, but the Reader's Digest version is that God set it all up and lets it run its course. He can see what will happen and on occassion when things are going to get too f*cked up he will step in and make an adjustment. (The German scientists screwing up their calcs on the A-bomb for instance.) But typically he lets it all play out; I think this "freewill" stuff is kind of fun for Him. He created nature and the physical laws that we are bounded by and gets a kick out of our figuring out what they are and how we can make our lives better through an understanding of them. So, I guess, to answer your question: yes, the Christian God exists. Can I prove it to you? No, I can't. That's kind of part of science and religion not overlapping currently. Maybe someday, when our science advances enough there may be an overlapping of the 2 again (but in a good way this time) as science may help us answer some of the questions that it currently can't (why are we here, what is our purpose) at least not on the "metaphysical" level which is where the religious answers are attempted. I actually expect that long before that day arrives, science itself will be treated as religion. In many ways, I already see that playing out (the Gospel of Global Warming, anyone?) and that itself isn't a good thing. And science being a religion is as scary to me as a warping of Islam in this century or a warping of Christianity several hundred years ago.

Molton, After you get banned AGAIN, what will your new screen name be? I'm thinking about setting up a preemptive "ignore". That you get your kicks out of being this willfully ignorant is truly pathetic.

From HIS perspective, I'd be surprised if he considers himself a "bust". But I'd also be surprised to find out he was pleased that he went ~12 years between starts. There is no way the Bills don't consider him a bust. Again, you don't draft a guy in the 2nd round to have him carry a clipboard for another team for a decade. From your perspective, was Mike Williams a bust? He made a few MM. AVP wasn't a bust, but I'm not certain he was even drafted. AVP over the length of his career had to have made a few MM as well. Had he been a 2nd rounder, then he'd have been a bust. For Collins to not be considered a bust, he should be compared to the Bledsoes of the league, not the AVP's and Gale Gilberts.

Absolutely. He was horrible in Buffalo - he had a serious issue w/ that "deer in the headlights" look. 10 or so years as a 3rd stringer got him to the point that he doesn't look AS bad, but I still wouldn't rate him any higher than an average backup at best. 2nd round picks (#45 overall) aren't drafted to be career 3rd stringers.

Interesting thought. It would leave you more time to handle the other job requirements. I doubt though that the US electorate is ready for a President that is unstable enough to try to correct Molton's rantings over dozens of pages in hundreds of threads.

How do you tell which is which? Personally, my preference is the "do nothing" Congresses, because when they aren't passing new legislation they aren't giving my money to somebody else.

I watched a few bouts, but didn't really get into it. Between the Americans looking pretty weak and the scoring system being too screwy, there wasn't much reason to watch.

It is a new offense, but Turk has worked closely w/ both of these guys and should know what he's getting from each. Even if JP looks fantastic, Trent did last week as well. The coaches have said it's Trent's job to lose, and I don't think that he's lost it. If anything he locked it up last week. JP playing well this week would be a good thing. Very few QB's take all their team's snaps, it would be good to know the Bills have a solid backup. (At least for this season.)

I don't see any way a QB controversy starts up after 1 preseason game. Sullivan may want to try to create one, but it just won't be there. Trent may not be the answer, but the coaching staff seems convinced that JP isn't either. JP looking good can only help instill confidence that if they need him for a game or 2, he might be able to get it done. I don't see where JP looking good is a bad thing, nor where him looking bad is a good thing (unless of course, Hamdan starts showing some of that chroise that I keep reading about here ).

What, no love for the Italians? You've gotta have bocce. As long as the games are held on the other side of the Niagara, how about adding Jarts as well? (D*mn Congress, forcing us to make this an international to-do.)