Taro T

I've been bouncing between the Sabres game and the Vancouver game to hear the CBC version of what happened. Haven't seen a highlight over there yet. Sabres got hosed.

Joe, it's the same thing, just presented differently. Every $ spent by government is a tax that you and I will have to pay. If the taxes are raised, you pay it today and the economy takes the hit today. If taxes are cut, you pay it later and hopefully the economy has grown enough to cover that $ down the road. Every time government spends an additional $, your taxes just went up.

I'd put the one Mario scored in the Finals against Minnesota with 2 defensemen draped on him, lifting the puck over Casey (IIRC) while on his knees up there as well.

What, you don't think a 7' tall guy with arms just about 4' long standing under a 10' tall basket and placing the ball inside the hoop is impressive? You don't think watching a guy travel from the top of the key to dunk the basketball is impressive? For shame, Doc. ESPN couldn't call them the plays of the day if they weren't. Right?

Wow!

Actually, the way you win your 1st election in SD if you are a Democrat is get HEAVY Indian participation along with calls to increase farm subsidies (thus getting a substantial percentage of the eastern ranchers' votes) and do a LOT of handslapping throughout the entire state (lots of backroads travel for many small turnout events). After you have won once and begin to get seniority, the way to get reelected is continue to bring money back to the state. Owing to how small the state population is and the perceived lack of political clout, the voters tend to continue to vote for a candidate once in national office even if they disagree with several of the candidate's positions. About the only way to not get reelected is to blatently ignore the wishes of the locals to the point that they are willing to forego some clout in order to get rid of the bum. Congrats Tom, you managed to do the near impossible and get yourself voted out. IF somehow he were to become the Democratic nominee, I guarantee he would follow in Gore's footsteps and would not carry his home state.

Timmy was on the cover of the December 20th issue, Briere scoring on Turco was the inside cover photo of the December 27th issue and that issue has a small bit on Doug Bodger and President Clinton attending the Sabres game on 12/14, and McKee taking a shot is the inside cover photo of the January 17 issue. The January 3 issue has a cover article on Marty Biron and also has Darcy Regier listed as 1 of the top 100 most influential people in hockey. How much more Sabres focus does THN need to have before they are giving the Sabres publicity?

The city didn't just buy it, they WAY overpaid. When they bought it, the bidding went to $27MM; what was Rochester's counter bid? $27.25, $27.5, maybe even $28? Heck no, the friggin' morons went to $32MM to show the sole other bidder "that we mean business". They are now HOPING to sell the boat for $20MM. The genius Bill Johnson gave the people running CATS (the original owners of the ferry) a 40 YEAR lease on the property at the Rochester harbor for $1.00 / year REGARDLESS of whether they kept the ferry running or not. The BEST operational month for the ferry last year was August. Fares topped $1.0MM for the month, unfortunately fuel costs topped $1.1MM. The genius Bill Johnson wanted to force through a loan guarantee for the Ferry Corp. of $11.5MM 1 week before Duffy was to take over. Why have the City ONLY lose $20MM on this venture when it can lose $30MM? The genius Bill Johnson agreed to give the Port of Toronto $250k/year to dock the ferry in Toronto and also pay TO $1/passenger and $3/car. There is a 14 year contract on this one, so it will be interesting to see what Rachacha has to do to keep from giving TO $250k each year for the next 13 for absolutely nothing at all. According to Duffy, and I tend to believe it based on the results of the 2 year experiment, IF ridership doubled and fares went up 20%, the ferry would ONLY lose $2.7MM this year. This is actually very good considering the ferry lost $10MM in 10 months and the "value" of the ferry itself dropped about $12MM in 1 year.

Mickey, you WANT to see racism everywhere, and thus you do. You bring in statistics that show a very small %age of people in the US commit "racially motivated" crimes. There is a problem, but there is no way that you will convince me that blacks are "persecuted" today with this statistic.

I'd be interested in seeing the statistics for other nations as well. The 0.0071% is definitely too high, but I am expecting to hear that it is too low because Mickey removed all property and "multiple bias" crimes from his list. I arbitrarily biased the number to the high side to TRY to stave off the cries of biasing it to the low side.

Just for a statistical perspective on this. The US Census bureau estimates the current US population (July 2005) to be 296,410,404. Even if all 21,155 "racially motivated criminal incidents" were perpetrated by different individuals and all occured in a single year rather than a 5 year period, this would account for 0.0071% of the entire population as perpetrating racially motivated "hate" crimes. Clearly this is a much bigger problem than I previously realized.

8-2 loss in Boston 12/10/70. He probably didn't face quite that many shots in reality as the Bruins shot clock keepers were/are notorious for counting anything that an opposing goalie touches and has the slightest possibility of entering the net if the goalie doesn't touch it as being a shot.

I don't see what he would add to the powerplay. The Sabres have the 2nd best powerplay in the league right now, connecting at a better than 22% rate. Only Detroit is better at 25%. I doubt that Andy would improve the success rate. One slight problem with the powerplay is the Sabres are tied with 3 other teams for giving up the 6th most shorthanded goals against. They've given up 7, the worst in the league is 9. Putting one of the slowest guys in the league on the ice MIGHT actually help the Sabres make this even worse. He won't be back at the point losing the puck, but he won't be getting back covering any trailers either.

I don't see the weak spot for the team being the forwards. I still think they need more help on D than they do at forward. Teppo will be close to 38 by the time the season is over. It would be nice to have another solid defenseman on the roster to allow him some rest down the stretch and also to allow the depth player on D to be Campbell or Tallinder rather than Fitzpatrick. I am not as concerned about the compressed schedule after the Olympic break as the Sabres have one of the younger teams in the league. They also have one of the fastest teams. Both of these should be to their advantage as older, slower teams wear down during the stretch run. The one wildcard is, the league has done a good job of limiting the obstruction non-calls so far this season; will that continue after the Olympic break? My guess is that the answer to that question is yes, but we won't know for sure until we get there. If they continue to call obstruction, the Sabres should still do well against teams like NJ (see game of 11/15). If they don't the Sabres will have a rough go of it with teams like NJ (see game of 1/7). I expect the Sabres to "struggle" and play "only" 0.500 until the Olympic break based upon the opponents over the next month and how the Sabres matchup against them. After the break, provided they don't have a trade backfire nor have the league go away from the obstruction crackdown, I expect the Sabres to go back to winning the majority of the games they play. I doubt they will overtake Ottawa, but there are still WAY too many things that can happen between now and April to make any specific predictions.

As opposed to one of those little landing strips that's so fashionable these days?

The way he's been playing lately (prior to getting hurt), the truck would probably go 5 hole cleanly anyway. As others have posted, I'd prefer a rested Miller come March than one who was playing ~every other night the prior 2 weeks.

But you want to use as few words as possible when you write a headline and "West" uses up 4 whole letters and doesn't really ADD anything to the story. It conveys FAR less flavor about the article than the word "just". And heck, prior to the 1860's it was part of Virginia, so are you really losing anything by not including it?

Mickey, thanks for the clarification on agent of a foreign power and US person. I remember thinking you were correct on that point when all this 1st came out, but when revisiting the statute today could not figure out why. I also agree with your interpretation (to a substantial extent) about the AG certification simply being a statement from the AG stating "we think ___ is a bad guy". I don't mean to be painfully obtuse, but I can't help but come away with the impression that surveillance performed prior to the AG certification doesn't fall under the acceptable bounds of FISA. I know that does not make any sense rationally, as this is a type of problem that FISA was meant to correct; but everytime I look at FISA, I keep coming away with the impression that surveillance conducted prior to AG "certification" falls outside of acceptable FISA procedures and any convictions stemming from it (such as the guy who was part of the plot to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge) would be overturned on appeal. Also, I agree 100% with your points in your 1st and last sentences.

Extra butter please.

No doubt the Sabres have not matched up well vs Florida this year and have not played well vs Florida. That said, modifying the Sabres' pp to emulate the Panthers' pp is an EXTREMELY poor idea.

I may be missing something as well, but I do not see anything in FISA that allows for surveillance PRIOR to the AG certification / approval. I can definitely envision scenarios where there can be a need to tap someone's communication before the AG can authorize the surveillance. Since anything obtained from the surveillance prior to AG authorization would necessarily be thrown out as it was obtained "illegally" (as near as I can tell), I can see where the administration is trying to claim that normal provisions of FISA do not apply due to Congress authorizing use of force / all means necessary / etc., etc.. It seems to me that this is a glaring weakness of FISA and should be corrected. Again, I don't know that any correction that gets enacted wouldn't necessarily be worse that the original. I also have 1 further question. In my reading of 1802(a), it seems to state fairly clearly that the surveillance minus a court order is only applicable to communications that don't include a "US person". That would imply that the AG cannot authorize surveillance of a US person without the FISA court order. You seem to have a completely different opinion on this matter. Could you please refer me to where you see that the surveillance of US persons is allowed without a court order, or explain to me how I am misinterpreting this section of the Statute? I am not a lawyer and readily admit that I may be misinterpreting this.

Getting back to your question about why the FISA procedure is too cumbersome, I think that BiB was on the right track. My understanding of FISA is that the wiretaps can proceed once the AG has filled out the paperwork to the court or after the AG has approved them and then eventually tells the proper congresscritters and tells the court about them. FISA doesn't address (at least in my reading) intercepts that are discovered or required BEFORE the AG has approved them. Such an intercept could be desired if a person who was under surveillance using proper FISA procedures was talking to a previously unknown 3rd party and based upon the conversation w/ the 3rd party the tappers knew that 3rd party was going to speak to someone else in the chain. Again, per my reading of FISA, AFTER the tapper has AG approval he can begin tapping 3rd party and or 4th party's communications; but they are NOT legal until AG has given authority. The time lost in getting AG's approval could be very critical in this scenario. The surveillance could also be desired based upon datamining from the broad cell phone intercepts that are conducted and it might not be possible to get the AG's approval soon enough to get anything useful from the newly discovered source. I've seen a lot of discussion revolving around the AG's 72 hours to get his certification to the FISA court, but haven't seen a discussion of what is / isn't permissible before the AG's certification. I had thought this might be a cause of the Admin's sidestepping FISA, but couldn't understand why it would be an issue to them because they weren't using this for criminal prosecutions (or so I thought). Based on my quick reading of the Time article CTM linked, there have been people prosecuted successfully who 1st came under suspicion based upon info gathered BEFORE the AG had officially approved the taps (I should go back and reread, maybe I misread it). Technically, those convictions / plea bargains probably should be overturned on appeal because the evidence was found legally but was looked for because of information collected outside of FISA (i.e., illegally). I am not comfortable with releasing people that want to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, but also do not like where the potential to abuse this surveillance may lead. I read about a month ago, when this story 1st broke, that the Admin had some concerns about FISA along these lines and planned to get FISA modified to get the gray area of what the status of surveillance before the AG approves it. From what I read, there was not enough support in Congress to modify FISA, but that all parties involved (WH, Congress, AG, intelligence orgs.) would essentially look the other way on the preapproval taps and consider this gray area acceptable under FISA. Sorry, I don't have links to this, as I don't have the time right now to try to regoogle the articles. It seems to me, that this preapproval surveillance needs to be made "legal" to gather, but there also needs to be significant safeguards placed to limit the use of the information gathered from this surveillance. I don't know that our congresscritters are smart enough to come up with a way of modifying FISA that will address both the national security and the personal liberty concerns that this issue raises.

I don't know, maybe he digs short chicks!

There was a guy behind me at the Panther game who not only was getting into the "StP / Shoot" "chant", he also was telling his girlfriend during the Panthers pp that the Sabres needed to keep 2 guys in front of the net like Florida was doing. Last time I checked the Sabres had the 3rd best pp and the Panthers the 24th. Yeah, let's hope Buffalo starts emulating some of these stellar units. What a tool.

I think it was smart for him to say that he didn't support the sign confiscation. There were a lot of people that had this confused with a 1st Am. issue that were upset about it, whether they would have brought signs in or not. One of the 1st rules of business is to not tick off nor condescend (at least blatently/overtly) to your customers. It appears that when this PC was called for yesterday, that the status of the 3 M's would be addressed as well. Their issues were not fully resolved, so rather than just say "Tom's out", tell a joke (?), and walk away; he used the forum to tell the fans (all of the fans, not just the handful you think are jackholes) that he does appreciate their business.