UConn James

A poster on the Chris Creamer logo site posited this uniform set based on the descriptions: Link

I've only recently been getting to catch up on some movie-watching and writing up the nominees. The blog is mostly where I dump some random musings, quotes, clips, etc. The scene after when they find the body hanging from the tree is one of the biggest " WTF??? .... " moments I've ever experienced in a theater. "You are not LaBouef!" Thanks, tgreg. You like the Sabres color-scheme, no? I only watched "The Kids Are All Right" but I just thought it was a great take-off / turn-on-the-head of an old theme. The dialogue was real-life --- something a lot of other movies could learn from. I could've lived with "Inception" getting it; that was very well-weaved. I just didn't like "The King's Speech" and its deviations from history/reality. Bertie's therapy with Logue began ~10 years prior to what they showed, Churchill supported Edward VIII just about until the abdication, among the other notes I made on it. It's a dumbed-down re-vision of history. Dude had 40 years to get the story right, and that's what he came up with? As I wrote, Masterpiece Theater's 2002 treatment was much better, IMO.

I think I'll have it on my blog within the next few days. Have a feeling I'm going to be seeing it a lot, just as I've seen "cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" about 32,539 times with my niece....

They donate quite a bit to PBS. You always hear "The David H. Koch Charitable Trust" after NOVA, Frontline, etc. So, I guess they must be pinko leftists.

For my money, it deserved Best Picture far more than The King's Speech. Shameless plug... My blog reviews on all 10. (I cut-and-pasted some of what I wrote here on TBD in Mark's threads). Having just snuck in "The Kids Are All Right" on Sunday before the awards, I have to say that was probably my #2.

BTW, small nit-pick, tgreg.... it's "pock-marked."

Yep, heard this when he first came to the U. Another victim of the stereotype absentee father, likely mixed in with a little steroid/TBI-brain. Glad he made the best of his time at Storrs.

I liked this more recent design better. (Slightly NSFW) Link

Appealing to their vanity seems to be the new direction of anti-drug campaigns targeted at kids and teens. Can't say that's a bad strategy....

Yes, there's one more scheduled for April. It's being commanded by the husband of the congresswoman who was shot in Tucson (he hopes she will be at the launch).

Bloomberg: Rhode Island's School Board Fires All Providence Teachers They say that most teachers will be re-hired. Per interviews on the RI teevee stations, this is also being seen as a way to wipe out seniority and tenure in the teacher unions. Must be those BIG BAD Republicans who want to break the unions! Oh wait... this is happening in THE most liberal state in the union. Providence has had liberal Dem mayors since time out of mind. Granted, they elect RINOs as governors (currently, former U.S. senator Lincoln Chaffee) in a theory that it'll provide some check to the legislature's spending. It doesn't. It can't. They've got it bass-ackwards. If you want a check on spending and maintain leftie social issues (I would be fine with this in CT), you elect a moderate Republican leg. and a Dem governor. Now, like many states, they're facing catastrophic debt incurred from many years of salaries, benefits and promises to public workers. There is squeaking all across the country from the gravy trains coming to a stop. The unions can threaten and cry for more grease for the wheels, but the simple fact is they've used it all.

I was under the impression Walter doesn't use his own product....

No. That meant that for a matter like this to be unconstitutional, it needs to be declared unconstitutional. It hasn't been for as long as the practice of prolonged solitary confinement has been in use.

OK. I'll bite one last time. Insofar that the current actions of the warden have not been deemed unconstitutional, it's been going on for 27 years under oversight, and there's been other similar cases in the past. It is constitutional. Some people, you included, are saying it's not --- that doesn't mean that it's not. I'm not "quitting" this argument. It's reached its final point of my participation, that it's a matter of opinion, and I've stated mine. Your participation probably isn't complete b/c you won't be satisfied until you state your opinion using the same or different words another thousand times. Because you and your kind think that this cacophony of repetition makes your argument correct. Bye now. (Hmm. Maybe I should find a psychologist who says government taxation makes people go insane....)

Determining what is "cruel and unusual" is, like obscenity, a subjective value. The BoR does not say what is cruel and unusual. It does not say that solitary confinement, a B&W teevee, family visits behind plexiglass and the ability to write letters, and being given access to paint and art supplies is cruel and unusual. It doesn't say human contact is an inalienable right. Your opinion that Terrible Tommy's living conditions define "cruel and unusual" is your opinion. And you know what they say about opinions. So, we're left to figure this out on our own as the times change. Both as punishments change and as criminals change. We'll see how the courts decide. I sure wouldn't care to take the odds on your side. Can't say that I'm surprised with your typical uber-liberal mumbo-jumbo of taking away means of self-defense, hoping everyone will play nice, setting up scenarios that don't work in the real world, tie one hand behind the backs of people who play by the rules, and then letting everyone go at it a free-for-all. And feeling great that the people who risk their lives have a nice benefits package, just so you can feel better pretending that unicorns fart rainbows. I'm only comforted by the fact that most of the brainless morons you'd vote for could see the arguments for keeping this guy away from other inmates and minimizing contact that he has with prison staff. My father always taught me to never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person, so this will likely be the last post to which I respond to you in this thread.

Would putting him into the GP not be "cruel and unusual" punishment for all of the other prisoners / this guy's potential bunk-mate? Maybe they should install Internet in his cell and let him play Second Life. I mean, there's LOADS of people who're un-incarcerated that spend 23 hours a day doing that, and it's not deemed cruel or unusual.

Again, we're talking about degrees. "Normal" prison confinement can "cause" insanity. I'd say the cat's already out of the bag for anyone for whom this kind of thing is necessary. When this guy is in a socially-interactive environment, he kills. Pure and simple. I don't imagine the warden likes having to do it, from a moral or budgetary standpoint. But he's got a duty to protect other inmates and prison workers. I fully expect that if this 'Terrible Tommy' were released into a lower level of confinement and he kills again, the victim's family will sue and collect millions. It's Catch-22. Aren't you the defender of collective bargaining rights, in this case wrt safety regulations? How're you going to tell prison guards that guys like this who have such a history of attacking or killing guards have to go in the GP and be treated like any other prisoner. That's like making them play Russian roulette every time they're around this guy.

Is that a universal standard? Obviously, no, or we couldn't have jails. Cruel and unusual relative to what? Relative to all people who've killed other inmates and prison guards and are beyond maximum security risk. It became a necessary punishment based on his own actions. The article gives examples of others with similar records of killing other inmates and/or prison guards who have been and are held in solitary for such long times. So, it's not unusual relative to this classification of killer. And still, he is allowed to see family (through plexiglass, but that's not unusual either), write letters, and has a teevee in his cell. It's not like it's complete sensory deprivation.

What about Haiti? 'Course, it happened during humanitarian/crisis relief but with some of the stuff that went on, it had a few of the hallmarks.

+1 That's not very often these days, though.

I think Chuck Lorre hit a little too close to the truth that Charlie is "dead inside."

You won't get a real answer even after the draft. They've gotta be poker players. Giving anybody a hint at the strategy affects what they'll do in cap-casualty or waiver pickups, possible trades and even into next year's draft.

A great cover of Leonard Cohen. If you've been divorced.... BC has an amazing voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBjeaz6qyt4&feature=related Sting's "(We'll Walk in) Fields of Gold" --- the Eva Cassidy version especially --- always gets me. The extended title is carved on my dog's headstone where we buried him on the woodlot.

For a slightly less mumbo-jumbo synopsis, here's an article from CNN. Guy doesn't have the best of histories. Uses the argument that he's had "good behavior" for the last 19 years.... yet, that probably has something to do with being locked up as he is. What happens if/when he's let out in the GP, as he's advocating for? Prison guards aren't there to be human pinatas for the inmates. No matter how carefully a prison is run, someone who wants to create mayhem and murder and has nothing to lose, just has to wait for the right opportunity. Like a rabid dog held at the pound, there may be times when he looks like a perfectly normal mutt --- but make no mistake, he's still rabid. I don't like the theory of such confinement either. But when theory hits reality, sometimes nasty-ass decisions need to be made.

Announced on SpoilerTV a few minutes ago... Two and a Half Men is finished for the season.