ComradeKayAdams

A lot, actually! We could theoretically withhold all funding to Israel until they end their apartheid state practices. This would help draw the Palestinians back to the negotiating table for a one-state solution, with a two-state solution remaining somewhat viable as well. We could also close our military bases in Muslim lands, end drone strikes, and get back into the JCPOA. All of these actions could provide negotiating leverage with other Muslim countries who, in turn, could help us pressure the Palestinians to fully reject Hamas and to work peacefully with the Israelis. The United States, of course, isn’t really that motivated to see the Israel-Palestine feud resolved. Endless Middle East conflicts are profitable for the corporate oligarchs that control both major parties. The only politicians consistently (well…sort of) speaking out against Israel’s human rights violations are the progressive Democrats, but they only tweet and give moving speeches so to energize their voting base. They won’t ever actually use their combined powers to challenge Biden and the neoliberals in meaningful ways that threaten current oligarchic power structures. As ordinary concerned Americans, I would look into aspects of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Palestinian movement. I would also use the primaries and populist third parties to apply electoral pressure on the establishment at both of its ends: left and right, Democrat and Republican. Educating others on the Israeli apartheid controversy is always helpful, too. American public opinion has been shifting rapidly toward Palestinian sympathy in recent years, so this strategy seems to be working. We’re seeing less and less of the fallacious “criticism of Israel = anti-Semitism” arguments in public spheres of any good repute (i.e., not places like this hellhole).

Consider changing your user name from “Logic” to “Emotion” because there appears to be an overabundance of negative estrogen chemicals in your brain clouding your otherwise sound masculine judgment. You are missing the big picture. Kim Jones’ theatrics are but a small part of the grand female conspiracy to invade all male safe spaces. Look around you! We’re everywhere now. Voting lines. The workplace. Turn on a TV to watch a football game and you’ll see the stadium nearly 50% women. Most don’t even have the sense to wait in the concourse or car after picking up the food anymore. They’ll just walk right up to the seats now and sit down! Outrageous. The feminization of American culture is permeating our beloved Bills, too. Back in the good ol’ days when the Darryl Stingleys of the league took their spinal cord-crunching hits like MEN, our Bills players would stoically hand the ball over to the ref after their ever-so-rare touchdown. And now? After each TD, they routinely dance and prance around, emoting like Johnny McDimples just asked them out to the high school prom. Don’t even get me started with Sean “Playtex” McDermott who constantly talks about “loving” the guys in the locker room. Or Josh “Nancy Boy” Allen hugging his teammates in the final minutes of the AFC Conference Championship game. And now Daryl “I’m a Big Giant Pathetic Pu**y” Williams is publicly acknowledging human emotions?! Is it any wonder why we lost to KC? How much you wanna bet these “guys” were baking cookies and complaining about their menstrual cramps at halftime instead of properly dissecting the plays that went awry after their 9-0 lead?? Even our Buffalo Bills marketing team developed a case of the vapors over the years. The original AFL logo had a quite prominent pen!s to let our opponents know who’s boss. The current semi-castrated one?! His could easily be confused with a small tuft of hair. What’s next? A tit ol’ pair of sagging biggies drawn below the formerly red stripe, now colored pink to promote breast cancer awareness? My Lord. Just you wait: the new uniforms of the Buffalo Bills this fall will be French bouffant dresses and red/white/blue designer pumps appropriately tailored for artificial turf. And maybe a cute petticoat to help stay warm during the games beyond October. UGH. I’m just so weirdly emotional over this topic right now!!! But in a good angry male kind of way, not in a weak girly WRONG way.

I wasn’t actually being facetious, though my wording did admittedly make it look like I was. If you send me links on meat consumption history, I’ll put them in my lengthy reading queue and will get to them by this summer. If you’re looking specifically to change my mind about veganism, however, that’s highly unlikely to happen at this point in my life. Is that cult-like thinking? No, it’s just a set of core ethical principles I have that are even stronger than all of my political ones (social democracy, environmentalism, non-interventionism). The unhealthy-looking vegans you see are most likely the ones who didn’t plan their diet responsibly. Nothing but Pepsi and Oreos is a vegan diet, after all! Lots of women also use veganism to mask eating disorders so that they can justify their various food restrictions. Part of what makes the dairy and egg industries cruel is what happens to the males. Chick culling is the mass murder of all the non-profitable ones that don’t lay eggs. Male calves are quickly sold to meat processing companies, so supporting the dairy industry is still de facto supporting the beef industry. In factory farms, the living conditions are atrocious. With dairy, the additional cruelty comes from the milking machines, the forcible impregnations, and the immediate removal of the calves from their mothers. Also, consider that all of these animals we exploit for food have been carefully bred over generations to maximize profit at the expense of their own physical mechanical comfort and physiological well-being. Fair enough. I suppose I’ll conclude by recommending everyone watch Earthlings, a 90-minute documentary available for free on YouTube (it’s NSFW). If you can sit through all of it and still have no motivation to change your animal product consumption, then so be it. Vegan activism is still in the stages of promoting fully voluntary personal choices (well, excluding some of the peripheral animal cruelty laws plus any tax implementations to address negative environmental externalities). Once affordable lab-grown meat is ready, we can begin pushing for full legal abolition and concurrent transition programs for economically displaced workers in the meat/dairy industries.

Thank you, Tibsy. It means a lot to me for you to acknowledge this point. I thought about posting a graphic image from an abattoir (how very Upton Sinclair of me!) to really drive home my message, but a simple Mahatma Gandhi quote is probably more appropriate for TBD: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” People should do their own internet searches on images from American meat processing plants and then juxtapose them with images from, say, the Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival. This is a faulty comparison. Choosing not to grow one’s own vegetables because of the labor difficulty and labor specialization is not equivalent to choosing not to kill one’s own food. The added ethical quandary with the latter is the obvious distinction. I think you may be confused with what I meant by the “caloric survival” phrase. I’m referring to Robinson Crusoe-esque “eat meat or starve” situations. These would include living in American food desert communities or not being able to go fully vegan due to personal financial hardship. The ethos of veganism is minimizing the suffering of all sentient beings on this planet. Note that I said “minimizing” and not “eliminating,” which is a manifest impossibility. You are unlikely to find any self-identifying vegans who find it reasonable to expect someone else to starve to death rather than to eat meat. From a health and safety perspective, I fully understand the reasons why we cook and season meat. I’m not personally interested in learning about the other culinary details. I have a pretty good understanding of the history of meat consumption, but nothing special. I dunno…send me some links or tell me which articles/books you recommend I read on this subject? Keep in mind that I was referring to the period in human history WAY before the Agricultural Revolution when I mentioned the scientific evidence for our predominantly herbivorous past. Also keep in mind that conclusive scientific results on this sub-topic wouldn’t affect the core vegan message. Evolution is eternally dynamic. We can always choose to “evolve” into pure vegans since we know that modern humans already thrive with a properly planned vegan diet. By the way, you might find Dan Buettner’s work on Blue Zones interesting. See: “The Secrets of a Long Life,” National Geographic, November 2005. Your reply to Tibsy was a non sequitur. Please see my response to RochesterRob above.

Hickory Dockery block, We need an offense that can run out the clock. Why not a lineman in round one? To ensure KC’s dynasty is done! Hickory Dockery block. Hickory Dockery block, I want more linemen of good draft stock. Why not a guard in round two? Because against KC, Feliciano blew. Hickory Dockery block. Hickory Dockery block, Ford’s injury left our line in shock. A reserve tackle in round three? This offseason we lost Nsekhe. Hickory Dockery block. Hickory Dockery block, Let’s see all the names in Kiper’s mock. A backup center in round four? Morse’s head is one foot out the door. Hickory Dockery block. Hickory Dockery block, Kay wants another oversized jock. Another lineman in round five?! Nah, any good athlete with drive. Hickory Dockery block. Tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…I looooove NFL Draft weekend!!!!! Can’t wait, so excited!! Can you tell?!?!

In terms of budgetary policy, the estate tax is actually not that important because the tax revenue generated is a small drop in the bucket relative to the other revenue streams. I believe it’s something like half of 1% of total annual tax revenue. So the estate tax is mostly a topic relevant to political philosophy. If you aspire to balance national budgets and choose to focus on fiscal policy at the exclusion of monetary policy, my three big recommended areas of focus would be the federal income tax, capital gains taxes, and the military budget. I know that you can easily pay for something like M4A with modest adjustments to the income tax brackets (go from 37% marginal to about 50% marginal at the highest), modest increases to short-term capital gains taxes (leaving the far more important long-term capital gains activity alone), and of course a sizable dismantling of U.S. imperialism (dropping the annual defense budget by ~25%...which would still leave ours twice as big as China’s, by the way). American Foreign Policy Fun Fact: did you all know that our tax dollars fund Israel’s universal health care program?? Meanwhile, the United States is still the only industrialized nation without universal health care, with about 500k families filing for bankruptcy every year due in significant part to medical bills… Neat. Most Americans do believe in an estate tax, but to a point. The devil is in the details. Any productive discussion needs to be quantified. What’s the wealth floor for the estate tax? What percentage of it should be taxed? If we are setting up progressive estate tax brackets, what would they look like and why exactly are we setting them up like that? What bequeathment loopholes should be closed? What exceptions for family business transfers should be allowed? More importantly, what would you rather be doing on NFL Draft Day: engaging in wonky tax debates or reading up on all sorts of exciting college prospects whom you just know the Bills won’t ever draft?!?! The minority of Americans who don’t believe in any estate tax mostly include the economic libertarian purist types and strict constructionist types. I personally have zero interest in debating with these types of people this weekend***, but of course the rest of you can spend your free time as you so choose. Recommended topics that might steer a debate with them in a more productive direction: the social contract, law of diminishing marginal utility of income, historical effect of wealth inequality on societal stability (especially: Gilded Age), tendencies of sociopaths and those who score low on empathy tests to cluster in high management positions, and the capitalist-laborer relationship as defined by Marx (i.e. the inherent “exploitation” of labor…that is to say, you can’t run a company that generates profit without some degree of economic exploitation of the laborer’s market value). Godspeed, PPP’ers! Over and out, Commie Kay. ***-Come talk to me when you can get your childish ideas published in reputable economics journals, you Austrian School freaks. You know: ECONOMICS JOURNALS. They’re those things with collections of research papers that are periodically released and that attempt to describe how the macroeconomic real world actually works and not how we wish it would work because we’re all a bunch of selfish f*cking a-holes who just don’t want to pay any taxes and we dream of “going Galt” over to our anarcho-capitalist utopia of Somalia where we don’t have to be bothered anymore by all those lazy poor Americans…hmmm…was that a little too strong? Did I generalize too much? Well now you know how us lefties feel whenever we are subjected to your PPP rants…

I don’t want to derail the Biden Economy thread, so I’ll make this my last post on meat processing plants. If others want to continue this conversation, please start an Animal Rights thread and I will definitely show up to contribute. To say that Clancy the Cow is in a different class of animal rights from Fluffy the Cat is to show your American cultural bias. In India, cows are sacred. In certain Far East cultures, cats are food. Both animals are sentient beings. In my opinion, taking the life of a sentient being against their will should only be acceptable under four circumstances: instinct (so the rest of the animal kingdom is off the hook!), self-defense, caloric survival (so not just because they taste good), or the safety of the greater society (example: population control of deer to reduce car accidents…even though that is technically an issue of habitat encroachment and man’s elimination of deer’s natural megafauna predators…). The killing component may be just one part of meat processing, but I’m pretty sure (not 100% but confident enough) that is the part which is giving the employees PTSD at alarming rates. The vast majority of hunting is performed from great distances, so it is much less personal than, say, slitting open an animal’s throat while looking directly into their eyes. I’m not condoning hunting when I say that hunters typically have great respect for Mother Nature and for the animals they kill. They aim for swift kills and find all forms of extended animal suffering abhorrent. They enjoy the difficulty component in spotting and stalking their game. These reasons are why many hunters become outspoken critics against factory farming once they discover what really goes into the meat production process, from the farm animals’ births up to their deaths. As a chef, I think you know the customer responses you’d get if you served meat in its raw form without any cooking or added seasonings. Why is that? If humans are a true omnivorous species, everyone should have no major beef (pardon the pun) with eating meat raw and unseasoned. And everyone should be able to regularly kill their prey without getting PTSD. Cancer and heart disease risks shouldn’t skyrocket, either, from consuming meat and dairy (though to be fair, that could also be from the specific ways we process these foods). From a scientific evidence standpoint, the evolutionary story of ***** sapiens as these natural big game hunters is actually quite controversial. A much more palatable (pardon the pun) thesis is that humans are herbivorous primates who developed limited capabilities as opportunistic hunters during times of evolutionary bottlenecks (famines and such). This isn’t exactly settled science, but hey…it’s thought-provoking and does help further my pro-vegan message!

Hmmm…one of these three is not like the others. High rise jeans work well with certain outfits and can be quite flattering. I have a couple, for the rare occasions that I want to wear jeans. But mom jeans?! Jeans with holes?! GROSS. By the way, fashion bandwagoners are just as loathsome as football bandwagoners. Floral skater dresses paired with black pantyhose are my Buffalo Bills of my wardrobe. I wouldn’t be fazed if such an outfit ever went out of style for 17 straight years. F*!k the haters. I just be continuing on my way with my bad b!tch self. Y’all have a problem?! Nah, y’all don’t want no problems… <<< cue “No Problems” song by Azealia Banks playing in the background >>> GoBillsInDallas makes a valuable point, but the spirit of the marketing campaign is what is being questioned in this thread. I was hoping everyone could agree that Americans with the financial wherewithal to forgo clothing companies for their negative environmental impact and poor labor practices should be encouraged to do so. Environmental sustainability, fair labor standards, and profit maximization are not at all mutually exclusive pursuits (or at least they don’t have to be if your company leaders are competent). Ciara’s dance posse agrees (FYI: 3:28-3:33 was me celebrating Taron Johnson’s pick 6 during the Ravens playoff game): EDIT: Corrected a spelling error. I meant to say “others” in first sentence. Details matter, people!

Regarding civil infrastructure and climate change, I would argue strongly that Biden hasn’t done NEARLY enough to “meet the moment” during his first 100 days. But ugh…whatever…I’ll save that lengthy debate for another day. Being the ostentatious vegan that I am (see: my beautiful profile wallpaper!), I very much like the side debate on meat consumption that has emerged. The fat-shaming tactic isn’t the one I would go with, but you did include a quote from Mean Girls, so that makes it more than okay in my book! Let there be no doubt: those fatty omnivores hate us DIME PIECE vegans for our low BMI’s and for our glowing, phytonutrient-enriched skin! You highlighted the most salient point: reducing meat intake is the best singular thing an individual can possibly do for the environment, due to the extraordinarily disproportionate amount of land/water resources consumed and greenhouse gases emitted relative to plant-based protein/calorie alternatives (legumes, grains, etc.). Same goes for dairy versus plant-based dairy alternatives (almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, etc.). As RochesterRob explained, a regressive sin tax would not be the most desirable way to reduce meat consumption. To be clear: meat/dairy consumption is most definitely a negative environmental externality, so in principle I have no moral qualms taxing it (not to mention the animals rights component or the burden on our already sh!tty health care system). But there are so many better proposed solutions out there: cap-and-trade permit markets for the meat/dairy industries is one such method I would prefer over sin taxes, though so far I’m not 100% convinced of any particular solution. If you insist on going the sin/carbon tax route on meat consumption, you would first need to address the American food desert dilemma that plagues poor communities. The poor need viable alternatives to meat! Oh and dairy must be included in the conversation, too, because the poor in America are disproportionately minorities and minorities are disproportionately lactose intolerant. Affordable lab-grown meat will be the ultimate game changer in this conversation!! I can’t wait for that day to come!! Oooh and speaking of game changers, everyone please check out all of these vegan documentaries for free on YouTube: The Game Changers (2019) Dominion (2018) What The Health (2017) Cowspiracy (2014) Earthlings (2005) EDIT: spelling error. It’s CIVIL infrastructure, not CIVIC.

Yeah right…one of these two scenarios will likely play out: 1. The roughly 2,000 U.S. combat troops will withdraw from Afghanistan in September, but the other roughly 18,000 military contractor personnel will remain. Those withdrawn U.S. combat troops will then quickly be dispatched to other emerging hot spots of conflict around the world (somewhere near Russia, China, or Iran?). These conflicts will have been instigated in some way by America’s own foreign policy blunders (sanctions, coups, outright regime change wars?), all in the name of post-WW2 U.S. imperialism. 2. The CIA will use the corporate media (MSNBC, CNN, NY Times, Wash Post, etc.) this summer to help ramp up the propaganda campaign on why the combat troops need to stay. Nebulous tactics to fight terrorism, intractable human rights abuses in Afghanistan, or blatantly made-up stories involving Putin will comprise the propaganda. The political pressure will force Biden to keep our foreign occupation forces there indefinitely. The corporate oligarchs that own both the Democrats and Republicans will then continue exploiting Afghanistan’s natural resources and economically strategic geographic position. The military-industrial complex will maintain their bloated government contracts.

We really shouldn’t be determining Biden’s “wins” and “losses” right now based on fluctuations in the stock market and in commodity prices. The economy is still emerging from the pandemic craziness, and the financial health of the consumer base is not yet fully understood. Give it time to stabilize and reach some semblance of a “normal era” equilibrium. Much of the stock market growth has probably come artificially from the super low interest rates: excess bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve plus company stock buybacks to some extent. We’ll know more about our economy’s standing once most of the population is vaccinated and once businesses and schools can fully open…so no earlier than August/September, I suppose. The looming rent, student loan, and medical bill crises will surely be a drag on market consumption, but to what extent? I don’t think Trump nor Biden did NEARLY enough to buttress the consumer base, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Great Recession #2 begin by early next year. We can quibble over Biden’s modest tax hike proposals on capital gains taxes (I would differentiate between taxes on long-term gains and speculation taxes) and marginal tax rates at the highest income brackets, but keep in mind that the professional and managerial classes made out very well during the pandemic while the working class fared oppositely. This is what economists are calling the “Kay-shaped economic recovery,” presumably named after famed Buffalo Bills message board economist, ComradeKayAdams. So…now’s your time to shine, supply-siders! It’s time to start creating those jobs, Mr. Highest Income Bracketer, despite the huge uncertainty in the American consumer’s ability to purchase your goods and services. Yup. The high foreign confidence in our country’s currency (and our sterling reputation for paying back lenders) is EXACTLY why we should be (and should have been) leaning heavily into Modern Monetary Theory this year as we continue navigating our economy out of the pandemic. Meat processing plants are ethical nightmares. In addition to the substandard pay and the terrible health/safety conditions for the workers, you have that whole concept of murdering farm animals for a living that leads to alarming rates of PTSD diagnoses among meat industry employees. Most human beings just aren’t wired for this kind of behavior, which explains why our society decided to create laws to protect our pets from abuse. Farm animals are no different from dogs and cats. This is a reality that workers at meat processing plants very quickly discover and that employers in the meat industry do everything they can to conceal from the public.

My ranking of the 9 other playoff-caliber AFC teams, in descending order of matchup favorability with our beloved Bills: 1. Raiders 2. Dolphins 3. Patriots 4. Colts 5. Browns 6. Titans 7. Ravens 8. Steelers 9. Chiefs Your thoughts?? Mine are that I’m not entirely sure what to make of the Browns and Ravens right now, I don’t think the top 3 in my ranking make the playoffs, and a healthy Buffalo Bills team can beat anyone in the league not named the Chiefs.

It looks like we can at least agree that slavery reparations and universal health care coverage for illegal immigrants are generally bad ideas. However, you seem to be intimating that these issues are the exclusive domain of scary socialists and not that of moderate Democrats. The reality is that none of the Democratic Party presidential candidates bothered to separate themselves from these ideas during the summer 2019 debates. Biden and Harris have the same official stance as Sanders does on slavery reparations: they only go so far as to support funding for studies on the idea. Also, both Biden and Harris support an expansion of the ACA to allow undocumented immigrants to buy into the system with the public option. We will mostly disagree on the subject of free college and student loan forgiveness, but the details and the nuances matter a great deal. I’d rather discuss these at a later time. This is an issue that lends itself well to political compromise. All fracking needs to be banned. Sorry. Please read (in scientific journals or related sources, preferably) about the environmental effects and about the science of methane emissions. My only concession is that of course it can’t realistically happen immediately, so a timeline for a gradual reduction within a decade or two needs to be articulated. See my response in the “California (again)” thread on fracking and on energy independence (page 94). Trump was a formidable political opponent before the pandemic struck. I seriously doubt Biden or any of the lame moderate Democrats could have beaten him without the help of COVID-19. Just my opinion: Tulsi was the strongest candidate for the general election and Bernie was a close second, on the (ok fine…admittedly unrealistic) condition that the mainstream media would have done their jobs and played a neutral role covering their campaigns…instead of actively undermining it on the DNC’s directives. Yes, between the DNC’s pre-Super Tuesday scheming and Joe Biden’s potential Cabinet appointments (Rahm Emanuel?! NEERA TANDEN?!?!), it is quite apparent that the Democratic Party leaders have given the progressives and socialists the middle finger. Are my fellow comrades paying attention?! I believe enough are, to the point that the Democratic Party now has a big problem on their hands and will rue the day that they extended that centrist finger to us in 2020. The more politically savvy progressives among us knew all along that Biden’s unity task forces were a complete farce. The Obama, Clyburn, Hillary, Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer types were never interested in mending relationships with us and in seeking genuine compromise for the good of the party and country. They should have always been looked at as our political enemies to be distrusted as much as the Republicans. This is fine with me! I CRAVE political drama. I’ve been looking forward to Act 2 of this magnificent play since March: Act 1: remove the Great Orange Menace…done! Act 2: intra-party warfare with centrist wing…beginning now but with no definitive end in sight. Whether progressives take over the Democratic Party or destroy it externally with third party pressure and what not, the focus needs to remain on putting neoliberalism six feet into the ground. I’m willing to tolerate Election Day defeats (Pyrrhic victories?) to the Republicans in 2022 and 2024 in order to achieve this goal. Why? Because from my political vantage point, not much separates moderate Dems and non-Trump Reps anyway. I’ve made my peace long ago with handing Biden and Harris their 4-year shovels to dig their own BLEEPING graves. Act 3: inter-party warfare with the economic libertarian Republicans…could be as early as November 2024 if progressives (AOC?) can successfully primary the heck out of Kamala. November 2028 is more realistic. I like the progressives’ electoral chances against conservatives later this decade, given the country’s demographic trends as well as the right wing’s spiraling downward trajectory into the miasma of conspiracy theories, pathological skepticism of experts and authority figures, myopic pursuits of selfishness, and outright hostility toward empathic dispositions. Act 4: celebrate our new European-style social democratic government with a totally AWESOME party. The details of Act 2 and Act 3 are open to intense debate. I already have the minutiae of Act 4 figured out inside my head, right on down to the outfit I intend to wear. PPP Community: “Oh, neat! Can you tell us more about your outfit plans, Kay?” Me: “Sure! I’m glad someone asked. So it will be a small variation of my Halloween costume this year, where I went as a more fashionable and secular version of Stephen King’s Carrie, but with all the accompanying social awkwardness and latent rage. The final look will include a red Herve Leger long sleeve off-shoulder bandage dress, Nemanti knee-highs, a red choker, ostentatious chandelier earrings, a classic film noir Veronica Lake peek-a-boo hair style with red highlights, my usual Audrey Hepburn doe-eyed makeup routine with pale foundation/red blush/cherry red lipstick, and lots of blood all over.” PPP Community: “Woah!!! Ms. Adamski! What a fun look! But what’s with you and the color red? Is that because you’re such a silly little Soviet-style commie? And by that time, shouldn’t you have washed off all the fake blood from the Halloween party?” Me: “Fake…yes…fake blood. Red is my color of choice because it is the color of revenge. It symbolizes the neoliberal blood that must be spilled this decade, trickling down into the streets, from Wall Street to Main Street, in much the same direction that their economic theory of lies promised the wealth would run. We will be drinking from the finest Charles Shaw bottles our canvassing volunteers can amass, though that red wine won’t be red wine. And who knows if any of the fallen’s names will include an actual Charles or a Shaw.” PPP Community: “WOW. Intense response, Kay. Very Glenn Close-like from Fatal Attraction, sans the animal abuse. You really need to move on from the results of the 2016+2020 Democratic primaries.” Me: “No.”

I do!!! OMG I have so many questions for him. He cleaned up a bit for the second Fox News interview, so I’d like to think he has some basic level of sartorial self-awareness. Here are just a few questions: 1. When I say “business professional,” what are the first clothing items that come to mind? Is a Josh Allen jersey one of them? 2. What does “business casual” mean to you? Would a Trent Murphy jersey be included in this category? 3. Were you wearing Bills Zubaz pants below for the Lou Dobbs interview? If so, were they washed beforehand? Do they contain a variety of mystery stains? If yes, what steps did you take to try and remove them? 4. When I say “put on a sports jacket,” can you describe in detail what you reach for? 5. What is your Two Bills Drive user name???

Excellent work, JGMcD2!!! I am a stats nerd as well, so we are kindred spirits. PFR is such an amazing website and one of my top three football sources, right up there with the NFL’s home page and this place, of course. If you’re looking for a single metric for football player evaluation, PFR’s Career AV is as good as any that I’ve seen out there so far. We agree that McDermott and Beane are one entity (McDeane!) united in football philosophy, so I’m comfortable considering Buffalo’s 2017 draft to be Beane’s even though it was technically Whaley’s. Supposedly McDermott was consulting with Beane and with some of the Carolina scouts leading up to the 2017 draft weekend? I have no idea if that’s true or just a bad internet rumor. That seems somewhat unethical and treasonous, actually… I’m sorry that I don’t have any novel quantitative analysis insight for you at the moment. When it comes to evaluating front office abilities using the Career AV metric, I believe that draft picks should be normalized by selection order and free agents should be normalized by cap space used. Trade evaluation should maybe incorporate the NFL’s historical Career AV average at the particular draft number of any draft pick that is involved in the trade. As everyone knows, NFL general managers are ultimately judged by regular season records and by playoff achievements. So now take a look at the current top 8 NFL teams by record: Pittsburgh, KC, New Orleans, Green Bay, Seattle, Tennessee, Cleveland, and Buffalo. The first 5 are led by QB’s that are likely Hall of Famers and who have already won Super Bowls. The Titans are getting high-quality QB play and are led on offense by a future Hall of Fame RB. Cleveland is somewhat of an anomaly because they are 1-3 against teams with a record above 4-7. Allen is playing at an elite level. The Bucs and Colts are not too far behind in the standings, either, with their Hall of Fame-caliber QB’s. So the QB position appears to be unusually important (duh…). That is why I’d consider placing an extra numerical weighting factor on the QB position when doing any sort of quantitative front office evaluation. Maybe reward those who drafted and groomed their own elite QB, as opposed to the front office regimes that inherited their guy? My final comment is for any avid Beane skeptics. Remember the common refrain that it takes three full seasons to make a fair evaluation of an NFL draft. Mr. Beane has placed a special emphasis on the defensive front 7 since 2018, using 4 of his 9 top-100 picks on them (Edmunds, Phillips, Oliver, Epenesa). Injuries, many new faces on Frazier’s D, and COVID-19 disturbances may have slowed their development trajectories quite a bit this year, unfortunately, but look for their Career AV stock to begin rising quickly! My expectation is that McDeane will be judged very favorably in time, using whichever metric you prefer: PFR AV, wins, championships, etc.

“Notice how we’re all the same height lying down, Ms. Adams?”

I’m guessing the opening night roster will be: G1: Ullmark G2: Hutton D1: Dahlin - Jokiharju D2: McCabe - Ristolainen D3: Miller - Montour F1: Hall - Eichel - Reinhart F2: Skinner - Staal - Olofsson F3: Girgensons - Eakin - Okposo F4: Mittelstadt - Cozens - Thompson This is playoff-caliber! Good things seem to happen whenever an ADAMS is put in charge. It’s time to break the longest NHL postseason drought (9 seasons) and third-longest playoff series win drought (13 seasons, behind the Panthers and Maple Leafs). As for when the new season begins, most likely it will have to be pushed back beyond the target January 1 date because of the expected holiday season Covid-19 flare-ups. I don’t know if you guys follow our Buffalo Bandits as well, but the National Lacrosse League cancelled their season back in mid-March and isn’t even bothering with the next one until mid-April (their usual start date is around early December)! Hopefully the new NHL season won’t have to be pushed back quite that far…

I love it! You’re talking about the 2-0 personnel package, which I believe puts Buffalo’s most talented 11 players on the field: QB Allen RB Singletary RB Moss LT Dawkins LG Ford C Morse RG Feliciano RT Williams WR Diggs WR Brown (replace with Davis inside red zone?) WR Beasley (alternate with McKenzie on occasion?) Singletary and Moss have shown to be very capable receivers out of the backfield. The question is how good is their pass protection? Is it somewhat close enough to a Lee Smith or to an H-back like Gilliam? Can Moss run block in the same ballpark as a FB like DiMarco? If so, the 2-0 personnel has potential to be very dangerous and unpredictable for opposing defenses. Buffalo’s rushing offense is currently ranked around #25. Daboll’s creativity alone could bump them up to around #10 for the second half of the year, which will be good enough to make a serious Super Bowl run through the winter weather. I feel the same way about the run game on offense as I do about the run game on defense: the players needed to get the job done are already on the roster.** Injuries and Covid-19 disruptions may have hampered their progress, but the talent is there. The coaches just need to be bolder and more creative, while the players need to focus better on the details during practice and film review. ** - an elite TE, pass-rushing DE, and big nickel safety would be nice, though!

I think that was Rob Ryan’s excuse. Multiple unfastened rib protectors. Yeah right, Rob. I hope so too, but everyone should be eating those! How I would describe either quinoa or kale: versatile, flavorful, healthy, MAGICAL. As a matter of fact, my own Thanksgiving meal yesterday included a dish with both of these stuffed into sweet potatoes! Needless to say, it was a huge success.

My Lord...and here I was worried that my Bills dynasty thread would be a real snoozer...can't wait for the bye weekend to be over... I'm voting for Corey Bojorquez solely because of that 12-yard punt. AMAZING.

That’s a Vikings video, of course. I suspect that you would get a very different response within both the Bills’ close-knit locker room as well as within the WNY community. As an example, I have two older brothers who are also big Bills fans (and may even be TBD members reading this lol…as well as my Dad…AWKWARD). I know that they would be proud and honored to have me date any one of the players on the team. Even Trent Murphy. Why? Because we are all “One” Buffalo, not “Many Selfish Individuals Who Don’t Respect or Care for Each Other and Don’t Understand the Meaning of Sacrifice for the Greater Good” Buffalo. As a loyal upstate NYer, I know that it is my civic duty to make sure the valiant warriors that proudly represent our homeland are in the right frame of mind to win the big game. If I must be the designated slump buster that ensures the 10-catch 120-yard 2-TD game for Stefon Diggs against Miami (which, in turn, helps secure the FIRST AFC East division title in my entire BLEEPING lifetime), then SO BE IT. If me going out with Diggs burns bridges with true soulmate and local Erie County restraining order initiator, Cole Beasley, then SO BE IT. If I’m forced to endure all the continuous holding and grabbing during an awkward movie date with Brian Winters, then SO BE IT. If I must deal with Del’Shawn Phillips cancelling on me, then setting up another date, then cancelling again, then setting up one more time, then cancelling yet again and ghosting me for good, then SO BE IT. If this means a blind date turns out to be a jaunt to Applebee’s on a $25 gift certificate practice squad budget with potential blood relative (ew!), Trey Adams, then you know what? SO BE IT. I have like 50+ more of these bad jokes, but I think you get the point. Remember our motto: ONE Buffalo, which is twice as unifying as TWIN Cities Minnesota. The Queen City compels it to be so.

That could have been a lighthearted reference to her infamous former relationship with 5’11” 185 lb Danny Amendola (small by pro football standards). The real Kay Adams appears to be advocating for sensible sexual dimorphism between partners. RealKayAdams finds that to be quite silly and recommends prioritizing personality traits for optimal compatibility. The #1 quality that RealKayAdams looks for is the true measure of a man: how much is he willing to fight for those that cannot fight for themselves? Will he remain loyal to his vegan principles, for example, under the most trying circumstances? Will he refuse that Anchor Bar chicken wing from his immature WNY friends despite all the inevitable mockery and lame “soy boy” jokes he knows he will have to endure? But to answer your meme question: no, you have no chance. And since this is a serious football message board and not a dating advice forum, I shall end with a related football question: why is it that so many slot WR’s are so (relatively) small? Is it because the position prioritizes elite agility, and smaller athletes will tend to have this special skill due to laws of human anatomy and physiology??

True, but the Bills badly need the practice of playing in the national limelight. At some point very soon (like…this year!), the expectation needs to be winning playoff games. I don’t want Sean McDermott to be thought of as just another Marvin Lewis. At the moment, there are 13 NFL head coaches who were hired in 2017 or earlier by their current team. 7 of them have already won Super Bowls. 3 of them are on their way out very soon (Marrone, Lynn, Zimmer). McVay and Shanahan were hired the same year as Coach McDermott and have already made it to a Super Bowl. And yes, we’re all very grateful that the Drought Era (2000-2016) is no more. But is it, really? Check out these other droughts: Consecutive seasons without a division title: 24 (behind only Cleveland and Detroit). Consecutive seasons without a playoff victory: 24 (behind only Cleveland, Detroit, and Cincy). Consecutive seasons without a final 4 appearance: 26 (behind only Cleveland, Detroit, Cincy, Washington, and Miami). Look at the company we keep…something really awful is in the Lake Erie waters, by the way…

I was just talking about Cole and the Buffalo WR’s with my Dad over the weekend. My Dad has been a devout Bills fan since the Chuck Knox years. We agreed that Diggs-Brown-Beasley is the best Buffalo WR trio since Moulds-Price-(Josh) Reed. Diggs, the “X” guy with the perfect routes and hands, is on pace for the best statistical WR season in franchise history. Then you have the speedy “Z” guy in Brown with a career performance last year as a #1 and who completely changes the dynamics of this year’s offense when healthy. And then of course is our beloved Cole “Measley” Beasley (as Skip “Pay Less” Bayless referred to him in Dallas), an insanely clutch and fearless and ruggedly handsome over-the-middle “Y” slot guy. Ok, so my Dad then proceeded to ratchet up the conversation a bit. What about their potential for the best Buffalo trio ever, above (Andre) Reed-Lofton-Beebe? Or best NFL trio ever, ahead of Washington’s Posse (Monk-Clark-Sanders)? Or the best quartet ever, ahead of the Run-and-Shoot Fab 4 (Jeffiries-Hill-Givins-Duncan) of the old Houston Oilers days…if you add Gabriel Davis for our Bills? For those of you who have followed the NFL since the 80’s and maybe saw these players live: your thoughts? Is my Dad on to something here? Or should I warn my brothers of his dormant alcoholism flaring up again? Oh believe me, Cole gets plenty of looks! Yes, that was an intentionally uncomfortable double entendre. But there are only so many pass attempts that Josh Allen can and should make per game. Daboll needs to work in the running game more as the weather gets worse going into December and January. And I would argue that an optimal Daboll offense is one where the pass targets are spread a bit more evenly from Diggs and Beasley toward Brown and Davis. I’d also like to see more exotic and RB-friendly/TE-friendly personnel packages by the time we start playing Pittsburgh, New England, and Miami. Keep our enemies guessing! Cole is the perfect age (31), just like he has the perfect height (5’8”), weight (175 lb), eyes (blue), and personality (ultimate competitor and beloved teammate). You can still find very productive slot WR’s into their mid-30’s, right? Welker? Edelman? Ok…maybe start looking for a new one in the draft, but let’s please keep Cole as one of those experienced locker room vets for at least a few more seasons! Leave Cole’s hair as is. Even the Bible warns us of the dangers of messing with good hair (see: something about Samson, Old Testament, Book of Judges, Ch 13-16). EDIT: Biblical correction.

<<< RealKayAdams fidgets with her red grading pen, adjusts her nerdy reading glasses, sternly gazes at her laptop screen. >>> We are 8.5 days past Election Night. It’s time to grade our predictions! I’ll do mine: President: 50 out of 53 (assumptions: Arizona and Georgia hold for Biden). Not bad, Kay! Not bad at all. I was wrong in both Arizona and Georgia by about 0.3% (<15k votes) each. I apparently don’t follow Omaha politics closely enough. Grade: A. Senate: 30 out of 33 (excluding Georgia). The Tillis race in NC was a slight surprise to me. I badly underestimated Ernst in Iowa and Collins in Maine. The fate of the world depends on the 2 Georgia runoff elections in January, and I still like my original choices here of Perdue winning and Loeffler losing. My bold prediction of the Dems taking back control of the Senate doesn’t look like it will come to fruition, but there were just too many expected close Senate races this year…I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Grade: B-. House: I predicted the Dems to gain a dozen seats, but so far it looks like they will instead lose about half of that. We’re talking about 435 individual battles, so there is a fair amount of uncertainty here and I only closely follow the big Congressional names plus NYC tri-state area races. Hey, at least I correctly predicted the party that will have majority control. Grade: C. Governors: 11 out of 11. The electoral prediction equivalent of spelling one’s own name correctly at the beginning of a test. Grade: A+. Overall 2020 Election Day grade: B. There was a red wave competing with a blue one on November 3. For the executive branch, I (more or less) correctly predicted the wave crests relative to the polls. I did so mainly with a combination of the “shy Trump voter” polling theory and the expected enthusiasm gap between Biden’s voter base and Trump’s base. For the legislative branch, however, it looks like I went a bit in the opposite direction and placed too much trust in the polls. The “shy Trump voter” effect appears to have followed the Reps down ballot somewhat and did not distinguish between government branches as I thought it would have done. Perhaps I also let some of my own personal judgments of candidate quality (namely, Ernst and Collins) slip in and cloud my perception of what their constituents think? Oh well. Live and learn. Brief takeaways from this whole ordeal: 1. Polls are difficult to trust when you have such a polarizing non-traditional candidate at the top of the ticket like Donald Trump. Compare average poll accuracy between the 2018 midterm and both the 2016 and (especially) the 2020 elections. Do I owe Trafalgar and Rasmussen apologies?? 2. “It’s the economy, stupid.” That’s a phrase I’ve heard many times before, and it’s one that I believe best summarizes American electoral politics. Even with a once-per-century pandemic where polling data indicated that a large majority of Americans cared most about the health crisis issue and believed the challenger to be more capable of managing it, the incumbent with a slight polling edge on economic issues greatly overperformed and nearly pulled off a bigger upset than in 2016. Was economic anxiety the real determinant of the discrepancy between polls and results? I don’t know, but I’m raising it as a possibility. 3. Electoral demographics are shifting in the Sun Belt and in the Rust Belt as I type. A superficial post-election analysis might conclude that Trump’s legacy and the aging GOP voter base are dooming the party. A deeper analysis might indicate major Democratic Party vulnerabilities with Latinos (primarily over economic issues) and with working class whites (primarily over cultural issues) that the GOP can potentially exploit. 4. Election integrity should be a bipartisan issue. Sensible protections against voter fraud and voter suppression in 2022+ must be implemented ASAP so to not add fuel to future conspiracy theory fires. I’ll throw in proposals for an Election Day national holiday and for ranked choice voting if we want to get serious about free and fair elections, although I think we all know why those two ideas won’t be pushed (answer: status quo maintenance for the one-party corporate oligarchical establishment). 5. Corporate mainstream media is corrupt and social media is corrupting. We are all animals on a British farm circa 1984. Is there any doubt now? Does anyone on either political side disagree? 6. Accompanying the continued erosion of public trust in institutions of knowledge and expertise is a rapidly expanding communication divide between the two political sides. It’s one thing to distrust people on the other side, but it’s quite another to completely cut off contact with friends/family/news sources whose views may differ from yours! I find these societal developments to be very dangerous and troubling indeed. And on a related note with point #6…anyone know what’s happening with The Great Right-Wing Bills Fan Message Board Exodus of October 2020?? Are they coming back to PPP soon or was their move intended to be permanent? Should we instead migrate over there? I do miss our Trump-loving Bills fans terribly and worry about them isolated in their unchallenged right-wing internet echo chamber (just as this place is slowly becoming one for the left…). Also, will PPP be transitioning from “sub-forum” status to “club” status soon? If so, should we hold elections for club owners and club moderators? I recommend a decision-making triumvirate of owner, left-leaning moderator, and right-leaning moderator. Voting criteria should include familiarity with PPP’s longstanding culture of vigorous free speech, knowledge and passion for politics, enough free time to visit TBD regularly, mental stability, and good people skills. I think BuffaloHokie13 volunteered to be club owner at one point. A few names I would nominate for moderator on the left-leaning (or anti-Trump) side include Doc Brown, ALF, SoTier, Capco, BullBuchanan, shoshin, and Tiberius. Some names for me on the right-leaning (or anti-Biden) side would include Foxx, Azalin, KRC, GG, 3rdnlng, IDBillzfan, and leh-nerd skin-erd. I know I’m forgetting a lot of other good moderator candidates right now. Please don’t take your exclusion personally!!! EDIT: A grammar mistake. Poo. So…no replies to the last two paragraphs of my post??