zonabb

Did OP passing? There were some lawyers quoted that said requiring private lot patrol by the fuzz as a condition of a permit is a violation of the 4th amendments protection against unreasonable search and seizures. In 2016, we all get labeled potential terrorists in this overly fear driven country, so maybe that's reasonable. It's akin to be required to allow random searches of your house as a condition of a permit to build a pool. I mean people party crazily at pools. Stupid law if passed and another erosion of our privacy.

Put the jump to conclusions mat away for a second. That's $1.62 per $100 on Texas, or 16.20 per $1000. Yours is $22.89 per $1000. Difference is less than you are thinking or trying to overstate. Plus, in Texas, education is garbage, teachers are underpaid, and the rapid growth of the state as a whole (ie constant new taxes) keeps rates lower. Not to mention that a lot of development in Texas and the south result in homeowners associations with high money dues that are simply taxes collected by your subdivision for garbage, water, maintenance, etc. that artificially keep local taxes down but are invariably the same thing... a monthly tax. Upstate has to manage with no growth and trying to BS the public that all this new growth is beneficial when in fact billions in subsidy (Corporate welfare) to build and the significantly reduced property taxes rates don't help. It's a charade. Plus, taxpayers in NY, you probably included, don't want consolidation to reduce services and the size of govt. When push comes to shove, everyone complains about their taxes until their community wants to consolidate police or fire or eliminate the local govt and merger with the place next door. Complaining about taxes is a time honored game and one unfortunately many don't truly understand. Move to Texas... it's a hellhole.

Sign me up for "who cares?" I hate the NFL as an entity, I disagree with with nearly everything it does, from the faux breast cancer charade to the way it has dealt with concussions to the way it seeks to expand to the way it takes public subsidy for private profit to the immature childish scumbags who play the sport (see: Dareus, Marcel as exhibit A). Problem is, I love the sport but hate every other things outside the lines. This isn't news, WGAS? Given the NFL's marketing machine that seeks to overcome the litany of bad news surrounding it (horrible humans who play, greedy owners who run it, the exploitation of players), this is merely a PR move that seeks public goodwill by distracting people from the garbage that is the NFL, akin to a ribbon cutting by Byron "I Survive on Corporate Handouts" Brown for something he had no hand in. Are supposed to do cartwheels because they hired a female and then sent out a massive press release? Does anyone know the prior person who held the position? Jeffrey Miller, of course you didn't know because it was a man who likely never had the pub because he was a highly qualified male. Was she the most qualified? Who were the other candidates?

Tom Brady still plays 12 games right? Then yes it'll be good enough, as it has in the past.

I would have not renewed my season tickets and become a Browns or Steelers fan.

Typically rolling back of our fundamental rights. Amazing how much influence fear can have on public policy. Throw out a few key tropes, like "terrorism" and somehow it becomes a license to legislate and regulate away all your personal rights and freedoms, except of course to carry a gun. And the key that politicians know (re-election seekers) is that no one has the guts to call them on it because no one wants to seem soft on crime and terror. But if you look at it objectively, where is the threat? I love the non-specific mention of threats that were thwarted. Really? When, where and who? Given how easily these people throw out terrorism and will stand over a box of weed for a TV camera to justify their policy, wouldn't we have heard about all these thwarted threats? None, that I can recall. What is an acceptable level of threat? Everyone should stop and realize you are not nor ever will be 100% safe in public. The answer is not the build up of a military-esque local police force and the erosion of our own rights because cops and the military can't be everywhere, all the time. Perpetrators will simply find the soft spots. I'm obviously against the policy and have no problem saying so. I enjoy the small private lots because I don't have to feel like I am being babysat by the omnipresent big brother. And I have zero to hide, I just don't enjoy spending my fun time being watched.

Ever work in an office where a guy got his cheese moved and turned into a malcontent? Because I have and no amount of upper mgmt could get people over changes they didn't like. The problem with this idea that is assumes that all employees in all jobs always act professionally and listen to mgmt. Not all players are great employees and give 100%.

Seriously, who watches this? These two are unpalatable on the radio. Sal acts like a perpetual 12 year old at his first pro game and Coller is your prototypical regurgitator of descriptive statistics (they refer to them as analytics) yet probably has zero statistical background outside of understanding mean, median, and mode! In the 11 minutes I am in the car once a week for work, I get stuck listening to the morning show and it's horrible, especially the discussions on analytics. Single measure variables within complex systems tell us little about wins and losses. They don't get it. And people should stop listening to it. Nothing to see here and I know this because I didn't watch it but I bet you know or could ascertain as much as whatever comes from this video.

It's headquarters of Fortune 500s. They matter because they tend to be heavy in high paid jobs. They also matter because they tend to draw in companies that support or rely on them, growing the economy around a key industry. Silicon Valley is an excellent examples as growth in computing tech spawned more companies in similar fields, which in turn grew others,etc, among the biggest problems with the Buffalo resurgence myth is that the growth in jobs has not been broad across disciplines and among the right industries. Too much tax handouts for retails gigs like hotels, craft brewers, and restaurants paying poverty wages and creating just more wealth for local developer robber barrens like Paladino, Ciminelli, Sinatra, Montante, and Termini.

What's "here" is obvious if you're following closely what's happening in the city and in policy and this buy has zero to do with sports. It's a good building in an area of investment by not just the Pegulas but other developers (Senecas although case is suck, Paladino's creamery, I think Savarino owns the Lagerhaus bldg, etc). They'll utilize corporate welfare in many forms (PILOT, historic tax credit, capital infrastructure improvement, Buffafoon Billion) to provide a mixed use development consisting of offices and residential. There's no viable sports (Bills, Sabres) use for the building, Pegulas are just another local developer whose name ends in a vowel.

Said it in a forum last week about someone's suggestion the team isn't transparent enough and I mentioned the media and then this buffoon wrote this today. No one has the right to access information from a private corporation, including the Bills. Buying a ticket or having a business card that says "reporter" (using the term loosely in this era of whiny opinionators) gives you zero rights to the teams information, practices, etc. There is no law that permits it, Freedom of Information doesn't apply. If you don't agree with it, don't buy a ticket, don't be a fan. It's really that simple. And if Yucky doesn't like it, have the news stop covering them. Oh wait, they won't, they'll just B word about this perceived injustice about something they have no claim to. Man, it's sports people. Who really cares about what the team says, what happens in practice, and what the media says. You'll find it better as a fan to just watch for almost 4 hours in Sunday.

Except they can make waaaay more money selling 22 weeks of football ads on TV and won't lose a nickel on fantasy football. In fact, the greedy owners vested in daily fantasy sports stand to make more. I'm actually surprised the league hasn't tried this yet, maybe next cba. I will say that they'd have to back it up into the summer to avoid winters in the cold weather domeless cities like Bflo, GB, Cleveland, etc. Players likely won't go for it being that long, cutting into their offseasons and constricting their time off.

Nothing is more off base when it comes to professional sports than this idea of team transparency. The belief that somehow a private for profit corporation owes fans a peek behind the curtain or that the media has a right to access locker rooms, players, coaches, front office personal, or owners is misguided at the least and self-righteous at the worst. The reason is simple with regard to fans. Being a fan is not compulsory nor is being a season ticket holder or buying merchandise. The transaction between you and the team/league is simply one of customer-service provider. It's not different than buying a coffee at Tim Hortons, where you have no rights to their business operations and corporate decision making information. Simply, if you don't like the service you're buying, find another one or stop altogether. And because you continue to chose to buy (i.e., brand loyalty) doesn't change the manner of the relationship and thereby require the team to reward your loyalty with information it frankly deems non of your business. Just because you own and love the iPhone and have bought ever one doesn't give you any rights to their proprietary information that indicates how the designed it (i.e, like building a team). And I'll take it step further since someone will argue "well we pay for the stadium." True, but that only gives us the right to the information on the transaction and agreement between the government (us) and the renter. It does not extend to the renter's business and, by proxy, requiring the nature of their business decisions being open for our prying eyes. We own the SolarCity plant and all its equipment, does that mean we have a right to their decision-making information? Nope. As for the media, they have no right to anything in professional sports. The league sees them and treats them as free PR, an unpaid arm of the league. Somehow, this idea that they are required to have access is from some unknown origin. Where exactly is this right codified? The relationship between leagues and the media is based on mutual benefit, not some need to be open and transparent. The only requirement for transparency is for the government since taxes and laws are compulsory, therefore we have the right to open, transparent governance that provides us the ability to see how out government functions. It is here that the media has rights and should have access and act as the "medium" by which open government is truly open. FOIL was enacted to ensure government transparency. Last I checked, you can't FOIL the Bills' draft board. Transparency simply does not extend to the NFL. If you feel like you are "owed" transparency, all I can say is "Wow, you take this way too seriously."

So don't draft a player at 19 because he "might" need a surgery in the off season and could play this season and instead draft a lower ranked player who when both are healthy would be a downgrade? That's a losers approach, short term politicians approach. You should run for Mayor of Buffalo if you believe in short term gains over sustained improvement.

It all speaks to the broader trend here with sports, which has devolved considerable from its initial purpose and intent. So a few things: 1. Sports is and has functioned as the place many escape to from their daily lives, which are filled with stress, bills, and the slow overtaking of this country by a culture of conspicuous consumption. Just say the South Park "ads episodes" last night. The joke was you can;t escape ads, even people are now ads. So true as we'll watch the NFL turns jerseys into billboards. Basically exactly what the NFL has become... a football game interrupting the sale of products and services. 3 hours games are not 3.5 hours. They'll be 4 soon. 2. The NFL today is a walking contradiction of the NFL of the past. Take gambling. They were adamant about being against it, said it tainted the sports, presented the potential for fixing and corruption, which by the way has happened in professional soccer in other countries were sports are legal. Now, they slowly are walking back this stance... why? Because they have found ways to profit from it, like daily sports gambling (anyone who calls Draft Kings a change of skill is a fool, read about the "skilled" players who use complicated mathematical models and still lose a ton. yes it;s skill in the model building but not a guarantee of reducing your luck significantly). So now, King Roger has walked back the NFL's stance on Las Vegas. Why? Again, profit to be made, even it if destroys the credibility he had or the league had in past crusades against gambling. It only portrays them as driven by greed and not and sporting principles. Full legal NFL gambling online will be coming, bank on it. It'll happen this way: the NFL will work behind the scenes with govt to legalize it while at the same time they'll develop the websites and companies to take the bets. So at the same time the govt rolls back the law, the NFL will announce these betting websites. Or the govt will grant only so many legal betting licenses, which will go to NFL-controlled entities. 3. The game day experience, now increasingly for the affluent supported by the taxpayers at large. For years cities were forking over millions for palace stadiums while the league enjoyed the right to black the games out to the local citizenry who paid for the stadium. I know there is a slice of the population who is fine with this but I'm not. If the Pegulas of the league want to reap billions in revenue from the power they have gained in legislative halls, then great. They get enough advantage there. But to get it by strong-arming localities for money to increase their profit margins? Hardly. Pegula is not a savior, he's a keen businessman who will squeeze us for every nickel he can, because he can. Some are emotionally attached to the Bills but disagree with corporate welfare and are now emotionally conflicted, that is hypocritical about it because they thing they love is dirty. I am not, I'm against corporate welfare no matter who gets it and how it supposedly benefits me. How's that solarcity subsidy looking right now for the $750M we spent to buy a factory and equipment for a company that has zero risk, we as NYers assume it all because we own everything? I think the justification we all use is a simple one: If everyone else gets a handout, the Bills should too. It's an easy cop out. 4. The NFL has no shame. None. I would steal an old lady's walker and sell it for scrap. Can you imagine ads on a Yankees' jersey? Sacrilege right? But I can laugh at the irony of a team with a racist nickname it has fought to keep doubling down with two middle fingers in the air and having an Indian Motorcycles logo on its jersey that comes with a press release about how it respects Native Americans, again missing the point that the term Indian was a mistake made when white men thought they landed in India and created a falsely racialized term that has stood the test of time while simultaneously speaking to collective ignorance. I'm slowly walking away from the NFL. I now only watch the Bills, so I put my 3.5 hours a week into it and then I'm done. I long stopped watching pregame and post game TV. I don't listen to WGR55 unless I'm in the car with someone who is. I generally avoid the Buffalo News' coverage of the Bills. It's like Bill Burr said about religion... he slowly let go, like a player does with the rock in curling.... slowly release and watch it disappear farther and farther away. The end will come for me sooner rather than later because of stuff like this. People think you have to accept it. You don't have to accept anything. Attending or watching a game is growing harder every year with the ads and graphics and 150-decibel commercials in the stadium.

Ok, I think I understand coaching now. When you start Geno Smith 12 times and your record is 4-12, you suck as a coach. It's not the crappy QB who threw 3 picks against the Bills and looked like a Pop Warner QB, it was Rex who made those reads and throws. Got it. And it's not the massive upgrade, relatively speaking, to Fitzpatrick in 2015 that's even remotely responsible for the better record, it's the coach. Got that too. So why does Belichek ever lose a game?

Ask the 49ers how that Lattimore pick worked out.

Didn't read the entire article because it made the same argument I have about second round and later QBs... They don't succeed mainly because they don't get the chance. So I would argue by that logic that short QBs don't get the chance moreso because they're later round picks who happen to be short.

Casebook case of why social media is stupid. Which Walmart does this clown work at and has he ever asked for a trade to a better one?

Must be some magic cleanser drink on the market this year. No way these "student" athletes are all drug free.

You sound like a man going through a divorce "Honey the first 10 years were spectacular so let's ignore the last 20 years where I cheated on you constantly and you slept on the couch all the time." The argument is only arbitrary because it paints your team poorly! It's likely the time period was selected due to some data constraint or issue, not to show how poorly the Bills are. My guess would be because UFA began in 1992, putting an onus on the ability to continually draft well and deal with losing good players. Starting in 1996 gives teams enough time to get reoriented to the new system, So from that perspective, it's not arbitrary, it's driven by a framework or theory. I didn't read it because I don't care, I'm sick of metrics, because as stated perfectly herein, they haven't made the playoffs in 16 season. End of story.

Dumb it down for these mental giants. This game gets more complex as players get dumber. How does someone make it all the way through college and be unable to perform their job? Last time I checked, no boss I have ever had dumbed down jobs to appease the morons in the office.

The reason the draft is a crap shoot and it's hard to quantify (predict) a good player is because these measures and models don't take into count the human condition. They don't account for personality, motivation, personal lives, what millions of dollars will do to someone, how hard they work, intelligence (the most underrated measure in the NFL IMO). This is where the quantitative revolution in the NFL isn't really much of a revolution. Other issues that impact player success is how well they fit the new scheme they get drafted into (lots of players get drafted in skill and the idea they can be fit into a system only to fail) and how much opportunity they get, which is interesting because teams treat late round picks as expendable and cut them quickly, rather than allowing them to develop due to the need to win now. Good read earlier this week, can't remember where, on how the draft is just a roulette machine basically and no GM is good at it.

Wait, wait, wait. The WGR55 clowns all say that RBs and goalies are like pennies, you can find them everywhere. And if the guy with the microphone says it then it might be true, always. Problem with these absolute arguments that guys like Jeremy White make is they shun superstar goalies and superstar RBs in favor of the mediocrity in the middle of the distribution of players. And they all rely on these analytical measures that DESCRIBE relationships but are not causal. Sick of guys with communications degrees trying to sound smart when their skills in statistical analysis is based on their simplistic understanding that the probability of getting heads on a coin flip is 50%. The arguments this guy makes are non-nonsensical. He ignores reality to prove his arguments that seem logical only because the assumption of the argument is "Let's ignore reality." Case in point, last week he was arguing that taking 5 QBs in a draft is basically as good as taking the top QB since they (all 5) have equal probability of being as good as the top guy. The entire argument seems logical if 1) you know exactly the probability that the top QB will be good and 2) you know the exact probability for each of the other 5. So if the top guy has a 50% probability of being good and each of the other 5 you hypothetically would draft have a 10% chance, then they're equal. But the argument falls apart when the implied assumptions are 1) we ignore reality and 2) each of the 5 QBs will get equal time under center in practice and games, not likely and less likely given the limit practice times that you could make a good judgment on one of them. All these guys who rely on numbers miss the point, there is so much randomness in the NFL when you have 22 moving parts that are supposed to communicate, think, and react that no stat can account for that. And further, that the success of one player is impacted by the play of other, often more than one. A RB with a horrible OL won't be good, no matter where he's draft, or won't meet his full potential. Same with a QB. All this analysis is garbage and you can see why most teams minimize analytics because analytics minimize the game into tiny snippets that ignore the whole.

No argument. Who has a career that long with that long of a period between the first and last Super Bowl? He's dominated his era like no other. Those who don't sgree are just butt hurt he did it to the Bills annually.