Mickey

That is an urban myth. Urban Myth It is a story that just won't seem to die, like Mikie and the pop rocks. As for the Constitution, here are the Presidential Powers: Section. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. Section. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States. You may not the absence of the power to suspend the constitution. Most war powers actually reside in the Congress. The Congress has the following "war" powers: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; Again, no powers are here to permit suspension of the Constitution. Besides, FISA is a federal law, it is not only binding on the President, he is obligated to execute and enforce that law. The defense of Bush on this is getting increasingly ridiculous. The notion that he has any legal authority at all to do what he did is almost laughable. Worse, there was no need. He could tap anyone he wanted for any reason for a whole year without having to ask anyone for permission, a court order or a warrant. All he had to do was to inform the classified Fisa court and a few congressional committee heads so that the other branches of government at least have a vauge idea as to whether the executive is running amok or not. That carte blanche wasn't carte blanche enough. This isn't about security and civil rights, FISA permits civil rights to be obliterated in the name of security all for the low, low price of a sealed letter to a FISA judge an a senator or two.

So ultimately, if we follow the logic of those who woud trade liberty for security in this particular conflict, we have cashed in our freedom in exchange for a perpetual game of "whack-a-mole"? Maybe that is overstating it since they haven't yet infringed upon my freedoms that I am aware of so, since it is clearly not my nuts in the vice, I'll just resort to an applause getting, jingoistical patriotic rant about killing all those damn muslims and then go back to my TV and count the seconds to the next wet t-shirt moment on Survivor: Wet Place.

I don't get it. Can't Ralph just fire the asst.'s himself? Why does he need MM to do it? If he wants them gone and MM refuses to fire them then he should fire them himself. All MM could do then is to resign or stay. If he resigns, Ralph doesn't have to pay him the rest of the contract.

If only they would wear uniforms of some kind, wore a funny hat or something so we could single them out. Uncooperative SOB's.

... and how will we know that has occurred? Will they send us a note? At what point will we know there is not a single solitary person on the planet who is planning to strap a backpack bomb on and board a subway? There will never be a "victory" moment. Liberty is easy to give away, much harder to retrieve once lost. Besides, if no one but the executive/king knows that he has stolen this or that liberty, how will we know to ask for it back? Bush has made up his own rules and appointed himself to make sure he obeys himself. It is okay though, we can be sure he is not abusing the power to trample civil liberties because he has vigorously checked up on himself and it turns out he has done nothing wrong. *whew* What a relief. For a minute there I thought democracy was in trouble.

As has been mentioned many times, in many ways from all quarters of the political spectrum, this "war" is different from all others in that it may never end. There will never be a "Victory over Terrorism" day like there was a VE or a VJ day. Thus, we are not temporarily giving up our rights, we are doing it permanently. Many of the historical actions you refer took place with oversight/knowledge of the other branches. Many were in full view of the public or even authorized specifically by Congress. What happened here is without precedent. He violated a law specifically drawn up to address this very situation. Worse, there was no need to disregard that law. All the security you are so willing to embrace at the cost of liberty is provided for under FISA. He can tap anyone, anywhere, for any reason for a whole year with extensions available. All he had to do was notify (notify, not ask permission) the FISA court and a few committe heads in congress. FISA was drawn up to allow and legalize the limited suspension of constitutional rights in favor of security needs you say we need in this conflict. It was even amended by the Patriot Act to update it and make it that much more useful and adapted to the war on terrorism. Even so, this President disregarded it.

Yeah but that was in California and Minnesota. It hasn't happened in a real state, you know, one of the original 13. Everything went to hell once we started adding in more states. They should have stopped after they added Vermont in 1791. It was all downhill from there.

Celebrity culture. It has produced a President and congressmen, why not a governor? Yikes. Maybe we should run Bruce Willis against Al Franken for Prez in 2008.

Religion is a ready made key that opens the door for a person to be manipulated into believing just about anything. If you have a guy who has been raised since birth to believe in an underworld governed by a 10 headed goat and believes it well into adulthood, how hard would he be to convince him that this unseen 10 headed goat wants him to blow up heretics who believe that the underworld is run by a 5 headed goat? Add in that the guy is mired in endless poverty and the 5 headed goat believers are rich beyond his imagining and then add that these heretics are also good friends with a hated and feared neighbor of his that beleive, of all things, that the underworld is ruled by a 3 headed newt and it gets even easier. This is my entry for strangest metaphor of 2006. I'm trying to set the bar high from the git-go for all you challengers to have something to shoot for.

Actually, the ventilation system in the bathrooms couldn't handle the gaseous byproducts of fried bologna sandwiches. Health Dept. was going to shut them down so they had to go.

Lots of ways to skin a cat but you still need a knife, ie, an offensive line. The only other "answer" besides an improved line I can think of is having a good TE. They can be game changers in that you can't cover a good one with a LB or a zone and if you go nickle to have an extra DB to handle him, you are vulnerable against the run if he can block.

Funny, my brother was visiting from Pittsburgh and we went sledding with the kids all day, I DVR'd the game and we watched it afterwards. On the same play you are talking about, which we rewound and watched several times, my brother said that "Willis never has any open space to make a move in or get up some steam, he has to stutter step his way in between penetrating lineman just to get back to the line, that shows what he can do with some space." I'd love to see what Willis could do with the quality blocking you see in Pittsburgh, Seattle and Denver.

Its that time of year again where fans imagine that for a pig in a poke we can get 17 first round picks and win the next 12 SB's afterwards.

I don't think there is a team in their right mind who would make that kind of trade. Bush might be one of the most exciting players to enter the NFL in a decade and Willis had a pretty rotten second half of the season and has a lot of mileage on him in addition to a couple sever injuries. If I owned a team and my GM suggested this, I'd fire him and then set his office on fire.

McGahee finished 10th in rushing but among the top 20 backs in the league, he was tied for last in yards per carry, 3.8, with Lamont Jordan. He had 325 attempts which was more than Warrik Dunn and Thomas Jones, both of whom had more yards than Willis. Willie Parker had only 45 yards less than Willis but did that on only 255 carries. That is 70 fewer attempts than Willis had. We ran Willis plenty, we just didn't run very well is all, especially over the last 8 games. He had 195 carries (24 per game on average) and 790 yards over the first half of the season and we went 3-5. To put that in perspective, 24 carries per game comes out to 384 carries for the year which is 14 more than Shaun Alexander who led the league in attempts and 24 more than Edgerrin James who had the second most attempts. Thus, we ran Willis more often than any team in the league ran their backs by far over the first half of the season and the result was a horrendous record of 3-5. Over the second half of the season, we still tried to run Willis plenty but we simply were not gaining yards. No first downs means fewer attempts. Over the second half, Willis had 130 carries but only 457 yards. That is a miserable 3.5 yards per carry. The Miami game I think is emblematic of our situation. We ran Willis 27 times which is a lot of carries by any measure but gained only 81 yards, that is a lousy 3 yards per carry. In contrast, we threw 27 times for 227 yards, that is over 8 yards per throwing attempt. In the Bengal game, we ran him 23 times for a lousy 66 yards, that is a very poor 2.8 yards per carry. We threw the ball 31 times for 308 yards, that is 9.9 yards per throw. Despite the drop in carries from freakishly plenty (24 per game) to a more pedestrian figure (16+ per game), we simply went from 3-5 to 2-6. Sorry folks but simply running the ball more was and is not a cure-all for this team. We ran plenty, especially when we were actually gaining some yards, not a lot but some and we sucked anyway. Later in the season we threw more and we still sucked. I really think that teams that score more points, win more often. I know, shocking revelation isn't it? Equally shocking, good teams can move the ball on the ground and thus they run more than teams who aren't so good. We were not a good team and part of that is because we were not able to run the ball well. It wasn't for lack of trying. We ran the crap out of Willis for 8 games and we stunk up the field. We tried something different and still stunk up the field. The common denominator here is the offensive line. No offensive system has ever been conceived that can succeed without effective blocking. The problem is not our rushing attempts. Teams that run well, run. Teams that don't run well, don't run. Pretty obvious which one we are, isn't it?

I'll second that. If he wants MM to run more, he should learn to block so that we actually gain yards when we run. I think that would help.

Right, because all you need for successful running is to run a lot. Actually gaining yards and getting first downs isn't meaningful, its just attempts. Willis would have a lot more runs if we had more first downs, hence more plays, hence more opportunities to run. I was not suggesting that teams sit on 7 point leads at all. Fact is though, teams with a big enough lead, especially in the 4thQ, start to run more. For example: Wk 4, SD beats NE 41-14, runs the ball 25 times in the second half, 17 times in the fourth quarter alone.

I was just looking at the Tampa game and the stats. We went three and out the first three series. We ran on first each time gaining a total of 9 yards and a holding penalty. Thats three plays out of nine netting -1 yard. That meant we had second and long every time, a great recipe for a team yearning to go three an out as often as possible. I think MM loves to run and would run to death if we could do so effectively. If you look at the games where we did run well, he ran Willis to death. However, when it was clear by the end of the 1stQ that our line wasn't going to hold up, he did the only thing you can do, mix it up and hope for the best.

Cart before the horse. You score points, you get a lead, you run clock by running thus your stats are weighted to the run. You don't score points, you get behind, you have to throw because you need to make up ground in a hurry. The Pats, Colts and Bengals are third, fourth and fifth in the league in passing and all are division winners. The Niners, Texans and Bills are the worst, third worst and fourth worst passing teams in the NFL, where are they headed? The Colts are 15th in rushing offense. It isn't as simple as measuring attempts. Running the ball (=attempts) isn't the same as gaining yards (=points, wins). Running and running the ball effectively is not the same thing. I know, a radical concept but try to get your hands around it.

A good offense doesn't need time to score. How many games have we lost this year to offenses that were able to score on their last possession? Miami for instance. I think TOP is one of the most overhyped stats in the book. One turnover giving your team an extra possession is enough to swing that. Besides, it really is kind of self fulfilling. If you don't get first downs, your TOP sucks whether you went three an out running or throwing. I agree that no offensive scheme is bound to succeed without decent play in the trenches. However, we don't have that and that was pretty obvious last year, in camp this year and in the first 3 games this year. From that point, you have to adjust to what you have. What we have is a QB with a rifle, quick feet but not much sense. What we have is blinding speed and great hands at one wideout and a pro-bowler at the other given to making circus catches in tight coverage able to outleap most DB's.

Umm...the fans have sung that song without interruption. I do agree however that the team has not been able to play that kind of football, not for lack of trying though. They just suck at it which is kind of my point.

Shockingly, the book you are reading is not the only one ever written that has information regarding the life and times of Nathaniel Greene, the revolution, the first congresses and the financial state of the nation, that is, the nation to be. We can approach this one of two ways. We could ingnore what either has to say until we have each all read the same books on the issue or we could share the knowledge both of us have accumulated from whatever sources and go from there.

So is offensive football. For every Trent Dilfer, I can name for you several Joe Montana's, Steve Young's, Joe Namath's, Brett Favre's, Johnny Unitas', Sonny Jurgensen's and plenty more where they came from. But yeah, there once was a Trent Dilfer who won a SB. Lets spend a lifetime trying to prove that you can win a SB with mediocre QB. It is all about being unpredictable, defense goes pass, you run. Defense goes run, you pass. They double the wideouts, you send 'em deep and hit the TE underneath. They play zone, you flood the zone. Rare is the offense so good it can announce what it is going to do, ie, run, run and run somemore, and still be successful. Defenses are just not that bad, not at this level. Sure there are some that are that bad, ours for instance. Most however are going to stop you if they have a good idea what you are going to do. Besides, you play with the team you have, not the fantasy team in your head you wish you had. We don't have a powerful, overpowering offensive line. We didn't use our draft picks on those guys. We used them on Drew Bledsoe, JP Losman, Lee Evans, Roscoe Parrish and Josh Reed. If all you are going to do is inch the ball forward and punt, all you need is a guy like Moorman which we have, and a Trent Dilfer, plenty of those around. You could have saved all those other picks and used them on some blockers. In the end, we have been playing this "smash mouth football" song for how many years now? Where has it taken us? Loserville. Yet we stick to that cliche like someone crazy glued our asses to it. Throw the damn thing, we could hardly do any worse.

Despite that, the only offense we have generated has been in the air. If McGahee makes a play to avoid getting tackled in the backfield, he turns a 2 yard loss into a 3 yard gain. If JP avoids the rush, he can turn a 10 yard loss into a TD. You have to play with the team you have, not the team you wish you had. Downfield is the only place to go for a team that can't do anything else. Ever think that the reason he gets sacked so much, even though we run a lot, is because we only throw when, predictably, we have to? If you always wait until 3rd and 12 to throw, no surprise you get sacked. The fact that we "might run" was no threat because we weren't running on 3rd and long. All those runs were on 1st and 2nd down and it was predictable as hell, thus that much easier to stop. The Bills of the '90's had about 6 basic plays they ran to death and yet they were far more unpredictable than this team.

I agree with most of that but the real problem on that line is guard to guard. All three are just awful. Yeah, we gave up a lot of pressure from the edge but the interior pressure from right up the middle is what was fatal to both the run and the pass. As bad as Williams was, Bennie is so bad they actually thought that the failed Williams might be an upgrade in a position he has never played. That says to me that the coaches felt that the weakest position on the entire line was LG and the were desperate enough to even try Williams there. I can live with Peters and maybe even Gandy next year but I want Anderson out and I would love to upgrade Teague and Villarial. You can move plays away from edge pressure, the QB can even just step forward against an edge rusher an buy an extra second. You can't do anything if they penetrate the middle. The distance to the QB is just too short from there and even if they don't get there, the QB can't see anything. Worse, he can't step up into the pocket so that the edge rushers find themsleves too deep to make a play because there is no pocket to step up into. Guard to guard we are arguably the worst in the league. Other teams know it and that is why they love to bring their DE's stunting up the middle or running LB on delays right up the center.