Orton's Arm

I wish more people had the unselfish attitude displayed in your post. The problem is the people in Washington. Yes Tom, that includes you. The sole cause of the federal deficit is the absence of spending discipline. Well, you might say, the deficit could actually be corrected either by cutting spending or by increasing revenue. No. If you increased revenue while keeping the level of federal spending discipline the same, the government would simply spend more. The deficit cannot be meaningfully addressed until you create an environment of spending discipline. Reagan tried to do that in the '80s through his tax cuts. Democrats categorically refused any form of spending discipline whatsoever, except when it came to border security or the military. If Reagan lacked the power to cut spending directly, he could at least push through large tax cuts. Lower taxes plus rapidly increasing levels of Democrat-led spending created massive deficits. It became clear we had to do something. Newt Gingrich and the Republican Party took control of the House in 1994. The Republicans led the way in spending reform; including welfare reform and the line-item veto. Unfortunately, all that discipline went out the window once Bush took office. In Buffalo, if you want to say a little thank-you to someone, you buy him a dinner or something. In Washington, saying a little thank-you to someone could easily involve spending millions or billions of dollars of government money. That means your money and my money. Until strict limits are placed on that culture, we will incur massive deficits. And I don't think the outcry for fiscal displine will be strong enough until things get worse than they already are.

My point was Mularkey had an "it's got to be one or the other" attitude before Willis started playing well or the winning streak started. That's the way the offense was conceived and built from the get-go. Should he have re-thought that offense in mid-season? No. The time to have done it was before the season started, when he knew he'd probably have two starting-quality running backs to utilize. Not only did he fail to even attempt to build that two-headed monster, but it seemed like after Willis won the starting job, Travis got a much smaller share of the carries than a backup/change of pace back usually gets.

He's the second-best of the six. That's not bad! Now why couldn't we have something like that happen to us?

There is no "general consensus" that the heritability of I.Q. is 0.6. The reading I've done indicates that 0.8 is widely viewed as a perfectly valid heritability estimate. But there's no consensus at 0.6, or 0.8, or any other specific number. There just isn't. You don't need to eat tofu to get glucose into your bloodstream--a cheeseburger or pizza will do just fine. If you have regular access to food--even non-nutritious food--it's really tough to develop a serious glucose deficiency. If you want to be severely glucose deficient, the best way is to experience famine or near-famine conditions. Such conditions don't exist in the U.S. Differences in people's brains' glucose metabolism rates are due to genetics, and not because of widespread famine or other environmental conditions.

The problem was the way the RBs were handled once McGahee got healthy. When Travis was the starter for those first five weeks or so, he got practically all the carries. Once McGahee surpassed Travis on the depth chart, Travis barely saw the field ever again. The Mularkey coaching staff made no effort whatsoever to help the two RBs form any kind of tandem.

Are you "astounded" by the sunrise each morning? Thanks for the compliments, btw.

I don't know where you got your information from, but it's wrong. Jane Wyman divorced Reagan in 1949. Nancy Davis didn't even meet Reagan until the 1950s.

Wow! What a difference a few years make. Hillary sounded very Bush-like on Iraq. Watching that video is a good reminder that when one speaks, one speaks not just for the present, but for posterity. As for that pink group . . . yes in hindsight they look smart for having opposed the Iraq war. But I get the feeling this group would indiscriminately oppose all wars, whether wise or foolish.

Frank Reich. He had the biggest comeback in college history, and led the Bills to the biggest comeback in NFL history. Our Super Bowl record may be, um, a little tarnished, but nobody can take away that Houston win. To achieve what Reich did, you have to be the type of person who never gives up no matter how bad things seem. And you have to inspire your teammates to do the same.

Now that's a successful track record for first round picks. I hate to do this, but here are the Bills' picks during that timespan: 2001: Nate Clements. Status: one foot out the door. 2002: Mike Williams. Status: team bulldozed a wall, because said player wouldn't fit out the door. 2003: Willis McGahee. Status: a little below average for a starting RB. 2004: Lee Evans. Status: solid pick. 2004: JP Losman. Status: goes into 2007 season as starter. 2006: Donte Whitner. Status: starter.

A good analogy, but I don't fully buy the Grossman/Johnson comparison. When Johnson played in the Super Bowl, he was young enough to be on the top of his game, but old enough to be a savvy veteran. He's had a pretty good career: 83.1 QB rating, 6.74 yards per attempt. Grossman's career passer rating is 72.4, and his career YPA is 6.66.

Okay, I'm not happy about your driving being that restricted. That's the downside to expensive gas. On the other hand, you riding your bike across town is good exercise and good for the environment. And hey, maybe you're like me in that you feel more alive spending time on a bike than behind the wheel of a car. Back before Saturn sold SUVs, I heard one of their higher-ups say their sales went up when gas was expensive, and down when it was cheap. He said that the cheaper gas is, the more people tend to choose SUVs or other forms of automotive conspicuous consumption. At some point that has to stop. I'm not saying I'm thrilled by the veto of that alternative energy bill. But even without government involvement, expensive gas can lead to alternative fuels. If gas was selling at $0.50 a gallon, an electric car would be seen as a rich person's toy. But if gas prices went up to $5.00 a gallon or more, that same electric car would really seem tempting. As more people bought those electric cars, economies of scale would kick in, and their prices could come down. Eventually they could replace gas cars altogether.

That was a good post, but I don't agree with your conclusion. - Bruschi: not what he once was. - Dillon/Maroney: Maroney's averaged 4.3 YPC in 2006, as opposed to Dillon's 4.1. The Patriots have their starting RB, but would need to sign a change of pace back if Dillon retires. - WR: I agree the Patriots need to address that position. - SS: Again, another need. Assuming the Patriots did nothing with their draft picks, which positions would be a much bigger problem next year than they were this year? Very few. Most of the needs you identified for the 2007 Patriots team existed for the 2006 team as well. All the Patriots have to do is to successfully fill some of those needs to improve on their 2006 performance. Bear in mind that a) they almost made it to the Super Bowl in 2006, and b) they have an extra first round pick because of Branch. I fully expect the 2007 Patriots to credibly compete with the best teams in the league for a Super Bowl title.

I welcome higher gas prices. When gas was cheap, everyone went out and bought an SUV. Nobody did much of anything to create non-gas alternatives to regular cars. Like it or not, people need the discipline higher gas prices impose.

I suggest you read the rest of the article. You know, where they discussed how g correlates positively with the size of certain sections of the brain, and with the brain's glucose metabolization rate. g also correlates positively with numerous beneficial life outcomes; and correlates negatively with negative life outcomes.

Tom, I don't want to insult your intelligence, but accusations like these just make you look like an idiot.

Based on the intellectual shallowness of your posting career here on these boards, it wouldn't exactly shock me if the research you're trying to assist with turned out to be disappointing. If you're attempting to show your research is somehow applicable to this debate, you've failed. To correct that failure, you'd have to tell us the following: 1. How different are the microenvironments from one another? 2. How do those differences compare to the microenvironmental differences typically found in different people's brain cases? 3. To what extent are microenvironmental factors inside the human skull the result of nutrition, etc., and to what extent are they the result of genetics? Even if you succeed in answering these three questions in a way which suggests nurture plays a bigger role than nature; you will still be left with the task of telling us why identical twins raised apart show a 0.86 correlation in their adult-level I.Q.s; while unrelated people raised together show zero correlation in their adult-level I.Q.s. I'm not saying environment plays zero role in determining intelligence. But shared environmental factors such as common meals, common schools, and common foster parents aren't powerful enough to explain a statistically significant portion of the intelligence vatriation observed in Western countries. To some extent this may be because of a relatively successful adoption screening process. If almost all adoptive parents provide at least a decent environment for their foster kids, the role of environment will appear smaller. On the other hand, adopted children generally come from low-I.Q. parents. The very best adoptive parents, who provide the best environments, won't be able to do much for their foster children, because of the strict ceiling those low-I.Q. genes impose. It's possible children with high I.Q. genes could receive a statistically significant benefit from an enriched environment. This effect wouldn't necessarily show up in the adoption studies.

Here are quotes which address this issue:

So now you've resorted to citing Stephen Jay Gould? Dude, that takes the cake.

Here's a quote which addresses your concern: g is a measure of general intelligence. According to Wikipedia,

This has to be the most pitiful attempt at humor I've ever seen. And yes, I've heard Al Gore try to tell jokes.

As usual, your accusations are based on ignorance. Broad-sense heritability (upper-case H^2) is a measure of how much variation in the phenotype is caused by variations in the genotype. Studying correlations in identical twins raised apart is a standard way of developing estimates of broad sense heritability.

As you ought to know, a number of studies have been done relating to the heritability of I.Q. Obviously the researchers who concluded I.Q. is 80% heritable either a) didn't rely on the identical twin study I mentioned, or b) didn't rely on it exclusively.

Wrong. You keep repeating that I don't know what I'm talking about, and this has misled your puppy jzmack to believe there must be some truth to the accusation. But as usual, you haven't backed up your accusations with anything credible. Those with actual critical thinking skills and the willingness to use them aren't buying what you're selling.

Football is a game of matchups. Say you've got a DT who consumes two blockers on every play. Obviously using up one of your players for two of theirs creates a lot of options for the other ten guys you've got on defense. So you pay the DT big bucks because of what he brings. But now let's say some other team signs an elite guard who can block that DT one-on-one. Their elite guard is canceling out your highly-paid DT. That makes the elite guard worth big bucks, just like the DT. Maybe even more money, because the guard is on the field every offensive snap; instead of being part of some rotation.