UConn James

Well, with 46 million uninsured, that puts a chunk into the deficit. People making under $250K will pay less in taxes under Obama, yeah? Oh, wait. This isn't a 'tax' this is a 'fine.' Totally different.

Reeks of an excuse for him to say that this season's results were with a young team, he didn't have much to work with and wait until next year --- just one more year! This is a sorry excuse and would be a miserable reason to keep DJ on, but Ralph has made worse decisions.... In fact, he made one last year. And again, DJ is holding a three-year contract. Thing for me is, if we're essentially going to blow it up this year, why on earth didn't/doesn't the FO blow everything up? This team is in such a state of disarray. It's gone on too long to not be able to say that the reason for this starts at the very top. Can only hope that Ralph sees that he doesn't have it in him to do this anymore.

I think you just nailed it. The Buffalo Bills are about the NFL's equivalent to the KC Royals, at this point. The cutting isn't to any purpose. It's just cutting.

As posted in previous seasons.... This link provides a week-to-week listing through the season of what game is being carried in your local market. Convenient site to bookmark. This info is especially useful to those of us who are over-the-air-only. (OTA also provides the best picture on HDTVs b/c it's uncompressed).

The reason for the booth is to have that over-arching vantage point. It works for some OCs, it's a dreadful thing for others. I hear quite a bit that players want the OC to be on the sideline... that being in a booth disconnects him from everything happening on the field. All comes down to personal preference. Don't know what he did while at Frankfurt, but my gut tells me that AVP is a sideline kind of guy.

In terms of "could come back to hurt" the Bills, I'm thinking more along the lines of the time when Jim McNally said that a former Arizona coach called him before a game a few years ago and spilled the beans. We owned them that day... knew what they were doing before they did. I hope the parting of ways with Schonert was at least civil. Have serious doubts about that, tho. Does Turk seem to be the vindictive type? I only hope that his regard for/Stanford linkage with Trent Edwards might hold his tongue.

I've always liked Katherine McPhee. (Not for her singing.) I'm a hair and face man, myself. Love long curls/wavy hair. 1 2 3 (Slightly NSFW)

Edison got all the press. Tesla was the real deal. But he was a foreigner, and quite eccentric. Didn't like having to explain things as he knew them to be. As we enter an age where energy is all-important, maybe people will come to realize how far ahead of his time Tesla was.

Just, right now, there aren't very many of them. Didn't know Reid was facing those kind of poll numbers. Similar to Dodd. Perhaps the pendulum starts swinging back earlier than the usual 6-8 year cycle.

Karma is a bee-yotch! Want it to end, Bell-y-check? Cut Vince Wilfork. At the very least, especially how he kept flexing and rotating his shoulder, it's a pretty bad bruise. Not to say that he won't still be ready for the opener or just play through it. 'Right shoulder - probable' was the listing every week two years ago in his record season.

Sight-seeing in Bangor is "Well, there's Wal-Mart!" But, really, there are some nice little places to drop in. There was a Greek diner in Newport last time we were up visiting there that had excellent gyros. I forget the name. Maine, like a lot of places, is nice for a couple of days and then you want to get back home (with your live lobsters).

Well, to get this back on track a little.... 1) I don't think D.C. ever was or will be in the cards for Rudy. He is best as a more localized pol -- akin to mid-level management rather than CEO. He just doesn't have a national support network, and surely not among the base of the GOP in the key 'red' states. Regional politics are what they are --- a New England Republican will have a hard go winning the South or the West GOP; likewise a Western Democrat would probably have a hard sell here in the northeast. At most, Rudy's considered for a cabinet post if an as yet unidentified Republican wins in 2012. 2) Rudy is a fighter, especially when he's got an opponent he is almost diametrically opposed from on policy (fiscal much more than social)... and dislikes. Part of the problem, besides playing late-to-supper in the primaries was that he didn't have someone to totally disagree with (even when he tried with Romney it just elicited a shrug from me), and there was an air of holding back so as not to smear an eventual nominee too badly ahead of the general. And hey, the primary strategy was probably the best he could do with what polling suggested and with the resources his campaign had to work with; he was hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and he caught a lightning bug. Guaranteed that Rudy does not have similar problems raising $ inside NY.

NYT link I think this would be a great fit for Rudy and for NY. He shares a lot of the NY sensibilities and if anyone can reign in Albany, it would be Rudy. I just don't believe Paterson or Cuomo could b/c of their constituencies. For the GOP, too, as they need someone to get them to back away from the crazy Baptist minister types that took over. They need to get back to making fiscal discipline their party's #1 trait. Then they need to actually exercise fiscal discipline after elections. That's the hard part. But Rudy has done it before. Judging by the first 8 months of the current presidency and congress, this path would seem to be the way to go in '12; they need someone to lead the way out of the darkness. One might argue that Rudy helped the Republican brand in this regard and set the stage for '94.

The "reality," governor, is that people are judging these leaders based on their performance. Because so far, they either haven't done much of anything or further bungled bad situations. Gov. Patterson, don't proclaim MLK's dream dead when people are judging you based on the content of your character / your actions. It cheapens the sacrifice of the civil rights movement when you play the race card after you've been given fair chance by the (voting) public, and so far all they've seen from you is more deficit spending and trying to earn cachet from the 'Miracle on the Hudson.' Plenty of white pols are finding themselves in hot water as well b/c they've done nothing or made bad situations worse (see: Dodd, Chris). Skin color has nothing to do with this. Your failing plans for the state of NY have put you where you are.

Like the one Kennedy himself has exhibited since his diagnosis? Keller@Large on WBZ was saying last night that you can count on one hand the number of times he's been to the Congressional building since last year. Kennedy's main concern would seem to be for a certain specific piece of legislation that now needs all the Dem support it can get, don't you know. That is a bit of an honorable mitigation to have the replacement ineligible for the special election. But it would be more honorable if whatever method decided upon was kept no matter which party would get the 'upper hand.' As it is, the dominant party in the state historically likes to play Calvinball and change the method willy-nilly to their advantage. Word is that such a change is receiving a cool reception in the Mass. legislature. So, I'll give them that. As for the last part, no, there doesn't appear to be a way to enforce that the fill-in could not run. That would be a matter of keeping his or her word. But it brings up memories of the Mass. congresscritter (Massey?) who signed a pledge to limit himself to two terms, and wound up staying for six. How can you tell when politicians are lying? When their mouths move.

"Presence on the East Coast" might be attributable to all the Bills fans who've relocated to spots along the same. E.g. NC, MD, GA, etc. I would point out that youtube video a while back with the same actor portraying a guy from WNY and one from NC, and at the end, they hug as long lost brothers. I'd say with some confidence that a large majority of Bills fans in the US don't live in the WNY region. Either never have or through the WNY "brain drain" left b/c of the economy / politicians who keep raising taxes.

Because announcing that would have been career suicide. Note that he says pressure came from some members of the cabinet --- Ashcroft and Rumsfeld. No one else. And it probably didn't come as a "Hey, Tom. Our strategists said that raising the terror alert will help us win" so much as Ridge's feelings about their motivations (the requests came after two videotape messages were released in close conjunction). We'll find out more when the book comes out. As it was, he writes, the situation was the nail in the coffin to him stepping down very soon after the election. Are you talking about Ridge? Well, this probably doesn't help his standing in the party, especially among hardcores. But then again, the GOP is undergoing quite a catharsis right now. Quite a few congressional Repubs who drank the most kool-aid either lost last year or have announced they aren't going to run again. The party is looking for new blood that is unconnected to the Bush brand, b/c that just isn't selling enough. Look for them to be pushing the old-school 'fiscal responsibility' for '10 and probably '12. (Or were you making a funny that GWB probably won't be re-elected now? Good one.)

Anyone know the make of the new HD screen in the stadium installed a couple of years ago? Pretty sure it was Sony. Will they be covering up any competing brand logos on that? On edit: The HD scoreboard, along with the stadium ribbon screen was made by Mitsubishi. Link.

Well, seasoned veterans do get a break in that regard. Favre is quite familiar with the ins and outs. Training camp is old hat, and he figures that getting more rest time will do him good toward the end of the year. Bruce did the same thing. Who's to say it didn't help? Comparing Favre to Maybin is completely disingenuous. Maybin has yet to even experience what "NFL speed" is... or just about anything else having to do with stepping it up from college. He hasn't done himself any favors.

Me three. Last year was the first year, tho, that when I came in from raking and it was almost 2 p.m. on a Sunday, that I didn't give a crap either way. Look, the most annoying thing about the Favre dramas has been the media's overreaction. W/o an artificial 24/7 news cycle, this is small peanuts. There've been a lot of guys through the years who waver on retirement. Look at Derrick Mason on the Ravens a couple of weeks ago retiring then un-retiring inside of a week --- it got a sentence in the paper here. The difference has been that for Favre, the media hypes it beyond all distortion. There's a difference b/w reporting the news and them trying to create news, regurgitating old sh--, and talking about it ad nauseum with nothing new being added. At this point, ESPN:Brett Favre::British tabloids:Lady Di. The media's silliness doesn't make me think the lesser of Favre. And as I wrote, I don't watch it.

Link

No, but she will watch them pretty closely.

Re: the parents' unwillingness to help the kid... It may be laziness/nonchalance, but it may also be that they wanted the kid to be arrested b/c this wasn't the first time.

And still, he stayed upright and between the DL and Edwards. Bought an extra half-second. How many veterans have we seen here this decade, who would've just fallen down or morphed into a turnstile and watch the QB get creamed. AL at least was doing his all to "protect his QB" even when he got beaten --- that's not something you can teach. The OL purge seems to have been designed to get rid of our sometime-matadors who stood up for the QB when they felt like it.

True, that.