Taro T

No, no, no. With all due respect to your culinary excellence, I think that a mallard would go better with a fine white such as your basic Thursday vintage Thunderbird. Now if you added fried mallard to retatta, I would agree with you that MD would be appropriate.

It would be painful enough in summertime in Houma just falling down on the road after the stones were steamrolled into the tar. I can't imagine how painful that must have been doing the Brer Rabbit impersonation. Oh well, at least you'll eventually be able to show the grandkids the scars and hopefully come up with a better story than the real one.

I didn't know they had a school for Canadian ballerinas. I thought they learned those moves on their own. Cool.

No, they've had rock shows in there since, but they did reinforce the balcony after the U2 show. It's a good thing they did too because they stopped an INXS show there mid-encore because the balcony was "boucing" a couple of years after the U2 show.

I'd say that's a little backwards. The Bruins traded for Stuart primarily and wanted Sturm. Oh yeah, they also got Primeau. Sturm hasn't fully lived up to expectations in SJ but has been a good player. The Bruins appear to be hoping Sturm becomes the player the Sharks thought he would be when they drafted him with the 21st pick of the '96 draft. I hope he doesn't pick up his play, but it did work for the Bruins a few years back with Glen Murray's 2nd stint in beantown. He had been a good player in LA, but definitely took it up a notch for the B's. Stuart brings some much needed speed to the B's blueline.

At least none of those ones are in. I can't believe that Genesis, Yes, Rush, and Jethro Tull still aren't in when Dusty friggin' Springfield is in.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! Give that man a cigar!

They have a loge section at the front of the balcony. If you can get them, those are the best seats in the house IMHO. I saw Gilmour play there many years ago. The seats were looking right down on him. If you can't get loge, I'd go floor before sitting further back in the balcony.

Don't you mean the hour of silence? This is retatta you're talking about.

Bailey >> Jennifer

I know this belongs on Off the Wall and not PPP, but when the h*ll are they going to release WKRP on DVD?!?!?

w/ Pink Floyd playing in the background: Big Guy - "Do I hear dogs barking?" Johnny - "I do."

Not sure if they are illegal in the US, but I know it's illegal to manufacture / sell them in the US.

Well you've all come up with a lot of good ones, but the best lyrics for a TV show (although they were only played in the 200th episode in the case of the former and not at all for the latter) have to be Cheers (Where Everybody Knows Your Name - 2nd Verse) and M*A*SH (Suicide is Painless). "Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead, morning's looking bright. And your shrink ran off to Europe and didn't even write. And your husband wants to be a girl. Be glad there's still 1 place in the world ..." The lyrics for Suicide is Painless were in the movie. Great songs. (I also liked WKRP's theme song but it wasn't nearly depressing enough!)

Close. It was chronicled in the documentary "Canadian Bacon" and was narrated by John Candy in his final stage play. Although he does appear on the classic game show "Dead or Canadian" quite often now as a trick question.

Ist off, I'm not certain where you got your numbers from because they don't match up with info on the IRS web site. That is neither here nor there for the point of this discussion. 2nd off, you seem to basically understand SS, but don't seem to fully grasp it. What you seem to be unable or unwilling to grasp is that the money that is not collected by the government is going to be put to much better use by the individuals and corporations that are generating it than the government will. As YOU have stated in your earlier posts, overall revenues went up. This would imply that the money that was not taxed initially was put to productive use and generated additional taxable revenue that would otherwise have not existed. If the government had taken the money out of the system, overall GDP would have been lower than actual and although the tax rate would have been higher than it actually was the total taxes collected would have been lower. Or to put it another way, the income had to have grown by a larger percentage than the tax cut (as you posted), or else overall revenues would have decreased. That hypothetical $365 appears to have had at least a 100% return on investment as the overall revenues increased (again, per your previous posts). I will not have the time to try to look it up until sometime after this weekend, but government revenues increased in the '20's, '60's, and '80's after tax cuts were introduced. My point in my earlier post, which you have not addressed, is that the deficit went up because SPENDING increased more than revenues did. Your final point in your reply to GG shows that you don't factor spending into the equation at all. Lowering tax rates and increasing the output of the economy will never result in a surplus if they are always accompanied by massive increases in spending.

How many quatloos for Shahna? Can the bidding start at 10?

I don't know why, but that one cracked me up.

IF the Bills get into the playoffs they will have a home game as the only way they get in is as the East Division winner. They'd probably have to host either Cincy or Jacksonville. On the outside chance they surpassed that hurdle, that is when the hurting begins. They most likely would have to go to Indy, and I don't see any way the Bills stay within 2 touchdowns of the Colts. It's all moot anyway, as the Patriots need to play very poorly over the last 6 weeks (w/ 2 games against the Jets and 1 against Miami) and the Bills at a minimum need to go 4-2, and probably 5-1 or 6-0 due to the Pats' remaining schedule.

I know some players in Europe have died from getting hit directly on the heart, haven't heard of any having it happen in NA, but if I'm not mistaken Chris Pronger collapsed a few years back after getting hit with a slap shot directly over his heart. As others have stated, thank God that Fischer appears to be ok.

PLEASE don't make me have to argue for the Keynesians! I don't follow your argument that revenues need to increase as a %age of national income in order to have truly increased. If that were the case, the only way to ever maximize revenues to the gov't's coffers would be to have a 100% tax. By lowering the tax rate, you increase revenues, but by definition have lowered the percentage of the GDP that the revenues make up. (Obviously, there is some tax rate where overall revenues will decrease, but my guess is that we are still comfortably on the high side of the inflection point.) As you admit, the economy picked up after the tax cuts, (I realize you believe that would have occured with or without the tax cuts) had spending been anywhere close to where it was prior to 2001, then the percentage of GDP shown as expenditures would at a minimum remain constant; it actually SHOULD decrease much as the revenues as a %age decreased. The fact that it grew by more than a full %age point indicates that spigot got opened a heck of a lot more than the tax cut would have accounted for. Had expenditures remained constant, or even close to constant, the deficit would have been a lot lower. I will not state that all of the increased spending was necessarily bad, as much of the military budget increases were necessary due to the US being at war. A certain amount of the discretionary spending was also necessary to get out of the brief recession. There was, however, a lot of unnecessary spending and that definitely ballooned the deficit. I agree with you 100% that the true deficits are worse than they look due to the SS "surplus". I wish the politicians were forced to keep them separate from the rest of the gov't's funds so people would see just how bad Congress is at staying in a budget.

The tax cuts did NOT increase the deficit. They led to increased government revenues. The deficit increased because spending increased more than the increase in revenues. Had the tax cuts not been enacted, the deficits would have increased even more as revenues would have been lower, assuming as you do that all else remains constant - i.e. that the increase in spending would have occured regardless of revenue. Had spending remained constant, the tax cuts would have REDUCED the deficit as they increased revenues. Deficit = Spending - Revenue when Spending > Revenue. If spending < revenue, you get a surplus. By the way, the '90's "surpluses" were not true surpluses as they were created using SS money that has been earmarked for future outlays.

As to your 1st point, my guess is that that is an issue that was argued here long before I started posting on this board, namely, was the US led invasion of Iraq a dispute between the US and Iraq or was it an enforcement of the 18 or so SC resolutions that Iraq was violating. My opinion is that it was the latter and I assume from your other posts that your view is it was the former. My guess is that one or both of us will have carpal-tunnel before we reach an agreement and as you mention, the point is moot. I agree with your other point about what the current concern should be. I tend to agree generally with BiB's and SnR's posts regarding Iraq, Mickey's protests that nothing specific is being stated at any level notwithstanding.

Hopefully at least 14 of them were against the annoying blonde in the beige suit sitting behind him who seemed to be the official Democrat applause starter. Hopefully the last hit was against whoever was the Republican applause starter. How in the world can these people be so fat when they have to jump out of their seats every 20 seconds to lead the wave throughout the chamber?

Yeah, but then, when it appeared the thread would drop below the toilet level, the Tidy Bowl man floated in on what was left of the Ella Fitzgerald to save the day.