SoTier

Just about any professional, whether in sports or another field, is better after several years into his/her career than at the start of it. Eventually, everyone peaks and then either stays at the same level or declines. In a field that's not dependent primarily on physical ability, there's not really a limit on how long somebody can continue to improve. Many athletes manage to make up for the declining physical abilities by continuing to improve the rest of their abilities. Peyton Manning and Drew Brees come to mind. Brady's in this group, too, although the decline in his physical abilities isn't particularly apparent yet.

I could have misunderstood the summary; I'm a long, long time away from college biology! As I understood the extract,the basis of this drug therapy was that the cancer had a mutation that made it hard/harder for the cancer cells' to repair altered/damaged DNA. The drug somehow facilitated damage to the cancer cells which resulted in the cancer being "cured". I'm not sure that the extract gave the length of time that the patients have been cancer free, but I don't think that cancer survivors are ever considered "cured" the way someone would be cured of an infection. I think that the promise of this drug therapy is that it shows that the idea of attacking the DNA of cancer cells can be effective. A friend of mine who is very well educated but is totally a non-scientific/non-technological person who generally views things through the prism of "how much it costs" was complaining recently about the billions that have been spent on cancer research without finding "a cure". I tried explaining to her that cancer isn't a single disease but a myriad of diseases with many variations even within the same type but I don't think she accepted that idea. She just saw billions of dollars going to fight "cancer" with apparently limited success rather than a very broad spectrum of success depending upon the specific type of cancer. I think that a lot of people who aren't particularly interested in science/medicine and/or have not been personally impacted by cancer (which is the case of my friend) simply don't understand that cancer isn't a single disease, so they get frustrated that it's not already "cured" despite all the resources devoted to it.

I read the abstract (summary) of the NEJM article, and it seems that the key was that the mutation in the cancer cells was the key because the cancer cells couldn't recover after the antibodies in the drug altered their DNA. Researchers had hypothesized that this would happen but this is the first example of the idea actually working --- and working quite spectacularly. This is a small step, but proving that this kind of drug therapy is effective on one type of cancer opens the door to research on how this same type of therapy can be used on other kinds of cancers.

PFF likes to pretend that it's "objective" but this list demonstrates that the group is hardly less biased than any group of knowledgeable NFL fans polled as to their choices as best coaches. Ding, ding, PFF ... winning is important, winning playoff games is more important, and winning the Super Bowl is "priceless". Kliff Kingsbury has been HC of the Cards for 3 seasons in which his teams have gone 24-24-1 with 1 winning season, 1 playoff appearance, and 0 playoff wins. His teams have demonstrated a tendency to start off hot and then tail off as the season progresses. In 2019, the Cards started the season 3-3-1 and finished 2-7 (5-10-1). In 2020, they started 5-2 and finished 3-6 (8-8). In 2021, they started 7-0 and finished 4-6 (11-6). They got soundly beaten 34-11 by the Rams in the WC round. How the hell can anyone claim that Kingsbury is currently the fourth best HC in the NFL behind three HCs destined for the HOF? Good grief, Kingsbury isn't even as good as two HCs in his own division, Shanahan and McVay. He's 3-3 versus the 49ers. Shanahan has taken the 49ers to the NFC Championship twice and once to the Super Bowl in the 2 seasons that he's had Garropolo as his QB for most of the season. Kingsbury is 1-6 against McVay's Rams, including the 2021 WC loss. NFL HCs have significant influence over their team's roster, and it's disingenuous to penalize HCs who are good at talent evaluation and management because it's a key part of the job! Both Kingsbury and McVay inherited losing squads. Kingsbury got to hand pick his QB in Kyler Murray. McVay inherited Jared Goff, and made the Super Bowl with him in his second season as HC. McVay has been HC of Rams for 5 seasons in which his teams have gone 55-26 with 5 winning seasons, 4 double digit win seasons, 4 playoff appearances, 7 playoff wins in 10 games, 2 Super Bowl appearances and 1 Super Bowl win. McVay is collecting HOF credentials. Kingsbury may be job hunting in 2023 if the Cardinals suffer another second half of the season swoon.

Love pileated woodpeckers!!!

Why is it at all surprising that PFF tells us that any number of mediocre performers are "actually" better than the guys who are top performers? It's their schtick: manipulating arcane -- and sometimes irrelevant -- statistics to "prove" that traditional methods of assessing players and coaches -- actual production/results -- don't tell the "true story". PFF regularly claim that Crappy QB A is really almost as good as All Pro QB B because A plays on a lousy team with poor coaching while B plays on a well coached team with good talent. That's why Kliff Kingsbury is rated #4 and Mike Tomlin is rated #13 in the magical and incredibly capricious statistical universe of PFF. Why is Tomlin penalized for having Roethlisberger for most of his tenure in Pittsburgh but McCarthy isn't despite having Rodgers in GB and Dak in Dallas and accomplishing less?

I only ever made it about a quarter of the way out on the old trestle bridge. I got freaked out by looking down and seeing the river below. The old trestle bridge was built in the 1800s IIRC.

New York State Parks info The Glen Iris offers a decent restaurant in a beautiful setting (Middle Falls). You can walk to the museum from the restaurant. The Mary Jemison site (there's a monument there) marks the Jemison family home and possibly their family cemetery. If you're going to Watkins Glen, you might also want to make a day of it, and take the winery trail along the east side of Seneca Lake. The Ginny Lee Cafe at the Wagner Winery is a thumbs up. Unfortunately, your boys probably won't be able to do any wine tasting but on the positive side, one can be the designated driver! Geneva, at the north end of Seneca Lake, is a beautiful historic village. The historic district is awesome if architecture is your thing. From Geneva, you can take Route 20 west to Cananadaigua, which is a very touristy little city with an interesting little commerical district on the city pier. Sonnenberg Gardens is a great historic home with extensive gardens on the grounds. Ithaca and Taughannock Falls State Park on Cayuga Lake is another good side trip from Watkins Glen, especially if waterfalls and gorges are your thing. Ithaca is famous for its gorges, many on/around the Cornell University campus. Taughannock Falls is the highest waterfall in NYS. You can hike the gorge right up to the falls. If you are going to hit a number of New York State parks on this trip or later in the year, you might consider investing in an Empire Passport which gives you unlimited free access to most state parks for a single fee. (New York State Parks info) Here's the official Finger Lakes tourism website for more ideas: Finger Lakes Tourism

Stuff headline: "US marks Memorial Day weekend with at least 11 mass shootings". If you actually read the entire news story instead of pretending it's trash, you would have noted that this story talked about the twelfth mass shooting that wasn't included in the database of mass shootings. Washington Post Headline: "U.S. marks Memorial Day weekend with at least 12 mass shootings". The WP version was published on May 31 as an update of the original article by Annabelle Timsit published on May 30. Timsit was credited in both articles so there's no plagiarism involved. Now, to the pertinent issue, why exactly is the headline "dumb"? Since neither headline is untrue nor inflammatory, I have to believe that you think it's "dumb" because you dislike being reminded of the prevalence of gun violence in the US. I'm sure that you prefer that the mainstream US news media as well as the foreign news media kowtow to the NRA and their allies in the US media and government that pretend that gun violence is primarily a problem of inner city criminals engaging in criminal activities with illegal guns rather than a problem that can affect anybody at any time, in grocery stores, in schools, in fast food restaurant, at graduation parties, at Memorial Day events ....

That's not what I wrote. I wrote that the city I live in, which is about twice the size of Uvalde, sometimes only has 3 police officers on patrol -- you know, riding in their cars and available to quickly respond to crime calls. Police forces are one of those agencies that operate 24/7, so not all officers are available at any one time. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there are more officers on patrol on Friday or Saturday nights than on a week day mid-morning or afternoon. Use your common sense.

Sounds like a plan to me ... but why limit arming school kids to just school hours? IMO, requiring every American to have combat training and to carry a semi-automatic gun whenever they leave their homes would undoubtedly make the country infinitely safer. // sarcasm off

I live in a city with about 30,000 people -- almost twice the size of Uvalde -- and there are times when there are only 3 police officers on patrol in the entire city. Crime in this town -- in this entire county with a population of around 120-130k -- mostly involves drug use, drug sales, DUI, and low level property crimes like burglary, vandalism, car theft etc. I can't remember the last time any police officer in my city actually fired his/her revolver while on duty. Training in active shooter response for LEOs in places like this is very abstract because police officers have virtually no experience in dealing with active gun violence. Their experience with gun violence is almost always after the fact.

I didn't mention "gun violence" in general, but the distinctly American form domestic terrorism of mass shootings. Statistics can be found to "prove" whatever some advocate wants to prove just by picking the right dataset, and you are being disingenuous by deflecting my argument. Gun violence is so rampant in the US in 2021 that about 53 Americans die because of it every single day, so dismissing instances of mass murder as "a tiny sliver" of "gun violence" is a deliberate attempt to whitewash the recurring problem of heavily armed gunmen murdering random strangers, including school children, because the gunmen are dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives. Moreover, most instances of mass murder of random individuals who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are committed by 1 or 2 heavily armed angry white males who easily and legally acquire rapid fire semiautomatic military style guns, not by criminals wielding illegal weapons. Making it more difficult for guns with the sole purpose of killing the most people in the shortest time to get into the hands of angry, disturbed and/or distraught individuals would most definitely reduce the number people killed by mass killers. It's hard to kill 10 people in a supermarket or 19 students and teachers in just a few minutes without a gun capable of rapidly firing 15 or 30 or more bullets without reloading.

This doesn't even happen regularly in supposedly "backward" countries that are beset by conditions we "civilized" Americans consider hallmarks of countries on the brink of anarchy like extreme poverty, political unrest, criminal cartels, local warlords, civil war, etc. It's time for Americans to have an "attitude adjustment" towards organizations and politicians who promote and support the idea that every nut has an absolute right to own as big and as deadly a firearms arsenal as they can afford.

Not in my "backyard" but as I was driving to the family camp in Gowanda on Tuesday, I flushed a bald eagle from the side of the road where it was likely breakfasting on a road killed critter. It was a back road, and obviously that eagle wasn't expecting to be disturbed. If he/she had flushed left towards the road instead away from it, I might have hit him/her. It's the closest I've ever been to a non-captive bald eagle, probably less than 50 feet, since it was just off the road and just in front of my bumper. I would have been crushed if I had actually hit him/her.

I did not address how Buffalo became segregated, which was the topic of the article above. Nothing in that article contradicts what I wrote previously. I described where Blacks were living when the Kensington Expressway was conceived and designed. The map from 1937 in the article showed that most Blacks lived in the old Ellicott District which was just east of Downtown, which is exactly where I said they were living until the later 1950s and 1960s.

Main Street has been a dividing line between the "good side" and the "poor side" of town going back to the Buffalo's days as a booming canal town in the1830s. The wealthy and middle class people lived west of Main Street and the working class and poor people lived east of Main Street all through the 19th and 20th centuries. The poor were concentrated in what was the old Ellicott District which was began on the east side of Main and spread east along North and South Divisions streets as well as in the Canal Street area and along the waterfront into the Old First Ward. Many of these neighborhoods were peopled by immigrants, first Irish and Germans, and were later joined or replaced by Italians, Poles, and Russian Jews. Buffalo's small population of pre-Civil War Blacks lived around Michigan Avenue in the Ellicott District, and it remained relatively small until the 20th century when the Great Migration brought a modest influx of Blacks from the South into Buffalo between the world wars. Buffalo didn't experience a significant influx of black newcomers until WW II and afterward. When the Kensington Expressway was planned, which would have been in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the Black population of Buffalo was much smaller and located much closer to downtown than it was by the time the expressway was completed in the 1960s, so it's not factual to claim that it was racially motivated. It was economically motivated, targeting poorer working class neighborhoods that city leaders believed should be leveled and used for something "better", ie, an expressway. The neighborhoods along the Kensington Expressway route generally were white, mostly ethnically German but were already changing because people with good paying industrial jobs looked for better housing than the crowded working class cottages and mutlifamilies that filled much of the East Stide. IOW, most of the whites who moved out of the Near East Side in the 1950s would have moved out to Kaisertown or Cheektowaga even without the Kensington because they wanted better housing. The Kensington expressway project accelerated that move. Blacks were the latest group of newcomers (along with Puerto Ricans) to come to Buffalo, and probably would have filled in the near East Side anyways, but perhaps not so quickly.

I can only speak about Buffalo's housing market west of Main Street because that's the area I know best. In that area, Buffalo's real estate market has been booming for more than a decade, especially west of Main Street. The prices in the most desirable West Side neighborhoods -- Allentown, Richmond Ave, Elmwood Village, Delaware District -- have skyrocketed, and that's meant an overflow of gentrification into parts of the Lower West Side, Black Rock, Connecticut Street, etc. North Buffalo has also been a desirable area going back to the 1980s, and its become even more so. Most of single family homes in these neighborhoods as well as many of the two family homes are owned by people who live in them. All these neighborhoods have lots of single family homes with some decent/interest architecture that appeal to modern buyers. Many of the grand old mansions and classic Victorians in the Delaware District have also been condos into pricey condos. Even lower end neighborhoods west of Main Street filled utilitarian two families like Grant Amherst and Grant Ferry have seen significant price increases. These homes are being bought up by younger buyers looking to build nest eggs with fixer uppers or as well as by investors.

That's just the nature of upscale urban living, in Buffalo or Boston or Chicago or Omaha or anywhere in the US. If this condo was in Allentown or the Delaware District or within walking distance of the Elmwood Strip, it would probably bring more than list price because of bidding wars. Those neighborhoods have "urban ambiance" that attract wealthy people who reject the suburban life-style found in Clarence or Orchard Park. Waterfront Village is more like a suburban condo/townhouse development close to downtown.

The problem I have with the general recommendation to remove feeders at this time of year is that food sources for all wild birds, especially migrants, are limited because so many have been depleted over the winter. The recommendation to plant native plants is great for the future but for this spring, it's nonsensical. Furthermore, since poultry and waterfowl are the types of birds impacted by this flu, the recommendation ought to be targeted to people living in proximity to poultry flocks, wetlands, rivers, lakes, etc. On a better note, today I took my dog to a local park that is mostly woods with a creek running through it. While sitting in a chair by the shelter house, I saw a pileated woodpecker fly past (I could see the white bars on his/her black wings). Later I heard their distinctive call and heard drumming. As New York developed and forests were replaced with cities, towns, and farms, pileateds became very rare outside of the State Forest Preserves in the Adirondaks and Catskills, but as upstate New York's rural areas, especially in the Southern Tier, reverted from mostly agricultural land to forest land since WW II, pileated populations in Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties have grown significantly. While not common in back yards or at feeders, pileateds are frequently seen or heard in state forests, other forested public lands, and private woodlots.

Absolutely true. Many kids who come from money can't handle their wealth when they do get their share of the family wealth and run through millions. I think that recently the NFLPA has taken some steps to provide young players with financial mentoring because many players come from poor backgrounds, but even kids from middle class families can be overwhelmed by NFL salaries. Marshawn Lynch has really been outspoken about younger players taking care of their financial situations as have other current and former players recently.

Maybe the reason that Hughes is gone is because the Bills feel that Basham and/or AJE are capable of replacing him. Totally agree. QB isn't the only position where young players frequently step up big in their second or third seasons. A lot of college players made their draft slots based on their superior physical talent. In the pros, they not only have to learn new/better techniques and get their bodies into NFL playing shape, but they have to learn the way their opponents play the game to figure out how to be really effective, and they only gain that knowledge with experience, not only on the field but also in analyzing film. It takes a while.

I think that a lot of posters have unrealistic expectations of the Bills recent young DLers. These aren't top ten or top fifteen draft picks who realistically can replace entrenched starters but late first or late second round picks. They have some flaws that need to be fixed or overcome. It's not realistic to expect these young players to dislodge established starters as rookies or even as sophomores, especially because NFL defenses are much more sophisticated than most college defenses. There's a learning curve for all NFL newcomers, and some youngsters have more to learn than others. For the Bills and other outstanding teams' young defenders, it's even harder for them to break into starting lineups because the guys in front of them are better than the starters on many other teams. It's a lot easier for a young defender to have an impact on a 3 win team with a poor defense than on a 11 or 12 win team with a highly rated defense. IOW, show these young guys some patience. Did you do your best your job/career in your first couple of years on the job or after you've mastered all the nuances?

They planned on heading to Canada, but the woman who was supposed to help them chickened out at the last minute. Most believe that decision saved her life since the two cons she was going to help were both murderers.

RIP, Bob. I was a senior in HS when the Bonnies (they were the Brown Indians back then) went to the Final Four. It made me a college basketball fan for life, especially the NCAA Tournament.