UConn James

1) JimBob, when someone invents a machine where you can download someone's every thought and you hook it up to Obama and post the results showing deep-seated political 'vaulting ambitions,' then I'll agree with you. But you make the case from this that he lies about everything? On the contrary, he's been honest to the point of recklessness to quote the Grateful Dead. If I'm hellbent on buying a combo smoke/CO alarm and then find out that buying seperate alarms is a better idea b/c smoke rises to the ceiling and CO stays toward the floor and change my original stance, does that mean I was lying or that I simply made a different, better choice once I had more facts? Or should I pick the combo unit just to be able to say I adhered to some absurd principle bordering on hubris? Three years is three lifetimes.... 'Sh-- Happens'. That you condescend to lord this meaningless crap over someone, as KTFABD said, it says more about you than Obama. 2) "Can I win" is the most important question when running. How can you see it as a problem? Implicit in that question is whether a candidate's ideas are ones that American voters agree with, or the candidate's estimation that he can make a good argument to show or convince people they are. He thinks he can do a good job and lead the country with an optimism and hope that have been seriously lacking in our govt for a long time. If he feels he can lead the country best among the other candidates, it would be a shame if he didn't run. If he has good ideas and can broker the melting pot necessary to win the presidency, he'll go places, if not, he'll go back to Ill.

Methinks he doth protest too much. I submit that Ed is ieatcrayonz.

Yeah, I somehow doubt Elton writes a song about ANS.... It is interesting about the Howard Stern guy... something the police will no doubt be looking at very closely. Either an amazing set of coincidences or this guy was pretty stupid to ensure that even Barney Fife could connect the dots here. Then again, that seems to be a trait of her entire family and entourage. Sorry to speak ill of the dead, but she was a whore.

My brother did security in C-5s and C-130s all over the world. Point was understood that fuel bills are enough to boggle the mind, in particular when getting gouged in Turkey, SA, etc. Another thing is, that's AF personnel. They're paid by DoD for duty time whether they sit at a desk playing computer solitare (Which does actually happen. A lot.) or flying. I wouldn't be shocked by the 90-120K.

Well, let's be conservative and say that $200K goes to fueling, maintenence, etc. (the govt owns the plane so I would think renting it from themselves is pretty stup.... err.... better check on that.) Even granted that, then the average hourly wage --- for what, 8 flight hours for a round trip, including preparation time --- would be $781 and change. Christ, the way you estimate, I'd love to build your house.

Well, also as a manner of reducing spending.... what about the cost of having a guaranteed increased number of air marshals on every flight she is on? Over the course of a year, is that less than using an AF jet a couple of times a week? Lots of people object to things on their face w/o taking the alternative into consideration. Would that our airlines were safe enough for the third in line, whatever their stripe and whoever it is, but they just aren't. Security has to be considered for everyone with that big a target on their back b/c of the office they hold. If she's crooked, fine, remove her from office. But govt shouldn't be functioning and providing security to high-profile members based on popularity. The mistake was in her staffer doing what a staffer does and not just accepting the fact of life that light airplanes have to refuel every so often. It's not like they can't do work on a plane. I highly doubt Pelosi herself actually wants to waste time with this sh--. Bill, was it 'elitist' when Bush increased the president's pay from 200K to 400K?

They've moved it simply to avoid a conflict with Idol. Everyone does it. Hell, they rebroadcast "Grey's Anatomy" on Friday night for people who watch CSI. It is expensive. But they get $ from original broadcast commercials, re-air commercials, DVDs, video game coming out, action figures, magazines.... I dunno about the contracts, but that's the normal posturing of a network. And if anyone gets too vocal, fine --- they're the next to die on the island. I would think the bottom line is doing all right. The main reason the numbers have slipped was predictable out of hand when the series started. It's drama-quasi-sci-fi; as the plot gets more complicated, you expect people who don't want to use their gray matter to stop watching. But also, lots of people are watching online or simply waiting for the DVDs so they can watch it all in one go as a viewing preference. The recent news from the network execs was that they wanted to set a definite end to the show and were having very agreeable discussion w/ Lindelof/Cuse/Abrams for the original conception of five seasons. They seem to be playing very hands-off for a show whose EP's have run very well. If anything, Lindelof was saying that, at a scenario far down the road and 300 forks from where they are, ABC could can him in order to keep the show running longer. Did you ever play that game 'Telephone' in elementary school? ...

Growing older, but not growing up.

I'm just going to respond to the logic of it.... When the odds of a show attracting and maintaining an audience are so small these days, the ABC executives will just dump one of their top 3 shows where they're making money hand over fist? Lost is not Alias. More believeable that Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen, disembodied head is running things and Jim Carrey has been hired as Ace Ventura to move Walt's lips and ad-lib.

No, I think it was definitley for her fertility work. She made a pregnancy happen for her sister (who I guess we're lead to believe has cancer?) and as the Portland guy said, in a male rat. How he knew this (it wasn't published work).... And what was with Ethan walking out of her sister's room early in the ep? Wouldn't be surprised if an Other was driving the bus after they learned what it would take to get her to go on the project. (And, holy sh--, what a scene!) It all just connects too well for it to be an accident. And especially when you consider the lengths they've gone to get exactly what they want and their resources to get it done. You also have to think about the backstory and how it relates to the present. She killed that prick Other (happy that he finally got his) to help Kate and Sawyer escape per Ben's supposed orders... does that suggest that she killed (passively?) Dr. Burke to help escape, herself? Looks like in the next ep, Juliet's in trouble for what she did. The scene with Carl in the sensory overload room was wiggy. But it does totally reinforce that 'Redemption of --- or through? --- TV' theory. I didn't write it down, but it was something about planting a seed of goodness or something. And then the "Everything Changes" like in Hurley's hatch dream in S2. The more clues we get the more it looks it's going that way --- that the Others are trying to instill a change in behaviors in humanity to avert a future disaster. That official video 'leak' last year about the numbers and how they represent a sequence related to the survival of the human race.... And in addition to trying to force a change through behavior/'free will', they're also trying thru genetics and the injection drugs. As Lindelof said in the interviews last month, they're starting to go downhill in terms of revealing answers. We're now at ep 55 of what he says will be about a 100-ep series. I would argue that quite a few of the mysteries do have answers/clues that we have seen, just we don't know yet that they are answers. I have a feeling it's going to be like "The Sixth Sense" in that 'Oh, man! That's right...!' way. Duey, could you change the thread title by editing your original post? Perhaps make it "Lost S3 Discussion Thread" and we can simply have it like the '24' thread. Seperate threads for each ep might have been necessary before, but I think the level of activity has died down enough to make one continuing thread sufficient.

What happened to Ken?

Who needs new jails? This is America! Where we set our rapists, diddlers and violent criminals free to roam the streets in 90 days. And we toss stoners in jail for 20 years. Better to make sure judges and lawyers can wipe their a$$es while sitting on marble toilet seats.

He's also a true pinko-socialist Canadian.

There is essentially no tailgating at the U's new football stadium near Hartford. Insurance purposes, partly, which is necessitating bans of lots of things. If it's b/w paying $1M in premiums or letting people throw footballs around / grill on open flame where there's automobiles hither and yon.... tailgating is out 99 percent of the time. And more than likely lots of pressure from area restaurants / watering holes / etc. looking to gorge on tourist dollars.

Not true! What about when they announce, "Hey, you know that medication that was approved 10 years ago? Turns out it harms people more than helping them! Our bad."

If it were an agreement that NC would automatically be franchised, he should immediately fire his agent and kick his own ass. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this a case in point that no one invests in copy editors anymore, to the detriment of accurate reporting.

I switch it on when my nephew is over when my brother & s-i-l have AF Reserve weekend. I find that I enjoy these shows, too; waxed nostalgic when I found out that CBS brought back "Madeline" and NBC has "Babar" on Sat. mornings. The old school cartoons are the best. ... That avatar sig sure does have a double entendre thing going for it, tho. That might have been a contribution from the JetBlue stewardess uniform designers. They were consulted during the redeign, and those are the two dominant colors for that airline. Maybe they would have worked together, but when you add 5 other colors into the fray, don't line things up and go absolutely schitzo with you team's identity ('We wanna look like the Patriots with the dark blue. No, like the Titans with the yoke! No, maybe we could add an underarm stripe thingy so we can be like the Broncos! Sweet!") it gets really ugly, really fast. Maybe someone could pose a question on this subject to Chris Brown on BB.com?

Agreed about the pomp and circumstance. It also gives you a good idea of what issues are at the fore for the coming year. That kind of direction (not that Congress has to give a whit, but they generally do) is the reason for the SotU. I'm intrigued about the plan for health insurance deductability. Need to read what the plan is exactly, but it would sure be a step in the right direction. Way too many people w/o insurance (myself included) b/c after everything else, we just. can't. afford. it. Jim Webb impressed a lot of people last night. That reported dialogue b/w him and Bush was a little uncouth, on both sides. It's understandable that he'd be emotional re: the man who sent his son in harm's way for what he thinks (and bear in mind, he being a former Sec't of the Navy) is "the wrong war." It seemed like Bush wanted/expected Webb to put his fingers to his dimples, grin and say, "My son is doing just plum fine, sir!" Civility is in short supply, and this admin sure hasn't done much to cool the fire.

I like what I've heard of BL... and he could be a tweener back ala Alstott. I think he'd be a great change-up from Willis, to take advantage of teams who may be good at stopping one but not the other --- I remember vs. Pitt in the '90s, if Bettis didn't run our D ragged, one of their scatbacks did, and sometimes both. FB is a position Marv needs to upgrade. Shelton is declining, and even at his peak he didn't exactly put the fear of God in LBs.... Even tho it's not sexy to the fans, it is a meat and potatoes spot just like OL. If 2nd-3rd is too rich for Marv, there are a couple of other options to be had in later rounds or UDFA since FBs are largely ignored in the drafts, esp. in recent years. I really liked what I saw from Michael Cox out of GTech this season.

Those things all have nothing to do with why or when a team would make a change in its uniforms. 1) Sabres jerseys be damned. It's the NFL. They could put a piece of poo on the sleeves and people would buy them b/c they want to wear what the team wears. Changing would guarantee an increase in sales, even in the Buffalo/WNY region. The reason the league has the 5-year rule is to have at least a brief continuity so fans don't feel ripped off if the team changes every year... and many people have already bought the throwbacks. 2) "A team in the highest"? Like the Broncos, Bucs, Falcons, Titans, Rams, etc. all knew they were going to do super-well the year before they made the Super Bowls (that's when a simple 'we're making a change' statement needs to be given to the league)? 3) The change was in the works well before Bledsoe was fatefully sacked by Mo Lewis. Even if a team would wait.... We don't have any great players? No exciting players? No young players on the rise?

You don't know how wrong you are. And the thing is, if they changed them to either the throwbacks or went back to the Super Bowl-era unis, about 90 percent of fans would be happy and we wouldn't have to talk about it ever again. As it is, the team wears an amalgum of the Broncos/Titans/Patriots duds that maybe 20 percent of our fans like/put up with/don't care, and the rest of the league points and laughs like when the 'Felons wore all-orange and literally looked like inmates.

Corrected.

Perhaps for the same reason bars shy away from telling any and all that they served the guy who drove against traffic on the highway and plowed head-on into a minivan. Their security, their medical staff and possibly their concessions people all own responsibility. I fully expect this to magically disappear from the news... not that it's being widely reported even here in NE. The family will be stone-walled.

Meh. I enjoy seeing them get a little comeuppance and the furrowed brows this will cause, but it's not like it was our team that beat them.

Y'all may be surprised to hear this, but... I've seen in the Boston media that NE was about $10M under the cap this year (and/or in recent years) too. They're in the AFC Championship. Does this make Bob Kraft cheap? It's a business decision based on the facts on the ground, and the state of the current personnel and who they could reasonably add to make an impact, and the value/opportunity cost of such. I actually agree with the above stadium naming rights qualm, tho. Ralph severely under-values it in his public statements.... but then again I think the real reason he refuses to sell it is an 'overcommercialization of the game' principle. Until he does sell naming, people like Snyder, Jones et al. can lord it over him with a valid business point that Ralph doesn't maximize his profits, so why should they be forced to share their revenues with him?