UConn James

The quote from the dancing challenge: 'I would have gotten us through quicker... but this is my forte.' Really? Dancing is your forte? Then why the hell didn't you claim this challenge, you f---!? Dude is an arrogant POS who thinks he's better than everyone and I hope his kid, his family and the father himself might finally see what a prick he is. They had a huge lead from their flight gamble and they blew it. BTW - what the hell was that at the scheduling desk b/w he and Cindy? She asked what they were taking and the father was like, 'We're doing something different. So, yeah. Uh... yeah. Yeah. Yeah.' I mean, this is a race where you have to take your advantages where you can get them like in any other game but you don't have to be a weirdo-douche about it. Just say flat out, "Hey, it looks like we're doing something different, it's a big gamble, and we've decided that we can't share our plans with anyone else. Good luck." This game's karma hit them a little late for the father's level of ass-douchery, but it got them nonetheless. Which is a shame for the kid, because he seemed fairly smart and cool amid such a hectic pace. It's too bad he has an * for a father. For as far behind as Amani (one of the surfers keeps calling her Armani) and Marcus were, they did an awesome job of keeping on keeping on and they ended up in 4th ahead of one team that didn't even get U-turned. That move to get them a first-place finish at the pit stop is really going to come back to bite Cindy and Ernie in the asses. It's like Cindy just decided that she wants a prize out of this race, rather than a good shot at the million dollars. My philosophy on seeing only the last few seasons of this show is that you only use the U-turn as a measure of last resort if you know you're one of the last teams and it's probably an elimination leg. As mentioned above, karma eventually gets you. Not to mention, it's amazing how many times people have gotten U'ed and finish the other challenge lickety-split like Bill and Cathi. It's like the slap in the face really concentrates their focus. About the only time I remember it really screwing a team over was in that WWI re-enactment code deciphering challenge from a couple-few seasons ago where an Asian couple (I can see their faces still, but names totally escape me) were out there until day turned into night and Phil finally just went to them to break the news... which is rare.

I'm a big fan of the job Susanna Martinez is doing as governor of NM. I'd say she's as energizing as Sarah Palin + 120 IQ points, and puts NM & Colorado into play and locks up Florida. Also, Juror 8... WTF'd with the cloak and dagger crap? You say you've read the opp research. Well, what's in it? Give us a taste. I seriously doubt it's fouler than Obama Soup. There's an article out today about how Bain Capital bought out a company, boosted profits, broke them apart to core competencies and people were laid off. Yeah. So what? That was the '90s. That was the age of "Pretty Woman." Forcing companies to concentrate on what they do best and remove dead weight probably helped businesses become what they were by the late '90s when the American economy was booming. Having companies that make everything from paperclips to jet engines doesn't strike me as efficient.... You talkin' about this, or what? Saying you know something and then not even dropping a morsel is disingenuous. As far as I'm concerned, you've got/know nothing unless you prove it.

And shortly behind that, the ratio of men to women will be getting severely disproportionate due to infanticide of girls during said One Child policy. Which is going to make for a lot of horny Chinks, who will be virtually flooding the US's burgeoned online porn and sex toy market! As I've posited for years, by 2050, there's going to be 290 million people in the US who get paid to !@#$ each other and maybe 60 million people to feed, clothe, house and otherwise pamper them.

Sounds pretty f---in' great! When do you move?

Wait.... Why aren't there 3.5!?

Investor's Business Daily story

This guy is a workhorse who loves to play the game and will do anything he can to help his team. Still can't comprehend how Gailey abandoned using Freddie on runs and screens that had been working great through the season. You can't allow the other team to intimidate you away from what you do best, to something that you do worst (Fitz's deep throws, esp. the ones on two 3rd and shorts and one on a 4th and short iirc (and no, it was a different 4th than the failed delay run when we needed like 2 inches).

It's his personality and a bantering conversation. He was a little loud on the mic, yes. As they suggested, he should switch to decaf. But no one was threatened. Even as the woman was asking him to not yell, she was smiling. They wanted to be there or else they would have gotten up and left. I had professors at the U who were ten times worse than this.

Hammer ---> Nail It will definitely not be Republican dominance for "the next 20 years" though. That doesn't happen anymore if it ever really did. It's four years at a time, and I'm sure if the Republicans get in power something will happen that might make people pinch their noses and vote for the Not-Republicans, and after that, the Not-Democrats.... What that means is that beyond the mundane bureaucracy that is the cogs and wheels of the federal system, there is almost no cohesive, long-term strategy for the functioning of this country.

There is now a voice out there saying that the "New Yorker" article by Nicholas Schmidle detailing the attack and OBL's demise was not accurate. It has apparently come to light that he did not talk to a single SEAL TEAM 6 member who was actually on the mission. Correcting the ‘fairy tale’: A SEAL’s account of how Osama bin Laden really died A new book written by a former SEAL who said he has talked with men who were part of the assault says that: 1) the helicopter did not crash before the attack, but rather, happened as they were leaving. (And in this regard, I wonder if there's something going very unsaid that is behind the level of acrimony b/w the US and Pakistan. Was it mechanical or...?) 2) The SEAL team did not approach exclusively from the ground and work their way up to the third story. One team lined onto the roof, one team lined onto the ground. 3) OBL was not shot shortly after he popped over a stairway like a Whack-a-Mole. He had about 90 seconds after the SEALs were on the roof and he was shot in the chest and head as he was scampering over his bed toward an AK he kept above the headboard. 4) Reports of a CIA interpreter telling Pakistanis the equivalent of "Move along. Nothing to see here!" were wrong. The interpreter could not do the "fast rope" and was not even on the ground. 4) Contrary to Obama Administration figures who say this was exclusively a kill mission, including then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, Pfarrer argues that OBL would have been taken prisoner if he hadn't posed an immediate threat (reaching toward a gun) or put his hands up. He takes a little umbrage with the notion that the SEALs are the president's hit squad. To be sure, much of the time, they do visit death on their targets, but that's because their targets are fighting back. 5) It is Pfarrer's belief that Obama's near-immediate press conference announcing OBL's death was the wrong tactical move, given the amount of hard intel discovered in the room that became almost instantly inactive once the announcement was made. There were also phoney statements made by political and administration officials who didn't know stevestojan from Shinola, but knew they had to flap their gums and make it sound interesting in order to get their faces on the teevee. ----- That still doesn't make him any better than Carter, for as much as the president has to do with things. Carter didn't make a bad call; his military thought they could do the mission and it went badly. Just the same, if they hadn't gotten OBL, Obama's wouldn't have been a bad call, IMO. About the only decision on the presidential level there would be to do nothing. And if a president wants to maintain his/her standing with the military (especially when they have no military experience themselves), their hand is pretty much forced.

1) Wow. The sister in the brother-sister losing team simply had a couple-hour brain fart combined with the fact that she just didn't want to do any physical activity. She just stood there, propped against the bicycle saying she didn't know what to do and decided to wait until she saw another team. If I were the brother in that team, I would not be talking to my sister for a while. It would've been one thing to have gotten lost or gone in the wrong direction or gotten bad information from someone (did anyone in that village know their ass from their elbow!??), but she just ing stood there, more useless than the inanimate object she was leaning against. 2) What was with Cindy and ahhh crap I don't know his name (I told you I only remember names until there's like 6 people left unless it's a hot girl... like Sandy. I knew her name week 1.) asking the surfers to let them win as they were in the mad dash? It's a race, dude. That was for $15K! How can you have the gall to ask that of someone?

The explanation Hoculi(?) gave yesterday left a lot to be desired. As Simms/Nance said, the ball can touch the ground as long as it's under control by the receiver/interceptor. Hoculi's words were "The ruling on the field is reversed. The ball touched the ground." I think it's abundantly clear from the last 10+ years and from the two situations this year that the Bills will NOT get the benefit of the doubt. We need to catch it cleaner than any other team.

Link I can't speak for Politico's reporting since this from last week, but I've seen it widely reported that two of the incidents concretely involved 1) inviting a 24-year-old intern/employee back to his hotel room. 2) that while standing in a very close position to a woman, who worked in the communications dept of the restaurant association, he said that she was about the same height of his wife. In at least one of these, a settlement was reached for a year's pay and the woman now works as a spokesperson in a high-level govt dept. A year's pay tells me that the association's legal dept found that there was some fire to go along with the smoke of the allegations. The thing of it is, as I wrote upthread, Cain should have volunteered this info months ago. It's always going to come out. But if you're the one who came out with it, it gives people the impression that you're being honest with them about it. Say, "You know, there were a couple of settlements reached while I was president. I would've preferred to fight them, but this is just the age we live in where people throw things at you and see what they can convince other people has stuck. These were incidents where I made innocuous remarks about someone's height. I've moved on. I'm happily married." He didn't do that. He's still claiming a vague memory of these women. Sorry. If someone accuses me of sexual harassment, I would remember those details forever. That's the personal-life equivalent to forgetting that OBL/AQ was behind 9/11. It doesn't ring true and it sounds like he knows he's in the stevestojan and is just hoping for something like Tom Hanks getting busted for child pornography to put this story on page A26. You can't allow people to be surprised by something like this when you're running for president. Take Donald Trump, for instance --- when he was still running/thinking about running, he could've gotten a divorce and instantly married a 20-year-old model and people wouldn't have flinched. That's his style, people aren't surprised, he announces this stuff from a rooftop himself to any and all. His popularity probably would've soared, actually. Like I wrote: This is America. You can screw tigers as long as you admit to any and all that, "Hey, I like to screw tigers."

Offensive play-calling was in critical times. 3rd and short, 4th and 2 and we go for low-% long balls?!? What the frick was that? The few times we did run a screen or slant, it worked. One screen to Freddie went for what I believe was the second-longest play of the day. Also, a slant to Stevie for a 1st. The Jets CBs are very good, but allowing them to intimidate us into not even attempt to run what we do best is suicide. Fitz went long several times instead and we punted lots. How about that dump-off to Chandler that went for 10+? Chandler blocked his man, stepped out in the flat, followed his QB, caught a wobbler, duped the LB and S. Yeah, Gailey doesn't use TEs in his offenses.... Maybe he would more often if he had some that were worth a stevestojan. Chandler's emerged, but it would've been nice to get a Miller or Boss.... Those are plays to big targets that keep drives alive and win games. Defenses are gonna be toasted, as we've seen all year. WRs can just about mangle CBs and not get a flag, but if a CB so much as breathes on a WR.... I've said it all year, and it's abundantly clear by now that the league and the refs are just fine with the castration of defenses. And so, if you don't respond / keep pace with the other team's offense, you're screwed. (And besides that, the offense didn't do the D any favors by keeping them on the field for 40 minutes.)

I never thought I'd be saying this, but.... Damn!

Yeah, but after that, he's got two months to run us in the ground.... Well, deeper than he has. If he loses, I fully expect to see an Executive Order for gun registration in the lame duck period. If he wins, I fully expect him to railroad some kind of registration through. If this is the stuff he's pulled when he faces re-election, imagine once he doesn't have anything left to lose.

Romney: How I'll Tackle Spending, Debt I would put Romney's fiscal record against anyone. And what, pray tell, is this bullet point in the article...? But in Dave in Nor Fu-- and connor Land, Romney is pro-choice and will raise taxes. Ask them, they'll tell you.

A company came thru here about 5-6 years ago, contracted by CL&P to cut branches. We had to sign a waiver allowing them to cut trees that are on our property. We signed it. They came by. They cut any part that physically touched the lines, to a length just so it didn't touch the lines. Not an inch more. Now, that may have been a management decision to decrease the amount of material crews had to deal with/time on the clock. But it may well have been a worker decision to get paid then and a bit of job security when it grows back w/in two months. CT's problem is that they only do this every ten years, maybe. We need to either clear a LOT of trees and be aggressive about it, or bite the bullet one time, bury the !@#$ing lines and not have these perennial costs and frequent major outages. The total cost of these storms is astronomical when you add up all the macrocosm costs --- food spoilage, lost productivity from businesses unable to operate, inefficient use of gasoline in generators, people dying (eight so far) & hospitalized (I believe I saw a count in the 500s) from CO poisoning because they tried to heat with gas grills, etc.... You know, it may be a dumb--- thing to do when you read about it, but when temps are in the low 20s at night, people get desperate. I read those stories and thank God for our wood stove and woodlot & generator. Now, whose responsibility is a matter of dispute which gets out of hand when more than one or two people discuss it. And so, we've had a long time of passing the buck and a lot of indecision.

Per the Courant today, the current administration says they will not be enforcing that law/fines during the clean-up of Alfred. So companies that have the same equipment as "licensed arborists" will be allowed to prune back broken branches and those that pose a risk to power lines. In reality, all that law did was create another class of micro-specialization where the performers have come to charge a premium because of their relative scarcity. Contractors need a state license to cut a branch, if they're not cutting the whole tree down. I think we're going to look into renting one of those scissor-jack lifts to get some of the dead branches and one that have gotten too close to the house (and my teevee antennas!!) b/c while a contractor needs a license, a homeowner can do what s/he wants. I couldn't say it any better than that the laws promote procrastination/inaction on things that need to get done to help ensure power lines stay up. But the thing is, I really can't find any way to argue against this article linked below from a geologist who's saying that with a scientifically-proven stronger storms AND more rapid tree growth with increased levels of CO2 / longer growing seasons, burying power lines is going to be necessary to prevent these kind of outages from being more and more frequent. In the past two months, two weeks of this state's economic productivity has been lost. Even out of 52 weeks, that's significant. Two out 8 --- it's unacceptable to not begin addressing the problem. Robert Thorson: Had Enough? Bury The Power Lines

Happens a lot. People retire/"step back"... and they go breasts-up a short time later. Granted, at his age, it was a little more probable than most retirees. No surgery is "minor" at 92. RIP, Mr. Rooney.

Is that the one group Obama hasn't blamed his administration's failures on? Wait until Obama needs a fall group for Project Gunwalker. They're close enough to the border....

Looks like someone's scared stevestojanless of facing Romney, so you just make stevestojan up. 1) His feelings on the abortion issue have changed over the course of time. He admits that. He never liked abortion, just that it should be rare and safe because of some occurrences with personal acquaintances who died from unsafe procedures. Now, you can call that flip-flopping. You know, so be it. I think a person should be able to have his opinion on an issue change without being castigated for it. It means he's human. While he admits that Roe is the current law of the land, that doesn't mean there's no fine tuning to be done. He's promised to appoint judges in the Roberts/Alito mold. For me, personally, abortion isn't in the top 20 of issues on who I support for president, but there it is. 2) GOP "Hate toward other religions"? you, Dave. Seriously. you. 3) "Not anti-anti gay" --- Romney supports a federal gay marriage ban. He was against gay marriage and threatened to veto it in Massachusetts. What more is a president supposed to do in this area? Again, this doesn't break the top 50 most important issues. 4) I've detailed the farce of Romney being tagged for Obamacare before, and yet you keep coming back with this crap. The supermajority Democrat Mass. legislature was going to pass universal health care bill with or without him and the few Republicans. Romney made some inputs to make the bill more fiscally sound. Mass. also has seriously different demographics than the rest of the country that made it possible. Romney said then and now that the Mass. model cannot work for the entire country and that each state should do what is right for their state, along with some limited federal legislation allowing health care plan competition across state lines, tort reform that would lower malpractice rates that get passed onto patients, and that costs must be cut as a first step toward affordable coverage. Romney has said that the first act of his presidency will be to issue Obamacare waivers to all 50 states, and then work to repeal and replace it. Again, I've detailed all of this to great degree before, and yet you keep coming back with the same schtick. 4)Romney erased a $3B deficit in Mass. without raising taxes. Actually, he created a surplus. Which he didn't spend. Yes, these are indeed the actions of a tax-and-spend liberal.... You want a liberal? Our illustrious Democrat Gov. Dan Malloy here in CT faced a similar deficit --- $3.5B. He jacked up taxes on "the rich," increased spending by $1.5B over two years, and then silently increased withholding taxes by ~$3,000 per year on people who make more than $50K.This state has borrowed up to the hilt and he's spending even more now. We are so screwed it's not even funny. Dave, you're another Arnold Schwarzenegger. Fake muscles, all bluster, and you're a !@#$ing clown. Just go to the kitchen, grab a knife and slit your wrists. You know you want to. Make sure the knife is sharp! And Dave, don't go across the wrists; go parallel to the veins!

And generator fumes. Have been seeing lingering wisps in our area. Apparently it's the high pressure system that's generally keeping the air pushed down, rather than venting into the atmosphere. Still out here. A town crew (actually, they're a loaner crew from a town midway to the coast) came through today --- the first time they've raised flag, five days after the storm ) chipping up the branches that fell in the road and that people here moved out of the flow of traffic (myself included with a ~30-foot oak branch that fell in the neighbor's yard and jutted into the road). They say that 60% of my town has had power restored, but my guesstimate is it'll probably be late Saturday or early Sunday before we get it back. We are literally at the very end of the line. Supposed to be in the 20s again tomorrow night and the next.

You know, I don't think there's many people who'd argue that the boy didn't want it and in that sense, "victim" is off a little. But to say there won't be life consequences for the kid and others like him is ignorant. It creates unhealthy attitudes about sex. With every story like this, it breaks down a little further the ability / role of authority figures in our society in the boy's esteem and in the esteem of the public at large. However much you may deride the broad term, it creates emotional troubles. And probably the most important note: people who are sexually abused --- including circumstances like this --- are something like 5 times more likely to become sexual abusers themselves later in life. The cycle needs to stop. Going lenient because it's an older woman with a younger boy because we as men think back and would've liked to have screwed Ms. Templeton in the janitor's closet is a displacement of time/space. It is not your 40-year-old brain that's in that 14-year-old's head. Abuse messes people up, even when that abuse feels good.

Why do that when you can make a fresh start here. You know, like the Mickey/dik smub/.../elegantelliot/Steely/conner persona that continually haunts this board. And when he becomes a laughingstock, disappears then reappears under a new name... but without a new schtick.