Bob Lablaw

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, May 2001 "President Bush would not urge Americans to conserve. That's a big no. The president believes that it's [American's high energy usage] an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."

Check with your local Chamber of Commerce- many have pools of businesses that buy health care in a bloc to save money (I don not know the specifics, but I know such things exist).

I saw the same footage as most people, and what I saw was footage of a few bodies in the Superdome, and only heard that there were reports of gunfire, rapes, and gangs in other sections of the city--most of which came from the mouth of the Mayor-- who is exactly the kind of person you would think would be in the know. (This turned out to be wrong, but with no better source, the Mayor of the city is a pretty good one.) The 100 people "holed up" inside the Superdome was a report that was discredited within a few hours--by reporters.

How do you think they should report such a story? Most of the media was saying things like, "There are reports of ..." The story was so widespread and developing that they couldn't independently verify all the reports. The death toll projections came from people outside the media, who just passed them along--there was no way for them to start counting. Should they just have run the cameras and not commented? It's a touchy situation to cover developing stories--people want up to the minute information in those situations, and usually the only time that you can get any handle on what happened is after it's over. The only way to report accurately is to not report anything until days later, but that's not reporting at all.

Agreed. Now as long as the coaches don't outthink themselves in 4th and inches situations, the Bills should be OK with the run.

What is "the main stream media"? NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox, NYTimes, Wash Times, BBC, Wash Journal...? Who is the non-main stream media that I'm supposed to rely on? Drudge? Guardian? Pravda?

I took a deep breath after all the Bills bashing this week and noticed that the Bills have lost two games to teams that are very good. The Falcons have been to the playoffs a few years in a row, and the Bucs are only a few years off their SB year, with what is clearly a rejuvenated offense. That doesn't cure the losses, but it's a salve. It will be interesting to see how the Bills play against an inconsistent Saints team in disarray.