Fake-Fat Sunny

After he ran away with his firdt Masters' jacket and won a load of tournament and a couple of majors and Player of the Year, Woods enlisted swing doctor Butch Harmon and reconfigured how he approached swinging for altitude and distance and reconfigured his swing and game to increase his accuracy at the sacrifice of some distance. he struggled a bit with is performance as he remade his game and made a couple of other switches in terms of his caddy and also pumped some iron to get some distance back and lo and behold had even greater success and put together his Tiger Slam of holding all 4 Major cups at the same time. Recently he has changed his game again and seemed to be showing a bit of arrogance as he and Harmon had a bit of a falling out. However, in addition to reconfiguring his swing and approach, he has also shuffled the equipment he uses like going to a bigger head driver with more distance but theoretically less accuracy (darn I sound like a golf nut but really have not even attempted to play in years and tend to tune in simply to see the finish of a tourney or check in on occaision). At any rate, the psycho drama has been interesting to watch as theories seem to persist with his game tailing off from his stratospheric achievements that he is in the bag now that his is distracted by shagging his Swedish wife or trying to redo his game without Swengali Harmon. However, rumors of the death of his game seem exaggerated after winning the Masters (which even today on the Sports Reporters Lupica attributed to luck) and his posting a 2nd in the Open. In general the technical details of the redo are beyond me, but generally it seems to revolve around intially sacrificing distance for accuracy and lifting to make up the power issue and the new model seems to be using new technology to restore a distance advantage he has lost as all golfers are now working out and him learning the new equipment to restore accuracy lost when he went to a new driver and golfball.

Whoops, just noted that even Campbell was not below par over 4 days but "merely" even with par. A slight oversite but I know how persnickety some folks can be.

I ask this question in light of the Bills 4 SB losses in the 90s. I'm an American, and am quite lucky to be so. Yet, I find that I have to fight the American tendency (a tendency which I think has made us the world power) to feel a bit disappointed in Woods finish today. Logically there is some basis for this feeling as: 1. I don't really care about golf except as entertainment and like watching the paint drying borigness of auto racing waiting (but not rooting) for a dramatic and flaming crash and watch this "sport" for the drama rather than for the athletic competition (don't get me wrong I think it is phenomenal athletic competition and I can neither consistently drive a ball long distances with accuracy nor drive a car for hours straight mere inches from death). Minus the drama of Tiger going for the Grand Slam golf is of less interest to me. 2. Excellence and new events are really cool and losing Woods being able to pull off a feat not even equalled in quite a while (the Tiger Slam was a phenomenal achievement but all the Majors did not come in one season) would have been phenomenal to watch and his second place finish today makes that impossible. However, logically, the Wood performance this week was simply great: 1. His second place finish after winning the Masters is amazing given that he has remade his game once again after accomplishing unheard of feats with his first game, snd bettering that performance with his redone game and now potentially being on the brink over the next several years of stepping up his accomplishments with yet another redone game and approach. 2. His finish of first in the Masters and 2nd in the open makes him a prohibitive favorite to win the PGA and the British Open and not a bad bet to fail to win the Grand Slam this year but to put up a 1-2- 1(?)-1(?) finish in the 4 majors. 3. He made a bunch of money with today's loss (?) and not only strengthened his hold on the #1 ranking, but is the odds on favorite to be Golfer of the Year only half way through the year. It is doubtful that Campbell wins another major and if other players take the next two then they will only equal the number of majors won this year by Woods who also has a couple of other titles in his belt and a 2nd place finish in the other major. 4. He has done all this with a knockout for a wife who has not seemed to destoyed his game by marrying him. I ask this question in light of the Bills having come up short 4 times in reaching their ultimate athletic goal and many still label them as losers for not winning it all even once. I know that Woods finish today is little short of fantastic, but like any American (It is the US Open afterall) I can't help but feel a little disappointed though logic tells me to save my disappointment for a real issue and for someone who didn't perform far better than every other golfer in the world save one. Was Woods finish disappointing to folks? Was the Bills failure to win an SB after an unprecedented four straight trips a disappointment which should not go away with time or in broader context? Logic tells me that Woods is a winner despite his loss today, however, maybe sports is not supposed to be logical at all.

The thing you seem to take as a given which is not totally true is that the value of a player to a team goes far beyond an assessment of his absolute value as a player and actually is strongly influenced by: 1. All NFL teams are an entertainment product and even if one thinks a player sucks as a player if he is an item where which you can credibly market to raise the excitement level of the fans. one's assessment of his on field absolute value is secondary to how he can be marketed, Like him or not as a player on your part, TH can clearly be marketed by a team which presents him as a former Pro Bowler who has gained over 1300 yards twice in his short NFL career. Particularly after what Dillon delivered for the Pats last year, TH can be easily marketed by a team as a second coming which will help them out even if he does fall flat when he gets to a team. 2. You also do not seem to take into account that TH's value in a trade or as a player has as much to do with whether the team in question has a better option available. Even if one accepts your assessment of Henry, he merely has to be a better option than an injured Taylor in Jax, or that fellow who is constantly injured in TN. Your idea that TH has no trade value does not seem to factor this reality in. The combination of him being a better option than an injured player and the fact a former Pro Bowler can be marketed is why he has some trade value rather than the odd suggestion he be cut you have made in the past. (are you sure you aren't some relative of TH's because he is the primary real advocate that the Bills should cut him now!). 3. (response to uour point #1) He did not go in this weak draft but there seem to be four possible takers which made up the market for an RB at the time, 3 of these 4 teams took an RB in the first 10 picks and pundits seemed to feel good about the quality of these players and AZ took one with their second. The fact that it was a weak draft (but one relatively top heavy with RBs judged to be good and then very weak thereafter) put a premium on TD not being willing to part with THs unless he got a 2nd for him in a weak draft. His now "lowering" his offer to accept a 3rd actually does not strike me as lowering his asking amount at all since a 3rd in future drafts is probably as good as a 2nd in this weak draft. It didn't play out for TD to get more than he was giving as he did with the Price trade but he now seems to have another shot at achieving this based on the potential injury issues for Jax and TN abd whatever happens when camp begins. 4. (your #2) There seem to be a number of teams (AZ abd TN for an example have said they would love to take him) but actually it has been TD who has been the one to scotch a potential deal not no takers as you state. 5. (your #3) how he mismanges his money makes no difference to a team unless he decides to rob a bank to make up for it and gets caught. As long as a team feels that a fomer Pro Bowl RB is worth whatever cap hit they have to pay him there is no risk in doing this. In fact, since Henry's legal issues seem to involve underage women rather than bank robbery the main real world impact of his mismanagement is that the Bills were able to buy another year of servitude from him for far below the market rate. So the point of his fiscal stupidity seems to be as much an argument for signing him as letting him go. 6. The fact he sucked last year in terms of production is a factor for a team if they judge his production to have been due to lack of skills or due to mental stuff when the Bills were clearly looking at WM as their longer-term RB. One cannot place a lot of value of his sucking last year without also placing value of his production the previous two years. I think he sucked last year because he has already given up and he was a productive runner even through painful injury the years before because he felt wanted. Definitely take into account last year's production but if you do then take into account the previous two year's production as well. You seem to simply take last year as a full description without any consideration of other factors which a new team can reverse and seem to try to ignore the production which got him into the Pro Bowl. 7. I assume the winning % numbers in games he started is as bad as you say. However, even in the four games he started last year and they lost your assessment of Henry being the blame for those losses differs from other outside observers (and me). For example. Bills' Daily is not the be all of football wisdom, but their website and player grades are easily accessible through TBD. Like them I would only point to 1 of these 4 losses being substantially attibutable to TH's performance and like them I actually think he played well in a couple of these games and others were far more blameworthy of the losses. TH is a Bill and like the rest of his teammates like Bledsoe, Moulds or WM the W/L has been inadequate the last 2-4 years and he gets his share of the blame. However. I do not think a judgment laying the team's W/L on him as a primary cause is a rational judgment. If you had to blame Bledsoe or Henry primarily I think almost all would blame Bledsoe and even this judgment strikes me as faulty since one wins or losses as a team. 8. The players are not heroes to me, they are simply employees. Off field issues which do not effect the team are inconsequential to me. Kelly screwed the hell out of a number of Buffalo small businesses and vendors when he walked away from the restaurant he failed to manage well enough. I couldn't care much less because he produced on the field. The same is true for TH for me. 9. As I said, him an IQ of a rock is great for a trade partner if they can fool him into signing for less than his value. His intellect does seem to have some impact on the field as I think part of the Bledsoe fumble which nipped a comeback against the Pats in the bud was TH running the wrong way. However, football is not brain surgery and from him showing the intellectual capacity to be used effectively as a receiver when he caught 40+ passes in 2003 and his getting over some early blitz pick-up problems which led to a sack even of Flutie in his rookie year to his improving in blits pick-up where this was essentially a non-issue for him his 2nd and third season until folks began looking for something to complain about last year (though these complaints do not seem to be accompanied by ANY specific plays cited where he missed a pick-up) even a rock seems capable of playing thus kids game. 10. The injury issue is the one thing you site which strikes me as a real issue. As in the case of WM though I would have much less faith in the conventional wisdome and more faith in my docs if they were good. I think your rants are pretty much unsupported by the facts or examples and I am glad that TD has ignored your pro-Travis of cutting him and is playing the market for an opportunity to get rid of him for value.

As I noted above the WM situation has similarities, but the notable differences with the Bills already being fully aware of WMs injury issues when they made the decision to draft him and injuries being no more than the general risks all NFL players have and nothing specific regarding Everett is a notable issue which the negotiating system is designed to deal with and can easily handle, but the differences between when the KE injury happened and when the WM injury happened makes these cases very different in categorizing or thinking about them. Many options exist for protecting the interests of both parties. however, which options are chosen (insurance with a third party, self insurance by the Bills and/or NFL, escalator clauses, injury settlements if necessary (thoough uncalled for now) and other options will be negotiated and chosen by both parties and may well be wholly different from the WM situation since the Bill knew when they chose WM what it likely meant regarding injury issues and the KE situation occured after the Bills has chosen him.

It is a legal question (and I am not sure as I am not a lawyer nor do I even play one on TV). However, this taxation issue is driven not only by where Henry lives but by where the company he earns money from is based. Thus, if the Bills are HQ'ed in WNY and the checks are issued from a WNY bank he may well be subject to having that part of his income taxed. Its complicated by US laws allowing an individual company to be based just about anywhere to make use of the laws of that state even though it does business elsewhere (for example, many compaines are officially based in Delaware and take advantage of that state's liberal business laws, I'm not sure what this does to their taxes). In addition, though the NFL is allegedly a competitive market which each team operating indepently. individual teams clearly co-operate and collude on items such as league rules, the draft, etc, and since the CBA have a growing partnership with the players to restrain trade in areas such as their rule to restrict individuals from entering the draft until their HS class reaches a certain age (the Clarett/Williams cases). For tax purposes individual teams could quite simply be resident where the NFL is resident if there is a fiscal advantage to ding this.

Actually I mised typed. The number if for the Buffalo office of CEC rather than for the Buffalo office of Citizen Action. CEC tends to do more citizeen monitoring of pollutants and aides normal folk in using some fairly sophisticated monitoring activities which are becoming even more accessible to real people as technology becomes less expensive and is minaturized and as data is more ubiquitous due to the internet. Citizen Action has focused the last few years on organizational capacity building using a grant they acquired from Kellogg Fdn. Both are good groups.

I do a bit pf environmental consulting nationally and internationally, though as far as local stuff I'm mostly a citizen activist and volunteer. I find that any effort to mix profit-making and activity where I live is like defacating (to use a kinder word than I use in real life) where one eats.

There is some confusion here as some are counting only federal pollution sites while others are also or instead counting New York State Superfund sites. 858 East Ferry is a good example as this site is not on the federal list (or anywhere near being bad enough to be on it (these are places such as the Stringfellow Acid Pits in CA that Rita LaVelle went to jail over when she was appointed by Ronald Reagan and negotiated sweetheart deals with the polluter or the Pfohl Brothers site near the Buffalo airport where who knows what the dumped in there). 858 E. Ferry is a NYS inactive (meaning currently no dumping) hazardous waste site site. It is not a federal site but is a danger to the community. Idiots can argue is isn't but to do so: 1. Ignores the fact that the City of Buffalo dumped contaminated incinerator ash on the site for years as a dump site and to fill in the space over Scajacquada Creek which was covered in Roosevelt era WPA projects. 2. Ignores the fact that DEC and citizen testing has dine sampling which has found lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other substances which have been shown in the accepted tests to be known or potential carcinogens at levels far above normal soil levels in surface soils (I think the lead findings for example were in the thousands of parts per million in some soil samples even though the clean-up standards in NJ (NYS has no clean-up standards for lead because it does not want to meet then) is 250 parts per million at least for an occupied area and 1000 parts per million for an industrial site. 3. Lead is a health problem. Socrates wrote about it. ben Franklin wrote about it so it is not brain surgery at all that lead exposures harm people and rob kids of IQ points. The surface levels of lead at 858 E. Ferry and near sub-surface levels of lead at a site which was completely open and uncontrolled 4-5 years ago and has the soil currently kept in with a chair link fence is a clear health hazard. 4. Not only does the Center for Disease Control and Prevention state that lead poisoning is 100% preventable (we have the knowledge and technology we simply refuse to spend the money as we would rather lower taxes than spend the money we collect on this issue), but right across the street from this site is not only True Bethel Baptist Church as some pointed out, but the Church has taken a stand for the community by being the home to a Charter School. Their action is admirable forthe community, but due to the inactive hazardous waste site we send 200 kids to be educated each day within the shadow of lead exposures which may rob them of IQ points. And so it goes. The whole thing makes no sense as our county hat hit a financial wall which has it not able to run its lead poisoning pevention campaigns while at the same time it id promoting use of County golf facilities even in the face of this budget crunch since golf courses produce income. And so it goes. If anyone once to get info on haardous waste sites in Erie County then call Citizen Action of Erie County at 716 858-6468 (I think) and they can provide you with a map for NYS or call Rep. Brian Higgins 202 224-3121 (general Capitol Hill # I think) and he can give you the report he generated when he was in the state assembly which showed NYS spending far less money per capita on harardous waste clean-up in Erie County than in the rest of the state.

PS I don't remember there being such a clear OTA major injury in recent history for the Bills of a draft pick. McGahee has some similarities in that he too signed a first year contract with a slight but small chance of playing his first year. However, he was hurt when drafted so it is different. WM signed a conditional deal under his cicumstances but Everett sounds less questionable than the WM blowout.

Exactly. It appears that he has at least a reasonable shot at rehabbing the knee like most athletes and this will allow for him getting a contract at his slot level. If he were fine and also showed a lot of promise in OTA he would have case to be at the top of the slot. If the prognosis were bad due to his injury he would be at the bottom of the slot and might even get a conditional deal. However, it all looks unfortunate but middling and his contract will be set by the guys picked before and after him and as most draft-tees are signed first in the later rounds and then it works its way up as pre-season begins this appears to be the cause of a delay in hearing a deal is done.

My sense is that there are a lot of factors which influnece Henry's judgments about where to go such as: 1. Sign the biggest contract he can for a longer term and immediate payoff. 2. Get a shot at winning the starting job 3. Be on a competitive team 4. Be in a nice locale with warm temps and lots of babes. 5. Feel respected by his employers and feel like part of a team. 6. Other Only Travis knows which order these things fit in importance and I'm sure it changes (it is to be hoped not radically from day to day). The tough part for him is that achieving any of these goal right now means cooperating a bit with the Bills and having them at least be able to tolerate you and dumb pride does not allow that to happen. The contract which he forced himself to sign which mortgaged away his freedom for one year in exchange for upfront cash simply puts him into a position where if he invests in dumb pride and holds out or even tries to pull a Joey Galloway and get credit for playing 6 games this year and get FA he quite likely will not achieve any of these goals. Travis has done the "right" thing for himself and for the Bills by making it clear that he will be elsewhere next year. However, Travis has given the controlling decision over to the Bills by extending his deal a year and if they are not satisfied with a trade his two options will be to suck it up and try to make a big contract next year by backing up his teammates and WM and hoping he gets a chance to prove himself or instead to throw a hissy fit which actually will lessen his chances of accomplishing any of his goals (for example, Henry were to hold out and try to merely do 6 games he will produce a result where even if he succeeds future teams would be reluctant to sign or give big bucks to a player who beat his former owner, Travis will get the rep among future potential teammates of being a guy who will not watch your back. Travis will leave the Bills with little real option and set himself up for a whispering campaign which raises questions about past injuries which will lower his future contract- holding out simply does not work or Travis and any agent who attempts to appeal to his dumb pride is simply swimming upstream for a player who will not deliver them a % of a big contract). I think things have been pretty quiet because there simply is little option for TH but to sit, wait and train to make himself be buff. The tough part may well come if TD is not satisfied with any offers (unlikely with use of a condiional but possible) and TH is left with little rationale choice but to suck it up, kiss his teammates butts and come back for a year watching WM's back.

From what I have seen and experienced the answer is definitely chiropractic can work, BUT like traditional doctors there are good ones and bad ones and one needs to find a skilled and trained person you are comfortable with as a medical professional to have it work for you. My two experiences are these: 1. Way back when in college I suddenly began having shooting back pains. Despite hiking a dozen or more miles in a day with a backpack back when I was young and used to be immortal something weird was going on. I walked to the school infirmary and by the time I got there felt like I might suddenly pass-out from the pain. I saw a traditional doc who had training in chiropractic manipulation. He asked a variety of questions about where the pain was and how it felt, he proded a little bit along my spine. He then gently placed his hands on my back and then informed me he was going to pull my lower back in one direction while thrusting my upper back in another. Before I could object he sharply did this and I screamed like a little baby. He then asked me to roll over, and I sniffingly objected and he then ordered me to roll over and stop being a baby. Sniveling I did so and he once again sharply adjusted my back. He then ordered me to get up and not believing I would ever walk again I gingerly did this. Amazingly (to me) I was fine and felt no pain. I resumed my life hiking and dancing in no time. Since he had the credentials of a medical doc and was confident I think he had no problems doing stuff I considered radical, but what he did took no special instruments and just training any good chiropractor has and it worked. 2. I merely witnessed this but as the "victim" was a skeptic retiree who was treated at a cocktail party by an alternative healer he clearly did not know I think this was real. This fellow and I were talking sports and he and I were both from Chicago long ago and the conversation turned to him lamenting the fact that he could no longer play golf 3-5 times a week as he loved to do as a retiree. He could no longer raise his arms above his head to swing without excruciating pain. One of the folks I met earlier through the party through a friend was a woman who did alternative healing an massage (even the up above maligned Reiki). She really talked an interesting game in the cocktail party conversation we had before and i decided to push through a real test to assess how she sounded with a skeptic and introduced the two of them. I had expected that they would arrange an appointment and I would listen in. However, this fellow loved golf so much and was desperate he clearly wanted immediate help and was willing to try almost anything. On a couch at the cocktail party she asked him questions and prodded and poked his spine in an eerily similar manner to my youth experience. She also had him assume the position after her cocktail party exam and wrenched his back and muscles firmly and then asked him to raise his arms. he skeptically said he could not do this but tried it gingerly to see if this manipulation had done even the smallest thing. He looked like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove yelling he could walk as he got out of the wheelchair. He suddenly had full range of motion in his arms and clearly his golf game was back. You want someone good for chiropractic and it is hard to really assess this because as it was not formally accepted unitl the last 15-20 years, there are not the same schools, degrees and standards that at least give some objective guidance as to quality (though even in traditional medicine it is a gurantee that 50% of doctors finished in the bottom half of their class). However, I have seen and felt it work wonders I wouldn't have believed until I saw and felt it.

Tax rates are realy a secomdary (actually tertiary or well down the list of the reasons I choose to live in a particular place. Of course everyone prefers to pay less than more. However, I think this issue is pretty much a red herring in that taxes are not the leading piece which makes up the cost of living of s particular location. Simple issues of supply and demand, logistics (Hawaii costs more for goods due to distance of travel, delightful weather and a small industrial base) and other issues determine far more than the relative tax hit the actual cost of living in a place. I'd be happy and economically content in Buffalo even with a far higher tax hit because the real total costs of living here are so low. When I moved here from the DC area, friends would ask me about the cost of housing in a comparable neighborhood. I'd say first there are no comparable neighborhoods because the lead economic engines (government in DC and a pretty diversified economy in WNY as the 40s-70s economic downturns cleared a lot of the centralized manufacturing economy out. However, in general you can choose to live in the size and type of house and neighborhood you want here and in general it is by onme get one free in terms of a housing comparison to DC. From the Buffalo portions where are restaurants find it necessary to serve potions large enough for a diner to take 1 or 2 meals home in a doggy-bag if they so choose to availability of incredibly cheap housing Buffalo is an incredibly cheap place to live regardless of the tax bite. We do have big time problems here with poor political leaders, but rather than this best being approached on the supply side with advocating tax cuts, a better outcome wiuld probably be had by seeing the same stupid fervor which Channel 2 and others devote to tax cuts would be to share inmformation and force more rational spending. The problem here is not welfare queens like a recently passed away disabled senior citizen I knew, but the fact that for living in a high rise on Delaware Ave. near the hispital some rich developer got the the government to pay him over $1000 a month for her apartment. Poot people are not getting rich off of taxes (hello they are poor by definition) rich people and developers are pocketing your and my taxes to remain rich. I was raised om a Christain church an d I am sure most religions would easily see us pay far more in taxes if it went to benefit the poor. However, our money goes to benefit Andrew Rudnick and our local business "leaders" who run the GOP and to unions heads who seem a bit too cozy with organized crime who run the Democratic party. I will pass on joining the tax revolt and instead am waiting for spending control which will still take care of the poor. elderly and disabled atop shoveling tax dollars to the insanely wealthy.

No position in footbsll is as over-hyped and over-relied upon as the QB position. Certyainly there is the occaisional Tony Mandarich where a team spends a 1st rounder on a player who does nothing. However, a miss like an Akili Smith, a Ryan Leaf, or a Tim Crouch seems to happen virtually every year at QB. This occurence would be one thing if the payoff was that if you spend your first rounder on a QB choice that if you pick correctly gets you an SB win. but the fact remains that since Dallas chose Troy Aikman in the 1st round in 1989, no team has selected a QB in the 1st round that delivered an SB win to the team which selected him. Ironically the player who came closes to this feat was probably Drew Bledsoe who cleverly go ta collapsed lung which forced Belicheck to become a genius riding a 6th round pick to an SB win (well at least Drew deserved his SB ring by playing QB and throwing for the gamewinning TD in a must-win game during the SB run. I'm psyched about watching JP this year, but the major fear I have that if he QBs the Bills to an SB win he will be the 1st QB selected in the first round to deliver an SB win for the team which picked him. By all means it is great to have a 1st round level talent at QB, but it has worked to find a cap casualty like Trent Dilfer, a talent like an Elway who forces a trade to a better team, a talent like Steve Young or second round selection Brett Farve who get run out of the town that placed an unreachable requirement on them as all QBs have growing pains. The fact is that there is no greater diffrence in production and QB quality and Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, but they have produced the exact same number of SB wins and appearances as each other. Manning only sprinted out ahead of Leaf in playoff wins year before last after 6 or so seasons. The Bills needs to follow the same route as the Steelers took with getting success out of RoboQB which is to not rely on him much at all to win games for us.

I'm just back in town after a week out west so I have missed a lot. Why is this choice even a question. From looking at the web remotely I saw Verba was now available, but I have not seen any expressions of interest in him from the Bills at the logical opening we seem to have at LT. Nor have I heard of any interest in him at the MW position of RT or any hint that JMac envisions MW as an LT. Contract would seem to tell the tale and MW is destined for LT based on the large investment already given to him and LT usually requiring that type of investment. However, MW may eventually (this year will tell) be enough of a player to be able to take on this duty, but his horrendous start last year and very good finish will still require another year of RT. I saw Verba a couple of times last year (against the Bills and once visiting a buddy in Cleve) and I would say his skill set though difficult to assess in a Browns O scheme which was befuddled was difficult to judge he appeared to be at least the equal of the young MW. However, Verba is getting older and MW has not yet hit his prime and is now moving in the right direction. Verba is a better player but MW is a far better investment. Is there anything that happened in the past week which in indicates the Bills priorities regarding Verba, particularly in comparison is short-term enough in their thinking that they would want to somehow replace MW with Verba?

What you say is fine, but don't let the door hit you on the way out. Please stay if you like cause we (I) love folks with diverse points of view even if they merely provide the comic relief of whining about things. However, it seems to me that a big part of the reason that local politics and the shared economy has problems is because the economic ravages of the 50s onward as created so much whining as a lifestyle for some folks that they are easy prey for politicians who choose to benefit from fear rather than build something neat and new. I am so glad that my wife lured me here in the late 80s, because WNY is simply a wonderful place to live. There is an incredible amount of whining here and local politicians (both GOP and Democrats) take advantage of this to enrich themselves, but even this is a small price to pay for me to have this as a place to enjoy my beloved wife and the family I joined here. A lot of the good things come from the demographics of living here and are not dependent at all on the whiners for their existence so they are here to enjoy. For example, consider the weather. There is no doubt that the weather here really really really sucks in dramatic episodes from time to time. A couple of years back we were treated to WNY having no snowfall really whatsoever through Xmas (I think the official snowfall through the usual lake effect season was actually a couple of inches and if you do not believe this check the record of the US weather service for the winter of 2003-4 (though I may be off by a year cause this is all from memory). However, this time without snow was followed by 80+ inches falling in a week and though eveyone complained because it was bad and there are a lot of whiners here, I took to actually measuring how bad it really was by asking folks how many days of mail did they miss (we had it easy as we missed one, but since lake-effect snowstorms can be intensely localized some in South Buffalo missed 5 or 6 days of mail delivery. Yet, even though episodes can be bad, the moisure of lake effect snows also brings warmth and actually I find the winters in Buffalo where the temperature rarely drops into single digits and only below zero once or twice a year to be much easier on me than growing up in Chicago where the high temperature would not go above zero for a week to ten days in January as the wind came sweeping in off the plains. WNY weather is defined by the spring/fall/summer in addition to the horrible episodes during the too long winter. The spring/fall/summers here are pretty nice, but folks do not promote this and whiners would simply rather B word about this. Again do not believe me because I can easily be some deluded booster but look to outside objective standards. DID YOU KNOW... that for an unprecedented 4th year running that Buffalo is going to be the host to SOLARSPLASH > http://www.solarsplash.com/ < an international collegiate competition of roughly canoe sized solar powered boats where 30+ colleges compete using boats powered by engines with energty collected by their solar cell designs. This event used to be held in sunbelt locations such as Orlando, FL or New Orleans, MS until Buffalo activists working with the US Weather Service data was able to make the case to organizers that: 1. The same as Alaska is the land of the midnight sun and gets more sunlight on June 21st than points to the south, Buffalo is one of the most northern US cities and gets more sunlight than the Sunbelt as June approaches, June 21st occurs and then summer retreats. Local climate and wind conditions and other factors makes the Sunbelt warmer almost all the time (in fact to warm much of the year) but in fact Buffalo and WNY gets more sunlight in the summer than many sunbelt locations. 2. In addition to Buffalo getting more sunlight, the same climactic effects which produce lake effect snow reverse in the spring, summer and early fall. The land gets much colder than the water in the winter (the water stops around 32 degrees when it freezes. As moisture lade wind goes over the cold land it dumps out lake effect snow from Lake Erie. However, in the spring/summer/fall, the land gets much warmer that the water as the moving waves are limited in how warm they can get (well over 70 degrees but little more). Though continental weater is too large to be impacted and rainstorms are rainstorms, clouds are actually broken up around the lakeshore and Buffalo in the summer (The US weather service talks about what they call the Superman effect where broken cloud cover on the west side of Lake Ontorio cause by unsual wind conditions joins with broken cloud cover by typical wind cinditions berween Lake Erie and Ontario and to the south over around Buffalo to make a perfect "s" of open land through the clouds around the lake. At any rate, SolarSplash came here because of this numerically based pitch and the hospitality of Buffalo and WNY has kept them here for a now record 4 years in a row. Even the complaints about Buffalo weather are based in real episodes of winter trauma but really is promoted and kept alive despite the reality of the weather being quite nice here as much as 8 months out of the year by the whining and by the Weather Channel. Its nice but not surprising to me at all to see these collected quotes because Buffalo, WNY, Chatauqua and even events like the Liliy Festuval in Rochester are really undisovered jewels of great living. Believe me WNY has its problems, but last I checked their were stupid Democrats and stupid GOP leaders everywhere so the dumb political leadership is not something WHY has cornered the market on. The Democratic and GOP leaders have long demolished the Buffalo economy and government and now we are on the verge of getting a fiscal conrol board as the County budget has been demolished. Yet, even this horrrendous deficits have a silver lining a politicians from both the Democrats and the GOP have had to turn over control to local citizens and the grassroots to manage our assets like parks that it is impossible for rich folks to steal. Again, don't simply believe me but look at objective occurences and facts. In case you did not notice, Buffalo had to give up trying to manage its Frederuc Kaw Omlsted designed parks (there is actually more Olmsted designed acreage in Buffalo in Delaware, South, Front, etc parks than in Central Park of NYC) to Erie County. For 40+ years, Buffalo and its Denocratic Party leadership has underinvested in the parks and idiots like Bob Delano (who eventually went to federal prison) allied with political supporters in the labor unions to use the parks workers as their personal lawn service. Erie County government led by the GOP which had controlled both the Executive and Legislative branches for about 4 years wa pleased to "acquire" management of this asset from the City, but really could not do this because it was quite obvious that GOP controlled county parks has no real ability to manage Buffalo's parks. The irony is that a citizen's not-for-profit the Buffalo OImsed Parks Conservancy had worked with the Central Parks Conservancy in NYC and developed a management plan for Buffalo's Olmsted Parks based on grassroots citizen control rather than GOP or Denocratic Party government control. The County went with this as a mechanizm for getting more control of this government asset under GOP control rather than Democratic control in the City. The end product was that the GOP led fiscal meltdown in the County became public this past year and the County actuallt had to "close" (though this mostly involved putting up yellow police tape and laying off their friends) suburban parks while meanwhile the citizen controlled Buffalo parks not only remained open but actually grew in staffing and programming under citizen control. The contradictory result occured of Buffalo parks being privatized but actual citizen control and feedback (a key to getting the volunteers necessary for events like the MLK park tree-plantings) increased because GOP and Denocratic Party control has been so bad. At any rate, folks can whine all they want about Buffalo because they do not accurately describe the weather or even the economy (its not the Sunbelt for jobs but it isn't bad either- Baghdad is bad and there is no place in America that even comes close to what Saddam created in Bagdad wnd what we are a part of creating today). Buffalo is simply a wonderful place to live if you stop whining and enjoy it.

I agree and flat out say there is a connection, but value being merely connected or related to the quality of your play OR your value being BASED soley on the quality of your play are two very different things. Folks keep posting saying that so and so player is worth a particular choice as though there is no variability in this situation at all. Alexander is worth a third to some teams, as injuries occur to RBs he could be worth a 1st and to some teams he is not even worth a seventh. This true of Alexander and despite your assertions that he has no value this is true of Henry as well where if TD had wanted to take the Titans offer he could have had a second day draft pick for Henry (rather than your thought that he is worthless) or gotten Shelton for him. Even if all you say is true (which it isn't since your he can't recieve complaint does not square with the reality of him catching 40+ his second year or your blitz pick-up rants do not correspond to assessments of Henry his second and third years_ Henry still has value because: 1. He gained over 1300 yards 2 years in a row which almost all RBs fail to do. 2. He did make the Pro Bowl once even if he slimed on due to an injury. 3. He has a very low cap hit for a starting RB in 05. 4. He is under contract at that low level next year. Henry is not the best RB in the world. Henry is not as good clearly as Alexander IMHO. He does have trade value and TD is playing the game right to mzimize that. The only folks who want to cut him now are TH's relatives because he would make out like a bandit getting cut and folks who seem blinded to the reality that in this market he has trade value.

Folks simply do not seem to get it that draft choices are a way to somewhat express how good they think a player is, but this all falls apart when one is saying how much a particular team will/should trade for a particular player. Was Corey Dillon worth NE giving up a second for. Yep. They had enough questions about their running game in the post-Antowai era and they were pretty solid in other areas, one could have justified them giving up a 1st for the RB they wanted. In retrospect (hindsight being 20-20) from his performance individually and based on team results it was a good trade. However, was he worth a 2nd given up by the Bills? No way. In fact, with Henry coming off of 2 1300+ years and WM waiting in development, folks would have been justified in throwing hissy-fits if we gave up even a 7th pick to get Dillon at the time. Absolute judgwments about how good/bad a player is are fair game for anyone and the arguments speak for themselves. However, trade value is determined by supply/demand and varies from team to team depending as much (or even more) on what they have at that position than it does a judgement about how good/bad a player performs. This estimation is even further skewed from simply judging skill levels by the contract status and size of a player's compensation. Travis Henry may be worth as much as Alexander even though Alexander is a far better RB simply based on contract status. Stating a player's skill level based on him being allegedly worth some level of draft pick because the value of a draft pick not only varies hugely from year to year (JP was the 4th QB taken last year and many complained that the Bills gave up to much to get him at #21 but he may well have been the 1st QB taken this year even if he put the same numbers if he stayed in school). but it also varies a huge amount within a draft (few would have complained if the Bills had taken Kelsay with their 1st pick in 2003, but TD smartly saw that the draft pick assigned to a player is more about supply/demand rather than about merely his play and passed because he figured he would be there in the 2nd roung because demand for DEs was so low after a first round run on the position. Is Alexander worth a 3rd? He is probably worth a future first if you are Jax and decide Taylor is hurt and you could sign him reasonably. However, he is worth nothing to SD with Tomlinson holding down the spot. Treating draft value as though it is an absoulte statement which applies to all teams is simply incorrect.

Actually a tax viewed as important to some folks went down when Giambra led the way in putting through two large property tax reductions when he came into office. This substantial tax reduction is cited in the state comptroller's report released the other day in explaining the huge deficit we now have. If one reduces income (taxes) then one should also reduce outflow (spending on voter mandated items). This did not happen. Its hard to rationally let the voters off the hook for this one since they not only elected Giambra based on this platform, but they re-elected him overwhelmingly and gave his party control of the County Legislature as he did this.

I think the irony in all of this is that many in WNY seemed opposed to spending money on a downstate statdium because they object to such a large expenditure going there while there is no similar large expenditure here ( in essence an argument that if one is going to build a stadium in NYC for the Jets why is there no similar commitment for the Bills?). The irony is that if in fact NYS did decide to make such a huge investment in a downstate stadium, nothing is certain in this world, but it would so strengthen the hand and argument for folks looking for a similar investment in WNY that my sense is if you want a new stadium for the Bills then one should be pushing for a Manhattan stadium for the Jets. Nothing is certain in this world, so having the NYC stadium will certainly not gurantee a new substantially state funded stadium for the Bills at all. However, in assessing the more likely political outcome, WNY would clearly have a large call on big bucks from NYS to match the expenditure put into a downstate stadium. The fight is more likely going to be whether the upsate payoff for the downstate expenditure would be for the Bills, for some other large public venue (ex. substantial state funding for some huge waterfron thing, a new airport, the budget deficit or whatever.

The theory which is totally true om some cases and not important at all in others is that by training with your teammates it can help the team become a TEAM as you build chemistry and push each other to do better. As best as I can tell there is no rule of you must be with the team for a voluntary worjout or its better to stay at a separae location with other athletes to workout. If we're taling about the Pats they have achieved far more as a whole than should reasonably be expected from the added up talents of the individuals that I would encourage any and every player to hang with the team. However, there are also many examples of teams where probably due to the example set by leaders of the group individual players play is probably diminished witth all the partying they do. Likewise there are certainly individuals like Larry Centers who vocally told GW to go jump in the lake when GW expressed disappointment that Centers did not attend his first voluntary practice and expressed general concern about players not being ready to play. Centers has a clear record of always showing up buff and ready to go and needed no hand holding. GW should have made it clear that he knew Centers did not need hand-holding but that he needed Centers to be there to set an example for younger players about sacrificing your individual desires for the team. Centers should be around not cause he needs it but to show youngsters what it takes. The Bills seem to have OK chemistry even without everyone being there. WM, MW are two of the prominent no shows who seem to have worked out productively on their own and as long as the Ws are there who cares whether they are there or not. Team leadership needs to make a judgment as Moulds did when he called Travis in last year whether an individual player lacks commitment and discipline and needs to be around or whether the team chemistry profits from the whole gang hanging out together.

It's nice to see many fans come to their senses after hearing the rants last year that playing was the ONLY way JP could develop.. While it is true and absurdly logical that he MUST play eventually to develop, it is dumb that some failed to recognize that playing was not the only thing he had to do develop and master the NFL game. I will not be shocked at all if when the smoke clears IF JP is successful that he actually gives a lot of credit to his being forced to take time off from playing due to his injury last year as an important part of his development. I hope like heck that he used a good chunk of his forced downtime last year to sit in the booth with his ear sewed to Sam Wyche's mouth to have a singular and unique opportunity to have a former NFL HC who was an offensive guru download his knowledge to JP. There is no replacement for seeing the game over the center's back and leading me. However, he will do a much better job understaning what he is seeing and can easily catch-up as a leader if he use the downtime to complete the education he began but did not complete running for his life behind Tulane's porous line. Due to the injury, the mop-up appearances in 3 games where he showed consistent improvement last year, and an off-season where wth the early Bledsoe cut he and and everyone else knew what he needed to do, he seems well positioned to make good.

From what I saw of the coverage of the closure reccomedations it is written into the law that the commision consider the potential for alternate economic use as a factor in their decisions who to close and who to leave open. I'm not sure to what extent this was a factor in their decision regarding Nigara Falls versus other bases but there should be a paper trail on this issue. Whether this paper trail is good info or mere lip service is something that one would have to read and research to make a rational judgment.

At some point the organizers of this effort will need to make a choice between whether the energy and organizing used to try to save the base might be better spent trying to convert the base to alternate private sector use.. There are a couple of examples I have seen of large CA bases where the infrastructure of the base was successfully converted into an alternate use attracting the private sector and 5-10 years after the fact there was a better economic situation where th public had greater use of the resource and the jobs were fueled by multiple owners rather than the single source of the US government. Its a tougher situation at Niagara Falls compared to the CA (and I think even a good Alabama transition) because their population base in expanding and ours is stable or shrinking. However, we have little choice in that its a tough situation even if we win keeping the base open and working on other choices is the intelligent thing to do. I perceive one of the keys in CA to the population boom is an immigrant population that is growing and at the base of the population growth. Immigration is a tough issue due to our fears of Al Queada terrorists. However, just as the foreign capital brought to Niagara-On-the-Lake in Canada from Hong Kong when they switched governments was a key to the economic rebirth of that region, Niagara Falls is well placed to capture capital from Canada which actually is growing as Toronto has a far more sensible method of regionalization than the NYS. If you are interested in this issue, fight to keep the base open if you think you can win. However, if you also might (and I think will) lose this fight, you might take some precious time and energy from organizing to win and also organize to pursue alternatives.