UConn James

Again, this was written as it went: On Redemption, Sarita is talking up Purple and it's got Matt questioning whether he'll re-up with Yellow. Philip is back to Lion and cooling his defection talk, and heating up his bushido code talk --- blah blah blah. Holy crap, Phil can talk a streak and not say anything of coherence or consequence. As much as he is disliked, Philip could hang around. The cut on Matt's foot ain't too bad, and not in a critical spot. And even squirming a lot, he wins. A new round of Redemption Island after the merge! Wow. It's been a great addition to the game this season. I'd much rather have a player get another shot than watch some dumb reward challenge. How dumb was it that some in Yellow weren't going to take all their stuff? Matt's getting friendly with Andrea again. Mike making promises to Mike --- "I have access to the idol if you need it..." The scheming was to vote out Steve, then Philip, to keep everyone on guard, and then move to the ultimate goal to blindside Rob. So there it is. Only, after sleeping on it, maybe it's not. I thought Grant would've done better on the challenge. What threw Mike there --- the fly?? Natalie's safe! Boy, can she handle those balls! Good news for Rob and the Yellow alliance; this may help sway Matt into it. Wavering before tribal.... And voted off via Rob; back to his home base on Redemption. Dave: "Genius move, that was." I don't know. Rob was definitely trying to remove any form of uncertainty, and like he said, any form of cohesion (through religion here). Some will say that he should've gone after someone from Purple first to get up on numbers a bit. But, I can see his logic. Like Probst said, Matt was a hinge vote --- to wit, Matt sat in the dead middle tonight --- that any could sway either way, any week, and held sway over Andrea in a powerful two-vote bloc that had eliminating Rob as its goal, no matter what Matt said in the cliff-talk and bible-talk. Rob is putting Andrea on an island, figuratively, by putting Matt on an island, literally. She now either has to conform to Yellow or try her luck in a switch with Purple, which no longer has a hidden idol. To have any chance next week, they have to win immunity and try to turn Andrea... and they may have to steal Rob's idol.

I'm a "home base" guy myself. Especially with all the MRSA stuff out there. I know a couple of people who've had that on their cheeks. Not fun. When forced to, always line the seat with two layers of TP. I may be neurotic, but I'd rather be neurotic and disease-free than cavalier and red-assed.

Purple's gray-hair Steve looked pretty nonplussed when Sarita got booted, and from all his other comments, he was the other Dave vote. If Sarita were to survive Redemption, I could see Rob offering protection in exchange for her vote, probably for about 4-5 weeks. Beyond that, he's got other commitments. I don't know; I don't think Matt is a battle Rob would choose to pick right now, unless Matt turns to the purple alliance (and possibly takes the blonde with him... but there was some distance b/w this former pair at Redemption the other week, so it will be key to find out where Matt's loyalties are now. If the injury to his foot is bad, he'll have to ally, b/c he won't be able to count on winning individual immunities as those get more physical and movement-oriented). That's what makes post-merge the best part of the show. The possibility of things changing really big, really fast.

Christie has publicly said that while he feels he could win the presidential election, he doesn't feel that he has enough (executive) experience to be president and therefore, he's not running in '12.

Tonight's episode is titled "This Game Respects Big Moves." I'm predicting the following: Matt wins and re-enters (tentatively), Dave turns, and Philip remains (again, tentatively) in the yellow alliance. They pick apart the remnants of purple one by one. I think the title is referring to Dave's move. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Philip plays it stupid and switches to gorilla mode / joins purple alliance, and from there, it'll rely on the individual immunity idol and Rob's secret idol. As I wrote before, it might be smart for Rob to reveal to Grant that he found the idol (in a whole "Hey, look what I just found!" way, but I'd certainly understand if he wants to keep it secret for as long as he can. BTW - does idol use at tribal change any once the merge comes on, or is it still that you have to play it before the vote?

I don't think people need to be told over and over that she's a dumb C U Next Tuesday. She's taken care of that herself.

As happens at Spring Break, most of the arrests (13 of 21) are not students, but people who go to the campus to get drunk, act like *s and "break ****." But it's 'crazy UConn students' that get the blame.

The rainbow-farting unicorn at the close is an especially nice touch.

+1. That's been the example of such **** scheduling from the NCAA for years. Friggin' game wasn't over until nigh midnight. And that was the night after the womens' game started at the same time. Everyone's asleep by halftime on the East coast.

I meant "can't just be physical" as in, there has got to be some corresponding rise in the environmental/social causes. To use Fez's examples, there's multiple sides in the causes of those, i.e. increasing profligacy in trees (due to increased CO2 levels?), and the rise of grossly over-manufactured foodstuffs. Allergies and obesity increases don't happen in a vacuum. Neither, I think, does depression. True enough, Tom. It may be more in the margins, and in the severity of pre-disposed individual cases.

How is this surprising? Just following the example of Chuck Schumer --- take everything to the extreme. Cutting the corporate tax rate will bring businesses back inside U.S. borders. Did you watch Leslie STahl's piece on "60 Minutes" a couple of weeks ago? All the "corporate headquarters" front offices in Switzerland so they can get the 16% rate. So by having such a large corporate tax, the federal govt gets 30% of ZERO rather than, say, 22% of BILLION$. As the guy said, they would rather their headquarters be located here --- and it's not like companies are asking the U.S. to drop it to the lowest corporate rate in the world. They're not asking that. They're asking for some marginal relief, and until they get it, they'll stay in Switzerland.

That's to be expected, these days. At least it doesn't appear to be very extensive. I never participated in this stuff. Just don't get the destructive bent some people have. But I will relate... I once came upon a car up on the hill next to Gampel and the South parking garage that was literally run through with a tree branch, all the windows smashed and glass everywhere, the engine burned, dented all over. The owner had the temerity to have a SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY window ribbon. Talk about asking for it!

Also, it borrowed from way too many movies / teevee series. "Avatar," "Quantum Leap," "Groundhog Day," "7 Days." It seriously lacked originality. And it probably would have been better if it had ended at... well, you know where. The questions of Why is he doing this? / How is this happening? don't come to satisfactory answers here, no matter how one tries to justify it. For "Black Swan" these questions have very basic answers, laced b/w scenes of reality and mental conjure/disease. I'll add "Moon" to my list.

In many cases, it does remain fairly private. Something like this can't be hidden. It sounds condescending to have to write this, but even classically "pretty/handsome" people can suffer from depression, bullying, hopelessness, etc. What does that have to do with anything? Sometimes that's what causes others to bully and they know if they take it far enough, their mark will crack. In the case of bullying, I've gotta say that the idea that they can't fight back or they'll get suspended too has to weigh in. And oftentimes, for all the efforts of governors' blue-ribbon panels (breasts on a bull), telling an adult just means more and worse bullying. We live in a very sick society, that has gotten much more crass even in the last 10 years. In the '80s-period "No Country for Old Men," the Tommy Lee Jones character says he thinks it started when people stopped using "Sir" and "ma'am" --- I think that was true then, and it's only gotten worse in this society since with the breakdown of authority, the end of respect, the breakdown of the family unit, a culture of sex and violence in the media/teevee/movies, the rise of hard drug use, etc. Anyone who says it's roughly the same as the '60s-'90s has obviously not spent much time in the public school system since they attended. I'm sorry, but in any number of high schools, this is an exponentially growing problem. Look on the Facebook memorial. It's sick. (Edit: it had to be taken down.) People today feel they have the right to make whatever comment they want to get their "lulz." It's my own opinion that comments sections under news stories, while begun with intentions of discussing the news productively, are doing a lot of damage and adding to the epidemic of verbal diarrhea. I can't read those comments anymore; it's such an angry world out there. This is all in addition to whatever internal stuff was going on, but make no mistake that social interaction provides a big part of this kind of thing. The meteoric rise in depression rates can't just be physical. It just can't. As for Meagan, it's a horrible set of circumstances. You just think... what if one person had just said, 'You know... She needs some help.' Instead, the weight of her world crushed this girl. If there is something after this, I hope God shows her the compassion she never got here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhsh66Daipk

Agreed for the most part. I don't like Jake Gyllenhall as an actor. I don't know what it is --- too brooding, maybe. From "Proof" to "Love and Other Drugs." It's milder in "Source Code." Suspension of disbelief is a major necessity for this. I was a huge fan of how LOST handled time travel, and I'm loving "Doctor Who." "Source Code" tried to set a serious tone and the best the dude could come up with was (I'll go to yellow-font for possible spoiler discussion) how a light bulb has a faint glow right after you turn it off. That was so cheap. Stupid to suggest that apparently plugging into a victim's brain would lead to an interactive world that this person never saw in the first place. How could Seth have known about the white van? I'm sorry, but you can't get something from nothing. The more I think about the science behind it, the more it's a total sham. At least LOST was able to explain its time manipulations, even if it was mythology-heavy. Not to mention its cop-out of the original timeline (and a violation of usual time travel "Whatever Happened, [always] Happened" rule) that led into its take on alternate realities, one in which Goodwin seems ready to do the honorable thing and keep their word while the characters apparently can live out their lives (whether real or not --- the precognitive flashes of the giant mirror ball would suggest to me that this 'reality' was a figment of Colter's brain), and one in which it appears Colter will continue serving his country as long as this program can keep his brain going. Its ethical considerations are also highly questionable. Colter's body was being used post-'death' (or was it? his eyes and shoulders sure seemed active) without giving him a chance to communicate with his father, even if only through text messages? Forcing him to achieve this forgiveness through a questionable reality? Boo! Using body parts without expressed authorization? Not cool.

We've got a new owner?!? (Nix and Gailey may be new, but make no mistake that everything still goes through Ralph & Co.)

The "no trades until draft day" rule is probably going to make the draft unwatchable. I can see it now.... And even if teams could trade players (or if a gentleman's agreement is reached to trade Kolb for a box of tape once a CBA is signed), this rumor smacks of a team that learned diddly squat from the RJ trade. [pause] So on that note, it's entirely plausible --- even probable!

Give this a read.

I make a motion that this thread be closed. There's nothing in it that was not covered in the original uniform thread, which is where this probably should have been merged at the start. And now it has hopelessly devolved to posters kvetching about what the title is currently versus what the original thread title was.

I wrote when the weather gets nicer --- with a R --- for good reason!

H20, with that blasphemous sentence, you just gave Muhammad Abdul Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad an excuse to behead some poor schmoe. --- It's OK for Muslims to call Christ a minor prophet. Nobody in the West blinks twice. But that's different. They can say things like that, but others can't say similar things about theirs. Why are they so brutal to others' religions, yet so sensitive about their own? For a good deal of them, it seems like their faith is so timid that it can't accept the least bit of criticism before they break out the dull machetes to silence any questioners. That's not religion, it's barbarism. A true religion can stand withstand the criticism of anybody. Religion is just an excuse their leaders use to motivate and explain away acts of (usually politically-motivated) barbarity.

Are you guys hellbent on giving Bill in NYC convulsions every year?

Farming is THE most dangerous occupation in the U.S. More deaths on the job than any other. OSHA, federal/state regulations up the yin-yang. No one's proposing that farming come to an end. What about construction workers? Bomb disposal techs? You do a job, you take a risk. You sign on the dotted line. You gamble that the opportunity cost is worth the risk. Yep, there should be more resources for NFL vets who're suffering from playing-related injuries, but that's up to the new CBA.

I rather think the administration wants to sweep causality and all of Mexico under the rug at the moment. They might have to explain the ATF's Project Gunrunner. CBS News has been hitting this story hard the past couple of weeks. For those who haven't heard, the ATF has been funneling fully- and semi-automatic weapons across the border directly into the hands of drug cartels, to the tune of $10M in stimulus funds and some estimates at $100M total. One border agent is all but confirmed to have been killed with one of these weapons. By all their other actions, including yanking the head of the ATF out of Congressional hearings, cover-up has been their tack so far. I'm sure some stimulus or ATF czar will commit sepuku/hari kari and then be set up with a nice job in the private sector. Not saying that this has been the sole cause of the violence --- in fact, the cartels get the vast majority of their weapons from Central American countries according to cables published on Wikileaks rather than from the U.S. as Obama would have everyone believe (in fact, they've probably gotten more from the U.S. government than from private smugglers) --- but it sure can't help. Drug money fuels it all.

If they were meant to be debuted at the NFL Draft, it would have said the NFL Draft. As I wrote in the original thread, they will doubtless be revealed at a seat-purchasing event when the weather gets nicer --- and I'm not putting a moral judgment on this, just stating it as a fact of business. IIRC, the current monstrosities saw the turf in mid-May back in 2002. I don't know how the labor situation will affect it, tho. Without players to walk around in them until a new CBA is reached, it's questionable whether the team would postpone or just go ahead and debut them in a showcase display.